LOLquacks

Radio killed the blogosphere star...

2009-02-11T15:58:00.003Z

When a self-confessed ignoramus who is apparently interested in learning about a particular topic goes out live on the air in order to be obnoxious to anyone who actually knows about that subject, you've got to ask yourself why she bothered in the first place. When you find out that the subject in question is the MMR vaccine, you've probably got your answer.

Surely there can be no topic that generates more ill-informed, hysterical nonsense than vaccines in general and MMR in particular? If there is, I don't think I want to know.

The Wakefield "controversy" is over, people, it's dead. There is nothing more to discuss; and if you think there is, it's because you've either not read or not understood the hundreds of scientifically-sound debunkings his work has received. His research was flawed, he broke every obvious - and quite a few non-obvious - ethical guideline in the process, and nobody except a couple of foaming-at-the-mouth media types who refused to lose face after publishing their scaremongering ever gave his story any credence once all the facts were in. If you insist on still believing it, you are not only ill-informed, you're an ill-informed dick; it's a scientific fact.

But still, STILL we have an irresponsible nitwit being allowed air-time to give members of the public the impression that there "must be something in it", that there's some sort of subjective truth about the efficacy and safety of the MMR vaccine that is different for you than it is for me, and that the Department of Health is there to scare people and bolster drug companies' profits.

Won't you think of the children, dammit? Their poor, tiny, baby bodies being filled full of CANCER-CAUSING POISONS?! Oh, the humanity.

Oh, the idiocy.

Thanks be to "seenoevil" for this contribution! kthxbai.

Can you feel the Force?

2008-03-05T09:44:00.005Z

From Marilee Welch...

Ah, Q-Ray and Bio-Ray: two bits of overpriced tat with no perceivable medical benefits whatsoever, other than to improve the wearer's life by the power of positive thinking. The thought in question being "I'm positive I paid too much for this shit and I'll never fall for such a cruddy scam again".

It's worth checking out the Bio-Ray website, which ought to firmly convince you of the efficacy of their products. Would you entrust your well-being to someone who writes sentences like this?

"In 1975 Ignacio S. Alvarez, the dinamic mallorquin[1], today President of the Company, added his effort to the investigations carried out by this Chiropractor and made the first actions of promotion and development of the product, combining his normal activities with the dedication and the effort that, to start this revolutionary product for the public meant."

Savour that once more in all its glory: "the dedication and the effort that, to start this revolutionary product for the public meant."

That's what you get for hiring Yoda to do your copy-editing.

*****

[1] What the buggering fuck is a "dinamic mallorquin", do you suppose? I can see it now: Issue #297 - Wolverine vs. The Dinamic Mallorquin. It'd sell like hot cakes.

Marilee, if you're out there and reading this... you didn't, as such, in so many words, actually attach the picture to your first submission and - having chased up the subject you mentioned - I'd very much like to see it!

I hosted u a website, but I eated it

2008-02-26T12:53:00.022Z

It has been a while, hasn't it? Never mind; I've finally got around to sorting out my access-from-work issues and as a special treat it's fairytale time here on LOLQuacks...

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin!

Once upon a time there was an evil, mad wizard. He was a very naughty, very silly man who couldn't do any magic at all really, but called himself important-sounding things so that people would take him seriously. His name was Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi.

Many of the people in the kingdom where Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi lived liked to look things up using a giant magic book made of words, pictures and music. And so, because he wanted very much to be important, Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi used to spend a lot of time writing good things about himself in the magic book. He did this so that nobody would realise how very bad he'd been, and so they would believe that he could really do magic.

He would even pretend to be other people writing things about himself! What a foolish chap!

But one day, when Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi was reading the magic book and making things up as usual, he saw a special page all about him that told everybody just what a bad person he was. Worse still, it seemed that lots of people were reading it and laughing at him!

The page was written by a little black duck, a clever fellow who worked very hard so that people wouldn't be fooled by nasty scoundrels like Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi. All sorts of folks came to read what the duck had to say, and everybody was ever so grateful to him for telling the truth (apart from the ones who were foolish or bad and wanted people to believe the lies they wrote in the magic book).

Nearly everyone loved the little black duck, but not Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi. He was very cross and he wanted nothing more than to get rid of the little black duck's pages about him.

Now, the magic book was so big and complicated that each page had to be kept in a special box so that people could find it and read it when they wanted to. It was the job of the box's owner to open it up and let anyone read it whenever it was needed.

Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi thought to himself "I can't scare the little black duck; he's too brave and clever for me. But the special box that his page is in is kept by some cowardly little pigs and I am sure I can frighten them!"

