I've expounded on the principle of crank magnetism. Basically, crank magnetism is the tendency of cranks not to mind the crankery of other cranks, even if the two forms of crankery are mutually exclusive. But it's more than that. It's the tendency of a single crank to be attracted to several forms of crankery. We've seen it in creationists who are also attracted to "alternative medicine," in anti-vaccine loons who are also attracted to alternative medicine and various conspiracy theories, including "9/11 Truth." I've seen it in Holocaust deniers who are also attracted to both "alternative" medicine and the 9/11 Truth movement. Crank magnetism, at least as far as I'm concerned, is a real phenomenon.
Among cranks, Mike Adams is a living, breathing example of crank magnetism. There's no form of quackery he doesn't endorse and/or sell. He's anti-vaccine to the core, and has even flirted with the 9/11 Truth movement in an anti-vaccine video, not to mention his open flirtation with a wide variety of conspiracy theories. It's so bad that long ago I thought that nothing Adams could do could surprise me.
I was wrong. Now Adams is hating on Lady Gaga.
I'm serious. Get a load of his post from the other day entitled Lady Gaga, superstar to teens, wears dress made of animal flesh. [NOTE: This link now redirects to a followup post by Adams. Fortunately, Prison Planet has a copy of the first Lady Gaga post by Adams in all its wingnut glory.] This post shows an aspect of Adams' crank magnetism that surprised even me. The reason is that Adams' tirade against Lady Gaga reminds me of fundamentalist tirades against Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, and others of my favorite bands of my generation. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not disturbed by this out of any appreciation for Lady Gaga or her music. He music's sometimes catchy enough, but it's also utterly disposable pop that's forgotten almost as soon as it's over. Lady Gaga herself strikes me as though she's trying way too hard to be this generation's Madonna. I suppose she's succeeding through a combination of glitz, stagecraft, and passable dance music, but she's never really impressed me, which is not suprising, given that Madonna never really impressed me much when she first rose to stardom in the 1980s.
And Adams doesn't like it one bit:
If you've ever wondered about the true mental sickness of the entertainment industry, look no further than Lady Gaga. She rose to fame and has become a teen favorite by pumping out tunes like "Love Game" where she belts out lines such as "Let's have some fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick."Seriously. This is the stuff your teenage kids are piping into their brains through their iPods, by the way.
Get off my lawn, you punk kids!!!
Adams is particularly peeved by Gaga's wearing of contact lenses that make the eyes appear dilated, or, as Adams puts it, either "sexually aroused or stoned," particularly since, according to Adams, these contact lenses aren't approved by the FDA. This to me is a particularly hilarious complaint coming from him, particularly given his penchant for comparing the FDA to Hitler and the Nazis. Seriously again. Whenever it comes to any "conventional" drug approval or banning of "alternative" medical treatments, the FDA is Hitler; it's Satan incarnate. Now, suddenly Adams is upset that somehow these contact lenses are somehow being sold without FDA approval. The problem is, most theatrical grade special effects contact lenses are FDA approved. It didn't take me long, for instance, to find these FDA-approved contact lenses that simulate all sorts of things, such as wolf eyes, vampire red eyes, Marilyn Manson, cat eyes, and others. Of course, the truth never got in the way of a good Adams rant.
Particularly galling to Adams is the recent time where Lady Gaga showed up at the MTV Video Music Awards wearing a dress made of meat:
But there's more to this sick story: Lady Gaga was recently honored at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, where she received a whopping eight "moonman" awards as well as Video of the Year honors.
To accept these awards, Lady Gaga actually appeared on stage wearing a dress made out of animal flesh. Yes, she was literally draped in animal flesh. This has been reported as her "red meat dress."
I saw the pictures of that and read a couple of stories about it, including this one and one by PETA. Personally, I saw it as a blatantly obvious attempt to shock just for the sake of shocking. It's a tactic used by performers since time immemorial, no different than Alice Cooper simulating having his head cut off on stage, Marilyn Manson's antics, or the use of Satanic imagery on stage by any number of bands, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. It works. It gets attention, and it entertains. It also pisses the fundamentalists off.
Fundamentalists like Mike Adams:
But it goes far deeper than that. Anyone who would wear a dress made out of red meat is, for starters, mentally ill. But Lady Gaga goes far beyond just mentally ill, reaching to depths of necro-worship that make her appear almost Satanic.
In an upcoming live event, she promises to be surrounded by on-stage corpses. It is being widely reported across the 'net that she plans to put dead human bodies on stage as part of her "act."
My first reaction to this was to laugh. Back when I was in medical school, I remember a show that used to air on Sunday nights on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian fundamentalist cable station, that featured a preacher who would devote a segment of his show to lambasting rock music as inspired by Satan. I can't remember his name, and I couldn't find any "classic videos" of him going on and on in one of his classic bits of preaching fever about the evils of rock and roll, how they lead to sex and drugs (yeah, well, that's kind of the point of rock 'n' roll, isn't it?), and ultimately ensnare unwitting young people in Satan's web. I do, however, remember them to this day as being so hilariously histrionic that I'd inevitably be laughing out loud as I watched. Hey, I was a prototypical pre-med at the time. It's not as though I was out with my friends on Sunday nights. I had to amuse myself somehow between bouts of study.
My sad and pathetic medical school days aside, I hadn't heard about Lady Gaga supposedly proposing to use human corpses in her stage show and thus had no idea what Adams was talking about. Not that I usually have any idea of what Adams is saying, but this time I had even less of an idea than usual. Fortunately, the almighty Google allowed me to discover that apparently Lady Gaga wants to use Gunther Von Hagens' plastinated bodies that he created for Body Worlds. OK, I'll grant that that what Lady Gaga proposes to do is incredibly tacky. It's in terrible taste, something that fills me with revulsion. But it's also obviously a marketing ploy, yet another idea designed to shock. As such, it leads me to a great, big yawn, so obvious is Lady Gaga's intent. Unfortunately, Mike Adams is too stupid or crazed to realize that reactions such as his are exactly the intended goal of Lady Gaga's antics.
It's not enough, though, to accuse Lady Gaga of being mentally ill and downright Satanic. Oh, no. According to Adams, not only is Lady Gaga mentally ill, but she allegedly used her dark Satanic wiles to drive a young artist named Lina Morgana to suicide and steal her music and style. On top of that, according to Adams, Lady Gaga's mental illness is contagious. Adams maes this charge in his typical over-the-top fashion. In fact, it's so over-the-top, that it's even more ridiculous (and unintentionally hilarious) than even Adams' usual rants:
In my opinion, her music is a mental assault filled with lewd, sexed-up lyrics that promote teen sex while avoiding any mention of all the responsibilities that should go along with such topics (birth control, parenting, safe sex, abstinence, consequences of pregnancy and so on).
