A holiday warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

Obama's to-do list

In a few hours it will start being 2016 in the US. As Obama enters his last full year in office, I have to say he's put off too many parts of his agenda until the last minute. He's never going to accomplish all of these in one year. Just look at this list. He needs to:

• Grab all our guns
• Outlaw Christmas
• Start a race war
• Make everyone use Common Core math
• Enact Shariah law
• Send all of the Real Americans (tm) to FEMA reeducation camps
• Play lots of golf
• Abolish golf
• Seize all the Bibles
• Make kids eat their vegetables
• Assign one transgender person to each public restroom and gym shower
• Ban cars
• Invade Texas
• Get whitey
• Declare himself the Messiah
• Something something EBOLA!
• Homosexualize all the children
• Arrest Glenn Beck
• Form a private army out of the Crips and the Bloods
• Suspend the Constitution so he can have a third term
• Import millions of Islamic terrorists
• Give telephones to all the undeserving people
• Make us press 2 for English

It's not going to be easy for Obama to institute his thousand year rule of evil on this schedule. Even now, conservative Facebookers are arming themselves with their most powerful Sam Elliot you-must-be-a-special-kind-of-stupid memes. He's going to need our help to accomplish his full evil agenda. I, for one, pledge to spend every penny George Soros sends me being a PC as I can on social media. What will you do?

A holiday warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

Flaming plagiarism from the skies!

I haven't done a good plagiarism story in a long time.

For the last couple of months, conspiracy and prophecy nuts have been fixated on mid-September as the time when something big is going to happen. They don't agree on the details, but a giant comet or asteroid hitting the earth has emerged as the favorite. Hunt online and you'll find dozens of blog posts and YouTube videos screaming that NASA has confirmed that a 2.5 mile-wide something is going to splash down into the Caribbean. And, as with the Mayan calendar and/or Niburu nonsense, NASA has finally had to issue a stop-being-silly press release.

I read the story about the press release in the British tabloid The Daily Mail. Toward the end of the short article, they linked to Huffington Post UK for details on one element of the conspiracy theory. I clicked through and found a slightly longer version of the same article. The first few sentences were so similar that I went back to the Mail to to see if they were both by the same writer. They're not. The HuffPo version is by Sara C. Nelson, the Mail version by Ellie Zolfagharifard. According to the timestamps, the HuffPo version went up thirteen hours earlier than the Mail version.

Take a look:

HuffPo: A gargantuan asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, with enough power to wipe out life as we know it.

The Mail: A massive asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, and it is large enough to spell the end of humanity.


HuffPo: That’s the belief of an online community of biblical theorists who predict our collective demise will occur between 22 – 28 September 2015.

The Mail: This is the radical claim of an online community of biblical theorists who say that life as we know it will be wiped out between 22 to 28 September this year.


HuffPo: Though sources are dubious, chatter about the impending end of life as we know it has prompted Nasa to speak up.

The Mail: Despite their lack of credentials, the popularity of the prediction has now forced Nasa to speak up, dismissing the theory as unfounded.


HuffPo: Other similarly questionable sources cite a meeting between French foreign minister Laurent Fabius and US Secretary of State John Kerry in May 2014 as being further evidence the Rapture is approaching.

The Mail: Some cite a meeting between French foreign minister Laurent Fabius and US Secretary of State John Kerry in May 2014 is further evidence the Rapture is approaching, according to the Huffington Post.


HuffPo: At odds with talk of the Rapture, however, is the theory that the asteroid isn’t going to get us – but the CERN Large Hadron Collider will.

The Mail: Others have even predicted the events will be started by Cern's Large Hadron Collider.


HuffPo: One blogger points out: “The CERN logo is 666, the sign of the beast in a circle.”

The Mail: One blogger, said: 'The Cern logo is 666, the sign of the beast in a circle. The Cern collider looks like the all seeing eye or stargate we see so much of.'


