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It’s a strange world, after all: Orac vs. The Shat and fake news over…Autism Speaks?

Orac is attacked by Capt. Kirk using fake news over the course of several days. Truly, it is a strange world.

How Orac imagines William Shatner as appearing when he's Tweeting.

It’s a strange world after all, and I’ll show you why.

Last night, as I deposited myself on my couch with my laptop sitting on my lap, there to churn out yet another installment of the insolence most of you love and a few of you love to hate read, I had a Dug the Dog moment. The squirrel in this case was Twitter. Normally, although I do have a Twitter feed, my enthusiasm for it very much waxes and wanes. Although I do regularly post stuff, I can sometimes go days without contributing an original Tweet, leaving my feed fallow, with only automatic Tweets based on RSS feeds of my blogs as the only content. Occasionally, a mood will overtake me, and I’ll go wild, with a hundred Tweets in a single day. Granted, this latter situation is far less common than my leaving Twitter alone, but yesterday was an example of my going a bit wild on Twitter. In fact, I spent so much time on Twitter last night that I actually didn’t finish the original post that I was working on, hence this quickie this morning before I leave for work. I think you’ll understand why in a moment.

I like to call myself a “micro-celebrity” or a “nano-celebrity,” because I’ve attained a certain level of notoriety, but I don’t kid myself that it’s much of anything. At most a few thousand read this blog regularly, and several times that number read the not-so-super-secret other blog with which I’m involved. So when a real celebrity interacts with me on Twitter, I take notice. Unfortunately, this particular interaction was a perfect example of why you should never meet your childhood heroes. You’ll almost always be disappointed. In this case, the disappointment went far beyond the usual. I’m referring, of course, to a run-in I had with William Shatner last night.

First, a little background is in order. I didn’t delve into the hundreds of Tweets that led up to this, other than superficially, but what appears to have happened is that Shatner, as part of Autism Awareness Month, posted a plea to support Autism Speaks. Regular readers here who are aware of the history of Autism Speaks probably know why such a plea wouldn’t go over very well among many autistic people, but I’m sure Shatner had no idea about that when he posted his Tweet. Why should he? Not surprisingly, a lot of autistic people tried to explain to him why Autism Speaks isn’t the greatest charity to support. Most were respectful—deferential, even—but, Twitter being Twitter not all the responses remained civil. To show you just how far down the rabbit hole the whole conversation went, I note that a certain young autistic antivaxer, rabid alt right supporter, and misogynist who is well known to this blog and generally now referred to as The Gnat posted his glee when Shatner actually posted a link to one of his blog posts:

Clearly, he had no idea of the background and probably didn’t care. So unhappy was he at being criticized by the very people he thought he was helping that he was digging in and provoking more criticism. In any case, foolishly, I tried politely to explain to Shatner why a lot of autistic people and advocates for autism take a dim view of Autism Speaks. Because autistic people themselves pointed out how Autism Speaks has a history of not having actual autistic people on its board, I decided to try to explain to him why people view Autism Speaks with suspicion with respect to its stance on vaccines. I referenced posts by others (none by me) to show that Autism Speaks’ history is rooted in being antivaccine and that it still hasn’t unequivocally rejected antivaccine views. (I refrained from pointing out that Autism Speaks was probably Donald Trump’s “gateway” into being antivaccine himself ten years ago.) Basically, I concluded that Autism Speaks is better than it was on vaccines but that it still hasn’t completed the journey to being fully science-based.

Here’s what I got in return:

Yes, you saw that correctly. William Shatner actually Tweeted a link to Mike Adams’ TruthWiki about me. It got worse from there. I tried to reason with him, as did several of his other followers. (It turns out that a significant percentage of my Twitter followers also follow William Shatner. Who could have predicted that, other than everyone?) People pointed out who I am and how TruthWiki is a conspiracy mongering fake news site, but Shatner doubled down and posted links to NewsTarget and NaturalNews, and, as bad, Age of Autism:

People explained to him that TruthWiki, NewsTarget, and NaturalNews are all conspiracy sites run by the same person, Mike Adams, and that AoA is an antivaccine crank site (which it is) Shatner kept saying that these were links that came up first on a Google search. Then he got really disingenuous:

During it all, Shatner started Tweeting screenshots of his searches showing TruthWiki, NaturalNews, and other crank websites attacking me:

Several people tried to explain to him how unreliable these sites were. Indeed, it got so bad that Alex Berezow of ACSH even entered the fray, and he has no love for me:

Shatner’s response was a bit bizarre:

I do not recall during any of this exchange ever calling him “honey.” Maybe he wasn’t referring to me.

