Con-spiracies

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“Blue it” (Project Blue Beam)

DINOUFO

Project Blue Beam refers to a purported plan that will use NASA technology to usher in the antichrist. This will be done in the most ostentatious manner imaginable: A worldwide, visually-stunning, thunderous announcement from the skies that an almighty entity is usurping all power. This will place all religions under one tightly-controlled umbrella and all governments will be subservient to our new overlords.

This idea was the brainchild of the late journalist Serge Monsat. Proponents allege that his heart attack death was actually an assassination to keep the plot secret. Like all good portents of certain doom, Blue Beam has a sliding timeline. First it was going to happen in 1993, then 1995, then 1996, then 2000. Similar to doomsday evangelicals like Jack Van Impe and John Hagee, Monsat cast a wide net, ensnaring disparate events and cramming then into his sinister scenario.

For, example, alleged UFO abductions are actually test-runs of devices that will simulate the Rapture. Jurassic Park was also part of the plot, as it included an implied endorsement of evolution. Indeed, the Blue Beam theory maintains a focus on high-tech and sci-fi films. Believers assert these entertainments are used to inure persons to fantastic visions and to prep them for hostile takeovers via advanced science. In fact, Blue Beam largely mirrors a shelved Gene Roddenberry work about a flying saucer which dispatches beings who pose as prophets. And like most conspiracy theories, Blue Beam takes advantage of fear of the unknown, specifically cutting-edge technology.

There are all kinds of issues with these grand accusations, such as how an image in the sky would be able to be seen by persons anywhere on Earth. There is also the sizable obstacle of convincing the most hard-core Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and atheists that there is now one true religion and all that you have thought before must now be jettisoned. This also presupposes that no one could see through this mirage or question if it were a hoax, power grab, or other fabrication.

There is no real reason to tag NASA as the perpetrator, as opposed to Rothschilds, Bilderbergers, Reptilians, the Illuminati, or Bohemian Grove members. The agency was likely picked because the ruse involves space technology, but to hopelessly understate the case, there is no evidence to tie NASA to a plot involving a religion made up for the purpose of world dominion.

This nefarious plot goes through four stages. The first focuses on the disintegration of accumulated archeological knowledge. The plan is to stage earthquakes that reveal long-lost artifacts and writings from the One True Religion. This will include explanations of how all other religions have gotten it wrong. Again, this requires getting the likes of Fred Phelps, the Ayatollah, and Hindu terrorists to all concede that their faith is, in fact, a false one.  

Stage Two is where NASA begins to earn its money (presumably a lot of it) by fabricating a spectacular show in the night sky. The viewings will be suited to the culture, with the images depicting how the dominant deity in the region is most often portrayed. It will feature 3-D holographic laser projections that can be seen by anyone anywhere. Except for the blind, I guess, although maybe there’s a more advanced stage of this theory where they are miraculously given sight. At the end of this light show, the deities merge to form a type of super-god like the one Jim Croce sang about.

Since the images are to be seen worldwide, this necessitates that enemy nations work together. This scheme also requires that countries where state and religion and inseparable, such as Saudi Arabia and Vatican City, would agree to take action meant to wipe out their faith and means of control.

Even if such a logistically overwhelming, worldwide spectacle were managed, there are still the issues of getting everyone to fall for it and of convincing them to worship this technologically-created divinity. Monsat had no issue with this premise, writing that the images would “set loose millions of programmed religious fanatics on a scale never witnessed before.”

As unlikely as Stage Two is, it at least involves modifications and improvements on existing technology. Stage Three takes Blue Beam to a more unhinged level by using extreme low frequency radio waves and somehow, magically, using them to telepathically communicate with persons and make them think the message is coming from the smorgasbord super-god.

Stage Four involves convincing the duped populace that an imminent onslaught will wipe out the planet and its inhabitants. In the ensuing mass panic, persons grow desperate enough to swear a loyalty oath to their almighty enlightened leader. This brings about the New World Order. The few resisters will be used as slaves, concubines, or medical experiment subjects.

As implausible as the whole scenario is, it is now even more unlikely to succeed since, if real, it has already been exposed.

 

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“Scar of David” (Zionist conspiracy)

superjewe

For the past few thousand years, there have been incessant accusations leveled at the Hebrew people. They are said to be crippling society, spreading disease, running a shadow government, running the real government, manipulating currency, weakening the white race, undermining the church, and plotting to swipe your grilled cheese.

They do all this as either communists, Free Masons, the Illuminati, Bohemian Grove leaders, Rothschilds, New World Order perpetrators, or Reptilians.

While anti-Semitism is most associated with the Nazis, Hitler and his monstrous minions were merely the most searing and extreme instance of illogical hatred toward Jews. In Persia, Xerxes ordered the extermination of all Jews within his jurisdiction. Roman emperors, Greek kings, and Spanish rulers have all given the same genocidal dictate. During the Dark Ages, panicked Europeans blamed Jews for the Plague. Pogroms have been regular features on the continent, as well as in western Asia, and there has also been legally-mandated discrimination, segregation, violence directed at synagogues, and cartoons that portray Jews in grotesque caricature.

Czarist Russia had anti-Semitism woven into its official policy since Jews were accused of fomenting a revolution from within. When the regime collapsed in 1917, it occurred without much Jewish involvement. Hitler used a similar tact, accusing Jews – who were less than one percent of the German population – of committing traitorous acts that cost the country victory in World War I. This alleged power out of proportion to Jewish numbers is typical of charges leveled at the people.  

These charges have been sustained for many centuries, from Jews being accused of slaughtering babies for their blood during Passover in the Middle Ages, to their descendants engineering the 9/11 attacks. One myth associated with the latter is that Jews employed at the World Trade Center stayed home that day.

All this is led by an elaborate hierarchy. Sometimes names are given – a Soros, an Eisner, a Bloomberg – but many more unknown persons are assumed to be allies and lackeys in this quest for world dominion and subjugation of decent folk.

Even by the loose standards of this conspiracy theory, one of its more preposterous manifestations is in portraying The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as the Jews’ diabolical playbook. This has long since been exposed as a hoax, as it is a nearly-identical copy of The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. This work was a satirical work centering of Napoleon III plotting to conquer the world. For Elders of Zion, Large sections were plagiarized, with “Jews” replacing “Napoleon III.”

