So Kamen claims this new distiller will “wipe out 50% of human disease”. Really? Just how the “Segway will change the way people travel forever“? Okay, let’s just hypothetically say that his device is capable of bringing water to everyone on earth. Cool. Now they can finally drink some clean water. Great. However, bringing clean water to everyone on earth isn’t exactly going to save it (as some people are claiming, just Google “Dean Kamen Water”). A few problems remain and some are created when Kamen’s filter is introduced to a third world environment.

• Even if his filter could “wipe out 50% of human disease,” it wouldn’t do anything about the main problem most of these countries face; Hunger. In fact, if it did do what he says it can do, more people would live and reproduce, creating an even larger need for food. So where people once died from disease, they now die from hunger. You’re trading one horrible way of dying for another… and increasing the population while you’re at it, which in turn increases the amount of suffering.
• The majority of places that this would help, have no electricity. Can this thing be solar powered? Does it need fuel for a generator? Is the company that donates it going to provide unlimited power for it? Who pays?
• He fails to acknowledge the fact that a large part of the people living in poor water conditions aren’t effected by the water. Just how Mexicans living in Mexico can drink the water, but American visitors can’t, their bodies are used to the water and have built immunities. It’s not bad water causing these diseases, it poor sanitation and few (if any) medical facilities.
• Vapor Compression Distillers have been around a long time and haven’t changed the world or saved third world countries yet… Kamen is just smart enough to know most people don’t know his “invention” already exists. But don’t tell anyone, it’ll kill the PR buzz.

So in closing, Dean Kamen’s water filter is greatly over-hyped. While it is a fantastic goal to bring clean drinking water to everyone on earth, there’s no way this device is going to save it. I’m all for creating a filter than can turn sludge into clean drinking water, but please, stop touting this thing as the savior of the third world. I mean think about it… it’s coming from Dean Kamen, a man known for hyping the shit out of his inventions in hopes of making more sales. How’s your Segway working out?

There’s just something about companies not being able to take bad press that drives me nuts. Especially companies with a reputation for screwing people over. It’s like punching someone in the face and then getting pissed at them for telling other people to stay away from you.

One such company that I’ve seen pushing people around lately is ClickBooth. They’re an advertising network with a reputation for not paying their affiliates. Searching for the term “clickbooth” on an affiliate forum like WickedFire reveals hundreds of complaints.

ClickBooth claims all of these affiliates aren’t telling the truth, but when you have hundreds of people all saying the same thing I tend to believe them. What would they have to gain from lying?

Speaking of the WickedFire forum, the wonderful folks over at ClickBooth are suing them for “emotional distress”, due to all of the negative threads on the site. Emotional distress? Really? A large company like ClickBooth can’t handle a few negative threads on a forum… to the point of “emotional distress”?

ClickBooth is demanding the removal of all negative threads and comments on the WickedFire forum. Last time I checked you’re allowed to share your negative experience with others, at least in the United States.

Normally I wouldn’t write a whole article on a single company like this, but ClickBooth has really gone overboard. In the past few weeks, ClickBooth has been sending threatening e-mails to bloggers who write negative things about the company… bloggers for crying out loud!

One such blogger is Alex at CantGetRich.com. After writing a post entitled “Don’t Do Business With Clickbooth“, Alex received an e-mail from them threatening a lawsuit. Unfortunately Alex caved to the e-mail and took the post down. However, a handful of other bloggers haven’t been so kind to the ClickBooth machine (sorry for using the keyword “clickbooth” so much, but I want to rank well for the term when people search for reviews on them).

Anyway, it’s completely absurd that a company would spend so much time and effort trying to silence the general population, especially on the Internet. Instead of using gestapo tactics, ClickBooth should either leave it alone or actually respond to the accusations in an intelligent way. It would definitely look better and they wouldn’t have to worry about creating such negative buzz… If they wouldn’t have sent the C&D letter to WickedFire or a nasty e-mail to bloggers, the story wouldn’t have ever made it to the pages of Skewism.com…

So ClickBooth, if you’re reading this, I’d like to give you the opportunity to respond to this whole thing. I’ll even dedicate an entire thread to just your response and I won’t add anything to it. Or… you could send us a nasty e-mail and see what happens.

p.s. - For a more in depth look at what started this whole thing, I recommend reading this post from NickyCakes.com.

I’m a loyal fan of Digg.com, but sometimes those crazy geeks get a little carried away with their Internet wars. Personally, I feel if the Digg community put the same amount of effort into world hunger, as they do for things like a HD-DVD decryption key (a lot of good that does you now, eh?), then there would be a lot fewer starving children in the world.