Furthermore, her incessant promotion of sexual promiscuity and dilated pupil contact lenses is a threat to your children's physical health (eye infections, anyone?). And finally, Lady Gaga may actually be radiating some kind of Satanic or necro-worshipping vibe that could trigger all kinds of bizarre death-related thoughts or behavior in impressionable young teens (who for the most part, let's admit it, literally worship these entertainment "gods" such as Lady Gaga).
I swear, I thought I was reading something from Jesus Is Savior, which features very similar rants against a wide variety of rock stars, including Ozzy Osbourne and Led Zeppelin. Really, it resembles this little tirade claiming that Lady Gaga is a witch. Truly, it is hilarious just how much Mike Adams resembles a fundamentalist Christian. In fact, he makes it explicit here:
What she's doing, it turns out, is infecting the minds of our youth with truly dangerous ideas about sex and seduction while wrapping these ideas (and herself, literally) in flagrant necro-worship. It would be no surprise, after all, if Lady Gaga actually featured herself on stage having sex with a propped up erection from a corpse. That's precisely the kind of thing she might conceivably do because it combines her two favorite messages: Sex and death. (It would also keep the tabloids talking for weeks...)
Yes, indeed, it would, and it would keep morons like Mike Adams churning out posts like this, to my amusement and that of people who care about reason and skepticism, posts that contain passages like this:
This is why it is up to parents to protect their children from these deranged pop stars and their dangerous messages. Mind you, I'm not against music (in fact, I strongly support musical expression and freedom of speech, and I happen to be a musician myself), and I've never spoken out against any music artist in the past. But as I see it, Lady Gaga crosses the line from artistry to insanity, perhaps even delving into Satanic witchcraft or some other dark rendition of psychosis. To allow our children to worship her as a music goddess is to expose them to a highly destabilizing belief system that can only lead them down a dark path of self destruction.
Comedy gold!
So, what are Adams' suggestions? They're suggestions that have been made to parents since rock 'n' roll first exploded on the popular music scene in the 1950s: know what your kids listen to; ban Lady Gaga music; ban Lady Gaga merchandise; tell your kids how immoral she is. All of these are solutions that have been tried and that usually don't work. I doubt they'll work any better for Lady Gaga than they did for Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Madonna. But it's sure enough funny watching Mike Adams propose it, particularly given he goes beyond even these patented old fart recommendations and suggests home schooling to protect your precious kids from Lady Gaga. That's right. Mike Adams is proposing home schooling. Maybe it's not just to protect children from Lady Gaga but to protect them from a science education that would tell them that the quackery he makes his living peddling is pure pseudoscientific B.S.
On second thought, this is not just comedy gold. It's comedy platinum!
Of course, as I've pointed out before, it really is fundamentalism. Adams believes that if you only eat, work, exercise, and live the right way (namely his way), you can avoid all disease, don't need vaccines, and will never get cancer. But you have to be pure enough, and apparently Lady Gaga violates that purity, bringing herself to Adams attention by wearing meat. Whether she was making a statement about wearing animal skins or just trying to shock (more likely), it grossed Mike Adams out. It was icky, and he didn't like it.
More power to her. Maybe I'll download one of her albums from iTunes.
ADDENDUM: Mike Adams has posted a followup, The Lady Gaga saga and the coming generation of youth left behind. He also appears to have removed his original post. The link above now directs to his followup post. Fortunately, the original text of his original rant can still be found at Prison Planet. (Bless them!)
Apparently some Lady Gaga fans weren't pleased with him:
They say you can best determine the character of a celebrity by the character of their fans. By that measure, you'd be shocked to learn about Lady Gaga's fans. After a recent article I posted criticizing the superstar musician for wearing a dress made out of raw, dead animal flesh and stating that she was a negative influence for children and teens, we received an impressive flood of the most hateful, vitriolic and profanity-filled feedback I've ever witnessed.
In unleashing this torrent of emotive grunts that had virtually nothing to do with what I actually wrote, Lady Gaga's fans only proved me right. She is a destructive influence on our nation's youth, and her own fans act out the very same dysfunctional, divergent thought themes that Gaga promotes through her music and contrived persona.
Perhaps most interestingly, the hateful feedback was largely comprised of comments from people who had quite obviously never read the article they claimed to be talking about. From perusing the utter lack of grammatical structure and spelling ability in these comments, I can only conclude that many of them are functionally illiterate and most likely incapable of engaging in thoughtful analysis of any complex passage of text.
No, Mike. The problem is not that the fans are "functionally illiterate." It's that they understood exactly what you wrote, and what you wrote was idiotic. It certainly wasn't exactly a "complex passage of text." Oh, no. To Mike, people weren't irritated by his attack on Lady Gaga because it was moronic in the extreme; to Mike, it's because they're stupid and can't understand his brilliance.
Is there anything beyond comedy platinum?
Get a load of Mike Adams cementing himself as a grumpy old man in a 30-something-year-old body:
I make absolutely no apologies to suggest that parents have not only the right but the responsibility to reduce or eliminate their childrens' exposure to toxic chemicals, toxic foods and toxic cultural influences. Responsible parents don't let their children play violent video games or watch violent bloody movies on television, either. Just as young bodies are affected by food, young minds are affected by images, words and music.
Parents who care about their children are encouraging them to engage in healthier eating habits, healthier television and healthier forms of entertainment. It doesn't mean your kid can't listen to pop music, because musical expression is important for the development of children, but it does mean that caring parents will take steps to limit exposure to the most outrageous fringes of popular culture -- especially when those fringes celebrate themes of death or mental instability. This isn't censorship. It's called good parenting.
Most of Lady Gaga's young fans are too young to know anything about parenting, it seems. But they're about to find out soon enough, as I have no doubt there is a strong correlation between Gaga fans and unwanted teen pregnancies. There's nothing like suddenly becoming a mom (or a dad) to put a chill on the wild endless party you thought your life was going to be. The first time you change your new baby's diapers, reality really hits home.
Get off my lawn, you kids, indeed. I wonder if Adams would have said the same things about Madonna in 1984, when she first burst on the scene.
It is rather telling, though, that Adams lumps "toxic cultural influences" in with all the woo "toxins" to which he thinks kids are being subjected. Of course, no one's seriously arguing that parents shouldn't keep an eye on what their children are listening to and watching. However, as long as there has been youth, youth has tried to rebel against the generation of its parents, and as long as youth has tried to rebel against its parents there have been figures like Lady Gaga who are savvy enough to capitalize on that natural human tendency. Heck, Lady Gaga isn't even all that shocking compared to some of the stuff bands in the 1970s did. Be that as it may, personally I find Mike Adams' message more toxic than that of a thousand Lady Gagas. He preaches that science is evil, medicine is there to enslave you, that you don't need vaccines, and that if you only live "right" (i.e., his way), you don't have to worry about disease. That's a fantasy-laden message that will lead to far more death and suffering if embraced than the frothy, fluffy message of a pop diva who's savvy at the strategic use of shock antics to further her popularity and career.