Skeptoid’s Brian Dunning has identified three primary types of anti-Semitism. The first kind couches itself in a veneer of superiority. Just as a Klansman might consider Hispanics to be lazy, dirty, and justifiably destitute, there is an anti-Semitism that sees Jews as lowlifes, worthy of scorn but not to be feared except as criminals. This was the overwhelming type of anti-Semitism for millennia, but is the rarest type today.

The second kind rests at the opposite end of the spectrum and paints Jews as residing in a pit of avarice and cruelty, where they assume positions as our dark overlords who control the banking system and direct perpetual warfare for their benefit. Closely related to this is the belief in a Zionist-Occupied Government, where Jews make the law and institute policy, either for real or by proxy.

Finally, we have a religious anti-Semitism practiced by Christians and Muslims. Islamic distrust of Jews has been sustained for a millennium and a half and continues unabated. The practice of usury – oft times necessitated since Jews were forbidden to own property or run a business – was traditionally one of the reasons. That’s still the case, though the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a much larger factor.

Christian disdain for Jewry was far more common 100 years ago. The Hebrew people were seen as messiah-denying, hell-bound heathens who slaughtered the savior. We don’t see this brand much anymore, as most American evangelical fundamentalists are convinced that blessings from the Abrahamic god will flow proportionally to the level of obsequiousness the U.S. displays toward Jerusalem.

However, there are some outside the Christian mainstream who prefer a more conspiratorial flavor to their worldview and who feel the end times will be ushered in by a Jewish anti-Christ. Additionally, there are some bigots without a religious bent who insist immigration is a Jewish plot to destroy the white race – a curious goal for a people who themselves are conspicuously light in melanin.

In an attempt to bolster their case, proponents of these conspiracy theories may point to the inordinate Jewish influence in business, the news media, and entertainment, but this is committing the affirming the consequent fallacy. It is failing to consider correlation and causation and other factors that can explain Jewish success in these areas. Also, this success does not mean it is used to realize a nefarious agenda.

Like other gloom-and-doom scenarios, the anti-Semitic one collapses under the weight of its extravagant claims. The fruition of those ghastly goals takes place in an Eternal Tomorrow, always on the cusp of happening, yet never quite arriving. To hear anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists tell it, there exists an incomprehensibly malevolent, highly-organized cabal of geniuses with supreme power and authority; It has at its disposal every means of manipulating commerce, trade, and militaries; It clandestinely pull the strings of legislatures, monarchies, industries, and the press. The end state is to solidify this power and bring the rest of us to our collective knees. Yet this has been said to have been the case for thousands of years and it never happens. These completely evil, supremely powerful people have had the means and desire to complete this dastardly deed, yet they all keep dying without it being accomplished. With those deaths, the theory should perish as well.

 

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“Cast a wrong shadow” (Soros conspiracy)

SHADOW WOLF

George Soros is a self-made billionaire hedge fund manager who makes substantial donations to progressive causes worldwide. While those on the alt-right might agree with that description, they also paint a much more sinister picture of him. This includes claims he was a Nazi soldier even though when World War II ended, Soros was a 14-year-old Jew.

His legions of opponents also consider progressive political protestors to be Soros stooges on his payroll. He first came to be widely reviled in conservative circles when he opposed the second Iraq war. During such times, many persons lob irrational accusations drenched in nationalistic fervor. In addition to some right wingers lambasting Soros, The New York Sun called for the imprisonment of anti-war protestors, the Dixie Chicks became pariahs for their mild criticism of the president, and Abu Ghraib whistleblowing hero Joe Darby was labeled a traitor.

While those other instances have faded from memory, the Soros conspiracy theory endures. Glenn Beck labeled him a marionette master who controls the world. Bill O’Reilly called him an “off-the-charts dangerous extremist who wants open borders, a one-world foreign policy, and the legalization of drugs and euthanasia.” Such descriptions enable the speaker to cram all of their and the world’s problems into a bite-sized capsule. It’s much easier than finding solutions to complex issues. It’s also more attractive to blame everything on an impossibly wealthy, influential, and diabolical Jew.

Theorists holding these views think Soros runs or helps control a shadow government that has unlimited power save the ability to shut down YouTube videos exposing it. And despite wielding this unchecked influence and possessing a ruthlessness in executing world dominion, his progressive puppets control neither the White House nor the Senate.

There is a counter belief by some left-wingers that the Koch brothers control a shadow government that benefits Republicans and, to a lesser extent, Libertarians. My objections to any such claims are nonpartisan and my concern is only with conspiracy malarkey. Anyone making these types of claims against the Koch brothers is equally wrong and just as batty.

There is no denying Soros’ ability to influence policy and move markets. Once in the 1990s he traded so many Malaysian ringgits that is caused the currency to substantially devalue. This led Malay Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad to declare, “We do not want to say that this is a plot by the Jews,” which is poorly-veiled code speak for, “We do want to say that this is a plot by the Jews.” Mohamad continued, “But it is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge.”

Soros learned early and up close about the harrowing specter of anti-Semitism. He survived the German invasion of his native Hungary and his opponents have obscenely twisted this into a narrative where a Holocaust survivor was a Nazi or one of their collaborators. In actuality, that’s who Soros was hiding from. When Soros was 13, his father changed the family name to Schwartz and also purchased papers identifying the family as Christian. He also had his son portray himself as the godson of a Hungarian official. This official protected Jews in an occupied country, a la Oskar Schindler.

One of the official’s responsibilities was to catalog properties the Nazis seized and he once took the teenage Soros with him, though Soros did none of the inventory. He hung out with staff members at the looted estate and learned horsemanship. This equestrian excursion described in conspiracy theory circles as Nazi enablement and collaboration.

Following the Allied victory, Soros studied at the London School of Economics and later devised a monetary theory that helped make him a billionaire many times over. He once even experienced a 10-figure rise in his net worth in 24 hours.  As an extremely wealthy Jew who fills liberal coffers and who has shaped the course of markets and policies, Soros is obvious conspiracy theory fodder. As such, there are long-refuted lies still making the Internet rounds, including a photo of Auschwitz clerk Oskar Groening, which is wrongly claimed to be a picture of Soros in Nazi garb.

