Leave The Kids Alone

So we've got two terribly cultish stories, both involving kids, making the rounds:

First, teenagers are killing themselves at an alarming rate, in a single English village, in what people are calling an "internet suicide cult". ("But how can that be?", you ask, "There's no cults around, it's just some black guy ranting", right?) And, second, the great Orac has a report on a children's hospital, in Chicago, that claims to heal kids using "integrative medicine". Great.

I just commented on kids and the effects of spirituality on Steve Salerno's SHAMblog. Why adults don't understand that rejecting reason, for "other ways of knowing" will damage kids is beyond me. It seems fairly obvious that, if kids can see that you don't adhere to reason, they won't want to either - and, well, what's left in life then?

I know that, once I discovered the dangerous idiocy of cultism around me, I wanted to die - but, somehow, decided to fight instead. Expecting kids to do the same is probably asking too much:

This is a battle for the adults.

But what good are the adults when they, obviously, can't tell reality from bullshit? That children's hospital story is a perfect example:

Orac discovered it because James Randi, and I, were arguing with Avery Comarow (above) of U.S. News & World Reports about "alternative medicine". Now, here's a guy whose job it is to check healthcare facilities for "quality" and he's musing on, idiotically, about there being little "risk" involved in our hospitals catering to nonsense - including the one in Chicago that's openly preying on kids to make money.

It's just the blind leading the blind and at this point, if you ask me, should probably be thought of as criminal. I mean, it's one thing what idiots with money will do with to their pets, but with their kids? Come on! Parents are supposed to protect their kids from shit like this. This is fraud, by any definition of the word, or the law. Cruel as hell, too.

The problem is that, since the 60's, most Boomers have been raised to question anything but post-modern nonsense and can't see their way out of it - don't know how to live without it. So they try passing it on to the kids but today's kids (not being fully indoctrinated and, ever so slowly, becoming painfully aware of the contradictions in the adult's behavior) they can see right through it.

But then, unless they read a blog like mine, they have nowhere to turn for answers. And, believe me, they want answers. I know because I talk to 'em. But everybody else keeps sending them back to the same bullshit, over and over, like yoga and meditation is going to, somehow, make them smarter. Hell, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were smart as can be and, both, rejected this form of sloppy thinking, out-of-hand. (If religion or pagan spirituality is the answer, how did that happen?) Fuck, I could go on, and on.

But, really, who am I fooling?

You people may never learn,....

I Don't Want To Say "I Been There" But,...

"Life is like a pipe.”

- A lyric from mega-recording artist Amy Winehouse's song, "Back To Black." Like Yours Truly, Winehouse was also forced to part with her spouse against her will, publicly rejected cultism, and openly writes about drug use (She was, also, recently caught on camera smoking "that rock".).

What it's like to be a (real) talented, passionate, and insightful artist:

Oh, you people just wouldn't understand,....

The Macho Response: ANONYMOUS

"WE ARE ANONYMOUS. WE ARE LEGION. WE DO NOT FORGIVE. WE DO NOT FORGET. EXPECT US."

And so - as I expected - The Cult Wars have begun.

Which side are you on?

Joseph Chikelue Obi Ain't No Obi Wan Kenobi

Well, it looks like the homeopaths are being fascists again, with some asshole named Joseph Chikelue Obi trying to stop Le Canard Noir from writing about homeopathy. These glorified water boys tried to pull this stuff before back in October. (Ever wonder why homeopaths, like Scientologists, don't want an open discussion on their topic of choice but, instead, immediately turn to their lawyers when someone points out their "cures" don't work or how the water-is-supposed-to-be-medicine thing makes no sense?)

Anyway, along with all the other bloggers working on quackery, I'm posting the expose' Obi's trying to ban - in full - and I'd suggest that anyone who wants to see for themselves how homeopaths do business read it (This Obi guy claims to have developed a "Penis Enlarger",...and, like my ex, Karine Brunck, had joined some weirdo group that wants to abolish general medicine as we know it.). It's just more proof these guys are criminals of the highest order:

Right Royal College of Pompous Quackery - Dublin, Thursday, September 28, 2006

I had to share this with you. Following on from my recent Quack Word 'Doctor' blog, I came across the Royal College of Alternative Medicine (RCAM) , a Dublin based - well, I'm not sure quite what it is...

