Thunderf00t keeps proving me wrong

I was so, so, so wrong to invite him to blog here. His latest escapade: a woman wrote a letter to his employer complaining about his assholishness, trying to get him fired*, and so he doxxed her and sent his legions of haters to ruin her business with bad reviews. And of course the scum at 8chan are excited and see blood in the water and are cheering on attempts to drive her to suicide.

These are truly terrible, awful, vile people. I’ll never forgive myself for inviting him to join us at a network that’s the antithesis of everything he stands for.

The people who have been targeted by 8chan and Thunderf00t are struggling to keep their business afloat, and have created a fundanything page to raise money, and so far they haven’t even come close to what the thundering asshole gets for every video he makes. Yeah, people suck.

*This was a bad move for a number of reasons. 1) it was going to have no effect (I speak from experience) and should have no effect, 2) his employers certainly already know that he’s an asshole, and have no problem with it, and 3) it gave him an excuse to be openly vindictive.

Todd Starnes, entomologist

couple-weds-while-covered-in-bees

Todd Starnes, Fox News wingnut, must really love insects, because he’s begging his god to send more.

When the public schools tell students that our Founding Fathers were a bunch of terrorists: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field! When a teacher tells a little boy he can’t pray over his meal: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear that field! When the Pentagon tells them to take down a cross on a Christian chapel: Send those hornets! Clear the field! When the Supreme Court says they know better than God: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field! And, when the president says that America is no longer just a Christian nation: Don’t send the hornets, Lord. Send the mosquitoes and the gnats, and the bumblebees and the lightning bugs and the cicadas! Send every critter you got, Lord! Clear the field!

[Read more…]

The reality of a career in biology

biocareers

37% of students entering biology Ph.D. programs drop out? Only 8% achieve the goal of getting a tenure track faculty position? That last statistic, at least, isn’t as bad as it sounds, since there are lots of alternatives.

I’d also add, though, that this is another case where random drift, rather than selection, probably dominates. Those 8% aren’t likely to be the best (although some are!), but only the most persistent, or the luckiest.

Wow, it sure is easy to become a “psychology expert” on Fox News

They have one! Her name is Gina Loudon, and her qualifications are…

Loudon, a tea party activist who became a reality star after she and her husband joined ABC’s Wife Swap

She also has a Ph.D. in a “psychology related field” from an online university, and has published in such distinguished journals as Breitbart, WND, and Townhall. I wonder if the APA would agree with her title.

She’s also using her lofty position as the Fox News Psychology Expert to dispense dangerous stupidity. She’s against transgender surgery because — I love this, coming from a Tea Party Reality TV star — it’s anti-science.

And the science is on my side of this, she remarked. I’m not sure why the other side is deciding to be science deniers now. Johns Hopkins University ended their program because they realized that people who go through with the sex change surgery have a 20 fold increase in suicide rates as opposed to those who don’t.

As is pointed out at the link, she’s referring to a debunked study to make that claim. She seems to buy into the idea that transgender men and women are just mentally disordered, who need more therapy to get over it.

There’s a video of Loudon. I haven’t watched it. I have a personal rule against watching videos of anyone chatting with Steve Doocy — I only have so many brain cells to spare.

Ben Carson is simply a horrible human being

I think we all know that already, but his latest interview clinches it. He wants Roe v. Wade overturned, and he compares abortion to slavery.

Think about this. During slavery — and I know that one of those words you’re not supposed to say — but I’m saying it. During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said, ‘You know, I don’t believe in slavery, I think it’s wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do.’ Where would we be?

You know, you could talk to the slaves, they could express themselves, they could speak about their anger and pain. A blastula or a fetus are not comparable to Frederick Douglass. And more, slaves were forced against their will to live in shackles — if you’re going to compare slavery to anything, it ought to be the women who are compelled to bear children against their will.

Rape or incest, I would not be for killing a baby because the baby came about in that way. And all you have to do is go and look up the many stories of people who have led very useful lives who are the result of rape or incest.

Shouldn’t the women have a voice here? All you have to do is go and look up the many stories of women who had abortions and lived useful, happy, productive lives afterwards, in careers that would have been cut short if they’d been forced into motherhood.

But oh, right, the women don’t matter in Ben Carson’s head.

He’s such a horrible person, without a thought in his head.