Category Archives: Balderdash and Hoaxes

The chemtrail conspiracy nonsense

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Chemtrail conspiraciesScientists need not apply for membership in the Chemtrail Conspiracy. In fact, scientists will probably be booted out for even walking on the same street where the meeting is being held. That’s because scientists would shine a light into the utter darkness of this nutty conspiracy. According to Wikipedia:

The chemtrail conspiracy theory holds that some trails left by aircraft are chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for purposes undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programs directed by various government officials.[1] This theory is not accepted by the scientific community, which states that they are just normal contrails, as there is no scientific evidence supporting the chemtrail theory.

Okay, so does it make sense to you that millions of people are involved in some bizarre worldwide conspiracy that involves every level of government, the military, the medical community, meteorologists, scientists AND private industry in numerous countries simultaneously, and not ONE has ever become a whistle blower? Not ONE has ever gone public with PROOF?

As Skeptoid notes,

Like all conspiracy theories, chemtrails require us to accept the existence of a coverup of mammoth proportions. In this case, virtually every aircraft maintenance worker at every airport in the world needs to be either part of the conspiracy, or living under a threat from Men in Black, with not a single whistle blower or deathbed confession in decades. Or that for all the thousands of traditional media outlets around the world that have the resources and willingness to do solid investigative journalism, not a single one has dredged up as much as a single provable fact that this isn’t just a self-inflicted mass delusion?

Come on – this chemtrail stuff is so wacky it makes creationism and Scientology look smart. But hey, silliness was never a barrier to joining the tin foil hat brigade:

Due to the popularity of the conspiracy theory, official agencies have received thousands of complaints from people who have demanded an explanation. The existence of chemtrails has been repeatedly denied by scientists around the world, who say the trails are normal contrails. The United States Air Force states that the theory is a hoax which “has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications.” The United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has stated that chemtrails are not scientifically recognized phenomena.

In case you wonder where all those folks who believed in the Mayan apocalypse have gone, look no further. They’re filling the internet with more pseudoscientific-conspiracy drivel about how the government is trying to sterilize you, pacify you, experiment on you, make you sick, control the weather, vaccinate you, infect us with nanobot implants, fight global warming, cause global warming, geo-engineering, or make us mindless slaves to the New World Order – or maybe a combination of them, since no two conspiracy theorists seem to agree on WHY anyone would do this (let alone how).

But the wingnuts are True Believers even if what they believe in is clearly outside the realm of common sense:

So here we are in 2012 and the level of verifiable evidence of Chem Trails and their effect on humanity is staggering, and as more of us become more sophisticated , more awake , more expanded in our ability to see the larger picture , we are starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together as to “Why” they are doing this.

The reason of course is money , profits, and control , so nothing new here, just more sophisticated control mechanisms to manipulate markets, food sources and ultimately the ability to produce food. It turns out that the main reason for the development of weather modification , Chem Trails, HAARP , is to create a situation that puts normal crops at a sever disadvantage through droughts and other extreme weather.

Every expert in aviation and, weather must be in on the cabal, because they only make statements about how ludicrous the theory is:

Experts on atmospheric phenomena deny the existence of chemtrails, asserting that the characteristics attributed to them are simply features of contrails responding differently in diverse conditions in terms of the sunlight, temperature, horizontal and vertical wind shear, and humidity levels present at the aircraft’s altitude. Experts explain that what appears as patterns such as grids formed by contrails result from increased air traffic traveling through the gridlike United States National Airspace System’s north-south and east-west oriented flight lanes, and that it is difficult for observers to judge the differences in altitudes between these contrails from the ground. The jointly published fact sheet produced by NASA, the EPA, the FAA, and NOAA in 2000 in response to alarms over chemtrails details the science of contrail formation, and outlines both the known and potential impacts contrails have on temperature and climate. The USAF produced a fact sheet as well that described these contrail phenomena as observed and analyzed since at least 1953. It also rebutted chemtrail theories more directly by identifying the theories as a hoax and denying the existence of chemtrails.

I suppose people who can readily believe that crop circles are alien messages, aliens crashed at Roswell, or that flu vaccines cause autism, can believe in chemtrails. Once you start drinking the pseudoscience Kool-Aid, it’s hard not to drain the glass and ask for more.

Here’s a quote from one of those crazy Kool-Aid drinker sites:

So, what is the REAL reason for the spraying?

There are 3 reasons:

1) To change the electrical conductivity of our atmosphere so that scaler weapons such as HAARP in Alaska will work. These microwave weapons can be used in conjunction with chemtrails to control the weather, also to trigger off earthquakes and tsunamis.

2) For population control to cull the human herd: weather control = crop control= people control via contrived food shortages such as the huge drought currently driving small farmers out of business in the midwest.

3) Monsanto has a hand in the chemtrails conspiracy, as they have a patent on a genetically engineered seed that will germinate despite the changes in Ph from all the aluminum oxide being sprayed on us, while heirloom seeds are increasingly not germinating.

Agenda 21 is Behind the Chemtrails Conspiracy

This is by design. The 10,000 pound gorilla in the room driving all this genocide is UN Agenda 21, a 40 chapter blueprint for population control which I have read in its entirety. The UN officially considers farming and ranching to be “unsustainable” so I would like to see Weston A. Price Foundation join forces with the bipartisan coalition against UN Agenda 21 that has sprung up nationwide.

Ah ha! So it’s the UN behind it all, out to destroy good ol’ capitalist Mega-Farming (as opposed to good ol’ capitalist Mega-Pharm, which some say is also behind the conspiracy). I’ll bet the UN paid the aliens to make the crop circles, too, and drive the investigators wild!

The Skeptoid notes,

Wow. Where to begin. I read a fair amount of skeptical, paranormal, and conspiracy web sites, but I don’t recall ever reading so much vituperation, anger, and name calling as when I read a few forums discussing chemtrails. If you’re not familiar with the term, chemtrails are what some conspiracy theorists call aircraft condensation trails. Most of them don’t believe that conventional contrails exist, and that when you see one, you’re actually seeing a trail of mysterious airborne chemicals sprayed from the aircraft. Those who do concede the existence of contrails often claim subtle differences in appearance or behavior between a condensation trail and a chemical trail.

Chemtrail theorists, of course, have their own “experts” who contradict their opponents’ claims to debunk the chemtrail nonsense. Of course the chemtrail “experts” are not disadvantaged like their opponents, by having university degrees, years of experience, tons of reliable testing equipment or by not being on any meds or recreational drugs. Mostly they’re people who spend the majority of their time online reading other conspiracy sites and then linking up to form a collective of incredible gullibility.

Dave Thomas –  a physicist and mathematician, president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (a lethal combination for an Illuminati shill if ever I saw one) - wrote in a piece about this nuttiness:

Kennedy assassination and 9/11 conspiracy theorists are mere pikers compared to “chemtrail” buffs. You will rarely find a more virulently self-deluded group, anywhere.

The Skeptic Project notes the conspiracy association between alleged chemtrails and the bizarre, but equally delusional morgellon’s disease:

Conspiracy theorists are avid anomaly hunters. Whenever they find something they immediately fail to understand, they try and weasle any correlation they can to fit their beliefs. … to the conspiracy theorist, anything other than what the government tells them will have to do. … The reasoning goes like this. Chemtrails are being sprayed everywhere, morgellon’s disease is still a mystery, therefore chemtrails cause morgellon’s disease… Conspiracy theorists have a long laundry list of secret tactics that Big Pharma and the government utilize to reduce the population. And this list gets so long and ridiculous. Vaccines, AIDs, chemtrails, fluoride, food additives etc. … conspiracy theorists continually ignore and deny any historical or scientific facts that don’t fit in their worldview. Denialism at its finest.

The Rational Wiki is equally snarky about these conspiracy theorists:

Chemtrails are an alleged conspiracy by which cranks claim that aircraft contrails are a form of chemical dispersal through which the government is attempting to poison people from above. This is a relatively recent conspiracy theory, having been first discussed around 1996, and is still going strong despite the evidence for the conspiracy being laughably lacking.

