Foo - Carnies

Every year our town has a carnival downtown for the Fourth. It's a cheezy little affair as one might expect for a small rural town, and for many years now I've actively avoided it after being disappointed every time I've been coerced into going.

Along with the rides, expensive stale popcorn and fatty food booths is the "Arts and Crafts" fair. While there are some actual artists showing their own work, the majority are rubber tomahawk booths, selling third world garbage products to make a quick buck. Since I have more than my share of cheap crap already, I typically avoid the fair as well, but this year my wife insisted we go.

Yep, pretty much the same stuff all over again, very little new art to peruse, and since I've been underemployed anyway...it's not like I was in a buyer's mood. One booth had a "magnetic" effect on my wife...and sucked her right in. The booth sells "magnet therapy" items, advertising cures for an amazing list of ailments that their product has "proven" to address. Rolling my eyes at her even listening to their drivel, I waited as impatiently as I could in the hopes she'd walk away. She didn't.

Something rose up in me and I started telling my kids about the new age girlfriends my natural father had when I was growing up...and how utterly full of crap they were. I saw it all: reading auras, EST, extreme health foods, crystals, herbs, gurus...just a huge laundry list of all the stuff pawned off on an unsuspecting and gullible public, many of the products advertised on the back of comic books and women's magazines, with no actual science behind any of it.

Sure, I believe that if the individual believes something has "healing powers" that the mind has an incredible psychosomatic effect. If you feel you'll feel better, you'll feel better, but at some point this self-dishonesty has to dawn on you...or maybe not. Maybe it's just me and my cynical nature. I listened to more of their spiel and they said their products were "guaranteed". Guaranteed for what? Oh, for 30 days. Real valuable considering they'll be packing up in a few hours and rolling on to the next town.

I started thinking about their business model as it were, being set up in a carny atmosphere...and it started making more sense. Buy "magnetite" bracelets for a buck made in some third world country for pennies, mark them up to $35 (Yes, that's not a typo), and even if the vast majority of customers find out you're more full of it than an overdue septic tank and return them, you'll still turn a tidy profit at a 1500% margin on the remainder. Shrewd business, but still based upon a lie.

The more I stood there, the more incensed I got at being lied to. Had they just advertised them as pretty bracelets with no "mystical healing properties" I'd have been fine. In the end I backed off before shouting at them and just stood there, though it was apparent to me they saw right through me as a "doubter". They didn't try to pitch me at all. I satisfied myself in the end with being silent, not because they didn't deserve someone exposing them for the crude charlatans they no doubt were, but because my wife bought a pretty, albeit inert bracelet...and she deserves pretty things, not my cynical and pragmatic diatribes calling what is crap, crap. I'd rather her feel better for whatever reasons she chooses.

Thanks, I feel all better now. :)

Although their practices seem to be of selfish aim, your wife went home happy if she wanted a pretty bracelet. As long as she doesn't feel like she got tricked, it worked out. You're a good husband. :)

There was a junior high girl that did a science fair project on reading auras. This happened several years ago. When she uncovered, through a blind study, that no one could actually read an aura, people got pretty upset with her. Nothin' like a bunch of new-agers getting angry at a 13 year old. :rolleyes:

If it were just carnies, that would be great, but it's also Oprah, putting "The Secret" on her book list and giving Jenny McCarthy her own show to spread her "Vaccines=Autism"-BS, and it's also public schools being forced to teach Creationism. It's a sad state of affairs in the 21st Century.

Although their practices seem to be of selfish aim, your wife went home happy if she wanted a pretty bracelet. As long as she doesn't feel like she got tricked, it worked out. You're a good husband. :)

No, I'm only trying to be one.

I was very close to telling them just how full of it I thought they were.

This is worthy of a repost here.

YouTube - That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A&E

Think about it man, like there is iron in your blood ya dig? And iron crystals are magnetic so like you know the crystals orientate them selves in a way that they are less destructive to cell tissue man. It is especially powerful when you come into the same geocoordinates of Tibet man, oh yeah!

