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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80286434256913139832015-03-25T17:08:01.034+00:00Geoff's ShortsA former short story blog.Geoff firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-27921657632012841882015-01-25T18:57:00.000+00:002015-01-25T18:57:00.383+00:00Marriage Opponents and the Mexican StandoffI've often wondered what sort of folks oppose childhood vaccination. It's hard to find empathy with those who would sacrifice children's health - indeed children's very lives - on the altar of their sincerely held beliefs. You might recall a previous blog post discussed Family and Life's ventures in this area. They use their charitable tax status to spread misinformation about the HSE's MMR programme.

Today I learned that their access to high quality printing has borne fruit outside the field of encouraging childhood illnesses and restricting healthcare for Irish women and trans men. As they spread, they have mutated and focus now on restricting access to civil marriage.

Paul Bowler made the well intentioned decision to share the pamphlet on Twitter. Do follow him, even though he appears to tweet pictures while in control of a moving vehicle. You can also use the opportunity to read the text of Family and Life's efforts, assuming turgid dreariness is your thing. I compliment them on their spelling. And the choice of colours is inoffensive enough. Beyond that it's an uninspired remix of the stock scaremongering re polygamy, some misrepresentation of research, and parenting scaremongering.

What's of more interest to me is their Facebook page. Over 136 thousand likes implies they represent a sizeable chunk of potential voters in Ireland's marriage equality referendum, and, if so, they might represent some sort of cohesive body.

So I checked.

SocialBakers.com is great for that sort of thing, if you're interested. Do read the full report. You'll likely share my raised eyebrow when you note how obscenely popular this Irish organisation is in Spanish speaking countries. Indeed the country where it is most popular is Mexico, not a location traditionally associated with obsession with Irish civil marriages.

Peru, despite being on another hemisphere, speaking a different language, and being separated by an ocean, still manages to supply more fans of "Ireland's Largest Pro-Life/Pro-Family Human Rights Organisation" than Ireland herself. Over an eighth of the fans of this English speaking page find their home in Argentina, and Chileans who worry that two women might receive social recognition of their loving commitment on the other side of the world make up nearly 5% of their fanbase.

Despite this unexpected success with the global Spanish speaking market, only 0.3% of those who like them on Facebook are based in Spain. Indeed their fanbase seems to overlap more neatly with locations traditionally associated with fake Facebook accounts.

But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Whatever the cause, barring significant geopolitical developments, I don't see this audience exercising much influence over the voting booths.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-83708113303084953502014-12-09T22:37:00.001+00:002014-12-10T19:14:35.464+00:00The Price Of Love I'm unclear if those opposed to marriage equality have started their campaign yet. It's hard to tell: we had a statement from bishops, of course, but the slice of the population that turns to them for moral guidance dwindled long ago. Indeed if anything support for marriage equality jumped after they launched their sixteen page document. I wrote about it, twice, but expected a more comprehensive front to emerge.

I had hopes for the cumbersomely named "Defend Marriage in Ireland: Husband And Wife" group. From what I can tell they're the Facebook account of Manif Pour Tous Ireland, and, while they have only 358 followers at present, I can confidently say that up to 13% of their followers actually hail from Hibernia. Perhaps this will grow. They're fairly good at facilitating different opinions in their Facebook discussions so it's worth popping over. Do say hi if time allows.

This post seemed a mite odd. It claims that the cost of legislating for marriage equality in the UK was 1.5 billion GBP. The only citation given was a Facebook post by a small, anonymous account so I don't give it much weight, but as part of my counterargument I stole from the King of Iona's playbook and listed some major Irish employers who list marriage equality as something they value.

Now, of course no-one's marriage should have to be justified in terms of economic benefit. I put the below quotes together in case you know someone on the fence about voting yes. If they consider the protection of Irish jobs a compelling reason to pass the referendum then their vote still counts. As the discussion was around non Irish multinationals operating in Ireland I've limited myself to that subset. I've also focused exclusively on the top 100 employers in Ireland, as measured by number of employees. This is mainly due to time constraints; I might revisit the list later. Finally I only include companies that have actively campaigned for or taken legal action in favour of marriage equality. Employee headcounts taken from Irish Times's rather useful www.top1000.ie.

Without further ado:

Intel Ireland: 4,700 Irish jobs. Intel has openly supported and campaigned for marriage equality since 2012.

Citibank: 4,269 jobs. Citi joined in a brief to bring about the repeal of the Defence of Marriage act which barred same sex marriage. Their statement read in part: "As a signatory to the amicus brief in support of Edith Windsor and the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act, Citi welcomes today's ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. Citi promotes a work environment where diversity is embraced and where our differences are valued and respected.""

HP: 4,000 jobs. HP also campaigned to have the Defence of Marriage act repealed. I quite liked their CEO's reasoning: "Marriage is the fundamental institution that unites a society. It is the single greatest contributor to the well-being of adults and children because it promotes eternal principles like commitment, fidelity and stability. It makes no difference whether the marriage is between a man and woman or a woman and woman."

Apple: 4,000 jobs. Another campaigner against the Defence of Marriage act. "…we strongly believe that a person's fundamental rights— including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8."

Pfizer: 3,200 jobs. Signed an amicus brief supporting same gender marriage. The brief reads in part: "We are hampered in our efforts to recruit and retain the most talented workforce possible, placing us at a competitive disadvantage. Our success depends upon the welfare and morale of all employees, without distinction... We recognize the importance of that equality to our employees, and we have seen the real world, positive impact that fostering diversity and inclusion has on our productivity andperformance, just as we have seen the harm that denial of equality causes our businesses."

IBM: 3,000 jobs. Over 18 years ago IBM decided to partially circumvent the ban on same sex marriage by treating employees in long term same sex relationships as spouses for health insurance and other benefits.

EMC: 2,800 jobs. Lobbied in support of Referendum 74, a bill to legalise same sex marriage in Washington state. Their statement read in part: "Creating an inclusive, respectful and open culture at EMC has always been a priority, and we constantly strive to promote equality in our workplace. Our support of the state's legislation that provides same-sex couples with the right to civil marriage is another example of our commitment to supporting – and delivering – benefits for domestic partners."

Google: 2,288 jobs. Campaigned against Proposition 8, intended to make same sex marriage illegal: "…we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 - we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love." Sergey Brin, co-founder, Google

PayPal: 1,871 jobs. "eBay [PayPal's parent company] is pleased with the Supreme Court's decision strike down part of DOMA. As a growing global company with a diverse workforce of 31,500 employees worldwide, eBay embraces the core values of non-discrimination, diversity and inclusion. Our support for marriage equality is a natural extension of our support for eBay's LGBT employees and a reflection of our company's commitment to diversity, inclusion and equality in the workplace." They've also lobbied for federal benefits for all married couples, regardless of gender. (Thanks to @Golden_Gaytime for the tip, I'd missed them in the first draft.)

For those counting, the total is 26,128 jobs. I'd like to thank the King of Iona for allowing me to build on his idea. Do read his post for some other Irish employers outside the top 100. If I've missed any pro marriage equality employers I apologise and am happy to amend.

So what is the price of love? If you trust tiny anonymous Facebook accounts it's hundreds of millions. But if you'd rather listen to some of the top international employers in Ireland, legislating for love is just good business sense.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-79913333794026228382014-12-09T11:10:00.001+00:002014-12-15T08:30:48.460+00:00Fringe Catholic Group Issues Statement Opposing Marriage EqualityIf you live in Ireland you probably know some Catholics. You might have gone to school with them. They could be your colleagues, your doctor, or the person who bags your groceries. But what most of us don't realise is that there is a small splinter group who are quite different indeed.

Styling themselves 'The Hierarchy', this self-appointed group of elites eschew secular dress in favour of ornate robes, jewellery, and improbably large hats. Unlike most Catholics who happily integrate into wider society, they prefer to live in secluded palaces. Women have been barred from entry since the inception of the group in the first century BC. They do not marry or (usually) father children, instead replenishing their ranks by recruiting Catholic priests who share their conservative world views.

If you follow the media, you'll see that this group of 26 Catholics (henceforth referred to by their preferred term of 'bishops') recently issued a statement opposing access to civil marriage for same sex couples.

"A same sex couple cannot be husband and wife", reads the statement in part, showing a keen understanding of the issue under debate.

Much of their opposition to civil marriage rights stems from their own religious beliefs. Despite the Bible containing not one word attempting to regulate non Christian or non Jewish marriages, they are of the opinion that Jesus would be particularly irked by two men or two women forming a solemn commitment to each other.

"The Book of Genesis shows us that man and woman are created in the image and likeness of God; they recognise that they are made for each other" write the roughly two dozen men who have chosen for themselves a life of bachelordom.

"Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" continues the statement, issued by a group that not only objects to their own members getting married, but also bars Catholic priests from marriage and married men from priesthood.

It is worth noting that the majority of Irish Catholics support marriage rights for priests and that this statement should not be read as indicative of mainstream Irish Catholic thought.

Much of the document focuses on what the exclusively male and childless group consider to be the "mutual and complementary" role of women, a role they deem essential for its unique input and insight yet also seek to bar from priesthood. Despite running to sixteen pages the document does not devote space to elaborating what, precisely, this complementary role entails. The reader is left to examine past bishop statements for indications, like this one from Bishop Kevin Doran which opposes cancer treatment for women.

Again, it is worth noting that the majority of Irish Catholics do not oppose cancer treatment for women.

Another theme pervading the document is a concern for children.Others in the Catholic community have expressed delight at this newfound interest, the bishops being perhaps most famous for a decades long project to conceal and protect child rapists. It is hoped by many that this desire to see children flourish will continue beyond this moment convenient to fighting back against LGBTQ rights.

"... the Catholic Church clearly teaches that people who are homosexual must always be treated with sensitivity, compassion and respect." continues the statement from a group that considers homosexuals ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil and unfit for priesthood.

We took to the streets to ask ordinary Irish Catholics if these 26 men are representative of their beliefs.

"At this rate in 20 years' time there'll be no priests left in Ireland. But that lot are still blocking married priests and women priests. And now they're saying being married is the natural way of things and women have an essential complementary role? Give me a break. Maybe if they spent less time sticking their noses into other people's marriages they'd be able to find some time to do something about the fact we're running out of priests to celebrate Catholic marriage." - Thomas Kavanagh, who does not possess a hat greater in height than six inches.

"They bishops don't want women's opinions, so I don't see why I should want a bishop's opinion. I'm voting yes." said Sinead McGillicuddy, who went on to clarify that she does not live in a palace.

"I'm voting no, but I made my own mind up on it. I don't like that lot telling me what to do." opined Kieran McGuinness, championing independent thought.

"I've never really liked the gays", he added.

Shortly after issuing their statement public support for marriage equality reached a record 81%.

addendum - my thanks to @gramadoc for reminding me of the important distinction between 'complimentary' and 'complementary'. Errors corrected. Worth following! Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-54230822902535419842014-12-04T21:59:00.001+00:002014-12-04T21:59:35.428+00:00On The Grave Injustice Of Marriage EqualityThis week Ireland's bishops spoke with one voice on marriage equality, describing it as a 'grave injustice'. Strong words, and I found myself wondering if such forceful language had been deployed by these unmarried men before.

(tw: child rape, imprisonment, slavery, theft, sale, and deaths of children.)

I thought it would be useful to examine statements surrounding Ferns, where for decades members of the clergy raped and sexually assaulted at least a hundred children. It seemed apt: the bishops are doubtless aware of the particulars as two of their members (Herlihy, Comiskey) expended considerable effort ensuring the rapists and sex offenders did not trouble the attention of the authorities.

What phrase best describes this calculated concealment of depravity? Bishop Brennan's official statement chooses to condemn the affair as 'failings'.

I've done some amateurish tinkering around the edges of Theology and accept that the depth of the hierarchy's moral expertise may be shrouded from me by their years of study, but it seems to me that a failing is considerably less serious than a minor injustice, let alone a grave injustice. They must fear marriage equality greatly if they choose such words.

Next I sought out official statement on the Magdalene laundries. This business scheme consisted of religious orders imprisoning tens of thousands of women and girls as a source of slave labour, using violence, head shaving and psychological abuse to maintain control. The operation wrapped up in 1996. Paying the survivors their due wages and pensions seems to me a just step, but again I lack the moral expertise that is endowed to members of the Catholic hierarchy. They're not paying.

How, I wondered, did this mass enslavement for base coin rank alongside allowing two men or two women in love to make a solemn commitment to devote themselves to each other for the rest of their lives?

It seems unlikely that the bishops have not heard of the matter, and yet the closest I can find to a comment is Bishop Eamonn Walsh rushing to announce that other parties should share responsibility. He adds that "[the] religious won't be found wanting". (They have yet to apologise, or contribute to compensation funds, so one presumes the emphasis is on 'found'.)

Seeking a fourth point of comparison for this attempt to reverse engineer morality according to bishops, I turned to Ireland's mother and baby homes. It was here that pregnant women and girls were imprisoned by religious orders, usually for three years, and forced to manual labour while their children were sold or reallocated to parents deemed more desirable.Surely, given the bishop's now obsequious concern for the family, they are apoplectic in their condemnation?

We have a statement, of sorts, a shrewdly crafted piece of wordsmithery that acknowledges pain without seeing wrongdoing before launching into the sort of rapid distancing that normally requires rockets. It mentions only disquiet at the hundreds of children who died, sparing no words for the families destroyed. You can read it in full before reading Bock the Robber's dissection.

My personal highlight?

"Many of these young vulnerable women would already have been rejected by their families." - Michael Neary
Here the bishop forgets that it was precisely the instructions of his predecessors that caused this rejection. It's a neat trick, perhaps illustrative of the talents one must acquire to hold such high office.

But I digress. We have enough information to form a rudimentary scale of moral evils, as seen by the moral experts that make up the nation's bishops. To start our scale we have the nationwide enslavement of an estimated 30,000 women and girls. We see primacy given to sharing blame. There is no apology or compensation. It seems my moral betters leave me with little option but to regard this as trivial.

Next with a banal repetitiveness we see widespread enslavement of women. But this time in addition to manual labour their children are stolen, sold, reallocated, or die in the harsh environment of the mother and baby homes. This ranks more seriously: we have an acknowledgement of pain and a wriggling attempt to blame society, all the while omitting the fact that the hierarchy's control of society at the time was absolute. There is a strong attempt to blame a subdivision of the organisation. Naturally the hundreds of unmarked graves do not earn the epithet 'grave injustice'. That is reserved for the offence of recognising the loving commitment of two of my fellow citizens.

Does the protection and coverup of 21 child rapists in Ferns count as a serious crime? It seems to rank lower, unless the learned bishops ascribe a meaning to 'failings' that is unknown to us commoners. And yet failings seems to be the highest condemnation we've reached. The leap from here to an injustice of any sort, let alone a grave one, seems insurmountable.

Language does not lend itself to a points system and I cannot assign numeric values to how much worse the bishops must view marriage equality when compared to enslavement, child rape, perversion of justice and violence against women and girls. But it is clear that they consider it the greatest of these four evils.

Bishops claim moral expertise but they have spent the past century painting their profound moral incompetence on a canvas of broken lives. It is unsurprising that only 18% of Irish Catholics agree with their stance on homosexuality. I see no reason why their stance on marriage equality will find its reception any warmer.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-88760432093079744402014-11-19T21:21:00.001+00:002014-11-19T21:21:26.990+00:00Prominent Fluoridation Opponents Enjoy Drinking Fluoridated WaterFighting against a cheap and effective healthcare strategy is thirsty work. What better way to relax than by pouring yourself a nice tall glass of fluoridated water?

Not from the tap, of course. For these special occasions you should turn to San Pellegrino. Crisp, refreshing, and served in an iconic tinted glass bottle, you'll be relieved to hear that it contains 0.6 parts per million fluoride. Sit back, take a well earned break from opposing the 0.7 parts per million fluoride in Irish tap water, and enjoy the one part in ten million difference.

Don't let your hard work claiming that fluoride causes everything from man flu to the black death prevent you from drinking the stuff. In fact, if you've claimed that fluoride causes depression, and claim that you cured your own severe depression by eliminating fluoride, you should probably drink even more fluoridated water.

