Here come the Super Bowl prostitutes! An annual exercise in fear-mongering over a threat that never materializes. This myth says as many as 100,000 sex workers will come into town for the big game. Now compare that to the total number of people who come to the game: 200,000 to 300,000.
The media is spinning the usual BS about how these big sporting events create dollar signs in the eyes of prostitutes, pimps, and sex traffickers, all of whom allegedly flock to the host city in slavering hordes. The media repeats the big lie that a large sports venue—especially the Super Bowl—acts as a "sex-trafficking magnet." It's an effective fundraising strategy. It gets a lot of media attention. But the statistics are exaggerated.
According to all the media hype there would have been hundreds of thousands of underage child sex-slaves kidnapped and forced to have sex with Super Bowl fans each year. But it never happens. What happens is they re-play the same BS hype each year. So what happens to all of these thousands of kidnapped underage sex-slaves? Where are these kidnapped, forced into Super Bowl sex slaves? Where did they go?
Politicians, women's groups, police, and child advocates always predict large numbers of hookers (e.g., 100,000 or more) will be shipped into the big cities for the Super Bowl. But they lie. Big, fat lies told by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, government officials, and various anti-prostitution groups: Traffick911, Not for Sale, Change-org, Future Not A Past, Polaris Project, Salvation Army, Women's Funding Network, and the Dallas Women’s Foundation. Anti-prostitution groups that tell these lies do it in order to get grant money from the government and charities to pay their high salaries, and get huge amounts of money into their organizations.
Sex trafficking is a legitimate issue outside of the convenient Super Bowl news bubble. But there's no evidence that a mass influx of sports fans increases the problem or contributes to it in some way. Ultimately, spreading misinformation can end up undercutting efforts to bring awareness to the very real problem of sex trafficking and forced prostitution.
The "Super Bowl = Prostitutes" story is just a lazy journalistic trope. An urban legend. A cheap attempt by politicians using the Super Bowl media blitz to score points by trying to stand up to the "menace" of sex work. A host of lies spread by anti-prostitution groups so they can get easy grant money.
All the evidence shows the statistics regarding hookers at the Super Bowl are nothing out of the ordinary. Law enforcement officials in the cities where past Super Bowls occurred never actually saw any increases in prostitution busts or the number of trafficked prostitutes, even despite increased efforts to catch johns, pimps, and traffickers. No influx in prostitutes, the arrests were not a lot higher. They were almost the same, nothing at all out of the ordinary.
The media keep feeding us more doomsday stories of fear that never come true. Modern man seems to be an "apocoholic," always craving more frightening predictions of apocalyptic doom. Why do people keep falling for it?
Best-selling ecologist Paul Ehrlich said in 1968: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s ["and 1980s" was added in a later edition] the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” Jimmy Carter said in a speech in 1977: “We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”
Laughable, except that people actually believed this junk. And continue to believe similar predictions of doom. Why do they keep getting it so wrong? And why do people fall for it? Matt Ridley (Wired Magazine) spells it all out in an
excellent article on this topic.
Predictions of global famine and the end of oil in the 1970s proved just as wrong as end-of-the-world forecasts from millennialist religious zealots. Since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring kickstarted the modern environmentalist movement in 1962, prophecies of doom on a colossal scale have become routine. The past 50 years have brought us warnings of population explosions, global famines, oil exhaustion, climate catastrophes, plagues, Y2K bugs, water wars, mineral shortages, ozone holes, acid rain, nuclear winters, mad cow epidemics, and cell-phone-induced brain-cancer epidemics. So far all of these predictions have turned out to be exaggerated.
In 1976 people were panicked about swine flu. Then in the 1980s, the media scared the hell out of Americans with the threat of the heterosexual AIDS epidemic: "... one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That’s by 1990." It never happened of course. Then came Ebola.
The biggest threat of all is "us." Humans are the disease that must be eradicated. Activists like Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: “We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion." And other experts agreed. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” said Denis Hayes, organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970. Sending food to India was a mistake and only postponed the inevitable, William and Paul Paddock wrote in their best seller, Famine—1975!
Ever since Thomas Robert Malthus, doomsayers have tended to underestimate the power of innovation. In reality, driven by price increases, people simply develop new technologies.
In the 1970s experts were predicting that lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver would all be gone by 1990, bringing about a collapse of civilization when we'd no longer have the raw materials to make machinery. These claims were soon being repeated in schoolbooks. We were told that the world’s known supplies of oil, tin, copper, and aluminum will be used up within our lifetime. The fearmongers scare us repeatedly with dubious predictions. And many people are gullible enough to believe this nonsense. Just take a look at the results of a famous wager between Paul Ehrlich and economist Julian Simon when the metals did not run out. Indeed, they grew cheaper.