Meanwhile Matt Carey tried to educate Shatner on why I use a pseudonym:

Through it all, Shatner kept doing his “Hey, it’s what came up on Google searches” shoulder shrug.

So why did I bother to post about this, other than that it’s not every day that a celebrity as big as William Shatner trashes me on Twitter? I think Alan Levinovitz summed it up quite well:

Unfortunately, several people tried to do just that—and failed miserably. Shatner wasn’t listening. Indeed, he doubled down. However, if you want to know why people like Mike Adams write dozens of lie-filled articles attacking me and adding attacks on my cancer institute for good measure, this is about the best example I’ve ever seen. It’s to poison my Google reputation forever, and it’s largely succeeded, my Wikipedia page and other entries on me that show up on the first page notwithstanding. Last night’s experience reminded me of this in a manner that I never would have predicted in a million years. There’s no way I could ever have predicted that, one day in 2017 (or any other time), a celebrity as big as William Shatner would Google me and use Mike Adams’ attacks on me against me, even though all I did was to try to explain, quite respectfully and uncharacteristically not insolently, a bit about why he was being criticized. One wonders how he would have reacted if he hadn’t found all that misinformation on me. True, I have since learned that Shatner has a history of behavior like this on Twitter and that it’s likely that he would have found some other reason to attack me, but maybe, just maybe, he might have listened a little.

Epistemic chaos indeed. I predict that, as a result of Shatner’s sharing of links to TruthWiki and other crank conspiracy sites about me, Adams’ attacks on me, which have been quiescent for a couple of months, will resume. Thanks, Mr. Shatner.

ADDENDUM: Mr. Shatner has basically admitted that he posted the TruthWiki link to intimidate me to silence:

In response to a number of people pointing out that by linking to fake news sites like NaturalNews and TruthWiki, he is boosting their Google juice and contributing to character assassination (mine), Shatner’s response was breathtakingly clueless and tone deaf:

Note how he managed to smear me one last time by linking to a phony Healthgrades review.

So, there you have it. William Shatner didn’t care whether those sites were fake news or not. He just used the TruthWiki link to let me know that he could make my online life miserable if I persisted. When I persisted, he posted multiple more links dragged my name through the mud while playing the victim. Then, when people called him out for what he was doing, he shrugged his shoulders and suggested that I could just “get a service” to get rid of all those attacks ranking high in Google searches. Would that it were that easy! And, even if it were, does Mr. Shatner really think I could afford to compete with someone like Mike Adams on this field, a man who runs a multimillion dollar a year business, has studied black hat SEO since the early 2000s, and has SEO experts working for him? Yes, as a surgeon I’m fairly well off, but I have nowhere near the resources that someone like Mike Adams does. The wealth differential between us is at least an order of magnitude and could well be as high as two orders of magnitude.

I am well and truly done with Mr. Shatner. I unfollowed and blocked him, to lessen the chances that I might be tempted to re-engage with him.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

80 replies on “It’s a strange world, after all: Orac vs. The Shat and fake news over…Autism Speaks?”

I was bitterly disappointed that he not only shared those sites but didn’t retract after learning the issue. Everyone can make mistakes. You’d hope people would learn when they’re pointed out.

Shatner doesn’t seem like a person who admits that he’s wrong…just ask George Takai..

William Shatner has a long history of having to be right. He has a Trump sized ego. You could have been talking about the color of a sunset and he still would have attacked you for daring to disagree with him.

Unfortunately, your point re Mikey is well taken. It’s illustrative of confirmation bias; Shatner wanted to take you down so he looked for information that would “let” him do that. I doubt he really bothered to read to absorb what was being written about you, or come to an actual opinion of his own. It was source material, a weapon, nothing more.

c0nc0rdance@1 beat me to it: this resolves the dilemma Weird Al Yankovic faced in White and Nerdy:

Only question I ever thought was hard
Was do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?

