Updates made to The Millenium Project in June 2021

A bit late and a bit short (5/6/2021)
I know, I know – this update didn't actually appear on the date above, but that's because good reasons. One is that I had to wait for some news and the other is that it's highly unlikely that there will be an update on June 12 or thereabouts because that is a holiday weekend and I'll be spending some time travelling to visit friends and relatives.

Also, I won't be here on the weekend of June 19 because I'll be doing my other hobby at a car rally. Sorry, but that's the way life is.

Another apology … (5/6/2021)
… this time to chiropractors. I had always assumed that they lacked training, but now I know that they spend more time learning their craft than doctors do.

I don't know who made this so I can't give credit. Sorry.

An old friend attracts attention (5/6/2021)
"Dr" Sherri Tenpenny, winner for Quote of the Year in the 2012 Millenium Awards and all-round disgusting thing has embarrassed herself* at a public hearing about COVID-19 vaccines by declaring that the vaccines make the recipients magnetic, evidence being that people who have received the vaccine can have spoons and keys stick to them afterwards. The spoon sticking thing is caused by sweat and skin oils and has been a staple trick of fathers at kids' birthday parties since Adam played fullback for the Eden rugby team. Keys are almost universally made of brass.

One thing that is common to both stainless steel and brass is that they are nonmagnetic, so it is highly unlikely that either of these metals would stick to a magnetic human, even if such a human existed. The alloy that makes stainless steel (of which all my spoons are made, although silver and gold aren't magnetic either) loses iron's magnetic qualities when it cools, and I don't think too many people have been putting red hot spoons on their noses. Keys are made of brass specifically so that they can't be magnetised because a magnetic key would severely reduce the security of locks. Add metallurgy, physics and skin secretions to the things that "Dr" Tenpenny is ignorant about, such as the safety of vaccines and the value of human life.

"Dr" Tenpenny lying like a champion.

* I'm drawing a very long bow in assuming that "Dr" Tenpenny could be embarrassed by this, or by anything really. My experience of professional anti-vaccination liars is that they have no shame even when caught out in the most outrageous lies.

See more from Brian Kent here

DELicious news (5/6/2021)
Another old friend popped to the top of the swamp this week. Del Bigtree, champion anti-vaccination liar and wearer of yellow stars, suffered from bleeding hæmorrhoids and needed attention from real doctors. He required a blood transfusion and insisted that any blood put into him had to come from donors certified to be free of any COVID-19 vaccines. As blood collection agencies aren't part of any conspiracy thinking there is no way of making such a guarantee. (When I give blood they only ask about vaccinations in the previous two weeks, not because they are worried about vaccines polluting the blood supply but because that time limit ensures that the donor is past any adverse reactions. No record is kept of any vaccinations I might have had prior to that.)

He initially thought that sudden shortness of breath and tiredness might be because he had contracted the non-existent (according to him) COVID-19, but this didn't stop him travelling around and possibly spreading the infection. He had it treated with a medication for head lice, something which is always a good idea when a viral infection is suspected, but he finally had a test and it turned out negative. When he consulted a real doctor he was told to get to hospital immediately because it was obvious that he was suffering from extreme anemia that had come on suddenly, and this usually means internal bleeding.

Then the fun started. Bigtree refused a blood transfusion and after consultation with a cancer quack from Tijuana he was advised to go to a hospital in Cancun, Mexico, where he could get unpolluted blood because nobody was vaccinated.

A couple of elderly but relevant jokes:

• Bigtree was envious of super supplement salesman Joe Mercola because Joe is so rich he has piles of gold.
• Doctors tried fixing Del's problem by an arsehole transplant, but despite trying all the anti-rejection drug cocktails the arsehole rejected him.

Yes, I was away this weekend doing my other hobby. You can read about my adventures here. I would have been at another rally on June 26 but it was cancelled because floods earlier in the year had done too much damage to the forest roads.

Showing my intolerance (26/6/2021)
I recently went through two bureaucratic mazes associated with web sites. The first arose because notification that renewal of hosting for this site was due was was addressed to an email address belonging to my now extinct company, an address which will cease to exist later this year:

• because of coming rule changes about .com.au domain names (owners will have to prove the existence of a commercial entity as owner and my company was deregistered after I retired)
• as I retired some time ago I only kept the domain name as a convenience in case any of my old clients or suppliers contacted me and needed to be told about my life of leisure
• because I no longer feel the need to pay for something I don't need or use

Apparently the hosting contract had somehow also been one that required a corporate entity as owner and I was expected to provide corporate registration details to change the contact email address. After a couple of laps around the park I changed the owning company's name to "None" and the registration code (Australian Business Number) to "999" (yes, I was tempted to use 666). The form which was very particular about these fields being filled with legitimate information obviously had no way to check validity (or even correct formatting – an ABN must look like 99 999 999 999) so I was able to change the contact email address and I'll get notifications after October. All good, and the hosting has been renewed for another year.