Chuckling to himself in an evil way, Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi made a plan. He went to his work-room and made a HUGE and scary sock-puppet from a jar labelled "sound and fury" that he kept for just such an occasion. His puppet was so scary that it even frightened him!

And so, Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi took his scary sock-puppet and went to see the cowardly pigs who owned the box that the little black duck's magic page was kept in...

He held his sock-puppet up to their window so they wouldn't realise it was just him all along, and he shouted to them in the scariest voice he could muster. "RIP OUT THAT PAGE!" bellowed Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi, "OR I SHALL HUFF AND PUFF AND BLOW DOWN YOUR HOUSE!"

Well, the cowardly pigs who owned the special box took one look at the sock-puppet and fell down in a swoon, they were so frightened! "Please don't hurt us!" they squealed, "We don 't want to be eaten up by the big bad monster!"

The cowardly pigs ripped out the page written by the little black duck... and can you believe it? They were so frightened that they ripped out all of the pages that the duck had written!

When the little black duck came along, wanting to write some more things on his pages that he thought people ought to know, he found that they weren't there any more. The cowardly pigs sat on the lid of the special box and wouldn't open it for him. "We don't want to be eaten by a scary monster," they said to the duck, "he's all big and frightening."

"But there is no monster," said the little black duck, his feathers drooping, "that was just Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi, who is a very bad man, and a sock-puppet he made out of sound and fury to frighten you!"

"We don't care," said the little pigs, who really were very cowardly indeed, "We just want you to go away so we don't get frightened any more."

Poor little black duck!

"Whatever will I do?" thought the duck to himself. "I've worked so very hard to tell people things on my magic pages, and now there is no special box for my pages to be in!"

He was a very sad duck indeed. He sat down upon a rock next to the road, looking glum.

Just then, his friend the Giraffe came by. "Hullo, little black duck!" boomed the giraffe in his friendly voice, "Why are you looking so sad?"

"The cowardly pigs who owned the box where my pages were kept have ripped them all out of the magic book," quacked the duck miserably, "and now nobody can read all my hard work."

"Oh no," said the Giraffe, "that will never do." The Giraffe thought for a minute. "I've got it!" he said, "You can put your pages in MY special box, and I'll let everyone come and read them there!"

"Really?" said the little black duck, sounding excited, "Can I?"

"Yes, of course you can." said the Giraffe.

"But won't you be frightened of Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi and his scary sock-puppet?" asked the duck.

"No!" laughed the Giraffe "I am not a cowardly pig and I'm certainly not frightened of sock-puppets!"

And so, the little black duck put his magic pages onto the Giraffe's special box, and everyone lived happily ever after... except for Dr. Professor Joseph Chikelue Obi!

Jurassic farce...

2007-12-10T11:34:00.001Z

Ask yourselves this: is the ability to Make Up Stuff That Is Not True and write about it for popular entertainment an appropriate qualification for holding forth on issues of global importance? Michael Crichton thinks so, and unfortunately it would appear that he is right.

The ability to ignore glaring facts and remake reality in a more compliant image - so valuable when writing science-fiction novels - is among the skills required of a first-rate propagandist: just ask L. Ron Hubbard [1].

It didn't matter that Crichton's stories about reintroducing dinosaurs using DNA preserved in amber were full of the most appalling bilge, because they were clearly just stories (and not terribly good stories at that, although I admit that the first film was a lot of fun). It does, however, matter rather a lot that his new stories are just as full of nonsense and just as guilty of ignoring the facts; because his new stories are about real issues and not as apparently fictional.

Ryan Somma, who submitted this particular LOLquack, will tell you all about it.

Cheers, Ryan!

[1] Yes, that's right, he's dead: but that ought not to prevent him from answering, given his extraordinary abilities and complete lack of need for a body.

Homeopathic truth in press releases

2007-11-30T10:40:00.000Z

I have been very lax recently. More than one person has been so good as to submit LOLquack material in the past couple of weeks and I haven't managed to post it; an unforgiveable lapse on my part. In an effort to begin remedying this deficiency, I present the first of a number of images sent to me by jdc, this one apparently via Gimpy's blog, although I haven't been able to find the pic there!

Do go and have a look at the story surrounding their latest press release. The Society of Homeopaths are a mendacious bunch of bastards as a matter of course, but they've really excelled themselves this time. For an interesting insight into the crazy world of backstabbing quack politics and the position occupied by the Society of Homeopaths therein, try this.

Submitted by jdc

OMG! Orful Poo Laydee be bothrin mah kitteh!

2007-11-15T10:15:00.000Z

Yeah, we've been far too serious recently. Thankfully, troubledjoe has dropped by to lighten the mood with this poor li'l kitteh...

