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A grant deadline strikes again!

Real life intrudes on Orac’s blogging. He is not pleased. Such is life.

Here we go again. I have a major grant deadline this week, which is why there is no new Insolence today and there won’t be any new Insolence tomorrow. There might be new Insolence Wednesday, but there might not be any new Insolence until Thursday. (Damn real life for intruding on my hobby!)

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves. Amuse yourselves. Enjoy the fact that Facebook finally kicked Mike Adams and Natural News off of its platform. Adams’ “message for humanity” in response is particularly hilarious. Also, I’ll be keeping an eye on things. I might not have time to produce the quality Insolence you expect during the next three days or so, but I will manage to make sure everyone’s playing nice; that is, if anyone’s playing at all without new material to argue about.

And, fear not. Orac will return, maybe even sooner than you think.

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]

31 replies on “A grant deadline strikes again!”

Now that Adams is calling for the military to occupy the Nazi Tech Giants, how long will it be before he demands at least a detachment of Marines to take over RI?

Be very afraid…

What? If the military is on his side, then who does he think will subjugate the people at the government’s whim?

If Adams shrieks on the Internet, and no one visits his website, does he make a sound?

I’ve been very pleased with Mikey’s dismissal from Facebook et al. Although he brags about his own video service and myriad websites, I can tell from the frequency, intensity, duration and recency** of his rants that he knows that his reach will be affected from these actions. Similarly, Null complains that tech companies/ broadcast radio have harmed him profoundly while his own radio network and phone in system ( Zeno radio) are extremely successful, believe me he’s being harmed. You can hear it in his voice. He’s also threatening lawsuits again.
to recap:
— over the past year, Null & his minions have written volumes of diatribes about Wikipedia which accurately described his abysmal education and activities- he claims that he’s lost speaking gigs, book deals and sales because of it.
— Adams has been calling for governmental actions/ all out war against CEOs of companies like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, etc who no longer along him free rein to sell his products/ spew his nonsense.

I would guess that their money flow has been curtailed. Good.

** guess where I got those qualities

Having read Adams’ whine about his de-platforming, I’m still trying to decide whether or not he understands that Facebook and these other big tech companies are owned entities rather than public domain. He screams about infringement of his freedom of speech by the “not duly elected” governorship of Facebook, as if he believes Facebook’s users had a say in “electing” Zuckerburg.

I’m trying to decide if he understands that big tech providing him with a platform was always contingent upon his upholding certain community standards and is now trying start a ground swell for the U.S. government to change big tech into a public utility since his non-adherence to community standards has finally caught up with him, or if he simply does not understand that these social media platforms aren’t a public utility to begin with.

If I comment on Natural News, does that give me the right to demand that it be held to standards of editorial veracity? If I contribute to it, I can consider it a public utility then, right?

One thing these idiots generally to fail to understand is that the right to freedom of speech does not include the privilege of anyone listening to you exercising your right to freedom of speech, nor does it include the privilege of being provided a preferred platform to exercise that right. Facebook is no more obliged to host Mike Adams than the New York Times is obliged to publish a column written by him. Freedom of the press belongs only to those who own one. You’ve got your own metaphorical press Mikey, no one is stopping you from using it. The fault, dear Mikey, is not in your stars but in yourself, in that you are a liar and a blowhard, and no one wants to listen to someone like that.

You are overthinking this. If Adams is to be believed he has a better video channel, messaging platform and search engine than everywhere else on the web. He doesn’t need no stinking Google, Twitter or facebook, because his is better.

Except it isn’t.

Oh, the joy of the “libertarian” suggesting nationalisation. 🙂

““libertarian” suggesting nationalisation”

No, this is perfectly consistent provided you recognize that this person is not really a libertarian but rather an ejam: ends justify any means. If libertarianism gets them what they want they’re all for it. If jackbooted government thugs get them what they want they’re all for that, too. In all cases they are laser focused on the end goal and they don’t care about collateral damage, including extraneous consequences of their chosen route. The radical anti-vaxx crowd is in the same category.

I went to make a comment on Natural News (using my other Disqus account) and discovered it’s been banned! I think I’ve made one comment there. Ever. And Mikey wants to talk about censorship? Ha!

That’s interesting. Maybe I should wander over there with my Disqus account and see what happens…but only using a VPN…

By Post Author

Situation normal.

Mike Adams, like all the other – Age of Autism, Jake – want to completely control what is said in their own echo chambers, so no dissenting voices, but want to be able to say whatever they like everywhere else, so no censorship. Most importantly, they don’t see a contradiction in this.

It is something that happens in the fringe over and over again. Deep, deep down they must understand the risk to their ideas of being out in the cold, hard light of day and they are afraid their rubes will depart. Or maybe not. Maybe they just come to believe their own conspiracy theories.

I was highly amused by Adams calling on the military to oppress the tech giants, when he spends so much of his time arguing the Government is using the military to oppress people.

@ Chris Preston:

” Maybe they just come to believe their own conspiracy theories”

To a degree, yes. There’s an element of self-aggrandisement involved with woo-meisters who believe their own press- that they are brilliant, innovative mavericks who will overturn science, politics, arts, whatever. Null poisoned himself with his own bad supplements.

