Negativesmart

When people are too irrational to bother arguing with, there are a few strategies that can be used. PZ Myers is a proponent of ridicule, and that seems to be fairly effective in many cases. However, if no intervention is required in order to prevent harm to third parties, I prefer to go with the [...]

It’s 3pm. Good morning, everybody. How hungover are you? I made it out okay, I think. Drinking water through the night, that’s the secret. The secret that everybody knows. The secret that nobody bothers with. Apparently it works, though. Who knew. I’m the only one awake. Me and the cat. I have to work tomorrow, [...]

Hell with Prop 8. Can we repeal marriage altogether? For everyone? As far as I’m concerned, the government belongs out of my bedroom, and out of my relationships period. They don’t have a say in who I can be friends with, they shouldn’t have a say in who I choose to be more than friends [...]

I’ve recently encountered one of more real-life believers of the following woo lies: homeopathic “medicine“, acupuncture, colon cleansing, raw food diets, organic-only diets, detox diets, vitamin C and echinacea for colds, cupping, “The Secret“, psychic powers, ghosts, 9/11 conspiracies, astrology, and various gods (to name only a few). I know how to handle these sorts [...]

…I’m going to get really bored, and stage my own UFO hoax. Whoever is behind this very elaborate one is obviously having one hell of a laugh (there’s more of this BS scattered all over the interwebs, including Flickr sites and yadda yadda, but if you click any of the links I’ve posted here, you’ll [...]

Roman’s miles: How to find [inconvenient] truth about youself? Truth about anyone that tries this: Cares too much what other people think about them. Insecure. Uptight. Cowardly. Bureaucratic. Perhaps a try-hard. I hate try-hards. I dunno, this reminds me of slam books in third grade… “How much do you like me on a scale of [...]

No one gets to steal this idea from me… but I’m going to share anyway. New-agers are always going on and on about chemtrails… and how orgonite “gifting” around cellphone towers etc. can combat them… And they have all sorts of forums and logs set up detailing their gifting trips… Well, I figure… all I [...]

I know several people (including my husband) that work at Starbucks, and I’ve been told by them that the word “Christmas” is off-limits this year, and that “holidays” has been suggested to them as an alternative. Indeed, itsredagain.com, Starbucks’ holiday website, doesn’t include the C-word anywhere (except where it’s been submitted by users). The whole [...]

“Canada’s New Government”? Blah blah blah, some shit about some scientist or whatever. This is too stupid to even comment on. I’m guessing that everyone else agrees, since there are only 300-some articles to be found about this on Google News, and most of them don’t seem to be related to the rebranding. But this [...]

I found the local Scientology loony-bin by accident today while walking home from dropping off my rental car (oh yah — so my car is totalled and I won’t be driving again any time soon…) And now I must find some poor sucker to attend some of their meetings with me, because I feel that [...]

The new issue of Skeptical Inquirer reprints Stephen Barrett’s “Analysis of Kevin Trudeau’s ‘Natural Cures’ Infomercial”. It’s like MST3K for skeptics. Stephen just wrote down most of the things I used to sit there yelling at Trudeau on 47 screens on Sunday mornings when I was working at Fox. Good times, those were. I thought [...]

Just got through listening to Bart Sibrel (remember that moan hoax fucktard that Buzz Aldrin punched?) vs. Phil Plait and Michael Shermer (as if there’s any contest) from yesterday’s Dave Glover Show on 97.1 FM St. Louis. The recording is here. Yes, Bart Sibrel is a notorious asshat, and his lunacy grows tiresome quickly (if [...]

I was just reading another crackpot article about the Mayan Long Count Calendar. Pointless to link it — just the same old bullshit. I’m only posting this entry to say that I cannot wait until the end of December 2012, when absolutely nothing of cosmic significance will happen, to see what kind of garbage the [...]

It’s just too hard to be properly amused by the claims of kooks when they don’t include proper references to the texts they’re blowing way the hell out of proportion or misinterpreting. I know that half of the time they can’t provide references because they’re just making the shit up from scratch (or they’re communicating [...]

I will no longer engage those whose opinions are based entirely on faith in debate about those opinions. I’m afraid that one of these days my head will explode. I’ll supply or lead to information where I can, when someone might actually be interested in real actual truly true facts of truth. But that’s it. [...]