The summer has almost ended. In the morning, I teach my first class in Wisconsin. I’m teaching two different syllabi this semester, the first time I’ve done that in a while. I’m teaching 2 sections of “Conspiracy Theory” and a section of “Extraordinary Claims.” The extraordinary claims course will be for more developmental writers, but it is still a seminar class, which is fun.
As you might imagine, I have been rather busy over the last few days, getting things together for the class and so on. Add to that the fact that my smart phone (where I first pick up most of my leads for this feature) committed suicide this week, and you will see that my offerings are somewhat limited. Nevertheless we persevere!
- News flash: Joseph Farah is still a creep. This time he calls the Southern Poverty Law Center a hate group. Ah, the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” defense. How…piquant. Of course, he shouldn’t have linked to the article he was talking about, since the SPLC article is far more nuanced that Farah acknowledges and shows that Farah in fact declined an interview. Sue them or shut up, Joe.
- When Obama did an AMA on reddit, which clogged the site, people accused the White House of sockpuppetting. The person who posted the so-called softball question has come out.
- It looks like the Republican National Convention platform committee did in fact adopt the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory.
- Sigh. “West Nile Virus ‘Outbreak’ Justifies Spraying Toxic Chemicals onto Citizens.” It’s tiresome to endlessly have to explain that toxicity depends in part on dosage. I would say, however, that 41 people dying counts as an “outbreak” in my book, and not an ” ‘outbreak’ “.
- Veterans are disappearing into Nazi-like psychiatric centers!
- WAL-MART IS THE LAW!
- You want to know why returning to the gold standard is such a colossally bad idea? The Atlantic wants to tell you.
- Is Ron Paul a Masonic Jew? The Red Pill Factory (not connected to “Big Pharma”) wants to know.
- It’s hard to believe that Ron Paul wasn’t just handed the keys to the White House outright, amirite? Take the following article from the Daily Paul, which was so frantic that they ran out of title: “Expected Mass Arrests Of Banksters And Affiliated Government Officials by Military, Sheriffs, Militia For Committing Treason And.” (To be fair, this was voted WAY down by users.)
- At David Icke’s site, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. No, that’s the real name of the post.
- Why in the World Are They Spraying is now out. I saw the world premier of “What in the World Are They Spraying” in Atlanta a few years ago, but I’m pretty sure you can watch the sequel without knowing what happened in the first one. I saw the first one and had no idea what was going on.
- Breathtaking bigot Laurie Roth: Obama and Islam Taking Over America–Just as Planned.
- Al-Jazeera reports on the conspiracy theories that have dogged Obama.
- I don’t know who Bill Whittle is, but I instantly dislike him (dude, look up FERPA). Take his coverage of Barack Obama, and then look at what the Daily Show did to the premise of this weird screed:
- Joe Paterno conspiracy theories.
- It seems there is a new academic paper out on the type of people who deny climate change…but in the news coverage I do not see “genuinely misinformed,” which gives me pause. Guess I must read this sucker myself.
- Popeye at Federal Jack, who once “called me out,” argues, NYC was not hit by a hurricane on 9/11, therefore 9/11 was an inside job. Of course, no hurricanes at all hit the STATE of New York that year, but the important thing was that NYC was not hit on September 11th. Because that’s how evidence works. (My reply to Plopeye is here.)
- The Romney campaign threatened “to drop a PR A-Bomb on Ron Paul’s name and legacy.” Why they’d do that after Ron Paul already has is beyond me.
- Jonathan Kay: France’s investigation into Arafat’s death is catnip for conspiracy theorists.
- Rep. Allen West showed a film at the RNC that claims that the so-called “Ground Zero mega-mosque” is part of a plan to impose Sharia on the US.
- NO. This is not how you do it, Ruth Manuel-Logan. You don’t get to recite a litany of debunkings of the “CIA created crack” conspiracy theory and end your article with: “What do I say? The U.S. government is pretty proficient at covering up what they don’t want us to know, so the jury is still out as far as I’m concerned.” You’re essentially saying, “I have no evidence. But fuck that.” Try thinking, please. It’s soooo satisfying.
- Salon and SPLC join forces in reporting on the claim that Hurricane Isaac was brewed up by the Dems. Of course, Alex Jones thinks it’s being used to acclimatize us to having the military in our streets.
