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Kevin Leitch: Big Pharma Shill

25 Jun

I’m involved in a protracted discussion with a bunch of anti-vaccinationistas on what claims to be an autism support forum. Amongst them is the hilarious srniath who is treating is child with Lupron but who didn’t know what CPP or PPP was and didn’t know that excess testosterone could be caused by vitamin and supplements.

Another one is someone one calls themselves ‘respect’ and who is an out-and-out anti-vaxxer:

I think we are missing the forest for the trees. Will we all go out and vaccinate our kids with 20 vaccinations before the age of 18 months just because there is no mercury in them? The issue here must the vaccination, and not just the mercury.

Source.

Other regulars there include Erik ‘PR for the Geier’s’ Nanstiel and various other posters – I’ve heard various conspiracy theories totuted around including the eye-popping theory that the World Trade Center terrorist attacks were perpetrated by shadowy US government figures.

Basically, there’s a few good people there but they are drowned out by the louder wingnuts.

Anyway, I’m involved in a discussion regarding the nature of neurodiversity (srinath is again involved so you’re assured of the odd good belly laugh) and it seems that I’ve been outed as a pharma shill! Again!

‘repect’ googled for “kevin leitch pharmaceutical” and damn – got a result!

Department for International Development (DFID)

Kevin Leitch
Programme Officer
Department for International Development (DFID)
HPD, Level 8 West, 1 Palace Street
London SW1 5HE
United Kingdom
Phone: 44.020.7023.1121
Fax: 44.020.7023.0428/0174
Email: k-leitch@dfid.gov.uk

Oh man – who would’ve thought that using my real name would’ve led me to being outed? I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you darn kids!

I admit this really tickled my funny bone – how desperate do you have to be to discredit a broke web developer from the West Midlands?

Anyway, just in case there’s any confusion in the future I’d like to make clear that I am not Kevin Leitch. Nor am I Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch and sadly not Kevin Leitch.

Katie McCarron

12 Jun

Since the horrifying news that three year old Katherine ‘Katie’ McCarron was killed by her mother, a few of us have been in contact with Katie’s Granddad – Mike McCarron.

Mike contacted me after viewing the WMV file of [my daughter] I uploaded to counter the idea that autism was a tragedy and that a killing like this was in any way understandable and we’ve swapped emails since then. I have to come to have an inordinate amount of respect for Mike not just for his utterly transparent love for his grand-daughter but also his lucid refusal to countenance the idea that her death can be in any way rationalised or painted as understandable, despite the mealy mouthed efforts of a few journalists and a couple of bloggers who should know better.

Mike sent me the picture of Katie a week or so ago but asked me not to blog it which was totally understandable. However, as the ‘this is justifiable’ nonsense has increased, Mike feels that its time to show people the beautiful child that we’re supposed to believe it was ‘understandable’ to kill.

Here’s a comment from Mike over on Kristina’s AutismVox blog:

I would like to say something about Katie. Some newspapers have reported that this was done to end Katie’s pain; let me assure you that “Katie was not in pain”. She was a beautiful, precious and happy little girl. Each day she was showered with love and returned that love with hugs, kisses and laughter. Katie loved music; she would fill in some of the words in children’s songs as my wife would sing along with the CD that would be playing, their own version of “karaoke” . She liked to dance, she loved to do the “hooky poky”. She loved being in among flowers and tall grass. She would say “I like grass”. She enjoyed the zoo and because of all of the drills and flashcards she could identify the animals. Which I thought was pretty amazing for such a young child. She was also the only little child in her non-autistic play group that could identify an octagon. My wife and son had a party for her the day they heard that from the teacher.

I’m not ashamed to state that I have cried numerous times since corresponding with Mike. In horror that something so appalling could happen to someone so young and innocent, in recognition of the most abrasive pain I could imagine when talking to Mike and in awe that he remains so lucid and how directed and purposeful his very real anger is:

But in the meantime I can assure you that no one will describe her murder as “understandable” or devalue her in anyway without my personal challenge to them and the organizations they represent.

Everyone should have such a Grandpa.

UPDATE: Stephen at Not Dead Yet also received some photo’s of Katie, as did Kristina.

Great Ormond Street Appeal

11 Jun

Got an email from my friend Marty yesterday:

Over the past few months I’ve played a very tiny part in a VERY special auction which is now live. Some facts that might bore a few of you but:-

“In 2005 Lancasters armourie were contracted by the BBC to build a number of prop swords for the Christmas special episode of the hit revival of Doctor Who.

