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#1161: Michael T. Snyder

September 24, 2014, 7:06 am
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Being a crank with a blog on the Internet is not particularly uncommon, and we can’t hope to document all of these. But we will cover a representative sample of the more notorious kinds, and Michael T. Snyder is definitely one of these. A raving, frothing fundamentalist and Biblical literalist, Snyder is in fact the originator of several blogs, all of them trying to back up his firmly entrenched belief that the world is about to end. The first (significant) blog was The Economic Collapse Blog in 2007, a survivalist, rapture ready, tax protesting pit of articles stating how the world is going to hell every single day since the meltdown started in 2007 – indeed, Snyder blames the government for more or less every and any conceivable ill in society, or that he imagines society to have. His track record when it comes to his predictions of collapse is abysmal; he has, as far as we can see, never been close to being right ever.

And yes, there are several of them. You see, when Snyder became dimly aware that his original blog had become an item of mockery in certain circles, he set up other blogs with different names (but the same content). There is a decent summary of his antics here, including various religious and anti-gay rants. As a matter of fact, his rants have reappeared in various places across the Internet, so they seem, curiously, to have made some impact among the denser segments of Internet users.

Diagnosis: Standard internet crank, true, but Snyder’s levels of wrong and fervor are still sufficiently remarkable to earn him a separate entry.
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#1162: Amy Max & Roderic Sorrell

September 25, 2014, 7:41 am
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Bio-ching is the union of the modern pseudoscience of biorhythms and the ancient superstitious mysticism of the I Ching. It was developed by by Amy Max Sorrell and Roderic Sorrell – “therapists”, according to their websites, and at least reiki masters – who use a computer program to generate something from the I Ching for each of the biorhythmic combos (512, it seems) available in their system. As Robert Carroll describes it, “they’ve added an electronic fortune cookie (with equivalent wisdom) to the biorhythm chart.” (And no: we are not going to give Kevin Sorbo a separate entry, if anyone wondered.)

To prepare for they innovation they went around for several years “sampling the New Age Emporium that is California,” and delved into an impressive variety of techniques from the most delusional echelons of woo, including “the meridian energy of acupuncture, the power of the deep massage of Rolfing” and “the esoteric practices of Taoist meditation,” “herbal healing” and the “newly emerging electronic approaches to the mind: sound and light stimulation of the mind’s beta, alpha, theta and delta waves, and biofeedback.”

If you wish to be exposed to their bullshit in person you can go to their home of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico to have them amend whatever physical or spiritual inadequacy from which you might suffer ($250 per day per person).

Diagnosis: Woo of the highest order, but one cannot help wondering how they would score if measured on a scale of stupidity; after all, their counseling is rather expensive.
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#1163: Mark Souder

September 27, 2014, 6:30 am
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Mark Edward Souder was the Republican Representative from Indiana from 1995 to 2010 – he resigned from Congress after admitting to an affair with one of his part-time female staff members, and is as such relatively neutralized by now. But he won’t easily be forgotten, at least not by those of us who care for reason, truth, science and accountability. Souder is a truly fanatical religious fundie, which was amply displayed in his political positions (on the US’s Israel policy he said that “[T]he bottom line is, they’re God’s chosen people. He’s going to stand with them. The question is: Are we going to stand with them?” which is not a particularly fruitful point of departure for foreign policy decisions), and he got out of the Vietnam draft by applying for non-combatant status on religious grounds (though he was not opposed to otherpeople fighting and dying, of course).

For those who care about reason and truth, Souder is probably most infamous for his support for creationists and creationism and for being a staunch ally of the Discovery Institute. In particular, Souder was heavily involved in trying to make a scandal over the Richard Sternberg affair (also here). Together with Discovery ally Rick Santorum Souder put out a report, the contents of which are simply not supported by any evidence, as part of a PR campaign for Sternberg, the Discotute, and the idea that Intelligent Design advocates – including themselves – are victims of discrimination (again, the details are here).

As for solo stunts, Souder is on the record saying that “I personally believe that there is no issue more important to our society than intelligent design. I believe that if there wasn’t a purpose in designing you – regardless of who you view the designer as being – then, from my perspective, you can’t be fallen from that design. If you can’t be fallen from that design, there’s no point to evangelism,” which may or may not be correct but is in any case rather entirely irrelevant to the science of biology. It is also one of the most blatant arguments from wishful thinking to the falsity of evolution (which Souder indeed took to be the conclusion) we have seen in a while.

