Exporters raided in bomb detector fraud inquiry

Police have raided three companies suspected of selling ineffective bomb detectors to overseas markets, in a case that raises questions of whether Britain has done all it can to curb the much-criticised trade.

City of London police said yesterday that they had raided five properties and planned to interview a number of individuals as part of an expanding investigation into the sale of the hand-held devices, which critics say have endangered lives in Iraq and elsewhere.

The police action was launched after Britain introduced a ban in January on the export of the devices, but applied it only to Iraq and Afghanistan because it said it lacked the power to extend it to countries in which UK and allied forces were not engaged.

The police said they executed five search warrants at premises in Kent, Devon and Nottingham linked to the companies Grosvenor Scientific, Scandec Inc and Global Technical, seizing a large amount of cash and several hundred explosive detection devices and their component parts – Source: Financial Times

Now, Global Technical I had heard of – in fact I wrote about their GT200 back in April. It’s great to see the police taking action, finally. Still, while we’re aware of the actions of ATSC (whose CEO Jim McCormick is still on police bail after his arrest earlier this year over the same charges these new companies now face), and both Scantec and Global Technical are well documented too, Grosvenor Scientific appear to be somewhat off the radar – with very little information to be found on them. Even the internet, so often a fountain of knowledge, has only the following to offer (courtesy of friend-of-the-MSS Gittins):

Name & Registered Office:
GROSVENOR SCIENTIFIC LIMITED
THE OLD MILKING PARLOUR
CADHAY
OTTERY ST. MARY
DEVON
UNITED KINGDOM
EX11 1QT
Company No. 07144016

MSS Board member Pete was also able to ascertain that the company incorporated on 2nd February 2010 – very recently, then. Which does make me wonder – what we have here is a company selling devices that are as ineffectual as the ADE651, which was set up after the ADE651 was exposed as being useless and banned from sale to Iraq and Afghanistan. Is it plausible that Grosvenor Scientific, set up the month after the ADE651 was exposed and banned, is actually selling the same devices under a different name and company, in order to circumvent the ban? I’d say it was more than plausible, and we’ll know more as further details come in.

If you have any details on Grosvenor Scientific (especially if you live in the Devon area near to the offices in The Old Milking Parlour, Cadhay), please get in touch – the more we can discover about these seeming peddlers of dangerous dowsing rods, the more we can help clamp down on their sale.

Police appealed for anyone with information about the devices’ manufacture, sale or distribution to call 020 7601 6969 or e-mail OACU@cityoflondon.police.uk

For more information on these woo bomb detectors, check out Professor Bruce Hood’s blog.

Still, having 70s glam rockers with chipmunk names yelling patronising insults at children isn’t the stupidest method employed in an attempt to promote road safety, given that reports from Austria this week suggested that druids have been working with local road safety authorities in an attempt to mitigate the dangers of accident blackspots.

As the Metro explains:

“Austrian authorities say druids have been so successful in dealing with motorway accident blackspots in one area that they plan to extend the project nationwide.  As well as using quartz standing stones to restore the area’s ‘natural energy’, the druids have come up with a cheaper modern-day option – burying plastic slates with magnets in the ground.

Arch druid Ilmar Tessmann was called in as a last resort after a high number of fatal accidents were reported on a straight stretch of motorway near Salzburg.  He said the crashes were caused by radiation from a nearby mobile phone mast disrupting the area’s normal ‘terrestrial’ radiation.  Installing the monoliths has successfully counteracted that, he claimed.”

The Metro reports that the rate of accidents has decreased from 6 per year, to zero in the 2 years since the druids have been applying their magic. Scientists, surprisingly enough, are somewhat skeptical, with a range of questions springing to mind. Namely:

• Where is the proof that electro-magnetic radiation affects car accident rates? What frequency of signal is responsible – is it a narrow band, or a wide band. If the latter, why aren’t radio signals, and even light, equally at fault?
• Why do disruptions in terrestrial radiation cause accidents?
• What do the magnets do? And the plastic, in fact?
• How can it be shown that it was the intervention of the druids which was responsible for lowering accident rates? Given that a reduction of 6 crashes per year down to 0 could well be explained by more mundane events – natural statistical variation, changes to the conditions before that stretch of road, etc.

Still, the Metro doesn’t offer any of these questions, naturally. In fact, what it does offer is a picture of the druid, all bearded and in a woolen cloak, squatting with a dowsing rod, captioned “Druid Ilmar Tessmann tunes into the energy waves and apparently helps to reduce the number of fatalities at an accident blackspot“. Which is interesting, because the druid pictured isn’t actually Ilmar Tessman. I know, because I looked at Ilmar’s website, and he’s actually a reasonably elderly, non-bearded man. Who doesn’t appear to be squatting. And isn’t wearing a cloak. Or holding a bent coat-hanger. A bit of Metro fail, there, then.

While Tessman’s site is in German, which I don’t read at all, I was able to locate and pick out some of the test cases for roads he used his magic on. One such blackspot was a crossing on the B92 Görtschitz valley road in Carinthia.

• In 1994, there was an accident in which 2 people were seriously injured
• In 1995, 1 person was injured
• In 1996, the magic stones were added to the road, and in that year there were no human injuries, but a few accidents where deer got hurt.
• In 1997, there were no accidents
• In 1998, again there were no accidents.
• In 1999, there was an accident were someone was seriously hurt. However, as Tessman explains, this occurred because when he examined the magic stones he found they were covered in dust and soil, which had blocked their energy. Presumably mud can stop the radiation from mobile phone masts, or perhaps stop the magnetic force coming from the magnets in the stone or plastic. Obviously.

Now, of course, without being a fluent German speaker, it’s tough to get to the bottom of all of the stats Ilmar presents, and I’ve invited him onto the show to discuss his findings, language-barrier permitting of course. But, as has been said many times before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs, and so far all I can really find are statistically-insignificant variances, plenty of special pleading, and some uncritical and sensationalist headlines.

All this is well-known, and can be found in greater detail elsewhere on the web, so I won’t bore you by re-hashing the details. However, there is something I can add to the story – we here at the MSS were recently contacted by a journalist wanting to know a little more about the device, specifically if it’s still on sale. Always happy to oblige, I got to doing a bit of digging, and having found – unsurprisingly – the ATSC’s website down ‘for repair’ (I can only assume it’s the company’s morals that are undergoing repair), I was kindly pointed in the direction of the online trade outlet ecplaza, and specifically the page for the ATSC ADE 651.

