Amazingly, there were no new conspiracy theories this week. Everyone just kind of got it together and things ended up being pretty groovy. OH WHO AM I KIDDING?! I’VE BEEN SENTENCED TO LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE!!!
At any rate, I picked up Conspiracy Rising by Martha F. Lee. I’ll likely review it here in a few days. It’s one of my first few ebooks. I may review the ebook experience while I’m at it, since I have been a holdout for a long time.
- Nanoparticles? At Fukushima? Oh no! Not NANO! Nano’s the conspiracy theorist’s flubber! Sure, there haven’t been any deaths from the meltdown at Fukushima, that doesn’t mean you can’t scare your readers. Unethical, InfoHub. Would you at least apologize when you are wrong? Reputable news outlets do that when they screw up so epically.
- A new study finds that some conspiracy theorists are capable of believing two incompatible conspiracy theories at once. We are going to have to revise the definition of “genius,” clearly.
- Well, a graduate student at Yale is having a bit of a protracted freakout. She was relieved of her teaching duties when she unrolled a mother of a conspiracy theory on her students. It’s out there.
- Now, I’m not calling Above Top Secret reputable, mind you, but a mod did go out of his/her way to correct misinformation a contributor released. The tweet I received read:
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A moment’s consideration reveals that since this is not front page news all over the country it is unlikely to be true. The mod links to the AJC, which is darned respectable. Here’s their take.
- Sometimes I wish I could make money by crusading against boogeymen like Alex Jones does. Of course, if it means that I would have to speak in a civil tone to Mayer Eisenstein, it’s can’t possibly be worth it. Odd that Jones does not mention the fact that Eisenstein was on the losing end of one of the largest infant death malpractice suits in history–$30 million. I think that any doctor who suggests there is a link between autism and vaccines should have their medical license revoked for incompetence. (I’m looking at you, Mayer.)
- Of course, Alex Jones has discovered, eek, more “FEMA rendition camps.” The description of this facility is the same one I got from someone fretting about the murals in the Denver International Airport:
The photos and an interview with an eyewitness who described the facility and its inward facing barbed wire fence and one-way turnstiles add more compelling evidence to the indisputable fact that FEMA operates as a modern version of the Gestapo.
- Protip: nothing is indisputable. Also, I thought they were preparing stadiums in L.A. for rendition. It’s interesting, but Rex84, the source of this latter theory, first appeared, if I remember correctly, in the Soviet paper Pravda. Not exactly an unbiased source, given the times.
- Of course, it is the Intel Hub. They ran a headline about the President not showing in a Georgia courtroom to answer idiot questions from birther and dentist Orly Taitz, “POTUS Gets a Failure to Appear – 100 Times Bigger than Watergate.” So, they don’t really have that whole perspective thing down yet. So it goes.
- Bob Tuskin, oh, man, made an ass of himself at Rudy Giuliani’s appearance in Gainesville. I met him at the Richard Gage event in Altanta back in the day. The local Truth community filmed my interview with him. (The comments are, as always, precious and dear to my heart.) Bob, the crowd was not laughing at Building 7, but at you. Seriously, walk away from this silliness while you are still young.
- ATS contributor uploads photo of a werewolf, ATS readers get hilarious. (No werewolves were harmed in the writing of this post. Or the picture in question.)
- Does the Fed “print money”, like so many conspiracy theorists claim? Yahoo! finance tries to clarify what the Fed does and does not do.
- And the psychogenic illness spreading among teens at a New York school continues. Now, so help me, Erin Brokovich gets involved.
- Brian Dunning hops out of the Hot Tub of Justice just long enough to talk about a possible explanation for perceiving non-existent malevolent agency everywhere as a part of his InFact video series.
- Dr. Rachie is a conspiracy-debunking machine, but not a robot:
- Rand Paul was stopped at an airport gate this week but refused a pat-down. That guy holding up the line? A Senator. I told the TSA workers at the Atlanta airport this week that I felt safer knowing that Rand Paul was not on my flight. One worker was positively distraught by the coverage they got in the press, noting that when they get charged by the press for “confiscating 100s of thousands of dollars a year” when passengers with short attention spans have actually left their change in the little trays.
