As most of my international readers (and let’s face it, that’s like 800,000 per week of you, Australia only has two modems, and we have to share) are aware, our government here have been pushing an agenda to ‘censor’ the internet with a mandatory ‘clean feed’ for some time. There were protests many years ago to try and stop them but the overall response of the average punter back when they could have made a difference was “It’ll never happen.” so as much as it pains me to say it, we kind of do deserve what we get with that. But recent pure asshattery to come from our parliamentarians–who are so detached from reality they can’t even operate VCR’s, which is ironic as you can’t even buy them anymore–is something that explains why anti-virus companies were very pro-filter.
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communication (They don’t represent us, just batshit vocal minorities, I assure you) have stated that all Australian’s should be forced to install anti-virus and firewall software on their computers before being allowed to connect to the internet under a ‘new plan’ to ‘fight cyber crime’. And if their computer did get infected, internet service providers could cut off their connection until the problem was resolved.
Those are two of the recommendations to come from a year-long multi-million inquiry into cyber crime. They spent all the money on K-Rudd’s crack and then did an all nighter the night the findings were due. Results of the inquiry, titled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime, were released last night in a 260-page report, there is no mention whether it met copyspace clearance however and may have been plagerised from first year ethics students at UWA.
In her foreword, committee chair Belinda Neal said cyber crime had turned into a “sophisticated underground economy”, before taking a rasping breath from the pipe under the table. “In the past decade, cyber crime has grown from the nuisance of the cyber smart hacker into an organised transnational crime committed for vast profit and often with devastating consequences for its victims,” Ms Neal said. I postulate whether she is referring to the ‘russian mobsters’ who ‘hacked’ a dentists website and ‘uploaded child pornography’ to ‘make money’ as Senator Conman Conroy stated when asked why a dentists office was on the super secret government black list.
During its inquiry the committee heard a growing number of Australians were being targeted by cyber criminals and that increasing internet speeds were likely to make the situation worse. Something we don’t inherently need to worry about in Australia given that we still pay several hundred dollars per month for speeds not exceeding ADSL1 technology branded as ADSL2+ with a lot of fine print that anything over 56k dialup ‘in their terms’ is ADSL2+ (forget international standards here folks).
It also heard the problem was costing Australian businesses as much as $649 million a year. Including dentists with large kiddy porn collections replacing their virtual store front. The committee looked at several different examples of cyber crime, including hacking, phishing, malware and botnets. They intently carried out this research by leeching torrents, using Back Orifice on inter-office computers, and asking each other for their banking details from fraudulent hotmail accounts, such as imnotsenatorconroy@hotmail.com.
Among its final 34 recommendations were:
The creation of an around-the-clock cyber crime helpline. This, I agree with. I don’t pay for phone calls so I will ring them and chant “Cocks, cocks, cocks.” until the end of time.
Changes to the law to make unauthorised installation of software illegal. What the fuck, seriously.
Companies who release IT products with security vulnerabilities should be open to claims for compensation by consumers. This I agree with. Microsoft, give me moneys.
Another of its recommendations was to create a new “e-security code of practice” that would define the responsibilities of internet service providers and their customers. Cocks, cocks, cocks.
The code of practice would see companies like Telstra give their customers security advice when they signed up and inform them if their computer ever appeared to be compromised. More fine print we won’t read and will click yes to.
For their part, customers would have to install anti-virus and firewall software before their connection was activated and endeavour to keep the software up-to-date. It pisses me off enough as it is when they ask what kind of computer I’m using to access the net, when half the time I’m not even using a computer at all, nor any OS they’d have heard of. Find me anti-virus software for my xbox, or my iPhone hard-booted to run Lunix (yes, Lunix, no, it’s not a typo) please K-Rudd.
If a customer’s computer was infected by malware, the service provider could introduce gradual restrictions and eventually cut off their internet connection entirely until the machine was “remediated”. This implies that the Government will not only be ‘filtering’ us, but also packet sniffing our shit in a clandestine way.
This entire thing just makes me want to pre-emptively ring that hotline, or maybe Senator Conroy’s office. In fact, brb, cocks, cocks, cocks time.
This morning Australian news sensationalised (gasp, shock) a new Auditor-General’s report reveals more than 13,000 soldiers are not considered battle ready. About 7300 had either failed the basic fitness test – the most arduous element of which is a 2.4km run – or hadn’t done the test in the last six months. About 5800 Diggers failed weapons proficiency tests or were overdue for refreshers.
The Auditor-General found only 18,900 soldiers, about 53 per cent of troops, were ready to go at short notice.
Now let’s draw things into perspective. The Australian Bureau of Statistics cites that the average weekly income of an Australian is $1,268.50 with the average public sector employee being exactly a hundred more at $1,368.50. There are several methods of entry to employment with the Australian Defence Force (ADF), but I’m writing this primarily as a post-grad qualified guy who dabbled with the idea of off-setting university costs with enrolment for some time before realising it just had no financial worth at all. If you’re a professional with even reasonable qualifications you can easily make four to five times in private sector as you would with the ADF. But let’s assume you’re not.
Let’s assume you’re a regular person who signs up at age 18, for the first two years you’ll be getting 2/5ths of the average weekly wage Australian’s would get elsewhere. On completion of training, you’ll get a base wage of $25-$30k based on the salary scale on the ADF website. At the HIGHEST non-commission rank you can reach (and let’s face it, a lot of ADF personel can spend twenty years in and not get a commission) CPO/WO2/FSGT you will be on $1,138.53 so you’re still falling $100 short of the national, or $200 of pub. sec.
The biggest insult of it all is, part time ADF employees don’t pay income tax on their ADF salary, whereas full timers pay the same income tax as civillians. So drop several more hundred off that reach for full-timers as Australia is one of the worlds highest taxed nations (not to mention surprise tax, as I like to call it, on almost everything you purchase, from GST, to stamp duty, to other mythical unicorn taxes, speeding fines, bus lane fines, parking fines that hedge just short of $300 a piece, you name it).
So it’s safe to say we’re a reasonably expensive nation to live in, the ADF are paying fuck all, and then people rage at them for having people who can’t be arsed. Would you do your job for their wage? Would you do THEIR job for their wage? Fuck no.