What better way to toy with people's genuine mental health issues than to encourage them to cease medication in favour of an evidence-free crackpot scheme that you won't even follow yourself?

This I feel must be the logic of Aisling FitzGibbon, aka The Girl Against Fluoride, a highly qualified angel healer, proponent of 'curing' autism rectally, and adviser to Sinn Fein on matters of public health. Pictured to the left we see a screenshot of her ink361 page, proudly displaying a book of grain, lactose and refined sugar free recipes alongside her San Pellegrino.

Next we see writer, restaurant critic and Michelin star winner Paolo Tullio. Thankfully he has not offered to manipulate angel healing rays on our behalf, but he has issued a video saying he believes fluoridation may be dangerous. He then calls on the Irish government to end the practice. His primary reasoning seems to be that his home tap water smells of chlorine.

Fearing that fluoride is dangerous, and opposing the government's fluoridation programme, is it safe to assume he avoids parting with coin for high fluoride San Pellegrino?

Let us read some of his reviews:

"Although a bottle of still water was on the house, both Rocco and I wanted sparkling, so we added a bottle of San Pellegrino to our drinks order." - Paolo Tullio at La Dolce Vita, Dublin 18

"Two bottles of San Pellegrino and a bottle of Peroni beer completed our order." - Paolo Tullio: Oliveto The Pavillion Complex, Dun Laoghaire

"There were a few wines under €30, but the bulk of the list falls into the €35 to €55 range. I chose a decent Pinot Grigio, which was listed at €33. We also had two large bottles of San Pellegrino at €5 each." - The Exchange Restaurant
I tweeted Tullio on the topic and he was kind enough to reply. He seems a decent sort, but rather confused on the area - he thought Ireland was the only country in the world to fluoridate, compared the chlorination of water to drinking bleach, and said he boiled Italian tap water because of the smell of chlorine. He has accomplishments in many fields, I just don't reckon science is one of them.

So why include him on this rather short list? Well, if opponents of water fluoridation have no problem with drinking fluoridated water, maybe we should wonder if their claims are worth entertaining.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-38038562203736195672014-11-06T22:24:00.001+00:002014-12-04T09:49:38.606+00:00Sinn Fein Takes Health Policy Advice From Vaccine Opponents
"Drugs are overprescribed... One reason for inappropriate prescribing may lie in the opaque relationship between the medical profession and the pharmacuetical [sic] industry. Major pharmaceutical companies, such as United Brands, sponsor medical conferences for doctors in luxury hotels. Moreover, there are no restrictions on general practitioners or hospital consultants investing in shares in the pharmaceutical or other healthcare industries or in private hospitals or clinics. The conflict of interest between the doctor as healer and the doctor as drug manufacturer needs to be recognised."
The above pastiche of distrust and conspiracy comes not from an angel healing periodical but from Sinn Fein's health policy. Do read the whole thing if time allows. You will find no attempt to balance talk of financial irregularities in luxury hotels with promotion of best medical practice. There is no paragraph suggesting that your local GP is likely a decent sort, or that their offer of a flu jab may not be linked to a clandestine conspiracy.

Regular readers of this blog - a long-suffering and doubtless weary troop - will know that I've something of an interest in anti fluoridation campaigners in Ireland. An entry on Sinn Fein is therefore predictable - they've been tying up valuable county council time with anti fluoridation motions in Dublin and Cork, blithely ignoring that councils have no power to make such decisions. Their minister for environment, community and local government tried for a bill to have it banned. Why does Sinn Fein feel such rancour towards an intervention supported by the nation's medical and dental communities? The matter is hardly opaque. Six million English citizens drink fluoridated water, the rest do not. It is a simple effort to contrast the fluoridated and non fluoridated areas of our neighbours. Indeed I felt certain that Sinn Fein would leap at an opportunity to support a measure that leads to a 28% reduction in tooth decay for children in disadvantaged areas while nearly halving tooth decay related hospitalisation of children under five, but it seems they jumped the other way.

Have the boffins in Sinn Fein's underground laboratory make a game changing discovery? Has there been an explosion of new research that only they are publicising? Or are they merely casting aside best evidence and community benefit in favour of a populist publicity stunt?

To answer my question we must look at those who answers the questions posed by Sinn Fein. And who better to elucidate than Brian Stanley TD, spokesperson on Environment, Community and Local Government, who last year attempted to cease fluoridation?

"I am delighted to have two leading campaigners in Leinster House adding weight to our campaign. Both Aishling Fitzgibbon, aka Girl against Fluoride, and leading environmental scientist Declan Waugh." - Brian Stanley
This seems the total of his outside support. Stanley eschews the temptation to promote style over substance and introduces Aisling FitzGibbon first. Her credentials are impressive: as a Master Integrated Energy Therapist she has paid for a certificate that enables her to redirect healing angel rays into people's pets. For the right price she will 'cure' your vulnerable child of autism through a regimen that includes pumping bone broth up their anus. Naturally she opposes vaccination, describing it as her next step once fluoride is vanquished.

I had the pleasure of a radio interview with her campaign's creative manager. She charmed me with tales of how homosexuality is caused by women using contraception and regaled me with details of her attempt to infect her daughter with measles. It is a delight to imagine Sinn Fein's spokesperson for community reclining in leather armchair, sipping tea and absorbing such advice. I am atingle with anticipation to see how this shapes his future programmes and policies, especially given the esteem in which he obviously holds their views - he is, after all, listed on their supporters page and spoke at the launch of their naked calendar fundraiser.

But why content oneself with the talents of just one adviser?

Stanley was also kind enough to give prominence to the views of Declan Waugh. Describing him as a "leading environmental scientist" I couldn't help but wonder if the prefix mis- had been lost from the appellation. Like me he is a blogger with a science degree and no published peer reviewed work on fluoride. This has not prevented him from attempting to link the substance to every condition from SIDS, Down's Syndrome, heart disease, asthma, arthritis, cocaine addiction, metabolic disorders and diabetes. I'm confident he'll soon claim that red hair is a result of water fluoridation. Those of us curious as to why no reputable peer reviewed journal would be willing to publish his work must find ourselves torn between two possible conclusions: either his work isn't particularly good, or there's a vast worldwide conspiracy to suppress it.

Given Sinn Fein consider him a leading scientist and seek his council on matters of public health they may be inclined to give weight to the conspiracy theory. If you skip to the bottom half of this post you'll see Waugh's thoughts on a hypothesised global mind control project being run in tandem by the Russians and Americans via microwaves and WiFi. I had no idea Putin and Obama could pull off such a collaboration! For good measure the UK are beaming suicide rays into dissenters' houses. Waugh considers it both 'interesting and rather disturbing'. This may go some way to explaining why he suggests folks curtail their use of wireless networks.

More recently his endorsements have been bestowed on Red Ice Radio's attempt to pretend that childhood MMR vaccination causes autism, and that there is a global conspiracy (including, it seems, the CDC and British counterparts) to hide this. The radio show describes itself as covering topics on the global elite and says it is geared towards those who have broken free of mind control.

The show also dips its toe into pretending that HIV is unrelated to AIDS before saying that the Ebola epidemic doesn't actually exist, positing that the deaths caused are a result of malnutrition and vaccination. They describe Ebola as "a magnificent cover story" to enable the UN to keep west African citizens weak and dying so that their resources can be stolen.

"The ultimate payoff for the medical machine is drugs. Vaccines. Further conditioning of the population to accept vaccination... They could have released a toxic chemical in the country and called it Ebola."
The daft conspiracy then posits that medical worker deaths are caused by wearing hazmat suits in warm environments before wrapping up by pretending that Ebola is a cover story intended by the medical community to sell vaccines. Feel free to jump to any point in the interview to hear something egregiously stupid.

Perhaps the above four unrelated worldwide conspiracies seem plausible to you. If so here are some other choice titbits from his Facebook page.

In this post he posits a paper that suggests rats who inhale mercury suffer brain damage is sufficient grounds to consider flu vaccines a risk for Alzheimers. This scaremongering comes courtesy of nameless scientists with no plausible explanation of why he suspects the elderly will be forced to snort liquid metal while getting their flu jabs. Will Sinn Fein be following his wisdom and phasing out flu jabs?

 Can we expect Sinn Fein to call an end to the nation's astroturfs on Waugh's advice?

It's unfair for me to dwell exclusively on Sinn Fein's impact on science in Dublin am indebted to Niall Boylan of 4fm who invited Councillor Chris O'Leary on air, giving me opportunity to discuss with him the motivations behind his baffling motion to oppose fluoridation in Cork County. Listening to Boylan's show often reminds me that the oxygen of publicity can be enough to make daft schemes spontaneously combust.

Unfortunately there's no podcast so I'll have to paraphrase from memory. O'Leary relied heavily on Waugh till I brought up his predilection for global mind control plots, at which point he cited Dean Burk as being at the forefront of fluoride opposition in the United States. I told him this seemed unlikely, given Burk's death in the 80's. O'Leary then claimed that 26 European countries have ceased fluoridation due to health concerns. I asked if he would be kind enough to name three. He supplied one, Northern Ireland, and I admit I took us on something of a tangent on whether or not we should consider the Sterling region of this island as a separate and distinct European nation. No matter, O'Leary repeated his claim that Northern Ireland ceased fluoridation due to health concerns. I pointed out this was an absurd statement as they never had a fluoridation programme. (See page eight.) Further examples of the proffered 26 nations were not forthcoming.

I then asked the councillor if he felt San Pellegrino should carry a health warning. Its fluoride concentration is 0.6 parts per million, not too shy from my tap water's 0.7 parts per million. He felt it was in the public's interest to be so cautioned. In some ways I felt sorry for him - it's fairly obvious that this populist publicity stunt has been rolled out without any real thought or preparation, and individual councillors are being left to the tender mercies of a skeptical public. Later on Twitter he championed the right of people to choose on vaccinations, adding that #oneSizeDoesNotFitAll, a complaint rarely levelled at seatbelts.

Voters might be swayed by his proud fight against the HSE's promotion of vaccination but the optimist in me reads the responses to his twitter stand and feels it has cost him more support than it has gained. Indeed I wonder how it will affect the party. Within a week of his statement, fellow Cork Sinn Fein Councillor Thomas Gould also chose radio as the vehicle by which to share his distrust of mass vaccination, pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment. Statements like these from public representatives help to explain why the mumps rate has more than doubled since last year.

Some will say that Sinn Fein are partnering with vaccine opponents in a tawdry grab for publicity. The more worrying hypothesis is that this is not the case, and that they consider conspiracy theorists and angel healers best placed to drive public health policy. I know many of you have sound and robust reasons to deny Sinn Fein a preference vote, and fluoridation may seem unimportant by contrast. For those outside this group I ask: if they eschew expert advice in favour of populism in a matter of health, what's to stop them taking the same approach with our economy?Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-57833820313247367982014-11-05T23:14:00.001+00:002014-11-15T13:54:11.273+00:00Armaggedon, The Young Earth, And The Cancer Cure Suppressing Freemasons Most evenings I pass a brace of Jehovah's Witnesses outside a GPO. For comic juxtaposition they place themselves to the left of a statue of Cú Chulainn lashed to a tree stump, ready to attack all comers until his death. The Jehovah's Witnesses give a warmer welcome and are sometimes willing to discuss their organisation's worryingly regular habit of announcing the imminent end of this mortal realm.

Proceeding a figurative hop, skip, and jump will often land me next to Dessie. He's a likeable chap who considers the earth to be at most 11,000 years old. On past occasions I've met Hare Krishnas who sought to dissuade me of my heliocentric beliefs. Let us say that it is a vibrant marketplace of ideas where any viewpoint can be expressed without falling prisoner to the confines of reality.

It was there (where else?) that Immuno Biotech chose to plant a stall emblazoned "Cancer Cure". The subtext is "The Cure They Don't Want You To Have!" At this point I must make my apologies for the quality of the image. You see, my camera hand is as shaky as the claims of their salesperson Mike. [Edit: better shot by @pedView. Second edit: New shots by me taken two days later.]

And what claims they make!

"If you keep to the protocol[€450 for 8 doses], it [their snake oil] usually eradicates stage 4 cancer in a year."
There is no such thing as stage five cancer: stage four is the deformed pinnacle of what tumours can throw at us. The chances of surviving a half decade with almost any type of stage four cancer is below 30%. If Immuno Biotech had a product that could 'usually eradicate' all forms of cancer we would hold feast days in their honour. I would cast aside my keyboard and plug in a prayer mat, and doctors would learn their trade in institutions named to immortalise its founder.

Instead they have a limited number of glossy pamphlets, a name that calls to mind bad science fiction, and a stall of lower quality than a neighbouring group who believes that dinosaur bones are intended to test our faith.

Let's look at how they attempt a shroud of respectability:

"180 scientists from 8 nations have written research papers on GcMAF... There are 90 scientific research papers written on GcMAF"
Imagine you're searching for a restaurant. Perhaps it's a special occasion. Maybe you just need something quick before a show. You could be on a diet. whatever the driving force, how would you react to seeing "180 people have reviewed this restaurant!"?. Perhaps addled with hunger you would miss the obvious - it doesn't say if the reviews are positive. There are 21,754 hits for 'tea' on pubmed, this does not mean that Barry's gold blend should take new home in the nation's first aid kits.

I'm entertaining the notion that the glossy brochure pictured at the end of this post is more up to date than the company's website, because Immuno Biotech's online presence shirks the figures above, claiming only 142 scientists publishing 59 papers. Again, volume of papers on a topic is largely irrelevant without an indication of the papers' conclusions. But let's take a glance at a few.

Yamamoto N, Suyama H, Yamamoto N, Ushijima N. Immunotherapy of metastatic breast cancer patients with vitamin D-binding protein-derived macrophage activating factor (GcMAF). Int J Cancer. 2008 Jan 15;122(2):461-7. PubMed PMID: 17935130.

The title looks suitably impressive until we check PubMed and find it has been retracted.

Cancer Research UK provides a good summary of the issues:

"The results appear to be startling – all the patients on the trials are 'cured' of cancer. Surely this is an amazing breakthrough?

Put bluntly, no it isn't. There are significant scientific problems with the trials. For a start, all the studies are very small, involving fewer than twenty patients in each – rather than the thousands needed to make the sort of claims mentioned above.

Next, all the patients involved had received standard treatment for their cancer, including surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. This is a somewhat unorthodox design for a trial of this kind, because it makes it very difficult to tell if any successes are due to the new drug, or the more conventional treatments.

On top of this, the researchers didn't actually monitor the progress of tumours in the patients, and provide no clinical information about them...

Furthermore, the researchers didn't do any tests to show that injected Gc-MAF was actually activating macrophages in the patients' blood, or even working in the way that they expect...

We have no way of telling whether their cancers were growing again, or had been successfully treated, and whether this was due to Gc-MAF or the other treatment they had received.

Given that 80 per cent of all women with breast cancer survive for at least 5 years, an uncontrolled study showing that 16 women of unknown TNM status survive for at least 4 years is no great shakes, scientifically speaking."
 The Anti Cancer Fund also has a good writeup on Yamamoto's papers, issuing the stark warning that "...all claims on the efficacy of this product have no solid scientific basis. Its marketing is illegal; therefore there is no controlled guarantee on the quality of the product for human consumption sold over the internet". Going through the list we see two more of Yamamoto's 29 studies have been retracted on similar grounds. I cannot tell how many were checked. Other studies listed were printed in predatory journals, where a fee secures publication without proper oversight or verification. Most of the remainder relate to bone formation in rats.

But what of the brains of the organisation, if you'll permit a little elasticity in the term?

Having failed in his ambitions to run the UKIP, the company is run by one David Noakes. Here he gives voice to his concerns that big pharmaceutical companies are seeking to silence him out of fear that his cancer 'cure' will dent their profits. The commentary grows ever more surreal, as conspiracy wrestles with conspiracy for space in his column inches, and selecting but a sample proves daunting. I'll go with these:

"...legislation of food supplements is the beginning of a political campaign to deny the public access to essential vitamins. This is part of the EU's Codex Alimentaris.

When fully implemented, many will die...