What caught my eye was just the shameless aggrandisement of the site. It is quite hilarious, if not a little repetitive at times. Calling yourself 'Doctor' is somewhat pompous when all you have done is paid for some international postage. However, the man behind RCAM has absolutely no shame and titles himself as the:

"Distinguished Provost of RCAM (Royal College of Alternative Medicine) Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK)"

Wow! Probably, just Joe to his mates. Naturally, when you Google the qualification FRCAM(Dublin), there is only person who appears to revel in this achievement. I'll leave the rest as an excercise for the reader.

The distinguished provost looks like he is just another pseudoscientific nutritionist, his spin being "Nutritional Immunomodulation". This is obviously a lot more clever than Patrick Holfords mere 'Optimum Nutrition', but having only one 'omnipill' is probably a poorer commercial decision that Patrick's vast range of supplements.

Obviously, Professor Obi has had a few problems with what probably amount to bewildering comments about his site as the legal threats and press releases concerning his 'ethical' responses to criticisms cover more space than anything else. 'Ethical' is a favourite word on the site.

The most recent press release states:

"7th September 2006 : The Distinguished RCAM Provost, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi FRCAM(Dublin) FRIPH(UK) FACAM(USA) MICR(UK) has formally accepted appointment as Chief Professorial Examiner for the Doctor of Science (DSc) programme in Evidence Based, Alternative Medicine (EBAM) of a highly respected International University in one of the British Commonwealth Protectorates.

This new qualification is primarily aimed at Medical Graduates, Physicians, Surgeons, Pharmacists, Dentists, Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Opticians, Wellness Consultants, Herbalists, Acupuncturists, Naturopaths , Healers, Podiatrists , Chiropodists , Scientists , Healers ,Therapists, Homeopaths, Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Nurses wishing to ethically upgrade their current Qualifications in Alternative Medicine over an exceedingly intensive 12 - 36 month period of study."

British Commonwealth Protectorates? Could that be Dublin?

I really have no idea what this organisation is all about. But it looks like it could be getting quite big soon...:

"RCAM currently has International Vacancies for One Million (1,000,000) 'Foundation Fellows' ('Movers and Shakers') ; who will independently play a highly pivotal role in diligently mentoring (and regulating) it's future Global Membership.

So if you really think that you seriously have what it takes to become a 'Leader' in Alternative Medicine , then (perhaps) RCAM may definitely be exactly what the Doctor ordered for you."

One million. That's a lot of quacks! And they are just to mentor (and regulate) the wider quack membership! This man has ambition.

The Big J really hates real doctors. This is his most recent press release...:

"RCAM would like to warmly commend the various Chieftans of the National Health Service of the United Kingdom for ethically and appropriately ignoring utterly misguided calls (from a rather amusing Group of thirteen Clinical Yestermen) to compel Hard-Working (and Tax-Paying) British Citizens to additionally pay for Life Enhancing Alternative Medicine Interventions out of their very own pockets - rather than get such treatments free via the NHS. RCAM would like to also categorically state that such exceedingly flawed 'G-13′ demands that the National Health Service of the United Kingdom expediently abandon Alternative Medicine altogether (in total favour of Conventional Medicine) be diplomatically treated with the very utmost contempt which such unguarded verbal flippance duly deserves ; as none of these 13 'Eminent UK Scientists' behind such calls has professionally attained Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications in Alternative Medicine and as such cannot be deemed competent enough to make such sweeping 'Shilly-Shally' statements about the noble independent specialty of Alternative Medicine.

RCAM therefore publicly advises the General Public to lawfully go about their normal Wellness-Seeking Behaviour as usual - without any unwarranted prejudice or fear resulting from such highly self-serving, morally unethical , abjectly crude , totally unprofessional, utterly unstatesmanly, morbidly barbaric, wantonly uncivilized, profanely undemocratic and unspeakably sacrilegious perpetual affronts on the therapeutically formidable institution of Alternative Medicine."