While painted as the moneybags of a far left deep state, Soros’ politics are more nuanced. True, he has made contributions to organizations fighting for migrant welfare and criminal justice reform. But he has also criticized the hijacking of the #MeToo movement by political opportunists and has said the reason he won’t donate to moderate Republicans is that the association with him would harm those politicians. In fact, before he became the focus of conspiracy theories, Soros made donations to the GOP. Further, one of the reasons he has pumped many millions into Eastern European countries is because of his first-hand experience with the horrors and shortcomings of communism. What’s more, his biggest donations have been outside the political realm; he has given nearly a billion dollars to those former Soviet bloc countries to help them privatize industries, a notion beloved by Republicans and Libertarians.

Conspiracy theorists often speak of powerful Jews trying to run the world. But they want to be the ones revealing this secret. Since it’s well-known that Soros is an extremely wealthy, politically influential Jew, the theorists dig for something deeper so they can maintain their status as members of the enlightened few. That’s why they accuse him of running of a deep state, but that is a self-defeating claim. Someone controlling a shadow government would be, as the name suggests, far removed from the limelight and would be someone we had never heard of.

 

 

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“Pleading heart” (Cholesterol contrarians)

HEARTHELP

I consume cheese, milk, and butter, with halfhearted consideration about limiting my intake of such. But such concerns are unfounded according to some cholesterol contrarians who consider the lipid molecule benign or even beneficial. Stemming from this belief is an additional conviction that since cholesterol levels are irrelevant, no one needs statins to lower those numbers.

However, WHO and similar organizations consistently make it known that butter, cheese, milk, and red meat are fine in moderation and as part of a balanced diet. But they also stress that excess saturated fat may cause the liver to overproduce bad cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease, the country’s leading killer.

The cholesterol contrarians are led by Uffe Ravnskov, who insists “the reason why so-called experts say that I am mistaken is that the vast majority are paid generously by the drug companies.”

But while the funding for the research materials and laboratories may come from pharmaceutical companies, individual scientists receive no money from them. And the reason pharmaceutical companies fund research is for the same reason the auto industry pays for crash test studies. Both enterprises want their products to be as safe as possible because they are potentially liable if they irresponsibly put a dangerous one on the market.

As to cholesterol-conquering statins, the Guardian’s Sarah Boseley wrote that the metadata of studies published in the Lancet concluded that over five years, a daily statin would prevent 1,000 heart attacks, strokes, and coronary artery bypasses among 10,000 people who had already experienced one of these medical maladies. Further, statins could prevent heart attacks in those at increased risk because of high blood pressure or diabetes. Weight, age, blood pressure, and family history can help doctors estimate the chances of a patient having a heart attack, and statins are recommended for anyone with a 10 percent chance of one.

The SkepDoc, Harriet Hall, notes that prevention is much more than gulping statins and refraining from having a bacon double cheeseburger. A balanced approach would include healthy weight maintenance and exercise, a genetics also plays a key role. I have been a vegetarian for half my life and still have slightly elevated cholesterol levels. My love of cheese and milk contributes to that, but so does what I inherited.

Indeed, cholesterol is only one factor leading to heart attacks. Skeptic leader Robert Todd Carroll explained that, “There is not a strong body of peer-reviewed published research that shows that a person who eats a low-fat diet is guaranteed to have low cholesterol, which will prevent that person from getting atherosclerosis, which in turn will prevent that person from getting a heart attack. Nor is there strong evidence that a person who eats lots of animal fat will get high cholesterol and get atherosclerosis and die of a heart attack as a result. Other factors include past health history and the current state of your health, your family history with cholesterol levels and heart disease, your genetic predisposition to high cholesterol and/or heart disease, and do you smoke, are you grossly overweight, and do you exercise?”

While it is a near consensus among nutrition scientists that excess amounts of bad cholesterol is detrimental, those same persons hold that it is but one factor in a person’s heart attack susceptibility. But Ravnskov creates a strawman that those scientists feel diet alone causes high cholesterol, which in turn is the sole determinant for heart attacks.

He also misuses statistics to try and bolster his point. For example, he cited the Framingham Heart Study, which concluded that decreasing levels of cholesterol are associated with increased mortality among older participants. He interprets this to mean that either decreasing cholesterol is detrimental for all or that cutting cholesterol intake is a significant causal factor for mortality. He further notes that since 1970, fatal heart attacks in Japan have declined while animal fat consumption has increased. He considers this evidence that animal fat in the diet is not a major cause of heart disease and that “good cholesterol” is redundant.

But this is post hoc reasoning as wells as confusing correlation and causation. First, as an elderly person’s health declines, they tend toward malnourishment, which will invariably lower cholesterol. Second, persons are surviving heart attacks more often today because of better focus on proper nutrition and medical advances such as statins and a daily aspirin following such incidents. To prove his point, Ravnskov needs to show data that as persons increase animal fat intake, their chances of a fatal heart attack decrease.   

Ravnskov also considers it a myth that high fat foods cause heart disease since studies do not show that a diet high in saturated fat is a sufficient condition to bring on a heart attack or that a diet low in saturated fat is a sufficient condition to prevent a heart attack.

But he mixes up “cause” with “sufficient condition.” Carroll wrote, “Some causes are necessary but not sufficient conditions. For example, some viruses must be present and thus are necessary conditions for certain diseases to occur. But they are not sufficient conditions, as the virus may be present but not manifest itself in illness.” Similarly, a high fat diet by itself may be an insufficient condition to cause heart disease, but it can be a major contributing factor in some people, as can family medical history, smoking, obesity, and stress.

In another misunderstanding of statistics, Ravnskov noted that 20 percent of those who die from heart attacks have never had atherosclerosis so he therefore concludes that the condition doesn’t cause heart attacks. But only 10 percent of smokers get lung cancer, while just .1 percent of nonsmokers do. The reasonable conclusion here is not that tobacco is relatively harmless with regard to lung cancer since only 10 percent of smokers get it. Rather, the logical lesson it that smoking is hazardous because it increases one’s chances of getting lung cancer by 100 times.  

