Purpose of the Blog

The purpose of this blog is to back up the Encyclopedia of American Loons for archival purposes. This is not done with the knowledge and/or consent of the creators of the said Encyclopedia; this is being done primarily because I think it SHOULD. If there are objections, please let me know in this post and I will address them accordingly.

The list of loons is as follows:

Entry #075: Don Colbert

Don Colbert is an Oral Roberts University Alumnus and author of more than 40 books that together have sold more than one million copies. An ardent promoter of WWJD and such things as the Jesus diet (no joke!), his most famous books are the ”The Bible cure for ...”-series. You can get, for instance, The Bible cure for cancer, or The Bible Cure for Depression and Anxiety (”Ancient Truths, Natural Remedies and the Latest Findings for Your Health Today [With Guidebook]”), The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain ("Jesus wants YOU to be thin" is in fact the slogan, and – just as you suspected – the diet recommendations are baskets of bread and fish, and watered down wine), The Bible Cure for Allergies, The Bible Cure for ADHD, for PMS & Mood Swings, and so on and so forth.

He has also written ”Toxic Relief: Restore Health and Energy Through Fasting and Detoxification” which will give you an idea about where this is heading. And yes, Colbert’s work is a brilliant combination of fundamentalist religion and the most ridiculous New Age alternative treatments (negative feelings as the main cause of disease, apart from mercury in dental fillings and vaccines and so on for some utter lunacy, visit here.

Extensively used by Televangelists to discuss health and nutrition (Benny Hinn, the Copelands). His claims are generally too loony to be caught by Quackwatch, Orac or the like.

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Diagnosis: Complete nutjob (with an admittedly effective marketing idea) and godbotter. Appears to be relatively influential.

Entry #074: Andrew Cohen

Cultmaster, founder of EnlightenNext and professional con artist, Cohen has also been writing for the despicable Huffington Post.

So what is Evolutionary Enlightenment? ”To put it simply, enlightenment is evolving. It is no longer found only in the bliss of timeless Being; it is found also in the ecstatic urgency of evolutionary Becoming.” Exactly how Lacan would have said it if he had attended Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. If you’re excited about the rest, you can read it here. Pound out word-salad, include references to ancient mystics, collect the money. Well-known recipe for success.

Apparently ”Evolutionary Enlightenment, is unique for placing the traditional realization of enlightenment in the context of cosmic evolution” (whatever that means). By awakening to the timeless "Ground of Being," human beings can liberate themselves from their ego and the "Authentic Self.", a self beyond ego that represents ”humanity at its most wholesome”, : motivated by an evolutionary impulse that is "one with the big bang itself." Right.

More here, partially on the cult-like nature of Cohen’s organization. In fact, the cult is so vile that even Andrew’s mother cannot stand it.

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Diagnosis: Über-crackpot and delusional nutjob with delusions of grandeur. Utterly unhinged from reality. Pretty famous and influential apparently.

Entry #073: Tom Coburn

 

An American politician, medical doctor, and ordained Southern Baptist deacon, Coburn is a Republican who currently serves as the junior U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 and is, not surprisingly, opposed to deficit spending and gay marriage, pro-life (often recognized as one of the leaders of the pro-life movement) and supporter of gun rights, term limits and the death penalty (famous for his comment: “I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life”). Standard fare, in other words, coupled with standard hypocrisy and dishonesty (during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Roberts, Coburn began his opening statement with a critique of Beltway partisan politics while choking back a sob. Coburn had earlier been completing a crossword puzzle during the hearings. Coburn is also one of the most vocal opponents of filibusters and also one of the most frequent users of such measures). He is also affiliated with The Family.

But (apart from the death penalty quote) what qualifies him for inclusion in our Encyclopedia? A plethora of things, in fact. E.g. several small details such as his protesting NBC's plan to air “Schindler's List” during prime time; Coburn stated that, in airing the movie without editing it for television, TV had been taken "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity." He also said the TV broadcast should outrage parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere. Coburn described the airing of “Schindler's List” on television as "irresponsible sexual behavior... I cringe when I realize that there were children all across this nation watching this program." Please read that one again if the full impact of Coburn’s claims failed to hit you.

He also threatened to block the commemoration of Rachel Carson’s 100th birthday, calling her work “junk science” (no reason, apart from the fact that he doesn’t like her results, given). Climate change denier Coburn is a close ally of the ravingly mad James Inhofe and never lets evidence get in his way when advicing on environmental policies. Hates science in all its forms.

His pro-life stance has taken him to considerable extremes.

Alleged to be “too stupid to be real” after this issue.

Firmly opposed to civil disobedience as long as the target isn’t the health care bill or abortion.

His chief of staff is Michael Schwartz, but that’s another story for another entry.

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Diagnosis: Bigot, zealot, religious fundamentalist, vile - and one of the most lunatic pundits of Washington. Firmly fails to understand science or reason (and hates it as a result). Obviously influential and powerful.

