Idiot of the Month Awards
stcynic | October 24, 2006I haven't given out one of these in a while, but I came across this column from the Worldview Weekend site and it just cries out for a Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award) for the author. This is simply one of the most inane examples of ignorance on display that you will ever come across. It begins with him calling homosexuality "the third sex", which is simply bizarre, and complaining about the "homosexual mafia" allegedly running DC. And then it actually gets worse.
Homosexuality, the third sex, is rampant throughout America as the homosexual mafia moves ever closer…
stcynic | August 31, 2006I haven't given out a Robert O'Brien Trophy in a while, but here's someone who really deserves one: Jill Stanek. The award is given for this breathtakingly idiotic column at the Worldnutdaily where she actually claims that legalizing the purchase of Plan B emergency contraception over the counter will lead to more pedophilia. Seriously. She said that. I swear. The title to the column is:
Babes in Thailand rapists needn't leave U.S.
Exclusive: Jill Stanek predicts Plan B customers will be men bedding underage girls
I'll give you a moment to pick your jaw up off the desk. Ready to continue?…
stcynic | January 3, 2006Here's a definite Robert O'Brien Trophy candidate, Linda Kimball. She is the author of this hilariously ridiculous essay. I found out about it because Gerard Harbison, the self-proclaimed Right Wing Professor, linked to my debunking of the famous Patrick Henry "founded not by religionists" fake quote, which Kimball uses. But using that fake quote is about the least objectionable idea in the article. It's so bad that it's not worth fisking, it should just be set in a museum case somewhere for those with an IQ above room temperature to stare at with their jaws agape at the notion that anyone…
stcynic | September 9, 2005Sometimes I feel like I should send Joseph Farah, founder of the Worldnutdaily, a gift. The webmag he founded is such a fountain of sheer stupidity that he makes my job here so much easier. Virtually every day, I could find ample fodder for this blog just by clicking on his page. And now that he has added Alan Sears, the CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, as a weekly columnist that job should get even easier. The Alliance Defense Fund, you may remember, are the folks who brought us the ridiculous "Declaration of Independence Banned from Classroom" lawsuit that was recently "settled" when they…
stcynic | July 25, 2005July's Idiot of the Month award goes to Judith Reisman, a nutty anti-anything-sexual crusader who is astonishingly popular with social conservatives. Reisman is one of the leading lights of the "abstinence-only sex ed" movement and a longtime anti-porn and anti-gay activist with a history of saying absolutely loony things. Her latest contribution to absurdity is the notion of "erototoxins", which she invented out of whole cloth and foisted on an unsuspecting Congress last year. "Erototoxins" are brain chemicals allegedly released in the brain when one views pornography, chemicals which,…
stcynic | May 31, 2005I know it's only the first of the month, but this one really can't be topped. I actually had made a note of this ridiculous column by Star Parker for a possible Idiot of the Month award. In it, she cites a study showing that 51% of Americans think abortion is immoral, but 63% of Americans support Roe v. Wade and want it to remain legal. Then she proceeds to argue that the compromisers on the filibuster in the Senate will surely be punished by the voters because they may be keeping judges off the bench who will overturn that decision because, well, 51% think abortion is immoral. That bit of…
stcynic | May 7, 2005It's only the first week of May, but we may have found our Robert O'Brien Trophy winner already. I present to you the Rev. Chan Chandler of East Waynesville Baptist Church in North Carolina. He has begun to excommunicate anyone in his church who didn't vote for George W. Bush. 9 members, including many who had been members for decades, were thrown out and the congregation stood up and applauded when they left. About 40 people have resigned in protest of this ridiculous display of idiocy. Those who were thrown out should really be thankful. Why on earth would anyone want to be a member of any…
stcynic | April 26, 2005As we come to the end of the month of April, it is once again time to award the Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly known as the Idiot of the Month award) to a worthy recipient. This month's winner is Les Kinsolving, the Worldnutdaily's intrepid White House correspondent, for this screed about gays and the new pope. In this column, he lists a series of statements by gay rights organizations expressing their disappointment in the appointment of the stridently anti-gay Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope. At no point does he actually dispute the accuracy of anything in those statements, of course. The mere…
stcynic | February 15, 2005Scott Foust, a german literature student at the University of Cincinatti, is the winner of February's Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly known as the Idiot of the Month award) for this breathtakingly ignorant article in the newspaper of that university. In it, Foust takes the commonly heard, and utterly false, claim that evolution supports racism and adds to it a whole new set of lies and falsehoods. His particular specialty is the unsupported assertion. Right off the bat, he trots out this one:
If evolution is to be believed, black history would include the notion that blacks are still an…
stcynic | January 21, 2005For the second time in three months, Joseph Farah, owner of the Worldnutdaily, is the winner of the Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award). His latest foray into the world of sheer idiocy is this column, called The Threat to Adoption. Actually, it's not so much the column itself. There is much in it that I agree with. For instance, he says:
Imagine this horror, if you can.
You're a 3½-year-old child.
One day, you are taken away from the only people you have ever known as Mommy and Daddy and told you will now be living with strangers.