The cholesterol contrarian also plays the Galileo Gambit by saying he is persecuted for his beliefs. And perhaps he is. But that’s because he’s dispensing lethal medical advice, not because he’s being repressed by a powerful cabal of pharmaceutical executives, scientific stooges, and skeptic bloggers.

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“Long-term project” (Holographic moon)

HOLOGRAMMOON

Most conspiracy theorists prefer their iconoclastic status and for those wishing to take it even further, there are alternatives to the alternatives. These include the idea of Earth being hollow instead of flat; a fondness for Lumeria instead of Atlantis; and whispers that Israelis were behind 9/11 instead of the U.S. government.

Then we have the conviction that the moon is a hologram, which while not precisely inconsistent with flat Earth beliefs would leave little room for common ground. One of the few astronomical observations flat Earthers get right is that our satellite is indeed in motion. They believe it exists and moves about, while hologram proponents reject such notions.

While the idea of a holographic moon is comical, I was surprised by the anger that believers have over what they feel is a repressed truth. Of course, we here are much more concerned with their evidence than their emotions, so let’s dive into the former.

At the risk of stating the obvious, this leads us to YouTube. The user Crrow777 claims that when gazing skyward at night power glitches in an artificial electrical system are revealed. They probably are if one looks long enough and is determined to reach such a conclusion. But his corroborating evidence is limited to referencing three unidentified individuals with secret information and unspecified Russian scientists also in the know.

He leaves several questions unanswered, or unasked for that matter. These include: What causes a solar or lunar eclipse? What causes gravitational pull on Earth and the resulting tides? How do radio signals bounce off a three-dimensional light projection? How would a hologram emit gamma rays, which are detected coming from the moon?

Further, what is the incentive for the thousands of persons would need to have been in on this for millenniums and who exist in every part of the world, including islands several hundred miles away from any other land mass? Such as Bouvet, an uninhabited hump of coral 1,100 miles from any human and which is visited only annually by Norwegian scientists, who still see a moon when they’re there.

Residents of Tristan de Cunha are 1,500 miles from any other terra firma, yet even on this extremely remote, airstrip-free locale, someone would need to be present to perpetrate the ruse from the ground or broadcast it from a manmade satellite (like I said, hologram enthusiasts and flat Earthers don’t get along too well). Sailors circumnavigating the globe have always been able to use our satellite as a guide and modern-day jet passengers on a long distance overnight flight would see the hologram disappear.  

Moreover, how did the hologram plotter’s predecessors manage this 100, 1,000, and 10,000 years ago? Ancient cultures referenced the moon and based rituals, festivals, and planting and harvesting seasons around it. This was done by societies all over the world, meaning the conspiracy would have to have been coordinated with persons up to 10,000 miles apart who had no way of communicating with each other. 

The website revisionism.nl touches on parts of this by stating that the projection “could have been different things at different times and different places, depending on the technology available to the conspirators and the culture and beliefs of the population being deceived. Perhaps it began as a collective hallucination or a religious myth, or perhaps an especially bright star that came to be exaggerated over time. However the moon story started, early proponents of the hoax were swift to recognize how it could be exploited for their benefit, and shrewdly devised a scheme to use it to their advantage.”

Who they were, how they perpetrated it, what they gained, and how they passed the secret down for 50,000 years are all left unanswered, and no evidence is offered for this haphazard hypothesis.

Ccrow777’s cohort Dave Johnson opens his videos with a notice that includes personal attacks, hostility to opposing views, and superfluous apostrophes and articles: “I care less than NOTHING for your opinion or recollection’s from a Science book Dummies.”

Johnson points to a purple fringe that appear when he zooms in on the moon with his camcorder, not explaining why that would be consistent with a hologram or why a hologram would be the only explanation for a purple fringe.

The skeptic YouTuber ColdHardLogic replied that different colors of light refract while passing through a lens. Part of the lens function, in fact, is to bring light to a desired focal plane. And since different wavelengths of light are refracted by different amounts, they are focused at different points, and can result in visual phenomena since as purple fringes.

Gawker’s Dayna Evans unearthed a Facebook group asking questions such as how a supposed barren wasteland like the moon could glow. Since I’m assuming the persons asking this have no fourth-grade science books handy, I’ll let them know it’s caused by the sun’s light reflecting off it.

Meanwhile, revisionism.nl’s About section highlights continual changes to the moon’s brightness, shape, size, and color, though those changes would seem INCONSISTENT with a holographic projection. The site maintainers don’t entertain competing notions, but do allow some internal dialogue as to how conspirators display the image: “It could be a hologram, projected from various government installations throughout the world. It could be a large, crudely painted balloon held in place by helium and propelled by tiny sails and rudders, which is why it moves across the sky so slowly.”

A third option that’s floated, so to speak, is that chemtrails leave behind a screen on which the hologram is shone. This would push the notion of chemtrails back several thousand years, which would get conspiracy theorists excited, but it leaves unanswered the question of why this screen fails to respond to sunlight during times the hologram is seen during the day.

A fourth option to explain the cratered white rock in the night sky is that a round satellite formed 4  billion years ago when Earth collided with another planet, and gravity has kept this heavenly body orbiting our planet ever since. During this time, humans visited this astronomical neighbor and brought back souvenir rocks. Gotta tell you, I’m definitely getting good use out of this fourth-grade science book today.

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“Redistricting” (The D.C. Plan)

Developing a Plan

Many conspiracy theories are completely whacked. Last week, I engaged with a woman who opposed Brett Kavanaugh not because of his rulings or the allegations against him, but because she was convinced he was being propped up by the Illuminati. Flat Earthers insist that the most powerful persons on our plane planet have conspired for millenniums to keep its shape a secret.  

Then there are theories that are slightly more plausible on the surface, but which lack supporting evidence and which are unnecessary to concoct since reality is terrifying enough. For example, there is very strong proof that the Chechen government is engaged in a genocidal crackdown on homosexuals. One truly concerned about government overreach should be trying to stop this atrocity instead of raising alarms about governments orchestrating a plot to spread AIDS. Likewise, it is highly probable that Saudi monarchs ordered a hit on journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Yet INFO Wars, which purports to expose government misdeeds, labels the extrajudicial execution a false flag meant to somehow help the Democrats in upcoming mid-terms.

