Drinking Ethiopian Holy Water

I know it's been a while since the last update. I got involved with other things such as the election and such. Besides, a lot of the same old bullshit is being passed off as new.

Regardless, butter_scotch_23_2009 popped into the usual chat room recently and displayed a complete lack of critical thinking skills because she wanted to help "you people". ("You people"!? How fucking rude and condescending!) She said that there's some holy water in Ethiopia that has cured all types of illnesses including blindness and HIV. Her proof? An Ethiopian magazine written in Ethiopian and a copy of a "certified" paper printed in said magazine. Oh, yeah, the paper was also embossed by the government.

So, she had a "new Ethiopian friend" get some and bring it to her. And she's going to drink it and believes that this water from an unknown source is going to cure her of HIV.

Let's take the points one at a time, shall we?

• Certified
  The certification means absolutely nothing without knowing who did the certifying and what exactly has been certified. I could certify that highly efficient solar photo-voltaic panels can be made from shredded bank statements steeped in dog-shit tea for three days but that doesn't mean it's actually true.
• Embossed
  Any idiot can buy an embossing device from most any craft store or buy one from any number of websites. Just because it looks official doesn't mean it is. Butter's reason why the embossing device couldn't have been bought from the internet: Ethiopia has no internet service; they live in huts.
  
  Besides, you don't think the Ethiopian government has a desire to increase the number of people visiting its country, do you? Butter's response: Ethiopia doesn't have a government; they have a ruler. Uh, sweety; a ruler IS government. Pay no attention to Ethiopia's government being a Federal Parliamentary Republic and ignore their current president, Girma Wolde-Giorgis.
  
• Drinking water from an unknown source
  This is where Butter is taking her life into her own hands. She says that a friend of a friend of an uncle of a dog of a monkey of her sister's boyfriend's long-lost cousin (or something like that) has brought (or is bringing) some of this alleged holy water from Ethiopia to Butter for Butter to drink. Yet, there is no guarantee that this water that she's given wasn't gathered from a garden hose next door; taken from the airport bathroom, or actually did come from this mythical magical holy water source in Ethiopia. And, if it really does come from Ethiopia, (would it pass customs??) where are the assurances that it's even safe to drink. (Oh, yeah, the water comes with "instructions". INSTRUCTIONS!? You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me. (1) Open jar (2) Pour contents into mouth (3) Swallow (4) discard jar. Whatta fuckin' joke.)
  

Look, I understand the desire to want to believe there's a cure; I really, really do. But rather than believing any yahoo who comes by and says that, say, swallowing a goldfish that has spawned and lived in the pure spring waters from a mountaintop spring in Switzerland is going to cure any thing I would rather believe that an independently proven cure. Besides, as I told Butter here, a real cure doesn't require the person taking it to "believe" or "have faith" that it'll work; a real cure just works.

Attending A Church Service in Lagos, Nigeria

It's the cure for lazy people!

Yes, that's right. You don't have to do anything other than show up at a church service in Lagos, Nigeria. But not just any ol' church service; it's gotta be at the "Christian Praying Assembly Church" in Lagos.

In the usual Yahoo!Chat room, a user, Chubbychubby74, ran in, shouted at the top of his keyboard's lungs, "HIV/AIDS IS 100% CURABLE FREE OF CHARGE" and "ITS [sic] CURE(100%) NOT TREATMENT". Several times he shouted this each time with an admonition to PM him.

Being the antithesis of gullible that I am, I PMed him. (Wow, it's big-word-day here at the blog, aint it?)

I asked him to tell me about his "cure". And he replied, "I wonder why people take the power of god for granted" (this, too, was in all caps, but for the sake of legibility here, I'm not going to all-caps it.) Since this wasn't a reply to my statement, I pressed on again with asking him to tell me about this "cure". Again, he ignored me and said that it's 100% free of charge; which he had already said in the chat room.

I'm beginning to wonder why so many people seem to have such difficulty with reading comprehension these days....

I pestered him to tell me the name of the church and it took at least 5 minutes to get out of him the damn name of the church, "Christian Praying Assembly Church". You'd think that a church that can cure HIV infection simply by showing up would be ecstatic to have its name plastered all over the internet. But this one apparently operates in relative secrecy. (Don't tell anybody....)

Once again, I asked him to tell me about the "cure". His response this time was "Are u [sic] in Nigeria?" Regardless, I went back and forth with Chubby-Chubby-Two-by-- and eventually got out of him that this cure is by his "General Overseer", he wasn't joking, he saw his brother cured 100%, that it was 100% free and asked me if I can come to Nigeria.

