... of the more subtle sort [telegraph.co.uk]: the greedy, evil scum who get into positions of power where they pretend to be worth more than other people for actually doing very little and having little merit [chaosmatrix.org].

... can be dangerous when opposed. Not only are they already known to be bad in their own right (or they wouldn’t be quacks, cranks and conmen!), but they tend to have fanatical followers (again of guaranteed poor judgment in at least one way!) and may also have hired flunkies/thugs to act on their behalf.

It seems that China is currently a rather dangerous place to visibly be a sceptic [blog.newhumanist.org.uk].

... running loose in the community, instead of being detained and treated.

The US is possibly the most enthusiastic proponent of the psychobabbler. Yet they still let their dangerous loonies run around loose - and not just because the madmen are the ones with money, power, influence and religion. They even let the non-religious crazies get out of hand [scienceblogs.com]. But then they shoot them [scienceblogs.com] - because the US is also among the most enthusiastic proponents of gun usage in the world.

I would agree with some of his criticisms of the Discovery Channel [guardian.co.uk] and of society but, even without the more extreme elements of his grudge, he gets far too repetitive to be regarded as sane. Plus [google.com] one should never trust a guy who hero-worships Kirk (from StarTrek)!

... photographing [telegraph.co.uk] themselves again. Such boastful stupidity [bbc.co.uk] really does make them far easier to find and convict. The police probably never have had much of a part to play in fighting crime compared with the contribution from people effectively outing themselves in various ways.

Then [guardian.co.uk] there are the criminal journalists [guardian.co.uk] ... who may be in league with enough of the criminally-minded people in power, in both the police and government, to avoid getting prosecuted. Sometimes the institutional incompetence is extremely selective and directed.

. . .

Updates on phone hacking: Grauniad [guardian.co.uk], BBC [bbc.co.uk].

... are still criminals. So it’s not really surprising [google.com] to find many of them acting [peoplemanagement.co.uk] that way [guardian.co.uk]. What it ought to mean for the offending individuals [bbc.co.uk], though, is immediate suspension of community service and resumption of a (longer) conventional prison sentence. It also ought to mean a black mark against the judgment of the person(s) who thought that particular offender was an appropriate choice for community service. Employ only the people who tend to get it right.

Just 10 definitively spam emails for August (ie excluding notices from some organisations in which I merely wasn’t interested but needed to receive in case other instances were important). Most of those, 6 of them, were for the dkpanwar pest! Of the remaining 4, none were for sex drugs or dodgy watches.

1 was PayPal (and might even have been the real thing). 2 were from one annoying online trader (from whom I may once have bought something) and 1 was from another (from whom I definitely bought stuff). They are not endearing themselves to me by pestering me. If I ever want something again, I am quite capable of re-finding them by myself.

For some unknown reason, the 19th of August was a very popular day with these particular spammers. 4 of the 10 arrived on that day - 1 from each of them.

... it’s the landing [metro.co.uk], ie the stopping suddenly against a hard surface [bridlingtonfreepress.co.uk], which hurts [yorkshirepost.co.uk]. Rather a stupid [bbc.co.uk] recreational choice.

Meejah people behaving despicably [londonist.com]. What a surprise - not!

Unsurprisingly, people [google.com] are still getting things completely wrong [bbc.co.uk] in their quest for "fair" education [guardian.co.uk]. People are not all equal. Not by a long way. The correct thing to do is to stream them all by ability, regardless of background and wealth (and religion!) instead of trying to mix the majority of them together, ruining the chances of nearly all of them, just to stop the semi-rich from trying to obtain a tiny measure of the privileges that the filthy rich have.

That’s not to say that the stupid pupils then get nothing spent on them though. Rather they should all have somewhere near the same rate of expenditure (it being hard to guarantee stuff down to the last penny!) but deployed more effectively to suit their particular needs to get the best possible out of each of them. The academic ones can race ahead in the basics without being held back and get to cover a wider range while fewer children leave school without being able to read and write etc at all.

