#319: Eric Jon Phelps

No, no relation to Fred – but Eric is certainly doing his best to outcrazy his more famous namesake. Eric Jon Phelps is a sort of unholy mix of Jack Chick and Alex Jones – no, strike that; Eric Jon Phelps is crazier than either. Yes, he is. His website is here. As you can garner from his site, Phelps is most famous for his book “Vatican Assassins”. I recommend searching the webpage, since it is quite simply not possible to sum up the level of crazy in a few words. The basic idea seems to be that the pope is the guy running the Illuminati, the Thirteen Families, and therefore the world (actually, there are two – a black pope and a white pope; the black pope is the most powerful). The Jesuits are behind pretty much everything, and … Ok, here are some headlines from his webpage to give you a taster:

- “Newt Gingrich: Prince Consort of the Knights of Malta, Spellman’s Killers of JFK”

- “Israel Seizes 50 Tons of Weapons from Iranian Ship to Supply Muslims in Gaza” (yup, read it again if you missed it) 

- “Satan and His Jesuit Superior General in Rome Make Plans for the 21st Century” (look at the evidence!)

- “Japan’s Domestic Disaster: God Using Satan’s Jesuit Vatican for Two Occult Reasons” (yes, the pope’s behind that one as well): “Caution must always be exercised when considering the reasons for what appears to be ‘natural disasters’” (… cause there might be a completely insane, supernatural one)

- “UFOs: Man-Made High Technology: Weapons Enforcing Pope’s Temporal Power” (you can’t fake this)

- “White Christian Author Exposes White Mormon Glenn Beck: New Age Heretic”. According to Phelps “White Glenn Beck is presently the most dangerous man in America” (yes, the emphasis is on “white”; Phelps has some, uh, less than politically correct views about race). Calling Beck the most dangerous man in America (the commentary was made in March 2011) may not be such a bad observation. Phelps’s reasons? Not so good.

- “Red Chinese Navy: 4,000-Ton Missile Frigate Now off the Coast of Libya” [this stems from the start of the unrest]: “As repeated by your Editor for the last ten years, America is to suffer a future Sino-Soviet-Muslim Invasion”. Don your tinfoil hats! To the Bat-zapper!

- “Majority Black Savagery Continues Unabated in Apostate Protestant White America”: Phelps “distinguishes between the Majority Savage Blacks and the Minority Civil Blacks—many of whom are my brethren in Christ Jesus,” (don’t ask) and laments the fact that when “a White man attempts to deal objectively [sic] with the topic of Majority Savage Black-on-White or Black-on-Hispanic crime, he runs the rise [sic] of being labeled a ‘hateful racist’”. Indeed. (Follow-up here)

Phelps also thinks everyone else in the looniverse, from Alex Jones to Leonard Horowitz to Jeff Rense are really Vatican agents. Daryl Bradford Smith and others, on the other hand, thinks Phelps is in on the “real” conspiracy, since he is a “Zionist promoter, Israeli diamond merchant, new ager and white separatist”. Goodness knows what would count as falsifying evidence for these people.

Phelps also defends a geocentric universe, sort of to top it all off. You can listen to Phelps debate Michael Collins Piper about who is really controlling the world here (not recommended); or read an interview with Rick Martin here (their discussion of Saddam concerns this)

Diagnosis: Time Cube insane. Eric Phelps seems to be trying to believe every false and crazy belief one could conceivably believe at the same time. This is certainly an interesting principle for building what amounts to an anti-coherent belief system. Reality be damned.