Well, what better way to find out if this disgraced and disproven device is still on sale, than to call up the manufacturers directly? Luckily enough, ecplaza lists the phone number for the sales department of WooBombDetectorsRUs as +44 207 681 2036… which is a number out of service. Presumably, the phone lines are also down for repair. Still, on the page there’s this lovely, shiny, inviting orange box titled ‘Inquire Now’… so I did. Presumably, I thought, if the website is down and the CEO under investigation for fraud, then the email enquiries would either bounce back an auto-reply saying ‘this device is no longer on sale’ (or word to that effect), or it would simply disappear into a black hole.

As it turns out, I was wrong – a few days later, the following reply dropped into my inbox:

Subject: RE: ADE 651

From: ATSCLLC, ATSC (UK) Ltd, United Kingdom

Phone: 44-207-681-2036,

Email: info@atscltd.com

Homepage : http://ATSCLLC.en.ecplaza.net

Date: Mar 22, 2010 16:54:37 GMT

Message:
Dear Mr Marshall.

Many thanks for your enquiry. However, before we disclose any further information, could you please advise as to the nature of your, or your companies enquiry. This is asked as generally, information is only provided to those prospective clients that have a specific need in the ability to detect either explosive or narcotic ‘signatures’ and for a specific ‘end-user’ Country.

Any additional information you could provide at this time would also be very useful.

As you can see, conspicuously absent in the above is any indication that the ADE 651 has been banned from sale, discontinued or withdrawn pending review. I have, naturally, responded in order to obtain further information – thus far to no avail.

If the ADE 651 is indeed still for sale, it represents the ongoing endangerment of lives the world over. It’s also not alone, in that respect…

The GT200 from Global Technical Ltd- cost: £22,000 per unit

The GT200 is an near-identical device to the ADE 651. Personally, I find interesting to note the sheer lack of any kind of technical information, specifications, studies, research and data available on their site, even when referring to valid criticisms:

Conflicting documents

We have read conflicting media reports of the outcome of the latest tests on the GT200 carried out by the Thai government.

You will appreciate that it is difficult to comment on the latest test report until we have seen it and had the opportunity to study it and, in particular, to understand the testing methodology employed. We can say that previous tests carried out by independent bodies, and the experience of the large number of users of this product all over the world, confirms that the GT200 is effective and because of this, we would ask that you treat with caution any reports to the contrary.

Essentially, they’re saying: “Don’t listen to what the bad men say, our device works because we say so”. Hardly particularly convincing. The GT200 was part of the investigation by BBC Newsnight in January, and was found to be as ineffective as the ADE 651. What’s more, the BBC found that the device:

“…consists of an aerial on a handle connected to a black box into which you are supposed to insert substance detection cards.

The head of Global Technical, Gary Bolton, told Newsnight:

“There are no electronic parts required in the handle.”

Explosives expert Sidney Alford took apart the “black box” of the GT200, which is supposed to receive signals from the detection cards. He was surprised at what he found.

“Speaking as a professional, I would say that is an empty plastic case,” he told us.

Mr Alford also took apart a “detection card” and found there was nothing in it other than card and paper.

Gary Bolton from Global Technical told the BBC that the lack of electronic parts “does not mean it does not operate to the specification”.

“Police running scared from drug gangs in one of Mexico’s deadliest cities are using bizarre rituals involving animal sacrifice and spirit tattoos to seek protection from raging violence on the U.S. border” – Source: CBS

As the story continues (and it’s worth reading the whole thing), an increasing litany of pseudoscience emerges as being relied-upon by police involved in one of the most dangerous drug wars on the planet, including:

• Tarot card symbols
• Magical protective tattoos
• Animal sacrifices – chicken
• Haitian Voodoo, Cuban Santeria, Mexican Witchcraft
• Priests
• Patron saints (including Jesus Malverde, patron saint of drug traffickers)
• Statues and skulls
• Ritualistic behaviour
• Spirits
• Full moons

What strikes me most about the story is the extremity of the situation – given the grip drug gangs have on the region, and the inevitable supply of funds this affords criminals in their war with the police, the local authorities are understandably up against the wall. Many are forced (often at gunpoint) to switch sides and work for the gangs. Clearly, the honest police are fighting a losing battle, and one with deadly consequences… and so they turn to whichever belief system might offer them a chink of hope.

Psychologists often talk about the habit of the human mind to delve into unscientific, ritualistic behaviour at times of great stress or anxiety. Rarely have I ever seen a case so illustrative of that simple fact. We truly are just pattern-seeking pigeons, it seems.

Often, the contents of a MBWBS event tend to vary from the silly, to the deceptive, to the outright ridiculous and offensive – that’s relatively standard fare, really. Sometimes, however, an exhibitor is thrown up that’s simply and utterly dangerous – and it was the charming practitioners from Innersound that filled the role at the last festival I visited. (Listeners to our Skeptics With A K podcast will already know all about Innersound and their needle-free ‘Qi’ therapy).

Before you all dash off to Google Innersound and check out their woo-filled website (don’t worry, I’ll be doing that for you in a bit anyway), let me first explain to you how I came across them initially. Wandering around said MBWBS event, checking out the various stalls, I got chatting to an elderly Korean woman with a massage table. She explained to me that, due to fear in the West over the use of needles, she was giving people the chance to try needle-free acupuncture. Or ‘acu’, you might call it. Obviously, I was intrigued, I was mystified, and above all I was skeptical. “How do you do acupuncture without needles?”, I thought.

“How do you do acupuncture without needles?” I asked her.

“Oh, it’s simple – we use sound vibrations applied along acupressure points, which resonate with the frequencies of our own bodies, so that they interact with the healing centre of our inner core and unlock the healing energy within”, she replied (or words to that effect – her knowledge of English was relatively poor. Although, relative to her knowledge of medicine, she was Stephen Fry-fluent).

Following that *slight* hint of bullshit, I inevitably asked her a few questions, the usual go-to skeptical questions when faced with nonsense pseudo-medicine: Can you cure cancer? (Answer: “We can, but we usually don’t, but if you came to us with cancer we would”). What’s your greatest success to date? (Answer: “We’re a charity, and we’ve sent people around Africa to help with HIV AIDS”).