He doesn’t like gays either, because he is a “family values guy”.

Diagnosis: Religious fundie denialist. He seems to be more or less out of the picture now, but he should really never have come anywhere near any position of power at all in the first place.
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#1164: Glenn Spencer

September 28, 2014, 9:19 am
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Glenn Spencer is a white supremacist known, in particular, for his anti-immigration activism. Though he used to be a standard KKK-style guy he seems to have realized, at some point, that wearing a sign saying “stupid bigot” wasn’t conducive to public sympathy – yet his current groups, American Border Patrol, Ranch Rescue, the Minutemen Project, and Voices of Citizens Together (VCT) have all been designated as hate groups as well.

Spencer is probably most famous for having bought a ranch a thousand feet from the Mexico/Arizona border, converting it to a hi-tech security zone complete with infrared cameras, aerial drones and motion detectors. The idea seems to have been to show the American federal government how easy it is to halt illegal immigration. Currently it serves as a base for American Border Patrol’s armed vigilante activities (covered here), which ostensibly take place on “private grounds”. There is a fine portrait of Spencer here.

According to Spencer he is countering what he seems to take to be Mexican plans to (literally) “reconquer” the U.S. Indeed, Spencer is (together with people such as Barbara Coe, who leads the hate group California Coalition for Immigration Reform), one of the main proponents of the Aztlan conspiracy theory, according to which there is a bona fide conspiracy endorsed and backed by Mexico and, in some versions, by most Mexican Americans to forcibly take over the US (“The dream of conquering Aztlan lies deep in the heart of the Mexican psyche,” says Spencer; “[t]his explains why some are willing to risk death. Their goal is more than jobs, it is conquest”).

And, oh, he has also written the article “Is Jew-Controlled Hollywood Brainwashing Americans?” Just to prove to people that he is an insane, paranoid conspiracy theorist. In the article, he assured readers that he had Jewish friends but added that he featred that “this small handful of patriotic Americans are far outnumbered by liberal Jews who now have total control over our media.” Obama isn’t doing a particularly good job either (“brainwashed Americans have just voted to commit national suicide” was his comment on the 2008 election).

Diagnosis: He does at least follow a rather standard pattern of rationality-related morbidity associated with paranoia and conspiracy theories, and there is little risk that his views will become mainstream anytime soon. But he has enough followers to make him dangerous.
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#1165: Lee Spetner

September 29, 2014, 8:13 am
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By virtue of being a physicist, one would think that creationist Lee Spetner would have some aptitude for aligning his beliefs on science to the evidence. No such luck. Spetner spent years in Israel attempting to search for evidence which “contradicted evolution” and favored his religious views. His conclusion was, remarkable, the one he had from the beginning: there was 365 originally created species of “beasts” and 365 birds, as detailed in his book Not by Chance, Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, which even by its title reveals a profound lack of understanding of evolution. In the book he also says that mutations do not create new information, which is needed to drive evolution, and that mutations are not beneficial as they lead to a loss of information. He also rejects archaeopteryx as a fraud – indeed, Spetner and Fred Hoyle were the creationist critics that really set the stage for later creationist dismissals of the fossil. Of course, Spetner and Hoyle based their objections on complete misunderstandings of an unfamiliarity with the data and relevant processes, tactfully concluding that the real scientists were not only mistaken, but frauds. The incidence, described here, should really have undermined all aspirations of credibility Spetner might once have entertained, but the creationists apparently never noticed.

In short, Spetner’s book is a collection of creationist PRATTs. Do you think Spetner deals with the scientific responses to those PRATTs? Nope. Not a chance – the point was, familiarly, never to do science, but to win the public, and actually dealing with thorny scientific issues would presumably be too much. The purpose of the book is to replace the modern synthesis with a mixture of divine creation and a non-random evolution theory which he believes explains microevolution. His book has been endorsed by creationists and intelligent design advocates who presents it as a the work of a non-creationist presenting evidence against central tenets of evolution, even though Spetner is, in fact, an outspoken, ardent creationist (as discussed here). Indeed, when the 2013 Ball State kerfuffle – erupted due to creationist Eric Hedin wanting to disguise fundamentalist evangelicism as a biology course at Ball State University, Spetner’s work was on the reading list – despite Spetner’s obvious lack of understanding of even the basic tenets of biology or, for that matter, probability theory; there is a wonderful takedown of Spetner’s attempt to use mathematical modeling to undermine evolution here.

