Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Wingnutopedia; This Is a Joke, Right?

Although I'd heard about Conservapedia ("The Trustworthy Encyclopedia") before, it wasn't until yesterday that I steeled myself and actually went over for a look. In case you haven't heard of it, Conservapedia is basically a wingnut version of Wikipedia. Yes, that's right: It's not bad enough that the personal prejudices and general stupidity of ordinary people/writers clouds and distorts "the facts" by accident, but God-bothering, evolution-denying, fag-hating, racist, knuckle-dragging, dimwitted, wingnut conservatives want to channel the forces of prejudice and stupidity and do it intentionally. It might actually be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Let me illustrate with a relatively innocuous example.

Here is the opening sentence from Barack Obama's Wikipedia entry:
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 general election.

Pretty straight-forward, right? Now compare that with the first sentence from Conservapedia's Obama entry:
Barack Hussein Obama II (allegedly born in Honolulu, August 4, 1961) is the 2008 nominee of the Democratic Party for president.

"Allegedly" born in Honolulu? Give me a break. Moving right along, we have the first sentence of Wikipedia's entry for John McCain:
John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presidential nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 presidential election.

Again, nothing to raise the eyebrows, but compare that with the first sentence of McCain's entry in Conservapedia:
John Sidney McCain III (born in the U.S. Panama Canal Zone, August 29, 1936), is the Republican nominee for President in 2008, prominent maverick politician and Vietnam War hero, and is the senior Senator of Arizona.

Are you gagging yet?

7 comments:

  1. It's a good thing that I have an empty stomach but dry heaves suck.

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  2. Interesting that the fulsome John McCain entry has inventive syntax rearing its tiny head (the last "and").

    And there is something pathetic there ...the complete terror in the face of change of the right wing is a fear of death, to survive they would hasten their own deaths and those of everyone around them.

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  3. If I was bulimic I wouldn't even need to stick my finger down my throat - I could just go straight to Conservapedia. Bloody hell!

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  4. Sornie,
    I hyperventilate to stave off the urge to hurl...

    Artsparker,
    Disagreement and hyperbole are, I think, a normal part of political debate, but the Right (and not only in the US) is really dragging the whole mess right into the sewer these days.

    AV,
    Ah, so Conservapedia is actually a clever online emetic! ;-)

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  5. *


    Recently an insurance company nearly wind up....


    A bank is nearly bankrupt......filing chapter 11 protection.


    How it affect you? Did you buy insurance? Did you buy mini note or bonds?



    Who fault?


    They bailout trouble finance company, but they will not bail out your credit card bills……And the bill out of company is still not enough yet…….You got no choice, and no point pointing finger but you can prevent similar things from happen again……


    The top management of the Public listed company ( belong to "public" ) salary should be tied a portion of it to the shares price ( IPO or ave 5 years ).... so when the shares price drop, it don't just penalise the investors, but those who don't take care of the company.....If this rule is pass on, without any need of further regulation, all industries ( as long as it is public listed ) will be self regulated......because the top management will be concern about their own pay check……
    Meanwhile if company was being acquired, there will be a great movement in terms of staff……eventually staff suffer also.
    Some might feel that it sound stupid….. as there is long and Short position…but in reality there is still many different caliber CEO…..so there is still long and short…..They can ban short selling definitely they can do something about this.......


    Are you a partisan?

    Sign a petition to your favourite president candidate, congress member, House of representative again and ask for their views to not just comment on this, and what regulations they are going to commit and implementation the regulation, I believe should vote for the one who come suggest good implementation and let’s see who back up, which don’t implement after just mentioning in the election campaign.....If you agree on my point, please share with many people as possible.... Finance and Media are the two only industries can shaken politics ( Maybe Hackers can ), please help to highlight also...

    Blog
    http://remindmyselfinstock.blogspot.com/

    Facebook, come and join as a friend and share with your friends…..
    Remind.myself@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous,
    Wow. That much work surely deserves a click to your site!

    ReplyDelete
  7. One of my favorite places for indulging morbid curiosity, too.

    ReplyDelete