Encyclopedia of American Loons

More conspiracy theorists! Andy Martin is an “internet journalist” generally known as the guy responsible for starting the rumor that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim (though one suspects that the idea would have gained traction regardless of Martin’s efforts). He also sued the state of Hawaii, demanding public access to Obama’s birth certificate before this became a popular activity, and has later been involved in various birther activities.

Martin was originally trying to become a lawyer but was refused a license to practice as such in 1973 on the grounds of erratic and unprofessional conduct and for being psychologically unbalanced, so he turned instead to a career as a perennial candidate for various positions representing various parties. He has also filed a huge number (maybe thousands) of vexatious lawsuits against various companies and individuals, and been known to react during these cases with a certain amount of viciousness and paranoia, often accusing judges of conspiring against him. In 2003 he claimed to have located Saddam Hussein’s hiding place (several months before Hussein's actual arrest) during solo scouting trips in Baghdad while he was evading an arrest warrant in Florida.

Martin first broke the Obama-muslim connection in 2004 after Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. In his press release he claimed to have evidence that Obama was a secret Muslim who might be plotting against Israel, suggesting that this issue “would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles.” His concern for “Jewish circles” would thus stand in some contrast to his 1986 resolution to “exterminate Jew Power”, his description, during a previous litigation, of a judge as “a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race”, and his statement that he is “able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolfpack to steal my property”. It may be noted that Martin has claimed not to have made these remarks, alleging rather that they have been placed in court documents by malicious judges.

Fox News, true to their standards of accuracy and accountability, gave Martin airtime in October 2008 on Sean Hannity’s show to state his claims that Obama’s background as a community organiser involved training by William Ayers as a subversive revolutionary (see it here). He had no documentation, of course, but the claims gained – shall we say – some popularity in the less hinged parts of the wingnut community (probably a good overlap with the group of people who count themselves as fans of Hannity). Later in 2008, during a CNN interview (see it here), Martin changed his allegations that Obama is a Muslim to the claim that he had discovered that Obama is in fact the son of 1960s political activist Frank Marshall Davis. He did, of course, not present any documentation this time either, and probably would not understand why anyone would want documentation given his remarkable powers of intuition.

In 2010 Martin announced his intentions to run as a Republican Party candidate in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, with a campaign focused on Obama’s alleged ineligibility for the Presidency. The campaign never took flight.

Diagnosis: Martin should be pitied. No such excuses for the people who listen to him, though.

Rod J. Martin is an “independent researcher” and exceptionally deluded creationist. His contribution to the third volume of the Answers Research Journal – the house journal of Answers in Genesis – actually managed to make a bit of a splash in the blogosphere. Titled “A Proposed Bible-Science Perspective on Global Warming”, the article attempts to use Genesis to justify Martin’s global warming denialism. The level of scholarship may be suggested by Martin’s assertion that “[p]roposed secular solutions to the alleged claims of global warming will directly impact everyone who depends on fossil fuels for their current life style. The issue of global warming presents biblical creationists with an opportunity to demonstrate not only the efficacy of Scripture in addressing life’s issues, but also to show how ignoring Scripture leads to unnecessary, expensive, and harmful actions. Global warming is an arena where the battle between biblical truth and evolutionary untruths is currently raging.” Note the nice insertion of “secular”.

What is his evidence? “The earth is huge. We simply do not have a sufficient number of collection points (weather stations) to accurately determine earth’s average surface temperature,” and his claim that “[t]he level of CO2 in our atmosphere could increase over 1,300% before reaching the current mine safety limit […] Today’s atmospheric concentration of CO2 is clearly safe for humans, and will be for over a thousand years at today’s rate of increase,” which is not a point that is particularly relevant to the issue of global warming.

The clincher, however, is his assertion that “CO2 and O2 were created early in the Creation week. Neither of these gases evolved.” Take that, you evolutionary climatologists. “It must be kept in mind that global warming advocates are predominantly evolutionists,” says Martin. Then there are some points about homosexuality, conspiracy theories, and an argument that humans should not be concerned about the environment since God will provide and He never told Adam to protect the Amazon.

The article is discussed in some detail here.

Diagnosis: Not a high-profile figure, but he has at least put his face forward at one point, thereby revealing himself to be so shockingly dense and stupid that it is hard not to stare.

Ray Martinez is a notorious internet kook who describes himself as an “Old Earth Young Biosphere Protestant Evangelical Paulinist,” and has been known to infest discussions e.g. at talk.origins and various creationist webpages. He is also an erstwhile Conservapedia editor, but apparently ran into some problems with the other editors there.

Martinez main things are the idea that the Bible is innerrant, that the Great Pyramid is a physical representation of the Bible, and that Atlantis exists in the Atlantic Ocean since its existence is proven by the fact that eels return to the Atlantic to spawn. To critics of his views on evolution, his common response is that he is on the verge of publishing a paper that will demolish Darwinism. The verge has lasted for the main part of a decade by now, but at least it will, according to Martnez, answer all their doubts.

