I had a short visit to Chicago last week… (the Body Worlds exhibit is cool, catch it if it comes near you). While there, I happened across two examples of why the herd needs to be thinned again.
First, I read in a local Chicago paper about the runaway success of the latest book from Kevin Trudeau…Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About. It apparently is a best seller in spite of (or because) of Mr. Trudeau’s criminal history and problems with the FTC (and most of mainstream science).
He paid $2 million in fines for his dubious claims about “Coral Calcium”
He went to prison for credit card fraud in the early 1990s…something he calls a “youthful indescretion”. The Sun Times quoted him as saying “So what…I shit my pants when I was in 3rd grade also”…
The book is a hook to get readers to join his web site for more info (monthly membership $10 and lifetime $500)
Second…at the hotel next to mine, I saw a crowd of people waiting in line outside the building. I asked what the fuss was about…and some gal informed me that John Edward was there. I “knew” instantly that the former VP candidate (John EdwardS was NOT the one here…) Hmm I was thinking… this was some sort of book signing for the Crossing Over dude…
Ahhh…nope. This was a special seminar…that cost over $100 to get into.
The sucker was sold out…and if you look at his event schedule page…most of the others are sold out as well. At this hotel, we’re talking 300 or so “How is my dearly departed Aunt Martha doing, John?” cattle in the conference room.
If you’d like to spring the big bucks for a PRIVATE reading…sorry he’s all booked up.
I work at a bookstore located within my town’s General Hospital (the name cracks me up). This store is connected to a local university and caters to all of the medical classes of said university. We mainly sell medical textbooks, but also have a few general fiction and the like for non-student visitors to the hospital.
Anyway, last week I’m unpacking some boxes of assorted textbooks for the back-to-school nightmare that’ll soon descend upon the store. The boxes had your general medical bookstore stuff in it: some books with a gross picture on the cover, some books that cost too much, and some books that really cost too much. I’m working my way through the box affixing the various price tags to the appropriate book. I work my way down the list of tags, until I notice something unusual under Janeway’s Immunobiology. “The fuck?” I think to myself as I gleam “Natural Cures” from the visible portion of the spine (the SDMB has taught me well). Sure enough under all of those legitimate textbooks is two copies of Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About. I’m floored to find out that not only were they packed with textbooks, but our system lists them as PHA (pharmacology textbooks) instead of TRA (trade aka. non-textbooks). Ridiculous!
The story as a happy ending though, as I just threw them into the French fiction section. No one ever looks there, especially for an English book.
They - 1.
Kevin Trudeau - 0.
PS.
If you think I should’ve done my job and placed them properly: tee-ess. Moral duty and such. I mean the book makes a serious reference to Alex Chiu fer cryin’ out loud.
My favourite. The guy’s book is being promoted through “infomercials,” and the credit card fraud was related to his misuse of credit card numbers used to order stuff promoted in his previous infomercials. “Relax!”
Some of his previous snake-oil pitches have been classic, though. My favourites were for the “speed reading” and “memory enhancing” programs, both of which emphasized that they would work, “Even if you have a low IQ!” Talk about knowing your demographic.
Kevin Trudeau is the only huckster out there with the balls to run with “Do people say you’re gullible? We can help! For only six low payments of 29.99, we’ll send you…”
Jon Stewart did a great piece on Kevin Trudeau last week, by the way. Priceless.
My only complaint was that they showed a clip from his “quantum-physics” based anti-addiction system, which was funny as hell, but they didn’t deliver the punchline: The system, which was advertised as being a “one-minute” process, was a special order of grimacing, humming, whistling, and fidgeting that you were supposed to keep up throughout the day. Even if it worked, there’d be no way to distinguish a dedicated crackhead from someone in recovery.
Unfortunately, being a stone cold mortal idiot as an adult is something evolution doesn’t handle. The system is set up such that just about anyone can survive long enough to inseminate or be inseminated.
Actually, if anything, dumbasses have more children. The smart people with all the stress and concern in their lives have the lower fertility rates.
I was going to start a thread on the following subject, but had no place to put it or real reason to post it. This thread provides me with both.
My girlfriend and I love to watch cheesy Sunday night made for TV movies. They’re usually so unintentionally funny that we laugh ourselves silly. Last night we watched part II of Living with the Dead, in which Ted Danson played a psychic who helped the FBI solve murders. Sounds bad enough, right? Come to find out, it was a “true” story based on the life of Big Fat Faker James van Paugh. A story in which his so-called powers were genuine. What made this stupid piece of shit all the sadder was that it was given currency by excellent production values and an all-star cast.
And even worse, it only served as a vehicle for a 5-minute commercial for NBC’s new series Ghost Whisperer.
My husband and I (who have decided not to have children) have discussed this - we have come to the conclusion that the world that we are all creating is more suited to dull, unimaginative, self-involved people who don’t even see anything wrong with it.
So nobody else sees the value in the herd culling that comes from people reading Trudeau’s book? I am especially pleased when they use the “natural” products Medicare and insurance companies won’t pay for because it saves money for the rest of us.
If switching over to “natural” products would kill them off in a short period of time, a la James Jones, then I’m all for it. But they will probably linger and cost us more money in the long run. Culling should be short and sweet. I say we start making up a list…
