"And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it"
"And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it, And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it"
We all know that "millennium" comes from the Latin words "mille" and "annus" and means a thousand years. The word "millenium" comes from the Latin words "mille" and "anus" and means something else. This web site is devoted to the millenium of sites which don't deserve a place on the Web. We are not putting them on a pedestal - we are offering them a stool. |
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| October 12, 2019 Barbara bounces back. Of course she does. (12/10/2019) I mentioned last week that a naturopath quack (a tautology, I know - sorry) had been banned for life by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission for lying about her qualifications and being a general danger to public health. In a just society this would have been the end of things and she would have disappeared into the obscurity and poverty that she deserves. In real life, however, parasites like this just look for another host and Barbara O'Neill has resurfaced in the US (a place she describes as "a developing country" when whining to her followers) where her appearance at seminars attracts an extra fee of about $1000 from the suckers who attend. She went Full Mental Jacket at the GoFundMe crowd funding site where she published a long screed lying about her circumstances and begging for money. I couldn't help myself so I posted this comment to the fundraising page:
The good thing is that she doesn't control comments on the GoFundMe page, so it will stay there for potential donors to read. With any luck it might cause people who don't know who she is and who might believe her lies to think again about giving her money. In addition to stealing money from sick people, her business at Misty Mountains Retreat managed to get itself registered as a charity and has been collecting government grants as well as avoiding company income tax and allowing the tax deductibility of donations. This theft of money from taxpayers is now under investigation and you can read about it here. The Guardian article carries this wonderful photo, prompting people to ask why she needs a microscope. One suggestion was to look for her conscience, but as it's not an electron microscope it probably wouldn't be up to the job.
Speaking of stealing taxpayers' money ... (12/10/2019) I hadn't thought about Hillsong, the Church For Collecting Cash, for a while but I was reminded of them last month when I was reminiscing about previous visits to the MindBody$pirit Festival. Another reminder popped up this week when someone mentioned a newspaper article from a few years ago that examined the finances of this business pretending to be a church and the rivers of cash flowing to its owners, sorry pastor's family. It's worth a read, because the only things out of date in it are the dollar values, which now will inevitably be much higher. Taxpayers support lavish Hillsong lifestyle By Adam Shand, The Sunday Telegraph The tax office wants a special national body set up to monitor "not for profit" charities, admitting that churches - such as the multi-million-dollar phenomenon Hillsong - are literally "invisible" to it. And the sector is expanding so rapidly that $31 billion a year is now being drawn out of the federal Budget in tax exemptions to the ever-growing list of groups claiming church and charity status. The push to put not-for-profit groups under greater fiscal scrutiny comes amid revelations that senior pastors of the Hillsong mega-church and their families are enjoying lavish lifestyles virtually tax-free. Critics say Hillsong - which makes millions by routinely demanding its followers hand over at least 10 per cent of their salaries for the church coffers - exploits tax exemptions designed to help small, struggling churches.
And another scam continues on its merry way (12/10/2019) The frequently renamed Australian Vaccination-risks Network is at it again (they seem to change names about as often as they pretend to change presidents). They are holding another event where people are expected to pay to see a liar lying in a video that can be seen for free, and again they are hiding the venue until the last minute. The purported reason for the secrecy is to prevent harassment and disruption from pro-vaccine people, but the real reason is to stop sane people notifying the venue of the real nature of the event. When they were promoting another pay-to-see-a-YouTube-video they managed to lie their way into schools and public halls, seriously upsetting people like headmasters and council officials. But lying is what liars do. The event was announced on a community Facebook page. so I did the Kind and Gentle thing and posted this comment.