 Prof Ruggiero developed an Aids drug while working for a big pharmaceutical company in the USA 30 years ago. Since then, big pharma companies have taken some of their banned chemo poisons and rebranded them as drugs to kill the HIV virus. Prof Ruggiero proved that Aids really is Acquired Immune System Deficiency, and that HIV is just one of a hundred opportune viruses you catch when your immune system is collapsed.

 Therefore, if one of these drugs works and it does get rid of your HIV virus, you've still got 99 other viruses to go, and you still haven't cured the problem, i.e, your immune system still doesn't work."
It's hard to fit global depopulation conspiracies and AIDS denialism in the same breath, but Noakes finds a way. The information was enough to find another website, www.eutruth.org.uk, also penned by Noakes. (A video on the main page confirms the resemblance.)

I do recommend the page on the Freemasons. It is delightfully eccentric, defying both lampooning and parody, but his embrace of conspiracy theories does not remove the threat he creates. He and his organisation are targeting people at their most vulnerable and charging high prices for false hope. I don't know precisely what laws this sham breaks, or indeed if we have an unsightly gap in our legal code. I'll visit Mike after work tomorrow and make myself available to any members of the public who could benefit from additional background on their enterprise. If any of my reporter friends fancy talking to him, his contact details are on the brochure - 089 979 8662 or firstname.lastname@example.com.

Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-42314459037203503602014-10-24T06:05:00.000+01:002014-10-26T12:20:49.680+00:00Lush Gets Into A Lather Over Fluoride - Vaccines Next?
Lush makes a damn fine soap. Their staff are friendly, energetic and helpful, and I often pay a visit when wrapping up my Christmas shopping. Until recently my only complaint was that I can smell their shops at twenty paces.

<img alt="Rebecca Lush Blum I didn't say that science is not important. I was simply trying to clarify what information I was seeking. The issues of fluoridation and vaccination are obviously very divisive. However, I am simply concerned at the moment about evidence that this campaign is homophobic. I've read the blogs Geoff and am listening to the podcast, thank you. Is there any more evidence this campaign is homophobic? Thanks, Becca" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rRTZ3w_s3o4/VEm_HKA42wI/AAAAAAAAGz4/5Cc1mjdl0P4/s1600/fluorideVaccinesVeryDivisive.png" height="91" title="" width="400" />
That changed this week when they described vaccination as 'very divisive' and announced the launch of an Ireland only anti fluoridation campaign. Rebecca Lush Blum (above) is the charitable giving manager for Lush's multi million Euro charity fund and spoke in her official capacity on Lush's Cork Facebook page. Her description of vaccination as 'very divisive' is dangerous. It's also nonsense. Vaccination rates have never been higher - 96% of Irish two year olds are now covered by the six in one vaccine, despite the fact that we give charitable tax status to vaccine opponents. This represents a significant victory against the vaccination opponents that caused an outbreak of measles in Cork a mere two years ago. I find it outrageous that a Lush spokesperson in the UK would seek to pretend there is any sort of Irish debate on whether or not we should protect children from easily preventable diseases.

How did this all start?

Lush sell a 'charity pot'. It's a worthy idea: they sell a hand and body lotion and grant the profits to smaller charities and activists. So far they've raised over 4.5 million Euro globally. With small grants going to small organisations there's always the risk of inadvertently backing a questionable group. It happens, and it's a risk that comes with a commitment to charitable giving.

In this instance the - how to put this delicately - suboptimal group was The Girl Against Fluoride. Lush's Cork branch announced that they'd be supporting the campaign's unique mesh of angel healing, vaccine opposition, fluoridation scaremongering and homophobia. The commentary this drew from their customers is a thing of beauty. Go read. Of the 210 messages the only support for the move came from one man in Australia. I feel it safe to assume he is not a frequent imbiber of Irish tap water or a regular visitor to Lush's Cork branch.

I was glad to read that, two days later, Lush listened to their customers and cancelled the event:

Reading the announcement was not an unmixed delight as I learned that Lush "intend to run a campaign in all our Ireland shops to further explore concerns around lifelong intake of fluoride". Lush Blum makes the same comment under her own account here. Again we have Lush Blum's opinion on what matters are divisive in Irish society. It seems we're all worried about intake of fluoride.

Where is the evidence for this concern? The Girl Against Fluoride campaign is so unpopular that it failed to give away free tickets to a Kila gig. I went to see the thronging masses at their much touted protest outside the Irish Medicines Board earlier this year. They attracted a total of eight adults:

Is this really the mark of an issue that Lush feels deserving of a nationwide campaign?

Why only Ireland? Lush has stores in fluoridated America, and has shops in the fluoridated areas of the UK. They also operate in Spain, which has about 10% water fluoridation coverage. And who will be advising on this campaign? I am of course pleased that they have ruled out publicly working with The Girl Against Fluoride folks. Can we have a similar assurance that they will not work together in private? If not them, then who? The only other - let's be charitable - noteworthy fluoridation opponent in Ireland is Declan Waugh. He advised Sinn Féin in their populist and ultimately pointless Dublin City Council move to oppose fluoridation. Would they work with him? A man who seriously entertains the notion of a joint Russian / American global mind control plot?

It's a tangent but I feel I must provide an excerpt from the article Waugh judges 'interesting and rather disturbing':

...pulse-modulated microwaves are efficient carriers for mind control signals ... In short, both the Soviets and American military were running EM experiments on populations – inducing nuclear magnetic resonance in human tissues, increasing cancer rates, and interfering with mental processes.
...
The CIA's notorious Cold War MK-ULTRA programs have seamlessly morphed into remote electromagnetic mind control that can deliver hypnotism, diseases, and drugs via modulated electromagnetic energy.
...
"Intelligence chiefs are now in seventh heaven. If someone becomes a problem, they park the 'suicide mind control team' outside their house. Suicides are easy to explain away. Or they can discredit you by driving you mad by beaming the excitation potential of a pathological mental state at your brain. They place sounds and speech in the target victim's brain that no one else can hear, called inter-cerebral hearing. This is now common practice. Instead of using excitation potentials, a transducer modifies the spoken word into ELF audiograms that are then superimposed on the pulse-modulated microwave beam. Outside environmental reinforcement via media agents in league with MI5 [UK FBI] assure that the high-profile person's mind-controlled madness will be put in the worst possible light to discredit them…"
I do admire Lush's commitment to charity. And I do think they make good products. But I can't shop there if they're going to promote this tomfoolery. And I'm truly concerned that they might one day run a campaign in all their Ireland shops to further 'explore concerns' around vaccination. If you feel the same please consider dropping them a polite tweet or leaving a message on their Facebook page.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-36045044792096164642014-09-09T12:30:00.000+01:002014-09-09T13:44:38.928+01:00The Curious Case of the Girl Against Fluoride and the Disappearing Christy MooreImagine for a moment that you're a qualified master angel healer. You've paid for a certificate in nutritioniology from a quack who claims to cure cancer with urine and castor oil. You claim to be able to treat autism in children by methods including the rectal administration of bone broth, you oppose fluoridation and vaccination, and your campaign's creative manager is convinced homosexuality is caused by plastics and contraception. You want to raise some cash for a campaign to change how Ireland provides drinking water. What do you do?

Some assume that an ability to commune with intergalactic angels and divert their healing rays into people's pets guarantees a steady source of income. And training from someone who claims to cure cancer using only urine and castor oil strikes me as a qualification that could easily be monetized. As for ensuring children on the autistic spectrum reach their full potential using an enema kit and some bone broth - well, the commercial applications are obvious, if we take on faith that the various sources of income open to Aisling FitzGibbon (aka The Girl Against Fluoride) are grounded in truth.

FitzGibbon is not taking this approach to gathering coin for her anti fluoridation campaign. Instead she's elected to host a fundraising gig. It's appealing: the venue, Whelan's, is excellent, and 20 Euro to see the rightly described 'legendary Christy Moore' is an offer that had me almost tempted to put hand in pocket. I also quite enjoy Kila. Here's one of the many announcements of the fundraiser:

But is Christy Moore aware of the engagement? The concert is not now and has never been on his future gigs page. You'll note that the screenshot above is of the edit history: this is in fact an old copy. After folks bought tickets to see Christy Moore, someone using FitzGibbon's account edited the post to remove all references to him. The current edition is below:

And here's another historical reference to Moore playing, this time from the 30th of July:

Unsurprisingly this has led to some complaints and a call for refunds. Interestingly in the same thread we see mention of a handling charge of 12 Euro, and an instruction to ignore it:

Below is a screenshot of the handling charge. You can see it for yourself by clicking 'buy now' via FitzGibbon's event page. Judging from the above, prospective attendees are being told via an intermediary that this additional cost will not be levied. I find this more than a little concerning: as a general rule of shopping, if you're authorising a payment of 24 Euro, you should expect to have 24 Euro debited from your account.

The size of the handling charge violates PayPal's terms and conditions - see section 3.4. And it raises other questions: will the handling charge be refunded if the gig does not go ahead, or if Christy Moore fans are recompensed? It's reasonable to assume the 12 Euro ticket cost is earmarked for furthering FitzGibbon's anti fluoridation agenda, but will the handling charge go elsewhere? Is the venue aware that FitzGibbon is charging considerably more online than ticket sales on the door? What sort of handling costs 12 Euros? Is Christy Moore aware his name has been used to promote this event?

And what of Kila? They're still listed as performers for the gig, but it's perhaps concerning that they haven't mentioned it on Facebook yet. And the gig itself isn't listed on the venue's website at time of writing. Informally I've heard they're aware of it but awaiting clarification before listing it as an official event. (I emphasise this is not an official statement.) This is hardly conclusive evidence they won't be there, of course, but given the Christy Moore cancellation it does give one pause for thought.

Ultimately angel healing, fake autism treatments, nutritioniology, homoeopathy and their ilk share a common thread - bluster and fluff aplenty but very limited demonstrable service of value. I opened this post by wondering why FitzGibbon doesn't use such a woo based approach to fundraise for her anti science agenda. But I'm starting to think she's done just that.Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-80398634923463373052014-09-06T16:30:00.000+01:002014-09-06T16:31:25.982+01:00Dr Ali Selim - Voice of Irish Muslims?
"If Allah had willed, He could have made all of you humans a single people. But, He decided to let you choose your own path after showing you the Truth, and thus test yourselves. Outdo one another in actions that serve humanity and thus grow your "Self". To Allah is your final Destination, of all of you." Qur'an, 5:48
The hard right of authoritarian Islam and the hard right of anti Muslim bigotry are unnatural bedfellows, yet are as one in their desire to paint Islam as monolithic. These two heads of the same monster are conjoined in a delusion that Islam's 1.6 billion adherents throughout all cultures and societies have no diversity of thought, opinion, or desire. It is a monster that attacks those considered Muslim. It is the same monster that attacks those considered not Muslim enough.

It is for this reason that I do not welcome Dr Ali Selim's recent contribution to the debate on Irish schooling, where he obliquely claims that diversity in Irish society can be enhanced if diversity within Irish Muslim society is eradicated.

He estimates 65,000 Muslims in Ireland, presumably a figure that includes all 49,204 self described Muslims from our 2011 census. Selim uses his self appointed position as their spokesperson to present them as monolithic on many matters. Let us examine some of his claims:

"[Islam] forbids pre- and extramarital sexual relations, whereas RSE perceives sexual relations outside wedlock as part of normal practices."
I am of course shocked to learn that an authoritarian religious apologist frowns on relationship and sexuality education, and uses their faith and self constructed platform to oppose same. That said a favouring of marriage as an environment in which to raise children can hardly be considered the unique preserve of the Muslim faith, and I'm aquiver with anticipation for Selim's paper showing Christians do not share this position. Perhaps he will soon be calling for the introduction of Catholic values to some of Ireland's schools? It is hardly incoherent to favour waiting till marriage yet also wish to equip one's children with an understanding of relationships, human sexuality, self respect and respect for one's partner and it's baffling how Selim can pretend no Irish Muslim holds this view.

"[Irish schools should] employ a female PE teacher and provide students with a sports hall not accessible to men during times when girls are at play. They should also not be visible to men while at play."
To take Selim seriously we must assume there are tens of thousands of Muslims in Ireland who would be aghast at the thought of their daughters playing anywhere outside an enclosed, women only pod. I offer as my rebuttal your local playground. Agreeing with Selim means assuming that the entirety of the Irish Muslim population is more conservative than Saudi Arabia, a nation aptly described as the world's largest women's prison yet still one capable of fielding female Muslim athletes. Or perhaps Selim is unaware that the Olympics included male spectators? There are people who make such assumptions about Muslims in Ireland. I do not warm to them.

"If music is performed using non-tuneable percussion instruments such as drums, most Muslims will have no problem."
Earlier this year I spent an enjoyable week in Istanbul. One of the highlights was meeting an old friend and hearing her band, an exciting mix of Irish and Turkish talent encompassing several faith positions. You can imagine the shock experienced by Turkey's 98% Muslim position at the simultaneous sound of piano and double bass when the linked track was recorded. I'm sure you all recall the resultant newspaper coverage of this incident and the resulting frosty relationship between Dublin and Ankara.

Sarcasm, of course. Istanbul pulsates with the music that offends Selim, including instruments that owe their origins to Islamic trading routes. One can only assume that the arrival lounge of Dublin airport presents some theological significance and prompts all arriving Muslims to undergo a profound change of position on the matter of pluckable instruments. Should we really remove the fiddle, the tin whistle and the accordion from Irish schools in the name of beliefs Irish Muslims don't even hold? Will that really foster an environment where we value our fellow Irish citizens of the Muslim faith?

"Physical contact between members of the opposite sex who can be legally married is forbidden in Islam."
This goes some way to explaining why my female Muslim doctor examines me using her powers of telekenesis, and gave me my recent vaccinations via a blowpipe from twenty paces, blindfold, lest the sight of my naked shoulder remove forever her chance to enter the gardens of paradise. Selim's statement is untrue, and I do not warm to those who invent such tales to paint Irish Muslims as a group incapable or unwilling to participate in daily life in this country. It's a widely thought among Muslims that Mohammed himself used female medics during times of battle, a strategy doubtless earning Selim's opprobrium. He could argue that some Muslims in some cultures avoid unnecessary physical contact with members of the opposite sex, but this is a much weaker point, and presenting it as normative is to reduce the diversity within Islam to a right wing stereotype.

I know Muslims who eat fries and run bars. I know Muslims who avoid food colourings because they contain trace amounts of alcohol. I know Muslim musicians. I know Muslims who married atheists. I know Muslims who married Muslims. I know Muslims who are considered heretics for their beliefs. The Irish Muslim community is a rich tapestry with representatives from many countries, cultures and faith traditions and I reject Selim's attempt to usurp their voice to further his own conservative agenda. Our nation has already experience of conservative Catholics who claim without justification to be the authoritative voice of their coreligionists. We should view Selim's attempt in a similar vein.Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-11027367798734984802014-07-01T21:36:00.000+01:002014-07-01T21:36:07.345+01:00The Iona Institute Declares Its Support For (Some) Marriage EqualityYesterday the otherwise affable Oriental Cutlery tweeted a link to the Iona Institute's latest video. I encourage fans of unmuddled thinking to avoid watching at an hour where exasperation or a breeched balderdash threshold could cause insomnia or gritted teeth.

Today I experienced both surprise and chagrin when I realised that fully one fifth of their broadcast was an impassioned plea for marriage equality for same sex couples.

Not all same sex couples, mind you, but it's encouraging to see them take these faltering, progressive steps.

I reproduce the segment for your convenience:

We believe that children should be raised by their own mother and father in a loving marriage whenever possible. Of course, circumstance can often mean this isn't possible. But we believe children should not be deprived of a mother or father's love as a matter of deliberate design. - Iona Institute, Marriage Equality Supporters

Some think marriage equality is the struggle for civil marriage for gay and lesbian people. To hold this view is of course to think bisexuals can never fall in love with someone of the same gender. This is not the injustice the Iona Institute seek to right. Instead I feel they speak to the inordinate challenges married transgender parents face.

A man assigned the sex female at birth can marry a cis male, give birth, and then later decide to come out. He may then begin the process of changing his gender presentation to better match his internal sense of gender.

Some marriages are strained by this. Some come through it. For those who choose to seek legal recognition of their correct gender they may face a stark choice: the State will only grant them recognition if they divorce. I can only imagine the sense of betrayal that must accompany one's government forcing a citizen to choose between recognition of their marriage or their gender.