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…”
Friedrich Nietzsche. The Gay Science (1882), s126.
Long have we theorised the above line by a madman bearing a labtern not to be talking about the literal God believed in by so many theists. Instead, we interpret, he is talking about what this god represented for European culture, the shared cultural belief in God which had once been its defining and uniting characteristic.
So to has man thrown off the yolk of theism, every element of the divine has been replicated at large through science, trickery, art, illusionism except one final element; the creation of life.
Until yesterday when flamboyant geneticist Craig Venter held true to the pledge he made nearly 15 years ago, unveiling his magnum opus. This landmark of scientific progress, published in the Journal of Science, stands on the shoulders of his race to decode the human genome in his own laboratory, egotistically his own DNA I might add.
The madman carrying this lantern has indeed created the first instance of purely synthetic life, opening the doors nanoscience falter at with the potential to create designer microbes for special jobs such as production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, through to filtering contaminents from air and water.
“This is the first synthetic life that has been made, and we call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromasome, made with four bottles of chemcals on a synthesizer from information on a computer,” Dr Venter said.
Lauded as a tour de force by Prof. Mattick from the Australian Research Council, Dr. Venters work is as ground breaking as science gets these days, the applications for man made life are phenominal and limited only by our imagination. That being said, mans imagination can often be self destructive, so think of all the fantastic synthesized zombie viruses the US military will make with this!
The bacterium used decoded DNA from Mycoplasma mycoides imprinting the synthetic DNA and inserting it into living bacterium, in this case Mycoplasma capricolum, allowing the bacterium to flourish with both it’s own and the synthetic DNA within, then finally using an antibiotic designed to kill all but the synthetic DNA allowing only the synthesized organism to proliferate and produce protein strands from the original Mycoplasma mycoides creating, simply, artificial life.
Most of you have probably seen me evangelize the wonders of API functional clients for Twitter, I have several very large Twitter accounts, @bashpr0mpt is just the one you know me as, the rest are for business, and some for pleasure. Some are just to blow off steam anonymously even. But all are pretty bloody big. So when it comes to clients, I don’t have time to fuck around with various trialware, shareware, etc. Many of you know I’m a no nonsense kind of guy and I’m not some cash strapped welfare twit either, so I’m willing to fork out some dosh for a good product. I previously threw $10 at my first API client, it was (well, later named) MyPostButler, I used it for quite some time effectively but also used several other mass-managers for Facebook and MySpace.
Ideally I eventually want to make a good multiple-network manager software, I’ve thrown up a few adverts on Freelancer to hire me some code monkeys to make this happen but unfortunately that’s a project that’s in the medium-term goals as of yet (and no you can’t have it free, but I’ll make sure it’s as near ‘at cost’ as I can make it depending on how much out of pocket I’ll be). In the interim I’m still using the dodgy mass managers for my other networks, but MPB is sadly closing it’s doors. Well, no, the owner is selling it off. The downside is there’s no assurance that the new owner will honour previous clients by providing free updates everytime Twitter change their API. Future-proofing is integral to any marketing campaign, even if you’re only marketing yourself, with your name being a brand and your product being your words, views, opinions.
Thus it became time to review Twitter managers. I tried about six in total, only one seemed to be what I needed. TweetAttack came close but it’s license fees are too steep ($200ish), TweetAdder is near identical however it lacks a few ‘spammer’ tools TweetAttack has. It should be noted that ‘spammer tools’ when used in every day life for a non-profit entity just makes managing huge bloody friends lists easier for the most part. TweetAdder does all the mass-management I need though.
5 of the main selling features for me: -
I can dump a heap of tweets and let it tweet while I’m asleep so I can keep in touch with my friends across the big puddle.
It manages who I add, and removes them if they don’t follow back within X days (I set it to a fortnight, try before you buy style.)
It remembers who you remove so you don’t add them again.
It let’s me target followers by adding people by niche interest so I -am- finding friends and not just numerics for epeen.
It keeps track of … well, EVERYTHING, and can automate everything so my life is much easier.
As many of you know, and are probably waiting for, I’m putting together a tome of the arcane magic of social networking (for fun or profit) based on my encounters with tens of thousands of fellow net socialites, so expect an entire bloody chapter on this beautiful little piece of software. I forked out $188 for my license for it, but I’ve signed up as an affiliate so I can get a discount for friends, family and followers alike, the link for it for $50 is: – http://tinyurl.com/264hl8m
Even if you’re a tight arse and never want to pay a cent for a Twitter client, hit it up and at least play with the demo and enjoy a day of power-user Twittering for the lullz. There’s no catch, no con, no sign up, no … well, nothing, just a sweet little API accessing client that’ll make your daunting user list seem easy, or make your scrawny userlist grow. :)
The downsides of this client, I might add, is the fact it’s for PC and Mac only and thus isn’t for portable devices. Which I tend to use 99% of the time. But bleh, horses for courses.
You know, that almost makes you sound like a rapper. I am writing this merely to mock you, knowing the people reading it will appreciate the tongue in cheek as I illustrate the ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’ you’re dishing out to smokers. I’m aware you’re about as detached from reality as a politician can get, but I do know the 12 year old korean sweat shop workers you have in your off shore PR department will read this and hopefully also get a chuckle at your expense.
Smoking, filthy habit, right? Some say it’s as hard as heroin to kick. In Australia, the land of the ‘surprise tax’ as I like to call it (we’re already one of the most taxed nations yet we have ‘stamp duty’ tax on … everything, which is usually 10% (see: bankrupting on your first home or car purchase by surprise tax) as well as road tax, breathing tax, you fucking name it tax) but now we have taxes on taxes. Cigarettes were always taxed at a premium, where a pack of fags would set you back $7 in the 80′s and early 90′s as opposed to $1-2 outside Australia.
Smokers clog up the healthcare system, right? What with their dying all the time and stuff, why not tax them? Fine. Smokers pay a lot more tax than any other Australian, with almost 90% of the price of them being ‘tax’ all going to the medical system. But fuck giving them organs, they’re smokers. Hell, let’s tax them more. Now we’re nearing $1 per cigarette, and what happens? The price of ‘quit smoking aids’ which always work out to cost more than cigarettes go up too.
