Sweet justice

Power Balance is a company that prospered on gullibility: they sell overpriced silicon rubber wristbands with an imbedded hologram that do absolutely nothing, but which they claimed would enhance athletic performance. And they got suckers to shell out $60 for them.

The law caught up to them and forced them to publicly retract their claims. Here’s what you’ll find on their website now.

In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility.

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

If you feel you have been misled by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologise and offer a full refund.

To obtain a refund please visit our website www.powerbalance.com.au or contact us toll-free on 1800 733 436

This offer will be available until 30th June 2011. To be eligible for a refund, together with return postage, you will need to return a genuine Power Balance product along with proof of purchase (including credit card records, store barcodes and receipts) from an authorised reseller in Australia.

This Corrective Notice has been paid for by Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd and placed pursuant to an undertaking to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission given under section 87B of the Trade Practices Act, 1974.

I’d be jubilant, except that I expect this will make no difference at all to their scam. They’re still selling the same old garbage at the same extravagant price.

Cookies & booze & lesbians

A few people have noted in the comments that Conservapædia’s hot new front page topic is “Atheism and Obesity” — we’re all supposed to be humongous wobbling lardasses, as if that is some kind of rational argument against an intellectual position (“you’re fat!” kind of shot its bolt in grade school, and really doesn’t weigh heavily in a debate beyond that). The poster boy for stupid atheist fatsos, unfortunately, is me.

Poor, poor pitiful me. I’m crying tears of self-pity right now.

Rebecca Watson has a reply to that nonsense, and she noticed that I’ve lost a few pounds lately (so…Rebecca was checking me out, hmmmm?), so comes to the only logical conservapædian conclusion: I must be converting to Christianity. I’m so surprised!

I think that’s a great rallying cry for atheism: We have cookies & booze & lesbians! I’m afraid it won’t entice me back into the fold, however: cookies aren’t on my diet at all, I’m limiting myself to at most one beer a night, and why would lesbians, sweet as they are, have any special appeal to me? I’m only into heterosexual women (actually, woman) for obvious reasons.

So sorry. I guess I’m going to have to continue my backsliding. If ever I show up at a talk skinny and raillike, you’ll know I’ve become a fundamentalist. And if I gain any more weight, why, I must have become a lesbian.

Cookies & booze & lesbians

A few people have noted in the comments that Conservapædia’s hot new front page topic is “Atheism and Obesity” — we’re all supposed to be humongous wobbling lardasses, as if that is some kind of rational argument against an intellectual position (“you’re fat!” kind of shot its bolt in grade school, and really doesn’t weigh heavily in a debate beyond that). The poster boy for stupid atheist fatsos, unfortunately, is me.

Poor, poor pitiful me. I’m crying tears of self-pity right now.

Rebecca Watson has a reply to that nonsense, and she noticed that I’ve lost a few pounds lately (so…Rebecca was checking me out, hmmmm?), so comes to the only logical conservapædian conclusion: I must be converting to Christianity. I’m so surprised!

I think that’s a great rallying cry for atheism: We have cookies & booze & lesbians! I’m afraid it won’t entice me back into the fold, however: cookies aren’t on my diet at all, I’m limiting myself to at most one beer a night, and why would lesbians, sweet as they are, have any special appeal to me? I’m only into heterosexual women (actually, woman) for obvious reasons.

So sorry. I guess I’m going to have to continue my backsliding. If ever I show up at a talk skinny and raillike, you’ll know I’ve become a fundamentalist. And if I gain any more weight, why, I must have become a lesbian.

How to cover doomsayers

If you’re disappointed in CNN, you can always turn to MSNBC…ooops, never mind, they’re solemnly reporting on the end-of-the-world nonsense from the Harold Camping Cult. They’re predicting the Rapture will come on 21 May.