At this point, you might be wondering what Innersound actually is – I know I was. The wishy-washy descriptions of needle-free Qi and sound vibrations sounded… well, far from sound. So I stuck around, visited a few stalls, and waited until the next poor sucker got taken in by her, so I could witness it for myself. It was around 15 minutes later when I heard the practitioner at work…

Pssht. Pssst. Pssssssht.

“Excellent”, I thought, “They’re using some kind of mechanical device to make the noise. Perhaps it’s like a little motor, pressing against the skin, making that noise as it spins.”

Oh no. No, no no. I was wrong.

I walked over to the table, to see the masseuse feeling a woman’s back for acupressure points, before pushing his thumb into the acupressure point hard… and saying ‘Psssht’. With his mouth. And his lips. Psssht.

Now, just to be clear, this isn’t a valid therapy. In case I needed to point it out – it’s bullshit. Where’s the harm? Insomnia. Cancer. AIDS. Pssht! Pssht! Pssht!

Unsurprisingly, the company’s website stays clear backing up the claims made in person to help cure cancer. Instead, we’re offered standard, vague case studies, such as:

My name is Patricia and I am 50 years of age.

I was diagnosed and underwent lumpectomy and axilor limph removal. I had 6 months of chemotherapy treatment.During this period I started to receive Qi Treatments which I found really helpful. I felt more energetic and more at peace. I was really surprised at how easy the rest of chemotherapy went and I did not have any side effects. Even my back pains went away completely.

I am now going through radiotherapy treatments and I am receiving Ki Treatments again once a week. It is helping me a lot. I have no side effects and I am feeling happy and full of energy.

Patricia  50 – London

The best we’re given is the idea that the treatments offer ‘peace’ and ‘energy’ – all very nebulous and unquantifiable. Not so for the HIV claim, where we’re offered quantifiable proof that the Pssshting is beneficial:

Has been HIV+ for 12 years.  Normal CD4 count for the last 12 years has been 320 3 weeks ago after a blood test it was 590.

This result is after 8 Qi Treatments and 7 training classes. It is incredible!

Physically I feel more energised, happier and content with life. I would like to carry on further treatments and training class to improve my health and avoid infections to my body in the future.

- Anonymous

Needle-free acupuncture and magic-breathing increases CD4 levels dramatically, it seems! If only there were something more than a badly-written 3 paragraph testimonial attributed to an anonymous source to back that up, before this ‘charity’ started taking their show on the road. Like, for example, science? Plausibility? Proof?

Looking through the other areas where Innersound can help, we see a rag-tag mix of the nonsensical, dangerous and downright baffling. I can understand how the mind-over-matter elements of a mystical placebo-activator could help with Back Pain, Asthma and Tired(ness), but it’s dangerous to believe this mystical-thinking can help prevent allergic reactions, and it’s shockingly exploitative to promote it for help with Grief (really fucking disturbing stuff), Hepatitis (see first anecdote) and severe Heart Conditions in an 8-month old baby. Digest that – an 8-month old baby with severe heart conditions. Pssht. Sickening.

As for the supporting evidence for preventing Strokes, we’re told:

I visited the Mind Body and Spirit exhibition where I met Innersound.  On that day I knew that I had raised blood pressure because I was feeling very dazed.  I was very sure that I was having a stroke.

Since joining Innersound I have not had a raised blood pressure episode.  I would like to say my job is now more stressful than it ever was, but I am convinced that the reason I have not gone under is because of the treatment, training classes and support I get from the masters at the centre.

So, essentially, her story is: “I thought I was going to have a stroke, and then I didn’t have a stroke, and I put that down to the magic man and his pssshting.”

As for the outright baffling, how do they suggest needle-free acupuncture will help cure Broken Bones, Fractures, Eyesight problems, old age, Outstanding Performance (?!) and Pregnancy. What’s more, I don’t want to know where they press to help deal with Infertility.

What theory is Innersound Qi based on? You’ll not be surprised to hear it’s based on the usual unscientific nonsense. Specifically:

A healthy human body has an abundant and continuous flow of energy which supports all the physical functions. This energy is pumped through a network of energy channels similar to the way that blood is pumped by the heart and flows through the veins. Energy is pumped by the human battery, located just beneath the navel, and flows through energy meridians to all organs and cells.

Suffice to say, nothing has ever suggested there’s a ‘human battery’ located beneath the navel. That’s gibberish of the highest, most unscientific order.

From an eastern point of view, there are only two causes of ill-health – a shortage of energy and energy blockages. When we are short of energy, our body doesn’t have the energy it needs to function effectively bringing fatigue, pain and stress and leading to increasing imbalances and symptoms of ill-health.

Note – neither of the ‘only’ causes of ill-health include disease, germs, bacteria, viruses, genetic defects and predispositions, bad diet, lack of exercise, environmental factors, radiation or the million other ways we know ill-health comes about. This is ancient, disproven, childish gibberish. That they’re exporting to Africa to cure AIDS, and that they’re using here in the UK to offer alternatives to people generally desperate for help.

This might all sound like grumpy, curmudgeonly banging on a drum against something harmless, or silly. Perhaps you’re right. However, I witnessed people being Pssshted, falling for this ludicrous claptrappery, and if even one person with cancer, HIV, hepatitis or something similarly serious is convinced to believe in this Qi, then it’s one person too many.

However, even I was surprised to see the angle taken by the Huff-Po this week, when I spotted Patricia Martin’s column ‘The Politics of Astrology and the Secret Lives of CEOs‘. In an interview with Astrologer Susan Miller, the article explores the ways in which astrology can play a part in politics and business… and, bizarrely, doesn’t come to the conclusion ‘none’. Quoting the article:

Over slabs of glazed salmon at the Drake Hotel dining room, Ms. Miller and I discussed the astrological year ahead for American politics. Cheerful even when delivering hard news, Ms. Miller offered up the following outlook:

So, lets take a look at what the stars predict for the political year ahead in America -

Healthcare reform will pass, but undergo tweaks and revisions for several months to come.

I think that’s fair to call it a hit. I think it’s also fair to say it’s a hit I could have come up with – the political weight behind the healthcare reform definitely had it in the ‘plausible’ pile, and the opposition to it most certainly had it in the ‘undergo tweaks and revisions’ pile. What’s more, what controversial bill doesn’t get tweaked and revised? Poor hit.