One of my many sidejobs was traveling NYS with a glass blower to all sorts of arts & craft shows. Of course I was the gopher and the one who carried the horribly heavy tent and many big tubs of glass (her and the husband owned a studio in Florida - their specialty that they won many awards were for "paperweights" that were awesome upright glass cylinders - sometimes 2 feet high and 3-6" in diameter - and HEAVY. It was fun, but a lot of work. And I used to joke that I was a "Festie". :p

I thought this was going to be like the "carnival" that our local fire department hired for their annual fair. Half of the employees got arrested one night on various charges, mostly drug related. And my wife can't seem to understand why I don't like going and putting my kids on rides that are "maintained" by a bunch of losers that are half stoned out of their minds.

I thought this was going to be like the "carnival" that our local fire department hired for their annual fair. Half of the employees got arrested one night on various charges, mostly drug related. And my wife can't seem to understand why I don't like going and putting my kids on rides that are "maintained" by a bunch of losers that are half stoned out of their minds.

I like the fireman's carnivals for:

steamed clams and beer. That's where I head if I go to one.

Two words - "Mood Rings"

I thought this was going to be like the "carnival" that our local fire department hired for their annual fair. Half of the employees got arrested one night on various charges, mostly drug related. And my wife can't seem to understand why I don't like going and putting my kids on rides that are "maintained" by a bunch of losers that are half stoned out of their minds.

That was last year. :rolleyes:

There was a junior high girl that did a science fair project on reading auras. This happened several years ago. When she uncovered, through a blind study, that no one could actually read an aura, people got pretty upset with her. Nothin' like a bunch of new-agers getting angry at a 13 year old. :rolleyes:

Astrology has failed damn near every scientific test it's been subject to. This doesn't stop my friends from believing in it through and through as some mystical truth.

Astrology has failed damn near every scientific test it's been subject to. This doesn't stop my friends from believing in it through and through as some mystical truth.

Quick little story...I've probably even posted it here before so I'll make it the short version..

Back in college I got in to an argument with a girl I was in school with (Computer Science/Engineering majors mind you) about astrology/horoscopes. She was trying to argue that there was 'some' truth to them. We argued in study area for about 30-45 minutes then all the way to our class.

The professor came in and heard us and asked us what the debate was about. I told him we were arguing about the validity of horoscopes and I said, "no self respecting engineer would put ONE OUNCE of faith in to horoscopes".

The professor gets this very thoughtful look on his face and starts rubbing his chin like he's thinking about that claim. The girl starts getting this cocky grin on her face because it looked like the professor was going to try say I was wrong too.

After about a full minute of this thoughtful look, he turns back to us and say, "Why do you limit it to engineers?".

She shrunk in her chair so low she practically slid out. :D :thumb::innocent:

You DO realize most vaccines don't even report what's in them, since the adjuvants are considered a "trade secret" and the more toxic the better. :rolleyes:

I'm not saying they cause autism, but I'm saying that's some nasty crap being pumped into kids that should be avoided at all costs until people pull their head out their butt and use modified live recombinant vaccines. They have one out for CATS now, but not humans. :(

Not everyone saying stuff is bad for you is wrong. The CDC's whole job is public health, and they don't give a damn if the vaccines they force on the public kill or injure people, because they consider that an acceptable sacrifice for public health when it could be avoided by making new recombinant vaccines. :rolleyes:Thank you for all the scientific and/or journalistic evidence you posted with your paranoid anecdotes. :innocent:

Quick little story...I've probably even posted it here before so I'll make it the short version..

Back in college I got in to an argument with a girl I was in school with (Computer Science/Engineering majors mind you) about astrology/horoscopes. She was trying to argue that there was 'some' truth to them. We argued in study area for about 30-45 minutes then all the way to our class.

The professor came in and heard us and asked us what the debate was about. I told him we were arguing about the validity of horoscopes and I said, "no self respecting engineer would put ONE OUNCE of faith in to horoscopes".

The professor gets this very thoughtful look on his face and starts rubbing his chin like he's thinking about that claim. The girl starts getting this cocky grin on her face because it looked like the professor was going to try say I was wrong too.

After about a full minute of this thoughtful look, he turns back to us and say, "Why do you limit it to engineers?".

She shrunk in her chair so low she practically slid out. :D :thumb::innocent:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA good story.

Go search pubmed yourself. This is such common knowledge I didn't think I'd need references. :lol:

Search pubmed for adjuvants and see what comes up. They are some nasty stuff. Then go read about foxglove. It's a herb that was turned into a rx. One example of many.

