Just one question...

Why are Conservapedia's administrators (and - generally speaking - a large number of online conservative commentators) so scared of open and public comments? Are they really that scared of having to defend an indefensible position? Are their egos that fragile that the merest questioning of their motives and actions will send them to their beds with a case of the vapours?

In fact, for Geoff Plourde, who is an Administrator of an (allegedly) open wiki that constantly rails against perceived censorship, to openly declare that his talk page is out of bounds is, quite frankly, a sad state of affairs, but also indicative of the kind of people running it. These are people who deal with secrets, who prefer to keep things "off-site" because then there's no witnesses to their deceit.

Palin and the Pledge

Half the fun with blogging lies in the research, the other half is in going off in a totally different direction to what you intended. Take this current example, for instance.

It started out with our friends at Conservapedia, defending a(nother) bullshit statement made by Sarah Palin. Now it would appear as if the Great White Moose answered a questionnaire put out by the Eagle Forum (that's the home-schooling university thingy, set up by Andy Schlafly's mum, Phyllis). One question asked, "Are you offended by the phrase 'Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?" to which Palin replied, "Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me and I'll fight in defence of our Pledge of Allegiance." (Bold in the original) Conservapedia – in an attempt to usurp St Jude as the patron saint of lost causes goes on to defend it – throwing up a very tenuous (but Schlafly approved) link between the phrase “under God” and George Washington... and thus by default *all* the Founding Fathers. Nothing new when it comes to distorting the truth for CP really.

Hardcore John Patti

Conservapedia editor John Patti has a high opinion of himself, describing himself as a "hardcore conservative contributor despised by liberals" in their self-congratulatory article on CP. Then again, I suppose if nobody else is going to blow your trumpet...

As always, it takes an outsider to bring a little reality to the little man's world. Johnny baby, I hate to break it to you, but the only "liberals" who are even aware of your sad, little existence are those at RationalWiki, and we don't despise you. We just think you're a moron - something you've proven time and time again. There's a difference, you know, although you probably don't.

The "Child Friendly" Encyclopaedia?

So Conservapedia, besides being "trustworthy" also tries to promote itself as a learning resource geared towards children and teenagers. I wonder what the parents of these children would make of the administrators of this site asking editors for their e-mail addresses (especially Terry Koeckritz), or even worse, their telephone numbers, in the case of Ed Poor? The latter case is especially worrying, given his seeming focus on matters sexual, as witnessed by his comments about "bulging vulvas", "interstellar pimps" and a little sexual experimentation for our daughters. Then again, given that he is a Moonie, maybe it's just his way of grooming impressionable youngsters for the next mass-matrimony ceremony.

All of that is, of course, hidden behind the scenes on users' talk pages and is rarely seen by the casual visitor to CP. So it's even more worrying when they blatantly display it on their front page.

Happy Birthday Conservapedia!

Yup, Conservapedia turns three today and looking back it's amazing to see just how it's gone from being an interesting project to one of the most bat-shit insane sites on the internet. Admittedly it is a site which has delivered many hours of laughs, including such gems as Bugler's antics, the Lenski Affair, the Conservative Bible Project, Andrew Schlafly's insane debate with the erudite Kate Sorenson and the wonderful "Liberal Style Word Counter" bot, created by the now-blocked Mark Gallagher (which just goes to show that even if you do suck up to Andy, Terry Koeckritz will still kick you in the balls).

And it's about Terry that I'd like to write (once again) this evening. Anybody who's been following CP for any length of time, will know that once upon a time, Terry was Andy's right hand (probably in more ways than one!) boy. However, he tried his hand once too often in trying to usurp Andy's authority - after all Andy is the proverbial Brother Leader of CP and his fellow sysops, rather than actually having a hand in making decisions, simply act as his echo chamber. Andy decided to strip... or rather remove the sysop rights from his poster boy for on-line thuggery and a rather nasty e-mail battle ensued.

"Slutty" Ed Poor

I've already mentioned that Conservapedia sysop Ed Poor has some strange ideas when it comes to what is and isn't appropriate on Conservapedia (out = references to Jack the Ripper's victims as prostitutes; in = an article on bestiality). It's always refreshing to see new examples of just how his mind works.

Sysop Brian MacDonald (aka Karajou) would appear to be a fan of Tomb Raider and uploaded a copy of the first game's cover to CP. Looking at the file name, and scouring Google images, tells me that the one shown alongside was probably the one he used.

I say "probably" because along came Ed (slow walking Ed Jones, slow talking Ed Jones... I love that song!) and deleted it, claiming it was "too slutty". Needless to say, Brian was a bit worried about this and queried his Edness.

Delicious Irony

Now I know that being a Conservapedia sysop involves an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance (especially when you have to grin and agree with more of Andrew Schlafly's daily insanity), but there are times when you can only laugh out loud at the things they say.

Take for example Brian MacDonald's (sysop Karajou - so much for Conservapedia's policy of "use your real first name and initial, which is a blockable offence if you don't)  claim about Wikipedia's sysops:

All I could think of when I read this was the fact that most of the "trusted" admins there reached that level by vitue (sic) of lying, bullying, falsly-accusing, acting like SlimVirgin, etc.

Update...

...on the Andrew Schlafly versus Kate Sorenson saga.

(Block log); 10:39 . . Jpatt (Talk | contribs) blocked KSorenson (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of 5 years (account creation disabled, e-mail blocked) (Negative personal comments: childish parthian shot)

Yup, when somebody who actually knows the subject comes along and tries to improve Conservapedia (in other words show Andy just how wrong he is and how little he knows), they get shown the door.

It's also gratifying to see that Andy is such a "man", has he has to get one of his acolytes to do the job for him.

Well done, John Patti, the "Trustworthy" encyclopaedia is proud of you.

Dedication Time

There is, after all, one song that can be played, following onfrom the posts below. Kate, this one's for you.



And this one's for Andy.

 

And the show goes on...