President Obama should not stop with health care reform, she twinkled. “He’s going to be very powerful these next few months and he should use it to his advantage”

Excellent, this is interesting – for one, she’s saying the President of the USA will be powerful. Which is obvious. What’s more, she’s not actually making a prediction there at all – his level of power isn’t quantifiable, for one thing, so nobody can dispute it. On top of that, she’s said he should use it to his advantage, not that he will, or can, or anything definite. So if he doesn’t make the most of it, she can claim that she told him he should have! These kind of predictions of potential (rather than actuality) are classic examples of cold reading, and something to look out for – a good psychic (ie someone who’s good at faking magical powers) will never tell you anything for certain, instead they’ll give you statements about your potential, leaving themselves the exit strategy of the ‘untapped potential’. Add to that the fact that Obama’s potential is to use his power to ‘his advantage’ – an entirely vague outcome – and we can see how lame this ‘prediction’ really is.

The sky holds a rare alignment for an eclipse on June 26 that’ll brew up trouble in Washington. For Leos like President Obama, it could mean the departure of a trusted ally or assistant. Is that a potential dateline for Rahm Emmanuel’s return to Illinois? I didn’t ask.

Again, this is a classic example of cold reading – for one thing, she’s appearing to make a prediction with a specific date – June 26th – yet that date is of an eclipse, not of her prediction. We know when the eclipse is coming – there’s a partial lunar eclipse on June 26th, and another on December 21st of this year too. So she anchors her prediction onto a date we can verify, but leaves the prediction itself vague.

Check the wording again – it’ll ‘brew up trouble in Washington’. At best, this could be a specific political event – but events happen all the time in politics. That’s kinda what politics is, what it actually means. It could be regarding a bill, a congressman, a senator, an aide, a leaked document, Obama, his wife, drywall in the White House – anything really. Shoot wide and see what hits. However, like any good psychic would, she also offers a potential specific event to relate to… seemingly. ‘For Leos like President Obama, it could mean the departure of a trusted ally or assistant’. Could. Could mean. So again, nothing certain.

Also, an ally or assistant could be anything from Vice President to his chauffeur (in which case Miller could sell it as ‘well, he was very close to the chauffeur, and think of all the things he must have heard – there’s clear trust there’). If it’s none of those things, and nobody leaves anything on June 26th, Miller has a few days grace either side – if someone announces they’re leaving in the week before, she can say it’s those vibes she’s homing in on (‘right on the specific event, but the date was slightly off, what do you want – miracles?’). If someone leaves in the weeks after, she can say she was picking up on the intention to leave.

What’s more, if nobody leaves at all, she just vanishes that side of the claim – after all, she said it *could* mean the departure. ‘But this isn’t an exact science, and we’re not right all of the time’. If someone joins the staff, then that’s a hit too – ‘I sensed a change in the staff, but misinterpreted it as a departure rather than someone joining‘. Even a holiday would count, at a stretch.

What’s interesting, too, is the way the interviewer speculates as to who the departure might be – this kind of detail-providing is a classic example of the sitter filling in the blanks the cold reader leaves for them. If it does turn out to be Rahm Emanuel leaving (something political spectators could speculate on without astrological help), then the sitter remembers the prediction as containing the specifics they themselves added – ‘She told me Rahm Emmanuel would leave on the 26th‘. So you can see how something simple can be incredibly wide and open to make a hit.

(Miller) gave me the low-down on who’s seeking her advice these days. Interestingly, it’s media moguls and CEOs who make up her A-list. “It’s not politicians or movie stars,” she told me. Rather, it’s the sectors experiencing the most turbulence in uncertain times — media, publishing and finance.

This makes a lot of sense, and it’s something we see often – when times get dicey, people are more likely to turn to woo-peddlers to put their mind at ease. Easy answers, no matter how false, are much more desirable and seductive when things are tough.

Of course, this isn’t the first time astrologers have been connected with American politics – famously Joan Quigley was used by President Reagan and his wife Nancy during their White House days. After the attempt on Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981 Nancy asked Quigley if she could have foreseen, and possibly prevented, the assassination attempt. Quigley – surprisingly enough – said she could have, and if she’d been looking, she would have known.  Quigley used to consult the Reagan’s regularly, including advising them on when would be a good time to fly. Still, these are more enlightened times… except for the Huffington Post, I mean.

As it happens, Susan Miller has some advice on her Astrology Zone website ‘latest news’ section regarding the astrological implications of the discovery of Sedna, a potential planet in our solar system, back in 2004. Which never turned out to be a planet, yet her astrology didn’t manage to detect that it wouldn’t. Yet the Huff Po think she’s a good choice for advice for politicians and business CEOs.

This month Mercury will be retrograde and won’t regulate its orbit until April 30. In the meantime we will all need to have lots of patience while delays and glitches crop up. Be sure to back up your computer and try extra hard to double check facts and figures.

Well, I for one remember all those glitches and data losses in April 2004. The Great Data-Loss of April 2004, they called it. Poets wrote about it, to this day kids still sing songs about it in the playground, and wizened old men in the corners of pubs recoil in recollection of those dark times. Or not. More accurately, nothing happened and thus her prediction, meaningless and insignificant, drifted into the bowels of forgotten history.

The new moon solar eclipse fell in Aries on April 19 and may have stirred up some rather dramatic events in your life.

She does love a good eclipse! If you listen to her, all dramatic events are eclipse-based.

And, to sum up Miller’s level of dedication to fact, I just have to leave you with this awesome testament to her analytical powers, quoted in full for bonkers bonus points:

Astrologers also believe that the name a planet is given by the scientific community may give us clues to the planet’s meaning.

In that regard, let’s digress for a moment. To test out this theory, look closely at the names of people around you and of people you read about in the news. See if you can find a link between the name and the kind of work that person does for a living. Or, find a link between the person’s reputation and their name.

Once you start to pay attention to names, it will be amazing how closely you will find the meanings linked.

I have an example in my own life. As you know my last name is Miller, meaning “one who mills the grain.” When I took Astrology Zone off Disney servers when their Internet site, GO.com closed its doors, Disney could not give me back the HTML code for the site. It needed to be written again, a strenuous, time consuming, and expensive chore. I had not anticipated this obstacle and it through me into a crisis. Back in the summer of 2001 I was looking into an abyss where I realized the sudden end of Astrology Zone could be near.