Used by Doctor Who actor David Tennant and the leader of the Sycorax race the swords were seen by 10 million viewers.

Now Lancasters are auctioning the prototype of the sword (above) in aid of London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital.

And, as if owning this unique piece of television history wasn’t enough Lancasters have been aided in their fundraising effort by the generosity BBC Wales and actors David Tennant and Sean Gilder who have provided their signatures for engraving on the blade.

The sword will be auctioned via ebay. Clive Lankford of Lancasters tell us they “are not shy about the fact that we want this to make as much money for GOSHCC as possible”.

See Marty’s site for more details: http://www.mayorwatch.org.uk/news.php?article_id=300

Autism Hub News

7 May

You may remember that earlier this year, I launched Autism Hub in an effort to centralise the blogging efforts of people who blogged along themes associated with autism – what they all have in common is no interest in curing autism. Some bloggers are parents, some are autistic people, some are scientists – some are all three!

However, I was totally unprepared for how successful the Hub would become in such a short space of time. There are now over 30 members whereas the Hub began with less than 20. I have at least 4 applications sitting in my inbox right now waiting for me to deal with them. The Hub sends each of its members a simply mind-boggling amount of traffic. I don’t know if any of the other Hub members are as obsessive about stat tracking as I am (and seeing as not a few are with Blogger, that would prove to be tricky) but every _week_ sees an increase – and from an increasingly diverse audience. Personally, I’ve had referrals from a .uk.gov source, a .nhs.uk source, the CDC in the US, the FDA in the US – what _seems_ to be the Canadian autism association – the Times, Guardian, Daily Mail (snigger) and erm, The Sun newspaper in the UK and a variety of US newspapers I don’t know very well aside from the New York Times and (I think) the Boston Globe.

And of course, there’s the ever-watching, ever-silent mercury militia. Hi guys :o)

In terms of numbers, I (_this_ site) get(s) around 1000 unique visits a day via the Hub. Its difficult to tell how many visitors the Hub itself gets because its not the sort of site that _gets_visitors, more the sort of site to _distribute_ visitors, but just about every Hub members places a small (less than 5kb) graphic on their sites. So far this month (7 days) this graphic has processed 86mb of data – this means that single graphic has been seen by 17,613 people. that works out to about 75,000 unique visitors a month, or 2,500 per day. And that’s not counting the over 400 people who access the feeds direct from the 2 feeds the Hub has.

This has all happened in less than 3 months. Incredible.

And yet, the Hub itself has become a victim of this success – its not a very flexible design and is begging for a decent bit of information architecture applied to it. I’ve recently expanded both the front page and the RSS feeds – this is just the beginning of what needs to be a fairly substantial overhaul.

I am delighted that so many people are interested in a more ‘no need to cure’ point of view than some people (ahem) might feel comfortable with – it gives me a sense of hope that our children and our adult friends and colleagues may have a slightly less judgemental future than was previously feared.

The Hub bloggers are doing a great thing – they are disseminating truth, respect, positivity, objectivity and tolerance. I thank each and every one of them and I promise to continue developing a site worthy of their efforts.

CSS Reboot – Guest Reviewer

2 May

Well, the CSS Reboot is upon us once again and I thought given the prestige of the occasion, I’d hand over to a guest reviewer to review some of the entries in the Reboot.

Please welcome Guest Reviewer – Johnny Nice-Painter.

Oh hello my fellow artists….how very lovely it is to be here reviewing such a prestigious event as the CSS Reboot amongst all you young people. You may know I’m something of an artist myself, although I have to say I utilise the more conventional approach of a nice canvas and water colours. I daresay that sounds terribly old fashioned.

Anyway, lets move on shall we? Katie has my tea and medication waiting for me and I don’t want to be late…so who’s first Mr Leitch?

Oh ah, young Prabhath from Nidahas…what an exotic looking web page that is! How jolly nice! Did he win? No? Why? Because he didn’t pay to get his design listed on the front page? I don’t understand Mr Leitch – you have to pay?

Oh, only some people can pay – those who can afford it I presume – not those who come from developing countries with other priorities I would surmise…? How very strange. Anyway, which lovely website should I look at next?

Oh, ah Standards Rule…well now thats jolly nice too, what a lot of talented people we have here Mr Leitch!…what’s that? Look at the ‘source code’…whatever for? Ah…I see – using a table for layout purposes – I thought this was a CSS competition? It is? Oh dear. I don’t understand, I’m afraid. Admittedly, an old man like me can’t keep up with the latest gizmo’s and jeejaws but even I know that calling a website ‘Standards Rule’ and rebooting in a CSS competition whilst using a table for layout is a bit…well, its not cricket is it eh?

