In Praise of Idiots (NOT)

There is an astonishingly juvenile, unprofessional and idiotic article today in the Washington Post by Dana Milbank. The Post announced yesterday that they were closing down their standalone BOOK WORLD section (which I used to write for), which is sad, but understandable given Mr. Milbank’s imbecility — which is only matched by the sheer drooling stupidity of his commenters. Obviously, they don’t READ books.

The Washington Post Commenters

It seems apparent that they’ve all been taking their “facts” from Conservapedia, for those who don’t like the reality that facts show us, and prefer the reality that really powerful hallucinogens and/or invisible friends give them. In their honor, we reprint this, from …

Friday, March 16, 2007

They Get Their Own Facts

Daniel Patrick Moynahan is credited with the eminently sensible, and, therefore, universally ignored dictum that “You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”["…you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts." quoted in Timothy J. Penny, Facts Are Facts, National Review September 4, 2003. - via Wikipedia]

Well, it turns out, some people think that they ARE.

Entitled to their own facts, I mean. They call themselves “Conservapedia,” and they formed just after the last — from the internal evidence, disastrous to their political ends — election.

And they are bat-shit barking moonbat crazy. Don’t believe me? Here’s Conservapedia’s version of the origin of kangaroos:

Origins

According to the origins theory model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos, like all modern animals, originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah’s Ark prior to the Great Flood. It has not yet been determined by baraminologists whether kangaroos form a holobaramin with the wallaby, tree-kangaroo, wallaroo, pademelon and quokka, or if all these species are in fact apobaraminic or polybaraminic.

[NOTE: "Baraminology" is a 'Creationist' pseudoscience analogous to the non-fundy pseudosciences Numerology or Phrenology. Wikipedia, conveniently, has THIS entry. HW]

Also according to creation science theories, after the Flood, kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land — as Australia was still for a time connected to Europe by a land bridge similar to the one that connected Asia to America — or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters. Another theory is that God simply generated kangaroos into existence there.

Other views on kangaroo origins include the belief of some Australian aborigines that kangaroos were sung into existence by their ancestors during the “Dreamtime” and the evolutionary view that kangaroos and the other marsupials evolved from a common marsupial ancestor which lived millions of years ago.

Last and least, “the evolutionary view,” e.g. “science.”

They want their own facts.

found art (screenshot, cropped)

Anyone who believes that kangaroos got to Australia by surfing in on giant welcome mats of torn up sod after The Flood is a few wafers short of a communion.

Tellingly, perhaps, the website opens with threats of terrible punishments:

Minors under 16 years use this site.

* Posting of obscenity here is punishable by up to 10 years in jail under 18 USC § 1470.
* Vandalism is punishable up to 10 years in jail per 18 USC § 1030. We will trace your IP address and give it to authorities if necessary.

Gee, I just wanted to view the website that crows the equivalent of ‘We’re number one, even BIGGER than Rush Limbaugh!’ (to be fair, he’s been on a diet). [2009 -- he's off the wagon. He IS the wagon.]

A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.

Conservapedia has over 4,800 educational, clean, and concise entries, including more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 3,600,000 page views and over 38,300 page edits. This site is growing rapidly.
Conservapedia jumps to Number One!

Traffic ranking among conservative websites as of March 8th [2007](by Alexa):

• Conservapedia
• Rush Limbaugh
• Sean Hannity
• Bill O’Reilly

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we give full credit to Christianity and America. Conservapedia is student-friendly. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise, clean answers free of “political correctness”.
Contributions that comply with simple commandments are respected (and improved) to the maximum extent possible. Please improve this website as you use it, and please cite your sources. With your help, Conservapedia will continue to be an online encyclopedia you can trust. This is also a meeting place, and appropriate questions may be posted at Ask questions.

And WHO is behind this moonbattiness?

Conservapedia Tech

We turn to their own media for the answer:

Conservapedia Challenges ‘Anti-Christian’ Wiki
By Linda Zhang
Christian Post Contributor
Tue, Mar. 06 2007 02:44 PM ET

The latest alternative to Wikipedia is putting a conservative Christian spin on the idea of web-based, user-controlled encyclopedias.

Conservapedia, the new online encyclopedia launched last November, has branded itself as “a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American.”

“Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America,” the front page of its website reads…

The backstory they’re not telling you in the “Christian Post” is partially filled in by this entry in the New York Times BLOG:

According to Wired, the Conservapedia project leader, Andrew Schlafly, “started the site in late November 2006 in conjunction with 58 high-school-level, home-schooled students from the New Jersey area” because he was frustrated by what he sees as the liberal bias in Wikipedia.

(Yep, that’s right: the NYTimes blog cribbed it from Wired.com, but then, this story has been stumbling forward in its media rollout — thanks to free publicity, like THIS article, he said self-referentially — since mid-February.)

And, the blogosphere has been quite hilariously aware of this intellectual abomination. Blogger Mike Dunford writes on ‘The Questionable Authority’:

… I had originally planned to ask if anyone could find the errors in this little bit of “historiness,” but that would be far too easy. So instead, I’m wondering if anyone can find a full sentence in that entry that doesn’t contain at least one large error.

I really can’t believe that homeschooling standards are so ridiculously lax that this material is allowed to be used.

But, alas, the agenda of the “creationisizer” of “Conservapedia” becomes apparent once one knows the rock from whence he crawled out from under. Neath. Onward. The “Christian Post” writer continues:

Conservapedia’s project leader, Andy Schafly, describes the site as “a new way of learning about history and science,” according to a reporter from the New Scientist. The website claims to provide “concise answers free of ‘political correctness.’”

Schlafly originally created Conservapedia together with 58 high-school-level students and home-schooled children, and he suggests it could ultimately be used by teachers as a reference point.

According to Wired News, Schlafly says “the site is intended as a resource for the general audience, but without the defects of Wikipedia.” Schlafly, the son of famous conservative politician and activist Phyllis Schlafly, is a conservative writer and attorney.

(Note: they’re cribbing from WIRED, too. Check the followup posting, with “The Seven Drinking Buddies of Cthulu“)

Yeah, defects like thought, or facts, or critical thinking. Make no mistake about it: this is about having their own facts, and that has been the basis too many wars and civil wars to feel any comfort about this errant, calculated madness. Unlike much of the press and sane blogosphere, I do not take this vile spawn of Phyllis Schlafly’s son as benign or as a joke.*

[* NOTE 2009: This virulently anti-intellectual approach seems to be working, as evidenced by the McDonalds "Confessions of an  Ex-hipster" commercials, wherein gulpers of McDonalds' new fancy coffees make fun of the intellectual coffeehouses and are now free to return to dumbass joys like romance novels and football. Why lampoon "smart" as a way of selling coffee, unless there is a large demographic that prefers it's coffee "dumb"? As I write this, Thom Hartmann -- possibly the most intellectually acute radio host in America -- is interviewing Joe the Plumber on the situation in Gaza. And there is no irony in it. 9:52 AM PST 01-29-09]

Phyllis, one must recall, is a woman who was instrumental in denying equal rights to a majority of Americans, i.e. Women. The worst Segregationist ever minted never equaled that record. Arguably, the European minority managed a far greater feat by denying personhood to every inhabitant of the continent, the “Native Americans,” the “Indians,” or, in the coinage of Kiowa author Russell Bates, “Novamundians” (from the Latin for “New Worlders”).

Gee, let’s see what the “Conservapedia” says about “Injuns”:

American Indians
From Conservapedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Collective name for those people living in North and South America before the coming of Europeans. Current anthropological and historical models have the first Native Americans crossing the Bering land bridge between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers from Asia migrated south to eventually inhabit all of North and South America. Indians in the New World developed complex societies and many were sedentary agriculturalists at the time of contact with Columbus. Unfortunately, contact with Europeans led to a decrease in the Indian population due to lack of immunity to disease, intermarriage, slavery, and massacre. Native populations have been estimated to range from 8 to 18 million before contact. Since 1492, this population was estimated to have fallen by 95% before stabilizing and then reversing direction. (Thornton, 1997)

Thornton, Russell. 1987. Aboriginal North American Population and Rates of Decline, ca. 1500-1900 CE. Current Anthropology 38(2):310 -315.

Well, cribbed, perhaps, but not well cribbed.