Over the past half century, none of these threatened eco-pocalypses have played out as predicted. With a track record like this, why do people keep on falling for various cataclysmic claims? Humanity is a fast-moving target. We will combat our ecological threats in the future by innovating to meet them as they arise. We always do.
Scare tactics on economic catastrophe, automatic "default" on U.S. public debt, the political theater from Washington DC, secret negotiations on the debt limit. This is all fake political posturing. Phony baloney. A fiction used for political purposes. In a word, it's bull.
by Hal Dunn
If the U.S. government defaults on any public debts, it will only be because President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner decide to default on certain public debts, not because they have to. They would have to make a deliberate decision not to pay bondholders, which is highly unlikely.
The Default Myth
The Treasury Secretary isn't supposed to play politics, but at times, Geithner does just that. It's not likely that Geithner would decide not to pay bondholders, since the Treasury Secretary might end up being personally liable if there is a default. It is a myth that "not raising the debt ceiling" is equivalent to "default."
Obama claims that if the debt ceiling is not raised, there will be big trouble. And trouble is probably not an overstatement. Yes, it could be bad. The economic consequences do not look good. When a government runs up debts to the tune of $14 trillion, the outcome will not be pleasant, no matter how they slice it. There is no easy way out. However Obama has threatened to withhold Social Security checks, which is not likely to be something he would choose not to pay if money was to get real tight.
None of Your Business
On June 6, 2011, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Bureau of Public Debt (BPD) seeking an answer to a simple question: What is the Obama administration prepared to do if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling? But the Obama administration did not provide a serious response. The BPD found 172 pages of records that were responsive to this question, but the White House chose to release only 17 unhelpful pages.
Transparency?
Should these debt negotiations be done in secret or should they be public? Judicial Watch says it's not being done in accordance with the Constitution and they are willing to sue the Federal government to open up the debt negotiation process to the public, as they say it should be, to force it to be transparent and televised on C-Span or any neutral TV station. This would demonstrate to American citizens that it's all a political game, and it's not a serious debate to avoid default as they portray it to be.
Playing Politics
The White House wants to force the debt deal to be big enough to last beyond the 2012 elections and the GOP wants the deal to be a short-term deal, small enough so that we bump up against the debt ceiling again before the 2012 election. The GOP is betting that these debt debates hurt Obama politically more than it hurts the Republicans, so they want to guarantee that this debate is re-played again before the next election. In fact, they want it to happen next year in the middle of Obama's 2012 presidential campaign attempt to win re-election.
Both sides are playing games in an attempt to gain political advantage. The liberal Democrats want to raise tax revenues to solve the short-term "debt crisis" before August 2nd. This is short-sighted, but it could allow the government to keep on paying its bills . . . for a while. The White House and many in the media see this as the most important issue to solve right away.
The conservative Republicans want to cut spending in an attempt to help reduce the long-term problem of government debt and endless spending. This is a bigger problem than the August 2nd debt-limit issue. They know that raising tax revenues won't solve the bigger problem, so they're using this particular debt-limit debate to address the overall spending and overall debt issue.
Political gamesmanship during debt debates is nothing new in America. This sort of thing has been going on since before the USA was officially formed in the late 1700s. And the debt ceiling laws have been set and then revised again over a hundred times. But at some point, we'll need to realize there really is a ceiling that can't be adjusted upward forever.
Do the Math
The federal government takes in between $170 billion and $200 billion a month in revenues, but it only pays out $29 billion a month in interest payments on the debt. So Geithner could meet all of the federal government's debt obligations and still have more than $140 billion left over for other spending. That $140 billion is short of the $300 billion in spending the federal government is scheduled to spend for all of August, but missing any those payments would not qualify as a default on the debt.
As the Bipartisan Policy Center has confirmed, Geithner could pay: the interest on the debt, all Social Security obligations, all Medicare and Medicaid obligations, all Defense contractor bills, all Veterans payments, and all active duty troops; and still have almost $7 billion left over for other items.
Geithner would still have to cut overall federal spending by 44%, and that would have economic consequences. But those consequences would not be as bad as defaulting on the debt. Not paying civilian federal workers would be unpopular, but it's not the same as a default. Not raising the debt limit would cause a limited government shutdown, not a default, as Obama has been claiming. The mostly likely reason why Obama has not been honest with the American people about that fact is because he wants to maximize their fear.
Both sides of these negotiations have been playing these games, and not being honest with the American people. The Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as the Obama White House and Tim Geithner. It's political theater, and not a real worry about "economic Armageddon." The debt ceiling deadline actually passed a few months ago, and Geithner pushed it out to August 2nd. If there was any real concern, the international financial markets would have been panicking during the last several months, and that hasn't happened.
But at least the Republicans have put forth some concrete plans. The White House has not. The House Republicans have already passed Cut, Cap, and Balance. Paul Ryan has put forth detailed plans for dealing with the debt ceiling, government spending, and deficits. The GOP has presented plenty of details, while the Democrats have offered vague promises and pouty speeches. Even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has commented on how they can't score speeches; they need a proposal of some sort. They've got nothing to work with.