I spoke to many engineers but I wasn’t finding a workable solution. The site is big-500 screens—and the problems of getting the code written quickly with all the hyperlinks that were imbedded deep within the site, was extensive. I was very depressed. Then, I received a recommendation from top-level executive at Barnes & Noble who suggested I see Tom Warmbrodt of Tom Warmbrodt Consulting in Austin, Texas.

When I met Tom, he told me he could write new code for our 500-screen site within the impossibly tight time deadlines we would have to meet. In so doing, Tom Warmbrodt became Head of IT for Astrology Zone and saved Astrology Zone in 2001.

“Warmbrodt” literally means warm bread. I have always felt that Tom was able to take Miller’s grain (my written words) and baked those words into bread, serving it up piping hot to you, dear reader.

Warm bread also suggests a substance that has a very short shelf life, which would accurately describe the topical material I write on Astrology Zone. Readers would never be able to see (“digest”) my words without Tom Warmbrodt’s expertise.

I feel this is a perfect example of how names can give you clues to what is underlying truths.

Astounding. Obama should call her right now. So long as the name ‘Obama‘ means ‘One who listens to any old bullshit put across in a mystical enough way‘.

The youth of Japan are apparently currently obsessed with a new selection of ringtones created by a company called the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory. This isn’t another ‘Crazy Frog’ though.  If it was, I would have shot myself rather than write this post. No, it’s something altogether more interesting, although just as moronic. These ringtones are “therapeutic ringtones”. Yes, forget acupuncture, hypnotherapy or the pleasures of a good sit down: simply play the ringtone on your phone and all your cares and health troubles will float away down the winding river of easy cures, along with your wallet and your self respect. Only in Japan. Well, for now.

The Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory has good credentials. Its head, Matsumi Suzuki, used to work for the National Research Institute of Police Science, where he made award-winning advances in the field of voiceprints. He also developed the now well-known synthetic mosquito noise that is inaudible to the over-60s but apparently annoys the hell out of local good-for-nothing kids who like to hang around outside off-licenses. Incidentally, this can also be found on mobile phones around the world, usually played by good-for-nothing kids who like to hang around outside off-licenses, and playing with their mobile phones.

Suzuki followed up this sterling work by becoming head of the aformentioned Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory, and producing stupid novelty ringtones. Perfectly logical career step, I think you’ll agree.

So what are these “therapeutic ringtones”? Put simply, they’re just ringtones, but with an added (and made-up) therapeutic twist. We’re going way beyond soothing pan-pipes and whale-song here, though. There’s no shortage of conditions and problems they can’t combat. Here’s a brief selection of what they can do:

- Cure a hangover.

- Induce sleep.

- Prevent sleep.

- Scare away crows (apparently Tokyo has a big problem with crows attacking bin bags in the early hours).

- Inspire sluggardly housewives into doing housework (sexism not mine!).

- Improve your skin tone using alpha waves (maybe it’s just the glow from the screen?).

- Alleviate hayfever.

The ringtone for alleviating hayfever is my favourite. It is called the Ohana Sukkuri melody, and it is basically a series of sounds emitted at different frequencies so that, in the company’s words: “people can choose the sound that resonates most to their sinus and causes pollen lodged there to fall from the nasal cavity”.

I love the image of Japanese teenagers holding their chirping mobile phones against their noses in the middle of summer in the hope that pollen will somehow vibrate out of their nasal cavity. Couldn’t they just blow their nose? Jeez, next we’ll be brushing our tongues with our toothbrushes! Ah, no wait..

The ringtone for improving skin tone is apparently a bit of electro-Schubert mixed with woodland noises, while the one intended to rouse bored housewives is a high-energy rhythm. The ringtone intended to induce sleep is basically a lullaby, while its opposite is a dance track. A lot of thought has gone into this, I’m sure. Maybe there’s one which plays Coldplay-style dirges to calm down people who suffer from mania? Or you could have the sound of the Pope’s head being cut off with a rough plank to wake up fainting victims. The variations are endless!

As I’m sure you all guessed long ago, these ringtones are complete tat, and quite frankly I think even the kids buying them know this. It’s just a bit of fun, and harmless I suppose, but I’m feeling in an evil Skeptic mood today, so have no problem deriding this nonsense loudly in an aggressive manner in order to get cheap laughs. Both the Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory and Index, the content provider which sells the tones, fully admit there is no scientific evidence for any of them, yet still throw out euphemistic lines to reel people in: for example, while there is no evidence of the hayfever ringtone’s pollen-shaking power, it is apparently “generally understood” that it will work. That’s ok, then. Yes, let’s bite the bit of made-up anecdotal evidence and run, run like the wind! Therapeutic ringtones worked for me!

We also have Index’s comment that “the number of downloads suggests the ringtones must be working to a certain extent”, as well as authoritative scientific statements such as the one about how the hangover-cure “pulse melodies” are attuned to our bodies’ “medical rhythms”.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Made-up science follows the same patterns the world over, kind of like the way bullshit smells the same no matter what country you live in.

Of course, as I said before, it’s just a fad. Come next year the youth of Japan will have a new distraction, and no-one will have been hurt or damaged by the flash-flood of woo they’ve just experienced, but that doesn’t stop it being as annoying as a fat, naked frog riding a motorbike and making stupid noises. Plus, there’s one important thing you’ve got to remember: it might only be Japan now, but it’s only a matter of time before it makes its way to these shores.

Don’t worry, you could just relax with your new ringtone.

When is a watch not a watch?

There’s something about a certain type of selling that really gets my goat.  It’s the really well written, apparently credible, charismatic selling that shows itself in marketing brochures and various collateral online or in print. Mostly this happens where the commercial entity that seeks to benefit is well-funded.  They can employ the best marketing people and get the best writers.

To people like me, and I hope, you, the marketing speak comes over as a cloud of bullshit arrows, words desperately devoid of facts and trying to strike home between whatever neurones aren’t paying close attention.

For example:

Philip Stein has recently introduced its first Automatic timepiece with Swiss movement, its unique e-tailing program that includes profit sharing for local retailers from online sales and the opening of the company’s first store in the Americas. For a complete history of Philip Stein or technical information related to natural frequencies or the new Natural Frequency Disc, please visit www.PhilipStein.com.

