Day: April 3, 2007

Conservapedia Just a Wingnut Wiki, Not an Objective Answer to Wikipedia’s Alleged Liberal Bias

Buck Banks

Wicked wiki: What rock was I under when Conservapedia hit the news? How did I miss it on NPR, in the newspapers and on numerous weblogs? Oh yeah, I was completely out of pocket during the two weeks in March when it rose up out of nowhere and reared its butt-ugly head.

Like all conservative media products, Conservapedia infuses language with politics, pushing an agenda by distorting meanings and manipulating context.

Conservapedia positions itself as an alternative to Wikipedia with its librul bias:

Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears? Our study suggests that Wikipedia is 6 times more liberal than the American public. Now it’s time for the Conservatives to get our voice out on the internet!

Conservapedia began in November 2006, as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey.

Conservapedia has since grown enormously, including contributors worldwide. Conservapedia already exceeds the number of entries in the Oxford Dictionary of World History. Conservapedia is rapidly becoming one of the largest and most reliable online educational resources of its kind.

The “study” referred to above is a laundry list of examples of Wikipedia’s mistakes, inaccuracies and instances where entries would not pass the “Bill O’Reilly Test.” Here are a couple, starting with the number-one instance:

  • Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia gives the credit due to Christianity and exposes the CE deception.
  • About 60% of Americans accept the account of the Great Flood in the Bible. But enter “Great Flood” into Wikipedia and it automatically converts that to an entry entitled “Deluge (mythology).” That entry then uses “myth” or “mythology” nearly 70 times in its description. Its entry on “Noah’s Ark” is just as biased.
  • Wikipedia’s entry on abortion reads like a brochure for the abortion industry. Wikipedia denies and omits the results of 16 out of 17 statistically significant studies showing increased risk of breast cancer from abortion. Wikipedia’s entry also omits the evidence of abortion causing increased premature birth of subsequent children. Instead of providing these facts, Wikipedia blames women by declaring that “breast cancer elicits disproportionate fear in women.”

OK, it’s easy to see where this is going. So how did they come up with that “statistic” that Wikipedia is six times more liberal? Creationistic math, that’s how:

Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as “conservative” compared with “liberal”, and that ratio has been increasing for two decades. But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as “liberal” compared with “conservative”. That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public.

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33 Percent of Pensito Review Editors Back Tancredo for Prez

Buck Banks

Monday Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo announced he was joining the legions seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Now, if he can only win it. I for one fervently hope he can.

‘We have something they don’t have — a group of people out there who are there because of an issue.’

That might sound odd coming from one who has been somewhat critical of Tom Tancredo in the past, who was dismissive of his presumed run for the presidency and offended by his characterization of Miami as a “Third World country.” But I’m serious, I really do want him to win the Republican presidential nomination. Honest, I do.

I know it will be difficult for Tom to compete with the likes of Mitt the Money Magnet in fundraising, but he’s got that covered:

[Tancredo] said he wasn’t intimidated by other campaigns with more money and resources. Tancredo said he had raised a little more than a million dollars for his presidential bid. In comparison, aides to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced on Monday that he had raised more than $20 million.

“We have something they don’t have — a group of people out there who are there because of an issue,” Tancredo said. “And they’re never going to have that. They can use their 100 million to try and buy constituency. I have it. It’s natural. It’s there.”

And we all know what Tom’s issue is — immigration. It’s the number-one issue for Tom and his constituents, just not for a majority of Americans. But that’s okay, too, because you don’t need a majority of Americans to win the presidency anymore. Tom’s counting on that, which is why he said to heck with tradition and announced his candidacy, not in his home state of Colorado, but in Iowa. On the radio.

Tancredo said he chose radio because talk radio had for years given him a platform for his stand against illegal immigration. And he made the announcement in Des Moines rather than his home state of Colorado because of the importance of Iowa in the nominating process.

“That’s how you get there,” he said. “You do well in Iowa, you do well in New Hampshire.”

Now that sounds like a solid plan for winning the nomination — do well in Iowa and New Hampshire. I tell you, this guy has the juice!

That’s why I am breaking with my co-editors and endorsing Tom Tancredo for the Republican nomination for president of these United States. Because if the GOP nominates a single-issue loose-cannon headcase like Tancredo, the Dems are sure to win.

We Third Worlders are behind you Tom, and I speak on behalf of my fellow Miamians when I say that were most of them in the country legally and registered, I’m sure they’d vote for you. Honest.

Ryan Skipper Press: With Friends Like These…

Trish

One of the nation’s top gay focused web sites has smeared Ryan Skipper, a young Florida gay man recently murdered in what police labeled a hate crime. In fact, what queerty.com said makes the local sheriff and news media — blasted by us and many others for repeating the suspect’s version of events before investigating — look like paragons of open-mindedness and circumspection.