So of course, they’re right about everything.** Hilariously, Adams ( Health Ranger site) publishes lists of his predictions where we can SEE how wrong he’s been. Both he and Null went politico-economic loonie in 2008-9 when people were terrified by the Crash ( they probably were scared too because people who are losing their jobs and homes don’t have much money for expensive supplements). So they blamed the powers-that-be. You can’t trust the government, banks, media, universities but TRUST THEM! Over the next few years, BOTH predicted aftershocks- i.e. additional crashes especially with Mr Obama in power. I recall that in the depths of the crash – March 2009- Null predicted a DJIA of 3000. which NEVER happened. The Dow recovered slowly. They continue to predict economic fiasco, civil unrest ( Adams) and AGW nightmares ( Null )

I would like to uncover what their personal investments were over these years: did they take money out of banks and the markets as they advised listeners? To put everything in arable land, precious metals and survival supplies? Leave cities behind. I know for sure that real estate is part of their plans ( Mikey in Ecuador, then Texas; Null in FL, then TX) – Texas where there are lower taxes and less regulation.

** obviously this varies- probably Mercola knows how much he puts on for his audience

“Maybe they just come to believe their own conspiracy theories.”

Even if they don’t believe them when they start spewing them, isn’t it likely they’d become so accustomed to repeating and finding new “evidence” for them they’d eventually believe them?

Homeopathic Medicine – When the active ingredient decreases, faith in the data increases.

Science-based Medicine – When faith in the data decreases, the active ingredient is increased.

RI Medicine – When insolence decreases, minion apathy increases. (Denice Walter is the exception)

It’s cute that Benneth makes an apppearance in the comments to barf up some gibberish.

Orac writes,

“I will manage to make sure everyone’s playing nice”

MJD admits,

Orac’s already rejected one comment/question – I’ll try again.

Q. Does RI have a process or guidelines wherein MJD could get out of auto-moderation and be reinstated as a valued participant.

Does RI have a process or guidelines wherein MJD could get out of auto-moderation and be reinstated as a valued participant[?]

Let’s see what the Comments Policy says:

Basically, any commenting behavior that gets on Orac’s cybernetic nerves enough will run the risk of his taking some sort of action to stop it, because Orac does not like commenters who get on his nerves or too much on the nerves of regular commenters who’ve been following the blog for years.

Simply put, if you want Orac to let you out of automoderation, stop commenting the way you’ve been commenting.
Stop banging on about your latex fixation, and about your “hypothesis” that latex allergies cause autism.
Stop asking if you can write a guest post (I notice you’ve stopped doing this recently, or Orac has decided to bin any comment of yours that asks this).
Start playing nice, and maybe Orac will let you out of the naughty corner.

Julian Frost writes,

…stop commenting the way you’ve been commenting.

MJD says,

That would be like asking Mike Adams to switch from natural to artificial. Like asking Orac to pull off Captain Kirk’s universal communicator. Like asking Engineer Scott to do the unimaginable in less than 30-minutes. Like asking Sulu to stop staring at the view screen. Your not playing nice, Julian.

Well MJD, if you find it impossible to play by the rules here, then perhaps you should go somewhere else instead of continually whining that you don’t like the rules.

I am sure you will fit in quite nicely at Natural News.

How They View Us, Chapter 359…

Whilst our esteemed leader is away writing SB grant proposals, our critics have been busy writing articles about us–
most recently, “Wickedpedia” and its “institutional bias” so here- for your reading/ listening “pleasure” ( prn.fm home page/ progressive commentary hour. yesterday).
It’s about how sceptics have captured Wikipedia and inserted their biases ( SBM) in it through “non-expert… non-credentialed” editors; relying instead on Drs Barrett, Novella, Hall, DG et al. instead of The Daily Mail or Rupert Sheldrake. Yes, it’s a swamp of reason and evidence. Shame on them! I mean us.
The authors believe that Wikipedia’s non-profit status is threatened because it is biased. Sure it is: based towards reality.
Woo-meisters can’t even change their own bios!

Since last May, there have been over 20 articles sliming Wikipedia, sceptics etc. Our efforts must be working.

Wikipedia has become a favourite target for the lunatic charlatans. Once they were able to get material into Wikipedia and get their bios polished. In more recent years through the efforts of a number of writers and a couple of high profile dust-ups, the rules have been tightened so much in the medical arena that wooism gets painted for what it is. This is enormously galling for the lunatic charlatans who are besides themselves over it.

Ironically, at this present moment Sharyl Attkinsson is using Twitter to try and get her bio rose tinted. It is unlikely to last.

Right. PRN’s chief lunatic charlatan has been trying to change his Wikipedia bio to match whatever fantasies exist in his fevered imagination BUT thanks to SB editors, he has failed. Usually he brags about his professorships, directorships, inventions, “cures”, reportage and many awards to his enraptured audience BUT no dice at Wikipedia.

For example, if I had a bio there, they would list that I attended universities X, Y and Z – which are well-known and accredited- which degrees I took and what jobs I had. ALL of which are easy enough to document.

So why do woo-meisters have a problem with Wikipedia?
( hint: because they lie)

Biel has some previous in this area. She has been an anti-vaxxer for some years.

Joining Kennedy just displays it for all to see.

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