Sorry if “douchebag” is an offensive term to anyone.   This level of idiocy and blatant disregard for law and order and the rights and lives of others is simply too disgusting to not use such a word.

Via MSNBC:

Greenpeace Closes Down BP Petrol Stations in Central London Energy Protest

LONDON – As BP CEO Tony Hayward resigned under a cloud Tuesday, thousands of British motorists got an unexpected reminder of the oil spill that’s wreaked havoc in the Gulf of Mexico.

Protesters with the environmental group Greenpeace said they shut off fuel supplies at 46 BP gas stations across London just in time for the morning rush-hour. Small teams of activists used a standard shut-off switch to stop the flow of fuel oil at the targeted stations. The switches were then removed to prevent most BP outlets in the capital from opening.

And to ensure there was no chance of drivers buying gas, demonstrators in fluorescent vests and helmets locked green metal fences around some sites.

“What BP needs to do is not just change CEOs it needs to actually come up with a new strategy,” Greenpeace U.K.’s chief executive John Sauven said at one of the shuttered stations in Camden, north London.

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For a good while it looked like funding of homeopathy through NHS, the national government-sponsored health-care system in the UK was going to finally end.   An MP report on the subject was predictably very strongly against continued funding, nearly every member of the medical establishment who commented on the issue was firmly against homeopathy and various British skeptic and pro-science groups seized the moment to show how worthless homeopathy is.  The British Medical Association firmly backed the removal of funding for homeopathy by government programs.

The big blow to homeopathy came earlier this year when a select committee of the British Parliament published their findings, concluding that homeopathy is no more useful than placebo and does not deserve continued funding.  (Well, yeah, thanks Captain Obvious.)

Yes, it looked like the tax payers of the UK would finally be able to avoid paying for expensive water in perfume bottles.  Or so it seemed…

Via OnMedica:

DH commits to continue NHS funding of homeopathy
NHS funding for homeopathic treatments will continue, despite a highly critical report published by MPs earlier this year.

MPs on the parliamentary science and technology select committee published a report on homeopathy in February, which urged the government to withdraw NHS funding for such treatments and for the medicines regulator to stop licensing homeopathic products.

Both proposals were rejected this week by the Department of Health as it published its official response to the report.

Homeopathy has been funded on the NHS since the service began in 1948 and there are four homeopathic hospitals in the UK, in London, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow.

It is estimated that the NHS spends around £4 million a year on homeopathy.

The select committee’s report said there was no conclusive evidence that homeopathic drugs were any more effective than a placebo and given that existing scientific literature showed no good evidence of efficacy, further clinical trials of homeopathy could not be justified.

The committee said it believed homeopathy was a placebo treatment.

To prescribe these treatments was damaging the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship and because the effect of homeopathy was unreliable and unpredictable, it should not form the sole basis of any treatment on the NHS.

The MPs also wanted the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to stop licensing homeopathic products because they were allowing these products to make medical claims without evidence of efficacy.

The BMA at its annual conference in June voted overwhelmingly for a motion that said homeopathic remedies should be banned on the NHS and taken off pharmacy shelves where they are sold as medicines.

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What can I say?   This is absolutely sickening.  Granted that those who oppose vaccination and spread lies in an attempt to stop vaccination of children takes a very perverted and unethical kind of person.   Still, the very idea that they could be so committed to trying to further their own agenda that they would actually confront and harass the parents of a child who had just died of an infectious disease takes things to a new level of cruelty.

Perhaps the leadership of the AVN really is insane enough to believe what they are saying.   However, even if that is so, it in no way justifies attacking people who have just gone through the kind of loss and pain most of us could never even imagine.   Their motive is clear and could not be more callous or self-serving – to try to preserve any credibility they think they still have by going after their opponents, regardless of who they are or how much they have suffered already.

This kind of behavior transcended the issue of bad science and incorrect medical advice.  It shocks and offends the conscious of any person with a sense of decency.  It offends the values of humanity and sympathy.   This is intolerable and just plain wrong. No person who engages in such actions should ever be seem as anything other than a sociopath and a self-serving, callous fraud.

There can be no doubt that this is simply a very dishonest operation run by a very dishonest woman who does not care what she says or does to promote herself. And all this comes from a group which touts itself as being a sympathetic, pro-family and pro-health organization.

It’s revolting.   It does, however, remind me of another post on here a while ago.

Oh I just love seeing a post like this on a site like “Age Of Autism”, an anti-vaccine, anti-science site that promotes every wacky idea on how to treat autism and what causes it.

Health Fascism in Australia.