When I asked him who verified that his brother was cured, he demonstrated his lack of reading comprehension skills again and replied, "Have u [sic] heard of His Holiness The Most Hon. Dr. Rev. King". (That's quite a few abbreviations before his name there, ain't it?) He went on to again tell me that it's 100% free and that he's not "demanding" money.

Anyway, I pressed on with the verification of his brother being cured. He said that "four hospitals" did "the complete HIV tests". Being that there is nothing I'm aware of that are called "The Complete HIV Tests", I asked him about them. He said he didn't know what they were and that I should just believe him.

When it was clear that I doubted him, he began what was one of the most despicable and exploitative shenanigans to try to convince me. He said that a friend of his (you know, Angie from the UK) doubted him and "she is dead now". He further said:

• "IF AM LYING LET GOD BLESS YOU, BUT IF AM SAYING THE TRUTH, FROM NOW TILL THE END OF 2009, YOU SHALL DIE"
• "WHAT I PRONOUNCED UPON YOU WILL PROVE TO YOU OK"
• "WE WILL KNOW WHO WILL FUCK INSIDE THE GRAVE"
• "I HAVE SPOKEN TO U INTRHE NAME OF GOD"
• "GET BEHIND ME SATAN"

So, I went ahead and asked Chubby Chubby 2x4 here to do something a little more kind: Make it rain outside my house if he was speaking for God. "I'll even accept a light drizzle".

He further proceeded to tell me that I was "dirty" and that he was giving me HIV instead of making it rain; all in the name of his all-loving God.

And then he left.

He's been back since then. And my offer of believing him if he can make it rain on demand still stands... I think we're in for a rather dry summer....

(I suspect that another user, njidekaking, is the same person as chubbychubbytwobyfour here; they both promote the "Attend a church service in Nigeria and be cured" bullshit with the same all capital letters and the same "May god punish me blah blah blah". My apologies if they are not the same person. However, looking through the internet real quick it's clear that they are at least speaking of the same church and same "hon. dr. rev. ms. prof. whatev. King")

Goat Serum

(Since the below post was written and posted I've come to realize that both Precious and Rocky Thomas do in fact exist and aren't figments of someone's imagination. I considered removing potentially snide and rude comments I made about both of them but didn't want to appear to "rewriting history" so the thinly veiled jabs stay in the post. I still, however, do not believe that this "Goat Serum Cure" is in any way whatsoever helpful--may in fact be harmful--to someone living with HIV or AIDS. October 13, 2009)

Also known as BB:7075. Or maybe even peHRG 214. More on those later.

The cure for AIDS for this month/week/whatever was "discovered" (i.e., made up out of the blue) by asshole and general practitioner Dr. Gary R. Davis of Tulsa, Oklahoma. (But maybe it wasn't. More on that later.)

Back in December 1992, Dr. Davis apparently shouted a command to the heavens, "If you're God, then act like God!" That night, he had a dream. (Cue mysterious music.) In this dream, he was naked in a barn with a goat. (Cut it with the music!) What kind of goat is never mentioned. That's unfortunate. What's more unfortunate is why was he dreaming about being naked with a goat in a barn. That's just kinda creepy.

Regardless, he stuck a dream-needle into the dream-goat in the dream-barn and drew some of the dream-goat's dream-blood. When he awoke, he realized that he knew all sorts of stuff about HIV he didn't before. Like, for example, what he told his family, "Did you know that a goat cannot contract HIV?"

(No fucking shit, Sherlock! It's called HUMAN Immunodeficiency Virus for a reason.)

Then, much later, and as reported by one Forres McGraw (who claims to be a reporter for the Greenwich Village Gazette), precious 7-year-old Precious Thomas had AIDS, was being seen by doctors at the National Institutes of Health and had a Viral Load of 118,119 (which seems a bit too precise, by the way). But, after using Dr. Davis' bullshit Goat Serum (I guess retrieved by squeezing a part of the goat that might get you arrested and charged by the Humane Society), precious Precious' precious viral load went preciously to "ZERO [sic]". (Never mind that viral load tests aren't fucking accurate to anything less than 50 (or maybe 25, I'm not sure); that's why it's called "undetectable".)

Here's the story. In 1995, Dr. Davis "developed" his treatment, one year later, he applied to the FDA to perform a clinical trial with his Goat Juice. While apparently initially approved, that approval was revoked.

Meanwhile, back in Bethesda, MD, Rocky Thomas, Precious' precious unfortunately-named mother, was apparently comforting Precious who was "in the hospital". Whatever that means. Heck, if you step inside the doors of a hospital, you are "in the hospital". Regardless, Ms. Thomas "vowed" to do whatever it took to help her daughter. Admirable; but in this case stupid.