I don't know the peculiarities of British news publishing or whether HuffPo and the Mail have some kind of arrangement that makes this possible, but, from my seat, it looks like a big steaming mess of plagiarism seasoned with a generous dose of chutzpah.

A Holiday Warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

I, mini-Snopes

In all the time I've been blogging, I've often checked out where people come from when they visit archy, but I've never looked their entrance page. That's the one  that tells me what they were looking for. About two weeks ago I started doing that and was amazed to see that most people were coming to look at an old Snopes-style debunking posts I'd written. Because there is a real Snopes out there, it had never occurred to me that my debunking had anymore value than just me blowing off steam. It just drives me crazy that people I know and like get taken in by chain letter like things on Facebook. The specific one that has been getting the most attention is this one playing on resentment towards the supposed cornucopia of benefits that undocumented immigrants get for coming to America.

When I mentioned this on Facebook, I suggested maybe I should open my own mini-Snopes. A couple friends said maybe I should. Thinking about it, I wish I could. The post I'm working on right now is a perfect example of the problem with this sort of rumor-mongering. There is an anti-gun control piece spreading across the internet today. A very little bit of research (really, less than a minute) revealed that it's BS. By the time I started looking into it, the lie had been picked up by two very big right wing sites. From there over 6000 blogs, fora, and what-have-yous had picked it up and were spreading it. Those who were brave enough to leave the right wing bubble were using it to troll left wing and moderate sites.

After hours of research and writing, I'll put my debunking up on my blog. I will. But, about seventy-five people a day visit my blog. I have no idea how many actually look at my front page or just determine that I have no nude pictures of Ann Coulter and move on. If people Google around trying to find out if something like this is true, where will my little blog rank on the six hundred pages of results? If Snopes picks it up--they might or they might not--they'll rank several hundred pages above me. I wish there were hundreds of mini-Snopses out there, even if they are just people who copy/paste our debunkings into fora after the right wing bubble children copy/paste their unsubstantiated propaganda there.

Moving back a couple paragraphs, for me, what is the cost-benefit analysis for doing this? On the plus side: 1) it allows me to blow off steam when I see my friends being manipulated, 2) I might educate them, and 3) they might be a little less credulous in the future. Okay, I put that last one in there for humorous purposes; no one escapes their bubble. Which leads us to 4) I'm funnier than Scopes. That helps.

On the minus side: 1) comprehensively researching these things takes a lot of time. Look at my debunking of the 90-foot plum tree. This is something I've been pondering for years. I own many of the sources I needed to research it. I spent well over a week writing that piece, off and on with my serious writing. For each of these Scopes things, I need to bring myself up to speed in a new field, track down the origin of the rumor, compose and write a response. And, it's best if I do it in a couple of news cycles. 2) There is more to number 1), but we needed a break here. Okay; are we all rested up? Good. 3) We were talking about how long this takes. Writing one of these things within news cycle time can take all of my time for a full day. For reasons I have mentioned before, I have very little free time. I must finish the book. Short breaks to write these things is good for clearing my mind for more mammoth writing; longer breaks fall into the minus side of the cost-benefit analysis.

So, four small things for, and one very, very large thing against. The objections really come down to two: 1) no one will notice (lots of linky-love will help there (PZ, I'm looking at you)) and 2) Time is money and I can't afford either. Is it worth trying to monetize such a small blog? The mighty and majestic Bora Zivkovic seems to think it is. I've always been shy of this because getting a 33 cent check each month would just be an insult I don't need to invite. However, if I had some money coming in from the blog, it might justify the time spent giving the rubes what they want (that's a literary reference and not an insult. Okay?).

Apropos of nothing, I wonder if blogging has hurt the business of talk therapists. Read the debunking I linked to. Read the one I'll probably finish tomorrow (depending on your timezone). Now that the comments are working again, give me your advice. Or just anonymously send me your money. I'm sure we can make that work.

