Little Nemo has consented to building a March Madness styled voting array to narrow down the names mentioned in Candidates for Least Favorite Female Human Being and summarized in this post just a little while ago – though other names have been added since.
To go at the narrowing-down effort another way, while work is being done on the March Madness approach, please post your own Top Ten (from that thread or from scratch) so we can get a feel for the SDMB’s distastes in this field of thought.
Note please that the idea is “Least Favorite” and that can draw on any emotions and ideas you have for that determination. “Most Evil” or “Most Hated” might work for you, or it may be simply that you think your list needs to quit breathing up our air!
Lea Thompson, the investigative reporter, who is not the same person as the actress from Back to the Future and Switched at Birth, produced a phony documentary with flimsy or outright made up evidence way back in 1982, called Vaccine Roulette, which is the real genesis of the modern anti-vax movement today.
Here’s what she did: there’s a developmental condition called Dravet’s Syndrome, which was named in 1978-- it used to be under the umbrella of “childhood disintegrative disorder”-- which includes normal development for several months, or up to two years, then developmental regression, often with children who had been walking losing the ability to walk, and who had been talking, losing that, although some of them never develop that much (they may eventually walk with therapy); essentially, the children regress to, or never develop past, about one year, although they may live into their 50s. They also have seizures. There was no known etiology, and Thompson decided, on no evidence other than a post hoc error, to finger the DTP vaccine, and produced a documentary that aired on TV, and caused countless parents in the 1980s to pass on the DTP vaccine. Lea Thompson apparently did not know about the recently identified syndrome Dravet’s Syndrome, although at any rate, the etiology of Dravet’s was not known. But in 2006, a gene marker for it was identified, by a doctor named Samuel Bercovic. He then gathered as many cases as he could of severely retarded adults with seizures who had been labeled “vaccine damaged” back in the 1980s and 90s (and whose parents had carried a lot of guilt), and found that 79% of them had the gene for Dravet’s Syndrome.
Vaccine Roulette caused a parent of one of these children with Dravet’s to found the National Vaccine Information Center, which still exists today, and has been existing, and spewing misinformation and outright lies, for more than 30 years.
ETA: You can find all this info and more, in Dr. Paul Offit’s book Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All.
Yes, that’s basically it, Feinstein, Clinton McCarthy and Pelosi (forgot to add her, sub a couple feinswines for a couple pelosis, there’s room
Rather than derail the thread, it’s partially their antigun stance, and partially how they legislate from a position of ignorance and willful stupidity
Basically, sum it up like this;
“A shoulder thing that goes up”…
Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to leave the list up for nominees for the rest of today. Tomorrow I’ll finalize the list and start the voting. I’ve decided to start by a qualifying round. The list will be split up into sixteen groups and people can vote for two choices in each group. The winners and runner-ups in each group will be seeded and go on to the main competition.
Farrah Abraham (Reality show and sex tape)
Asma al-Assad (First Lady of Syria)
Madeline Albright (Former Secretary of State)
Beverly Allitt (Murder)
Casey Anthony (Accused of murder)
Sharyl Attkisson (TV journalist)
Michelle Bachman (Congresswoman)
Roseanne Barr (Actress)
Lorena Bobbitt (Sexual assault)
Jan Brewer (Governor)
Anita Bryant (Political activist)
Barbara Bush (Former First Lady)
Rhonda Byrne (Author)
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (Wife of Prince Charles)
Gretchen Carlson (TV journalist)
Liz Cheney (Daughter of the former Vice President)
Lynn Cheney (Wife of the former Vice President)
Margaret Cho (comedian)
Hillary Clinton (Former First Lady and Secretary of State)
Ann Coulter (Political commentator)
Stephanie Cutter (Political consultant)
Miley Cyrus (Singer)
Paula Deen (TV chef)
Isabel dos Santos (Billionaire and daughter of Angola’s President)
Allison DuBois (Psychic)
Joycelyn Elders (Former Surgeon General)
Jenelle Evans (Reality show)
Dianne Feinstein (Senator)
Jane Fonda (Actress and political activist)
Bethenny Frankel (Reality show)
Lady Gaga (Singer)
Charlene Gallego (Murder)
Janeane Garofalo (Actress and political commentator)
