Not to beat a dead horse, but my last post lamenting how reporters are so completely lacking of science literacy as to say that there’s “radiation in drinking water” has now been one-upped.

Now, a headline that makes me just want to bang my head on the wall.

Via The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

DEP finds natural level of radiation in drilling water

HARRISBURG — The state Department of Environmental Protection today said tests show water supplies downstream of Marellus shale gas drilling are safe.

Samples from testing in November and December show levels of radiation at or below naturally occurring levels, the agency said.

The agency’s announcement came after lawmakers last week asked acting Secretary Michael Krancer about the need for tests for radioactivity, following a New York Times story that questioned Pennsylvania’s water safety. At his Senate confirmaton hearing, Krancer said such tests were under consideration.

Lawmakers sought reassurance that the water supply is safe. Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, said he spoke with Krancer recently.

“We need to confirm it and correct it, or dispel it,” Scarnati said of the New York Times report. He said constituents in his district, a drilling area, expressed concern.

Oh for the love of science! It just keeps getting worse. The story is fairly mundane, but that headline!

What the hell is a natural level of radiation? Forgetting even for the moment that “radiation in water” is a nonsensical statement, this takes it even one step further into the absurd.

If they mean the content of radioactive substances in the water, well that can vary quite a bit in nature and there are some natural substances that are radioactive enough to be downright dangerous. If they mean that the material that produces the radiation is natural, well, yes, that was never in dispute.

Recently found this short article online.   The subject matter relates to the potential for water contamination by natural gas exploration, which is a valid concern, although it is as much, or more, due to toxic heavy metals as naturally occurring or artificial radioisotopes.

Via Art Voice:

Does EPA under-report radiation in drinking water?

KHOU-TV in Houston reports that the EPA has long minimized the levels of radiation in the nation’s drinking water and the danger it poses. Here’s what Dr. Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research told the station:

“Where I think the EPA was wrong was in neglecting some natural radioactive materials altogether,” said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, a physicist and former advisor to the EPA on radiation science.

Makhijani, a physicist and an engineer who has a PhD from Berkeley, has testified before Congress, and has served as an expert witness in Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceedings. He now runs the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

“I have told them that their drinking water notions are dating from science from 1959,” he said.

In this week’s paper, we wrote about the use of radioactive tracer isotopes in gas drilling, and the radioactive materials brought to the surface by the process of hydraulic fracturing, as well as the long history in this region of discharging radioactive waste into our waterways.

In related news, listen to what Walter Hang, of Ithaca’s Toxics Targeting, has to say to Democracy Now about the revelations in this week’s three-part New York Times series on the disposal of wastewater generated in hydraulic fracturing.

Intentionally avoiding getting side-tracked by the fallacy that old knowledge is inherently wrong and that notions of water safety from 1959 are thus wrong by virtue of age alone…

Reporters really should not report on things that they haven’t even the most fundamental understanding of, or if they must, they really should run their article by someone who does have an idea about the subject before actually publishing it. This is a perfect example, because you don’t even have to read past the headline to realize that the author is completely clueless. Although this kind of error is common, it’s impossible to have “radiation in drinking water.”

Radiation is energy. More specifically, it is energy that is radiating out from a source. Ionizing radiation comes in the form of either particles that are racing through space or electromagnetic influence in the form of gamma ray photons. Once the particles slow down and lose their kinetic energy, they cease to be radiation, and once the gamma photon is absorbed and results in ionization, it too no longer is radiation. Radiation cannot be “in drinking water,” because it’s not a substance. It would be like saying “light in drinking water.”

If water emits ionizing radiation it is not because there’s radiation in it but because there’s a radioactive substance in it.

Nitpicking? Perhaps, but this kind of thing irritates me to no end.

One of the things I really love about the skeptic movement is that its full of passionate grassroots activists who have managed to really make a difference.   There are a lot of scams and scam artists out there and all to many of them have never been challenged.   If you see something and know it’s wrong, speak up, challenge the claims being made and look for evidence.

A great example of this is one 16 year old in the UK.   You may remember “Miracle Mineral Supplement,” a product being sold as a cure-all which is actually an industrial grade bleaching agent. Rhys Morgan has Chron’s Disease and when he saw a website advertising “Miracle Mineral Supplement” to treat his condition he was skeptical enough to do some more investigating. After discovering the facts he reported the scam to the Food Standards Agency leading to the scam being shut down, at least in the UK.

Via the BBC:

Cardiff teenager to target more ‘miracle’ cure websites
A 16-year-old praised for campaigning against a so-called miracle cure has welcomed a change in advertising rules.

The actions of Rhys Morgan, of Cardiff, who has the bowel condition Crohn’s disease, helped close websites offering Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS).

