I give up

I have just spent over an hour of my day cleaning up the spam from the insane asshole, David Markuze/Mabus. I’m still not done; I’ve got various tools cranking away in the background purging his recent eruption of hate-filled, lunatic rants. 160 comments, all saying the same thing.

It’s too much, and it’s eating up way too much of my time. Starting Monday, I’m turning user registration back on. I know, a lot of you find it a real pain, and it will inhibit some people from commenting…I’d rather not do it. But I’m serious: David Markuze is costing me too much time and effort, and I have to take some fairly extreme efforts to cut him off. Blame him, not me.

If any of you know a way to get to his ISP (he’s Canadian, lives in Quebec, and currently uses the IP address 70.48.98.204) and convince them that he is committing egregious abuse of his privileges on the internet, that would be a useful alternative. I doubt that we can shut him down at the source, though, so my only choice is to throttle everyone here.

P.S. All of you who responded to Mabus are not helping. The next time this happens I’m also purging all of your comments, so don’t bother making them.

P.P.S. Fair warning: this kind of thing also frays my tolerance to a frazzle. There are a few other morons who have been commenting here regularly, and it’s not going to take much to make me snap and finally get around to banning your useless, parasitic asses. Silver Fox, Pete Rook, and Facilis…I’m looking at you. You might want to lie low until the “Hulk Smash” mood fades a little bit.

Bad Science: the missing chapter

While Ben Goldacre was writing his book, Bad Science, he was also being sued by the crank, Matthias Rath…which meant he was under a lawyer-mandated gag order and couldn’t include his debunking of Rath in the book. Now that the suit is ended (Goldacre won), he is making the chapter on mega-vitamin charlatan Matthias Rath freely available on the web. It’s a disgusting story of exploitation of the sick: Rath’s main contribution to the world was the undermining of efforts to treat HIV-infected people in Africa.

Don’t threaten the Discovery Institute—they are frail and delicate

Someone at the Discovery Institute received a vaguely threatening email. If the writer is someone who reads this, you’ve done something disgraceful, and you should send an apology immediately; we do not threaten to silence or cause harm to the clowns of creationism. Laugh at them, dissect their arguments, explain that they are damaging education in this country…but you draw the line at intimidation and threats of personal damage. Got it?

That said, I have to also say that the DI’s reaction was amusing. This is the first time they’ve received a death threat? Overall, then, our side (with the obvious exception of this one violator) has been commendably restrained — I’ve been receiving email with that tone or worse for years now, several times a week. I wish the abusive jerk had not done this stupid thing, so that our record would be spotless.

I shall be certain to wear this shirt in NY

I just got my very own I [squid] NY shirt, which prompts a few questions. When are we going to get a squid html entity, like ♥? I’m sure it would be used heavily. How would New Yorkers interpret this shirt, anyway (I know, New Yorkers see enough weirdness that they don’t care)?

I’m going to be in NY briefly on the first of May. If I wear this shirt, will somebody mug me and steal it from me?

i-c3f2f2dc90d93762d38335506eb71c5f-isquidny.gif

Yes, Virginia, Mad Scientists do exist

You have to watch this weird and engrossing video about Robert White, the neurosurgeon whose goal was to achieve a total body transplant. He’s the guy who was doing the monkey head transplants: cutting the head off one monkey, and sewing it onto the body of another…and it’s hard to get more Herbert West than that.

I’m afraid the freakiest part of the video for me, though, was that he has a reserved table at the local McDonalds.

No One May Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again

I have a t-shirt with those words on it; it’s from the Museum of Jurassic Technology exhibit of letters to Mount Wilson Observatory, a fascinating collection of crackpot letters written to astronomers between 1915 and 1935, containing the astounding theories created by people around the world, who all thought they could revolutionize science with their insights. It’s an exhibit well worth browsing—here’s one sample letter.

To whom it may concern:

This is to certify, That I have found the Key To all Existance. And all I ask of any one Is for them to read What I am about to say. Because it is not my purpose to tell What you already know. And consequently the proof Shall follow and establish My work to make it law.

For the key to all existance Is the key to the Law By which all things Come into existance and therefore my word Is the key to that law to be verified by proof Listen therefore to what I say As follows:

The Moon Is practically all Water frozen or Ice It was formed By water evaporating From the earth Which arose and gathered Between the Earth and Sun It is hollow Like a pumpkin The inside is composed of that part of the air known as Nitrogen And very very cold Consequently its water is frozen.

If the crust of the moon Was removed, it would be a Sun bright enough To destroy the earth. There is no life upon the moon, but Without the moon There would be no life upon the earth.

And it goes on, at length.

Now Pascal Boyer has put together a brief ontology of crackpottery. He seems to have rediscovered the Salem Hypothesis — ‘scientists’ who claim to have disproven evolution are often actually engineers — in a rather more general form, and has a few other generalizations, like that all crackpots are male, that are only roughly true (I can think of many exceptions: famous ones would be Madame Blavatsky and Ayn Rand). Come to think of it, though, most but not all of my raving mad anti-fan mail does come from males…

It’s an interesting read, if you find yourself fascinated by the psychopathology of pseudoscience.

Christian nation?

Let’s smash this silly poll about the status of the US.

President Obama said, ‘We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of a values. How do you feel about those comments?

Offended – America is still a Christian nation – 78.4%

Agree – No one religion is more important – 10.0%
Agree – Our country is not based on religious beliefs – 9.3%
Don’t care – 2.3%

Crazy. There’s something these people need to understand: that the nation and its government are secular does not mean that individuals cannot be religious. Similarly, this is not an atheist country, but that doesn’t mean a citizen can’t be an atheist.