OK, So having Mos Def on the same panel with Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie is like sending a one legged man to an ass kicking contest. Borat has made more sense.
I love the part where he say he doesn’t know what Bin Laden says in his videos because he doesn’t speak Arabic. OK, not like there is no shortage people who can translate it for you. And the part where he makes a big point of saying he doesn’t mind holding the unpopular idea, DUH MOS! You are sitting next to Salman Rushdie and two unabashed atheist. From what I can see Mos doesn’t mind holding a stupid idea.
Sorry, But if you are the type who get pleasure out of imagining that you have figured out some grand conspiracy, you are not going to like what I have to say.
The fact is, acting alone, Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy, Governor Connally, and police officer Tippit in November of 1963, Oswald was a loser in life and did it for his own twisted politics and to boost his ego. On September 11 2001, disciples of a Islamist theocrat Osama bin-Laden crashed hijacked aircraft and themselves along with hundreds of other passengers into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Why? Because of twisted religious fundamentalism, they believed America to be the great devil. The Jews, CIA, or George Bush did not do it. The Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission are nothing more than a social clubs of otherwise powerful people. The Illuminati are nothing more than the imaginary boogie men of the rationally challenged. The Jewish conspiracy books Protocols of the Elders of Zion are fabrications concocted by bigots.
With that said small conspiracies by alienated misfits can often be quite successful at changing history. The assassination of Lincoln was a successful conspiracy of a few. The assassination of an Austrian Archduke in Serbia in 1914 started World War One. Two homeless kooks cause near panic in Washington by playing snipers. Two guys, Timothy McVay and Terry Nichols blew up theMurrah Federal Building with a crude but powerful ammonium nitrate truck bomb.
There are some very important reasons immense conspiracies do not happen, the greatest being the bigger they are the less likely they are to succeed, and more likely they are to be exposed. As Benjamin Franklin once said “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” The more people who know, the more likely it is someone will blab, and people do talk, be it for money, fame or just because they found god on their death beds. Knowing this propensity for man to blather, anyone who entrust an important secret to anyone else is a fool. Best you could hope for is that the secret is kept hush-hush just long enough the plan to be achieved. People who are in the position to orchestrate any sort of covert action know this, and take it into account. KISS Keep It Simple Stupid, keep the numbers of operations small so to prevent failure in any one act from spoiling the entire enterprise.
The popular idea of a ruling inner circle of humanity who grandly orchestrates great events from behind the scenes seems to excite more interest from the general public. Movie makers play up to this accepted all the time, the hero thwarts the evil governments plan, saves the days and gets the girl. Ha, If only real life were like that. Problem is believers of insider conspiracy theories see themselves as the hero, a Quixotic syndrome, an illusory reassurance of their own virtue. Conspiracy give us hope when we feel powerless, all we have to do is kill one big dragon and all will be well with the world.
Conspiracy mavins ignore the fact that the average working Joe who supposedly implement these actions must have super human dedication to their jobs. Imaging if Jack Ruby really was induced by the mafia or the CIA to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald, rather than by his anger over JFK’s assassination. Why would Ruby be willing to spend the rest of his life in prison, and not squeal or blab about his place in the event? Hell, the mafia doesn’t command that level of silence from it’s own family members, a little heroin bust and a few years of possible jail time has sent many a mob lieutenant singing to the cops. You would have to believe such conspiratorial behavior presupposes one heck of a sense of integrity and dedication on the part of all participants. Not to mention brilliantly effective coordination among far flung conspiracy members. To accept these big conspiracy theories, one must honestly feel that there are large numbers of people willing to suffer, die, kill, lose their wealth and reputation, and yet still keep silent in order to protect the good name, wealth, and power of some greedy individuals. Sorry but people just aren’t that dedicated. I dare say most people if enticed to join in a plot to kill the president or a large number of fellow Americans would run, not walk to the authorities or the press just to save their own skin. They would know that to get involved with this crime would be far to great a risk.
The conspiratorial mind set also provides a coinvent cover for ignorant bigoted people. They make the villains of these imagined conspiracies to be the educated wealthy, the Illuminati, bankers, business people. Conspiracy thinking is greater among uneducated who may be inclined to believe it’s the elite who are keeping them down, rather then their own lack of education. And while we a demonizing lets not forget the ever popular Jews. One of the first clues that 9/11 was orchestrated by someone other than Arab terrorist is the rumor, “No Jews died on 9/11″. Other times it is pure political rhetoric, all republicans are fascist, all Democrats are pinko Commies.
With that said, powerful people, movements, and institutions can carry out manipulative deceptive acts and nefarious agendas with success. But even they know these acts can not be kept secret for long, The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is all but ignored, Iran Contra meant only a small amount of jail time at Club Fed for Oliver North and didn’t effect President Reagan at all. For the people who did these actions the benefits far outweighed the inconvenience when the plots were exposed. Far cry from events like JFK and 9/11 were the benefits are so small and the risk astronomical. We are talking treason and mass murder here, something the you won’t be able to minimize with large amounts of Spin Doctoring.
