As usual, Cectic nails it (click on comic for the full-size version):
Although I find it odd that the "mark" in the above comic would be calling for his checkbook rather than his credit card, it never ceases to amaze me how skeptical some people can be when dealing with financial matters while at the same time being so prone to magical thinking when it comes to "alternative" medicine.
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I was so busy mentioning how the Society of Homeopaths was using legal threats to try to shut down the free speech rights of the host of the next Skeptics' Circle, Le Canard Noir, that I forgot to mention that he also turned me on to a great web comic. The comic, Cectic, is highly unusual in that…
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that your elders grew by... -Graham Nash, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
Here's CSNY's version of Teach Your Children from their third album (their second with Neil Young), 4 Way Street, although it was always the lyrics of the song that got to me…
It's time for an easy weekend for everyone. To kick it off, here's a song that almost everyone knows of, by the Eagles. Only, the Eagles didn't write it. Jackson Browne was screwing around in his flat with this song that "wasn't quite done" according to him. He played it for Glen Frey, and was…
Perhaps the Reiki master accepts "electronic checks".
I find it odd that the "mark" in the above comic would be calling for his checkbook rather than his credit card
Or just clicking the paypal button.
Orac,
I know that this has come up before, but have there been any reports of "alternative" medical practitioners accepting "alternative" payment?
For instance, would it be acceptable for me to pay my homeopath with a very dilute solution of money? Say, if I took a dollar bill (or a euro coin) and shook it with distilled water and then did twenty or thirty serial hundred-fold dilutions (with succussion after each dilution)?
Or how about paying my Reiki therapist with "energy money"? You know, money made of an energy type that cannot be detected or measured by any means currently available to science? Of course, the therapist would have to take my word that I've paid them, since they probably couldn't tell how much I'd given them.
Just a thought.
Prometheus
According to the late Jacques Benveniste you could digitize the homeopathic preparation and send it as an email attachment. You could then use the e-homeopathic file to recreate the meomory in some distilled water at the other end.
It could make clicking on attachments in emails especially dangerous if somebody decides to send you a cat turd.
What, you honestly think a Reiki master has time to set up a Paypal account? They're too busy healing.
Orac, I just clicked on that comic and instead of giving me the enlarged version, it redirected rapidly through several URLs and gave me a screen which purported to to be checking my computer for malware, and then threw up a couple of pop-ups saying I had x number of infected objects and I should click here to download anti-spyware software for free. It's almost certainly a scam (rather than just crap marketing). You need to delete the comic.
Nope, it's a Scienceblogs problem - couple of people complaining about the same thing on PZ's Oliver Curry thread. I just emailed the Seed webmaster.
Potentilia:
It works perfectly fine for me--no problems at all-- and I haven't heard any complaints from anyone else. Are you sure it isn't your computer that has some sort of malware on it?
Yes, sure (have investigated specifically since). Not your problem anyhow - see my second comment about Pharyngula - the commenter there also says he couldn't replicate the problem, so the redirection is evidently only happening in a percentage of cases, probably randomly.
I had it happen while I was rebutting a twoofer at Denialism. If I had to guess, someone with no sense of decency bought a piece of ad real estate at Scienceblogs. Imagine the complaints will be visible enough.
There are now 5 people on the Pharyngula thread saying they've had it, one of whom says he got it here, and one at Tetrapod Zoology.
Aye, piece of garbage tries to get me to believe malware has stolen my 'credit card' details and no anti-virus is detected on this PC.
First, I don't have a credit card. Second, I'm at college and their network has some of the most draconian protection in place that I've ever seen(even the right-click on the mouse is disabled) and certainly would not contain my private details.
I'm the one who ran into that adware here and at Pharyngula. They are either phishing or really, really bad salespeople...I'm inclined to think they are bad worms in need of an internet colonic...
For a moment, I thought I meant Scienceblogs needed a colonic, and then I decided the worms needed it more.
Evil re-direct! I keep getting redirected. At first I thought I'd clicked on the comic but has since happened in other threads. I'm a mac user and it implied it found Windoz viruses on my mac! Evil, annoying ad hack must die.
FYI, our techies are looking into the problem. It's been reported on more than one blog. It appears that malicious code has somehow made it into the ScienceBlog ad rotation. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.