Unsought Input

I found this tidbit of internet the other day and I just felt the need to share with everyone. This site looks nice and professional.  In fact they even dare to let their motto be “make an educated decision” while they write articles telling us about five “Weird Careers in the Unknown” which include careers in “Cryptozoology, Ufologist, Parapsychologist, Paranormal Investigator and Conlinguist (unfortunately neither Wikipedia nor Google knows what conlinguism is so I had to direct you to that site, Google suggested I had misspelled cunnilinguist). This site, a college career advice site, feels that it’s okay to tell people who are looking for a new career in these troubling times that becoming a cryptozoologist is an awesome and exciting new career choice. In fact, here is a paragraph from the introduction of this article to explain:

These career paths are not for the faint-hearted. Any of these will almost certainly mean danger, spooky experiences, scanty paychecks, and/or ridicule from the mainstream public. If you think you have what it takes to be the next Fox Mulder, check out the following careers.

Scanty paychecks and/or ridicule? Sign me up right now! And, seriously, the next F0x Mulder? Did no one tell this guy that Fox Mulder was an imaginary character on a Science Fiction TV program and never really existed? What kind of career path is this? How many Paranormal Investigators have to have second jobs to pay the rent? How many Conlinguists (which if you didn’t figure it out yet, these people’s jobs are to create, write and speak fake languages from fictional characters from movies, books and tv shows) need to work at McDonalds just to eat? I think it’s time to scrutinize each section of this guy’s article and then add one more “exciting and fictitious” career to his already lacking list. (more…)

Toxins.  They are all around you, in the air, in your food, in your drinking water.  So how are you going to get rid of them?

One way would be to realize that “toxins” is so broad a term as to be useless and that in order to avoid exposure to specific health risks like mercury you need to do some research, analyze costs and benefits of approaches, and participate in a modern society with environmental, health, and food inspection.

But that’s too hard.  So instead, turn off your brain and watch this commercial:

So let’s check off all the reasons why this smells scammy.  Have you ever had any of the following symptoms:

• Headaches?
• Backaches?
• The dreaded…  fatigue?
• And many more?

These symptoms could mean that you are filled with toxins! or more likely, that you are a human being, since everyone has a headache once in a while.  In any event, products that claim to cure everything usually cure nothing.

The pads “work” by sticking to your feet at night and removing everything bad from your body.  Everything bad includes:

• Heavy Metals
• Metabolic Wastes
• Toxins
• Parasites
• Chemicals
• Cellulite

Yes, it turns out that cobalt, chiggers and chubbiness all follow the same metabolic processes.  This is point number two - claiming to work in several, completely unrelated ways.

Point number three is easy.  Too easy.  Isn’t it a bit suspicious that it does so much without any effort, pain, or discomfort on your part?

How was such an amazing products discovered?  Through the amazing, ancient art of oriental reflexology.  And acupuncture, or something and nature.  Did they mention homeopathy?  They should.  Misusing a lot of scientific-sounding or hippie nature-sounding terms is point four.

So what did I miss?  What other ways does this seem ridiculous to you?