I Call Bullshit

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit column. It’s a regular column that looks at skulduggery and balderdash, spurious reasoning and bunkum. This week we’re look at the humble loaf of white bread and its apparent demise.

White bread. It’s now seen not only as the dieter’s worst enemy, but as an insult to our heightened sense of the gourmet. It’s… vulgar.

Health experts decry its sodium content, its high GI, its nutritional vacuum. “The whiter the bread, the quicker you’re dead”, they say. Yes, they really do.

Continue reading "ICB: Is white bread the worst thing since sliced bread?" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. It’s a weird one. An email arrived in my inbox yesterday spruiking “Australian best-selling author Margaret Stuart”, whose gift lets her “see into the bodies and minds of people suffering from different illnesses and help them to remove the thoughts and fears that are literally making them ill”.

Bullshit bingo! I took a look at the website, chuckled that the ‘qualifications’ section included kinesiology, Thought Field Therapy, and advanced scaffolding and forklift driving, pulled the old ranty-pants out of the cupboard, lined up an interview, and was good to go.

Then a strange thing happened. Margaret Stuart seemed like a nice, genuine woman who just happened to have some beliefs I reckon are a bit kooky. She may think she can cure diseases with mind power, but she doesn’t tell people to stop seeing their doctors and she doesn’t seem to be making a fortune from it. The ranty pants chafed.

Continue reading "When skeptics go soft: A slightly different ICB" »

Welcome to ICB, The Punch’s weekly column where we call bullshit on matters owed the honour of being metaphorically described as fecal matter.

This week we’re taking a look at gaffes - verbal slip-ups. I’m calling bullshit on the way other politicians blow the tiniest of their opponents’ public stuff-ups into a big deal.

Let’s start with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who “gaffed” on Tuesday. Talking to the media he said: “Should the Reserve Bank lower interest rates today, that will be welcomed, but that is obviously a matter for the bank”.

But the Reserve Bank chooses whether to adjust interest rates on the first Tuesday of the month. This Tuesday was April’s fourth. Dun-dun-DUN!

Continue reading "ICB: Gaffes aren’t worth mouthing off about" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column on, well, bullshit. Today, dear readers, it’s a three-in-one unholy bonanza!

Thanks to the Global Atheist Convention, The Punch was inundated this week by the godly and the ungodly, and once again we rehashed all the arguments about good and evil and science and evidence and faith and proof, and we were hoping today would be our day of rest.

But we’re not at the seventh day yet, and there is much bullshit to wade through, so here goes.

Continue reading "ICB: Freedom of religion vs. freedom from religion" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column on spin and skulduggery, pseudoscience and shenanigans. This week we’re looking at Mattel’s decision to make a bald Barbie.

Bald Barbie – or bald-friend-of-Barbie – will be distributed in hospitals to kids with cancer, or other conditions which make them lose their hair. Mattel said it “demonstrates Mattel’s commitment to encourage play as a respite for children in the hospital and bring joy to children in need”. Aw.

Mattel are responding to a Facebook page calling for a bald doll to help all children suffering hairloss, and only the cynical would suggest it was also responding to the February announcement that Barbie’s main competitors – Bratz and Moxie Girlz dolls – would be getting hairless friends.

Continue reading "ICB: Barbie exists to make children feel normal" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column that looks at deceit and disingenuousness, spin and fabrication. Now, let’s talk about Tasers.

The latest news on Roberto Laudisio, who died after police tasered him in the back because the unarmed young man was running away and suspected of stealing a packet of bikkies, is that he’d been “partying” and may have been exhibiting signs of paranoia.

Police and Taser spin merchants want to blame ‘excited delirium’ for Taser-related deaths.

Continue reading "ICB: Poor widdle Tasers are just misunderstood" »

There’s a steaming pile of rubbish out there about health. There’s plenty of money to be made from offering too-good-to-be-true remedies.

Yesterday I was writing a couple of news stories about ways in which people get bamboozled by health-related information and then I started firing up a Punch piece on them. Then I realised I’d written it all before. Bullshit is everywhere, and it’s a billion-dollar industry and people want magic pills.

So rather than repeat myself I thought I’d just list five of the stories that have crossed my desk recently and made me want to tear out my hair and run screaming into the street. And if you know of others, let me know. It’s not that we ever run short of subjects for The Punch’s regular I Call Bullshit column, but there’s a sadistic pleasure in seeing that particular cup runneth over.

