RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/October 2010

October 2010
"Capitalism Uber Alles: How the American Working Class Got Brainwashed." A "Who's Who" of the Tea Party. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. The Tea Party: "One of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has ever seen." Via The Onion: Democrats: 'If We're Gonna Lose, Let's Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We've Made' Homeopathy: Is There Nothing In It Worldwide? After the FDA warn of "inconsistent amounts of belladonna" in homeopathic remedies for children, can people still assume homeopathy is safe (as well as being useless)? Robert Fisk: There has been a mass exodus of Christians from Muslim lands lately. Fisk pretends not to know why, but he does know that it is not the result of some "mythic" East-West clash. It's time for skeptics to stop preaching to the converted. Weird Homeopathy - Neptunium. Homeopaths attempt a double blind/placebo controlled study and conclude...the effect of the active pills somehow leaked out of their bottles into the placebo pills. UPDATE: The homeopath who performed the proving of this remedy responds! To illustrate how far down the road to Crackpotville Glenn Beck has gone, on the 22nd he added a new (but old) book to his show's reading list. That's right. Beck is recommending the 1952 screed Secrets of the Federal Reserve by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Eustace Mullins. Now that's Fair and Balanced! A 568-word explanation of the historical reasons for the First Amendment's separation of church and state; one that is so to-the-point that you might assume even Christine O'Donnell could understand it -- until you read some of the comments. (The first one was so nasty that it was deleted.) Could you go 24 hours without communications technology, networking, and the media? Slide show: Many Americans think that fossil fuels come from dinosaurs (and/or uranium), and that climate change is beneficial. The Official US Irony Meter, located in an undisclosed mountain root somewhere in the Rockies, in a room lined with lead 8 feet thick, explodes. The USIM was built to withstand a load of 3,000,000 kilofers! It helped that they [Gerald Ford and Bob Dole came to Washington as young military veterans, survivors of a war against an implacable enemy. They knew the difference between the Nazis, who were truly evil, and the Democrats, who were simply fellow Americans with different political beliefs.] XKCD uses economics to disprove some woo Weird Homeopathy - A love potion called 'Tempesta'. Created by putting an empty bottle outside during a thunderstorm. More stats from OKCupid, this time gay vs straight sex <vote poll=blog1161 closed="yes">Prof. Najam Haider explains that Sharia is not an immutable law, but a flexible way of thinking that changes with circumstance. (Rather like how Christians interpret the proscription against women wearing men's clothing; not that that's ever stopped fundamentalists railing against women wearing pants.) <vote poll=blog1160 closed="yes">"I Ate A Bowl of Soup, and Now I'm Muslim!" A Muslim reflects on some anti-halal paranoia. (In a completely unrelated development, pork has been off the menu at Church's Chicken for five years now.) <vote poll=blog1159 closed="yes">Jacob Weisberg: Whatever can the right-wingers possibly mean by "elitism"? (Hint, Mr. Weisberg: the meaning in question has been around almost 100 years.) <vote poll=blog1158 closed="yes">That noted Buddhist big-shot, the Dalai Lama, is preaching several Billy Graham-scale sermons at the University of Minnesota. Please tell us why the ACLU is not suing someone's socks off on First Amendment grounds? <vote poll=blog1157 closed="yes">Barack Obama Sr. wasn't quite the radical anti-colonialist that Distort D'Newsa thinks he was. <vote poll=blog1156 closed="yes">Don't worry RationalWiki; if you're going to throw a cow over a logo change, you're not alone. <vote poll=blog1155 closed="yes">Although the Founding Fathers were political revolutionaries, they were social right wingers. (It's no surprise that they would oppose divorce and non-marital sex, but children's games and fashion too?  Perhaps that explains why the Tea Party movement is so enamored with them.) <vote poll=blog1154 closed="yes">A vegetarian heard a story about a McDonald's hamburger that lasted for 12 years without rotting. To test this, she bought a Happy Meal on April 10. Six months later, the food has hardened without rotting. <vote poll=blog1153 closed="yes">British conservatives are a lot saner than American conservatives. <vote poll=blog1152 closed="yes">Media Channel, the news website that watches the media, is in trouble and could shut down. <vote poll=blog1151 closed="yes">A new iPhone app called "Pic Bubbler" demonstrates the cognitive tricks our brains can play on us. By placing "bubble-shaped" windows over photographs of people wearing revealing clothes like halter tops, swimsuits or underwear, the app makes those people appear nude. <vote poll=blog1150 closed="yes">A new study from Iowa State University shows why parents should make their children stop bullying others: When they become adults, childhood bullies are more likely to have sociopathic personality traits, are at greater risk of being homeless, and are more likely to physically attack others. A copy of this story is posted here. <vote poll=blog1149 closed="yes">In 1840, Joseph Smith is believed to have delivered the "White Horse Prophesy" wherein he said that when the Constitution hangs "upon a single thread," the elders of the Mormon Church will step in -- on the proverbial white horse -- to save the country. In the earliest days of his Fox News show, Mormon convert Glenn Beck and lifelong Mormon Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) both claimed that the Constitution was now hanging by a thread. Coincidence, or code words intended to go over the heads of Beck's non-Mormon viewers? <vote poll=blog1148 closed="yes">Journalist Matt Taibbi makes fun of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and their assertion that Obama won the election via mass hypnosis. <vote poll=blog1147 closed="yes">A teabagging group comes out in favor of... being cruel to puppies. <vote poll=blog1146 closed="yes">Dating website OKCupid analysed half a million of their members' postings and ran some interesting analysis. Most if it is race-based, but the part you RW'ers want is at the bottom of the article, where they found that people who take their atheism seriously read and write better than any other religious group. The list of straight kids who were bullied by gays and lesbians until they felt they had no other option but to end their lives. <vote poll=blog1145 closed="yes">A different take on The Social Network: Many techies believe it is "the biggest culmination yet of old media's disdain and misreading of new media."  I.e., Hollywood is trying to prove that "the internet is not a revolution, but the creation of a few odd machine-men -- it's the revenge on the revenge of the nerds."