I'm all for treating animals humanely, but the people over at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) really need to give it a rest.
I thought that they had already jumped the shark back in 2009, when they accused President Obama of committing an inhumane act when he swatted a fly during an interview on CNBC. "Believe it or not, we've actually been contacted
by multiple media outlets wanting to know PETA's official response to
the executive insect execution," a PETA spokesperson explained on the group's blog shortly after the interview aired. "In a nutshell, our position is this: He isn't the Buddha,
he's a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they
think before they act."
Later that year, they put together an anti-turkey-eating ad that was intended to run before Thanksgiving, but NBC nixed it, saying it was too graphic -- leading to charges of censorship. This, of course, gave the ad a great deal more publicity than it otherwise would have had, although it's questionable whether it had any effect on the United States' turkey consumption.
So they've had to come up with other strategies. And the latest one is a doozy. Think about it: how do you get guys -- ordinary, working-class guys -- to reconsider eating meat?
Tell 'em that eating chicken wings will make their sons' willies shrink.
You think I'm making this up, but here's the source. And a direct quote, which I also swear I am not making up: "The latest scientific evidence shows that the sons of pregnant women who
consume chicken are more likely to have smaller penises because of a
chemical found in the birds’ flesh... Pregnant women may want to think twice before chomping on those chicken wings, or their sons could come up short."
Mmm-hmm. Because that's plausible. Can't you just see the grant application for that study? "Our research methodology will involve monitoring the chicken wing consumption of two groups of pregnant women. After they have given birth, we will measure the penises of all of the boys. We believe that there will be a strong inverse correlation between chicken wing consumption and penis length."
But of course, however ridiculous that sounds, they didn't even do anything that rational. Their "latest scientific evidence" turned out to be a claim that supposedly chicken meat contains high levels of a group of chemicals called phthalates, which are suspected of hindering sex organ development in fetuses when the mother is exposed to high doses. The problem is, phthalates are present in a lot of things -- but chicken wings do not appear to be amongst them.
From the Wikipedia page on phthalates, I quote: "Phthalates are used in a large variety of products, from enteric coatings of pharmaceutical tablets and nutritional supplements to viscosity control agents, gelling agents, film formers, stabilizers, dispersants, lubricants, binders, emulsifying agents,
and suspending agents. End-applications include adhesives and glues,
electronics, agricultural adjuvants, building materials, personal-care
products, medical devices, detergents and surfactants, packaging, children's toys, modeling clay, waxes, paints, printing inks and coatings, pharmaceuticals, food products, and textiles."
Note how "chicken" is not on the list.
Of course, the folks over at PETA never seem to let any inconvenient things like facts get in their way.
Now, don't get me wrong. I think it's always best to treat life with reverence, whether or not you choose to eat meat. Factory farming is inhumane, and the widespread use of antibiotics and hormones for meat and dairy production is likely to have untoward effects on human health. I don't kill anything gratuitously -- I catch spiders in the house and let them go, for cryin' out loud.
But once you start claiming that swatting a fly is an "execution," you've lost your credibility. And just for the record: you do not regain it by playing fast and loose with the facts in an attempt to scare guys into thinking their favorite organ is going to shrink if they have a plate of chicken wings at the sports bar.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Monday, September 2, 2013
Sorry, you get an "F"
Tomorrow is the start of a new school year for me, and that probably explains why I had the reaction I did to a flyer that some friends of mine picked up.
They were in their car in downtown Ithaca, and a very earnest-looking woman came up and shoved a piece of glossy paper through their open window. Nearby were several people with picket signs. Resisting the impulse to roll the window up, my friend's daughter took the piece of paper, which was apparently a joint effort of two groups called GeoEngineering Watch and Global Skywatch.
A brief glance at the flyer was enough to elicit some hearty guffaws from my friends, and the daughter, riding in the passenger seat, read the contents to her dad as he drove. Several times, he reported afterwards, he almost had to pull over because he was laughing so hard. And the consensus was, "Oh, we have to keep this and give it to Gordon," with the probable reasoning being that my blood pressure is far too low.
So anyhow, over dinner a few days later, I was presented with the flyer. I won't quote the whole thing, because the back is covered with fine print and it would be as tedious for me to type it out as it would be for you to read it, so I will simply present you with the high points, along with some parenthetical comments that I would have scribbled in, in red pen, if this had been a paper that one of my Environmental Science students had submitted to me.
So, yes, the chemtrail people have come to very close to my home town, and they are pissed. Which they should be, because I would definitely give them an "F" for this report. I might even call home and talk to their parents, perhaps recommending that they drop my class and sign up for some remedial-level science courses.
Because it sure as hell sounds like they need them.
They were in their car in downtown Ithaca, and a very earnest-looking woman came up and shoved a piece of glossy paper through their open window. Nearby were several people with picket signs. Resisting the impulse to roll the window up, my friend's daughter took the piece of paper, which was apparently a joint effort of two groups called GeoEngineering Watch and Global Skywatch.
A brief glance at the flyer was enough to elicit some hearty guffaws from my friends, and the daughter, riding in the passenger seat, read the contents to her dad as he drove. Several times, he reported afterwards, he almost had to pull over because he was laughing so hard. And the consensus was, "Oh, we have to keep this and give it to Gordon," with the probable reasoning being that my blood pressure is far too low.
So anyhow, over dinner a few days later, I was presented with the flyer. I won't quote the whole thing, because the back is covered with fine print and it would be as tedious for me to type it out as it would be for you to read it, so I will simply present you with the high points, along with some parenthetical comments that I would have scribbled in, in red pen, if this had been a paper that one of my Environmental Science students had submitted to me.
Illegal government-controlled chemical weather modification programs are taking place over our heads right now day after day! [Source? This is clearly an overgeneralization.]And so forth and so on.
It's called, [misplaced comma] GeoEngineering [but you need a comma here] AKA Chemtrails, Stratospheric Aerosols or Solar Radiation Management. [Geoengineering and stratospheric aerosols aren't the same thing, and chemtrails and "solar radiation management" appear to be made up.] We are being sprayed with tiny particles of Aluminum, Barium, Strontium, and other highly toxic chemicals that go right into our red blood cells. [No, we aren't, and no, they don't.]