And I had never realized that the American indian population decreased because of their lack of immunity to slavery and massacre. I would hope, parenthetically, that we could develop some sort of vaccine to immunize us against massacre. It would be a great boon, given the track record of human history.

What troubles me, though, is how the American Indians were able to walk across the land bridge some 5000 to 9000 years before God created the Earth. It is, as said the King of Siam, a puzzlement.

[NOTE 2009: This quibble has now been clarified by Conservapedia ...

American Indian

[...]

The widely taught theory that American Indians are descendants of migrants from Asia, who crossed the Bering Straitland bridge during an Ice Age, is almost certainly false. Liberal archaeologists long insisted that this took place as early as 20,000 years ago.^[2] But the facts are that American Indians have very different characteristics from Asians, ranging from blood types to DNA, making claims of such ancestry virtually absurd.^{[3] …}

… but the ‘land bridge’ claim remains intact at the NORTH American Indians entry. Guess the Koolaid hasn’t been all the way ’round the office. Yet.]

And how did Russell Thornton write the EXACT same article in both 1987 AND 1997? And isn’t “C.E” bad and wrong? Isn’t it supposed to be the “un-PC” “A.D” and “B.C.”?

I wonder what the “American Indians” think about this post, shorn, as it is, of the “defects” of Wikipedia (and, while there are defects, the Reality Principle DOES, at least, operate on Wikipedia.) Compare the “American Indians” citation above with Wiki’s:

American Indian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from American Indians)

American Indian can refer to:

• Native Americans in the United States;
• Any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas;
• Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
• The quarterly publication of the National Museum of the American Indian

Also, note that “American Indians” is almost never used to refer to persons with ancestry in India. Americans with ancestry in India are referred to as Indian Americans.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

OK. Let’s look at Wikipedia’s

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which are still enduring as political communities. There is some controversy surrounding the names used: they are also known as American Indians, Indians, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Indigenous, Aboriginal or Original Americans. In Canada they are known as First Nations.

The U.S. states and several of the inhabited insular areas that are not part of the continental U.S. also contain indigenous groups. Some of these other indigenous peoples in the United States, including the Inuit, Yupik Eskimos, and Aleuts, are not always counted as Native Americans, although Census 2000 demographics …

Initial impacts

The European colonization of the Americas decimated the populations and cultures of the Native Americans. During the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, their populations were ravaged by disease, displacement, enslavement, internal warfare, as well as conflicts with European explorers and colonists….

Along with thousands more words, hundreds of citations, links and further avenues for investigation.

And that tells the tale: the Wikipedia is meant as a springboard for inquiry, for thought, for research. Conservapedia is meant to cut off inquiry, stifle thought, and truncate research.

[NOTE 2009: Here is the ENTIRE Conservapedia entry for Native American:

Native American is a term that can either refer to an American Indian or to anyone born in America as an American.

See also

• American Indian
• North American Indians

Categories: Ethnicities | United States ]

And, as such, one must juxtapose the inhibition of truth (by limiting and creating an alternative semantic universe, simple, and uncomplicated, a la Schlafly’s “Conservapedia”) with the Christic dictum “Ye Shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” (The Gospel of John, 8:32 KJV)

And there is a political agenda, as well. Take a look at the astigmatic lens through which THIS Conservapedia entry is refracted:

Michael Moore
From Conservapedia

Michael Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an Academy Award winning filmmaker and bestselling author who presents left wing views in a polemical way.

Before producing “Bowling for Colmubine,” (sic) Moore was the producer and host of the television series “The Awful Truth,” which was typified by a type of sketch-comedy activism that was often directed against large corporations and government agencies.

He is well-known as a practicing Catholic who tithes 10% of his income to the Church, a socialist and a member of the National Rifle Association (who joined it hoping to eventually dismantle the organization). He has been an outspoken critic of the administration of President George W Bush.

Some of his work includes the documentary films Farenheit 9/11, Roger and Me, and Bowling for Columbine, and the books Dude, Where’s my Country, Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American. and Stupid White Men.