He is also a signatory to the Discovery Institute petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

Diagnosis: Nothing more than your standard fundamentalist denialist creationist, really, though Spetner has somehow, occasionally, managed to pass as something else to those who don’t already understand what he is talking about. Disgraceful, really.
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#1166: Donald Spitz

September 30, 2014, 7:42 am
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With the passing of Louis Spiegel in 1999 it has been difficult to verify who, exactly, is currently leading the Unarians, apart from the alien beings of light and spirits of Ernest Norman that the Unarians themselves would claim are leading them. Do look into the group, however – there are few examples of more amazing, incoherent gibberish on the whole of the Internet, and that is no mean feat. But it is also all fluffy friendliness (with UFOs). There is nothing fluffy or friendly about Donald Spitz. Spitz is a fundie anti-abortion activist who runs the website – and is a spokesman – for the anti-abortion group Army of God (described here). He used to be a member of Operation Rescue, but was apparently too extreme even for them – beside, Spitz was a personal friend of Paul Jennings Hill. He was also a firm supporter of Clayton Waagner’s efforts to “kill as many [abortion providers] as I can” by sending thousands of anthrax letters to doctors in 2001, and John Salvi III, who attacked two abortion clinics in Massachusetts – Spitz held a prayer vigil outside Salvi's jail cell and was so outspoken in his defense of Salvi that he was asked not to come to Massachusetts. Needless to say, Spitz has been watched by the FBI for a while.

Spitz’s anti-abortion efforts tend to overshadow his other views and various fundie efforts, but he also rails against “filthy faggots” and “lesbos” (more on Spitz’s views on gay rights here), claims that Islam is “Satanic,” Arabs are “Rag-Heads,” and that Muslims “should not be allowed to live in the United States.” That would include President Obama, whom Spitz believes to be a Muslim. Furthermore New York City is a “sex perverted cesspool” that richly deserved Sept. 11. His website has accordingly been noted for several instances thinly veiled racism.

Diagnosis: Hysterically insane fundie, warped to the core by delusions and fanaticism. He doesn’t have many followers, but his campaigns constitute a rather serious threat to society.
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#1167: David Scott Springer

October 1, 2014, 7:30 am
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A.k.a. DaveScot

DaveScot used to be one of the most prominent bloggers at Bill Dembski’s blog Uncommon Descent, but was apparently kicked out in 2009 by Barry Arrington after writing a post pointing out that some Christians had been racists in past, too. DaveScot calls himself as an agnostic (he is just following the evience), though his calls for prayers for the non-religious suggests that his agnosticism is not particularly agnostic. His attempted defense of the possibility of a virgin birth does not suggest agnosticism either – but did suggest, rather strongly, a profound ignorance of basic facts about human biology.

His postings on the Kitzmiller v. Dover case are illuminating with regard to what creationists think the evolution “controversy” is all about (hint: it is not the evidence). He also lamented the extent to which the good parents of Dover obviously hated religion.

DaveScot is also a global warming denialist.

Now, I don’t really know what DaveScot is doing at the moment. Hopefully his experiences at Uncommon Descent taught him a lesson, but somehow I doubt that they did.
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#1168: R. Leo Sprinkle

October 2, 2014, 9:21 am
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R. Leo Sprinkle is a psychologist, and was once a professor at the University of Wyoming. In the 1960s, however, he became involved in the field of supposed alien abduction. Of course, that is a field that shouldbe of interest to a psychologist, but probably not in the way Sprinkle studied it. To make a long story short, his magnum opus, his book Soul Samples: Personal Exploration in Reincarnation and UFO Experiences from 1999 was not published by an academic publisher. Coast to Coast AM, on the other hand, has been very interested in his “research”.

To get a feel for where Sprinkle is coming from, there is an interview here. Given the questionable level of coherence it is hard to get a good grasp of what Sprinkle’s views actually are, but at least he tends “to think the Star Visitors are engaged in some type of educational program for helping us to evolve inwardly or spiritually.” He also thinks that “The Star Visitors are on a different plane.” That is his explanation for why many people claim to see UFOs when no one else in their immediate surroundings see anything – the witnesses are located at a higher plane of consciousness. That is not, shall we say, the explanation that cold science would assign the highest credence in such cases. (The experiences also have symbolic meaning and help the experiencer predict the future, it seems, which suggests that Sprinkle struggles with avoiding some basic category mistakes.) The contactees also develop psychic abilities: “Many people who have had UFO experiences have been able to visualize weather changes and have them occur very quickly. They can create rain merely by visualizing the rain.”