#318: David J. Pesek (and the “Quantum University”)

David Pesek is a rather infamous woo practitioner who panders the most ridiculous treatments. He has a “clinical practice in nutrition, tissue cleansing programs and psychology utilizing iridology”, and is the director of the International Institute of Iridology, the president of the American College of Iridology, and board advisor for the InternationalCollege of Iridology. It is a little unclear what the difference between iridology and “holistic iridology” amounts to, but I suppose “psychology utilizing iridology” may give you a clue. It sounds not so much like phrenology as it does palm reading with the help of crystal balls:

“Over decades of clinical experience and research, I have come to the conclusion: ‘The iris, sclera and pupil of the eyes show the veil the soul has created, through consciousness (or forgetfulness), that reflects the illusion which prepares the soul for attaining the reality of full enlightenment.’ Simply stated, this means that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And the eyes are windows that open into our personal growth along our spiritual journey.”

Strangely, he cited no peer reviewed papers produced by his “clinical research”. One suspects that he does not really think he knows what “clinical” means. Nor “research” (confirmation bias applied to anecdotal evidence does not count as research).

You can read more about his practice on the newconnexion website (the advertisements are themselves … interesting: when I last checked it, they recommended “clairvoyant readings for pets” by Shirley Scott; “phrophecies for the coming utopian age” by Susan B. Martinez; get “free Tibetan crystals” from Crystal Hearts books; “astromark astrology” by Mark Dodich; and to “sign up to receive FREE monthly astro-updates” from VirgoMagic, Emily Trinkaus).

If you pay shitloads of money, you can participate in an online course with Pesek offered by “Quantum University” (the name of said university being, obviously, an illustration of endless ignorance, stupidity, misleadingness and unintentional hilarity). In addition to Pesek, the university offers some pretty scary crackpottery, however, such as Louis Swartswalter’s course on ADD – yes, it involves “quantum biofeedback” (real Choprawoo) – and Gaetan Chevalier’s Quantum Biology course. 

Pesek is interestingly also faculty at the "University ofNatural Medicine”. It’s rather fitting that in addition to aromatherapy, homeopathy, herbal studies, and ayurvedic medicine, the “university” also offers a class dealing with “legal issues” by one Lawrence Wilson, based on his 15 years of experience as a holistic practitioner (he also teaches “tissue mineral & heavy metal hair analysis”, apparently).

Diagnosis: Quackwatch will certainly have enough to do for years to come, and so will those among the rest of us who take some responsibility for the future of humanity. Pesek and his ilk aren’t merely harmless fluffbunnies.

#317: Rick Perry

Since this entry’s hopeful candidate is sufficiently well known we’ll restrict ourselves to a few highlights. Perry is governor of Texas and was allegedly guided by God to be one of the contenders for the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential election - partially because Obama has no insight into how unemployed people are suffering because he was a child of privilege, and because Perry doesn’t like the fact that the US is ruled, in part, by the Constitution rather than his own personal ideas  – until he dropped out to endorse Newt Gingrich instead. Here is Perry, God’s choice for president, ending his campaign. Before his entry into the race he was most famous for his bloodlust, presiding over some very dubious executions (even going so far as to incur accusations of cover-ups of faults in the investigation). But for those who paid attention, Perry had already established himself as a weapons-grade loon.

Perry had by that time already emphasized that his favorite way of dealing with problems (i.e. Texas’s problems) was to attempt to pray them away. For the 2011 drought, for instance, Perry’s solution was to declare a three-day “Prayer for Rain”. The fact that it was an astounding failure didn’t deter him from continuing in the same manner (also here). When asked how he would go about fixing the nation's numerous problems if becoming president, for instance, he responded: “I think it’s time for us to just hand it over to God, and say, ‘God: You’re going to have to fix this’” (which is curious, for to televangelist James Robison he claimed that the economic crisis is God’s will). Some people would still endorse him for president.

He also said that property rights are what makes America unique.

Perry has close ties to the dominionist group New Apostolic Reformation (which thinks Oprah Winfrey might be the Antichrist and wants to turn the US into a theocracy), along with other madmen, presented here. Before kicking off his campaign he attempted to set his main strategy (prayer) in motion by organizing the huge prayer event “The Response”, inviting David Barton and a couple of other rabid extremists to lend color to the event (see also here). The immediate aftermath was dominated by a massive stock market crash.

