When Chemists Attack

There’s a new web encyclopedia in town: Conservapedia, which seems to be trying to position itself as a “Fox News” version of Wikipedia. In other words, it caters to people who call themselves conservatives.

I think they’ve got the branding all wrong. If the site’s serious – and not just meant as a silly jab at conservatives – they ought to call it “Stupidopedia: Two-bit articles for two-bit minds”. Am I being harsh?

Here are some samples. I’m a chemist, so I’ll look up some simple chemistry-related topics.

Here is the entire, unedited Conservapedia entry for water.

Water is and oderless, tasteless, colorless substance. Its chemical formula is H2O. (That is two hydrogens and one oxygen. I apologize for the lack of subscipts.)

Here’s the atom

An atom is the smallest unit chemical matter in creation. The word atom comes from the Greek term for indivisible, átomos. There have been many ideas about how atoms may look. The current one is called the Quantum Mechanical Model, and is very complex.

Who writes this crap? Fifth graders? Compare with the Wikipedia entries for water and atom, which are just a bit more useful and well-edited.

I think the best chemistry Conservapedia article I’ve seen so far, though, is one that was discovered by The Disgruntled Chemist: The law of mass conversation. Do conservatives not know how to spell the word “conservation”? 🙂

If the site wasn’t satire before, it’s satire now. Some folks have been spicing the entries up a bit. Now, the “The Law of Mass Conversation” entry says

Matter cannot be created (except by the Almighty during the Genesis creation event) or destroyed (except by the Almighty at the End of Days), it can only change form.

Bostonians! All y’all owe me a new laptop keyboard and another glass of sweet tea. In lieu of that, simply repeat after me:

In case you haven’t heard, the city of Boston went certifiably insane yesterday over some light-up signs advertising the cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Someone thought the signs were bombs.

Here’s one of the signs:

Inignot, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: “I hope he can see this, because I’m doing it as hard as I can.”

The Massachusetts attorney general said

“It had a very sinister appearance,” Coakley told reporters. “It had a battery behind it, and wires.”

Rumors that the attorney general also added “Oh he did not do that! That dude back there just flipped me off!” turned out to be false.

Update:

When you find yourself in a hole, it is generally advisable to stop digging.

It’s clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location,” Assistant Attorney General John Grossman said at their arraignment.

Yes, it was designed to get attention. it’s a circuit board with batteries that lights up to draw attention to itself. No, it was not designed to “cause fear and unrest” by making people think it was a bomb. It looks like a sign, not a bomb. STOP DIGGING!

Oh wait … this is Boston. Never mind. Carry on, then.

Via Fark, here’s a bit of news.

Manager Puts Camera in Waffle House Bathroom

The article, in case you can’t read the print on this screen capture, talks about a man who was arrested after mounting a wireless video camera under the sink in the women’s bathroom of a Waffle House.

What I want to know is simply this … WHY IS THERE A “WATCH VIDEO” LINK ON THE RIGHT???

Whenever my old laptop asked me to press any key to continue, here’s the key I always wanted to use.

I’ve got your “any” key right here!^**

^**Yes, that really is a picture of an actual key on my old laptop. No, I didn’t deliberately try to wear the key out that way. 🙂

From (where else), the BBC:

Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists

The bird, a captive African grey called N’kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.

He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope – just as a human child would do.

I bet, though, that his plumage is nowhere near as beautiful as a Norwegian Blue’s …

Here’s an update from the front lines of the War on Christmas. Rock Hill (SC) mother has 12-year-old son arrested for opening Christmas present early

The boy’s great-grandmother had told him not to open his Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which she had wrapped and placed beneath the Christmas tree, according to a police report.

Don’t open your present early, or Santa will throw your sorry behind in jail!

The boy was arrested on petty larceny charges, taken to the Rock Hill police station in handcuffs and held until his mother picked him up after church.

… because the reason for the season is using the cops as a babysitter while you go to church? Silly me. I thought it was something about giving.

Reading the article, I see that there’s a lot wrong with the situation: an uneducated single mother who’s 27 years old with two children ages 12 and 7, one of the kids being diagnosed with ADHD and facing expulsion from school, etc. But that’s no justification for trying to get your 12-year-old a police record to “scare” him – for trying to mess with his Christmas present early. That is a family issue, not a police issue.

(Hint: If it’s that important to keep the presents away from your kids, don’t put them under the tree until Christmas Eve.)

His mother said neither arrest seemed to scare him as she had hoped. She is distressed because her son is relishing the attention brought by his latest arrest.

Color me unsurprised.

Oh, and thie story seems to have hit CNN, too. I hate it when this is how South Carolina gets into the national press…

College rivarlies are usually good fun, but the Clemson-Carolina rivarly has certainly gotten some bad press the past few years. First, there was the brawl at the 2004 game – an embarassment for both schools.

This year, a fan takes it upon himself to give the Clemson-Carolina game a bad name by shooting his buddy over a $20 bet on the game.

So Quick [Gamecock fan] left the house and retrieved a high-powered rifle from his Chevrolet Corsica.

“He went back in and told Richard, `I want my money or I’m going to shoot you,’ ” said Lexington County Sheriff James Metts, adding that both had been drinking beer.

Metts said Johnson’s wife and several friends told police that Johnson [Tiger fan] then said: “You can’t shoot me, I’m invisible.”

And Quick replied, “No you’re not.”

Johnson, 43, was shot once in the chest, and deputies charged Quick, 42, with murder and possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. He was leaning against his Corsica, with arms crossed, when police arrived, Metts said.

Wow.

Is “not guilty by way of stupidity” a possible plea for this case?