Scammers, charlatans, hucksters, grifters – they all come out of their hidey holes in times of strife.
Last week we were treated to a new episode in the unfolding epic of addled celebrity chef, Pete Evans and his vexed relationship with medical science.
Not content with pushing a diet of the type that promises adherents will live longer if they eat like humans did during the Stone Age when the average life expectancy was 27, Paleo Pete excitedly told those dumb enough to listen that he was in possession of a light source which had “recipes” that could fight the “Wuhan Coronavirus.”
This led to the delicious prospect, at least in my mind of an excited minion bursting through the doors of the Oval Office with a furrowed brow POTUS sitting at his desk trawling through dark pandemic death toll statistics.
“Mr President, Mr President … Pete Evans has a lamp.”
It would be funny except for the fact Pete Evans has more than 1.5 million Facebook followers.
If you’ve ever wondered how many idiots there are in Australia, I’d suggest that is a pretty decent guide. We could call it the Evans Australian Idiot Index. It could really come in handy.
Meanwhile in the US, Alex Jones from Info Wars was flogging a toothpaste superbly branded “Superblue Silver Immune Gargle” that he claimed killed the SARS/Coronavirus family at “point blank range.” SARS and Coronavirus are not family. They’re not even related.
Jones received a fairly curt directive from the US Food and Drug Administration and then another even shorter cease and desist missive from the US Trade Commission and alas, the miracle gargle is no more.
It is no surprise that the pandemic has scrambled many brains in the televangelist movement, all of whom recite The Bible while fixing a hypnotic gaze on our television screens but never, ever mention Matthew 19:23-26. Funny that.
Some have gone down the aged old path of making a quid out of other people’s fear and misery.
Charismatic preacher Jim Bakker has been flogging colloid silver for some time, claiming all sorts of dubious medical benefits. More recently, he has gone a step further describing his silver (and only his) can be used to treat COVID-19.
If you believe that, I’ve got a state room on the Ruby Princess to sell you. Going cheap. No queues for the buffet.
If it’s a character reference you seek for Bakker, there is none better than one provided by the late leader of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell. Falwell described the evangelist as a liar, an embezzler, a sexual deviant, and “the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history.”
See, I would have said the Spanish Inquisition, but Falwell is closer to these things than I am. Or he was.
The granddaddy of all the charismatic set is Kenneth Copeland, a walking, Bible thumping example that money can get you almost anything with the exception of successful Botox treatments.
Copeland, who possesses a 1000-yard stare that could bend titanium, dismissed COVID-19 as no worse than the flu early doors and ordered his followers to break iso and park their backsides at one of his many churches. If they fell ill, he said, no worries. What better place to be for a quick laying on of the hands healing?
When the pandemic took a turn for the worse and Copeland was forced to clear the pews, he urged his followers to touch their televisions as a means of vaccination by proxy.
This all might be fine except for the fact that this creepy creeping Jesus has now exorcised COVID-19 on three occasions. His latest attempt involved a chant ending with him making a farting noise with his lips, amusingly imitated by his devotees, claiming he had summoned “the wind of God”.
“COVID-19, you are destroyed forever, and you will never be back.”
That was last week. Just looking at the infection rates in the US today, a fourth Copeland exorcism can only be days away. If at first, you don’t succeed …
When the virus started having its dreadful impact on the US, Copeland insisted his followers continue tithing (donating a fixed percentage of their incomes or assets to the church) even if they had lost their jobs. Copeland has an estimated net worth of US$760 million. One big, fat camel trying to pop his head through the eye of a needle, right there.
These are highly entertaining grifters who practice a cocktail of medieval sorcery and extreme capitalism but elsewhere there are more genuine concerns about organised crime syndicates setting themselves loose on the world.
There is more spam and more junk being delivered to our emails every day. The worst of these are phishing emails which seek to trick the receiver into passing on personal information like bank account details, PINs et cetera. Spam filters help but they can create a false sense of confidence.
These are not the old Nigerian Prince-type scams. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated. I note the surge of new domain registrations ending in .gov.au. Not registered by our federal government but from con artists on the make.