That’s why I secretly sighed under my breath when I saw Digg taking up the cause of bringing down the Church of Scientology. “Not this shit again,” I thought to myself. Granted, it’s not just the Digg community raging war against the CoS, but they are the people who brought it to my attention. I figured it would take a couple weeks to die off and nobody would talk about it again.

I was wrong.

Here we are a few months later and Scientology related submissions are still making the front page of Digg on a daily basis. Not only that, but their dedication to bringing down the CoS, caused me to research the “Church”.

As a one time religious studies major in college, I can say I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to major religions of the world, but I honestly never read a thing about Scientology while in school. My guess is Scientology is being taught, but only in the criminology classes. But I digress…

So my first experience with Scientology was their orientation video. Holy crap! That’s all it took. I thought it was a spoof at first, but nope, it was real. Real, certifiable, bat shit crazy.

The more I researched the CoS, the more I realized these people weren’t just crazy bastards, they’re a dangerous cult that’s been destroying people’s lives for years. And while I could get into details, like:

• How the CoS charges their members to be part of the “church” and ends up draining their bank accounts.
• How the CoS leaves sick members in locked rooms to die, when they become sick and no longer have any money to pay medical bills.
• How L. Ron Hubbard (founder of the CoS) was sentenced to four years in prison for fraud…
• How L. Ron Hubbard’s wife went to jail for attacks on the U.S. government (read: Operation Snow White).
• This list could fill a book…

…I won’t. Instead, I’ll point you in the direction of Xenu.net, a site dedicated to outing the CoS.

So if you’re like I once was and you get annoyed by all of the Scientology stories on Digg, I urge you to actually research the topic. It might at first seem like a bunch of geeks in their basements, raging war on some pointless organization, from the comfort of their computer chairs… but you’ll soon learn that they are at least doing something to help bring down an evil group of human parasites. And trust me, something is better than nothing… especially when it comes to Internet users. I mean, there’s a lot more pointless things these people could be passionate about. Trust me.

This post defines the word “Skewism” (it’s a word now, so shut up)… So this May millions of people throughout the United States will be receiving a check, courtesy of the Economic Stimulus Plan. Those people who are eligible will receive between $1 and $600, depending on how much money they made in 2007.

The point of these checks is to try and get some money flowing through the economy, in hopes of fighting off a recession. The idea is to give people a little extra spending money and they will keep the economy floating a little while longer. That’s the idea anyway.

However, not everyone in the United States will get a check. Those people who made less than $3,000 won’t get one and those people who made over $75,000 won’t get one. It makes sense… if people made less than $3,000 last year, they probably won’t be spending the check on an ipod, they have bills to pay. And people making over $75,000 a year probably have a nice savings account, so the check would just get thrown in there and not get spent.

But that doesn’t stop self-proclaimed rich people from bitching about not getting their share.

Take Paul for example. Paul runs a Web site called UberAffiliate.com, where he talks about how he makes thousands of dollars a day. But it seems that’s not enough for Paul. No, Paul thinks the United States government is out to get him, because he’s not getting a rebate check. After complaining about the $75,000 cut off, this is what Paul had to say:

“They might as well have said… If you’re successful at all, you don’t deserve anything. We’d rather give it to individuals that make $3,000 a year and would stimulate our economy by spending the $600 on drug money.”

Apparently Paul uses special “drug money” to buy his drugs. I wonder how much “drug money” you can buy with $600 normal dollars? After making that brilliant statement, he goes on to say:

“An extra $600 isn’t really going to stimulate me to make any purchases…”

Ahh… so Paul is upset that he’s not going to get his “Economic Stimulus Plan check”, but by his own admission he wouldn’t use it. So basically Paul feels like the fat kid that didn’t get picked during gym class. He didn’t want to play anyway, but it’s still not fair!

Well Paul, congratulations on making your way to the pages of Skewism.com, may we recommend you check out IRS.gov and read up on why you pay more taxes? Here’s a hint; you make more money.

So for a clear display of true skewism, I urge you to read Paul’s post, here: http://uberaffiliate.com/gossiprants/the-us-government-doesnt-favor-success

Some of the comments deserve their own post here, but we’ll just leave them for you to read. Oh, and keep in mind that Paul didn’t like the backlash some of his statements caused, so the the post has been edited and he did make a follow-up post alleging he only did it to cause controversy. Nice try Paul, we ain’t buyin’ it.