Now, I do not have 'Globally Acceptable Fellowship Qualifications' in Santa Clause Studies to know he does not exist. But hey. I must be a morbidly barbaric and profanely undemocratic, unethical duck.

So, struggling around the acres of pomposity I find one place where Prof Joe might be making some money. You can call him to seek his wisdom, after pre-booking an hour's slot (and handing over your credit card) for a mere 300 Euros. Alternatively, you can pay by the minute on the contact line for a trifling $10 per minute.

Its going to cost you $20 just for Joe to say Hello and to read out his numerous titles, qualifications and names. Not bad 'ethical' work.

Ethical Quackery, the Monarchy and Kate Moss - Thursday, October 12, 2006

No, this is not about our Defender of Quackery, our Quack-in-Chief His Royal Quackiness, Prince Charles, but about the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi. And yes, it is just a rather lame story written solely to get a picture of Kate on my blog.

I've written a rather lazy blog on the distinguished professor before that was just a bit of a gawp at his quacktastic website and what looks like a health phone-line scam.

Well, I've done a little more digging with Google and it has revealed a few quack gems. It has been pretty hard work, since Google returns some 6,000 pages, the vast majority just appears to be Prof Obi's self-promotion. However, if you persist in digging a few interesting facts turn up.

So, what has the little black duck found out about the "most Controversial Retired Physician and 'A-List' Medical Celebrity, Dr Joseph Chikelue Obi"?

Here we go...

1. The Irish Independent reports that his college does not exist at the Dublin address given on the web site. There's a surprise! It's just a front.

2. The Independent goes on. "In January 2003, he was suspended by for serious professional misconduct at South Tyneside District Hospital. Among the allegations made were that he failed to attend to patients, wrote strange notes about colleagues and at one point gave a dating agency phone number to a psychiatric patient."

3. He was being investigated by the police for taking thousands of pounds of a 58 year old woman to in order to cure a long standing illness.

4. The GMC strike Dr Obi off their register for "serious professional misconduct". So much for him being retired.

5. On another tack, Dr Obi has been involved in a little cyber-squatting. This looks as if it took place while he was a doctor - always after a few quid!

6. Since then, now self-titled Prof Obi, a few new avenues have been opened, including trying to entice Kate Moss away to one of his 'safe-houses' in Ireland. Hat's off!

He is quoted as saying:

"Under the European Convention on Human Rights, Miss Moss still has fundamental rights, just like anyone else out there, and as far as I am concerned, she is not guilty of anything until an Ethical Jury says so."

(I mentioned before that 'ethical' was one of his favourite words.)

7. Prof Obi has been developing a Penis Enlarger (watch out Kate) that his own Royal College has now endorsed.

8. At least one person (out of the targeted million) has paid Prof Obi the fees for his college to accredit them. Dr Michael Keet (8 Canards) of the Central London College of Reflexology handed over 'hundreds'. Do we feel sorry for out-quacked quacks? I guess we ought to.

9. For those of you wanting to see behind the grand titles and see the real human being, Joseph lists his interests as Comedy in London, Whole Food Nutrition and Christian Music. On this 'Meetup' site, he describes himself as "Just a very ordinary guy . . .". That's nice.

10. His name appears very often on the blog Abolish The General Medical Council (GMC), often reporting something he has got up to. The blog describes itself as:

"An ethical blog for those who publicly feel that the General Medical Council (GMC) should be Statutorily Abolished in favour of a Medical Licensing Commission (MLC) to solely register and revalidate Doctors who practise Conventional Medicine in the UK. The Blog also recommends that the GMC/MLC hands all disciplinary functions over to an Independent Clinical Tribunal (ICT) in keeping with the EU Convention on Human Rights ; to avoid (both) Institutional Bias and Multiple Jeopardy."

