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| Melbourne Zombie Shuffle (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
With our greater access to knowledge via the media and the internet you'd think we'd be up to our brains in truth. Ironically all of this access has muddied the waters of information more than ever. Rumors, misinformation, and outright lies are continually disseminated throughout all channels available to us to the extent that sometimes it's difficult to know what we should actually believe.
Here are some examples:
Harmful substances: Various studies have shown that coffee can be bad for you while others suggest that it can be good for you. Some recent studies suggest that a couple cups a day can stave off or even prevent Alzheimer's and dementia. Similar conflicting result studies have come out about alcoholic beverages, eggs, and other products. Anyone remember the "studies" back in the fifties that suggested that smoking could be beneficial. There was a time not so long ago when smoking was prevalent in public places. I guess it depends on who's doing the study and what result they want to come up with. In the meantime much of the public is misguided and confused.
Here are some examples:
Harmful substances: Various studies have shown that coffee can be bad for you while others suggest that it can be good for you. Some recent studies suggest that a couple cups a day can stave off or even prevent Alzheimer's and dementia. Similar conflicting result studies have come out about alcoholic beverages, eggs, and other products. Anyone remember the "studies" back in the fifties that suggested that smoking could be beneficial. There was a time not so long ago when smoking was prevalent in public places. I guess it depends on who's doing the study and what result they want to come up with. In the meantime much of the public is misguided and confused.
Global warming: We keep hearing all sorts of research indicating that the Earth is warming and the polar ice caps are melting. There have been suggestions from some camps that our coastal areas will eventually be flooded and adverse weather conditions such as hurricanes will increase endangering us all. Then there are the scientists who believe that we should be more concerned about global cooling. Some even suggest that we may be seeing the coming of another Ice Age. There are also the scientists and pundits who believe that the world climate goes in cycles and we will periodically have times of cooling and heating that are not influenced by anything humankind does.
Overpopulation: The concept that the Earth would be eventually unable to sustain the growing population was introduced by Thomas Robert Malthus in 1798. He advocated population control to keep the order of things in check. Paul Ehrlich revived the Malthus scare tactic in 1968 with his best selling book The Population Bomb. Now here we are nearly 50 years later with none of the predictions coming to pass quite like Ehrlich speculated. Famine and pestilence is not the result of overpopulation. Actually we could move everybody in the world to Texas and with the right infrastructure we could all live quite comfortably while turning the rest of the world into parks and recreation land. Anyone who's driven across Texas can imagine this. Texans would undoubtedly hate it if everyone moved there, but I'm just repeating an example others have given for illustrative purposes.
These are but three areas of debate that politicians, activists, scientists, doomsayers, and others like to banter about. I'm sure you can think of other studies as could I, but this is a blog and I want to keep this post within reasonable limits.
These are but three areas of debate that politicians, activists, scientists, doomsayers, and others like to banter about. I'm sure you can think of other studies as could I, but this is a blog and I want to keep this post within reasonable limits.
My Conclusion:
My own study shows that if you keep looking at all of these studies your brain will turn to mush and gradually seep out of your head. With your brain gone then you would become part of the zombie population in a constant quest for more brains.
Zombies are thrilled by this news as an increase in their population means an ever-growing zombie voter block. Of course it's probable that we already have a majority of zombie voters and we could see an influx of zombies eventually taking office in the United States.
Vampires think that prospect sucks. Vampires think a lot things should suck. Vampires are interested in all things sucky. Nearly all of those running things in government are vampires who have a need to keep the zombie population under their control. The vampires look for issues they can sink their teeth into so they can suck the life-blood out of the rest of us. They love having brain dead constituents who will follow their commands without any thought.
Have a frightful Halloween and may Election Day be a scary one--they usually are.
What is your favorite conspiracy? Do you think we stand a ghost of a chance in the coming election? Are you ready to move to Texas?
Battle of the Bands coming this Saturday November 1st. There are some clues about my BOTB theme in this post. Can you guess the song? This time around I'm offering versions of a 70's hit as performed by two groups that I like and you might enjoy as well. Nothing too controversial in this Battle. It's one of the most accessible I've had so far. Check it out!
If we listened to every conflicting advice I would be a nervous wreck.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to BOTB.
Have a good day Lee.
