THE US governmentâs nuclear test site in the Nevada desert is just 100 kilometres from downtown Las Vegas. There have been over 900 nuclear explosions there since it opened for business in 1951.
Although the more recent âshotsâ, as the explosions were called, were underground, in the 1950s gamblers would party on casino roofs, drinking âatomicâ cocktails while waiting for a dawn flash and fireball to light up the sky. The US government had given up trying to keep the tests secret and instead turned them into a tourist attraction by releasing detonation times in advance. Sometimes the wind changed unexpectedly and blew fallout where it was not supposed to go.
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Although all tests were suspended in 1992, the Nevada test site is still very much alive, using the crater-pitted desert to test rough terrain vehicles and train emergency services in readiness for terrorist attacks. The underground facilities are intact and still advertise themselves with the sign âWe are ready when you areâ. Meanwhile, nearby Yucca Mountain has been hollowed out to store nuclear waste.
Visiting the area recently, a colleague chanced upon a rural newspaper, the . The headline to one story seemed to have a creepy relevance to everything he had seen: âMortuary Owner Optimistic About the Future.â
CIVIL servants sometimes feel in need of a little frivolity to brighten up their days. New Zealander Alan Freshwater tells us there is a cover sheet for all the letters and documents his department produces for the government ministry it reports to. On it there is a bold requirement to âPlease ensure you clearly print your name and signâ. He says that for some time now he has been writing âAlan Freshwater, Capricornâ. No one seems to have noticed, he says, or if they have, they havenât said anything. Perhaps they were in need of a little frivolity too.
âBeechams All-in-One tablets sounded the perfect solution for her cold, thought Barbara Karayi â except that the instructions told her to take two at a timeâ
âWHAT are they talking about?â Patrizia Figoli Turchetti asks, having encountered . The website is currently inviting us to a âCongress of Quantum Mastersâ in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Our request for expenses to cover the $599 registration fee, plus $1260 for the prescribed accommodation, plus flights, was declined, so we must shelve our ambition to become an instant Quantum Master and are reduced to perusing their website.
And ooh, yes, is it sciency! âQuantum Biofeedback, working through sixteen different electrical factors of the body, calculates combinations of impedance, amperage, voltage, capacitance, inductance, and resistance for Electro-Physiological Reactivity (The Xrroid Process). The body is indeed electric.â
We are not sure whether this last is a reference to Walt Whitmanâs poem I sing the body electric or to the album of the same name by the popular music combo Weather Report. The odds are that itâs both, given how eclectic the techniques and methods of Quantum Biofeedback appear to be.
They âinclude addressing areas those [sic] most typically affected by the stressors of âevery-day livingâ.â Some examples of these methods and areas are the âTri-vectorâ, âAuto-Meridianâ, âHomeopathyâ, âAuto-Frequencyâ, âAuto-Colorâ, âAuto-Spinalâ, âChakraâ, and âEEGâ.
So thatâll be a box with lots of dials and switches, some with labels like âChakraâ, then? It does look like it from the rather small pictures. And the box â or âEPFX Deviceâ â costs only $21,000. It comes with a laptop computer from , who âconfigure them specifically for the EPFXâ and offer lots of stories apparently designed to scare impressionable readers away from normal or non-quantum laptops.
So, Patrizia, we think the answer to your question is that theyâre talking about absolutely everything, except, of course, claiming to treat diseases â that would be illegal in the US.
READER Luke Maishman was surprised to read on the label of a bottle of Kerry Spring water that while it lists Ca, Mg, Na, K, Cl and NO3 in its nutritional information â weâll assume the presence of H2O â it still manages to contain âno chemicalsâ.
THE cuddly toy given to Sverre Viganderâs 2-year-old daughter had a warning label attached to it saying: âRemove tag and all plastic fasteners before giving to children. Please retain this information for future reference.â
âI think I wonât,â says Vigander.
IN HIS capacity as an amateur thespian, Richard Moon was attending a rehearsal for Oliver at Turvey Village Hall in Bedfordshire, UK, when this notice caught his eye: âWould all people using the hall please put disposable nappies in the bins outside.â He says he is off to buy some now, ready for his next visit.
FINALLY, in the wake of our delight at the honesty of (2 February), we take great pleasure in being reminded by Kay Bagon of an advertising campaign for one of those much-derided âconventional medicinesâ which could have been lifted from just such a site: the Wyeth corporation, purveyor of painkillers, once deployed the slogan âNothing works faster than Anadinâ.