Clearly feeling the need for self-affirmation, Andrew Schlafly has just posted a word-salad called "Quantifying Order". I'm not sure what he's trying to say, but it's something along the lines of "God created order and here's some examples."

The self-affirmation bit is clear as not only does he quote from his own bastardisation of the Bible, which  now renders the opening lines of John as "In the beginning was perfect order, and this perfection was with God, and this perfection was God." (I kid you not), but he has another dig at the Theory of Relativity by stating:

"The theory of relativity developed to explain the then-observed shift in Mercury's perihelion of 43 arc-seconds per century. Subsequently, however, more accurate measurements with more sophisticated technology have determined this precession to be 55 arc-seconds per century, nearly 30% off the number provided by relativity."

In true Andy "I-pulled-this-number-out-of-my-ass" style, he doesn't provide anything to back up this statement. - not to mention the hideous English of the first sentence. Enter our heroine, Ms Sorenson (who seems to work for NASA and is involved with the Gravity Probe B project, unless my sources are mistaken. Either way, this young lady knows her stuff). Quite respectfully and quite rightly, she asks Andy for a citation for his claim.

When faced with science... change the subject

For some reason, Andrew Schlafly doesn't like Einstein, or his Theory of Relativity much - probably because he's too stupid to understand it. So it always makes for interesting reading when somebody tries to insert some sense into any related articles. We also know that Andy loathes anybody with some sort of expertise, because they show just what an ignoramus he actually is. The Lenski Affair was a classic example of this. Another was a fantastic argument with his own brother on the Theory of Relativity. It's at the bottom of the talk page, which in itself is worth a good laugh.

So imagine his reaction when somebody - in this case, a well-spoken and clearly knowledgeable lady by the name of Kate Sorensen, comes along and starts to inject some reason into the article on Black Holes. Faced with the possibility that somebody knows more than him and is about to (once again) hand him his ass on a platter, Andy reverts to his favourite method of argument - changing the subject.

Conservapedia: Operating in a Void?

Ok, so one of the questions that's asked most often is "Just how relevant is Conservapedia?" Is the conservative movement hanging on Andrew Schlafly's every word, or are they (most likely) hanging their heads in embarrassment.The general impression is that the internet is laughing at Conservapedia... something that has been proven to a degree when scouring the web for comments on Ken DeMyer's offerings on "Atheism" and "Evolution".

However, it would be interesting to see just who is referring to CP and in what way. Luckily Alexa can tell me that a total of 1,217 sites link in to CP. It might sound like a lot, but when you consider that "evil" WikiPedia has 415,776 sites linking in and even tiny RationalWiki has 322, it doesn't look that great for the "trustworthy" encyclopaedia.

Now, the next step, to be undertaken over the next few days and weeks, is to visit said 1,217 sites and see what exactly they're saying about Andy's little blog. I'll keep a running score as we go and hopefully by the end we'll have a fairly good idea of just how important Conservapedia is to the web community in general.

Watch this space.

Schalfly's Sexist Shenanigans

One thing about Andrew Schlafly - he's consistent, if nothing else. Sadly, he's just a consistent buffoon.

Not content with ripping off parents on the pretence of teaching their children economics - a task at which he, yet again, fails dismally - he then goes on to abuse and humiliate his students again, by setting different tests for boys and girls.

Now, Andy will defend his choice until he's blue in the face, citing such rubbish as "he doesn't want competition between girls and boys" and most famously, "chivalry".

However, at the end of the day, all it means is that Andy see girls as being "different" to boys - and not in the sense that boys have winkies and girls don't. Andy seriously sees them as inferior beings (to the point of writing most positive female references out of his Conservative Bible) and should only be educated to the bare minimum. After all, their sole purpose is to stay at home, cook the food and churn out the next generation of Republican stormtroopers.

The again, what would you expect from the spawn of Phyllis 'Marital Rape Is Cool' Schlafly?

The Teetotal Bible

Wow... this one of the stranger things to have come out of the whole Conservative Bible debacle, and I have to thank Joe Farah for pointing it out to me. Now, apparently Andy is teetotal, which I have nothing against and in fact I'm kinda grateful for. If he was on the piss, I'd hate to think what kind of insanity he would come up with.

Anyway, it seems that because Andy doesn't drink, Jesus didn't drink either... so all the references to wine that anybody who's read the Bible should know have been replaced with... grape juice.I kid you not. So let's see how this translation plays out when we swap "wine'"with "grape juice".

During the Wedding at Cana, Jesus turned water into grape juice... not just that, but a better grape juice than what had originally been served. Maybe he dished up Grapetiser instead of LiquiFruit, who knows. The very fact that the whole issue about serving the best quality stuff first implies it had to be wine served there. What makes the whole thing even more ludicrous is the fact that Conservapedia's own article on wine, contains the sentence, "Christ's first miracle, performed at the wedding feast at Cana, was to turn six amphora filled with water into wine." Once again, CP's right hand knows exactly what its left hand is doing. Actually, reading their "translation" of John 2:9, I see they've left it as wine... for now. Maybe turning water into grape juice isn't that a miracle, after all.

Conservative Bible Project - The Conservatives Speak

I've been waiting and praying (well, ok... just waiting) to see what the Right was going to say about Andy's little project. I've already listed several examples in another article, but no doubt Andy would write those people off a liberals... even the happy-clappies on "Rapture Ready". I've been hoping that an Ann Coulter or some other right-wing fundie would pick up on this and comment - one way or another.

My prayers have been answered.

Joseph Farah, of World Net Daily fame, has entered the fray. Now, there's two things you need to know about Joe and WND. Firstly, this is the guy behind the "Where's the Birth Certificate" billboards - in other words, he's about as right wing and anti-Obama as Andy is. Joe is basically the Birther's Birther. He also refers to Andrew Schlafly as, "the son of the heroic Phyllis Schlafly." That alone should tell you where he stands, not to mention the fact he helped organise Mama Schlafly's Take Back America clusterfuck.

