Alexander Cornswalled: July 2009

I Recently received a comment to my article about the history and origins of Pokemon. The young man who made the comment clearly did not realize I was writing about the card game that predated the computer games. I've decided to respond to his comments here.

"Have you ever played a pokemon game? If not, then you have no right to bash pokemon"

Have you ever injected heroin into your veins? Have you ever molested a child? Have you ever tortured a pet who trusted you? Have you ever stolen a car? By your own logic, this means you're in no position to criticize any of these obviously immoral, illegal and criminal actions. Without the ability to judge the virtue of actions we ourselves have not committed, we would be unable to function as a society. We would dissolve into chaos, crime and violence, leaving behind not a civilization and acts of virtue, but the smoldering remains of an orgy of destruction.

I prefer the ability to make moral judgments to the kind of chaos and destruction you seem to be advocating.

"As there are only 493 different pokemon, I'd like to know where your 3000 come into play"

The text was meant to say "a 3,000 year old pagan religion." Thank you for noticing the typo.

"As far as I know, people really jsut buy coins to get Porygon. I don't know anyone who ENJOYS the slots."

The original article was written about the card game, not the computer game. At the time I wrote the article, there was a significant gambling component to the card game. I was, in fact, the whole POINT of the game. The only ways to gain more Pokemon was to buy cards or win them in the game. It sounds like the gambling component of Pokemon was reduced for the computer games that came later, but replaced with virtual slot machines.

I find this abhorrent. The card game teaches kids to find card gambling to be fun, while according to you the computer games teach kids to favor "one armed bandits."

Pokemon is short for pocket monsters and that is the official, and truthful, explanation."

You're half right, It is the "official" definition.

"This is Ryuutakeshi, the Dragon Warrior, signing off.

Ryuutakeshi: Vice President of his forensics team, actor in seven plays thus far, black belt in Taekwon-do, Harry Potter trivia master, and all around nerd.

Pokemon hasn't harmed me. How has it harmed you?"

I've bolded a few portions of your comment above. I don't think I need to do more than that to counter your claim that Pokemon has done you no damage.

Stop talking about AIDS!

Talk about AIDS:
(American Invented Disease Syndrome)

Collecting Data from all over the World, we become convinced and confident:

That HIV does not caused AIDS.

That AIDS does not exist.

That AIDS never was.

Now, we are convinced about the tremendous horrible Fact that millions of people dying on toxic medicine. We do belief that the whole AIDS Myth is nothing but a horrible moneymaking genocide with main concentration on the people of Africa.

We do belief that the United Nation are one of the main promoters of deadly Drugs, and we do belief that the United Nations purposely ignoring the Protest of hundreds international recognized Scientists, claiming that HIV does not cause AIDS, claiming that AIDS does not exist, claiming that AZT and its derivates are deadly Drugs.

For that reasons, we are certain that it is our conviction to fight against the most heinous violation of Human Rights the most heinous Genocide ever happened in this World.

... AZT is a prescription drug and according to the manufacturer itself it causes symptoms that are indistinguishable from AIDS Professor Dr. Duesberg

Why? read below

As an explanation for the origin of AIDS, the HIV hypothesis is implausible because it contradicts a number of established principles of virology and immunology. It is also at variance with a growing body of empirical observations.

Some Examples:

Retroviruses do not typically kill their host cells. On the contrary, they depend on continued replication of the host for their own survival.

Viruses typically cause disease shortly after infection, before the immune system of their host can respond. There is no other example of a viral pathogen which causes primary disease only after long and unpredictable latent periods, only in the presence of neutralizing antibodies, and in the virtual absence of gene expression, as HIV is said to do.

Dr. Fabio Franci, Specialist in Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Trieste, Italy:

"I am not an agnostic; I am well convinced HIV is harmless."

"Nobody wants to look at the facts about this disease. It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen. I've sent countless letters to medical journals pointing out the epidemiological discrepancies and they simply ignore them. The fact is, this whole AIDS thing is a hoax."

Dr. Richard Strohman, Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley:

"In the old days it was required that a scientist addresses the possibilities of proving his hypothesis wrong as well as right. Now there's none of that in standard HIV-AIDS program with all its billions of dollars."