And here’s the hyperlink to “Left wing” (most of Conservapedia has never heard, evidently, of hypertext, which stands to reason, since the homeskoolerz who put this abomination together are mostly being homeskooled by neanderthal parents who are still wary of the newfangled innovations of the ‘wheel,’ ‘fire,’ and ‘hygene.’):

Liberal
From Conservapedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Liberal is a term used in US politics to describe a person who generally is left-wing in his attitudes towards the government, establishment, and many other laws. The term was first used in reference to a political opinion c. 1801 A.D., in the aftermath of the French Revolution, when it meant “tending in favor of freedom and democracy” – at that time the liberal party was the party of individual political freedoms.[1]

The term liberal is used in the United States to characterize the following set of beliefs:

• support of gun control
• taxpayer funding of abortion
• prohibiting prayer in school
• equal rights for men and women, including participation by men and women in the military
• distributing wealth from the rich to the poor
• government programs to rehabilitate criminals
• same-sex marriage
• amnesty for illegal aliens
• teaching of evolution
• increased taxpayer funding of public school
• protection of all of God’s creation
• taxpayer-funded rather than private medical care
• increased power for labor unions
• disarmament treaties
• increased taxes
• support of government programs such as welfare
• reduction of military expenses
• support of affirmative action
• government-sponsored education about human reproduction

Liberals in the US typically align themselves with the Democratic Party. Note, that liberal in the European context refers to moderate and center-right parties, often with a pro-business stance.[2] The same holds for many liberal parties throughout the world.[3]. The US definition of liberal is much more similar to the politics of European socialist or social democratic parties.[4].

An alternative definition of liberal is anything that is not conservative. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary includes this definition of “liberal”:[5]

Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas …

References

1. Etymology [1]
2. http://www.alde.eu
3. http://www.liberal-international.org/
4. http://www.pes.org
5. Dictionary.com

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/liberal

Tell me there’s not a political agenda here. What we would refer to as “brainwashing” out here in Realityland. Let’s just ignore the implicit slurs and convenient mischaracterizations involved.

Michael Moore is a socialist, baby-killing, miscegenation-and-homosexual promoting left-wing liberal (note how “left wing” morphed into “liberal” across the hypertext link), and probably OUGHT to be killed, BUT he goes to Catholic church and tithes, so slaughter him AFTER the Unbelievers, OK, kiddies?

This Schlafly offspring offers a powerful rationale in favor of abortion by his very existence. That may seem harsh, or even cruel. No: this is the kind of madness that leads to every horror that man visits on his fellow man, and we might as well cut to the chase. Schlafly isn’t misguided, nor is he merely a buffoon to be laughed out of town. He is a monster-in-training, and if that isn’t an argument for the benefits of therapeutic abortion, then I’m the Easter Bunny. (What color would you like your eggs?)

Then again, perhaps I’m overreacting.

Schlafly might just be an asterisk in history, although I’d prefer that we not take the risk on this ass. However, until it becomes legal (via the civil war that a generation of zombies raised on this Krap might start), I think that we should refrain from shooting him.*

[* At that point, however, I must reiterate that I've got dibs on Rush. Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly, et al -- take your pick. But I get Rush.]

Of course, when you consider the truly awesome lameness of this Conservapedia Entry, you can’t fully appreciate … well, I’m getting ahead of the joke. This is the actual text, unintentionally hilarious as it already is:

Spartan Soldiers
From Conservapedia

Spartan Soldiers are considered to be some of the greatest fighters ever. Every Spartan boy was trained in the army. When a Spartan child was born he or she would be examined, and if it was a strong and healthy boy he would grow up to be a soldier, and if it was crippled it would be left on the mountainside to die. A strong girl would grow up to be a good mother and if weak would also be cast onto the mountainside. If a Spartan boy was caught stealing he would be beaten severely, not because he had stolen but because he was caught. The boys started their training at age seven and served in the army most of their life. It was considered an honor to die in battle. It was also a disgrace to lose a battle and come home still alive. You may ask who did all the farm work to feed the city-state? As it turns out, the Spartans conquered many countries and brought the conquered natives back to do their farming.

The Battle of Thermopylae

The most famous battle involving Spartan soliders (sic) was that of Thermopylae where, in 480 BC, a force of 300 hoplites under command of King Leonidas held back a massive Persian army under command of Xerxes.

Jeepers, I’m actually old enough to remember that “Classics Illustrated” comics were a deeper and more scholarly source than this! (And note that Conservapedia has outright stolen Wikipedia’s format. How much more plagiarism is contained on the site is anybody’s guess.)