Sprinkle also worked closely with well-known alien abductee Stan Romanek, whom he hypnotized to retrieve lost memories of the latter’s supposed abductions, which is not a very reliable method for investigating these kinds of things, to put it very, very mildly.

Diagnosis: Ultracrackpot. The lesson is that if your investigations point to conclusions that violate everything established by other scientists, that is not evidence that you just possess more powerful faculties of perception or intuition and that you are some kind of prophet. It means that you are a crank.
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#1169: Jacqueline Stallone

October 3, 2014, 9:03 am
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Rumpology is the idea that one can tell a lot about you by reading your rump. “Just as a print of your fingerprints, palms, soles, and ears tell a story, so does your rump,” says Jackie Stallone, astrologist and mother of Rambo. “So they thought in ancient India and Babylon and so today. The Greeks used palm and behind prints to determine health and fidelity. The Romans used the prints to identify potential future success. The prints reveal your whole being,” which is not exactly evidence for the efficacy of the method.

According to Stallone’s website, if you send her a photo of your bottom she will use her psychic abilities to tell you about your past, your future and your “natural personality characteristics” (no idea) for the very reasonable price of $125 (which includes a glossy color print of your butt suitable for framing).

As for her astrology skills, Stallone claims to be “the only astrologer to forecast Bush-Jr’s victory during the presidential election” in 2000, which, if correct, would tell you quite a bit about other astrologists but nothing about Stallone’s abilities. Her son, Rambo, says that his mother’s greatest talent is her ability to see the future. She probably has an accuracy of about 75% due to the Barnum and Forer effects alone. Rambo’s assessment is, in short, not particularly flattering.

She even teaches her skills to others. José Miranda, of Little Havana, Miami, an apparently popular idiot on the late-night talk show “La Cosa Nostra” on Spanish-language WJAN-TV Channel 41, learned his skills at Stallone’s … feet. Miranda claims that rump reading is “no different than reading a palm or someone’s eyes,” which is probably right. He seems to specialize in live readings of scantily clad models on TV.

Diagnosis: What do you do when your family members become celebrities, yet you yourself lack any skill, intelligence, aptitude or sanity? Well, there are plenty of options, and Stallone has followed a well-paved path to imagined respectability. Her threat to civilization is probably pretty marginal, however.
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#1170: Frank Porter Stansberry

October 4, 2014, 6:31 am
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Oh, yes, The End. We have covered the lunatic fundies of Rapture Ready rather extensively. Frank Porter Stansberry is not one of them; but Stansberry is a financial publisher, author and founder of Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, as well as the guy behind a viral 2011 video called “End of America”, the theme of which is precisely as silly as the medieval theological ruminations of Harold Camping, even though it (arguably) avoids overt appeals to supernatural elements in its endtime predictions.

Stansberry’s brand of (lack of) reasoning has, predictably, endeared him to a certain type of people, and he has made appearances on Alex Jones’s InfoWars as well as frequent contributions to the WND. At the latter site he claims, for instance, that Obama will violate the 22nd Amendment and win the 2016 election. How? Because mystical “forces” backing Obama will unleash an economic boom the likes of which we’ve never seen, making millions of Americans much wealthier and improve the standard of living for everyone in the country (despite his claim that we are also headed for a big crash), thereby making “an idol” of President Obama and allow him to “redraw the rules that govern the presidency” to seek “unlimited power” and become “a tyrant unlike any other in American history.” Yup, coherence is a commie conspiracy. And there are people who actually listen to him. He also uses slurs to describe homosexuals, but that’s apparently ok since he’s got lots of gay friends.

Stansberry is most famous, however, for his “financial advice” (covered in some more extent here), which is the type of advice that got him in legal trouble, in 2003, for a “scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters.” In 2007, he and his investment firm were ordered by a U.S. District Court to pay $1.5 million in restitution and civil penalties (the court rejected Stansberry’s 1st Amendment defense; the Amendment does not protect deliberate lying for commercial gain).