I actually hesitated to post this one. Not on the grounds of taste; after all, anyone who prods around in other people's faeces for a living in order to make spurious diagnoses and who sells very expensive kits to let people do the same for themselves would hardly balk at doing the same to family pets... and of course, that's what worries me.

Should any of the major players in nutribollocks woo-mongering set eyes on this, they might realise that there's a relatively untapped market out there for animal nutrimysticism, and then no litter tray would be safe and I'd have that on my conscience forever.

Do I really want to be responsible for "You Are What You Eat... And So Is Your Pet!" - where some basket-case with a mail-order PhD tries to persuade a Rottweiler to forego the unhealthy meat-based diet that makes its poo smell so bad in favour of organic lentil and celeriac casserole?

Hmmm... maybe that's not such a bad idea after all.

Magik watuh onli wurk with magik wurdz

2007-11-14T11:18:00.000Z

You don't want that to happen, now do you? After all, if the labels were swapped over, there'd be no way anyone could tell which remedy was in which bottle. And that's straight from the mouth of Kate Chapman of the Society of Homeopaths. I mean, instead of dosing yourself with drops of water from Bottle A, you could end up dosing yourself with... OTHER water from Bottle B. The consequences are unimaginable.

So, if you believe that maybe, just maybe, telling people that you can protect them from fatal diseases with magic water might not be a clever thing to do; if you consider that ministering to sufferers from diseases such as AIDS and malaria with witchcraft whilst promoting the idea that "conventional" remedies for these conditions is poisoning the patients is perhaps just a tad unwise; if you are a UK resident who is concerned that state funding for superstitious mediaeval nonsense by one of the richest nations in the world is helping to promulgate a dangerous ignorance and ultimately resulting in preventable deaths in 3rd-world countries... SIGN THIS PETITION TODAY!

New hope for EMS sufferers!

2007-11-12T16:00:00.000Z

Up 'til now, you would have had to spend an absolute fortune on all sorts of strange devices (that don't freakin' do anything) in order to find some relief from the symptoms of Electromagnetic Sensitivity... but not any more! LOLQuacks takes pleasure in demonstrating a wholly natural and effective remedy for this most pernicious of ailments:

Problem solved! We can encourage our children to eat healthily and at the same time mitigate against the dreadful effects of Evil Wireless Death Rays in our schools... what a result!

Submitted by Persiflage

In His infinite compassion, Jesus said...

2007-11-08T16:05:00.000Z

Jehovah's Witnesses - you've gotta love 'em.

Here's an excellent blog post on this tragic story.

And yes, I've probably gone too far... but lest ye think me completely lacking in any fellow-feeling, there is a resource for ex Jehovah's Witnesses and those JW's who are having trouble dealing with the issues raised by their faith that you can find by clicking HERE

Introducing this week's Special Guest Star

2007-11-01T09:29:00.000Z

The pleasure and the pain of starting up a site like this is that when people send you stuff, you find yourself introduced to a whole new world of of painful agenda-led bad science and fakery. I hadn't even heard of today's LOLquack subject until the pic was submitted, but it's time to introduce you to...

Steven Milloy! Tobacco and oil-industry stooge, global warming denialist and campaigner for the rights of big business, he is the founder of JunkScience, a website dedicated to the proposition that anyone who considers anthropogenic global warming to be a reality is in fact an environmental terrorist hell-bent on destroying Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Nice.

Further to this, Mr. Milloy has created a competition for anyone who can scientifically prove that global warming is a reality. He's even putting up $125,000 of his own money as a prize.

Sounds like the heartfelt advocacy of a true believer prepared to put his money where his mouth is, wouldn't you say? Well, don't bet on it!

Thanks to Ryan Somma for this submission, for furthering my education, and for adding yet another person to the list of bad-science advocates that I lose sleep over...

Quackwalrus... is not amused

2007-10-31T11:36:00.001Z

It's my site: I'll mix as many damn memes as I want to!

There is no spoon...

2007-10-24T08:51:00.000+01:00

No site dedicated to quacks, crackpots and charlatans would be complete without a visit from the Amazing Israeli Spoon-Bender, and here he is!

(I have twelve thousand lawyers on standby.)

Submitted by Heraldis - nice one!

Lassie is yesterday's news

2007-10-23T20:09:00.000+01:00

Alright, so it isn't a LOLquack but when did that ever matter? Go to Cectic to read more - you won't regret it!

I'm sensing a disturbance in... your wallet

2007-10-22T13:57:00.001+01:00

Derek Acorah... Self-deluded nincompoop or money-grubbing exploiter of other people's misery? You decide.

Submitted by Persiflage

When I get that feelin', I want... Reiki healing!

2007-10-22T12:48:00.000+01:00

Submitted by lecarnardnoir - thanks!