Suffice to say, if someone you don’t know and have never heard of wants your personal details (name, address and date of birth is sufficient to commit identity fraud) then it’s a good idea to delete the email. Don’t look at it, don’t read it. Send it to straight to the cyber junkyard.
In the US, an app surfaced which offers those who download it the ability to identify others with COVID-19. If you’re wondering how it works, it doesn’t. When the user clicks on the app to download it, the computer shuts down with an ominous blue screen. That’s it. Pay the ransom or go and get yourself a new laptop. Even if you do, files not stored on the cloud will continue to be inaccessible.
And then there are even more insidious scams we barely know about and have virtually no control over.
There are reports of dodgy Chinese based companies flogging COVID-19 test kits for under $100.
It’s illegal to sell this stuff in Australia but that’s no real deterrent. The test kits are relatively harmless for users in that they stand no chance of suffering any immediate harm but the tests themselves are unreliable, throwing up great swathes of false positives and false negatives.
The danger is that people will rely on these tests and, confident of the results, will go out into the community to spread an infection they don’t know they have or go badgering an already strained public health system for no good reason.
The world is being swamped by bootlegged personal protective equipment, especially dodgy N-95 respirators and surgical masks not made to standard. Most of this junk is coming from profiteering companies in China and plays into chronic shortages of PPE around the world.
It’s bad enough the People’s Republic of China kicked this pandemic off, lied about it and under reported their infection rates and deaths by hundreds of thousands. Now an army of Chinese fraudsters are seeking to profit from it.
These are frightening times and there will always be those who seek to profit from a fear that is real, almost tangible. So much so that if you thought about it for long enough, you’d go looking for the Silver Gargle Toothpaste just to take the edge off the anxiety.
This column was published in The Australian 16 April, 2020
Right in the middle of the Coronavirus Crisis, Whinging Mega Rich, Malcolm Turnbull, releases his Memoirs, Mr Insider. He was out of touch as a PM and he is still out of touch, a total wally. 1000’s of People have lost their Jobs, 1000’s of Businesses closed down, many I suspect will never reopen and Mal the Goose has a Pity Whinge!
It’s the publisher who determines date of release.
Out of touch? the right wing of the Liberal party and its apologist’s have been in that situation since I don’t know when
We all do it, Henry, including myself, so I am not having a go at you. We all denigrate politicians we don’t like. The point is though, that there is a range of attributes, some admirable, some anything but, that may lead you to becoming Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition. But being a total wally is not one of them. You don’t become a national leader or head of a major political party by being an idiot. Whatever their individual faults or failings, none of the short lived PMs over the last 13 years have been stupid or morons. Neither, if it comes to that, were people like Brendan Nelson or Bill Shorten. It’s too easy for us to take the short cut and simply insult them.
Whilst that’s true NFY, the current incumbent is middle management material at best. Waaaay above his capabilities.
How dare you use a goose’s name in vain HB! (Exodus 20.7)
Sorry, but I find it appalling, morally reprehensible, that there are some who seem to think that the elderly are worth possibly sacrificing – or locking them away in some sort of quarantine – so that the youth are not affected by a possibly more severe economic downturn by prolonging the lockdown to avoid a disastrous second wave. (Question on QandA tonight)
Have they forgotten the terrible post war depression, food rationing etc, not to mention the war itself, that these elderly went through – and survived?
It’s a tough time and we’re all in it together – and it’s not all about old people. There are other vulnerable groups out there.
One thing this pandemic may do is give everyone, including the youth, a perspective on what really is important – and it may not be the latest iPhone.
PS: It was a good panel tonight. Good to see a less aggro Sally McManus too.
We’re not going to agree on this one. The characterisation of those who object to the rush to a police state regime, and who question the reasonableness of doing that in the absence of virtually any information at all about what works and what doesn’t, as being callous and disregarding of the elderly is unfair.
