Rage

[timscience]

I have been tagged for rage.

5 Things that have caused me to froth at the mouth. Some recent, some ongoing. Not including Blues Wanker who I have already ranted about.

1) Creationists in education. Or anywhere else. What is WRONG with you people? At least we no longer have Tony fucking Blair downplaying it2) Alternative medicine. Snake oil

Comments

[t__m__i]

Andrew Collins once made a spirited defence of Gillian McKeith (quite possibly just to show it could be done, I admit!) and after that I could never bring myself to hate her.
For all her snake-oil branded foods and poo-inspections, she does generally advise sensible stuff by & large (more vegetables, more exercise, less deepfried beige food) and seems to be genuinely outraged that people look after themselves in a way that they would be rightly ashamed to own if it were their pet and not themselves.
And when she ticks off some poor soul's family for continuing to fill the fridge with crap "for them" when their wife or mother is dangerously overweight and is so desperate that they've resorted to the famously "brisk" McKeith for help, well I cheer.

I wouldn't let her anywhere near me with that ruddy enema pipe mind.

[timscience]

No! I will not hear of any mercy for the McKeith!

Ticks off? She bullies. She's like a one woman gang of schoolchildren taunting the fat kid in the playground. She has become extremely rich by, essentially, making fat people cry on television. I somehow doubt that the bullying hamster diet has any permanent beneficial effect. Crash diets rarely do.

I'm genuinely outraged at her junk science, her "professional" credentials that can be bought on teh internets by a dead cat, her exploitation of the desperate to boost her own career, and her evil hamster face. She is evil on a stick and MUST BE DESTROYED.

[t__m__i]

Oooh feisty! But I'm not sure that mixing your metaphors (cat and hamster?!!) doesn't lead to curdling.

.... Michelle McManus did the Edinburgh Moonwalk and the Race for Life this year, apparently...

[timscience]

The cat is no metaphor! Ben Goldacre of Bad Science got his dead cat the same internet "qualification" from the American Association of Nutritional Consultants that La McKeith has.

[t__m__i]

PS I think Stephen Fry's social worker must have got him the technolust writing gig to try and channel his manic gadget-buying somehow (I guess he gets them free now!).

[timscience]

On current form someone is sending him a pile of free iPhones a day and nothing else :P

[t__m__i]

They're big you know. Do they vibrate when you ring them?
Just asking.

[timscience]

ooh er! Don't know. the closest thing I've seen to an actual iPhone is Damian's Touch. fnar.

[jackfirecat]

am also put-out by all those. Thanks for the link to Ben on Gillian - hadn't seen that.

[timscience]

Even 5)? I sort of assumed that Nyquist/Shannon related rage was a personal thing.....

I'll tag you if you have not raged already and wish to.

[jackfirecat]

oh, they tried to sell me expensive cables last time I bought a hi-fi, and I have a friend who spent much too much some money on gold-plated bi-wired wonders.

I'm tagged for nice things, which I'm finding hard to do. Being tagged for raged is good, thank you, but I'm in an unusally unraged place. which is why I'm currently unproductive. need. more. rage.

[timscience]

Ah, bi-wiring! Ohm's law applies to everything except hi fi cables, apparently.

Yes, rage is good.

[tea_and_cuddles]

I'm not going to argue about acupuncture, merely to observe that if you stick a needle in one part of your body, and you get an unusual and strong sensation in a completely unrelated part seconds later (something I've experienced several times), it's clear something physical occurs, whether or not it's justifiable as medicine.

"Justifiable as medicine" is the key phrase there, I think.

[timscience]

*shrug* If it's physical, it should be measurable. Bring it on an evidence based footing and I've no argument with it. It's clear for example that a lot of plants have physiologically active ingredients, which if one so desires can be isolated in the lab, which is why I didn't include herbal in the rant list (though I personally would question the wisdom of casually taking strong pharmaceuticals with unknown side effects and assuming they must be OK because they happen to be enclosed in a leaf).

I've not seen, yet, any evidence that stands up for the medical efficacy of acupuncture beyond placebo, although of course it's possible that such evidence exists.