These chemicals spread across the sky and block out the sun. [Yesterday was nice and sunny, but thanks for asking.] The lack of sunlight and the nano size particles are poisoning everything and making us sick. [Strangely enough, I feel fine.] Respiratory and brain disorders have risen off the charts. [Source?] The aluminum is poisoning our farms so only Monsanto's aluminum resistant GMO seeds will grow. [Odd that my vegetable garden is doing so well this year, isn't it?]
See through the lies! Do your own research! [Oh, I do.]
Save the planet! [Doing my best. The first thing I'd choose to save it from is "stupidity," but at the moment I'm thinking this is a losing battle.]
Governments and corporations are deliberately manipulating and altering Earth's climate, endangering the lives of people all over the world. [Source?] Two of the most extreme cases of geo-engineering are chemtrails -- the release of toxic chemicals into the air that are poisoning people and the planet [please review the definition of "geoengineering"] -- and HAARP -- an electromagnetic antenna array in Alaska that can send radio frequency radiation over large geographical areas [so do television station transmitters] and manipulate weather patterns causing earthquakes, tsunamis, and more. [Earthquakes and tsunamis are not "weather patterns"] These projects represent some of the worst crimes in history, yet most people are unaware of them. [Perhaps because you're making this up as you go along?]
For over ten years, observers have been noticing white aerosol trails being dispersed in the skies that don't behave like usual condensing jet exhaust. When seeking explanation, investigators are told by the government that these are just the normal "contrails" that we see coming from commercial jets and that they are perfectly safe. [Seems right to me.] However, they don't dissipate the way regular condensation trails do. [Yes, they do. The evaporation time of a contrail is dependent on the weather conditions in the upper atmosphere -- temperature, windspeed, and humidity -- but they all eventually evaporate. Water does that, you know.] They linger for hours, spreading across the sky, and are often laid out in cross hatch patterns. [Check out maps of common air traffic flight paths in your area for an explanation of this.] The government has refused to test samples collected underneath the trails. [Better things to do, I would imagine.] Now a TV news report from Germany has confirmed that their military is in fact doing aerial spraying of chemtrails. [Oh! A TV news report from Germany! Well, then! All the proof I need!]
An article from the NIH, the National Institutes of Health, confirms that not only are chemtrails real, [Bull. Shit.] but they are suspected to be responsible for a variety of neurotoxic conditions including MS, Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's, and Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). [All of these conditions are caused by different things. Have you ever passed a biology class in your life?]
Intense spraying of dangerous chemicals from planes has been reported in, at least, the US, Canada, Germany, England, Australia, Mexico, South Africa, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Croatia. [Source?] A nasty mixture of parasites, pathogens, toxic heavy metals, and nano-engineered particles have been found falling to earth from the trails of certain planes. [Living parasites and pathogens somehow survive the combustion process in the jet engine? Really? Do you have even the vaguest understanding of how jet engines work?] Aluminum, barium, bacillus spores, radioactive thorium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, dessicated blood, mold spores, yellow mycototoxins, ethylene dibromide and synthetic nano-fibers are among the ingredients found in collected samples. [Wasn't this the recipe for a magic spell by the witches in Macbeth? Oh, and I think you mean "mycotoxin." Are the yellow ones really bad?] As these fill the atmosphere and lodge in our lungs and blood streams through the air we breathe and the food we eat, it represents the most unavoidable toxic pollution in history! [Odd, then, that you aren't wearing a filter mask right now. Why is that, I wonder?]
So, yes, the chemtrail people have come to very close to my home town, and they are pissed. Which they should be, because I would definitely give them an "F" for this report. I might even call home and talk to their parents, perhaps recommending that they drop my class and sign up for some remedial-level science courses.
Because it sure as hell sounds like they need them.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
The case for optimism
A friend and frequent contributor of topics to Skeptophilia asked me recently how I don't completely lose faith in humanity, after all these years of focusing on the ridiculous things people believe.
"How you continue to post, day after day," he wrote to me, "and not end up raising your arms in the air, fists clenched in rage, throwing your head back, and screaming a slew of expletives that would make the San Quentin warden blush, is beyond me."
Well, sometimes I do, you know. I spend a lot of time yelling at my computer, which may explain why it doesn't work sometimes. But honestly, I'm an optimist. If I thought that humanity was irredeemable -- that we will never learn, will never figure out how to think rationally, will always be mired in superstition -- my writing this blog would be kind of pointless.
So would my being a science teacher, now that I come to think of it.
I am by nature an optimist. A cautious optimist, but an optimist nonetheless. And three stories that just came out in the last couple of days give me some support in my contention that humankind is capable of moving in positive directions.
First, from Australia, we have a story from The Brisbane Times, wherein we learn that a court in Queensland has denied a woman taxpayer-funded assistance for a $20,000 "spiritual healing" she received in Canada. [Source]
The woman, who is identified only as "BN," sounds like she has had a rough time of it -- she was assaulted, and had trauma associated with a motor vehicle accident -- and I do not mean to sound unsympathetic with her plight. In fact, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal agreed; in their ruling, they said, "It is not disputed that BN suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder."
But the woman's claim was that she needed "Native spiritual healing," and the only place that she was willing to go was to a Cree spiritual retreat center in Canada. She required the flight to and from Canada not pass through any American or Asian airports, because she found them "stressful." The total bill, for travel and for the "spiritual healing" came to close to $20,000, which she expected would be covered by the Australian health care system.
It is crazy that taxpayers should be expected to bear the costs when someone wants to pursue unscientific alternatives to conventional medical treatment. I'm happy to report that the courts agreed. Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie said, "I absolutely respect and understand the benefits of rehabilitation for victims of crime, but it was inconceivable that treatment couldn't be found here in Queensland."
A second story that gives me hope that rationality can sometimes win the day comes out of Florida, where a psychic is currently on trial for fraud to the tune of $25 million.
Rose Marks, who has used her alleged powers to advise such well-known figures as romance writer Jude Deveraux, is unrepentant. Her lawyer, Fred Schwartz, said in an interview, "She said she uses psychic powers to help advise people as a life coach and that she's a spiritual adviser," and added that Ms. Marks' powers have "been in her family for 1,500 years."
You have to wonder how she knows that. Psychically, I'd imagine.
