Recently the magazine Popular Science ran a major story on individuals who believe they have electrosensitivity or electrohypersensitivity.   I’m sorry to say that it was an example of horrible reporting that really only talked about the issue as if it were proven real.   It stated the claims of the various individuals who claimed to have the condition without once considering that it might be “all in their head” and not real at all.   (I’m working on a post with a more definitive and full report on all the problems with the PopSci article.)

While it did contain some language about how long term harm, such as cancer, is not proven to be related to RF radiation, it reported about being “Allergic to radio Waves” is if it were conclusively proven as fact. Not surprisingly, the story has generated a lot of hype and has been championed by those who insist that the condition exists.

Well then, I’m going to make an offer.   I contend that electrohypersensitivity is not real.   The condition is psychosomatic.  RF fields do not produce nausea, headache, fainting, skin rashes or any other acute effect on the human body.   No person can, under controlled conditions, show that they manifest these symptoms more often around a low power rf transmitter than when away from radio sources.

Do you think I’m wrong?    Then prove it.   I’m willing to put up one grand of my own money to be proven wrong.   Honestly, I’m so confident about this, I’d put up more than that, but I want this to be a credible challenge and so I’ll put up an amount I know I can provide if I need to. I’m very serious and I’m willing to make the effort of setting up a test to conclusively and fairly settle the issue. And I will eat my words and fork over the money if you can prove me wrong!

The Challenge:

To prove that you manifest symptoms of electrohypersensitivity and that these symptoms are reliably linked to RF radiation by demonstrating the ability to detect the state of RF transmissions in a controlled enviornment.

The Reward:

1.   One thousand US Dollars, provided in the form of a certified check, money order or other mutually acceptable monetary instrument.

2.   I will admit I was wrong about electrosenstivity / electrohypersensitivity not existing.

3.  Your case will be brought to the attention of researchers, with whom I am in communication, and efforts will be made to report your condition and the verification in peer reviewed journals.

The Test Setup:

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Many countries in Europe like to talk about how “Green” they are and indeed in many of these countries the Green Party has become one of the most powerful political parties and has gained control of the government, either directly or as part of a coalition in the past decade.   But for all the talk of programs for renewable energy, reduced greenhouse emissions and better enviornmental policy, how have these countries actually been doing and how do they compare to the less “green” countries?

For the purposes of this comparison, a “green” energy policy is defined by the following:

• Rejects nuclear power, in the most extreme examples, calling for its complete phaseout or banning it outright.
• Strong focus on wind and/or solar power
• Favors enormous subsidies to wind and solar power
• Generally has a fairly favorable stand on natural gas, even if it is rarely (if ever) mentioned
• Attempts to reduce energy consumption through effeciency
• Believes it is acceptable to heavily tax or penalize energy usage as a means of encouraging reduced consumption
• Is supported by Greenpeace, the Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Earth First and other groups with similar agendas

The following numbers are from the US Energy Information Administration. Some of the data is a couple of years old, but if anyone knows of any other source of information that provides better country profiles with comprehensive data of this type, let me know.

Lets take a look..

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One would generally think that a buisiness model that involves violating the laws of physics is probably not going to result in a very sound enterprise.   However, it appears that some in Missouri feel differently about that.

Via the Kansas City Star:

Odessa, Mo., cheers news of manufacturing plant

A Utah company announced Thursday that it planned to build a manufacturing and research complex in Odessa, Mo., that could eventually employ more than 3,000 people.

The company, Manna of Utah, said it would build facilities to make home generators that use magnets to make electricity, produce food products from soybeans and rice, and manufacture portable medical emergency rooms that could be sent quickly anywhere in the world.

There also would also be a research and testing center, which would have 1,200 employees and a day care center.

The announcement was made to more than 300 people gathered in Odessa, including several state legislators and U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton.

“This is a magic moment for Odessa, a magic moment for Lafayette County and a magic moment for the Missouri,” said Skelton, a Democrat.

But the announcement also raised questions, including whether Manna of Utah, which has an office in Provo, can bring it off. The company started just last year and has 23 employees.

….
The Missouri Department of Economic Development said discussions have just begun about state incentives. But at this point, an official said, no request for state incentives or other help has been received.

“Our project managers have had very preliminary discussions with representatives of the business to determine what information they would need to provide if they were to apply for any state incentive program,” said John Fougere, a department spokesman.

Officials in Odessa were clearly happy in the hours leading up to the announcement. Rep. Mike McGhee said that Odessa would be producing technology that would be “world-changing” and that the announcement would shake the earth and the product would be the equivalent of the light bulb.

The Odessa Republican was referring to a home generator developed by Maglev Energy in Largo, Fla. The home generator, which Manna of Utah is licensing, uses magnets.

Maglev said that it filed for a patent on the generator in 2005 and that it has a prototype. However, the generator isn’t commercially available.