Shatner has had an ego for a long time. He recorded a cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” that is so bad it’s wonderful (“Suddenly! Someone! Is there! At the turnstile!”). About the only non-Star Trek acting appearance I can recall was his part in Airplane II: The Sequel, which was at least partly a parody of his Captain Kirk role.

In one of the episodes of Star Trek, Captain Kirk ends up in a parallel universe where everything is the same; but not quite, the characters are all really evil. I wonder if we are dealing with William Shatner or his evil twin from a parallel universe? LOL

I do understand your concern on how someone searching Google can end up with loony toon versions of reality. I just went to Mike Adams description of you and being an old man, luckily in good condition, I was laughing so hard at the absurdities that I thought I would have a heart attack.

He refers to articles by an echo chamber gaggle of morons, including JB Handley & Jake Crosby, ignores all the evidence refuting Thompson, the alleged whistleblower, and . . .

Unfortunately, this is the world we live in. For those who like Natural News, the web also offers the Flat Earth Society at: http://theflatearthsociety.org/home/

This is so disappointing as a fellow Montrealer.

Shatner recently used his Twitter platform to support Leah Remini and her A&E scientology series, so I thought he was one of the good guys. Too bad.

You know how once respectable academic scientists have a bad habit of falling into pseudoscience and woo once they’ve been retired into emeritus status?

Shatner apparently has become an emeritus actor.

For several months I’ve watched first hand how unstable Mr.Shatner is if you don’t march to his beat. He showed up uninvited and began harassing fans of a TV show. He bullied and harassed and was reported without results. He implies his blue check will protect him. He calls on his followers to attack those who don’t agree with him. He turns it into he’s being harassed and the victim. He then reports and blocks and suggest others do as well. Paul Camuso his assistant even created a “list” of fans to block and report.

I do not recall during any of this exchange ever calling him “honey.”

aww.

You did call him honey at one point. Couldn’t find it again though. “Honey, please…” Condescending, but rightfully so.

Time to induct Mr. Shatner into the Canadian Antivax Hall of Shame. He’ll have an honoured place alongside such luminaries as Drs. Shaw and Tomljenovic, Jim Carrey and Professional Ignoramus Lawrence Solomon.

@ Orac,

No, you are a science-based celebrity and all that comes with it.

Did Captain Kirk and Spock really use mud to cure the Horta?

Obviously, once you experience the healing powers of natural products they’re not easy to dismiss.

Give integrative medicine a chance, Orac.

I almost feel tempted to don a pair of pointy ears and tell Mr Shatner that his behavior is highly illogical, bordering on the irrational…

This is a sad consequence of the fact that there is no editor present in the internet correcting content for falsehoods. People simply do not understand that just because a piece of information is available does not mean that all information is created equal.

Maybe that’s a possible application for the prospective AI that Google is struggling to create: On-the-spot search engine editor. I can’t think of a better way for AI to improve life for humanity. Most people don’t even seem to understand that they need this kind of a safe guard.

It’s sad too that our culture elevates certain people into such preferred social status, despite the fact that most of the people so elevated are not fundamentally suited to the power these positions give them. It isn’t Shatner’s fault that he has no expertise at judging reality and it is sad that his celebrity affords him a position where he’s allowed to masquerade as a qualified spokesman for whatever he wants, despite his utter lack of qualification.

You should have just quoted from one of his most famous soliloquies:
“No blah, blah, blah!”

Deep existential meaning hidden here:

Maybe this WAS an attack by Mike Adams.
Shatner has been known to sell himself to anyone paying….

The Horta were actually healed by something resembling cement.

Or maybe latex. 🙂

Omg! Omg! Omg! Please read what I said before tweeting craziness & making yourself look cray.

Mr. Shatner should have followed his own advice here.

The Horta were actually healed by something resembling cement.

Yes. But more than that, it was a silicon-based cement/mortar** which proved useful for the silicon-based life form.

** I guess it is still ergonomic for Enterprise to be tooling around with bags of silicreat because of inertial dampening or something.

This has saddened me deeply in a world already filled with despair. I have much love for Shatner, but am greatly disheartened reading his responses. I guess our childhood heroes are just as fallible as any of us, and nothing is sacred.

I’m surprised Shatner’s ego even fits in the twitterspace.
Having seen him a couple times at fan cons, I haven’t a high opinion of him.

Don’t feel too bad Orac – I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the man when he came to one of the Supanova conventions here.

He hasn’t handled aging as well as George Takei has. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s actually suffering dementia. Having dealt with a grandfather going through the same … well, it’s not personal.

I bet no one was able to explain to Mr Shatner that what you click on from a Google search will influence your future Google searches.
If you follow links to quack sites you will get more quack sites the next time you search. It’s annoying.

(Which doesn’t mean that having a Google history full of science will protect you from quack-based search results. I was so annoyed that all the results that came up when I was trying to research some vitamin that would prevent mosquito bites were from NN, although it was a big fat clue that it wouldn’t work. And, lo and behold, a good PubMed search said, nope, doesn’t work.)

Coming first on Google is no indicator of veracity – for years a search for “Jew” brought up a first entry that was blatantly anti-Semitic and borderline threatening.
The Enterprise needed “silicon-based cement/mortar” for ballast to compensate for Shatner being so unbalanced.
If you ever listen to his recording of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” not only will you never look at him the same way again (unless you already look at him that way), but you will know he’s capable of absolutely anything.

I bet no one was able to explain to Mr Shatner that what you click on from a Google search will influence your future Google searches.

You mean other people don’t get fission warhead designs no matter what they search for?
I would hesitate to use the “Came-up-first-on-Google” argument in case it revealed more about my previous searching history than about the topic of discussion.

@ c0nc0rdance & Eric Lund:

In one of the articles on Space.com about Star Trek’s 50th anniversary (can’t find it now), the author talks about his introduction to the franchise and then answers some FAQs. One was “Kirk or Picard?” His answer was: “Archer. Come at me, space bros!”

NaturalNews is like TruthWiki but without the veneer of reliability: It’s a cesspool of pseudo-scientific insanity seasoned generously with political vitriol and outlandish conspiracy theories. That’s not biased journalism—it’s the only way to report accurately on the site.

From here

It is hard to find a better and more accurate description.

Sadly this will tell people like Mike Adams and Jake Crosby that their lies can have influence.

There is an irony that Crosby is getting a PhD and his biggest impact will be stuff he made up out of thin air as an attack.

Theres and obvious parallel with the work of his heroes, Andrew Wakefield and the Geiers. Substitute attacking people for attacking vaccines.

Dr. Gorski,

I would have you as my surgeon in a heartbeat. Your dedication to science is admirable. It is difficult to be outspoken, even when you are correct and backed by science. You are brave, and I think highly of you. Don’t let the ignorant and idiotic bring you down.

-A science-based entomologist

Speaking as a former 1970’s Trekkie – for a number of years now, every time Shatner makes yet another appearance I think “How can we miss you if you never go away?”

This story has helped me realize that i won’t miss Shatner ever. Never, ever! Jean-Luc on the other hand…

Keep up the good fight Orac.

I always wondered how Shatner got the job. I can only assume Star Trek was either meant to be a comedy or Shatner had major, major dirt on Roddenberry. He doesn’t seem bright enough to be more than a pretty face, which is why he’s probably such a diva now.

Every captain after him had a solid resume both before and after-heck I saw the guy who played Sisko on stage at the Guthrie, and I know both Stewart and Mulgrew have done some time on the stage as well. Not too sure about the guy who was Archer or the new Kirk.

*Anybody here see the Green Room? Stewart stole the movie as the villain. I wouldn’t say I ‘liked’ it, exactly, but it’s one of those movies that just sort of yanks you in by the eyeballs.

PGP:

Remember the original pilot (The Cage) starred Jeffrey Hunter, but the producers decided they didn’t like him as Captain Pike and recast Shatner as Captain Kirk.

They kind of dodged a bullet inadvertently, because Hunter died in 1967 (adding to the urban legend about anybody who plays Jesus in a movie dying).

Very Rev: Actually, I didn’t remember that, because I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the original series and both the original series and the Next Generation predate me. I cut my teeth on Voyager and Deep Space Nine. But thanks for telling me. I suppose I should fire up the Netflix queue.

Mulgrew actually disappointed me, because apparently she’s a really hard-core Christian now. Her and Melissa Joan Hart, another childhood idol.

(I don’t really think of myself as a Trekkie, I just REALLY liked Captain Janeway, B’lanna Torres and Seven of Nine And Odo.)

Oh, great. Captain Kirk joins the Orac-Adams tag team. Nothing like a taste of Hollywood PR to add flavor to a bland faux battle of wits. Next up: Jenny McCarthy vs. Dorit Reiss in an epic cat fight, concluding with a hug and a play date for the kids. Or has that already happened? It’s so hard to keep up with the propaganda these days. 😀

@PGP:

Not too sure about the guy who was Archer or the new Kirk.

Scott Bakula (Archer) became famous for playing Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. He also played a bit part in American Beauty.
Chris Pine (new Kirk) has had a steady career, according to Wikipedia.

@MJD, erm, that was “silicone based concrete”, conducted by McCoy, “I’m a surgeon, not a bricklayer!”.

@Herr Doktor Bimler #33, Oddly, my Google searches on fission devices *does* come up with accurate mathematics on the same. Probably due to certain physics interests of old, searching for scholarly articles on the same. My military career did start out in nuclear weapons (Pershing II).
Yes, I’m quite serious.

@FrigidMidge #37, I dunno. I might want to see how well doctor can carve a turkey. Or at least, learn of outcomes. Knowledge is one thing, there are a lot of things that go into surgery beyond mere theoretical knowledge, as the good doctor can attest to. 😉

@Jane Ostentatious #38, I agree.
Although. I’m. Still. Waiting. For. Him. To. Learn. How. To. Act.

@PGP #39, I can’t speak to the Green Room. Is it anything like Behind the Green Door?
(ducking) behind the Ivory Soap…

@PGP #41, I cut my teeth on TOS. Voyager and Deep Sh!t Nine (my personal name for that benighted space station) was enjoyed by myself, my wife and both of our children.
Best moment: When Sisko punched Q in the face. 😉
I do separate the actor/actress from the character. One is real, one is in a program that I enjoy.
I do think that a lot more could’ve been done with Odo and the Founders, from a psychological standpoint.

Where’s Spock when you need him? The entire scenario is not unlike one of the early episodes of Star Trek that I watched as an adolescent. Jim would be baffled by an alien intelligence and Spock, after conducting a proper search of the data, would explain the illogical nature of the ruse to which Kirk was victim.

Bill: If you are reading this, I have one suggestion: go through the posts at Respectful Insolence on any topic that interests you. Weigh the evidence with the help of someone who understands the science (choose a ‘Dr. McCoy’ for the task wisely), and come back to your followers with a balanced response. Until you do, I predict the fiasco on Twitter will be clinging to your brain like tinnitus. (If I could reveal my identity, I believe you would take my advice to heart.)

Alas, Bill is far from Jim, in Real Life.
Bill ignores Real Life, pays attention to singular search source, builds a faulty fortress upon it.
Jim learns from his subordinate team, something I’ve learned from as well, unlike Bill, our lives depended upon such things and unlike plot strings, we lacked plot devices to extract us from hostile environments.
Which is *why( I’m trying my level best to give him a chance, despite my loathing of his excuse for acting.
I do respect my elders, until they *prove* disrespect is required.
He’s done his level best, thus far, even unto today, to dig in deeper.

Once, many decades ago, my wife was talking to my Commanding Officer, who graded my grave, erm, foxhole, as satisfactory, then, I stood up.
Negating his entire evaluation.
But, entirely sufficient to achieve the, both tactical and strategic goals.
I was knee deep, then stood up. Destroying (and doctrinally, later, challenging and replacing the standard), the incumbent standard.

One does what one can, in the time consumed, do the best you can. Been there, done that.
Bill, he’s an actor. I’ll. Not. Discuss. His Quality….

He’s also infamous for ego, I’m also infamous for the same.
I have awards for every event of my “ego trip”, which were foreclosed with my dying father’s house. Big shit.
I don’t give a shit about any of my medals.

What I always cared about were achievements. Preferably for humanity. If National Security and real life met equality, success was granted.
I managed a few of those.

No awards, no medals, but a sense of success and people getting to see tomorrow.

For failures, I go through 3.75 liters of distilled spirits.

Just for a sense of perspective.

I tried to engage in discussion with Shatner. You know, cause he was all “oh, then go found your own charity” to autistic people. And I replied “we have! Hi, I’m the VP of AWN” and have a bunch of screencaps of what I tweeted at him. Alas, I don’t think he actually responds to autistic people unless we were more rude. Cause then he could claim we were bullying him.

