RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/August 2015

August 2015
The Frightening Power of the Home-Schooling Lobby An in depth look at HSLDA and how unregulated homeschooling is. Two out of three psychology papers can't be reproduced It seems that GOP hopefuls like Ted Cruz are following the Media Research Center's advice on how to respond to questions that they don't like -- label the question "liberal journalism" and refuse to answer it. In the investigation of 'voting irregularities', Kansas election officials are trying to block the release of voting machine records. It's like they had something to hide. Right-wing PR flackmeister Frank Luntz meets  "All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me" Donald "I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful" Trump supporters, is horrified. "I'm having trouble processing it. Like, my legs are shaking." SPLC: [https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/08/25/energized-white-nationalist-movement-rallies-behind-trump%E2%80%99s-immigration-plan "White nationalists from all sides of the movement are throwing their support behind "All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me" Donald "I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful" Trump since his immigration plan was announced." ] What do  "All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me" Donald "I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful" Trump supporters actually want? Reason provides an excellent list of reasons why Hillary Clinton must be stopped. Online Tools for Skeptical Fact Checking Put on your Tinder profile that you're a feminist. Post the consequent splainstorm to Instagram. In spite of the claims of protecting innocents from criminals, stand your ground laws have overwhelmingly benefited those with a violent history. "Ted Cruz Complains ‘Atheist Taliban’ Is Persecuting Christians". on LGBT discrimination. Science Isn't Broken: An excellent interactive demonstration and discussion of p-values, human nature, and the nuances of science by FiveThirtyEight's Christie Aschwanden. Same old same oooold: anti-feminist memes repeat anti-suffragette posters. Jim Bakker wants your $100 per month for heavenly real estate: ''“Heaven has all kinds of property, ghettos, shacks, apartments, starter homes and mansions,” Bakker said. “Send in your love offering to ensure you have a palatial mansion in heaven. You want to make sure you are in a good heavenly neighborhood.”'' Onion Explains: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict What African countries do you know? Almost No One Sided with GamerGate: A Research Paper on the Internet’s Reaction to Last Year’s Mob. [http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/21/neoconservatives-so-wrong-for-so-long-iraq-war-iran-deal/ Neocon=wrong. Always] Brianna Wu looks back on one year of Gamergate Autism Causes Vaccines: "We studied a bunch of autistic men and women, and each and every one of them was once vaccinated for something at some point in their lives. The message is obvious: if you have autism, sooner or later, you're going to get a painful vaccination." "Hmm, how do we pump up interest in our declining cult? I know, let's have a bitter schism!" Bitcoin continues to be backed by comedy gold. Also, the price crashed yesterday. Also, it'll be unusable for all of September. "So I dug into some of the 'PC Suckz00rz' arguments and quickly realized that not only are they wrong, they're exactly wrong, which is sort of impressive." John Oliver takes on televangelists. Alternative link. Even more Cracked: Wikipedia Hates Women: 4 Dark Sides of The Site We All Use More Cracked: 5 Stories That Should Make The Anti-Vax Movement Worry Cracked states that treating women as collectibles is sexist. Alabama is straight outta money. Is  "All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me" Donald "I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful" Trump actually a deep cover liberal? Probably not... Cracked: 6 Reasons You Can't Trust Science Anymore (Science journals are a big scam.) Economist and business consultant calls bullshit on the sharing economy while another shows how monopolizing is not a praiseworthy example of "disruptive economics" (scroll down for a bonus article on "All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me" Donald "I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful" Trump and his douchey political correctness handwave). Nuclear power has a number of problems. One of them is not the increasingly common anti-nuclear claim that nuclear produces more CO2 over its lifecycle than fossil fuel alternatives. This post traces this particular piece of made-up woo to its source. It would be nice if this was just paranoia: A mathematician may have uncovered election fraud in Kansas. Eating habits: A religion professor parses the moral language of modern diets. Chris "RINO" Ladd demonstrates that he is not a leftist by explaining why he thinks European social democracy is impractical for the US. The Feminist in the Wild (video, 5:20), an educational documentary by Anne Thériault, Rachael Leone and D.C. Douglas. The Iran deal in the White House's own words "I hid Illuminati symbols in broadcast news because I was bored" Or that's what They WANT us to think.... Over the past decade, a new type of historical denialism has cropped up -- the insistence that 19th century Americans never discriminated against Irish immigrants. Enter a 14-year-old girl who decided to do a Google search on the topic just for the hell of it and. . . well, you can probably guess the rest. And if you'd like to see some examples of actual, supposedly non-existent 19th century "NINA" (i.e., no Irish need apply) classified ads, here are some from The Brooklyn Eagle. (The professor whose claim the girl refuted? R.J. Jensen, late of Conservapedia.)