The Food Standards Agency has warned people not to consume the product.

From 1 March UK-based websites must comply with advertising rules which means they cannot publish testimonials to the alleged effectiveness of MMS.

From next month, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) says its rules will apply in full to such online marketing.

The Food Standards Agency says MMS is equivalent to industrial-strength bleach and when consumed as directed “could cause severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, potentially leading to dehydration and reduced blood pressure”.

It has ordered councils to be on the lookout for retail outlets selling the product.

Rhys, who won praise from the Food Standards Agency for his campaigning, said the advertising rules change will mean more websites selling the product could be closed down.

He said: “This will be amazing. Testimonials will count as advertising so people will have to substantiate their claims [about MMS].

“It’s going to make it much easier to get stuff taken down.”

Unfortunately, shutting down the UK-based scams won’t really stop this product from being sold on the internet. The nature of the web allows for offshore servers to continue to sell the product and the fact that it has legitimate uses in water purification, sanitation, sterilization and industry means that the chemical will still be fairly easy for quacks to get and resell. What may turn out to be the bigger achievement of Rhys is simply getting the world out and getting media attention for a horrific quack product that had previously been sold with virtually no information published about its dangers.

Rhys deserves a lot of credit for not backing down and assuming there wasn’t anything he could do about a scam. He may be just a young, middle-class student, but he’s already got a lot to be proud of.

This should be an inspiration to others. If you see a dangerous scam product, don’t just shrug your shoulders and assume there’s nothing you can do. You can make a difference. If you’re not sure what you can do, there are also a lot of skeptic advocacy groups and organizations out there who may be able to help. Ultimately though, it only takes one person to make a difference.

The Australian Vaccination Network is arguably one of the worst anti-science medical advocacy groups in any modern society. The founder, Meryl Dorey, is actually not Australian but an American transplant. The organization discourages vaccination in Australia and around the world, linking it with every evil one can imagine, from causing autism to involvement in massive international conspiracies. Dorey herself is an advocate of homeopathy and always has something stupid and offensive to say.

How could this crazy lying bitch (and I don’t usually resort to name calling, but in this case I’ll break that rule) possibly do one worse and actually surprise me with the sheer offensive gal she is throwing out.

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

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Recently someone wrote me an email asking me what I thought of Lutec and the claims made by this group. For those who don’t know, Lutec is an Australian company that several years ago claimed to have created a device capable of generating more power than it consumed, using circuitry connected to a kind of motor-generator. While they never demonstrated the machine running on its own, without external power, they claimed that the input power was considerably less than what was output.

If this were actually true, the machine should be able to power itself and still have power to spare. Even if it needed some kind of external “priming” power, or a power source or some kind of power source to buffer a non-constant power output, this could be easily accomplished with a simple system of capacitors or batteries. Thus, an “energy amplifier” could also be an “energy producer,” if such a device existed.

Based on what their website states, they seem to not understand this:

This remarkable patented technology has many possible applications. It can amplify all existing or new electricity stations production. This is done by simply adding the technology to the existing or new power stations distribution sub stations. It can therefore be applied to and amplify any size power station regardless of the type of fuel being used. It will be equally effective with coal, oil, gas, and solar, wind, and diesel, nuclear or hydro power stations.

The LEA technology can be just as effective in other applications. The input power can be supplied to a LEA system from a normal wall plug outlet, or from other types of generator or battery supply. The input causes synergistic internal events in the patented LEA motor/generator/amplifier system to increase the amount of electricity it receives at no further cost. (See the How It Works page)

The LEA technology is proven to Amplify electricity. Please note the LEA is not the same as the Lutec 1000 generator and although the patents that cover the LEA are applicable to both, the electricity amplifier is quite different from the generator.

Having made some big claims and gotten a fair amount of press, the company and system seem to have gone into a kind of stagnation, probably because the system doesn’t actually work. Still, there are those who cling to the idea and claim that it’s just a matter of putting the Lultec machine into production to end humanity’s energy problems forever.

Unfortunately there’s a big problem: The inventors of this machine made some mistakes and miscalculations. The demonstrations shown on Youtube and elsewhere are probably genuine films of the output of the Lultec machine powering light bulbs or other devices. The problem is that the machine is actually consuming significantly more power to do so than it is outputting.

This video does a pretty good job of showing their mistake…

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You may remember Sylvia Browne as the self-proclaimed psychic who managed to stay in the spotlight despite repeatedly being ridiculously wrong in damn near all of her predictions and providing entirely wrong information on missing persons to desperate loved ones.  One of her most infamous incidents was claiming that Shawn Hornbeck was dead and that she even knew some details of the location of his body – Hornbeck later turned up alive.   After this was revealed by our friend Robert Lancaster, Browne faced a harsh backlash in the media.

