In which Drek has a bit of a breakdown.

Some of you may recall as far back as last Friday when I provided you with a poorly-written, absurd bit of frippery relating to a bra designed by a chiropractor. At the time I intended this to be a fun post about one of my favorite topics* and didn't expect much of anything to come of it. This should have been a warning to me.

What has emerged from this post has been, among other things, a running argument with an anonymous commenter who seems to be insisting that Victoria's Secret is at the heart of a vast conspiracy to keep the public in the dark about the carcinogenic properties of female undergarments.** And I'm only exaggerating slightly, which is to say that the commenter didn't name Victoria's Secret specifically. Otherwise, my description is bang-on.

Now, as you might expect, over the weekend I took the time to do some reading on the subject, tracked down the scholarly article that keeps being touted as proof of this link, and wrote a fairly thorough pair of responses. I am, of course, under no illusions that they will work with my anonymous antagonist, but hopefully it will help inform the next poor schlub who runs across my blog.

As I was discussing with my wife this weekend, however, this exchange has made me aware of something. People, I appreciate the honor that "The Soc Shrine" showed me before they left, and I do genuinely enjoy doing battle with all sorts of pseudoscientific nonsense, but really and truly, I can't be an expert in every bullshit story on the internet.

I mean, crap! Let's think about my track record for a moment: Creationism/intelligent design? Covered. Vaccines and autism? Covered. Graham Hancock? Covered. Biblical astronomy? Covered. Apollo moon landing "hoax"? Covered. Greg Buell? Covered. Ramtha? Covered. Conservapedia? Covered. And now, apparently, I've moved on to bras and breast cancer. I am starting to get a serious case of pseudoscience burnout. Let's face it, too: I have better things to do with my time than research the next poorly thought out horseshit idea someone's psychic gives them.

And so, crazy internet wingnuts, I'd like to make a request: before you bug me about your wacky ideas and how there's a vast conspiracy trying to keep us all sick would you at least do your fucking background reading? Please? And can you at least stop to ponder if your "theory" has even the vaguest hint of plausibility about it? It's not that much for me to ask, okay? And my track record shows that I'll argue with you until you're satiated. Just, please, can we elevate the level of discussion from "abysmally stupid" to maybe a nice, pleasant "surprisingly stupid"?

Is that really too much to ask?


* I'm either referring to boobs or pseudoscience. I leave it to you to decide which.

** I, of course, mean the undergarments of females. I have no idea what sex the undergarments themselves may be, although I didn't think they reproduced sexually in the first place.