Let’s not forget it is conspiracy theorist who have carried out the worst evils. Nazi propaganda was based on the fantasy of a conspiratorial nature of Jews. Socialist paint a conspiratorial view of individual capitalism, Jonestown and Waco were driven by madmen who taught a conspiratorial view of government, Muslims see the rest of the western world as infidels out to get them.
So the next time someone tries to get you to drink the conspiracy Kool-Aid, ask yourself if YOU would get involved with the proposed conspiracy or if YOU would keep quiet about it if you knew of it. Chances are you would not, and chances are neither would anybody else. Chances are the proposed conspiracy is just pure bullshit.
Creative facial hair is a hallmark of truther douchebags?
There is a disease out there, No not bird flu, far worst, a Derangement Syndrome. Many on the left sufferer from the Bush variant, and now conservatives now seem to have caught their own variant.
The epidemic of “Bush Derangement Syndrome” BDS hit its peak about a year ago, affecting mostly 20 something slackers living in mom’s basement watching YouTube videos, and ageing drug addled hippies. The affection is characterized by a propensity to believe any nonsense idea so long as you can blame on George Bush. The disease attacked the cognitive areas of the brain preventing the normal flow of logic and important critical analysis. Suddenly you could find yourself listening to Alex Jones, wearing a black T-shirt emblazened with “911 Was An Inside Job” and babbling twaddle about “Free Fall” “Pull It” and my favorite “Super Nano Thermite”. Severe cases may even find themselves wondering aloud about Mini Nukes and Directed Energy Weapons. The fact GWB was for the most part an incompetent boob spouting his own brand of bunkum about science and religion sure didn’t help alleviate the confusion of the “non compos mentis”. I swear, I think these guy miss old George. Lacking facts and science to back up their 9/11 conspiracy theory, Bush blunders were all they had as far as a selling point. Now Bush is gone, and being a fairly bright guy the current President pays trurhers no attention.
You did have small cases of Clinton Derangement Syndrome years ago but it sat dormant for eight years before mutating into the present variant, “Obama Derangement Syndrome” ODS. Today “Birthers” are the new Truthers. Birthers claim to have questions about Obama’s citizenship, mind you they have no actual proof, but like their truther counterparts they feel questions alone add up to something real. Bet you these are the same people who had questions about Bill Clinton and Vince Foster’s death.
Like most social diseases ODS spreads through unprotected contact with unclean media whores like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and the rest of the brothel staff at FOX news. Wow!!! I shouldn’t have done that! now I have a vision in my head of Ann Coulter in a mini skirt saying “Me Love You Long Time”. Being a consummate Camp Follower himself Alex Jones has gotten down on his knees to service his new clientele with his own “The Obama Deception” Movie. The man sure knows how to cash in, and who can blame him, just look at the money Oliver Stone’s film JFK made selling popular pablum to a credulous public. Look, if you are going to listen to FOX news or Alex Jones or any of the talk radio programs be they conservative or liberal, for gods sake, double-up on the brain condoms.
Sad part is this mental malignancy has stayed with the original BDS sufferers. So now you’ve got a bunch of moron who still go on and on about Cheney McBush, and a bunch of right wing clowns babbling on about Hussein Obama. In the future look for new and more virulent strains of ODS as the conspiracy theory business machine ramps up for the new crop of gullible rubes, this shit sells and suckers are born every minute.
Pope Benedict again proved how irrelevant the church is on any subject outside the mumbo jumbo of religion by screwing Africa and not wearing protection.
In Africa where more than 25 million people have died from Aids and another 22.5 million have the disease, the pontiff actually told the faithful “It (aids) cannot be overcome by the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem,”!!!!!!!
And me with out a Pro!
WHAT UTTER STUPIDITY! He ignores the simple proven fact that use of a condom decreases the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Sad part is the rather unsophisticated masses of the poorer sections of Africa will believe the man, and they are the one who suffer the most from the Aids epidemic. I guess they don’t realize the pope represents an organization that up to only recently has accepted evolution, an organization for whom it took hundreds of years to admit they were dead wrong on the heliocentric solar system. Seems to me taking sexual advice from a celibate person is like taking driving lessons from Ray Charles. Give the church another three of four hundred yeas and they may step out of the dark ages. And they wonder why they can’t but butts in the seats at church.
It’s been a popular claim by autism activists like Kathie Lee Gifford and others who that measles shots caused their children’s disorders. But a courts confirmed what scientist have been saying all along, this is just popular myth.
The evidence “is weak, contradictory and unpersuasive,” concluded Special Master Denise Vowell. “Sadly, the petitioners in this litigation have been the victims of bad science conducted to support litigation rather than to advance medical and scientific understanding” of autism.