Decisions are made every single day – both in hospital rooms and the corridors of power – that balance dollars against lives. We do it in our own lives. As someone at The Oz asked: the last time you bought a car did you buy the absolutely most safe vehicle on Earth regardless of the cost, or did you buy the one you could afford, after balancing all of your other priorities and thus wearing a heightened risk to your life? That is precisely what the issue is, not whether those who demonstrate infinite compassion (regardless of the cost) are good and everyone else is bad.
I’m very well aware of the at-risk groups. My Mum is nearly seventy years old and works in a medical practice where she has a role in cleaning equipment that would almost certainly be contaminated by a virus sufferer. A couple of cousins work in hospitals in Perth in areas where body fluids are pretty much routinely sprayed around and a mate is a hospital orderly in NSW. And of course we are in the company of people on this very blog who are in the immune-compromised category and somewhat more vulnerable.
But I still think the response has gone way too far and in the wrong direction. I still abhor the wholesale torching of the most basic freedoms of movement and assembly and handing police a blank power cheque to push people around.
Doubt it Boa.
As the old make more and more demands on the health system, the reaction from the diminishing numbers of people paying postive taxes will become less and less generous in their outlook.
I do not know how or where you can draw the line.
I know an 80+ with severe Osteo. Not only are the bones failing with broken feet but also a number of other problems.
She recently had severe back pain. She needed a spinal operation, spent 5 weeks in hospital plus another 3 or 4 in rehab.
Morally one cannot deny her the treatment.
Economically, one such operation does not matter but when you start to multiply the cost by hundreds if not thousands , not necessarily with spinal operations but with joint replacements, heart valves, pace makers, stents etc, it becomes very unsustainable.
I am not too sure where society will go with this given the attitudes that you have elaborated.
So “I want to be alone” the totally irrelevant “call me Harry” has crawled out of the woodwork again to regale us with the fact that the dastardly press has been making out that Covid 19 is worse than it actually is.
Just wondering how much worse do 800+ deaths per day in the UK have to be or over 2000 per day in the US to meet his required level of seriousness
Rather appropriate that the wife has done a voice over on an elephant documentary considering she married Dumbo
Tracy, I shall make this prediction – in time and I suspect not too long Prince Happy will realise hes now become nothing more that a circus wonder and he will Divorce Meghan and go back to his home with the Royal Family. I am strengthened in this belief by none other that Her Majesty the Queen who advised Prince Harry, on his departure, he is welcome back into the Family anytime he wishes. I believe poor Harry was touting Meghan to do “Voice Overs” in California FGS now that is where they are at right now. Cheers keep safe as we
To add a bit to my earlier Kenneth Copeland rant, Mr Insider, he has on many occasions claimed he has a Personal Covenant with God to live to 120yo FGS!
Big Shonky Kenny is now 83yo folks so lets follow his progress to 120yo or as long as we honest Folk can go anyway.
hi everyone, Hello Jack,
there is nothing so easily parted …..
Anyway, on a lighter note, there is this guy, bloody legend and that, is how you deal with the scabbiest life forms out there
https://www.3aw.com.au/how-a-supermarket-boss-dealt-with-a-disgraceful-toilet-paper-profiteer-who-tried-to-return-his-haul/
and big hello to everyone I have missed, I have been everywhere, my dad died, I ran away to Tasmania, truly fell in love with the place, bought land, and………… now I cant go there cos u know, cyrus the virus.
A lot like JtI im also talking to Americans and watching the USA going wtf a lot. Spoke to one the other day in Central Australia has his working visa or some thing he was happy as hell about. He said no way to going back to the US. The orange-utang is in charge. And its very scary for them. Truly I have been teaching people about how the virus infects and soap washing is really important. b a s i c s t u f f , they dont know, and… a big hunk of Americans dont think its real. like the Democrats made it up, to hurt the organge one. ?????
The poor mofos are so lied to that they dont know what is real anymore. They will top the world in numbers through sheer denial of truth. and this guy…………..
https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2020/4/17/4979c492805b47b99175df3cf40f7b40_18.jpg
oh and the holy father thinks pell is wrongly accused, like jesus, so, we are really screwed
hugs everyone, online its okay, see.. I can give you all wet willies and nobody gets sick
cheers
cyrus the virus
Interesting movie reference!