The Iona Institute are convinced that the biological component provided by each parent is paramount in parenting. They hold marriage dear as the ideal institution in which children should be raised. They oppose any legal step that would, by deliberate design, weaken this arrangement. It follows with certainty, therefore, that they support marriage rights for transgender citizens of this state, regardless of gender.

Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-81697051936858118142014-06-08T15:55:00.001+01:002014-06-09T08:34:13.342+01:00PentecostI've often welcomed guest posts from those of differing opinions to me, and have had the pleasure of hosting several from those of people of faith. Today's post from a Catholic friend differs from these in that it has my full agreement.

Fiona Hanley writes from the perspective of an ordinary Irish Catholic. She's not speaking for an institute or a hierarchy, so it's a voice you may not have heard before.

Today is June 8. It's Pentecost, marking the end of the Easter period and birthday of the Church. According to the Gospel, apostles have locked themselves in a room terrified. They get a visit from Jesus saying 'Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.' Well indeed. Harsh but fair.

The Catholic Church has never said sorry properly for abuse meted out and covered up. Sure, there have been mealy-mouthed lawyer-approved expressions of regret for actions of individuals on the other side of the alter rail. All the words of apology jumbled up to mean nothing at all. Co-operation with enquiries proceeded like a snail under a brick. It's difficult to understand why there was no full, unconditional apology and expression of responsibility. A professional Catholic of all people should know that without atonement there will be no forgiveness. There are only seven sacraments and that's one of them.
Last month was a significant one for Catholicism because May is the month of Mary, comforter and protector, source of succour, Mother of Perpetual Help amongst other titles. Pope Francis issued a beautiful and gentle prayer to celebrate her as the Undoer of Knots: "full of kindness and patience you gave us example of how to untie the knots of our life... you put in order, and make more clear the ties that link us to the Lord."

However May is over and according to the calendar its time to come out from under her arms. Pentecost marks the time of the Holy Spirit. What that means, amongst other things, is a demand to step up and not be afraid of truth and speaking the truth. Let's not mistake that for evangelism which is boring for everybody else and just rude in my opinion.

The last few weeks in Ireland have seen an unravelling of lies and silence around the deaths of almost 800 'illegitimate' babies and young children whose mothers were placed in the 'care' of the Bons Secours nuns in Tuam, Co. Galway. What Irish women did to other Irish women in the name of God is really quite disgusting. Illegitimate. What a thing to call a human. 'Secours' deserves scare quotes also.

The mysterious deaths of so many infants isn't comparable to Victorian workhouses because a vicious conservatism towards unmarried pregnant women cut across Irish society whether the families were poor or not. It's important to note that women weren't kidnapped en masse by religious orders. The default reaction was that women were 'sent away' by their families, an arrangement presumably approved of by local priests and families of the men responsible for the pregna

The State knew what was going on and discussed in the Dáil keeping costs as low as possible. As identified by Elaine Byrne this week, extracts of debates that took place in the seat of Irish government included "doubtless the great proportion of deaths in these cases is due to congenital debility, congenital malformation and other ante-natal causes traceable to the conditions associated with the unfortunate lot of the unmarried mother" (i.e. the fault of the mother for the 'sin' of conception) and "these children are not wanted; they are boarded out, and if they die so much the better."

We should remember that the Irish State and the Irish people are one and the same, and acknowledge that our grandparents were adults. Whether their responsibility was diminished or not, they colluded to persecute the vulnerable. Jason Walsh pointed this out this week when he asked whether the post-Famine church obsession with sex also fitted neatly with economics of land and primogeniture.

The story has been out for weeks now followed by stories of other mother and child homes runs by other female religious orders with more extraordinary and untypical mortality rates. The whole world is talking about it yet Pope Francis has said nothing. Again, it's difficult to understand why. It's not as if he's afraid of the costs of reparation because he's spoken before of his longing for a poor church. If he's been in deep, deep prayer about the whole thing it's really high time to come out and say something.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has said nothing either. Cardinal Seán Brady was supposed to resign a while back when it transpired that he had witnessed and taken notes on the swearing to secrecy of a child who had come forward to report sexual abuse by a priest. This didn't emerge any thanks to Brady who stayed quiet throughout investigations pursued by the State. And again, why he hasn't been shown the door yet by Pope Francis is a bit of a mystery.

Not the it matters hugely in the scheme of things, because we aren't the persecuted ones, but the hierarchy doesn't seem to care about the position its silence places ordinary lay Catholics and priests in. It's embarrassing, to say the very, very least.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."

Or not. It's not as if God forces anybody to do anything. People have free will, they will do what they want all by themselves whether they believe they're acting for God or not. But scripture says what it says, and as long as full and freely offered atonement is withheld, the Church in Ireland is dying on its ass.Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-86457003537844283872014-04-19T17:07:00.001+01:002014-04-19T17:07:48.077+01:00An Evening With Faith HealersOn Wednesday I'll be recording my fourth appearance on Premier Christian Radio's 'Unbelievable' show. If you like Christian and non Christian debate I recommend you check out their archive. The host, Justin Brierley, makes an excellent moderator and always ensures both sides get fair hearing.

My last two shows were on miracles. After they aired a faith healer called David contacted the host and offered to take me on an evening of healing on the streets of Dublin. I was reticent - David is based in the Middle East and if nothing else I did not want him to incur the financial expense of such a journey. I think we left it as something along the lines of 'only if you happen to be here'.

Time passed and David contacted me with dates of his planned visit to Ireland. By happy coincidence we later discovered that one of his Irish cohorts knows my brother in law. We agreed to meet, spent an evening in Dublin city centre, and got on rather well.

That was perhaps seven months ago. At the time Justin asked me if I'd like to go back on his show to discuss the experience and if I'm honest I ducked the request. I liked, indeed admired David, and his ministry didn't raise any flags normally associated with faith healers. He does not accept remuneration, does not seek fame or recognition, avoids those with obvious serious ailments lest he causes offence, and seems to genuinely brighten the days of those he encounters. I felt my choice was between arguing with a likeable fellow with heartfelt intentions or taking a very soft approach and inadvertently endorsing faith healers who have a negative impact on society.

Recently Justin asked again. David seemed game, I had a day off around the time and I thought why not. This post is as much my effort to collect my thoughts and give David fair warning of points I'll raise as anything else. Given the gap in time I'm sure our recollections will differ in places, any lapses on my part are unintentional. Given how long and unwieldy this post has become I'll only discuss the first few encounters.

ATHEIST STUDENT
The first attempt was a Trinity student and fellow atheist, his crutches and cast making him an ideal candidate. David's approach was polite, almost shy, and he explained his proposal while I stood awkwardly at safe distance. The student seemed bemused but game: David prayed. Although there was no improvement in his condition the student did seem to get a kick out of the experience and left in good humour. It's rare for any faith healer to expect a constant success rate so this did not phase the group. (The most coherent defence of this position is the belief that healing is not primarily intended to remove ailments, rather its purpose is to demonstrate God's power. On this viewpoint unsuccessful attempts are not considered evidence against healing powers.)

ME
I have scars on my left cornea. When I was in primary school the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles inspired me to embed homemade nunchucks in my eye. Not my smartest moment. The scars don't bother me much but in the interest of science I submitted myself for healing as it is a complaint which is easily verifiable. Most of the group prayed for me. I admired their sincerity and desire to heal me of this trivial complaint, though I sensed it was more about hoping to show evidence for their beliefs. No joy.

I did feel their method may have inadvertently generated false positives in others. Jenny covered my eye with her hand, prayed with sincerity for some time, and then uncovered my eye and asked if my vision had changed. The scars still floated across my vision but my pupil had dilated in the minutes' darkness so the street did seem temporarily brighter, an effect that passed after a minute or two. It seems conceivable some could interpret this change as a sign of healing, especially when caught up in the excitement of the moment.

FILIPINO CATHOLIC GROUP
Leaving the atheist on Henry Street we turned to O'Connell Street and saw a group of Filipino ladies who were carrying bags indicating they were attending a Catholic conference. One was bow legged. David approached with his impeccable politeness and asked if he could pray for her healing. She accepted, said that her pain had decreased, and thanked him. They chatted. I observed (privately, to David) that her legs were quite clearly still bow legged.

I had chondromalacia patellae as a teenager. It's a Latin term, effectively meaning 'sore knees', a remarkably accurate description of my experience. The pain came, subsided, and was less noticeable when I was distracted. I can't imagine her knee problems were wildly different in that regard. I feel that either a kindly chat from a concerned stranger provided a temporary distraction from her pain, or a God who once reattached severed ears and restored withered hands chose to provide some incomplete pain relief and left the structural problem as it was.

ROMA GYPSIES
The concept of agape (genuine concern for the well-being of one's fellow humans, often translated as love) is one that comes up often in Paul's writing and in the early Christian movement. Seeing no distinction between free and enslaved, male and female, Jew and Gentile was new, baffling and subversive in Roman society. One could fairly argue that it still is today. When David stopped to talk with some Roma gypsies begging on O'Connell Bridge I was forced to confront some of my own prejudices against their community, and admire how he saw no distinction between them and other people he met.

I imagine David will consider this encounter his strongest case for healing. One chap had a head injury which (as I recall it) caused him frequent headaches. He said that faith healers had cured it twice in the past. They fetched an acquaintance who had pains in her shoulder. David's group prayed for healing and she said she felt some improvement, and moved her arm a short distance to demonstrate.

I can be a little hesitant when many people are speaking at once, and we'd walked a few steps before I managed to voice the objection that her arm movement was quite small and not strong evidence. David was kind enough to go back and politely ask if she'd be willing to move her arm more. She obliged and swung it in a complete circle with no sign of pain.

Some are probably wondering: at no point was money offered or requested during the interaction.

Should we consider this a miracle? Well, for starters we have no idea what her range of motion was before being prayed for, or if the pain restricted her in that way. Again, pain ebbs and flows, and the distraction of a kind and interested group when one is marginalised in society can provide temporary alleviation. I feel there are reasonable naturalistic explanations of the events.

WHAT WOULD PAUL DO?

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings - 1 Corinthians 9:9-23
Paul comes across as a man who knew his audience. He had knowledge of the Talmud when discussing with Jews and when he went to Greek cities he embraced the spirit of debate in the forum, at one point discussing for so long that a listener succumbed to sleep and toppled three stories to the ground. Most would have called it a night at this point, but it's said Paul raised him from the dead and continued discussing till daybreak. He became Christian because of a vision, not because of scripture or philosophy, but he was willing to adapt to the frameworks used by others and recognised the frameworks they used to determine truth.

I wonder how Paul would approach skeptics? Atheist Biblical interpretation admittedly doesn't carry much weight, but I'd suspect he'd have tried to deliver his message through a scientific framework to those who seek to understand the world through that lens. I don't feel it's unfair extrapolation to say he'd have been a proponent of double blind trials.

It feels clear to me that our current method of assessing medical claims works. Those of us fortunate to have access to modern medical care live longer, healthier and more productive lives as a result, and we have robust systems to distinguish between treatments that work (for example antibiotics) and those that do not (homoeopathy leaps to mind). The evidence based medical framework is the framework I use when evaluating claims of healing regardless of the source of the claim. I feel it would be unfair to use a harsher standard for faith healing and patronising to use a lower one.

Does David's group use this framework? I think not. I felt that throughout the encounter there was a strong tendency to focus on the times where, for whatever reason, participants said they felt a measure of improvement. The 'words of wisdom' (where they felt a message directing them to a certain person with a certain ailment) seemed especially dependant on this approach - correctly identifying a gent in a pub with a sore leg required first speaking to three others, and ignoring his numerous other medical complaints. It felt little better than guesswork, and reminded me somewhat of cold reading attempts by psychics. (To labour the point I do not believe David's group intended to deceive.)

Could a homoeopath correctly guess a person's ailment, if given unlimited attempts and a large enough audience? Undoubtedly. Will there be some instances of people feeling their condition has improved having spent time with a homoeopath who has spent time with them, expressed concern for them and suggested their treatment with help? Certainly. Does this mean homoeopathy works? Science says no.

Ultimately I did not feel the group's aim was to step back and analyse the events in a cold and detached manner. Rather, I felt they were attempting to celebrate and reinforce their own faith in a God who heals today while sharing their spirit of agape with others. I had a great time with David and his group, I'd happily meet them again, but I don't feel their claims of healing have been properly put to the test.

I'll post a link to the show's podcast after it airs - it may be some time.Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-76785387444352073172014-04-06T11:01:00.000+01:002014-04-06T19:46:23.770+01:00Preserving Ethos Argument - Does It Hold Up?
All people are equal. But some people are less equal than my #SincerelyHeldBeliefs.
— King of Iona (@KingOfIona) April 6, 2014

"...it is not discrimination for a religious employer to act against a member of staff who is undermining their ethos." - David Quinn, March 9th, 2013

Mrs Shorts and I spent an enjoyable St Patrick's week in Cork. We rented a small castle, found a semi abandoned 18th century walled garden, toured ruins and visited Fota Island. We had lunch in Ballymaloe. We toured the Jameson distillery. When I returned to work I told colleagues about the time I spent with the woman I love, showed holiday pictures, and recommended castle rental.

I can do this in Ireland because I do not have a religious employer and my sexuality is not considered a threat to anyone's sincerely held beliefs. If Mrs Shorts was a Mr and I had chosen education as a career path I would likely have required a cover story. I could have avoided any discussions with colleagues, I suppose, or pretended I had travelled alone. But renting a romantic castle for solo use is a little suspicious so I may have had to pretend I spent the week at home. Photos, naturally, would have to be kept from social media. Perhaps I could invent a partner of approved gender and spin tales to fit. It would be awkward to explain why said partner could never attend work social events, but that is a price considered appropriate to protect the delicate sincerely held beliefs of some.

All teachers, are equal. But some are more equal than others. It's perfectly legal for a school with religious character to decide not to renew the contract of a member of staff if they learn that their sexuality or gender identity is something they find distasteful. Before 1973 women could be fired for marrying men. Today women can be fired for marrying women.

How is this defended?

"For too long we've lived the equalityist lie that human rights are just for humans when we should really have been recognising that ideas are humans too. In fact some ideas, like my ideas, are even more important than humans." - King of Iona (Parody account)

Some believe that the right to be open about the person you love must play second fiddle to the beliefs of one's employers, provided said beliefs are clothed in religious garb. Given the Irish school system is in near total religious control we have a country where straight teachers are at a significant advantage when it comes to legal protection. The argument from the Iona Institute et al follows predictable course:

The majority of the country identify as Catholic

Catholics must be educated in a Catholic ethos

The Catholic Hierarchy is homophobic has sincerely held beliefs about homosexuality

Allowing those who do not fit within the narrow paradigm of approved Catholic Hierarchy views to teach openly would put religious ideas on a lower footing than human employment rights.

(4) would somehow be a bad thing

I've written on the ethos argument before. It's bunkum. (In summary, the same argument can be used for dedicated Manchester United supporter schools.) If a significant number of parents find the idea of a bisexual teacher or a teacher of colour threatening we should not give their ideas precedence over the rights of someone who has dedicated their career to educating children.

What's worse, the Iona Institute's ethos argument isn't even internally consistent. To quote from their Case for Catholic Schools:

The overriding reason for Catholic schools is, of course, to provide schools to the Catholic community that have as their aim assisting parents in passing on their faith to their children, in addition to providing an excellent all-round education.
This recognises that schools are first and foremost a response to the wishes of parents. It recognises that parents are the primary educators of their children and in this regard the State must be the servant, not the master. That is, rather than the State providing children with the education the State thinks is best for them, the State endeavours to enable parents to send their children to a school that best reflects the parents' own beliefs and ethos. [emphasis mine]
 They (wisely) do not call for special privileging of the Catholic Hierarchy's views. Instead they call for a school that best reflects "the parents' own beliefs and ethos." I find this delicious, because as anyone who has ever met an Irish Catholic will know, the Iona Institute do not reflect their views.

What would such a school look like? First we need an idea of modern Irish Catholic thought. For that we should consult the 2012 Association of Catholic Priests survey. Some findings of note:

87% of Irish Catholics want more married priests. Married Protestant priests can and do convert to Catholicism. Most Irish Catholics want marriage to be open to all priests.