Also, WND is not a mickey-mouse site - especially when compared to Conservapedia. Alexa tells me WND has a reach of o.045% (Conservapedia's is 0.0041%) and a 3-month rank of 2,221 vs. 50,323. In other words, people read WND... a lot of people.

Liberals By Numbers

One thing I've learnt from watching (and working on) Conservapedia is that they never fail to amaze me. Just when you think they've reached new levels of paranoia, hate-speech or plain insanity, they manage to crank it up another notch. Here's a prime example... one that should be one of the best parody ploys ever, but probably isn't.

A user, calling himself Mark Gallagher, signed up in June of this year and has been pottering around the site ever since. He almost made the mistake of trying to edit the various mathematics articles, which as we all know is the easiest way to step on one of Ed "If I don't know it I delete it" Poor's crazy toes. He did have a brief run in with manchild administrator, John Patti, over CP's use of the US flag in their logo, calling it a "flagrant show of disrespect... somewhat appalling for a site of this nature." Amazingly, he escaped with a simple "Ridiculous statements" and no blocking from lil' Johnny boy.

Maybe he was heartened by all this and decided to move on to bigger things. He turned to Andrew Schlafly, the bastion of conservadom, with a request to run a bot on CP (something that has always been anathema, because they don't know how to program a bot and they can't control it) which would essentially "detect liberal wordiness and other recognized traits of liberal style." I kid you not.

Conspiracy Theory Redux

I've been speculating a bit about just what lies behind Andrew Schlafly's animosity towards President Obama. Seeing as it goes way beyond simple party politics, I can only surmise it has to do with their time together on the Harvard Law Review and more specifically around the time that Obama became HLR President.

I'm pretty convinced that Andy ran for HLR president against Obama and it all stems from his resentment at being beaten by an "affirmative action appointment". I've been in touch with both the Boston Globe and the HLR,  trying to get some clarity on who the 18 other candiates were, and although the replies were promising, nothing definite has come to light. However, you need to remember that there were 19 candidates out of something like 60 editors, so that already gives Andy a 1-in-3 chance of running. Add to that his own sense of self-importance (remember this is a man who has already run for Congress and then created his own personal fiefdom and echo-chamber at Conservapedia) and the chances are pretty good that he was in the running.

Conservative Bible Project: Schlafly's "Liberal" Translators

A user, now banned, popped up on the talk page for the Conservative Bible project and posted a list of name (as shown below) These are people who have worked on Bible translations in the past and I assume the author was making the point that Andy is calling these eminent scholars "liberal" (then again, the new user might have been unaware of Andy's view on Professor Values). Even so, this list makes for impressive reading:

Conservative Bible Project - Andrew Schlafly Stands Alone

So the collective internet has finally woken up to Andrew Schlafly's Conservative Bible Project. I'm not usually one to blow my own trumpet, but just remember, you read it here first. (Well, actually you would have read it on Rationalwiki first, but you know what I mean).

Needless to say, Andy has been basking in the sound of the entire internet laughing at him. Now I know it's easy to point fingers and say that it's the liberal media doing it - especially since the Colbert Report featured his lunacy, which resulted in his minions descending upon CP like the wolf on the fold. I see new account creation is still turned off. Yup, the site is growing rapidly.

Conservative Bible Project - The Biblical Bimbo

(h/t to RaoulDuke for pointing this one out)

I've already mentioned Andrew Schlafly's attempts to "Conservatise" the English Bible, and I must admit that so far it's providing more laughs that the Lenski affair did. One has to remember that Andy - who is no linguist - isn't going back to the source material and translating from the original Greek. Oh no - he's simply taking the KJV and changing words so that they fit his conservative view of the world.

We've already had the case of the Pharisees suddenly becoming "intellectuals", but Andy's latest offerings are not only hysterical, but proof once again that we couldn't make this stuff up.

WHAT??!!

Andrew Schlafly recently described Conservapedia to a "T"... the problem is, he was talking about how he perceived Wikipedia:

My understanding is that not everyone can edit everywhere on Wikipedia.  I thought many pages are locked against editing, and anyone who inserts truthful but conservative information into certain atheistic or liberal entries (e.g., evolution, global warming) will be immediately reverted and blocked if he continues.

Is the man completely incapable of seeing the irony behind what he says, given the vast amount of locked articles on CP, combined with his block-happy band of goons?

Sorry!

I’ve referred to John Patti as being a parodist on Conservapedia, but he was kind enough to reply to an – admittedly snarky – e-mail I sent him, in order to set the record straight. I hope he won’t mind if I quote directly from the proverbial horse’s mouth (and he came across a far more reasonable than his CP persona):

You know I am the real deal. I don't waste my life faking conservatism. I was born into a conservative family but I wasn't always outspoken. The thing is my traditional conservative Christian stance took time to mature, I will never part ways. On evolution, I only believe what the Church believes. I don't argue for dates like all the creation/evolutionists due. On homosexuality, I feel it is nearly unstoppable in the current climate. I disagree with those who would promote it but we all fall short in some way. By now you know I am a pro-life drone. After holding a premature baby, you would have the same conclusion. blogsurfer.us

I hold the right to speak my mind- a Constitutional right- so you'll have to live with it until govt stormtroopers take me away .

So, with that said, I hereby apologise unreservedly for calling you a parodist.

However, it does make your behaviour on Conservapedia even more inexplicable, sad to say.

John Patti - Parodist, or Finally Losing it?

Ok, this is one for the "Say what?!" department. Sadly I didn't write this yesterday, because I see John Patti has been using his oversight abilities to cover up his insanity, but luckily it has been preserved on Rationalwiki's "What is Going on at Conservapedia" page.

Basically, for some reason, little Johnny-boy decided to redirect the "Homosexual Obsession" article (yes, the "family friendly" encyclopaedia has such an entry) to - of all things - their article on  Sarah Palin. Now I know she's obsessed with hunting wolves from a helicopter... but homosexuality? Maybe Bristol's batting for the other team now. Not content with that, he then went on to create the "Obsessed Homosexual" article - claiming it to be the "temporary location of homosexual obsession." Now, one doesn't have to be an honours English student to realise that there's a rather big difference between "homosexual obsession" and "obsessed homosexual." But clearly not in what passes for Johnny's mind.