I have a lot of anti-artificial sweetener friends who are on me constantly about my drinking crystal lite or using splenda. So far I have yet to see a reputable doctor say it 'DOES CAUSE....' Everything is 'may cause'. Well yeah...crossing the street 'may cause' me to get hit by a car too. I do believe we have done a lot of harm to the planet and global warming is a misnomer. The correct term is climate change.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to move to Texas...
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it all depends on who is doing the study and if they have an agenda.
I still say global warming is a joke. We just had one of the coldest winters and a very mild summer. It's just a natural shift.
Since it's on Saturday, no BOTB for me this time.
I think that no matter who gets voted in we - the people - are still in for a world of suck because all those politicians really only care about three things: money, power, and getting re-elected, all three of which seem to be in the hands of the corporations and those few people who have enough money to influence elections. Our founding fathers are no doubt rolling in their graves.
ReplyDelete>>... "Of course it's probable that we already have a majority of zombie voters...
ReplyDeleteOh, man, truer words have never been spoken!
>>... "Nearly all of those running things in government are vampires who have a need to keep the zombie population under their control."
HA!-HA!
Oh, BOIDMAN LEE, you were really on a roll here. Kudos! This was, in my op, the most entertaining blog bit you've posted in awhile. Both funny and true!
You know very well where I come down on a lot of these topics, so I'll just keep my rant to myself this time.
Besides that, I need to get my BOTB put together and ready for posting on November 1st, so I ain't got enough time right now to climb up on my soapbox and shout at the world.
Great stuffs here, my Friend!
~ D-FensDogg
'Loyal American Underground'
Yvonne-- The whole world is a daily bombardment of conflicting information. Makes my mind reel.
ReplyDeleteJoJo-- And climate change just happens: The seasons and movement of weather fronts--always has and always will. They've been talking about artificial sweeteners since I was a kid and they're still around.
Alex -- aw, c'mon. Break out of your schedule and come to battle.
Mshatch -- And what can we do about it all except watch more TV and internet and get fed with more and more questionable information.
StMC-- Yeah, no need to say much about this. Zombies won't understand and vampires will shun you like you're wearing a crucifix and a cord of garlic around your neck.
Lee
Can't we find some place a little cooler to move to? Texas gets really hot and with more people there, it will get even hotter because of body heat.
ReplyDeleteThat would be terrible, all crammed together in Texas. There really are so many differing takes on everything. The climate change thing is very dividing. I agree with the scientists that the world goes in cycles and man's influence isn't going to change it but we should still take care of our Earth as best as we can. As long as China doesn't give a crap about it, I'm not sure the rest of the world can do much.
ReplyDeleteElection days are too often picking the lesser evil.
Surveys and reports ARE geared to produce the desired results. It is worked into how the questions are presented. . .
ReplyDeleteAs for zombie brains, we have enough of those already. I notice it most when I'm driving every day.
See you at the BOTBs.
I recently saw that the UN declared the 7 billionth living person had been born. They estimate 14% of all people born ever are alive now. In fact, they claim that even a third world war would barely slow us down before hitting 10 to 12 billion by 2100.
ReplyDeleteI recently heard/read somewhere that the Icelandic volcano eruptions do more harm to the environment than we could ever do. So much for worrying about one's footprint.
ReplyDeleteFear is the most hurtful and that is what all these zombie toads do. Eggs were bad now they are ok, Butter bad-red meat-bad, breathing-bad (Tarzan has engulfed my inner being). The winter we had last year reminded me of the winters i grew up with. In fact, I believe that is a more normal winter, not the ones people have become accustomed to. Scientists are deeply flawed because they usually are quite pessimistic but state they are realists since they go by research and statistics. I remem,ber vividly when Mt St. Helen's blew. The scientists said there would be no growth for hundreds of years. My dad yelled at the TV "Bullsh&$!" he said watch there will be life there within 5 years. my dad said nature is powerful and will bring life back quite fast and he was right! I hate the end is near folks from the media to the scientists. We should always be respectful of nature and do our best not to destroy but we should not think we will be wiped out like the dinasaurs
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between studies and data. Data shows that average global temperatures are on the rise. That is a fact.
ReplyDeleteThe cause of that is the subject of various studies that have had no conclusive answer.
It's important to be able to separate those two things.
