Accidental
tqa | February 27, 2009
I know, I know, I really should stop going to Conservapedia, but it's got that train wreck thing going. Every time I go back, I think I'm not going to find something worse than the things I've already turned up. And every time I'm wrong. But I might just be right tonight.
Today, I found the "Liberal Denial" page. It's not one that you're going to want to read with your mouth full.
The page starts out by defining liberal denial:
Liberal denial is the tendency of liberals to conceal, deny or censor the truth for ideological reasons. A list of the top dozen common instances of liberal…
tqa | February 26, 2009
Henry Gee's wife Penny is participating in The Race For Life (remember that name - especially the last word - it'll be important in a second) to benefit Cancer Research UK. Someone sent her a message saying that they're not comfortable donating to a charity that supports animal research.
That's fair enough. I don't have a problem with animal research myself, but it's a complex issue, and I can see how someone could have a different view. Sadly, however, the correspondent failed to quit at that point. Instead, the unnamed would-be philanthropist went on to ask if there was an alternative…
tqa | February 24, 2009
Tonight's Conservapedia fun comes courtesy of their entry for "Moon":
Atheistic theories of the origin of the Moon, widely taught for decades despite lacking the falsifiability requirement of science (see Philosophy of science), have been proven false.
If you want to comment on this one, feel free. But I'm really not sure what you can say to this one.
tqa | February 18, 2009
Conservapedia has an entry for "Martyrs to the faith". (Their capitalization, not mine.) They define martyrs to the faith as, "the Protestants who were executed by Roman Catholics during the Reformation of the 16th century." They then go on to provide a very interesting list of examples, that includes:
John Brown. executed in the late 17th Century for refusing to acknowledge the British Crown's authority over the Scottish church.
Richard Cameron. A Scott who died in battle in the late 17th Century.
Donald Cargill. Yet another of the Scottish Presbyterians who died in the 17th Century while…
tqa | February 17, 2009
Earlier today, someone left the following comment:
Le réchauffement climatique fait partie d'un cycle planétaire qui touche toutes les planètes de notre système et n'a rien avoir avec la pollution.
La glace occupe un volume supérieur a son volume en eau, donc: si la glace fond le niveau baisse.
Des millions d'humains vivent sous les tropiques et ont des températures supérieures aux pays industrialisés et s'en accomodent trés bien. Le réchauffement de nos régions sera bénéfique pour tous et permettra une expansion de l'agriculture.
Le "réchauffement climatique" est un produit…
tqa | February 12, 2009
As you might recall, early yesterday I noticed that Google had decided to put up a Darwin logo, and predicted that some folks were going to raise hell as a result. That was, of course, one of the safest predictions this side of "it's going to rain in the Amazon Basin sometime this year", but I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the remarks posted on various blogs anyway.
Some of the lunacy can be found below the fold.
The 10:10 Muse writes:
Google may not realize it was the efforts of Abraham Lincoln and each and every American to come since that has ensured their success. It is…
tqa | February 12, 2009
Tonight, we've got a special Conservapedia Quiz for you. This will test your ability to correctly identify the wingnut wackaloon nonsense given a range of choices. The quiz consists of one question, the answer to which may be found at the Conservapedia entry for Natural Selection.
According to Conservapedia, which of the following best describes "Natural Selection"?
(a) Natural selection will automatically take place in any system which follows a certain set of rules.
(b) Natural selection is a tautology because it follows from its definition.
(c) Natural selection has no observable…
tqa | February 11, 2009Conservapedia has a category for pages about abstinence. This category currently contains a single entry, for "teen pregnancy".
tqa | February 10, 2009Tonight, instead of playing around with the front page and the news items at Conservapedia, I clicked their "random page" link. The first click brought me to their entry for The Thrawn Trilogy - a series of Star Wars novels. This particular entry was entirely plagiarized from this Star Wars wiki, with one minor exception - they left out three words.
tqa | February 9, 2009...but here's a new(ish) Conservapedia howler for you. This one comes from their news page entry for Super Bowl Sunday:
An overweight and over-the-hill Bruce Springsteen is performing songs from the 1980s at the Super Bowl halftime. Wonder why? He supports the liberal agenda hook, line and sinker. But he hasn't yet performed his "Born in the U.S.A." ... perhaps Obama types wouldn't like that one???
