Sto pro veritate

Travellrev, over at Aotearoa: a wider perspective, has had enough! Not for the first time, though, she’s made a few, presumably inadvertent, errors in her post. Since I’m banned from commenting over there, I thought I’d just post a corrected version here…

Nothing to see here…

OpenUrEyes, in best copy’n'paste fashion, reports (via PrisonPlanet)…

True scale of nuclear crisis suppressed by Japanese authorities, aided by castrated and slavish mass media.

Emphasis mine. So, wow — the castrated and slavish mass media, eh? Keeping us in the dark, down-playing the threat, lulling us into a false sense of security!? How dare they! So, just how is the world’s mainstream media candy-coating this impending disaster?

• Today’s Wellington’s Dom Post front page: “Apocalypse Now!”
• The UK Telegraph: “Japan crisis: meltdown alert raises spectre of nuclear nightmare‎”
• The Australian: “Pump failure raises meltdown risk“
• World Magazine: “Japan faces threat of nuclear disaster“

Well, you can see how the fears of the ‘sheeple’ would be alleviated by that kind of rose-tinted glasses reporting, couldn’t you?

Hilariously enough, having criticised the MSM for their lack of coverage, the Prison Planet article bases its own story on information gleaned from the BBC, the Seattle Times, the National Journal, Australia’s ABC, and even (really) Fox News.

Furthermore, after some poking around teh intawebs on the topic, you can find this Guardian report: Japan radiation leaks feared as nuclear experts point to possible cover-up, which is pretty similar (in its informational content, if not quite the same breathless tone) as the PrisonPlanet piece, stating, amongst other things, that…

Nuclear experts have thrown doubt on the accuracy of official information issued about the Fukushima nuclear accident, saying that it followed a pattern of secrecy and cover-ups employed in other nuclear accidents … ”The actions of the Japanese government are completely contrary to their words. They have evacuated 180,000 people but say there is no radiation. They are certain to have readings but we are being told nothing.”

You know, if this is the MSM trying to assist in a cover-up, I don’t think they’re doing a very good job.

UPDATE! A follow-up piece from OpenUrEyes, again with the assertion that “The Nuclear Crisis In Japan Is Much Worse Than Either The Mainstream Media Or The Japanese Government Have Been Telling Us”. And the sources for the “27 Signs That The Nuclear Crisis In Japan Is Much Worse Than Either The Mainstream Media Or The Japanese Government Have Been Telling Us”? Let’s see: the Japanese Government, Reuters, the Telegraph, Haaertz, CNBC, the Daily Mail, the Wall Street Journal, the Helsinki Times, the Times of India and CNN.

Sigh.

Belief ≠ Science

I see Contrails North NZ has already covered this topic pretty well, but I thought I’d add my own thoughts, as it really is a story packed to the brim with head-against-brickwall ignorance. The gist of the story is such: NZ Member of Parliament Jim Anderton has replied to a chemtrail-hoaxer’s letter by asking for scientific proof. To quote a bit of Jim’s reply…

…I do not have any scientific credentials myself, and is the case in such circumstances I have to rely on those who do. The source you quote does not seem to have any such credentials either, and I have seen no evidence to date to suggest that the claim you make has any scientific foundation.

Well, he wouldn’t have, would he — there isn’t any. Of course, Clare & co. have had to think of how they might get some of this so-called ‘scientific evidence’. Bill Blyth suggests non-scientists using the scientific method might be in with a shot. He undermines this sensible suggestion by alluding to the fact that the existence of ‘chemtrails’ is just blindingly obvious, and draws on this analogy:

…would you need a scientific report if a tsunami was ariving in ten minutes, of cause not.” (sic)

Well, actually, unless you’d felt the earthquake that had triggered the tsunami and suspected one might be on the way, you would need a scientific report; probably relayed by a non-scientifically worded alert from the media or civil defense, but a scientifically-sourced report nonetheless. Anyway…

The problem is, of course, that no chemtrail-hoaxers ever get to the ‘experimentation’ step of the process. Instead of doing any sort of logical scientfic analysis, they tend to see a persistent contrail, at which point they jump straight to the ‘draw conclusion’ step of the process (“it’s a chemtrail!”) and call it quits.

You can see a classic example of such non-science on a subsequent post (in fact, you could just about pick any post at random, but anyway): Person sees ‘chemtrail’. Person gets sick. Thus ‘chemtrail’ has caused ‘illness’. The complete lack of any scientific rationale there is mind-boggling. Has Whitianga really been hit with wave of inexplicable disease? Has anyone checked?