Since Martinez’s can sometimes come across as ~~dubiously coherent~~ somewhat hard to understand, a superb Ray Martinez Dictionary has been made available for our benefit.

Diagnosis: Internet kook. Probably harmless.

A.k.a. Nancy Markle

If one person is to be named as being responsible for the aspartame scare, Betty Martini would probably be that person. Despite the overwhelming evidence that aspartame is safe in doses far exceeding what a normal human would be able to consume, activists such as Martini have tried to push the idea, undocumented in the medical literature, that numerous health risks (multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus, methanol toxicity, blindness, spasms, shooting pains, seizures, headaches, depression, anxiety, memory loss, birth defects and death) are associated with the consumption of aspartame in normal doses. The idea has become a canonical example of an unfounded Internet health scare.

Martini is the founder of Mission Possible World Health International, which is “committed to removing the deadly chemical aspartame from our food.” She is also anti-vaccine, anti-fluoride, anti-MSG, a conspiracy theorist, and thinks she was once cured of breast cancer by an herbal formula.

Martini has of course no expertise in any relevant field. She refers to herself as “Dr. Martini”, but this is based on an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree awarded by an unaccredited religious institution. Her claims have nevertheless been widely distributed, partly on the basis of an infamous chain e-mail, which claims that the FDA approval process of aspartame was tainted and that there is a conspiracy between the FDA and the producers of aspartam. The claims are allegedly based on a supposed talk by expert Nancy Markle at a recent “World Environmental Conference.” Someone doing a bit of research would have noticed that the email was largely identical to messages posted by Martini to Usenet newsgroups in late 1995 and early 1996 about her, Martini’s, alleged talk at a “World Environmental Conference.” The Conference is, of course, fictional, and the existence of Markle (independently of Martini) has, to put it diplomatically, not been confirmed.

The fact that most of the allegations contained in this theory contradict the bulk of medical evidence, reality, and reason, is the kind of detail that has never stopped a good conspiracy theory, and Martini’s misinformation continues to reemerge 15 years after the e-mail was originally distributed. On the other hand, the aspartame hoax has become a canonical example of an internet conspiracy circulated on a number of Internet conspiracy theory and urban legend websites (e.g. here). For instance, the dissemination of the “Nancy Markle” letter was considered so notable that the Media Awareness Network featured one version of it in a tutorial on how to determine the credibility of a web page .

Diagnosis: Deluded conspiracy theorist whose ideas may have caused quite a bit of harm, but whose efforts may, in the long run, also have contributed to greater awareness of misinformation on the internet (though that hypothesis may be way too optimistic)

Linda Masse is an astrologer who achieved a modicum of local fame when she proposed a horoscope for the United States, claiming that people in charge need to take it seriously. Unlike other astrologers such as the late Jeane Dixon, Masse claimed her goal is not to make predictions about what awaits the nation (because if she did her failures would have been more blatant). Rather, she said, she hopes to tap into the “astrological essence” of the country so Americans can learn what to do to help achieve national harmony. The United States was born under the sign of Cancer, which is “very feminine,” she said. “It can be a very nurturing sign or it can be like an overprotective mother stifling the growth of those around it.” Furthermore, the US has a “wounded warrior” in its chart coming from the Planet Chiron in the sign of Aries. “This country needs a lot of healing.” Right. “People digress when they have a wounded warrior that doesn’t heal. When they use the feminine as a martyr, it’s hard to even discuss healing.” At least she doesn’t make any testable predictions.

Diagnosis: Oh dear. At least she is harmless.

Mychal Massie is the former chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 (a D.C. conservative black “think” tank) and (I suppose) media personality. For instance, Massie writes columns for WND, which is, by now, more or less a fusion of InfoWars and Conservapedia with more spam, and as such an environment in which things like Massie would be expected to thrive.

The main topic of Massie’s columns is (nominally) politics, and the level of sophistication is evinced by his argument that Barack and Michelle Obama are pawns of Satan; in other words, there isn’t much discussion of actual issues, apart from Massie assigning views he don’t like epithets such as Satanic or Hitlerian, in order to subsequently dismiss them. It’s a pretty straightforward trick. For instance, Obama’s decision to honor those killed in Afghanistan proves “just how narcissistic he is,” and indeed, that “he was reducing the office, which should have been his ne plus ultra for good – to a sinister darkness that rivaled Erebus himself.” How that conclusion follows? I have no idea, and neither does Massie.