Diagnosis: All the subtlety and integrity of a spambot. Yet despite Stansberry’s impressive lack of connection to reality and truth, he’s got (it seems) something of a fanbase.
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#1171: Jelaila Starr

October 5, 2014, 10:56 am
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A.k.a. Joscelyn Kelly

In 1992 Joscelyn Kelley had a “spiritual awakening” and became a walk-in Starseed called Jelaila while she was a patient at an abortion clinic. After Jelaila took possession of Mrs. Kelley she married fellow Nibiruan “walk-in” Jehowah (Jonathan) Starr, and in January of 1997 she was “trained” as a galactic messenger and founded The Nibiruan Council, named after Nibiru, Zechariah Sitchin’s alleged 12th planet of the solar system (don’t ask). But fear not, Jelaila claims she maintains contact with Joscelyn, who is currently residing on Nibiru. Jelaila regularly visits her via channelings or dream states. She also believes she is from a cat race of beings called 9D meaning 9th dimensional Felines. Jonathan (AKA Jehowah), on his side, is a 9D reptilian being. Apparently Jelaila is guided by a 9D feline called Devin, who is her brother in the 9th dimensional realms. So there.

Currently Jelaila Starr heads, as mentioned, an alien identity-based group and channels information from the Galactic Federation’s Nibiruan Council (their website is here – the design doesn’t inappropriately flaunt their advanced state of being). You can become part of this exclusive group by attending Starr’s “Are you a Nibiruan – Starseed type readings” sessions. Session prices ranges from $125 an hour with Jelaila to $100 an hour with Jonathan. If you are, indeed, a Starseed, you must also have a “Life Blueprint” reading and buy various books, tapes, vitamin supplements, colon cleanse kits and other stuff, but you mayalso get the opportunity to become “Galactic Councilor Apprentice”, and who wouldn’t want that? Perhaps it would help to employ some of their “Ascension Tools”, such as “the Accelerated DNA Recoding Process,” and the “Multidimensional Keys of Compassion”? (Presumably not included in the startup price.)

The Jelaila Starr story is described by Colleen Johnston, who seems to be quite a fluffcase herself but at least warns against Starr, here.

Starr is, of course, also a conspiracy theorist. She thinksit is in human nature to hide knowledge from each other and ourselves: “This is why these solar flares are occurring. Through the solar flares the planetary frequency is affected along with the earth’s magnetic grid. The magnetic grid holds our memories. When it is shaken through solar flares, those memories that are suppressed have the chance to surface, hence the emotional chaos we experience happening within us and around us.” There’s quite a lot of this kind of stuff on her webpage.

Diagnosis: Well, you know.
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#1172: Matthew Stein

October 6, 2014, 7:34 am
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Matthew Stein is an engineer and contributor to Huffington Post. Stein might know his engineering, and much of what he writes on environmental topics is sensible (though it veers on the sensationalist), but when his writing veers into issues of medicine his engineering background is not sufficient to avoid being stupid, and Stein does, in the end, seem to have a tenuous grasp of science and critical thinking. His area of alleged expertise is apparently disaster preparation and management, and he has written a couple of books on the topic (When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Planning and Crisis Survival; and When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency). Does his output manage to rise above standard survivalist nonsense?

Well, his Huffpo contributions don’t suggest so. For instance, in a post entitled “When a Superbug Strikes Close to Home, How Will You Deal With it?” (discussed here, and in more detail here) he – after some scare tactics about superbugs – went on to recommend “many alternative medicines, herbs, and treatments that can be quite effective in the fight against a wide variety of viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, to which mainstream high-tech Western medicine has little or nothing to offer.” Or, in other words, there are lot of cures they don’t want you to know about because relying on evidence and science is apparently a matter of close-minded, conservative groupthink and therefore wrong by the Law of Conspiracies. He even suggests homeopathy as an answer.

Diagnosis: Though medical science isn’t Stein’s main topic, he surely is an anti-science crank, which should affect his credibility on other topics he writes about as well.
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#1173: Henry Stevens

October 8, 2014, 8:00 am
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Henry Stevens is a conspiracy theorist, pseudoscientist, Holocaust “skeptic”, self-proclaimed “WWII expert”, and the founder of the “German Research Project” (GRP) to research Nazi UFOs. We are, in short, at the deep end here.