She had been a regular on the Montel Williams Show, but since the show went off the air, she has not been as prominent in the media.  She has, however, tried to maintain as much of a presence as she can and has continued to promote her books and speaking engagements.

It seems she has a new (and unexpectedly pathetic) pitch.  Inexplicably some media outlets continue to take her seriously enough to actually devote some precious air time to the fraudulent bitch.

She does not exactly look or sound good. Not that she ever really did…

In some ways, this route represents a safer scheme for Browne. Her claims are still sensational and touch on something that plenty of stupid people are very interested in: celebrity gossip. However, it’s also not falsifiable and can’t result in the kind of direct damage that claiming to know the location of a missing person can. The persons in question are not alive and can’t refute what Browne claims, and although the remote possibility of their estate suing may exist, that seems to be unlikely since there’s really no way to prove anything one way or another.

I do feel rather bad for the poor woman reporter who had to maintain a straight face and pretend to take this all seriously. I can’t imagine what she was thinking, but it may well have been “a masters in journalism and years of trying to work my way up and this is what I’m left doing.”

It still amazes me that the media will devote precious airtime to this pathetic joke. The public may not exactly be very skeptical when it comes to choosing what they watch, but I have to believe that most people can see through this BS.

In defense of the reputation of the community of Port Hope, Ontario, a community whose safety and livability has been slandered repeatedly, and in the defense of reason and science, here is a response to a recent editorial by the infamous Helen Caldicott.

In the interest of being sure not to be called evasive, all parts of this editorial will be independently addressed and responded to.

I challenge Ottowa Citizen or any other paper to publish a response, which I can provide in a format which is more traditional of a newspaper editorial publication. I’m only asking for the opportunity to refute these claims and show “both sides” of the story, which news outlets seem to always pride themselves on doing.

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Miss-guided though the protesters of nuclear energy are, I can’t say I delight in their deaths.   Perhaps I would if it were some of the leaders of the movement, but they’re generally too smart to put themselves in the danger they put their foot-soldiers in.

In France and Germany, nuclear materials shipped by train have been the subject of highly disruptive criminal activities.  These range from trespassing to outright destruction of rails.  Many protesters have laid themselves out on the tracks and even chained themselves to train tracks as a means of forcing the stopping of shipments.   To prevent this (and to avoid injuring or killing any of those protesters – the ones who think they’re so oppressed) huge sums of money have been spent on security and surveillance.

Despite this, it’s not possible to make sure that every inch of track is secure, especially when activists are willing to go to any means necessary to put themselves in danger.   They intentionally sneak onto areas that are hardest to secure and defeat security barriers to put themselves in front of trains.   Trains, of course, can’t stop in the way a road vehicle can.  Even a relatively small, light weight train moving at a nominal speed simply can’t be expected to stop in anything less than hundreds of meters.   If a train comes around a bend to see an activist on the tracks, all the driver can do is hit the emergency brakes, potentially damaging the train and track, but hopefully slowing it down enough for the individual to get out of the way.

That is exactly what happened in 2004, although if this idiocy continues, it may not be the last time.

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There’s a lot of crap on television, and there’s really no denying that. Yet despite this, the medium does occasionally deliver world class programing that actually is good enough to redeem its overall value. There are a huge number of shows that promote illogical thinking and unfounded claims from UFO’s to paranormal beliefs to conspiracy theories and precious few good shows with a skeptical, rational theme that portray reality for what it is.

Since others have asked for examples of such shows, and because of the general lack of programing in this nitche, I’ve started to compile a list of the few TV programs that actually do provide good rational, reality-based debunking and informing on superstition and other unfounded claims.

I will add more as I find them, so please feel free to contribute any ideas. I live in the US so this list may be skewed toward American programing, since that’s what I happen to be personally familiar with. If you know of any good additions please let me know!

Note that there are plenty of good science documentaries, so I’ve tried to keep this toward ones that focus on myths, unfounded beliefs and other areas where skepticism should be applied, as opposed to just general science-related content.