And you can see it for free too if you have a spare hour to waste and a bucket handy to catch the vomit (and are prepared to risk damage to your esophagus from all that acid coming up). Just go here. Something you might not know (12/10/2019) Did you know that October is not only Breast Cancer Awareness Month (something ridiculed by believers in magic "medicine") but it's also "Vaccine Injury Awareness month in honour of lives taken or forever altered by vaccination"? Now out here in the real world we know that severe reactions to vaccines are so rare that when they happen they make big news. There have been no deaths caused by vaccines in Australia for as long as anyone can remember, and the only recent serious reaction was from a young child who was mistakenly given an adult vaccine. The rules about which vaccines could be given to which children were strengthened and the family received much sympathy and even some monetary compensation. Of course none of this matters to those evil creatures who want to see medieval diseases return and harm or kill children (and by opposition to HPV and flu vaccines cause harm to adults as well). As to them the end (more dead and diseased children) justifies the means (lying as if there's no tomorrow) it's business as usual for the merchants of death. Apparently there will be vigils across Australia to remind people about these non-existent vaccine injuries, and no doubt there will be collection tins rattled to raise some cash. You can see the list of events here. I must say though that like Homeopathy Awareness Week where people can be made aware of the fraud of selling magic water or Subluxation Awareness Month when people can be made aware of the dangers of letting chiropractors anywhere near their backs, Vaccine Injury Awareness Month could be useful to educate the public about how such injuries are really nothing to worry about and therefore get hesitant parents to do the right thing and have their children protected from diseases. And don't forget this (12/10/2019)
October 5, 2019 And another one gone, and another one gone
To their credit, the HCCC has published not only the notice of the ban but the complete justification with all the evidence. This means that there is no way back for the naturopath - she's gone and gone forever. It is interesting to see the sort of "education" and "experience" that someone can claim (without evidence) in order to fool potential customers. Mrs O'Neill claimed to have nursing experience but her last work as a nurse was as a trainee in 1976 (she never completed training). She claimed to have a Diploma in Naturopathy awarded in 1990 but the now-deceased "Thompsonian Institute" appears to have been a one man band that was never registered as any sort of training organisation. Similarly, her claim to have a Diploma in Nutrition & Diatetics is also linked to an extinct training organisation (with the hilarious name of ICANT) that existed for a while but was never registered to provide any sort of recognised training. It turns out that she doesn't even meet the requirements for membership of the naturopaths' social club, sorry, professional association. Mrs O'Neill had been working at Misty Mountain Health Retreat, but as the place is run by her husband maybe her CV wasn't given the critical attention that usually goes with getting a job in the health industry. I could go through the HCCC statement in detail but it's probably easier for all concerned if you read it for yourself. The important part is the public statement of the ban, which you can read below. The Commission issues the following public statement under section 41A(2)(b) [o]f theAct: The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission conducted an investigation into the professional conduct of Mrs Barbara O'Neill, an unregistered practitioner who provides services as a naturopath, nutritionist and health educator. The complaints under investigation alleged that Mrs O'Neill makes dubious and dangerous health claims regarding infant nutrition, causes and treatment of cancer, antibiotics and vaccinations that are not evidence based or supported by mainstream medicine. Some of the non-evidence based comments made in Mrs O'Neill's publications include:
The Commission's investigation found that Mrs O'Neill has limited qualifications in the area of nutrition and dietetics, which she attained more than 10 years ago. Mrs O'Neill has not taken any steps to maintain and enhance her knowledge and skills in her field of practice to deliver a professional service to the community. Of particular concern to the Commission is that Mrs O'Neill cannot recognise and provide health advice within the limits of her training and experience. Mrs O'Neill considers herself qualified to provide health advice in highly complex and specialised areas such as cancer treatment, use of antibiotics for Strep B and immunisation in circumstances where it is clear her knowledge is limited. The Commission's investigation found that Mrs O'Neill does not recognise that she is misleading vulnerable people (including mothers and cancer sufferers) by providing very selective information. The misinformation has huge potential to have a detrimental effect on the health of individuals as Mrs O'Neill discourages mainstream treatment for cancer, antibiotics and vaccinations. On the basis of the above evidence the Commission found that Mrs O'Neill breached the Code of Conduct for Unregistered Practitioners in that she:
The Commission is satisfied that Mrs O'Neil poses a risk to the health or safety of members of the public. The Commission therefore makes the following prohibition order: Mrs O'Neill is permanently prohibited from providing any health services, as defined in s4 of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993 (the Act), whether in a paid or voluntary capacity. Health services includes "health education services" under s.4 of the Act and clause 1(g) of the Code of Conduct. I make an offer of help (5/10/2019)
Dr Wilyman has now published the thesis in book form. Following my Kind and Gentle policy of reaching out to people with whom I might have had disagreement at some time, I picked up an olive branch and pointed it in Dr Wilyman's direction. I haven't heard back yet, but I'm optimistic. Dear Dr Wilyman, I'm a freelance journalist (MEAA Member Number 2011631) and I was wondering if I could get a review copy of your new book. I write for several publications including my own web sites which are read by several thousand people each week. Some of the reviews I have written can be found at http://peterbowditch.com/writing/writing.htm#reviews. Thank you in advance.