Continue reading "Five dumb health mistakes even smart people make" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column that looks at pseudoscience and magical thinking. Unsurprisingly, vaccination pops up quite a bit.

The Australian reports today that the Government has renewed CSL’s contract to supply Fluvax – the vaccine found to trigger febrile convulsions in children and subsequently banned.

Fluvax also has a “modestly higher” risk of side effects in adults – it is more likely to cause headaches, fatigue, vomiting and injection site pain.

Continue reading "ICB: Anti-vaxxers injecting credibility into their cause" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, an irregular regular column on calumny and codswallop. This week we’re looking at why so many Australians are choosing the risk of melanoma over the risk of… something ill defined.

According to the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education there’s a proportion of people who – because they’ve heard about concerns over the use of nanoparticles in sunscreen – think it’s safer not to use it at all.

To stop people getting the 80s ‘zinc’ look, some sunscreen manufacturers break the zinc particles down into nanoparticles, or teeny tiny bits. See here for a much more erudite explanation.

Continue reading "ICB:  If I could offer you only one tip for the future…" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit column. In a world full of bunkum, it’s often hard to narrow the field down – but today there is a clear winner. Mark Wahlberg and his funky bunch of bollocks.

The brother of a NKOTB member, actor, producer and all round ripped guy told the Men’s Journal he could have totally sorted out those September 11 terrorists. He was meant to be on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre. He told the journal:

“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’”

Continue reading "ICB: Is Mark Wahlberg really Hangin’ Tough?" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column where we pick apart mischievous misrepresentations, balderdash, and outright bunkum. This week, with bulging bellies, blurry brains and labouring livers, we’re taking a look at detox diets.

It’s easy to see the appeal of a detox. You’ve been shovelling twenty kinds of crap into your poor system, you can sense it’s struggling to cope, and you want to turn back the clock.

Like a very Earthly Confession, you want to wipe away your sins with a few Hail Marys, some lemons and dash of cayenne.

Continue reading "ICB: Magic detox diets - just intoxicating marketing?" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column where we look at shysters and shenanigans, bad science and mad conspiracies.

This week is going to kick off a series on men’s rights extremists (MRE). Like all extremists, these guys ruin it for those who have genuine concerns for men in today’s society with their pseudoscience and shonky stats, strawmen and very thinly veiled agendas. In the same way that extremist feminists make it harder for women to voice their own concerns.

Over the coming weeks we’ll look at some of the main issues, including intelligence and gender, false rape allegations, family court issues, sexism, domestic violence, relative advantage, misandry and so on. If you’ve got a topic you want covered, dive in below. 

Continue reading "ICB: The Great Feminist Conspiracy and MRE" »

Welcome to this week’s “I Call Bullshit”, which has been slowly percolating inside of me for many years.

It’s about the myth that there is a deep divide in this country between people who come from the cities, and the people who come from the regions, and that the latter are somehow fundamentally different from everyone else; that they are in some way more “real” Australians than the people who live in the comfort of the suburbs.

Somehow, we have accepted this notion that once you drive out of a big city, you cross some invisible line that maps out “real” Australia. It’s one great big construct that has no basis in reality.

Continue reading "ICB: The myth of rural virtue" »

We’re entering a new phase of the carbon pricing ‘debate’ this week, because it’s now too late for anyone to do much about it, despite Opposition Leader Tony Abbott promising there will be no carbon tax under a Government which he leads.

The Gillard Government has pinned its hopes on the electorate absorbing the costs of the tax – and the compensation for the tax – and realising that things, relatively speaking, are not going to tip over into some fetid abyss of poverty from which there is no return.

What they’re overlooking in their optimism, though, is how deep the distrust of the Government now runs, and how firmly embedded the notion of the Prime Minister as a liar is.

Continue reading "ICB: Are Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s pants really on fire?" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column on spin, pseudoscience and shenanigans. It’s a hairy one this week – does Yeti exist?

On a research trip to a remote Russian mountain this week, scientists found some hair and a footprint – and a ‘presumed bed’ - and declared they were now 95 per cent sure the mythical Yeti lives.

The Yeti legend is of a big, ape-like creature roaming the Siberian tundra, with wild fur but a hairless face. Reports of sightings crop up with Roswellian frequency – and coincidentally there have been several reports of alien bodies and UFO crash sites in the ‘hood as well.

Continue reading "ICB: An abominable snowjob… and Yeti may exist" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column looking at spin and shenanigans, skulduggery and pseudoscience. This week we’re having a crack at Kylie Minogue’s honorary doctorate.