Series and Mini-Series:

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage – PBS, 1980

Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World – ITV, 1980
Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers – ITV, 1985
Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious Universe – ITV, 1994-1995

James Randi: Psychic Investigator – ITV, 1991

Is it Real? – National Geographic TV, 2005-2007

Mythbusters – Discovery Communications, 2003 – Present

Penn and Teller’s Bullshit – Showtime TV, 2003- Present

Naked Science – National Geographic Television, 2004-Present

Best Evidence – Discovery Communications, 2007-Present

Single Event Shows, Documentaries:

The Search for the Loch Ness Monster – BBC Television, 2003

The Kennedy Assassination – Beyond Conspiracy – ABC News, 2004

9/11 Conspiracy Theories – Fact or Fiction? – A&E Television (the History Channel), 2007

Peter Jennings Reporting – UFOs: Seeing is Believing – ABC News, 2007

Conspiracy Moon Landing – National Geographic TV, 2007

The Enemies of Reason – Channel 4 Television Corp, 2007

You may have heard that a few followers of doomsday christian sects have been talking a lot about May 21st of this year.   They say that this day will be the end of the world, or rather, will be the beginning of the end times, which they expect will take a few months and be complete later this year.   According to them, the 21st will be the date of the “rapture,” an event that some Christians believe will occur before the end of the world, despite the fact that it’s not actually in the Bible – at least not explicitly.

On this website, you can find the logic which is used to arrive at the date of May 21 2011:

JUDGMENT DAY: MAY 21^st, 2011
We know that the year 2011 is the 7000^th year from the flood. We also know that God will destroy this world in that year.  But when in 2011 will this occur?

The answer is amazing.  Let’s take another look at the flood account in the book of Genesis:

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

Faithful to His Word, God did bring the flood 7 days later in the 600^th year, on the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of the calendar aligned with Noah’s lifespan.  It was on this 17^th day of the 2^nd month that God shut the door on the ark,  securing the safety of its occupants and also sealing the fate of everyone else in the world outside of the ark.  They would all now certainly perish in that worldwide catastrophe.

Genesis 7:16,17 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in. And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

Earlier it was mentioned that the church age came to an end in the year 1988 AD.  It so happens that the church age began on the day of Pentecost (May 22^nd) in the year 33 AD. Then 1955 years later, the church age came to its conclusion on May 21^st, which was the day before Pentecost in 1988.

The Bible teaches that the end of the church age would occur simultaneously with the beginning of the great tribulation:

Matthew 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

On May 21^st, 1988, God finished using the churches and congregations of the world.  The Spirit of God left all churches and Satan, the man of sin, entered into the churches to rule at that point in time.  The Bible teaches us that this awful period of judgment upon the churches would last for 23 years.  A full 23 years (8400 days exactly) would be from May 21 ^st, 1988 until May 21^st, 2011.  This information was discovered in the Bible completely apart from the information regarding the 7000 years from the flood.

Therefore, we see that the full 23-year tribulation period concludes on May 21^st, 2011.  This date is the exact day that the great tribulation comes to its end, and this is also the most likely landing spot for the 7000 years from the flood of Noah’s day.

Keep in mind that God shut the door on the ark on the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of Noah’s calendar.  We also find that May 21 ^st, 2011 is the end of the great tribulation period.  There is a strong relationship between the 2^nd month and 17^th day of Noah’s calendar and May 21^st, 2011 of our Gregorian calendar.  This relationship cannot be readily seen until we discover that there is another calendar to consider, which is the Hebrew (or Biblical) calendar.  May 21 ^st, 2011 happens to be the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of the Hebrew calendar.  By this, God is confirming to us that we have a very correct understanding regarding the 7000-year timeline from the flood.  May 21 ^st, 2011 is the equivalent date to the date when God shut the door on Noah’s ark. Through this and much other Biblical information, we find that May 21 ^st, 2011 will be the day when God takes up into heaven His elect people. May 21^st, 2011 will be Judgment Day! This is the day God shuts the door of salvation on the world.

In other words, in having the great tribulation period conclude on a day that identifies with the 17^th day of the 2^nd month of Noah’s calendar, God is without question confirming to us that this is the day He intends to shut forever the door of entry into heaven:

John 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

The Bible is very clear that Christ is the only way into heaven.  He is the only portal into the glorious kingdom of heaven.

Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Once the door (Jesus) is shut on Judgment Day, there is no more salvation possible on earth:

Revelation 3:7 …These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

The Bible teaches that on May 21^st, 2011, only true believers elected by God to receive salvation will be raptured (taken up) out of this world to meet the Lord in the air and forever be with the Lord:

1 Thessalonians 4:16,17 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

All the rest of mankind (billions of people) will be left behind to experience the awful judgment of God, a horrible period of 5 months of torment upon earth:

Revelation 9:3-5 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

Hmmm… I wonder, did they remember to account for the transition between the Julian and Gregorian calenders? For the fact that leap years do not occur on years divisible by 100 but not 400? And when does judgment come? Is it as soon as the 21st happens at the International dateline? Or is it staggered based on time zones? Perhaps God just makes it easy and uses Greenwich Mean Time.

But seriously, does anyone really believe this? Apparently so.

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