Paul LePage is a creationist

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Michael

Like several other states, Maine recently had its party primaries for governor. Three candidates have emerged as the overall front runners. Libby Mitchell won the Democrat primary, Eliot Cutler didn’t have to worry about any of that since he’s running as an independent, and Paul LePage won the Republican nomination. And that’s where the danger is.

Paul LePage isn’t too far from the ideals of the Teabaggers. He hates government, poor people, basic services, and most of all, education. In an interview from May 27, he was asked “Do you believe in creationism, and do you think it should be taught in Maine public schools?” Here is his answer.

I would say intelligence, uh, the more education you have the more knowledge you have the better person you are and I believe yes and yes.

It’s unclear what the word “intelligence” is doing in his answer as the concept is nowhere to be found.

Few if any who visit FTSOS are going to vote for LePage, I know. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important to get the word out that he is anti-science. One way to do this is to buy a bumper sticker which reads “No Creationism in Public Schools. No to Paul LePage.”

This is the last guy any state needs as a leader.

Filed under: Creationism | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

‘The Dirty Dozen’

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Michael

Christopher Maloney has arbitrarily chosen 12 sites which criticize him, referring to them as “The Dirty Dozen”. I mentioned this recently. Now some of those sites are picking up on him.

I have been promoted to “The Dirty Dozen”, a minion, nay, a TOP minion of PZ Myers. You see, PZ Myers literally has MILLIONS of minions and for somebody (even a quack like Christopher Maloney, or even a stranger quack purporting to be Christopher Maloney) to recognise me as one of the TOP 12 minions is a singular honour.

I just want to take this time to thank my parents, without whom I would never have been able to achieve this honour. And I would like to thank my team and especially the crowd from #pharyngula who have made all of this possible. I would like to thank my lovely wife, whose support and assistance during this time has made all of this possible. And thank you all, for your loyal support. And last, but not least, I would like to thank Dr. PZ Myers. Without his inspiration and mentoring, I would surely never have been able to win this award. Thank you.

At least he’s grateful.

Of course, not all are so gracious.

So, finally over, right? Wrong. Chris has apparently been busy putting up crummy websites about how awful PZ and his “drones” are. I made it onto his list of The Dirty Dozen.

Hey, I’m on a list with Steve Novella! And that would mean something if I respected this Maloney’s judgment!

Listen, Chris. I’m glad you hate me. You are a cancer quack, the worst type of shit there is, harvesting the hopes of the desperate. Seriously, look at what this animal put on his website about how he “treats” cancer!

That blogger, Happy Jihad, then goes on to quote this from Maloney.

Claiming to treat something like cancer is a bit like claiming to treat something like colds, except in this case we have a different cold specialist for each eye, each ear, and every part of the nostril. Oncologists will rightly yell that I have little to no experience with your particular subsection of cancer and that might be correct. But my reply is that despite all the extensive specialization we have been unable to stem the tide of cancer. Perhaps a slightly wider view of the whole body system would be beneficial.

“The tide of cancer” is a phrase which means nothing. It’s intentionally ambiguous; the alt-med crowd doesn’t like to be pinned down and so use nothing-terms to avoid backing up anything they say. Does it mean survival rates? Does it mean frequency rates? Does it refer to carcinogens? It’s impossible to tell from any of this.

As for “a slightly wider view of the whole body system” being beneficial, this is more ambiguous language. It’s a promotion of vague alt-med ideas – none of which have significant supporting evidence.

At any rate, more websites are picking up on Maloney. The reason? He keeps chirping. I’ve said it so many times now, but I’ll say it again: He cannot make anything better. He can only not make it worse.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Irony?

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Michael

I hiked a few trails near Camden, Maine today. It was one of those foggy, cloudy days where the heaviness of the air can be felt on every inch of skin. To cap things off, the final hour of hiking consisted of a heavy drenching. While I would obviously rather hike in 70 degree, perfectly sunny weather, there’s always something I love about being in the rain on the side of a mountain. It feels like their can’t be a moment in the day I’m wasting.