Shall we just go straight to the CSS Reboot home page Mr Leitch? No? Why not? What do you mean ‘no reason’, that sounds a bit silly – lets just click the link and…..

oh….

….there’s an awful lot of black isn’t there…….

….oh dear…Terry Ng, David Longworth, John Protasiewicz, Bryan Veloso, Doug Gibson…….

black……BLACK!!!!

ah……Christian Montoya….ARRGGHHH Christian Montoya AGAIN!!!! BLACK!!!!

You lock me in the cellar and feed me pins, where shall we sleep tonight Mother? On Father’s grave?

Alex Graul….Jonathon Snook….

They wait for me in the woods…

VEERLE MADE IT GOOD BUT IT MAKES ME SAD!!!

The black…..ITS EVERYWHERE!!!!! I MUST HIDE IN THE WARDROBE OF SUBTLE PLAGARISM DARKNESS!!!

Well…sorry about that. I guess all that black was a bit much for poor Johnny. I know how he feels.

Meme Clobbered – Where Was I?

3 Apr

H has meme clobbered me and as I took the piss out of 37 Signals so mercilessly I can no loger cry off such things. Damn you karma!!

Where Was I One Year Ago?

One year ago I worked for a financial services company as their in house designer/developer. We were also getting our daughter established in a mainstream school, my wife was six months pregnant and I had gone through about 3 re-designs of this site in a month.

Where Was I Five Years Ago?

2001 right? Erm….I was working for a design agency (clients included Disney, Nat West, Jarvis and others) churning out very dodgy Flash based websites and living the dotcom dream. Shorlty afterwards I was laid off. The dotcom nightmare.

Where Was I Ten Years Ago?

Christ. In 1996 I was at University doing my degree and was doing a bit of web stuff to make ends meet. I had just met Naomi. I was thinner. I was fitter. I had a better blood pressure. Other than that I cannot remember/am not saying.

Its customary at this time for me to clobber three other people with this meme. I shall therefore choose one design blogger, one autism blogger and one skeptic blogger.

Announcement About Megan

21 Mar

As most of you know I stopped blogging about Megan publicly some time ago.

Well, I really miss it. It really irks me that I can’t tell people whats going on in her life and how she’s doing.

What I’m, going to do is set up a private blog which will require people to enter some sort of password to access. If you’d like to access that blog then please leave a comment below.

I’m also getting a bit ticked off with this design. It looks really poor on shorter posts like this. Thing is, I’ve customised WordPress so heavily I’m worried about screwing it totally. Damn. On the other hand Veerle has raised the bar and I’m getting a design itch that requires some scratching. It seems to be quite ‘cool’ to go for a dark bg so I probably won’t do that but all the blue on here is getting on my nerves a tad.

I’m thinking – background styled to look like a notepad and plenty of Comic Sans. Yummy.

Hating Sanity: My Very Own Sockpuppet

13 Mar

Someone (and its really not hard to guess who) has created a little sockpuppet site for me. Whomever (ahem) it is has also started sprinkling the blogosphere with spicy comments from ‘me’.

How cool is this? Someone (ahem) is worried enough about what I say to start a whole new blog to sockpuppet me!

I could get annoyed about such a thing but really, we have to look at it this way – I must be making a much bigger impression on someone (ahem) then I thought I was. Enough for them to be really worried about the success I’m having in getting through to people.

But lets not ruin the possible fun here. Lets have a bit of a Cluedo type blog post to work out the suspects….who is ‘kev’????

Is it:

a) JB Handley?

Evidence for: He’s got form for trying to coerce people to his beliefs. He’s also good for a bit of name-calling.
Evidence against: Probably knows I wouldn’t be anything but amused.

b) SueM?

Evidence for: Has the wit.
Evidence against: Lacks the motivation.

c) John Best Jr?

Evidence for? Has been repeatedly made to look foolish by a myriad of people on his own blog and other peoples but as I have adopted a position of purposefully getting in his face, I’ve probably stuck in his brain longer than most. Possibly because I continually post his racist (equates Muslims to terrorists), homophobic (believes homosexuality is a perversion which can be cured by a dose of ‘self-respect’) illogic (believes autism was invented by Eli Lilly in 1931) back in his face.

