Updates made to The Millenium Project in July 2001

More anti-vaccination madness (7/7/2001)
Many of the anti-vaccination liars are well aware that their arguments against vaccination will not stand up to any sort of scientific scrutiny, so one of the tactics they use to get parents to avoid their responsibilities to both society and their children is to frighten parents by what might happen to them personally if their children are vaccinated. The campaign on behalf of murderer Alan Yurko is an example of this, where the implication is that parents may end up in prison if they vaccinate their children. Another example is an appeal on religious grounds that suggests that parents who vaccinate their children may either be themselves committing or be complicit in some some horrendous sin. The one I saw recently was the suggestion that Catholics who vaccinate their children may be condoning abortion. Sane people may wonder how any such link could be made, but it is easy if you lie and say that vaccines are prepared from the bodies of aborted foetuses. The message below was sent to an anti-vaccination mailing list. I have no idea how anyone can invent stuff like this, but then I have no idea why people organise into groups devoted to the killing of children. (To their credit, several people on the list suggested that this might not be true, although it was suggested by one of them that it was propaganda intended to make the anti-vaccinators look bad.)

These aborted fetuses are the third trimester abortions.. These are viable babies that are forced delivered vaginally but are turned around to become breech births. When the feet are delivered first and the head is still unborn this baby is considered a "fetus" At that point a pair of scissors is poked into the base of the head at the spinal cord to make the baby unrespondsive.. This way when the baby is born it still can be placed onto life support if the organs are needed for transplant or the baby can be used immediately for any experiments or tissue havesting that is necessary for vaccines, Parkinson Disease research and drug therapies and cord blood harvesting for brain injury victims or spinal cord research...

Speaking of anti-vaccination liars … (7/7/2001)
The anti-vaccinators like to talk about how much research they do. Perhaps one of them might like to tell me about a country (any country) where the incidence of a disease has increased following the introduction of a vaccine. Measles, diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, polio, rubella – any of them will do. While they are thinking about that, they can look at the table below.

Harassment update (7/7/2001)
The best that the Gutless Anonymous Liar could do on the full moon was this. Pathetic, really, considering all the practice it's had.

Date sent: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 02:40:59 +0200
Subject: In a slump?
From: "anonymous@zoubidoo.net" <anonymous@zoubidoo.net>

Funny how your reputation now precedes you. Seems business is about as bountiful as death valley for you these days. Care to guess why? You complain of one of many many emails to those who know and love you! The gates have been opened.....

It looks to me like the gates have been opened and the inmates have got out. I think it is a full moon tonight, so the attendants at the asylum should have been more careful.

Another dead baby! (14/7/2001)
It's happened again! This time a quack killed a baby with a physical heart problem that has a 90% success rate when treated by surgery. The parents were told this and surgery was scheduled, but they knew better. You can read a newspaper report here. Again, when I mentioned this to "alternative medicine" supporters, I could find nobody who would say that this "treatment" was beyond what they would accept. I was told about how bad real doctors are, though.

Bad news of the week (14/7/2001)
Reviving the spirit of 1936, Beijing has been awarded the 2008 Olympic Games. This is in a country which still holds semi-public executions (about 2000 so far this year) for crimes for which the civilised world stopped killing people in the18th century. One of the publicity shots used in the bid showed a group of dancers in Tiananmen Square, but it looks like the tanks were kept away that day. A mouth from the IOC said that the Olympics are about sport, not politics and human rights, so I guess he forgot which country withdrew 10% of its team from the 2000 Games when a new drug test was announced. I wonder which Tibetan or Taiwanese athlete will be the 2008 version of Jesse Owens?

Administration stuff (14/7/2001)
It might look like nothing much has changed around here in the last week, but I have been doing some work under the hood. Links that used to go to the Deja.com archive of newsgroup messages are gradually being replaced with links to the Google archive, but it's a tedious process. Also, I have been making some changes to get a better indexing of this site in the major search engines. Another change is that the Ratbags Alert mailing list will be at Yahoo! from now on. I will migrate people from the ListBot list to Yahoo! in the next few days. I expect to get emails from cackling loons saying that I have been removed from ListBot, but sane people can click here to see Microsoft's announcement about the end of the free ListBot service.

Harassment update (14/7/2001)
Quite please! A new batch of tranquilliser darts and medication was delivered to the Bedlam Home for the Terminally Clueless just after the last full moon. The inmates have taken their medicine and have been resting for the past week. If they keep behaving themselves, basket weaving classes will start again and everyone will get a brand-new chin-foam bib with their initials on it.

Could this be a coincidence? (21/7/2001)
Someone has just sent out a spam email with the subject "Wanted: YOU To Earn Money From Home – -" using rsoles@ratbags.com as the "From:" address. I am receiving the bounce messages for undeliverable addresses. People who know me will know it is not from me. People who don't know me can look here to see my opinions about pyramid selling scams.

A big thank you (21/7/2001)
The number of visitors to this site has been regularly increasing, and the daily average is now double what it was a year ago. It is encouraging that so many people look at what I do and think enough of it to come back for more. Also, the bulk of the correspondence I receive is complimentary – the crackpots and insulters are a definite minority. All I have to do now is figure out what was different about April 5, when twice the usual number of visitors turned up. Thank you to everyone for the continued support.