I would like to propose a novel version of Pascal’s Wager for the news media. When apocalyptic cults come along and announce disaster and doom, ridicule them. Just rip into them, send your most sarcastic, cynical reporters to cover the story, and just shred all the followers as loons and gullible freaks. There will be two possible outcomes.

One, they’re right, and the world ends. Your business has nothing to gain or lose by taking them seriously before the big event — it’s going kaput no matter what. So have a grand time before the catastrophe and make money with laughter. It’s not as if listening to crazy ol’ Harold Camping will make a bit of difference in your fate.

Two, they’re wrong, and the world keeps rolling on beyond 21 May. We all win! It means your coverage was spot on perfect, and got all the right answers, while the cultists are going to have to go glumly back to living their miserable little failed lives. Follow up with a feature on all the broken-hearted crazies. Start looking for the next mob of nuts to mock.

See? That’s how to handle it. All this sober pandering to derangement gains you nothing.

Were entrails read, or the flight of birds observed?

The CNN Belief Blog continues to blaze a vapid trail of inanity through the wilderness of insanity called religion. They have just published 11 faith-based predictions for 2011. Why? I don’t know.

To open 2011, CNN’s Belief Blog asked 10 religious leaders and experts – plus one secular humanist – to make a faith-based prediction about the year ahead.

Have a faithy prediction of your own? Share it in comments.

Here’s what those in the know are predicting:

Wait, what? “Those in the know”? Don’t they mean “those who don’t know, but believe really, really hard”?

What follows is a lot of empty noise and wishful thinking. Some of it is pretty funny, though, like the first prediction:

With the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” there will be a more concerted effort by the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community for gay marriage, uniting conservative evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox Jews in a much more civil but principled resistance. Respectful debate will produce more precise and pluralistic solutions.

-Dr. Joel C. Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, a Church Distributed, in Orlando, Florida

Clearly, Mr Hunter is not a member of the evidence-based community, because if history is any guide, a political decision promoting greater tolerance will be followed by more shrill, lunatic posturing for extremist positions by the rabid religious right.

The rest are just as self-serving and unfounded — I really don’t know why they bothered. I guess CNN is just following the money like the tabloids do; they might as well throw in an article that asks a bunch of famous psychics to make predictions for 2011. It’s all the same.

The science vs. creationism debate exemplified on a facebook page

This brief exchange captures it all.

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Just to put it in text: creationist ignoramus posts amazing “fact” in his status:

** Fact- if the earth was 10 ft closer to the sun we would all burn up and if it was 10 ft further we would freeze to death… God is amazing!

Someone politely replies, stating the actual astronomical facts.

to anyone wondering, that’s not true. 1) Earth’s orbit is elliptical and the distance from the sun varies from around 147 million kilometers to 152 million kilometers on any given year. 2) Every star has a habitable zone that is affected by the size of the star and its intensity. The Sun’s habitable zone is about 0.95 AU to 1.37 AU. An AU is the Earth’s average distance from the sun, 93 million miles, so Earth’s orbit could decrease by 4,500,000 miles or increase by 34,000,000 mises and still be in the habitable zone. 3) If your claim was true any moderately sized earthquake could take us out of the habitable zone. sorry.

The facebook status was hilarious enough, but his reply is simply perfect.

Okay thats cool and alll but dont ever comment on my status telling me that i am wrong everrrr again. I didnt ask you did i? Answer: NO

LALALALALA — I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

How innumerate are Americans, anyway?

I just saw a commercial peddling gold coins, going on and on about how the price of gold was soaring above $1300 per ounce, and showing this fancy glinting well-lit shiny gold coin and telling everyone the cost of gold meant the $50 price could only be guaranteed for 7 days. This coin is 14 karat 0.9999 pure gold clad! A little deeper in to the spiel, they mention that it contains 14 milligrams of pure gold.

Using their own numbers, by my calculation that means the $50 coin contains about 64¢ worth of gold.

It sounds like a tax on dumb people, to me. They’re probably snaring people who watch Glenn Beck and read the Wall Street Journal.