You've yet to demonstrate you possess any of these skills, so I suggest you keep your personal attacks to yourself.

What a pathetic attempt. I supply far more evidence than the same old three or four posts repeated over and over again. Your lies are truly asinine and you really need to grow up. Why should we go over the same old ground, yet again, just because you post the same crap a week later?



Flog that Horse, boy, it ain't dead yet!

He never had one. He just cuts and pastes the same three or four sources repeatedly.

Awww....is that all you've got? You poor little baby.

Conspiracy Science

Maybe it was at a party, a family event, or even at work, but you have probably encountered before a person whom we would call a conspiracy theorist. Were you cornered as they became more and more animated, discussing how the shadow world government is slowly preparing for world domination using chemtrails and vaccines? Perhaps you became progressively sheepish as every logical question was met with an even more absurd bit of circular reasoning, accompanied by accusations of being naive, until physical escape was your only option.

This, of course, is an extreme example while conspiracy thinking occurs on a spectrum – we all have a little conspiracy theorist inside of us to some degree. Understanding conspiracy thinking in its subtle and extreme forms seems like an important topic of psychological investigation, and yet there is a paucity of good scientific research. Perhaps this is due to the stigma of conspiracies – academics don’t want to get the stench of conspiracy theories on them.

But there is some interesting research, and recently psychologists Viren Swami and Rebecca Coles reviewed this research in their article The Truth is Out There. This is a keeper – one for the skeptical files, if for nothing else than that they provide a handy list of references on conspiracy research.

They discuss that early papers on conspiracy theories focused on characterizing the theories themselves, rather than the people who hold them. They reference Hofstadter’s 1966 “seminal” paper on conspiracy theories in which he provided the following definition:


(Belief in a) “vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish character.”

That sums it up nicely. But the more interesting work came later when researchers began to explore the psychology of the people who hold conspiracy theories. It seems that in this area ideas followed a typical historical pattern – in that at first conspiracy thinking was seen as a form of psychopathology involving paranoid delusional ideation. More recently conspiracy thinking is seen as fulfilling certain universal psychological needs perhaps triggered by situational factors.

In my view both approaches are correct – there appears to be a spectrum of inherent predisposition to conspiracy thinking. At the same time there is a universal appeal to conspiracy theories and situations in which they are more likely to occur, even among the more rational. For example, the authors write:


To the extent that conspiracy theories fill a need for certainty, it is thought they may gain more widespread acceptance in instances when establishment or mainstream explanations contain erroneous information, discrepancies, or ambiguities (Miller, 2002). A conspiracy theory, in this sense, helps explain those ambiguities and ‘provides a convenient alternative to living with uncertainty’ (Zarefsky, 1984, p.72). Or as Young and colleagues (1990, p.104) have put it, ‘[T]he human desire for explanations of all natural phenomena – a drive that spurs inquiry on many levels – aids the conspiracist in the quest for public acceptance.’

Conspiracy thinking is rooted in a desire for control and understanding, triggered by a lack of control and information, or ambiguous and unsatisfying information about big events. The authors emphasize that the public often has a lack of access to adequate information to explain historical events (a situational factor). This can be coupled with what has been called a “crippled epistemology” – a tendency to utilize circular reasoning, confirmation bias, and poor logic coupled with this lack of information. The result is a popular conspiracy theory that makes sense (even if a perverse sense) of events.

One tidbit I found interesting was the offer of the fundamental attribution error as a partial explanation for conspiracy thinking. This is the notion that people tend to assume or overemphasize internal factors (inherent character) as an explanation for the behavior of others, rather than situational or external factors. If we see someone trip while walking down the sidewalk we think they are clumsy, rather than that there was a crack in the sidewalk. We, of course, exempt ourselves from this assumption are are happy to attribute our missteps to unavoidable external factors.

Conspiracy theorists take this attribution error to the extreme, and will often attribute the behavior of others to internal goals (the conspiracy) rather than benign situational factors.

One factor that was not mentioned in the article was the related notion of agency detection – the human tendency to see agency in objects and events. We tend to see a hidden agent where there is none. With respect to conspiracy theories this results from seeing an invisible hand behind otherwise disconnected events. This also relates to the desire for control, understanding, and privileged knowledge.

Not really, because of your amateurish logical fallacy of arguing from authority, I was providing evidence for your source being another crazy CTer.

Your repetition is what is pathetic. It must be time for you to drag out your old Mineta lie.

You use the same old sources over and over again. Have you read Farmer's book yet?

Have you nothing better than continuously repeating this opinion piece by a nutcase?

Obviously not.

Paul Craig Roberts: Still crazy after fours years

I hadn’t read anything by ranting Roberts for quite a while, but happened on his column at NewsMax about the Lewis Libby indictment. Naturally he sees it as confirmation of everything that it is not a confirmation of: that President Bush, under the control of a sinister neoconservative conspiracy, lied us into the war. Before I go further, a reminder. Joseph Wilson’s charge that Bush had lied in his comments about African uranium was itself a complete lie. Wilson said he determined and reported that Niger had not sold any uranium to Iraq, and therefore that President Bush’s 16 words to the contrary were a lie; but Bush had only asserted that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from an African country, not that it had succeeded in doing so. In fact Wilson himself confirmed that Iraq had discussed a uranium deal with Niger officials in 1999. Further, when George Tenet said that it would have been better to leave the 16 words out of the president’s speech, he wasn’t saying that because the president’s statement was untrue, but because one of the documents used to back it up had turned out to be a forgery—a forgery, some now believe, that was deliberately created to mislead Bush into making a false statement and so undermine his case for the war.
The upshot is that everything about Wilson’s attack on Bush is a transparent lie, yet, because of the insane Bush hatred that dominates the left side of our body politic (and parts of the right side as well), this transparent lie has had a spectacular life. Also, that Libby may have lied about his conversations with reporters about Valerie Plame tells us nothing, absolutely nothing, about the validity of the many facts and arguments brought forward by Bush in the year-long debate leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Yet on the basis of the Libby indictment, Roberts runs wild, spewing out a picture of the Bush administration that reads like an updated version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:


There was a conspiracy among neoconservatives holding high positions in the Pentagon, the State Department, the vice president’s office and the National Security Council. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, described the conspirators as “a secretive, little-known cabal … made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.” Wilkerson says that the secret workings of this furtive cabal took foreign policy and decisions about war out of the normal government channels.