Blast From the Past

One of my regular readers (thank you π!) refered me to another post about Conservapedia, which as fate would have it, was also written by me, back in March 2008. I'd posted it on another blog of mine, which subsequently changed focus and so it was left there to gather dust. Now that he's reminded me about it, I thought I'd repost it here.

Rereading it, I still sound so wide-eyed and innocent (albeit greatly disenchanted, even at that early stage) and  even comparing the Conservapedia of today with the few examples I use below, it's amazing just how nutty they've all become over there. And I had to chuckle at my last two lines... who would have thought just where a "few neutral edits" would eventually land me.

Anyway, here's me from a year-and-a-half ago:

I must confess to feeling a little bit guilty as I write this, on two counts. Firstly, because I’ve been using something that some people take very, very seriously as a form of mild entertainment, and secondly because I have the nasty feeling that I’m watching something akin to seeing a favourite old auntie slip from mildly amusing senility into full-blown Alzheimer’s… and yet I keep hanging around out of morbid curiosity.

Ooh, It Burns!

(h/t to Gauss for highlighting this).

Want to see Conservative deceit in action? Here's a classic example.

A user adds an entry to Conservapedia's article on "Counterexamples to an Old Earth" (you'll forgive me if I don't link to the actual article - I don't feel like boosting CP's Google ranking) claiming that: "The Earth's[magnetism is changing at too fast a rate for the Earth to be old.  The Earth's magnetic field is weakening in strength by 5% every 100 years." He even cites a NASA article, which can be found here.

However, the editor in question obviously (or deliberately - actually I'll go with deliberate - he added a section underneath the bit mentioning the years) didn't quote the entire article, because in the last infobox, it states the following: "There have been about 170 of these reversals during the last 76 million years according to geological evidence. The time between reversals seems to be growing longer, and is currently about 300,000 years or so. The last one of these happened about 770,000 years ago." Clearly, if your using this as an example to prove the earth is only 6,000 years old, dates of 76 million years and even 770,000 years sort of fly in the face of that.

What Happened Andy?

I might have mentioned this before, but Terry Koeckritz – Andrew Schalfy’s right-hand thug and resident internet stalker, repaid Andy’s trust in him by opening the private discussions of the sysops for general viewing. As far as I know, he’s still doing it.

Being a curious soul, I have spent some time going through them (hey, it might be wrong, but as I see it, they’re public domain now) and some of them have made for fascinating reading. It’ll take too long to go through all the posts for now – seeing as there’s 120Mb of HTML files - (but watch this space!) but there are a couple that caught my eye early on.

Andrew Schlafly Shouldn't Teach

It must be kinda sad to be Andrew Schlafly. Especially when you realise that he's reached the point where he can no longer tell who is and isn't a bona fide editor on his little site. What makes it worse is that firstly, he can't seem to tell who his students are and secondly, it would appear as if Andy has reached the stage where unless you repeat back the drivel he's fed you in class, he won't mark your work.

We've already seen the case where he deleted homework, rather than mark it. This time round, he simply refuses to mark another student's homework, citing as a reason, "UNGRADED. ANSWERS SEEM IMPLAUSIBLE AND STEREOTYPICAL, SUCH AS THE "15-PERSON PASSENGER VAN." "REFORAMATION"??? SEEMS A LIKE A MISTAKE AN UNINFORMED PUBLIC SCHOOL PERSON WOULD MAKE.--Andy Schlafly 13:40, 13 September 2009 (EDT)"

Reflected Sound of Church Basement Idiots

(With apologies to Terry Pratchett's "Echo gnomics", although in this case, his "In sewer ants" is probably more appropriate.)

I've already mentioned that Andy's off and running with this semester's course, Economics. Given how he's already mangled World History and American History, we can't say that we're getting our hopes up this time round. If you want to punish yourself, have a look at the lectures here.(Warning - cover your keyboard with a pillow before you do). Extra lulz for Andy listing the number of words per lecture, as if that's more important than the content.

What we are expecting are a series of "homework" exercise, that ask vague, silly and downright insane questions. These will be answered in one or two "concise" sentences - regardless of how many points the question is worth. For extra fun, have a look at the mangled grammar the kids use, which goes uncorrected by Andy. Now, I know it's not really fair to pick on the kids he teaches - after all, they have no say in the matter. Their religious wing-nut parents farm them off to this incompetent buffoon, thinking they are going to receive worthwhile instruction. Instead, they receive an insight into Andy's twisted world view and singular lack of knowledge about the subject he's teaching.

Control freaks

The wonderful and clever people over at Conservapedia: An Illustrated Guide have done sterling work plotting the gradual demise of Conservapedia and their graphs are a wonderful illustration of how edits are falling, as well as a pretty clear indication of Terry Koeckritz's attempts to block the entire planet from editing there.

Revisiting Time

Here's another link from a more tech-savvy colleague - SuperJosh- also scrutinising Conservapedia's "article" on Time. Well worth watching IMHO.

Have a look at his other YouTube offerings here.

Stop the Presses!! Andrew Schlafly Reads Me!!

Wow!! Following on from my post about Andy and his little Bible quiz, I nipped on to CP and posted my answers, for which Andy gave me "about 50%". Imagine my surprise when I dropped by CP today, and saw this message added (He even links here!):

The person who provided the above answers admits elsewhere that, just as I suggested above, he actually looked up the answers: "And yes, of course I looked up the answers ...."[1] Scoring only about 50% after looking up the answers is awfully pathetic.

His conclusion? "Don’t you dare tell me that you or anybody else on Conservapedia knows them off the top of your head." Ignorance loves company. Yes, atheists who claim to be learned and well-read are abysmally ignorant about the most influential book ever, and are determined to remain that way. Unless they open their minds and open a Bible, they'll be just as uninformed twenty years from now.