Well, the U.S. Attorney's office isn't buying it. The indictment, in part, reads, "Rose Marks, a/k/a Joyce Michael, along with co-conspirators, represented herself as a psychic and clairvoyant, gifted by God to communicate with spirit guides to assist her clients through personal difficulties... [She] would offer services to walk-in customers, some of whom would be suffering from mental and emotional disorders, who had recently gone through personal traumatic events and/or who were emotionally vulnerable, fragile and/or gullible... [Marks induced clients] to make 'sacrifices', usually consisting of large amounts of money (but also at times including jewelry, gold coins and other property) because 'money was the root of all evil.'"
Oh, indeed it can be, which is why these charlatans do what they do. Well, if the prosecutors do their job, we may see one fewer of them out there defrauding their customers, a possibility that should give Sylvia Browne, Derek Acorah, Theresa Caputo, and Sally Morgan pause.
Our last story seems to indicate that courts are disinclined to let people get away with harming someone because of irrational beliefs even if those beliefs are part of their religion. "It's my religion" has, for a long time, been a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card in the United States, and in many other parts of the world -- but that may be ending. Just last week, two members of The Church of the First Born, a fundamentalist faith-healing sect in Albany, Oregon, were arrested for manslaughter after their daughter died of untreated type I diabetes.
Travis and Wenona Rossiter prayed over their twelve-year-old daughter, Syble, convinced that the line from James chapter 5 was true -- "Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord."
This, despite the fact that two other children of members of this sect of loonies have died in similar circumstances -- a seven-year-old of leukemia in 1996, and a seventeen-year-old just last year of appendicitis. You'd think they'd realize it wasn't working, wouldn't you? Nope. They probably just thought they weren't praying hard enough, or rationalized it by saying it was "god's will," or some such nonsense.
The courts aren't buying it. The Rossiters are in jail, and with luck, will stay there.
Now, all of this is some pretty harsh stuff, and it might be hard to see how this supports my original contention that we have cause for optimism. But look at the overall trend -- we've gone from rampant superstition, faith healing, and anti-science sentiment being the majority opinion, to its being repeatedly slapped down by the courts, in only a hundred or so years. Even as little as fifty years ago, the authorities were reluctant to step in when cases involved "matters of faith" -- churches and "spiritual practices" were given carte blanche.
Now? We're seeing an increasing push to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches, especially in cases where church leaders publicly push political agendas. We're seeing courts uphold sentences in cases where people inflict damage, whether personal or financial, on the gullible, innocent, or helpless because of their commitment to counterfactional irrationality. It's getting harder and harder to get away with murder -- sometimes literally -- because you hold an umbrella labeled "god's will" over your head.
And I, for one, find this to be movement in the right direction.
"How you continue to post, day after day," he wrote to me, "and not end up raising your arms in the air, fists clenched in rage, throwing your head back, and screaming a slew of expletives that would make the San Quentin warden blush, is beyond me."
Well, sometimes I do, you know. I spend a lot of time yelling at my computer, which may explain why it doesn't work sometimes. But honestly, I'm an optimist. If I thought that humanity was irredeemable -- that we will never learn, will never figure out how to think rationally, will always be mired in superstition -- my writing this blog would be kind of pointless.
So would my being a science teacher, now that I come to think of it.
I am by nature an optimist. A cautious optimist, but an optimist nonetheless. And three stories that just came out in the last couple of days give me some support in my contention that humankind is capable of moving in positive directions.
First, from Australia, we have a story from The Brisbane Times, wherein we learn that a court in Queensland has denied a woman taxpayer-funded assistance for a $20,000 "spiritual healing" she received in Canada. [Source]
The woman, who is identified only as "BN," sounds like she has had a rough time of it -- she was assaulted, and had trauma associated with a motor vehicle accident -- and I do not mean to sound unsympathetic with her plight. In fact, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal agreed; in their ruling, they said, "It is not disputed that BN suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder."
But the woman's claim was that she needed "Native spiritual healing," and the only place that she was willing to go was to a Cree spiritual retreat center in Canada. She required the flight to and from Canada not pass through any American or Asian airports, because she found them "stressful." The total bill, for travel and for the "spiritual healing" came to close to $20,000, which she expected would be covered by the Australian health care system.
It is crazy that taxpayers should be expected to bear the costs when someone wants to pursue unscientific alternatives to conventional medical treatment. I'm happy to report that the courts agreed. Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie said, "I absolutely respect and understand the benefits of rehabilitation for victims of crime, but it was inconceivable that treatment couldn't be found here in Queensland."
A second story that gives me hope that rationality can sometimes win the day comes out of Florida, where a psychic is currently on trial for fraud to the tune of $25 million.
Rose Marks, who has used her alleged powers to advise such well-known figures as romance writer Jude Deveraux, is unrepentant. Her lawyer, Fred Schwartz, said in an interview, "She said she uses psychic powers to help advise people as a life coach and that she's a spiritual adviser," and added that Ms. Marks' powers have "been in her family for 1,500 years."
You have to wonder how she knows that. Psychically, I'd imagine.
Well, the U.S. Attorney's office isn't buying it. The indictment, in part, reads, "Rose Marks, a/k/a Joyce Michael, along with co-conspirators, represented herself as a psychic and clairvoyant, gifted by God to communicate with spirit guides to assist her clients through personal difficulties... [She] would offer services to walk-in customers, some of whom would be suffering from mental and emotional disorders, who had recently gone through personal traumatic events and/or who were emotionally vulnerable, fragile and/or gullible... [Marks induced clients] to make 'sacrifices', usually consisting of large amounts of money (but also at times including jewelry, gold coins and other property) because 'money was the root of all evil.'"
Oh, indeed it can be, which is why these charlatans do what they do. Well, if the prosecutors do their job, we may see one fewer of them out there defrauding their customers, a possibility that should give Sylvia Browne, Derek Acorah, Theresa Caputo, and Sally Morgan pause.
Our last story seems to indicate that courts are disinclined to let people get away with harming someone because of irrational beliefs even if those beliefs are part of their religion. "It's my religion" has, for a long time, been a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card in the United States, and in many other parts of the world -- but that may be ending. Just last week, two members of The Church of the First Born, a fundamentalist faith-healing sect in Albany, Oregon, were arrested for manslaughter after their daughter died of untreated type I diabetes.
Travis and Wenona Rossiter prayed over their twelve-year-old daughter, Syble, convinced that the line from James chapter 5 was true -- "Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord."
This, despite the fact that two other children of members of this sect of loonies have died in similar circumstances -- a seven-year-old of leukemia in 1996, and a seventeen-year-old just last year of appendicitis. You'd think they'd realize it wasn't working, wouldn't you? Nope. They probably just thought they weren't praying hard enough, or rationalized it by saying it was "god's will," or some such nonsense.