Persons who engage in such speculation don’t want crimes or corruption exposed by mainstream media; they want it done by conspiracy theory websites they prefer, so the narrative has to be changed to meet that script. But again, if genuinely wanting to root out malfeasance, one need only concentrate on what is actually happening.

Consider the history of blacks in the United States. It features a chronology of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, voter suppression, and a recent trend of being killed by law enforcement officers who normally go unpunished. With a storyline that tormented, there’s no reason to fabricate anything. Yet that has happened with a notion called simply as The Plan, which holds that wealthy whites are out to take over historically black neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.

In the undocumented tale, real estate developers collude with construction companies to neglect and tear down affordable homes in poor neighborhoods and replace them with expensive apartments and opulent residences. Also, black mom-and-pop shops will be uprooted for luxury stores and fine cuisine establishments. Legislators friendly to the destitute will be removed from office through fabricated scandals. Government officials in on the fix offer strategic tax breaks and craft zoning laws so that blacks are shoved aside for wealthy whites.

The idea germinated after the passing of the Home Rule Law in 1973, which transferred some congressional powers to a D.C. mayor and council. This enabled the District’s blacks to vote in those who supported their interests, which led to speculation that whites would rise up and move back in following their 1950s exodus.

In a 1979 column, Washington Afro American’s Lillian Wiggins wrote, “Many residents believe that the Marion Barry era may be the last time Washington will have a black mayor. There is a strong possibility of the ‘master plan’ which I have so often spoken about maturing in the 1980s.”

Since then, four blacks have been elected DC mayor, including Barry again, but belief in The Plan remains strong in certain circles. This is typical of the “eternal tomorrow” present in some conspiracy theories, where the fruition is imminent, yet never quite arrives. This keeps the theorist interested and invested in the idea. If the culmination is to take place 100 years from now, they would no longer care and if it took place yesterday, there would be nothing left to expose or prep for.

Believers in The Plan note that the Federal City Council, a group of civic-minded business owners that forecast redevelopment and construction projects, comprises mostly white leaders. Moreover, since it is not a government entity, it can meet in secret, presumably to plot the purge of blacks and ascendance of whites.

This is similar to the Bohemian Grove conspiracy theory. It is true that powerful persons are meeting, but the assertion that it is for nefarious purposes is an evidence-free non sequitur with plenty of post hoc reasoning.

For instance, Barry’s fall from power was ascribed to The Plan, yet no evidence emerged that this involved anything other than his involvement with drugs. His eventual return to the mayor’s office made the idea of his ouster being due to The Plan untenable at best.

In another example of post hoc reasoning, efforts to improve D.C. schools were tied to The Plan since such upgrades increased the enrollment of white children. And rising real estate values, increased business, and a more festive night life were likewise considered evidence of the conspiracy. So is the fact that DC is now just half black, down from a high of 71 percent in 1970.

Certainly, the idea of white government officials and business executives further kicking blacks to the socioeconomic curb would seem plausible. But a closer look reveals that the key factor in DC’s changing demographics has been was the free market, not a furtive plot to segregate our capital.

According to Skeptoid’s Mike Rothschild, “In the late 1990’s, gentrification came to DC and was associated with The Plan. Developers started buying run-down buildings, left vacant because of crime, poverty and foreclosure, and turned them into condos and lofts. These new homes were too expensive for the historically poor residents of Washington’s more poverty-stricken areas.” This came during a 20-year period where DC’s white population increased by 11 percent while the black population dropped 15 percent. 

However, many other metropolitan areas in this time were seeing rich young couples and families moving into revitalized neighborhoods that previously housed impoverished minorities. While poignant, this represents the free market in action and demonstrates the divide that exists between black and white America.

Folks wish to buy housing they can afford and real estate developers exist to take advantage of that, whether than means a price increase or decrease. The changes to DC demographics are the result of capitalism, gentrification, and the racial differences in circumstances at birth. Again, there’s no need to make stuff up when the reality is bad enough for Chechen gays, Saudi journalists, and impoverished minorities.

 

 

  

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“Time of the signs” (Secret hand signals)

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Perhaps preparing for the annual Congressional baseball game, Senate Republicans lobbed softballs at Brett Kavanaugh, who revealed little about his positions beyond expressing a fondness for theocracy. But for a few observers, the focus was less on the man representing a historic swing of the Supreme Court and more on the woman sitting behind him. More specifically, they were captivated by her hand gesture.  

While sitting in camera view, lawyer Zina Bash brought her thumb and index finger together while jutting the three remaining fingers skyward. The symbol has long meant “OK,” but some interpret this digital juxtaposition to mean “White Power,” with the hand supposedly spelling WP. The third, ring, and pinkie fingers come close to forming a W, but the circle created by the index finger and thumb looks nothing like a P. This more sinister meaning of the traditional OK sign likely started as joke or a Poe, but has come to be taken as gospel in some swaths of the no-evidence-required Internet.

Like alien and cryptozoological enthusiasts who ignore the amazing astrological and biological wonders of our world to chase after something still more, those who find racist code in the OK sign flashed at the Kavanaugh hearings are trying way too hard. Dr. Eugene Gu Tweeted that the hand gesture equated to “flashing a white power sign. They want to bring white supremacy to the Supreme Court.” His fellow Twitter warrior, author Amy Siskind, agreed that the gesture was inherently bigoted and should sink the Kavanaugh nomination. But with reports surfacing of the Trump Administration deporting U.S. citizens of Hispanic lineage, government actions are terrifyingly racist right now without having to make stuff up.

The situation is reminiscent of the Procter & Gamble Satanic panic during the 1980s, when the company’s bearded man-in-the-moon logo was said to form three sixes. It took extremely creative interpretations to reach this conclusion, and even then, the connected celestial facial hairs didn’t much resemble the number in question. More recently, Monster energy drinks have been subject to the same slander, as the company’s logo, when turned outside down, is said to vaguely resemble the Hebrew symbol for 666, even though 666 wouldn’t be written in such a way in that language. The funk rock group 311 has had similar baseless allegations thrown at it. The band takes its name from the Omaha police code for indecent exposure, but a rumor had “311” referring to three consecutive iterations of the alphabet’s 11th letter, or KKK. It speaks to a conspiracy theorist’s motivation that their deducing of a letter equivalent for 311 would end up being KKK instead of CCCCCCCCCCC. 