Patricia L. -- In the climate change movie The Day After Tomorrow the only safe place to go in the Western Hemisphere was Mexico. Would you prefer to go there?
ReplyDeleteSusan GK-- Texas has been used by certain speculators due the square miles in relation to the number of people on Earth. Another person suggested that the everyone in the world could fit on Zanzibar if they were all standing. Extremely uncomfortable I'd say.
DG -- Surveys and research tell us what others want us to believe. Sometimes it's accurate and worthwhile and at other times it's ridiculous.
CW -- Maybe if the warring countries were using lots of nuclear devices as well as other weapons of extreme mass destruction I'm sure they could get rid of a lot more people a lot faster.
Jo-- The moral there I guess is that if we don't destroy the world then the world will probably destroy itself. It probably doesn't matter all that much what we do.
Birgit-- Fear-mongering is an effective means of controlling minds and money.
Andrew -- Data can be manipulated and even falsified. Can we truly believe all the "factual data" that we are fed? The tobacco company spokes-scientists used "data" to prove that smoking could have benefits. Data is often misrepresents in order to extrapolate programs to further the agendas of whomever is messing with things.
Lee
No, the smoking people didn't use data to show that smoking was good for your health, they used studies. They didn't actually have any data, yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd, sure, data can be falsified or just made up, which is why you have to look at multiple sources and find sources that you trust.
At this point, though, with regards to global warming, even sources that discount human-caused warming confirm the data that average temps have gone up over the last few decades and confirm that ocean temps have risen also. That is confirmed data from multiple sources, none of which conflict. The only question, then, is whether it's natural warming or human-caused.
Lee-
ReplyDeleteI think you can boil down how to react to all these studies by remembering the words of a very wise man who is no longer with us.
"Life'll kill ya"
-Warren Zevon
Andrew -- But data collection and interpretation of that data was/is part of the process of a study. I'm no expert by any means and I'm relying on my often poor memory, but in the accounts I've seen on TV and read about the scientists working for the tobacco companies were testing, measuring, and coming to conclusions using some semblance of scientific method. Granted they were starting with faulty hypotheses in most cases in order to skew their studies in favor of the tobacco industry. A study without data collection and analysis is just people speculating and that wouldn't be much of a study.
ReplyDeleteLarry -- So I guess Zevon proved his own hypothesis.
Lee
What I'm saying is what they thought was the data was not data, because the effects of smoking are long term. They were taking healthy people, having them smoke, then doing tests. The data they gathered was reflective of the state of the people, not the effects of the smoking. They wouldn't realize that for more than a decade.
ReplyDeleteYou have to know what you're measuring.
I think, though, that taking the temperature of, well, pretty much anything is fairly straight forward.
I learned in my statistics class that you can make research come to any conclusion you want it to.
ReplyDeleteAndrew-- Nevertheless even data such as temperature readings can reflect a number of things and there is a credible side of the fence who believe that the climate change argument is hogwash. The climate change argument may be the more popular side to be in at the moment, but that doesn't mean it's the correct side. And not all scientists argue that global warming is necessarily a bad thing. Like the smoking issue the climate change issue may be one that will take more time to precisely determine the outcome. There are agendas in the arena and getting to the root of those might be the more important thing to do.
ReplyDeleteDolorah-- I've even had a hand in creating false outcomes of college experiments so I know this to be true.
Lee
Whether or not it is credible does not change the data, and both sides of the fence agree the data is accurate.
ReplyDeleteSome say the Zombie Apocalypse could happen, other say it won't. I say we should prepare for anything and everything. ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Lee, I've given up. It is UNBELIEVABLE how 'facts' are contradicted just about in the next breath. I've heard the one about The Ice Age Cometh, and then about San Francisco, London, New York will be flooded in a few years due to global warming. I wonder sometimes if there is some other agenda at work, to get us all fearful or confused..I personally won't buy into that and I guess I'm learning along the way to value my own take on things. I like an earlier commentator's note: Life'll kill ya!
ReplyDeleteAndrew-- Some of the data might be accurate and I don't know that necessarily everyone agrees. That's a broad statement that is not proven to me and perhaps near impossible to verify. I've heard supposed experts dispute the data collection regarding temperature. But I don't know because I haven't retained everything I've heard other than in generalized notions and as I've said I'm no expert.