Mail mystery (5/10/2019) It's not hate mail, more like love mail where people want to help me. The help seems misdirected, though, so I'm not sure of the value to the senders. As well as this site I have another hobby - I drive all over the place doing media work for car rallies and for my own web site. (It's at https://ausrally.com/ if you are interested.) That site received its first ever spam a few days ago offering a business deal. Now I'm always looking for new ways to pay the costs of all that driving and photographing, but this spam had relevance to the interests of The Millenium Project as well, as you can see (I also would like more money to run this site). Subject: [Welcome] Get More Bookings Grow Your Wedding Business Less than a dollar a day Join our network and reach new clients. We reach over 80,000 prospects monthly and growing! It's not really my line of business, but I have a friend who is a marriage celebrant so I think I'll pass the opportunity on to her. She might not be a Bible person, but a dollar is a dollar. You can see the email in all its glory here. More mail mystery (5/10/2019) This one misses on two counts - it is highly unlikely that I would want to have anything to do with "multi-channel marketing" (a new expression to hide the truth?) and Omegatrend slipped into the sewer where it belonged in 2006. Some work had been done by the writer, however, because the email wasn't addressed to the email address at the link on the bottom of pages here but to another ratbags.com address altogether. The writer also seems a bit unsure about what I do here despite offering to help me do it better, plus the number zero "0" is not the letter "o", but who's quibbling. (I did a big study at university on the effects of confusing characters like these, so I'm a sort of expert I suppose.) From: "Monica Taylor" <monica.taylor@nanoinfosystem.com> Hi , We provide Business lists with information that can be used for multi-channel marketing. We also specialize in appending services for your existing databases that might have missing or outdated information. If you are willing to give our service a try, please fill in your target audiences criteria below and one of our Business Development Executives will be in touch with you shortly with relevant details. Industry Type: ________________ Our list includes:- Company Name, URL, Contact Name, Job titles, Email Address, Phone Numbers, Fax Numbers, Postal Address, Employee Size, Revenue Size, SIC C0de, Industry Type and an optional Media link. Replying with the subject line changed to Exclude me will ensure that you do not hear from us again. My apologies in advance should you need to do this. Looking forward to hear from you, Kind Regards, It's all Meryl for the rest of this week. Hypocrisy 1 (5/10/2019) Meryl Dorey, once president of the Australian Vaccination Network but now just the puppet master behind the curtain, decided to have a go at people who claim that professional anti-vaccination liars are in it for the money.
The little fact that the AVN has collected about $2 million over the years to pay for overseas trips and other essential activities related to lying about vaccines seems to have slipped her mind (I use the word "mind" loosely here). That figure is what people were able to ascertain from the annual reports submitted (usually very late) to the government body charged with the oversight of non-profit associations. More has come in since a change in the law has meant that only income over $250,000 a year has to be declared in any detail but we will never know how much. To show another example of her hypocrisy, here's an email from 1999 posted to the AVN's mailing list (from which I was banned). To: <AVN@onelist.com> You're right Heidi (and I love the name of the page - vaxquax :-) Not only that, but he has given me the links to a lot of pro-choice sites that are missing on the AVN web site so he's done my research for me. I am very proud that the AVN site is at the top - we must be doing something right (of course, it's alphabetical too ;-). Thanks for pointing this site out Jan - I don't really think there is much point in corresponding with the person who has done this - they are on somebody's payroll (or payrolls) - but we are in very good company and like Heidi says - anyone who goes to this page will get some great resources to choose from for information. Take care, There is reason to believe that this is the first detected example of the Pharma Shill Gambit in the wild. So it's perfectly acceptable to accuse me of being "on somebody's payroll (or payrolls)" without any evidence but evidence of a lot of income can be ignored when it applies to her and her cohort of liars. Two million dollars and counting but they "don't make a cent". Actually I suppose that last statement is true, because the make a lot more than "a" cent. Hypocrisy 2 (5/10/2019)
Dr Pan is a target of hatred by anti-vaccination liars because he initiated and pushed through legislation limiting the ability of parents to lie in order to avoid having their children vaccinated. As anyone who has observed the liar species knows, anyone who opposes them must be vilified, demonised and generally abused. Here's something Meryl Dorey thought was an appropriate comment to make about Dr Pan.
And did her followers criticise her for this or think that suggesting murder was going a bit far? Don't be silly.