The Rational Wiki goes on to describe some of the homemade remedies these wackos have dreamed up to combat their imaginary chemtrails:

There are an intrepid group of people who have discovered the secret to removing chemtrails: vinegar. There are numerous groups dedicated to it, and despite the obvious stupidity of it all, they seem to believe it. The trick is as follows; simply evaporate a certain amount of vinegar each day in order to disperse clouds and chemtrails and to clear the skies. Depending on how crazy the person proposing this can be, the volumes range from a few litres per day (mixed with extra water) to simply spraying it into the air from a bottle. Yes, that’s right, people believe that clouds and chemicals at 20,000 ft can be dispersed and neutralised by spraying a couple of millilitres of dilute acetic acid in their back yard – presumably the patches of dead grass you can see in the videos these people produce are just a coincidence. For those who can’t quite afford the increase in energy bills associated with boiling 5+ litres of water a day for no reason, other advice includes simply tipping it onto asphalt to let it evaporate naturally. Complaints from neighbours about the smell aren’t usually mentioned.

Vinegar? This site recommends sulfur as a “detox strategy.” Nah – wear magnets and rub yourself with magic crystals. Works just as well.

The nutbars who believe in chemtrails have, on the other hand, done us considerable good by spawning numerous sites, wikis and blogs dedicated to science, reason and critical thinking to contradict this nonsense. We can always use more sites dedicated to logic, science and reason, even if the nutbars never read them.

The Contrail Science Blog is one such scientific site, and offers a good lesson on contrails throughout history, opening with this:

The chemtrail conspiracy theory seems to frequently misidentify ordinary contrails as “chemtrails” – some kind of secret spraying program. This theory comes in many flavors, and there’s a large number of things people bring up as “evidence” to support this theory. I’ve tried to gather all the debunks of this evidence in one place here, for easy reference. This is a work in progress, and will remain on the front page here as I expand and refine it. While the title of this post is “How to Debunk Chemtrails”, the actual debunking depends on what version of the theory needs debunking. There’s a variety of common claims, and variations on those themes. The best approach is to debunk the individual claim (such as: contrails only last a few seconds), rather than trying to debunk the entire theory.

The author clearly and eloquently explains that contrails are condensation, but not like your breath:

Condensation trails from a jet can last for many minutes, even for hours sometimes. So why is there this difference? Why do jet contrails sometime persist, but your breath condensation quickly evaporates? The difference is because a contrail freezes. It’s really that simple. Contrails form at -40 degrees Fahrenheit (which is also -40 Celsius), or colder. At that temperature the tiny drops of condensed water will instantly freeze. Once frozen they can not evaporate. They also can’t melt, as it’s -40. They can however fade away through a process known as “sublimation” – where a solid turns into a gas.

Why anyone thinks releasing anything at 25,000 or more feet would be effective is never answers. Ben Radford, of Skeptical Inquiry notes,

There’s also the question of what possible purpose the contrails (er, chemtrails) would serve. As Bob Carroll notes in The Skeptics Dictionary, “Any biological or chemical agents released at 25,000 feet or above would be absolutely impossible to control, making any measurement of effects on the ground nearly impossible. . . . Such an exercise would be pointless, unless you just wanted to pollute the atmosphere. And where is the evidence of the illnesses being caused by these agents?”

Alas, conspiracy buffs have no answers for these fundamental questions. It’s easier (and much more fun) to just sit back and wonder what secret government experiments we are being exposed to that “they” aren’t telling us about.

Of course, governments are denying that they are doing anything nefarious. One pro-conspiracy site (and not just chemtrails, but a whole bevy of them) loudly proclaimed, “UK Denies Evidence Of Widespread Illegal Chemtrail Aerosol Operations.” The story opens (and this really will make you chuckle):

Following the submission of a report, backed by over 20 signatories from diverse backgrounds, detailing widespread illegal and unacknowledged aerosol spraying from aircraft, UK agencies have ignored or denied the significant data it presented. Copies of the report were sent to UK Greenpeace, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), The Royal Air Force, DEFRA and, sometime after, to the UK World-Wide Fund for Nature, challenging them to investigate the data themselves. Four responses were received and all of them have denied the basic science presented in the report, which was backed up by the clear evidence.

Duh – of course they will deny doing something that NO ONE is doing. And funnily enough, reputable organizations backed by REAL science all call the “basic science” of the claims are mere balderdash. But nonetheless, the report adds with refreshing lack of logic:

It is therefore clear that a wide range of people are aware that the spraying is going on, and basic science proves it is really happening. The question has to be asked, then, how do we proceed and obtain answers to has authorised this spraying and what is its purpose? …The research of many people and the report I compiled proves the issue is real, even though we don’t know who is responsible for the spraying.

We don’t know who isn’t doing this, but they must be doing it because they claim not to be. Gotta love that thinking. Or not thinking. The article concludes by calling for

Anyone who has an interest in protecting our environment should be looking at this issue and asking questions. The official responses I have received so far have done nothing, realistically, to refute or correct any of the data or overall conclusions I included, disturbing though they are.

The official responses could never convince anyone who enters with the mindset that the officials must be lying and covering up. And the conclusions are, well, yes, disturbing – but only in your own rather delusional mind. Why would anyone interested in protecting the environment want to expend energy protecting it from imaginary threats? There are enough real threats to it without worrying about these hoaxes and hobgoblins.

In response, the armies of conspiracy wingnuts have assembled a barrage of doctored images and videos, fake “experts” who can barely string together noun and verb into a sentence, and ominous musical overdubs, doctored photographs, fake “experts” and egregiously stupid pseudoscience to present a chilling image of ongoing government-sponsored terror that features nanobots, secret government agencies, massive collusion by millions of people worldwide, the New World Order. Gosh, no wonder the Mayan apocalypse was sloughed aside for this stuff.

So debunking this nonsense it isn’t exactly a debate… more like a carnival game. Whack-a-mole comes to mind. Sigh. Some days I am convinced the internet is just making us collectively more stupid. Other days that’s the good news…

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Another day on the job in Paradise… chapter one

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Mayor QuimbyMayor Ralph “Bosco” Hearne, whistling softly “Everything’s Up to Date in Kansas City” under his breath, gazed at the wood-and-polished-brass, 19th-century front doors of town hall and nodded slightly in approval. He stopped whistling, paused, and breathed out a gentle sigh of satisfaction. The gleam of the brass was unobstructed; his view extended through the big glass window clear into the atrium and to the back with its veined marble wall without a single thing to distract it. A few short minutes and the doors would open; town hall would be bustling with staff; residents would come and go, doing their municipal business, checking tax records, buying dog tags. Yet at almost 8:30, with the sun already peering onto the main street, there was no one waiting to be let in; no one tapping impatiently at the glass trying to attract staff’s attention; no one pacing nervously in front of the doors and muttering darkly at the inability of staff to tell time.

Any morning that began with an empty entranceway promised to be a good day for Mayor Hearne, because any day that began without an early morning encounter with Caroline Rune was a morning to enjoy. Meeting her always involved a tirade led into a slew of accusations about how he and council were trying to destroy not only the town, but the region and even democracy in general. Not seeing her waiting for him gave him hope he would not develop one of those nail-in-the-temple headaches before noon. He could keep the whiskey locked up in his desk drawer until at least mid-afternoon. It could, just maybe, be a normal day in town hall, maybe even in all of Neuville.

He looked up and down the street, a little nervously, expecting any moment to see a harridan in full flight coming towards him, but the sidewalk was empty, except for old Nick Charnley slowly sweeping in front of his bookstore; his daily exercise, after which he would retreat behind a desk and remain there until closing, nose deep in a book.  And down further a young couple were emerging from the doughnut shop with hands full of coffee and sugary delights, laughing. A few pigeons pecked at the curb, undisturbed by the noise and bustle of pedestrians that would soon develop. Another day in paradise. Mayor Hearne smiled and stepped towards the door, fumbling a bit for his keys.

Before he could retrieve them, inside, a dark figure coalesced from the shadows and waved in his direction. He saw only the silhouette, but he knew who it was. Janet Sparling, the mayor’s executive assistant. She opened the door, smiled, and took his briefcase from him, then glanced hurriedly up and down the street before closing the door with a satisfying snick of the lock.

Hearne and his assistant exchanged sly smiles at the empty streetscape. No one said the name; no one wanted to invoke the demons of bad luck and thus draw down on them the fury of Caroline.There was, after all, a hurricane once named Caroline and it caused only a fraction of the havoc the local one had wreaked upon the town staff.

