A very brief conspiracy theory roundup this week. Man, between grading and procrastinating about grading, I have no time left!
- Um…Max Headroom-ish Guy posts: “Soetoro’s [Obama’s] passport fixer created Muslim film to use as a covert signal to start World War III”. (No, everyone knows that China is starting WWIII. Or perhaps it’s the coming war on Iran!)
- SINGLE STUDY OVERTURNS ALL RESEARCH ON SAFETY OF GMO….oh wait. Not exactly.
- I should come clean this week. I think that the conspiracy theorists may have gotten something right last week….completely by accident, of course, because even when they are right, it’s for the wrong reasons. Last week, conspiracy theorists were screaming that the Muslim video was fake and they cited apparent discontinuities in the trailer. This, of course, means nothing because presumably the movie makes sense when it is shown in its entirety, from beginning to end. Well, some movies do. This one didn’t look like it had the budget to make a lot of sense, but that’s par for the course in amateur movies. Well, if you scream, “HOAX!” enough times, eventually, you will yell hoax when there is in fact a hoax, and your glory is equally unearned. Ben Radford wrote the sober article that conspiracy theorists are too busy freaking out to write.
- I’m not seeing the irrefutable evidence that Mars rover photos are fake in this video. A lot of Mars photos are false color shots. I think it is sort of a big deal that this rover has true-color video. AND LASERS!!! Pew-pew-pew!
- New conspiracy theory movie coming out. It’s called, wait for it, The Conspiracy.
- Mike Adams and pals have put the cart before the horse, assuming Monsanto is evil before, you know, showing it is: “By now, nearly all informed people recognize that Monsanto is widely regarded as the most evil corporation on our planet. But what, exactly, makes Monsanto so evil?”
- From the sober reporters at UFO Digest comes news of a hollow earth. Yeah, that’s not all that’s hollow over there.
- The Mark Dice/Alex Jones cripple fight continues with Jones suggesting Dice is CointelPro. What neither seems to realize is that you can’t assassinate the character of someone who has no character!
- Ohnoes! There’s Jesuits in my New World Order!
- I liked this one (it’s from 2006), though I saw conspiracy theorists billing this as a music confession instead of the satire it is:
- Apparently the (swarthy) Greek neo-Nazis, the Golden Dawn Party, have set up offices in New York.
- The IntelHub doesn’t know how news works. They are anticipating a fake assassination attempt on the President which will be the excuse to impose martial law. Meanwhile they report that there have already been something like 48 fake attempts. WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST PICK ONE OF THOSE OTHER 50 OPPORTUNITIES?!?
- As the Fast and Furious investigation comes to an end, another conspiracy theory is put to rest. Among normal people. Its putrid corpse is still walking around and eating the brains of conspiracy theorists.
- Does anyone else find it ironic that Pravda has a CafePress store now? Also, some shit about Lady Gaga putting Satan in her skivvies for the Illuminati.
- Iran’s President calls the Innocence of Muslims “an Israeli plot“. Sigh.
- A cool story about how there is usually (probably always) a natural explanation for strange phenomena. This one is of “underwater crop circles“!
- Huge asteroid to hit Antarctica in 2012. Serves those stupid penguins right. Stupid penguins.
- A history of epidemics, from Backstory with the American History Guys, the best podcast you are not listening to (and I’m not just saying because I was once a caller). Send this one to Meryl Dorey. She’ll have an aneurysm!
- A spotting guide for conspiracist kookery. See if you recognize any familiar kooks mentioned in there.
Twit of the Week:
The week’s best tweet came from Kyle Hill:
@Sci_Phile
Is Big Pharma paying me to say that they don’t pay me? Don’t be a shill for Big Conspiracy @vigroco
Conspiracy Theory of the Week:
- Gordon Duff jumps the shark. China, US off the coast of San Francisco, join navies to fight the UFO menace. (Operation Name: Hose Job.)
There you go. As promised. One round-up. Sorry I couldn’t go into more detail, but next week, I’m sure, will be a regular edition.
RJB
Skeptical Humanities 