77% want women to be admitted to the priesthood.

75% consider the Catholic Hierarchy's teaching on sexuality to be irrelevant to both themselves and their families.

Only 18% consider homosexuality to be immoral.

63% want laypeople and priests to have greater involvement in choosing bishops.

A school that best reflects the beliefs and ethos of Irish Catholic parents. would ignore the Catholic Hierarchy's teaching on sexuality in general. It would not consider homosexuality to be immoral. It would call for married and female priests. And it would encourage this liberal Catholic viewpoint to be given greater voice in choosing bishops that represented their ethos. And given the powers in section 37, they could refuse to hire any teacher who did not share this ethos. In short, the schools that the Iona Institute call for would also be the stuff of their night terrors.

If they're honest and consistent not even the Iona Institute want special privileging of religious belief in employment law. So let's drop it.

A favour to ask: I'd like to improve my writing. If there's anything you think I should work on (length, clarity, clichés, readability, flow) I'd be grateful if you dropped me a comment. Thanks!Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-56847147388158225362014-03-24T06:11:00.001+00:002014-04-04T07:23:24.641+01:00GAPS In Thinking - Irish Times Promoting Medically Negligent PseudoscienceSome six days ago the Irish Times allowed themselves the spectacular abandonment of judgement required to print a fluff piece supporting Dr Natasha Campbell McBride's GAPS diet, a supposed cure for autism, ADHD/ADD, dyslexia, diabetes, dyspraxia, depression and schizophrenia. Twelve hundred words of grovelling propaganda did not allow a single note of criticism or a voice of medical reason - her bizarre claims given credence through an absence of balanced reporting, fact checking and critical thought.

McBride is indeed a medical doctor. To find details of this degree we must travel to 1984 USSR, fully five years before David Hasselhoff sang to the destruction of the Berlin wall. The Soviet Union's coffers drained into both an Afghanistan conflict and an unpluggable trade gap, the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station in Chernobyl supplied 10% of the Ukraine's electricity needs and General Secretary Yuri Andropov battled endemic corruption throughout the union. Her certification comes from this time, from the Bashkir Medical University, in a country that no longer exists.

Does this necessarily make graduates bad doctors? Of course not. I merely voice caution that we cannot give such degrees automatic respect. I am not alone in this view. The qualification does not allow Campbell McBride to practice medicine in the UK or the United States, for example. It seems unwise to grant it more credence than Dr Nick Riviera's Hollywood Upstairs Medical degree.

What's The Harm?

The Financial Cost Of GAPS

I would even go further, depending on your commitment and certain circumstances, you have a good chance of bringing your child as close as possible to normality! -Dr Natasha McBride, heaping guilt on the parents of autistic children before passing them the check.

Like any good sales focused organisation, the GAPS company does not make it easy for prospective customers to gauge the full cost of its products and services. No price tags appear on http://www.shop.gapsdiet.com. You only get the bill at checkout.

For a rough estimate of cost I added one of every item they sell to a cart for a total cost of $3,404.89. (Where a product is available in multiple sizes, flavours or delivery mechanisms I added only one.) The obvious counter is that not everyone will require every product, but do bear in mind that many of these will be recurring costs, from specialised fluoride free toothpaste (a snip at $7.95), fermented vegetables (at $77 an expensive way of getting one's five a day), blended butter and cod liver oil tablets ($46.95, sounds delicious), powdered ox bile ($19.95, what kitchen would be without?), a 'biotic powder' ($63.95) and my personal favourite, an "anti-tumor, anti-parasitic, anti-viral and antiseptic" essential oil that can "destroy all tested bacteria and viruses, which simultaneously restoring balance to the body." (See fifth question on the manufacturer's site. They also claim it is "effective in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.". It is not.)

I am not sure how to categorise this home enema kit. It comes with a free half pound of coffee, but at $74.95 I presume this would not represent an economical method of getting one's evening brew.

But It's Medically Supervised
What sort of expertise can one expect when one places one's children under the care of a GAPS practitioner? How exacting is it to master this - let us indulge them - skillset? It seems little more is required than a two day training course with no mention of tests. Due to ill health (doubtless gut related) Campbell McBride does not deliver this training in person - rather it is done via video link. The cost is a mere $1,175 and includes two gut enhancing lunches. Those concerned at the prospect of spending the entire time on mastering matters of health will be relieved to hear that the course also includes a business starter module.

Can anyone apply for this exacting 18 hour course? Heavens no. One must be a 'practitioner' - a delightfully vague term that embraces homeopaths, chiropractors, nutritioniologists, naturopaths and 'other suitable GAPS related health care professionals'. The smart money will likely find favour with the idea of angel healers being welcome beneath the banner. (Edit: two of the Irish GAPS practitioners are angel healers. Read on.) They certainly support the quackery of iridology.

Blame Autism On The Mothers For Taking The Pill, Using Vaccines Or Not Breastfeeding
This interview with legendary quack Mercola gives a taste of her views on vaccination and the pill. A hint - she favours neither, and blames women who uses them for their childrens' autism.

"What I see in the families of autistic children is that 100 percent of moms of autistic children have abnormal gut flora and health problems related to that. But then I look at grandmothers on the mother's side, and I find that the grandmothers also have abnormal gut flora, but much milder."

"That usually happens in the second year of life in children who were breast fed because breastfeeding provides a protection against this abnormal gut flora. In children who were not breastfed, I see the symptoms of autism developing in the first year of life."

"And then, at the age of 15, 16, these ladies were put on a contraceptive pill… [which] [I hear that, occasionally, women have some agency in their contraceptive choices - G] have a devastating effect on the gut flora. Nowadays ladies are taking it for quite a few years before they're ready to start their family."

"...If the child has abnormal gut flora, we can assume that the child has a compromised immunity, and these children must not be vaccinated with the standard vaccination protocol because they simply get damaged by it. They should not be vaccinated."

"Our children are being used as a market for selling vaccines," Dr. Campbell says. "The children are vaccinated in our Western world, I'm afraid, not for the sake of saving the child but for the sake of making money [Do bear in mind how Campbell McBride earns her crust - G]… It's an extremely sad and worrying situation."

Is this linking of the digestive tract with autism original research? It seems she was inspired by known fraud Andrew Wakefield:

"In those cases where these children have been examined by gastroenterologists, inflammatory process in the gut was found along with faecal compaction and an over-spill syndrome. The most recent research was performed at the Royal Free Hospital in London by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his team. They found an inflammatory condition in the bowel of autistic children, which they have named Autistic Enterocolitis."
Their shared opposition to vaccination is elaborated here, where she pretends it is beneficial to experience measles, mumps and rubella, conditions that can lead to blindness, deafness and death:

"Strictly speaking the only two vaccinations that can be considered important are tetanus and polio. Other vaccinations are not essential; in fact it is better to let your child go through those childhood infections. Just make sure that your child is well nourished and he or she will sail through those infections"

Dubious Medical Advice

"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is opinion and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

The caveat above permeates Dr Campbell McBride's website, company site and PDFs, despite her claims to be able to diagnose, treat, cure, and prevent more diseases than one could reasonably expect to find in a small hospital. Surely a warning that should have been reproduced in the Irish Times piece? I've gone through a single document of hers and extracted but a sample of the buffoonery dressed up as medical advice. All answers below are by Campbell McBride. Needless to say, following any of this drivel will likely damage your health, dignity, incur the wrath of legal services and possibly have you added to some sort of government list.

Here we see a child with difficulty breathing. Rather than counsel urgent medical attention she suggests a trip to a homeopath to purchase magic water:

Q: My son has terrible dust mite allergy. He has been on GAPS for a couple of months now and has since developed swollen adenoids that interfere with his ability to breath. Is there anything I can do to help shrink the adenoids while we continue on GAPS? I am wondering if he is allergic to something he is now eating on the GAPS diet.

A: It is possible that your son's immune system is re-structuring, so the adenoids got active.
Try to put some probiotic on his tongue between meals and at bedtime to populate his mouth, throat and back of his nose with beneficial flora. Rinsing his nose with a salty solution every night will also help. And speak to an experienced homeopath about this problem.
Here she recommends parents give their three year old autistic daughter an enema:

Q: What is your opinion on the use of glycerine suppositories for children? I know you recommend enemas, but so far this has been impossible to carry out on my 3-year-old.
The glycerine suppositories do work well as she has bowel movements usually about half an hour later.

A: As an occasional remedy it is OK to use glycerine suppositories, as well as castor oil or magnesium oxide powder. But in the long run you need to work on healing the gut and removing constipation.

And now a further ugly smear of enema focused questions and answers. Note how she has folks performing enemas nightly for months. This is clearly medically unwise. See how she recommends boiling bones, adding sour cream and salt, and forcing the mixture into your child's rectum. Surely this is child abuse? Some answers omitted for both brevity and a distaste for gibberish. Feel free to seek them out in the original document if the urge takes you.

Q: If constipation persists for several months, does it mean you are doing something wrong? Is there anything you recommend in addition to enemas and juicing to help this?

Q: Since going on GAPS I have not had a bowel movement. When having enemas the water is expelled and then a bowel movement is stimulated, but it is not a formed stool - it is only mush or water mush. Is this to be expected or does it indicate something?

Q: How do we best make the transition from enemas (used every night for months) to unassisted daily relief?

Q: We've done two enemas with our child and neither has produced any enema water or stool, except for about a tablespoon of sludgy 'mud' stool. Is it dangerous for the probiotic enemas water to stay in my child's body? Is his body absorbing the water (maybe he was dehydrated?). Is it okay to continue doing more enemas when the water from the last one hasn't' come out?

Q: Are enemas made of bone broth also recommended together with probiotics?

A: Meat stock and bone broth enemas have been historically used in malnourished people, who could not eat for whatever reason. It is very soothing and nourishing for the gut lining, and a fair amount of nourishment is absorbed into the bloodstream. [This is of course bollocks - G] If your bowel is sore and irritated, bone broth enema (particularly with some sour cream added) can be very soothing. Make sure to add good quality natural salt when cooking the broth. You can also add probiotics to this enema.

Q: Why do some GAPS patients experience tooth discoloration and hair loss?
Vomiting, hair loss and tooth discolouration seems as fine a time as any to recommend a trip to a real doctor, instead Campbell McBride offers some of her finest pseudoscience:

A: Tooth discoloration and hair loss are very rare in GAPS patients, and usually happen in very toxic people, particularly people with metal toxicity. Hair and teeth are those places where the body often stores toxins in. Many things happen in the body, as the GAPS program is initiated. We don't know what happens exactly, but it is possible that the hair, full of toxins, get dropped by the body to allow new "clean" hair to grow. With teeth: I have seen autistic children who had their permanent teeth growing with black spots imbedded in them. One particular boy displayed noticeable improvements in his autism in the weeks following the removal of the black spot by the dentist. It is possible that his body had stored mercury from vaccinations or some other toxins in the growing tooth. We don't know what happens exactly, but it is likely that the detoxification initiated by the GAPS Nutritional Protocol starts shifting the toxins around, which may be the cause of tooth discoloration in the initial stages. In the long run, however, your child is likely to grow beautiful whit teeth, as I have seen in so many GAPS children.

Q: Some families report vomiting ... Can you please address this issue and how families should proceed?

A: Vomiting can be a sign of hypoglycaemia: as we cut out many carbohydrates in a person with an overgrowth of yeast, it is easy for the blood sugar to drop too low. In that case give your child some apple or orange juice and see if it helps.
Those who have survived skin cancer will be delighted to see the following snippets:

"Sunbathing is essential for all of us, but for GAPS patients it is particularly important...
I do not recommend using any chemical sunscreens, as most of them are toxic."
This, sadly, seems the sort of 'medical' information the Irish Times is willing to uncritically promote. I trust this lapse in judgement will not be repeated.

A list of those who have
completed the gruelling 18 hour
GAPS course.

Addendum: You may wonder what form of moral abandonment would cause someone to use the hopes and fears of vulnerable parents to flog a bogus product. It may seem to you impossible that there are people willing to have autistic children subjected to unnecessary and amateurish nightly enemas for their own personal gain, or that damaging lies about vaccines are peddled as marketing tactic. What sort of person does this?

Predictably enough, The Girl Against Fluoride is a student of Campbell McBride. She and her campaign's creative manager (Martha Brassil) are also registered practitioners.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-32112533683143502002014-01-19T19:34:00.002+00:002014-01-20T06:44:16.271+00:00Iona Institute, Putin, the Definition of Homophobia
Many of you are doubtless aware of accusations of homophobia against members of the Iona Institute and John Waters. You no doubt share my confusion and befuddlement at such a complex area, and are as relieved as I am to see that the matter has now been passed to the appropriate legal teams.

Our brains perhaps not being large enough to correctly interpret the term homophobia, perhaps we can instead contrast views of the Iona Institute with those of Vladimir Putin. First, I present their views on children having access to positive LGBTQ role models.

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children!

""We do not have a ban on non-traditional sexual relationships... [w]e have a ban on the propaganda of homosexuality... I want to underline this. Propaganda among children. These are absolutely different things – a ban on something or a ban on the propaganda of that thing." -Vladimir Putin

We can contrast this with the Iona Institute's campaigning in favour of Section 37, which permits religious organisations to discriminate against visible members of the LGBTQ community in matters of employment.

"Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act is frequently the target of criticism on the grounds that it permits religious employers to 'discriminate' against certain categories of persons, for example, those who are openly gay or lesbian.... We further believe that any withdrawal of this protection is both unconstitutional and an attack on the right of free profession and practice of religion.
In effect, this [granting LGBTQ citizens equal employment rights] would discriminate against the beliefs of parents and the ethos of the relevant religious organisation." - Iona Institute
 While obviously not making a decision on whether either are homophobic, we can say with some certainty that they have a strong preference for restricting openly LGBTQ folks from working with children.

Same Sex Parents

Putin recently signed a law banning the adoption of Russian orphans by same sex couples. He did this to obviate the risk of "dictated non-traditional sexual behaviour" and avoid "distresses of soul and stresses, which according to psychologists' research, are often experienced by children raised by same-sex parents".

Naturally, the "psychologists' research" mentioned is balderdash. Putin's administration has wilfully misrepresented scientific research to smear same sex parents in the hopes of lending some legitimacy to whatever motivates their opposition. (Sadly we do not have the resources required to divine if the motivation is homophobia.)

I cast my mind back to see if I could recall any member of the Iona Institute giving voice to concerns re same sex parents, and learn with surprise that they have done so on a number of occasions. In fact this quicksand forms the bedrock of their opposition to marriage equality.

"We show that demands for same-sex marriage inevitably cause us to lose sight of the ideal of having a loving mother and father and of the importance of the natural ties between parent and child...
The social sciences confirm what every known society in the world has known instinctively, namely that marriage between a man and a woman is uniquely beneficial to society and to children.
...to repeat the point made above, the institution of marriage between a man and a woman has special standing because it is uniquely beneficial to children, all other things being equal...
Some of these consequences have already unfolded in other countries even before the introduction of same-sex marriage...
For example, in Britain Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close because they do not believe in adoption by same-sex couples." - Iona Institute

The Iona Institute find common ground with Putin once more in the field of misrepresentation of scientific research, a theme thoroughly explored by fellow blogger Humanisticas, and in the Irish Times by Dr David Robert Grimes, and Senator David Norris in the Seanad.

I end this post as perplexed as I started. What is homophobia? Could it be a deeply held worry that LGBTQ folks may someday freely live, work, and raise children without hiding their romantic or gender identities? Obviously I can't answer this question for legal reasons. But I'll happily say that the Iona Institute are not more homophobic than Vladimir Putin.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-83587161076201081512014-01-19T16:04:00.002+00:002014-01-19T16:05:49.308+00:00#TeamPanti - some images made from Twitter followersSome images based on @PantiBliss's Twitter followers.

First I took all her Twitter followers, pulled their Twitter biographies, and ran them through www.wordle.net to make a word cloud. The more commonly a word was used, the larger it appears:

Secondly I downloaded all her profile pictures and rearranged some of them to form a mosaic image. 1,699 images were used. Want to find yourself? search for your username, you'll find one or more grid references to the right. The top left hand corner is 0,0, the bottom right hand corner is 70,70. Click if you'd like to see a larger image.

