Ant and I watched this great show called Bullshit! that's been done by Penn & Teller, the American magicians.
Their take is that there is a lot of bullshit in the world. They acknowledge that magic is also bullshit, but, "At least we *tell* you it's bullshit."
They had episodes on John Edward and other so-called psychics, spoon-bending, Feng Shui, bottled water, penis enlargement pills, magnet therapy, GM food, and a ton of other stuff that is either scam deals paid for by the gullible, or bandwagon jumping, or hysteria, etc. One of their shows was about environmental hysteria, and how a lot of people who get hysterical are not hysterical about the environment but about politics, and the environment is only the means to that end.
My point? One of their undercover "greenies" took a petition around at a rally and asked people to sign it to ban the chemical dihydrogen monoxide (I said to Ant that they wouldn't have caught me). The mole got HUNDREDS of signatures from the gung-ho before she 'fessed up.
There was a report in the Age on the weekend that a bill to ban dihydrogen monoxide got as far as preliminary council hearings in some town in California before someone clicked. :-)
Apparently the research had been done by a paralegal, who'd found a website somewhere and not realised that it was a spoof.
And I did give ours a catalog number (MQDH2O) and a location (South Sink).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-30 09:50 pm (UTC)Water.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-08 07:13 am (UTC)So now we have one for water, but not yet for liquid Nitrogen. ;-)
Bullshit!
Date: 2004-03-31 05:48 am (UTC)Their take is that there is a lot of bullshit in the world. They acknowledge that magic is also bullshit, but, "At least we *tell* you it's bullshit."
They had episodes on John Edward and other so-called psychics, spoon-bending, Feng Shui, bottled water, penis enlargement pills, magnet therapy, GM food, and a ton of other stuff that is either scam deals paid for by the gullible, or bandwagon jumping, or hysteria, etc. One of their shows was about environmental hysteria, and how a lot of people who get hysterical are not hysterical about the environment but about politics, and the environment is only the means to that end.
My point? One of their undercover "greenies" took a petition around at a rally and asked people to sign it to ban the chemical dihydrogen monoxide (I said to Ant that they wouldn't have caught me). The mole got HUNDREDS of signatures from the gung-ho before she 'fessed up.
Re: Bullshit!
Date: 2004-03-31 02:38 pm (UTC)Apparently the research had been done by a paralegal, who'd found a website somewhere and not realised that it was a spoof.
And I did give ours a catalog number (MQDH2O) and a location (South Sink).
No quantity though, I had the giggles by then.