As much as governments pretend to want us to not smoke they realise that the tax they can milk out of us by keeping us alive an average 10 years more is far less than what they can by taxing our addiction. I say this as an intermittant lifelong smoker, who quits as often as he restarts, but fairs fair this new tax has gone way too far.
Heroin addicts get shooting galleries, social support, free housing, $380 a fortnight and FREE methadone to inject instead. Smokers get mortgages, bills, two point seven five children, two cars, and a fuckload of surprise tax on top of their taxed taxes of cigartaxes and placebo ‘quit’ substitutes that freely state in their instructions that they won’t give you the ‘fix’ or ‘buzz’ of cigarettes (and thus never last more than a week in a smokers addiction).
So, I propose this K-rudd, rather than making heroin far more appealing to Australian’s, how about you cut back on the smoking tax, or even it out across the three big killers, obesity (being the biggest killer in this nation) and alcohol (and see how long it takes until parliament house is burnt down and you’r nailed to the flag pole given how crazed Aussies seem to be about drinking (coming from a non drinker here)), which I might add are two elements I do not participate in. Maybe we should have photos of the mega-litres of fat sucked out of womens arses and thighs and the horrible chaffed cellulite gone necrotic fat people get attached to every edible product? Why stop there, why don’t we up the gore level and throw up some awesome pics from ogrish of splatter deaths from drunken road kills of people?
Or better yet, maybe repeal the tax and stop being a cunt, eh?
Much love,
BaSH (Your #1 Fan) PR0MPT
Ps: Why the fuck did I vote for him? I guess he was Obama before Obama, he looked good because the competition was horrendous, and promised the right things, then backflipped on all of them.
“Absolute political cowardice… an absolute failure of leadership.”1 That’s what Kevin Rudd said just months ago about those who wanted to delay action on climate change. He was right.
Yesterday Kevin Rudd betrayed his promise to act on climate change, deferring action until 2013: six years after he called climate change the moral challenge of our age.
So what can we do about it? To start, we have to ensure this doesn’t go unnoticed – doesn’t go unanswered. Every Australian who took the Prime Minister at his word should see this video of his climate backflip.
The Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was a mess of a policy: a paltry 5% target, and what the Govenrment’s own advisor, Prof. Ross Garnaut, called “one of the worst examples of policy making we have seen on major issues in Australia.”2 But this is about far more than another policy delay.
Time and again, Kevin Rudd has betrayed the support Australians gave him last election. And yesterday, he broke faith with us on “the great challenge of our time.”3 It is time to say enough. It is time to take a stand and declare a vote of no confidence in Kevin Rudd’s leadership on climate change.
We could say a lot about this latest backflip, but Kevin Rudd himself perhaps said it best. Here’s what he said just months ago about delaying climate action:
“….When you strip away all the political rhetoric, all the political excuses, there are two stark choices – action or inaction.”
“…The resolve of the Australian Government is clear: we choose action, and we do so because Australia’s fundamental economic and environmental interests lie in action. Action now. Not action delayed.”
“…the eighth excuse cannot be far away – which will be to wait until the next year or the year after until all the rest of the world has acted at which time Australia will act.
“…What absolute political cowardice. What an absolute failure of leadership. What an absolute failure of logic.”4
The Prime Minister said it right, what absolute cowardice. And as he said in that same speech:
“It’s time to remove any polite veneer from this debate. The stakes are that high.”
Right again: it’s time to remove the veneer and speak truth to power. Please share this post with friends, and click below to join the vote of no confidence in Kevin Rudd’s climate decision, just a warning though do NOT donate to GetUp!, their donations are spent how they see fit and it is VERY rare they will put much of the funds to use on the topic at hand. One example was the anti-censorship issue, they raised $300,000 and donated $1,000 to the cause and spent the rest on self promotion under cause-oriented guise.
www.getup.org.au/campaign/climateinaction
PS – On refugees, on human rights and now on climate change, Kevin Rudd has broken faith with all Australians.
–Sources–
1The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP, Distinguished Speaker Series, the Lowy Institue, 06/11/ 2009.
2Prof. Ross Garnaut, The 7.30 Report, ABC, broadcast: 12/10/2009, reporter: Kerry O’Brien.
3The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP, Opening Remarks to the National Climate Change Summit, Parliament House, Canberra, 31/03/07
4The Hon. Kevin Rudd MP, Distinguished Speaker Series, the Lowy Institue, 06/11/ 2009.
7,000 screaming pubescent teenage females rushed the barricades like estrogen fuelled psycho hose beasts for the party frank of a 16 year old boy who resembles a 9 year old (polar opposite of a manchild) who sounds like a 12 year old girl.
What’s wrong with this picture? What the fuck is right with it? (If you answered nothing, read on, else beat yourself across the head, re-read, and repeat until enlightenment)
It’s 2010, when our prime minister lied about stopping Japanese illegal whaling, withdrawing our troops from America’s war against adjectives, and getting rid of the vile fuck-the-workers “work choices” scheme … we saw no one swamp the streets to protest.
In 2008 during the mandatory censorship protests we saw only 5,000 mob Town Hall to protest the decay of Internet freedom in our nation not to mention free speech at the draconian hands of Senator-can’t-program-a-VCR Conroy.
What is wrong with a society which has crazed teen girls acting like sleazy 40 year old men with their hand in their pocket over some kid? In what jilted fucked up take of reality do we see people mobbing barricades and police lines over some b-grade net celebrity? When did Australia turn into the US?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that teenage females are the least intellectually gifted let alone autonomous minority in our society and I’m also aware that they’re brain washed to be the future of mindless consumption technicians that will keep our male workforce subjugated; but there’s something seriously wrong with parents who don’t discourage clearly unhealthy behaviour.
I don’t have children, well none that Centrelink can prove are mine, and I’m personally a fan of ‘late term’ abortions up to the age of 35, but seriously, seeing this in the news disgusted me.