“Morning, Janet,” Hearne said, and headed to his corner office with his assistant tailing behind. His Blackberry buzzed at his waist, but he ignored it. “Anything up today?”

“Nothing much this morning. A meeting with Tony from the developers’ association at 10, something about east end servicing. Andy wants to speak to you about the waste water plant and I’ve got him in at 10:45. I think he wants money for an upgrade. I told him he should wait until for budget before bringing it up, but he insisted. Kelly is coming at 11:30 to discuss a library issue, something about personnel, probably wants more front desk staff because Judy is retiring this year. And then you have a ribbon cutting at noon for the new hair salon on Barricade Street. But nothing booked until 10, so I pulled out the county report for you to go over. They want it reviewed by council before the end of the month.”

Janet’s idea of “nothing much” was usually a day where meetings were scheduled to allow bathroom breaks between them, but little else. For her a busy day meant overlapping appointments, a slate of crucial decisions that had to be made within minutes, and photo-op commitments until at least 8 p.m. All without the breaks. Lunch, if he was lucky enough to grab it, would be a toasted bagel, usually received cold, then shovelled into his mouth between meetings or in his car, rinsed down by enough coffee to keep half the town jittery and awake for a week. Janet lived to fill his schedule. For her an hour without a scheduled event was a personal failure to fulfill her job requirements.

“But this afternoon is a bit busy,” she continued, following him into the office and putting his briefcase on his desk as the mayor looked at the full inbox with a frown. The county report was bulging over the sides. “You’ve got the police services board about the upcoming police contract talks at one, at 1:45 the mall owners are coming in. They want to you to lower their taxes so they can attract more businesses. At 2:30 the downtown merchants have a petition about pigeon control they want to present at the next council meeting. And the animal shelter wants the town to pay for more dog runs. They’ll be here at 2:45. Then at three, you have to present a certificate for 25 years in business to the Smalleys at their clothing store. Not the secondhand one on Wine Street, the one on Carson. And then the paper wants Sean to interview you about the condition of the bridge over the Beau River. I have that scheduled for 3:30. But I’ll bet he wants to sneak in some questions about your brother’s trip to Florida last winter. Betty overheard him saying something at the coffee shop last week and she thinks he plans to phone the condo office to find out who paid for it. After that the planning department wants…”

“Don’t you ever stop to take a breath?” Hearne interrupted, and then laughed when she looked hurt. “Sorry. I sometimes wonder what a day without a crisis, a crucial meeting that couldn’t be postponed, or a ribbon cutting would be like. Have I got time to call the flower shop and order something for my anniversary this week?”

“Already done. A nice arrangement. I asked them for something tropical, maybe some ginger blossoms and a bird of paradise or two. Tasteful but not too expensive. I used your credit card. The personal one, of course, not the town’s. Don’t want to upset you-know-who. I’ve also booked you and the missus at the steak house for dinner at seven, but you’ll have to leave by 8:30 because the Presbyterian church has a service to pray for peace in Somalia and they expect you to be there. So that means just one glass of wine and no liqueur afterwards.”

“You always amaze me, Janet. You’re so efficient that one day the dictionary will have your picture instead of a definition of the word. Thanks. Let me get started on this report before the masses start to line up. Are there any staff comments to go along with it, or am I on my own?”

“The rec department report is attached, and planning sent an e-mail…”

She never got to finish. The words got caught in her throat by a screeching, “A ha!” from the hallway that made the mayor’s teeth hurt and dogs within a quarter mile perk up their ears ready to bark. Caroline Rune had arrived, unseen and late, but certainly not unheard. “There you are! Mayor Hearne, I know what you and council are planning for the old Brown property and if you go ahead, I promise you there will be hellfury and damnation.”

“Morning, Caroline,” said Hearne, trying not to roll his eyes and shake his head. Janet put a hand to her mouth, and debated within herself whether to step between them or flee to her own office. The choice was between ignoble flight and putting her hands, at least metaphorically, into a raging blender. She chose flight, and, nodding apologetically at Hearne, scuttled past the woman in the doorway to the safety of the hallway beyond.

“Won’t you have a seat?” Hearne asked, resignedly, feeling the edge of that headache creeping up and pressing on his temples. He pointed at a chair across from his desk, then rubbed his temples with small circular motions. “Perhaps you could tell me what you think we’ve done so I can set the record straight and get on with my day’s work.”

“I don’t think,” the woman replied as she stepped towards the chair, then sat down heavily. “I know.”

Hearne gave her a tired smile, refusing himself the opportunity to make a wisecrack at her statement. Once upon a time he had had a crush on Caroline Rune, back when she was Caroline Crumby. Back in the school days, those hormone-filled teen years, so long ago. When he still played football, and he didn’t pack the oversize midriff he sported these days. Back then Caroline, to his testosterone-laced jock brain, was a hottie. Back then Caroline didn’t dabble in crystals, astrology, UFOs, or politics. Back then Caroline didn’t build conspiracy theories out of every council motion or bylaw.

She was still a slim, attractive woman, with shoulder-length brown hair and a shapely figure for her age. As long as you didn’t look at her eyes, didn’t look into the slightly wild and whirling pupils, you might still be attracted to her. Until, of course, she opened her mouth. Once that happened, you entered a world that belonged in Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. Or the X-Files. Something not quite connected with reality. A fantasy of lies, conspiracies and accusations in which Mayor Hearne played a leading role.

For Caroline, everything was a conspiracy. From changing the parking rates to zoning amendments, she saw the dark hand of evil forces at work, saw the local branch of the Illuminati pulling the strings from the shadows. In an age of vampire pop, Hearne was her Nosferatu.

As he lowered himself into his leather chair, Caroline was busy digging into her purse. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and waved them at the mayor, the rustle of the sheets loud in the room.

“I mean to file these today. I will find out what you’re doing. And once I do, I will tell everyone about your plans. I will tell the press. I will post it on Facebook. I don’t care what it costs. People have to know.”

Freedom of Information requests. A dozen, maybe more from the look of it. She filed at least that many almost every week, so many that the clerk’s office kept a supply of them with her name and address pre-printed, just for Caroline’s unceasing demands. But this week she looked like she would outdo herself in filing. She tucked the papers back into her bag and settled back with a satisfied smile, waiting for the mayor to respond.

“Okay, Caroline, I give up,” he said. “What have we done now? Last I recall, we were entertaining a request to re-zone the property so a developer could build a strip mall out on the east end of town. It’s all been done in public meetings. The Brown family sold the land after the old house fell down, and the new owner wants to change it from residential to commercial zoning. What’s wrong with that? Residents in the east end want something nearby so they didn’t have to drive into town just to get a bag of milk.”

“You can’t pawn me off with some lame excuse, Ralph Hearne. I know what’s going on. You and that cabal you call a council have been offered a lot of money to turn the east end into a resort and casino development. Once you get this foothold, you plan to expropriate all the homes along the waterfront and sell the land to developers. Of course you’ll get a kickback. Then you will take your wages of sin and buy properties in Bermuda or Barbados so you can live in luxury while the rest of us have to deal while the effects of crime, social degradation and gambling addiction decimate our community.”

“Come on, Caroline. That’s a bit of a stretch, even for you. We’ve got an application for a convenience store, an oil change shop, and a fishing tackle place. That’s a pretty long way from a casino and resort. You couldn’t fit a motel on that property, let alone a resort.”

“It’s just a smokescreen,” she replied. “I know you’ve been meeting with people from the government about building a secret casino. Lobbyists, too. There are rumours of big commissions being paid. Hush money to local real estate agents. I know what you’re planning. You’re going to make your brother manager, too. Keep the money in the family.”

“Caroline,” Hearne said, trying to smile but feeling it rise to a grimace. “Peter isn’t going to be manager of anything. He already has a job and he’s looking at retirement soon, not changing careers. No one’s proposing a casino or resort for the east end. I wish they would because we could use the taxes and jobs. But this is just a small strip mall, nothing more sinister than that.”

“Nothing more? It’s a foot in the door for organized crime. The next thing you’ll be privatizing the road and turning the whole area into a gated community for crime lords and millionaires. Private facilities. Private clinics. I know what happens when they get a foothold. You want to make us into Las Vegas north. I will fight you to the bitter end, Ralph. I will file my Freedom of Information requests today so I can make it public and warn people about you.”