The White House has had more than two years (over 800 days) to do their job and create a budget, but they have not done it yet. Obama and the Democrats have not put forth a budget yet. Instead they have just been winging it and spending taxpayer money at will. There has been no talk of a Federal investigation to determine if there has been any negligence or to find out why they have not produced a budget after two years.
Both sides are lying. It won't be the end of the world if the debt ceiling isn't raised. It will be uncomfortable, that's for sure. But default is not inevitable just because the debt ceiling is not raised on August 2nd, no matter how many times Obama or the media repeat that lie.
Now that the flu season is officially over, what were the results of the scary Swine Flu pandemic? 12,500 total flu deaths. This is about a third the usual number. This was a very mild flu season.
The flu season is officially over. Has the media reported the results of the scary Swine Flu pandemic? We've had about 12,500 total flu deaths. This is about a third the usual number (according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates).
This was one of the mildest flu seasons we've had in a long time, yet hospitals and first-aid clinics had the highest levels of visits for "flu-like illness" of the century. Not to mention all the school closures, work absenteeism, vaccines, ad campaigns, and other costly efforts. The Obama administration declared two national swine flu emergencies and the public swamped emergency rooms with the worried well, delaying access for the truly ill.
There was no excuse for the media induced panic. They knew what they were doing. They were well aware that the threat was grossly overstated. The media deliberately hyped it, despite the evidence. The seasonal flu is responsible for many deaths per year, and the swine flu was no more deadly that the typical flu that we see every year. See Michael Fumento's article, Purveying Pig Flu Panic at the Post.
Writing about the swine flu, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote, "Panic is what we want. Panic is good." Some op-eds claimed that U.S. deaths could be in the 89,000 to 207,000 range. Some warned that worldwide, "between 9 million and 10 million could die."
Fumento notes that the number of flu deaths in an average season is 36,000. Yet the official estimate of flu deaths that actually occurred this season is 12,500. During the panic, all along there was ample evidence that swine flu was remarkably mild. New York City data from spring: "Seasonal flu is 10 to 40 times deadlier than swine flu."
Health authorities terrified parents, telling them swine flu was cutting a swathe through our youth, in an effort to get them to vaccinate their kids with vaccine that wasn’t even available. But, in fact, the percentage of U.S. childhood deaths caused by swine flu was 0.63 percent.
Has the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to the pandemic yet? Nope.
How many health officials have apologized for hyping swine flu? Zero.
How many major U.S. news outlets that have apologized for hyping swine flu? Zero.
Are brown eggs better than white eggs? What about "Free-range eggs"? Organic?
Myth: Brown eggs are different than white.
Fact: The only difference between a brown and white egg is the color of the shell, which is merely a reflection of the breed of the hen. One isn’t healthier, more "natural," or more eco-friendly than the other. There aren't any differences in nutritional quality, flavor, or cooking characteristics.
Myth: Free-range eggs come from hens that roam freely outdoors.
Fact: The claims are not regulated for eggs, according to Consumer Reports. The "free range" label doesn't mean anything. The following labels are also meaningless when it comes to eggs: "free roaming," "hormone free," and "raised without antibiotics."
Myth: Organic eggs are healthier.
Fact: Uh, nope. They certainly can be, but it all depends on the chicken’s diet.
Do you think Congress actually reads those bills they pass? No, they do not. The U.S. Congress routinely votes on bills that they have not even read.
It is typical for Congress members to carelessly pass mammoth bills that none of them have read. Sometimes printed copies aren't even available when they vote. Also members of Congress typically do not even write the laws they pass. Most laws are written either by special interest lobbyists or by bureaucrats. And they routinely pass unpopular measures by combining them with popular bills that are completely unrelated.
Most Congressmen are lawyers, and many others are businessmen. They know what “fiduciary responsibility” is. For members of Congress, fiduciary responsibility means reading each word of every bill before they vote.
But Congress has not met this duty for a long time. Instead . . .
Often no one knows what these bills contain, or what they really do, or what they will really cost.
Additions and deletions are made at the last minute, in secrecy.
They combine unpopular proposals with popular measures that few in Congress want to oppose. (This practice is called “log-rolling.”)
And votes are held with little debate or public notice.
Once these bills are passed, and one of these unpopular proposals comes to light, they pretend to be shocked. “How did that get in there?” they ask. There's a basic principle at stake here. America was founded on the slogan, “No taxation without representation.” A similar slogan applies to this situation: “No LEGISLATION without representation.” We hold this truth to be self-evident, that those in Congress who vote on legislation they have not read, have not represented their constituents. They have misrepresented them.
