This week on the Podcaster’s Guide to the Conspiracy we covered false flag operations. Another to add to our list: it appears the CIA thought about planting evidence of a nuclear device in Iran for inspectors to find.
At the tail end of the recent episode I asked whether we should dismiss cases of false flag operations that were never carried out (as we kind of had done through the podcast), given that even if governments don’t engage in this particular actions, it certainly bolsters the case for false flags being more common than they are if you say “And look, they planned this one, and this one, and this one…”
Oh, and here’s the list of false flags we covered in that episode. Only about thirteen of the forty-two actually occurred, but still, the ones which did are pretty disturbing examples of what governments and branches of the government sometimes get up to.
So, apparently it is easy to troll conspiracy theorists, or so this article claims. My problem with the article starts with the very first sentence, “Once conspiracy theorists were mostly relegated to the fringes of society …” since historians of belief in conspiracy theories often claim that belief in conspiracy theories was a) more common in the past than we like to think and b) considered more normal than it is today. Still, summary articles about academic publications tend to not be the most accurate of pieces, so expect a review of the article sometime in the next week.
Meanwhile, in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada’s own Tony Abbott (or is Tony Abbott Australia’s Stephen Harper? And where does John Key fit into this?) is worried about foreign interests who are infiltrating the oil industry. Yes, the threat is real, and it’s all down to those pesky Koch Brothers.
This is one of those cases where it really does seem as if there might be some sinister corporate activity going on. If not outright conspiracy, the activity of Koch Brothers is akin to a shadowy, nebulous spider (I could have added in even more adjectives to make the analogy even more cliched, believe me), controlling things from behind the scenes. The fact that a conservative government is worried about even more conservative billionaires from across the border causing trouble is delicious.
Meanwhile, the search for MH370 continues, with new claims about what happened, why it happened and where the flight went. There is a new documentary out which suggests the flight headed towards Antartica. The conspiracy theories around MH370 are legion, but now I suspect we can add in claims that the flight was directed to head to one of the last remaining Nazi outposts, probably to collect bullion, or that the Elder Ones sent for some of their disciples. Whatever the case, the lack of a wreckage means this story is likely to have legs for a long time to come.
Did you know that Chester A. Arthur and Barack Obama share another thing in common, other than the fact they were (and are) US Presidents? Both men were opposed by their rivals on the basis of where they might have been born. Meanwhile, Bertrand Russell turns out to have been the kind of person who doubted the official story of the assassination of JFK.
Here’s an article for teachers of critical thinking out here, a lovely example of a term “vaccine safety” being used in more than one way and thus allowing the author to come to the conclusions vaccines aren’t safe.