Religious idiocy (21/7/2001)
This image of dripping blood is from the "Hit List" page of a web site belonging to a group called Hindu Unity. The hit list is of people who have committed crimes against the Hindu religion, and includes such diverse people as Pope John Paul II, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, Osama Bin Laden and David Duke. Apparently, Robertson is especially disliked because he doesn't want people to convert from Christianity to Hinduism. The odd thing is that I thought it was impossible for anyone to convert to Hinduism. What makes Hindu the most ridiculous of all the world's major religions is the caste system, based on reincarnation and the predestination dictated by birth. If people could convert to this nonsense, wouldn't they all choose to be Brahmins so they could lord it over all the lower forms of humanity? I suppose I will get added to the list now, and if I am I will celebrate with a barbeque. There's nothing I like more to eat than a steak, especially when I remember that steak is made from a cow.

More about China (21/7/2001)
I used to have a listing here for the Falun Dafa cult. They were listed under Buffoonery because they were such a silly outfit, but I have removed them because anyone who irritates the pack of geriatric gangsters who run China can't be all bad. I suppose that the main reason the Chinese government dislikes them so much is that Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong) are competitors in the mind control business. What convinced me to remove Falun Dafa from here was a statement from some Chinese official who was asked if the Chinese would lay off the harassment now that Beijing had won the Olympics. The response was that giving the games to Beijing was an endorsement by the world of China's human rights practices and it would be business as usual.

Harassment update (21/7/2001)
It's still peaceful, and nothing has come from the Bedlam Home for the Terminally Clueless since the last full moon. The inmates have been enjoying their basket weaving classes and everyone is really proud of the new chin-foam bibs with their initials on them. I don't know if it's related, but Mr William P O'Neill of the Canadian Cancer Research Group has moved his office, transferred his web site to another ISP, and completely gutted it of any content. As he has announced the demise of The Millenium Project on many occasions, it is tempting to gloat about this apparent run of misfortune but I won't. I could almost feel sorry for him until I remember that he once told me "if you want to see hate, look into your fucking wife's eyes".

Another Yurko? (21/7/2001)
The anti-vaccination liars seem to have taken up the cause of Sally Clark who is in prison for murdering her two children. The initial defence was that it was SIDS, but the story keeps changing. Last week it was going to be the presence of some previously unknown "cot-death gene" but that seems to have disappeared now that the appeal is actually in court. The anti-vaccinationists are waiting in reserve, apparently ready to adopt Clark as another Alan Yurko. I have already received the obligatory insults for mentioning this case and I will have more to say as more details come out, although the evidence of abuse is not so clear-cut here as it is for Yurko. The Clark case looks like a perfect one for Viera Scheibner to come in as an expert witness on how vaccines cause both SIDS and the damage seen in shaken babies.

News Flash – Dateline 24 July 2001
I'm a racketeer! I'm being sued!

This just in from Tim Bolen, spokesgoon for not-a-medical-doctor Hulda Clark (who has never cured anyone of cancer in her life):

The lawsuit charges Stephen Barrett, his wife Judith Barrett, Terry Polevoy (of Canada), Christopher Grell, Quackwatch Inc., Quackwatch.com, Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud, the National Council Against Health Fraud Inc., NCAHF, Healthwatchers.net, the Georgia Council Against Health Fraud, Rebecca Long, Rebekah Johnson, Scotsoft Research, ssr.com, hcrc.org, Aron Primack, Peter W. Pappas, Joseph Pizzorno, Robert S. Baratz MD, William T. Jarvis, Tim Gorski, John Stone, Bill Ross, Peter Bowditch, Monica Pignotti, Paul Lee, Michael McNeil, Paul Hilling, J.A. Lyons, Paul Smith, QUACKBUSTERSOFTHEILLUMUNATTI, Esther Figueroa, Jose Figueroa, and roes 1-500 inclusive, WITH:

Unlawful, Unfair, and Fraudulent Business Practices (B & PC § 17200 et seq ), Violation of Civil Rights, Intentional Interference With Prospective Advantage, Negligent Interference With Prospective Advantage, Civil Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO), Abuse of Process, Negligence, Civil Conspiracy, and a plea for Injunctive Relief.

I haven't read the whole ludicrous set of court papers yet, but apparently I have also "engaged in Mail Fraud, Wire Fraud, Perjury, Subornation of Perjury, Extortion, Stalking, Terrorist threats, Assault, Filing false police reports, Illegal lobbying, Illegal influence of foreign government officials and/or agencies, Trespass, Invasion of Privacy, Web site tampering, Internet Spam, Investigation without license, Violation of Civil Rights & Free Speech, Interference with Right of Free Speech and Association". Wow!

I'm actually in there twice, because I moderate the "Quackbusters Of The Illuminati" mailing list at Yahoo! My wife is out at this very minute getting me some black shirts and white ties. The rest of my family have gone to the mattresses.

The entire front page for 28 July was taken up with a commentary about the idiotic court case. You can read the full article here.