Oh, hold on.  Did someone mention frequencies?  Oh yes.  Get ready for it.  It’s the latest solution to the everyday stresses and strains that YOU can’t cope with.  It reduces stress, increases how quickly you get to sleep, increases how well you feel AFTER you’ve slept and makes you have better dreams.

How does it do this?  Well it’s all about the insert.  Each watch is thoughtfully imbued with an additional piece of metal that has been “infused with key frequencies in a proprietary process”.

The metal fits into the back of the watch and Hey Presto, your biofield is constantly being readjusted to align itself with the earth’s “natural frequency” of around 7.83 hertz.

There is no reason given why the persons wrist, sans watch, is not close enough to the earth to “benefit” from adjustment.  And what could possibly be causing the devastating problems that are solved by this device? Problems like:

• Stress
• Disturbed sleep
• Anxiety

That’s right, nothing too specific.  Just regular stuff that everyone gets from time to time.  Sound familiar?  A bit like Barnum statements in cold reading?  Yes, that’s what I thought too.  But what could possibly be causing these terrible symptoms?  More later.

I wanted to know how they “work”.  So I went searching for answers.  First, the given frequency of 7.83 Hertz.  What is it, and where did they get that number from?

Here’s what they say:

“…beneficial key frequency of 7-9 hertz, which encompasses the chief resonant frequency of the natural earth and is a frequency that is harmonious and grounding to life”

Yeah…right!

So you can go to the main website at www.philipstein.com.  Here you will be assailed by a barrage of pseudoscience hocus pocus.  It’s very slick and is the sort of site that leaves me cold. Complete bollocks convincingly written.

But you could equally go to http://www.philipsteinreviews.com where you encounter a site that is registered to a marketing agency and aims to give off an initial impression of being a genuine blogger.  There’s a large number of articles that have been written over a period of time from a little over a year ago right up to now. But scroll to the bottom, and you see that the copyright of this site belongs to Philip Stein.

It’s another triumph of marketing over substance.  The product actually makes fairly modest claims, when you look into it.  But they swing a bigger bat, if you see what I mean.  Therefore reinforcing the pattern of a fashion/lifestyle item having its claims over egged. Consider the celebrity endorsers who number many including Madonna, Oprah…loads of them.  They can’t possibly have looked into this revolutionary technology very deeply because surely they’d spot how heavy the marketing makeover is?

Back to the “science”.  I’m taking both websites as a source. The frequencies are emitted via a chip, formerly two chips, that insert into the watch.  The chip has been infused with the key frequency through a “proprietary process”.  No further detail is given on how that is done, but luckily there is a radiating wave pattern embossed on the chip to reassure you.

The old and new chip arrangements are described thus:

“…Electromagnetic Frequency technology utilizing electromagnetic fields, introduced in 2003, and Natural Frequency Technology, introduced in 2008.”

Cutting through the pink and fluffy stuff, they make the same claims about both of these.  The key difference seems to be that someone else was producing the chips and then they switched to self production.

So how are they supposed to work?

“Both technologies work within the same beneficial key frequency of 7-9 hertz, which encompasses the chief resonant frequency of the natural earth and is a frequency that is harmonious and grounding to life.”

Fair enough then.  A little research reveals that Nikola Tesla discovered this frequency range, confirmed 50 or so years later by research and called the Schumann  Resonance.

Essentially, the resonance is a kind of background electro-magnetic signal created by lightning activity all over the world.  The signal produced by this activity is captured in the space between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere, where the ionosphere is a kind of lid for this electro magnetic cookware.  There are around 2000 electrical storms happening around the world at any given time and the global variance can be measured.

Tesla discovered this initially back at the start of the century but it was mathematically described by Schumann.

Frequency Technology? It's a watch!

So the chip which is “infused” with the “Earths natural frequency”

“When worn on the wrist, the watch exposes frequencies and information to the biofield of the person wearing it.”

“Biofield?  What’s that?” I hear you cry.  Well the rather pedestrian truth is that this, like so much other pseudo science revolves around vitalism.  The idea that you have an external energy field which can be disrupted. Like homeopathy or acupuncture or reiki or crystals etc etc.  But this chip apparently keeps you vibrating at the right frequency.

“The biofield, which is the Master energy field that regulates the body’s functions, informs the body to relax, and in doing so, the person becomes more resistant and resilient to stress.”

Where do the alleged disturbances come from?  You guessed it, all of the electrical devices and other electrical consumer items which are causing so much damage to everyone…not!

“When wearing a Philip Stein frequency watch you are more in harmony with natural earth, centered and grounded… all of which creates a better and healthier “you””

As if we needed further convincing that this is pseudo science, the appeal to authority on the http://www.philipsteinreviews.com website comes from Andrija Puharich, who is notable for having been Uri Geller’s biographer!

So look at the marketing machine behind all of this hocus pocus, and what you have are watches that make no particular claim of manufacturing excellence, that are a fashion item and whose chief claim is that they stop your computer interfering with your brain

Tinfoil hats all over again.  But they cost hundreds, or thousands of pounds…

The “I Believe in…” series that is currently playing out on BBC Three at the audience-friendly time of ‘midnight-ish’ is, by far, the most incredulous, poorly thought-out, nonsense-laden idiot-fest seen on British TV since, well…  *cough* erm…  Jeremy Kyle is on every day…  and The Wright Stuff…  and then there’s almost all of Channel 5’s output…  Satellite channels…  (has anyone ever watched anything of Conspiracy TV?  *giggles*)

OK, so there’s stiff competition out there in the time-rich and thought-poor facets of British media, and anything that comes with short sentences, a couple of nice locations and a pretty face or two is likely to get up there on the box at some point, no matter how inane the subject material, or how utterly bonkers the take on said substrate may be.  This is where Danny Dyer, Jodie Kidd and “I Believe in…” come in.