I should point out that even as an atheist I'm offended by this appropriation of Jesus to the anti-vaccination agenda, but since when have principles or sensitivity to the thoughts and beliefs of others ever mattered to this vile collection of creatures. The end always justifies the means. As she is supposedly a practising member of the Jewish faith, I wonder if Ms Dorey might like to discuss the image and its connotation with her Rabbi. But what would he know anyway? He probably allows his children to be vaccinated. And where does the real hypocrisy come in? Dorey seems to think it's acceptable to threaten a vaccine proponent with death but she wasted a year of my time and wreaked enormous and permanent damage to my personal and family life because I told her to leave my family out of her campaign against me and she thought this threat was enough to involve the courts. I never use bad language on the front page of this site so I will just have to ask someone else to tell Meryl Dorey to fuck off whenever she's ready. And theft (5/10/2019) Meryl Dorey has been producing series of videos using the title "Under The Wire". These videos aren't at YouTube but are hosted on a site owned by the disgusting Mike Adams of Natural News infamy (you know those old clichés about being known by the company you keep and lying down with flea-ridden dogs?). Sadly for her (but a cause of amusement to the rest of us) not enough people have been clicking on the "Play now" links and Adams threatened to remove the series, but now everything seems to be back in line and the videos can stay. (I helped by starting to view one. I was counted even though I stopped watching after a few seconds. I'd just had lunch and didn't want to regurgitate my sandwiches over the keyboard, although I do keep a spare keyboard handy following earlier experiences.) Here is the image used to promote the video series. As Ms Dorey has form for stealing other people's work I thought I'd see who actually owned it. (I once tipped Dorey into Getty Images for using one of their pictures without the required accreditation, and the AVN was caught stealing for profit in 2010. She has form.)
The image was tracked down to a photograph collection made by Patrick Hendry, so I wrote to him. I thought that you might like to know that a group of anti-vaccination liars are using what looks like one of your photos as the masthead for a series of videos. I assume they haven't asked permission. I know that I had to report the same people for using a copyrighted photo from Getty Images once before so they have form. He replied: Ugh, yeah that’s one of the down sides of free photography. Unfortunately they can use this all they want. The only way I can pull images down is if they’re adding them to products for sale. I cannot do much about this one. Thanks for the heads up. Mr Hendry was caught in that same dilemma that faces anyone who puts material up on the web. There's not a lot you can do without a lot of expense. All my stuff is copyrighted with Creative Commons but if some low life steals it all I can really do is publicise the theft. Stealers still gonna steal.
September 28, 2019 Weirdness on the horizon (28/9/2019) II hope to be going to the Sydney MindBody$pirit Festival in a couple of weeks, so I dug out some ancient stories about trips to the event in the past. You can see something from me here and something by a guest columnist here.
It's of course impossible to go to an event like this without being heavily exposed to Eastern Mysticism, with people all over the place putting their palms together and saying "Namaste" (except when they say "Namaskar" in recognition of and sympathy for my lower status). To prepare myself I went to the local Botanical Gardens and sat near some palms which were together. Another piece of preparation is to look through my crystal collection for some suitable neckwear.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Another one bites the dust. (28/9/2019) Like many of my friends I've been disappointed in the past at the lack of action by authorities against quacks, but sometimes there's a victory. You can read a statement by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission here Mr Aleksander Strande - Breaches of Code of Conduct - Permanent Prohibition Order 24 Sep 2019 The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission investigated a number of complaints about the conduct of unregistered health practitioner Mr Aleksander Strande. Mr Strande was operating a naturopath business, 'Express Healing' from his residential home in Kogarah, NSW, which offered herbal treatment for pain, fatigue, anxiety, depression and other health conditions, in addition to Reiki healing to 'relax, decongest and oxygenate the body'. The investigation found that Mr Strande:
The investigation determined that Mr Strande breached numerous clauses of the Code of Conduct for Unregistered Health Practitioners under Schedule 3 of the Public Health Regulation 2012 in respect of:
The Commission is satisfied that Mr Strande poses a risk to the health and safety of members of the public and therefore makes the following prohibition order:
The Commission has determined to make its Statement of Decision publicly available under section 41B(3)(c) of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993 but has removed material which it considers to be confidential information. Further Information The full Public Statement of Decision can be read here Rather surprisingly, there was a naturopath with exactly the same name but calling himself "Dr" operating out of Houston in Texas in 2011 and offering similar treatments both locally and remotely through a clinic called "Simply Healing". Is it possible that Mr Strande simply relocated his business? After all, liars gotta lie. But wait, there's more. Or maybe just a coincidence (28/9/2019) Is it possible that there are two naturopath quacks in the world with the same name - Aleksander Strande? It does seem unlikely, doesn't it, but there was another of these creatures operating out of Texas, USA, in 2011. That one now seems to have morphed into a service offering marketing and search engine optimisation advice to the quackery industry under the business name of "Simply Healing". Maybe it got too warm in Houston and Mr Strande thought that Kogarah might have better weather. Chiropractic care (28/9/2019) Chiropractors love the alliteration of "chiropractic care" (as well as "crack", "clicker" and "cash", of course) and an example of their caring nature came my way recently. Here's what happened:
So it seems that violence is an acceptable way for a chiropractor to deal with criticism by a real doctor. No chiropractor joined the thread to say that this is not how professionals behave, but there was a suggestion that doctors who criticise chiropractors should be referred to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency who apparently don't like medical professionals mouthing off about other medical professionals. So it's OK for chiropractors to throw bricks through doctors' windows but not OK for doctors to point out the absurdity of chiropractic? These people must think that irony is something you do to shirts after the washy gets dry. By the way - some people have the policy on Facebook of blocking out posters' names when showing screenshots of idiocy. That policy does not apply here. Sorry Luke and Matt - you said it, you own it. Actually, not sorry at all. Paranoia about the pricks (28/9/2019) We all know that true anti-vaccination liars are detached from reality. (I was criticised once for suggesting that some of them are insane - apparently this detracted from the worth of people who are actually medically insane. I pointed out that at least one of the liars had the paperwork to prove her insanity.) One of the examples of this detachment is the continual nonsense predicting mandatory forced vaccination for everybody. We people who live out here in the real world know that this is not planned by any government and is never going to happen, but that doesn't stop the paranoia. According to DSM-V, there are seven signs of Paranoid Personality Disorder, four of which need to be met for a diagnosis. Let's see how your average anti-vaccination liar measures up.
That looks like seven out of the seven to me. (1 is obvious. 2 and 3 - eg I have been banned from meetings and mailing lists. 4,5 and 6 - eg the AVO saga of 2012. 7 - It doesn't always apply but I have seen suggestions that marital partners have been secretly vaccinating their kids over their spouses' objections which is a sort of unfaithfulness, so in it goes.) It looks like the label "paranoia" is quite appropriate. Then this happens.
Oh look - a suggestion of violence, possibly resulting in the deaths of the truck occupants. Almost as peaceful and gentle as chiropractors. And another thing ... (28/9/2019)
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I'm an author myself (and I've just visited Alice's Wonderland to rearrange how Amazon handles and pays me for some books I've written) so I know the problems facing a first-time author. In 2015 the University of Wollongong granted a PhD to Dr Judy Wilyman for something to do with vaccination. The thesis came in for some criticism (including 
According to Wikipedia, Dr Richard Pan is a Democratic California state senator representing California's 6th Senate district. He is also a practicing pediatrician. Prior to being elected to the State Senate in 2014, he was a member of the California State Assembly. Dr Pan was born to immigrant parents from Taiwan.
MB$ is usually good fun, provided you can hold your cynicism in check and not be too rude to people selling stuff that would be better off not sold. Sometimes religious people have stands there, and I remember walking past a stand belonging to a church once when a lady asked me if they could pray with me. I replied that I'm an atheist and her response was amazingly quick: "Well then, can we pray for you?". We had a reasonable conversation and the topic of the 
ement of dissociation from the ideals* and principles* of that fake "church" out there in Sydney's west.
I notice that tis year there will be a Soul Kitchen, so I hope I can get some real soul food there because I'm partial to fried chicken. One year everything was all vegan and also gluten and dairy free. There was a long queue at a coffee stall outside the festival venue where people wearing exhibitor badges were lining up to get coffee with actual milk in it. Real food returned to the next year's event.
by Robert T. Carroll. Featuring close to 400 definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, The Skeptic's Dictionary is a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on all things supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. It covers such categories as alternative medicine; cryptozoology; extraterrestrials and UFOs; frauds and hoaxes; junk science; logic and perception; New Age energy; and the psychic. For the open-minded seeker, the soft or hardened skeptic, and the believing doubter, this book offers a remarkable range of information that puts to the test the best arguments of true believers. 
by A. C. Grayling 
by George Magner 
by David Ramey 
by Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross 
by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt and Martin W. Lewis 
by James Randi 
by Martin Gardner 
by Milton A. Rothman 
by Christopher Hitchens (Editor) 
by Lawrence Krauss 