The GRP, according to itself, “researches and documents UFOs built by the Germans during WW2”, an idea that according to Stevens is – but of course – suppressed by the American government because, well, you know, that’s what they do. In particular, Stevens claims not only that governments lie and cover up secret technologies, including UFOs invented by the Nazis, but that Hitler survived WWII by moving on to a secret underground base in the Antarctic. He has accordingly written some books on these issues (published by Adventures Unlimited Press). He has also written quite a bit on electro-propulsion (anti-gravity) mechanism devices and various other forms of pseudoscience as well, as blithely ignorant of reason, reality, evidence or fact as you’d expect.

Apparently, according to rationalwiki, he also posts as “fivepercenter” on web forums, where he offers gems such as the observation that “[l]et me tell you the reason you cannot ever get a list of victims totally anywhere near 6 million. It is because that figure was pulled out of thin air, whole cloth,” concerning the Holocaust. In 2013, he was made a moderator on the forum Bonesandbehaviours, where he identifies as a “race realist” and advocates “scientific racism”.

Diagnosis: Thank you for playing, Mr. Stevens. Now go home and do something useful with your life.
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#1174: David J. Stewart

October 9, 2014, 7:46 am
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It is refreshing to see characters that still manage to impress after all these loons. David J. Stewart is one such. Stewart, a resident of Guam, has apparently decided that Jack Chick is too lenient on non-believers and not sufficiently fundamentalist (and too coherent to boot – Stewart doesn’t like him). Accordingly, Stewart – a graduate of the staunchly unaccredited Hyles-Anderson College – has for instance managed to become something of a favorite at FSTDT (some here).

Stewart’s website, Jesus Is Savior, concerns itself with familiar themes such as King James-onlyism, Anti-Catholicism, and the evils of rock (Led Zeppelin is dealt with here), including Christian rock (“Christian rock is evil” here), pop and country music (“country music is filthy” here). Part of the point is the old adage that “the Devil has the best music,” which Stewart takes to be a completely serious and true statement (and a slight against religion), concluding that virtually all modern music is ‘Satanic’. Even with regard to these rather common nuttyisms Stewart has his own … style.

But there is more. One recurring idea is that “Oprah is the Most Dangerous Woman in the World!” because she is a New Agie (here; the conclusion is not wholly unwarranted, but the way Stewart gets there deserves to be seen). By contrast, the most dangerous television show ever is apparently Hee Haw (“No doubt, Hee Haw destroyed many marriages and families with their whorish lascivious programming”).

A mainstay of his website is his attacks on other Christian apologists for failing to be sufficiently fundie: Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, for example, are too affiliated with ‘Satanic’ Hollywood, and even Martin Luther King Jr was a communist and “an Imposter” – MLK is for instance recognized as a good guy by Christianity Today, which also “promotes Rock Music, Witchcraft, Homosexuality and Satanism,” so he should be viewed with … well, according to Stewart “evidence proved that King was under the direct orders of Soviet spies and financed by the Communist Party,” and the FBI tapings of him in the 60s “developed shocking revelations regarding King’s sexual practices.”

The main problem, however, was King’s campaigning for social justice, which to Stewart is “nothing less than a continued Communist conspiracy to destabilize America. This ‘social justice’ has spawned feminism, homosexuality, gay-marriage, abortion, and a host of other evils in America. […] The social justice which King propagated was […] largely a campaign to morally bankrupt America. Communism found a willing servant in Martin Luther King Jr. Today, America is largely Communist.” It should come as little surprise that feminism is evil – a woman’s place is in the home and subservient to her husband. When reading Stewart you should probably keep in mind that feminism, abortion and Lesbianism all mean the same thing). Indeed, feminism is “mass media control as part of a long-term plan to enslave humanity”, because the Rockefellers “want to chip us” and feminism “has women freezing eggs.” Women wearing trousers is unbiblical, as is men wearing kilts (“One only has to look at the above photo to see what's wrong with kilts or skirts on men. It’s disgusting!”)

Unsurprisingly, Stewart is also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and deeply into New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy theories. Nor is he a fan of evolution. Indeed, he has a substantial section of his website dedicated to “debunking” evolution with links to a variety of crank sources as well as some novel, home-made crazy. Apparently, the idea of evolution was created by the Illuminati as a justification to bring about global communism. He rejects anthropogenic global warming for much the same reasons.