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The ridiculous thing isn’t that Switzerland is denying animals the right to an attorney to represent their interest, the ridiculous thing is that they almost did!   70% of the Swiss people turned out not to be quite that insane, but the politicians of Switzerland apparently took the idea pretty seriously – seriously enough to call for a referendum on the issue.

Via BBC News:

Switzerland rejects move to provide lawyers for animals
Voters in Switzerland have rejected a proposal to introduce a nationwide system of state-funded lawyers to represent animals in court.

Animal rights groups had proposed the move, saying that without lawyers to argue the animals’ case, many instances of cruelty were going unpunished.

But the measure was rejected by around 70% of voters in a referendum.

Opponents had argued that Switzerland did not need more legislation. The government had opposed the idea.

Voters were almost certainly swayed by worries about how much such a system might cost taxpayers, and by objections from Switzerland’s farmers already struggling with reduced subsidies and falling milk prices.

Switzerland already has some of the strictest animal welfare legislation in the world.

Pigs, budgies, goldfish and other social animals cannot be kept alone; horses and cows must have regular exercise outside in summer and winter; and dog owners have to take training courses to learn how to care for their pets.

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Paul Watson is many things:  a pathological liar, a terrorist (and I don’t use that word lightly), an attempted murderer, a coward, an attention whore, a criminal, an attempted murderer and someone who generally is not to be trusted.   Watson likes to play pirate and pretend he’s at war on a ship that was bought by the money from those stupid enough to donate money to his group.   If he really was at war, he’d have been blown to pieces a long time ago.   In his warped mind, ramming other ships, throwing glass bottles and trying to entangle their props is legitimate “law enforcement” activity.

Now that his organization has a television deal, they’ve been trying to outdo themselves for dramatic footage and news stories that will grab headlines and get some more donations. Ratings, news coverage, donations – after all, it’s all about the money.

One notorious incident includes Watson claiming he was shot by the Japanese Coast Guard, who were tasked with protecting the whalers. The situation was as follows: after repeatedly coming dangerously close to the whaling vessels, the Sea Shepherd crew began hurling glass bottles of butyric acid at the crew of the Nisshin Maru. It is claimed that this was only because butyric acid smells bad, but one should consider that these glass bottles could still have caused injury and the contents were not known to the Japanese.

The Japanese Coast Guard responded with the use of “flash bang” grenades. These are little more than firecrackers and are typically designed to create an unpleasantly loud sound and otherwise stun or confuse. They’re not very effective at repelling an attack, but the Japanese Coast Guard seems to have been under orders not to use lethal force (which I stress, they would have been justified in using.)

At this point, Watson claims he was shot and survived only because of a bullet proof vest and a badge, which just happened to catch the bullet.

Recently it seems that there’s a new scam out there.   For years, there have been various quacks out there saying that we need to “energize,” “detoxify” or “rebalanced” our bodies, but now there are many who think the answer is to “alkalize” the body. To this end, a number of products have been pushed which claim to do the trick when it comes to making your body “more alkaline.”

As you probably know from basic chemistry, an alkaline, or base is the opposite of an acid and the level of acidity or alkalinity of a substance is measured by pH.   Seven represents neutral and lower pH values represent a more acidic substance while higher pH represents a more basic substance.   Acids and bases, of course, will react with each other and, if equal, result in a neutral solution of water an an ionic salt.

There’s not a lot you can do to change the pH of your body by very much.   You can take antacids to neutralize some of the acid in your stomach, and if you have heartburn, that might be desirable, but the effect is temporary.   The pH of urine may also be altered by what you consume, but that’s also temporary.

The above graphic comes from an actual “alkalize your body” website.    It appears to indicate that it’s preferable for your body to have a pH similar to that of bleach or lithium hydroxide than one closer to lemon juice or stomach acid. I don’t think I’d want to be either one of those levels, but given the choice between the two, I’d rather be acidic.

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As I get a lot of questions on what my position is on global warming, I’ve decided to answer them and hopefully put the issue to rest (although I’m sure that won’t happen).   Here are some of the common questions I get.

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I’ve been told that I’m falling for the neo-conservative nonsense when I say that many are taking fears of catastrophic global warming just a little bit too far.   Well, perhaps this will change that.   It seems that the hype about the world being on the cusp of a global catastrophe have caused at least one couple to enter a suicide pact and decide that it was better to kill their own child, rather than allow her to live in the world that global warming will bring.

Via News.com.au:

A BABY girl survived three days with a bullet in her chest as she lay alone beside the dead bodies of her parents and toddler brother in Argentina.

The Daily Mail reported Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their seven-month-old daughter and two-year-old son before killing themselves.

The pair allegedly agreed to a suicide pact over fears about global warming.

The couple’s son, Francisco, died instantly after being shot in the back, the paper reported.

The baby girl, whose name has not been released, escaped the apparent murder attempt after a bullet from her dad’s handgun missed her vital organs.