It is happening all too often in…
stcynic | January 3, 2005Sometimes you read something that is so absurd that you think that's just as bad as it could possibly get. Then you go down a level and find out that they can top it. To borrow a phrase from Hindu mythology, it's stupidity all the way down. Such is the case with Kelly Hollowell, intrepid Worldnutdaily columnist and two-time winner of the Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award). Her latest column on the recent tsunami and the Noahic flood is stunningly stupid. First, she absurdly contrasts mainstream plate tectonics with "catastrophic plate tectonics":
However critics…
stcynic | December 22, 2004Hans Zeiger, the Hillsdale College student and budding right wing pundit, is the latest winner of the Robert O'Brien Tropy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award) for this frontal assault on the intellect published, naturally, on the Worldnutdaily. It seems Zeiger has his panties in a wad because his old high school newspaper contained a couple of ads offering free birth control to the students there:
"Need Free Birth Control?" asked the first ad for the Federal Way Public Health Center. "FREE ... Condoms! Morning After Pill! Pregnancy tests! STD tests! Public Health Teen Clinic can help!…
stcynic | December 15, 2004Remember this month's winner of the Robert O'Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award), Gerald Allen? He's the drooling halfwit state rep from Alabama who wants to ban all books and plays that have a gay character in them. Well guess what? He was at the White House this week. At the request of the President, no less:
Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."
Yikes. When I wrote about Allen, I assumed…
stcynic | December 3, 2004I should have learned my lesson about naming an Idiot of the Month too early in the month. In America, just when you think you've found the bottom of the barrell, you discover that it's barrells all the way down. Joseph Swank, move over. You've been out-moroned by Rep. Gerald Allen, a state Congressman from Alabama. In a move that would make George Wallace smile, Allen has proposed a bill that would ban any and all books that have gay characters in them from public libraries, in order to protect children from "the homosexual agenda":
Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay…
stcynic | December 2, 2004There seems to be this little gaggle of right wing webpages that all feature the same set of idiot columnists - gopusa.com, bushcountry.org, intellectualconservative.com. Add to that richardmullenax.com, named for one of the aforementioned columnists. You see the same people showing up on all of these sites - Joseph Swank, Mullenax, Jen Shroder and others - and all saying the same stupid things. It's as if they think repetition is the key to a good argument. Swank has won our Idiot of the Month award before, so this is our first return winner, and he gets it for this moronic column calling…
stcynic | November 24, 2004Not content with his rank hypocrisy in condemning Rev. Moon while simultaneously accepting awards from him and making money off his business associations with him, Joseph Farah has now added utter idiocy to the list of reasons to regard him as little more than a carnival barker on the political midway. Just look at this idiotic screed from Farah, owner of the WorldNutDaily. The subject is whether the Pentagon should continue to allow military bases to sponsor Boy Scout troops.
The Supreme Court, in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, ruled that the Boy Scouts are a private association and as…
stcynic | August 9, 2004Our intrepid correspondent, Jen Shroder, is rapidly moving up the charts to become our Idiot of the Year, if not decade. This just has to be seen to be believed - this woman is calling on Christians to swear curses against "liberal judges" to make them blind:
These actions are outrageous and worthy of curse. Oh yes, Christians can curse, may all the saints curse those who would pervert the righteous ways of the Lord, Phyllis Hamilton and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who advocates lowering the age of consent to 12 years old. By the power of the Holy Spirit to cause these…
stcynic | July 22, 2004In the last few months, I've given away numerous Idiot of the Week awards. This is the first time any recipient has ever replied. Mrs. Wilhite sent me an e-mail this evening. As we shall see, it is as badly reasoned and ridiculous as the commentary that won her this prestigious award in the first place. She begins:
With regard to your blog - which someone sent me after searching for one of my articles - it was interesting. Do you really see yourself as in a war against conservatives?
Of course not, nor do I recall ever saying or implying such. I find it bizarre when someone identifies…
stcynic | July 20, 2004Thanks to Timothy Sandefur for providing the link, and a thorough critique, of the absolutely mind-boggling stupidity contained in this essay by Tamara Wilhite, entitled Gay Marriage and Terrorism. It's on a site called bushcountry.org that claims to be "promoting the ideals of conservatism". Mrs. Wilhite says that by rejecting the Federal Marriage Amendment we "play into the hands" of the terrorists. Why? I'll let her explain:
Not only do we allow our women to go unveiled. Not only do we allow our daughters to have sex outside of marriage. Not only do we allow abortion. Not only do we allow…
stcynic | July 3, 2004This week's Idiot of the Week is Bruce Walker. It will come as no surprise that I found this cretin through a link from the WorldNutDaily. His article, published in the American Daily, is entitled The Case for America Divorcing Its Haters. In it, Mr. Walker tosses out the old "if you don't love this country, why don't you leave it?" line, original thought apparently being beyond his capability (paranthetical aside: funniest answer to that question ever comes from Barry Crimmins - "Because I don't wanna be victimized by its foreign policy."). This thought is no more rational when it's put down…