Many American citizens are unaware of this Congressional behavior. Congress shirks its responsibilities in many ways: Congress does't read them, and also Congress doesn't even write the laws they pass either. Most laws are written either by special interest lobbyists or by bureaucrats. Politicians don’t have to sweat the details of the laws they pass. Most laws today contain only general directives. The regulatory details are left to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.
Politicians don’t have to read the bills they pass. Congress passes thousands of pages of legislation without knowing what it contains or does. Often this legislation is not even printed before a vote is held, and new items are sometimes added to bills after they have been passed.
Politicians don’t have to deliberate, or debate the laws they create. Watch CSPAN. Whenever Congress holds a so called debate on a bill there is one person talking, a few people waiting to talk, and the rest of the room is empty. What “debate” means in Congress is that a handful of politicians are playing to the camera while the rest are out talking to lobbyists.
Politicians don’t have to cast individual votes on individual laws. Congressional leaders routinely pass unpopular measures by combining them with popular bills that are completely unrelated. This gives politicians an excuse for passing bad bills. They claim they had to do it because the bad measure was part of a good bill they couldn’t possibly oppose.
Politicians rarely have to correct their mistakes. Some laws have sunset provisions, and come up for periodic reconsideration. But Congress routinely fails to figure out if a law or program has actually worked. They just renew it and, of course, increase the funding.
If politicians had to write the laws, sweat the details, read the bills, deliberate and debate, cast individual votes on individual proposals, and routinely revisit past legislation in the same methodical way, it would be a lot harder to make the federal government grow and grow and grow . . . But they don’t, so it isn’t.
Congress has repeatedly committed “legislation without representation,” and due to that, there is an organization that is attempting to correct this with strong measures to prohibit these Congressional misrepresentations: Downsize DC at DownsizeDC.org.
Downsize DC has created the Read the Bills Act (RTBA). RTBA requires that . . .
Each bill, and every amendment, must be read in its entirety before a quorum in both the House and Senate.
Every member of the House and Senate must sign a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that he or she has attentively either personally read, or heard read, the complete bill to be voted on.
Every old law coming up for renewal under the sunset provisions must also be read according to the same rules that apply to new bills.
Every bill to be voted on must be published on the Internet at least 7 days before a vote, and Congress must give public notice of the date when a vote will be held on that bill.
Passage of a bill that does not abide by these provisions will render the measure null and void, and establish grounds for the law to be challenged in court.
Downsize DC is a non-partisan organization which aims to limit the size of government in the United States through awareness and petitioning government.
Old wive's tales debunked by Allison Ford at Divine Caroline. Who exactly are these old wives, and why do they seem to have an opinion about everything? Toads, warts, eating, swimming, swallowed gum, carrots, eyesight, chocolate, and acne.
Before modern medicine and technology, women were the keepers of medical information. They delivered babies, healed the sick, and were considered experts in nutrition, children, folk medicine, herbs, and death. The “old wives” of these tales were most likely just wise village women—grandmothers, mothers, midwives, and healers. Perhaps once rooted in truth, now old wives’ tales are synonymous with unsubstantiated traditional beliefs and urban legends. They exist for everything from health to pregnancy to forecasting the weather. Some old wives’ tales are just silly superstitions, but some may just have a nugget of truth.
Touching Toads Will Give You Warts Toads aren’t exactly the cuddliest animals, so maybe that’s why the old wives were so spooked by them. But contrary to popular belief, they can’t give you warts. Warts in humans are only spread by the human papillomavirus, or HPV, and reptiles do not carry the virus. This fallacy may have originated because toads do have bumps on their backs that slightly resemble warts and people could have been sufficiently freaked out to believe that the toads were the cause. In fact, those bumps aren’t warts at all. They’re glands that store toxins to protect the toads from predators. So handling a toad won’t give you warts, but the toad might release a poison and teach you not to pick up toads anymore.
Don’t Swim for an Hour After Eating, Or You’ll Cramp Up Just think of all the time wasted in the summer, waiting poolside for your lunch to digest. Mothers have been warning their kids not to swim after eating since at least the 1950s, despite the fact that there is not a single recorded instance of someone drowning after suffering a cramp. If you eat and then start rigorously exercising, the blood that should be rushing to your stomach to aid in digestion gets diverted to your arms and legs, causing a cramp or stitch. Cramps don’t usually happen to kids who are just splashing in a pool though. You’d need to be doing laps or seriously exerting yourself in order to be at risk, and even then, cramps are pretty easily ameliorated. This tall tale may have originated with overprotective parents who wanted an Adult Swim.
Swallowed Gum Takes Seven Years to Digest Nope, not even close. Humans have chewed on plants and other natural substances for thousands of years and this specious claim might have been made up by mothers who were tired of hearing their kids make smacking noises all day, or who thought that gum chewing was low-class. Gum doesn’t break down in the digestive system, but it passes through like anything else. If you’re regularly swallowing wads of gum, then they could meld into a giant blob in your stomach and cause some problems, but the occasional swallower of gum has nothing to worry about.