And this:


Now that there is blood in the water, media executives will not be able to continue to muzzle reporters. Democrats might find some backbone. Republicans might realize that they are facing a far worse crisis than Watergate.
Will the unindicted co-conspirators at Fox News, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, New York Post and The Washington Times learn the Judith Miller lesson, or will they continue to serve the conspiracy that hijacked U.S. foreign policy and deceived the country and, perhaps, President Bush himself?

Will neoconservative strongholds such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution and the Heritage Foundation continue to back the agenda of a cabal that deceived our country into a disastrous war of aggression?

Unless America has lost its soul, Libby’s indictment is the first step in the unraveling of a criminal conspiracy of high treason. Fitzgerald’s continuing investigation could serve as the counterrevolution that overthrows the neo-Jacobin coup engineered by the neoconservative cabal.

Yep, just another crazy.

None....too boring.

Would you like some Yoda toast?

The Crackpot Index

John Baez

A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:

1. A -5 point starting credit.


2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.


3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.


4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.


5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.


6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.


7. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).


8. 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".


9. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).


10. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.


11. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it. (10 more for emphasizing that you worked on your own.)


12. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.


13. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.


14. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.


15. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".


16. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.


17. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".


18. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).


19. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".


20. 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.)


21. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.


22. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).


23. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.


24. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.


25. 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)


26. 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.


27. 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".


28. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".


29. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)


30. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.


31. 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).


32. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.


33. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.


34. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.


35. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.


36. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)


37. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

Oh, so true.

They tend to enjoy the ego-boost that comes with thinking of oneself as the only intelligent objector in a world of sheeple.

Aww...you don't like a few pics that disprove your rant?

I'll tell you what's pathetic. It's using a book that one hasn't even read as evidence. Now, that is dumb, especially when it doesn't support one's argument in any way whatsoever.

I agree, when Assad is deposed, the Iranians (and possibly the Russians if a deal can be struck) will probably aid extremists against the SNC/FSA and internecine strife will escalate. In addition US support will only create more anti-western feeling, and the propaganda machines of the ME will go into overdrive.

Yes, I have always stated that when Assad is finally deposed, sectarian violence is likely to erupt and the internecine strife would tear what is left of the country apart. Just like Lebanon in the 80's.

I think this support for the SNC and FSA is an effort to avoid this scenario. By giving aid to these groups, there is hope that the militant jihadists will not have the resources to challenge the new leadership.

Iran may lend support to the jihadists to thwart the installation of a moderate government that may have affiliations that conflict with Iranian interests.

Unfortunately, when tyranny ends, warlords rise to fill the vacuum.

The Free Syrian Army and the SNC are not Al-Qaeda.

The Free Syrian Army:


The Free Syrian Army (Arabic: الجيش السوري الحر‎, Al-Jayš Al-Suri Al-Ḥurr, FSA) is the main armed opposition structure operating in Syria that has been active during the Syrian civil war. Composed of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel and volunteers, its formation was announced on 29 July 2011 in a video released on the internet by a uniformed group of deserters from the Syrian military who called upon members of the Syrian army to defect and join them. The FSA's leader in August 2011, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, announced that the FSA would work with demonstrators to bring down the system, and declared that all security forces attacking civilians were justified targets. The FSA coordinated with the Syrian National Council starting in December 2011, and supported the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces after the coalition's November 2012 creation. A major reorganisation of the FSA command structure occurred in December 2012, with al-Asaad retaining his formal role but losing effective power and Brigadier General Salim Idris becoming Chief of Staff and effective leader.


The Syrian National Council:


The Syrian National Council (Arabic: المجلس الوطني السوري‎, al-Majlis al-Waṭanī as-Sūri) sometimes known as SNC, the Syrian National Transitional Council, or the National Council of Syria is a coalition of Syrian opposition groups based in Istanbul, Turkey. It formed as a Syrian opposition coalition in 2011 during the Syrian civil war against the government of Bashar al-Assad. After the formation, the council itself asked for international recognition, but denied seeking to play the role of a government in exile, but this changed a few months later, when violence in Syria became increasingly intense. The Syrian National Council seeks the end of Bashar al-Assad's rule and the establishment of a modern, civil, democratic state. The SNC National Charter lists human rights, judicial independence, press freedom, democracy and political pluralism as its guiding principles. SNC has links with the Free Syrian Army, a paramilitary that is composed partly of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel, who have been active during the Syrian civil war.

Hey s1owhand! Where have you been lately?

Apparently someone fell up the stairs. That seems to be the talk of the town atm.

Out comes the same old silly argument. Eventually, every thread is steered to this same old nonsense.

I found Yoda on a piece of toast. It's yours for $1,000.

Uh, yes it is.

Good point. This guy is obviously a supporter of Timothy McVeigh. This post demonstrated the bias that allows him to believe the strange CT you can find no supporting evidence for.