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 #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 #069: Liz Cheney

It might be a little unclear whether Dick Cheney, whatever else one might say about him, counts as a loon. Being vile, for instance (not explicitly saying that Dick is), isn’t enough. But he still manages to enter our encyclopedia through his daughter Liz. Liz founded, with Billy Kristol, the organization Keep America Stupid and Afraid (a.k.a. “Keep America Safe”), whose purpose is organizing vehement attacks on anyone who could conceivably be construed as questioning America’s war efforts – such as Amnesty.

Cheney is most famous for attacking the lawyers for the Gitmo detainees as being complicit in terrorism and allies of Al Qaeda. The way she did it resembles a Colbert parody in startling ways (guess Cheney is among the frighteningly large number of people who likes Colbert because they take his parodies as representing his true views). She’s been slammed pretty thoroughly for the whole affair, though - not that it has deterred her.

To their credit both Cheneys have come out supporting repealing the DADT.

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Diagnosis: Mad and malevolent wingnut; zealous. Her actions should, in any reasonable world, be sufficient to halt her political career permanently, but this might not be a reasonable world.

Entry #064: Gerald Celente

 

Celente is a “professional” trend forecaster and founder of the Trends Institute. He predicts future trends – in particular economic ones – with all the accuracy and razorsharp precision of a tabloid newspaper horoscope. He claims to have predicted more or less every major economic event in the last 30 years, establishing himself as a modern counterpart to Nostradamus. For example, Celente predicted on February 14, 1999, about the approaching millennial New Year, that, "Employers should anticipate several weeks of low productivity” and that children graduating in 2000 will "shape the new millenium." He has also predicted that America is going broke. A true wizard.

His method seems to be an Other Way of Knowing (intuition, mostly).

Curiously (or rather, unsurprisingly), he has received a lot of press, particularly from conservative sources – especially his assertions that American President Barack Obama's policies (described as “fascism light”) will lead to food riots and tax revolts. Indeed, Celente plays a major role in Conservapædia’s article on Barack Obama.

He seems to be the instigator of the term “Obamageddon”, which is predicted to occur in 2012. Made on November 13, 2008: “[B]y 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.”

The basis for the prediction has, of course, all the rigorous underpinnings of the ordinary, “Mayan calendar” 2012 Armageddon. If nothing else, however, Celente and his reception among pundits provide a fascinating glimpse of the mechanisms of confirmation bias, goalpost moving and wishful thinking at work.

His website, interestingly, does not keep track of his previous predictions (apart from the ones that could be interpreted as having been fulfilled by some stretch). He does provide “trend summaries” – his summaries of events occurring the previous year.

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Diagnosis: Probably a fraud, but his confirmation bias and wingnuttery is real enough. Very influential, something that provides more evidence (if any more was needed) for the ubiquity and danger of confirmation bias.

Entry #063: Kristia Cavere

 

Kristia Cavere was the Tea Party and a Republican candidate for New York's 19th Congressional District seat held by John Hall (currently withdrawn). She firmly believes that the Democrats have co-opted Republican values and claims, and might in the end compete with Michele Bachmann for unadulterated lunacy. Among her claims you find this one:

"The Republicans are the ones who liberated Europe in World War II."

Apparently, she is convinced that the Republicans are the initiators of "every" advancement of freedom in our history, although:

"Unfortunately, today there are many Republicans in office who are cowards and who are bad communicators. […] We have the right ideas, the right principles, the right philosophy and history on our side. […]. We have to unify and become Americans together and not just identify with a political party. America and principles must come before our party. There is common ground that can be found."

She might be young, but her grasp of reality is apparently already missing beyond recall. Discussed here and here. Fortunately she quickly played herself out of the electorial campaign, citing “family reasons” for her withdrawal, although this suggests otherwise. She’s also a religious fundamentalist.

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Diagnosis: Moron; presumably neutralized for now, but she was found sufficiently appealing to the Sarah Palin crowd that the danger of reemergence somewhere else is rather large.

Entry #055: Thomas A. Carder

While Christians Against Cartoons, who deemed "Dora the Explorer: Dance to the Rescue" to be potentially the most dangerous and blasphemous cartoon they had yet reviewed, is (probably) a spoof, corollaries of Poe’s Law guarantees that it’s going to be hard to tell. This one, for instance, is not.