Eat Carrots for Better Eyesight Carrots do contain beta carotene, which is important for eye health among other things, but eating copious amounts of carrots doesn’t improve vision. There is some evidence that vitamin A and beta-carotene can reduce the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration, but a person would have to eat about 370 baby carrots per day and I don’t know anyone who loves carrots that much. Some say that in World War II, the English wanted to conceal their use of a new air radar system, so they claimed that Royal Air Force pilots ate lots of carrots, which is why they developed superior vision. It’s unclear whether or not this story is true. Although there’s typically no harm in eating lots of carrots, excess consumption can turn your skin an orange hue. There is one known death from eating WAY too many carrots.
Eating Bread Crusts Will Make Your Hair Curly No, diet cannot make your hair curly (or straight). The bread crust myth is thought to have originated in Europe about 300 years ago, when many people lived on the brink of starvation. Curly hair was seen as a symbol of health and prosperity, as well as an indicator of youth. Those who had enough to eat (including bread) were generally healthier, so bread became associated with healthy, curly hair. Crusts actually tend to be the most nutrient-dense and healthful parts of bread. They contain more fiber and antioxidants than the rest of the loaf, so while eating them might not give you ringlets, it might make your hair shine a little brighter.
Chocolate Will Give You Acne It’s possible that this myth originated when scientists discovered that overactive sebaceous glands produce a fatty substance called sebum, which can lead to acne. Chocolate is high in fat, and sebum is high in fat, so the thinking was that if you ate a lot of chocolate, more sebum (and acne) would be produced. It was a pretty big jump to a conclusion that’s given grief to teenagers for years. Chocolate does contain fat, but not the same type that’s found in our skin. The only way it can cause acne is if you rub it onto your face.
If You Pluck a Gray Hair, Two More Will Grow Back in Its Place Gray hair can proliferate quickly, so it’s natural that once you see one gray hair, you start noticing them all over your head, as if they’ve multiplied overnight. But follicles produce one strand of hair, no more, no less. Plucking a gray hair won’t cause more to grow. Actually, plucking can cause you to lose hair, since yanking can damage the follicle or destroy it completely. It’s okay to tweeze the occasional stray gray, but if your hair is already thin or thinning, getting it colored might be your best bet.
Even though many old wives’ tales have been debunked as superstitious myth, their origins as folk medicine remain important. Luckily, we know that we don’t have to be so superstitious. Go ahead, have a candy bar, take a dip in the pool, and pick up some toads.
You've probably seen master huckster Kevin Trudeau on TV, pushing his book "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About." Some of the most worthless garbage ever!
The author of the bestselling "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" claims to be a consumer advocate in the Ralph Nader mold. But the infomercial king just wants your cash.
Many a late-night channel surfer has been numbed to sleep by endless infomercials hawking ab machines, penis enlargers, psychic readings and baldness cures. But how about a 30-minute faux talk show featuring a slick "expert author" who promises natural cures for cancer, diabetes and chronic fatigue syndrome and who claims that the FDA, drug companies and food industry have withheld such cures from the public in order to keep making bigger and bigger profits?
Step right up folks, and tune in to the paranoid world of master huckster Kevin Trudeau, whose book "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" has climbed to the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list for advice titles. The Federal Trade Commission virtually banned Trudeau from the airwaves in an attempt to "shut down an infomercial empire that has misled American consumers for years." But by shifting his business model from selling supposed cure-all products to peddling books, which are protected by the First Amendment, Trudeau has been able to slip past federal regulators and continue to sell snake oil to the masses -- first through his infomercial and now via mainstream book retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Reno R. Rollé, an executive consultant who handles U.S. retail and international distribution for "Natural Cures," says the book has sold nearly 3 million copies since the infomercial debuted in September 2004, and he sees no end in sight to its success. "No one knows where this thing is going to max out. We're just printing as many books as we can," Rollé says. "We're poised to make history here. What we're doing could revolutionize the book publishing industry."
Even before hitting the bestseller list, Trudeau, who is in his early 40s, had built a billion-dollar empire as a prolific infomercialteer, selling various health and self-improvement products under the cover of night. This despite a two-year stint in federal prison in the early '90s after pleading guilty to credit card fraud, and a 1996 tangle with the Illinois attorney general, who accused him of running a pyramid scheme while working for a health-products company called Nutrition for Life. Trudeau and a co-defendant settled that case, paying $185,000 to Illinois and seven other states; during that time, the U.S. Postal Service and Securities and Exchange Commission also investigated his business dealings.