“It’s your money,” Hearne said, resignedly. “But you might want to save it for at least a week. We haven’t even approved the zoning change. Until then, there’s nothing much we can give you.”

“Wait?” Caroline snorted. “So you can direct staff to hide the records and falsify the reports like you always do? Not on your life, Ralph Hearne. You can fool others, but not me. I can file now and later. That way you won’t be able to hide anything.”

“I’m not trying to fool you, Caroline. I’m just trying to save you some money. But it’s yours and you can spend it anyway you wish. Did you get anything from the last requests you filed, the ones about the ice rink?”

Caroline glared at the mayor, then glowered at the doorway where Janet was seen fleetingly peering into the office. “You know I didn’t. You’ve got everything too well hidden.”

“I could have told you we weren’t planning to buy a fleet of helicopters for council’s personal use. It’s not something we could hide in the budget. Besides, where would we put  a dozen choppers?”

“Don’t patronize me, Ralph. I still believe you plan to put them in that tent you’re building over the ice rink. Why else would you want to cover it?”

“It’s not a tent, Caroline. It’s a high-tech architectural membrane structure. A tent is something you go camping in. And we wanted to cover it so kids could skate year-round.”

She sniffed. “Call it what you like. Might as well call it a bubble. We know it’s just another boondoggle. You’re building a hanger for your helicopters and your jets. No child in this town will ever skate inside it.”

“Jets? Where’s the runway? Don’t we need a runway for jets?”

“Oh, you’ll build one, I know you. You’ve got plans to bulldoze all those houses on Lane Street so you can fly to your mansion in the Caribbean. You think we don’t know about this? That’s why you prevented Doctor Basildon from opening his clinic there. You need the space for your runway.”

“Caroline, Caroline,” Hearne muttered. “Where do you get these ideas? Basildon started building his clinic without permits, in an area zoned residential. We had to stop him from breaking the law. It was a minor delay for his own sake. We don’t want to have to charge him. We went out of our way to make it easy for him to get his paperwork in order and finish the construction.”

“You have not. You forced him to pay usurious charges for the privilege of creating jobs and paying taxes. You want to bankrupt him before he even opens his doors.”

“No, we don’t. He has to pay the same development charges and permit fees every other developer has to pay for a commercial property as per our bylaws and the county’s rules. They’re not secret. If he had applied for a permit before he started building, he would have known about them.”

“You could have given him an exemption as a medical clinic. It’s a necessary service. After all, you said we need the jobs, and the community desperately needs his medical services.”

“No we couldn’t. The province doesn’t allow us to bonus any private business. Even if we could, half of the charges are the county’s and we have no control over them. Besides, he’s a chiropractor and we already have more of them than we have doughnut shops in this town. A few extra weeks won’t make a lot of difference to our general well-being.”

“You are such an ignorant man, Ralph Hearne,” she snuffed. “It’s a wonder you ever got elected by anyone who can read. But we’ll change that, next election. For your information, Dr. Basildon is bringing the latest in proven alternative health services here. We will be the centre of a health care revolution in this province. The healing energy radiating from his site will cure everyone within miles, even if they’re not his patients. Think of the money everyone will save from not having to go to the doctor or hospital once he opens. We’ll be able to close the hospital in a few months. Of course that means you won’t be able to get your under-the-counter payback from the Ministry of Health any more.”

“Caroline, the ministry doesn’t give me a dime. You already looked into that, what, two months, three months ago? Basildon is planning to put in a hot tub with big magnets and crystals around it. The only thing that will change is the direction compasses point and a few lighter wallets. I don’t think the hospital will be able to close very soon.”

“Not like you’ll ever know. You’ll be flying to Antigua or Tortuga or some island paradise with the money you get from developers and crime lords long before he ever opens.”

“If I do, I’ll be sure to send you a postcard. Now is there anything else you need from me? I have several meetings today and need to read this…” He gestured at the county report in his inbox. “…sometime very soon. I’d like to get it started before I’m too old to lift it.”

“Your phone records. I want to see your phone records.”

“We’ve gone over this before, Caroline. You filed that request already and got them.”

“But the numbers were blanked out. You’re hiding them.”

“Like the clerk told you, the numbers are private and we need the permission of the caller to show them. We have to respect their privacy.”

“You think you can hide those calls you make to Antigua and your bank in the Bahamas? We’ll find the truth. You won’t get away with it forever. I’ll keep filing requests until the truth comes out.” At this she pulled the sheaf of papers out of her purse and brandished them at the mayor again.

Hearne sighed. “You do that. That’s the wonderful thing about living in a democracy. No one can stop you from spending your money on lost causes.”

But Caroline wasn’t listening. She was already on her feet and halfway out the door by the time he finished speaking. She headed in the direction of the clerk’s office. A few seconds later, Janet stuck her head in the doorway, looking sheepish. “Can I get you a coffee? Maybe a cookie or a doughnut?”

“Thanks, I could use the coffee. But I better pass on the dessert.” He patted his bulging midriff. “If it’s not too late, call the clerk’s office and warn them Caroline is on her way.”

“Already done. They have last week’s requests for her ready to go.”

“The ones about why we chose the heritage paint colours for downtown?”

“That and the correspondence on the shape of the new wayfinding signs.”

“That’ll be rivetting reading. I’m always tempted to drop in some hints about being abducted by aliens into my emails to staff and council. Give Caroline and her circle something to gnaw on for a while, the proof they’re always looking for. Council is controlled by aliens. The truth is out there, so they say.”

“Didn’t she already file for that when she got your automobile mileage reports? Something about travelling to Nevada?”

“Yeah, looking for unexplained trips to Area 51. I can’t keep track of all my secret meetings with the aliens and crime lords. I’m glad you manage my schedule for me. I might end up in Bogota when I’m supposed to be in a spaceship.”

Janet smiled, then vanished, heading briskly towards the front door and the coffee shop a few doors away. Ralph watched her go, briefly thought about going home and getting back into bed, then picked up the heavy county report and started reading.

…to be continued…

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What’s this nonsense about mushrooms?

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Specialty mushroomsIn the middle of a video parody on YouTube that skewers council on our new rec facilities, there’s a comment about “the mushroom farm debacle.” It then goes on, rather erratically, to rail about “two yanks” and mushrooms growing in manure and “enobe” mushrooms.

What debacle?

Clearly the video’s creator never actually watched the public presentation made to council a year ago about a possible use for the terminals as an indoor mushroom farm. Or read the stories in both newspapers. Or heard the news reports on local radio. Or asked anyone on staff or council about the proposal. Or did any online research. But don’t worry if actually verifying the facts was too much work: I’ll do the hard work for you here.

And as far as I am aware, the two gentlemen who made the presentation are both Canadian, not American. One is a local chiropractor.

The mushrooms in question are not your standard grocery-store button mushrooms (most of which may come from China*, by the way!): what was proposed were specialty (gourmet) mushrooms that grow on substrate: commonly wood chips, sawdust, used coffee grounds and composted or processed vegetable material (such as the corn waste produced by the now-former Amaizeingly Green plant). Manure, the proponents said several times during the presentation, would not be not used. There would be no odour.

The USDA, in one of its brochures on mushroom cultivation, notes that oyster mushrooms,

Although commonly grown on sterile straw from wheat or rice, they will also grow on a wide variety of high-cellulose waste materials. Some of these materials do not require sterilization, only pasteurization, which is less expensive. Another advantage of growing oyster mushrooms is that a high percentage of the substrate converts to fruiting bodies, increasing the potential profitability.

There are no similar, large mushroom farms growing these specialty – and expensive – mushrooms in Ontario (or, I believe, in Canada**). There is potential for considerable profit in a big and growing marketplace, we were told, for a successful farm that grows these mushrooms (oyster, shiitake, enoki (not “enobe”) and so on). The University of Missouri’s Centre for Agroforestry, notes that specialty mushrooms are a growing and sustainable industry:

Not only can specialty mushrooms be grown on a range of acreage allotments, mushroom cultivation is a sustainable and profitable way to recycle low-value forestry by-products, including non-merchantable stems and branch wood. Utilizing shade levels and understory from a forest farming practice, UMCA scientists and collaborators are determining the best suited types of mushrooms for Missouri soils. The goal of this research is to refine established production techniques for a diverse suite of outdoor mushroom species and enable Missouri landowners to capture a growing gourmet market… One of the state’s most significant demonstrations of a successful forest farming practice is Dan Hellmuth and Nicola Macpherson’s Ozark Forest Mushrooms, Timber, Mo. The entrepreneurial couple established the specialty mushroom operation in 1990 on what was then a timber operation, and coordinate every step of the value-added process, from the inoculated log to packaged, consumer-friendly products. Under the guidelines of the Stewardship Incentive Program, administered by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), Hellmuth and Macpherson harvest a renewable supply of mushroom bed logs while simultaneously maintaining their forested acres in a healthy ecological state – and what began 14 years ago with only 100 oak logs in production has grown to include 12,000 shiitake logs in production.

