Looks like a bunch of homeo­pathy sup­port­ers have got sick of not being taken ser­i­ously on the inter­net, and decided that the best way to gain the respect of the wider com­munity is to spam wiki­pe­dia until the ser­vice is over­loaded. I’m not sure whether the intent is just a DoS, or if they think people will just get so tired of revert­ing their edits that they just roll over and let them have their say. Either way, it’s a stu­pid plan; the abso­lute most they’ll achieve is that the pages they tar­get will be locked until they them­selves get bored and go away.

In any case, I won­der if the irony of the whole idea is lost on them? Surely the homeo­pathic way to do this would be to have one per­son say, very very quietly, what they want on the page, while in the same room as someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who is a Wiki­pe­dia user.

Hat tip to @xtaldave for the link.

From the Tele­graph, about the Large Had­ron Col­lider (emphasis mine, for the good bit):

Such is the angst that the Amer­ican Nobel prize win­ning phys­i­cist Frank Wil­czek of the Mas­sachu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy has even had death threats, said Prof Brian Cox of Manchester Uni­ver­sity, adding: “Any­one who thinks the LHC will des­troy the world is a twat.”

’nuff said.

The prob­lem with throw­ing around phrases like epic fail for trivial things like incor­rectly rat­ing fruit, get­ting roman numer­als wrong right on a watch, or fall­ing out of your exercise-​​wheel, and with get­ting irate about someone incor­rectly identi­fy­ing a har­vest­man as an insect or a spider or both, is that it leaves you very little room to express your even greater incredu­lity when you see some­thing like this.

I’m going to assume that no-​​one needs me to point out the obvi­ous flaw with that?

Wow. Just… wow.

I don’t know where to begin.

A few days ago, a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Cent­ral Flor­ida atten­ded mass at his Church. Dur­ing com­mu­nion, when the wafer was placed into his mouth, instead of eat­ing it, he took it and walked out. Cath­ol­ics went nuts; even after he gave it back, the Cath­olic League (more on them in a moment,) said

We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motiv­a­tion was. How­ever, if any­thing were to qual­ify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.

We just expect the Uni­ver­sity to take this ser­i­ously. To send a mes­sage to not just Mr. Cook but the whole com­munity that this kind of really com­plete sac­ri­lege will not be tolerated.

Over­re­act­ing much? Actu­ally, that kind of sac­ri­lege will be tol­er­ated, espe­cially in Amer­ica, where free­dom of reli­gion (and from reli­gious per­se­cu­tion) is guar­an­teed by the con­sti­tu­tion. Of course, the fan­at­ics don’t quite see it that way, and the poor kid has been get­ting death threats. Because that’s what turn­ing the other cheek means in America.

Oh, and just so we’re clear: steal­ing a cracker is a hate crime, but send­ing death threats? Oh, that’s per­fectly accept­able, rational beha­viour. If you don’t like the per­son. And if he’s stolen your magic lunch.

Enter PZ Myers, who, as usual, wrote about it the way it is, in a piece entitled It’s a Frackin’ Cracker. As usual, he pulled no punches in describ­ing the mob as what they are: well… a mob. He also offered to desec­rate a com­mu­nion wafer, if any­one would send him one. Cue a rapid switch of tar­get on the part of the Cath­olic League; they’re now engaged in a full-​​on offens­ive on PZ. Not for any­thing he’s done, but for some­thing he said he’d do. To a cracker. Appar­ently con­spir­acy to wound a bis­cuit is a car­dinal sin if you’re an insane Cath­olic — and Bill Dono­hue, the leader of the Cath­olic League, cer­tainly counts.

So — to get to the point — the Cath­olic League are try­ing to stir up a good ol’ fash­ioned witch hunt, and are inund­at­ing PZ with hate mail and death threats, and his employer with demands that he be fired. This is, to be frank, unac­cept­able. All PZ has done is exer­cise his right to free­dom of expres­sion, and he’s being tar­geted by a hate cam­paign. So what to do? Start up a sup­port cam­paign, that’s what.

PZ is ask­ing that people write a short note of sup­port to Pres­id­ent Robert Bru­ininks of his Uni­ver­sity — the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota, Mor­ris — and I second his request. PZ is one of the more out­spoken voices of reason on the inter­net, and it would be a shame if he were made to suf­fer unduly for some­thing as simple as express­ing his opin­ion. If you’re a rational per­son, even if you’re reli­gious, and don’t agree with PZ, please con­sider writ­ing a note in sup­port of his right to express him­self without fear of being victimised.

I already have. Here’s what I wrote:

Dear Sir,

I’d like to take this chance to add a note to the prob­ably hun­dreds you’ve already received in sup­port of PZ. He’s a great writer, a great edu­cator, and a credit to your institution.

It’s true that he’s out­spoken, and that he pulls no punches in express­ing his opin­ions. That is not a crime, and if Bill Dono­hue and his sup­port­ers restrained them­selves to respond­ing in kind then there would be no prob­lem. The fact that they have not, that they have resor­ted to a cam­paign of mass har­ass­ment, of death threats, and try­ing to cost PZ his job — in short, a cam­paign of ter­ror­ism — merely under­lines why it is so import­ant that we have people like PZ who are unafraid to call these people out on their hypo­crisy, and to cri­ti­cise their unac­cept­able beha­viour in public.