Worried neighbours alerted police three days later, after discovering the bodies.

Paramedics then rushed the blood-soaked baby to a hospital.

The miraculous survivor is now recovering in a hospital in the town of Goya in northern Argentina and is out of danger, according to the paper.

Police discovered an apparent suicide note by the girl’s parents in which they outlined their global warming fears.

The New York Daily News reports the letter was found on a table expressing the couple’s anger at the government for not responding to the environmental crisis.

It’s amazing (though not miraculous) that the baby girl has survived thus far with a bullet lodged in her body. Hopefully, she’ll be able to recover, although three days without food and water is no small thing for an infant, and add a bullet in the back to that, and the situation is definitely critical.

Before blaming this entirely on the media hype over global warming, it’s important to note that there’s a pretty good chance that the parents were mentally unstable to begin with, and global warming fears may very well have just been the spark that touched off an already explosive situation. (The fact that the mother was 23 and the father 56 already makes me wonder how stable these two were to begin with. Unless he’s a rock star or just very rich, that’s a pretty rare situation.)

This does, however, show that media hype can be a very dangerous thing when it’s combined with already unstable persons who are already sensitive to irrational fears and prone to potentially violent action.

I don’t even know that I need to comment about why this is so offensive, distasteful, disingenuous, ignorant and downright savage.   This comes from Slashdot:

How Slums Can Save the Planet

“One billion people live in squatter cities and, according to the UN, this number will double in the next 25 years. Stewart Brand writes in Prospect Magazine about what squatter cities can teach us about future urban living. ‘The magic of squatter cities is that they are improved steadily and gradually by their residents,’ writes Brand. ‘Squatter cities are also unexpectedly green. They have maximum density — 1M people per square mile in some areas of Mumbai — and have minimum energy and material use. People get around by foot, bicycle, rickshaw, or the universal shared taxi.’ Brand adds that in most slums recycling is literally a way of life e.g. the Dharavi slum in Mumbai has 400 recycling units and 30,000 rag-pickers. ‘Of course, fast-growing cities are far from an unmitigated good. They concentrate crime, pollution, disease, and injustice as much as business, innovation, education, and entertainment,’ says Brand. Still, as architect Peter Calthorpe wrote in 1985: ‘The city is the most environmentally benign form of human settlement. Each city dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water, and produces less pollution than his counterpart in settlements of lower densities.’”

Reader Kanel adds this note of perspective:
“Kevin Kelly is another guy who wrote about slums in a very positive light, though he was more interested in self-organisation and why cities are cool, I think. Kelly also reports on the strange trend for slum tourism. What we’re seeing here is that the ’slums’ have become a vehicle for people to bring out their own ideas about cities, humans, and the universe at large. I have a feeling that we’re not really going to learn a lot about slums if we study them through these guys.”

Tourism? Self-organization? Why cities are “Cool”? The fact that comfortable westerners are willing to “tour” these destitute settlements of filth and desperation is offensive enough in its own right that they’d be gawked at.   These are not places where people are being creative and expressive for the sake of the greater good, they’re simply trying to cope with inhuman conditions.   If they figure out a way to stay alive in these miserable conditions, it’s not a beautiful work of self-organization, its human suffering, pure and simple.

I’m reminded of Joseph Stalin saying something like “One death is a tragedy – ten thousand are a statistic.”   When you step back and see the slum grow and change, it might look like some kind of elegant mathematical expression, and perhaps it is.   Yet what this is made up of is human beings, living in filth, squalor and constant danger of disease, fire, murder or any number of other things.   And yes, while slums do often improve over time, it’s because the residents generally DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN SLUM CONDITIONS.   Example: parts of New York City are now fashionable when in the late 1800’s they were about the cheapest and worst parts of the city.  Nobody would want to go back!

Yes, I realize that this is a transitional thing and that some countries have not experienced industrialization to the extent they will eventually.   Still, I’m amazed that these could be considered a good thing.

The original article is even worse.   The ass who wrote it seems to think it’s amazingly efficient to live in a slum and points out that many slums see food grown locally, even with “pigs raised on the third floor,” as it subsistence agriculture and living in the excrement of a pig is somehow a positive thing.

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Since the earthquake in Haiti last month, the country has been receiving a lot of foreign aid, including food, clothing, medical supplies and other things the country sorely needs.   It has also received its share of items with little or no worth, which only take up valuable space on transports and cause unnecessary logistical strain.   One thing that the country definitely does not need is quacks.   The medical system of the country was lacking even before the quake and now, with many injured and the danger of disease in the country, real medical personnel are in short supply, but quacks are something they really don’t need more of.

Sadly, it seems that at least a few first-world quacks are seeing this as a great opportunity to gain some publicity by pushing their snakeoil on some of the most desperate in the world.

Via the Globe and Mail (Canada):
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