He tried to make up for it with the by now infamous video “Strong”, in which he claimed to be Christian and argued that the greatest challenge for the US today is the separation of church and state. He never discusses his faith, though. Here is Rick Perry not talking about his faith. When the polls started to go against him, he responded by cranking up the bigotry, and in an act of desperation even claimed that if became president he would re-invade Iraq immediately, presumably to reduce the national debt.

Perry has been closely associated with various Confederate groups, and has on at least two occasions claimed that Texas should secede (here, and here).

As you may have guessed he doesn’t like (or understand) science either. Perry is officially a staunch Intelligent Design Creationist, and he hand-picked the ragingly lunatic creationist Don McLeroy to serve on the Texas State Board of Education. When McLeroy was finally voted off Perry selected the hardcore fundie creationist Gail Lowe instead (who again appointed David Barton as an expert reviewer). Perry officially endorsed creationism during his presidential campaign as well: “(Evolution) is a theory that's out there and it's got some gaps in it. In Texas, we teach creationism and evolution because I feel you're smart enough to figure out which one is right.” It is telling that it is, in fact, also falsethat Texas actually teaches creationism (at least officially), which says something about Perry’s care for factual accuracy; and yes – you can spot the “just a theory” gambit in there as well. He didn’t want to say anything about the age of the Earth, however.

He is also a staunch global warming denier, and subscribes to made up “facts” and conspiracy theories to support his denialism: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects […] Yes our climate's changed, they've been changing ever since the earth was born. But I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating this information.” Perry’s spokesperson Ray Sullivan attempted to support his master’s claims by providing citations, but all he could do was to link to anecdotal crap, blogposts and hearsay. Under Perry’s administration the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality erased climate-related references in one of its reports (also here) but of course it only counts as censorship when scientists won’t say what Perry likes to hear, not when he (Perry) deletes the parts that it should be abundantly clear that he didn’t want to hear.

There’s a fine Rick Perry source here. You can see überloon Richard Land explain the key differences between Perry and Bush here (basically Perry is Bush without the education, compassion, intellect, or fancy East Coast-upbringing, which Land takes to be good things).

Diagnosis: Really? You can probably come up with one yourself.

#316: Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is the clinically insane, unhingedly despicable president of the Family Research Council (he was previously a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives), a conservative think tank dedicated to bigotry and denialism (see member Charmaine Yoest discuss evolution and the school curriculum here). He also runs the Christian audio streaming site Lightsource.com, which – as such sites generally do – offer hateful bigotry in return for donations. He is a close associate of James Dobson (who founded the FRC) and Albert Mohler, and is also president of the Patriarchy Research Council (which does no research either).

Can you guess what he thinks of same sex marriage? In his own words: “The definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is rooted in the order of nature itself […] This union can only be protected through amending the United States Constitution. If it's not, activists will continue using the courts to sell a five-legged dog. But as we say where I'm from in Louisiana, 'that dog won't hunt.’” (Here’s a fundraising letter from FRC). His views are apparently shared by his former Louisiana legislative colleague, former state senator Heulette Fontenot, who secured passage of a bill to disallow domestic partnerships in Louisiana or to recognize such relationships approved in other states (relatedly).

Perkins has described the gay civil rights movement as “a movement dedicated to destroying marriage, free speech, public health, religious liberty, and (after the DADT repeal) national security”. His arguments against repealing DADT constitute a colorful lot. Here’s “if the ban is lifted, so many black and Hispanic soldiers will quit that we'll have to reintroduce the draft” (a claim which makes him a racist as well – “it is the blacks and latinos who hate gays, not I”): . Here’s “repealing DADT will provide terrible suffering for the military chaplains”.