The courts aren't buying it. The Rossiters are in jail, and with luck, will stay there.
Now, all of this is some pretty harsh stuff, and it might be hard to see how this supports my original contention that we have cause for optimism. But look at the overall trend -- we've gone from rampant superstition, faith healing, and anti-science sentiment being the majority opinion, to its being repeatedly slapped down by the courts, in only a hundred or so years. Even as little as fifty years ago, the authorities were reluctant to step in when cases involved "matters of faith" -- churches and "spiritual practices" were given carte blanche.
Now? We're seeing an increasing push to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches, especially in cases where church leaders publicly push political agendas. We're seeing courts uphold sentences in cases where people inflict damage, whether personal or financial, on the gullible, innocent, or helpless because of their commitment to counterfactional irrationality. It's getting harder and harder to get away with murder -- sometimes literally -- because you hold an umbrella labeled "god's will" over your head.
And I, for one, find this to be movement in the right direction.
Friday, August 30, 2013
A "9.8" on the Sacredometer
Today, we have a story out of Canada that is a combination of heartening and puzzling, sent to me by my friend (and frequent Skeptophilia contributor) Andrew Butters, author of the wonderful blog Potato Chip Math. (And do yourself a favor -- add his blog to your list, it's thought-provoking and funny and generally all kinds of awesome.)
The story comes from The National Post, and has the headline, "Atheism a creed that needs the same religious protections of Christianity and Islam: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal." The whole thing comes up because of an odd, although probably not unique, policy by the Niagara School District, wherein all fifth graders were offered Gideon Bibles as long as they got parental consent to receive one.
Well, the "parental consent" clause seemed to cover any possible charges of proselytization in public schools -- until René Chouinard, of Grimsby, Ontario, who is a self-described secular humanist, offered to provide copies of Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children to fifth graders, and the school board told him he couldn't do that.
Chouinard complained to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, and the school district, in a rather frantic attempt to cover their asses, changed their policy -- to allow the distribution of other religious texts, "so long as the religion is included in the Ontario Multifaith Information Manual" and "the text in question qualifies as a sacred text."
Now, what exactly does that mean? Is there some kind of sacredometer that measures the sacredness of a text? Does the Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example, count as sufficiently sacred? I mean, no one much worships Thoth and Anubis any more, far as I can tell.
And the problem, of course, is that this specifically eliminates consideration of any secular texts, since they are by definition not sacred, given that atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Fortunately -- in one way, at least, and I'll get to that in a moment -- the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal agreed with Chouinard. On August 13, they issued a ruling stating that the policy, even as it was modified, was discriminatory. "The policy was discriminatory because its definition of acceptable materials violated substantive equality by excluding the kinds of materials central to many creeds," the ruling, in part, reads. "The restriction to sacred or foundational texts excludes some creeds and is therefore discriminatory."
Well, right on, and I agree with that... but. Here's the problem. Is it the job of the school to get involved in religious instruction at all, beyond teaching students about world religions as a lens into history and culture? It seems to me that this is exchanging one problem for another, and saddling schools with yet another responsibility, namely, making sure that all kids get access to the sacred (or not-so-sacred, depending on the reading that pops up on the sacredometer) text that they, and their parents, want.
But isn't this the job of the parents? I mean, fer cryin' in the sink, if my fifth grade kid had wanted a bible, I'd have gotten him a bible, not waited for the school to hand him a freebie based on some kind of weird sacred-text-distribution policy. Same goes for The Book of Mormon, the Qu'ran, the Talmud, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or The God Delusion. Honestly, in fifth grade my sons were more interested in reading Animorphs and playing with Lego, but hey, kids are different, and maybe there are fifth graders out there who are desperate to delve into sacred texts. I dunno.
Anyhow, that's the current news from our neighbors to the north, and another shout-out to my bud Andrew for turning me on to the story. It's nice to have folks send me leads, and this was an especially good one. I'll make sure and say a good word to Anubis in Andrew's favor, next time I'm in the temple. You know how it goes.
The story comes from The National Post, and has the headline, "Atheism a creed that needs the same religious protections of Christianity and Islam: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal." The whole thing comes up because of an odd, although probably not unique, policy by the Niagara School District, wherein all fifth graders were offered Gideon Bibles as long as they got parental consent to receive one.
Well, the "parental consent" clause seemed to cover any possible charges of proselytization in public schools -- until René Chouinard, of Grimsby, Ontario, who is a self-described secular humanist, offered to provide copies of Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children to fifth graders, and the school board told him he couldn't do that.
Chouinard complained to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, and the school district, in a rather frantic attempt to cover their asses, changed their policy -- to allow the distribution of other religious texts, "so long as the religion is included in the Ontario Multifaith Information Manual" and "the text in question qualifies as a sacred text."
Now, what exactly does that mean? Is there some kind of sacredometer that measures the sacredness of a text? Does the Egyptian Book of the Dead, for example, count as sufficiently sacred? I mean, no one much worships Thoth and Anubis any more, far as I can tell.
And the problem, of course, is that this specifically eliminates consideration of any secular texts, since they are by definition not sacred, given that atheism is a religion in the same sense that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Fortunately -- in one way, at least, and I'll get to that in a moment -- the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal agreed with Chouinard. On August 13, they issued a ruling stating that the policy, even as it was modified, was discriminatory. "The policy was discriminatory because its definition of acceptable materials violated substantive equality by excluding the kinds of materials central to many creeds," the ruling, in part, reads. "The restriction to sacred or foundational texts excludes some creeds and is therefore discriminatory."
Well, right on, and I agree with that... but. Here's the problem. Is it the job of the school to get involved in religious instruction at all, beyond teaching students about world religions as a lens into history and culture? It seems to me that this is exchanging one problem for another, and saddling schools with yet another responsibility, namely, making sure that all kids get access to the sacred (or not-so-sacred, depending on the reading that pops up on the sacredometer) text that they, and their parents, want.
But isn't this the job of the parents? I mean, fer cryin' in the sink, if my fifth grade kid had wanted a bible, I'd have gotten him a bible, not waited for the school to hand him a freebie based on some kind of weird sacred-text-distribution policy. Same goes for The Book of Mormon, the Qu'ran, the Talmud, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or The God Delusion. Honestly, in fifth grade my sons were more interested in reading Animorphs and playing with Lego, but hey, kids are different, and maybe there are fifth graders out there who are desperate to delve into sacred texts. I dunno.
