Conspiracy Theories – Page 2

Baby, It’s Politically Correct Outside…

I must have travelled to another universe because when I awoke, the world had gone mad. Radio stations were pulling a popular, rather over-played, 74-year-old, playful holiday song because some folks thought it was about rape. Sexual assault. Or at least non-consensual sex. The media was full of Chicken Littles screaming that the cultural sky was falling if radio stations continued to play it. The song was subject of weighty opinions on editorial pages. What is going on in this strange, politically correct and apparently unhinged universe? Let me back up. Two items appeared simultaneously on my Facebook timeline this week: … click below for more ↓

More rapture, less reality

2018-04-18 2018-06-24 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

According to some, the rapture is coming again, April 23. I’m so tired of this event. I’m still cleaning up after the last rapture. And the one before that. And the one before that, and before that, and before that… it’s even more frequent than an annual event. But next week it’ll come again. the whole shebang: Christians rising from the dead, the messiah prancing about, angels flitting about like birds, the confetti, the glitter, champagne corks and party balloons all over the place. Raptures are always such a mess. Seriously. April 23, according to a report on Faux News. … click below for more ↓

Raw water: the New Age death wish

2018-01-05 2018-01-07 Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Diet Fads / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery3 Comments

Would you willingly expose yourself to cholera? While treatable, this highly infectious disease causes great physical distress and suffering to its victims, and is even fatal to some. Most readers have never experienced it because it’s rather a rarity in developed nations, those that have the benefit of modern water and wastewater treatment systems. That’s thanks to decades of stringent and effective health and safety standards and constantly improving treatment systems. But for some, it seems, those systems are a terrible burden; a worrisome threat to their natural state. The very notion of clean, hygienic water bereft of bacteria and … click below for more ↓

Oumuamua: just a piece of rock

2017-12-14 2017-12-16 Astronomy & Cosmology / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery4 Comments

If you can watch the whole bit of this piece of New Age woo hoo without flinching or giving up, you will likely shake your head at the utter, mindless gullibility of humankind. And it’s not even political. But by now you know the Net is crammed full of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, food fads, creationism, homeopathy and other claptrap. And you already have seen how the wingnuts can easily bend and twist everything, taking stuff out of context or simply making it up to suit their wacky beliefs. The latest codswallop is that scientists claim a tumbling cigar- shaped (or … click below for more ↓

Why the panic over Julie Payette?

2017-11-05 2017-11-06 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Canadian Politics / Conspiracy Theories / Creationism / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Politics / Pseudoscience & QuackeryOne Comment

Governor General Julie Payette made comments in a speech to the Canadian Science Policy Conference on Nov. 1 in which she encouraged her audience at a science convention to ignore misinformation, fantasy and conspiracy theory, to support facts and science, and to engage in “learned debate.” That has the right furious, and as is their wont, making both fallacious claims about her words while launching ad hominem attacks against her. It’s particularly galling to the right that not only is Payette a woman, she’s smart and accomplished: a former astronaut and an engineer. That means the right gets wildly incensed … click below for more ↓

It’s about the process, stupid…

2017-10-31 2017-10-31 Blog & Blogging / Collingwood / Conspiracy Theories / Council / Critical Thinking / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Personal Reminiscences / Political fads / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

My negative comments on the impending privatization of our electrical utility (and potentially our water utility once the first deal is sealed) drew some online criticism recently. None of those critics refuted any of the facts I offered, or attempted to debunk any of the numerous documents I quoted and linked to. Nor could they. After all, they are easily proven, well-documented facts. But still, they called me a liar and attempted to use other cheap ad hominem tactics to discredit me.* However, regardless of their like or dislike of me, the facts remain, the facts speak for themselves. Facts … click below for more ↓

The ignorati rise

2017-10-14 2017-10-14 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery2 Comments

Chapman University recently published the results of a depressing, but hardly surprising, survey that shows American believe in codswallop continue to rise. Not political codswallop – this is the supernatural, paranormal, wingnut type. And the numbers are huge. Or yuge as the ignorati-in-chief would say. The article notes, “nearly three-fourths of Americans do believe in something paranormal.” While we expect that sort of muddle-headed, superstitious thinking to be widespread in the 13th century, that’s truly sad in the 21st century. And we don’t expect it in the country that put a man on the moon, invented the iPad and the … click below for more ↓

Nibiru apocalypse failed again

2017-09-24 2017-09-24 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop5 Comments

Since you’re reading this, the world didn’t end, Saturday. Again. Damn… All those wacky “predictions” from the fringe of the ignorati didn’t come true. Again. Not that that’s surprising: what’s surprising is that these conspiracy-minded folk keep proposing the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) over and over, often regurgitating the same nonsense, just with new dates. And yet they keep missing the mark. Yesterday was no exception. Here we are, bereft of another apocalypse on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning. Damn. According to the wingnuts, the imaginary planet “Nibiru” (also spelled Niburu) was supposed to show up … click below for more ↓

