Category: Bullshit

  • Ban this evil vaccine!

    Guess which newspaper? More than 1,300 schoolgirls have experienced adverse reactions to the controversial cervical cancer jab. Doctors have reported that girls aged just 12 and 13 have suffered paralysis, convulsions and sight problems after being given the vaccine. Everybody panic! Why, out of nearly 3/4 of a million vaccinations: Their latest analysis found there…

  • Cutting the UK speed limit: here comes the consultation

    It’s hard to disagree with Devil’s Kitchen on the government’s upcoming consultation on lower speed limits (inevitably the full post is very sweary): Yes, it will be like the recent smoking one, highlighted by my colleague, in which the opinions of those who oppose the proposals will disappear into thin air whilst the responses that…

  • Voice stress analysis for benefit claimants: bollocks, or complete and utter bollocks?

    My Dad thought I’d be interested in this one. He was right. Ministry of Truth investigates the technology that will apparently tell the Department of Work and Pensions whether benefit claimants are telling porkies. Have you watched The Wire? You know the bit where the homicide detectives tell a gullible suspect that their office photocopier…

  • Return of the son of The Words That No Sane Person Should Use

    29 tech phrases you should be punched in the face for using: We’re told that if you give a million monkeys a million typewriters, they’d create the works of Shakespeare – but what would you end up with if you threw a million typewriters at a monkey? The internet shows us the answer: perfectly good…

  • 0800 988 9900 is a joke…

    …as Public Enemy almost put it. If you get a call telling you you’ve won a free holiday and asking you to call 0800 988 9900, it’s a holiday club. To save my aching hands, here’s an old post about a different firm offering the same kind of thing.

  • Protect yourself from Facebook Cancer with online porn

    If the Daily Mail’s going to print a load of wank about the internet causing cancer, somebody needs to talk about a load of wank fighting cancer. Or something… you could equally say that MySpace increases your risk of being killed by a vampire because you’d be too busy stalking Lily Allen to spot Dracula…

  • This is nearly the ultimate Daily Mail story: Facebook causes cancer

    All that’s missing is a reference to house prices or immigrants. How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer: Social networking sites such as Facebook could raise your risk of serious health problems by reducing levels of face-to-face contact, a doctor claims.

  • Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross and MMR

    I will shut up about MMR in a minute, but I wanted to link to this post by Scots Law Student: Saying that children’s vaccines cause cancer is a sure fire way to terrify parents and this should have been as well received as Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s Radio 2 phonecall. It’s a fair…

  • Mummy duck said “Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!” and all the MMR crap came back

    The other day, LBC broadcast a breathtaking programme where presenter Jeni Barnett used her expertise as a parent to pooh-pooh the entire medical and scientific community. MMR is dangerous. There’s no evidence for it, but it’s a scientific fact. You know the kind of thing. That first link is to the audio; there’s a transcript…

  • BadScience.net in MMR quack attack

    When Bad Science’s Ben Goldacre had the temerity to criticise an LBC radio broadcast by Jeni Barnett, lawyers sent him a nastygram. Bad Science is currently offline. As Goldacre writes: It is my view that in this extended broadcast Jeni exemplifies every single canard ever uttered by the antivaccination movement. “It’s a conspiracy by the…