Oooh. There is that word 'ethical' again. And 'European Human Rights'. No name is given for the blog author but the avatar is a portrait of the queen. Another apparent obsession of Prof Obi - royalty. Could the author be none other than the Professor himself, a little agrieved for his ticking off? I hope you all click through to the blog. Maybe we will show up in his stats and whoever the writer is can get in contact and confirm one way or another.

I rather hope it is, as the final thing I turned up would just be fantastic...

11. Is the Distinguished Provost of the Royal College of Alternative Medicine, Professor Obi now selling ethical ring-tones? I do hope so.

Watch out Crazy Frog! Here comes the Crazy Provost...

Stop these homeopathic thugs - spread the word - by lending your support to:

Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Scientologists, Religious Nuts, Spiritual Seekers (And All Other Idiotic Believers): You Are A Fucking Moron

Looking Forward To It

THE FUTURE by Leonard Cohen

Give me back my broken night, my mirrored room, my secret life
It's lonely here, there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby, that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother: it is murder!

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned the order of the soul!

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now - We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, brother: it is murder!

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

I Can See Through You

"In this country, it seems that you can always get an argument going about "race" as long as it is guaranteed to be phony,...Almost every day brings news of full-dress media-oriented spats about Don Imus, Bob Grant, or the recent nonstory about how some golf show had managed to mention Tiger Woods and the word "lynch" in the same news cycle. The preceding week had involved some trivial but intense parsing of an exchange between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But just let the real thing occur, with a full-blooded and full-throated bellow of old-fashioned authentic racism, and youcan see the entire press refusing to cover it for fear of having to confront the real and unvarnished thing."

- Christopher Hitchens, gloriously pointing out the obvious, in Slate

"In South Carolina the Confederate flag is flying right out there in the open and Pitchfork Ben is on display for all to see. But in most other places, the hostility to blacks remains on the down-low. No one wants to deal with it."

Bob Herbert, addressing the same issue, in the New York Times

Over the King Holiday, I'd been thinking about all the recent "race" bullshit a lot, and it strikes me as being just that - so much bullshit:

Don Imus (who I, and many others, like) didn't do anything wrong - and got paid well for it - and then, after losing his job under false pretenses, got his job (and his money) back.

The Duke Lacrosse Team got railroaded by Mike Nifong - and the black community - but nobody's holding the black community (or their white supporters other than Nifong) accountable.

And several recent firings over bogus race charges, mostly addressing Tiger Woods' sensibilities - even after Tiger said he wasn't bothered or affected in any way by the so-called "offenses" - are just wrong and totally over-the-top.

What's interesting about all this is the passionately twisted, liberal thrust of them all:

Someone is trying to prove something here, but, like The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, the accusers seem incapable of stopping themselves from hitting the wrong guys. Where they imagine racism - or just make it up - somebody (white) must pay. Where real racism exists, the victims can't find a friend.

Why is that?

Hung (In More Ways Than One)

"[Clarence Thomas] compared milquetoast Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to an angry mob armed with firearms and strong rope.

Irony notwithstanding, it's possible that race did play a role in validating Hill's accusations. These charges had an ugly racial overtone, intended or not: the black man as sexual predator. That's how many of Thomas's colleagues and much of the nation would receive them. The people who advanced the charges and pressed the issue had to have known this. These charges were probably more believable to many people and certainly much more damaging psychologically to Thomas because of his race. Mightn't an embattled Thomas reasonably have suspected that part of the reason so many believed her and not him, part of the reason her story, tarnished by the passage of time, gained the luster of plausibility and for many the gleam of Truth, was that her account confirmed one of the most pernicious of racial stereotypes?"

- Richard Thompson Ford, writing on the Anita Hill Hearings and the possible role of the race card, for Slate.com.

Jesus In A Jet?

"Jesus came into the city on a simple donkey,...what are disciples of his doing flying in jets?"

- Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who is leading an investigation into the finances of several high-flying religious leaders

Puttin' Beatin's On The Thetans

“You shouldn’t be scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. Get yourself a nigger; that’s what they’re born for.”