Anyhow, that's the current news from our neighbors to the north, and another shout-out to my bud Andrew for turning me on to the story. It's nice to have folks send me leads, and this was an especially good one. I'll make sure and say a good word to Anubis in Andrew's favor, next time I'm in the temple. You know how it goes.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Elements of style
When scientists this week at Lund University in Sweden confirmed the production of an atom of element 115, I thought it was just a story that would be of interest to physicists, chemists, and assorted science nerds.
The atom, like those of all "superheavy" elements, disintegrated almost instantaneously. All of the high-atomic-weight atoms -- those on the bottom tiers of the periodic table -- are extremely unstable, and undergo radioactive decay within a fraction of a second after they're created in the lab. None of them occur naturally.
This confirms a claim made by Russian scientists in 2004, and completes another row of the periodic table, bringing to 118 the number of confirmed elements. Like its near neighbors with atomic numbers of 113, 117, and 118, it doesn't have an official permanent name yet, so it is called "ununpentium" (a placeholder name that simply means "115").
So far, only a story that would interest people who are fond of esoteric chemistry. Thus my surprise when stories started popping up all over woo-woo websites with headlines like, "Element 115 proven to be real! Bob Lazar was right!"
My first reaction was, "Who the hell is Bob Lazar?" So I looked him up, and found that he's a pretty famous guy, even though I had never heard of him. He even has a Wikipedia page. And his story turned out to be quite interesting.
Lazar is (appropriate for our unofficial theme-of-the-week) a conspiracy theorist of the first water. He claims to be a physicist with degrees from both the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; attempts to confirm this have turned up nothing, although he did once take an electronics course at Pierce Junior College. Lazar says this is because the government tampered with his academic records to discredit him.
Why would the government do that? Because Lazar worked at Area 51, of course. And while at Area 51, he was allegedly the leader of a group of physicists who studied some downed extraterrestrial spaceships. And guess what he claimed was the fuel that powered said flying saucers?
Got it in one. Element 115.
Ununpentium, Lazar said, created "antigravity effects" when bombarded with protons. Antimatter was also somehow involved. Put 'em all together, says Lazar, and the "intense strong nuclear force of element 115's nucleus" would warp space and time, creating a way to cross interstellar space.
Oh, and he knows where these aliens came from. Zeta Reticuli, the favorite star of conspiracy theorists everywhere, alleged home to both the Reptilians and the Greys. Which ties in neatly with stories of government collaboration with extraterrestrials, and the replacement of various world figures by shapeshifting evil aliens. This last allegation might be true, of course. I myself am suspicious about recently-disgraced San Diego mayor Bob Filner. Doesn't he look like someone trying to mimic a human, but who can't quite make it look authentic yet?
I think that is exactly the expression you'd see on the face of an alien who had just learned the rule, "When you smile, retract the lips and expose the teeth."
But I digress. Let's return to our consideration of Bob #1.
Bob Lazar's ideas have achieved considerable buzz in the UFO community, and also in the world of the conspiracy theorists, being that his ideas combine the best from both. And he was taken at least seriously enough to have an actual physicist, Dr. David L. Morgan, give a close look to his ideas. And after careful consideration, Morgan has concluded that Lazar is a raving wingnut.
"After reading an account by Bob Lazar of the 'physics' of his Area 51 UFO propulsion system," Morgan stated, "my conclusion is this: Mr. Lazar presents a scenario which, if it is correct, violates a whole handful of currently accepted physical theories... The presentation of the scenario by Lazar is troubling from a scientific standpoint. Mr. Lazar on many occasions demonstrates an obvious lack of understanding of current physical theories."
Which is much nicer than I would have put it, but amounts to the same thing.
Any time someone comes up with a "theory" that will "destroy all of physics as we know it," I'm always inclined to give him the raspberry and walk away. It might be narrow-minded of me, but think about it; what's the chance that the best brains the Earth has produced -- people like Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, Lise Meitner, Murray Gell-Mann, and Peter Higgs -- are all wrong? That they've missed the boat completely, and some new guy, with no particular access to research facilities or technical equipment, or possibly even a college degree, has figured it all out? Okay, I guess it's possible, but I need more than just his word for it, especially when that word contains mention of "the Grey aliens from Zeta Reticuli."
The bottom line is: if you think that you've got a revolutionary idea, turn it over to peer review like the rest of the scientific world. If it stands, I'll be happy to eat my words.
Anyway, this explains why the woo-woos all started jumping up and down and making excited little squeaking noises about element 115, in spite of the fact that the Swedish scientists only succeeded in making one atom of it, which would hardly be enough to power a spacecraft. And the atom in question (1) decayed in less than a tenth of a second, and (2) showed no signs of generating an "anti-gravity field."
But I guess when you are resting your claims on no evidence, then any evidence is an improvement.
The atom, like those of all "superheavy" elements, disintegrated almost instantaneously. All of the high-atomic-weight atoms -- those on the bottom tiers of the periodic table -- are extremely unstable, and undergo radioactive decay within a fraction of a second after they're created in the lab. None of them occur naturally.
This confirms a claim made by Russian scientists in 2004, and completes another row of the periodic table, bringing to 118 the number of confirmed elements. Like its near neighbors with atomic numbers of 113, 117, and 118, it doesn't have an official permanent name yet, so it is called "ununpentium" (a placeholder name that simply means "115").
So far, only a story that would interest people who are fond of esoteric chemistry. Thus my surprise when stories started popping up all over woo-woo websites with headlines like, "Element 115 proven to be real! Bob Lazar was right!"
My first reaction was, "Who the hell is Bob Lazar?" So I looked him up, and found that he's a pretty famous guy, even though I had never heard of him. He even has a Wikipedia page. And his story turned out to be quite interesting.
Lazar is (appropriate for our unofficial theme-of-the-week) a conspiracy theorist of the first water. He claims to be a physicist with degrees from both the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; attempts to confirm this have turned up nothing, although he did once take an electronics course at Pierce Junior College. Lazar says this is because the government tampered with his academic records to discredit him.
Why would the government do that? Because Lazar worked at Area 51, of course. And while at Area 51, he was allegedly the leader of a group of physicists who studied some downed extraterrestrial spaceships. And guess what he claimed was the fuel that powered said flying saucers?
