How did we miss this gem from Orac?

[trotsky]

When "gut feelings" about science attack, or: Oh, no! Histidine and polysorbate-80 are going to destroy our girls!

Some people should keep their "gut feelings" to themselves.

You know the type: People who have no knowledge about a topic or, even worse, just enough knowledge to sound as if they have a clue about it to people who don't have a clue but who are at the same time easily spotted as utterly and completely clueless by people who do have a clue. These people often think they've discovered something that scientists, in all their blindness have missed, and have a burning urge to share their "gut feeling" about what they think they have discovered as though it's some revelation, a bolt out of the blue if you will. Not uncommonly, they also often "beg" the authorities, be they the CDC, FDA, NIH, or CIA (in the case of particularly wild clueless wonders) to take a look at their amazing new finding. Even more commonly, their "gut feeling" is based on cherry picking the scientific literature without understanding it and linking things that have no scientifically viable reason to be linked.

I've found an excellent example of a clueless wonder who's done virtually all of the above. Meet Cynthia A. Janak, who describes herself as:

...a freelance journalist, mother of three, foster mother of one, grandmother of five, business owner, Chamber of Commerce member. Her expertise is as an administrative professional. Her specialties are adoptee and genealogy research and research journalism. Hobbies: Writing prose, crocheting, Conservative Studies, and rehabbing houses.

More...

Much more woo exposure - nails a few Health dungeon regulars to a T.

[moggie]

1. Great credentials, there

Let me guess:

Freelance journalist = writes for wingnut websites
Genealogy research = she's worked out her own family tree back a few generations
Research journalism = knows how to use google and wikipedia
Administrative professional = bullshit term you use when your real job doesn't sound very impressive

Good piece from Orac, as usual.

[trotsky]

2. I'm pretty sure you nailed it there.

On all four "qualifications."

[salvorhardin]

3. If you like her woo, you'll love her political reporting

You think that you live in the United States of America. Well, think again. You live in the Organization of American States which was created April 30, 1948. The OAS is a regional agency designed to work with the United Nations. Therefore we are a state of the United Nations. Over the course of years and years of dealing with the United Nations we have signed treaties and other documents that gave away our sovereignty in little pieces over to the UN. As soon as we signed on we became a state of the United Nations and gave them power over our country. •••

The United Nations is nothing more than an organization set up by the elite as a benevolent party whose only aim is to world peace and tranquility. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you. This organization is a profiteering, one world business that charges the states that join yearly dues. They profit from the labor of those states and further want to extend their dominion to the seas. •••

I feel that free enterprise is all but gone and if you don't run with the big dogs they will run you over. They did it to Hoover.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/janak/050505

Other such erudite and insightful prose by Janak includes:

• Why the Dems hate Governor Sarah Palin
• The "Mark of the Beast" is called "interoperability with electronic medical records" S.2911 & S.1693
• Planned Parenthood -- legal or illegal, you decide
• The mark of the beast is around the corner
• Socialism is alive and well in America. Patriots to socialism.

Janak's paranoid conspiracies read like the minutes of the meetings of the John Birch Society.

[moggie]

4. I suspect she's not too keen on the jooos, either

From another column on the UN, she fingers "the banking industry", and you know who they are. And she complains that "We are not allowed to tell a joke about a Pollock, Jew and a Wop", because both the Democratic and Republican parties are tools of those filthy foreigners in the UN.

[salvorhardin]

7. Aren't racial slurs fun?

But I just don't understand what's so funny about pollock? :shrug:


Or does she mean Jackson Pollock?

[moggie]

8. Some Sadly, No! posters had fun with this

I did my masters thesis in Fisheries Oceanography on the Pollock, and I can personally say that I've been persecuted for trying to make jokes about them. MANY TIMES. I just thank God I didn't include the Walleye Jew and Striped Wop in my grant application, or I never would have been funded in the first place.

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/1554.html#comment-25594

Yeah, shouldn't the joke be about a Pollock, a Klee and a Kandinsky going into a bar…?

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/1554.html#comment-25577

A person of Polish extraction and another person who professes the Hebraic religion encounter an Italian gentleman or lady in a certain architypical setting. Serially, each performs zany antics, exemplifying in a humorous way his or her ethnicity!

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/1554.html#comment-25610

[trotsky]

6. Holy mackerel

She's more cuckoo than a Black Forest clock store.

[moggie]

9. Not mackerel, pollock

A different kettle of fish entirely.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Arrrgggghhhhhhh - just SCARY!

Sounds like a cross between the British Nationalist Party and a cult.

Her version of British political history is making my head ache rather seriously:

'Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the first PM of England to bring into government known Socialists...Why did Churchill bring socialists into government? It is because in 1904 joined the Liberal Party who merged with the Social Democratic Party. Many members of the Social Democratic Party were members of the Manifesto Group within the Labour Party.'

Apart from her apparently ignoring the existence of Ramsay Macdonald long before the Churchill government: the Social Democratic Party was created, and merged with the Liberal Party, in the 19 bloody 80s. Long after Churchill died. Did Churchill have a time machine when he temporarily joined the Liberals in 1904? I am feeling quite dizzy - and I haven't even had any Gardasil!

[salvorhardin]

12. That's why I always carry Gardasil lollipops

I am feeling quite dizzy - and I haven't even had any Gardasil!

There's nothing like catching a good Gardasil buzz when you're stuck in a boring meeting, waiting for the bus, listening to your spouse complain, etc. and with the new Gardasil lollipops, nobody will know you're indulging in your favorite new NWO mind-altering drug. And they go great with Fluoride pop (sweetened with cyclamate!).

[TZ]

13. Hey now

I could get you a nice vaginal swab from my lab from when they did the testing on the HPV vaccine....YUMMY...
:rofl:

(I seem to be on a gross out kick today..I posted about primate breast milk and feeding mosquitos blood in a lab..):evilgrin:

[TZ]

5. Oh yes.

Several Health posters come IMMEDIATELY to mind..including one particular one who is always whining about how clinical trials are designed poorly and has no clue of the complexity behind it.

[varkam]

11. One of the posters in the health lounge has referenced Janak repeatedly...

The stupid, it burns...as Orac would say.