ReplyDeleteHR-- Preparing for anything and everything could become very expensive and place tremendous limitations on one's life. I guess I'll mostly take my chances on the unknown.
Susan Scott-- A lot of agendas have to do with people wanting to sell us something--either in a tangible material sense or in the form of an agenda usually with political connections. I guess the best things to do is to stay informed and then use a process of reason to filter things out for ourselves.
Lee
Okay, I've been thinking about this (against my will), and here is what I have.
ReplyDeleteThe first scientists to "discover" the rising temps were not looking for that data. It was not people out on a global warming agenda. It was data that was noticed in relation to other studies. They announced it, "Look what we found. This isn't good."
Some other people said, "That can't be right," and set out to disprove the rising temps data. They came back and said, "Well, um, the data is accurate."
And that happened many, many more times until, basically, everyone agrees that the data is accurate.
It's like this: My great-grandmother didn't believe that the moon missions were real. She believed all of the space exploration stuff was faked. In the 60s, maybe even the 70s, you can kind of understand that viewpoint (like people not believing the Earth is round), but, now, the data that we have been out in space is so overwhelming that it's just stupid to try to cling to a belief that space exploration is being faked.
The data about the rising temps has pretty much reached that same level. So many people have been out and done that particular research that it's foolish to say, "You know, that data isn't correct." I don't care if you disagree about what's causing it, but the data has reached the irrefutable category and only people who have other agendas (like destroying the planet) are out there trying to refute the -data-.
It's like those hardcore Creationists who try to say the Earth is only 5000 years old. Basically, they're saying that all of science is wrong, and, well, that's just stupid. Yes, those people are beyond foolish; they're just stupid. At some point, you have to look at the data and figure out what to do with it. The only other option amounts to stabbing your own eyes out so that you don't have to see.
And I'm not promoting that global warming is man-caused, but the data supporting climate change is overwhelming, just like the data supporting that the Earth is at least hundreds of millions of years old is overwhelming.
(And trying to say that "God made it that way" is also just dumb, because that amounts to "God is a cruel and out to trick us.")
Andrew-- Okay, now you're opening up whole new arguments. Do you really believe the Earth is round and we've gone into space? The space exploration lie thing is all a conspiratorial attempt to prove the fallacious theory that the Earth is round. Anyone using common sense knows that the Earth is flat. As far as data, I'm suggesting that it all may not be true or interpreted correctly. I do believe that climate change is fact as the climate is cyclical depending on a number of things--some obvious and proven while other causes are conjectural and open to interpretation.
ReplyDeleteLee
Well, I've been on airplanes and seen the curvature of the Earth, so I know it's not flat.
ReplyDeleteAndrew -- Maybe you had too many drinks on the plane and just thought everything had curvature. Or perhaps the windows on the plane were distorting your view. Have you had your eyes checked for some anomaly that causes your vision to curve things in the distance. It could be that climate change is causing the atmosphere to distort our visual fields. By the way, the scientific community changed the term "global warming" to climate change because they didn't want to be ridiculed for believing the Earth was spherical as the term might infer--more evidence that even scientists know that the Earth is flat.
ReplyDeleteLee
Well, no, I never drink on a plane. Actually, I haven't been on an airplane since I started drinking.
ReplyDeleteWait, that doesn't sound right.
Andrew --Makes a lot of sense to me since medical studies show that alcohol consumption builds healthy brain cells and allows us to think more coherently. Since becoming a drinker you have rightly reasoned that flying is bad for our physical, mental, and emotional health. If you are no longer flying then you aren't subjecting yourself to unhealthy factors such as TSA screening, sitting in cramped quarters for long periods of time, and being in the proximity of disease carrying passengers. You are a wiser man for taking up drinking and discontinuing flying. In fact I say we both raise a glass and drink to that. And then we'll raise another and another and...what were we talking about to begin with? Aw, who cares--we can drink to forgetting as well.
ReplyDeleteHappy Halloween!
Lee
Sadly, one of the most disgustingly persistent (and definitely not my fave) is the conspiracy that Sandy Hook didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteShort version: two years ago, a teenager snapped and murdered 25 kids and two adults before doing himself in.
Suffice to say, a lot of people out here in CT are wickedly angry when this stuff rears its ugly head.
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