What I love about it is not just the fact that he replied, but the fact that the sanctimonious git has completely missed the point. "Yes, atheists who claim to be learned and well-read are abysmally ignorant about the most influential book ever, and are determined to remain that way."

Andy, I'm going to say this very slowly, so you'll understand... firstly it's only an "influential book" to people who believe it to be so. Atheists (and Jews and Muslims and Mormons and Moonies... hey! Maybe your two cultist admins - Ed Poor and Dean Slade - should take the quiz!) don't see it as the be-all-and-end-all that you do.

Secondly, questions about circulation and comparisons with best seller lists have nothing to with - as you say - "opening your mind and opening a Bible." That is why I say most people cannot answer your silly questions. Most atheists could debate you under the table when it comes to Biblical content... although you do require a deposit before people debate you don't you? Face it, this is just another little weasel exercise on your part to claim knowledge that you do not have.

I say again - don't you tell me that you (never mind anybody else) knew those answers off the top of your head. Or are they made up figures, like most of the other number you love to throw around. Either way, you still fail.

Andrew Schlafly - "Teacher"

I've mentioned before just what a bad teacher Andrew Schlafly is. Here's another prime example.

He's currently teaching Economics (which is as bad as you think it is). One of his students submits her home to which Andy - the teacher, remember - responds by DELETING her submission, with the comment "a rant demonstrating little knowledge of economics or the lecture". Remember - he is her teacher. Is that the reaction you'd expect from somebody teaching your child?

Andrew Schlafly Fails Again

I almost feel sorry for Andrew Schlafly... almost. Time and time again he makes a supreme effort to convey whatever thought is passing through his mind, and yet through his own stupidity ends up making a laughing stock of himself.

This time round, he's come up with another Sunday essay. Ah, I've missed these - it's almost as if he hears something in the sermon and rushes home to twist these thoughts to fit his world view and cobbles together something that can only be called an "essay" because it's a bunch of sentences grouped together.

Andy's Epic Fail

Andrew Schlafly (and about a gazillion other people) have their profiles up on NNDB.com, which is all well and fine - although they really need to work on their criteria for inclusion... unless "spawn of Mother Schlafly" counts as noteworthy.

What is fun, however, is that it's grouped together a bunch of people who have worked on the Harvard Law Review over the years. It's hardly a full list of everybody involved in the HLR since 1887, but the 39 names listed there make for some impressive reading... well, nearly all of them.

In the list, we have:

• 1 President (Obama),


• 5 US Supreme Court Judges (and 4 other judges),


• 1 Secretary of State,


• 1 Homeland Security Czar,


• 1 Solicitor General,


• 1 Deputy Attorney General,


• 1 White House Counsel,


• CNN's Senior Legal Analyst,


• 2 University Presidents (Rice & Utah),


• President of the ACLU


• 3 CEOs


• and a bunch of law firm partners.

And then we get Andrew Schlafly... "Conservapedia founder". This man has two degrees from two top universities (paid for by Mummy) and that is the best he has to offer? His Mummy must be so proud.

Is it just me...

... or has WorldNutDaily's Joseph Farrah taken up smuggling catepillars as a way to make money?

Liberals Behaving Badly

Every now and again, Andrew Schlafly feels the need to vent his spleen at the liberal masses that are apparently threatening his way of life. Of course, given that the only true conservatives are Mummy Schlafly, Saint Ronald and himself (we’re not sure about God – that whole forgiveness thing counts against Him), this means that there’s an awful lot of venting to be done.

In this example, he’s turned his beady eye on the behaviour of “liberal” editors on his “encyclopaedia” (Here's a screencap just in case). Here too, “liberal” basically means “anybody who’s ever disagreed with, or queried, anything Andrew Schlafly ever wrote.” The strange thing is, is that when you have a close look at his complaints, it would appear as if Andy and his minions are, in fact, liberals too. Go figure.

It’s worth noting the opening and closing statements of this essay. The opening sentence reads, “Over 382,000 edits on Conservapedia provides much data to study and analyze liberal behavior and trends.” The closing sentence reads, “Over 466,000 edits on Conservapedia offer much data for studying liberal behavior.”There must have been some busy little editors to make 84,000 edits in the time Andy put this together.

Head-Desk Time

Anybody who has spent any time at all browsing Conservapedia’s “articles” will be familiar with the concept of “Head-Desk”, as well as its close cousin, “Face-Palm”. Simply put, it’s a survival mechanism that kicks into action when the human brain is faced with an overwhelming amount of stupidity and in an attempt to prevent your IQ leaking out your ears, forces you to hit your forehead repeatedly against your desk. This has the advantage of breaking eye contact with whatever it was you were reading, as well as making your eyes water, thus preventing you from reading it again for some minutes. (Of course, one could ask why you would want to read it again, but it is cheaper than getting whipped by a leather-clad Valkyrie… although nowhere near as enjoyable.)

However, there are also numerous “articles” lurking there that are enough to reduce grown homo sapiens to tears. Most of these involve scientific or technical entries (you are advised to put a pillow on your keyboard before perusing “Professor” Ed Poor’s “contributions” to mathematics), which is understandable, given the general hatred for and ignorance of all things scientific by Andy (himself a B.Sc graduate) and his minions. One such article, is their entry on Time… which reduced me to such a teary state that I missed the Head-Desk completely and incurred a rare – and potentially crippling – Head-Knee.

Art Imitating Idiots

We all know that the antics (not to mention the articles) at Conservapedia lend themselves to parody in the most wonderful fashion… unless you, like Terry Koeckritz don’t know the meaning of the word, in which case they lend themselves to lies and teh liberal deceits. In fact, somewhere on CP (probably the main page talk archives, if they still exist – we know Andy’s talk page archives have mysteriously vanished) is a comment by him that parody does not exist for precisely that reason. Er… I mean, that parody is actually lying of course, not that Terry doesn’t understand the meaning of the word. The latter goes without saying. Indeed, a vast amount of parody still exits on the site - which we can’t reveal for obvious reasons, even though most of it appears to have been written by Andy Schlafly himself.