These silly little trollops need to watch less OC/hills/jersey shore and get the fuck back into a classroom or better yet an adidas sweat shop. We boggle our logic to no end trying to figure out why women are paid less than men and have more dick-in-butt ratio in the socio-economic front yet allow borderline psychotic behaviour and encourage hive mentality and worship of TV-told-me-to tin gods. No male would get away with that over any female without their mates outright telling them they’re bent in the head and probably slap them around when they won’t talk about anything but their obsession. Not to mention the extremes many young girls go to (see: changing their online surnames everywhere to reflect obsessed marital fantasies) are just bizarre and unhealthy.
How young females can’t see that there’s no such tangible thing as a ‘fanboy’ but ‘fangirl’ is an ever present term and not appreciate that they’re jipping themselves out of individualistic thought or gender rights progression is beyond me.
Pre-pube girls, grow the fuck up. Pre-pube girl parents, put them in therapy you disillusioned cunts.
As most of you are aware I’ve been examining online ‘money making’ drivel and usually exposing the bullshit behind it and the con artists who’re reaping the rewards. From ‘get paid to tweet’ to MLM I’ve pointed out quite a few organisations and people who are dodgy. This time I’ve been proven wrong. WHAT? ME? WRONG? Only marginally though. $5 in a month is NOT an income.
Credit where credit is due, if you really want to be a knob and try and make a buck on the internet, try Sponsored Tweets, they’re run by IZEA a ‘Social Media Marketing’ business with decent sponsors. Lifestyle Channel have taken an interest in my blog adventures and whilst I am being derisive by saying $5 in a month that’s because it took a month for them to send me an offer, it works out to be $5 per tweet they feed into my stream, which could be a money winner if you talk about crap that will attract the right sponsors I guess? Their banners aren’t all that crappy too if you’re into the whole affiliate marketing crap, but I for one don’t see any value for time in that stuff. Example below.
Anyway, that’s as much as an update you’re going to get, so you CAN make money online but not enough to buy a beer down the pub. :)
I was recently suggested a read by a friend, Dr. John L. Turner (add him on twitter, @DrJohnLTurner), of a document entitled Bioelectromagnetic Healing, A Rationale for Its Use by Thomas F. Valone, Ph.D. published in 2003. This work was vanity published by his own sock puppet ‘charity’ organisation called the ‘Integrity Research Institute,’ which he is, surprise surprise, the President of. A brief review of his curriculum vitae reveals that he has no published works in any respectable scientific journal, nor any peer reviewed scientific journal or publication out of all his publications; they’re all primarily through his ‘Integrity Research Institute.’
REMEMBER: PSEUDOSCIENCE KILLS.
Click here to review individual instances of pseudoscience and alternative medicine being at fault in over 368,379 people dying, 306,096 injured and over $2,815,931,000 in economic damages.
I don’t mean to rag on him too much by the way, he seems to be a TAFE teacher (by Australian standards, or primarily a ‘community college’ instructor by US standards) and has clearly worked with some brilliant chaps too; my disdain isn’t against this individual but merely his actions as a proponent of deadly conspiracy and pseudoscience peddling. That being said he can be found on YouTube making an ass of himself talking about UFOs and conspiracies.
Before reading through this review, or maybe even after, watch this video on critical thinking for a general primer on how to approach … well, just about anything utilising the illumination of critical thought and the scientific mind!
I was cynical from the commencement reading this material, as I have read hundreds of papers debunking magetic therapy, the dedication at the begining of the work mentioning a naturopath was not reassuring. The preface is a very stereotypical opening shot of anecdote, as with most ‘alternative medicine‘ someone always knows someone who X, Y and Z, but sadly none of these people manage to deliver even a scrap of scientific proof nor are any of these wonderous revolutionary discoveries ever distributed to peer reviewed journals where the reading (and commenting) audience are medically or scientifically trained. We all know why that is.
The kicker that already got my eyes rolling out of my head was the defecting Russian scientist, who spoke of awesome ‘energy healing‘ methods through magnetic devices which, when pointed at the ear of a subject with an ear infection for a few minutes, would destroy the infection. If ANYONE can reproduce that in a lab under ANY form of scientific scrutiny, I will gladly sell all my possessions, hand them the cash, then promptly jump off a cliff. I shit you not, I WILL stake my entire life on the fact that ALL alternative medicine is a farce. A dangerous farce at that, killing millions the world over who, through ignorance, or irresponsibility of others putting forth puff where one should be proposing medicine and science, die and cause massive financial, emotional, and general harm to people every day. I feel safe in my bet on this one though: -
“I know of no scientist who takes this claim seriously…It’s another fad. They come and go like copper bracelets and crystals and all of these things, and this one will pass too.” –Robert Park of the American Physical Society.
“Iron atoms in a magnet are crammed together in a solid state about one atom apart from one another. In your blood only four iron atoms are allocated to each hemoglobin molecule, and they are separated by distances too great to form a magnet. This is easily tested by pricking your finger and placing a drop of your blood next to a magnet. ” –Michael Shermer*
“The more extreme claims of magnetic therapy, such as curing cancer by hanging supermagnets around your neck, are not only nonsense but also dangerous, since they may divert patients from seeking appropriate treatment from mainstream medicine. Magnetic jewelry and most other magnetic-therapy products probably are harmless beyond a waste of money.” –James D. Livingston*
By page 4 the author is already claiming magnets are ‘the medicine of the future’, an ongoing cliche comment from all alternative medicine and snake oil peddlers in general. This magnet shit was mostly hashed out in the 70′s, with magnetic rooms, or ion charging units in sweat lodges in Europe would charge tens of thousands for ‘therapy,’ or the pleasure of sitting on a seat awkwardly in the middle of a room in your underwear whilst your healers snort the cash you’ve given them like hoovers. The whole ‘electro’ fad was exhausted by the 1930′s and debunked by most educated fellows.
One can’t go very far in the realm of ‘alternative medicine’ without striking on an Edison or Tesla reference, this work doesn’t disappoint, albeit I did find the uber professionalism of the author in one outstanding statement that pretty much sets the feel for the rest of the narrative of pseudoscience: -
Key sections are noted with a :) symbol to indicate importance.