Kate Gosselin (Reality show)
Nancy Grace (TV personality)
Kathy Griffin (actress)
Nikki Haley (Governor)
Elisabeth Hasselbeck (TV personality)
Anne Hathaway (Actress)
Katherine Heigl (Actress)
Paris Hilton (TV personality)
Karla Homolka (Murder)
Arianna Huffington (Political commentator)
Laura Ingraham (Political commentator)
Victoria Jackson (Comedian and political commentator)
Kris Jenner (Reality show)
Kim Kardashian (Reality show)
Jean Kasem (Wife of Casey Kasem)
Katherine Knight (Murder)
Dina Lohan (Mother of Lindsay Lohan)
Lindsay Lohan (Actress)
Jennifer Lopez (Singer)
Courtney Love (Singer)
Rachel Maddow (Political commentator)
Madonna (Singer)
Michelle Malkin (Political commentator)
Somaly Mam (Accused of charity fraud)
Winnie Mandela (Ex-wife of Nelson Mandela)
Omarosa Manigault (Reality show)
Mary Matalin (Political consultant)
Carolyn McCarthy (Congresswoman)
Jenny McCarthy (Anti-vax actress)
Heather Mills (Ex-wife of Paul McCartney)
Heidi Montag (Reality show)
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko (Genocide)
Michelle Obama (First Lady)
Rosie O’Donnell (TV personality)
Yoko Ono (Wife of John Lennon)
Sarah Palin (Former governor and vice presidential candidate)
Gwyneth Paltrow (Actress)
Nancy Pelosi (Former Speaker of the House)
Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi (Reality show)
Nancy Reagan (Former First Lady)
Janet Reno (Former Attorney General)
Condoleezza Rice (Former Secretary of State)
Gina Hancock Rinehart (Australian billionaire)
Joan Rivers (Comedian)
Susan Sarandon (Actress and political activist)
Phyllis Schlafly (Political commentator)
Laura Schlessinger (Radio personality)
June “Mama June” Shannon (Reality show)
Judith “Judge Judy” Sheindlin (TV personality)
Sarah Silverman (Comedian)
Susan Smith (Murder)
Britney Spears (Singer)
Lacey Spears (Accused of murder)
Shelley Sterling (Wife of Donald Sterling)
Kristen Stewart (Actress)
Martha Stewart (TV personality and inside trader)
V. Stiviano (Mistress of Donald Sterling)
Nadya “Octomom” Suleman (Mother of octuplets and porn actress)
Taylor Swift (Singer)
Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson (Reality show)
Lea Thompson (Anti-vax reporter - not the actress)
Marybeth Tinning (Murder)
Alex Wagner (Political commentator)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Congresswoman)
Rosemary West (Murder)
Tracey Wigginton (Murder)
Oprah Winfrey (TV personality)
Andrea Yates (Murder)
Gail Zappa (Wife of Frank Zappa)
So last chance for nominations. And let me know if I’ve accidentally missed anyone who’s already been nominated. But remember the “must be living, non-fictional, and an actual woman” rules.
Technically, Yoko Ono is the widow of John Lennon. Also, Allison DuBois is an “alleged,” “professed,” or, my personal preference, “fake” psychic. She herself prefers the term “medium,” because of the negative associations with the word “psychic.” Yes, she thinks people automatically assume psychics are fake, but mediums are real. I’m not making that up.
I actually did consider that issue. But I decided to put Ono, Jean Kasem, and Gail Zappa down as wives because they were married at the time of their husband’s death. Heather Mills and Winnie Mandela I put down as ex-wives because they were divorced.
In my opinion, “fake psychic” is unnecessarily redundant.
On a related note, if you want to read something a little strange, go read the Wikipedia article on Frank Zappa.
Here’s the entire description of his twenty-six year long marriage: “In 1967, he married Adelaide Gail Sloatman, with whom he remained until his death from prostate cancer in 1993. They had four children: Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva.”
Here’s an extract from the section talking about a single instrument Zappa played: “For the remainder of his career, much of Zappa’s work was influenced by his use of the Synclavier as a compositional and performance tool. Even considering the complexity of the music he wrote, the Synclavier could realize anything he could dream up. The Synclavier could be programmed to play almost anything conceivable, to perfection: “With the Synclavier, any group of imaginary instruments can be invited to play the most difficult passages … with one-millisecond accuracy—every time”. Even though it essentially did away with the need for musicians, Zappa viewed the Synclavier and real-life musicians as separate.”
It’s like his fans are so obsessed with his music they don’t want to acknowledge he had a life.
Sharon Osborne (don’t like her voice)
Sarah Palin
Hillary Clinton
Rosie O’Donnell
Chelsea Handler
Tina Fey
Goldie Hawn, although I like her better than I used to
Kate Hudson
Katie Couric, she’s OK, but can be irritating
Megyn Kelly