Neither is Thomas A. Carder. The ChildCare Action Project is a real organization, and this website – despite the blinking lights and striking design – is dead serious. Officially it is an entertainment media analysis service devoted to reporting on the content of films to parents, grandparents, pastors, youth leaders and more that they might be in a better position to make an informed moral decision on their own whether a film is fit. Carder’s own biography is seriously disturbing as well. So is their Wikipedia page (who wants to bet this one wasn’t written by Carder himself?). Among the factors that make a movie be deemed unsuitable are ”mentioning evolution, using the word God, and slapstick violence” (not to mention such godlessness as the movie featuring scenes in bars and suchlike).

The CAP review of South Park is a good example (Carder emphasizes that children don’t like it, but feel pressured to pretend it’s fun in front of their parents). The one on Natural Born Killers is another representative entry (apparently Carder is as dutybound to view these analogously to how ”Paul didn't ignore the extremes in Corinth”).

The fact that the site needs disclaimers that denies any allegiance both to the Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps and to the hilarious Landover Baptist Church should tell you all you need to know about what kind of project this is. The intensity of the project seems to have abated a little the last couple of years (fewer updates), but it’s still going pretty strong.

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Diagnosis: Completely unhinged, evil madman. Has actually gained some fame and probably some influence. His activities might easily distance potential sympathizers just as much as attract them, however.

Entry #051: John Angus Campbell

Campbell is a retired American Professor of Rhetoric and is a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture (a branch of the Discovery Institute) and of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, a professional society dedicated to – you guessed it – the promotion of intelligent design (yes, its the Dembski rubbish, discussed here, here, here and in general here).

Together with Stephen C. Meyer (who is also a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture) he edited “Darwinism, Design and Public Education”, a collection of articles from the journal Rhetoric and Public Affair (not science; click here to download Barbara Forrest’s criticism).

Campbell is also on the school board in North Mason County, Washington. How he got there splendidly illustrates the tactics of contemporary creationists (as laid down in the Wedge document, for that matter). He ran as ”John Campbell”, and during his campaign did not disclose his links to intelligent design. In an interview he stated that he would not be dealing with curricula, and that he is a "Darwinist" who considers that debating Darwin can engage the interest of students and improve their skills in critical thinking. He was quoted as saying "Rather than demonizing people that believe in ID, I think there are ways people could use their ideas to study Darwinism more closely.” He was subsequently elected. The story is discussed here, and here.

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Diagnosis: Wormtongued weasel and crackpot. Dangerous.

Entry #035: William G Boykin

a.k.a Lieutenant General “My God is bigger than your God” Boykin

Purveyor of possibly the most staggeringly bizarre argument ever made, concerning G. Bush after his reelection: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this”.

Boykin (now retired) was the United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, and has played a role in almost every recent major American military operation. He is also a born-again Christian, author of "Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom". Boykin has cast the "War on Terror" in Biblical terms, seeing the war on terror as a battle between good and evil, or more precisely, between the soldiers of Jesus and the heretics (a Pentagon investigation concluded in 2004 that he had violated regulations by failing to explain these remarks were not made in an official capacity). As an example, listen to Boykin giving a speech about hunting down Osman Atto in Mogadishu: "He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Hence his nickname. Believes that terrorists are after America not primarily because terrorists hate freedom but because Muslims hate Christians and the U.S. is a firmly Christian Nation (see the entry for David Barton in the Encyclopedia).

Boykin’s relative loudness and official position eventually lead even to George Bush officially emphasizing that Boykin’s statements in no way reflected the point of view of the president or the administration (Rumsfeld took Boykin’s side, however). Pat Buchanan is also a fan of Boykin, apparently subscribing to the view taken by several WorldNetDaily columnists that the criticism of Boykin is an attack on Christian values in America by the Democratic Party.

Some quotes here.

A (relatively) sympathetic interview here.

And he's still running strong and bright. This time, apparently Obama has created brownshirt groups (Nazi-style) to force in healthcare. You can see Boykin interviewed by Bryan Fischer here. This one is worth having a look at as well.