In any case, Mike Adams has officially entered old fartdom, at an age at least a decade younger than I am.
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Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read through my -
meeeeeeat dressss
she ain't got to love no body
my meat meat dresss my meat meat dress dress
my meat meat meat
No, no, no- Adams just doesn't see the whole picture! Her dilated contact lenses aren't intended to make Lady Gaga look "aroused or stoned," they are to make her look DEAD!
Think about it. She wears a dress of dead animals, she wears a dress of dead Kermit the Frogs (the death of childhood innocence), by sexualizing death imagery she shows us the death of romance, and her own hypersexuality paired with her corpselike dilated gaze shows the death of the self. All of these small deaths of aspects of our society show that Lady Gaga is nothing but a shill preparing our minds to accept the death of all personal experience, in order to more readily accept the sameness and homogeneity of the New World Order of the Masonic Illuminati!!!!!1!
Either that or, you know, she's got enough self-assuredness to pull off some weird crap to get more attention.
Brilliant, that had me laughing out load.
I especially liked "It would be no surprise, after all, if Lady Gaga actually featured herself on stage having sex with a propped up erection from a corpse."
I think Mike Adams should think about something else, or is it alreadt too late.
I'll bet that PeTA are only pissed because they didn't think of it first. Perhaps they can do something with Mike Adams' propped up corpse erection idea...I dummo, the things you have to do to shock these days!
Huh. I wonder exactly when Adams was born again as a crotchety old man standing on his porch, cane-clenching fist pumping in the air with righteous indignation. Maybe he read too much Scudamore and is scared that Lady Gaga will create ley lines that'll burn his bum.
Can I just say that I heartily endorse this disaproval of modern music.
If as responsible 'Old folk' we start to actually enjoy and approve of these shenanigans we will only drive the 'young folk' to even more extremes in order to shock us. I had enough problems upsetting my parents who had themselves got up to far worse when they were teenagers in the late 50's. If we don't step up to the plate and do some disapproving of this modern nonsense we are letting younger generations down with our rejection of the natural order.
I love the meat dress. Not for itself, but for the way she forces us to look again at our cultural norms. If she had worn a dress made of leather, no one would have thought anything of it. Up until recent years, fur was also acceptable. But she shows up in a different part of a dead animal, and everybody throws a conniption! Why do we find wearing animal skins OK, but not animal flesh? What does that say about us?
Keep it up, Lady Gaga! Can't wait to see what she does next.
The interesting thing about this post is actually the idea of Crank Magnetism, which might better be named Crank Metastasis. I had to unfriend a Facebooker who spent her days posting links to every conceivable form of unrelated wackiness of which antivaxers represented only the first degree of bizarreness -- we're talking 9/11 Truth, The Illuminati, AIDS denialism. I don't know why she didn't go with the Reptiloids or whatever they're called. Some people just prefer to live in an alternate reality, I guess. Or it makes them feel superior to think they have the key to truth while most people are bamboozled. Or something.
"It would be no surprise, after all, if Lady Gaga actually featured herself on stage having sex with a propped up erection from a corpse."
Mike Adams wrote this, I think, without prompting, which makes me think he is a closet pervert.
Well...I thought this was a Poe: http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=2191
I'm not so sure now.
"her incessant promotion of sexual promiscuity and dilated pupil contact lenses"... I...yeah. How much paint do I have to huff to make my brain make THOSE kind of connections?
I don't know much about Lady Gaga but the fact that Mike Adams is so vehemently against her, I will need to pay attention and check out iTunes to see if her idea of music and mine have any intersection at all.
The meat dress must have been a riot. Waste of good cold cuts maybe, but a riot. Not as big a shocker as biting the heads off chickens on stage or having sex in the mud at Woodstock though.
"Lady Gaga may actually be radiating some kind of Satanic or necro-worshipping vibe that could trigger all kinds of bizarre death-related thoughts or behavior"
Mike Adams: Here I was enjoying a cup of tea by the telly and this Lady Gaga comes on. I reached for the remote to change the channel but was taken by her infectious beats before I could get the deed done. By the time the clip was over, my hand was grasping not the remote, but a no-no part of my body, and there was a dead mouse in my tea cup. It's what she's radiating I tell you - pure evil satanic necro vibes!
An older example of a meat dress is a sculpture which consists of a dress made out of beef, worn by a ridiculously petite dress form. That dress is actually much better looking than the one Gaga wore, but also was not intended to be worn by actual humans (mostly because it's too skinny for the vast majority of the species). It was created as a statement about how our society treats women, especially supermodels -- they're meat, essentially, and driven to anorexia at that. They're also discarded when they are no longer beautiful, which is also part of the sculpture -- being made of ephemeral materials, it doesn't last more than a couple of weeks on display, even in a controlled environment. And if you see it several times during the display, you will notice that it changes, as the meat ages, dries, and contracts. The dress is discarded at the end, and then remade from an instruction sheet when a new exhibition is being prepared. I got to see this piece once (well, it's an installation piece, so it's not the EXACT dress, except in the intellectual property sense). It was definitely thought provoking.
Lada Gaga may possibly have been referring to that piece; it's famous enough. But her "message", such as it was, was too vague to be sure. I'm inclined to Orac's interpretation -- this wasn't really an attempt to make a statement, but merely to shock. It's part of her schtick, basically, doing weird stuff.
Mike Adams realized that Christian fundies by supplements too. It's just a marketing ploy to get attention, plus it probably makes his website pop up in a whole new set of Google searches. Just like RI is not the top result for "Lady Gaga corpse sex" ;)
What the hell is a "disco stick"?
I also watch the local over-the-air Christian channel for entertainment. This could be the same guy Chad ,but if not, check him out for even more hilarity. Jeff Godwin (is that the perfect name or what) does the most incredulous reaching to slam any and all music. Even Christian Rock/Rap/Metal etc. is taken down. One of the best moments was when he freeze framed Amy Grant, zoomed in on her hand to show how it looked like it was in the index finger-pinky out devil horns position. Can't you SEE!!!
Oh, my sides hurt from the laughter.
It's the same old puritan double standard: he's upset that she says she wants to have sex with a man, but there'd be even more upset if she was giving interviews in which she said that she wasn't interested in sex with men.