A UK university has awarded the Singing Budgie a doctorate in singing. Pardon? Did you say it wasn’t for singing? For music? No? Health Sciences?! Are you serious?

A doctorate is the highest academic degree in any branch of knowledge. So you’d want to be quite… knowledgeable, wouldn’t you?

Continue reading "ICB : Sorry, Kylie, but I won’t be calling you Dr Minogue" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a weekly column on shenanigans of all kinds. Today we look at Tim Mathieson’s 50th birthday present to Prime Minister Julia Gillard. A Cavoodle.

Hybrid vigour? I call bullshit. These designer dogs are just mongrels with a ludicrous price tag. Keep your bullshit special-purpose cross breed, your genetically manipulated bundle of non-shedding joy.

Keep your Labradoodles and Shegroodles, your Foxyhuahuas and Afghanitas, your Bullalutes.

Continue reading "ICB: Thanks, Tim, but a Cavoodle’s not a REAL dog" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a weekly column on, well, bullshit. Gather round, kiddies, today we’re going to look at elves and gnomes and nymphs!

Bullshit is a funny sort of thing, it’s everywhere, all the time, but gathers more thickly in certain parts of the world. Some places are dedicated to clearing a way through the muck, while a growing number of sites (both virtual and real) are dedicated to creating steaming mounds of the stuff.

Places of learning, schools and universities and the like, should be in the muck-clearing business, but plenty of them are actually spreading the stuff around – teaching homeopathy, rubbish post-modern post-colonial reinterpretations of fairy tales, and so on. And in Iceland, there’s a school that teaches eager minds about elves – all 13 varieties of ‘em!

Continue reading "ICB: A world in which elves exist and magic works" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. This week we’re going heavy metal. Silver is starting to acquire a cure-all gloss, as people attribute all sorts of amazing powers to it. It can kill werewolves! And microbes! And de-stink stinky sneakers!

As a disinfectant, it’s not just a Band-aid gimmick; it actually does help treat infections and is being used more often as superbugs get a foothold in our hospitals – although some experts warn that its very effectiveness could eventually just create more resistant strains of bacteria.

So if it’s good embedded in wound dressings, it must be even better if tiny particles of the stuff are suspended in liquid and downed in one, right? Well, hate to make you blue, but I call bullshit.

Continue reading "ICB: Colloidal silver is rolled gold… something" »

Welcome to the return of I Call Bullshit, a regular Punch column on all things that reek of magical thinking and mistruths, pseudoscience and spin.

So, riots, eh? Australia’s just a tinderbox of simmering tensions, waiting to explode into unconstrained groupthink violence, with much gnashing of teeth and smashing of Harvey Norman windows. If you believe everything you hear, you’d think that a flood of boatpeople will immediately flood detention centres then flood into the community causing floods of riots. Flood’s such a good word, isn’t it?

People would not be able to help themselves; all those men and women and children fleeing persecution would force their hand, and they would have to start stealing televisions.  Be afraid. Grab the lifejackets!

Continue reading "ICB: Grab the lifejackets, there’s a flood on the way" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. Let’s get straight into it. So some bloody smart-arse congregation of designer-stubbled preening ad men have concocted a ridiculous campaign suggesting milk will take care of PMS.

Picture them sitting around their long shiny tables, bums squeaking in their exxy leather chairs, waiting for a cute secretary to bring them (soy) lattes and discussing just how ‘cheeky’ their new milk ads are.

Oooo and we’ll have a website and do social media and piss off the feminazis by suggesting women are hormone-ravaged banshees who can be tamed by calcium intake. IT’LL GO VIRAL, they probably thought, with pants-wetting glee.

Continue reading "ICB. PMS. Don’t. Get. Me. Started." »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. One of the most stupid things I’ve ever done was to tell my boss exactly what I thought – after a bottle or three of shiraz. Was I obnoxious, insulting, and unprofessional? Undoubtedly. Did I mean what I said? Well, yeah, I did.

That twee-moustachioed, pint-sized fashion designer, John Galliano, has blamed drugs and booze for a 45 minute tirade in which he maintains a barely controlled wobble while declaring his love for Hitler, saying to a couple of chicks he thought were Jewish:

People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f****ng gassed.

Continue reading "ICB: Truth serum - is the veritas in the vino?" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, where we arbitrarily pick a topic to have a crack at. Today, inspired by a Punch thread, we’re going to look at the stickers people choose to put on their cars.