Boykin endorses Santorum for the 2012 elections, and plenty of crazy is brought in the wake of that...and when subjected to criticism, he reacts just the way you'd expect from a first-class fundamentalist bigot.

More fantastically ridiculous paranoia here. (You didn't know that US Department of Treasury was undergoing profound changes to become sharia friendly, did you?) (also here) To think that this guy used to be in a position of actual power is pretty baffling.

Here's Boykin again claiming that Islam (and therefore secularism, since these are the same things) is Satan's willing whore. Reason-wise, it is still clearly going downhill for Boykin. And it started out pretty low.

He's now been added to the roster of the Family Research Council. Serves him right.

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Diagnosis: Batshit insane. Has probably contributed significantly to making the world a worse place to be.

Entry #034: Pat Boone

Singer, actor and writer Pat Boone was hailed (by the conservatives) as the conservative alternative to Elvis Presley back in the 50s. Currently, he is a political commentator, Christian activist and preacher, and a columnist for the fringeloon magazine WorldnetDaily. He is an ardent young earth creationist and has had several stabs at disproving evolution, such as this one; he uses the tried and dishonest “it’s only a theory”, “there is no evidence”, “Darwin recanted on the deathbed” fallacious arguments from authority (his authorities are uniformly preachers and Boone praises their credentials as award-winning missionaries and staunch Biblical literalists) + some novel ones I have, for obvious reasons, never seen before. Another attempt is discussed here (updated here). Boone later wrote an editorial in the form of a fairy tale where a young Prince Charming was seduced by a dwarf, got AIDS, and then overdosed.

Apart from anti-evolution, his columns are filled with the standard delusional moron stuff – Christians are a persecuted (particularly by the ACLU) minority in the US (discussed here and here), defense of torture (discussed here - the ignorance and dishonesty is astounding, even for a wingnut) and similar stuff.

He got attention for the claim that Democrats and others who were against the president during the Iraq War could be questioned for their patriotism – under an interview on this, he expressed his outrage against the opponents of George W. Bush (namely the Dixie Chicks) that their criticisms of the president showed they did not "respect their elders". He also vigorously defended Mel Gibson after the actor was recorded making an antisemitic rant.

He is also a vocal opponent of gay rights, and won some fame for his tasteful comparison between equal rights activists and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (Boone apparently thinks that the “homosexual jihadists” should be sent to concentration camps because they are anti-freedom, or something like that); discussed here and here.

He is also a birfer (i.e. Obama is not a natural born citizen, but a Kenya-born Muslim, and hence not eligible for being a president). More on Boone's birferism here.

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Diagnosis: Complete moron; hateful, dishonest, zealous bigot and loon. Impact uncertain, but he is probably read by a lot of people who are initially sympathetic to his views – whether he comes across as spurring them onwards into wingnuttery or helping them come to their senses by displaying purefied idiocy is unclear.

Entry #017: Glenn Beck

This guy needs no introduction. A non-comprehensive list of his travesties can be found here. Beck has, among other things, written the book “Arguing with Idiots” - an apt title. Also suffers from Nazi Tourette's.

I like the diagnosis offered here. MediaMatters has put together a Glenn Beck's fifty greatest hits. It's rather amusing, or whatever you wish to call it.

Task for today: Make sense of this claim (in fairness, I don't think Beck intends people to make sense of it, just nod in agreement). This video displays the empty idiocy of Glenn Beck rather well.

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Diagnosis: Idiot. Has a lot of fans, but the hope is that his influence might in the end be self-undermining.

Entry #014: David Barton

This one is my personal favorite. We have mentioned the historical revisionists/reconstructionists before, but Barton is perhaps the most prominent advocate for religiously zealous, Orwellian reconstruction of American history to fit Christian fundamentalist ideals. Barton is a crank historian and Christian Nation apologist (and activist) and founder of Wallbuilders; has written extensively on the alleged religious fundamentalism of the founding fathers and the “true intent” of the constitution as a foundation for a theocracy. Has been caught lying, cherry-picking and fabricating material many, many times, as discussed here (in particular fabricating quotes he attribute to the founding fathers). Many of the alleged quotes have achieved lives of their own, even though Barton has admitted to lying. More here and here.