- There was a little buzz this week about military equipment being moved in and around the Mexican border. Eric Jon Phelps thinks it may be “used for America’s future Sino-Soviet-Muslim-Mexican invasion.” I didn’t even know we were going to have one. Dr. Roth (if I’m reading her ‘about the author’ right, she has a Ph.D. in Tae Kwan Do) thinks the shipment is to impose martial law.
- ALRIIIIGHT! ZOMBIE RAGE VIRUS!
- I have wondered about this, whether 9/11 Truther would go on the record suggesting that the commander of the fire department in NYC was complicit in the catastrophe. And, yes, they go that low. Put aside the fact that fire departments have neither the training, equipment, nor authorization to tear down a building, and it i still just a crummy thing to suggest. However, if Shepard Ambellas ever decides to attend be in the same room with Thomas von Essen, I would pay cash money to be there. You’ll notice that this reporter’s villain is indistinguishable from Icke’s reptilians.
- Sigh. Someone thinks we’re setting up an “Iranian Pearl Harbor.”
- Why doesn’t Santorum correct this woman who says Obama is a Muslim? What a barf.
- David Aaronovich interviewed about conspiracy theories.
- More about Lady Gaga “bathing in blood,” from the WhoForted blog.
- “Whistleblower: Monsanto Wants to Kill The Bees To Make Way For Its Super-Bee“
- Here’s Eve’s contribution to the week in conspiracy.
- A writer at the Washington Times finds herself mentioned in a conspiracy theory and is not impressed.
- HAARP can not only cause earthquakes, but it makes the skies snore.
- Ron Paul’s newsletter entertained the idea that Oklahoma City was an inside job.
- Slate asks if Google should tweak its algorithm to knock down anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
- Ooh! PalMD made it on my list this week! Are liberals or conservatives more likely to reject science? Yes.
- I’m not necessarily on board with the politics of the Center for Consumer Freedom, but they do have some humdingers from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: “[hog producers] “a greater threat to the United States and democracy than bin Laden’s terrorist network.” Kennedy, you may remember, published a hysterical, utterly uninformed article about vaccines in Rolling Stone that was basically corrected out of existence point by point after the public pointed out his factual errors.
- Why does NASA keep the blurry, unclear photographic evidence of aliens patrolling the solar system under wraps? Surely it’s not out of fear that those not trained to examine it would blow it way out of proportion!
- Here’s a sort of new age twist on the Matrix metaphor of conspiracy.
Conspiracy Theory of the Week:
I easily could have picked “Extraterrestrial War of the 1930’s reveals Jewish holocaust true masterminds,” but I didn’t. I picked the conspiracy theory I’m calling: “You got the right one–babies!” Mike Adams over at Natural News accuses Pepsi of using aborted fetuses in taste tests. The story does not originate with Adams, who I can’t remember ever being right about anything, but it prompted an Oklahoma state senator to introduce anti-Soylent Green legislation. This guy also happens to be a birther. My favorite headline: “Fun-Hating Legislator Proposes Ban on Eating Aborted Human Fetuses.” Forbes discusses the fake controversy.
Exopolitics let me down this week, I have to day. Oh, well. I’m sure there will be more to it.
Skeptical Humanities 
You disgusting cynical clown. Is there any particular reason cesium has shown up in milk in California and thyroid problems are likely to develop therefrom? Not by your ‘research’. Whatever harm over decades befalls the poor people within that prefecture in Japan, rest assured it will be minimized and you will be then feel content.
Any time people meet to break the law or do harm, it is a conspiracy. Usually it follows from powerful corporations and incumbent governments seeking further advantage to remain in power. But to you, Kennedy died by a single hand, Allende, Nkruma, Dag Hammerskjold, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Paul Wellstone, the reporters who told on George W. Bush as a cocaine addict and on the CIA for importing it to the ghettoes. All ‘accidental’ or ‘suicide’.
No conspiracy in your world, the sterile land which denies acquisitive and ambitious reality and all its consequences upon hapless humanity. Your weakened soul tolerates no more. Sneer and deny until the time comes to stand up like in any kind of honor. Then you will know the worth of your ‘philosophy’: brittle cowardice.
Hey, Bill. Glad you like the site!
Is there any particular reason why you think any cesium found in California is from Fukushima? How do you tell the difference between non-Fukushima cesium and Fukushima cesium? We haven’t seen cancer rates increase, unless I missed something. Show me that, please.
Also, I don’t think the words you are using mean what you think they mean.
RJB
Hey man, that study didn’t find out “they are capable of believing contradictory things at once.”
here’s the quote —
> “They’re explained by the overarching theory that there is some kind of cover-up, that authorities are withholding information from us,” said Karen Douglas, a study researcher and reader in the school of psychology sciences at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. “It’s not that people are gullible or silly by having those beliefs. … It all fits into the same picture.”
They’re saying that this is perfectly rational, and it is.
Example: I say “I’ve got $1.00 in my pocket.”
You are asked to rate the likelihood of each of these possibilities:
(a) I have more than $1.00 in my pocket
(b) I have less than $1.00 in my pocket
(c) I have exactly $1.00 in my pocket, just like I said.
(a) and (b) are of course mutually contradictory, but you may find both of them more credible than (c) if you know I’m a habitual liar. That’s totally rational.
So if your main belief is “THEY would never tell us the truth about Osama Bin Laden,” then any state of affairs which has THEM telling lies has more prima facie credibility than the state of affairs in which THEY are telling the truth. That is totally rational, given your premise.
The question is, is the premise “THEY would never tell us the truth” credible.
From the abstract:
The present research shows that even mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively correlated in endorsement. In Study 1 (n = 137), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2 (n = 102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up (Study 2).
So, yes, this is about the overarching premise, but I would quibble, I think, with a description that called something built on an irrational assumption “rational.”
Also, the comparison seems to me to be invalid, since you have no way to validate how much is in the pocket, whereas conspiracy theorists deny titanic pony loads of directly relevant, independent evidence. Now, if the habitual liar takes the money out and shows you that’s all he has, the other two options become totally useless. But they’re saying that he has both more and less when he has shown you the money, as it were.
RJB
“used for America’s future Sino-Soviet-Muslim-Mexican invasion.”
Bob, I have a personal policy of not clicking-through the links in your conspiracy roundups because my brain feels dirty afterward. So could you clarify one thing – is the idea that we’re simultaneously invading, um, about fifty countries, or are they all invading us (WOLVERINES!)?
It only occurred to me as I was typing that – “Soviet”? Who still uses that? I could swear even the nuttiest of right wingnuts knows the Soviets fell, after all, Ronald Reagan tore down the Berlin Wall with his own two hands.
“….after all, Ronald Reagan tore down the Berlin Wall with his own two hands.”
Yeah thats been a right-wing meme for over 20 years now. The idea is that St. Ronny of Reagan, after walking on water and turning water into wine magically caused the Soviet6s to give up with his awesome rightousness. The fact that the economic contradictions of the various Communist systems by, at the latest 1980 had given victory to the westare ignored. Of course Reagan’s role, compared say to Gorbachev’s in ending the Cols War was peripheral. Of course they ignore that along with Reagan’s obvious dementia while President.
Not only was his ideology demented, but he also had Alzheimers. HEYO!!!
Can’t say I blame you. It’s not clear. But it’s bad. And it’s caused by the Jesuits.
RJB
Where is the mainstream media on numerous significant un/under-reported stories , like :
operation northwoods
gen wesley clark’s videod talk revealing the military plans for the mid east in 2007
the NDAA
the death of dr david kelly
operation gladio
agenda 21
codex ailimentarius
club of rome
bohemian grove
bilderberg group ??
All facts , all un/under-reported stories by MSM .
Luckily i am far better informed by so called “kooky conspiracy theorist” web sites !
Now go get informed and stop bleating like an ignorant uninformed sheep !
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