Entry #072: Deepak Chopra

A.k.a. The King of woo woo

The arch-bishop of woo himself, and probably one of the most influential (and flaky and zealous) crackpots chugging along today. A prolific author of New Age/self-help books (and a regular contributor to that absolutely abhorrent cesspool of anti-science, Huffington Post), Chopra is famous for using poorly understood (or not understood at all) vocabulary from physics, particularly quantum physics, mixed with “Eastern knowledge”. His writings are usually centered around woo-y claims along the lines of “recognize your inner beauty and the quantum entanglement will cure you”. Ardent opponent of “materialistic science” which hasn't yet recognized the ancient wisdom of Eastern spirituality, reincarnation, homeopathy and such. Earns a lot of money.

His most common inference rule is The Galileo Gambit (“scientist uniformly reject my ideas, but hey! Remember Galileo; his ideas were also reject by the scientific community [well, the church, in fact] back in the days; therefore I am right and everyone else are close-minded). An antidote is available here.

Some examples of his style: Chopra bashing skepticism (that is, Chopra fighting against logic and scientific inquiry – spot the fallacies): ; Chopra being taken on by Michael Shermer; Chopra on ”only spirituality can save the world” (and as Myers points out, Chopra neglects to tell us how); Chopra failing to deal with criticism; Chopra ”proving” that there is an afterlife; Chopra in general (this is part 3; links to the earlier ones); Chopra failing critical thinking yet again.

Well, I guess you get the point. This is a guy so utterly unable to grasp the foundations for critical thinking, so completely out of touch with reason, rationality and the ability to distinguish evidence from wishful thinking, that he must set some kind of record.

This is a decent, recent example of total Chopra failure. This one is marvelous.

A most hilarious parody of Chopra, the "DBag Chopra" twitter account, is found here.

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Diagnosis: This guy is seriously dangerous; he’s been claimed by Time magazine to be one of the 100 most important people of the 21st century; he has a huge following (Mikhail Gorbachev referred to Chopra as "one of the most lucid and inspired philosophers of our time"). His grasp of reason, critical thinking and reality is more tentative than Jack Chick’s, however, and the lunacy he represents might in the long run be even more dangerous than the Discovery Institute.

In short, he is probably the most influential loon in our Encyclopedia, and among the most dangerous (with Cynthia Dunbar and David Barton and some others).

Entry #071: Gary Chism

Another one of those; Gary Chism is an insurance salesman who works tirelessly to promote creationism in the state of Mississippi. He is also a State Representative - guess which party. Notable for wanting to put a disclaimer on all school textbooks touching on the topic of evolution to point out that evolution is just a theory. The debacle is reported on here, here, and here.

Chism claims – of course – that creationism is just as scientifically respectable as evolution (and not just a religious dogma), as illustrated by the following brilliant argument by cases: "Either you believe in the Genesis story, or you believe that a fish walked on the ground".

Also famous for his campaign to cover up an anatomically correct statue of a stallion outside a strip club in rural Mississippi.

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Diagnosis: Scientifically illiterate moron, Taliban-style religious fundamentalist with absolutely no grasp of critical thinking, reason or sanity. Impact unknown, but he hasn’t had much success with his creationism bills (more so with the strippers).

Entry #070: Jack Chick

Among the more notable loons in our encyclopedia, this amiable fellow is a firmly entrenched acolyte of the abominable William Branham. Jack Chick is of course the guy behind Chick Publications. His tracts deal with various aspects of the Christian faith, including the principles of tolerance and love as well as the Catholics' satanist conspiracy to overthrow God's reign on earth (the Jesuits, in particular, created the Qu’ran, were responsible for the Holocaust, communism and the current conspiracy that controls American media). He doesn’t like evolution either. A representative example is here. The most popular tract is, apparently, this one. I also have a soft spot for this one.

Back in the day, Chick used to draw the tracts himself. Today, they’re mostly drawn by Fred Carter, who is considered covered for the purposes of this Encyclopedia.

Endless hours of indulgence and fascination can be spent rummaging through his backlog. Do visit it.

I am not going to go through in detail the omniprescent homoeroticism in the tracts. Check it out yourself. A longer biography of Chick can be found here. Chick's tract on global warming is discussed here.

The topics vary, but many of them are concerned with God-fearing murderers and rapists ending up in Paradise because they accept the Holy Spirit, whereas the good guys go to hell. Other common targets are rock music, witchcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, astrology, Ouija boards, Evolution, Jews, Muslims,Teenagers, Science (including gravity, which Chick apparently thinks is an atheist myth), the Easter Bunny, North Koreans, the Tooth Fairy, Santa (the message is a little muddled), the Washington Monument, Native Americans, Freemasons, the UN and Satanic books (Tolkien and C.S. Lewis) - among other things. This guy’s got a whole lot of hate and fear to share. There is a documentary available as well.

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Diagnosis: Possibly the most deranged loon in the Western hemisphere. His tracts are widely read, but probably not by the intended audience. Life would have been much duller without people like Jack Chick.