The problem is that his writing has exerted profound influence over the Texas Board of Education and other radically religious curriculum builders. And of course, his ideological commitments ensure that he can say virtually whatever he wants without being called out by his allies.

Keeping up with Barton's lying, quote-mining and fact-twisting would be a full-time job. He seems, however, to have deteriorated to the point where he doesn't even seem to care to hide it. He knows he has no credibility among those who actually know anything, and he knows that his fan based on the extreme right is willing to accept whatever shit falls out of his mouth. I recommend this deconstruction of Barton's Stewart appearance in several parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five.

Further:
• Hooy. He seems to be kicking it up yet another notch...Oh fucking dear.
• See David Barton "argue" that schools force children to be gay. A good primer on Barton's fraudulent revisions of history can be found here.
• Oh, hell. I can't leave him be. Here is Barton claiming that there is a "spiritual" solution to abortion and poverty because people of faith do not "choose to live in poverty." He claims that once poor people change their humanistic attitude that tolerates abortion, poverty will end. Seriously. Ok. To clinch it, Barton is claiming that actual demonic powers are literally running rampant in the current government. There isn't really much left to say. Barton has fully embraced the crazy of Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins, but is an even more hardcore religious fundamentalist than either (Barton, for instance, is more or less explicitly a dominionist). And that takes some work.
• Ok. One more.
• As mentioned, we are not going to keep track of Barton's antics. That would be a full time job (in fact, Chris Rhodda is thankfully taking on herself that task), to say the least. Barton is nothing if no productive, and just in the course of two days did he manage to spill at least this and this example of insanity, as well as some breathtaking displays of dishonesty. Here's an example of why he is so dangerous.
• ... and from the department of alternative realities, we bring you this.
• ... and one more: Barton spectacularly commits a naturalistic fallacy.
• ...and this must be something of a record, even for Barton. At least he gets slamdunked here, though he'll of course never admit as much.
• And in yet another breathtaking display of wingnut stupid Barton blames the theory of evolution for the (state level) separation of church and state.
It is interesting that Barton doesn't even seem to care about hiding it anymore: He has come out as a pure Biblical literalist who rejects any scientific result that can be remotely interpreted as conflicting with a literal reading of any part of the Bible - and he rejects it precisely because it conflicts with a literal (that is "literal" - meaning reading the Bible so that it fully conforms to Barton's preconceptions about what it ought to say) of the Bible.
• Now, this must surely count as among the most ridiculous things Barton has ever said. At least he does not have the faintest clue about American history, and he props up his ignorance with the most ridiculous glassy-eyed, evangelical explanatory attempt we have yet to see. More of the usual stuff. Here's Barton claiming that secular law leads to sharia, because he doesn't know how words work, what expressions mean, what distinguishes reasoning from delusional ranting, or (even cursorily) how reality is put together. Chris Rodda has started a new series debunking Barton's newest book. You can read the first entry here.
• And here is Barton claiming that schools don't teach his version of history because of evolution. Which would, of course, be an argument against him if it were true, but Barton doesn't quite manage to see it that way.
• Barton is known to try to claim that it's not the religious right who is trying to institute a theocracy, but the liberals. His evidence, however, is more abysmally insane than you'd thought possible.
• This illustrates fairly well the danger a complete loon like Barton pose to civilization.
• A small sample of falsehoods from Barton's most recent book.
• Barton continues his battle against reality, as expected.
• Well, this man sure continues to astound us.

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Diagnosis: Liar and fraud, dishonest quack and zealot, and also a victim of severe confirmation bias. He has had a lot of influence however (Texas Board of Education, for instance) and must be ranked among the most dangerous, destructively influential forces of lunacy out there.

Entry #013: Matt Barber

Our lucky 13th loon is Matt Barber. Barber is a columnist at Worldnetdaily (Where do they find these people, seriously?). Also policy director for cultural issues at DC-based Concerned Women for America (an anti-gay organization), and spokesman for Liberty Legal Alliance. Very, very concerned about gay people, convinced gay marriage is unconstitutional and that there is a gay conspiracy out there (and Obama is in on the conspiracy because the Supreme Court didn’t quite agree about the unconstitutionality (yes, that’s the reasoning)). Barber has absolutely no insight into how the legal system works, which does not prevent him from commenting on it with brazen confirmation bias, fact-twisting and outright lies. Argues for taking children away from gay parents. Like so many of his ilk, Barber is also a moral relativist when it suits his purposes. Also has a serious persecution complex and is worried about gay jihadists.