You have to appreciate blogger “flickertail”s hilarious little jape (slipping in this editing, since removed. Read the WHOLE post.):

Flickertail, here at Zug, we salute you! (But beware of Goat-Man.)

The sad fact is that most credulous readers of Conservapedia could easily be persuaded that the Spartans DID battle Orcs with hand grenades.

post-grenade Orc

Well, as I noted there: satire has to be the first response. But make no mistake, these moonbats aren’t harmless. These moonbats bite, and when they turn rabid, satire doesn’t work. But for the nonce, let’s just laugh at the misbegotten son of a Schlafly, and his vile attempt to remove fact from the debate.

After all, everybody knows that Jesus rode a dinosaur* to church, right?

*Oh, all right. Since you have to know, here’s “Conservapedia” on dinosaurs:

Dinosaur
From Conservapedia
(Redirected from Dinosaurs)

The word dinosaur was coined in 1841 by Richard Owen[1], from the Greek for “terrible lizard” (fututor). Dinosaurs were a group of large reptiles that previously lived in abundance on Earth.

Creationist scientists believe that dinosaurs and man coexisted based on a number of pieces of evidence rather than the evolutionary view that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago.

Dinosaur Speciation

Dinosaur species were immensely varied, from herbivores to carnivores. Although many have been found in the fossil record, paleontologists expect that they have barely scratched the surface of the vast genus that the dinosaurs encompassed.

Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisting

There are a number of lines of evidence that point to dinosaurs and man coexisting. For example, explorers have reported seeing a live dinosaur. A thousand people reported seeing a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang according to the Chinese publication, China Today. An expedition which included Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph which is claimed to portray dinosaurs and man coexisting. The World Book Encyclopedia states that: “The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology.” The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, is said to appear to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting.

An alternate theory for the inclusion of dinosaurs within many cultures is the existence of fossils. Ancient people, unaware that the ancient fossils uncovered by erosion were of extinct animals, attributed the bones to living, magical creatures. This would explain the importance of dragons in Chinese culture – there are a large number of dinosaur (as well as non-dinosaur) fossils to be found in China.

Dinosaurs and Creationism

Some Christians reject the Theory of Evolution and the current science community consensus of the age of the earth. Of those Christians who reject evolution, the Young Earth Creationists believe, based primarily on Biblical sources, but also drawing on archeological and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the Creation Week as a final addendum to the wonders God created, approximately 6,000 years ago; that they lived in the Garden of Eden in harmony with other animals, eating only plants; that pairs of various dinosaurs were taken onto Noah’s Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today, even though none of the six billion people currently residing on the planet have seen them. It should be noted that none of these claims have been backed by any serious scientific research, and rely almost wholly either on the infallibility of the Bible, or on human speculations based to a greater or lesser degree upon the Biblical account. Ken Ham states the theory that Dinosaurs were killed during the great flood, buried in mud and then fossilized.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the Bible obviously does not use the word “dinosaur.” However, they are alleged to be mentioned in numerous places throughout the biblical account. For example, the behemoth in Job and the leviathan in Isaiah are sometimes said to be references to dinosaurs, although some reject this view, saying that behemoth was a hippopotamus and leviathan was a crocodile. There is a problem with this view, however, such as the fact that a hippo doesn’t have a “tail like a cedar” and a crocodile does not accurately match the description of leviathan.

References [NB: there are 17 references, mostly to "Creationist" websites].

Just remember: these are the same ignorant assholes who, for a hundred years claimed that the fossils were just misshapen crocodiles and “giants” and other Krazy Stuff from their misreading of mistranslations of the Pentateuch. They may well be the descendents of those brave souls who justified black slavery in America via the Bible. Hell, the Mormons still believe that blackness is the “Mark of Cain,” after all. And I believe with all my heart, that Mormon homeschoolers are EXACTLY the target audience for Conservapedia.

Look, if you “True Believers” don’t LIKE our science, then don’t use it.

You can’t hypocritically try to use the same technology and science you imply is “of the Devil” to spread your “Creed.” That’s like killing in the name of Jesus.

(Oh. Whoops. Sorry. Never mind.)