This'll end in tears...

Oh dear. User StephenE has been pretty useful on Conservapedia. He's spent most of his time beetling around, being a good wikignome and correcting many, many spelling and grammatical errors (of which there are MANY) on CP. Does he get thanked for his efforts?

No, of course not. You see, he made the mistake of getting frustrated with all the crap he was coming across and started to express his frustration in his edit comments, such as "VERBS! Sentences need VERBS! Subjects are nice, too." and more succinctly "Groan". Obviously the Powers That Be (in that case John Patti and Terry Koeckritz) can't have that so it's double team time.

This reminds me of somebody...

...because hell, we need a break from the insanity now and again. (and h/t to XKCD... possibly the greatest webcomic evah. Let the flame war begin!)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Skins"][/caption]

I See Stupid People

I'm just going to step off the Conservapedia short bus for a moment, to share this wonderful graph with you. In one simple picture, you get to see where all the stupid, crazy, easily led people live in the USA. But then, we knew that already, right?

[caption id="attachment_224" align="aligncenter" width="383" caption="Where the Birthers are..."][/caption]

(h/t to Break the Terror)

John Patti - A Special Kind of Stupid

I know "stupid" is virtually synonymous with Conservapedia and even more so where its "administrators" (again with the """", seeing as they do no admin) are concerned. However, there is one individual there, who deserves a special mention - Ohio's favourite Faulknerian man-child, John Patti. I've been promising this for a while, but there's been so much stupidity to wade through, that is was either a case of having a several volume blog post, or trying to put together a "highlights" package... although low-lights is a far more appropriate word.

Here's an example to start off with: Conservapedia does, of course, have a massive hard-on for all things Obama - and that includes his wife, the delectable Michelle. So it should come as no surprise when somebody adds the totally spurious "She is the first African American First Lady, descended from slaves brought from Africa by early Americans." Still, have no fear... CP has "admins" and this is probably on of the red flag articles, so one will be along shortly, to remove such rubbish. Well... whoops... CP's resident historian, RJ Jensen, leaves it in, and then here comes John the Boy Wonder... he's an "admin", he's responsible, he'll remove it.... oh dear. Instead of removing it, he adds the nonsensical "that were sold by rival tribes" to the sentence, as if that is even vaguely relevant. He also feels the need to tell us she has a staff of 22. (The slavery bit has since been removed by StephenE, who amazingly hasn't been blocked for "liberal vandalism" or something.)

With apologies to Dr McCoy, "It's stupidity Jim, but not as we know it."

Conservative Bible Project - Intellectuals killed Jesus!

(h/t to Toast for tipping me off about this. You gorgeous chick, you!)

Well, the Conservatisation of the Bible is underway. Young Andrew Sclafly started his day by "translating" six verses of Mark 3. (Here's the tidy version) I say "translating", because writing something in your own words isn't translating. It might paraphrasing, or even plagiarising, but not translating... even if you are going from English to Andyspeak.

Admittedly, at first glance it doesn't look too bad. After all, he is getting rid of all those nasty "thee's" and "thou's" which really have gone the way of the Dodo. (I'm always reminded of reading Taylor Calwell's epic 'The Earth is the Lord's' which has Genghis Khan spouting "thee's" and "thou's" and "shalt's" all over the place, when he was more likely to say the Mongolian equivalent of "One owt treadles gone askew on't spindle.") However, we soon see problems. In the opening sentence, Andy has "...and noticed man with a crippled hand." Yes, Andy's notoriously bad writing habits are coming to the fore. Maybe we'll have another Wicked Bible on our hands... you know, the one that says 'Thou shalt commit adultery"... although God knows what it'll say once Andy's finished with it.

Right, Andy doesn't have a beef with Obama

[caption id="attachment_174" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="HLR 1990 - Obama & Schlafly circled"][/caption]

I mentioned in the past that Andy Schlafly was on the Harvard Law Review at the same time that Barack Obama became its first black president. I've also mentioned that Andy also doesn't seem to like Obama very much. Maybe Andy ran against him and lost (and we all know Andy can bear a grudge... just look at his reaction when Richard Lenski handed him his ass, nicely gift-wrapped), or maybe it's because Obama is in the White House, several HLR staffers from that time are on his staff... and Andy's teaching home-schoolers in a New Jersey church basement. His mum must be so proud.

All this meant, of course, was that Andy's pet encyclopaedia blog could now spawn vicious articles about the then president elect (a trustworthy encyclopaedia, which opens its article on Barack Hussain Obama (because we must mention his "Muslim" name - at least they didn't go the Coulter route and call him B. Hussain Obama) by saying "allegedly born in Honolulu" and then goes on to list his shortcomings long before getting to the biographical details. However, now that he's in the White House and *gasp* doing a good job, Conservapedia has really gone overboard, as a glimpse at their latest main page will show - the "news" items, with their photo-shopped Obamas, especially. Of course, all Andy's little trolls have jumped onto the bandwagon, especially Ohio's favourite manchild, John Patti  - who is clearly incapable of having an original thought, as he swings from "Obama is Muslim", to "I'm a teabagger", to "I'm a Birther", to "He's a Commie... no, wait... he's the Gestapo!" Basically, whatever fad comes along that is anti-Obama, little Johnny boy is leaping aboard. One good thing, is that Ken "I have a million socks on the 'net" deMyer has also  abandoned his obsession with teh gay and leapt aboard Andy's ship of morons, and we look forward to him bringing his own special kind of stupidity to the whole mess, thus further discrediting Andy and his blog... if that's even possible.

Conservapedia's Law

No, that doesn't mean "Say Andy is right... or else", nor does it mean "Kiss Terry Koeckritz's ass and give him your e-mail address, chest measurement and name of your junior high school when he asks, or else". No, what this means - and I was remiss in not bringing this up earlier is that hot on the heels of "Best New Conservative Words" comes Andrew Schlafly's new master-piece, "Conservapedia's Law." I do confess to being surprised that it's not Schlafly's Law, or even Mummy Phyliss's Law... maybe deep down he realises that having his name associated with it will confirm his insanity to the world.