A (typical) quote in advance of the 2008 election: ”If Bill Clinton was the first black president, Barack Obama, if elected, will be the first "gay" president. No, I don't mean he'll personally decorate the West Wing, open a bathhouse in the Rose Garden or take up with Barney Frank. I mean he'll be the most radically pro-homosexual, anti-family president in history. He's very quietly pledged as much to the homosexual "Human Rights Campaign" and other fawning members of his homo-fascist fan club” (note the interesting characterization of Obama voters in the last sentence).

Trivia: try to find the logical structure of the argument presented here.

Oh, and just to emphasize: even if this is an old post, we haven't forgotten about Barber. He is as repugnantly insane as ever. You can see Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber discuss the New Gay World Order here. And here's Barber denying that he is a Dominionist - he just want fundamentalist Christians in all positions of power and the Bible to replace the Constitution (though he doesn't really recognize the distinction between the Bible and the Constitution).

Ok, Here we go again. And again.

Hey ho ... looks like Barber is in a predicament. At least he knows how to run with a slippery slope. This one sounds like a poor comedy scene, and would have been rather amusing as such. There really, truly is no limit. Breathtaking.

Here's Barber being a total loon and total asshole on the Sandra Fluke matter. And if you want to see Barber going batshit insane due to his fuming, directionless hatred of the SPLC ...

His most recent excursion into making shit up and passing it off as something resembling truth is ripped to shreds here. Would you believe it, but Barber is actually caught lying!

Here's Barber and Staver claiming that failing to overturn Obamacare is judicial activism through omission. You cannot make this shit up.

Every day Barber cranks up the crazy just a little bit. We cannot deal with every piece of delusional insanity, but I suppose we have a duty to check in every now and then. This is where he's at May 2, 2012. Ordinary sane people may not easily conceive of a way to top this one, but I am sure that Barber will continue to impress. More here. And yes folks, this is a guy who considers himself a fighter for morality and decency. At least the world becomes much easier to deal with when you have only one single enemy.

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Diagnosis: Moron; paranoid lunatic with a severe persecution complex; probably little impact beyond the group who already agrees with what he says (i.e. no power to persuade anyone).

Entry #012: Chuck Baldwin

It's our 12th loon, Chuck Baldwin! Baldwin was a 2008 U.S. presidential candidate for the openly theocratic Constitution Party.



Baldwin is a strong advocate for a Christian Nation and a historical revisionist with a persecution complex, arguing tirelessly that the American Constitution is based entirely off of the Bible. At the same time he promotes religious liberty, but Baldwin is one of those who aren’t affected by cognitive dissonance. Baldwin also holds that the Founding fathers were religious fundamentalists – he is known for publicly attributing quotes to them that he has made up himself (but the contents of which, according to him, the founding fathers would have agreed with). For a discussion of his views and arguments, see here.

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Diagnosis: Bigoted, vile, zealous and crazy theocrat, liar for Jesus, paranoid and harebrained (but the martyr tactic is the lifeblood of these dingbats, so a persecution complex is unavoidable). Impact is probably relatively limited (the Constitution party isn’t exactly in the running for many seats), but the Orwellian historical revisionism he stands for is a cause for concern.

Entry #010: Ted Baehr

Baehr runs Movieguide, which, despite its neutral name, describes itself as a ministry "dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles, by influencing entertainment industry executives and helping families make wise media choices" (i.e. rave reviews of creationist propaganda). Baehr is also chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and a columnist/movie reviewer for Worldview Times. He wasn’t happy with Religulous, as this review shows (and this review alone merits Baehr’s inclusion in the Encyclopedia)



Also a vigorous opponent of e.g. stem cell research (apparently he views The Family Research Council as an authoritative source here); staunch anti-elitist religious crackpot who argues that science (at least science whose results don’t support (his interpretation of) the Bible) is a liberal conspiracy, as in the article discussed here.

