Note from Mum (9/11/2019)

I was planning on writing a story about my visit to the MondBody$pirit Festival but I have been distracted.

Smoke from bush fires in Eastern Australia is dropping ash on New Zealand.

I live in Area 10

The usual bullshit is coming from climate change deniers. I have suggested that they be given hand-held fire extinguishers and then dropped from helicopters into the worst of the fires, but there will be time for torches and pitchforks after the crisis has been averted. Of course, if all the areas in red aren't reduced to cinders in a few days the deniers will be shouting "Hoax", but I wonder why we still pay any attention to the rantings of  insane people.

Back next week. I hope.

Public Service Announcement - filth is coming (9/11/2019)

I thought I'd give everyone a heads-up about a film that's about to be shown across Australia. Screenings start in early December but you will need time for Ebay to deliver the sick bags to catch the vomit before you sit down to watch it. The film is "Vaxxed 2 - What You Don't Know" and is a sequel to an excrescence named "Vaxxed: From Coverup to Catastrophe" that polluted the world in 2016. You can see something about that if you go back in time to March, but be warned - unless your sick bags have arrived you should wear a raincoat and put some plastic sheeting down to avoid damage to your carpet before you watch the video.

Once again the venues that will be showing the film will be kept secret until just before the shows start. According to the organisers, the Australian Vaccination[-this week's name] Network, "Due to the well-orchestrated threats of violence and abuse that come from the pro-censorship community, the exact venue will not be announced until the day of the screening". There have of course never been any threats of violence in the past, but liars have to tell lies otherwise they feel disappointed with themselves.

Here is the trailer for the film. Even this short exposure raises the risk or esophageal damage from reflux, so you should probably drop a couple of antacid tablets before watching. I would still recommend the raincoat and plastic sheeting just to be sure, though.

People are being asked to pay good money to see the film, so I'm keeping my eye on YouTube and some torrent sites and will bring it to the world for free (cheap at half the price) as soon as I can.

Speaking of the new "Vaxxed" (9/11/2019)

Someone at a screening in the US took a photo of the screen and proudly posted it to an anti-vaccination liar page on Facebook. Apparently citing Hitler makes these creatures feel good because he seemed to agree with something they say. It probably doesn't need to be said but I'll say it anyway - they equate vaccination to the Holocaust but seem quite comfortable with quoting the architect of that atrocity when it suits them.

Luckily I kept a sick bag from the last time I was on a plane, but that was the only one I had so I'm waiting for the delivery from Ebay.

See more from Robert Leighton here

Australian Skeptics National Convention
Melbourne in December

Young Scientist Awards (2/11/2019)

It's that time of the year again, so I made the long drive through a kangaroo and wombat slalom to give a short speech at the Young Scientist Awards.

You can read the speech here.

Concentrated, triple-distilled essence of filth (2/11/2019)

It was Halloween near my place a couple of days ago (it was probably Halloween near your place at around the same time, but this is my site and I'm entitled to be a bit parochial). Because of the diabetes I don't usually have any sweets around the house and because of having a cold I didn't get to the shops to buy any, so I suppose that because of the location of my flat I was a bit lucky that no goblins turned up at my door to be disappointed.

Other people, however, were getting very well prepared for when the neighbourhood kids turned up.

Sorry, did I say "people"? As anyone who would think of this does not deserve membership in the human race, please read "turds" instead.

This woman claims to be a registered nurse, but as the health authorities have no record of her we can assume that she is lying about either her name or her job. She might still be a nurse, but obviously she is aware of the consequences of suggesting an act of bioterrorism and the possible, make that probable, effect on her continued employment. I'm not sure what is the more frightening - that she might be a neighbour preparing to endanger your children or that she might be the nurse who attends you in hospital.

She has been posting anti-vaccine lies on her Facebook profile for some time, but the profile has now been deleted. Not only does she lie either about her name or about being a nurse (or possibly both), but faced with a bit of criticism of her disgusting activities she has run away. Cowards do that.

And of course the anti-vaccination liars who "liked" her previous posts and even this one are now declaring that she is really an agent provocateur planted by the pro-vaccine crowd in order to make them look bad. The funny thing is there is no reason for sane people to do that, because they reveal their evil nature to the world in almost anything they say or do.

Oh, and in case you think that this really is an isolated case of a single rogue anti-vaccination liar acting alone and suggesting something that would offend the rest of the world, remember that in 2014 the National Vaccine Information Center wasn't the least bit concerned about Halloween vandalism. See the story here.