Dr. Harvey Bialy, Molecular Biologist, former editor of Bio/Technology and Nature Biotechnology:

"HIV is an ordinary retrovirus. There is nothing about this virus that is unique. Everything that is discovered about HIV has an analogue in other retroviruses that don't cause AIDS. HIV only contains a very small piece of genetic information. There's no way it can do all these elaborate things they say it does." (Spin June 1992)

Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, New York Physician, founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR):

"The marketing of HIV, through press releases and statements, as a killer virus causing AIDS without the need for any other factors, has so distorted research and treatment that it may have caused thousands of people to suffer and die."

Dr. Etienne de Harven, Emeritus Professor of Pathology, at the University of Toronto:

"Dominated by the media, by special pressure groups and by the interests of several pharmaceutical companies, the AIDS establishment efforts to control the disease lost contact with open-minded, peer-reviewed medical science since the unproven HIV/AIDS hypothesis received 100% of the research funds while all other hypotheses were ignored." (Reappraising AIDS Nov./Dec. 1998)

Dr. Charles Thomas, Molecular Biologist and former Harvard and Johns Hopkins Professor:

"The HIV-causes-AIDS dogma represents the grandest and perhaps the most morally destructive fraud that has ever been perpetrated on young men and women of the Western world," (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)

"AIDS has been a disease of definition. If we said that it didn't exist and didn't pay for it with taxpayers' money, it would disappear in the background of normal mortality." (Penthouse April 1994)

"I feel that for scientists to remain silent in the face of all this doubt is tantamount to criminal negligence." (Spin June 1992)

Dr. Mohammad Ali Al-Bayati, Toxicologist and Pathologist, California:

"HIV does not cause AIDS. There is no scientific evidence that HIV can kill infected T4 cells. The true problem is that the leaders of the HIV hypothesis have been ignoring important medical facts and are blindly attributing AIDS to the HIV virus. It is very sad and frustrating to know that the AIDS establishment are giving highly toxic drugs such as AZT to pregnant women even with studies that show the depression in the immune system can be reversed by nutrition. Prescribing anti-viral drugs to AIDS patients is like putting gasoline on a fire"

Dr. Alfred Hässig, Emeritus Professor in Immunology at the University of Bern, former Director Swiss Red Cross blood banks:

"The sentence of death accompanying the medical diagnosis of AIDS should be abolished."

"AZT (anti-viral AIDS medicine) has, in countless cases, brought about the inevitable and slow asphyxiation of the patient's body cells. The doctors wrongly diagnose the fatal consequences of AZT medication as AIDS following a prior HIV infection. Treatment with AZT and allied toxic substances may be equivalent to joining a suicide squad with a time fuse."

"It is the duty of every doctor to preserve life at any cost -- and not death-curse people based on any test so they are so frightened they kill themselves. I am sad to say that these voodoo methods were practised despite there never being any proof that the detected antibodies are an indication of mortality in all diagnosed people. I consider it medical malpractice to push patients into dying by prophesying an early death. We are medical scientists, not prophets!"

Dr. Heinz Ludwig Sänger, Emeritus Professor of Molecular Biology and Virology. Former Director of the Department of Viroid Research, Max-Planck-Institutes for Biochemy, München. Robert Koch Award 1978.

"Up to today there is actually no single scientifically really convincing evidence for the existence of HIV. Not even once such a retrovirus has been isolated and purified by the methods of classical virology."

"During the past 20 years HIV-AIDS research has shown to a line of critical scientists again and again that the existence of HIV has not been proven without doubt, and that both from a aetiological (causal), and a epidemiological view, it can not be responsible for the immunodeficiency AIDS. In view of the general accepted HIV/AIDS hypothesis this appeared to me so unbelievable that I decided to investigate it myself. After three years of intensive and, above all, critical studies of the relevant original literature, as an experienced virologist and molecular biologist I came to the following surprising conclusion: Up to today there is actually no single scientifically really convincing evidence for the existence of HIV. Not even once such a retrovirus has been isolated and purified by the methods of classical virology." (Letter to Süddeutsche Zeitung Oct. 2000)

Dr. Steven Jonas, Professor of Preventive Medicine, Suny Stony Brook, NY:

"Evidence is rapidly accumulating that the original theory of HIV is not correct." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)

Dr. Hiram Caton, Ethicist, Head of the School of Applied Ethics at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia:

"The orthodoxy will collapse because it flunks the practical test. The AIDS epidemic was a mirage manufactured by scientists who believed that integrity could be maintained amidst the diverting influences of big money, prestige and politics." (Sunday Times (London) 3 April 1994)