A close look at Trudeau's later run-in with the FTC, in 1998, during which he and seven cohorts were accused of making "false or unsubstantiated" claims in advertisements on radio and television infomercials, sheds much needed light on his character and says a lot about how seriously (or not) we should take "Natural Cures." Ads for the "Sable Hair Farming System," Trudeau's own "Mega Memory System," "Doctor Callahan's Addiction Breaking System," "Action Reading," "Eden's Secret Nature's Purifying Product" and "Howard Berg's Mega Reading" all came under scrutiny they could not withstand.
"We're going to be sharing Dr. Callahan's revolutionary breakthrough that he discovered while studying quantum physics," the addiction infomercial went, before claiming that the system cured compulsive eating, as well as alcohol, cocaine and heroin addiction, and led to weight loss without dieting or exercise. "This technique will take 60 seconds to apply and works virtually 100 percent of the time," the FTC noted as another claim. It said that the "videotape sold in the infomercial showed Dr. Callahan demonstrating his technique -- a series of gestures, including tapping the face, chest and hand; rolling the eyes; and humming, which, if mimicked, were the supposed addiction cure." The claims were false, according to the FTC.
Another Trudeau product, "Howard Berg's Mega Reading," offered a home study program guaranteed to boost reading speed and comprehension 10 times over. "I have a letter here from a girl who has brain damage," Berg confided in another infomercial. "She was in a car accident and half her brain stopped functioning. It was electrically dead." According to the FTC, "he then claimed that after using his system for a brief period -- as long as a coffee break -- her reading speed increased from three to 600 words per minute..." Not surprisingly, the FTC deemed the Berg program bogus as well.
And Trudeau's own "Mega Memory System," which asserted that everyone has an innate photographic memory that could be tapped into with his help, was unmasked too. To show how fraudulent the system was, the FTC cited snippets of the infomercial, such as: "Kevin Trudeau's breakthrough techniques were developed while working with blind and mentally handicapped students. Their recall ability increased from 15% to 90% in just 5 days," as well as the infomercial's claim that the system was "guaranteed to work for you."
In the end, Trudeau settled the case; he was fined $500,000 in consumer redress and warned against making false product claims in the future. But this didn't deter him. In 2003, the FTC charged Trudeau once more, this time citing another product, Coral Calcium Supreme. The FTC argued that claims made in Trudeau's infomercial by Dr. Robert "Bob" Barefoot that calcium derived from coral reefs near Okinawa, Japan, could treat or cure cancer and other ills -- such as multiple sclerosis and heart disease -- went far beyond existing scientific evidence concerning the health benefits of calcium. Trudeau settled that case as well. But this time, in addition to being fined $2 million, he was also banned from "appearing in, producing, or disseminating future infomercials that advertise any type of product, service, or program to the public" forever.
Afterward, Trudeau loudly complained that the FTC was censoring him and started a Web site called The Whistleblower, on which he tries to fashion himself as a new Ralph Nader -- a selfless consumer advocate opposing powerful institutions and defending regular folk. But Trudeau's claims of persecution and martyrdom are hard to swallow for many. "He wasn't censored -- that's just total fantasy," says Dr. Stephen Barrett, a health-fraud expert who runs a network of watchdog Web sites, including Quackwatch. "What's happened is that he's just not allowed to sell products with false claims. That's the only censorship going on."
"Trudeau is the undisputed king of false infomercial advertising," he continues. Barrett's alarm over Trudeau's tactics heightened with the coral calcium infomercial. "It was just one lie after another, all orchestrated by Trudeau," Barrett says. He isn't any more impressed by Trudeau's current infomercial for the bestselling "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About."
The book, which Trudeau self-published, is a paranoid mixture of self-evident and widely known health facts with very few, if any, natural cures. It is almost amusingly campy -- except that the information is so odd, and alarmist. "Natural Cures" is poorly sourced and peppered with jaw-dropping absurdities, such as "The sun does not cause cancer. Sun block has been shown to cause cancer" or "All over-the-counter nonprescription drugs and prescription drugs CAUSE illness and disease." Or, this tribute to logic and language: "If you read the labels of everything you put in your mouth, you would see the name [sic] of various chemicals. All the chemicals listed are dangerous man-made chemicals. They are poisons. If you were to take any of those chemicals and ingest a large amount at one time, you would probably die. Therefore they are in fact poisons."
His prose style mimics the gibberish favored by online spam advertisements, and he frequently uses SCREAM CAPS to emphasize OBVIOUS POINTS. At one point, Trudeau implies that he was an undercover government agent and that, because of his inside knowledge, the government and powerful corporations are out to get him -- though he doesn't share what any of his highly prized knowledge is. And always lurking somewhere is the nefarious "They" of the book's title -- the FDA and the FTC, who are in cahoots with the drug companies, which hold back the real natural cures because they won't make any money if you're healthy.
On every page, he stokes the paranoia and anger generated by recent high-profile corporate and government scandals, as well as the ire against the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. But don't worry, not only will his book save you, but you can also go to his Web site, NaturalCures.com, for more information and for the "real cures," all for a lifetime membership of $499 or a monthly fee of just $9.95. In essence, the infomercial sells the book, which sells the Web site --which nets Trudeau tons of money.