Andy Schlafly, this tinfoil hat's for you.
tqa | February 5, 2009When people arrive at this blog via the google, it's usually because they're searching for a combination of words that doesn't produce a lot of hits. Often, it's a series of words that looks suspiciously like things that have to do with some sort of homework assignment.
Earlier tonight, someone punched "Compare and contrast between peace and War" into google.ca. The fourth item on the results list was a post from early 2007 that probably didn't help our searching student much. (Unless, of course, they were looking for an exposition of former President George W. Bush's flaws.)
It's unlikely…
tqa | February 3, 2009
It occurs to me that I should add a caveat to yesterday's post about the politics and pomposity of referring to yourself as "Doctor". There is in fact at least one set of circumstances that can make referring to yourself as "Dr." pompous to the point of being hysterically funny: when your "doctorate" comes out of a crackerjack box, but you then proceed to use the "Dr." title at absolutely every possible opportunity, including your listing in the local phone book.
The image comes from a now out-of-date Pensacola phone book. The cropping and blurring are deliberate, and intended to…
tqa | February 2, 2009
What's more pompous: an accomplished professional woman who went back to school and earned a doctorate at age 55, or a newspaper setting itself up as the arbiter of who should be allowed to use that title?
The LA Times apparently thinks that the person who earned the degree is the pompous one, but that's not really much of a surprise, since they're the ones claiming the mantle of arbiter of faith and morals in this case. Apparently, they don't think people should use the title "Doctor" unless they're MDs. In support of their position, they trotted out a number of dubious quotes from…
tqa | January 22, 2009
I understand that the following might not be exactly in tune with President Obama's desire for increased civility in Washington, but then I'm not in Washington.
It would appear, based on news reports, that House Minority Whip Eric Cantor is objecting to part of the economic stimulus plan for a reason that strikes me as a bit odd:
Cantor said Republicans worry that much of the plan that Democrats are pushing "does not stimulate the economy." He singled out a provision for weatherizing poor people's homes, causing it a worthy goal but saying it does nothing to create new jobs.
That's…
tqa | January 18, 2009
Today, we've got an absurd story that leads to a more absurd story. The absurd concerns yet another remarkably asinine wonderfully American attempt to use the inauguration of our 44th President as a marketing ploy:
"Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies -- just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet 'free' can be."
That's right,…
tqa | January 15, 2009
... thought it would be a really great idea for my son to get an 800+ Star Wars lego set that he and I could spend quality time building together?
Oh, right. Never-mind.
tqa | January 12, 2009
At his "farewell" press conference earlier today, President Bush commented that, "most Israelis understand there needs to be a democracy on their border in order for there to be long-lasting peace." A short time later, Israel announced that they were barring Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections.
tqa | January 7, 2009
There's been no shortage of right wing pundits saying really dumb things since the election, but the opening of Michael Gerson's latest column is so insanely delusional that it nearly sent coffee out my nose:
Barack Obama was elected, in part, as the antidote to ambition. Unlike John F. Kennedy, who campaigned against the golf-playing complacency of the Eisenhower era, Obama appealed to a nation weary of large national exertions -- a nation longing for a normality beyond the wars, hurricanes, floods and assorted plagues of the Bush years.
Right. Because there's nothing like enormous…
tqa | December 8, 2008
You could call this a follow-up to the recent stories about CNN's spectacularly stupid decision to kill its science and technology unit, I suppose. I'm watching MSNBC right now, watching them cover the crash of a Marine FA-18 Hornet in a residential neighborhood in the Miramar, California area.
They're speculating right now - actually, speculating is almost too nice a term - about the number of pilots on board the aircraft. Apparently, the military at the Pentagon is not sure about how many pilots there were, and are a little too busy actually trying to find out what's happening to spoon…
tqa | November 29, 2008
(another own goal, of course.)
There he goes again. Creationist neurosurgeon Michael Egnor's latest post over at the Discovery Institute's Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me blog may have actually reached a new standard for missing the point. And, as both my loyal regular readers know, that's not an easy mark for Egnor to hit.
The current contender is his latest post in a back-and-forth that he's been having with PZ and Orac. Once again, Egnor is attempting to argue that evolutionary biology has not provided any useful insights to the field of medicine. That much is familiar ground.…