Brilliant, right? In the 1930′s, as the author even states, such ridiculous claims were put forwards such as Tesla’s high frequency currents “are bringing about a highly beneficial result in dealing with cancer, surpassing anything that could be accomplished with ordinary surgery.” Statements like that are what people term as anecdotal; they’re not scientific, nor is any credential other than that of the conman or his associates put on the line. If it were submitted for peer review scientific journals by modern standards they’d be ridiculed openly and debunked, if not outright exposed, as phoneys. We all know electricity won’t cure cancer. If it did, we wouldn’t be spending billions in cancer research, nor spending even more in socialist states like Australia to fund the treatment of cancer patients if mere electro-shock will cure it.
Tim Harlow, general practitioner, Colin Greaves, research fellow, Adrian White, senior research fellow, Liz Brown, research assistant, Anna Hart, statistician, Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine conducted a large scale scientific examination of energy healing, with a focus on magnets, these findings were published in an esteemed and peer reviewed journal, British Medical Journal, Dec. 2004.
Skip to the bottom of this article to see other findings from other scientists that have been submitted to REAL journals and published BY presses that aren’t owned by those conducting the research.
That being said, we still have some whacky psychiatrists (mostly in Western Australia at Graylands (movies have been made about that place and this practice) who believe that electro-shock therapy is effective in dealing with depression and anxiety conditions. The figures probably come from the fact people will behave the way the doctors want because they don’t want a fucking jumper cable put to their temples again; not to mention in extreme cases these practices cause indirect lobotomies, but have as unpredictable a result as inserting a screw driver into your cars ignition, hitting it with a 20 lb sledge hammer, and hoping it starts.
By page 12 the author had lost me with far too much blatent pseudo-science, so I decided to look into him a bit more, examine his writing style. He seems to apply many footnotes, but I noticed that there are none beyond the 90s if not even the 70s that AREN’T published in some wanky new age touchy feely hippy publication, or vanity pressing. All the rest of the footnotes are from things from the late 1870s through to the 1930s, so we’re already dealing with someone who is structuring their research to suit their argument, as opposed to conducting research to present their argument be it right or wrong.
By page 13 the author is citing conspiracy theory books claiming that there is suppression by ‘big pharma’ to prevent the world being this wonderful utopia as peddled by snake oil salesmen. At this point I realised I could not go any further without losing all respect for myself. Cute read, non-scientific, all point of view, all flawed research.
Further reading:
Colbert, A. P., Wahbeh, H., Harling, N., Connelly, E., Schiffke, H. C., Forsten, C., Gregory, W. L., Markov, M. S., Souder, J. J., Elmer, P., King, V. (2009). Static Magnetic Field Therapy: A Critical Review of Treatment Parameters. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 6: 133-139 [Abstract][Full text]
Boutron, I., Moher, D., Altman, D. G., Schulz, K. F., Ravaud, P., for the CONSORT Group, (2008). Extending the CONSORT Statement to Randomized Trials of Nonpharmacologic Treatment: Explanation and Elaboration. ANN INTERN MED 148: 295-309 [Abstract][Full text]
Rumbaut, R. E., Mirkovic, D. (2008). Magnetic therapy for edema in inflammation: a physiological assessment. Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. 294: H19-H20 [Full text]
Barron, M. C., Rubin, B. R. (2007). Managing Osteoarthritic Knee Pain. J Am Osteopath Assoc 107: ES21-ES27 [Abstract][Full text]
Pittler, M. H. MD PhD, Brown, E. M. BSc, Ernst, E. MD PhD (2007). Static magnets for reducing pain: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. CMAJ 177: 736-742 [Abstract][Full text]
Katz, W. A. (2007). Themed Review: Nonpharmacologic Approaches to Osteoarthritis. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF LIFESTYLE MEDICINE 1: 249-255 [Abstract]
Kuipers, N. T., Sauder, C. L., Ray, C. A. (2007). Influence of static magnetic fields on pain perception and sympathetic nerve activity in humans. J. Appl. Physiol. 102: 1410-1415 [Abstract][Full text]
Bjordal, J, Conaghan, P G (2006). NSAIDs in osteoarthritis: irreplaceable or troublesome guidelines?. Br. J. Sports. Med. 40: 285-286 [Full text]
Finegold, L., Flamm, B. L (2006). Magnet therapy. BMJ 332: 4-4 [Full text]
Rubin, B. R. (2005). Management of Osteoarthritic Knee Pain. J Am Osteopath Assoc 105: S23-S28 [Abstract][Full text]
Winemiller, M. H., Billow, R. G., Laskowski, E. R., Harmsen, W. S. (2005). Effect of Magnetic vs Sham-Magnetic Insoles on Nonspecific Foot Pain in the Workplace: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Mayo Clin Proc. 80: 1138-1145 [Abstract]
McDonald, H. L (2005). Patients who wore standard magnetic bracelets reported reduced pain from osteoarthritis of the hip or knee compared with patients wearing placebo bracelets. Evid. Based Nurs. 8: 89-89 [Full text]
McCrory, P (2005). The power of placebo. Br. J. Sports. Med. 39: 125-125 [Full text]
(2005). Robin Goodfellow (44-3). Rheumatology (Oxford) 44: 418-418 [Full text]
I came across an article by a journalist recently that discussed the abuse of child abuse and the utilisation of it as an excuse for poor life choices, below is a pungent passage that really outlines how these anti-abuse crusaders are truly batshit insane, direct link to the article after the excerpt: -
In her autobiography, In The Best Interests of the Child, Hetty Johnston, founder of Bravehearts and unquestionably Australia’s most prominent voice on child sexual assault, documents three childhood incidents that, as far as she is concerned, place her within the realm of the abused: the first sees Hetty and her sisters returning from the beach one day when “a man stepped out of a public toilet that happened to be situated in a park on our route and dropped his towel to reveal his nakedness”; the second takes place at the beach also, when an argument with an unknown adult results in the man slapping young Hetty in the face “so hard that I could only see stars for about five minutes”; and the third involves a man at an indoor pool who, while playfully throwing children in the pool, places “a hand in my crutch as he thrust me skyward.