But there's nothing strictly illegal about Trudeau and "Natural Cures." Heather Hippsley, assistant director for the division of advertising practices at the FTC, who supervised the commission's case against Trudeau, explains: "Books are fully protected speech. He can author a book and voice his opinions ... The line is: Informational materials, OK. Products and services, banned."
Peer-review systems -- like the one in place on Amazon.com -- do their best work in warning potential buyers of bad or faulty products. On the Amazon site, over 500 people have weighed in on "Natural Cures" so far. Yet, although reviews have been almost overwhelmingly negative -- in Amazon's "star rating" scheme, the book is averaging a two -- sales haven't slowed. Despite headlines like "'Scams they don't want you to know about"; "Trudeau is worse than the drug companies!"; "Left feeling totally duped"; "Natural Cures he Contiunous [sic] Not to Tell U About"; and "The Book Just Simply Sucks," "Natural Cures" hovers at the top of the Amazon bestseller list week after week.
Indeed, all the negative Amazon reviews in the world probably won't keep people from checking out "Natural Cures." "What's driving sales is not people buying the book but people buying the infomercial," says Sam Catanese, president and CEO of Infomercial Monitoring Service, which tracks the direct-response television marketing industry. In fact, according to Catanese's data, "Natural Cures" was recently the most-run infomercial on television -- 139 times in one week. (The runner-up was a distant second, appearing 96 times.)
A list of common medical or medicine related beliefs espoused by physicians and the general public
Sometimes even doctors are duped, say Rachel C Vreeman and Aaron E Carroll
Physicians understand that practicing good medicine requires the constant acquisition of new knowledge, though they often assume their existing medical beliefs do not need re-examination. These medical myths are a light hearted reminder that we can be wrong and need to question what other falsehoods we unwittingly propagate as we practice medicine. We generated a list of common medical or medicine related beliefs espoused by physicians and the general public, based on statements we had heard endorsed on multiple occasions and thought were true or might be true. We selected seven for critical review:
We use only 10% of our brains
Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.
We use only 10% of our brains The belief that we use only 10% of our brains has persisted for over a century, despite dramatic advances in neuroscience. Some sources attribute this claim to Albert Einstein, but no such reference or statement by Einstein has ever been recorded. This myth arose as early as 1907, propagated by multiple sources advocating the power of self improvement and tapping into each person’s unrealised latent abilities. But this really makes little sense—what is the other 90% supposed to be doing? Nothing? C'mon!
Evidence from studies of brain damage, brain imaging, localisation of function, microstructural analysis, and metabolic studies show that people use much more than 10% of their brains.
Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy The presence of tryptophan in turkey may be the most commonly known fact pertaining to amino acids and food. Scientific evidence shows that tryptophan is involved in sleep and mood control and can cause drowsiness.
The myth is the idea that consuming turkey (and the tryptophan it contains) might particularly predispose someone to sleepiness. Actually, turkey does not contain an exceptional amount of tryptophan. Turkey, chicken, and minced beef contain nearly equivalent amounts of tryptophan, while other common sources of protein, such as pork or cheese, contain more tryptophan per gram than turkey.
Other physiological mechanisms explain drowsiness after meals. Any large solid meal (such as turkey, sausages, stuffing, and assorted vegetables followed by Christmas pudding and brandy butter) can induce sleepiness because blood flow and oxygenation to the brain decreases, and meals either high in protein or carbohydrates may cause drowsiness. Accompanying wine may also play a role.
People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day The advice to drink at least eight glasses of water a day can be found throughout the popular press, but there is no medical evidence showing that eight glasses is the proper amount. Just bunk! Even though I'm pretty sure water is very good for you—just don't drink excessive amounts of it, since that can be dangerous, resulting in water intoxication, hyponatraemia, and even death.
Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight The fearful idea that reading in dim light could ruin one’s eyesight probably has its origins in the physiological experience of eye strain. Suboptimal lighting can create a sensation of having difficulty in focusing. It also decreases the rate of blinking and leads to discomfort from drying, particularly in conditions of voluntary squinting. The important counterpoint is that these effects do not persist.
The majority consensus in ophthalmology, as outlined in a collection of educational material for patients, is that reading in dim light does not damage your eyes. Although it can cause eye strain with multiple temporary negative effects, it is unlikely to cause a permanent change on the function or structure of the eyes. Hundreds of online expert opinions conclude that reading in low light does not hurt your eyes.
Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death Morbid information about the body captures the imagination and reinforces medical mythology. Johnny Carson even perpetuated this myth with his joke, "For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off." To quote the expert opinion of forensic anthropologist William Maples, "It is a powerful, disturbing image, but it is pure moonshine. No such thing occurs."
Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser Another common belief is that shaving hair off will cause it to grow back in a darker or coarser form or to grow back faster. It is often reinforced by popular media sources and perhaps by people contemplating the quick appearance of stubble on their own body. Pure BS.
Strong scientific evidence disproves these claims. As early as 1928, a clinical trial showed that shaving had no effect on hair growth. More recent studies confirm that shaving does not affect the thickness or rate of hair regrowth. The new hair has not yet been lightened by the sun or other chemical exposures, resulting in an appearance that seems darker than existing hair.
Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals After publication of a journal article citing more than 100 reports of suspected electromagnetic interference with medical devices before 1993, the Wall Street Journal published a front page article highlighting this danger. Since that time, many hospitals banned the use of mobile phones, perpetuating the belief. Despite the concerns, there is little evidence.
Much of this information was originally published in Mixed messages: Medical mythsby Rachel C Vreeman, fellow in children’s health services research & Aaron E Carroll, assistant professor of paediatrics BMJ Publishing Group http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/335/7633/1288
After 80 years much of the Bigfoot evidence has been discovered to be a hoax, or due to misidentification, and much of it is just useless anecdotes. What’s needed is an actual specimen.
Gigantic footprints were discovered one spring in 1958 in a northern California logging camp near Bluff Creek, and by late summer and into the fall, a bulldozer driver, Jerry Crew began to find massive 16 inch tracks in the morning in the freshly leveled dirt around his machine. He cast the footprints in plaster and took them to a local paper which ran a story, giving rise to the term “Bigfoot” and sparking a flurry of worldwide interest.
The mystery was solved in 2002 when the family of Ray Wallace, the construction contractor who supervised workers at the foot print site, announced in Wallace’s obituary that he had hoaxed the prints. While there was a certain amount of denial by Bigfoot researchers, Wallace had a decades-long history of producing jokes and hoaxes. Ray had a friend carve him 16-inch-long feet that he could strap on and make prints with. So it can all be blamed on Ray Wallace: Bigfoot is a hoax that was launched in August 1958.
Patterson’s famous Bigfoot photo of a guy in an ape suit
Bluff Creek footage was also the site of the next Bigfoot sensation—actual footage of a lanky ape-man loping along a stream bed—the famous Patterson film.
In 2004, Greg Long published “The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story” which examined Roger Patterson’s character. Long discovered that there was no lack of witnesses—neighbors, friends, business associates and even Bigfoot researchers—who would describe Patterson as a shady character who engaged in check fraud and other scams and who couldn’t be trusted. Ironically the film he used at Bluff Creek was purchased with a bad check, and he was arrested for grand larceny for stealing the camera he used. Before the Bluff Creek footage was shot, Patterson made several low-budget Bigfoot films that showed he had plenty of experience creating fake Bigfoot-related footage. Long also claimed he uncovered the actual “man in the suit,” Bob Heironimus, who had acted in Patterson’s other Bigfoot films. Considering Patterson’s reputation it’s difficult to understand why Bigfoot researchers haven’t been more suspicious of the film.
Bob Heironimus claims to have been the figure depicted in the Patterson film, and his allegations are detailed in Long's book. Heironimus was a tall (6 ft), muscular Yakima, Washington native, age 26, when he says Patterson offered him $1,000 to wear an ape suit for a Bigfoot film.
Long uncovered testimony that he contends corroborates Heironimus's claims: Russ Bohannon, a longtime friend, says that Heironimus revealed the hoax privately in 1968 or 1969. Heironimus says he did not publicly discuss his role in the hoax because he hoped to be repaid eventually. In separate incidents, Bob Heironimus and Heironimus's relatives (mother Opal and nephew John Miller) claim to have seen an ape suit in Heironimus' car.
After 80 years much of the Bigfoot evidence has been discovered to be a hoax, or due to misidentification, and much of it is just useless anecdotes. What’s needed is an actual specimen. Until a specimen is produced the skeptics will continue to hold the field.
Researcher says bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit The Associated Press ATLANTA August 20, 2008
Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice—handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it—was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.
They claim their hoax was not for profit, but Atlanta residents Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer received $50,000 from a California Bigfoot tracker who now plans to sue to get the money back.
The two Georgia men’s tale of having found a Bigfoot carcass in the North Georgia woods really started to stink when California Bigfoot enthusiasts finally examined the body and found it was just a costume.
“There will be legal action” said Catherine Ortez, who works for Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. in in Menlo Park, Calif. The organization paid for rights to the men’s story and their find. “If this was a joke, it was very methodical and thought-out,” she said.
The Searching site was founded by Tom Biscardi, who authenticated and promoted the alleged Georgia Sasquatch. Biscardi, who did not return calls requesting comment, has his own credibility issues, according to a police officer in a nearby jurisdiction.
“He was involved in a similar hoax a few years back,” said Agent Dan Ryan with the Palo Alto (Calif.) Police Department.
