Updates made to The Millenium Project in March 2001

Fresh-baked fruitcake (2/3/2001)
It is hard to wander around in the alternative medicine jungle of the Internet without coming across archloon Betty Martini and her insane campaign against Aspartame. It now seems that Betty has branched out into the cancer curing business and, according to a message she sent to a mailing list, she knows of "800 who were cured from colon cancer, to breast cancer to Hodgkin's lymphoma". She has been advised of the Cancer 100 Challenge but has yet to respond. Apparently, there are two magic formulas which cure cancer, #55 which contains powered rhubarb, spikenard, black snakeroot and lady slipper, and #99 which contains black cohosh roots, spikenard roots, wild cherry bark, mullein leaf, lady slipper powder, tincture of iron, quinine sulphate and oil of wintergreen. No quantities are given for the ingredients. Betty says that thousands of people know the recipe, so, while we are waiting for her to send me the papers so I can get her a Nobel Prize, I would appreciate it if someone who knows could tell me how to mix these things up.

Killing the children (2/3/2001)
Over the past few weeks I have been paying some attention to the latest atrocity from the anti-vaccination liars, which is to suggest that the symptoms of shaken baby syndrome are caused by vaccination. They have even adopted someone who murdered a ten-week-old baby and are trying to get him out of prison. You can read some information about this outrage by clicking here. To make matters worse, a bunch of chiropractors have declared that the murderer is a "Hero". If you saw this stuff on television you would not believe it.

Harassment Update (2/3/2001)
I should remind you to look at the wonderful tribute sites that people (person?) have created for me. I am so proud. I am looking forward to the next full moon, because the standard of abuse in the last week has been quite poor. The best that the Gutless Anonymous Liar could do was

Date sent: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 01:20:26 +0100
Subject: \\\"make me want to vomit\\\"
From: "anonymous@zoubidoo.net" <anonymous@zoubidoo.net>

go ahead and do choke on it.....

wouldn\\\'t it be a great world if your epitaph read.....\\\"......and he choked on his own vomit....\\\"

but, alas, it will likely read.....\\\"......and he died a painful and slow death in his own feces....\\\"

may god help your offspring!

Why some things are here and some aren't (10/3/2001)
Someone wrote to me with the following comment, and I thought a public answer was appropriate.

Much to my surprise, and to your credit, you listed the bigots at the JDL. However you missed the racists at the NAACP, and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition (The latter being run by that bigot Mr. "Hymie from Hymietown" Jesse Jackson).

To be listed here a site has to offend me, and I mean the content of the site, not its owner. That doesn't mean I always disagree with what people are saying on the listed sites – it can mean that I don't like the way they say it. Despite what the preachers of political correctness may say racism works in all directions, but just because something is racially based doesn't mean that it is necessarily racist. There is nothing on the NAACP or Rainbow sites which offends me at the moment, and I stress "at the moment", but these are the types of places I check from time to time. I know that Jesse Jackson can make some alarmingly biased statements at times but if he keeps them off the web site then it is not a candidate for listing here.

Why some things aren't here and some are (10/3/2001)
An aromatherapist who makes potions for dogs wrote to me and asked why, with the thousands of aromatherapy sites out there, I had listed hers. You can read my response here.

The site in question eventually became just an outlet for "natural" cosmetics and stopped pretending to provide cures for doggy diseases. As it was of no further interest to The Millenium Project, it was removed from the lists in January 2007. Correspondence with the site owner was also deleted as it was no longer relevant.

Strange behaviour (10/3/2001)
You would imagine that if someone wanted to tell lies about me, embarrass me, and make people think bad things about me that the last person they would write to would be me. You would be really surprised to find out that the only person they told was me. After all, except for the liar, I am the only person who knows for a fact that the lies are lies. Despite the obvious logic of this situation, the Gutless Anonymous Liar persists in sending me stupid messages telling me things that I know to be false. Why it keeps doing this is a mystery, but perhaps there is some psychiatric disorder that makes someone compulsively lie to people who know the real facts. Sad, isn't it?

What's happened to Mind-it? (10/3/2001)
Changes are happening to the Mind-it service that tells people when sites change. Read my comments here.