Meanwhile [guardian.co.uk], cutting science funding is a ludicrously false economy.

It’s not just the big atrocities committed by the religious because of their religion. It’s all the little every day abominations of the religiously retarded. Eg why you don’t want religious [bbc.co.uk] medical personnel managing your terminal health care [medicalnewstoday.com].

It’s interesting that someone at the Grauniad [guardian.co.uk] (who gets to write the official piece) doesn’t get it, while someone at a Christian rag [christiantoday.com] does. Of course there are also commenters at the Grauniad [guardian.co.uk] who do get it.

. . .

Meanwhile [express.co.uk], so much for one bad-attitude [bbc.co.uk] place as a "care" home [mirror.co.uk].

From the sign-up info on the sing-up website, ie a bunch of people aiming to help educate children:

Humans are not really getting significantly smarter. Collectively and theoretically, more stuff (and very important stuff at that!) is known than ever before. However, individual humans [guardian.co.uk] mostly neither recall it [telegraph.co.uk] in practice [google.com] nor act [metro.co.uk] intelligently on it.

And in some places where the leadership is particularly religiously retarded, they are even progressing backwards [guardian.co.uk] on their ability to gather further reliable information.

Have they been watching [google.com] too many stupid teen [doncasterfreepress.co.uk] movies?

... being [scienceblogs.com] idiotic about religion and genetics.

... being [scienceblogs.com] oppressive and indulging in a spot of persecution.

... being [scienceblogs.com] barbaric in their evilness.

... bombing [bbc.co.uk] innocent people [guardian.co.uk].

... binning [dailymail.co.uk] friendly [telegraph.co.uk] cats [guardian.co.uk].

... and generally being psychotic [gethampshire.co.uk].

Anti-intellectual [bbc.co.uk] parents [guardian.co.uk] are to blame [telegraph.co.uk] for ruining their children’s chances. Though that’s also going to include their genetic contribution. And previous governments have helped things along by ruining the education and exam systems [guardian.co.uk] (rendering results nearly meaningless).*

However, those who are stupidly greedy rather than having well-founded aspirations (perhaps especially among the American middle class and the religious or woo-minded) are prone to falling for this [scienceblogs.com] sort of scam.

. . .

* so simple that very young children [telegraph.co.uk] can do them.

This [npr.org] is what happens when eejits eschew vaccinations. Diseases (such as whooping cough), which had nearly been wiped out in civilised countries, have been making a comeback - with all the unnecessary misery, injury and death that entails. The trouble is that the ill-educated masses have forgotten the former malign influence these things previously had over the population.

Unclean [bbc.co.uk] surgical implements are also a bad idea [google.com].

It might be the silly season all year round. However, a couple of notable examples cropped up recently.

An example of computer woo [pcpro.co.uk] - though hi-fi extremists do seem to be a bit prone to this sort of thing anyway.

Meanwhile, the award for most gullible journalist goes to ... the daily fail [dailymail.co.uk].

Someone [sandefur.typepad.com] considers just how much the woo peddlers themselves can be held responsible for any crimes and disasters which follow in their wake as a result of their lies.

Smacking down [telegraph.co.uk] the obnoxious [bbc.co.uk] religious people [guardian.co.uk] - this time [google.com] in the adoption arena [google.com].

Yes, his bum [thisislondon.co.uk] does look big in that, ie the small window [guardian.co.uk] via which he was rather optimistically trying to get into the premises [google.com].

In contrast, this [wired.com] is an altogether smarter level of crime.

Having a second driver take over [telegraph.co.uk] for part of a long trip only works if that alternate isn’t just as tired [thisislondon.co.uk] (or even more so!) than the person they are replacing. Paired lorry drivers have a bed space above the cab. Families in a car tend to all stay awake together (apart from the really young children who wouldn’t be allowed to drive anyway).

Apparently [telegraph.co.uk] the driver of the google streetview car [telegraph.co.uk] didn’t think anything was amiss [news.cnet.com]. Perhaps they tend to be asleep at the wheel too.