Mrs. Thomas apparently recalled a news story on Dr. Davis' "treatment" and flew off to Tulsa to meet with him. According to the story, Dr. Davis was "barred" by the FDA from administering his "treatment". So, he apparently cancelled all his remaining appointments for the day and spent "much of his afternoon" with the Thomases.

So, standing by her vow, Rocky broke the law and stole a vial of the Goat Serum and administered it to her daughter. Afterwhich, precious Precious was "cured" of her awful HIV infection.

~~~~~

This story has so many problems it's amazing. But let me touch on a few.

First, an undetectable viral load is NOT cured! Sheesh! I would think even a GP (General Practitioner) would know this!

Second, this Rocky Thomas twit could have done some horrible things to the daughter she claimed to love so much by using an unproven and utterly untested "serum" on her! If this Rocky Thomas exists, I would love to see her prosecuted for child endangerment!

Not only that, Rocky Thomas admittedly broke the law by stealing the serum! This possibly fictional woman is a danger!! (One wonders if this "Mrs. Thomas" is the one who stole the goat serum from a "holding facility" in North Carolina as referenced on an FDA Web page warning persons not to use the Goat Serum at all....)

And the author of the "article", Mr. McGraw, attempts to twist the denial of the clinical trial by the FDA into some sort of racially-based discrimination! He states, "Why is the brilliant work of an African American General Practitioner being suppressed?" What an asshole!! Not everything "bad" that happens to an African American is because of his or her skin color! Fuck you, Mr. McGraw!

And, I found absolutely no references to Mr. McGraw's articles nor to this Precious Thomas on the web site for the Greenwich Village Gazette. (To be fair, I'm not sure how far back the Greenwich Village Gazette keeps articles. And, Mr. McGraw could have been summarily canned, booted, fired, kicked to the curb or otherwise dismissed from his duties after writing his article.)

Finally, there is a lot of information on the internet about this Goat Serum. It's called BB:7075 by Dr. Davis. And, a quick search on "BB:7075 HIV" yields an interesting page at the Ghana AIDS Commission's web site. And that page is really where this bullshit Goat Juice really crashes and burns.

Most notably:

"The Commission further stated that no pre-clinical studies have been conducted on BB: 7075 with respect to HIV 1 Virus." (Remember precious Precious from earlier? If she was infected in the US, chances are that she has HIV 1 and the fucking Goat Juice has NEVER BEEN TESTED ON HER STRAIN OF THE VIRUS!!

And, I leave you with this lengthy-ish bombshell from near the end of the Ghana AIDS Commission's web site:

Contrary to the above [claims that Dr. Davis discovered or invented BB:7075], further search about BB:7075 on the internet and particularly on the [United States Food and Drug Administration] website, seems to suggest that Dr Davis is not the inventor of peHRG 214 [the name possibly given to the serum in a US clinical trial] as there is no documentation on the product except those placed on the internet by Dr. Davis himself. Drug development should generate substantial date. To date, Dr. Davis has not been able to provide any scientific date on his product."

What an asshole this Dr. Davis is!

(The references for the dream above came from Eightball Magazine and The Quiet Hour. Never let it be said that I don't publish my sources...)

Faith

Yes, after a very busy September here on the blog, I ran into a brick wall through all of October. So shoot me. I'm not getting paid for this. (Now, if you want to pay me for this, you're more than welcome to!!)

Anyway, on to Faith....

It seems the HIV/AIDS:1 chat room on Yahoo! goes through spurts of various people trying to get the chatters there to buy some "cure". The most recent spat was a bunch of people spewing that through faith alone, one can cure HIV and AIDS. One of 'em even starting singing pathetically supposedly uplifting christian music on the microphone into the room. Well, I suppose it would be most accurate to call it "vocalizing". He couldn't sing. Not even carry a tune in a bucket. It was amusing and horrible both at the same time.

I don't have Yahoo! handles for ya this time (mainly 'cause my mind is like a seive) so you'll just have to take my word for this one. I asked one (or maybe more, I don't really know) what he or she would say to the billions who have HIV or AIDS that weren't cured through "faith" or prayer. And to the reply (which I forget), I asked, "So, if the person wasn't cured, it was the person's fault for not having enough faith, right? It had nothing to do with HIV and AIDS not being curable??" I remember one of them logged off the chat room right after being asked that.

And, I know I asked a couple of these folks how they knew the person with "faith" had been cured. One of 'em replied that he'd seen the "HIV Papers" of the person. When asked what he meant by "HIV Papers", he logged off.