The current younger generations have not had to deal with really bad diseases. There is a risk to vaccines but the chance of you dying from a vaccine is dramatically less than you dying from small pox or from polio.

People that talk about vaccines as evil are extremely selfish. My dad has extremely limited use of his right arm. He was lucky to get away with only this as many children of his time faired much worse when they contracted polio. The vaccine has eliminated an horrible disease. Something that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and people like you would prefer to see it return so that you don't have to suffer the tiny risk from a vaccine. Talk about going backwards. :rolleyes:

Go search pubmed yourself. This is such common knowledge I didn't think I'd need references. :lol:

Search pubmed for adjuvants and see what comes up. They are some nasty stuff. Then go read about foxglove. It's a herb that was turned into a rx. One example of many.

I didn't ask if I could find it on the internet, I asked you to cite good sources, which you have yet to do. I can find plenty of info that says fluoridated water is a communist plot and that the banana is proof of six days of creation, but that doesn't mean those are credible ideas, either.

Ironically, the reason people complain about vaccines is because of how successful they've been, not having to look after a generation of kids with polio-induced paralysis, for example, we don't appreciate what we have, and of course well-credentialed scientists like Oprah Winfrey, Jenny McCarthy and basically anyone with a blog don't help.

The way some colleges handle vaccines seems strange. I started a masters a few years ago at the local university. Initially, I was taking a full load (9 semester hrs). I don't recall the university saying a word about the need for up-to-date vaccine records. Now, that could have been because I graduated from that school back in 1998, but I'm really not sure. The following semester, I dropped to 6 hrs at the university, and took a 3 hr required undergrad course at the local community college. That was when things got strange. I almost didn't get to take that course cause the college said I needed to submit a copy of all my shot records. I was around 32 years old at the time and this struck me odd, especially since the university had made no such requests. I ended up not being able to find copies of those records. Too much time and too many different doctors. Well, finally the college decided that since I was only going to be a part-time, transient student, that they did not need my shot records after all. I guess that means that since I was only going to be on campus 3 hours per week, that my risk of catching or spreading a dread disease was reduced to near nothing.

And now that it's gone we don't need to vaccinate for it anymore.

Please tell me you're not serious.

Please tell me you're not serious.

What you said.

Is there a vaccine for carnies?

I'm not finding damning evidence against adjuvants (which work synergistically with vaccines to make them work better,) on Pubmed or any other reputable source, (Pubmed has plenty of articles about adjuvants...because they are a widely accepted augmentation for immune response to vaccines,) just the same angry slightly nutty blogs by people who want someone to blame for their autism/mysterious autoimmune disease/whatever, or they are goofball Libertarian sites so they automatically don't like anything the government has a hand in anyway.

You won't find damning evidence against them because no one knows what they are, exactly. Can't test them and show their evil when you don't know what they are. :pAluminum salts, organic compounds and empty phospholipid bilayer vesicles, they are all in my A&P book and I have a pretty good grasp on them. Not really much of an Illuminati conspiracy. :lol:

Well, vaccinate all the mindless schmucks that'll do whatever the gubment tells them to and let the people that can think for themselves go without.

Like I said, vaccine technology is stuck in the dark ages and no one wants to bring it to the present. It's not the idea of vaccinating I am against, but the pure crap quality of the ones they make now. A recombinant modified live vaccine would produce higher titers AND eliminate adjuvants. Yet we still don't have them. :mad:

That would be great if we could lock all the "people that can think for themselves" away in a confined area so they don't come in contact with babies that are too young for vaccines.

Is there a vaccine for carnies?
Soap?
I guess that's more of a curative than preventive measure.

How about school?



Well, vaccinate all the mindless schmucks that'll do whatever the gubment tells them to and let the people that can think for themselves go without.

Like I said, vaccine technology is stuck in the dark ages and no one wants to bring it to the present. It's not the idea of vaccinating I am against, but the pure crap quality of the ones they make now. A recombinant modified live vaccine would produce higher titers AND eliminate adjuvants. Yet we still don't have them. :mad:
People that can think for themselves? Disbelief in proven scientific methodology may make someone a "free thinker" but it doesn't mean they're correct. Railing against all experimental proof and claiming that everyone is wrong except you (when you have no empirical data) is actually a little on the crazy side.
NOTE: Radical thinkers like Aristarchus and later, Copernicus, who challenged the entire scientific community with wacky notions like heliocentrism, had empirical data.