Adams also appears to be arguing that mental illness disqualifies people not only from being hired for many jobs, it should bar them from self-employment.
Has he considered firing himself? (That degree of obsession with an adult stranger's interest in something as normative as heterosexual intercourse is not healthy.)
Completely Off Topic: http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/
I believe this a fairly new blog, and looks like it could become very interesting.
@Orac:
Oh, man, I had put that guy out of my memory till you brought it all back. One of my sorority sisters LOVED that guy and watched him every week. (No faster way to empty out the TV room was ever found!) His rants usually drove me to my room to study, so I suppose it accomplished a positive thing...
Calli @12
I believe it was called Meat Dress for a Pale Anorexic. I think it was created by a Canadian artist because there was a lot of controversy of the "waste of our tax dollars" variety in Canada at the time.
Hahahaha, that's actually really funny.
Re: Lady Gaga -- I mostly agree with her assessment, although I give her mad props for pulling it off. She didn't become a celebrity by accident or simply by willing to be shocking -- she worked her ass off to get there, and used a calculated business-like approach. Of course, her product is something I couldn't care less about...
Re: The contact lenses -- what Mike Adams is probably referring to is these commodity lenses that make your eyes look bigger, more "anime-like", which are currently not available legally in the US. But you can order them over the internet from Korea or something.
The problem is not so much that the lenses are bad quality (they are fine), but that because people are already going through illicit channels to get them, they also don't need an optometrist's prescription to get them -- and there's the danger that they will order improperly fitted lenses, which can indeed cause eye damage.
Personally, I think the risk is way overblown -- there's a societal risk because we know many people are idiots, but on an individual level, just make sure you get a prescription and enter it correctly! And in any case, the whole problem could be fixed just by allowing them to be sold in the US.
In any case, that particular point by Mike Adams, though phrased poorly, wasn't completely wrong. Blind squirrels and all that...
I'll tell you when you're older.
Seriously. She went to school downtown and hung out with the art crowd. It's Performance art (c. 2010). Also she comes from the current (LowerEastSide) club scene. She's the latest incarnation of whatever has been going on in NYC since the Beats (at least- the writers were much earlier) of the 1950's( art/music/politics/being outrageous). On a more serious note, she spoke up for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" . I think Mikey is jealous of her popularity and music sales figures.
That sounds right, Militant Agnostic. It was being displayed at the Walker Art Gallery, in a retrospective of 20th Century modern art, particularly pieces which had been controversial, and I remember they were proud to have secured the rights to display it.
I liked it. Not as something fun to look at, but as provocative art. I don't always feel that way about modern art; I tend to prefer art for its aesthetics than its message, and too often, art with a message tends to be either condescending or obtuse. This wasn't, or at least it didn't seem that way at the time.
Why would Mike Adams object to the fashion advice Lady Gaga got from Matt Labash? http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/21/ask-matt-labash-vol-xxx-a-screed-agai… In addition to meat (it's what's for dinner) dresses, he's also going to revolutionize off-the-rack day-wear with Mom Jean-Shorts or "Mom Jorts." Whether Hot or Homely, Mom will look the same. That's a slogan that will catch many a Blue-Light Shopper.
And, what's wrong with Lady Gaga touring with the Michael Jackson Dancers?
But how is this a non-example of crank-magnetism? Is Lady Gaga a crank of some kind? (I haven't *noticed* any pronouncements on vaccination, 9-11, etc..., but I don't really follow her all that much, so maybe she has.)
On another note - I like her music for the most part. I especially like her videos. It is clear to me that she is cultivating a particular image as a performer that may or may not have much to do with what she actually believes, and relies strongly on a kind of gothic-shock-horror feel as its base. Now the question becomes whether or not she's going to reinvent herself with every album or two a la Madonna and David Bowie.
Hmmm. Wonder what's a greater threat to today's youth: Lady Gaga's "meat dress" and "death worship," or the total failure of education and critical thinking that Mike Adams exemplifies?
@Eric Riley:
Orac's saying that ADAMS is exhibiting crank magnetism by going off the deep end about this (coupled with all his other insanity).
( I just saw the Addendum ) It's so funny to hear Adams bemoan *someone else's* educational status or abilities!!! Home schooling: wonder if he'll produce a syllabus and parents' manual?... Null similarly regales his enraptured radio audience with tales concerning the "elites" who went to "Ivy League" schools, became professionals, and now are so "behind the curve"(sic). He knows. He's done studies.
Cynic View @ 11:
Her Satanic Necro Vibes (tm) succeeded in influencing you via television airwaves? Interesting- that gives new credence to those extra special homeopaths who say they can create homeopathic benefits in a glass of water via the telephone. Maybe Adams needs to gather together a group of them to fight a sorcerers' duel with the nefarious Lady Gaga.
Interesting addendum. His followup gave me some good chuckles.
You mean fringe artists like one Mike Adams? Perhaps I'm being too generous, though, and putting him that close to pop culture.
How many kids does Adams have?
Sounds like he's talking from experience.
Get off my lawn, you punk kids!!!
Punk kids? I don't think so. Rotten kids, damn kids sure, but punk kids? Punks aren't listening to Lady Gaga.
Adams is way off on this one. EVERYONE knows that Lady Gaga is actually moving our impressionable youth towards Cthulhu worship. Here's a translation of an ancient Shoggoth prayer:
"Yog-Soggoth! Hast'r! Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
Becomes
"Let's play a love game, play a love game..."
True story.
@Ian
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
Others were doing it better long before Lady Gaga was even born.And let's not forget...
It's kind of sad that it takes banal mindless disco like Lady Gaga spews to get the wingnuts ranting about satanic music.As you say,it brings back warm fuzzy memories of Bob Larson's radio rants about Ozzy Osbourne,or the grainy news footage I saw once of 60s evangelists burning Beatle records.When there is nothing to rant about,you rant about nothing.
Mike Adams wrote this, I think, without prompting, which makes me think he is a closet pervert.
Posted by: colmcq
It's a well documented fact most evangelists that rant about "family values" are.
Thing 1: Orac, I suspect you are referring to Jack van Impe, and his wife Rexella. He was always on the lookout for the Anti-Christ. In the early 90s, he figured it out to be King Juan Carlos of Spain
Thing 2: One of the first signs I recognized that I was getting old was when I started complaining about the kids these days and their music, and how loud it is.
I am smart enough to recognize it as typical old guy behavior. Not everyone does, which makes it really funny when they embarrass themselves by ranting about it.