- L. Ron Hubbard, supposedly to his second wife, according to Investigative journalist Ian Halperin, author of “Hollywood Undercover,” his exposé of the cult

"I can tell you who shouldn’t be President - Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice and the Rev. Al Sharpton. They should not be allowed to run for office, they should be sweeping the office.”

- A Scientology recruiter, also from Ian Halperin

This is just getting better and better,...

Charlie Wilson's War: Better Than Liberal Crap

"If you like your war movies worthy, pious and starring Susan Sarandon as the teary-eyed mom of a 22-year-old boy sent to his death by the Bastard Bush, then you should probably avoid Charlie Wilson’s War. There’s no simplistic antiwar message here, or even a simpleton antiwar message of the sort spouted by Sean Penn or Tim Robbins. Instead, this is a tightly-scripted, borderline slapstick comedy about America’s secretive arming of the Mujahideen during the Afghan-Soviet war of the 1980s. And guess what? It reveals far more about contemporary America and what lies behind its interventionist zeal than all of those achingly guilt-ridden films about lions, lambs and dead American soldiers put together.

This is a war movie with a difference. Where the execrable Lions for Lambs was largely a vehicle for Robert Redford and Tom Cruise to register their distaste for the war in Iraq, and Rendition sacrificed pace, plot and good acting to tell the tale of an evil CIA woman (Meryl Streep, effectively resurrecting her bitchy role from The Devil Wears Prada) and an innocent Egyptian terror suspect, Charlie Wilson’s War remembers to include a storyline and character development. And because its overarching aim is not to advertise its stars’ and producers’ narcissistic antiwar credentials, but rather to give us a story, encounters, sex, politics, it manages to paint a truer picture of America’s relationship with the Middle East than the black-and-white, conspiracy-driven drivel offered by the likes of George Clooney (Syriana) and Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11).

If you like simplistic morality tales in which American administrations conquer the world in order to plunder its oil, and where the only redeemable characters are those brave Hollywood souls willing to make films about it, then go see the new Susan Sarandon vehicle,...

Brendan O’Neill, writing in Spiked!

Sign Of The Times: This Shitty-Ass Story Sure Sounds Mighty, Mighty, Familiar,...

MORAL PANIC
By John Fekete
Robert Davies, 1994

In 1993, the "Final Report of the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women" set off what John Fekete, a man of the left and a major figure in academic cultural studies, compellingly termed a "moral panic," a fanaticism that led to willful bad science, to callous indifference to truth and criticism, to zealous bad law and policy, and to efforts to transform coercively the freedoms and dignities of an entire people. How else to save Canadian women from the violence of the warlocks except by creating a yet larger political state to infantilize both sexes and to effect a moral regeneration of men across the barbarism that is Canada? Fekete, a professor at Trent University in Ontario, offers a deeply disturbing account of the treacherous union of modern political superstitions with the totalizing exercise of power that sanctimonious passion invariably demands. His trenchant analysis of statistical fraud in the service of political aims is itself worth the reading. "Moral Panic" is an indispensable guide to the fanaticism of our times.

- From a Wall Street Journal review of books on modern fanaticism

"Modern fanaticism"? What "Modern fanaticism"? There's no "modern fanaticism" going on around here! No, everything's just fine and dandy,...fine-and-dandy. Really:

Keep movin' - ain't shit to see here,...bitch.

No, No, That's How They All Talk!

"It may be the case that [Tom] Cruise's delivery style is not uncommon in certain religious movements in the US. but, for Germans with an interest in history, that scene where he asks whether the Scientologists should clean up the world and everyone shouts 'yes' is inevitably reminiscent of Goebbels' notorious ["Do you want total war?"] speech."

- Guido Knopp, an expert on Second World War history, speaking to Bild about you know who (reprinted in the London TIMES)

Come on, you know how it works:

God is omnipotent, and me AND ALL MY FRIENDS are agents of God,...or Xenu. Or "we're all gods" or some other nonsense the voice in our heads tell us. Or someone put in there. Whatever. The point is we've got to push you guys around. We're compelled, O.K.? Now, do what's best, and listen to The Cruiser: