Encyclopedia of American Loons

Jahn Levin is the founder and CEO of Purity Products, a manufacturer of homeopathetic remedies, including dietary supplements and vitamin supplements (mostly pseudovitamins), and their product line is often remarkably aligned with current fads (such as the recent D vitamin crapfad). Their products are promoted heavily on radio and television, usually through infomercials, and often branded as “evidence-based”, although there is, to put it diplomatically, a scarcity of available studies to back up their claims.

It is perhaps inevitable that their products would lead to a few dissatisfied customers, so the company has created a website to “tell their side of the story” (that page is quite simply hilarious, even though their products are not).

Surely their board of directors are excellently poised to evaluate their claims:

- Alan Pressman, a Chiropractor, Educator, and Author of over 14 books on the subject of Nutrition, who runs a radio show Healthline.

- John J. Cannell, Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council, which has suggested that vitamin D deficiency may be the cause of multiple sclerosis, asthma, diabetes, rickets, and autism (false).

- Steven Lamm, better known as house doctor of “The View”.

- “Health journalist” Bill Sardi, who is up for his own entry.

- Paris Kidd, nutrition educator and dietary supplement product developer.

- Neil Levin, practicing chiropractor.

Diagnosis: Pure, simple, and fairly typical woo, and as usual it is hard to distinguish between bias-derived crackpottery and absence of caring.

Mark Reed Levin is a lawyer, author, the host of The Mark Levin Show, and president of the Landmark Legal Foundation. He previously worked in the Reagan administration and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese.

His talkshow is nevertheless pretty popular for its rather non-original rants about Muslim infiltration of the US, and Obama and the Supreme Court conspiring to implement Stalinism in the US. In particular ‘the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our gov’t – it’s called Barack Obama,” says Levin, based on the fact that Obama isn’t sufficiently aggressive in the Middle East for Levin’s taste. He then went on to call Chuck Hagel an “Israel-hater” and a “sympathizer with the most radical elements of the Middle East” before declaring that “the president is Chuck Hagel” because he believes the same, which doesn’t make very much sense, but that’s how things work for Mark Levin – if you disagree with him, ever so slightly, you are a Muslim Nazi Commie traitor, and his “argument” against your position is going to be restricted to repeatedly emphasizing that. Here is Levin ~~arguing~~ incoherently asserting that Obama caused the October 2013 government shutdown to launch a coup.

That is pretty much how his books work as well, though they have achieved some popularity in certain quarters.

Men In Black: How The Supreme Court is Destroying America (2005) is the kind of moronic rant you risk ending up writing if you try to make up for your total lack of critical thinking skills with zealotry, rage and paranoia. The central idea is that activist judges on the Supreme Court have “legislated from the bench,” thereby ruining America. Needless to say, neither the premises nor the inferences are particularly coherent, and Dahlia Lithwick aptly, but very charitably, concluded: “no serious scholar of the court or the Constitution, on the ideological left or right, is going to waste their time engaging Levin’s arguments once they’ve read this book.” Of course, Levin never defines “activist judge”, and given the absence of any “any structure or argument, this book could just have been titled Legal Decisions I Really, Really Hate.” It’s the kind of book that ends every chapter (the first three does indeed) with the word “tyranny”, and it was popular among idiots due to being endorsed by Rush Limbaugh, the well-known and highly respected legal scholar who also penned the foreword. Given this background you can probably predict Levin’s reactions to Obama’s Supreme Court picks: “the rule of law is dead” – and yes, Levin has slogans and arbitrary classifications (“tyrannical”, “traitorous” and so on) and examples, but has yet to provide an argument for anything; that he is right is just supposed to follow from his personal fears and wishes, I suppose; and no, Levin – despite his education – doesn’t even begin to grasp even the most fundamental principles of the legal system he criticizes.

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (2009) was popular as well, but hardly needs much comment as it contains precisely the stuff you’d think, backed up by nothing even remotely resembling an argument or review of facts (a few anecdotes, interpreted as Levin wants to interpret them, don’t really make for a good substitute) – but plenty of denialism, including global warming denialism, a section that was slaughtered by Jim Manzi (Levin and his fellow denialists’ responded rather predictably, by using every tactic in the book except for engaging with Manzi’s arguments; how stupid Levin’s denialism is can perhaps be gauged here). Levin has later argued that the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality is Obama’s attempt to impose tyranny as well because marriage equality is in conflict with the people’s opinions – not the majority opinion, which is in favor of marriage equality, but Levin’sopinion, which is what makes something tyrannical.

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America (2012), billed as a piece of political philosophy, is basically a number of quotes from famous people that Levin likes (or not), from which he draws whatever conclusions he wants. Carlin Romano, himself not the brightest of the bunch, called it “disastrously bad from beginning to end.” David Limbaugh called it “a masterpiece”, which is probably even more damning. The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic (2013) calls for updating the Constitution (not a particularly conservative suggestion), but was not uniformly praised among conservatives either, though these refrained, as others did not, from really pointing out the insanity of Levin’s fantasy world.

To top it all, Levin is also into various forms of holistic therapies, and has defended homeopaths’ right not to vaccinate.

Diagnosis: It may be argued that he makes delusion and paranoia into something of an art form, but it ain’t pretty

Pepper Lewis is a self-proclaimed channeler who, apparently, channels Gaia and has been the “primary voice for Mother Earth (Gaia) for over 15 years”. No shit. That’s an ability that can be used to generate income. You see, listening to Gaia (or, for cynics, (the voices in) Pepper Lewis(‘s head)) can help align you to your “higher purpose” – you just need to make a phone call and pay $350. In fact, Lewis offers you a course on how to hear your own voices and become a channeler yourself. Her webpage, where you can read more about her impressive abilities, is here.

After the 2011 earthquakes in Japan Lewis came out to console everyone by pointing out that the earthquake wasn’t evidence that Gaia was mad at us. Rather, the earthquakes had something to do with the protests in Egypt (Gaia is “evolving”, which is also the cause of change in societies). She also provided a series of predictions that surely testify to her amazing powers: There will be more earthquakes to come; some maybe stronger, some maybe weaker; and they will happen in both hemispheres – probably (she does qualify her predictions a bit). You can see her explain how the Earth’s rotation changes zodiac signs here.

Diagnosis: Probably has our best interests in mind. Unfortunately that’s not always quite enough.

Nancy Lieder must surely be considered one of the most legendary kooks of the whole, wide Internet. Lieder is the woman behind the apocalyptic alien-contactee cult ZetaTalk, and claims to be in telepathic communication with grey aliens from Zeta Reticuli. She publishes the communiques on her website, which is one of the most incoherently lovable pits of unhinged delusion and snowflake crazy on the Internet, which is quite a feat (do visit it here).

The mythology is a little unclear, but is at least a good mix of New Age pseudoscience (mostly borrowed from Lieder’s heroes, the endearing pair of Zecharia Sitchin and Erich von Däniken), complete with pseudoarchaeology and Velikovsky gibberish, and end-times catastrophism. The basic idea seems to be related to the giants known as the Annunaki, who came to Earth for business development purposes from Nibiru, also known as Marduk or Planet X. In fact, the Planet X idea originated in the 1990s, when Lieder claimed that a tenth planet would pass by Earth in 2003, causing cataclysmic events, including, possibly, an alien invasion. After the prediction had shown itself to be somewhat less than ideally accurate, the ZetaTalk cult incorporated the Planet X into the 2012 apocalypse claims – as Sitchin’s Nibiru – instead. Well, Sitchin actually predicted the return of Nibiru in 2085, but something about Mayan calendars suggested 2012 as a better option for Lieder and her gang. Evidence and data matter less than, well, it is unclear what exactly the claims are supposed to be based on.

Nibiru is, in any case, apparently a brown dwarf on an eccentric orbit that passes through our inner Solar System every 3,657 years, slingshotting between the Sun and its dark cousin, the presumably invisible Nemesis, some distance away. Whenever Nibiru passes by the Earth, its strong magnetic field and gravitational pull cause a shift in the Earth's magnetic field as well as disruptions in its orbit and pole shifts, resulting in massive planetwide destruction – next time it will stop Earth’s rotation and flip it on its side, causing massive flooding of many land areas and stripping away most of the atmosphere. In fact, this may already have happened in 2003 (according to Lieder’s chat sessions at Godlike Productions), though instead of causing problems on Earth, 2003 may have the date when Nibiru entered the solar system. Currently(?) the planet is hiding behind the Sun, and the reason we don’t see it is because Earth has been stopped in its orbit and is sitting motionless in space. Astronomers just haven’t noticed or, more likely, has been paid off. The whole sorry saga was dutifully debunked by Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy (the Lieder files are here). It is unclear to us exactly what the response has been to the passing of 2012 without much incident, but somehow we doubt that Lieder woke up and realized that her claims were bullshit from start to end.

In any case, Lieder herself works for the Zetas, who want humans to survive so that they can create hybrids with us – Lieder herself is the mother of one such hybrid – and her job description involves warning Earth of the impending catastrophe. She is opposed in her mission this endeavour by the Powers That Be, who worry about the overpopulation of the Earth and want to seize the opportunity to let people be killed off in the disaster. The Zetas, being aware of the conspiracy, have deceived the Powers in a series of feints and fakeouts disguised as failed prophecies (how that is supposed to have worked would be interesting to figure out). The Zetas talk to Nancy by mean of an implant in her brain, and her prophecies have been featured on such conspiracy-free news outlets as the Jeff Rense show and Coast to Coast AM.

Her chat sessions, by the way, has been moved from Godlike Productions to Earth Changes Ning, hosted by her enthusiastic supporter Gerard Zwaan, who runs a rather tough moderation regime (Rule 1: “No debunking and disruption. Debunking and disruption will lead to a ban. If you do intend to embrace any main establishment lies you will be suspended without any explanation”).

I also recommend reading an explanation by one of the ZetaTalkers, Don Smalter, on souls, reincarnation, and Dimension 4 here. It all made sense now, didn’t it?

Diagnosis: It’s always so heartening to see the tinfoil hat worn with such pride, gibbering lunacy, and lack of self-awareness. She’s probably harmless, though.

Jean K. Lightner is a retired doctor of veterinary preventive medicine (currently “Independent Scholar”) in Ohio, and signatory to the Discovery List of Doctors to Avoid (a.k.a. Doctors Doubting Darwin, or – as they prefer to call themselves – Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity). She is a member of the Creation Research Society, and is one of their “qualified speakers” – you can invite her for instance to speak about “Creation Biology: Understanding Life from a Biblical Perspective”, in which case she will show “how a biblically based view of biology is consistent with the world we see around us;” “The Age of the Earth and the Gospel”, in which case she will explore “problems with radiometric dating,” or “Biblical Thinking 101: How to Discern the Truth from a Lie,” in which case she will lie (officially, she will discuss “the uniqueness of the Bible compared to other religious beliefs (including evolutionism) and several biblical methods by which truth claims can be evaluated”). She is also a signatory to the CMI list of “scientists who accept the Biblical account of creation”.

Lightner’s particular field of expertise is baraminology, the whackiest pseudoscience this side of The Secret, and she and one Peter Borger have come up with some real answers to the numbers of animals on the Ark problem. The answer has nothing to do with evidence, plausibility or coherence, of course, but then again those were never recognized standards for baraminology research in any case. Some of her results are discussed here, including a discussion of her evidence (which is hilarious).

Lightner has bean an avid contributor to the Answers Research Journal, the house journal of Answers in Genesis. For volume 1 she published “Karyotype Variability within the Cattle Monobaramin”; for volume 2 she produced “Genetics of Coat Color II”, where she attempts to reinterpret genetic data in terms of the creation/flood model– without linking the non-original data to the flood model at all (baraminologists aren’t very keen on actually measuring things; gestalt gesturing should do), and blatantly fails to explain the mutation rate required to account for the genetic diversity in 4000 years from four alleles. For volume 4 she was part of the group (with Georgia Purdom, Tom Hennigan and Bodie Hodge) that set up to determine the kinds of animals to place on the Ark in the Creation museum Ark encounter project – the journal includes their first stab at “Determining the Ark kinds”, which basically appears to be primarily a prayer for the reader to find Jesus. The article “Mammalian Ark kinds”, which has already received some celebrity status on the web, for obvious reasons, appeared in Vol. 5, and a similar discussion of avian kinds was featured Vol. 6.

Diagnosis: Her most characteristic trait is her complete lack of concern for evidence, reality, or truth, of course – though one sometimes suspects that her obsession over getting the flood model to fit (and inecessant prayers for the reader in her “scientific” papers), is the result of a dim suspicion that it doesn’t. Which, of course, it doesn’t.

Charles LiMandri is the West Coast Regional Director of the Thomas More Law Center, and he does not fancy the gays, not one bit. According to LiMandri, the “moral decay eroding the foundation of our nation [is] bringing it within one generation of collapse. I have tracked the decline of the U.S. over the past several decades to various landmark judicial decisions that sought to uncouple our nation from its Judeo-Christian moorings.” And of course, the cases that will lead to the collapse of America are the overrudlings of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), Proposition 8 in California, and the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy concerning the service of open homosexuals in the armed forces. “Individually and collectively,” says LiMandri, “they represent a further direct attack not only on our nation’s morality, but also on our notion of the need for a separation of powers between our three branches of the government.” The last point is gibberish. The others just exhibit LiMandri’s opinion that although Taliban is the enemy of America, they are right about moral issues, and we should hence seek to emulate their political system. It is all about freedom; clearly, letting gays to live their lives without interference from the government is an example of tyranny!

Indeed, LiMandri has a long story of involvement in attempts to push a more Old-Testament friendly government, for instance as a member of the fundamentalist Catholic organization Legatus, who thinks that marriage equality is “intrinsically evil” and is a staunch proponent of the idea that homosexuality is a “disorder” that must be “cured”, as Legate John Haas puts it (even the ex-gay movement is wary of that terminology). Legatus was founded by Domino’s pizza founder Tom Monaghan in 1987, and has been a source of unmitigated bigotry ever since.

Diagnosis: Nothing to make LiMandri stand out from all the other Taliban-sycophantic religious nutters in terms of agenda, but through the Thomas More Law Center Limandri is actually in a position to exert some real power.

David Limbaugh is the younger, dumber, and less charismatic brother of Rush Limbaugh, and he promotes pretty much the same bullshit with pretty the same level of sophistication – although David is more obviously a religious nutter. For instance, David wrote the foreword of Geisler& Turek’s “I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist” (as well as to a book by Matt Barber), where he used the following classic argument for the existence of God: “if Christ is not God, then he could not have been an exemplary prophet or a great moral teacher, because he claimed to be God. If he was not who he said he was, then he was either a liar or a lunatic, hardly a great moral teacher or prophet,” so therefore Jesus was the son of God and Christianity is true. The reason the argument is legendary is not because it is particularly rationally compelling. And if David is primarily a political commentator, it is important to note that he doesn’t see Old Testament apologetics and politics as separable: “Much of our Bill of Rights is biblically based, as well, and the Ten Commandments and further laws set out in the book of Exodus form the basis of our Western law,” which is incorrect, but nevertheless used to launch incoherent descriptions of how Christians are persecuted in the US today, as described e.g. in his book Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christians – they both disagree with him and fails to accept that his acceptance of Jesus gives him a special right to suppress the religious freedom of others. Here is a case he apparently thinks illustrates the persecution.

David is a regular columnist for WND and Newsmax, and has for the last couple of years been particularly concerned about Obama and the impending doom of America: his reelection would equal “national suicide”, David said prior to the 2012 elections, and he has described the “Marxist” Obama and members of his Administration as “tyrannical, dictatorial Stalinists,” claiming that Obama is “systematically abusing his authority to contravene the rule of law and the Constitution to the detriment of our liberty.” Arguments? Yeah, right. Instead of arguments, David opted to go on to toy with birtherism. He has nevertheless written books about the issue, The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic, a title that flaunts his intellectual sophistication in so many ways, Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of President Barack Obama, and Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today’s Democratic Party, which make arguments that are just as careful, fact-based, and rational as the titles would suggest. The books are, needless to say, filled with assertions; evidence and arguments matter neither to him nor his readership (and it sort of boggles the mind that some people actually read the books of David Limbaugh).

As part of his claim – “defended” at length in said books – that it is conservatives, not liberals, who are reality-based, Limbaugh rejects global warming, pointing out that “many of those counted as experts by the alarmists are scientists with no appreciable expertise in the field.” So instead of listening to them, Limbaugh refers to Tom Bethell as an authority who, surprisingly, shares his position on the matter. The fact that “leftist” doesn’t accept dissent about evolution is apparently another point in favor of calling the religious right the “reality-based” segment of the population (yes, Limbaugh is favorably inclined toward creationism, though he officially supports the Teach the Controversy strategy). He doesn’t like the gays either. The three topics just mentioned are apparently supposed to be related.

David is also quick to defend his brother. For instance, with regard to the infamous Sandra Fluke incident, David rushed in to assert that the criticism directed at Rush was “the most radical display of hate and intolerance” that he has “witnessed in years,” which pretty much means that he doesn’t watch his brother’s show.

Diagnosis: Imagine a stupider, more fundamentalist, more theocracy-sympathetic version of Rush Limbaugh. That should be diagnosis enough.

Rena Lindevaldsen is professor at Liberty University’s Law School, and just as qualified for anything as you’d think anyone hired by that institution would be. She also works with the Liberty Counsel, whose name is as Orwellian as that of any wingnut “values” mob. In fact, Lindevaldsen’s self-perceived area of expertise seems to be very broad, and she does at least feel competent to speak out on gay rights issues: homosexuality is unbiblical, says Lindevaldsen, and anyone who disagrees with her on that issue is, literally, controlled by Satan, who obviously wants to prevent us from looking at the truth of Scripture. Since she is a staunch theocrat, she also fails to see a distinction between the religiously motivated view of homosexuality and the legal issues, a distinction that would be rather obvious to anyone but law professors at Liberty University.

She has also written a book, Only One Mommy, dealing with what makes men gay and women lesbian. It is … not based on science or evidence, and it is – once again – ultimately Satan. It is also the aggressive gay rights movement, which seeks to push children into gay relationships for their own Satanic reasons. The framing topic of the book is the Lisa Miller case, where Lindevaldsen was an attorney for the side of evil. She lost the case, and has subsequently claimed that Hurrican Sandy was God’s revenge for the courts ruling against her side (she has also been involved in other prayer movements to stop “homosexual tornadoes” from coming to America). That’s the world Lindevaldsen lives in – the aggressive Satanic gay agenda is everywhere, and God’s attempts to stop it with storms and thunder are futile (and of course, the Satanic connection is the official reason gay people are unsuitable for public office, although one suspects the real reason is that gay people might disagree with Lindevaldsen, and of course no one who disagrees with Lindevaldsen should be allowed to hold public office).

Even the D-students in an intro-level Ethics class would relatively quickly see the weaknesses of Lindevaldsen’s arguments against gay marriage, but I suppose her side of the debate isn’t really concerned with the arguments being rationally compelling.

This video of a discussion between Lindevaldsen, Lou Engle, Matt Barber, Cynthia Dunbar, and Greg Quinlan is both scary and hilarious.

There’s a good Lindevaldsen resource here.

Diagnosis: Lindevaldsen lives in a world where she gets her personal instructions from an angry God who tries (futilely) to support her cause with storms and tornadoes, against the Satanic forces comprised by anyone who disagrees with her. Unfortunately for her, that world is not the real world.

Harold Lee “Hal” Lindsey is a deranged madman probably best known for the 1973 book The Late Great Planet Earth, which promoted fundamentalist Christian end-times rapture dogma drivel and dispensationalism. For some reason or other the book managed to end up not only as a best-seller, but as the best-selling non-fiction book of the entire 1970s – even though it should of course never have been classified as non-fiction to begin with. At least it contained early versions of most of the current standard-fare RaptureReady conspiracies – the EU is a revival of the Roman Empire, and will eventually be ruled by the Antichrist (though Lindsey has later assigned that role to Obama), and so on.

The sequel, Satan Is Alive and Well On Planet Earth, continued in the same absurd manner, with dire warnings concerning hip young people getting into astrology, Tarot cards, Ouija boards, marijuana, LSD, and Satanism (this was in the 1970s), and Lindsey went on to become a major promoter of the Satanic Panic and Satanic ritual abuse myths in the 80s, most notably when he championed the fraudulent “testimony” of serial fake-victim storyteller Lauren Stratford. It is less clear why Lindsey would worry so much about trends in society when he had already predicted – and welcomed – the end of the world.

In 1980, he published The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, making the prediction that a pre-tribulational rapture would take place in 1981, based mostly on the Biblical signficance of the foundation of Israel and the commitments that event put on God. When Jesus didn’t return in 1981 (or 1988, which was the second choice), Lindsey postponed Jesus’s return to 2011 or 2018. In Planet Earth – 2000 A.D., published in the early 1990s, he reaffirmed his prophecy, stating that Christians should not plan to still be on earth by the year 2000. In Facing Millennial Midnight: The Y2K Crisis Confronting America and the World, he predicted widespread confusion and panic over the Y2K crisis, seven years before the 40th anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem by the Israelis, which was then claimed to be the event which really got the prophetic clock ticking all along. Of course, Y2K was a bust, and 2007 passed without Armageddon. Lindsey’s most recent suggestion for the return of Jesus is 2018 or, at the latest, 2037. 2021 has also been suggested based on rather feeble applications of numerology.

At present Lindsey hosts a TV news show where he mostly loons around about “Islamofascism” and praises St. George Bush. The focus on Islam is presumably a development from The Late, Great Planet Earth, according to which the Soviet Union would play the role of antagonist during the End Times. Since the Soviet Union is no longer around, Lindsey had to find a new antagonist, and Islam seemed to serve the purpose – not if you actually cared about reasoning, rationality, truth, evidence or reality, but that was never an obstacle for Lindsey. Apparently the obviously satanic Trilateral Commission also plays a role.

Lindsey has also written for the WND, including an essay arguing that Obama is paving the way for and demonstrating the world’s readiness for the Antichrist: “Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him – a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib […] The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance,” said Lindsey.

In another WND article, Lindsey drew a biblical connection to the BP oil spill based primarily on numerology. Hal should know his oil, however, since he has been a staunch promoter of Zion Oil, one of the most fantastically delusional projects in recent times. He has also written about the conncetion between Hurrican Katrina and God’s anger – and been, as usual, dead wrong – and about the connection between the increase in earthquake frequency (false) and the endtimes (this is about an article by Greg Laurie in the same vein).

Diagnosis: One of the most monstrously lunatic people in the US, and that says a bit; Lindsey’s star might be fading, but he is still wielding a bit of power.

Major James Linzey is an army chaplain endorsed by the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (Jim Ammerman’s group), and a rather representatitve member, it seems. Linzey has made several appearances on the radio show “The Edge”, explaining “how the satanic forces in the U.S. Government allow illegal immigration, giving access to terrorists to invade America’s heartland,” and how illegal immigration affects the politics, domestic issues, national security, and “the terrorist ring” in the United States. In particular, Linzey exposes “unknown satanic forces and how they are using illegal immigration to:

- Affect American politics

- Sway Domestic issues

- Destroy National Security

- Create a Terrorist Ring which could start an internal revolution.

Concurrently, there seems to be another conspiracy unfolding: a communist takeover of the U.S., in which the U.S. government is complicit. According to Linzey, the Chinese are going to to take over the United States with the help of Mexico, and Chinese soldiers are already in Mexico training the Mexicans for an invasion into the United States to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico. Typically, Linzey claims to have inside information from government officials, but the names of these sources can of course not be disclosed. There is also invasion plans from the UN (probably related): “I suggest that Americans get their arms to be ready to defend themselves and their own homes when they come knocking on your door, demanding your food, demanding your money, and raping your wives. The U.N. troops will be here to start patrolling the cities, the streets, the highways, and we will be under, basically, European rule.” In the end, though, it is the Jews who wish to control the world through their familiar Illuminati organization. Jews, Mexicans, Chinese, Satan, Obama, the UN, whatever – they all look the same to James Linzey.

Diagnosis: It is worth emphasizing, again, that Linzey is a major in the US army.

Shirley Lipschutz-Robinson runs Shirley’s Wellness Café, a website crammed with all sorts of creative woo of the most ridiculous kind (you can find it here). One of the “myths” Lipschutz-Robinson is out to debunk is the idea that sunlight can be dangerous for us (which is either a strawman or obviously true). Her evidence? “The sun provides the basis for all life on earth.” Indeed. The connection between that observation and the hypothesis “sunbathing actually helps heal cancer of the skin while sunblock increases cancer risk”? I have no idea, but the hypothesis probably reveals the rather worrisome nature of Lipschutz-Robinson’s particular brand of woo and lack of reasoning skills – the hypothesis is not only false, but rather dangerously so. She also cites Mercola in support of her claims (as well as one Jacob Liberman, who has written a book In Light: Medicine Of The Future: How We Can Use It To Heal Ourselves Now, where he explains how to utilize the therapeutic benefits of light because “light is the basic component from which all life originates, develops, heals, and evolves”), which is not exactly reassuring, and apart from (well, in addition to) that the website is primarily filled with appeals to nature, cherry-picking, ridiculously false empirical claims, and appeals to a medieval-level understanding of how the human body works. There’s also quite a bit of Vitamin D woo and – indeed – promotion of the dangerous and abhorrently silly idea of sungazing, the meditative practice of staring directly at the Sun for short periods of time during sunrise or sunset. Yay to the power of confirmation bias in the fact of absolutely and immediately dangerous practices (her source is a video by one Sandy Chase featuring the idiocy of one Daniel Giel).

To top it off, Lipschutz-Robinson also promotes, well, pretty much everything from HIV-denialism, through homeopathy and anti-vaccinationism, to holistic animal health and pretty much every ridiculous conspiracy theory associated with any of these ideas. She does make great claims about what her altmed abilities have enabled her to do, however, though her stories have not been independently verified.

Diagnosis: Deranged madwoman, who blatantly promotes treatments that are demonstrably dangerous. As such, despite her presumably limited influence, Lipschutz-Robinson actually poses a direct threat to life and well-being.

Yingguang Liu is a young earth creationist affiliated with Creation Ministries International and Professor of Applied Science at Maranatha Baptist Bible College, where he “teaches biology on a level that threatens the neoDarwinian paradigm every day” (he has no educational background in biology). “Creation science should include all scientific studies of creation,” says Liu: “My goal is to equip young Christians with the scientific knowledge and skills needed to strengthen their faith in a world of humanistic chauvinism. Good science done by creationists is a testimony to those who accuse fundamentalist Christians of being ignorant or anti-scientific,” which must be understood in a peculiar light given Liu’s thorough denialism of most of science. His current research interest is human endogenous retroviruses, and he has published such groundbreaking papers as “Were retroviruses created good?” in The Journal of Biblical and Scientific Studies (the article is discussed here; apparently Liu isn’t particularly concerned with facts, but that isn’t particularly surprising).

Together with creationist Charles Soper (who seems to be working in London) he also published “The Natural History of Retroviruses” in Volume 2 of Answers in Genesis’s house journal Answers Research Journal, which is a review paper of research done by other people on this topic. It even raises some challenges to creationism (“The findings of comparative genomics around the syncytin-1 loci is especially challenging to creationists. The gene is well conserved among hominoids – humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons, but not in the Old World Monkeys”), which the paper dismisses simply as examples of common descent after the Fall degradation of the genome – without even trying to provide evidence or explanation apart from the bald assertion that this is a better alternative explanation to natural selection.

And just to make sure: Maranatha Baptist Bible College is not a place to go for an education in reality-related matters. In addition to Liu, their Applied Science faculty includes people like Bud Downs, a Minister who is working on supplementing biology textbooks with a creationist perspective, and the chair is one Curt Malmanger, who has an MS in mathematics education and a BS in Bible. Needless to say, none of the facutly are scientists or have any background in anything resembling scientific research.

Diagnosis: Typical hardcore creationists who seem equally surprised every time their claims are met with requests for evidence or alignment with reality – when you have Jesus on your side, such requests are rather preposterous, aren’t they?

Dana Loesch is yet another wingnut talk radio host, Tea-partier, and (sometimes) political commentator for Fox News, CNN, CBS, ABC and HBO. For laughs, one hopes but suspects not. She was also associated with Breitbart.com, but that affair ended in some ugly lawsuits.

There is little surprising or new to tell about Loesch, really. Her views on gay rights are what you suspect; supporting gay rights is not only incompatible with Christianity, but hatred of Christianity – indeed, supporters of gay rights think “traditional marriage” is “hateful”, which is “literally [nope, she doesn’t understand what that means] calling Christ hateful;” indeed, says Loesch, “I know you hate Christ.” So it goes.

As a matter of fact, there is some suspicion around that her professed bigotry fails to reflect her private stance on LGBT issues, though the sheer lack of intellectual honesty involved in that case makes it very tempting to judge her as qualified for an entry nonetheless. She has, for instance, argued – for reals – that gay marriage is a violation of theseparation of church and state. Why that matters to her is less clear, since she apparently doesn’t believe in that separation in any case. At least the Bible figures (least officially) very centrally (borderline dominionist) in her views on politics, liberty and civil rights in general. She has apparently not actually read it.

As for the proposed 2012 Virginia law requiring transvaginal sonograms for any woman seeking an abortion, Loesch pointed out that these women “had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.” But she really went batshit on those who had the temerity to criticize her. Her comments on the Trayvon Martin case, if not quite as idiotic as those of Dan Riehl, are just sad. They do fit into her general delusion that what progressives and African Americans really want is a race war.

While not a birther, Loesch is, in fact, a birther denialist – there are no birthers at all, at least not other than the Clintons [!].

Diagnosis: Another batshit pundit. And that’s that.

Margaret Lofton

You can sort of intuit your way to the conclusion that Zuerrnnovahh-Starr Livingstone is less than ideally hinged, and you’ll be right (the title of the article “Sylphs transmute chemtrails”gives you an idea); but Livingstone is also Canadian, and hence disqualified. Instead we’ll turn to some far less colorful, but also more typical American whackos – what’s more typical than creationists on a schoolboard?

Kay Fields

Apparently the good people of the Polk County School Board in Lakeland, FL, seem to have been relatively unaware of the Dover Trial; at least they didn’t see any problems with introducing Intelligent Design in schools. In 2007, Board members Tim Harris, Margaret Lofton and Hazel Sellers said they opposed proposed science standards for Florida schools that lists evolution and biological diversity as being among the “big ideas” students need to know for a well-grounded science education, and Board member Kay Fields said she wanted intelligent design taught in science classes in addition to evolution.

Tim Harris

“If it ever comes to the board for a vote, I will vote against the teaching of evolution as part of the science curriculum,” said Lofton, adding that “If (evolution) is taught, I would want to balance it with the fact that we may live in a universe created by a supreme being as well,” which has nothing to do with evolution and quite a bit to do with religion. “My tendency would be to have both sides shared with students since neither side can be proven,” Tim Harris said. “I don’t have a conflict with intelligent design versus evolution,” Sellers said. “The two go together,” showing, at best, that she has no idea what she is talking about. “It crosses the line with people who are Christians,” Lofton said. “Evolution is offensive to a lot of people,” and that is, apparently, her criterion for determining scientific merit.

Hazel Sellers

Their attempt to get Intelligent Design into the school curriculum was supported by efforts from Focus on the Family, and encompassed more than just Polk County. In the Highlands County four of five school board members opposed evolution, with School Board Vice Chairman Andy Tuck saying that “as a person of faith, I strongly oppose any study of evolution as fact at all. I’m purely in favor of it staying a theory and only a theory.” They passed their anti-evolution measures as well, as did at least almost a dozen other Florida school boards back in 2008, (and Florida schoolboards were certainly not alone).

Andy Tuck

Fortunately the good folks of Polk County took some beating over the issue, but their antics (and those of other school boards in other counties – school boards are often crammed with creationists due to organized campaigns by creationist organizations) led to a statewide debate on the issues, which overall seem to have gone in favor of science (at least the State Board decided to call evolution “Scientific theory” as a compromise to make everyone happy – it’s scientific, but is also just a theory …). You can read the complicated story here.

Diagnosis: The Polk County School Board can stand as a representative for anti-science, creationist-filled school boards everywhere, and there are lots of them. It’s really a deeply scary affair, for these boards wield quite a bit of local power.

Jeffrey P. Long and Jody A. Long seem to be the people behind the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, together with Reverend John Price – and that last participant kinda gives the game away, doesn’t it? You can see a discussion of one of their productions here. Basically, the “organization” takes the impossibility of explaining near death experiences as axiomatic (at least they offer no even remotely plausible support for the claim), and argues NDEs prove the existence of God. The argument is, of course, trivially valid, since the existence of God is also one of the premises; indeed it is part of their definition of NDEs. According to the Longs, an NDE is “a co-created experience with the person and the divine,” which seems to mean that “this world is an illusion. We are not our physical body at all.” It all has something to do with the “soul’s purpose”, summed up by Jody Long here.

Diagnosis: Christian fundamentalism combined with new age drivel often yields fascinating results, and no less so here. Reality and evidence stand no chance when facing such onslaughts of religious bias and wishful thinking.

Mark Looy is Chief Communications Officer for Answers in Genesis, and as such PR manager for the Creation Museum in Kentucky, an extravagant piece of jimcrack devoted to presenting the literal creation story of the Bible (the “history book of the Universe”) as a fact, including the peaceful coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. The “Museum”, which is designed to be evangelistic, “presents the history of the Bible in a fun and entertaining way”. So you can imagine Looy saying some stupid shit from time to time, such as when he called Ben Stein a “a 21st-century Einsteinian figure”. Indeed, Looy is the go-to guy when the media want comments on and explanations of whatever nonsense the creation museum and Answers in Genesis are up to.

Looy, however, is adamant that they are doing science over at Answers in Genesis, so adamant, in fact, that you kind of suspects that he knows that he is wrong. When confronted with the fact that palaentologists don’t quite support the idea that humans and dinosaurs lived together a few centuries ago, he pointed out that “They all had to exist at the same time because they were all made on the same day. There may not be any fossil evidence showing dinosaurs and people in the same place at the same time. But it is clearly written that they were alive at the same time.” Chew on that, you silly evolutionists – you’ve overlooked one of the central claims of the earliest part of the Bible. Creationists and palaentologists use the same data, according to Looy, but different worldviews lead them to different interpretations – the creationist worldview being in particular characterized by rejecting those data, though Looy doesn’t see it that way.

After the Kansas Evolution Kangaroo Court, Looy said that “students in public schools are being taught that evolution is a fact, that they're just products of survival of the fittest … It creates a sense of purposelessness and hopelessness, which I think leads to things like pain, murder, and suicide,” an assertion he didn’t back up with evidence, and sustains a somewhat unclear link to the question of the scientific status of evolution, even if it were true.

Diagnosis: Fairly typical fanatic young-earth creationist, Looy is in fact one of the movers (though not one of the visionaries) of the young-earth creationist movement. An important figure in the battle against reason, sanity, and reality.

A.k.a. K-Lo or K-Low

Kathryn Jean Lopez is a nationally syndicated (United Feature Syndicate) batshit crazy columnist and blogger, former editor of National Review Online, and known colloquially as K-Lo presumably because of her obvious intellectual inferiority to the more famous J-Lo. K-Lo is deeply anti-feminist, anti-affirmative action, anti-abortion, and anti-contraception, but very much a fan of Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney (as well as George W. Bush – K-Lo’s suggestion for a post-presidential career for Bush is one we should hope he never takes seriously) and unhinged, irrational patriotism. She is known for her extraordinarily bad grammar and writing skills, which is worth pointing out since she has also claimed that correct pronounciation is an example of liberal elitism (after all, just listen to the much-admired Sarah Palin pronounce “nuclear”): “[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It’s annoying.” Clearly Obama is unfit to govern.

Of course, given who she is, Lopez is not particularly fond of gay marriage, defending New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s attempt to liken marriage equality to North Korea: “Do not be so quick to dismiss the North Korea comparison, Mike [Potemra]. We are witnessing tyranny today that is fostered by a false sense of freedom, a tyranny that faux tolerance ferments.” Even her readers took her to task over the analogy, to which her defense was: “To dismiss the N. Korea analogy as beyond the pale is to deny the rational of the founding fathers” and “[t]oo much Team America and not enough Aristotle in these dismissals of the N. Korea analogy.” Duh. Of course, K-Lo has her own understanding of the Constitution: “We’re a nation not just where you are free to believe or not to believe; we’re a nation founded for Him – so we could praise Him, so we could do His will.” But that is not an entirely accurate summary.

She is also a polling conspiracy theorist, of the “I am not a poll conspiracy theorist. At least I don’t want to be. But …”-kind, having defended such conspiracies long before it became popular just prior the 2012 election. Back in 2008, when, according to K-Lo, God wanted you to vote McCain, there must clearly have been a conspiracy; how else could he lose so badly?

Diagnosis: Yet another one. And as dimwitted as the rest.

Eve Lorgen is an author, researcher and consultant on anomalous trauma, who runs the website “The Alien Love Bite” (apparently named for her book The Love Bite: Alien Interference in Human Love Relationships), and the type of Internet presence that generally elicits a feeling of mildly amused resignation.

In any case, the term “anomalous trauma” was apparently introduced by Rima Laibow, whom we have featured before, and denotes “unusual experiences such as alien abductions, extraterrestrial contact, mind control, cult abuse and military abductions (MILABS)” related to the alien abduction syndrome, as well as spiritual warfare and near death experiences. Keep in mind that it does not mean psychological conditionsinvolving delusionscentered around this topic, but traumas actually caused by such events. People with traumas who talk about alien abduction are after all completely trustworthy, as evidenced by the fact that their stories are denied by the military, who is known to be untrustworthy since they deny the stories told by the trustworthy alien abductees.

So how do you treat anomalous traumas? “Regression hypnosis is a useful tool in recovering amnesiac memories and the easing of PTSD symptoms,” says Lorgen. “Other healing methods include prayer, meditation, relaxation, dream work and lucid dreaming. Shamanic healing modalities such as soul retrieval have been found to be effective for some individuals.” Indeed.

Apparently, anomalous traumas must be distinguished from AngelAnomalous traumas. “Angelic beings such as Archangel Michael have been reported to be helpful in assisting those involved in spiritual warfare,” says Lorgen, though one must take care not to confuse Angelic beings with deceptive evil aliens such as Greys or reptilians. I do not know what she concludes with in her article “Horus-Ra as the Archontic Alien Parasite,” but it surely isn’t anything good (“archons” were popularized by our old friend John Lash). Her whale.to page is here.

Diagnosis: Completely insane, and yet another example of someone who has no aptitude for truth, reason or evidence, and who just doesn’t care (probably doesn’t know how). Her influence is probably limited, however.

Given that we have been unable to get the full name of Lorrie the Pet Psychist we are forced to skip her (which is a pity). Despite her magnificent lunacy Lorrie is also presumably a benevolently inclined person. Clyde Lott is not. Lott is a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher, who is actively trying to bring about the end times. His method is to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers, namely the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah. The most recent reports was that only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy – meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal’s body (and yes, Lott is exporting his heifers to the Middle East), but that was in 2006, so who knows? You can read the full story here. Apparently some rabbi has even written a book about it. In fact, that book has (roughly) been made into a documentary here – did you think they just made up that plot? Nope; Lott and his ilk actually believes this kind of stuff.

Diagnosis: As opposed to Hal Lindsey or Harold Camping, at least Lott is actually putting a real effort into making his, uh, dream come true. Doesn’t make him any less crazy.

We’ve had a spate of wingnut pundits lately, and Gina Loudon is no less crazy than the others. Loudon runs the website “Dr. Gina Smart Life,” a rather unpalatable combination of abysmally inane political commentary and woo-friendly motivational and health-related drivel (she still seems to endorse the HCG diet scam). She also writes for the World Net Daily and Politichicks, and her work has been endorsed by no less authorities than Ann Coulter, Joseph Farah, Pam Geller and Todd Akin (who called her a “reliable source of truth … a voice of clarity, wisdom and understanding about [the] issues,” and we all know how good Akin is with truth.)

Loudon does, indeed, have a degree in psychology, which apparently makes her perceptive enough to have noted a “radical shift in psychology” from the “tyrannical left”. Evidence? She has noted that “Leftists subscribe in lock-step, while conservatives shake their heads at the lemming mentality.” No, that’s not the conclusion; it’s her evidence. It is allegedly supported by a study by The Association for Psychological Science saying that liberals tend to have a false sense of uniqueness, and conservatives tend to have a false sense of consensus. Apparently the study in question is this one, so I suggest a reader exercise: try to figure out how the study’s conclusions, if correct, make liberals exhibit a “lemming mentality” and make them prone to tyranny. To do so, you may need to know what tyrannical traits Loudon is referring to. Well, it’s the usual stuff, of course – legality of abortions and endorsement of the work of the UN and Obamacare, topics that Loudon concludes are clear examples of tyranny, which is the kind of thing wingnuts say when they want to formulate the claim that they disagree with your positions.

But there is hope. Loudon believes that young people will rise up against President Obama when they realize that he has “taken the hard-earned ‘Land of the Free and Home of the Brave’ and turned it into ‘The Land of the Enslaved Effeminates and the Home of the Cowards.’” The transformation is particularly evident from Obamacare advertisements that promote “homo-erotic twerking,” as part of a larger Hollywood agenda that “tore down men and glorified world peace and transvestites.” (Yes, the claims supporting that conclusion are as stupid as the conclusion itself). And to top it all, Obamacare is already causing suicides, says Loudon– completely without a shred of evidence, of course. Apparently it is supposed to follow deductively from her dislike of communism. You can see one of Loudon’s best efforts to take on Obamacare here.

A particularly illustrative case of Loudon is, perhaps, her exchanges with Vanity Fair reporter Michael Gross, in which Loudon repeatedly displayed her dishonesty, ending by concluding that she could have “speculated” that Gross was gay because he has a “psychological profile” of someone who “attacks children.” She can say that since she’s a professional psychologist. Also interesting is the conflict between Loudon, the St. Louis tea party, and fellow wingnut pundit Dana Loesch.

Diagnosis: It’s a tough fight, but we’d judge Loudon to be even a small notch more idiotic than Loesch (though Loesch may be more vile). In any case, that people actually listen to her is a travesty.

#876: Jahn Levin

#877: Mark Levin

#878: Pepper Lewis

#879: Nancy Lieder

#880: Jean K. Lightner

#881: Charles LiMandri

#882: David Limbaugh

#883: Rena Lindevaldsen

#884: Hal Lindsey

#885: James Linzey

#886: Shirley Lipschutz-Robinson

#887: Yingguang Liu

#888: Dana Loesch

#889: Margaret Lofton and the creationists on the Polk County School Board

#890: Jody A. & Jeffrey P. Long

#891: Mark Looy

#892: Kathryn Jean Lopez

#893: Eve Lorgen

#894: Clyde Lott

#895: Gina Loudon