- I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of this case of militia members in Georgia killing one of their own.
- Arizona, I’m pretty sure you are why Canada is scared of us. Arizona GOP happy to say they don’t want American baby-killing Middle Eastern Moooslims in the state, like, at all. Not even legally. The rationale seems to be that if they put on big sombreros you can’t tell the difference between them and Mexicans.
- Ha ha! Robert Scheaffer (whose book I picked up at TAM) lays bare the CSI-CIA connection!
- The award for the classiest comment of the week goes to Jason Bermas, who twot upon hearing that Arlen Specter’s cancer had reappeared:
Is this the end of cover up establishment Warren Commission Puppet Arlen Specter? http://t.co/XACbCEkx — Jason Bermas (@JasonBermas)
Headline of the Week:
That gem was closely followed by this one from the Village Voice blog:
Twits of the Week:
Not only does Obama’s birth certificate not exist, OBAMA DOESN’T EVEN EXIST. #eastwooding — Paul Fidalgo (@PaulFidalgo)
Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox)
8/30/12 5:33 PM
Uh, the Ron Paul people are putting on black armbands.
(Unfortunately, it was later reported that Ron Paul was in fact still alive and healthy.)
That’s all for now, people! Now, where do I pick up my big government shill check?
FYI, we have another edition of the Virtual Skeptics coming up this Wednesday at 8:00PM Eastern in our Google+ On Air hangout. As far as stories go, we’ve scooped the most popular skeptic podcast two weeks in a row. We’re going for a three-fer!
RJB
Skeptical Humanities 
As always, nice roundup.
I do take issue with the Gary Webb piece. I don’t think Manuel-Long rattled off a “litany of debunkings” as much as just made assertions with out linking to sources. Admittedly, I’m biased, I agree with Webb’s findings. Of course his reporting was never about the genocide of the black community, but that’s the straw man people use to dismiss the other aspects of the investigation.
Thanks for the note! Well, the thing about Webb is that he was so roundly debunked and the original series found so lacking that he was mightily demoted. Like, to dogshow reviewer in a community paper. When people take the original Webb piece and then cite it as evidence of a genocide, it’s a sort of double whammy. If I remember tonight (big if) I’ll try to hunt down my original readings about this story.
But thanks for commenting. Comments are my favorite part of blogging!
RJB
Thanks for the reply.
The strength of critical thinking is using evidence to test claims,but the problem with political issues is whose evidence to believe? Webb claims his “reassignment” was punishment for rocking the boat, his editors never gave a clear answer.
As for the debunking, critics focused more on Ad hominem attacks of Webb, and less on straight forward refutation of his reporting (some of which was based on the “Kerry Committee Report”).
Again, the problem with political intrigue is that we don’t always have all the information, and some interpretation is involved. As Johnathan Kay said in the article posted above (and his book) “Real conspiracies do exist”, the problem is making sure reporting a cover-up doesn’t disintegrate into promoting conspiracism.
AD
The whole CIA created crack to destroy Black Americans meme has been around awhile. And yeah it has been pretty well debunked.
But one of the sadder aspects of the case is that the sheer idiocy of this claim has served very effectively to enable people to ignore other troublesome aspects of the involvement of the CIA in narcotics traffic.
If you read the classic The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia, you will read about how the CIA was involved in supporting and assisting and basically turning a blind eye to narcotic makers and trafficers in South East Asia. At the same time these organizations were helping to dope up American GIs, along with getting Heroin into the USA.
It wasn’t so much that the CIA was actually involved in creating and trafficing it was that they were aiding those who were and the CIA was involved in shielding those people to some extent.
Later on the CIA when it was aiding the Contras ,it turned a blind eye to Contra involvemwent in Cocaine trafficing into the USA. (Using US supplied planes!) I could also talk about the OSI (precursor to the CIA’s) involvement in reconstituting the Mafia in Italy during and after World War II.
So yeah there has been some involvement of the CIA in drug trafficing, mainly through turning a blind eye to drug trafficing by people they are aiding. (Other examples include certain the Afghan freedom fighters and Panama under Noreiga, until there was a falling out).
However it does appear that the CIA has not been involved in actually creating and distributing drugs. Despite that it;s record is still pretty shabby.