Lately I pointed out to Joseph that attempting rational debate with John was useless. His two crowning moments for me were when he said that there was no autism in China prior to 1999 (whereupon he was deluged with comments pointing to the many studies that predate 1990, let alone ’99 in China) and that autism didn’t exist before 1931 (whereupon I pointed out the diagnosis for case studies stretching back to the 1880’s) and it was at this point that I referred to him as ‘spectacularly stupid’ by which I meant that I was occasionally in literal awe of how stupid he truly was.

Evidence against: Can someone that stupid have a mildly amusing idea like this?

d) Sigourney Weaver?

Evidence for: Took umbrage at my post disagreeing with her statement that autism is a gift. Also annoyed that I confessed to lusting after Gillian Anderson and Geena Davis as well as her.

Evidence against: Is quite obviously in love with me.

So there we have it. Put on your deerstalkers, sniff your class A narcotic of choice, play the stringed instrument you like the best, indulge in a same sex relationship and claim its platonic, be insufferably condescending all the time and inspire lots of really good black and white movies starring Basil Rathbone.

Fire Cannot Burn Truth

9 Mar

Something of a departure in a way, I want to talk today about something that blogging friend Orac is talking about today, namely that a bunch of arsonists have burnt down the office of the Holocaust History Project in an apparent attempt to stifle the work that goes on there.

The HHP is a vital cog in the machinery that fights against the neo-fascist perpetuated denial of the Holocaust. It puts out educational material to schools in the US designed to educated about the nature and effects of the holocaust.

The Nazi regime is estimated to have murdered approx 275,000 disabled people during its reign, reasoning that:

It was argued that allowing disabled people to live and have children, led to the “unfit” reproducing more quickly than “the fit”. It was said that this weakened society’s ability to function efficiently, placing an unnecessary toll on non-disabled people.

I’ll leave you to reflect on how disconcertingly familiar that sounds to some sentiments repeated today by a certain section of people.

On the grounds that disabled people were less worthwhile and an unfair burden on society, a widespread and compulsory sterilisation program took place. This began in 1933…..sterilisation was followed by an active killing program, which started in 1939

Under a secret plan called the ‘T4 Program’ (T4 was a reference to the address of the program’s Berlin HQ – Tiergartenstrasse 4), disabled people in Germany were killed by lethal injection or poison gas. The T4 Program saw a string of six death camps – called “euthanasia centres” – set up across Germany and Austria. These centres contained gassing installations designed to look like shower stalls.

This is why organisations like the Holocaust History Project are vital. If we are ever to learn from the mistakes of the past we cannot allow the ignorant and brutal to hold sway.

Who’s Blog Is It Anyway?

1 Feb

And so, the Signal vs Noise debate rumbles on – a company who’ve been mildly successful with some intriguing and OK products and who up until fairly recently were well respected in the design/dev blogosphere decided to play the ‘holier than thou’ card when tagged with the ‘four things’ meme.

For the uninitiated, a ‘meme’ is like a viral game, comprised of a series of questions that is passed from blogger to blogger. They’re far from the be all and end all of the blogosphere and being tagged can induce feelings of ‘do I _have_ to?’ but at the end of the day, its just a bit of fun. If you don’t want to participate and you get tagged all you have to do is simply not post your answer. No one cares, no one gets hurt and the meme rolls on regardless.

The ‘four things’ meme is a series of questions about four things e.g. name four jobs you’ve had, four movies you could watch again and again. Utter bullshit stuff for sure and about as important as a wet fart but still, mildly interesting on occasion when the meme lands on the blog of someone you know or someone you admire but don’t know.

So what was 37signals response to all this?

The listed each question with ‘pass’ written into each answer, making it totally clear they felt the whole thing beneath them. A few choice comments were left, particularly this one from Matthew Oliphant:

This is what I take away from this post: “I hope people stop writing what they want to write about on their own blogs and write only about things I find interesting.”.

Realising that they’d pissed a few people off, the 37signals guys decided to invent a whole new meme (one supposes as some sort of ‘reward’ for us peons), entitling the post A meme worth spreading.

Great name. As Jon Hicks commented with masterful sarcasm:

Pass. I bow to your far superior meme creation techniques.

Jon went on to elaborate:

You know how I said that one of my concerns for 2006, was that blogging amongst the design community was becoming too serious and worthy? Well there we go…..After all if you can’t arse around on your blog, where can you? C’mon!

In that spirit of arsing around, I offer my own thoughts to the debate – during an idle surf I stumbled across what looked like an intruiging product. I dutifully took a screen capture which you can see here.

Please watch this space for details of my soon-to-be-upcoming court appearance.

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