Enjoy.

0xMW	25x11 48x39 50x51

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AlexAnsonia	45x25 3x34 5x34

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Anton_S1	44x15 10x59 25x61

AnusiaGrennell	8x24 21x53 25x56

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Aoifeschatology	39x51 36x54 44x60

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Archidemus	22x1 19x3 35x27

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OMelia_C	22x3 8x28 36x41

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OpenStageDublin	60x3 66x41 69x50

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OrnyD	35x23 38x43 29x44

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OskarEriksson	56x66 29x67 42x70

Out2Tennis	33x15 28x28 41x34

OutsideInIRE	14x1 5x3

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PERRO29071974	42x17 39x48 35x60

PJMCopeland	9x23 39x25 33x36

PRIDEmainstage	15x7 17x7 15x12

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PaperDolls_IRE	67x9 67x17 67x22

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PatrickEnright	39x44 40x54 28x58

PatrickShanny	7x4 3x6 2x49

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PaulKinsella1	20x61 21x63 31x70

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Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-53593409669921210512013-12-21T11:13:00.000+00:002014-01-23T06:39:30.802+00:00Fluoride Girl's Creative Manager Links Homosexuality and the PillI recently had the pleasure of taking part in an episode of the 4FM Late Show with Niall Boylan. I commend Boylan for putting the show together so quickly - it seemed as soon as he was aware of campaigners against vaccination he was eager to see their views put to the test. He has done a public service in showing the anti vaccine arguments to be the nonsense that they are. Aisling FitzGibbon, aka The Girl Against Fluoride, was offered a slot to defend her opposition to vaccines, but given the short notice she was unavailable so offered her creative manager and writer as an alternative spokesperson. Her name is Martha Brassil, she is also FitzGibbon's mother.

The call in contributions on the night were excellent and included a mother speaking of her regret at not vaccinating. Her son nearly lost his eyesight. A physiotherapist from Cork told of her experiences working with polio survivors. The vaccine opponents were not as impressive. I won't make you prejudge - the podcast should be available in early January.

Boylan was kind enough to make a small segment available on Soundcloud. During the show we touched on Brassil's beliefs in angel healing and her endorsement of Barbara Wren, a woman caught by the BBC pretending to cure cancer with urine and castor oil. (More on both here.) What raised the most eyebrows was her baffling linking of homosexuality and birth control. It is this segment which Boylan has released early, and I offer a transcription below.

Addendum: the full podcast is now available.

I trust Brassil's claim does not need further debunking. Suffice it to say that the ancient Greeks were not famed for their use of either contraception or plastic.

Segment opens: Niall Boylan on Classic Hits 4fm.
Niall Boylan: Padraig says in a tweet here he says I wonder could you possibly ask Aisling's mother about her claims in the paper that the pill turned people gay. Okay so maybe you could clarify that Martha. What did you actually say.
Martha Brassil: I didn't I spoke that I spoke to a researcher this was many, many moons ago, about, she asked me after my divorce I was interested in meeting other guys and the type of person I would be interested in meeting and I said I wasn't interested in meeting guys that were quite effeminate. And what they're doing now is they're taking this out of context and putting it, trying to put it in to in to this thing with vaccines and... [trails off]
Niall Boylan: Okay so you don't believe - hang on for a second Geoff - so you're telling me you don't believe that the pill, eh, turns people gay or anything like that there's...
Martha Brassil: Not per se, no
Niall Boylan: Not per se.
Martha Brassil: No because the pill reduces zinc levels in the mother, and that, that can be a predisposition factor, for em, children to be em -
Niall Boylan: Homosexual
Martha Brassil: more susceptible to, no, More susceptible to
Niall Boylan: So, so you are actually saying that the pill then increases the chance of becoming homosexual. Of a child being homosexual.
Martha Brassil: No you can't...
Niall Boylan: Well but no that's what you're saying! You're saying that the pill increases zinc levels which in turn the child would be more susceptible to being homosexual. So you -
Martha Brassil: No, no I'm not saying that. You're trying to put words into my mouth.
Niall Boylan: I'm not! I'm just repeating what you just said.
Martha Brassil: You aren't.
Niall Boylan: Okay well I'm just repeating what you just said Martha.
Martha Brassil: I'm saying that the pill reduces zinc levels...
Niall Boylan: Yes
Martha Brassil: Low zinc levels in a mother can predispose the mother to having a child who has homosexuality.
Niall Boylan: Is that not what I just said?
Me: Who has homosexuality? Do you think it's a disease?
Martha Brassil: But this is, it's like it would be in combination with other factors you've got this high oestrogen factor from plastics this high plastic levels in our environment which mimics oestrogen
Niall Boylan: So you're saying it's a factor.
Martha Brassil: mimics hormones
Niall Boylan: Okay so you're saying it's a factor.
Martha Brassil: A factor yeah, but I'm not saying total cause.
Niall Boylan: But even to say that with absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever - it's a kind of outrageous claim, Martha, do you not believe.
Martha Brassil: I don't think it's outrageous no because I have read -
Niall Boylan: Okay
Martha Brassil: I have read reports from other doctors who have done quite a lot of work...
[segment ends] Niall Boylan on Classic Hits 4fm

Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-66116178505950022372013-12-16T06:22:00.002+00:002013-12-16T06:22:50.217+00:00Irish Nationalist Brotherhood Embraces MulticulturalismI have little doubt that I will almost immediately regret the decision to invest energy writing about the Irish Nationalist Brotherhood. I am mortal, my time on this earth is finite, and life brims with much greater pleasures than looking at the Twitter account of a rather depressing group that could easily hold its AGM in a large taxi.

That said, this seems to fall neatly into my area. These half dozen racists remind me of a puffer fish or scared little kitty - lacking any real substance or mass, they've found an - let's be charitable - almost intelligent way of appearing to be larger and more intimidating than reality would allow.

Over a thousand racists following their account seems to give them a warm, fuzzy feeling, the implication being that 0.0002% of the population share their views. It enables them to send vaguely threatening tweets like this:

But how have they achieved such numbers?

Multiculturalism.

They have opened up their borders and accepted any and all comers. They just can't get enough of foreign folks.

Every Twitter account contains a location tag. When you set up your account you type in where you're from. I pulled this information from all their followers and put it into a word cloud. Words that are larger are the words most frequently used:

Those most concerned with keeping Ireland white and pure seem to hail mainly from South Africa and the USA. Only 18 list Dublin as a timezone, and they're mostly radio stations and charities that automatically follow back.

This is the point where I normally write a witty summary and closing. I'm sorry to disappoint - they're really not worth my time.
Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-70984191147784717482013-11-25T23:25:00.000+00:002014-04-08T06:21:33.572+01:00Girl Against Fluoride - Vaccine Opposition, Homophobia and Homeopathy
In an earlier blog post I discussed how Aisling FitzGibbon, better known as the bikini clad Girl Against Fluoride, has been asked by a UK nutritionist bring legal challenge against the Irish state for fluoridating water. She's paid hundreds of Euro to receive a printed certificate that enables her to communicate with angels and redirect their rays into people and their pets. A further investment is moving her towards another printed certificate, this time in the unregulated and dubious field of nutrition. The course is ultimately run by Barbara Wren, a woman caught on camera by the BBC claiming to have cured cancer using urine and castor oil. If time allows, do give it a read. If not fret not - there's more than enough preposterous nonsense about the campaign for this post to stand on its own.

Some of you may be wondering why I care. I am, after all, relatively well paid and fluoridation is something that primarily benefits the disadvantaged. While I support the continued fluoridation of our water I feel the problem presented by FitzGibbon et al is a more fundamental one: Angel healers should not get equal time with scientists in matters of scientific debate. Politicians should not unquestioningly accept as accurate information given to them by people who endorse peddlers of fake cancer cures. A willingness to take one's clothes off should not give one the loudest voice in public debate.

Girl Against Fluoride is Also Against Vaccines

"My mum had measles and is alive and well. According to the Chinese childhood illnesses is the body's way of releasing the inherited toxicity of the parents. I was not vaccinated , nor were the children from the Royal family in the UK." - Aisling FitzGibbon in The Journal

When asked why FitzGibbon focuses on
banning fluoridation but not banning vaccines,
her worrying reply was "one step at a time"

I've had both testicles outside my body and have no resulting health issues. This does not make it a course of action I suggest you follow. That Martha Brassil (FitzGibbon's mother - we'll come back to her) survived this dangerous and sometimes deadly disease does not render it unimportant. 'The Chinese' vaccinate, and that Prince Charles in a royal woo merchant who favours homeopathy and talking to plants does not render his ideas more tenable.

Not far from where I grew up lies a school for the deaf blind. Many of their adult clients, profoundly deaf and without sight, find themselves there because of Rubella. The last major Rubella outbreak in the States resulted in 25,000 babies born with developmental delay, deafness, blindness, heart defects or some combination of the four. 1% of all births in New York were affected by congenital rubella syndrome. FitzGibbon would take us back to those days, and a more focused campaign against childhood vaccination may very well be next on her list.

"You can't, she suggests, be too careful about what you put into your body. Aisling didn't get the usual baby vaccinations but was given drops at Manchester's homeopathic [makey uppy pretend medicine, proven not to work -GS] hospital and was landed into houses where they had measles in the hope that she would catch them and build up her immunity naturally [or die -GS]. (Despite the public health campaign, Brassil insists that diseases such as measles were killers years ago because people were malnourished and had poor living conditions.)" Interview with FitzGerald's mother, Martha Brassil, Independent.ie. Comments in [brackets] mine.
 It seems FitzGibbon's opposition to lifesaving medicine does not represent a break from prior generations. I would not normally raise the views of someone's parent in a blog post but it seems reasonable when we see that Brassil is Girl Against Fluoride's campaign's Creative Manager and Writer. Added to this we see that mother and daughter's names linked to a campaign supporting disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield, who falsified research to pretend there is a link between vaccination and autism. He was found to be dishonest, fraudulent, and to have subjected developmentally delayed children to unnecessary invasive procedures such as lumbar punctures and colonoscopies. You can find FitzGerald and Brassil's support for Wakefield indicated on www.wesupportandywakefield.com. You can read more of Brassil's odd ideas about vaccines, including an echoing of the 'Chinese' view of illness, on an archived copy of her old site.

"The man is not fulfilling his role of feeling like a powerful male in his own right..."

Spartans. Liked having sex with each other. Predate the pill.

If Brassil and FitzGibbon did not have such access to and influence over Irish politicians their views would be seen as merely comical. But they have convinced many TDs and some Senators that they should be trusted as sources of information.

Take Brassil on homosexuality:

""The men, in order to be accepted, have to be like these little effeminate do-gooders and I think they're living a lie. They're disconnected from their own nature. Not to say that they've got to be these macho people, but they've gone from one extreme to the other. I wouldn't be attracted to these effeminate types.''

This reminds her of research suggesting a link between male homosexuality and the men's mothers' use of the contraceptive pill." Interview with FitzGerald's mother, Martha Brassil, Independent.ie

I struggle to decide which error is greatest or in need of most immediate correction. To fully address the manifest errors we must travel back to ancient Greece, and test Brassil's hypothesis that men first found men sexually attractive some time after the invention of the Pill in the 1960's. We find much evidence to the contrary. What I find most offensive about her blathering is the concept that only fancying the opposite gender is normal, and anything else is a disease or aberration. This is not true - humanity has a natural diversity of sexuality. Men who exclusively fancy women are in no way the one true and correct expression of masculinity.

A close second on the list is equivocating between gay and effeminate. Neither are negatives, but it just plain ain't true to say they're the same thing. If I meet her criteria for effeminate I greet with relief the news that she finds me unattractive. And if I don't meet her criteria, I'll try harder. You might be interested in a radio discussion I had with Brassil where she repeated this daft claim.

Cancer
As I mentioned in my last post on the topic, FitzGibbon was inspired to start her crusade against fluoridation by Barbara Wren, who pretends to have cured cancer using a combination of urine and castor oil.

What are Brassil's thoughts on pursuing real medicine? We see from her page on TheGirlAgainstFluoride.com that "[s]he wants health care to move away from allopathic conventional medicine to a natural form of healing that addresses nutritional deficiencies, underlying toxicity and emotional blockages." She holds the same angel healing certificate as her daughter. It's important to note that allopathic is a makey uppy word used by homeopaths when they're referring to real medicine. It's rather disconcerting to think that, should she have her way, broken legs would be treated by woo merchants seeking out emotional blockages. She doesn't even make a vague pretence of interest in working with real doctors, presumably favouring her certified ability to redirect healing angel rays for all ailments. We can learn more of her views on treating cancer from the Independent interview:

"What if Brassil was diagnosed with cancer herself?
She doesn't hesitate: ``I'd go this path. Definitely. I wouldn't even think.''
Completely rejecting, say,chemotherapy?
``I would go along my own path. At the end of the day I think it's unwise for people to say: `There's no way I'd do that.' But I couldn't see it myself because I feel I know my own body.''
And what if someone came to her wanting treatment?
``I would treat them. I couldn't say I'm treating the cancer because that's against the law as such, d'you know what I mean? I have treated people who I haven't met until after they've had the cancers and they've come to me and they've been on that drug Tamoxifen which can have a desperate effect on their lives. Once they're on that drug you can't actually treat them because it's so suppressive. So they have come off the Tamoxifen and they're fine. Perfect. Because a lot of cancer at the end of the day is diet.''"
How much influence do you feel these two should have in public health debates? How comfortable are you knowing that TDs lend them uncritical ears? Please let me know in the comments below.

[addendum: I've been asked which TDs and senators. I'll try and get a complete list later today, but for now, see David Norris, Brian Stanley and Thomas Pringle on their supporters' page. Also see Luke 'Ming' Flanagan participating in their protests - thankfully fully clothed.]

[Further addendum: Brassil and FitzGerald are now selling a fake cure for autism. Perhaps most bizarre is its recommendation to 'feed' vulnerable children by pumping bone broth with salt and sour cream into their rectum.]Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-58024135646049928782013-11-18T23:34:00.002+00:002014-04-01T20:44:57.978+01:00Girl Against Fluoride: An F minus For Effort

Fluoride is great. Can't get enough of the stuff. I strongly support its continued addition to the Irish water supply. But that's the stuff of another blog post. For now I'd like a quick look at its most vocal opponent, Aisling FitzGibbon, perhaps better known as the Girl Against Fluoride. She's gained attention from the Sunday World, The Journal, Hot Press, and seems to have earned the ear of politicians such as Thomas Pringle, Brian Stanley and (I note with sadness) Senator David Norris. Her main approach to publicity seems best captured by the Google image search result to the right of this text.

"By focusing on optimizing your 12-Strand DNA, this class will open your energetic pathways to manifestation and support you in living the life that you are destined to live."

I was curious as to why she so vehemently opposed this safe and long-standing improvement to the dental health of the Irish nation so I travelled to her about page, where I read that FitzGibbon is a qualified "Master Integrated Energy Therapist". Thinking perhaps that this might indicate some talent as an electrician I read further. It seems not. Rather, FitzGibbon chose to invest 685 Euro - of presumably her own money - on a weekend course that promises the following:

"Beyond your vision for yourself in the world is the angels' even greater and grander vision for you in the world...

You will ... receive the IET Master-Instructor attunement and learn and use the IET Master-Instructor 12-Strand DNA techniques designed to open your channels of manifestation and clear your resistance to manifesting your reach and bringing your dreams alive in the world. You will learn to use sacred geometry to harness the IET rays for the 12-Strand alignment technique, the IET powerburst technique, the I-Chi technique, the Karma Clearing technique, and more.

You will learn how to use sacred geometry to give Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced level IET attunements. Then, in support of your living your reach, you will receive 6 Basic, 6 Intermediate, and 6 Advanced re-attunements designed to open and strengthen your channels of manifestation."
They are perhaps to be congratulated for squeezing so much into a 15.5 hour event.