Someone left the cage door open ... (17/3/2001)
Perennial Millenial favourite Tim Bolen, spokesjerk for not-a-medical-Dr Hulda Clark, is at it again. Tim O'Ranter has issued another one of his releases to "Millions of Health Freedom Fighters". Impervious to (or perhaps oblivious of) contempt of court, Tim accused a witness in an ongoing lawsuit of perjury, specifically by saying that the witness lied about his employment and qualifications. Here's an example of what Tim had to say:

On page #2, under "Practice and Patient Care Experience," Baratz claims to be an "Assistant Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine,"

I called the Boston University School of Medicine and asked for Baratz. They have no listing for him. I asked for the Personnel office, and was directed to the Director of personnel, George Snowden, who told me that Robert S. Baratz is not an employee of the University, is NOT ON THE STAFF, and to his knowledge, has no relationship with the University. Snowden, a long time employee of the University, had never heard of Baratz, and wished to be provided with any documents, or data, where Baratz claimed an affiliation with the University.

But when I went to the Boston University web site at http://www.bu.edu and did a search for the name "baratz" in the directory, it told me:

Name: Baratz, Robert
Academic_rank: Clinical Assistant Professor
Department: MED Public Health

Good one, Tim! It took me twenty seconds to show that you were making things up. If you were so careless with something so easy to check, why should I believe anything you say? (By the way, if someone would like to put "snowden" into the directory search at BU they could then ask Ben, Joyce, Theresa or the unnamed student which one of them is George Snowdon in Personnel. Spelling a name wrong once is a typo. Spelling it wrong twice is impolite and careless.)

All quite on the harassment front (17/3/2001)
Whisper, and try to walk quietly. It looks like the attendants have managed to get the right formula for the tranquilliser darts, and the mad people are behaving themselves. Nobody has written any crazy emails for more than a week.

The Harassment Assistance Tool (24/3/2001)
Inspired by the poor quality of the anomymous remailers used to send me ludicrous messages from liars, I am pleased to announce the introduction of the Millenium Project Harassment Assistance Tool. Using this free anonymous remailing service, liars and fools can abuse people and tell them lies while hiding their own identities in a cloak of cowardice.
Click here to send some lies to someone

Free the child murderer (24/3/2001)
The anti-vaccination child haters are at it again and they are increasing their support of child murderer Alan Yurko, in prison in Florida for killing his ten-week old baby. There is now the inevitable Free Alan Yurko web site. One alarming fact is that the organisation collecting money for Yurko claims that donations are tax deductible. If you are a US taxpayer and don't like the idea of your taxes subsidising a murderer's "get out of jail free" campaign, write to your representatives and complain. You can see some background to and comments about the murder by clicking here. Remember at all times that this "hero" held a baby by its feet and beat it to death.

A principled anti-vaxer? (24/3/2001)
The list of supporters of Alan Yurko contains most of the anti-vaccination heavyweights. A notable exception is Barbara Loe Fisher from the National Vaccine Information Center. I realise that Ms Fisher has been distracted lately by a personal tragedy, but I would like to hope that her omission is due to principle. If this is the case, I congratulate Ms Fisher for recognising, unlike her colleagues, that there has to be a limit to the sort of actions which are acceptable in support of a cause. Of course, I will withdraw this congratulation immediately and unreservedly if I see her name on a Yurko supporters list.

News Flash! News Flash! GAL avoids lying!!! (24/3/2001)
Yes, folks, that's right. The Gutless Anonymous Liar has sent me an email which contains NO LIES! Here it is, in its entirety:

Date sent: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 23:44:57 +0100
Subject:
From: "anonymous@zoubidoo.net" <anonymous@zoubidoo.net>

Start spreading the news, I'm NOT leaving today (31/3/2001)
Or tomorrow. Or the day after. Or any day soon. The Gutless Anonymous Liar announced that this site had only 48 hours of life left (subsequently amended to "a few days", but still lying). To amuse ourselves till then, we can watch this countdown clock tick off the seconds until GAL's latest hallucination vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Date sent: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 22:32:44 +0200
Subject: It\\\'s going,going.......gone!!!
From: "anonymous@zoubidoo.net" <anonymous@zoubidoo.net>

Ah,yes,the good \\\"dr\\\" pole-a-boy\\\'s site is coming down for good..... We\\\'re sure this is not news to you!!!! So you GPOS(Gutless Piece of Shit)....your\\\'s will too!! Within the next 48 hrs from what I have been told by the proper authorities.

Date sent: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 22:35:48 +0200
Subject: Oops!!......My mistake!
From: "anonymous@zoubidoo.net" <anonymous@zoubidoo.net>

Apparently,Your site(s) will not be coming down within the next 48 hrs,but instead within a few days.I blame erroneous reporting.

Oops! Time's up!

After the clock gets to zero, not only will this site still be here, but there will be two extra mirror sites added to the eleven already existing, all busily working in the search engines to increase the likelihood of surfers finding whatever it is that idiots like GAL find so hard to cope with.