Still others said that with prayer, one can be cured from HIV or AIDS. I pointed out the results of a study done in England near the beginning of 2006 that indicated that prayer had no positive effect on the recovery of people in the hospital. And, in some cases (where the patient knew he or she was being prayed for), the patient actually got worse rather than better. So, prayer does nothing. Zilch. Nada. And, can even hurt people.

I also pointed out that since God will do anything he wants to anyway, their prayers wouldn't force God to do anything.

Finally, some even said that God can do anything. But, according to Judges 1:19, God couldn't "drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.". And, in Hebrews 6:18 "It was impossible for God to lie." So, God can't do anything. These people generally don't like this part of the discussion....

It's pathetic. These people think they're helping folks but they really aren't. They're really just being arrogant religious nut cases. "If you had the faith that I do, you'd be cured". That isn't uplifting nor is it helpful. Face it. There is no known cure for HIV nor for AIDS. I wish these poeple would get this simple little fact through their brains....

("Let the negative commentary commence!!!")

Not Having Sex

And now, for a word from the religious right...

The folks at Turning Point Ranch say on their web site at http://www.tpranch.org/Cure%20for%20AIDS.htm that the cure for AIDS is abstinence. Yes, indeed, simply by not having sex, we can cure AIDS... Oh, but not for those who already have it, only for the vast majority of those who don't have it. Sorta like blaming the person for getting sick. If you get the flu, it's your own damn fault for breathing.

And, to be fair, yes, if everybody stopped having sex, the incidence of HIV transmission would drop dramatically. (And so would the birth rate....) But they ignore one basic fact: Sex is Fun. Sex feels good. You simply can't expect the entire world to stop having sex because you think it's a good idea.

They also talk about "AIDS-infected men". And that's just wrong terminology. Nobody is infected with AIDS. Nobody "gets" AIDS. People get infected with HIV which then can develop into AIDS. It may be splitting hairs but I think it's also an important distinction.

Anyway, if nobody had sex anymore, AIDS will go away. (Except for those who get it through sharing needles. Or from needle sticks in the ER. The site conviently ignores those two different infection vectors... Ah, well... We can't win 'em all...)

Honey, Vaseline, and the Koran

Dateline Lagos, Nigeria. The date, April 22, 2001. The news source, Reuters. The writer, D'Arcy Doran.

As reported on Boston.com back in 2001, "the state assembly in northern Kano passed a bill endorsing a group claiming a spiritual cure for AIDS."

Their house health commitee (obviously a well respected and published group of doctors, researchers, and educators and not a bunch of hoodwinked politicians as one might expect from a state assembly) says that it "had studied clinical data and was satisfied with the cure, which involves smearing honey and petroleum jelly on sufferers and reading verses of the Koran."

And here we've all been doing it wrong. We've been reading verses from the Book of Mormon and certain passages from The Watchtower. Damn!

I wonder which verses from the Koran (Quran, take your pick) one is suppose to read... Is it the one about helping the lot of orphans (2:220) or the one that says to be kind and to forbid injustice (22:41) or the ones that say that unbelievers will suffer an "awful doom" (2:6; 2:114; 3:176; 5:33; 14:2; 35:7 et. al.).

Inquiring minds want to know!

(And I'm not saying anything bad about Vaseline^®. It's a fine product even if it does taste awful on a slice of toast. And the Koran is not alone among religious texts dooming unbelievers. The Bible is filled with that crap.)

Brain Worms from Second Generation HIV-infected Alien Chickens

No. Really. I mean it. The "King Technica" website ("Where God and Gay rhyme" and "where its [sic] God and Gay, ALL the Time!") has discovered an amazing truth. (And some really annoying music; turn down yer speakers before heading over there...)

Get the drum-rolls ready. Be ready for the cheerleaders. Fill up the water tanks.

Chickens are from outer space!!!

Cue the pyrotechnics! Cue the marching band!! Cue the fountains!!! Start the parade!!!!

No. Really. He means it. This creepy sweaty guy (yes, that's really a picture off his web site which states that all pictures are freely distibutable; even the ones he doesn't own and violated copyrights on by using them) really believes that chickens are alien animals from outer space. Since they're from outer space ("not of this Earth") they have to be cooked before being eaten. Which is why the aliens (whose name is "Sequoia" by the way; here I thought it was a tree!) brought chickens to Earth in the first place; to be used as food for us.

Z (his "Earthly name is Scott") says (and you'll notice the quotation marks), "Thus, when you f*ck around with chickens, you invite powers that are not of this Earth." He also seems to have a real big issue with the Catholic church. I don't really know where this nut-job gets his information but he also says, "Church messed around with dark energy by hurting chickens to pick the infectious fruits to kill sinners."

