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

November 2010
What WikiLeaks is for, and what the latest leak is about: how to apply hacker (as in cracker) information theory to solving the problem of authoritarianism. IEEE Spectrum is sick of Ray Kurzweil's technobabble futurism. After Bill O'Reilly harangued them for putting "Not Racist, But #1 With Racists" on the tail of their Fox News helicopter, the makers of The Simpsons have corrected this outrage. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who in 1976 voted with the 7-2 majority to restore the death penalty, explains why he now thinks the death penalty is unconstitutional -- it is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria. In her new book, Sarah Palin engages in a bit of revisionist history regarding early feminism. They were all really justa buncha fundamentalist Christians just like the Founding Fathers were also, don't'cha know. Well, not exactly. Cracked's trifecta about some crazy aspect of evolution: 1. (from September) "The 5 Strangest Things Evolution Left in Your Body"; 2. (from 2009) "6 Insane Dog Behaviors Explained by Evolution"; 3. (from 2008) "6 Formerly Kickass Creatures Ruined by Evolution" Sarah Palin's Alaska vs. The Walking Dead: Fictional TV show about mindless undead gets better ratings than competing "reality show" about the mindless. Tim Lambert of Deltoid takes to task Brian Dunning of Skeptoid over the latter's DDT fuck-up. Thom Hartmann: Roll back the Reagan tax cuts. Also, Americans are all such suckers that they don't realize what's good for them. "Deep down, creationists realize they will never win factual arguments with science. This is why they have construed their own science-like universe." Robert Sapolsky: Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. He hasn't been around creationists or New Atheists much, we gather. The Pope's recent condom comments were no earthquake in the Catholic world. Some cranks have been pushing "Vaccine Awareness Week" - so why not jump on that bandwagon and show them for the assholes they are. Weird Homeopathy – Dynamized Water from Seas, Rivers and Oceans. Bet you didn't know that remedies made from water from different oceans and rivers around the world can treat problems that have vaguely analogous symptoms? Time magazine on Marie Curie. Won two Nobel Prizes and founded the field of radiology? Pfft, that's not nearly so important an accomplishment as making girls and women believe in themselves. What? The GOP took back the House of Representatives? When did that happen? <vote poll=blog1210 closed="yes">Weird Homeopathy - Venus Stella Errans. Made by pointing a telescope at Venus and the eyepiece at some water. UPDATE: The homeopath who performed the proving of this remedy responds! <vote poll=blog1209 closed="yes">''¡Oh! ¡Sí! ¡Sĺ!'' A TV commercial by a Young Socialist group in Spain has both liberals and conservatives alike wishing that they had thought of it first crying "sexism." <vote poll=blog1208 closed="yes">Penn Jillette - Subtle as ever. <vote poll=blog1207 closed="yes">dprjones is wondering why Peter Popoff is currently allowed to be on UK television despite being a conman and currently banned by Ofcom. His emails to the MP in charge of broadcasting have fallen on deaf ears, but could this be because said MP may endorse homeopathy as well as Popoff's magic spring water? <vote poll=blog1206 closed="yes">Hey, Sarah! Who's been teachin' your daughter all them nasty, homey-phobic words that she's been usin' on the Facebook? <vote poll=blog1205 closed="yes">Twitter Joke Trial: After losing his appeal at crown court, should Paul Chambers continue his fight and appeal to the High Court? <vote poll=blog1204 closed="yes">Litigation in America has become so expensive that plaintiffs' law firms are borrowing money from hedge funds in order to finance lawsuits ranging from divorces to malpractice and wrongful injury and death cases. (And, of course, they must pay off the loan even if they lose the case.) <vote poll=blog1203 closed="yes"> Solve the budget crisis by yourself; feel bad about everything when you realize how easy it is to do this. <vote poll=blog1202 closed="yes">Sorry prez Bush some cheerleaders have brains. <vote poll=blog1201 closed="yes">Conservapedia gets some more notoriety in the blogosphere: "Defending Einstein from the new barbarians," such as Andrew Schlafly. <vote poll=blog1200 closed="yes">All the contradictions in the Bible, shown graphically <vote poll=blog1199 closed="yes">What makes more sense; homeopathic "explanations" or Star Trek's over-the-top technobabble? Lets find out. <vote poll=blog1198 closed="yes">Sarah Palin, Mamma Grizzly or complete n00b <vote poll=blog1197 closed="yes">A little-known internet crisis may be looming: The current system of 4,294,967,296 IP addresses has grown too quickly and will soon hit its saturation point. <vote poll=blog1196 closed="yes">UK Libel law threatens science and honesty.Libel reform campaign's petition <vote poll=blog1195 closed="yes">Is Glenn Beck an anti-Semite? Or was it just an accident that his recent two-day rant aimed at George Soros was chock full of anti-Semitic paranoia and dog whistles? <vote poll=blog1194 closed="yes">Economist Peter Victor is advocating a "no-growth" economic model that the planet would be able to sustain. Unfortunately, his promoters seem to want to exploit it as the means to some political end. <vote poll=blog1193 closed="yes">A philosophy professor says quite bluntly: Students are not products and teachers are not social engineers. <vote poll=blog1192 closed="yes">Every year since 1970, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, American Catholics have contributed to the Catholic Campaign on Human Development. And every year, conservative Catholics have lambasted this anti-poverty charity because it supports groups that they say are leftist, socialist, pro-gay, pro-abortion, etc. More to the point, they say it violates their inverted version of the prosperity gospel -- that sin (i.e., the rejection of Catholic values) is the cause of poverty. <vote poll=blog1191 closed="yes">Davids Tennant and Cameron feature on a single dedicated to it, it was the most emotionally charged part of an England-Ireland rugby match, Harold Pinter and John Cage became famous for it; it's... <vote poll=blog1190 closed="yes">Twitter Joke Trial – What’s Happening Next? A pre-'appeal day' blog post. <vote poll=blog1189 closed="yes">The wage disparity in America is now worse than it was during the era of the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies. The growing disparity is starting to make [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html? America resemble a banana republic.] <vote poll=blog1188 closed="yes">George Takei: "Mr McCance. You are a douchebag." <vote poll=blog1187 closed="yes">Those who do not learn from history are often forced to repeat it. Case in point: America's misadventure in Afghanistan probably seems very familiar to the Russians. <vote poll=blog1186 closed="yes"> Advertisers disagree. Cue for much Facebook outrage and trolling.  Furtherexamples come to light. <vote poll=blog1185 closed="yes">Hitchens vs Hitchens: Can Civilization Survive Without God? <vote poll=blog1184 closed="yes">Michele Bachmann called Glenn Beck "the nation's educator". At least she didn't pick Andy Schlafly's homeschooling programs... <vote poll=blog1183 closed="yes">Ms. magazine: It seems women may have more to gain than men from exiting their faith, so why are so few advocating for the atheist movement these days? Hint, ladies: Bashing women who try it doesn't help matters. UPDATE Response. <vote poll=blog1182 closed="yes">What the fuck has Obama done so far? <vote poll=blog1181 closed="yes">Analysis of the election: If there were no Tea Party, then the Republicans would likely have fielded more credible candidates who would have won both the Delaware and Nevada Senate races." <vote poll=blog1180 closed="yes">Ms. Magazine claims that New Atheism is unappealing to women, cites Conservapedia. Jen McCreight takes them to task. <vote poll=blog1179 closed="yes">NephilimFree is caught with some "interesting" things in his list of favourite internet links, but according to dprjones, his lying and evasion of responsibility could be an indication of what is wrong with religion. <vote poll=blog1178 closed="yes">What is wrong with Skeptics in the Pub?