There is also a bit of regular politics, along the lines of “The Bill of Rights does NOT grant rights to homosexuals, abortionists, witches and other immoral groups who do evil. Genuine freedom can only be established and maintained by unwavering faith in God.” Here is his support for Michael Marcavage, guest-authored by … Michael Marcavage and entitled “God Bless Michael Marcavage”.

Here is a sample of his views on atheism. Not only is atheism Satanic, according to Stewart, “atheists now rule most of the world”. Of course, Stewart includes James van Praagh, all Jews and Muslims, and Martin Luther King (that communist) among the atheists, which makes the claim easier to back up in one sense.

I am not completely sure whether this commentary is a poe or not.

Diagnosis: A very angry man, Stewart has managed to make a name for himself, but probably not in the way he hoped. Probably rather harmless. But he is, indeed, pretty angry.
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#1175: Rollen Stewart

October 10, 2014, 7:56 am
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Rockin’ Rollen Stewart is the born again Christian who achieved some fame for going to virtually every sporting event imaginable in the 80s with a John 3:16 sign, strategically positioning himself to be picked up by the TV cameras. In that regard he, his sign and his rainbow colored wig managed to become something of a fixture in televised sports events (the TV cameramen apparently considered him a pest, though.) He also inspired a lot of copycats.

Convinced the rapture would take place September 28, 1992, Stewart began writing apocalyptic letters to and a series of stink bomb attacks at newspapers, bookstores, and even a few televangelist ministries to call attention to his prophecy. Since nobody would listen, he ended up taking hostages at a California hotel and threatened to shoot down passenger jets departing nearby LA International Airport unless he got three hours of free TV time. The outcome was life in prison.

Diagnosis: Colorful fellow who turned out to be less harmless than most people believed. Neutralized, but worth mentioning in an Encyclopedia like this (especially since even we are prone to dismiss people like him as harmless).
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#1176: Robert Stinnett

October 11, 2014, 10:27 am
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We’ll restrict ourselves to giving honorable mention to Randy Stimpson for his rank crankery based on lack of expertise in the scientific disciplines on which he has plenty of intuitions that he’s not afraid to assert.

A more interesting form of conspiracy-driven pseudoscientific stance is taken in Robert Stinnett’s Day of Deceit. Given the prevalence and popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories, you just knew that Stinnett’s particular conspiracy theory had to exist, didn’t you? Indeed, the particular conspiracy was alive and well before Stinnett decided to take it up. Now, Stinnett, who was a Naval photographer during WWII and is currently a fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, hasn’t, as far as we know, said anything about 9/11. His schtick is Pearl Harbor. According to Stinnett, the FDR government was well aware of Japan’s plans to attack Pearl Harbor before it happened and willingly went along with it to provoke a war. The conspiracy theory is aptly summed up here, laid out in some detail here; there is a good resource here (and perhaps here), and a comprehensive response to Stinnett’s assertions here; for some further debunkings of some of Stinnett’s particular claims, see this, and this. It is bunk.

Do you think Stinnett has changed his position in the face of all the evidence showing that he was wrong? Despite what Stinnett tries to argue, this is not a matter on which the jury of historians are still “out”. And yes, the theory is just as silly as 9/11 conspiracy theories. Gore Vidal seems to have been a fan, but Gore Vidal seems to have liked himself some conspiracy theories on occasion (including 9/11) and would certainly have merited inclusion in our Encyclopedia himself had he not gone off and died.

His Independent Institute, by the way, is a wingnut, global warming denialist think tank famous for pushing, in addition to Stinnett, the crankery of Thomas DiLorenzo.

Diagnosis: Old, cranky conspiracy theorist and pseudohistorian. Not entirely harmless, and the kind of crank that makes real historians have to deal with loads and loads of bullshit instead of devoting themselves to doing real work.
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#1177: Bob Stith

October 12, 2014, 9:56 am
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Being the Southern Baptist national strategist for gender issues is a fair indicator of bigotry-propelled lunacy, and Bob Stith delivers. For instance, when President Obama declared June to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, Stith responded – for the Baptist Press – by asserting that Obama’s proclamation is disappointing and also “marginalizes” the beliefs of hateful bigots not only Christianity but also other religions. At least he got no points for self-awareness.

But perhaps he is just a reasonable guy who just happened to make an unfortunate formulation at one occasion? Hardly.