Voldemort? The "CHuRCH" is Voldemort!?? No wonder the Catholic church doesn't like Harry Potter.....

On second thought, I *do* know where this freak gets his information; from the aliens. I wonder if the computer he uses is in the common room of his ward....

So, anyway, on to the Second-Generation Infected Chicken Brain Worms.

The whole jist of this, truly the most bizarre shit I've come across for this blog, is this: "The parent chicken needs infected, then the offspring chickens need infected again, to produce a condition in chickens similar to Mad Cow's Disease. Scientists need to infect the chicken in such a way to force them to develop "BRAIN WORMS". The Cure to AIDS is found in those WORMS." I like how he says "is found" rather than "can be found" or "may be found". It's as if he's done the research (i.e., listening to the little crazy voices in his head) and actually discovered this to be true!

But, alas, it isn't. Reading further, "KingTechnica.com has sent emails to AIDS web sites but we need your help in getting this information to the AIDS RESEARCHERS. Scientists arent [sic] going to find the cure in any synthetic drug, because this isnt [sic] a synthetically created disease. It was CREATED by CHuRCH using CHICKENS and the spiritual principals of Voo-Doo. Sick." Well, he got one thing right; HIV/AIDS isn't a man-created disease. I have to give the insane guy that much.

He's lost it on so many levels but one kinda sticks out. His "Double Negative" crap. ("Crap" and "bullshit" don't really apply because this critter is so far gone it's a little sad...) He says that since the Church, uh, fucked with chickens (isn't that illegal in most states??) and created a double negative of Hurt and HIV, it's going to take a double negative to cure it. That's why the chicken brain worms need to come from the brains of chickens who are infected twice.

This all begs the question, "If Chickens are infected with HUMAN Immunodeficiency Virus, if it does anything at ALL, doen't it become AVIAN Immunodeficiency Virus?" ("OH NO!! BIRD FLU!!!")

But ya know, I can't help but wonder if the chickens are infected via intravenous drug use, a needle stick, or through unprotected sex...

(I've really only barely scratched the surface of this In-Need-of-therapy Guy. To get the full Dali-esque picture of this guy's lunacy (and I mean that in the truest sense of the word) I really do suggest you visit his site. Try not to laugh too hard; you might get a hernia...)

Aliens

No, not the illegal ones from across the border. (At least, I don't think it's those.) Taken from the Yahoo!Chat room, HIV/AIDS:1:

Zaxian: the ALIENS gave me the CURE TO AIDS and its posted on my website, the CHuRCH CREATED THE AIDS VIRUS (no kidding), Yahoo is blocking web links (how nice), so you have to manually type it in.... w w w . kingtechnica . c o m (no spaces) 80

I really wish I could get that site to come up!!! I keep getting "refused connection" errors. I'm guessing there's a DNS error somewhere in the world that's preventing this from loading. DAMMIT!

This fucker is just SO ripe for ridicule, I'm frothing at the mouth!

God

Yes, but which god?? Zeus? Loki? Pelé?

No, today's cure is none other than the Generic Christian God. (I'll call him--or her, or them, or it--GCG for short...) Over on a web site for The Hallelujah Prayer Warriors a bunch of Southern Baptists claim that their little prayer circle is forcing the Generic Christian God to heal entire countries of AIDS. Yes, really.

They say, "A few years ago, a group of Christians in the United States of America began praying against AIDS." How does one pray "against" AIDS? Does anybody really pray in support of AIDS? I doubt these people really have any idea what AIDS is nor does. But, no matter... They're speaking to GOD!

They say to these poor, HIV-ravaged countries, "Turn to God, repent of your sins, receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour and ask God to heal your land."

Look, you damn baptists! If your Generic Christian God is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful and since your Generic Christian God will do what he, she, it, or they want to do, why do you presume so damn much to think that your itty bitty prayer group will do anything?? As best I can see, your prayer circle has only allowed you fuckers to become arrogant ("Our prayer group made God heal!"), self-righteous ("Our prayer group did more than your prayer group!"), and prideful ("Our Prayer Group gets results!").

STOP IT! Why don't you just admit that your prayer group does NOTHING except make its members feel like they're doing something? God will do what he (she, it or they) wants; a fucking prayer group won't sway God's opinion one way or the other. (Fucking baptists....)

(I believe God wanted me to write the above post. Including the swearing. If he hadn't wanted me to write it, he would have blown up my keyboard. He would have struck me down with lightening. He would have sent a power surge to my computer. He would have done something to prevent me from writing it. Since he didn't, I presume that it's God's will this message be posted on the Interent!)