Some other choice quotes from the site:

"Stevan has been channeling messages from Angel Ariel in which the angels have been requesting our help. The angels are requesting that the IET community work directly with them to introduce a special infusion of angelic energy designed to bring about a much higher level of peace, harmony, and love in our lives and in the lives of people worldwide. This angelic energy will help to clear resistance to love that are creating global warming, civil wars, and unrest worldwide." - World Angel Grid

"The cellular memory in animals is in some ways similar to that of human beings, but is in many ways different. This class explores the soul's mission of these three types of pets (through information channeled from Angel Ariel), details their nine cellular memory areas, their IET integration points, and the complete step-by-step session procedures. Only IET Master-Instructors are authorized to teach this class." - IET for pets
Are you in search of a suitably qualified IET master instructor? Perhaps concerned that FitzGibbon might not yet have attained the qualification required to speak of cellular memory of cats? You are welcome to verify her status as a qualified master instructor through their instructor search engine. One must presume it is powered by chi enhanced angels.

The volume of available material is so abundant, and the choice of preposterous quotes so dauntingly large, that I regret I must move on from http://www.integratedenergytherapy.net/. But the next time you feel a little low I suggest you console yourself with perusal of its pages and reassure yourself that you have never chosen it wise to sign up for four courses in angel healing. (The master IET 'qualification' is only available to those who have parted with cash for three required prior courses.)

"A Dietitian is to a Nutritionist what a Dentist is to a Toothiologist" - Dara O'Briain

Next we learn that FitzGibbon is "...currently training as a Nutritional Therapist with The College of Natural Nutrition". Curious as to what this involves I checked the College of Natural Nutrition's site, and the closest match I could find was a Nutritional Adviser. Some quotes on the exacting requirements to gain this particular qualification, which is presumably at least indicative of this establishment's standards:

"This course when studied together with the Cellular Awakening Correspondence Course, the Anatomy & Physiology Course and the 10 Hour Clinical Study Course leads to a full Nutritional Advisor Qualification.
This course is supplied in written booklet form which will be sent to your email address upon application.
Certificate of Completion in Nutrition is given on completion of this module.
This certificate makes up part of the full diploma: "The Diploma in
Cellular Awakening "
The cost of the Nutrition Course is £150."
The Cellular Awakening course is pricier, costing £500, and again the certificate is merely for completion. Anatomy and Physiology will cost another £150 to have the relevant booklet e-mailed, the first and perhaps only step on the way to a completion certificate. The 10 hour Clinical Study Course seems a snip at £100, and enables you to have an instructor help you "delve into complex scenarios and how best to deal with them using your cellular awakening knowledge".

On first reading this seemed the sort of harmless diversion entered upon by folks destined to stock shelves in health food stores, advising everyone that the human condition is fundamentally incompatible with the consumption of wheat. But then I looked a little further into the College of Natural Nutrition. The college (in fact an industrial building) bestowed a nutritional degree on Barbara Nash, who later settled with a former client to the tune of 800,000. The client suffered serious brain damage after being advised to drink six pints of water a day and cut salt. The principal, Barbara Wren, has claimed to be able to cure thyroid cancer through a combination of castor oil and urine. She has also advised her students to recommend dangerously massive doses of iodine.

To compound matters, this huckster seems to be both genesis and inspiration of FitzGibbon's campaign. Read this interview for more, but a key paragraph:

"I ended up having a consultation with a nutritionist called Barbara Wren in the UK. One of the first things Barbara said to me was "are you aware that your water is fluoridated"? ... I [came?] off l medication and consumed only fluoride free water ... different detox techniques such as coffee enemas... I did some fund-raising to bring Barbara over to give seminars on natural healing in my home town of Tralee, Co.Kerry. When I brought Barbara back to the airport she said to me "if you do one thing for Ireland, get the fluoride out of the water". "

"Okay, so you kill the odd patient with cancer or heart disease. Or bronchitis, flu, chicken pox or measles. But, when someone comes in with a vague sense of unease, or a touch of the nerves, or even just more money than sense, you'll be there for them. Bottle of basically just water in one hand, and a huge invoice in the other." - Mitchell and Webb on Homeopathy

FitzGibbon has not, to my knowledge, endorsed the practice of homeopathy. But she follows an awful lot of homeopaths on Twitter. 43 in fact. A sample homeopath to the right, followed by FitzGibbon, endorses dangerous nonsense about replacing proven vaccines with basically just water. This belief kills children. Another believes their water capable of treating autism. I'll close off this blog post with the Twitter biographies of every homeopath FitzGibbon has chosen to follow. Now again, FitzGibbon has not publicly denied or endorsed homeopathy: it's not impossible that she shares the scientific consensus that the field is bunkum yet chooses to follow the better part of four dozen homeopathy Twitter accounts.

I merely note it as odd that one who seeks to change the standards whereby we prepare water for human consumption would put herself in a position where someone might reasonably think she endorses a crackpot idea that so profoundly and manifestly misunderstands the basic operation of water.

Unless, of course, homeopathy's mechanism can be explained by focused angel energies.

[addendum - in a followup blog post I detail how FitzGibbon's mother and fellow campaign member opposes vaccines and endorses homeopathy as an alternative. FitzGibbon voices her support for this. The campaign's creative manager thinks that homosexuality is something caused by contraception. FitzGibbon also studies under a nutritioniologist who recommends parents attempt to feed their autistic children via their rectum, a procedure FitzGibbon has attended a two day course to receive an unregulated qualification to perform.]

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"Renown homeopath, lecturer and writer on natural medicine, food as medicine, award-winning screenwriter. Editor: Simillimum: Journal of Homeo Assoc Naturopaths." - WellnessHeal
"Homeopathic Stories: a system for learning the Materia Medica which is simple, fun, stress-free and most importantly memorable." - StudyHomeopathy
"Homeopathic research whether it be good, bad, indifferent, positive, negative or neutral. PUBMED, Cochrane, Google Scholar, NICE and Homeopathic Society News." - HofHomeopathy
"I help people boost fertility & plan happy, healthy babies with an established natural health programme. Fertility Coach, Foresight Practitioner, Homeopath." - KathyPFertility
"Homeopathy Ireland Centre is a centre that will treat individuals using homeopathic medicine. Specialising in Autism, ADHD and Asthma" - homeopathyire
"Poorly? Sick? Tired? Fed up? I have 20 years experience in helping people get back to optimum health using homeopathy and nutritional healing. Get in touch." - DawnHomeopath
"No. 1 Homeopathic Software in India and the Software having the World's Largest Homeopathic Database. Giving all that you need... and much more!" - MindTech1
"Good health with Homeopathy" - ilovehomeopathy
"Travelling Homeopaths Collective provides mobile Homeopathic Clinics to treat people & promote Homeopathy at festis etc. We're all vols. Current tweeter Jane C." - THChomeopaths
"MA,PhD. MBA(marketing consultant), PGDHA(Hospital Admn) Certificate Medical Tourism, Homeopath, social worker," - rcmishraguna
"Homeopath, homeopathy, healing arts, bioenergy, physics, pre-clinical research, homeoprophylaxis, psychiatry, poetry, haiku, motorcycles, spirituality" - JBennethJournal
"Simo Benkirane, Founder of Natural Homeopathic Health. Pharmacist, Certified Homeopath, Naturopath, Orthomolecular Nutritionist and Bach Flower Practitioner." - SimoHomeopath
"Homeopath, Breathworker, Meditator, Nutritionist, Activist, Earthkeeper, Lover, Daughter, Sister, Writer, Dancer, Traveller, Mystic & Voyager in Consciousness." - AyarunaHealing
"Homeopathy has been in my family since over 35 years. Improving lives everyday is what we do." - HomeopathyCure
"Homeopathic Practitioner with a never ending passion for learning more about the world we live in" - 360Homeopathy
"Homeopath, Acupressure therapist, Engineer and MBA. London, United Kingdom" - MaqboolMasi
"At the Healthy Homeopathy Clinic we offer homeopathic support for your emotional and physical symptoms" - HealthHomeopath
"Homeopathy student based in Chelsea London taking patients for case studies. Low cost clinic based on Fulham Road." - ChelseaHomeopat
"I am Dr. Pradyumna Kumar Upadhyay Homeopathic Physician practising at Ramnagar, West Champaran, Bihar.specially working on chronic and coplicated cases." - ShivamHomeoCare
"Kinesiologist, Homeopath, Osteopath, holistic therapy" - Homeogenium
"Egyptian living in Devon, England (possibly the only one) visual artist, mother, homeopath, ex engineer" - nevegypt
"Professional homeopath; promoter of all things simple and sustainable, http://t.co/sU7FBvozTZ" - liamscollan
"World Class Leaders in homeopathy Treatment First Constitutional Homeopathy Clinic" - homeocareint
"I'm a Classical Homeopath!" - Mchomeopath
"The Coaching Homeopath - helping women all over the world be the best they can be - physically, mentally, emotionally." - SarahMDavison
"Homeopathy medical practitioner and consultant." - 22venkateshN
"Donny Rovers fan and homeopath" - ChrisWilki
"Passionate about homeopathy, natural feeding and holistic treatment of animals. based in the Var region, Provence, France. 0033 643355125" - Laforcevitale
"The animalmundi academy and institute are the first address if you are interested in animal-homeopathy and animal-psychology in german speaking countries" - animalmundi
"Husband, Father, Surfer, Homeopath, Computer Scientist, FX Trader, busy... :)" - Patrick_Hogarty
"a homeopathic consultant settled at Goa.Working as a lecturer in Kamaxidevi Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Goa,India" - barik_suresh

To those who have read all the above I feel some bonus woo is earned. Below, FitzGibbon shares her thoughts on WiFi:

Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-7426333851276695602013-09-06T02:42:00.000+01:002013-09-06T06:29:08.487+01:00On Discussing IslamYesterday I sent the following two tweets:

If you're a Muslim who spends time online threatening Ahmadiyya Muslims, know that you aren't giving a favourable impression of Islam.
— Geoff Shorts (@geoffsshorts) September 5, 2013

If you're an Ahmadiyya Muslim who responds to frequent online threats with dignity and composure, know that you represent Islam well. (2/2)
— Geoff Shorts (@geoffsshorts) September 5, 2013
They got 41 retweets and 21 favourites from my Muslim friends and followers, and I found some really interesting new people to follow as a result. That said, I did come in for a bit of flack from my non Muslim followers for these comments, and I felt a blog post was the best format to try to best address the criticisms raised. If I offended you, please take the hour this blog was posted as a symbol of my genuine desire to understand your position and better communicate mine. I'll group the tweets by what I feel was their focus and do my best to summarise the point - I don't think there's much to be gained by adding the authors, but if you'd prefer your tweet credited do let me know and I'll be happy to add it.

Naturally, I welcome comments and discussion below.

Criticism 1: It would be inappropriate to compliment a feminist on maintaining composure and dignity when threatened as this suggests someone who loses composure or displays anger is less of a feminist.
Tweets:

""Feminists who handle threats with grace instead of anger represent feminism well." Sound problematic? Because it does to me. I don't handle threats with grace nor do I think I should be expected to. Nor do I think that my lack of patience with those who threaten me makes either women or feminists look back. [bad?] I'd be v uncomfortable to be told I was a 'credit' to feminism/women because I handled something without anger."
What can I say? I agree. I don't think less of Caroline Criado-Perez for swearing at people after months of death and rape threats. I just don't feel it's a particularly apt comparison. The Ahmadi Muslims represent a reformist movement within Islam that, for over a century, has embodied their motto of "Love For All Hatred For None". It would be wrong to call them pacifists - many in their community have distinguished themselves in their countries' militaries - but nonretaliation is at the core of their beliefs. When a spiritual leader was stabbed in the neck while at prayer in his mosque, his final instruction before losing consciousness was that the assassin not be harmed. The attacker was jailed, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim community voluntarily paid a stipend to to the wife and children of the would be killer rather than see them destitute.

An attack in Lahore (again in mosques and again during prayer) resulted in the deaths of ninety Ahmadi Muslims. The police - repeatedly and convincingly accused of anti Ahmadi Muslim bias - arrived long after local media and only intervened two and a half hours after the attacks had commenced. By this time the terrorist's automatic weapons were empty, grenades thrown, and suicide vests detonated. All but one. A child - more man than me though yet too young to hold the title - succeeded in knocking an attacker to the ground. Others helped restrain him and Pakistani police acknowledge that this was the first instance of a suicide bomber being captured alive.

There were no riots. There was no civil disobedience. They mourned and buried their dead according to their beliefs and issued the following statement:

"The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat is a peace loving true Muslim Jamaat. Thus there will be no improper reaction from any Ahmadi. Our salvation lies in our supplication to God Almighty and we believe that He has, and always will, help us".
In yet another mosque massacre (there are, sadly, far too many examples to cover here) the sole protest taken was to donate every penny of government compensation to earthquake relief efforts.

I'll now show a selection of threats and insults I've observed directed to Ahmadiyya Muslims today. To avoid confusion: these are unrelated to my tweets noted above and did not come from anyone who engaged me in discussion on this point.

Qadianism [derogatory term for Ahhmadiyya Muslims] & satanism are two different names of a same shit
Qadiani pigs deserve to be hanged till their smelly bodies start swelling
Sisy you people hiding in US , why dnt you come back to pakistan , and talk all shit ,scary cat
and you will be slaughtered come and claim the same in Saudia , if your on huq Allah will help u
Stop playing the victim card. History says well why the majority Muslim community curse your breed
Brother these rotten mind qadianis r jst waitng to die in toilet lyk mirza [Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the sect]
In every instance the Ahmadi Muslim response has been stupefyingly polite, restrained, and showed genuine interest in dialogue with some rather crude attackers.

I do not present this as the only way to interact, nor do I claim that it is ideal. I just say that this approach is a cornerstone of the Ahmadiyya Muslim's faith and in my tweet I wished to acknowledge that they have succeeded admirably in embodying it.

Feminism does not have this driving force. (I do not intend that statement as a criticism.) It is in no way incoherent to be an angry feminist, a confrontational feminist, or even a feminist who does not want to discuss feminism with non feminists. I accept that my statement about Ahmadi Muslims would not work if applied to feminists, but again I suggest the comparison is not apt.

Words used by Ahmadi Muslims to describe themselves on Twitter

Criticism 2: It would be inappropriate to compliment a member of the LGBTQI community on maintaining composure and dignity when threatened as this suggests someone who loses composure or displays anger is somehow less properly a member of that community.
Tweets:

"Yes. I've been told I represent my gender/sexuality well, many times. I am not 3bill people. A Muslim isn't 1bill people. It's the dif between kudos to a straight person for not being an ass, & telling a queer person they're a credit to their orientation. Doesn't exist in a vacuum, y'know?"
There's quite a bit of what I feel to be useful background knowledge in my response to criticism 1 - if you skipped ahead to this one I'd be grateful if you scroll back up and read through.

Again, I agree. I'd go further - a feminist who feels the world is fine and doesn't need changing would seem to hold an incoherent position. But no criticism of someone's mode of activism - or indeed desire for activism - can exclude them from the LGBTQI community. It would be ridiculous to consider someone less bi, for example, because they did not campaign for marriage equality. An Ahmadi Muslim, on the other hand, has committed to a life of love for all and hatred for none. I recognise that it is a goal that they have chosen for themselves freely. In my experience of discussions with people of faith I've found complimenting those who clearly strive to live up to the tenets of their religion is considered respectful and welcomed. It was not intended as a criticism of other groups that do not have such a principle. (I do not intend that as a criticism of groups that do not share the principle in question.)

Criticism 3: You're generalising (or enabling generalisations) about Muslims

that tweet is an example of the following fallacy: http://xkcd.com/385/
 To folk who *would* judge a whole faith, culture, political tendency by the behaviour of *some* members... I guess...
Or that any one person's behaviour is responsible for the Western world's view of them.
Is the thing to address then not the fact of this 'impression'??? The problem here is with the basic premise that there is such a thing as an impression of a vast, diverse group. Since there shouldn't be. we should stop doing that.
Is "representing" their purpose? And whether it is or isn't would a thinking person hold them to such a purpose?