One of the trails I was on came out at Maiden’s Cliff, which rises about 800 feet above sea level. In 1864, 12 year old Elenora French chased her wind blown hat as it swept towards the edge. Not realizing how close the danger really was, she lost her footing and fell to her death in front of Megunticook Lake. Now there is a cross in memorial of her short life.

Seeing the irony in taking a photo of me as I reflectively read Elenora’s memorial plaque next to a giant white cross, a friend snapped this:

I like it.

Filed under: Hiking | Tagged: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

It’s so simpy!

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Michael

Instead of laying low like a good quack, Christopher Maloney has expanded his lies. He has made several sites, each one more poorly done than the last. And it’s all so perplexing. He cannot make anything better. We’ve already destroyed his web presence – “we” meaning the readers of this site, Richard Dawkins’ site, PZ Myer’s site, Respectful Insolence’s site, Dr. Novella’s site, David Colquhoun’s followers on Twitter, and the hundreds of other bloggers who picked up on the malarkey of Maloney. The best he can do is not make things worse. But fine. If he wants to keep expanding his Internet footprint (despite not really understanding how the Internet works), I’ll keep posting about him on my blog. After all, sure, I’m number 1-4 in Google for “Christopher Maloney Maine” when the quotation marks are included, but I’m only number 6 without them.

Of course, maybe this is just me making another simpy rant.

Previously, I have been bewildered by your need as individuals and as a group to attack me. But as I have come to understand you, it has become clear that you are sad and lost. Rather than engage in constructing the society that you would like to live in, you have given up hope and simpy rant from the sidelines.

I guess he’s made some progress. Instead of going to length to let all who visit his main website know that half the Internet has attacked him, he has moved everything several links away. But he loses points for directly addressing two distinct audiences on the same page.

Pharyngula: the Master Blog

Unless you happen to be interested in the opinions of the ignorant (basically internet graffiti), it is necessary to both moderate a blog and to respond to personal emails. Since PZ Myers does neither, his blog is the equivalent of a bathroom stall in terms of quality of information.

Yet if you search for replications of Myers’ blog posts, you will find several dozen individuals who are intelligent enough to copy his information but do not engage in any true evaluation. These are his “minions” people who either automatically post his ramblings or add their own profanity to his tirades.

I actually have several responses from PZ in my email. Hell, I even have a Cc response from Simon Singh during the height of his legal troubles. Maybe not everyone deserves a response about everything? Crazy, I know.

As far as moderating goes, no. Unless someone is spamming or posting something which may bring about moderation from the hosting site (e.g., porn), there ought to be free range for users. I can understand why a naturopath would be against this sort of open exchange, but Maloney is wrong on this one.

Next up, Maloney links to a number of “Myer’s Minions”, arbitrarily picking 12 (several of which I hadn’t even seen until just moments ago) and calling them “The Dirty Dozen”. I presumed they would all be “simpy” copy and paste jobs of PZ’s post. That would make sense since he apparently has excluded FTSOS from the list, right? Well, most are repeats, but a couple clearly are not. One is Dr. Novella’s post which goes to length to refute Maloney’s bull and misrepresentations. Another is A Hot Cup of Joe. This one gets cited twice, once for a recount of PZ’s post. The second time, however, goes to length to address Maloney’s malarkey.

So give this a moment’s thought (because Maloney clearly did not). He’s been trying to hammer home that everyone is just a minion or parrot of PZ’s, yet he includes sites which do no such thing. (Note, there is nothing wrong with the repeats; they’re why I’m back in business.) One wonders why, then, he would exclude the central person in the criticism of him and his profession – me.

But don’t worry! Under “Pharyngula” I finally get my mention. (Because that’s the location that makes the most sense. Sure.) I’m so flattered.

The Maine kid with an English degree who can’t read science.

First I was a freshman. Then I was 18. Then I was an English major. And now I have an English degree. Oh, and naturopaths apparently read science. Not scientific literature, raw data, or anything of that nature. They literally read science itself. It’s magical.

Here Maloney links to an old post of his which just repeats his lies and anti-vaccine positions. I’ve already addressed them.

