Saturday, February 24, 2007

and now there's just no denying that you're an a$$hole...

So, we have a new national treasure on our hands. Conservatives, fed up with the "Neutral Point of View" policy of Wikipedia, decided to set up "Conservapedia", because let's face it, in the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias".

Why Conservapedia, you ask? I'll let them tell you:
On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America.
Yes, a set of facts that explicitly favors one religion and one country...not that that should introduce some serious cognitive dissonance. From their more detailed list of complaints:
9. Edits to include facts against the theory of evolution are almost immediately censored. [ed. note: That's because there are no "facts' that contradict evolution, and you, Conservapedia's founders, are flippin' wingnut idiots!]

13. Often key facts are missing from Wikipedia entries in favor of meaningless detail. Wikipedia's entry about Indentured Servitude is massive, but it omits any reference to Bacon's Rebellion, which was the turning point for the use of indentured servants in the New World! [ed. note: Then add it, dumbass! By design, anyone can do so! ]

18. Wikipedia's article on Feudalism is limited to feudalism in Europe and does not mention the feudal systems that developed independently in Japan and India. [ed. note. And your point is....what, exactly?!?!]

Of course, there is an obvious problem with this approach: anyone can edit pages. If you restrict only to members, you don't get enough content generated. Thus, liberals have been having a field day, and some Conservatives make things easier by being nuts themselves. Here are some amusing entries:

1984: "1984 was a book by George Orwell. 1984 describes an alternate history in which Oceania (Australia) is at war with Eurasia. It is a utopian book because it talks about a place where everyone is watched over by Big Brother, who makes sure people are doing what they are supposed to.

The protagonist is Winston Smith. There is something about rats at the end, but it is confusing. The end is probably supposed to be ambiguous. " (since changed, but that was fantastic!)

Islam: "Because Islam is an uncomplicated religion to live by, it is sure to continue in its popularity around the world." I like how this is now a verifiable fact.

Crusades: "It seems that the Christian armies lost sight of our goals to bring and spread love and Christianity along the way, got drunk with power and glory and decided to pillage towns and murder people (note that this is breaking many commandments “thou shalt not murder.” “thou shalt not steal”)

The Crusades went against our Christian teachings and the words of Christ, “love thy neighbor as thyself” “turn the other cheek” etc. " Umm, "our goals" and "our teachings". Again, I'll remind you, this is an encyclopedia.

Seriously, thank the Lord for wingnuts. As evidenced by Fox's attempt to emulate the Daily Show, they may not be funny when they try, but they certainly are most other times....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, they forgot a few entries. This from the dictionary (Devil's version [Bierce])

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

"What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.
"Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."
"Then why do you not become an atheist?"
"Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism."
"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a republic, the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are graduations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.

Hard to better the best.

jfaberuiuc said...

Liberals also do conservative comic strips better than conservatives, as evidenced by this example from America, the Book (by the Daily Show people).

Megan Case said...

Ugh, I didn't want to know about that. I've spent the past few days being astonished by conservatives' opposition to HPV vaccine. Just when you think they can't get any more stupider...

jfaberuiuc said...

Megan, give it a try. How can you not love an encyclopedia where the entry on Jesus, one of the trinity of the religion they claim to favor as a matter of rule, is described as follows:

"However, God has recently revealed on His blog that Jesus is actually His nephew, not His son."

That's in the first paragraph, and it's currently locked in place because people were vandalizing the site, and thus they refuse to let people edit it for now! Also, where else can you find a thorough discussion of the Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus?

Anonymous said...

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
http://lorenzen.blogspot.com/2005/02/pacific-northwest-tree-octopus.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1562624/posts
This should not be confused with the far more conservative Canis Soakius or Northwestern Marine Dog, a rare breed certainly. See the picture at
http://dba-oracle.blogspot.com/search?q=scuba+dog

Megan Case said...

Speaking of octopus, this one's for Dmitry: know what the Czech word for octopus is? Hobotnitsa!

(For those who don't know Russian, to a Russian speaker this word sounds something like "female-elephant-trunk-thing". The actual Russian word, "osmenog", just means "eight-legs", but it still sounds cool.)

Anonymous said...

Oh man, the Conservapedia is a riot! From the "Global Warming" entry, referring to the scientists that claim global warming is due primarily to human influence:

"It should be noted that these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field. Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him."

 

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