Got it in one. Element 115.
Ununpentium, Lazar said, created "antigravity effects" when bombarded with protons. Antimatter was also somehow involved. Put 'em all together, says Lazar, and the "intense strong nuclear force of element 115's nucleus" would warp space and time, creating a way to cross interstellar space.
Oh, and he knows where these aliens came from. Zeta Reticuli, the favorite star of conspiracy theorists everywhere, alleged home to both the Reptilians and the Greys. Which ties in neatly with stories of government collaboration with extraterrestrials, and the replacement of various world figures by shapeshifting evil aliens. This last allegation might be true, of course. I myself am suspicious about recently-disgraced San Diego mayor Bob Filner. Doesn't he look like someone trying to mimic a human, but who can't quite make it look authentic yet?
I think that is exactly the expression you'd see on the face of an alien who had just learned the rule, "When you smile, retract the lips and expose the teeth."
But I digress. Let's return to our consideration of Bob #1.
Bob Lazar's ideas have achieved considerable buzz in the UFO community, and also in the world of the conspiracy theorists, being that his ideas combine the best from both. And he was taken at least seriously enough to have an actual physicist, Dr. David L. Morgan, give a close look to his ideas. And after careful consideration, Morgan has concluded that Lazar is a raving wingnut.
"After reading an account by Bob Lazar of the 'physics' of his Area 51 UFO propulsion system," Morgan stated, "my conclusion is this: Mr. Lazar presents a scenario which, if it is correct, violates a whole handful of currently accepted physical theories... The presentation of the scenario by Lazar is troubling from a scientific standpoint. Mr. Lazar on many occasions demonstrates an obvious lack of understanding of current physical theories."
Which is much nicer than I would have put it, but amounts to the same thing.
Any time someone comes up with a "theory" that will "destroy all of physics as we know it," I'm always inclined to give him the raspberry and walk away. It might be narrow-minded of me, but think about it; what's the chance that the best brains the Earth has produced -- people like Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, Lise Meitner, Murray Gell-Mann, and Peter Higgs -- are all wrong? That they've missed the boat completely, and some new guy, with no particular access to research facilities or technical equipment, or possibly even a college degree, has figured it all out? Okay, I guess it's possible, but I need more than just his word for it, especially when that word contains mention of "the Grey aliens from Zeta Reticuli."
The bottom line is: if you think that you've got a revolutionary idea, turn it over to peer review like the rest of the scientific world. If it stands, I'll be happy to eat my words.
Anyway, this explains why the woo-woos all started jumping up and down and making excited little squeaking noises about element 115, in spite of the fact that the Swedish scientists only succeeded in making one atom of it, which would hardly be enough to power a spacecraft. And the atom in question (1) decayed in less than a tenth of a second, and (2) showed no signs of generating an "anti-gravity field."
But I guess when you are resting your claims on no evidence, then any evidence is an improvement.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The new weapon of the "elite:" vaccinations
This week we had two news stories that are mostly noteworthy in juxtaposition.
First, we had an interview that took place between Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and political pundit, erstwhile presidential candidate, and noted wingnut Alan Keyes, regarding the plan by liberals to reduce the world's population using vaccines.
Gohmert asked Keyes about the claim by "some liberals" that the world was overpopulated. Keyes responded:
"Scary thought," Representative Gohmert responded.
Yes, it is a scary thought, and doubly scary because there are presumably people who believe this. We're all being duped by the elite liberal scientists. Vaccines, as we all know from watching the historical documentary The X Files, are just the government's way of tagging the entire citizenry, i.e., marking us for "culling."
Oh, and global climate change is "wrong." How do we know? Because elitism, that's how. Stop asking questions.
But I must interject a question of my own here, and it's one that I've asked before: why in the hell is the word "elite" used as a compliment in sports and an insult in intellectual pursuits? Isn't it a good thing to be really smart? Given Mr. Keyes' grasp of the facts, it's understandable that he doesn't think so, but in general?
The whole thing is interesting especially given our second story, which occurred only a little west of Representative Gohmert's home of Texas' First Congressional District, in the town of Newark -- where an evangelical megachurch has has an outbreak of measles after its pastor, Terri Copeland Pearsons, promoted faith healing as an alternative to vaccination.
Pearsons' father, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, has publicly stated his anti-vaxxer sympathies in a broadcast called "God's Health and Wellness Plan." (The relevant bit comes about twenty minutes into the broadcast, if you decide to watch it.) He talks about the whole topic of vaccination becoming "personal" when his first great-grandchild was born, and the doctors advised the parents to have the baby vaccinated "with all of these shots, and all of this stuff." Some of what they wanted to vaccinate the baby with, Copeland said, "is criminal."
"You don't take the word of the guy that is trying to give the shot about what's good and what isn't!" Copeland said.
Nope. Those damned doctors, with their advanced degrees. What do they know, anyway?
But then Copeland's daughter's church was visited by someone who had just come from overseas, and had been exposed to measles -- and before you can say "liberal elite," twenty church members had contracted the disease.
This left Pastor Pearsons to deliver the news to the faithful, which she did, albeit a little awkwardly:
So it was wryly amusing when last week, Pastor Pearsons announced that there would be free measles vaccination clinics held in the church, in spite of the fact that the bible should be enough:
And in neat contrast to all of this, we have two new peer-reviewed papers this summer showing that vaccinations save lives. As if we should need more evidence.
Well, we might not, if it weren't for anti-science whackjobs like Keyes, Pearsons, and Copeland babbling their bizarre, fact-free opinions on the air. All of which just goes to show, as I've said before -- if you want to learn how the world really works, don't listen to politicians and pastors.
Ask an "elite scientist." They're the ones who actually know what they're talking about.
First, we had an interview that took place between Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and political pundit, erstwhile presidential candidate, and noted wingnut Alan Keyes, regarding the plan by liberals to reduce the world's population using vaccines.
Gohmert asked Keyes about the claim by "some liberals" that the world was overpopulated. Keyes responded:
A lot of people who fancy themselves elites, right, because they’ve made a lot of money, their names are all over the media and so forth, they’ve really signed on to an agenda that requires the depopulation of the globe. And in the name of fighting global climatological change, called global warming — that’s proven to be something that’s wrong — they are saying that we’ve got to cut back the population of the world.And instead of doing what I would have done, which is to guffaw directly into Mr. Keyes' face and then get up and walk away, Gohmert responded as if he had just said something sensible.