“For me,” Hetty writes, “these occurrences have not left any indelible imprint but they do raise an interesting point. Statistically speaking, I had become the ‘one in four’ girls who had been sexually assaulted before the age of eighteen. But these were statistics I was to discover later in life. Right now, I was just a kid trying to negotiate the adult world. No big deal really.”
This passage is striking. Not only does it reveal to us the relatively commonplace occurrences that pass for “child sexual assault” in the minds of today’s crusaders, but it exposes them as incidents that, as unsavoury as they may be, are almost rites of passage for children of the modern world, blown off as “no big deal” by Hetty Johnston herself, one of the hottest, angriest winds in the current storm of hysteria. Could all this fear and counter-fear be about something which, for the most part, is nothing to get excited about?
To read more, go here: http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/the_abuse_of_child_abuse/
Overnight a ‘Young Liberal’ (for non-Australians, a member of a youth aged party of our bipartisan system over here, the more conservative side) labeled Barack Obama a ‘monkey’ and made a series of slurs against him. I quite like Obama, but to be honest I’m shocked that this has roiled the vapid cyber stalkers of the more left of center websites. To clarify, I’m more a centrist, so I think both the left and right are batshit fucking insane.
Nick Sowden’s interview with Crikey is a joke! Claims a conspiracy and that Young LNP is just dumping moderates ahead of upcoming convention
Sowden received an email from Joel Harrop, Liberal National Party president, this afternoon. It said a meeting had been convened and a unanimous decision taken to withdraw his membership after he branded US president Barack Obama a “monkey” last night.
Harrop said Sowden had been found to have brought the LNP into disrepute and engaged in “conduct severely harmful to the best interests of the party”. He has been sacked from the LNP and the Young LNP organisation.
What exactly were his tweets?
@nicksowden Im not sure why they paid kerry to fly to America, if they wanted an interview with a monkey surely a Ferry to Taronga would have sufficed.
@nicksowden If i wanted to see a monkey on TV id watch Wildlife Rescue. #justsaying #obama730
@nicksowden Also, why did we pay Kerry to go to US when Obama is coming to Aus in June? #flail
Amidst a lot of other general shit talking, this guy clearly illustrated his ability to offend. Now I don’t for one second apologise for, nor agree with anything this kid has said, but what I truly and honestly feel is that these wannabe cyber-social justice administrators are equally worse, just because their target isn’t someone high profile, their attempt to systematically destroy this kid just for him spouting off like a moron is ridiculous.
“I do not agree with what you say, but I will die for your right to say it.”
Free speech is something which both the lefties and the righties will say is of the utmost importance for a democracy. Free speech comes hand in hand with offense, offense is the cost of democratic thought. Offense is something that those who are offended need to build a bridge and get the fuck over, because I’m 100% positive Obama has copped worse shit from real nasties in his time and his shown time and time again that his skin is thick enough to not need sycophantic sociopath wankers with machine gun keyboards to come to his defense.
“Pinball on Crikey
April 16, 2010 at 12:16 PM
It is a bit scary that this guy is going to be a doctor one day. I wouldn’t want him looking after my health.
If he can’t understand that broadcasting his racist and sexist views across the internet isn’t a good idea, even if it is in jest (like he is now trying to claim), then how is he going to have the mental capacity to diagonose and treat paitents correctly?
I think I’m going to start a list of future doctors to refuse treatment from.”
How fucking narrow minded does one have to be to discriminate as to who provides them healthcare? If you read through all these comments flaming this tool you’ll find that each person seems equally batshit mental in their own ‘special’ little way.
Amusingly enough I’m watching a show about early punk bands that would have a hammer and sickle on the stage just to ‘piss people off’ even though they weren’t commies, yet pointed out that communist thought was worse than child molestation, drawing jeers of ‘get off the stage faggot’, offense for the sake of offense is as ancient as the hills, from the philosophers of rome, through to pop artists, or half the music scene; but if you’re trolling but not on a stage apparently that’s the new ‘child molester’ categorization these days.
Click here to watch a live Google stream of the crazy internet hate machine at it’s finest.
One comment the kid mentioned in his defense I entirely agree with, albeit it may be one of the few things I entirely agree with that he’s said:
I know that the work I DO, is much more worthwhile than the veil of political correctness that those hiding behind their blogs will ever achieve to end disadvantage.
Watching it at the moment, it’s one of those tabloidesque sensationalised ultra-conservative news shows, we have two on at the same time on two of the three free to air commercial channels in Australia (hence why we all have cable TV) for ribbing his news host.
Kyle, for those outside the country, is a shock jock who’s just abrasive as fuck, but in no real way differs from .. well, the average Australian as far as our twisted senses of humour go. He is however a big target for journo’s with nothing better to publish about.
I’ll post a YT link to it when someone uploads it, which they surely will. In the interim, check out the plethora of videos already up of him causing a stir and being GASP OFFENSIVE.
I was reading several articles on the usual rah rah fight the power stuff you see about the internet filter, along with typical neo-conservative bullshit as to why their morals should be enforced on all of society, then I read the following few paragraphs: -
“The Rudd Government does not support Refused Classification content being available on the internet. This content includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.
Under Australia’s existing classification regulations this material is not available in newsagencies, it is not on library shelves, you cannot watch it on a DVD or at the cinema and it is not shown on television. Refused Classification material is not available on Australian hosted websites.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and will probably have this thrown in my face at a later date, but … ever wonder WHY the internet is so popular? Because you can’t get good porn in a newsagent, fuck, when have you EVER seen a porn flick in a cinema? Or on TV? Maybe 60 year old pollies can get their budgie smugglers in a bunch over softcore nipple slips, but seriously.