So what does CL hold in store for us? Brace yourself, because it's a doozie:

Conservapedia's Law is the observation that conservative insights increase over time at a geometric rate, as in 1-2-4-8-16-etc.

For example, there is a doubling in effective new conservative terms per century.

This startling revelation is based upon the findings of Andy "Best" New Conservative words exercise we spoke about. Now normally, before some new law that governs the universe is promulgated, you can bet that some pretty serious investigation and research has gone into its formulation. Fortunately, this isn't the case here. No, all Andy has done is take a bunch of words that he (and one or two parodists) decided were conservative and then chopped and changed them to fit his pre-determined result. Words were cast off as being "not conservative enough" in order to meet his "geometric rate" of growth. Maybe we'll see these one day in a list of "Not quite good" New Conservative Words, or "Worst" New Conservative Words.

Andy Schlafly does the Bible... again

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And Andy Schlafly saw the Word and said, “That ain’t right!”

It must be nice to be Andy Schlafly. Firstly you get to use Mummy’s money to fund your little on-line hobby and secondly, you get to have your own personal Stepford. In this case, however, it’s facts that enter Stepford all dull and boring and, well, factual and end up shiny, hollow, manufactured shells of their former selves. If I want to expand the metaphor a bit further, he can also lie back and hear the moans and cries of “Oh! Andy! You’re so great! You’re fantastic! You’re so clever!” provided by his personal echo chamber of Tweedledum and Tweedledumber, who also do a fantastic job of censoring anybody who might dare criticise Andy’s way of thinking, thus leaving him to wallow in the mud-pool of his own self-importance.

So what has our little bastion of conservadom done this time, you ask?

Oh, Rob, how could you?

I'll try to keep this short, but if you ever wanted proof as to why Conservapedia doesn't feature on any list of conservative websites (RightLinks - 121 entries, no CP; Listing of all known Conservative web sites - 388 entries, no CP. So much for the "trustworthy" encyclopedia that's supposed to be saving baby conservatives from the evils of Wikipedia), it's this: Firstly, Andy Schlafly promotes idiots like their resident "reds-under-the-bed" McCarthy-ite Rob Smith (no, not the really cool guy from The Cure) who continuously finds "commie" (who in the real word actually still uses that word??) plots everywhere, which he needs to write about, using a kind of English that would make a third grader blush. Just have a gander at his contributions; they're most... enlightening. (Why are most admins on Conservapedia semi-literate. Maybe John Patti will be able to inform me. maybe it's a requirement to be a CP admin?) Then he compounds the problem by not exercising any control over the gibberish they spew. (Then again, when an "encyclopedia" has an article titled "Homosexual Public Indecency Tolerated in San Francisco" you know that content - and certainly not family-friendly content - isn't high on their list.)

How to treat an editor on Conservapedia

I know I’ve moaned here about how Terry Koeckritz is driving away editors from Conservapedia, but I thought it prudent to give you a really clear and shining example of how he works. The irony behind it all is that he wouldn’t get away with it, unless the other administrators allowed him to... which they do, by remaining silent. Which means, by implication, that they are also quite happy for Conservapedia to die a slow death from lack of editors, or they are seriously scared of him – after all, the only Administrator who did stand up to him, has since been demoted and blocked from the site (and branded a vandal) – all because of the lies Terry told to Andy... who for once took action – but typically, the wrong action and too late. (PS Don't worry Jpratt... I haven't forgotten about you, it's just that Terry's special brand of idiocy deserved a special mention.)  http://condron.us/

More Koeckritz Deceit

Ah, 'tis truly a thing o' beauty to watch Terry Koeckritz swagger around Conservapedia, bullying editors, seeing only "enemies" and "liberals" everywhere (which is ironic, seeing as he's - by his own admission - basically about as conservative as I am Muslim) and lying shamelessly as he does so. It should be mentioned that the fact that the rest of the cowardly curs that "administer" the site allow him to do so, so I actually wish him well. More strength to you Terry, in your ongoing efforts to undermine yet another on-line "community". (I've reverted to using inverted commas here, because as was pointed out in a previous post, Conservapedia has no sense of community left).

Undermining Conservapedia... the TK Way

This is a really short post, but it's suddenly dawned on me, what a good job Terry Koeckritz is doing of undermining Andrew Schlafly's little Conservapedia hobby (besides blocking every editor who trys to add something constructive to the site).

Some background info first. In March 2009, long-time editor and administrator, Philip Rayment, finally decided he'd had enough of the nonsense at CP (especially the monstrosity that is the Obama article, as well as Andy branding him a liberal, for not agreeing 100% with Andy's views on gun control) . Philip packed his bags and left to start his own wiki - A Storehouse of Knowledge. At the same time, he posted a very detailed and accurate breakdown of his problems with Conservapedia... singling out Andy, Ed Poor and Terry for much deserved criticism. I won't go into his complaints here, but you can read them here.

"Best" New Conservative Words

Every now and again, appears as if Andrew Schlafly needs to reaffirm the reasons for his existence (or more likely the reason why mummy has to give him money to fund his little hobby). This normally takes the form of an “insight” (yes, folks, a “trustworthy” encyclopaedia that provides insights, instead of facts), a “mystery” (have a look at “Mystery:Young Hollywood Breast Cancer Victims” for a shining example of one. The bigger mystery for most of us is how does this man’s mind work?), or occasionally an essay, normally extolling the virtues of being conservative over being liberal. You also have to remember, in Andy’s world, you can only be one or the other – there is no middle ground with him… oh, and he sets the criteria for who qualifies too… and don’t expect those goalposts to be too steady either. condron.us

His latest magnum opus is an attempt to prove that the English language, and hence the world in general (unless everybody outside the US of A is excluded, because of Terry Koeckritz’s “Liberal Multiculturism”, of course), is becoming more conservative. He’s already had a go at attempting to prove that English is the greatest language ever, thanks to the introduction of the Latin Bible and its effect on the development of the language. This, of course, ignores the influence of Norman, French, German and all the other languages that English as we know it is based on. Also, by implication, wouldn’t Latin then be a greater language, as it was its influence that molded English, according to him?