A holiday warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

A holiday warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

A holiday warning

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

A timly warning; a holiday tradition

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

Obama really born in East Africa!!!

I can't wait until the birthers get hold of this.

Recently, [Rhino Fund Uganda] celebrated the birth of the first rhino born in Uganda after 27 years of regional extinction - and the baby rhino has been named “Obama.”

Image source and more pictures: Rhino Fund Uganda

The next moment of hysteria

He made it. There was no last minute coup by Cheney or other catastrophe to bar the change of power. The world is once again safe for democracy. I notice that the sun seems brighter, the air sweeter, and food tastes better since noon (eastern time). Clever Wife and I watched the transfer of power and then turned the TV off. The aimless blithering by talking heads was a little much for us.
There was an odd moment when Obama stepped up to give the oath of office with Chief Justice Roberts. They had trouble getting started. After giving his name, it seemed like Obama wasn't sure what the words were and was waiting for extra prompting from Roberts. Then they talked over each other before finishing the oath without additional glitches. That impression is doubly odd when you consider how well Obama usually so well prepared in public. After all, the oath is only thirty-five words long*; how hard is that to memorize? In fact, the fault was not with Obama; it was Roberts' fumble that created the confusion. Obama's pause was to give Roberts a chance to correct himself. The correct oath begins:

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States...

What Roberts said was:

I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully...

The complete exchange (according to ABC news) went like this:

ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama...

OBAMA: I, Barack...

ROBERTS: ... do solemnly swear...

OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...

ROBERTS: ... that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully...

OBAMA: ... that I will execute...

ROBERTS: ... faithfully the office of president of the United States...

OBAMA: ... the office of president of the United States faithfully...

ROBERTS: ... and will to the best of my ability...

OBAMA: ... and will to the best of my ability...

ROBERTS: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

OBAMA: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

ROBERTS: So help you God?

OBAMA: So help me God.

I'm dwelling on this at length because I think we'll be hearing a lot about it from far right bloggers and the conspiracy and militia crowds. Because of the fumble, many of them will, no doubt, claim that Obama isn't really the president. The militia crowd is especially prone to according a near magical power to words. One of the arguments they make about why the income tax is illegal is based on a claim that the texts of the Sixteenth Amendment passed by the various states didn't all have the exact same punctuation. Another argument--the one where they claim to be something called "sovereign citizens"--rests upon the idea that reciting certain words can exempt you from laws you don't like. I'm not sure what implication they will draw from the idea that Obama isn't the president. If he is not, does that mean Bush is still president, or does it mean Biden is? Will some claim that we have no president? Would that mean the central government has ceased to exist? Will the Malkinites' heads explode? Does the Pope poo in the woods? Stay tuned for further developments.
* Not counting the new president's name or "...so help me God." "So help me God" is not part of the Constitutionally mandated oath. The founding generation was careful about avoiding such blatant subversions of the separation of church and state. It's something that later generations have added and made traditional as part of the creeping religiousization of our national rites and symbols.

A timely warning, revisited

This is a rerun of a post I wrote around this time a few years ago. I think it's still relevant.

*********

The men in black (MIB) entered UFO lore in 1956 in a book entitled They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. The author was one Gray Barker who had been a member of one of the first American UFO groups, the rather ambitiously named International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB). Though Barker's book dealt with a number of paranormal topics, the largest part of it dealt with his former boss, IFSB founder Albert Bender.

In 1953 the IFSB was about two years old with a few hundred dues paying members (called "investigators") who all received the Bureau's newsletter Space Review. The group was doing well enough when, in October 1953, Bender suddenly stopped publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB. The last issue of the news letter gave only this explanation.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative.

According to Barker, the reason Bender had so abruptly ended the group was that three mysterious men in black had visited Bender and warned him off. But before they did, the MIBs were good enough to explain at least part of the true secret of the flying saucers. UFOs, they said, actually come from Antarctica. They have bases in both polar regions and regularly fly between them. Bender told a different story in his own book in 1963.