Call it a spelling flame, if you will, but it is an undeniable statement of fact (as opposed to a huge chunk of “Conservapedia”) that Conservapedia is, in part, put together by Fundamentalist dumbasses too dumb to spell “fundamental.”

From the conclusion to 1495-word entry on “Genesis“:

Importance to Creation Science

Creationists use the first part of Genesis as evidence of the creation of the Earth in seven days. This book is fundemental [sic] to the entire study of Creation Science.

Chapter 1
“1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…”

[And then, as the majority of their entry ON Genesis, quote all of the first chapter, and a goodly part of the second chapter ... in TOTO, and without commentary, concluding]

2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

References [note: all three of them. Wikipedia: 8982 word entry with 86 references and another thirty books, links, citations, etc.]

• Who Wrote The Pentateuch, The Five Books of Moses?
• Introduction to Genesis & the Pentateuch
• (Genesis 1:1-31 and 2:1-9, KJV)

[This page was last modified 20:03, 14 March 2007. This page has been accessed 137 times.]

And, lest you think I was being selective, those are just the first several entries I accessed. There are deep veins of unintentional humor left to be mined from Conservapedia, and, I promise, the “mountaintop removal” mining has only just begun. Whether it’s a renewable resource or not, Conservapedia can supply nearly all of this blog’s humor needs for the foreseeable future, I can assure you. The dread specter of the humor cartel shutting off the laff spigots is a thing of the past. America, we have entered a new and glorious Era of satire.Conservapedia: The hilarious “encyclopedia” that couldn’t afford a spell-checker.

So, Krazy Khristian Konservatives: here’s a “tree of knowledge” that you bite into — as in the first recorded case — at your peril. You’ve been warned.

Courage.

posted  1:11 AM

They haven’t improved all that much since. Some of the more egregious and obvious idiocy has been scrubbed, but look at this from the front page:

Article of the Year: Evolution

In 2006, the prestigious science journal Science reported concerning the United States: “The percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005. Meanwhile the fraction of Americans unsure about evolution has soared from 7 per cent in 1985 to 21 per cent last year.”[6]

Discover what Wikipedia, the public school systems, and the liberal media don’t want you to know about the creation vs. evolution issue.

Er, right. A conspiracy, and the argument (I’ve read the article) that public opinion polls “prove” scientific facts. Therefore, the public opinion of 1609 (the year Galileo pointed his telescope at the heavens on August 25) would prove that the Earth is flat, and that the sun, moon and stars revolve around it.

Conservapedia’s ‘enlightened’ racial attitudes

(And such a commitment to “facts”! One wonders why, with such imbecile certitude, their audience would need to read Conservapedia. One wonders why they would need to read.) If you need more fun, read the entries on “baraminology,” “American Indians,” “North American Indians,” “Jamestown Massacre,” “African Americans,”  “race,” “racism” and “Barack Obama.” (Well, the last isn’t so much ‘fun’ as ‘scary racist.’*)

[* Barack Hussein Obama II (allegedly born in Honolulu,[1][2][3] August 4, 1961) served as a first-term Democratic Senator from Illinois (2004-2008 ) and then, along with his running mate Senator Joseph Biden, won the presidential election[4] after twenty-three months of campaigning, raising an unprecedented $750 million and spending over $700 million of it,[5] most of which came from anonymous donors. Post-election, Obama’s aides surprised some by indicating that he would make an unprecedented speech within his first 100 days from a Muslim capital.[6] Obama used his Muslim middle name when sworn in as President,[7][8] and chose not to use the Bible for his real, private oath. Elected by claiming he’s a Christian, Obama has since avoided attending church on Christmas and Sundays.[9]

Obama has espoused the socialist idea of “spreading the wealth” … President Obama is the first person having ties to a known former terrorist to gain control over America’s nuclear weapons.[18][19] Author and blogger Jack Cashill requisitioned a comparison of the writing style of Bill Ayers’ 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, with Barack Obama’s earlier 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, and came to the conclusion that Ayres may have ghostwritten Dreams.[20] Ayers admitted that he was “guilty as hell” in planting bombs in the 1970s, and that he has no regrets and felt he “should have done more.”[21]

Reading Conservapedia, one wonders how much progress that idiots have made in the past 400 years. Reading the Washington Post today, one asks the same question.

Courage².