My absolute favorite part of Maloney’s new quack outlet has to be this.

Did Myers basically turn over his blog to some Maine kid? Is he losing it? I haven’t seen a single “campaign” against the pope, child molesting priests, or specific evangelicals. I’ve been reading through Myers blog, and organizing attacks is not his style. He’s not a rabble rouser, he’s a rabble collector. More like a bar tender than a guru.

There are two possibilities here. One, Maloney is lying and he has not actually read through PZ’s site. Two, he has read it, but he just likes to lie that much. It’s tough to pick one.

When has a week gone by where PZ hasn’t attacked the pope or priests? Since when is attacking Graham and others not specific enough? Was Crackergate not a big enough “campaign”? Christ. This is such basic information about Pharyngula.

A lot of this junk has already been addressed, I know. For instance, Maloney is still insisting that he had a post which was not allowed. He has already been told several times that he triggered the spam filter because he included five links. The exact same thing would happened to him on FTSOS (and I think I’m being rather generous with how many I allow). But do any of these facts matter? Of course not.

So I will end with this final gem:

For the sake of clarity, I took on the role of Quackalicious and was clear about who I was. Almost all the posters maintain anonymity, allowing them to say things that they would never say to someone in public. The following posts should be taken within the framework of a black man walking into a KKK meeting. People were prejudiced against me from the start, and I had to keep my temper while having a deluge of profanity hurled my way.

Oh, totally. I can really see how the plight of a black man is so similar to Maloney’s. I mean, he was judged by the piss-poor content of his ideas, his lack of empirical evidence, his dishonest behavior, and his insistence on spamming up the place with his Gish Gallop routine. Really, if black people would have just stopped doing all that, well heck, we probably wouldn’t even have had a civil war.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Where’s the shame?

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Michael

I really just think Christopher Maloney doesn’t quite understand the Internet. He will make out-of-context posts all over the place, often just repeating himself. For instance, once the Internet blew up in his face, he posted this letter on a number of sites. It makes specific references and is directly addressed to PZ. His website was even worse, where he put a shitload of posts (which no one was about to tease apart) from Pharyngula and elsewhere where he basically says “Look! Look at my responses! They were dismissed everywhere else, but now that I’m reposting them, they must be true!” He has since taken down a lot of that material, so I guess that shows promise. Honestly. By addressing everything with so much Gish Gallop nonsense, he only made himself look worse (which is a feat in itself); everything clearly was (and is) stressing him out, his (misdirected) SIWOTI sense was (and is) going off the chart, and he was (and still is) only making it worse. Since he obviously can’t make anything better for himself at this point, the best he can do is not make it worse. That should have been obvious from the get-go. It’s the Internet. Learn it.

But, alas, he wants to keep it going.

I have requested meeting Hawkins’ in person, and he has responded by running to your blog.

Note the time stamp on that post. It was May 6 at 7:52 am. Maloney made his request on May 5 at 9:07pm (and it came across as an ambiguous, disoriented threat to go to the police). Now look at the time PZ made his post. May 4 at 5:44pm. Maloney made his request a full day after I emailed PZ with an update. This rearranging of events is common for Maloney. I’ve already documented quite a bit of his lying, but he’s getting so blatant now that I’m almost bored.

Of course, there’s more.

Since this is our first actual exchange, I will repeat. Like all stalkers you will not have the courage to meet with me. It is part of the pathology of stalking, and you are creating a feeble rationale.

Immediately above that post I said I would meet him. The only “feeble rationale” that I put forth was that I would not do it at his convenience, on his terms, sans all other witnesses people, and I would not let him “ply” me with anything, even if it is only useless homeopathic ‘medicine’. He is the one demanding the meeting; he does not get to dictate the terms. Of course, to him this means that I won’t meet him at all.

If you were capable of examining your own actions objectively, you would see that I have not reacted angrily to months of ignorant abuse. I reacted only when you managed, somewhat bizarrely, to get me noticed by Myers.

Right. The hours of hunting down critical websites, the trolling of threads on Pharyngula a month later, and the lengthy posts on his own site certainly do not indicate any sort of anger. Right…r-right?