The sinister Skeptics group, agents of what used to be CSICOP now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) organised from the US and linked to the major corporate lobby groups, American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) and American Council Against Health Fraud (ACAHF), which is in turn linked to the Australian CAHF) are making ground in Australia. Supported by authoritarian ideological influences in government and Big Pharma, the Skeptics are running constant attacks on homeopathy, natural cancer treatments, those who question vaccination and those who support any form of alternative medicine.

With the present world fiscal crisis, all those linked to Big Pharma and Science are fighting a bitter battle to preserve drug company competitiveness. But where fascist influences in government and health with most force come together is in attacking anyone who speaks out about freedom of choice and expression in relation to vaccination.

Over the last year the international corporate lobby Skeptics, have been behind a campaign against the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN). In 2009, one of their trolls, a lay person with no standing in medicine or government complained about the web site of the AVN to the office of the State Government funded Health Care Complaints commission (HCCC) an organisation that accepts complaints against groups found be giving out false information about health.

The remit of the HCCC, did not actually cover parent groups which discussed the pros and cons of vaccination, so the State government slightly changed the remit to satisfy the Skeptics. The government then proceeded with a year long investigation into Meryl Dorey the woman who established and runs the AVN and the AVN itself.

Dorey was asked to answer their first 30 odd page report against her and the organisation, within a few weeks. She did this with a magnificent document that argued every point with brilliance. The complaint investigation actually argued against almost every sentence that had appeared on the AVN web site. If the AVN had said that vaccines contained toxic elements, such as mecury and aluminuim the HCCC argued with pseudo science that this was not true, giving pages of bogus evidence to support the vaccine manufacturers.

Oh how very sinister!
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Back from The Amazing Meeting 8, which was indeed Amazing, I’ve found a pile of work to get to even as I get over the modest jetlag that traveling across three time zones will cause.   Luckilly, I don’t have to describe the event all by myself because others have.   Better still, my friends at the Greater Edmonton Skeptics Society (GESS) have put together a roundup of links from other blogs and news sites describing the amazing events of the Amazing Meeting!

Check it out here

Having returned from Las Vegas and The Amazing Meeting, an annual conference on skepticism hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundaton, I’ve been very eager to start posting about my experiences at the meeting.   Unfortunately, I’ve been fairly busy, as apparently going to Las Vegas for a week tends to result in a lot of work piling up.   In general, the meeting was attended by mainstream skeptics, who may not agree on everything but tended to agree on well proven things, like the fact that the US Apollo program did indeed send men to the moon and back.

This was not quite 100%, however, as at least one conspiracy-obsessed heckler did attend, and attempted repeatedly to heckle Phil Plait and Adam Savage.   Jarrah White is about as committed to the belief that the Apollo moon landings were faked as one can be.   He’s already produced (at last count) 393 Youtube videos on the subject – all of them absolutely stunning in their lack of technical and scientific knowledge.

I recognized White’s voice from the videos as soon as he got up to question Adam Savage. That snooty, nasal, sharp whine with an Australian accent was hard not to recognize, especially as I’ve seen plenty of his videos before. Apparently he came all the way from Australia to try to get up in the face of those who he considers the conspirators behind the faked moon landing

His behavior was about as strange as one might expect. I was concerned initially that he might try to rush the stage or do something else completely crazy – after all, Apollo conspiracy theorists have been known to physically threaten astronauts and do all manner of other crazy things. I alerted the staff and security to his background to be on the safe side, but luckily he didn’t try anything too violent.

Instead, he repeatedly insisted that he get a sit-down interview with Phil Plait. Phil was quite civil, and informed him that to get scheduled interview time he would need to register as press. The Amazing Meeting does not have very exclusive standards for who is given press status – bloggers and podcasters can easily get it. When he was asked for his information on this topic, he repeatedly made a scene about not wanting to reveal his background. I’m not sure how things worked out, but eventually he got a press pass and thus could get his interview. Unfortunately for him, Phil Plait decided to decline the request. After rudely interrupting Phil, who was trying to converse with others at the conference, the Little Dude from the Moon finally started yelling at Phil that he thought his answers were dishonest and he was a liar. Phil said something about how he didn’t believe he could say anything that would change the Little Dude’s mind and that if the Little Dude felt that way, he was not interested in sitting down for an interview.

I’m just glad that no punches were thrown. As he came from Australia, it seemed a reasonable concern that he would not want to make such a trip without getting in at least one dramatic moment or big confrontation. I did challenge him openly to a debate. He never responded to this. Surprised? In fact, I only saw him around on the first day of the three-day event. No word on whether he left early or went into hiding or what.
He has also already posted at least one video from the event:

It should be noted that Adam Savage is not an absolute expert on this topic. There is actually a greater context to this. Phil Plait may have been able to answer this, but Jarrah managed to burn that bridge a long time ago.