Back in the present day, Bash is from Mexico and she has a Jewish parent, making her a supremely unlikely white power proponent. But maybe she’s a self-loathing conspirator. That’s as good a reason as theorists have come up with for this or any other furtive silent message supposedly sent by the rich and powerful. Such allegations lack any proof and believers are unable to provide specifics on why the message is being sent or for whom it is intended.

While famous persons may sometimes be photographed with unexplained or unusual hand positioning, skeptic leader Benjamin Radford has a good explanation. He wrote, “Any high-profile person in the public eye enough may be photographed tens of thousands, or even millions, of times in a wide variety of contexts. Anyone wishing to spend the time and effort to comb through photos searching for a specific, seemingly significant wave or position of the hand or fingers can surely do so.”

Most of us prefer patterns over ambiguity, which explains why were see animals in clouds, sailboats in Rorschach blots, a face on Mars, and Jesus in our linguini. While we are all subject to this pareidolia, those with conspiracy leanings add sinister meaning to hand symbols. This is all the easier since they are determined to find it. During a Beyoncé Super Bowl performance, the megastar posed with her hand making a diamond shape. This could have been her expressing love for solid forms of carbon, a reference to her husband’s Roc-a-Fella record company logo, or something else. But for some conspiracy theorists, it could only mean endorsing world domination by Illuminati overlords who may have reptile tails.

But all this comes with a massive contradiction. Theorists insist the conspirators have a secret plot to subjugate or destroy us, yet they ensure clues about this are broadcast worldwide. They ignore this contradiction and spread their slander. And that’s not OK.

 

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“What’s up with that, Doc?” (Vitamin D intake)

DPIC

My physician is pure mainstream: Recommending all the age-appropriate tests and an annual checkup; being solidly pro-vaccine and pro-antibiotics; well-versed in Germ Theory and even sporting the white coat and ever-present stethoscope, plus placing lollipops at the check-in desk.

So when he recommended a vitamin D supplement for me during winter and told me he popped the same pills, I headed from his office to the pharmacy. To get to those supplements, I passed the bandages, antiseptic, and pain medication I would normally purchase and ended up in the aisle of herbs, homeopathic tablets, flaxseed oil, and all manner of lotions and potions intended to complete the alt-med trifecta of detoxing, immune boosting, and increasing circulation. There was even something called soothing bath tea. I prefer that beverage for drinking, not dousing, so I passed on it, but did pick up the vitamin D tablets. It felt funny grabbing something from that section of the store, but my trusted doctor recommended it so I didn’t much question doing so.

Later, I learned my wife’s doctor, who coincidentally is married to my physician, had made the same suggestion to her. Hence, we both made the purchase and our previously supplement-free medicine cabinet was now overloaded with vitamin D goodies.

But according to a pair of New York Times articles, this was likely all for naught. Both sales of vitamin D supplements and testing for vitamin D deficiency have increased exponentially in the last two decades. According to the Times’ Liz Szabo, sales have shot up nine-fold since 2010, meaning it has nonupled if there’s such a word. Meanwhile, lab tests for vitamin D deficiency have seen a 547 percent increase since 2007 and the number of blood tests for vitamin D levels among seniors increased a staggering 8,300 percent from 2000 to 2010.

These Everest-like ascents stem from the embrace and promotion of vitamin D intake by Dr. Michael Holick, a Boston University endocrinologist. He has had authored books which extol increased intake and has sounded the alarm about a “vitamin D deficiency pandemic.”

Most prominent among his treatises was a 2011 paper in the peer-reviewed publication, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. This was done at the behest of the Endocrine Society, whose guidelines are followed by hospitals, physicians, and laboratories. The authors’ conclusions were that “vitamin D deficiency is very common in all age groups,” and that there should be a large increase in vitamin D testing. Further, it recommended a 50 percent increase in daily vitamin D ingestion, which put 80 percent of the population out of compliance.

These exhortations led to an endorsement of D supplements from an anomalous mix of mainstream and alternative practitioners, from our family’s husband-wife physician team down to Dr. Oz and Goop.

But a Kaiser Health News investigation for The New York Times found that Holick uses his prominent position to promote these practices that benefit pharmaceutical companies, indoor tanning salons, and testing labs. In return, he has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from these industries. While acknowledging this, Horlick insists it doesn’t influence his interpretation of the evidence and said his money from these groups is the same whether vitamin D supplement sales are zero or a zillion.

In my time blogging, I have seen that talk of “Follow the money,” “He’s a shill,” and “Drug companies funnel money to doctors if you recommend their product” are ad hominem and red herrings that deflect from the issue of whether a product or treatment is beneficial, neutral, or harmful. Such lines are normally directed at the likes of Kevin Folta, Y’vette d’Entremon, and Kavin Senapathy, and launched  by alt-med proponents and conspiracy theorists.

But could it all be true in this case? Very possibly, but the central point remains the same. Whether Holick is getting money from these industries (which he admits), we still have to look at whether his claims are valid.

To be sure, vitamin D is crucial to good health. It is necessary for strong bones and deficiencies in it can result in rickets and osteomalacias. Another important point is that human bodies produce very little of it on their own. Further, it is available in only a tiny number of foods, such as oily fish. That leaves sunlight as one of the few natural sources for vitamin D, and exposure to this brings a host of issues, plus those in cold-weather climates get little of it in the winter.

This could seem to add up to solid supplement soundbite. However, vitamin D is available through foods fortified with it, such as milk, orange juice, and yogurt. Now to the central point of are humans getting enough vitamin D? At what level is a body deficient?

The year before the Endocrinology & Metabolism journal article, the National Academy of Medicine concluded that the vast majority of Americans get plenty of vitamin D naturally, and suggested doctors only test only patients at high risk of certain disorders. If Holick was right in about 80 percent of persons having a D deficit, there should have been a steady stream of brittle bones, rickets, and osteomalacias cases.

That this was not happening indicates most of us were getting enough of the vitamin through sunlight and fortified breakfast drinks. Indeed, an Institute of Medicine report concluded that very few people were deficient. The report stated that a sufficient amount would be 20 nanograms per milliliter. The increase to 30 nanograms per milliliter championed by Horlick would leave most of us wanting for vitamin D if that were a legitimate standard, but the report found no benefit to this additional amount. The study by the National Academy of Medicine reached the same conclusion.