Oh, and it wasn’t bizarre at all that PZ posted about Maloney on Pharyngula. Maloney and Moritz emailed each other back and forth before collaborating on a plan to get me shut down. The fact that Moritz was the one who sent the whining email is inconsequential to the guilt of Maloney.

But, despite months of your obsession, this is our first actual exchange. To claim that I am somehow the irrationally angry person is classic projection of your own pathology.

Says the guy who has been continuously claiming on his own website that I’m the obsessed one? While he continued to troll Pharyngula, pressing what had become an old, dead issue?

I would ask you this: how have I injured you? Have I reacted in any way that would justify your obsession with me? The only email I sent you was one requesting no contact with me, my family, or my neighbers, which you did not honor.

I actually honored the request not to contact Maloney or his family. He claims he received a paper, but given that he also claims I stuffed it in his screen door, I suspect he’s just lying again. (I never open anyone’s doors, and I doubt I mistakenly gave him a paper in the first place anyway.) His request I not contact his “neighbers”, however, was a silly one. Aside from the fact that the relative closeness of the houses to each other in that area makes it good for distribution, the people physically closest to Maloney need to know the sort of quackery he practices.

But as for injury, naturopaths do not have the proper training to be receiving patients, except according to unfortunate state laws. That is enough motivation for me. The fact that Maloney brought attention to himself in the first place with a letter to the editor of the local paper just raised his profile.

Now I am requesting that we sit down and discuss the situation like adults, but it is evident that your pathology is too severe to allow you any insight.

No, he is requesting that we sit down with no witnesses people so he can “ply” me with diluted ‘medicine’. I’ll be happy to call him a quack to his face, but not under ridiculous, creepo terms.

Your university told me that they have brought up counseling for you, but that they could not force you to take their suggestions.

I have been forwarded an email where Maloney claims to have gone to my university. Apparently he wanted to discuss whether or not my paper was endorsed by UMA. I’ve never claimed any sort of endorsement, so I’m not sure why Maloney would think I have. At any rate, I’ve never been contacted by anyone from UMA for any reason whatsoever. Maloney is lying. Again.

The Augusta police department is very familar with you, and if you continue your obsession I will need to take legal action. Not as a threat, Michael, just to make sure you get help.

He says the APD is familiar with me as if I don’t know. After I wrote about how one officer had no idea how to handle a freedom of information request, I personally delivered a copy to the police department. When I later discovered that another officer who was mentioned in the article had a Facebook profile, I friend requested him (not because I thought he would accept, but instead because it made me chuckle to do it at all), sending him all the links in which he was mentioned.

But it’s cute that Maloney is pretending as if he isn’t making a threat. No, no. It’s just out of genuine concern for my welfare, right? Don’t mind all the lies leading up to this new claim.

But I’m curious. What would a lawsuit from Maloney look like? Aside from probably getting him far more national attention, I suspect it would be utterly ridiculed when everyone realized that the complaint came down to “someone was mean to me!”. But hell, maybe I would get more emails from people like Simon Singh and Richard Dawkins.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Thank you, connoisseurs of tits

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Michael

Ever since my post on the topless march in Farmington the blog traffic has been up markedly. In the 7 or so hours my post was up for the 30th, it garnered me 329 hits. Today it has been 850 (with 6 hours to go). I even received an email asking me to forward the uncensored pictures to some pro-topless web master. I’m not sure why anyone would think I’m the go-to guy on that one. Find a UMF student and ask*. In fact, one UMF student (who was not there herself) forwarded this (censored) Facebook album to me, and I didn’t even ask. I’m sure a little sleuthing will turn up all those fun pictures.

My favorite part of the increase in traffic, though, is not the hits to that one post. It’s actually the increase in hits to my Photography page that really tickles me. None of those pictures have anything remotely to due with any topless march. Hell, most of them aren’t even that topical.

If anyone is wondering about the big spike, it was for the 20th anniversary of Hubble.