I feel I generalised about Muslims who make death threats against Ahmadi Muslims. The generalisation I make is that they will likely leave people with a bad impression of Islam. The reason I have a generally good impression of Muslims is because I've done my best to get to know Muslims and read more about their faith. (For those interested, I've written about reading a translation of the Qur'an and being impressed at how Irish Muslims responded to a physical attack.) There's a discussion to be had about whether we should be actively discouraging people from forming impressions of cultures and groups based on limited interaction with some members. Personally, I am against such a move. If you have a fairly homogeneous Irish Catholic upbringing and get to know a Muslim - any Muslim - the odds are quite good that you're going to come away from the encounter with a more positive view of Muslims, and hopefully a few myths shattered. I accept this will not always be the case, but I do feel the odds are in favour of those of us favouring multiculturalism. The discussion is largely academic - people form impressions based on interactions and that will not change soon. If I'm a jerk online, people will (rightly or wrongly) see a correlation with jerkiness and atheism. If I've deliberately set out to represent atheism well by not being a jerk I've introduced a contradiction.

So should Muslims seek to represent themselves well to give outsiders a better impression of Islam?

I feel there's strong support for this in the faith. Some quotes:

"Call unto the way of thy Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and reason with them in the better way." Qur'an 16:125
"And there may spring from you a nation who invite to goodness, and enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency. Such are they who are successful." Qur'an 3:104
"Remind them, for thou art but a remembrancer, Thou art not at all a warder over them." 88:21-24
"The Prophet of Allah, upon him be peace, was never obscene or coarse. Rather, he used to tell us that the best among us were those with the best manners." - Hadith, Bukhari
So again, I do feel that there is a contradiction here. Someone who claims to represent Islam yet expresses it through insults and threats of violence when this is contraindicated by their own sacred texts cannot easily be said to hold a coherent position, and I do feel they give folk a bad impression of Islam.

Criticism 4: The people who do that [make death threats], don't really care what u think about them or about Islam
Perhaps, perhaps not. Generally in conversation with them I point out how it's at odds with certain sections of their faith. While my opinion may not matter to them, the opinions expressed in their sacred texts gain more purchase. Islam is an evangelistic faith - should a Muslim convert (or, to use the term of choice revert) me to Islam, any good deeds I do in this life would also count towards their tally on the day of judgement. Those who win converts are considered quite highly, and they often are interested in my views solely because I'm a non Muslim.

Criticism 5: no, although I'll bet it came across that way to some who read the tweet without thinking...
I'm afraid there's little I can do to guard against those unwilling to read the entire 140 characters :)

Criticism 6: First: quit creating false dichotomies.
My tweets were in no way intended to present the only two options when it came to expressing Islam. I find death threats distressing. I don't see how they're justified within an Islamic framework. I find the way Ahmadi Muslims manage to stay firm in their commitment to "love for all, hatred for none" admirable. This is not intended as an exhaustive list of all possible expressions of Islam. I feel there should be an acceptible way I can express these two sentiments and I remain open to alternative approaches that people feel would be a better tack.

Criticism 7: Second: get it out of your head that marginalised groups are monolithic. And yes, that IS what you are doing..
This feels a mite unfair. I only tweet about the subject because I make a concerted effort to learn more about groups outside my own. I have described neither Ahmadi Muslims nor non Ahmadi Muslims as monolithic, and feel I've done more than most to gain an understanding of the varying expressions of Islam worldwide.

And with that I publish this hasty draft, which I may tidy at the weekend. I received quite a number of tweets expressing a differing view to that of my own, if I missed your criticism I apologise: it dropped off my stream. Feel free to tweet or comment again. It's 2:30am, a prize* to anyone who comments before my 6am alarm clock. Next time I mention Islam I might make sure I have the following day off :)

*this is a lie.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-600953485352868882013-08-28T21:05:00.001+01:002013-08-28T21:05:34.312+01:00In Support of Chelsea ManningI've maintained a focused disinterest in the Manning case. I genuinely have little interest in the administrative affairs of the military of other nations and choose to employ the time saved in perhaps more productive endeavours.

That said, it has come to my attention that Chelsea Manning has asked that she be referred to by the name she chooses, and by the pronouns with which she most identifies. This minor request seems most reasonable for a woman who will likely spend the next three and a half decades in prison.

I don't speak of it often, but I've had genital surgery. Several times. I've had medically necessary circumcision at age two, I had an undescended testicle corrected when I was about 11, and at the age of 16 I had another testicle ruptured in a kickboxing competition. As it healed a fluid filled sac developed around the injury which had to be surgically removed.

Interesting side note - to avoid the undue risks inherent in cutting thin scrotal skin, all testicular surgery is performed by making an incision in the abdomen and pulling the testicle back through the pelvis. This smarts a little the following morning.

In my early twenties, with everything in prime working order and a testosterone level on the high side of normal I'd rather considered my position at the confluence of three improbable conditions to be something confined to the past. Then I found a lump on the larger of my gonads. (The formerly undescended member of the pair never moved much beyond grape sized.)

Treatment, if it proved cancerous, would involve the removal of the testicle. I don't tend towards superstition but I must admit that in a low moment I did wonder if such highly specific misfortune could really be given a naturalistic explanation. Looking back, improbable things happen with mundane regularity and there's no particular reason I should be spared their effect.

I don't wait well. I've had acquaintances who have lost a single testicle to cancer but they were in the safer position of having a reliable backup, and at present testosterone tests do not give a breakdown of each individual contributor's efforts. I found myself looking at galleries of prosthetic testes and reading about new developments in the exciting world of hormone replacement therapy. The prospect of inhabiting a body that did not match my gender terrified me.

It wasn't cancer. The doctor told me to think of the lump as like a wart which, frankly, lacks a certain glamour but is immensely preferable and sorts itself out in a few weeks. I set off from the radiographer with a smile, my sole worry being a lubricated scrotum. (Part of the procedure. Had I been briefed I would have packed a towel. As it was I spent most of the day sliding off my office seat, which must have seemed a mite odd to my colleagues.)

Dare one hope for a point at the end of this verbiage? I'm a man. Nothing is going to change that. If I'd lost some or all of that which pads out my boxers my gender would be unchanged. Without modern medical science I perhaps would perhaps not have the anatomy to show for it, but I would have the mind and essence of manhood.

I am fortunate in that science has enabled me to keep the characteristics so distinctive of my gender. Chelsea Manning, I hope, will be able to benefit through science by finding the appropriate medical treatment that brings her to where she wants to be in her transition.

If you consider her less of a woman by virtue of her requirement for medical treatment then by necessity you consider me less of a man for going under the knife. You have a right to your own thoughts and beliefs, of course, but for safety's sake I strongly recommend expressing them from considerable distance.Geoff Shortshttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-89729215281505685602013-08-18T11:00:00.000+01:002013-08-18T11:57:47.754+01:00Richard Dawkins' Twitter FollowersI remember the first time I met Muslim apologist Adnan Rashid. He, Hamza Tzortzis and other members of the Islamic Education and Research Academy were running a stall on my route home and he attempted to convince me evolution could not be true because of 'irreducible complexity'. As he waxed lyrical on the complexities of bacterial flagellum (a whiplike appendage that enables movement in bacteria) I realised he was liberally borrowing from the work of Christian creationist Michael Behe.

Rather than point out the incongruity of relying on such a source I said it seemed odd to offer a mechanism that allows the spread of devastating diseases like Legionnaire's as evidence for a loving God. He paused, folded his arms, fixed me with a gaze that conveyed seriousness and then asked "what would happen if all the cells in your body lost their flagellums?".

Some with an interest in biology may have chuckled at the above. Bacterial flagella by definition are attached only to bacteria, facilitate movement, and as a general rule the cells in my body have no particular need to independently decide to relocate. It demonstrated the lightest skimming of Christian creationist material and a near complete misunderstanding of Behe's rather poor argument. (Those interested can see it debunked in full here. You can watch footage of Rashid losing an argument with PZ Myers here.)

The second time I shared a room with Rashid was at the World Atheist Convention in Dublin, 2011, when he asked a ponderously long and dreary question of Dawkins. I shared my anecdote with Dawkins who chuckled briefly. I thought it might be interesting to look at his Twitter account.

Word Cloud
I took a sample of five thousand of Dawkins' followers and examined their Twitter biographies, running them through a program that counts the frequency of words folk use to describe themselves and assembling an image where most frequently used words are shown in greater sizes. Dawkins' followers are likely to describe themselves using words like student, science, university, teacher and atheist. (On a general note, an improbably high number of tweeps describe themselves as writers. I do hope they have day jobs.)

Words noted by their absence include homeopath, Hare Krishna, acupuncture and miracle. It seems the head of the foundation for reason and science has done an admirable job of attracting those interested in both fields.

Gender
These results are indicative only. Again working off the same sample of five thousand Twitter accounts, I ran the first names through a script I wrote to estimate gender. It isn't overly complex - I have a list of known masculine names and a list of known feminine names. Based on the results it seems that 75% of Dawkins' followers have masculine names.

Twitter does not lack voices telling Dawkins how he should best spend his time and I do not feel compelled to add mine to the clamour. I merely observe this as a potential area of improvement.

Who else do they follow?
I wrote another program that allows me to examine a number of accounts and see if they share common interests. Given someone follows Dawkins, I was curious how likely they were to follow, say, Ricky Gervais (likely) or the Pope (perhaps less likely). I chose a random sample of 1,000 followers and waited for the results - 81 of the sample had protected accounts and I was unable to pull the required data from them so the below is based on a sample of 909 - the top twenty are listed below. The figure in brackets is the percentage of the sample that also follow said account.

Ricky Gervais (28.60%)

Neil deGrasse Tyson (28.16%)

Barack Obama (25.30%)

Stephen Fry (24.42%)

NASA (21.56%)

Bill Nye (18.26%)

BBC Breaking News (18.04%)

Bill Gates (17.05%)

National Geographic (16.83%)

Brian Cox (16.83%)

Seth MacFarlane (16.61%)

Dalai Lama (16.61%)

The Onion (16.06%)

TEDTalks Updates (15.51%)

Conan O'Brien (14.41%)

Bill Maher (13.97%)

Stephen Colbert (13.86%)

The New York Times (13.75%)

Russell Brand (12.87%)

New Scientist (12.54%)

I learned with some embarrassment that I was not following @TedTalks, number 14 on the list. It is an omission I have since rectified and I recommend you should too. There is much to be proud of in this top twenty: a strong mix of science, humour, current affairs and atheism. There are some outliers. I'm still scratching my head at the presence of the Dalai Lama, though to be fair his account has almost seven and a half million followers - that it ranked 12th is more likely a function of general popularity than a specific interest in Tibetan Buddhism among those who choose to follow Dawkins. I enjoy Russell Brand's humour, but his dalliances with Hare Krishnas and their disturbing beliefs do put me off. Does he believe the moon to be larger than the sun? Does he consider women's brains half the size of men's?

One rather glaring omission is women. Continuing down the list Sarah Silverman is the first female entrant, followed by 11.55% of the 909. Reviewing the top 100 in its entirety we also find Ellen DeGeneres (9.02%) Katy Perry (8.91%), Emma Watson (8.36%), Lady Gaga (7.92%), Taylor Swift (7.81%) and finally Oprah Winfrey (7.48%). Going through the top 200 we find in addition Rihanna, Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears, P!nk, Amanda Bynes, Michelle Obama, Miley Ray Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, Yoko Ono and Beyoncé Knowles. While all successful in their own right I'd rather hoped to find some more women in science to follow.

There are caveats that should be attached. Perhaps my sample size should be larger. I chose a thousand as it seems a typical number used by polling agencies - if you have a relevant background I'd be grateful for your thoughts in the comments section. While there are those who seek to blame Dawkins for most of the world's ills I have yet to encounter someone who holds him personally responsible for science being at present a male dominated field: we should consider that a preponderance of male scientists will likely skew the figures. Also, Dawkins has not to my knowledge made a specific commitment to promote women in science, so their absence on this list could not be termed hypocritical on his part.

That said, perhaps such a commitment would be wise. To quote:

The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.
Is this one that can be accomplished while science is still often seen as something that men do? I humbly submit that it is not, and an attempt to redress the balance would be a most productive use of time.

Post Scriptum: I've been asked about anti Muslim sentiment among Dawkins' followers. In retrospect this is a topical subject and one I should have included. I've had a look through the data gathered - of the five thousand I polled to check Twitter biographies, not one mentioned 'EDL' or 'UKIP'. None of the top 200 accounts followed mention either term. Sixteen followers (of the 5k sample) mention 'Muslim'. Two are ex Muslims, five are Muslims, several were discussing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and one was tweeting a link to an article by a Dr Ramzy of Oxford's Muslim community. One was a manual retweet of Dawkins' Nobel Prize tweet, and one was discussing a Million Muslim march on the 11th of September. Apologies for the rushed nature of this addendum - time pressure.

If you'd like to learn more about how I get this information, there's some background here. I'll be happy to provide you with data on the Twitter account of your choice if you make a charitable donation. You might also enjoy a look at the Twitter stats of the creationist Discovery Institute, or a contrast between the stats of philosopher, author and atheist Stephen Law and Christian apologist William Lane Craig.Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-8028643425691313983.post-28932397879730654982013-07-29T22:43:00.000+01:002013-07-29T23:08:28.900+01:00Pope on Gay Men: If You Squint, It Almost Looks Like Progress

"These twelve hour flights can grow a little dull, so we switched on the speakers in the cockpit to listen in."

I'm fortunate to have secured an e-mail interview with Padre I. A. Roddy, the pilot who flew Pope Francis on the occasion of his unparalleled olive branch to the LGBTQ community.

"I briefly lost control of the aircraft," he continued "but fortunately the advanced training of the Vatican Air Force saved me and those on board. That, and my copilot was listening to DoubtCast at the time so wasn't as badly affected. I don't mean to criticise the Holy Father, but he really should consider the safety of the crew before launching such a wild change of course."

"Sticking to the strictest conceivable definition of progress, I suppose this qualifies." observed an air steward, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He was speaking specifically about priests, so what we can really take from this with certainty is that if you're celibate, stay in the closet and don't lobby for gay people he won't judge you."

"To be fair, at least his cabin baggage was a reasonable size." he added.

The Holy Father did not comment directly on bisexual people, transgender people, or people who identify as queer.

"I think many are underestimating the great message of hope the Bishop of Rome is offering to young, gay Catholics. As long as they're male." Padre Roddy defended. "Before today they would have felt trapped by restrictions that promised only a life without romantic love. A lonely road of self denial under the label of 'fundamentally disordered'. All that has changed. Well, not all, obviously. But the Vicar of Christ has offered a vision of gay men, gay men who live in community with purpose to their lives, gay men who he does not judge."

"Now, naturally, this is not a licence to do anything gay. The Supreme Pastor made it clear in his talk that existing teaching is affirmed. Sex is out. As is marriage. And lobbying for gay rights came in for specific condemnation. Basically think of it like the US military's don't ask, don't tell policy. Only without the 'don't ask' part, because the Vatican will still be investigating to find gay people in its ranks. And on the subject of investigations, these hopeful gay Catholic men should rule out applying for the priesthood, because as of 2005, gay men, celibate or not, are barred from applying."

"But if you ignore the fact that it's only relevant to a tiny number of already celibate men who still have to conceal their true selves from those to whom they're closest and weather the label 'fundamentally disordered', this is groundbreaking stuff. Couple this with a previous pope who said that male prostitutes using condoms are slightly less sinful than male prostitutes who don't, and we can see a Church in flux."

"The Vatican has embraced a new, modern era" suggested a reporter existing the plane. "Not the era you and I are currently enjoying, obviously, but we should remember his statements would have been unthinkable even in a nonreligious setting before the mid 1700's."

How has this news been received in Ireland? I've sourced some quotes.

"Nonsense! Our pope would never say such a thing!" said a spokesperson for the Iona Institute, and recent convert to the Orthodox Catholic faith.

"The Church is not the hierarchy" opined an ordinary lay Catholic. "The Church is all her members. Only 9% of Irish Catholics share this fascination with trying to oppose loving same sex relationships. That's 9% too high of course, but you'll probably find that percentage of homophobes in other groups too. Most of us want women priests. Most of us want priests to be free to marry. Most of us use condoms. I'll pray for my Pope to be guided in this, but I have my own God-given conscience and I do no one any favours by ignoring it."

This is a parody. Obviously.Geoff Shortshttps://firstname.lastname@example.com