It’s 2010, let’s all be mature here. Permit me another copy-paste: -
“Hunt’s 1974 study suggests that the demographic changes led to a significant change in reported occurrence. Males in 1974 were 4.9% (1948: 8.3%), and in females in 1974 were 1.9% (1953: 3.6%). Miletski believes this is not a reduction in interest but a reduction in opportunity.[9]
Nancy Friday’s 1973 book on female sexuality, My Secret Garden, comprised around 190 fantasies from different women; of these, 23 involve zoosexual activity.[10]
In one study, psychiatric patients were found to have a statistically-significant higher prevalence rate (55 percent) of reported bestiality, both actual sexual contacts (45 percent) and sexual fantasy (30 percent) than the control groups of medical in-patients (10 percent) and psychiatric staff (15 percent).[11] Crépault and Couture (1980) reported that 5.3 percent of the men they surveyed have fantasized about sexual activity with an animal during heterosexual intercourse.[12] A 1982 study suggested that 7.5 percent of 186 university students had interacted sexually with an animal.[13]”
This is ganked straight from Wikipedia. Another quote from Wikipedia on HUMAN sexuality: -
“The largest and most thorough survey in Australia to date was conducted by telephone interview with 19,307 respondents between the ages of 16 and 59 in 2001/2002. The study found that 97.4% of men identified as heterosexual, 1.6% as gay and 0.9% as bisexual. For women 97.7% identified as heterosexual, 0.8% as lesbian and 1.4% as bisexual.”
So whilst I’m well aware that the statistics used were from the US, let’s also point out that they were in the 70′s, before the internet has opened the minds (and beds) of billions of people to freaky shit.
Now let’s just take a minute to evaluate things. The ACMA is trying to enforce morals and values of the average Australian. What is the average Australian in 2010 with internet access? Do we find bestiality that abhorrent? It’s popularity in no way validates it as being moral, or right, nor does it’s immorality imply it is inherently wrong as let’s face it, on my shelf in my study I have a book published in the 70′s of human psychological problems and paraphillias, and listed amongst all kinds of fucked up stuff is homosexuality. That’s 30-40 years ago. Attitudes change, society becomes more open minded, or at least tolerant of the fact that it’s no ones business who fucks what in the where as long as it doesn’t involve abuse, harm, or illegality, right?
I’m not so much defending merely bestiality; let’s face it sexualised violence is NORMAL in porn. Be it Rocco Sifreddi turkey slapping the neighbourhood bike through to gently-gently spank me I’ve been bad crap it’s absolutely beyond any doubt blown into the mainstream with BDSM becoming almost ‘trendy’.
So what do we do here? Do we blanket arrest people who participate in bestiality and sexualised violence? I’m not even going to TOUCH on the issue of kiddy fiddling that is indefensible, however the pedo’s will still be trading their filth on CD’s in flea markets or where ever rock spiders hang out these days, but the fact of the matter is that blanket arrests seem dumb for people who like spankings, right? So to does the idea of censoring MILLIONS of internet users access to the net at a MANDATORY level of ‘RC’ content when your concept of ‘RC’ is so fucking outdated that it makes your tie look en vogue.
In conclusion, Senator Conroy and the nanny state Waffen-Shutzstaffel … kindly fuck off.
“- AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has hit back at a jibe by US actor/comedian Robin Williams that Australians are just “English rednecks”.
Williams, who recently toured Australia, made the comment while appearing as a guest on the popular “Late Night with Dave Letterman Show”, the Herald Sun reports.
“The Australians are basically English rednecks. ‘You down there, how are ya? Good to see you. Hello’,” he said.
Speaking to Triple M radio show host Eddie McGuire in Melbourne on Wednesday, Mr Rudd said: “First of all, I think Robin Williams should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck.” -”
Cool story News Ltd, just one thing K. Rudd my man; “NO U!” is NOT a witty response. In any circumstance. Unless you’re an internet tough guy slogging it out with fellow noble literati’s. That’s another story.
I concur with Mr. Williams. Any man brave enough to travel his years with a chicks name is clearly right in all things. And better be well hung to boot.
Imagine you’re a member of X department of law enforcement and you arrive at a shopping complex to find 1,000 people looting. What will you do?You can’t arrest them all. You have a camcorder handy so you document them, some wearing ID cards that can be eventually traced back to their residences, some are fake and trace back to monestaries in Uzbekistan. You document the event anyway, because once this all blows over you can send a copy of this to the criminal investigation team back at the office and they can trawl through the data and eventually catch these people, right?
What if once these thousand leave another thousand come? And another, and another? What if half of them are severed arms with a sock on the hand bearing no identifying feature? Tens or thousands, many automata? What if half the real people are merely people who had their houses looted by the other half and are trying to make up for their lost kitchen appliances?
Then you’re on Twitter and the looting you’re seeing is the wallets of idiot users who humour any get rich scam.
Legal reprocussions are few and far between primarily due to the massive amount of scammers you see out there. Law enforcement can’t catch them all; albeit Twitter does have a duty of care to shut these scammers down, which I can safely say they fail at (I’ve been suspended for ‘spamming’ on one account because every 24 hours it posted a link to a list of users who follow for follow (@f4fhub on Twitter) only to note that I clean a good hundred MLM scammers per day off my friends list who scam with impunity.
How can you spot a scammer? They tend to follow a simple protocol, most have display pictures of greed motiffs or a business like face shot trying to be ‘approachable’, fair to say most impersonate females because females will get a thousand flowers for every hundred an identical male account would get. Quotes or inspirational snips will be the majority of their tweets, it fills in space between their scams and is often RSS fed in from a random web document.
There really is no excuse to fall for scams, or buy into get rich quick schemes. But rest assured, if you do buy into an MLM scam you’ll be spending the next hundred years spamming YOUR friends list (and thus marginalizing, eventually losing them) trying to con them into your scam to make up for your loss.
Posted: March 24th, 2010
Categories: op ed
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Goodbye Democracy, Alo Presidente (Or: Chavez is a muppet)
As we learned last summer in Iran, whenever a dictatorial regime senses trouble in Totalitarianville, one of the first things it does is tighten its grip on the media. And whenever the thick walls of censorship go up, Twitter is there to slip through the cracks.
Case in point: Venezuela, where we may be witnessing the signs of an Iran-like brouhaha. With its economy floundering, crime rates skyrocketing, and civil unrest escalating, Venezuela isn’t exactly the happiest place on Earth these days. In the face of this discontent, President Hugo Chavez has decided to step up his propaganda game and has unleashed a major campaign to suppress any oppositional media outlets. When five cable stations recently refused to broadcast one of his speeches, Chavez ordered them to shut down operations, a decree that set off a firestorm of protests, police intervention, and the eventual death of two student dissidents.