He also pandered one of the most atrociously insane anti-gay arguments ever attempted (a sort of self-defeating naturalistic fallacy on meth): “There's no correlation between inacceptance of homosexuality and depression and suicide […] rather […] [t]hese young people who identify as gay or lesbian, we know from the social science that they have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict. Homosexuality is ‘abnormal’, and kids know it, which leads them to despair.” That’s the nice way of putting it, however – his explanation of how gays are really possessed by Satan is here (first comment wins the Internet).

In fact, he more or less explicitly advocates violence against gays, and locking them up. Hence, he was appointed to serve on Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana Commission on Family and Marriage. 

Perkins has called on Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox Jews not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage, and other matters of the anti-life agenda that go against their religious consciences. Here’s Perkins claiming that the courts constitute a greater threat to America than the terrorists, and here is his claim that gays are committing terrorism against the legal system. And here, for that matter, is his claim that advocates of a separation between church and state are terrorists. He is also pathologically hypocritical and virulently opposed to environmentalism. 

In 2010, the Family Research Council was correctly and finally classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Perkins, whose full emotional range seems to span anything from hatred to detestation, dismissed the hate group designation as the result of a political attack by a “liberal organization” and “the left's smear campaign of conservatives”. Apparently quoting Perkins and his group, literally and in context, is “smearing”. That should have made Perkins think twice. Obviously it won’t.

Perkins is indeed another, and rather spectacular, example of the hysterical paranoia and batshit conspiracy mongering – fueled by a persecution complex of incomparable unhingedness – that people like Perkins suffer from. You sort of see the engine winding up: “The liberals disagree with me; therefore, the liberals criticize what I say; therefore the liberals are in a conspiracy and out to get me. This is just like the persecution of Christians in Ancient Rome. Therefore the liberals want to destroy me and ban Christianity. And they want to do the same to you".

You can see Perkins’s take on keeping it real here, and a fine example of what “family values” amount to here.

There’s a decent Perkins resource here.

Diagnosis: An abhorrent human being. Extremely dangerous

#315: Ed Peltzer

I hesitated over Tim Pawlenty, who has argued that intelligent design creationism should be taught in schools. It seems likely he was just pandering to potential voters, however, and Pawlenty has, to his credit, been one of few hardcore rightwingers to take global warming seriously (though he radically toned down his lack of ignorance when he started thinking about running for president).

Edward Peltzer may not be the most notable member of the creationist movement, but at least he is clearly deranged enough to merit inclusion in our Encyclopedia. Peltzer is a “senior research specialist” at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. He is, in fact, an analytical chemist working in oceanography, and has some actual peer-reviewed publications – he even seems fairly knowledgeable about these matters. Since the creationist movement is arduously seeking out anyone with a modicum of scientific credibility who supports their cause, Peltzer is widely used, e.g. in the Kansas Evolution Hearings.

His contribution to said hearings can be found here. They are revealing; after a lengthy presentation on the problems of abiogenesis, Peltzer spent the last minute launching into an incoherent rant about “the religion of naturalism” in modern science. During cross-examination, he rejected common descent and evolution (hesitant old earth creationism). He has also given talks on the origin of life and the “problems” of scientific naturalism in various creationist venues.

At least he seems to be doing some worthwhile and actually helpful work related to global warming. Still.

Diagnosis: Another otherwise intelligent chap who is willing to throw critical thinking and science under the bus if the results don’t fit sufficiently smoothly with his preconceptions. It’s sad, really.

#314: Rod Parsley

Rod Parsley is a televangelist and Jerry Falwell wannabe – he runs multiple “ministries” (he is in particular associated with the World Harvest Church), his own Christian college, and is heavily involved in politics (pandering hysteria, paranoia, bigotry and the good old fundamentalist persecution complex – ‘there are people who disagree with me, therefore I am persecuted and a martyr’).

