Archive for category weird yanks

Oprah fails at…everything?

Posted by admin in oprah oddness, stupid medicine, vaccine denial, weird yanks on May 20th, 2009

Poor Oprah. She can’t do anything right at the moment.

First up, the wonderfully irritable PZ Meyers has a suggestion for Oprah, regarding the odious anti-vax woman. I especially like the way he quotes Oprah’s missive in comic sans. He modestly quotes his in a simple serifed font, but maybe an olde Victorian Gothic script would be better. Dripping venom. That is only poisonous to the stupids.

Slate has a good swipe at Oprah regarding “bioidentical hormones”, Jenny McCarthey and the exceptionally stupid “The Secret”. It’s worth wading through the free pass rubbish to see what a literate kicking they give her.

Is it time for Oprah to step aside? Or ‘fess up and hire a team of fact-checkers instead.

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Why Oprah (& millions of her fans) love Jenny McCarthy

Posted by admin in oprah oddness, weird yanks on May 14th, 2009

This is the kind of pop-psychology I love. It’s not entirely unrelated to the thesis of the “Happiness Hypothesis” that we’re 95% elephant that does whatever the fuck it wants and 5% of rider hanging on like grim death steering it away from the tar pit[1].

So why does Oprah persist in plugging this shit uncritically? Because it “feels right”. That’s right, we think with our feelings and the plural of anecdote is data. Or not.

I do kinda get the feeling that the tide is now turning; critical thinkers are getting more militant about exposing such intellectual fraud and that we’re beginning to get the message out. Now all we need are media that will cover the retractions as well as the hype.

[1] Sorry, I’ve been to the La Brea tar pits in LA recently so it’s an appealing metphor.

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‘Superfood’ Promoted on Oprah’s Site Robs Amazon Poor of Staple

Posted by admin in oprah oddness, weird yanks on May 14th, 2009

A quick Oprah-bash. Plugging an Amazon staple food causes its price to rise up to sixty-fold so Americans can chow down on a nutrient-rich berry that FDA hasn’t issued an opinion on.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Hippies please feel free to rail against “globalisation”. Then please to stop using your Asian mobile phone and wearing those Indian/Egyptian/American cotton clothes. On second thought…

2. This is a classic “unintended consequence”. Oprah mouths off without thought to what the outcome might be. Still, if these people starve, she’ll get another programme out of it. Yay.

More Oprah to follow…

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Texas Charging Rape Victims For Rape Kits

Posted by admin in religious nuttery, weird yanks on May 11th, 2009

In a very unsurprising turn of events, especially in the light of the relatively enlightened LA having problems funding rape testing, it appears that Texas is charging rape victims up to $1800 for gathering evidence against their attackers.

When your head has stopped spinning and vomiting what looks very much like pea soup, consider that this the the same state where by a vote of 11-2, the door is wide open for religious anti-knowledge wingnuts to explain to children that the world is only 6000 years old.

Am I becoming an old fart? I remember doing physics (Doc Williams, bless ‘im, always good for an astronomy red herring) at school and having Geiger counters and shit and watching radioactive decay in progress, and from that extrapolating some very big numbers for the age of stuff. It’s these peoples ignorance of basic, high school science that leads so such belief in sky fairies.

Gah.

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Oprah KFC offer fails to be condemned by PETA

Posted by admin in weird yanks on May 8th, 2009

So Oprah is giving away a coupon for free KFC chicken.

Uncharitably, my first response to this was “woman with weight issues sends acolytes to lard out in KFC”. It was then, more charitably, pointed out to me by assorted friends that “at least it’s grilled chicken”. Shyeah right. That chicken is going to get chased down by a mess of coleslaw, corn dripping in butter and a bucket of fries. And a diet coke.

Then, however, Deceiver pointed out that PETA have completely fluffed the chance to give Oprah a well-deserved carniverous roasting. This same Oprah who was the tofu-munchers’ woman of the year in 2008.

Me, I’m still not over the bullshit that was The Secret.

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Erotic photography of people over 60 may be outlawed…

Posted by admin in weird yanks on May 7th, 2009

…in a slightly uptight state of the US.

This one nearly passed under the radar but as I thought about it, the more bizarre. I can see that preventing the exploitation of those unable to give consent, such as we do already with children, is a Good Thing. But to blanket label people over 60 “incompetent” and yet require certification of the mentally incompetent smacks of all kinds of bullshit!

I think there should at least be a committee which assesses the 60+ for their suitability for gerontoporn. A certain level of breast droop or penis enwrinklement would render the potential GILF ineligible.

The queue for the commitee forms over there. A long way over there. Behind the screen. Once I’ve got the blindfold on.

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CNN news anchor now expert on teen sex

Posted by admin in teen sex, weird yanks on May 5th, 2009

I have no idea, thankfully, who this nutjob is, but he is firmly in the cockbucket demographic. Apparently making emergency contraception available will lead to slutty behaviour in their seventeen year old girls. Luckily, Jezebel is there to rip him a new one.

This did lead me to wonder what would happen in the UK if this happened? Would we have Kate Adie lecturing us on how short skirts are just asking for rape? Or Paxman telling us that taking a quick toke on a joint is the first step to becoming a crack whore?

Fuck it. Chris Morris did it all already.

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