The other day, I pointed out that tasteless web design is a hallmark of crazy web sites, and used this Overcompensating comic to illustrate it…and you all scurried over to Timecube to see one of the best examples on the web.

I got this email today.

Dear Mr. Meyers,

Putting aside any offensive criticism of our website on your web page at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/contact.php, we found many of the comments extremely humorous, even though at our expense.

We comment on your page at http://lfnexus.com/scumbagwebsites.htm.

Thank you for the good laugh!

Oh, yes, you can share this email with anyone you wish!

PS: There is method in our madness.

Cordially,

Dr. Michael Bisconti
President
The L. F. Nexus

They got the url of my “offensive criticism” wrong: it’s at an article called “How can you tell when you’re a kook?” I think he shows all the signs.

Here’s what’s really funny. I originally laughed at a whole series of insane arguments he made against evolution, homosexuality, and women, and look at what he considers the most offensive thing I said, that warrants rating me as a “medium scumbag”:

This website incorrectly reported that we believe that Gay “activity” can be sinless. However, this was due to an editorial problem on one of our web pages, which has since been corrected.

I guess my sin was that I accurately reported on a comment that was less than damning of homosexuality.

But now, you must see this: their updated website. Behold, and tremble in fear. This is getting up there pretty darned near Time Cube territory. It may get even better, since up near the top they prominently mention that they have a new site under construction by WebPsyops, Inc.. Yeah, that’s who we all ought to turn to for our professional web design.

Glastonbury is the legendary burial place of King Arthur, so as you might imagine, if you’re a fey English wackaloon with a fondness for magic crystals and pagan rituals, it’s a magnetic attraction. How bad can it be? Well, the wicked government of Great Britain, always trying to suppress the Old Ways and encourage this horrible practice of “modernization”, has flipped the switch and turned on free wireless networking for the whole town. Evil!

“I don’t want my son exposed to risk 24 hours a day, including at his primary school, which is within the Wi-Fi zone,” yoga teacher Natalie Fee tells London’s Telegraph. “I would be failing in my duty as a parent if I did.”

Hey, Natalie, what about those darned dangerous radio waves that you’re soaking in right now? AM, FM, there are all these fluctuating vibrations permeating everything, everywhere you go. Let’s shut them all down! And are you going to tell your son that he isn’t allowed to own a cell phone, ever?

One man has even begun making orgone generators, which use crystals, semi-precious stones and gold to purportedly put out positive energy to combat the negative vibes flooding the town from the Wi-Fi base stations.

“I have given a number of generators to shops in the High Street and hidden others in bushes in the immediate vicinity of the antennae. That way you can bring back the balance,” Matt Todd told the Telegraph. “The science hasn’t really got into the mainstream because the government won’t make decisions which will affect big business, even if it concerns everyone’s health.”

I’d like to see the evidence that 2.4 and 5 GHz frequencies are “negative”, and that a bunch of cheap gee-gaws some space cowboy slaps together with a hot glue gun emit any energies, let alone “positive” ones.

And hang on, orgone generators? Devices that pump out magical sex energies? Isn’t that going to be even more confusing to Natalie’s little boy?

They do have a special problem out there in the UK that we don’t here in America — ley lines haven’t been a big deal in this country.

Todd says the Wi-Fi network is weakening the ley lines, supposed invisible webs of energy running through the landscape that the Druids and other ancient Britons are said to have been well aware of.

We also get fake biology. This is nonsense: melatonin really doesn’t do everything, the pineal is not going to be particularly responsive to random radio frequencies, and these kooks don’t even have a way to assess melatonin levels.

Others Glastonburians say their levels of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep and is seen as a wonder drug by natural-health types, have been all out of whack since the Wi-Fi network went on.

“The pulsed microwaves feed the pineal gland with false information,” local Jacqui Roberts tells the Western Daily Press. “Melatonin fights the free radicals and cancer-producing cells.”

Let’s be fair to Glastonbury, though. I get the impression that whoever put this article together made a special effort to dig up a few New Age nuts who are having hysterics over a non-problem, and probably ignored the sensible majority that are quite pleased to have freely accessible wireless networking everywhere they go.