As to the testing for vitamin D levels, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield published an analysis which found that 40 percent of its patients tested for D levels had no medical reason to be screened.

The Endocrine Society’s seemingly faulty conclusions manufactured the appearance of an epidemic since it decreed four persons in five had insufficient amounts of a key nutrient. And since it appeared in a respected publication and was associated with an esteemed doctor, many persons who would have otherwise dismissed the notion embraced it. This perhaps included my physician, which led to my flummoxed flaxseed frolic.

Repeat this recommendation and extraneous lab tests a few million times over and one gets the drastic increase in sales and testing. It also means there are hordes of healthy people popping a superfluous supplement tablet. One per day would be OK, though likely not beneficial, but going over that can lead to health issues. Hey, maybe that’s it! Maybe the recommendations are being made to get people sick from an overdose and give the doctors more sick patients and more money!

On a serious note, this does highlight the irony of the situation. Alt-med proponents and conspiracy theorists routinely allege that labs gain from unnecessary testing and that drug companies profit from unnecessary products, and that it’s all directed by persons with conflicts of interest who sit on the payroll of the benefited entities. The one time this seems to be happening, these groups embrace it.

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“Over-reaction” (Thorium power plants)

FISSION

Thorium power plants are a hypothetical fuel source that could have the many benefits of nuclear power without most of the drawbacks. Unlike conspiracy theories centering on the repression of perpetual motion machines or water-fueled cars, the science behind hypothetical thorium power plants is plausible. They might be a viable alternative that could replace the need for uranium-fueled power plants.

In such locales, an energy source heats water, which creates steam, which cranks a turbine, which generates electricity. The same principle would apply to a thorium reactor but with the advantages of the source material being much more plentiful than uranium, producing less radiation, and that radiation being easier to transport. Additionally, they could not be used to make nuclear weapons since no weapons-grade fissionable material is used. This further means there is no danger of the materials being purloined by terrorist groups, organized crime, or spies and being used to craft a doomsday device.

Nuclear power plants currently operating are hellaciously complex, require extensive safety protocols, produce radioactive waste, and are powered by uranium, which is in relatively limited supply.

Thorium power plants would be safe because they cannot suffer a meltdown since the fuel is already molten. It is in salt form that cannot be burned or boiled away. It has to be kept hot by continually adding fertile elements or the reaction stops.

So why aren’t thorium reactors going up around the world? According to a report by the International Atomic Agency, the gist is that while thorium reactors hold promise, there are technological hurdles to be overcome and right now, it’s easier to stick with a method that is effective, though possibly inferior. Lengthy, costly research would be needed, followed by exacting and expensive construction. It would further require manufacturing of a different type of reactor, an efficient means of deriving fuel from thorium ore, and a sure means of handling waste. It’s not simply a matter of plopping thorium pellets into existing uranium reactors and immediately harnessing the benefits.

The report laid out these obstacles: 1. Existing industrial and utility commitments to uranium reactors. 2. The lack of incentive for industrial investment in supplying fuel cycle services. 3. Extensive manufacturing and operating experience with uranium reactors, contrasted to their thorium counterparts. 4. The less advanced state of thorium reactor technology and the lack of demonstrated solutions to the major technical problems associated with the concept.

Steven Novella of the New England Skeptical Society encapsulated it this way: “Until someone completely designs, builds, and operates a thorium reactor, there will continue to be a lot of speculation on many of these details,” and a reluctance to jettison what is already working. 

For some, the more scintillating answer is that a conspiratorial cabal is keeping the technology hidden or repressed. But like the electric car or hidden cancer cure theories, this falls flat when one realizes that a Shark Tank member or other venture capitalist has access to the resources, technology, and drive to make this happen. All billionaires would need to be in on this conspiracy, agree to make no money off it, and expect their profit-driven brethren to do the same.

The means of achieving a workable thorium reactor is known, not repressed. No one is hiding it, but neither is anyone committed to overcoming the obstacles.

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“For real, people?” (Flat Earth)

POLYHEDRON

The notion of equal time is legitimate when it comes to opinion, but not when it comes to fact. Creationists call for equal time in taxpayer-funded schools but they are promoting a position that is unfalsifiable, untestable, and unprovable, short of the biblical god descending from the heavens and showing us how it works. While such equal time efforts have failed, southern states, particularly Louisiana, continue to try and skirt the law.

Meanwhile, Louisiana’s equally-backward neighbor, Texas, has textbooks which teach Moses was a U.S. Founding Father. Supporters say this inclusion is justified because of the American justice being inspired by the 10 Commandments. These claims are not on shaky ground, they are at the epicenter of an 8-richter earthquake. Only two of the 10 Commandments are also laws, and those – murder and stealing – are crimes in every jurisdiction worldwide.

The truth being denied to Texas schoolchildren is that the Constitution was assembled from the ideas of ancient Rome, the Magna Carta, the Enlightenment, the Mayflower Compact, the House of Burgesses, the Federalist Papers, and the Declaration of Independence. As to Moses and his tablets influencing U.S. law, contrast the First Amendment to the First Commandment. The former guarantees the right to worship any god or goddess or none at all; the latter mandates worship of the Abrahamic god. Yet Texas schoolchildren are learning that U.S. legal system stems from the ideas of Moses instead of John Locke, whose Letters Concerning Toleration served as a blueprint for the Constitution’s assurance that church and state shall not be intertwined.

Considering this anti-fact victory and inexhaustible attempts to get creationism taught in biology class, it seems only a matter of time before calls for flat Earth equal time are heard. As such, it pays to be prepared for this eventual absurdity. (UPDATE: This has now happened).

One of the first pieces of evidence for a circular planet was noticed by Aristotle when he saw that a ship’s top was the first vessel part viewed when it approached from the horizon. Were Earth flat, Aristotle realized, we would see the front of the ship first. Since then, we have managed manned space flights, global positioning systems, and pictures of a round Earth, none of which is enough to convince some persons about its shape. So here are some more arguments if you ever need them.

