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.