Diagnosis: Liar for Jesus, if ever there was one. Hateful, bigoted and dangerous.
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#1178: Nicholas Stix

October 13, 2014, 8:58 am
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Nicholas Stix is a blogger and journalist best known for his racist and white-supremacist rants at the “immigration restrictionist” hate-site VDare. To get an idea of where he is coming from, Stix has described the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling outlawing school segregation as “arguably the worse decision in the Court’s 216 year history,” and argued that later civil rights legislation is unconstitutional and that “integration and the civil rights movement led directly to the destruction of great cities” (solution? Reintroduce segregated neighborhoods).

So for instance, chiming in on the murder of Eve Carson in 2008, Stix concluded (in “Doomed by Diversity: the Murder of Eve Carson”) that “[b]lack predators correctly see college campuses and nearby neighborhoods as sanctuaries full of docile, domesticated, white and Asian prey,” and that “[a]ll departments that treat of racial topics ruthlessly suppress and systematically lie about the reality of black crime, and punish anyone who tells the truth about this urgent subject.” As you may have guessed, Stix’s favorite tactic is be cherry-picking, and in particular crime-stats, which he distorts so as to pretend crimes committed by all groups are in fact predominantly committed by people of color, particularly African-Americans.

Of course, given his lack of aptitude for evidence, reason and fact you can expect Stix’s reasoning abilities to fall short on other topics than race as well. And indeed; Stix is, for instance, a climate change denialist. In February 2014 he could report “5–10 inches of snow expected tonight and tomorrow, in what has been the coldest winter in a generation. For one measure of how effective the Global Warming/Climate Change hoax has been, whenever there’s yet another snow storm or bitterly cold day, I crack to neighbors, business people, and frequent fellow bus riders, ‘It’s that global warming again,’ but no one seems to catch the sarcasm.” Indeed.

Diagnosis: An exceptionally unsympathetic fellow who is not afraid to distort any factoid, report or piece of information into service for his attacks on freedom, dignity, truth and civilization.
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#1179: Kenneth Paul Stoller

October 14, 2014, 7:54 am
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Honorable mention to John Stojanowski for his creative attempt to explain how the dinosaurs went extinct. A separate entry would be to exaggerate, and Stojanowski is in any case harmless. Kenneth P. Stoller is (arguably) not. Stoller is an anti-vaxx activist. Indeed, Stoller is quite unhinged, even by anti-vaccine standards, to the extent that he has been awarded with his very own whale.to page. And yes, Stoller is – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary – completely convinced that vaccines cause autism. Of course, the fact that increases in autism disorders can largely be explained by changing diagnostic criteria doesn’t impress him, because – according to Stoller – this simply isn’t the case. It just isn’t. And that autism has, in part at least, a genetic component? Well, according to Stoller “there are no genetic epidemics”, so there’s that.

But he does have some ideas of how to cure autism – hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Evidence that it works? Stoller’s intuitions and anecdotes, the same mechanism that worked so well for him when he arrived at the conclusion that autism is caused by vaccines. Apparently hyperbaric oxygen therapy might help against other ailments caused by toxins (vaccines are apparently full of toxins), including aspartame as well.

Stoller is director of The World Association for Vaccine Education (WAVE), sharing the board with luminaries like Boyd Haley and HIV denialist Andrew Maniotis.

Diagnosis: Eternally locked in combat with reality and reason, Stoller does seem to have gained some influence through use of tropes and rhetorical techniques that apparently seem appealing to the reality-challenged. That makes him not negligibly dangerous. One to watch.
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#1180: Perry Stone

October 15, 2014, 8:09 am
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Perry Stone is yet another flaming fundamentalist. Director of the ministry The Voice of Evangelism, Stone is – unsurprisingly, and for every reason and none – convinced that we are currently living in the end times. Even RaptureReady finds him to be on the extreme side of things (partially because of his ventures into Bible code-related speculations). You can read some of his rantings – Stone likes to present himself as a prophecy expert because, well, he sometimes feels as if certain prophecies might come true at undetermined points in the future – in The Voice of Evangelism magazine and listen to his weekly telecast Manna Fest. You can even see him teach you how to interpret your dreams and visions on youtube, though I won’t link to that; we have standards. And yes, Stone does dismiss evolution as the “opinion” of secular know-nothings. That may, of course, be because evolution is not based on the kind of evidence that Stone himself seems to favor – vague dreams, visions and unsupported assertions.

Diagnosis: I can’t be bothered too put in too much effort detailing this idiot. Standard fundie. Moderately dangerous.
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