But I digress. What good old Andy’s done now is derive a list of words, and the date they came into use, that he claims is conclusive proof that English is becoming more conservative – and is doing so on – what he calls - a geometric fit. It should be pointed out, before we have a closer look at this, that he’s laughably called it “Best New Conservative Words,” which means, by implication, that there must have been some “Not So Great Conservative Words” and even “Worst Conservative New Words.” Maybe one day, we’ll get to see what these are too!

The Two Faces of Ed Poor

Ah, good ol' Ed Poor - user 188 on Wikipedia, as he always tells everybody. Of course, he somehow neglects to mention the fact that he overstepped his authority there and was summarily stripped of his rights., reducing him to a mere, point-of-view-pushing peon. (After due process was followed of course - not on a whim, as it's done on CP.) Needless to say, somebody who loves abusing authority feels right at home on Conservapedia., where Ed is one of the sysops. Here he displays his complete ignorance of mathematics (he applies the "if-I-can't-understand-it-I-delete-it" method of editing), extreme homophobia and racism, misogyny (his article on CP entitled "Women wearing Pants" has to be read to be believed) as well as being CP's token Moonie. condron.us

Conservative Compassion?

Here's a quick little thought for you out there. Most of us, when a colleague suffers a loss, tend to rally around them and offer sympathy and support. One would think that this is a common human trait.

Not, however, on Conservapedia and certainly not where Terry Koeckritz is concerned. No, there they (and he) use it to score points in what is ultimately only the Internet, after all. (Although all conservatives seem to feel they are "under attack"; "surrounded" and "it's time to fight back". Hopefully, Obama will start rounding the treasonous little scumbags up and line them up against a wall, like the socialist dictator they claim he is. (I have names and addresses for his storm-troopers, when that happy day dawns).

Deceit, thy name is Terry Koeckritz

Before I launch into this edition, there's probably a few items I need to clarify.

The first is the concept of "oversight". One of the "nice things" about a wiki is that it keeps a history of all the edits made to various pages. The only way this history can be erased is by deleting and re-creating the page in question - something Conservapedia's admins are very good at doing. This is especially true of talk pages, where even if awkward questions are reverted, there's still a trace of it in the history.

The 5 Pillars of Evil and CP

Woot! 2 for 1 day today as we look at a funny comparison between Wikipedia and Conservapedia.

On Wikipedia (which CP will have you believe is a nest of commies, gays, baby-eaters, etc, etc), their Cabal put together a handy list, which they call the "Five Pillars of Evil", which describe the behaviour of a rougue administrator. To save you clicking on the link, here they are:

• 
  

  Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia incorporating only material deemed to be "encyclopaedic". This term need not have a consistent definition, but is always in alignment with whatever an administrator thinks.

  
  

• 
  

  Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, and, since administrators are community-appointed stewards, whose point of view could possibly be more neutral?

  
  

• 
  

  Wikipedia is free content that anyone may edit. All text is available under the purview of Wikipedia administrators and must be distributed or linked according to their wishes. Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone, but only admins control articles.

  
  

• 
  

  Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect the authority of administrators even when you may not agree with them. Be civil (note: ordinary users only). Avoid edit wars with admins, as they are always right; remember that there are 2,886,274 other articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss, so why don't you go somewhere else if you've got a problem? Act in good faith (Note: administrators can still assume bad faith on your part), and assume good faith on the part of administrators.

  
  

• 
  

  Wikipedia does not have firm rules for administrators.

  
  

Andy Schlafly – Educator “Extraordinaire”

It has been mentioned in the past that our Andy plies his trade as a teacher of home-schooled children (in between acting as legal council for a bunch of quacks). Whilst I have nothing against home-schooling per se, I have a great deal against his method of home-schooling.

Not content with putting together shabby, half-complete – and often incorrect – lectures, with facts twisted to suit his own bizarre world-view (anybody claiming that Columbus was not the first to reach America is, of course, a liberal liar. Tell that to Lief Ericson.), he also imposes that world-view on his unwitting students. During his last lecture series on American History (or rather Andy Schlafly’s View of American History), he set different final exams for his male and female students, because he seriously believes that girls are different intellectually to boys (and should bake more cookies). The ultimate irony was that he window-dressed this sexism as “chivalry”.

But more on that little saga in another post.

Land of the Free?

Editing at Conservapedia is a veritable minefield. Nevermind the restricted editing hours (08h00-00h00 EST, or whenever they feel like opening it), any administrator who might just happen to disagree with something you've posted will block you. This is usually for a period between 5 years and infinity (just to make sure you don't come back from the dead - or after the rapture in their case - and try and insert facts again). It's not just administrators either - it includes those mere peons upon whom Andy has bestowed blocking rights - these being far more important than editing or uploading rights.

There's no review board, no hearing and no appeal. Just boom- you're outta here.  The administrators do have a wonderful sense of irony, however. They sometimes tell banned users they can e-mail Andy to appeal... except Andy's e-mail is disabled and the blockee has their on-wiki e-mail rights revoked. Gosh, I bet that gets some chuckles down at the Arlen Specter effigy burning night.

Dramatis Personae

I suppose it's best to start at the beginning and list some of the main characters at Conservapedia, the alleged Wikipedia for conservatives (that even Conservatives don't know about - ConservativeUSA's so-called "Right Links" makes no mention of them, although Mother Phyllis' Eagle Forum is there), you'll be coming across very often in the posts that will follow. Fortunately, there aren't too many - between defections to a rival wiki and the administrators' habit of blocking everything that breathes, the average day's "recent changes" page constitutes several administrators and a horde of vandals - i.e. people trying to insert facts into the gibberish there. It's probably best to focus on the administrators for now, which is a misnomer, because the one thing they don't do is administration.