Enough UFO stories end with the craft departing due north or south that Barker's version of Bender's visitors has been adopted by conspiracy theorists who believe in a decidedly terrestrial origin for saucers. My personal favorite version is that saucers and MIBs are Atlanteans from within the hollow earth, but the theory that they are Nazi refugees from super-scientific bases beneath the ice cap has its devotees, too.

The MIBs are the key to the mystery. The most mundane explanation that has been offered is that they work for the American government and that they are trying to hide the truth about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. But that could itself be disinformation. No government has the ability to do what the MIBs do. Think for a moment about the men in black. They have appeared all over the world. They have a special interest in unidentified flying objects and in protecting the polar regions. They seem to actually know what is in the minds of the people they visit. Who has the ability to manage an intelligence network like that? Ask yourself: Who has the ability to travel everywhere, at any time, and even seemingly to appear in two places at once? Who has a special interest in protecting the polar regions? Who knows when you are sleeping? Who knows when you are awake? Who knows if you've been good or bad?

I think you know the answer.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and be good for goodness sake.

What do they want?

My friend David Neiwert has a nice little summary of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy crowd up at Crooks and Liars. Naturally, this conspiracy theory has been embraced by the white supremacist/nationalist crowd. Several groups treated the election as a big recruiting telethon, but, now that the black guy actually has been elected, the fun is over and they're scared. The citizenship silliness is their last hope of keeping him from becoming the most powerful person in the United States after Warren Buffet, Oprah, and the judges on "American Idol". There is a strong overlap between the anti-immigrant, white supremacist, militia, and anti-tax crowds. Bob Schultz, one of the primary promoters of this conspiracy theory, is, in fact, an anti-tax nut whose main business has been selling his schemes to gullible white supremacists and militia members. By championing this cause he increases his visibility among his client base.

It's easy to understand Schultz's possible mercenary motives and to understand the fear of the out-and-out racists, but what about the others? This wacky theory has been picked up by others who are not especially racist. What do they expect to happen if they're right and some court goes along with them? Declaring Obama ineligible to become president won't make McCain the next president. We don't vote for presidential candidates; we vote for the electors who choose the president. If Obama is ineligible the Democratic electors will simply choose another Democrat to be president--probably Biden, but there is nothing that would prevent them from picking Hillary Clinton or me for that matter (though I admit I'd be something a dark horse candidate). It strikes me that this is just a tantrum on the part of some wingnuts. They're going to kick and scream and hold their breaths until they turn blue to stop the country from turning blue. They need to grow up.

It can't happen here

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money (but no serial commas) has a silly fantasy about what might happen if Obama really is the Muslim Manchurian candidate that the Corner gang seem to think he is. The scenario he portrays is so beyond the bounds of plausible that it should be read only to reassure ourselves that we are safe from such things.

Just wondering

Am I the only one who finds the conservative cult of personality that has emerged around General Petrais a little creepy and more than a little un-American? They did the same thing with Bush during his first term. Now that he's damaged goods, they've transferred their affections to the general. Listening to Palin last night and others over the last few months, it sounds like they are talking him up in preparation for a coup--General Petrais, savior of the republic.

Last thoughts on Tunguska

After collecting as many wild theories as I could, and I didn't include all of them in the article, the most surprising thing to me is that I couldn't find one that blamed the blast on the Jews and Freemasons. Now that's weird.

The view from Marrs

John McCain has a problem with the religious right. When he ran for president in 2000, he let his mavrickness get the best of him and he failed to be properly obsequious toward the irrational wing of the Republican Party. He refused to make a pilgrimage to Bob Jones University and slammed Bush for doing so. In 2002 he famously called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." The religious right made McCain pay, so when he prepared to run this year, he changed his tune from straight talk to singing the praises of those whom he had just condemned. He gave the 2006 commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University and hinted that he would love to appear at BJU if only they would invite him. He arranged a series of summits with various conservative evangelical leaders to woo their support.