Von Hagens might, ironically, be an antivaxxer himself. While, AFAIK, he has denied to be an adherent of a cult, he carefully styles himself as a Teutonic über-genius - note his grotesquely over the top nome-de-plume (not one, but two characters from the Nibelungenlied, plus a "von" suggesting nobility) - and copies the outfit of the staunch Anthroposophist Josef Beuys. Obviously, he tries to appeal to the same sort of audience that also consumes Ryke Gerd Hamer's woo.
Which one of you, as Tim Bolen keeps saying, do you think, will be added to the DDI vs Barrett lawsuit?
I never met Lina Morgana, but I went out with her sister Fata in college. Sweet girl, but kind of insubstantial.
I object to Lady Gaga's meat dress if it's really raw untreated meat because it will stain the furniture, dribble juices onto anyone who brushes up against her, and will start to stink after a while in the hot lights. If it's been in some way preserved and sealed, I object because it's a waste of food but, hey, she bought it and she can waste it.
I didn't think "edible clothes" really meant this.
@32
Cthulhu fthagn? What a wonderful phrase.
Cthulhu fthagan! Say it and you're crazed.
http://www.thegreatlukeski.com/2009/06/23/cthulhu-fthagn-what-a-wonderf…
Rather than protecting my kids from entertainment of questionable value, I allow them to decide what they like or not, and why. It gives them critical thinking skills that they'll put to good use whenever they're exposed to fools like Mike Adams.
I appreciate Lady GaGa because she had that song Poker Face, and that gave Idina Menzel and Lea Michele a chance to sing it together on Glee, and I got to hear it.
Which one of you, as Tim Bolen keeps saying, do you think, will be added to the DDI vs Barrett lawsuit?
btw, great article and discussion...groundbreaking stuff.
@Kristen: Thank God for Google. I am now fully informed.
The real threat is Jersey Shore.
The original meat dress was called "Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorexic" and was created by Jana Sterbak. She never really did much else of note that I recall, but the dress was an interesting piece.
@31, 32, 38: Something horrible is stirring...
Another sure sign of the apocalypseâMike Adams and Orac actually agree on something:
< >
Ooops sorry, that didn't go through ... suffice it to say, Adams & Orac are both anti-Holocaust denial. So there's at least a shred of common ground.
Mike Adams warns parents about "...a highly destabilizing belief system that can only lead (young people) down a dark path of self destruction."
Wonder if that's as dangerous as the belief system that says medicine, science in general and government are entirely corrupt and evil, so that we should place our faith in the alt med marketers who support Mikey's screeds with their advertising dollars?
@45
"Across the United States, pharmaceutical companies have pleaded guilty to criminal charges or paid penalties in civil cases when the Justice Department finds that they deceptively marketed drugs for unapproved uses, putting millions of people at risk of chest infections, heart attacks, suicidal impulses or death." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR20100…
this what you're talking about, Dangerous Bacon?
Hell, I don't think that contacts should be required to be FDA approved in the first place, but that's because I'm more of a small-government none-of-their-damned-business type.
More importantly (because what could possibly be more important?), "Fundamentalist" ire against Black Sabbath is deeply, deeply misplaced.
Between undeniably Christian songs ("After Forever", "Lord of this World") and their songs about devil worship or Satanism being negative ("Black Sabbath"), it's hard to conclude that such a reaction is born of anything but ignorance of the actual material.
No surprise there, of course.
So I guess responsible teens only have abstinent sex then. All night long.
Well, we all know the teen pregnancy statistics. There may well be a strong correlation, just not in the direction that Adams has no doubts about.
But don't you see? Lady Gaga is part of a satanic plot to make our children accept the global police state!
Sigivald:
Have you read The Poisoner's Handbook? Are you willing to accept the eye damage caused by those contacts as just a price to pay for your "small-government" feeling? Do you side with S.E. Massengill Co. on their liability for Elixir sulfanilamide when the response was "We have been supplying a legitimate professional demand and not once could have foreseen the unlooked-for results. I do not feel that there was any responsibility on our part."? Of course, they only paid a small fine.
Damn you, Lionel Richie!!! Perverter of innocent 80s youth...
Of course, if you ever listen to Black Sabbath's "War Pigs," it does portray a very different message than put forth by ignorant parent groups.
Orac:
How do you know the Prison Planet "copy" is not a hoax emplaced by secret government agents?
Real choices can only be made in the presence of true information. While I don't think that substances need to be "FDA approved," as a small-government-let-me-choose type, I do not have a problem with having the government (the FDA in this case) enforcing that sellers are telling the truth about the products they sell, both in terms of what are the potential benefits and the negative effects.
If sellers are honest about their product ("this product has not been shown to do any good but has been shown to kill everyone that takes it"), then I don't see a need to prevent them from selling it. I mean, this is already the case with cigarettes...
Man, will the old farts just make up their minds? First it was Dungeons and Dragons was going to make me worship Satan, then it was Magic: the Gathering. Then it was Harry Potter. Now it's Lady Gaga? (Techno was also bad for a while too.) Please, pick one thing and stick with it so I don't have to keep changing my books, music and pastimes just to piss you off.
Mike Adams should work for one of those Hell Houses they have in Texas around Halloween. You know, the ones that tell you all the ways you're going to hell? By people who can't even type Magic: The Gathering (hint: it's a colon!), wouldn't know actual techno if it bit them, and firmly believe that every abortion end in the death of the sinful girl. He would fit in perfectly!
@53
"I do not have a problem with having the government (the FDA in this case) enforcing that sellers are telling the truth about the products they sell, both in terms of what are the potential benefits and the negative effects."
How is this possible though when the impact of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act -- legislation passed by Congress that allows drug companies to pay a fee of more than $500,000 with each drug application so that the FDA can hire more drug reviewers -- which thereby speeds up the drug approval process, while critics say the law has pushed the FDA too close to the pharmaceutical companies it is charged with regulating.
Conflict of interest having the a government regulatory body (FDA) being funded by the very industry it is supposed to be regulating, isn't it? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/indep…
Here's a link for PBS video "Dangerous Prescription" that goes into the FDA issue.
Acme Burger, that makes mail-order contact lenses safe how?
oops...here's the video link:
http://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=45294&view=ne…
@Acme Burger
While PDUFA and MDUFMA provide much-needed resources for FDA to do its job, it would be best if Congress just gave the agency the money it needs and did away with PDUFA and MDUFMA. It is debatable just how much influence those laws allow companies to have on FDA. On the plus side, all companies must pay the same fees (only difference is based on whether the company is in the "big" category or the "small" category). So, even though one company is paying for its product, so is that company's competitor.
The fees, themselves, aren't really the problem. It's like filing fees for just about any government form you submit. The problem is that it allows the companies a strong voice at the table when new laws or regulations are being discussed. The fees can to some degree be used as a strong arm measure if disagreeable requirements crop up. This is usually only an issue when PDUFA or MDUFMA are up for renewal, since those are the laws that actually make companies stockholders in the decisions (e.g., how the fees will be used).