WiFi hysteria again

2017-04-09 2017-04-09 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Every so often, old crackpot ideas, hoaxes, cons and plainly silly pseudoscience resurface online under the guise of Trump-like alternate fact. Scary stories about chemicals in your food, fake health tips, and Facebook-stealing-your-photos nonsense compete for attention with actual news and factual stories. The old bromide about wireless signals (WiFi) killing things is just one to come back to life this week on Facebook. (You already know Facebook isn’t a reliable source of anything factual, even though factual content does get shared now and then. More common are the wingnut conspiracies, hoaxes and codswallop, along with cute kitten videos. Facebook … click below for more ↓

Antarctica’s icy hoaxes return

2017-03-24 2017-03-24 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

Under the thick ice of Antarctica lies buried the remains of an advanced civilization, dating back 55,000-65,000 years. So startling was this discovery that world leaders were flown in to the perennially frozen continent to witness for themselves the proof of alien presence on our planet. Or not. Well, really not. Not at all. You don’t really believe that claptrap about Antarctica, do you? I tried to warn you about this malarky in 2013. It’s a hoax that just won’t die. Or rather a series of hoaxes. No, there’s no buried civilization on the southern continent. Humans can barely survive … click below for more ↓

Microsoft killed solitaire for me

2017-01-05 2018-04-19 Computers & Programming / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Games & Gaming / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

Solitaire – also known as Klondike and Patience – is a very popular game on computers. So popular, in fact that a version of this 200-year-old card game has been included by Microsoft in every version of Windows since 3.0 (1990), aside from a brief hiatus with Win 8 (which gap was filled in by third-party versions). Microsoft has even launched a version for iOS, playable on the Mac, iPhone and iPad. And according to some reports, it is the most widely used program by Windows users by a long shot. More than Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint and Explorer. Writer … click below for more ↓

TEOTWAWKI, New Year’s Eve

2016-12-26 2016-12-24 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Christianity / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Faith / New Age CodswallopLeave a comment

Some religious wingnuts aren’t planning to celebrate the ringing in of the New Year, 2017. Nope: they’re going to await the arrival of their zombie deity who, one can only suppose, will be bringing the champagne to his own party when he returns from the dead. The end of the world party, of course. And another day that, for the rest of us, will pass by with nothing happening, end-of-the-world-deity-arising-wise. According to a story in Christian Today (which judging by the click-bait ad content and non-stop video ads is not all that serious about its religion but sure likes the … click below for more ↓

The 10 Worst?

2016-10-24 2016-10-24 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Creationism / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryOne Comment

Skeptoid just published its top-ten worst anti-science websites and I’m sure you won’t be surprised at the awardees, especially not the regulars like Mercola, Dr. Oz, Deepak Chopra and Food Babe (aka the Worst Assault on Science on the Internet). Predatory quacks, crackpots and fakirs you will easily recognize. Surprisingly, the uber-wingnut David Wolfe was absent this year. Some of these sites sugar-coat their nonsense with pseudo-spirituality, usually some mashup of New Age codswallop and ancient mumbo-jumbo. Many ascribe their claptrap to traditional – non-medical, unproven and anti-science – practices like ayurveda or Chinese folk medicine, both of which can not … click below for more ↓

Flat earthers? Must be a spoof…

2016-09-01 2022-02-03 Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery7 Comments

At first, I thought a story on Tech.mic titled “Meet the People Who Believe the Earth Is Flat” was satire. You know, a parody of those zany conspiracy theorists who believe in such nonsense as chemtrails, gluten-free, the government staged the 9/11 attacks, homeopathy, vaccines cause autism, Trump is a good presidential candidate, astrology, creationism, climate change is a hoax, Collingwood Council has ethics, and the rest of the rampant silliness and stupidity that haunts the Net. And it would be easy to write: wingnuts are almost too easy to lampoon. But no one can really believe the earth is flat, … click below for more ↓

Nibiru nuttiness

2016-04-14 2016-06-01 Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery2 Comments

I’ve written about the wingnuts and their mysterious planet Nibiru – the so-called Planet X – in the past. It’s one of the furthest wacky conspiracies on the fringe of wackiness, and fairly recent. It mostly sprang whole cloth from the brain (if I can call it that…) of uber-wingnut Nancy Lieder, whose website, ZetaTalk, has been spewing diaphanous piffle of the most banal sort since 1995. Lieder claims to be in psychic contact with aliens called the Zetas (stop laughing), and has conned a whole bunch of exceptionally gullible folks into believing her (although there have been some bitch-slap moments with … click below for more ↓