Something else for Halloween (2/11/2019)

See more of Cectic here

Somebody stop him with the Halloween jokes (2/11/2019)

See more from Scott Hilburn here

He won't stop (2/11/2019)

See more from Mark Parisi here

It keeps happening (2/11/2019)

See more from Dan Piraro here

Aaaaaarrrrgghh! Make it stop! (2/11/2019)

See more from David Coverly here

Past, present, future (26/10/2019)

The trip to the MindBody$pirit Festival went well, and there will be a report on the adventure here shortly. The incipient Man Flu turned out to be a really bad cold, but a dust storm blew into town during the week and I'm still a bit (a lot?) clogged up so this week's updates will have pictures and things but not many words. I'm looking forward to giving my annual short speech to the Young Scientist Awards next Friday night, but as this involves a 600 kilometre round trip through kangaroo infested country on high-speed roads I tend to arrive home a little tense and frazzled so I might need a day of rest to recover. That's if I'm over the cold, of course, because if I'm not recovery might take longer.

Let's move on.

Solidarity forever! (26/10/2019)

Whenever a quack comes under some form of criticism all branches of the alternative to medicine industry immediately combine to respond. Their responses are almost always just a collection of lies, non sequiturs, abuse and logical fallacies. And almost inevitably there's a sighting of the Pharma Shill Gambit, where people who talk sense are accused of being paid for what they say. As I've said before, if I were to be paid to do what I do I would do more of it and better.

Here's an anti-vaccination liar defending someone who claimed to be able to cure                 (you fill in the blank) with baking soda, among other things.

You can see more about the egregious Barbara O'Neill here.

Speaking of anti-vaccination liars ... (26/10/2019)

One of the few things that can make an anti-vaccination liar happier than hearing about a dead child is when the death of that child can be exploited to further their putrid agenda. It gets even better for them if the child had famous parents, because then the exploitation can be disguised by pretending to care about the parents' feelings in order to bring the celebrity's fans and followers into the tent. It helps if you can get your followers to interfere and increase the parents' grief.

(The name was covered by the person who took the screen shot. That does not happen when I take screen shots.)

Another thing that makes them happy is when they can endanger others by lying.

17-year-old-boy: Mummy, mummy. The girls at school won't let me have sex with them unless I'm vaccinated against HPV.

Mummy: Don't worry about it. Just lie to them and tell them you've had all the shots. By the time they are diagnosed with cervical cancer you will be long gone and it won't be your problem.

The secret is out (26/10/2019)

I didn't think I could like George more (26/10/2019)

The doors of non-perception are opened (26/10/2019)

Everybody my age must have a copy of the Pink Floyd album "Dark Side Of The Moon" somewhere (I have at least three - very worn vinyl, first-release CD, 25th anniversary CD) and would therefore be familiar with the song "Brain Damage" which contains the lines:

Well, the paper boy was by busy at my place recently, trying to keep these on the floor:

Magical mystery mail (26/10/2019)

The "You've got mail" dinger keeps dinging, but sometimes what gets delivered is a bit strange.

From: Vestal Harner
Subject: Inquiry
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 19:38:43 +0800

Hello Customer,
I would like to inquire about models/sizes on Hot Stamp Coder you sell,so email me availability and let me know the types of payment you accept.Hope to hear back from you ASAP.

Best Regards,

Vestal Harner
Harner Equipment
Santa Rosa, CA 95403, USA

I have no idea what a Hot Stamp Coder is and I don't want anyone to tell me because that would spoil the fun. Whatever one of them is, it certainly wasn't anything I sold in my IT business.

From: Georgi
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 01:40:46 +0000
Subject: Will you work with us?

Hello,

My name is Georgi and I am managing the marketing campaigns of a few gift related websites.

We're interested in sponsoring an article on ratbags.com. Do you accept pre-written content and how much does it cost?

The requirements we have for the article are:
1. to have a dofollow link
2. not to be tagged as sponsored
3. The article to be permanently placed.

If you'd like to write it yourself - that is fine as well.

Otherwise - send me a price and topics you'd like our writers to cover.

Thank you in advance!

Best Regards,
Georgi

A couple of points:

1. I assume that "to have a dofollow link" means that the link can't contain the 'rel="nofollow"' tag (it's the one I use on all links to bad places to stop the search engines going there to index the sites)
2. I'm sorry, but I don't run ads here without identifying them as ads. Amazon have just told me that all links for product sales must be clearly declared as external links and I have to prominently state that I receive commission for sales.
3. If you want a permanent advertisement or sponsorship there will be a very big bill, as there will be for "pre-written content" that I assume would be out of my control.

$3 million into my PayPal account would get the negotiations started, Georgi.

5G, GMO, Glyphosate. Gee, those Gs are scary (26/10/2019)

A new variety of Golden Rice has been announced. one which will be much more effective in preventing blindness in third-world countries. This announcement has of course livened up the anti-GMO crowd, who are stoking up the lie manufacturing production lines even as we speak. A good sign, however, is that the ridiculing of these clowns is also being ramped up. Here is the wonderfully adaptive Downfall meme being put to good use.

And one last thing ... (26/10/2019)

See more from Tim Cordell here

A day at the MindBodySpirit Festival having my chakras aligned, my kundalini raised and my sensibilities challenged, then some other stuff to do and then what looks like an attack of Man Flu, one of the most debilitating diseases there is. I'm going to take some medicine and lie down, and I hope to be better next week. Sorry.

Yes, I stole it.

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