I’m not sure exactly where the following video comes from.   The narration implies it’s Canadian.  The narration implies it’s Canadian, but wherever this guy is from, he’s a complete and utter idiot who has no idea how vaccines are manufactured or the amount of science and testing that goes into formulating them.   They are most certainly not thrown together nor is the virus obtained by having some random guy cough on it.

Although the virus may be obtained from cultures from infected humans, it’s cultured and analyzed before the vaccine is prepared.  Indeed, a major challenge for flu vaccine development is that the predominant strain changes each year and researchers must look at thousands of cultures from around the world to determine the best candidate for that year’s vaccine.  The formulation of the vaccine must be developed, tested and sent off to full scale production with very tight time constraints.

In addition to being insulting to the entire science of microbiology and all those who spent years in higher education and research to get into it, the video isn’t even funny.  Nobody is laughing.  That’s just a canned laugh track, and a very poor use of one at that.   (You’re supposed to fade it in and out with audience noise more subtly to make it seem like it might really be people.)

It is absolutely no secret EXACTLY what is in the influenza vaccine.   All substances, including those found in only trace amounts and even those which may or may not be present (such as those which are filtered out but may sometimes still have trace levels remaining) are listed on the package insert that is shipped with each dose of the vaccine.  Whether you receive your vaccine from a doctor or a public vaccine clinic, you can always ask to see the insert.

This information is also available online. The CDC maintains extensive information on all the ingredients approved for use in vaccines and which have been used in vaccines in the United States.   If you do not live in the United States, this information is still valid as these ingredients are fairly standard for all vaccines and are common to formulas found both in the US and most other countries.  You can also visit sites such as the websites of the companies that manufacture the vaccines or the respective health agencies the country you live in.

What is actually in a flu shot:

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Just as the British medical establishment gives another slam to lying scoundrel Andrew Wakefield, NBC gives the self-absorbed sociopath a big soap box to stand on by inviting him on the Today Show to continue to perpetuate his lies. A few nods to the controversy was the extent of the other side (the one that is actually correct) offered. Otherwise, the bad former-doctor was treated with kid gloves.

Worse still, at least a few activists and autistics showed up to support the man whose lies they swallowed hook, line and sinker.

Warning, the following may make you sick, even if you have been vaccinated:

No, I will not call this man “doctor.” That is a term of respect, and I don’t care how many degrees he may have taken the classes for, he is a disgrace to the medical profession and clinical science. He is not a licensed doctor, he can’t practice medicine. He can’t work as a doctor nor should he. He is also a disgrace to his country and I strongly suspect that the reason he is now in the United States is because the US is to reduce the likelihood that he’ll face civil or criminal penalties.

Boy, what I wouldn’t do to have the chance to interview this bastard. I’ll tell you right now, I would not give him the kind of cushy treatment he gets here. I’d love to see someone get face to face with him and ask him to really defend his lies. I’d love to see him called and made to answer for what he has claimed. Of course, I’m also sure he would never be so stupid to go for an interview that was not arranged with very generous concessions and limits on the tough questions.

Shame on NBC for letting themselves become a platform to further these murderous lies. For those who are unfamiliar with the whole story, this news item and interview could easily lead them to believe Whitefield’s lies. This is nothing but enemy propaganda in the millennia-long war between humanity and infectious disease.

Recently, a study published in the Journal Pediatrics has been getting a huge amount of press for indicating a possible relationship between organophosphate levels and ADHD (but interestingly NOT ADD.)   Organophosphates are commonly used as pesticides and trace levels are found in a minority of food in the US.  Most fruit and vegitables sold in the US do not have levels of organophosphates that are high enough to be detected by standard analytical methods, but up to 25-33% do have detectable, albeit small, amounts.   Thus many people do have small but detectable amounts of these compounds in their bodies.

Organophosphates can be quite dangerous to humans and their application may require protective measures, however they tend to break down fairly quickly and when used properly the amount that remains in the end product is small and has never been conclusively linked to any health effects.   Their relatively short time to breakdown has lead to their widespread adoption.  Organochloride insecticides, such as DDT tend to present less danger of acute toxicity to humans, but may linger in the environment longer than organophosphates.

The study raises some interesting questions, but the way it is being reported makes it sound like it has presented far more conclusive evidence than it really has.    It is already being used by “organic” agriculture groups as proof of the superiority of organic products.  It is also causing a lot of fear and confusion for parents.   Even personal injury attorneys are already all over it! The news reports indicate that higher body burdens of organophosphates are linked to ADHD , but in reality the study’s data and conclusions are far less black and white.

Thankfully, you can download the entire study in PDF format for FREE here.

Issues with the study:
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Barbra Walters is 80 years old.  She’ll be 81 in September.    It’s hardly unexpected that she would have at least a few health issues by this age and it does not take a psychic to predict that a person in their late 70’s probably is going to need some kind of medical care in the next few years.   Yet that’s what a self-proclaimed psychic is claiming.

Walters recently head heart valve surgery, which apparently went well.   The surgery was to replace the aortic valve. Doctors had recently become concerned about the conditions of her heart valve, although the exact nature of the problem has not been made public.

Now notoriously poor faker James Van Praagh is claiming credit for predicting Barbra Walters’ heart condition two years in advance. Apparently Van Praagh is trying to grab some attention any way he can by latching onto a story that has nothing to do with him.
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Yes, the US had a major biological weapons program for many years. So did the Soviet Union and so did the United Kingdom. Numerous other countries dabbled in biological weapons research at one time or another. Some programs did experiment with various exotic viruses and bacterial conditions. In general, pathogenic bacteria have been preferred for weapons use, as they can be easily cultured in mass and will grow in the environment, not requiring direct contact between hosts to transmit the infection. The ability to sequence and combine genetic material existed in only the most rudimentary forms prior to the 1990’s, but biological weapons programs did use the genetic engineering technologies and hybridization methods available to some extent.