How much this actually affects FDA's operations, though, is another question altogether, and one that I don't believe has been studied very strongly. At any rate, those laws create the appearance of, if not a real, conflict of interest. Better to have all the money come from Congress and do away with the fees.
What does that have to do with anything I said?
I agree the FDA is imperfect, and there have definitely been cases of impropriety, but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing. Cases like the one described by Acme Burger are, in my opinion, arguments for *more* regulation, not less. If nothing else, clearly the FDA needs to be better funded if it's relying on fees to pay the staff. It should be sufficiently funded as to be impartial. Clearly, that is not happening.
It's not as though the companies get to choose to pay the FDA more with a drug application for better attention. When I pay the DMV ungodly amounts to renew my license & tags, do I get preferential treatment? Are we close buddies who do favors for each other? Does this get me out of parking tickets? No, the government just attached an oversized fee to the required paperwork.
This is all a red-herring anyway. The blather was made in response to my post, which, if you actually read it, is not even about the current operation of the FDA, anyway, but a version of the FDA that I would find acceptable (and necessary). One that only evaluates claims and requires them to be accurate.
None of this "These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA" crap on the label, but more of "These claims have been evaluated by the FDA and we are required to admit they are a bunch of lies. The real truth is there is no basis to claim that this product provides any benefit beyond placebo, but it will cause a lot of health problems if you use it. However, you can buy it if you want."
As I said, you need this kind of government regulation if you want to give citizens a real free market. A market where companies are allowed to claim anything they want about anything (aka lie) does not allow consumers to make informed decisions.
Acme Burger, perhaps you can explain the chain of inference that leads you from your article cite to what appears to be agreement with the sentiment that "medicine, science in general and government are entirely corrupt and evil, so that we should place our faith in the alt med marketers who support Mikey's screeds with their advertising dollars"
That is certainly what is implied in your comment.
Pharmaceutical companies paying out fines in criminal & civil cases does not say much about medicine, science, or the government (aside from, perhaps that government criminal & civil law works at least some of the time). It only says things about pharmaceutical companies (things like 'gee, I'm glad that we have criminal & civil regulation of corporate behaviour').
Nor does it make the BS spouted by Mike Adams legitimate.
I agree that her music is snappy, but nothing transcendent. I think that a part of the reason that artists like Madonna and Gaga get big is based on the audience. Because the audience is still young, they have little else to compare with and are at a stage where they're just starting to define their tastes. The best thing you've ever heard could well be the first thing you've ever chosen to listen to on your own and you'll compare everything later to that.
This sort of star just needs to be good enough that someone with no context can decide to like them. I think this is why my Mom and Dad compare everything to the Beatles and why my Grandma likes swing. At a certain point, everything you hear later is just another artist.
The fact that Adams has become so incoherent in his reaction to Lady Gaga, only proves her Satanic witchcraft really does work. And in the process, she's turned another young man into a scared, senile old fart, because dark magic needs to feed on life-force stolen from other people.
"The fact that Adams has become so incoherent in his reaction to Lady Gaga, only proves her Satanic witchcraft really does work."
Then perhaps she'll change him into a newt - irrevocably, so he can't get better.
I have observed that almost any even remotely critical or insulting article on any celebrity is going to generate mindless, immature, horribly-written comments from crazed fans. I'm surprised none have showed up here.
Lady Gaga herself strikes me as though she's trying way too hard to be this generation's Madonna.
Judging from her popularity,I'd say that she's trying just hard enough.
Actually I have no doubt Mike is right and many of the comments directed at him were from people who hadn't read the article, who were functionally illiterate and who couldn't carry on a reasonable fact-based discussion. We see it all the time in the sciences--why wouldn't we see it elsewhere, even when it is aimed at Mike Adams. Just because Mike is crazy doesn't mean he doesn't get crazy mail.
-dan
"Actually I have no doubt Mike is right and many of the comments directed at him were from people who hadn't read the article, who were functionally illiterate and who couldn't carry on a reasonable fact-based discussion."
This serves to illustrate why it's sensible to buy irony meters by the gross.
The danger of the contact lenses is not that they are unapproved by the FDA, it's:
1 - They only come in one size, so they are guaranteed to fit badly on most of the wearers. Increased risk of corneal abrasions.
2 - They aren't extended wear, so anyone who falls asleep in them will wake up with their eyes swollen shut and probably corneal dings. (they have far less water than my extended wear lenses)
3 - They aren't handed out with the usual warnings about aseptic technique, increasing the risk of sloppy handling and eye infections.
****
And nowhere on the site does it say that Satan will not infest the next vial they ship with soul-sucking demons.
@Tsu Dho Nimh
Wait, what? My contact lenses say "etafilcon A, active ingredient 0.3% Satan (aqueous)"
I wear Acuvue.
With that said, I don't consider myself a fan of Gaga (dance pop isn't my thing), but I appreciate her performance art. If she can get such a staggering array of people's panties in a twist, then I suspect she's doing it right. As for the meat dress, I'd have gone with beef jerky. Raw beef is too smelly and messy.
Denice at #22 is absolutely right (and I didn't even know Gaga's background). Lady Gaga is a performance artist. Her primary work is commentary on the relationship between celebrity-media-public. I like her music okay, but what I really love is how she has created a persona that many people don't seem to get is a fictional character, in spite of how obvious she makes it. She's intelligent enough go into meta-analysis as a art form itself-- and she expects a good precentage of her audience to be smart enough to pick up on it.
She also knows how to do real music. I've heard her doing some blues and jazz numbers; she's got talent. But it's got to be megastar pop that she does to create the Lady Gaga icon that can fuck with the media.
You're right that she does some things for shock. But you're wrong to think that is *all* she's doing. There are so many layers. The meat dress shocks. The meat dress mocks the best/worst dress fashion critiques of all award shows, because it deliberately aims for worst. The meat dress questions leather. The meat dress reminds us of mortality. The meat dress points out female celebrities are flesh for consumption by the public eye. The meat dress opens the door for intellectuals to look strange for discussing what the meat dress means. The meat dress is a laugh.
Oh, and a "disco stick" is used as a prop in the song refering to it. It's a glitzy baton with a big light at one end.