I have got a couple of call to the mobile from Mauritania – country code 222.
Goodness knows how they got my number
I was getting some from Malaysia–but they stopped. Only been there once. Then voice mails , in Chinese.
My wife bit on a fake text message from DHL, and I had to cancel her debit card–and give her a gentle talking to. She’s not used to that kind of stuff yet–but she’s got a Masters in Computer Science (and one in Applied Mathematics) so she’d never fall for anything computer related.
I am reminded, John L, when I see your Moniker, of the shonky Sydney Car Salesman, John L Sullivan in the early 80’s. He was the “master” of the “Weld and Go” where 2 halves of a Car were welded to make a whole car, done from wrecks. Also he was an exponent, I am told, of the “Bananas in the Diff” which cut the whine of a faulty Diff long enough to get well away from John L’s Dealership. He was eventually put out of Business thankfully. Cheers keep safe as we
Only thing I ever welded Henry was a shed made of degraded water pipes back in the 70’s. Still standing today I might add.
I had a brother in law who was into welding 2 cars together..
Offered me one and when I asked how I could insure it, the offers dried up.
As per your Column, Mr Insider, that Snake Oil Salesman, Jim Bakker, flogs his Covid-19 CURE which is Silver Solution. The sad thing is that many will go out and buy it FGS! Have you no pride at 80yo Bakker you low Bastard, another one not far off getting his “reward”, for a lifetime of behaving badly, from his Maker!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-YdsucT9hc
I say HB, I note one of your previous contributions apropos the POTUS seemed to draw a lively personal admonishment for alleged, but unspecified, misdemeanors. If you do have a gastroesophageal reflux problem as was indicated, I’d prefer that you continue to drool over Trump rather than salivate over Xi.
Carl, I replied to the dear Lady, i suspect she sadly might well think The Guardian is a Right Wing Rag. As Mr insider said many years ago “Its a Broad Church” when referring to his august blog. Cheers
Rt Honorable H.D.J. Blofeld, Wit, Raconteur and Most Excellent Bloke Extraordinaire
One can hope the Bullshitting Bakker gains no traction with his Silver Solution. If it contains any metallic silver or compounds of silver there is a strong possibility they will end up looking like this poor chappie. He is suffering (or was suffering – he dropped dead) from a condition called Argyria, caused by extensive exposure to metallic silver. One side effect of this condition is irreversible blue skin.
https://s.abcnews.com/images/Health/abc_blue_man_thg_130925_33x16_992.jpg
I suspect he was a fan of Carlton Football Club, but can’t find confirmation of this.
During the Crimean War Britain was fortunate enough to have the Lady With The Lamp. During the Coronavirus War Australia has the Laddie With The Lamp. I think I know which nation got the better deal. Mind you, I would rather like to see Paleo Pete in full 19th Century nursing regalia.
Well played.
To be honest I don’t really care if the government knows where I am. It had the ability to know that already anyway if I have my phone on me – and could be pretty useful if I got murdered or lost in the wilderness or something.
I did not join MyHealth. That did seem a bit risky. I keep my medical records in my cupboard and that’s fine. I only use one GP who knows me well.
However I don’t have an issue with the Trace Together app. It is doing nothing other than trying to protect me and others from this virus. All it has is my mobile number. If it’s going to be of some use in getting us through this pandemic until there is a vaccine, (if there ever is one) and help to ease the lockdowns I’m all for it.
Does anyone here have a real probem with it?
I’ll go back to an ancient flip phone before I let these dodgy cheats have my data because this won’t end when this virus is over, you can bet the house on that.
On the same day they announced this privacy invasion they breached copyright laws by copying & circulating Turnbull’s book before it’s release AND secretly carried out the sports rorts scandal to gain power, I basically have zero trust in anything they say they will do with it.
A free country has never been about surveillance, so no thanks.
Bella, these are exceptional times.
Delete the App when it over – It is designed to protect you and yours.
If you are going to go somewhere extremely private or meeting somebody extremely private, leave your phone at home.