Penn State University has a similar agribusiness program. They note that the market for specialty mushrooms is growing by leaps and bounds:

For the past 8 years, specialty mushroom production has increased an average of 20%. Based on recent and historical trends, it is expected that diversification of the mushroom industry will continue in the United States and many other western countries. The development of improved technology to cultivate each species more efficiently, will allow consumer prices to decline.

These mushrooms are not solely for food: they are an important source of nutraceuticals used in alternative and traditional medical practices (see also here). A gourmet mushroom farm has the potential to spin off a side industry of medical research and product preparation. More jobs.

Then, the video says these “yanks…want to buy our precious grain terminal for one dollar.” Again, someone wasn’t listening. Or reading. Or thinking.

Enoki mushroomsThe proposal – made in front of council, the media and TV cameras – suggested a nominal one-dollar purchase PLUS a percentage of the profits, should the proposal be accepted. The proponents also proposed to cover all costs for remediation of the building.

The “precious” terminals had been publicly declared surplus in fall of 2011 (motion 392). The motion called for “input from the public, developers and respective agencies” on any potential uses for the building. The unsolicited, public presentation to council on January, 16, 2012, from the proponents, was part of that process.

Nothing hidden there. Someone had a creative idea and brought it to council. It was one of those “outside the box” ideas that surprised me because it was so unusual and innovative. Is that what bothers some folks? Or was it the potential to create a sustainable, safe industry that offered well-paying jobs?

The idea was presented in greater detail when the town put forward a “request for proposal” on the terminals, along with the proponents’ financials. However, to date, no decision has been made about selling the “precious” terminals (it’s an abandoned brownfield, a heritage building on the waterfront, resting on wooden piles almost a century old, with asbestos and other pollutants inside, sitting beside a waste dump; adjacent to a publicly-used harbour, within a stone’s throw of protected wetlands; it has inadequate power, water and no waste-water outlet for other uses, and has leases for telecommunications equipment and the yacht club associated – there are MANY legal, procedural and environmental issues that we must resolve before we can move forward with any proponent).

No money ever changed hands, not even the imaginary dollar that seems to haunt some folks. (What’s with that dollar? It’s never explained why $1 matters; it just raises its ectoplasmic head on the Ouija board of this conspiracy.)

The proponents asked council if they could have a biologist examine the building to see if it was suitable for such an idea, and to determine what, if any, work would be required to make it happen. We’d allow any potential buyer’s engineer or building inspector to check it out, why not a biologist?

They also requested permission to run a very small test inside the building to find out if the idea was actually viable – a “proof of concept.” This would involve (as I recall the discussion) putting two small table-top-size trays in the terminals, with spores on a base material (sawdust, I believe), to see if these exotic mushrooms would actually grow. The test would take a few weeks, and would not involve doing anything to the building aside from cleaning the space for the test, then putting the trays inside, and waiting.

Council said yes. We are pro-business, after all, and permitting this non-invasive test simply made sense. If the test proved it was not viable, then the proponents would not invest further money in testing and inspection, and would not give us a proposal when we asked for RFPs.

Staff agreed. A facility report on the proposal, in late January and provided by the former CAO to council, noted,

…the proponents cannot invest substantially without knowing if their process is likely to work. Therefore, they have put forward the following stepwise program as the “Proof of Concept” phase.

  1. Initially, they would bring in a microbiologist to identify if there are existing competing species of life in the facility and whether the environmental conditions prove to be favourable for their process.
  2. Then, they suggest that up to three of the North-South hallways (approx. 8’ X 96’) in the basement would be cleaned and sanitized and set up with trial rooms for various species of mushrooms…

The first two steps, if they have a plan to maintain adequate egress and air quality, are fairly benign. With careful preparation and adequate monitoring, staff do not have serious concerns with them doing this.

The former CAO was directed by council to have the caretaker let them in so their microbiologist could examine the building, and they could conduct this test.

This council wants to overcome an impression of the past that “Collingwood is closed for business.” Had we refused, we would – fairly – have been accused of being closed. But then the conspiracy would have been about why council was putting up roadblocks to local businessmen.

It was all public and very straightforward. The test was done, the building examined, and the proponents made a formal proposal when the town called for an RFP.

But somehow, for some folks, it became a conspiracy.

Last September, the town received an anonymous letter that warned, ominously, “Mushroom plants are known to cause odors (sic) and have the possibility to cause health issues…” and then goes on for four pages railing against mushroom farms and dangerous manure odours in other locales. Obviously the author didn’t watch the presentation or read the stories, either (the spelling suggests an American, so perhaps he or she has no access to local council coverage – in which case, what is the interest in a Collingwood proposal?).

In October, a letter was circulating among a small group that asked, among other things, “Who gave the mushroom people the key to the terminal building when was that decision approved?” (sic)

The letter never explained why knowing who gave the proponents the key was important or even relevant.*** Conspiracy theories are like that: they’re not about logic.

Then, in December, similar questions were asked of staff and council in an email (quoted as sent):

Have you been able to find any member of council or staff that;

  1. Gave permission for the tenants to use the terminals (the original email or note confirming this would be great)
  2. Who physically handed them the keys
  3. Who has collected any money (even as little as the $1 they offered) during their use of the facility.

Again, no explanation was ever made as to why any of this was relevant. It was just part of that dark Machiavellian council doing evil behind closed doors. Of course the fact that this was all done openly and presented publicly and made good business sense doesn’t make the conspiracy play very well.

In response, the current CAO replied:

As I previously mentioned the proponents made an open presentation to Council where they requested an opportunity for a “proof of concept” and offered the “symbolic” dollar for the lease to do so. I was informed that Council were all generally interested in the proposal but realized that the proof of concept was required for the gentlemen to provide an unsolicited proposal to Council. As I understand, the issue was referred to staff whereby permission was given to complete the proof of concept. There has not been any collection of money nor has it been asked for.

But even that didn’t kill the conspiracy. It pops up again in the video (linked above in the first paragraph). No rational explanation seems to satisfy some folks that nothing untoward happened.

So I have to ask: What’s all this nonsense about? It was a public process; it was pro-business; the land was declared surplus openly and approved in the fall of 2011; we had open discussions about the property at the council table in front of the media; we had open discussions with the proponent and about the proposal at council, and we have a staff report on the request that indicates all the issues, and staff support for doing the ‘proof of concept’ test.

Why are some folks treating this like some political zombie they continue to resurrect? Put it to rest!