However, AIDS didn’t come from any of these programs. It came from non-human primates and made the jump to humans some time in the 19th or early 20th century – although it is remotely possible that it existed in humans even earlier. The most likely explanation for the transmission to humans is the consumption of bushmeat. It existed in isolated populations in Africa for some time before entering the industrial world and rapidly spreading worldwide in the 1970’s.

Lets stop and consider something. If HIV was actually created as a biological weapon, it’s arguably the worst, most ineffective, most poorly chosen biological weapon ever created. It has none of the traits that an effective biological weapon should have and nearly all the traits that make an organism a very very poor choice of biological weapon.

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Not sure if all readers will feel the same, but recently I’ve come across a few news items that really just made me feel like tearing my hair out.   They’re so dead wrong, misleading and ridiculous and yet are reported in otherwise credible news outlets as if they were meaningful.
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Via the New York Times:

Rise of the Superweeds
DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.

On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

The first resistant species to pose a serious threat to agriculture was spotted in a Delaware soybean field in 2000. Since then, the problem has spread, with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn.

The superweeds could temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn’t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.

What we have here is yet another tired attack on genetically modified crops in general because just one of them has some minor secondary issues. Genetically modified crops come with numerous engineered traits. Some are modified to absorb nutrients more efficiently, others are modified to resist fungus or attacks by insects while others are modified to better withstand drought. The particular kind of genetically modified crop that this applies to are so-called “Roundup Ready” crops. These are crops which are resistant to the herbicide known as Roundup (Glyphosate).

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Jose Ayala claims to have an amazing ability, an unexplainable ability that borders on the paranormal.   Jose can conduct electrical current through his body to light bulbs and even burn paper with its discharge.  In the following video he demonstrates this amazing power.   Note that this is not limited to high voltage, low amperage sources like electrostatic generators or small Tesla coils.  The electricity is coming from powerful high voltage fly-back transformers and even directly from an electrical outlet.

Jose also does not isolate his body from the ground or the current.   While one can safely come into contact with high voltage sources while isolated from a return path (the “bird on a wire effect”), Jose is not doing this either.   Rather, he is clearly providing a path for the electricity to travel through his body.  In one scene he stands on a plastic bucket, but he still uses his hand to provide the return path.

So is this a super power?

Note:  It seems embedding is disabled for this video.  Click to go to the full Youtube player.

Now the explanation of what is happening:

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I received a question today from someone who asked me if I “believe in” earth batteries and whether an earth battery can actually produce energy.  Apparently they had read about it online or seen some of the Youtube videos out there.   They may have also read the Wikipedia article, which is totally wrong.

An earth battery is pretty simple in principle.   Two metal rods are driven into the ground, ideally in soil that is reasonably wet or at least moist and has a slightly acidic pH.   The rods are made of dissimilar material, for example iron and zinc or carbon and zinc or copper and iron.   If the rods are connected to a voltage meter, you will find that there is a small amount of electricity being produced.  The voltage is generally low and the potential amperage is low as well, but if the conditions are descent you can use this current to drive a small load such as an LED or a digital watch.

In theory you could produce a lot more voltage and electrical power if you simply added more and more rods and connected them together.   Just like any battery, when connected in series, multiple battery units will produce higher voltages.  When connected in parallel, the voltage will remain the same, but the potential maximum amperage will be increased.   Therefore, it would be possible to power your house with enough rods stuck in the ground.

However, here’s the big party killer:  The electricity is not limitless, it’s not free (although some websites that sell the supplies claim it is) and it’s not even really coming from the ground, but rather from the metal rods.   When the rods are placed in ground they undergo a simple chemical reaction – they begin to corrode.   If the ground is fairly dry and composed of inert material like sand, then they will corrode slowly, but if it’s moist and composed of more reactive organic matter, they will corrode faster.    As they corrode, they an electrical potential is produced.  Because the two rods are made of different materials, they corrode at different rates and produce dissimilar electrical potential.   When connected, voltage flows between the two.   This is why more corrosive soil conditions lead to more electricity being produced.
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One week ago today I attended NECSS, the North East Conference on Science and Skepticism. The event was held in New York City and attracted several hundred local science and skepticism enthusiasts. All in all it was a great event, both for the presentations and for the general crowd and socialization which occurs between lectures and panels and after the formal event.   This was the second NECSS conference, the first one being held back in October of 2009.

The Skeptics Guide to the Universe did a live podcast to kick off the event and were followed by a number of different panels and speakers.   I was happy to see James Randi was able to make it to the event.  Mr. Randi is one of the most outspoken and iconic members of the skeptical movement.  Randi helped found what is currently the modern skeptical community back in the 1970’s, a time when a lot of questionable research was beginning to come back into vogue.

Randi is the type whose always ready and willing to attend any event that can help increase education and awareness.  Last year he had planned on attending NECSS but had to cancel and appeared only in a pre-taped video due to his health problems.   At the time Mr. Randi had just been diagnosed with colon cancer and had to have a section of his large intestine removed.   This was followed by chemotherapy for several months.   Thankfully, Mr. Randi was looking perfectly at NECSS last week and it appears that the cancer was taken care of before it could spread and become a bigger problem.

As with last year, the event was MC’ed by Jamy Ian Swiss and featured the talent of George Hrab.  D.J. Gorthe, the program director of the Center for Inquiry and president of the JREF also contributed as did Steve Mirsky of Scientific American.

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