*UMF didn’t sponsor the event, but the only reason the whole thing was held in Farmington was because of the college.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Topless march in Farmington

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

After protesters marched topless in Portland for equal rights, Andrea Simoneau, a 22 year old student at the University of Maine at Farmington, decided to organize a similar march in her school’s town.

Hundreds of spectators poured into the street and lined the sidewalks to watch, while clusters of protesters held up signs in opposition to the march.

That’s roughly the desired outcome. Make something that shouldn’t be a big deal into a big deal. It’s too bad that there were so many non-news cameras all over the place, but it can’t be said that that wasn’t expected. Nor could it be said that it was unexpected that some people on the other end of the spectrum would go too far.

Resident Elaine Graham took on the most active role of protest, following topless women with a blue blanket and holding it up to cover them during and after the march.

That’s really not okay. Graham was being disruptive of what was a legal protest in Maine. She really needed to stay at an appropriate distance with a sign or some other form of non-interfering expression. Of course, this isn’t the first time Elaine Graham has gone too far.

Meet Elaine Graham of Farmington, Maine. This is Elaine Graham being expelled from a Judiciary Committee work session on the same sex marriage bill last April. I have no idea at all what she is screaming. However, Ms. Graham is holding three crudely crafted signs. The top one reads: “Mission Homosexual Movement CHANGE WORLD MORAL ORDER.”

(I added the link to the image.)

No stranger to silliness, Graham has again and again publicly expressed her sexual immaturity in ways more inappropriate than what’s par for the course. It’s sad and pathetic, really. Burdened with hatred based in Christianity, she cannot accept that other people have a more adult view than she when it comes to sex, the human body, and even love.

Finally, here’s one of the pictures from the march. Obviously I’m not going to upload bare breasts on WordPress (nor am I going to link to anything besides news images, should images be floating around out there), but I think it’s worthwhile to upload this particular picture because it captures the whole event so well. Graham is there, misbehaving out of sexual immaturity, while who knows how many men take video and pictures of the event.

This contrasts so much with a show I saw in Portland last night. The bulk of the show had three bands/musicians (one of which was Theodore Treehouse), but in between sets there was a belly dancer. Any person would have fallen over him- or herself if this woman merely made eye contact, but notably, everyone refrained from recording. There were a couple of photographers for the show itself, but no one in the audience pulled out a camera or cell phone and started snapping away. It wouldn’t have been appropriate by and large, but it also would have really distracted from what was actually a very skilled and talented performance. Of course, the reason for this difference in reaction is the certainly higher sexual maturity present in the audience at that show versus the sexual maturity of those who showed up to gawk in Farmington. People were able to recognize that the belly dancing was not a sexual act; many (though certainly not all!) in Farmington saw the topless march as a sexual display. It wasn’t.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Catholic Church punishes homeless

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Michael

The Catholic Church doesn’t seem able to do anything good these days. Between promoting the spread of disease by telling people condoms are immoral to covering up child rape scandals (or is it “petty gossip? I forget), the Church appears to be actively trying to harm the world. Not that this is anything knew, but the media has obviously been hopping on the band wagon a lot more recently. I hope it continues, such as is the case in this deplorable tale of evil.

[Maine Gov.] Baldacci decided to hold the spaghetti feed after learning last month that the Catholic Church had withdrawn funding for Preble Street’s Homeless Voices for Justice program because of Preble Street’s support for same-sex marriage.

…

Homeless Voices for Justice lost $17,400 for this year and will lose $33,000 that it expected for its next fiscal year. All of Wednesday’s donations will go to the statewide advocacy group, which works on issues that affect the homeless.

Baldacci is a Catholic himself, but he isn’t so blinded by religious dogma that he can’t recognize the difference between right and wrong. He has helped to correct an ugly act and bring attention to an evil, petty organization that cares more about its bigoted agenda than helping out human beings.