Surely there are other conspiracies to pursue****. Just because the Mayan Apocalypse didn’t work out for you, doesn’t mean this one will turn out any better. Please, let this be the end of it.

~~~~~
* See plantpath.psu.edu/facilities/mushroom/resources/specialty-mushrooms: “Mainland China is the major producer (3,918,300t-or about 64% of the total) of edible mushrooms (Chang 1999, 2002).” The manure used for button mushrooms here in Canada, at least, is sterilized first. But these aren’t button mushrooms, so it’s moot point.
** There is a small scale one in Markdale, however.
*** As far as I know, they didn’t get one; the caretaker opened the door for them, but even if they did – so what? It’s not the key to Fort Knox. It’s an abandoned building. Never mind that it makes no sense for a member of council to have the keys to the building or the authority to collect as much as $1 from anyone (we don’t).
**** If you must pursue a mushroom conspiracy, look for one with some substance or at least greater entertainment value. For example this, this, this, this or this one.

And as a disclaimer: I speak for myself alone here, not for anyone else or any organization. I have no vested interest in any of the proposals for the terminal use, nor have any conflicts of interest in the process.
Conspiracy theories

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More Machiavellian Misquotes

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Face palmMachiavelli today is known to many by sayings that aren’t actually his; pseudo-quotations or mis-attributed sayings that appear on slovenly, un-moderated, un-verified websites that do an enormous disservice to everyone by their very existence.

These sites seem to feed one another, because find one misquote on one of them and you’re sure to find it parroted without even the slightest effort to verify it, on all the rest. Since these sites are predominantly about ad revenue, it’;s little wonder they are so poor.

Most people are unable to discern the wheat from the chaff ion these sites in great part because few can actually lay claim to actually having read him (The Prince, let alone The Discourses or his other works). And from that stems several misconceptions about what he said and didn’t say (and the same goes to every other author and philosopher so frequently misquoted on these sites).

Machiavelli did not write, for example, ‘the end justifies the means.’ It is a modern condensation – and a considerable simplification – of an idea expressed in The Prince. However memorable it is, he had a lot more to say about politics and the behaviour of rulers than that one line.

Machiavelli was just being a realist. He certainly was not a hedonist like Aleister Crowley who wrote,

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

These so-called quotation databases are rife with errors, mis-attributions, mis-spellings, grammatical and punctuation errors.

Machiavelli wrote that the effect of a ruler’s actions mattered more than the deeds themselves, as long as the end was good for the state. That has been boiled down, in modern times, into “the end justifies the means.” But this shorthand removes it from the all-important context that makes sense of his words (taking things out of context and using them for your own, bizarre ends is quite common on the internet).

Nor did Machiavelli write, ‘Never to attempt to win by force what can be won by deception,’ in The Prince. That may be paraphrased from The Discourses, Book III: 40, or Book II: 13. It is more likely to derive from an entirely different source: The Art of War by Sun-Tzu. This misquote is popular on those faux-quote sites, but it isn’t one of his maxims. I wrote about that mis-quote last year. It still irks me to see it online today.

In the comment following that previous post, I wrote about another popular – and very wrong – internet meme attributed to Machiavelli: “I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.”

That line was actually said by US Republican Newt Gringrich, and is taken from a 1991 interview printed in the LA Times:

Such jabs don’t faze Gingrich. “I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it,” he says. “Of course people are going to resent that.”

Other things Machiavelli did NOT say include the following pseudo-quotes taken from various, inaccurate, un-moderated and never verified, quotation sites online. I spent a couple of hours yesterday poring over my texts to search for them, just to be sure. It’s tricky because there are so many translations available, but anyone who has actually read any of them will recognize fairly easily what is and is not his style:

  • “Politics have no relation to morals.”
  • “It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”
  • “Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.”
  • “It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.”
  • “The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.”
  • “Before all else, be armed.”
  • “The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”
  • “History is written by the victors.”
  • “One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.”
  • “God creates men, but they choose each other.”
  • “Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.”
  • “A prince is also esteemed when he is a true friend and a true enemy.”
  • “He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.”
  • “War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.”
  • “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

Got that? Machiavelli NEVER SAID any of those things, yet all appear on many online quotation database pages. They cause me a face-palm moment to even read them (more on my Machiavelli book site and learn what he really said: ianchadwick.com/machiavelli/addenda/appendix-b-machiavellian-misquotes/)

Unfortunately, there are many who will get fooled into thinking these are real quotations from Machiavelli and other authors. But these so-called quotation databases are rife with errors, mis-attributions, mis-spellings, grammatical and punctuation errors; enough that even a casual read should give anyone pause to doubt the veracity. These sites are as reliable to literature as creationism is to science, without being as funny.

These egregious errors exacerbate the bad education people get from the internet; they also speak volumes to the increasing gullibility of web users who will accept clearly mis-attributed lines with the same ease they will believe magnets cure arthritis, crystals are magi, flu vaccinations cause autism and other quackery.

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Four words about the Mayan Apocalypse

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Mayan calendar cartoonFor all of you New Agers who expected something momentous to happen, December 21, because an obscure, millennium-old calendar ended on that date, and are disappointed that the world didn’t end, I have four words for you:

I told you so.

Let me further educate you with a few choice bits of practical wisdom in case the lesson of Dec. 21 hasn’t yet sunk in:

New Age classesAstrology isn’t a science. Homeopathy isn’t a science. UFO-ology isn’t a science. Numerology isn’t a science. Iridology isn’t a science. Reflexology isn’t a science.  Allopathy and aromatherapy aren’t science. Bioharmonics isn’t a science. Acutonics isn’t a science. Creationism isn’t science. Therapeutic touch isn’t science. They’re all codswallop.

Predictions, prophesies, ancient texts in languages you can’t read, messages muttered by self-described psychics, and the voices in your head don’t predict the future.

The position of the stars and planets, the lines on your palm, the bumps on your head, the fall of the tarot cards, the stone carvings of a dead civilization, and the entrails of a dead chicken don’t predict the future.

You can’t “channel” angels, ghosts, demons, alien abductors, telepathic spirits, invisible fiends, auras, your dead aunt, or ectoplasmic muses because they aren’t real.

Crystals and magnets don’t heal you. Prayer doesn’t heal you. Psychics don’t heal you. Waving tuning forks over you, making exuberant flicking gestures over your sore limbs, sniffing lavender or clove, and sticking needles into your skin don’t heal you, because they aren’t medicine. A placebo effect may make you feel better for a while, but it isn’t a cure.

Chakras aren’t organs. Chi, prana, orgone energy and auras are not organs, or bones or any other part of the body you can touch, photograph, tune, manipulate or measure. They’re imaginary.

Exorcising stupidityYour dog, your cat, your parrot, the police and your next door neighbour aren’t telepathic.

Obi Wan Kenobi isn’t real. He’s a fictional character from a movie. So was Commander Spock. People from your or anyone else’s past lives who give you advice today are fictional, too. Aliens who speak to people through brain implants aren’t real either. Crop circles are hoaxes made by human pranksters, not some alien artwork.

You weren’t abducted by aliens and had probes inserted into your orifices. You weren’t Cleopatra or Napoleon in a former life. You didn’t speed time in another dimension, on some astral plane or traveling out of your body. Those are just daydreams or hoaxes.

And lastly: the Mayans made a calendar. They didn’t carve a prophesy into the stone. All that claptrap about the end of the world was in your own imagination. You and your friends made it all up. You drank the silliness Kool-Aid. And we’re laughing at you. It’s a self-inflicted wound.

Now get on with your lives. You might want to start paying attention to science. Or economics. Politics. Mathematics. Literature. Anything instead of all this superstitious New Age claptrap you’ve been pursuing. Learn to think; be skeptical, question strange stuff that seems illogical because, if it includes crystals, auras, astral planes or angels, it is.

PS. Watch these characters. They will entertain you and you might get a little education at the same time:



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Someone is wrong on the internet

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From Skeptic NorthI discovered an entertaining site recently called Skeptic North. It’s a Canadian equivalent to several similar sites and blogs I read that are mostly American-based. It challenges popular assumptions, ideas, trends and pseudoscience and other claptrap. In a Canadian way, of course.

Meaning that it’s usually much too polite in how it handles some of the balderdash online. I’m less gracious. Bullshit is bullshit and should be called out.

I discovered it when I was looking for some additional backup material on COLD FX, an over-the-counter, made-in-China product (I hesitate to call it a medicine; is pseudo-medicine a proper word? or should I just call it a commercial placebo?) made from a purified ginseng extract, that claims to boost your immune system and prevent colds and flus. The discussion has raised itself on Facebook again, with the usual “I don’t care what scientists say, it works for me…” comments.

CBC’s Marketplace show did a’ expose that debunked a lot of the claims, but I found the show a little too sensationalist for my own taste. I was glad to see the article on Skeptic North about the show shared my concerns over the presentation*.

…I was turned off by the typical “confrontation TV” drama they included.

The effectiveness of Cold FX has been debated and challenged long before CBC got around to it. UBC professors questioned it back in 2006. They found:

The main purpose of these studies was to see whether the ginseng extract would reduce the incidence of acute respiratory illnesses (flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a virus that causes flu-like symptoms), as defined by subjective symptoms such as cough, sore throat and runny nose. The researchers, reporting the results in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found “no significant difference between the placebo and the ( Cold-fX) groups for the number of (acute respiratory illnesses) defined by symptoms.” They also found “no significant difference in the severity or duration of symptoms related to (acute respiratory illnesses) between the two groups in either study.”

The secondary purpose of the studies was to measure the difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed (typically by a viral culture) acute respiratory illnesses between the two groups. In the placebo groups, six and 12 per cent of the subjects in the two studies contracted flu or respiratory syncytial virus. In the ginseng groups, these percentages were lower — zero and two per cent — which suggests the ginseng had some therapeutic benefit. However, in each case, the “p value” — the probability that chance explained the difference — was high enough that these differences, by the researchers’ own admission, were not deemed statistically significant.

In 2009, Science-Based Pharmacy published the results of three studies that challenged the product’s claims. Here are the results from the three studies:

Bottom line: If we accept the combining of the two trials, we can conclude the following: In nursing home residents, when taken for 8 to 12 weeks, Cold-fX appeared to reduce laboratory-confirmed cases of colds and flu, but had no effect when considering what patients actually reported.

Bottom line: A healthy adult taking Cold-fX might expect to have 0.25 less colds over a 16 week period. This has led some to question whether this result is clinically relevant.)

Bottom line: Over a 16 week period Cold-fx failed to demonstrate an improvement over placebo. Given the high number of study design flaws, data omissions, the poor quality journal, and long publication delay, it is difficult to draw conclusions from the results. At best, it is suggestive that Cold-fX needs to be taken for at least eight weeks, with a flu shot after four weeks, before it may have any noticeable effect.

And the conclusion in the article?

What if I feel like I’m coming down with a cold? Will starting Cold-fX now have any effect?

There is no published evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of Cold-fX if started at the onset of a cold.

CV Technologies offers a 300mg form of their product (“Extra-Strength Cold-fX“) with the directions to start “at the first sign of colds of flu symptoms”. There are no published trials documenting the effectiveness of the 300mg dosage strength, or evaluating the dosing instructions of 12 capsules over the first 3 days, in reducing the duration of colds or the flu.

The Ottawa Skeptics site also has a good article critiquing how the studies are presented, and says, for example,

Although this trial was well designed, reviewers have criticized the interpretation of the results. For example, the study team described the combined reduction in lab-confirmed influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as “an overall 89% relative risk reduction”[22] (i.e., an 8% reduction compared to a 9% incidence rate), which is true but misleading. In reality, there was simply an absolute risk reduction of 8% points.

Claims that COLD FX has approval for its packaging statements have also been challenged, as this National Post article notes:

Health Canada has not authorized COLDfX’s long-standing claim that consumers can obtain “immediate relief” from colds and flu by dramatically increasing the dosage, the Vancouver Sun has learned.

You can read the company’s own comments about their battle over claims with Health Canada in 2007, here. Back then, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a well-respected organization, cautiously noted that,

Bottom line: Until more studies are done, it’s too early to conclude that Cold-fx can shorten—or cut your odds of catching—a cold or the flu. Even so, Cold-fx is the only remedy we found with any evidence that it might improve your chances of getting through the cold and  flu season without coming down with something.

This lukewarm endorsement has not been repeated since  to my knowledge (I subscribe to their excellent newsletter, Nutrition Action). In general, CSPINET has been critical of all herbal remedies and done a lot of work researching their claims and effectiveness (which generally is none). Nonetheless, some of the claims made by COLD FX have been the subject of a recent class-action lawsuit, which, as far as I know, is still being decided.

It’s curious to me that people who swear by COLD FX and other non-medicinal products like echinecea - another herbal product proven ineffective – yet will not get a flu shot, which is backed up by considerable research and science and endorsed by every national and provincial health organization and medical association in Canada and the USA. COLD FX is endorsed by Don Cherry. Which do you believe is the more credible? As The Paltry Sapien blogger (another entertaining skeptic) wryly comments.

We like to talk about science and proof and rationality, but in the end belief in hockey and maple leaves and the coldness of winter wins out. Cold FX, this “struggling true-blue Canadian company,” in Cherry’s words — producing a product in China, not Alberta — deserves our allegiance.

Flu shots are free in Canada. COLD FX is expensive (emphasis added):

Over a four-month period, subjects in the ginseng group experienced, on average, one-quarter of a cold less than the placebo group. That means each person has to spend a total of $86 to prevent one-quarter of a cold.

I ascribe a lot of this to the New Age belief that so-called “natural” products (a nebulous term of little value, like “organic,” both degraded by slippery definitions, lax regulations and unscrupulous marketers and – ironically – corporations) are better than manufactured ones. That counterintuitive leap has extended into all sorts of silliness, from belief in astrology and Feng Shui to crystal therapy and magnetic bracelets over astronomy,  architecture, science, and medicine. And let’s not forget UFO abductions, creationism and the Mayan apocalypse – or flu-shot paranoia.

I have yet to find an all-natural computer or iPad on which I can post that observation.

But as for these herbal concoctions – many people want a pill to do for them what they would better get from proper hygiene (frequent hand washing), good nutrition and exercise – without having to do all the work. It’s like the herbal-diet-fat-burning pills: instant gratification without the sweat. Won’t happen.