• And here you can see Ted Baehr blithely assume that non-theocratic forms of government equals Marxism.
• Ted Baehr reviews Hunger Games and is - predictably - unable to stay coherent.

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Diagnosis: Zealous, paranoid wingnut and pathological liar, religious fundamentalist and general loon. Angry. Influence: hard to tell; there are a lot of these guys out there, but he is relatively prolific and seems to have some readers.

Entry #009: Michelle Bachmann

Coming in at #9 we have one of my very favorite loons, the lovely Michele Bachmann. Bachmann is the United States Representative of Minnesota's 6th congressional district and a member of the Republican Party.



Judging by a number of trustworthy sources and good evidence (mostly the words that come out of her mouth), she may be the single stupidest person alive (perhaps in competition with Steve King, R-Iowa). Staunch supporter of the teabagging party (including all of their contradictory goals, apparently). Good mental compartmentalizer, for she is apparently completely unaffected by (or aware of) cognitive dissonance. Well, I don't think I can be bothered to update this one anywhere near continuously. This, for instance, is just far too typical. Following is a tasty selection of her wide variety of loony times.

• A quickly assembled but unrepresentative sample of the stuff that falls out of her mouth
• On CO2 emissions.
• On net neutrality.
• Discussion of her view on the swine flu (and the Democrats’ role in it).
• One more informative source of Bachmann quotes.
• An update on moronic crap falling out of Bachmann's mouth can be found here
• This one is pretty awesome.
• Anyone up for more falsehoods from Bachmann?
• Her husband isn't entirely well-hinged either, it seems.
• This one is also rather appalling. And here she claims that Terri Schiavo was healthy.
• At last she's also claimed that hurricane Irene was God's warning to America.
• And just to fill out the picture, she's finally accepted anti-vaxx rhetoric as well, falling for the simplest, most easily refutable talking points from the most insane conspiracy theory-laden antivaxx groups.
• Given the recent noise around Bachmann and HPV, this one deserves a link.
• This one is pretty good.
• Even though she’s obviously lost steam it’s kinda fun to keep track of her campaign. Here’s her claim that the US should follow China and drop the welfare state to boost the economy (the bizarreness of which is rather astounding). Indeed, she’s been making several, uh, interesting foreign policy suggestions lately. There’s a good Bachmann resource here.
• Oh, Michele
• And it never stops, even though you thought the last one was unbeatable.
• Here's the latest Bachmann endorsement of creationist and all the creationist talking points.
• Here's an illuminating interview with Bachmann on Biblical worldviews, public schools and a general lack of touch with anything resembling reality.
• And Bachmann explaining how she wishes to reform the courts to conform to her Biblical view of law. Charming.

Edit: A friend of mine has now provided us with a very detailed profile on Bachmann and what has created her thinking. Thanks!

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Diagnosis: Complete moron – a living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger. Obviously in possession of power and influence, and probably a large fan group as well; in other words very dangerous.

Entry #008: Douglas Axe

Axe is a zealous creationist associated with the Discovery Institute (he is the director at their “Biologic Institute"). Axe is a molecular biologist, and thus actually knows some science. He uses this knowledge to write mundane papers, at least two of which have been published in low-tier, although genuine, journals - despite being uninteresting and mundane. Axe’s work is hailed by the Discovery Institute as evidence for their views. Of course, there is no actual support of intelligent design in these published papers, and Axe himself admits as much.



Insofar as Axe is a creationist with real scientific publications to his name, Axe’s work is one of the main contributions to a sheen of legitimacy for the ID movement. But given that his publications do not at all support or even touch on their views (but are willfully interpreted as such by other ID-proponents without Axe complaining) he is an important contributor to erecting the framework of dishonesty that is the ID movement.

And he shows himself to be extremely fond of the standard Creationist false dichotomy: If just evolution were shown to be false then creationism would be correct. He seems nevertheless to be dimly aware of the problem with this assumption, and he makes some rather feeble attempts at goalpost-moving his way around them.

And no; despite being touted as the scientist of the DiscoTute, he doesn't have the most tenuous grasp of biology, as evidenced by this feeble and profound misunderstanding of basic notions.

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Diagnosis: Dishonest wingnut who might pose a genuine if minor threat to science and rationality as a creationist with actually published (though unrelated) material.