Dr. Luc Montagnier, Virologist, discoverer of HIV, Institute Pasteur Paris:

"There are too many shortcomings in the theory that HIV causes all signs of AIDS. We are seeing people HIV-infected for 9, 10, 12 years or more, and they are still in good shape, their immune system is still good. It is unlikely that these people will come down with AIDS later." (Miami Herald 23 Dec. 1990)

Dr. Roberto Giraldo, Specialist in Internal Medicine, Infectious and Tropical Diseases, New York

"HIV tests are meaningless. A person can react positive even though he or she is not infected with HIV. The tests are interpreted differently in different countries, which means that a person who is positive in Africa (or Thailand) can be negative when tested in Australia. There is no justification for the fact that most people have not been informed about the serious inaccuracy of the tests. The error has catastrophic repercussions on thousands of people. Since people are reacting positive on tests that are not specific for HIV, lets please stop labeling them as HIV positive"

Dr. Frank Buianouckas: Professor of Mathmatics, Bronx New York.

"I am suspect about everything involved in this AIDS epidemic, because if HIV causes anything, it certainly causes fund-raisers. It sells stocks. It supports dances. It sells condoms. And it keeps the AIDS establishment going." (Penthouse Dec. 1995)

Dr. Michael Lange: Head of AIDS Programme St. Lukes Hospital, New York:

"What I would strongly support is a more open discussion. We do not know the pathogenesis of this disease. And we were very early forced into a very dogmatic view: namely that somehow HIV kills the T-cells."

Dr. Sam Mhlongo: Head of the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care at the Medical University of South Africa:

"The case for a link between HIV and AIDS is not proven. I would like the "orthodox" scientists to acknowledge that in Africa there are 29 or 30 diseases which may mimic AIDS, which are related to poverty. But they will not accept that because poverty does not make them big money but HIV makes them money. If we dissidents had only one hundredth of the funds that the orthodox view has, the orthodox view would probably be dead in less than a year."

Dr. Ralph Moss: Author of The Cancer Industry:

"The paradigm that was laid down for how to milk the cancer problem is basically the same paradigm which is being followed in milking the AIDS problem."

Dr. Stefan Lanka: Virologist, Germany.

"No particle of HIV has ever been obtained pure, free of contaminants; nor has a complete piece of HIV RNA (or the transcribed DNA) ever been proved to exist."

Dr. Andrew Herxheimer, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, UK Cochrane Centre, Oxford:

"I think zidovudine [AZT] was never really evaluated properly and that its efficacy has never been proved, but it's toxicity certainly is important. And I think it has killed a lot of people. Especially at the high doses. I personally think it not worth using alone or in combination at all."

Dr. Donald Abrams: Prof. of Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital:

"I have a large population of (HIV + patients) who have chosen not to take any anti-viral drugs. They've watched all of their friends go on the anti-viral bandwagon and die."

Dr. Peter Duesberg, Professor of Molecular Biology University of Berkely:

"When AIDS patients' bodies finally break down from the effects of these anti-viral drugs, they say, 'Now the virus has become resistant, and the drugs have lost their effectiveness.' What really is happening is the toxicity of the drugs builds up to a point where the patient cannot stand it anymore. And, of course, they say it was the virus -- rather than the entirely inevitable and predictable toxicity of these damned drugs."

Who is Dr. Duesberg?

Dr. Duesberg, born in Germany in 1936, earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology. He is one of the foremost virologists in the world. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected in 1986 for his pioneering work with retroviruses, including the isolation of the first oncogene and his discovery that influenza viruses readily change by recombination because they contain multiple chromosomes. He was the first to map the genetic structure of retroviruses. He is a pioneer in cancer-gene research.

Dr. Duesberg is also the recipient of a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health, charging him with the mission to "venture into new territory" and "ask creative questions."

On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Dr. Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, and Research in Immunology. He has also been interviewed for numerous newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programs for his perspective on modern virus hunting.

In a letter published in Nature (Vol. 358, July 2, 1992) Dr. Duesberg wrote: "... I am advancing my hypothesis very much at my own expense. Since I challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis, which is entirely unproductive in terms of public health benefits, I have been excommunicated by the retrovirus-AIDS community with non-invitations to meetings, non-citations in the literature and non-renewals of my research grants, which is the highest price an experimental scientist can pay for his convictions."