No wonder, then, that you cannot be a Christian and also support Obama: “Black people and black ministers specifically, and pretend-to-be Christians in general, look at the color of Obama’s skin, his swagger, and they swoon, but God looks on the color of Obama’s heart and sees darkness,” says Massie, and people tend to overlook Obama’s power to turn people gay, his “support for murdering unborn children” and “the contamination of our military with the practice of open homosexuality.” How did Obama turn out so evil? According to Massie the president is a lying, communist monster because he was sexually molested as a child … by Frank Marshall Davis. Apparently Davis, a labor rights activist, indoctrinated Obama as part of a Manchurian Candidate scheme, or is even Obama’s real father. Massie admits that he has no evidence whatsoever for these claims, but then again the column was written for WND. It’s not the only time Massie has pushed extensively debunked conspiracy theories involving the Obamas. In fact, according to Massie, it seems, his dislike for the Obamas is all the evidence he needs for claiming that any evil imaginable must be true of them.

A recurring theme in Massie’s columns about politics is godlessness. According to Massie the US is a godless nation, and is, as such, doomed. The spirit of today is (quoting Dennis Fisher) “a satanically inspired system of values and ideas that cultivates a lifestyle that is independent of God,” and the godless humanism of today’s society seem to have replaced the sound advice concerning treatments of slaves and unfaithful wives of the Old Testament with something more, well, humane. Woe us. An example is the godless liberal War on Easter (yes, from the same source that brings you the War on Christmas, every year, and yes – ironically enough – the WND themselves feature articles declaringEaster “evil” and sinful in between Massie’s screeds; so there).

Much of the depravity of modern society perceived by Massie through his lenses of wingnut fundie bigotry is exemplified by the gays (but of course). Accordingly, Massie has called for boycotting the military now that they are no longer supposed to discriminate against gays. And once again, Obama is to a large extent to blame. Indeed, Massie thinks that Obama is actively brainwashing kids, through the public school system, into “believing they are homosexuals” and “emulating street thugs,” since being homosexual and behaving like a street thug are two sides of the same coin. Why Obama would want this and how he is working to achieve it are things left unexplained. Apparently Massie’s views on gay rights is all about tolerance, and he tries to explain how in one of the daftest displays of tortured reasoning ever to appear in print here.

Indeed, Massie isn’t only concerned with gay rights. Any efforts to ensure equal opportunities are just as much of the Antichrist (though ENDAis apparently especially bad). Indeed, Massie has declared that racism is over. Accordingly, Massie thinks that Black History Month should be all about the (mythical) knockout game and anti-white segregation instead. Very true to character, Massie has declared affirmative action to be “hitlerian”, presumably as a reflection of the extraordinary efforts the Nazi regime took to ensure the representation of minorities in positions of influence. Indeed, Massie has argued that, given that racism (except anti-white racism) doesn’t exist, African Americans who work against inequality and discrimination should simply leave the country, and take liberals, socialists and the Obamas with them.” That’s what counts as “insight” over at the WND.

I don’t have a very clear idea what this is about, but Massie doesn’t seem to know either and it doesn’t sound particularly non-lunatic.

Diagnosis: Oh, the burden of supporting your observations with evidence, or your conclusions with arguments. Happily for Massie, he is completely unfettered by such constraints. Complete moron.

A.k.a. Reuben Obermeister (original name)

Roy Masters runs a weekly talk radio “Advice Line” (and has done that for nearly 50 years), is the author of numerous books including Finding God in Physics, and is the founder of the organization Foundation for Human Understanding – which seems to be more of a ministry or perhaps a cult. In both the books and on his show he promotes an incoherent mix of fundamentalist Christianity and New Age kookiness (he “teaches an exercise designed to help troubled people transform spiritual and emotional suffering into understanding” according to his Wikipedia article, which is rather obviously whitewashed by his fans – though his Basic Meditation Pack still retains for $59.95, I believe).

The primary idea, predictably, is that handwaving in the direction of quantum physics proves the existence of God and the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education. Apparently, Masters used to be a full-time hypnotist, but it seems that he at one point decided that most people are hypnotized anyways and instead needs to be freed through being exposed to the truth. In other words, you get a fascinating range of wingnut conspiracy theories mixed in with reincarnation and past-liferegression. He also performs exorcisms, cures cancer, blindness, and homosexuality (his book How Your Mind can Keep You Well is just one example). He is also into alternative energy, and has “proposed new ideas that contradict current conventions in physics” with regard to how to generate electricity from gravity – indeed, he claimed, with a straight face, to have found a modern-day perpetual motion machine. Physicists reviewed his ideas tactfully as “balderdash” and “it doesn’t make any sense” (Reinhardt Schuhmann).

As with so many church leaders Masters has participated in several tax-related controversies, and he is an enthusiastic birther.

Michael Savage, Matt Drudge and David Kupelian have apparently come out as fans of Masters’s teachings.

Diagnosis: While he doesn’t wear his fundie insanity on his sleeve as so many others of his ilk, Masters has nevertheless managed to synthesize every branch of crackpottery into a single, rather obviously incoherent doctrine (which is admittedly not that hard). He is, however, rather frighteningly influential.

A.k.a. JoMo (affectionately)

Joseph Mastropaolo is a kinesiologist with the Institute for Creation Research. He’s also known to be one of the most frustrating human beings you could ever encounter. Mastropaolo is a proponent of the mock-challenge-to-debate strategy of scientific inquiry. He does not care about research or data, but takes evolution to be refuted primarily by the fact that scientists won’t debate him under conditions determined by him. He has for instance issued challenges for trips to China and blasting anyone who failed to take him up on it because they had better things to do as cowards and fools, then – when no one takes up his offer – he follows it with screeds such as “The Evolutionist: Liar, Believer in Miracles, King of Criminal”.

Among the more notable challenges was the Life Science Prize Challenge (issued with one Karl Priest). It is described here. The fact that scientists have long managed to prove everything he asks for, even in the venues he asks them to prove it matters less, for they haven’t proven it by debating him under his ridiculous conditions (yes, there were some significant catches to rig things in Mastropaolo’s favor). When no one stepped up to debate, he created a list of debate dodgers (the list is reproduced here) that even his own home network, True.Origins, decided to take it down due, according to Tim Wallace, who runs True.Origins (a site that attempts to mirror the godless evolutionism at Talk.Origins), to “questions about the potential legitimacy of the debate challenge itself”. Dawkins, characterized as a Debate Dodger by Mastropaolo and Priest, suggested to them that since the challenge was going to based upon scientific evidence perhaps it would be better to have it judged by scientists rather than by a judge (as Mastropaolo & Priest suggested). Dawkins was, promptly and predictably, accused of trying to rig the results in his favor.

Karl Priest thinks evolution is refuted because i) evolution has been exposed as pagan Cebelese religion as practiced in Greece 2,500 years ago; ii) evolution is completely absent in the universe today, always has been, always will be; iii) every item associated with humans, animals and plants are creations, always have been, always will be; iv) creation is science because it is observable by billions of people trillions of times, always has been, always will be; and v) You [in this case Wilfrid Elders] refuse to defend your ideas in a debate for $10,000.00.

Mastropaolo is also known to argue that defenders of evolution mistakes evolution with devolution, since “[c]hange over time, ‘definition one’ of evolution, actually describes devolution to extinction, the exact opposite of evolution … actual epidemiological data from human genetic disorders and fatal birth defects, identify ‘natural selection,’ the alleged ‘primary mechanism’ for evolution, as actually a mechanism for devolution to extinction, the exact opposite of evolution.” He doesn’t quite understand evolution, does he? Note that his primary evidence for “devolution” is that the Biblical patriarchs lived very long lives, and current humans live much shorter lives; clearly, our genes must be poorer. The superiority of the patriarchs was apparently the reason they were able to hunt and domesticate the T. Rex.

A nice summary of Mastropaolo’s abysmal lack of understanding of evolution, science, evidence or reasoning can be found here.

Diagnosis: Does not have the faintest clue how science works or scientific issues are settled, nor any clear idea about what scientific theories actually say. A hysterical, rabid, fundamentalist fanatic.

Mark Matthews is a creation scientist with a full B.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering. He is one of many creationists who show up and give talks at various creationist conference where garbled misunderstandings and misinterpretations of physics are taken as evidence for the Bible (and the Bible as evidence for their garbled misunderstanding of physics). At the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, for instance, Matthews argued that the Fingers of God are evidence for a divine signature indicating the Earth really is at thecenter of the universe, and hence pretty much that the constellations reveal a divine signature – presumably like clouds and toasts. They don’t, and the idea is rather embarrassingly silly (even creationist John Hartnett, author of such books as Dismantling the Big Bang: God’s Universe Rediscovered pointed out that Matthews’s interpretation was less than fully convincing).

According to the Creation Science Association of Mid America, Matthews has also done “fascinating research” on the true age of Bristlecone Pines, usually claimed (pretty well backed up by obvious evidence) to be thousands of years old, and on dendrochronology. His research does not seem to have made any significant impact on mainstream scientific treatments of these issues.

Diagnosis: There are literally hundreds of these guys out there, and singling out Matthews might seem a little unfair (there is little that distinguishes him from the others). We cannot cover them all, however, so this entry may be viewed as an indictment of the whole tradition that spawned people like Matthews.

Wayne May used to run the website ancientamerican.com, which seems to be down at the moment (there is a blurb for it here), though he may still be operating a magazine by the same name (really a Mormon rag) and has indeed written a number of books. May defends a hypothesis that really must count as capturing the quintessence of all things loon, the claim that really makes for the perfectly idiot wingnut lunacy. Wayne May argues that:

Jesus was really American.

That is, Jesus did start out in Galilee; but of course, Galilee wasn’t really the place for Jesus to spread his wings and fulfill his potential. So he set for America and ended up in Michigan (it is unclear whether he visited anywhere else in America, however).

Ok, so his whole thing is really a defense of Mormonism, since at least the crazier segments of Mormons tend to believe these kinds of things. But still. And May’s efforts are directed toward showing how “thousands of Native American archeological sites support the Book of Mormon” because of “parallels between two distinct ancient cultures of North America” that “match them with the Jaredites and the Nephites.” It is of course absolute garbagepseudoarchaeology (discussed by a sympathetic commentator here), but still.

Diagnosis: Just fabulous. We should be grateful that there are people like Wayne May out there, even though what he confuses for reality is rather far removed from anything resembling it, to the extent that one must wonders to what extent he is really able to navigate the more mundane challenges of everyday life.

Clint McCance used to be the vice president of the Midland School Board in Arkansas, and one of numerous batshit crazy religious fundamentalist wingnuts elected to such boards across the US (the Texas situation being perhaps the most famous). McCance received some attention for being a bit miffed that people in his school were wearing purple in remembrance of students who had been bullied into suicide: “Being a fag doesn’t give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives,” said McCance, which is of course what those insidious homosexuals are up to, and pointed out that “[i]f you get easily offended by being called a fag then don’t tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die.” Remember that McCance is on the schoolboard. He is responsible for how Arkansas schools are run. His grammar, spelling and punctuation may also put his qualifications for his position in question: “Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE,” concluding that “I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone.”

After some rounds of non-apologies McCance at least had to resign from the schoolboard. He did get some support from proponents of various hate ideologists, though.

Diagnosis: Charming fellow. Hopefully neutralized by now.

James McCanney is a certified, licensed massage therapist who calls himself “Professor McCanney” and is a crackpot’s crackpot, widely known for his involvement in the Planet X bullshit and various apocalyptic nonsense, on which he has (self-)published numerous books. The title of his 2003 work, Atlantis to Tesla – The Kolbrin Connection gives you an idea. Yes, it is – rather obviously – about Atlantis, and Tesla, as well as the Kolbrin. McCanney has of course been making wildly lunatic claims about things he don’t understand and know nothing about for a long time, but as with most loons of his kind, it was the Internet that finally provided him with an audience, and he has more recently appeared extensively on various conspiracy theory radio shows such as Coast to Coast AM, where he claims that all scientists, including NASA, is in a conspiracy to lie to you but that he knows the truth.

His theories are, of course, completely insane, and have been extensively debunked here; and yes, McCanney is deeply wrong about absolutely everything, but being debunked by a scientist isn’t going to change his mind since scientists are all in a conspiracy to deny his electric comets and the influence of Planet X (which is really a comet, according to McCanney, but he provides so little actual information that most followers of Zechariah Sitchin won’t even notice) on the frequency of hurricanes on Earth). According to McCanney, comets behave like giant electrical “vacuum cleaners” in space, attracting material to themselves and eventually growing into planets – which is of course so wrong in even its basic premises that it requires some unpacking. The proof that there is a conspiracy among scientists and NASA is of course that mainstream science won’t accept his demonstrably wrong ideas (they are ideas “NASA doesn’t want you to know about,” for some rather unclear reason). For Planet X is, indeed, coming for us (in the form of a growing comet), and you better buy his book (Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes) to figure out what to do – oh yes, that’s the follow-up part: His site has a lot of offers in terms of survivalist junk, and in 2003 he even managed to solicit donations for a holiday in South America from his readers. Oh, of course, “this comet will be important and comes at a time when the new world order is trying to keep the lid on celestial issues”. Exactly. And if this Planet X doesn’t work out, keep in mind that all comets grow, so “there's many, many planet X objects. We don't have a good handle on the history of these objects, some of them, not all of them, are gonna cause disasters to Earth.” There is a good resource on McCanney and his claims here.

He also claims that the moon landings were fake; but then, when you are so deeply entrenched in conspiracies and pseudoscience as McCanney you aren’t left with much choice on these questions.

He is of course a legend over at whale.to, the educateyourself website, and the David Icke forums.

Diagnosis: Hypercrank, of the rather common variety who takes the fact that everyone thinks your claims are false to be evidence for a conspiracy, and the existence of a conspiracy to criticize you is further evidence that you are on the right track. And so on.

William Paul McCartney is a former American football player and coach, but currently more famous as the founder of the Promise Keeper men's ministry and later the organization The Road to Jerusalem, which attempts to solidify the bonds between “Messianic Jews” and Christians, to convert Jews to Christianity before it is to late, and to prepare the world for the End of Days. “Our whole purpose is to hasten the end times,” said McCartney. “The Bible says Jews will be brought to jealousy when they see Christians and Jewish believers together as one – they’ll want to be a part of that. That’s going to signal Jesus’ return.” Jews and others who don’t accept Jesus, he added, “are toast.” (Context and commentary here.)

Promise Keepers (PK) is an organization of fundamentalist Christian men who promise to keep their wives and daughters in servitude; women are expected to obey their husbands and male employers, to the extent that even if a woman realizes that the man makes a mistake, she should nevertheless carry out her orders and leave it to God to put things right. PK gained some influence in the 1990s, though their influence seems to have waned somewhat in recent years. McCartney is still around, however, and is definitely as crazy as ever.

Diagnosis: Demented shitwit.

There are some people with dubious reasoning abilities in Congress, but for the real crazy one should take a look at the state representatives. Alabama is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a case in point. That’s where you’ll find people like Mary Sue McClurkin, whose opposition to abortion is based in part on the idea that a fetus is the “largest organ in a woman’s body”, which would be not even wrong even if it had been relevant. Oh well, McClurkin appears to have the opinions that you’d expect from a wingnut moron across the board. She did, for instance, support an attempt in 2012 to get creationism to be offered for academic credit to Alabama students by allowing schools to offer such credits for a released time program of creationist instruction that would take place off school property. (The bill was introduced by Rep. Blaine Galliher, who seems to be, in general, in McClurkin’s class when it comes to intellectual prowess, reasoning skills and aptitude for reality-based policies.)

Diagnosis: Yes, reasoning is hard and tailoring one's belief to the evidence requires some effort, and McClurkin hasn’t really mastered the basic skills. Fortunately for her (and unfortunately for civilization), neither have a vast number of Alabama voters.

Kevin McCullough is a … madman. He is also a talkshow host and occasional writer for WND, where he voices the opinions you usually expect from madmen who occasionally voice their opinions (mostly blatant lies) in the WND (this one is perhaps particularly tasteless). Among McCullough’s greatest hits is his column “Why liberals channel Lucifer”, which doesn’t really tell us why they channel Lucifer or provide any clear reason to think they do apart from voices (“God!) that McCullough hears in his head. Then there is the ACLU’s War on Christmas. You might not have noticed that one, but McCullough has, because McCullough has a different way of knowing that is independent of facts, evidence, truth or how to properly interpret a situation.

So let’s just move straight to his views on LGTB rights. McCullough was a persistent (rabid) critic of WalMart’s decision to extend pension and healthcare benefits to gay employees, arguing that WalMart is no longer “family friendly” because they sell dish detergent to non-wingnuts (or something). The point is apparently that “radical homosexual activists hate marriage because fundamentally they hate God, and the guilt of both drives them to extremes,” which is how logical connections are made in McCullough’s head. He also thinks their campaigns for marriage equality are crazy: “[I]n the minds of radical activists, getting the label and a piece of paper saying so will be close enough.” Right. The formal designation “marriage” is not what matters here. So, McCullough doesn’t care that much about that designation, then? You betcha.

He has also warned that the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is a pawn of the Devil, and that he is being “targeted by the Enemy, and I mean the Evil One, I don’t mean human beings but I mean by His forces,” because they criticize him. After all, who would possibly disagree with McCullough without being the Anti-Christ himself? And if you criticizeMcCullough, what you really want is to kill him and bring about Armageddon. He nevertheless took issue with GLAAD’s use of the term “gay,” because according to McCullough, “I don’t believe that you can be gay.” But they are still the Anti-Christ and want to destroy marriage, “the one institution free society is dependent upon for its survival”, even though – you may have noticed – the marriage equality groups in question are in fact fighting to get married: “[R]adical homosexual activists despise the institution, and more importantly the sanctity, of marriage. That is the fundamental reason why they are seeking to destroy the institution.” All because they hate God. Really.

Diagnosis: Well, we never really got beyond his views on sex. But neither did McCullough himself. The voices in his head keep telling him that society stands or falls on that.

If you are a real crank, are interested in alternative ways to create energy, Tesla crankery is not enough for you, and you don’t know enough about (pseudo-)physics to defend cold fusion, then the obvious choice is to promote orgone energy, an idea so thoroughly silly that even most pseudoscientists shun it, but one that really promises to open the floodgate for the most marvelous woo and crazy imaginable. Ryan McGinty is into orgone energy – indeed, he calls himself an orgone warrior and is an associate of the Crofts – and has, accordingly, been awarded a substantial presence over at whale.to, where he for instance tells you how to make new orgone devices. The instructions are a little unspecific, for who would not want these orgone “devices that are tried and true, such as: Towerbuster, Holy Hand Grenade, Earth Pipe or Cloudbuster”? At least the Earth Pipes are used to to “disrupt and neutralize underground predatory tech” and for “disabling underground sources of deadly energy.” He admits, though, that the “results are not as visible, so we have to rely on the psychics or our own instincts for confirmations.” (This does not count as evidence). The instructions for “Don’s PowerWand” are here; a more detailed instructions for a frequency generator are here.

At least McGinty is frank about the woo connection: “Orgone is a name given by Wilhelm Reich for vital health or life energy. Orgone also is the same energy know as Chi or Prana from Eastern cultures.” Indeed; in more detail: “Orgone or etheric energy is a type of solar fire, one of three primary force energies in existence, the other two being fire by friction and electrical fire, known as electricity. Prana is solar fire.” At least he does not even bother to try to integrate his mythology with science.

He also gives advice on aura clearing and blasting, and has been“testing music notes to chakras and the colors related.” Apparently, “High C [is] a great tool against attacking enitites.” (The color thing is apparently based on the works of one Charles Klotsche, author of Color Medicine, which does not sound like anything resembling medicine).

Here he meets Tree Devas and Palm Elementals (a must-read – pareidolia does not come more magnificent than this).

Diagnosis: Lunacy doesn’t come much more astonishing than Ryan McGinty, but at least they seem to be fighting ardent battles against their imaginations without bothering the rest of us too much.

A.k.a. Laozu

Just as last post’s Ryan McGinty, Kelly McKennon is a promoter of orgone energy; he is just as divorced from anything resembling reality, and – hence – has an equally substantial whale.to presence. And just like McGinty, McKennon – or Laozu, as he prefers to be called – gives you advice on how to escape from threats that don’t exist and fill your surroundings with mythical positive energy through crystals, imagination and junk from Radioshack. “All the trees and plants now on the lot where I live […] have positive ambient qi,” claims Laozu (though it can only be measured by intuition and devices that tells him what he wants to know by no discernible systematicity apart from the fact that he knows what answer he wants to get), and he has developed comprehensive resources that you can use, too (“qi”, by the way, is in Laozu’s opinion just the Chinese word for orgone). Among his most powerful devices is the Laozu Torsion Cloud Buster, which can be placed on a “black energy line” to “convert it to positive”. Looking at his testimonials, at least this guy seems to have been satisfied with the product: “This line passed through the corner of the cellar where two nasty demonic type spirits were in residence […] When the CB was put on the line they changed from being like hissing alley cats into grim silence, and the last time Kelly looked they were crying.”

Laozu can also offer advice on charging water and crystals, Pyramid Crystal Chargers, Orgonite Innovation and how to “gift the heavens” – as well as information about “non-material beings”, entities that can nevertheless be characterized by their qi (or your imagination). “Examples of non-material beings are angels, those which have responsibility for seeing to the welfare of certain geographic locations (spiritus loci) or (tu di shen), those which have responsibility for looking after trees (devas), those whose responsibilities lie in the air (sylphs), those whose responsibilities lie in the water (undines), those who are associate with fire (salamanders) and the elementals which often have responsibility for specific plant (or other) organisms. The qi of the nymphs, sylphs, and devas which I have observed has always been quite positive.” Yes. Sylphs sometimes disguise themselves as clouds, apparently, which makes one wonder whether Laozu has a clear grasp of the distinction between material and non-material.

You can read an account of going vortex safari with Laozu here.

At least he is candid enough to admit that “[m]y findings and opinions are not all mainstream, but I have based them solely on personal observation,” which, of course, close-minded people with critical thinking skills would say is exactly the crux of the problem, especially if you, like Laozu, have already demonstrated a proclivity for affect bias and general lunacy.

Diagnosis: The distinction between reality and imagination is apparently a hard one, and McKennon fails more profoundly than most. Otherwise harmless.

A.k.a. Jake McAulay (no idea)

We’ve sort of encountered this character before, but I guess he deserves his own, short entry. Jake McMillan is, or at least was, an associate of Bradlee Dean at the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International Ministries, and Dean’s partner on the radio show Sons of Liberty – at least until recently, when rumors suggest Dean’s organization seems to have disappeared; that may be an exaggeration, but the suggestion that Dean and McMillan have parted ways may be correct. At least McMillan used his time on the Sons of Liberty show well, and managed to utter such things as the claim that “half the murders in large cities are committed by homosexuals”. He also praised the actions of the African nation of Malawi, which recently began arresting gay couples for getting engaged. “They are very conservative,” said McMillan, and appropriately “sentence people for crimes against nature.” McMillan is, of course, in favor of criminalizing homosexuality, and praise countries implementing such laws (mostly Muslim countries, but he seems to have willfully overlooked that fact) since they accordingly “love and value life and they love and value that which God gave, and so they enforce laws against that which destroys life which again is crimes against nature.”

Diagnosis: That’s the kind of guy he is. Let’s move on.

Bill McNamara is the head of New Beginnings Ministries, which describes itself as a character-building facility for “troubled teens” in Missouri (it has operated under multiple names in Florida, Mississippi, and Texas). It’s exactly the kind of place you’d expect it to be in virtue of being a “faith-based teen home”), namely a place where teens are subjected to what I suppose McNamara would term “strict discipline,” which to most reasonable people would be just another word for abuse.

New Beginnings is typical, however, of the unknown number of “troubled teen” homes catering to the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) community – a web of thousands of autonomous churches linked by doctrine, overlapping leadership, and affiliations with Taliban-style training camps such as Bob Jones University. IFB churches emphasize strict obedience and consider teen rebellion an invention of worldly society, thereby attracting already reality-challenged parents who are facing typical teenage behavior. Fear of government intrusion is of course so pervasive that IFB congregations are primed to dismiss regulatory actions against abusive facilities as religious persecution.

The list of horror stories from these kinds of facilities is, in other words, a long one.

Diagnosis: Monster

Honorable mention indeed goes to Tea Party painter Jon McNaughton, who is such a glaring parody of himself and the Tea Party movement that I struggle to come up with material enough to fill an entry (just look at some of his paintings).

Lynne McTaggart is more insidious. McTaggart is a currently London-based author, newsletter writer and activist journalist, and, according to herself, a spokesperson “on consciousness, the new physics, and the practices of conventional and alternative medicine.” She has no relevant qualifications related to and knows nothing about consciousness, physics or “conventional medicine,” of course, but is apparently very excited about how she can substitute knowledge, evidence and reality with imagination and woo, which she mixes with standard conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination propaganda.

According to herself, McTaggart had an illness at one point for which she identified (by pure powers of mind, apparently) “a toxic yeast”, and developed, together with a homeopathic doctor, a diet that cured it. This anecdote then served as proof of a conspiracy among medical practitioners, and she started (with her husband Bryan Hubbard) the newsletter “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” (later a book), primarily targeted at childhood vaccination (later she published a similar cancer handbook), which is sometimes seen as one of the tracts that really got the antivaxx movement going – the measles vaccine “caused untold paralysis, damage and death,” says McTaggart without being even dimly aware that such a claim requires backing up by data. Her complete lack of understanding of vaccines is discussed here.

Later publications in the same vein include What Doctors Don't Tell You, PROOF! (by “proof” she means “what I believe for every reason and none”) and Living the Field. “What Doctors Don’t Tell You” is currently also the name for their website, monthly magazine and pressure group. The central argumentative strategy for everything she and her pressure group do is the pharma shill gambit, and she complains that “we debate with fact against an establishment which argues with emotion,” which tells you a bit both about her self-awareness and her ability to discern reality.

From 1996 until 2002 McTaggart and Hubbard also published the monthly newsletter Mother Knows Best, later Natural Parent magazine, focusing on home schooling, environmental and health concerns, nutrition and homeopathy, which also resulted in the books My Learning Child, My Spiritual Child and My Healthy Child. These are books that, suffice to say, anyone who cares about the welfare of children do well to stay far away from.

In her utterly pseudoscientific The Field, McTaggart discusses scientific discoveries that she says support (but which don’t, apart from what she makes up) the theory that the universe is unified by an interactive field. The book became a hit with those who care little about truth to begin with and those who think hallucinogenic drugs is a pathway to understanding. The basic idea is that “science has recently begun to prove what ancient myth and religion have always espoused: There may be such a thing as a life force,” an idea that is so novel that science has in fact rejected it at least since the 19^th century because it is stupid. You can see someone who actually knows a bit about science discuss the book here (“it’s actually insulting; it’s a slap in the face to anyone with the slightest scientific background”).

In The Intention Experiment, she discusses research in the field of human consciousness (missing most of the actualresearch), which she says supports the theory that “the universe is connected by a vast quantum energy field” and can be influenced by thought, which is an idea so thoroughly silly, unsupported and unsupportable (it’s a metaphor, and thus not even a hypothesis) that it was even more popular among the reason-challenged segments than The Field. Accordingly, McTaggart started a personal development program called Living The Field, which is – according to her – based on an interpretation of the zero point field as applied to quantum mechanics. It can heal you. And then your thoughts can heal the world.

McTaggart appears in the extended version of the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? as well as The Living Matrix – The Science of Healing, which has nothing to do with science. Or actual healing, for that matter.

Diagnosis: McTaggart is wrong about everything, and sufficiently arrogant not to recognize that those who knows something about a field might be better positioned than herself to find out what’s actually the case. She is nevertheless quite influential, which tells you something about the challenges faced by those who try to campaign on behalf of truth and reason.

#916: Andy Martin

#917: Rod J. Martin

#918: Ray Martinez

#919: Betty Martini

#920: Linda Masse

#921: Mychal Massie

#922: Roy Masters

#923: Joseph Mastropaolo

#924: Mark Matthews

#925: Wayne May

#926: Clint McCance

#927: James McCanney

#928: Bill McCartney

#929: Mary Sue McClurkin

#930: Kevin McCullough

#931: Ryan McGinty

#932: Kelly McKennon

#933: Jake McMillan

#934: Bill McNamara

#935: Lynne McTaggart