Parsley is an honorary “doctor of divinity” – granted by Liberty University – and a regional director for John Hagee's group Christians United For Israel. Fortunately, since Parsley lacks the intellectual integrity of Oral Roberts and the jovial amiability of Pat Robertson, his following, while substantial, will probably remain limited. A lot of his outreach (Bridge of Hope, Breakthrough) is focused, naturally enough, on poorer and conflict-filled parts of Africa, apparently fertile grounds for the kind of violent fanaticism that would not go over particularly well even in the States. As is common with such people, Parsley is constantly on the lookout for money. In 2009, a “demonically inspired financial attack” made times difficult for him, so he asked his followers to “help me take back what the devil stole”. The “devilish theft” was apparently a court settlement concerning instances of child abuse at one of the church-run childcare centers (also here). His pleas for money seem to have become an annual thing, by the way, since he is apparently high on Satan’s list of favorite victims.

Parsley is a staunch theocrat (denying any separation of church and state in the Constitution), proud member of the dominionist movement, and staunchly opposed to gay rights and to abortion (employing the “the U.S. government, by funding Planned Parenthood, is complicit in “genocide” against African Americans, because Planned Parenthood performs abortions in the black community”-argument). In 2006, he even called for his followers to take up arms against the “thirty, forty liberal pastors who filed against our ministry with the Internal Revenue Service.”

Relying on his expertise on religion Parsley claims that Islam is an “anti-Christ religion” predicated on “deception”, and – surely historically accurate – that “America was founded in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed.” Furthermore “Muhammad received revelations from demons and not from the true God” (there is probably a reason why this particular argument fails to be popular even among more extreme Christian apologetics given its tu quoque potential); to clinch it, he proves (by assertion) that “Allah was a demon spirit.” Keep in mind that this comes from a guy who was an actual advisor to the McCain campaign, even though McCain admittedly cut his ties to Parsley (and Hagee) after these screeds.

If you want to see Parsley warn his followers that the end times are imminent (“the Antichrist is waiting in the wings”), you can watch this one (but you don’t really want to see that). He is also an ardent critic of moral relativism except when he wants to defend his own actions.

There’s a good Rod Parsley resource here.

Rod should not be confused with Ross Parsley, the guy who (temporarily) took over the New Life Church after Ted Haggard’s fall from grace.

Diagnosis: Endlessly insane fundamentalist power channeled into a tireless howl of rage against reality, packed into the kind of serpentine charisma that drives even moderately insane theocrats away. Dangerous nonetheless.

#313: Sarah Palin

A.k.a. Bible Spice

A.k.a. Pit bull in lipstick (her own characterization)

A.k.a. Caribou Barbie

Ok, this one’s a challenge. How to distinguish stupidity from lunacy? (Or for that matter, from malevolence – if Grey’s Law applied both ways, many people we’ve ignored would have to be counted as loons). Ignorance tends to turn into lunacy when accompanied by second-order ignorance, at least, but this is probably not a necessary condition, although incompetence at basic rational reasoning may perhaps be sufficient.

So Palin’s application for inclusion in the Encyclopedia raises questions. I think we should disregard her ignorance, vileness, vacuity, helpless blathering, idiotic statements on the verge of meaninglessness, incompetence, complete (and I mean complete) lack of self-awareness, and her ability to talk into a camera for five minutes with complete confidence without producing any meaningful content (which reflects badly on her followers more than on herself), or even her rather obviously pathological habit of lying. But stupidity and Dunning-Kruger are at least at work in this one, and in this one. And genuine insanity seems to run rampant here.

She had been noted for her creationist sympathies before she burst into fame in 2008, and is indeed on the record as a young earth creationist, Ken Ham-style, as well as for peddling theocracy.

She is more extensively covered here. We really can’t be bothered to rant at length about this one.

John Lofton thinks Sarah Palin is a liberal appeaser, by the way.

Diagnosis: Serious loon. But the real problem is people like this. The appeal of Palin seems to be fading since she declined a run for president, and her lasting influence is doubtful.