Debunking his ridiculous claim:

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For those who don’t know, I just got home from a week in Las Vegas where I attended The Amazing Meeting with The Amazing James Randi, Adam Savage, the Great Johnny Thompson, Dr. Michael Shermer, Phil Plait “The Bad Astronomer,” Richard Dawkins and numerous other world-renowned skeptics, critical thinkers and science promoters.

Of course, it was a hoot.   It also involved quite a bit of intellectual stimulation, partying, drinking, running around, socializing and precious little sleep or down time.   Now back home, I figured it was time to crash for the evening before a storm of posting on the meeting, all those who helped pull it off and what my thoughts are on the future of skepticism, which I will say, is quite bright.

Then this shit hit the presses…
Infants Ingest Nearly 80 Times Safe Level of Dioxin

Yes, it is the “Environmental Working Group,” who have managed to gain credibility and also get a lot of media attention by going after a variety of unproven and over-played environmental issues. They’re the same group that made a big stink about cell phone radiation levels without providing much reason why anyone should worry about them.

While dioxin is indeed worth concern, at least in some circumstances, the press release from the EWG is riddled with unsubstantiated claims.

But, I’m simply too tired. Anyone want to take a closer look at the data?

The Active Denial System is a non-lethal crowd control device that has recently gotten a great deal of press.  It is produced by Raytheon, primarily for the US military but with versions under development for law enforcement.

It has also become the subject of a huge number of conspiracy theories. Here are just a few:

Uncovering the Truth #4: Active Denial System
The Pentagon’s People Zapper
Man made earth quakes – Active Denial System Weapon
The Pentagon’s Pain Compliance and Mind Control Weapons
Depleted Uranium, HAARP and ADS – The Ultimate Weapon
US torture weapons used against civilians
Stop Canadian Complicity in Torture – The Active Denial Torture Ray
Michael Jackson Assassinated By CIA Using ADS Microwaves
Bio-electromagnetic weapons can kill, torture, enslave and escape detection
American Mass Murder Weapon?
DEW EMF ILLEGALLY TARGETED SLEEP DEPRIVATION
Air Force Plan: Hack Your Nervous System

The rational for the Active Denial System:

The US military, like many militarizes around the world has found itself engaged in more and more complex peacekeeping and policing actions.   In areas like Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, military activity is not limited to traditional battlefields, but rather involves security and policing of urban areas with large civilian populations.   Some of the greatest dangers and most difficult situations arise when crowds of civilians are involved.

A suicide bomber could easily hide in a mob of otherwise unarmed persons and even an unarmed crowd can potentially block movement of vehicles or endanger soldiers and civilians.  A heated protest can easily erupt into a riot.  Maintaining order in these type of situations has always been an extreme challenge.  The use of deadly force would undoubtedly work, but would be considered unacceptable in all but the most extreme situations.   Even well armed soldiers can find themselves cornered by a large group of angry civilians, and in such situations, they are faced with the limited options of doing nothing or using deadly force.

This problem has existed for both the military and police forces for decades and to this end, a number of non-lethal methods of dispersing crowds or suppressing entry to areas have been developed.   Some of the most common ones include the following:

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Lets face it, the world of conspiracy theories is pretty male dominated.   Perhaps it’s time that some hip young ladies get out there and show they can be every bit as crazy as men.

Well that’s what truthergirls is all about!   You might think from the look of this young lady that she’s a smart, well connected, cultured and educated woman.   After all, she lives in the hip and happening city of Montreal, she speaks at least two languages fluently, drinks boutique-quality coffee, posts on youtube and she’s fairly attractive.   These would all seem to indicate a hip young woman of the world.

However, looks can be deceiving and stereotypes are often wrong.   It turns out, she’s a complete nutball and has about as much going on upstairs as any overweight 40 year old guy who lives in his mother’s basement and wears an aluminum foil hat.

I really wish I could encounter someone like this on the street.  My god, it’s just so lame! Sure, I’ve seen my share of “end is near” guys and religious fanatics handing out signs in Times Square, but never someone quite like this…

This is the Playpump:

The basic idea is that children in Africa play on a manually driven merry-go-round, not unlike those found in many playgrounds and enjoy themselves, not even thinking of it as work, but in the process they pump water out from a well into a tank so that it can be used by their communities.   Of course, there’s no doubt water wells provide a much healthier alternative to carrying water miles or using surface streams and ponds for water, and the makers of the Playpump claim it is superior to the traditional hand-operated pumps that have generally been used to provide water because it’s powered by children playing as they would anyway.

Seems like a good idea, right?
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