Bill Gates gave a famous talk back in 2009, which he was talking about actually abusing vaccinations, which are supposed to keep people healthy and alive, and saying how this could lead to a 15 percent reduction in the population of the globe as a way to achieve this result.
They’re preaching that doctrine because they actually believe we’re a blight on the face of the planet, we human beings. And we should, therefore, be put on a path toward our own semi-extinction. I often try to get people to see that if you think about it, if we actually get back to the levels they’re talking about, it would just be these elitists and the people needed to service them. That’s all that will be left in the world.
"Scary thought," Representative Gohmert responded.
Yes, it is a scary thought, and doubly scary because there are presumably people who believe this. We're all being duped by the elite liberal scientists. Vaccines, as we all know from watching the historical documentary The X Files, are just the government's way of tagging the entire citizenry, i.e., marking us for "culling."
Oh, and global climate change is "wrong." How do we know? Because elitism, that's how. Stop asking questions.
But I must interject a question of my own here, and it's one that I've asked before: why in the hell is the word "elite" used as a compliment in sports and an insult in intellectual pursuits? Isn't it a good thing to be really smart? Given Mr. Keyes' grasp of the facts, it's understandable that he doesn't think so, but in general?
The whole thing is interesting especially given our second story, which occurred only a little west of Representative Gohmert's home of Texas' First Congressional District, in the town of Newark -- where an evangelical megachurch has has an outbreak of measles after its pastor, Terri Copeland Pearsons, promoted faith healing as an alternative to vaccination.
Pearsons' father, televangelist Kenneth Copeland, has publicly stated his anti-vaxxer sympathies in a broadcast called "God's Health and Wellness Plan." (The relevant bit comes about twenty minutes into the broadcast, if you decide to watch it.) He talks about the whole topic of vaccination becoming "personal" when his first great-grandchild was born, and the doctors advised the parents to have the baby vaccinated "with all of these shots, and all of this stuff." Some of what they wanted to vaccinate the baby with, Copeland said, "is criminal."
"You don't take the word of the guy that is trying to give the shot about what's good and what isn't!" Copeland said.
Nope. Those damned doctors, with their advanced degrees. What do they know, anyway?
But then Copeland's daughter's church was visited by someone who had just come from overseas, and had been exposed to measles -- and before you can say "liberal elite," twenty church members had contracted the disease.
This left Pastor Pearsons to deliver the news to the faithful, which she did, albeit a little awkwardly:
There has been a ... confirmed case of the measles from the Tarrant County Public Health Department. And that is a really big deal in that America, the United States has been essentially measles free for I think it's ten years. And so when measles pops up anywhere else in the United States, the health department -- well, you know, it excites them. You know what I mean... I don't mean... I don't mean they're happy about it, but they get very excited and respond to it because it doesn't take much for things like that to spread.Sure. The Health Department just loves outbreaks. It's some excitement to distract them from their otherwise humdrum job of figuring out ways to cull the human population.
So it was wryly amusing when last week, Pastor Pearsons announced that there would be free measles vaccination clinics held in the church, in spite of the fact that the bible should be enough:
There are a lot of people that think the Bible -- we talk about walking by faith -- it leaves out things such as, I don't know, people just get strange. But when you read the Old Testament, you find that it is full of precautionary measures, and it is full of the law.Yup. Because priests have such a better track record for curing disease than medical doctors do. Oh, but by all means, Pastor Pearsons, don't let little things like facts get in your way. Do carry on.
Why did the Jewish people, why did they not die out during the plague? Because the Bible told them how to be clean, told them how to disinfect, told them there was something contagious. And the interesting thing of it, it wasn't a medical doctor per se who took care of those things, it was the priesthood. It was the ministers, it was those who knew how to take the promises of God as well as the commandments of God to take care of things like disinfection and so forth....
Many of the things that we have in medical practice now actually are things you can trace back into scripture. It's when we find out what's in the scripture that we have wisdom.
And in neat contrast to all of this, we have two new peer-reviewed papers this summer showing that vaccinations save lives. As if we should need more evidence.
Well, we might not, if it weren't for anti-science whackjobs like Keyes, Pearsons, and Copeland babbling their bizarre, fact-free opinions on the air. All of which just goes to show, as I've said before -- if you want to learn how the world really works, don't listen to politicians and pastors.
Ask an "elite scientist." They're the ones who actually know what they're talking about.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Homeopathic chemtrail remedies
Following on the heels of my post yesterday regarding how much smarter and saner the conspiracy theorists are than us skeptics, today we will take a look at: homeopathic anti-chemtrail spray.
Yes, folks, guaranteed to "alleviate symptoms of chemtrail exposure," this homeopathic preparation (i.e. a bottle of water) is to be sprayed up the nose "until symptoms disappear."
At first, I thought this had to be a joke. Or, at least, unique. Surely no one else would come up with the idea of using worthless remedies for nonexistent chemtrail exposure.
I was wrong.
Check out, for example, ChemBuster. The website starts out by asking a very important question, namely: "Have you experienced symptoms of unknown origin?" Because if you had "chronic fatigue," "chronic pain," "chronic headaches," or "mental and emotional problems," there could only be one answer:
The government is putting chemicals into jet fuel, so that when the jet fuel is burned, the chemicals are dispersed over the unsuspecting citizenry, where they are inhaled and cause you to feel crummy.
So who you gonna call? ChemBuster!
At this point, I should mention that the "orgone energy generator" uses the power of gemstones to "collect, concentrate, transmute and radiate all ambient subtle energy into life force," and that the person who came up with the idea of "orgone," Wilhelm Reich, believed that it was the "life energy" that was released suddenly during an orgasm. I'm not making this up, by the way. So here we have a claim that combines four ridiculous ideas -- homeopathy + chemtrails + gemstone energies + orgone.
Which may be a new record.