Earth’s round shadow is cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse. The flat Earth retort is usually that, rather than Earth, an unknown mysterious object is casting the shadow. This mystery object has magic powers, as it gets this close to Earth without having its gravity affect our planet. This mystery-object answer is a synopsis of the flat Earth position. In his Forbes article addressing flat Earth arguments, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel noted that a person cannot be reasoned out of something they didn’t reason themselves into. So it’s OK to make these points known, just be aware that they are unlikely to change flat Earth minds.

A lesser-heard claim regarding lunar eclipses is that Earth is indeed casting its shadow, but what appears to be a ball is actually a plate as if viewed from the top. But the image is always the same, which would only be possible only if the sun-flat Earth-moon positioning were identical during every eclipse. This would further necessitate eclipses occurring at the same time of night during every instance.

With regard to solar eclipses, flat Earthers armed with a flashlight and plate argue that the moon’s shadow should be bigger than the moon since the image on the wall is larger than the plate during their experiment. However, the sun is a distant, diffuse light source instead of a nearby point source, so this analogy is mistaken.

Another argument in the round Earth arsenal is that the moon looks different depending on which side of the equator the moon gazer is on. The perspective will be different owing to the planet’s curvature. Similarly, different stars are visible from different latitudes. In Canada, persons can see the Big and Little Dippers and the Pleiades, while those in Chile are never afforded those views. Likewise, Chilean astronomers can see Alpha Centauri and the Southern Cross, sky gazing sights denied to those north of the Equator. Were Earth flat and stationary, we would all see the same sky images.

When Charles and Marjory Johnson were profiled on the NBC program Real People in the late 1970s, they were the only two members of the International Flat Earth Society. The organization had blossomed to 3,500 by the time Mr. Johnson died 21 years later and the Internet, which ironically sometimes employs satellite technology, has enabled the movement to rise again, although not high enough for its members to see Earth’s shape.

Adopting this position requires more than asserting the planet’s form. Insisting on flatness requires a very long series of ad hoc rationalizations since a round, rotating Earth explains seasons, varying amounts of daylight throughout the year, light and dark cycles, and eclipses. All this must be rationalized away to make a flat Earth work.

As such, flat Earthers think the moon and sun are close to our planet, are each 32 miles in diameter, and move in a perpetual circular path around the North Pole. This creative argument is used to try and explain why it’s light and dark in different places, but it fails to consider Antarctica, which is omitted from flat Earth maps. Nor does this argument account for daylight lasting longer depending on the time of year and latitude. If the flat Earther explanation was correct, there would be equal amount of light and dark each day in all parts of the planet. 

The Flat Earth map also contains many spacing errors. For instance, Chile and New Zealand are about 2.5 times farther from each other than they are on a globe, whose distances we know are correct because of flight times. On a flat Earth, pilots flying from Auckland to Santiago would go over Galveston, Texas, and the trip would take nearly 30 hours.  

These pilots would need to be in on the fix, as would be astronauts, GPS manufacturers, satellite manufacturers, and high-altitude jumper Felix Baumgartner. Flat Earthers point out that these persons receive fortune or fame from maintaining the global conspiracy, but in so doing commit one of the most common conspiracy theorist mistakes: Presuming that benefiting from means being responsible for. Persons who sold their stock market investments in September 1929 benefited from this decision but that does not mean they caused the Crash. None of the nearly million persons that would be necessary to continue this hoax have come forward and it would require the Soviet Union knowingly allowing the United States to falsely claim winning the race to the moon. As to high-altitude photos, flat Earthers offer the comical reasoning that they are taken with a fish eye lens, even though the planet is the only object in the pictures so affected.

Then we have circumnavigation. Flat Earthers claim circumnavigators are merely going in broad circles around the North Pole, which they consider to be in the middle of the planet. This is a lie, as Magellan’s crew and subsequent seafarers have gone roughly east or west the entire trip and ended up back where they started. Flat Earthers insist north-south navigation has never been done, but Sir Ranulph Fiennes accomplished this from 1979-1982. When I pointed this out to a believer, his response was that “Sir” provided the relevant clue, as Fiennes had been awarded knighthood for his part in the perpetuating the myth. This, even though in 1979, only a few hundred Earthly inhabitants thought their planet was flat, eliminating any need for myth-strengthening.

Next, consider different seasons. I wish I had done so when I traveled from Hawaii to Sydney in June and forgot about this. I showed up wearing shorts and a T-shirt in the winter. I had to put the opera house and kangaroo watching on hold and make  a clothing store my first stop. The yearly orbit of Earth around the sun explains the change in seasons and seasons being reversed in Hawaii and Australia. This could not happen on an planet that perpetually remained at the same angle to the sun.

Additionally, Siegel noted that viewers on the peak of Mauna Kea, the Big Island’s highest point, cannot see Kawaikini, which sits on Kauai. Kawaikini is 303 miles away and could be viewed if Earth were flat. But with a curved Earth, the line-of-sight limit is at 233 miles.

The modern flat Earth movement may have been launched by Samuel Shenton, who was still in a round Earth mindset when he designed a dirigible he thought could lift off from England, hover for a few hours, then land in North America, since Earth would rotate beneath his floating vehicle. This comical attempt failed because the atmosphere and anything in it moves with Earth. To overcome this force, energy such as is expended by an airplane is needed. Rather than admitting this embarrassing gaffe, Shenton insisted he had discovered a repressed truth, and he dedicated the rest of what passed for his life to flat Earth evangelism.

On another point, mass attracts objects to it. Siegel wrote, “The force of attraction between two objects depends on their mass and the distance between them. Gravity will pull toward the center of mass of the objects. On a sphere’s surface, gravity will pull you toward the sphere’s center of mass: straight down. Since a sphere has a consistent shape, no matter where on it you stand, you have exactly the same amount of sphere under you. By contrast, the center of mass of a flat plane is in its center, so the force of gravity will pull anything on the surface toward the middle of the plane.” So on a flat Earth, Newton would have never been hit by that apple, which would have been flung sideways.

The Flat Earth Society retort to this is, “Sphere earth gravity is not tenable in any way shape or form,” an assertion it supports with no research, experiments, or evidence. Again, you can lead them to the scientific waters, but you can’t make them drink.