Now I’ve previously expressed my hatred of stickers that pretend to be passionately patriotic when in fact they’re just racist. But this time I’ve undertaken a more in-depth scientific study of the chasm between what a sticker purveys and the actual truth.

You think a sticker will fool people into believing you are more than you are? I Call Bullshit. Here’s a few examples.

Continue reading "ICB: Do bumper stickers reflect the soul within?" »

Welcome to this week’s episode of I Call Bullshit. Today we’re going to look at Oprah. Oprah Winfrey is the sort of mega-star who often leaves people breathless. With wide-eyed adoration, gasping sycophancy, or cynical shock that she is indeed such a mega star.

She is worth gazillions, and her passing endorsement of any old product is worth millions, even billions. Her gift is that people dwell on her every word. But is she full of pearls of wisdom, or is she full of the proverbial? Let’s look at some of her more famous quotes.

I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.
Utter tosh. I am not becoming a crispy-topped piece of melt-in-your-mouth pork belly.

Continue reading "ICB: Oprah Winfrey. Woman of wise words or woo-woo?" »

Welcome to this week’s ‘I Call Bullshit’, a weekly look at the strange twists and turns of the human mind. 

It’s not surprising at all that conspiracy theories have shrouded Osama bin Laden’s death. Before the dust had settled from September 11 crackpot ideas started surfacing, the most persistent of which is that it was an ‘inside job’ carried out to trigger the war on terror. People love to doubt the official line.

And it took mere cyber seconds – in this crazy interweb-connected world of ours – for people to start speculating that Osama was not dead at all, the whole extravaganza just concocted to boost Obama’s election chances. Or an alien plot. Or something.

Continue reading "ICB: Bin Laden is alive and well and living in Graceland" »

Welcome to this week’s edition of I Call Bullshit. Today we’re looking at ghosts (cue Ghostbuster music - you know you want to). This week, photographer Yvette Worboys has got more publicity than money could buy with her pictures of Sydney’s Gladesville Psychiatric Hospital, a decrepit old lunatic asylum.

The pictures are haunting; the effect eerily similar to the one achieved by my free Hipstamatic app. Sepia tones and shadows, dappled light and nostalgic colours.

Worboys took her pictures to mediums, who said they saw a presence in the picture printed above - apparently just to the left of the door.

Continue reading "ICB: No, you don’t see dead people." »

Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici is using and misusing a fuzzy sort of ‘proof’ – the “cluster of evidence” – to claim he may have found the crucifixion nails.

Indiana Jones-style he has fearlessly pieced together the clues and dug out two 2000-year-old nails from a burial cave, which he says could be those that pinned Jesus’ hands to the cross.

Only the truly cynical would point out that the revelations come a) Just in time for Easter and b) Just as Jacobovici releases his documentary The Nails of the Cross.

Continue reading "ICB: Jesus, did Jacobovici really nail it?" »

There’s a lot of religion on the site today – sorry. Then again, there’s a lot of religion in the world… anyhoo, welcome to this week’s edition of I Call Bullshit.

They love a good Muslim stoush, those Liberal MPs. Cory Bernardi on the burqa, Kevin Andrews on ‘religious enclaves’ – and now Bernie Finn on beheadings.  Scott Morrison in general. Mr Finn jumped into what has become a rather messy debate on assimilation by saying on Facebook that he failed to understand “how concerns about a religion that seems to sanction decapitation can be construed as racism”.

The halal butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Continue reading "ICB: Does Islam sanction beheadings?" »

Welcome to I Call Bullshit, where we look at myths and mistruths, magical thinking and bad science.

And now for something completely different.

In all the fallout from the anti-carbon tax/anti-Gillard/anti gun control/anti grammatical correctness rally yesterday, an SA talkback caller – Mick from Morphett Vale – found one more thing to be upset about.

Mick’s a Wiccan, and he took exception to Gillard being called a witch. Because he’s one, and the word was obviously being used as an insult.

Continue reading "ICB: Julia Gillard is NOT a witch" »

Welcome to a new regular Punch piece – I Call Bullshit!

(We’ve used this one before, but it really is supremely funny)

It’ll be dedicated to all the quackery, bullshenanigans and bogus science out there, everywhere.

Today’s was going to be all about psychics. Then I saw this piece in The Australian about a homeopathy clinic offering remedies for radiation sickness. They thoughtfully spruiked their wares at a time when so many people in Japan are scared out of their wits as the radiation threat worsens.

Continue reading "ICB: Using homeopathy for radiation poisoning" »