I hope that the inco­her­ent scream­ing of the mob will not pre­ju­dice you against PZ in any way, and that he will be allowed to con­tinue to bring credit to your insti­tu­tion amongst free-​​thinkers and ration­al­ists across the globe.

Sin­cerely,

Will Gor­ing,
Read­ing,
United Kingdom.

Appar­ently, in Sweden, people are gran­ted the human right to be invited to any birth­day party they want. Bur­eau­cracy ftw!

Jok­ing asside, this is a symp­tom of some­thing we’re see­ing more and more; this per­vas­ive idea that people have the right not to be offen­ded. Yes, it’s pretty harsh not to be invited to a party that every­one else is going to, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to go. You have the right to call the kid a jerk for not invit­ing you, and you have the right to recip­roc­ally not invite him to your party, but that’s it. It’s his party and it’s his right to decide who’s invited. It’s a pretty stu­pid, trivial example, but it’s just a symp­tom of the same sort of think­ing that leads people to think they have a right not to have their beliefs chal­lenged or their stu­pid­ity ridiculed. It’s a dan­ger­ous trend, because often one person’s “right” not to be offen­ded is indir­ect oppos­i­tion to someone else’s actual rights. In this case it’s the right of a child to not invite people he doesn’t like into his house, which is import­ant enough, but in more extereme case, it might be someone’s free­dom of speech or of expres­sion that’s being sup­pressed to keep people from being put out, and I don’t care how you dress it; free­dom of speech is more import­ant than anyone’s sensibilities.

I just couldn’t believe it when I read it; two men have been caught chip­ping frag­ments from the Heel Stone at Stone­henge. The BBC refers to them as both van­dals and “souvenir hunters,” and, while I sus­pect it’s tech­nic­ally true, I can’t help feel­ing that the second term lends an undeserved air of legit­im­acy to what they did. Let’s be clear about this; there is no excuse for their actions. They thought it was accept­able beha­viour to dam­age a beloved and fas­cin­at­ing national treas­ure, which belongs to us all, in order to claim exclus­ive own­er­ship of a tiny frag­ment of it. They’re scum, pure and simple.

… or er something.

Sud­denly I feel a lot bet­ter about myself again. I mean, I might have under­es­tim­ated the diversity of an import­ant order of mam­mals, but at least I can tell the dif­fer­ence between a cat and an orange. This guy is either stu­pid enough that he can’t or stu­pid enough to think sci­ent­ists can’t. I’m not sure which would be worse.

In any case, PZ says everything that needs to be said.

Both Phil and Ed have linked to this story:

After the Sunday ser­vice in West­min­ster Chapel, where wor­ship­pers were exhor­ted to wage “the cul­ture war” in the World War II spirit of Sir Win­ston Churchill, cab­bie James McLean delivered his ver­dict on Charles Darwin’s the­ory of evolution.

“Evol­u­tion is a lie, and it’s being taught in schools as fact, and it’s lead­ing our kids in the wrong dir­ec­tion,” said McLean, chat­ting out­side the chapel. “But now people like Ken Ham are tear­ing evol­u­tion to pieces.”

They seem to think it’s funny, and I guess I can see why; they’ve been liv­ing with this level of idiocy for a long time. Per­son­ally, I find it depress­ing whenever it rears its head on this side of the Atlantic.

Hat tip to Mike the Mad Bio­lo­gist for the spot. (Do fol­low that link, to read about Mike’s ideas for an FMT.)

Update: Yes, I know it’s actu­ally cor­rect. I’ve been told a few hun­dred times (well, five) in the com­ments already. You don’t need to add your voice to the echo cham­ber if that’s all you have to say.

Merriam-​​Webster have announced ‘w00t’ as their word of the year this year. I first saw this on the Metro this morn­ing, but when I got to work and Googled it, I found it repor­ted pretty much every­where. Unfor­tu­nately on their web-​​site the Metro cov­er­age has taken on a some­what tounge-​​in-​​cheek tone and been placed in their “weird” sec­tion. The paper pub­lic­a­tion had a much more endear­ingly earn­est and bewildered tone about it.

I’m really not sure I entirely approve of the choice. I mean w00t is not a word, it’s a mis­spelling of an exclam­a­tion of joy. It’s really not that dis­tinct from mak­ing “booya” your word of the year. The whole thing smacks of an attempt by Miriam Web­ster to show that they’re ‘down’ with the way ‘the kids’ are mak­ing use of lan­guage today, and prove that they’re still rel­ev­ant in a world where kids take pride in not being able to write a real Eng­lish sen­tence. Obvi­ously, as a gamer (and an online wit!) I’ve been known to use 1337-​​speak on occa­sion, but I’m not under the impres­sion that I’m part of some avant-​​garde lin­guistic revolu­tion; the whole thing is a con­vo­luted online joke born out of the nor­mal teen­agers’ desire to com­mu­nic­ate without their par­ents know­ing what they’re say­ing. It’s not a “new way of using lan­guage,” it’s a mod­ern take on that ridicu­lous pig-​​latin thing that most kids learn to talk in at the age of six, and we, as adults, should not be dig­ni­fy­ing it with a place in the dic­tion­ary; ixnay on the eetlay-​​peaksay.

Any­way, who says ‘w00t’ any­more? Surely they should have gone for ‘FTW!’

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