The second problem was with renewal of domain registration for the domain that is the one I use for most things (peterbowditch.com). I filled in all the right forms for renewal (although I still have to find out how $36 on the form turned into $80.04 on my bank statement) but a few hours before the registration expired a check showed that the renewal hadn't happened. Some back-and-forth between me and the domain registrar assured me that all would be right in the end (they did have my money, after all) and the domain was renewed just in time to prevent me losing the address and being cut off from almost everything I do.

So what has all this to do with intolerance?

When doing the clean up after my regular monthly check for broken links on this site I decided that I no longer have any tolerance for people who let either their domain names or hosting contracts expire, and I removed all of these links. In two cases the linked web sites had comments here, so the links were replaced with ones to copies of the sites in the Internet Archive. The rest of them – into the bin.

The other thing I noticed was the sites with https:// in their names but with expired or meaningless security certificates. If I can keep these certificates up to date on my three web sites then I am entitled to be nasty to people who don't bother. If Google and Bing can dump them from their search indexes I don't see why I should have them here either. I'll get a bigger bin for my next monthly link check.

And I've yet to decide what I'll do about the site that wants visitors to go through one of those Captcha rigmaroles before getting inside the place. I assume this also blocks the search engine spiders so it's a bullet straight to the instep.

And another thing … (26/6/2021)
As well as spending time fixing broken links I've been doing some behind-the-scenes, under-the-hood work on the site to address something that was offending my pedantry. The results are almost invisible but I'm a bit happier and that's all that matters.

See more from Dan and Wayno here

When madness breaks the craziness meter (26/6/2021)
I'm currently restricted in when I can go outside my home and there are all sorts of rules about numbers of people gathered together and where masks have to be worn. I'll put up with this because it's for the common good while the COVID-19 epidemic rages on (I get my second vaccine dose next week). Some people are not happy about the restrictions, but this beautiful example of the opposition sets a new benchmark for batshit crazy. It appeared at the end of 2020 but I've only just become aware of it. As the youngsters used to say (and maybe still do) – Enjoy!!

You can click on the image for a larger and maybe even funnier experience.

And no, I didn't block out what appears to be the word "fucks" (actually "FUCKS" in allcapsspeak). I don't do censorship – whoever posted the image to where I found it was responsible.

Other people threaten the government too (26/6/2021)
This popped up to the top of the septic tank. The Australian Vaccination-(we tell lies) Network is leading the push to sue the government for vaccinating people. The threat is written in a much less spittle-flecked fashion than the one above but is no less crazy and no more likely to have any effect. And these people keep saying that they are not opposed to vaccines.

Click on the image to see the full statement.

I'm not about to give them any search engine clicks so the link goes to a PDF file on this site. There is a non-working link in the file which says "Click here to read more" and it goes to a page on the AVN's web site where you can see the sort of comments that the idiocy attracts. So click here to read more.

Vileness update (26/6/2021)
And if you are ever tempted to think that Meryl Dorey from the AVN has any principles that would be recognised by someone with basic human understanding, here she is wanting members of Australia's indigenous population to die. She simply doesn't care who she offends or endangers with her anti-vaccination lies and rhetoric. The fact that she uses a picture of Donald Trump as her Twitter avatar should tell you all you need to know.

See more Red Meat here

I inform the authorities (26/6/2021)
In June 2020, when the COVID-19 scare was raging, anti-vaccination liars decided that it was an appropriate time to tour around in a bus promoting their lies. The bus didn't get too close to my place (a neighboring Council banned them from parking it anywhere in their area) so I didn't have to go and be a nuisance.

Now that COVID is back in the news because of  a low uptake of vaccination, some scare stories about one of the vaccines and idiots refusing to wear masks or keep their distance from other people, the bus is back on tour. The closest the thing is planned to be near me is the city of Orange (about 100km from my place), so I thought I would notify Orange City Council. I was restrained in my comments, as usual, but if the bus manages to get there so will I.

See more from the Chuckle Brothers here