But conservative evangelical leaders have big egos and long memories and the results for McCain have been mixed. John Hagee and Ron Paisley have given McCain the endorsements he wanted, but Robertson has not and James Dobson has loudly hinted at supporting a third party candidate rather than McCain. Still further out on the political spectrum, the resistance to McCain is even stronger. In the sales pitch for his "Exclusive Intelligence Examiner Report" conspiracy writer and leader of the "Power of Prophecy" ministry Texe Marrs lets us know what the far, far religious right thinks of McCain. It's not pretty.

Senator John McCain is clearly favored for President by Israel and the Jewish billionaires who secretly control America’s Washington, D.C. political and banking establishments. In this exclusive report, Texe Marrs reveals why this is so. Discover the startling facts about the Rothschilds’ funding of McCain’s insane bloodlust to kill and ravage Iran and any other nation that doesn’t bow down before Israel’s warmongering machine; McCain’s many sexual infidelities; McCain’s plan to increase taxes on ordinary Americans ten-fold to pay for a disastrous World War III; McCain’s handlers, like the Mossad’s chief stooge, Senator Joe Lieberman; McCain’s father, Admiral John McCain, butcher and anti-American traitor who permitted Israel’s Air Force to savagely attack the U.S. Navy’s Liberty vessel and kill scores of courageous American sailors; McCain’s close relationship to Neocon crazies like Pastor John Hagee and the bigoted Jewish rabbis who are clamoring for more blood and treasure to be heaped for Israel’s benefit. If this evil man is elected President, he will destroy America as a nation and push us into the North American Union. This wicked, dark reprobate must not be allowed to occupy the highest political office in the nation.

This is just the teaser and sales pitch. Marrs promises to go into all the gory details in his investigative report John McCain: Rothschild Puppet, Conservative Chameleon, Zionist Warmonger available in CD for a mere $8.00 plus postage and handling. I think I'll be saving my money. Marrs is recycling the same antisemitic, Illuminati conspiracy claims that have been made about every American president and presidential candidate since FDR. We've seen it before.

The Rodney Dangerfield of terror

The latest tape from al Qayda second banana Ayman al-Zawahiri complains that al Qayda doesn't get any respect. First Saddam got the credit for 9/11; now Iran is trying to hog the credit.

In a two-hour audiotape posted on an Islamist website, Osama Bin Laden's chief deputy responded to questions posted by al-Qaeda sympathisers.

In response to a question about persistent rumours in the Middle East that Israel was involved in the 9/11 attacks, Zawahiri said the rumour had begun on the Hezbollah television station, Al-Manar.

"The purpose of this lie is clear - [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history, he said.

"Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it."

And what's the deal with the in-flight meals? If you weren't planning on commandeering the plane and taking everyone on board to a fiery death before eating the meal, you will after. Some days it just doesn't pay to be the scourge of humanity. Thank you. I'll be here all week. And don't forget to stone the waitresses for being filthy Jezebels.

Glenn Beck is an idiot--Olympics edition

That Beck is an idiot is hardly a new or surprising thing to say. Glenn Beck's whole public persona is that of a loud mouthed idiot brother-in-law. It is people like Beck who have made "angry white guy" and "conservative talk radio" synonymous. Nevertheless, his latest conspiracy screed is so incoherent that it should make even the most die hard conspiracy nuts cringe in embarrassment for the genre.

The background of Beck's comments is a recent news story that the Pentagon had accidentally sent some parts for a nuclear warhead to Taiwan. Back in late 2006, the government of Taiwan ordered four replacement battery packs for UH-1 Huey helicopters from the Defense Logistics Agency, a branch of the US Department of Defense. Instead of batteries, the DLA sent four trigger assemblies for the warheads on Minuteman ballistic missiles.* We only even knew the parts were missing when the Taiwanese military went looking for their batteries and instead found missile fuses. The mainland Chinese are extremely sensitive about weapons sales to Taiwan and have protested.