As for the recombinant live modified theory; have you ever tried building one? I could go on for days about what a serious pain in the ass process it is. If you're talking about a chemically or heat-inactivated live virus vaccine, first you have to produce and purify enough of it to be bioreactive in the host. Then you have to go about the inactivation steps, which if done correctly will yield a vaccine. If done incorrectly it will yield (at best) a biologically inert cocktail which leaves the receiving population open to infection. At worst, you'll start an epidemic by injecting live virus into the population.
If you're talking about a subparticulate recombinant, there's a different challenge. First you get to find a permissible cell line from a highly restricted pool of known hybridizable lines. Then you have to get them to grow and produce the appropriate surface antigens, and work to harvest and purify them in a stabilized form for injection. Biologicals like these aren't exactly known for their stability outside of a host, or exposure to light, or temperature differentials... but I'm sure you knew all this and have novel solutions to scale up production for tens of millions of doses.
Finally, for the claim that "we still don't have them." We have three. Hepatitis B vaccines are a surface antigenic subparticulate recombinant. Gardasil (tm) and Cervarix (tm) are both recombinant VLP vaccines, although all three are ASO4 or A2O3 adjuvanted. Just because it's a modified recombinant doesn't mean it won't need a booster.



You won't find damning evidence against them because no one knows what they are, exactly. Can't test them and show their evil when you don't know what they are. :p
Like the formula for Coca-Cola? Only 2 guys on the planet know half of it each, and if one of them dies then we're all screwed? :lol: The freely available MSDS and the supplied package inserts (available from the administering physician, or on the company websites) list the bioreactive compounds as well as the preservative load and adjuvant structures. (See Sanofi Pasteur's (https://www.vaccineshoppe.com/index.cfm?fa=anon.piexpress)site as an example)


Aluminum salts, organic compounds and empty phospholipid bilayer vesicles, they are all in my A&P book and I have a pretty good grasp on them. Not really much of an Illuminati conspiracy. :lol:
There are some ugly things that have been tried as adjuvants, though. I'll at least give credit there: Squalene (never released for public use by the FDA) was used in trial anthrax vaccinations and is the likely cause behind Gulf War Syndrome.
The most contested ingredient isn't an adjuvant, it's a preservative: Thimerosal. It's a mercuric compound which is being used as the autism scapegoat. Unfortunately (for the conspiracy theorist side of the argument,) if you look at the mcg/dL toxicity levels for mercuric poisoning vs. the mcg/mL accumulated totals for all 24 suggested vaccinations before age 6, the nubmers don't jibe.

The specific oil-based adjuvant which highly affects autoimmune disorders is squalene, which is not used in US distributed vaccinations. The concerns that sites like WAVE, NWV and VLI purport regarding new ASO4 adjuvanted vaccines are largely unfounded. The correlation between MPL use in ASO4 for US distributions vs. squalene emulsified MPL in MF59 in European distributions and the corresponding increases in autoimmune disorders is statistically incorrect.

I thought squalene was mainly used in veterinary medicine?

I thought squalene was mainly used in veterinary medicine?

Honestly, oil-based adjuvants (MF59, FCA, etc.) probably shouldn't be used anywhere based on their propensity to cause (in both humans and laboratory animals) conditions which due to autoimmune response mimic MS and ALS, systematically weakening tendons, muscles and nerves through progressive demyelination. FCA is actually used in veterinary based research to induce exactly these problems.

Squalene isn't necessarily better tolerated by non-human subjects, but rather the effects can't be recognized until near terminal stage progression is reached, and many laboratory animals are sac'd for research purposes before that sets in.

I'm more concerned with adjuvants creating a non-specific increase in immune system activity than causing autoimmune diseases. I already have the autoimmune problems, and anything that activates the immune system makes me feel worse. Probably why I have such awful Herxheimer like reactions to the lyme treatment. :( Dead bacteria get my immune system all excited and it's all downhill from there. :lol:

This makes sense. Even the alum based adjuvants are designed to promote increase immune system response. If I had to guess, the specific Herx-like reaction is myalgic due to the borelliosis, and probably due to demyelination issues similar to what people with advanced FMS deal with.
Has there been any thought to maintenance treatment combos like a gabapentinoid in conjunction with a low-dose pain medication as are prescribed for fibromyalgia?