I am pretty sure no Geo data is held – just date, time and contact #’s
As to Turnbull’s book – who cares.
If it was a by a someone other than a multi-millionaire who is out to continue his destruction of the Liberal Party, I would be on my high horse about piracy.
In this case. I relax my views. Let the punishment fit the crime.
Boa, I don’t think the government’s covid- tracing app will actually track people’s daily locations. It apparently has more to do with the contact tracing of confirmed cases. So don’t go wandering off in the wilderness and think all’s okay. Unless of course you were off in the wilderness for the “or something” you refer to.
Think you meant your reply for Bella, Carl. I have no problem with the Trace Together app. I think it’s a good thing if we are serious about getting on top of the virus. I’ll be downloading it – if they have Android too.
The authorities do not need an app to know where you are.
If your mobile phone is on and if they want to, they can find out exactly where you are.
Technology has given every government the means for mass surveillence – all in the name of national security.
Those plotting the next revolution are resorting to pen, paper, couriers and invisible ink – so I am told.
Could be a growing market for carrier pigeons. Come to think of it, some person in a basement office is probably compiling and reporting on a pigeon index. When there is a spike it is indicative that some nefarious meeting like a barby is being planned.
I will Boa.
Anything that helps to reduce the amount of time I have to spend within these four walls and share my favourite walking tracks with half the locals the better off I will be.
When it is all over, delete the App and privacy is restored.
We have a choice – listen to the experts and do as they ask or stop whinging about the inconvenience lock downs are causing and put up with it for a prolonged period and the subsequent worse economic consequences.
One cannot have it both ways.
I hope the authorities give the food industry a few days warning when they let them open up for business. One will not be able to get a table for weeks and I can imagine a 20% Covid-19 levy.
I don’t really trust the government–and the app won’t, supposedly, have the ability to track us. But, I jealously guard the few shreds of privacy I have left. Like you, no My Health record. And in the last few years, I’ve voluntarily given up a lot of it.
When I went home last time, I had a meeting with Homeland Security who gave me this lovely card which means I no longer am in the long security line. However, they accessed my FBI file, probably my ASIO file, and I had to give them 10 years of travel data.
To marry my wife in Indonesia, I had to give them a bunch of data, and then to have the marriage recorded here and in the US, more data and a visit to the US and Australian consulates on Bali. To sponsor her for immigration 10 years of travel, both passport numbers. The names and birthdates of my parents and sibling, and their statuses. My financials. My will. Months of e-mails and text messages, photos of us together, joint travel, etc, etc.
Oh, when she was living in Moscow, everytime I made a mobile call to her, through the five-eyes alliance the lovely folks at Pine Gap created a pin register: this number called that number and they talked for x amount of time. What little privacy I have left is inside my head.
So no, I’m not installing the app.
It might be the six cans of beer and half a bottle of Drambuie talking, but if you’re locked down this is one of the funniest things you can watch:
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81140577?trackId=13752289&tctx=3%2C4%2C4da19536a9f64afeda0472d337d9f2c4d66d13f9%3A760d56a6a5bc85dcac9e7f7554976f01205a51e1%2C%2C
Don’t have Netflix TBLS. Have always found plenty to watch on SBS, SBS on Demand or ABC and iView – even in these tedious times!
You ever see Chappelle’s Clayton Bigsby sketch? Caught it when his comedy show was still running and it caused heaps of controversy.
The send up he did of a Big Brother-type reality show with mainly black participants was so funny. Ditto, the scenes in an America where restitution for slavery had been paid.
I looked up those two Jack, and he was hilarious. Have you read the reviews (by the press) of the Netflix special from last year? “Oh no, you don’t want to watch that–it upset some people.” But on Rotten Tomatos and other ratings sites, it was wildly praised. The cancel culture is after Chappelle–but he won’t give in.
I have to say some of his gags about trans people in his stand up make me a little uncomfortable but I still regard him as one of the funniest guys going around.
It was the very first thing of his I saw. Think it must have been on SBS many moons ago when I had a TV. It absolutely blew my mind! Still possibly the funniest thing he ever did.