“Deeply anti-intellectual” seems to go hand-in-hand with “wildly egotistical.” Compare:

Shatner: “All I know is what’s on the first page of Google (as long as it agrees with my opnions).”

Trump: “All I know is what I hear on Fox News (which is designed to agree with my opinions).”

Wzrd1: The Green Room is a 2015 film about a punk band that after witnessing a murder, gets held captive by Neo-Nazis. Patrick Stewart plays the club owner and leader of the Neo-Nazis. He is bone-chillingly good.

Wzrd: I do separate the actor/actress from the character. One is real, one is in a program that I enjoy.

True, but I look for actors/actresses that I know a lot of times. If they succumb to crazy, it’s a problem, since I don’t want to give them my money anymore and need to look elsewhere for entertainment. (Same thing happens in the music biz- if a musician converts loudly to Christianity, their music isn’t going to be any good anymore.)

@PGP, great question, thanks for asking!

Wzrd: I do separate the actor/actress from the character. One is real, one is in a program that I enjoy.

Wzrd: I do separate the actor/actress from the character. One is real, one is in a program that I enjoy.

Yeah, grand question.
Personally, I don’t question sex for an actor or actress, you tend to.
Hence, my consideration.
I care not for sex of the acting person, I care for the performance and quality of script, which might be carried by the acting person.*

*We have a habit of adopting families, due to our lack of additional production.
And due to a sense of duty.
One female managed to be rejected quite quickly, as she offered herself first to me, ten more so minutes later, to my wife.
While she was working to be engaged to a man, around the age of our children.
I’ve since learned, she does have some mental health issue, beyond what I had initially considered.
Our rejection was, she’d be “broken”, the realty was, we’re not going to victimize a victim.
I tossed out a phallus the size of a elephant as an exam ple, one previously purchased to STFU idiotds.
Undesired effects…

Julian Frost: Thanks, I know I’d seen both of them in other movies, but not which ones.

This is hilarious.

At least the ‘celebrity’ abusing Orac is not well known for either intelligence or social savvy. Quite the converse.

Funny about how g–gle doesn’t separate reality based material from dreck. which enables people like Adams, Null or Mercola to be at the top of entries- and impress some people who don’t understand how it works.

pro tip- popularity doesn’t always equal desirability or connection to the real world.

Interestingly, it illustrates how Jake is ‘coming up in the world’
– but not in a good way.

In other news ( which will probably make c0nc0rdance smile…)

It appears that Gary Null has been dethroned from his (nearly) daily roost at WBAI, being replaced by re-runs of his arch-enemy, Amy Goodman’s, show.

A few weeks ago, he shilled his retreat in Texas ( see Gary’s Vitamin Closet.com) as a ‘premium’ for the financially distressed land-based station but I have no idea whether that
agreement is still intact.

If he loses his spot on BAI, he’ll perhaps lose a great deal of income as he has a group of thralls there who’ll buy anything he sells at outrageous prices.

Lawrence: Starfleet wouldn’t let Sisko take off with it. Not to mention that the thing would be a nightmare to maneuver.

Re: Kate Mulgrew-so it turns out that while she did narrate a ‘documentary’ refuting heliocentrism, she got tricked into it and sued the guy for misrepresentation. Though I don’t know how she didn’t realize what it was about- maybe she assumed it was someone trying to follow in Christopher Guest’s footsteps and didn’t know that the filmmaker was 100% serious.
Still not letting Melissa Joan Hart off the hook though.

JF: Ok, so I HAVE seen Chris Pines in at least one movie. He was one of the Princes in Into The Woods.(Good movie, lots of good actors gnawing on the scenery.)

DW: It certainly lifts my spirits. Anything that reduces Null’s audience can only be a good thing.

I think the tagline just as well applies to the plots – they rehashed the same “Dominion invades, not!” storyline for about 5 seasons…..

@PGP:

Though I don’t know how [Mulgrew] didn’t realize what it was about- maybe she assumed it was someone trying to follow in Christopher Guest’s footsteps and didn’t know that the filmmaker was 100% serious.

From what I’ve read, the filmmaker lied to her what it was about. Then, after she’d recorded her words, creative “editing” was used. i.e. Her spoken words were sliced and diced to have her say something very different from what was recorded. It’ not the only “documentary” it’s happened on, and she wasn’t the only person so duped on that “documentary”.