At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

According to friends, Ryan Keith Skipper, 25, went cruising Wahneta, Florida, for some quick and easy sex when he came across 21-year old Joseph Bearden. Testing his luck, Skipper offered Bearden a ride, which Bearden accepted. Skipper then took him to his house, where they smoked a bit of ganj and, according to police reports, chatted about using Skipper’s computer expertise to copy checks.

Skipper and Bearden then apparently took Skipper’s laptop and headed off to meet Bearden’s friend, 20-year old William David Brown Jr. From what police gather, Bearden and Brown, nestled in Skipper’s car, then stabbed Skipper 20 times before tossing his body on the side of the road.

That would make a good movie but it bears little resemblance to what actually happened.

Not a single one of Ryan’s friends has said he was cruising that night. All have said they know of no time Ryan ever looked for sex with strangers.

Ryan’s brother, who is in the computer/internet/all that stuff business, was preparing a laptop to send him from his home in Las Vegas but had not yet shipped.

At the time of his murder, Ryan owned a desktop computer, but no printer and no scanner.

Ryan has no history of criminal activity beyond some underage personal consumption charges related to pot. He was a student at a technical college and held a steady job at Sunglass Hut.

Though they jumped to the conclusion expected by rabid anti-gay evangelicals, Queerty is refusing to apologize. They blame their sources and then, worse, their defenders hide behind the excuse they are a blog, not a legitimate news outlet.

In this story, we passed along the Associated Press story…

Skipper’s friends, meanwhile, wrote us an angry note insisting that not only do we have the story wrong, we’re defaming this boy’s name: a stunning allegation, if you ask us…

Rest assured…that was not our intent. We simply report the news as we find it. We’re sure Skipper would be pleased to know that you’re keeping his good name alive. We must say, however, that we find nothing wrong with cruising for sex and, thus, cannot agree that we assassinated anyone’s character. Regardless, we’re sorry for your loss. It’s always upsetting when people are murdered – especially when it’s a senseless a crime as the one that took Skipper. We’ll be sure to keep our virtual eyes on any and all developments in this convoluted and multi-faceted story.

The only convoluted stories are the ones coming from the suspects. But George Bush himself could not have sidestepped this any better. Next they’ll be saying, “mistakes were made.”

“It’s always upsetting when people are murdered.” Yeah, don’t you hate that? What a bother. It probably happens to them all the time, which is how they know it’s “always upsetting.” Sheesh.

That they find nothing wrong with cruising is not the point, SINCE RYAN WASN’T DOING THAT ANYWAY.

We didn’t know Ryan when we read the first reports of his death, but we have half a brain and could see that the suspects’ version wasn’t adding up. Since then, we have spoken to his brother, scoured the web for updates, and are in the process of speaking to his friends. At no time does Pensito Review accept sources at face value and pass them along, unexamined. And if you ever catch us doing that, we’ll strap on some balls and admit it.

Ryan’s family has been cautioned that capital murder trials can take up to two years to prepare. If this is the kind of support they can expect from the “good guys,” it’s going to be a very long 24 months.

Official Misstatements about Ryan Skipper’s Murder Have Been Propagated in the Media

Jon Ponder

One of the saddest aspects about the aftermath of Ryan Skipper’s murder is that no one outside his friends and family seems to care about the heinous manner in which he was killed.

“I want to identify with the people that I serve. I want them to identify with me. And I want to be blatantly honest with them. I don’t intentionally say anything that will impugn anyone other than a real criminal, and then I’m not too concerned about that.”
— Sheriff Grady Judd, March 18, 2007

Neither the governor nor the attorney general in Florida — both of whom are Republicans — has expressed concern about the fact that Skipper’s murder has been labeled a hate crime. National gay organizations have been largely mute, and coverage in the local and national gay press has been very slim, especially considering the brutality of his murder.

Sheriff’s Assertions Were Based on Killers’ Statements

It is likely that the lack of outrage stems from a series of misstatements to the media at the outset of the investigation that have been attributed to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and others in his office. On the face of it, the motivation for making these statements appears to be bigotry toward gay people.

On Friday, March 16, two days after Skipper’s body was discovered, the local newspaper, The Ledger, reported:

Skipper, 25, was driving around Eloise late Tuesday night looking to pick up someone when he met [his all edged killer, Joseph] Bearden, whom he took back to his home in Winter Haven, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The next day, the paper ran a quote from Sheriff Judd that sounded like it could have been the basis of the earlier reporting:

“What we do know is that Ryan was out looking to pick up someone that evening,” Judd said.

Elsewhere, the full quote has been given as:

“What we do know is that Ryan was looking for someone to pick up that evening. And unfortunately for Ryan, he picked up the wrong person.” [Emphasis added.]

In fact — and as we have said in other coverage of this story — Sheriff Judd did not “know” this. It was immediately obvious to my colleague Trish, who reported the story here on March 18, that, since the victim was dead and could not speak for himself, the only source for this information had to have been the alleged killers.

But the slander against Ryan Skipper did not stop there. In its coverage on March 17, The Ledger published the trawling-for-sex allegation as well as three additional completely unsubstantiated statements:

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