Danny Dyer’s effort, “I Believe in UFO’s”, deserves its own lengthy analysis, but I’ll just relay one little element that really made me chuckle…  Loveable, credulous, silly old Danny has just been out in a crop field with a ‘Crop Circle Expert’, who is in fact just some random dude with a VW campervan and an IQ problem, calmly explaining how crop circles must be produced by aliens, because the ‘knees’ of the stalks on the crops can only be bent over in this way by high temperatures of some sort, and thus ‘steam’ in the joint and…  WHOOM…  down go the grasses into this week’s pattern picked out of ‘Flying Saucer Crop Patterns Lightyearly’ (WHSmith will get it in if you ask nicely, have two green heads and 6 limbs (but don’t tell Danny!)) by our Alien UberSturmFuhrer on duty to watch over us puny Earthlings and molest cattle on that particular night.  Our hero, swollen with ‘knowledge’, goes into the local pub to meet some thoroughly delightful chaps at the pool table – very casual.  These delightful chaps then go on to tell him that it’s all a load of bollocks.  It’s them!  They go into the crop circles at night, mob-handed, and proceed to inflict criminal damage on a lot of innocent arable crops and the brains of gullible, half-witted townies…  without actually admitting it of course – the local constabulary might be watching.  Cue Danny’s almost weepy lament pouring out of his drizzle-stricken grid.  For everything else there may well be credit cards, but these moments which warm the heart…  Priceless.

Now that Danny’s eventually alien-broken heart has been served up for starters, we can move on to the main event:  The intellectual heavyweight champion of her navel, the cokestess with the mostess, the leanest, skeletelest, the South-East belt-holder for “least able to ponder” at atom-weight for the last 12 years running and now, dear and gentle readers, the southern-spoken swinger for all things supernatural…  Ms Jodie Kidd.

Jodie – it is ok if I call you Jodie, isn’t it Jodie? Thanks, Jodie.  You’re a star. (D-List, natch.  You do crap like this) – believes in miracle healing.  She believes that the material universe isn’t the only thing that exists and that we can be in touch with a secret part of the cosmos that scientists, doctors and the NHS clearly don’t want us to know about…  She knows this, because she was definitely, definitely, definitely healed by crystals.

So you got that, right?  ‘Healers’ tell us that ‘bad stuff’ (I’m not sure, but I think that’s the technical term.  It might be worth checking with your local ‘Nonsense Dealer’, err, sorry, ‘Healer’.  Right…) comes pouring out of our mobile phones and computers.  Crystals can help us by tuning into the electromagnetic charge frequencies of our bodies and rebalancing them.

What?  You don’t believe me/Jodie?

She’s got a NASA Scientist to explain it all.  Honest!

This Bear Walker dude, and he says everything is based on frequencies.

NASA.

HE MUST be right, AMIRITE?

Funny, though…  Bear doesn’t mention anything about his NASA credentials on his website, but other places talk lots about all the lovely energy, breathwork, healing, hypnotherapy and Ancient Native American Wisdom that Bear can teach us all.  I’m sure his uber-science NASA credentials are out there somewhere.  In space?  Maybe he lost them out there.  While he was with NASA, training them about how we can use crystals to rebalance our electric charge frequencies. That’ll be it I’m sure.

So, Jodie’s there giving us the skinny on her terrible trouble with anxiety and panic attacks, which are very serious conditions that I most certainly won’t have anything said against.  No, I won’t immediately go on to mention her relationship with cocaine, either.  That would be like drawing a parallel, making a direct relationship between one and the other…  and I wouldn’t want to do that.  Cocaine doesn’t, in any way, make you feel anxious and lead to panic attacks.

I’m sure Jodie’s right though…  It’s a deep psychological problem based on her relationship to the universe and the ‘bad stuff’ from her ‘Dealer’ that comes via her mobile phone or computer.

I’m not sure I jotted that down right…  Hang on…

…

Yeah.  Bang on.  Except for those who don’t follow the link, then YES.  LENGTHY COCAINE MISUSE CAN LEAD TO PARANOIA, ANXIETY AND PANIC ATTACKS.

Jodie then goes around her house showing us how many crystals of different types she has all around her home, and telling us all about how utterly terrible her life would be without both them, and her trips to the mystic lights and crystal-milking machine on Harley St. that she probably sneezes out – better than coughs up in the circumstances – 500 quid’s worth a go for.  If you haven’t watched the crystals bit yet, then…  GO WATCH IT.

Ok, this is 1000 words, and we’re already beyond coffee-and-a-biscuit length for the average reader, so I’ll stretch this out to another post later in the week.  It’s worth it.  There are Shamans, Faith Healers, Mystic Biologists, Magic Love-Horses, Autism, More Energies, The Big C and even a cameo from Chris French!  But this is enough nonsense for you to digest in one go…

And remember!  Stay clear of the ‘bad stuff’ that you can get via your mobile phone and computer.  Listen to your ‘D/Healer’ at all times.

Be crystalline, and stay frosty out there.

(At least in the morning…  Brrrr….)

Particles everywhere.  Quarks strangely up the continuum, where they can be postulated without arbitrary precision to flow among the hadronic mesons and baryons; Leptons down the scale of posited particulates, where electrons roll neutrally, defiled among the 105.7 MeV/c² of muons and the apathetically gyrating tauons of a great (and probabilistically determined) Quanta.  Sleptons in the supersymmetric marshes, Higgsinos on the hypothetical heights.  Quarks creeping into the collider-beams; Gluons lying out on the fields, and hovering in the rigging of the august atom; Higgs bosons drooping on the W, Z bosons and the massless photons.  Higgs field like molasses in the eyes and throats of ancient university professors, wheezing lyrical over their lecterns at their wards; Protons and plumbons in the spoon and bowl of the afternoon muesli of the wrathful scientist, leucous in their locked labs;  Uncertainty principles cruelly pinching the lobes and hippocampus of their equivocating little ‘search babe in the back.  Chance people on the galleyways peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of particles, with particles all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.*

Oooh…  Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?  If you’d believe anything, and I don’t,  didn’t know anything, and I don’t, then you’d swear I knew of what I was on about, and I don’t.  Still, it is rather lovely, isn’t it? Me and Dickens… aside from 150 years and light years of ability in the sphere of stylistics, we’re like this: *crosses fingers*

So what is that?  That, my great and only friends, is a cacophony of sumptuous, semiotic manifestations that garners much to appearances, and less to substance. In other words, it’s word soup.  Bullshit.  Beautiful bullshit, perhaps a load that the bull in question felt a sudden, artistic need to shape and sculpt into transcendent forms, but, still, finally, when all is silkily said and finally done, and aside from the rose delicately balanced in its crescendo, it is still a steaming pile of moderately meaningless gibberish.

Beautiful, big words alone or juxtaposed do not a great point make.