Shatner was star of a TV show called TJ Hooker which had a long run in the 80s. He’s also been a recurring character on a whole lot of shows, but probably he was cast mostly for name recognition.

To be fair all the TOS stars were doomed to appear on iterations of Star Trek and the occasional visible-but-not-that-important-guest-star-on-minor-Sci-Fi-series. Also the Simpsons. Shatner was probably the most successful of the bunch.

I saw Shatner in The Andersonville Trial when it was on. I had had some respect for Richard Basehart, but I swear they were having a carpet-chewing contest.

At one point, Shatner was actually a halfway competent actor. He had a small but good role with Spencer Tracy in Judgement at Nuremberg. He cut a handsome figure in a US Army dress uniform, and I’m sure it’s a big reason he was picked to play Kirk.

It went to his head. Big time.

JF: Yeah, that seems to the sequence of events that American Loons was describing. So basically, Flat Earthers and geocentrism people are just as confident of their facts as anti-vaxxers. That is to say, they know they’re wrong and they lie like rugs. I do wonder where they keep getting their money.

I’m sorry, but to me it seems Shatner only points out what shows up first when searching. No comments from his side about the actual content.
So you could also conclude he tells you to improve your PR.

And btw, don’t relay to much on actors or tvhosts for for non-entertainment matters ?

Re #5

Although Shatner is, at best, a mediocre actor, contrary to your claims most of his entries on IMDB have nothing to do with Star Trek. In particular, he starred in the modestly successful TJ Hooker TV series (it lasted 5 seasons which is much longer then the average such series). For the most part, he was a TV performer. He is still an active performer according to IMDB, which ain’t bad for a man in his mid 80s.

@ PGP:

Right. It appears that he’s still off the air ( and his rocker)

In other news…

Whilst I can’t exactly say that I bring glad tidings ( after all, it concerns death) BUT TMR reports that hiv/aids denailist/ vaccine sceptic , Liam Scheff has died.

Wow, pulled the trigger early.
If I saw that on the same day, regardless of who it is, I’d be making 911 calls.

It appears that we have a rogue Vulcan running around that performed a mind meld between Shatner and Adams. Of course this equals Sham.

DW: I always feel conflicted when terrible people die. On one hand, I feel sorry for them and their family members. On the other hand, I feel that the world is slightly improved by their absence. Mr. Scheff might have been mentally ill, but that does not excuse his predatory tactics.

“Leonard Nimoy Died Hating William Shatner”

And so did everyone else!

“Shatner has had a difficult relationship with all his former co-stars from Star Trek. James Doohan (“Scotty”), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), and Walter Koenig (Chekov) have all come forward to talk about how disliked Shatner was during the filming of the Classic Series. Most notably, he’s had an on-going and public feud with George Takei. But one of his few defenders has been Leonard Nimoy, who has been friendly with Shatner for years. But in 2016, Shatner revealed that his friendship with Nimoy had ended, and the two didn’t communicate for five years before his death.”
https://www.thoughtco.com/leonard-nimoy-died-hating-william-shatner-3987061

Or maybe this was related to the recently propagated William Shatner death hoax
“Rumors of the actor’s alleged demise gained traction on Tuesday after a ‘R.I.P. William Shatner’ Facebook page attracted nearly one million of ‘likes’.” Really? A million people “liked” the death of Shatner? I never liked him when he was alive, and could not care less if/when he dies. http://en.mediamass.net/people/william-shatner/deathhoax.html

Yes, I always believe everything I read on the internet and find via searches on Google.

On a video screen, Mr Shatner is captain of an imaginary space ship, who battles imaginary alien villains. In real life, he is a retired actor & current celebrity.

On the Internet, Orac is a surgeon. In real life, he is a surgeon and scientist.
Also in real life, he battles cancer and real villains.

————————–
Only one of the two is fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way IRL. Hint: it’s the one who would not make it as a Hollywood actor.

Gilly: I have no time for Miley Cyrus, who is basically fundamentally untalented, much like Shatner and you. Her only fans are pre-teens who don’t know any better and pervs.

Oddly, she makes more money than you do.
And has loads of friends on royalty check day. 😉

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