Like any self-respecting post-punk solidly middle aged types, we had Lady Gaga safely filed away in the too-transient to bother requesting she get off our lawn category. That ended when she was on SNL - her faux fight with Madonna that Rene Najera referenced @ 14 was great, even though we were only vaguely aware of the "disco stick" song at the time, always appreciate artists that are willing to make fun of themselves. And then came her second performance, with basically just the piano and her voice, gave us a grudging respect for her talent as well, no longer saw her as a pop performer who was popular mainly for being thin. So, we stopped making fun of her, and started admitting that there was something to her popularity. Then came Cartman singing Poker Face on South Park that was remixed with Walken reading the lyrics and the original video and I was hooked enough to bother downloading the album. "Why are you making me buy bad music?" the man whined, only half jokingly. Two weeks later, he was making sure that the CD was in the car for a long road trip, and telling everyone who would listen about how she's the modern Madonna - and I really don't think he would have ever even conceived of that being a positive statement.
We know many, many other late 30s types who would self-describe as being snobby about music and disliking pop in general who have gotten on the Gagawagon. Sure, we roll our eyes at some of her more juvenile stuff, we are middle-aged after all. I hadn't heard about the meat dress until this post, but I'm really impressed. Very interesting statement for a fashion piece. How could anyone see that and think, "She's obsessed with death!" instead of "huh, odd that it's shocking that someone would wear a non-traditional animal part" or, "is that some weird PETA thing?" or even "geeze, guess being nearly naked all the time was no longer shocking, and she had to pull out an ugly dress made of something even less traditional for clothing than balloons."
So, while no self-respecting punk would be caught dead listening to her, we ourselves, and many of our friends, are self-respecting post-punks who have her songs mixed openly in our playlists full of classic and current punk rock.
I'd go for comedy Americium, or comedy gold pressed latinum, myself, but those are too nerdy for general use. Obsessed with death? Forgive my ignorance, but I never thought of dilated pupils as being the most noticeable difference between a corpse and a live person. That would be the "not moving" or "decomposing" parts. Now if he had just gone with her including so many Hitchcock references it wouldn't have inspired such a "Wait, WTF is he talking about???" response in me. The sex parts? Yawn, it's music, if it's not about sex, it better be about government oppression or social injustice.
Shame what music has come to... what happened to the good old-timee performers like GG Allin or The Mentors?
Great rant Djinna! So I now know not to put Lady Gaga in the same category as Justin Bieber ... another singer that I don't know and don't care about. Though I should admit I also ignored Ozzy Osbourne when I was in high school(just before SNL started).
I have no idea what my kids listen to. They have mp3 players, and download stuff. My son apparently has an account on Zune and gets heavy metal from small unknown indie bands. Daughter listens to Asian bands, which is why I found a tube mailed to her from Hong Kong (she won a pair of posters in some kind of contest, possibly when she had the computer switched to an alphabet I cannot read!).
I just know that I was glad they had music lessons when they told me to switch off Radio Disney when Britney Spears came on about ten years ago because they claimed she was horrible!
My mp3 player is full of podcasts, and I am wondering what happened to http://radio.seti.org/.
JustaTech @58
I find it best to stick with the original "Devil's Music", jazz and blues. After all, Robert Johnson was supposed to have sold his soul to the devil to improve his guitar playing.
Septic music trivia - James Randi decapitated Alice Cooper during his shows.
Here is a link to the "Flesh Dress" discusses uplink: http://schools.walkerart.org/swita/all2.html?ref=all:31
Militant Agnostic:
Ewww... did the audience have to hold their noses? ;-)
Devil's music might include some operas I have been to, like the incest in Wagner's Ring Cycle. I swear some of that music was pornographic.
Considering that Beethoven was considered by some in his day to be too much for nice ladies to listen to, every generation's music will annoy another generation. Shocking.
Actually what is shocking and highly amusing to me is that my brother who introduced me to Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, etc likes Lady Gaga enough that he went to concert when she was in town. It still makes me smile.
Someone should play this guy some Cannibal Corpse.
Are you suggesting that Lady Gaga can detect cultural smoke?
For her next OMG-What-is-she-wearing?! dress, I want her to be wearing nothing but dildos sewn together. The reactions she will get from conservative blowhards are certain to be particularly lolzy. Some of them might actually die from their shock/horror. Somehow, the world will find a way to go on without them...
@Djinna
This is the process we went through. I feel slightly embarrassed, as though I'm selling out my roots, but yeah. Have it on all the players but don't tell anyone about it.
right. another popcorn star, bashed by a gibbering idiot.
but you've got a point there Orac... it makes for Comedy Einsteinium !
Can't fix stupid.
You know, it's fucking hilarious when people are all 'Oh, you're a misanthropic biiiiitch' and then I point to this shit and they get misanthropic.
It doesn't seem to make them shut up about me, though.
It's evident from some of the responses concerning the FDA that some of the folks here haven't considered the pharma-biased practices going on within the walls of the FDA as raised by the PBS documentary.
@Acme Burger,
Clarify, please.
What responses?
What practices?
What documentary?
Please provide links to references.
Are you on the right thread? I thought we were talking about Lady Gaga.
One of my sons is a big fan of Lady Gaga and I generally find most of her songs reasonably listenable. But, I'll hold off for a few years before I decide if she's in the Carole King and Joni Mitchell class as a song writer.
But, to get a different perspective on her music, try listening to this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ua9yk1WO3c
@squirrelelite
Acme's referring to its threadjacking up around post 59. Brief tangential discussion about PDUFA and MDUFMA ensued, with comments, such as mine, saying that Congress should just give FDA the funding it needs and do away with those two laws, if for no other reason than that they create at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. The actual extent to which user fees paid by industry influence FDA practice is a matter for debate.
Then the conversation moved back to the topic of Orac's post.
Thanks, Todd.
I remember reading that now. I guess I just didn't scroll up far enough.
I agree that Congress should just properly fund the FDA to do its job. User fees like this contribute to the appearance of bias even if they probably don't affect the actual results of the research.
Ah, I haven't see this before.
Oh, but there is a relation between dilated pupils and sexual promiscuity. Dilated-pupil lenses may indeed have been designed to make people look more sexually available.
Apparently men find women while dilated pupils more alluring. I guess it's a positive loop effect: the woman looks like she is very interested in the proud male in front of her. Or maybe large pupils make the woman appear younger/frightened and in dire need of a protector.
A toxic plant, nightshade (or belladonna, "beautiful lady"), was used in medieval Europe for a similar cosmetic purpose.
Now, a female (or FWM, male) art performer using sexual innuendos to gain more attention? That a novel concept. Maybe Mike Adams should go out of his mansion once in a while and go visit the locals during one of their festivals.