~~~~~

* For the sake of balance, not everyone thinks the CBC Marketplace show was either accurate or good journalism. For example, blogger Shireen Jeejeebhoy says,

By the end of the twenty-two-odd minutes, Marketplace’s entire piece, when read between the lines and engendering Herculean effort not to be distracted by the bells and whistles, boils down to COLD-FX prevents colds. The claim it provides immediate relief needs further study; the China connection is no different than every other product we buy (have you checked where your frozen veggies are grown lately?), thus is not COLD-FX specific and is a separate topic; the bacterial contamination is old news and a non-starter. In other words, Marketplace told its alert viewers to take COLD-FX daily if you want to prevent colds.

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How to Survive the Mayan Apocalypse

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Bizarro cartoonHow will anyone survive the “end of the world” predicted for December 21, 2012? Easy: by breathing. That’s because it won’t happen. That the Mayans never predicted it would seems to have bypassed a few of the tin-foil-hat brigade.

The complex Mayan calendar simply ends one of its long cycles – just like ours ends its annual cycle on December 31. Just like we end decades, centuries and millennia on Dec. 31 with a year that ends in zero (10, 100, 1000). But most important: it’s a calendar, fer cryin’ out loud. It’s not a Magic 8 Ball. You think the free bank calendar you picked up last week is going to predict anything?

This is bad news for Bugarach, of course. The tiny French hamlet has been identified by the cohorts of believers in faux-Mayan silliness as the only place on Earth that will survive the imagined apocalypse:

 …Bugarach - population 176 – has been earmarked by some of the doomsday cultists as the only place in the world which is going to survive Armageddon, scheduled for December 21 this year by an ancient Mayan prophecy.

The canny residents of Bugarach are making the most of the sudden influx of loony souvenir hunters by overcharging for everything that’s not nailed down:

Souvenirs include ‘authentic Bugarach stones’ from Pic de Bugarach’s rock-face itself, on sale for €1.50 (£1.20) a gram, and ‘natural pyramids of pyrite iron’ from underground.
Meanwhile, a bottle of water from the local spring, which can apparently cure a range of ailments, costs an eye-watering €15 (£12).
One landowner is even offering up his four-bedroom home with close up views of the mysterious peak for £1,200 a night.
But for those on a budget, he can offer camping space in his field (tent not included) for 400 euros a night.

As the Daily Mail noted in late November, the waves of gullible tourists has caused a local crisis:

In France, the authorities have been forced to ban access to a sacred mountain, rumoured to be a haven from the apocalypse, because hordes of believers have been flocking to the region in recent weeks.
Legend has it that the Pic de Bugarach in south-west France will burst open on that day revealing an alien spaceship which will carry nearby humans to safety.
A hundred police and firefighters will also control approaches to the tiny village of the same name at the foot of the mountain, and if too many people turn up, they will block access there, too.

“Legend” has it? Not quite. According to Wikipedia that is the belief of a small group of New Agers on a nearby commune. They seem to be growing in number (and are possibly planning a mass suicide), but it’s not a local “legend” as the Daily Mail suggests. It’s a recent delusion. And as the exasperated mayor of this hamlet, Jean-Pierre Delord says, authorities should ban visitors until at least December 22 because it would prevent,

“all these idiots turning up in sandals walking up a snowy mountain, that we then have to rescue”.