Hang on... HOW toxic are you?!

2007-10-21T18:58:00.001+01:00

Ah, the lovely Sarah Beeny - SHE knows what's good for you, and it's everything "natural" and honest, rather than those nasty man-made chemicals that are making us all so toxic. So, party on down with the herbs and stay away from the chemicals; I've got a nice aloe-vera-and-aconite face cream waiting just for you...

Submitted by domino

You are feeling verrrrry... gullible....

2007-10-21T18:10:00.000+01:00

Submitted by grumpyolddog - and destined to become a classic, I feel.

Doctor... Who?

2007-10-20T11:00:00.000+01:00

Notadoctor Gillian McKeith: she provides us with so much innocent amusement that it's almost possible to forgive her for being an utter menace to the public understanding of science.

Almost, but not quite.

Submitted by "Emmer" - not a bad first effort, I'm sure you'll agree!

Neither hide nor hair

2007-10-18T19:42:00.000+01:00

Submitted by the inimitable Dr. Danny Chrastina

You've all thought it, you know you have...

2007-10-18T15:52:00.001+01:00

Submitted by vbloke, who clearly has a stronger stomach than most.

Actually, whilst I'd like to pretend to be dreadfully disapproving, I tried this on Day One but discovered my photoshop skillz weren't up to the jobbie! Fair play to vbloke for pipping me to the proverbial.

Hi everybody!

2007-10-18T15:29:00.000+01:00

Submitted by Troubled Joe - keep 'em coming, folks!

I can't *believe* I never thought of using Dr. Nick Riviera... I will leave a reasonable interval before stealing this idea and captioning him myself!

Truth in advertising

2007-10-17T13:41:00.001+01:00

Patrick Holford should need no introduction; but just in case he does, look here for the relevant story and here for all the background you'll ever need!

Submitted by Persiflage

Busy doin' nothin', busy the whole day through...

2007-10-17T13:38:00.001+01:00

Submitted by Dr. Danny Chrastina - thanks!

Gone on to serve a higher power...

2007-10-17T12:21:00.000+01:00

Yet another off-topic opportunity just too damn good to miss!

Submitted by Persiflage

One was so small, it was no cure at all...

2007-10-17T12:06:00.000+01:00

Submitted by Andrew Clegg of the badscience.net forum

Kinesiology: a genuinely ancient art...

2007-10-16T15:35:00.001+01:00

Submitted by Persiflage

Needles and pins...

2007-10-16T12:55:00.000+01:00

It's a pity, but what with the compression, the needle wasn't visible in the image... Anyone out there want to volunteer image-wrangling services? It's not like you'd be putting anything into the picture that wasn't already there!

Submitted by Persiflage

Papal inflatability...

2007-10-16T11:29:00.000+01:00

Alright, so it's not on topic and it isn't even the right damn meme, but I simply couldn't resist!

Edit: Posted @ loltheist - w00t!

Makin' ur kidz clevuh

2007-10-16T10:26:00.000+01:00

Ah, fish oil, is there anything it can't do?

Actually, yes

Submitted by Andrew Clegg

Krugel and unusual punishment

2007-10-16T10:19:00.000+01:00

Danie Krugel invented a wonderful "matter orientation system machine", operating on the principle of quantum sciencey things and powered by a battery hidden in his moustache, which can find anybody anywhere in the world with nothing but a DNA sample of some kind. It's really, really true. Most recently, he has been sticking his nose into the Madeleine McCann case. I expect he'll feature here really quite a lot, particularly if anyone can find any new photos of him...

Submitted by Andrew Clegg of the badscience.net forums - thanks Andrew!

Makin u feel bettuh

2007-10-16T10:15:00.000+01:00

Dr. Edward Bach...

2007-10-16T09:48:00.001+01:00

He made flower remedies, but d'you know what? In a clinically-conducted trial survey questionnaire study carried out by top sciency people, it was revealed that not one single flower ever got better as a result!

So with no further ado - and thanks to grumpyolddog - lolquacks presents:

Royal blues...

2007-10-15T17:08:00.000+01:00

Submitted by grumpyoldddog

Braaaaaaains!

2007-10-15T17:03:00.000+01:00

Submitted by Gimpy of the badscience.net forums

I'm feeling better already!

2007-10-15T16:20:00.000+01:00

Eating healthily is FUN!

2007-10-15T16:03:00.000+01:00

Evil Wireless Death Rays (TM) are coming for you!

2007-10-15T15:41:00.000+01:00

No, Gillian, you can't...

2007-10-15T14:45:00.000+01:00

Good old Sam Hahnemann - where would we be without him?

2007-10-15T14:39:00.000+01:00