RationalWiki:2010 awards

Welcome to the inaugural RationalWiki awards for 2010. We are throwing the old CP awards open to anyone who are deserving. Which blogger, vlogger, or tweeter is deserving of the Ed Poor Idiot of the Year Award?

Over the next two weeks nominations are open for the [name to be decided] awards, for generally offensive above and beyond the call of punditry. Please provide links to the offending material.

Nominations

Please restrict the nominations to events or posts in the last year.

Authoritarianism

• Michael Voris of The Vortex for this rant (yes, it's real) against democracy.
• Jonah Goldberg (see this op-ed), representing the general faction of people calling for drastic action against whistleblowers and free-speech advocates.
• Ann Coulter - For effectively saying demographics that don't vote my way shouldn't be allowed to vote

Arrogance

A person whose behaviour show disdain for other and a sense of superiority.

• ShockofGod - for hiding behind his inane "proof that atheism is true" question.
• Benedict XVI - for his patronising comments linking tolerance with Christian values and secularism with fascism.

Bigotry

Jesse Helms Memorial Award for Bigotry - A person who has an irrational dislike for people different from themselves.

Delusions of grandeur

A person who believes they have achieved a great many things despite evidence to the contrary.

• Andrew Schlafly - for his on-going ground-breaking "research" into the "best" new conservative words, and well as Biblical scientific foreknowledge.
• Sarah Palin - comparing herself to Shakespeare after misspeelling some wrods
• Nick Clegg

Homophobia

A person whose hatred and loathing for homosexuals seems to indicate only one thing...

• Bryan Fischer - for saying homosexuals can pay for AIDS research.
• Eugene Delgaudio - who said that TSA agents promote a "Homosexual Agenda" by patting you down.
• Benedict XVI - gay marriage is insidious and dangerous

Idiocy

The Ed Poor Idiot of the Year Award A person who demonstrates a lack of intelligence in their commentary and/or actions.

• Julie Cabral Lucas - Twisted little bint from No Shoes or Shirt Required - not just a raving homophobe, immensely stupid too. Evidence: A rambling screed about something that starts with something that paragon of truth, Kevin Trudeau, said on an infomercial, happens to mention that even a Democrat can make a great speech, and then descends into her usual incomprehensible garbage. Not to mention her bizarre series on UFOs [1][2][3][4] and demons
• Sarah Palin - for tireless contributions to stupidity.
• Terry Hurlbut - for his bizarre rant about the flood.

Lying

A person who says something they know to be false.

Misogyny

A person who just seems to hate women, or is against equality for women.

• "Vox Day"/Theodore Beale. Note this idiotic screed against women in science, and, well, just about anything on his blog with the label "women".

Paranoia

A person who believes everyone's out to get them.

• Glenn Beck, obviously. I don't know if he himself believes his crazy theories, but there's certainly nobody else who has done as much to perpetuate the "they're out to get me"-mindset among right-wingers over the last few years.
• Helmut Schleppi and Andrea Gyertson Nasfell - director and writer (respectively) of Christmas With a Captial C and the atheist boogeyman.

Pseudoscience promotion

• UKIP - For their science policy
• Iraqi Government - For buying into the ADE-651, putting lives at risk.
• Steve Beshear, Governor of the lovely state of Kentucky, for subsidizing the AiG-sponsored "Ark Encounter" Creationist theme park.
• Citizendium - For their Homeopathy article.

Puerility

A person who acts in a childish manner, particularly in their humour.

• ShockofGod - for this video
• Thunderf00t - For his anti-Muslim rants that took up a disproportionate amount of his 2010 productivity
• Tea Party Activists - Mocking Parkinsons victim
• North Korea - for macho posturing and playing with guns.

Discussion

All squabbling below this line will eventual be moved to the talkpage to make this look like an ordered discussion.

Award name

Imagine how honored they would feel receiving this.

Pity The Gruen Transfer already stole the name Polished Turd Awards, it describes so many clogos. - π 11:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Nominations

Julie Cabral Lucas

Nice nomination Psy, but can we have one article that highlights that quality? - π 12:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't find any homophobic writings from her for the year, so withdrew her from that cat. have some wonderful nuttiness for biggest idiot tho. --Ψ GremlinKhuluma! 14:53, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Theodore Beale

"Vox Day"'s rant is from 2008, not this year.--ZooGuard (talk) 14:19, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

That's why I posted the link to his other blog posts. See here, here and here for a few examples from last month alone. Röstigraben (talk) 14:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Lumenos

I feel that he is worthy of a nomination for something but an unsure of the category.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:47, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe over at the RationalWikiWiki RationalWiki awards, he did have an interesting take on page design though. - π 11:55, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Obsessive compulsive order. This is clearly not a disorder and if it were we would order it. ~ Lumenos (talk) 11:35, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Pictures

When this idea was broached for the second time (and died a few days later) I slapped together some reskins of our logo from the Blender file Nx gave me. Is this idea worth following again (and could we have positive awards as well as negative)? Harmonic drug Hoover! 14:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, yes, and yes. - π 10:24, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Positives

The CP awards were obviously and inevitably negative. But it occurs to me that we could do positive ones as well. For instance the UK house of commons report on homeopathy was excelent.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 18:52, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I like the idea of positive awards, but I would prefer something like best defense of science or best rebuttal of pseudoscience compared to best science done this year, as there are already awards for that. - π 22:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I doth concur. Perhaps blog post of the year? Specifically we can do WIGO of the year for each category. Obviously there's "best of" but putting it to an additional vote would be good. ^moral 20:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this still born?

Ditto. - π 03:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a shame because it looks like a cool idea Pegasus (talk) 01:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)