Seems, however, that Bugarch isn’t the only place that will survive, however. Sirince, a small town in Turkey, has also be deemed a safe haven by the New Agers, and locals are cashing in on the waves of gullible fringies who are arriving:

Sirince, a small town of 570 — with a bed capacity of around 1,000 — is now expected to host more than 60,000 people trying to avoid the apocalypse as the date of Dec. 21 approaches.
Normally a one-day accommodation at a hotel in the village costs around TL 100-500. Following the prophecy, costs of accommodation hit a new record. Prices per single room are currently TL 3,000 and could reach as high as TL 6,000. Moreover, around 3,000 members of national and foreign press will be in the village for a live broadcast.

Dork Tower cartoonDeja vu: who can forget the thousands of witless celebrants flocking to world sites at great expense to see in the “new millennium” arrive on January 1, 2000. All that proved was that idiots are bad at simple math – the millennium actually began in 2001. But the tourist operators weren’t about to correct these fools, at least until their cheques cleared. (They may flock to Guatemala this time, however, if the Guatemalan government has its way.)

There are apparently many people who believe this improbable “apocalypse” will really happen, although you can never be sure online whether someone believes or is just riding the trend of popular attention. Or that they’re not just pulling your leg. For example, on 2012apocalypse.net – a mishmash of all sorts of pseudoscience, superstition, New Age spiritualism, aliens, Nostradamus, and related claptrap - the writer says:

Many Great Prophets, Religious Scriptures, and Scientific evidence point to a possible apocalyptic event happening in the year 2012.

Well, you can already see the flaws in this argument. First you have to believe in the validity of any prophet, and of the literality of any religious scripture, or in this case, apparently every religious scripture. But the science? Nah. Not there.

The end of the Mayan calendar coincides with a galactic alignment, in which the Sun will align with the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Not quite, it’s actually about 6 degrees north of the galactic centre line on Dec. 21. But so what? It’s an annual occurrence. As NASA notes:

Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.

NASA goes on at great length to explain the so-called alignment, stating, “…the sun appears to enter the part of the sky occupied by the Dark Rift every year at the same time, and its arrival there in Dec. 2012 portends precisely nothing.”

Precisely nothing is exactly the amount of credibility in the entire Mayan apocalypse conspiracy. Coincidentally it’s the same credibility you find in crop circles, UFOs, magic crystals, astrology, numerology, angels, psychics and ghosts.

That hasn’t deterred the believers. In fact, little seems to dent the armour of their belief. One man in China (about as far from the Mayans as anyone could be), spent his whole life’s savings to build an ark to escape the expected destruction, according to the Daily Mail:
Daily Mail

Other wingnut sites promote the idea of a rogue planet – “Nibiru” or “Planet X” – or maybe a brown dwarf star suddenly appearing in the solar system on that date and hitting Earth. Or maybe just changing us irrevocably by dumping hostile aliens on us, as one (wacky conspiracy-theory) site suggests:

Nibiru will not bring worldwide destruction, although we could say that life will change as we know it. With all the attention that our extraterrestrial family is paying to earth, it’s unlikely that we will visited by the Anunnaki to further enslave us… or that we be destroyed… we’re already a totally enslaved planet. Everybody in our universe eventually turns to the Light, and this is the case with Anunnaki.

And this is not the wackiest of the lot. Over at this site, you’ll walk the path of the furthest edge of the lunatic fringe:

Without a doubt, Planet X is bombarding Earth with flaming fireballs from its debris tail, which, blown by the solar wind, billows directly toward Earth. Blazing hunks of junk from this tail are hurled at us with increasing regularity.

Another zany New Age site has all sorts of bizarre stories about this mysterious planet that apparently only its believers can spot and photograph, since it eludes the equipment of skeptics and astronomers alike:

Many pictures and videos of “Second Sun” sightings are being captured on cameras by people all over the world. Alberto Cardin in Italy gets excellent captures of Planet X in the sky. How does he do it?
Alberto says it is easy to do. He uses the film cut from an old floppy disk as a filter and closes the the camera lens (having a good view). He also uses classic Mylar and orange colors. As can be seen in Alberto’s pictures, using different color filters to repress the Sun’s glare brings out different features. Due to the red dust in Planet X’s tail, a red filter allows more of this color to come through and yellow is close to red in the spectrum (ZetaTalk and Poleshift.ning).
You cannot cover-up a second sun in the sky!
The citizens of earth have a right to know about the catastrophes and earth changes Planet X brings and what the future holds for Earth, so that all, and not just a select few, can prepare for what lies ahead, in their own way, as as best they can. It’s time for the truth.

The truth is that your tin-foil hat is on too tight.

And don’t even get me started on the self-described “psychic” Nancy Leider, who claims to be channeling aliens from the star system Zeta Reticuli. Leider, who is nuttiness incarnate, claims she was abducted by gray extraterrestrials, the Zetas, when she was a child. They implanted a chip in her brain to allow them to communicate telepathically with her, which she spews forth on her website, Zetatalk (when the aliens are not channeling their anti-Israeli political diatribes through her, it seems). For example, the Zetas made this comment on Dec. 1:

We have described the location of Planet X since 2005 as being within the orbit of Venus and moving slowly outbound.  It is moving in a retrograde orbit, pushing the Earth back from when it was stopped in its orbit in 2003 in the December position. It was in the September position in 2009 and then by 2012 had moved to where it will remain until the Pole Shift -  the August position. Meanwhile, the cup has tightened. Venus has pushed closer to the Earth, the Dark Twin has fallen behind the Earth and is trying to pass the Earth in their shared orbit, and the Earth’s wobble has gotten more severe and violent. It is the very crowding of these planets in the cup in front of Planet X that causes the slow pace of Planet X as it tries to move outbound away from the Sun in its retrograde orbit.

She goes on to say that NASA is covering this up, but President Obama will make the announcement that Nibiru is real, later this month, once he escapes from their scientific clutches. It’s fascinating, disturbing reading, but ultimately entertaining, even if it’s not really polite to laugh aloud at the hard of thinking. I love a good conspiracy theory and can’t help myself reading this stuff (local conspiracy theories have become thin and worn of late, and could benefit from a dose of Mayan apocalypse drama).

In 1995, Nancy Leider originally predicted this imaginary body would hit Earth in 2003 and wipe out mankind, but when it failed to happen, she changed the date to 2012, and her hapless followers… well, they followed her like the sheep they are. Does this remind you of Harold Camping and his “rapture” of 2011?

NASA says (and you can read the sigh and shaking head in the response):

Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

Wacky New Age siteSome loonies thought Nibiru was going to crash into the Earth on November 21. NASA scientists apparently “confirmed” it, they told us. Maybe you missed the impact. Or maybe it just passed by us in 2003 (Nibiru, the writer says, is the home of the Anunnaki, a reptilian super race, “…evil, lustful, incestuous, bloodthirsty, deceitful, jealous and domineering. They are also carnivorous and are often cannibalistic. They also demand human sacrifices of virgins from those they conquer and from their own kind whom they enslave.”). I seem to have missed the “earthquakes, tidal waves, severe flooding, food shortages due to climatic conditions, diseases, meteor fire storms, volcanic eruptions and the like” that the near-hit created.

Or maybe Planet X never existed at all and the astronomers are right! That would mean either the hoaxers were deliberately misleading people or are complete fruit loops who have lost all contact with reality (both of which traits are found in creationists, by the way). I’m never sure whether to be amused, entertained or frightened by these people, their wild claims and their equally wonky followers.

No amount of debunking can allay the fears of the superstitious twits, however. In response – no doubt to the frustrating necessity of denying the end of the world so often – the US Government actually released an official message saying “don’t worry“:

False rumors about the end of the world in 2012 have been commonplace on the Internet for some time. Many of these rumors involve the Mayan calendar ending in 2012 (it won’t), a comet causing catastrophic effects (definitely not), a hidden planet sneaking up and colliding with us (no and no), and many others.
The world will not end on December 21, 2012, or any day in 2012.

The Center for Disease Control was a little more humorous, in posting a satiric blog piece about the impending zombie apocalypse. Why not? It’s as likely as the imaginary Nibiru or some other fancified end-of-the-world mechanism. Or the “Anunnaki” – an invention way beyond mere crazy. If people actually believe that, it’s no wonder we can’t teach science in schools.

I know what I’ll be doing on December 22, too: blogging “I told you so” to all the gullible New Agers who bought into one more internet hoax.

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