The catalyst behind most of these protests is, of course, Twitter, which anti-Chavez activists have used to organize demonstrations and to spread their cause internationally. Dissidents have also taken to Facebook, where a group titled “Chavez esta PONCHAO!” (“Chavez, you struck out!”) is already 80,000 members strong. Chavez, not surprisingly, has undertaken efforts to squash this social media mini-revolution, going so far as to equate Twitter, the Internet, and text-messaging (?) with “terrorism”. As FOX News reports, Chavez has promised a “radical” response to the Twitter-fueled uprising, and has already “launched an army of Twitter users to bring down online networks and try to infiltrate student groups.”
Chavez used his weekly propaganda television and radio show ‘Alo Presidente’ to rally Latin America behind the ’cause’ of his Argentine counterpart Cristina Kirchner by making a direct demands to Buckingham Palace.
“Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas? Queen of England, I’m talking to you. The time for empires are over, haven’t you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people.” ignoring the fact all occupants of the Falklands are British citizens and don’t want a bar of South America and their petty dictators.
Still addressing the Queen, he went on: “The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then.”
He described British control of the islands in the South Atlantic as “anti-historic and irrational”.
Mrs Kirchner sought to win new allies in Argentina’s claims to the islands when she made a direct appeal for support at a meeting in Mexico of the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Venezuela and Nicaragua rallied to Argentina’s side even before Mrs Krichner’s appeal, and it was reported that Brazil was ready to support any resolution backing Argentina’s sovereignty claims.
Argentine anger is likely to increase after Desire Petroleum, the British oil company that has towed a rig from Scotland to about 60 miles off the north of the Falklands, announced on Monday it had begun drilling, the natural gas and oil surrounding the Falklands are naturally the only reason Argentinians suddenly interested, as most South American countries are in dire financial shape.
Argentina is attempting to hamper oil exploration, insisting last week that all vessels using its ports must now seek permission if they plan to enter or leave British-controlled waters. Argentina wants other South American countries to impose its transport restrictions to the Falklands but it is unlikely to win support from those closest to the islands such as Chile and Uruguay.
Chile, Argentina’s traditional enemy, has long been a major supplier to the Falklands. An operations manager of a Uruguayan shipping agency who came out to Port Stanley on Saturday to discuss business was dismissive about the effectiveness of the latest Argentine decree.
Meanwhile, passengers from the British cruise liner Star Princess disembarked at Port Stanley on Monday for a day trip after the vessel reported leaving Buenos Aires with no demand for permission to sail to the Falklands.
Stepping on to the jetty for a few hours watching penguins or touring one of the battlefields from the 1982 war, passengers said the ship’s captain had reassured them several days ago it was “perfectly safe” to get off at when they reached the islands.
However, Maurice and Sylvia Bellamy from Felixstowe reported some unusual Falklands-related advice had been issued over the ship’s tannoy system.
“They told us we had to refer to the islands as the Falklands when we were there but as the Malvinas when we were in Argentina,” said Mr Bellamy, 74.
Argentina wants other South American countries to impose its transport restrictions to the Falklands but this would mean that they, too, could miss out on the lucrative profits from providing refining and port facilities if, as drillers believe, large amounts of oil and natural gas are retrieved off the Falklands.
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I usually avoid posting about truly personal things, and stick to keeping religion, politics, or any such similar things clear of my public life; however I recently found myself reading 65 pages of ancient poetry. There’s possibly nothing in the world more shit than poetry, but ancient poetry is just an entirely new shade of shit nature never knew existed. Soooo exciting!
The poem in question is a Masonic manuscript known as The Halliwell Manuscript or the Regius Poem. The first known Masonic text. The poem begins by evoking Euclid and his invention of geometry in ancient Egypt and then the spreading of the art of geometry in “divers lands.” This is followed by fifteen points for the master concerning both moral behaviour (do not harbour thieves, do not take bribes, attend church regularly, etc.) and the operation of work on a building site (do not make your masons labour at night, teach apprentices properly, do not take on jobs that you cannot do etc.). There are then fifteen points for craftsmen which follow a similar pattern.
The general consensus on the age of the document dates its writing to between the late 1300s and the middle of the 15th century, and from internal evidence its author appears to have been a West of England clergyman. The manuscript was recorded in various personal inventories as it changed hands until it came into possession of the Royal Library, which was donated to the British Museum in 1757 by King George II to form the nucleus of the present British Library.
During this time, the document was generally described as a poem of moral duties. The significance of the document as relating to Freemasonry was not realized until it was featured in an article on Freemasonry by James Halliwell in 1840.
The text of the document states that Freemasonry was brought to England during the reign of King Athelstan from 924 to 939.
The manuscript is presently held by the British Library in the Royal Manuscript Collection, catalogue reference 17 A. I. Or go here if you think you’re tough enough to handle 60+ pages of drivel: ttp://www.masonicdictionary.com/regius.html
Don’t get me wrong btw folks, I love history and all things of that ilk, although I can’t deny how painfully dull a lot of it is to read in depth! :P
Two things made me facepalm today, I was going to tweet about them but after many rewrites it was impossible to squeeze either into 140 characters.
Skatestan. Australian skaters in Afghanistan trying to use skating as a segue to engage kids there, a nation where 50% of the population are 16 and under.
The organizers pointed out that girls thrashing boys gives them a life lesson that they can do anything men can. I can’t help but wonder how many stonings will derive from changing one element such as the belief of Afghani women.
Sure, empowerment is good, but when you forget to tell the boys a girl beating them doesn’t mean they can flog her; well that’s plain silly. Need I even mention the fact skateboards will just provide suicide bombers with a way to go out kickin’ rad style? :P
The second is Anonymous DDoSing Australian government websites. It merely reaffirmed politicians detached-from-reality belief that the Internet is a haven of criminals and kiddy touchers. Especially given every anon and ther dog were throwing themselves, curtains and all, at the press wanting to get their name in print; such awesome soundbytes of “Don’t fuck with our porn!” isn’t marginalizing your cause at all!
