Jul 052015
 

Herbal

An untested chemical that grows in the garden. Possibly not your garden.

It could be benificial – Aspirin is after all a cleaned up and tested version of what was previously a herbal remedy. It could be safe; at least it could be safe in the kind of doses suggested (everything is poisonous enough in high enough doses – even water).

But it has not been tested properly either for effectiveness, nor safety. And if it is effective, is it more effective than a placebo?

Chemical-Free

Another way of saying an empty bottle. If you shake your bottle and it rattles or gurgles, send it back as it's got chemicals in it.

Homeopathy

Expensive water.

In fact if there were any positive value to homeopathy, there would be no complaints of joint pain in hard water regions (calcium carbonate is supposedly a treatment for joint pain).  And guess what? I get both hard water through my taps, and joint pain. 

Natural

… as opposed to "man-made". Both are a means of production and neither means of production has any implications as to the effectiveness of a product.

However evolution does not tend to produce something whose sole purpose is to cure headaches; the willow tree evolved to have a nasty bitter tasting bark to discourage animals from eating its bark not to cure headaches. That was an accident. To treat a headache "naturally", you will need to find a willow tree, pull off a chunk of bark, grind it up, and eat it. A man-made pill labelled "Aspirin" is more readily available, safer (it only contains the chemical for the headache treatment), and is less damaging to those poor willow trees.

So in this case, "natural" is actually a bad thing.

Faith-Healing

Asking an imaginary friend for help. Frankly asking a real friend is just as likely to work, and any effectiveness is due to the placebo effect.

Acupuncture

If you want someone sticking pins in you to make a little wax figurine replica of you to say "Oww!" then by all means go ahead.

Aug 212014
 

Everyone knows who I am talking about – those christians who keep banging on about how homosexuals are “broken” or evil or whatever weird names they’ve come up with lately. Like Scott Lively, Fred Phelps, Laura Schlessinger, etc.

The normal and sane response to finding out that someone prefers same-sex partners is to shrug it off as a matter that is nobody’s business but the people involved.

But “god hates homesexuality” claim the christian homophobes. So I gather, but I also gather this god person hates lots of other stuff too – mixed textiles, women who try and stop men fighting, no cursing, no gossiping, weird foods, etc. So why are these people so bent out of shape when it comes to a little harmless sex between consensual adults?

Well, when we normally encounter someone with a prurient interest in the sex lives of other people, we usually find that they like watching other people have sex. And we call them “voyeurs”.

If we were to postulate a hypothetical group of voyeurs who for some reason or another (perhaps “christianity”) repressed their sexual perversion, we would be quite likely to find them coming to hate the “objects” of their unnatural desire.

Which sounds a great deal like these christian homophobes.

Perhaps we should be treating these christian homophobes with compassion. Telling them their desires are perfectly fine (if they get permission first) and sending them free porn!

Apr 302014
 

See: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/24-agonising-british-problems

  1. I’m still waiting for the first person to hold a door open for me.
  2. If I can’t hear you, you ain’t talking.
  3. “Gerroff”
  4. There’s actually a better way to deal with unexpected visitors. First take all your clothes off, and then invite them in. It works especially well with Jehovah Witnesses.
  5. “The button is not lighing up … we’re trapped. We’ll die in here. Slowly.” in an increasingly panicy voice.
  6. Tea? What’s that?
  7. But “well this is fun” is supposed to be the way to announce that you’re having the worst time of your life.
  8. Well that’s no way to make someone nervous.
  9. And thus, never choose a first choice mug.
  10. Don’t get annoyed; just use the cricket bat.
  11. Do people really do that?
  12. “Do you come equipped with a mute button?”
  13. Never experienced this. Possibly because I refuse to speak to machines.
  14. But “that’s interesting” is supposed to be sarcastic.
  15. Not at all. It’s a great opportunity to tell people endlessly about my fascination with serial killers.
  16. A sandwich connoisseur would never trust someone else to make the sandwich.
  17. You do surprise me.
  18. Actually, I practice my odd pained grimaces. It takes effort to get them just right.
  19. Of course!
  20. Not at all. See #4
  21. Who am I?
  22. It actually translates as “Thanks a bunch for using this infernal instrument to interrupt me and ask me your trivial question when I was doing something important.”
  23. And of course it should never be used unless blood is spurting.
  24. Actually it’s a great opportunity to bite their neck and suck their blood.