Margaret Wente

Margaret Wente is a Canadian award-winning columnist for The Globe and Mail serial global warming denialist,[2][3][4] torture advocate,[5] MRA apologist,[6][7] xenophobe,[8] and if you didn't notice already, all-round crank proll.[9][10][11] All while holding, in a completely original manner, just an English degree.[12]

Parroting squawkbox
Pundits
And a dirty dozen more
v - t - e
“”Shorter Margaret Wente: I'm sorry, but if you would all stop pointing out my ethical lapses this would never have happened so piss off.
—Emmett Macfarlane[1]
“”I keep telling people: she must have some very comprimising pictures of Globe publishers to stay in print. She has dirt.
—Russell Bart

If combating the horrors of liberalism is her goal, Sun Tzu's The Art of War wasn't on her reading list.[13] While her views would be perfectly suitable for, say, the Daily Mail, and she has often been compared to Ann Coulter, Wente's attempts to sound intellectual separates herself from the more blunt, Poe-like outrageousness of the latter. "Canada's Melanie Phillips" could be more appropriate.

Plagiarism is good

In September 2012, Peggy was found to be stealing other writers' work for years, creating an internal crisis at The Globe and Mail on whether to fire her or not as she launched ad hominem attacks on bloggers for making her "a target for people who don’t like what I write."[14][15]

The CBC immediately sacked Wente from her position as a radio panelist,[16] but The Globe took the time to enact unknown "disciplinary action." Decency be gone, she's still writing like the event never happened, and it makes you wonder why Canuckistan's "newspaper of record" is making a mockery of itself instead of easily hiring a more level-headed conservative columnist.[17]

Short breaches of sanity

As even more proof that stopped clock is an epidemic, Wente is an opponent of vaccine denialism.[18] But do note the irony of her criticizing people for scouring the Internet for a "bottomless cornucopia of junk science and scare stories."

gollark: > Allows visitors to look and download without authenticating. (A+0)Yes.> Does not log anything about visitors. (A+1)No. Your IP and user agent are logged for purposes.> Follows the criteria in The Electronic Frontier Foundation's best practices for online service providers. (A+2)> Follows the Web “Content” Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) standard. (A+3)> Follows the Web Accessibility Initiative — Accessible Rich Internet Applications 1.0 (WAI-ARIA 1.0) standard. (A+4)Probably not.> All data contributed by the project owner and contributors is exportable in a machine-readable format. (A+5)No idea. There might be an API.
gollark: > All important site functions work correctly (though may not look as nice) when the user disables execution of JavaScript and other code sent by the site. (A0)I think they *mostly* do.> Server code released as free software. (A1)Yes.> Encourages use of GPL 3-or-later as preferred option. (A2)> Offers use of AGPL 3-or-later as an option. (A3)> Does not permit nonfree licenses (or lack of license) for works for practical use. (A4)See above. Although not ALLOWING licenses like that would be very not free.> Does not recommend services that are SaaSS. (A5)Yes.> Says “free software,” not “open source.” (A6)Don't know if it says either.> Clearly endorses the Free Software Movement's ideas of freedom. (A7)No.> Avoids saying “Linux” without “GNU” when referring to GNU/Linux. (A8)It says neither.> Insists that each nontrivial file in a package clearly and unambiguously state how it is licensed. (A9)No, and this is stupid.
gollark: > All code sent to the user's browser must be free software and labeled for LibreJS or other suitable free automatic license analyzer, regardless of whether the site functions when the user disables this code. (B0)Nope!> Does not report visitors to other organizations; in particular, no tracking tags in the pages. This means the site must avoid most advertising networks. (B1)Yes, it is entirely served locally.> Does not encourage bad licensing practices (no license, unclear licensing, GPL N only). (B2)Again, don't think gitea has this.> Does not recommend nonfree licenses for works of practical use. (B3)See above.
gollark: > All important site functionality that's enabled for use with that package works correctly (though it need not look as nice) in free browsers, including IceCat, without running any nonfree software sent by the site. (C0)I think so. Definitely works in free browsers, don't know if it contains nonfree software.> No other nonfree software is required to use the site (thus, no Flash). (C1)Yes.> Does not discriminate against classes of users, or against any country. (C2)Yes.> Permits access via Tor (we consider this an important site function). (C3)Yes.> The site's terms of service contain no odious conditions. (C4)Yes.> Recommends and encourages GPL 3-or-later licensing at least as much as any other kind of licensing. (C5)I don't think it has much on licensing, so suuuure.> Support HTTPS properly and securely, including the site's certificates. (C6)Definitely.
gollark: I'll run git.osmarks.net through the comparison tables.

See also

References
  2. Response to Margaret Wente's Opinions on Climate Change, Matthew Hoffman
  3. Ross McKitrick is a legitimate source to her, apparently.
  4. She's also on the board of directors for "Energy ProbeFile:Wikipedia's W.svg," a weird hybrid of anti-nuclear activism and ethical oil defenders.
  5. "Can you ever argue about torture?"
  6. A woman gets injured in her sport? Women shouldn't be athletes!
  7. Only now are women allowed to go into combat? It's their fault! (Comments were closed the minute it was posted.)
  8. Another Wente controversy, J-Source
  9. "Drug addiction isn't a disease, it's a habit!"
  10. "I'm not qualified to analyze Mr. Piketty’s work" And every economist on the planet laughs.
  11. "Take John, for example, who’s pursuing a degree in environmental law. He was infuriated by your column criticizing organic food and posted it on his Facebook wall with a snide quote for all of his friends to see. Is John a real person? Did we just make him up to make a convenient point? Was John at the Occupy protests? These are just some of the questions our Editorial Board will never bother you with."
  12. She also spends her time bashing the usefulness of English degrees.
  13. In this piece, she denounces liberals as "almost exclusively concerned with harm and fairness." A few lines later she backtracks with "they see society as composed of autonomous individuals who should be free to satisfy their wants and needs as they see fit." (Does this all the time.)
  14. Still Getting the Story Wrong, Torontoist
  15. 8 key questions and answers about the Margaret Wente plagiarism scandal, Poynter
  16. Statement on Margaret Wente and Q's media panel
  17. The National Post would have certainly picked her up anyway.
  18. "Measles is back. It had help."
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