Beck, of course, sees a conspiracy at work here. He thinks we intentionally sent those bomb parts to Taiwan in order to sell tickets to the Olympics.

This is the CNN transcript from his March 25 show. It's a rush transcript, so some of the incoherence will be due to transcription error. But even shifting the maximum blame possible to the transcription service can't save Beck.

The Pentagon discovered a little bit of an oopsy when they found out what happened today. It was revealed that we mistakenly shipped nuclear triggers to Taiwan. How exactly -- where did I put those nuclear triggers? Why are we shipping them. Who`s shipping them? How did it happen? Sending nuclear triggers to Taiwan. Kind of a big deal because it might piss China off just a bit.

Apparently, we`ve decided antagonizing companies [countries?] that have 1.3 billion people, not a good idea question was, why do we ship these triggers? The bigger question to me is they`re nuclear triggers. Why would we put them in a box in the first place and then send them to Taiwan.

In the last paragraph, he called the shipment an "oopsy" and "mistaken," but the true paranoid conspiracy nut knows there are no mistakes. Someone sent those triggers intentionally. "They" wanted Taiwan to have those triggers as part of a larger, no doubt sinister, plan.

I do have a theory, it`s the only one that makes sense. The Olympics are coming up, right? Nobody seems to care. You know, back in the '80s, when I was growing up in the 70s, we had the Soviet Union, it was fun to root against them.

Got that? Back in the eighties, when the rest of us were living through the Reagan years, Beck was still growing up in the seventies. He's trapped in some weird time warp ten years behind the rest of us. This could explain a lot.

You know, would we boycott those Olympics? No. Would they boycott ours? No.

On the other hand, maybe he missed the eighties completely. If He had lived through that decade he might remember that we did boycott the Moscow Olympics and the Soviets did boycott the Los Angeles Olympics.

The miracle of ice happened, right? People cared about the Olympics. It was great, we had an enemy. Well, we`re still acting now like Russia is our friend, they`re not and Al Qaeda doesn't really have a strong 400-meter relay team despite all the training they seem to produce with the monkey bars. That`s weird but we`ll get into that later. So, why not ignite tension by sending nuclear triggers to China`s enemy. And suddenly, everybody cares about the triple jump again.

Is he trying to be funny? I can't find a video of the show, so I can't tell. Even if I did have a video, I probably wouldn't be able to tell. As I have often said, conservative humor is no laughing matter. That goes double for Beck.

Whether or not he's trying to be funny, one thing that stands outin his babbling is the nostalgia for the Cold War. The Conservative coalition of the Reagan years was largely held together by fear and hatred of Communism. Conservatives need an enemy. For the last last fifteen years they have variously tried to use American pop culture, liberal values, Islam, Darwin, and hordes of brown foreigners as a unifying enemy, but none has worked as well as Communism to hold the old coalition together. By rebranding the Party from the conservative party to the fundamentalist Christian party, they have managed to combine the first four of those boogey men into a coherent narrative, but it has been at the risk of driving secular conservatives out of the party. Beck seems, jokingly or not, to be suggesting that if they could only get a good hate going for "Red" China things might return to the good old days. If that is the conspiracy, then he's part of it.

* This is an incredible mistake. The triggering mechanism is the hardest part of a nuclear weapon for aspiring members of the nuclear club to manufacture or acquire. It is on par with the nuclear fuel itself. The triggers should have been kept under the tightest security. Instead, they were misplaced and no one even knew they were missing for three years. How did this happen? There will be an investigation, but one fact already leaps out. The Defense Logistics Agency has privatized the management of their parts inventories and this most secret of secret technology was left in the hands of an insufficiently supervised contractor.