So where am I going with this?  Let’s take The Great theme of our time, The 1023 Campaign, keep the foolishness of our homeopathic foes in mind and then turn our minds back to the riffed theme at the top of the article:  Particles stuff and Quantum Mechanics stuff.  I say ‘stuff’ because I really don’t have anything but the slightest knowledge of what that lark is all about.  I’m a budding linguist, and the days when my journey through the xylem and phloem of the tree of knowledge may have led me to unfurl as a physicist in full flower have long since leaved.  Yes.  Leaved.  Enjoy.

Quantum Physics is a discipline steeped in strange, counter-intuitive hypotheses, models and theories.  Homeopathy is a pseudo-science steeped in strange, counter-factual claims, nonsense and woo.  Take one unintelligible discipline to the layman, add one irrational field of bullshittery and blend into a smooth paste of fantastic claims with accents of soaring rhetoric and serve it all up in a bed of self-reinforcing believers.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the majestic poppycock that is:

Quantum Homeopathy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_y4-z-kDqQ

You may remember this lady, Dr Charlene Werner, being ripped apart a little while ago all over the interwebs with her unorthodox take on relativity, quantum theory and spelling/pronunciation.  Yes, Stephen HawinGs and Einstein tell us that e=mc sq and all of matter is little vibrating strings that we can ignore because it all comes down to one tiny little ball, like a bowling ball, and that means that the photo receptors in our eyes are incredibly important and science should have fallen into Hahneman’s Homeopathy camp (Maybe the rates were too high, or the redcoats were a little too fond of fraternising with your wife while you were off taking care of the nippers?) 200 years ago, oh, and our ears too, they’re very important for picking up the vibrations from the strings because we’re so well designed.  Einstein proved it.

See, I’m going to credit her a little bit here, and say she’s actually read a little bit of our stricken science-meister’s books, specifically “Universe in a Nutshell”, and didn’t understand a single word, but can remember a few items of vocabulary and madlib them together into something that people who believe in fairies, trolls, ghosts, EFT or Homeopathy would nod at sagely, chew on their organic, wholemeal tofu treats, and take as a seriously scholarly interpretation of the most up-to-date discoveries in the physical sciences that fit in perfectly with homeopathy and the only reason that medicine doesn’t take it seriously is because of all those nasty Big Pharma companies that only want to poison absolutely everyone so that they can have all the money and rule the world, but then have to do all the menial chores and build everything because they don’t think everything through thoroughly and unbiasedly like us homeopaths. *breathes* Ee gads! The mad, bad, power-mad and something-ad fools!

Now, that’s the completely insane version from our cousins across the ocean, those benighted souls who must labour on without divine guidance from Her Britannic Majesty and dreary direction from Gordon Brown… but I digress.  The point to follow from here is that there’s another type of Quantum Homeopath, a more insidious sort who, if the lay-sciencey-interested person didn’t know homeopathy was total tripe, might be taken in by the somewhat artful rhetoric, the impressive list of qualifications on offer, and the lack of understanding that’s out there in the world surrounding Quantum Mechanics generally.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a very British, professorial variety of howling crankery: The one and only, the inimitable, the great and wondrous Lionel Milgrom BSc, MSc, PhD, CChem, FRSC, MARH, MRHom and his epic article…*clears throat*

“Journeys in The Country of The Blind: Entanglement Theory and The Effects of Blinding on Trials of Homeopathy and Homeopathic Provings”

To save you time, I’ll bring the abstract here:

“The idea of quantum entanglement is borrowed from physics and developed into an algebraic argument to explain how double-blinding randomized controlled trials could lead to failure to provide unequivocal evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy, and inability to distinguish proving and placebo groups in homeopathic pathogenic trials. By analogy with the famous double-slit experiment of quantum physics, and more modern notions of quantum information processing, these failings are understood as blinding causing information loss resulting from a kind of quantum superposition between the remedy and placebo.”

The article ‘proper’ then starts off by talking about Nelson.  No, that’s not the one from The Simpsons, philistines, but Trafalgar-Nelson, monocularly-sighted-Nelson, “I see no ships”-Nelson.  Yeah, that one.  One-eyed.  Blinding.  See where he’s going there?  Lovely rhetorical device.

See all of those lovely big words?  See how he’s lovingly managed to stitch them into something that resembles a lovely, coherent structure of lovely sentences?  He even uses, lovingly, props that look remarkably like lovely equations! Well done that lovely man.  Clearly, that PhD has left its mark… and it looks lovely.

Now, I’m not going to be debunking this chap again, that’s been done to excess here, here, here and here for starters, but the argument goes like this:  Quantum physics is really weird, and the act of looking at something in the domains where quantum phenomena are observable can completely change what is happening, therefore homeopathy must be a quantum phenomenon, because we all know it works when you don’t examine it, obviously, but as soon as you start to really look it at, it’s absolutely crystal clear that it doesn’t work.  At all.  Not even a little bit.  So there we are, homeopathy is a quantum effect and you can’t examine it at all, in any way, ever, or it won’t work, but it does, because it just does.  Don’t mind this bloke behind the curtain…

Personally, I think he just wanted to write about Young Slits, and there are different genres for that, Lionel Milgrom BSc, MSc, PhD, CChem, FRSC, MARH, MRHom, oh yes.  Very different genres.

If you want to howl with laughter, read his interview here.

“And because one is suddenly asked to review one’s life as a sequence of apparently connected events – when as far as I can tell they represent moments when I may have been more or less conscious or aware (consciousness/awareness, you understand, being something that fluctuates – lawfully – from moment to moment) – then the effort to ‘join up the dots’ into something ‘rational’ can produce a certain kind of inner vertigo like looking down the wrong end of a telescope….Well, I am digressing, and we haven’t even started yet!”

Nice use of ‘rational’ there, then “life as a sequence of apparently connected events”, and he’d already managed to squeeze in a dig at skeptics in the first sentence of that, his first answer…  it gets much better the further you go.  If you fancy a laugh over lunch, then give it a go.

Unconscious self-parody doesn’t get better than this.

The final thought on weird physics and homeopathy.  If we leap over from the world of the quantum to thinking about multiple universes, won’t there be a universe somewhere in the great inter-cosmological superpositional play where we all die on the 30th?  Possibly. Won’t there be a universe where women find me irresistible?  You’re in it, baby. *smoothes eyebrow*  Won’t there be a universe somewhere where water has a memory and homeopathy works?

Come on, now you’re just being silly.

*Please.  Don’t.  It’s rhetorical.