Hmm, loud music with sometimes screechy and overblown vocals, lyrics that glorify extramaritial sex, incest, suicide, murder, genocide, war and all manner of other human activities. Old news. *Really* old news. I'm not into opera myself but my parents are (and they did *not* appreciate my pointing the similarities out to them when they professed a distaste for the loud rock music, blues and metal that I started listening to as a teenager :P )
Not into Gaga's music and skipped watching the awards but that picture has been everywhere. If that was a real meat dress and not a fake, what the heck was it preserved with so that it didn't turn grey? (or green - "but not a real green dress, that's cruel")
While on the topic of Mike Adams,the Ken Ham of supplement sales (just imagine...The Health Sup Museum), I just saw this header in my spam email account...
The Senate is debating a bill that will enable the FDA to put vitamin supplement makers in jail for ten years if they cite findings from peer-reviewed published scientific studies on the label of their dietary supplements or their web site.
So just off the cuff, I get from that: Regulators are intending on criminalizing the deliberate misrepresentation of snake oil properties via quote mining of scientific studies...the most common sales tactic employed by oil con artists to lure money off the ignorant and the gullible? Wishful thinking?
I don't see the problem.
Someone should play this guy some Cannibal Corpse.
Posted by: kyuss
Or maybe some Deicide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-BA86UhoE
Here is one of Bob Larson's fun little on-air romps with Glen.Jello Biafra was another regular.His numerous on air exorcisms,probably faked,are just one reason why "Talkback with Bob Larson" is some of the most entertaining radio of all time.
Chris @ #83 Two words Anna Russell
You know, this isn't the first time Mike Adams has invoked the specter of Satan in denouncing something he doesn't like. He's warned us about a complex Satanic Swine Flu Vaccine Conspiracy. Then there's "liquid Satan" (Mike's term for high fructose corn syrup*). Of course Mike has also issued shrill warnings about the poisoning of America with aspartame and proclaimed the evils of sugar as well, so we're really caught between a rock and a hard place as far as finding a sweetener that won't kill us in short order.
I'm concerned that Mike Adams is morphing into the Jack Chick of health quackery promotion, and will start adorning his screeds with cartoons of Satanistic Big Pharma and its imps (the F.D.A. and C.D.C.) threatening to plunge us all into a fiery lake of prescription meds.
*I supposed Lady Gaga's next stunt might be to wear a costume manufactured from high fructose corn syrup, but it sounds messy.
Get off my lawn, you punk kids!!!
Cheese it - it's Old Man Adams!
Wowwwww, I just read for the first time that old Satanic Swine Flu Conspiracy post that Dangerous Bacon posted at #101. I already knew Mike Adams was a quack, but damn. And this Lady Gaga brouhaha just adds to the crazy.
I have to wonder what it's like to go through life thinking so much of the humanity surrounding you is evil enough to allow these massive nefarious conspiracies to take place. I mean, of course there are horrible people out there and awful things that are done to others in the name of profit, indifference, or just plain evil psychopathic motives. But, to believe that such a totally enormous, decades long, global conspiracy has been pulled off for unsavory motives and that no one -- not ONE single person -- has come clean and snitched and no information about this has leaked? Seriously? A worldwide conspiracy that big would have to involve TONS of people, all complicit in this evil. Nobody in on the secret decided that people are more important than profit and became a whistleblower? And if you believe such true evil is universal enough in mankind to allow such a thing to happen without anyone involved developing a conscience and backing away, how do you trust anyone whatsoever in your life?
Part of the reason that swine flu conspiracy post really hit me is that I have a good friend who is anti-vaccine and some of what he's said is eerily reminiscent of Mike Adams BS. He was actually very pro-vaccine until last summer, and used to rail about how stupid and clueless about science Jenny McCarthy is and how he didn't agree with his girlfriend's anti-vaccine (and anti-medicine in general) views. Then he read some anti-vaccine propaganda his girlfriend fed him, and went totally to the other extreme. I know he's familiar with Mike Adams stuff, because he posted that ridiculous swine flu vaccine song last year on his Facebook.
Anyway, I knew my friend had swung to the other side on the vaccine thing, but I didn't realize how far until we were talking about an article we came across encouraging pregnant women to get the flu shot. Welllllll, he went off about how he almost thinks this must be part of their plot to kill off a bunch of the woman and babies. Whoaaaaaa. I swear, I think my jaw dropped. Heh. WTF? Where did he get this garbage? And he started rambling about how money talks, and evil corporations and government, power corrupts, blah blah blah... Now, reading this Mike Adams screed, I'm wondering if stuff he read from Natural News planted these stupid ideas in his head? Actually, it's probably one of several sources of (mis)information on the topic he's read.
*face palm*
It kind of makes me mad at these quacks that my friend has been hoodwinked by the bullshit they're selling. I really hope he comes back around to the truth before he has kids.
If it reminds us of mortality more than a dress made of vegetable fibres does, we're idiots.
I realize I just went kind of off topic above. So, on topic:
I generally like Lady Gaga.
The meat dress was kind of a silly stunt. Still, I think she was trying to make a real statement there, which was probably lost in translation.
Mike Adams is a grumpy old man who's fallen off his rocker. (Was he ever really ON it?)
@ Sauceress : While it is not a problem for sane people, woo-profiteers feel that their livlihood is being threatened. Thus, sites like Adams', Mercola's, and Null's alert their followers to contact their representatives to protest the looming threat to "health freedom","free speech", "medical choice", and ( naturally enough )free enterprise. An example of their recent work is the defeat of DSSA , which addressed some of the problems of DSHEA.
@ Kaydee : You nicely describe what one sceptic( possibly Goldacre) has called "cascade logic"- i.e., for the conspiracy to be maintained, it must grow to involve larger and larger pools of willing participants. Not very likely. Unfortunately, Adams'(and others' woo-ful) ridiculous ideas spread and take hold of the uninformed, the suspicious, and those who feel disenfranchised by the "elites". About Old Man Adams himself: he lists himself as being 38 on his HealthRanger site - it's several years old, so perhaps he's in his early 40's.
My labrador retriever would love to meet a nice woman wearing a meat dress.
Following up on Denice's comment, basically quacks like Adams want the freedom to deceive and to defraud.
What exactly is the mechanism of action of those Lady Gaga contact lenses, anyway?
And, as for the threat of incurring eye damage through poorly-fitting contacts... personally, I find even well-fitting contacts to be so uncomfortable, I don't see how anyone could force themselves to wear poorly-fitting ones long enough to damage their eyes. But then, I am old and want Mike Adams to get off my lawn. ;)
I've been to a few "Health Freedom" websites since I posted.
Man, have they got their manufactroversy propaganda down or what?
Going by the hard and fast bullshit they're spinning to the marks, they definitely seem worried that their easy money days of snake oil sales are winding to a close.
I like cracked magazine's take in Lady Gaga: she is simply doing a mash-up of Madonna and Marylyn Manson, so as to appeal to both teenage girls and teenage boys.