The preservative, thimerosal was outlawed in 2001, and yet we continues to see an increase in autism cases. Why is that? if the drugs were the cause the cases of autism should decline. Maybe the reason is because blaming a child’s development difficulties is easier to take if you can put on a someone else, big paramedical or the government. Add to that lawyers who will take your case to get you some cash and famous TV and movie personalities who peddle the so called cause, and it easy to see why people find the idea compelling.
Rather then admit the vaccines were not to blame, activist continued to tell people not to have their kid vaccinated even though doing so not only threatened their own children but others by increasing the likelihood of measles outbreaks in school children. It’s the “herd immunity” that keeps diseases like the measles in check and once a certain percentage of the population is no longer immune you have a real danger of an epidemic.
Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds
It seems the non-religious are now the second largest group when the question of religion is asked. Americans who claim “no religion at all” is up to 15%, in 2008, it was only 8% in 1990. This now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics (25.1%) and Baptists (15.8%). The non-religious now out rank the general born again Christians who are down in the 14.2%. Protestant? 12.9%. Not very good for a nation that was largely Christian. Looks like the the challenge to Christianity is not going to come from the Middle East, (Muslim are only 0.3% to 0.6% in the US) but from people rejecting all form of organized religion.
Makes you wonder why politicians don’t try and cater to this new voting block? I say that jokingly because being A-theistic is not some club you join. As someone once said “getting atheist to ban together is like herding cats”. It’s far easier to get the religious types worked up over an issue, they are far more inclined to follow the herd or the lead cow anyway. When you are not religious, religion becomes just one more of the unimportant things you are not, and in life there as far more things you don’t believe in than you do. Chances are you do not believe in a South seas coconut tree dwelling Tiki god. Hey! me too, To me the Tiki god is in the same box of bologna as the popular sky daddy, virgin born, dead guy on a stick stuff.
Stem cell biologists in the US have been waiting for a long time to be able to use the more Pluripotent embryonic stem cells that were banned by the Bush administration. Reversal of the ban is an action scientists hope will lead to cures for deadly ailments like diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
“What happened today is huge,” says Kevin Wilson, director of public policy at the American Society for Cell Biology. “We’ve gone from having a small number of cell lines eligible for federal funding to having at least a few hundred.”
UFO Myths: A Special Investigation into Stephenville and Other Major Sightings
What were the speed-shifting, color-morphing UFOs that mystified hundreds of eyewitnesses around Stephenville, Texas, last January? Optical Illusions? Secret Military Operations? Alien Spaceships? PM spent months investigating UFO conspiracy theories, looking for straightforward explanations. A special report.
I have always told people that the conspiracy theorist types will never go away. Under George Bush the conspiracies were coming more from the left, GWB was the New World Order devil for them. Claims that he rigged the elections and that he and Dick Cheney personally pulled off the 9/11 attacks were part and parcel of every old hippy and young hipster fevered imagination. To believe them the 2008 elections were to be stopped by another false flag terror attack and Bush would become de facto King George. Wow, what ever happened to that one?
In the middle you have the evergreen kooks, the Ruby Ridge, Waco, supporters of Ron Paul types. Summer, Spring, Winter or Fall these guys are always in full bloom wackyness. They spend a lot of time listening to Alex Jones and stockpiling C-rations in underground bunkers preparing for the end times. You had to feel sorry for them when nothing happened on Y2K.
Well here it is 2009 and a black man is in office, GWB is regarded as the worst president since Nixon and the conspiracy theorist are fast trying to adapt their natural born propensity to see boogie men under the bed for the new era. The “Bill Clinton had the Vince Foster murdered” conservatives tin foil hat types are poised to make a comeback ready to jump on any seemingly suspicious act by Barack Obama. The first salvo for this a new class of conspiratist are called “Birthers” who claim Obama isn’t eligible to be president of the United States because of question as to his birth. Never mind the fact the validity of Obama’s eligibility have no grounding in evidence. Courts across the country have summarily rejected the movement’s theory.
Discredited theories is a constant in a country with a history of partisan division, a country in which, surveys have shown 50% of the public believe in UFOs and 72% percent believes astrology works. If you want to promote this sort of stuff, you certainly have a large receptive audience. So I suspect there will be no shortage of loons to poke fun at.
The fact is, acting alone, Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy, Governor Connally, and police officer Tippit in November of 1963, Oswald was a loser in life and did it for his own twisted politics and to boost his ego. On September 11 2001, disciples of a Islamist theocrat Osama bin-Laden crashed hijacked aircraft and themselves along with hundreds of other passengers into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Why? Because of twisted religious fundamentalism, they believed America to be the great devil. The Jews, CIA, or George Bush did not do it. The Council of Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission are nothing more than a social clubs of otherwise powerful people. The Illuminati are nothing more than the imaginary boogie men of the rationally challenged. The Jewish conspiracy books Protocols of the Elders of Zion are fabrications concocted by bigots.