But maybe the best part of this is that he isn’t up for re-election. While I would like to see him continue as governor (he is constitutionally prohibited from doing so), it’s so nice to see him acting based upon what he thinks is right, not simply what is politically convenient. In fact, he began his tenure as governor by claiming to be against same-sex marriage – which was a lie to help get him elected – but once he faced no consequences for the truth, he approved a bill for equal treatment in Maine (which was struck down by bigots helped illegally by non-taxed political donations from the Catholic Church). This doesn’t make him a great man necessarily, but the waning months of a person’s time in office are often the best because they reflect what that person actually thinks and wants.

Filed under: News, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Belgium to ban burqa

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Michael

A bill is making its way through the hoops in Belgium that would ban the covering of one’s face with clothing in public, effectively banning some of Islam’s most prolific tools of oppression.

The draft law would make it illegal to wear clothing that covers all or part of the face, which would also include the facial veil known as the niqab. Defying the rule could lead to nominal fines of $20 to $35 or possible imprisonment for up to seven days. Proponents say they’re targeting the burqa not because of its religious symbolism or even because it is widely seen in the West as a sign of male oppression, but rather for safety reasons: they say that people who hide their faces represent a security risk. In that light, the law also seeks to target potentially violent demonstrators who cover their faces, backers say.

I don’t believe that for a second. Everyone knows the purpose of the burqa is to oppress women – and reasonable people reject its use on that basis.

This reminds me of blue laws. In their original form, these laws are meant to enforce what the religious think people should be doing. That is, they are immoral impositions of morality. In the U.S., they are usually unconstitutional since they endorse a religion, but court rulings have tended to cite the modern secular reasons the laws are maintained. (Incidentally, the secularization of Christmas is why it legally remains a federal holiday.) Recently in Maine, there was an attempt to allow car dealerships to be open on Sundays, something they currently cannot do. There was a backlash from that industry that pointed to higher costs and effectively forced openings on Sunday due to higher competition. It’s that sort of reasoning that makes what were once blue laws into just regular, secular laws.

Belgian lawmakers are utilizing this sort of reasoning in their rationale for banning the burqa. They’re claiming security since the religious basis has less clout. The difference, however, between what happened with Maine car dealerships and what is happening in Belgium is that the dealership owners really did have secular reasoning; it wasn’t just a thinly veiled lie.

Of course, not everyone is lying.

But the bill’s chief sponsor, Daniel Bacquelaine of the liberal Reformist Movement party, admits that cultural considerations have also come into play. “In an open society, we need common values and we need equal rights and duties,” he says. Bacquelaine estimates the burqa is worn by only a few hundred of Belgium’s 630,000-strong Muslim population, but the numbers have been rising in the past decade. “It has become a political weapon,” he says. “There is nothing in Islam or the Koran about the burqa. It has become an instrument of intimidation, and is a sign of submission of women. And a civilized society cannot accept the imprisonment of women.”

Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Matt Mullenweg

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Michael

Matt Mullenweg is the big honcho around WordPress. When my blog got shut down, I left him a message on his Facebook fan page informing him that he had been had by a stupid, dangerous man. I also cited his own complaints over censorship from several years earlier. I never did get a direct response, but my blog was quickly reinstated.

This left me with a taste of curiosity. Was it just coincidence that I got my site back shortly after sending the big guy a message? I had sent countless emails to “Mark“, so it was plausible that those combined with the big hub–bub across the Interwebblings was what did the trick. But since I never got any response or notification, it was impossible to tell. Until now.

It does look like Mullenweg was the one who fixed everything. Look at February 22 on his fan page. There is one post there praising him for reinstating my blog. But what is not there is what’s more interesting. Notice there is no post from yours truly; there’s no point where I tell Mullenweg that he was had. There should also be two other posts telling him roughly the same thing from two other people. He clearly saw all the posts. This is certainly evidence that he was aware of my situation; this plus the timing of the reinstatement of FTSOS indicates to me that he was the one who fixed the error made by “Mark”.

Even though I appreciate his (silent) corrective action, I find little justification in his sanitizing of comments. Sure, we all get embarrassed from time to time, and criticism is occasionally unpleasant, but leave that sort of hide-your-follies-behind-the-delete-button-stuff to the quacks.

Fortunately, I have a blog where I can expose these minor embarrassments.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

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