Now, if you don't want to buy homeopathic remedies and orgone energy generators to combat chemtrails, there could be a cheaper solution, namely: a spray bottle filled with vinegar. Once again, I feel obliged to state outright that I'm not making this up. Last year, we had a claim going around that was given some momentum by such pinnacles of rationality as Alex Jones and Jeff Rense, stating that if you were worried about the government dousing you with chemicals, all you had to do to "cleanse the air" was to spray some vinegar up toward the sky. So people did it, because of course there never is an idea so completely idiotic that there won't be large quantities of people who will believe it. Here is one explanation, if I can dignify it with that word (spelling and grammar as written, because you can only write "sic" so many times):
And lest you think that this explanation was immediately laughed into oblivion, I read the comments, without even putting on my anti-stupidity protective eyewear, and immediately came across one that read, "The idea of countering thousand dollars of chemtrail with cheap vinegar is very apealing [sic]. I'll try it. Must be very humiliating to them."
Ah, yes, them. Those evil guys who are chemtrailing the hell out of us. You know, I think that's the thing I understand the least about all of this; if the Illuminati in the government are dousing the skies with chemicals via jet contrails, and those contrails can be seen every day from damn near any spot in the United States, why don't we see all of the government employees walking around wearing big ol' respirators? No, they're breathing the same air that we unsuspecting sheeple are. So are the families of the government employees. Everyone, pretty much, is breathing the same air, Illuminati and sheeple alike, and it seems that only the sheeple are affected?
Oh, wait, I forgot. The government employees are Reptilian aliens, and they're immune. Duh.
So, there you have it. Using homeopathy, crystals, orgasmic energy, and vinegar to fight the chemtrails created by the llluminati. I really think they should find a way to work in astrology, chakras, and the planet Nibiru, which would create a perfect storm of woo-woo quantum psychic vibrations, raising us to the next level of enlightenment.
On the other hand, I'm probably not ready for that. Just let me stay unenlightened for the time being, at least until I recover from the forehead bruises I got from all of the headdesks I did while researching this post.
Yes, folks, guaranteed to "alleviate symptoms of chemtrail exposure," this homeopathic preparation (i.e. a bottle of water) is to be sprayed up the nose "until symptoms disappear."
At first, I thought this had to be a joke. Or, at least, unique. Surely no one else would come up with the idea of using worthless remedies for nonexistent chemtrail exposure.
I was wrong.
Check out, for example, ChemBuster. The website starts out by asking a very important question, namely: "Have you experienced symptoms of unknown origin?" Because if you had "chronic fatigue," "chronic pain," "chronic headaches," or "mental and emotional problems," there could only be one answer:
The government is putting chemicals into jet fuel, so that when the jet fuel is burned, the chemicals are dispersed over the unsuspecting citizenry, where they are inhaled and cause you to feel crummy.
So who you gonna call? ChemBuster!
ChemBuster contains 4 herbals and 9 homeopathics blended in a proprietary process designed to defeat, to annihilate, the pools of mycoplasma, heavy metals, respiratory problems and even mental problems associated with Chemtrail poisoning.But ChemBuster has to be "activated" before use. How do you activate it? By purchasing an "orgone energy generator," setting the bottle next to it, and turning it on, which will "potentiate" it, increasing its strength by a factor of ten (following the mathematical principle that 10 x 0 = 0).
At this point, I should mention that the "orgone energy generator" uses the power of gemstones to "collect, concentrate, transmute and radiate all ambient subtle energy into life force," and that the person who came up with the idea of "orgone," Wilhelm Reich, believed that it was the "life energy" that was released suddenly during an orgasm. I'm not making this up, by the way. So here we have a claim that combines four ridiculous ideas -- homeopathy + chemtrails + gemstone energies + orgone.
Which may be a new record.
Now, if you don't want to buy homeopathic remedies and orgone energy generators to combat chemtrails, there could be a cheaper solution, namely: a spray bottle filled with vinegar. Once again, I feel obliged to state outright that I'm not making this up. Last year, we had a claim going around that was given some momentum by such pinnacles of rationality as Alex Jones and Jeff Rense, stating that if you were worried about the government dousing you with chemicals, all you had to do to "cleanse the air" was to spray some vinegar up toward the sky. So people did it, because of course there never is an idea so completely idiotic that there won't be large quantities of people who will believe it. Here is one explanation, if I can dignify it with that word (spelling and grammar as written, because you can only write "sic" so many times):
Vinegar does a lot as a support to our orgone devices. Why ? Reason is pretty simple:Yup. Using a "funky substance" to fight "positive ionts" from "chemtrail attack in your sector." Gotcha.
It is all about the electrical charge of the atmosphere. Fellow gifters all around the world were trying to figure out how it is possible, that such cheap and funky substance, as vinegar, is delivering such spectacular effects on the chemtrail-rich atmosphere. Here is the simple explanation:
During the chemtrail attack, atmosphere is charged with a lots of positive ionts. Well, and dispersed vinegar is charging the atmosphere with negative ionts.
TRY IT YOURSELF. If you see the chemtrail attack in your sector is going on - buy a liter or two of the vinegar, and disperse it on the asphalt surface of the road (it is the best platform for the vinegar to go up to the sky). Or throw black T-Shirt into the vinegar and leave it on the sunlight.
Vinegar begins AT ONCE to vapor to the sky, and sky is getting charged with the negative ionts by very aggresive chain reaction. Within maximally ONE HOUR you will get the results.
And lest you think that this explanation was immediately laughed into oblivion, I read the comments, without even putting on my anti-stupidity protective eyewear, and immediately came across one that read, "The idea of countering thousand dollars of chemtrail with cheap vinegar is very apealing [sic]. I'll try it. Must be very humiliating to them."
Ah, yes, them. Those evil guys who are chemtrailing the hell out of us. You know, I think that's the thing I understand the least about all of this; if the Illuminati in the government are dousing the skies with chemicals via jet contrails, and those contrails can be seen every day from damn near any spot in the United States, why don't we see all of the government employees walking around wearing big ol' respirators? No, they're breathing the same air that we unsuspecting sheeple are. So are the families of the government employees. Everyone, pretty much, is breathing the same air, Illuminati and sheeple alike, and it seems that only the sheeple are affected?
Oh, wait, I forgot. The government employees are Reptilian aliens, and they're immune. Duh.
So, there you have it. Using homeopathy, crystals, orgasmic energy, and vinegar to fight the chemtrails created by the llluminati. I really think they should find a way to work in astrology, chakras, and the planet Nibiru, which would create a perfect storm of woo-woo quantum psychic vibrations, raising us to the next level of enlightenment.
On the other hand, I'm probably not ready for that. Just let me stay unenlightened for the time being, at least until I recover from the forehead bruises I got from all of the headdesks I did while researching this post.
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