It’s actually a hypothesis that is often suggested by chemtrail-hoaxers (that we’re being sprayed with various diseases in some sort of depopulation programme), and one that you’d think would be pretty easy to analyse. If you see ‘chemtrails’ (A), check hospital admissions (B). If  (A) leads to an unexpected increase in (B) then you’ve got a working hypothesis! This approach was even suggested to Clare Swinney over at Uncensored a while back, but such suggestions just lead to the usual cries of ‘disinformation agent’. Sigh.

Paeroa weighs in with, again, some sensible suggestions, which are, again, undermined by glaring problems:

A team could be assembled to interview on video, people suffering from the classic symptoms of being exposed to the sprays.

Just what are the ‘classic symptoms’? How do you prove it’s caused by the ‘chemtrails’? Oh, hold on, Paeroa continues:

Difficult to prove it’s caused by chemtrails, just need to show there is something very wrong occurring in our environment and the health issues can be linked to the common chemicals used in the spraying.

On the first point – dead right. On the second point, there very likely are problems with our environment that are causing health issues for some people, but to pin it on persistent contrails is a stretch, at best.

Still, maybe it’s a step in the right direction. If some of the chemtrail-hoaxers do apply a little scientific scrutiny to their hare-brained theories, they might well discover they’ve been woefully misguided, and decide to put their energies into some sort of activism that better serves the community. We can but hope.

Cloud seeding in China?

A screen shot for posterity

You really have to wonder whether or not chemtrail-hoaxers even bother to check their sources when making their various accusations.

Clare’s posted a list of various videos showing various clouds and contrails from a mix’n'match of media sources. (This includes some Warner Bros. cartoons that date back to the 1950s, presumably long before the modern ‘geoengineering’ conspiracy that is Clare’s new theory du jour came into being — let’s put that aside for now).

The one that piqued my interest was the last video, entitled, interestingly enough: “CHEMTRAILS ADMITED BY CHINA (see correction below)”.

So, has China ‘admitted’ to laying chemtrails? And just what did this correction have to say? Turns out…

CHINA USES WEATHER MODIFICATION TO MAKE IT SNOW.. BUT THAT KINDA STUFF IS CONSPIRACY… RIGHT? * THIS IS ABOUT CLOUD SEEDING… SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION

So, the video’s actually about cloud-seeding? Indeed, if you watch it, that’s exactly what it’s about — and there’s no sign of chemtrails. The cloud-seeding is being done by shooting cigarette-sized sticks of silver iodide (not aluminium, or barium, then) at clouds.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I would also like to direct people to this series of comments (for as long as they last, archived here). Not only for another example of Clare’s breathtakingly hypocritical attitude as to what is and isn’t acceptable as evidence, but also for that fact that it looks like there’s a new “disinformation agent” on the block! (Although, I didn’t get the memo. The NWO really needs to get its internal comms sorted out…)

Why argue the point?

Craego, a commenter over at Northland NZ Chemtrails asks a good question of those of us who spend time debunking chemtrail believers [edit: comment has now been deleted, presumably in another bout of site 'cleansing' by Clare] …

LMFAO now WHY would anyone with half a brain waste their time creating a webpage trying to PROVE that something they believe doesnt exist, does not in fact exist??

Yes indeed, a question that requires a LMFAO and a two question marks! (And no apostrophes). That aside, why do we do it?

Now, my ‘debunking’ days started when I was browsing through YouTube one evening, and stumbled across a video showing what it purported to be ‘chemtrails’. To me, they looked like normal contrails, so I asked the poster why they thought they were ‘chemtrails’. The answer: ‘because real contrails don’t persist for more than a few seconds’. I was pretty sure this wasn’t right, so I asked a meterorologist and a commercial pilot about the science behind contrails. Of course, the fact of the matter is that contrails can persist for minutes, or even hours — it all depends on the conditions at the time. The evidence for this (both scientific and observational) is irrefutable.

But, browsing around the (many) sites dedicated to chemtrails, it quickly became apparent that this piece of misinformation (that persistent contrails = chemtrails) is deeply entrenched in the chemtrail believers’ community. However (as I quickly found out), if you point this out to them, you get labelled as a ‘shill’ or ‘disinformation’ agent. Here’s a fantastically representative example of this happening over at uncensored, where the “persistent contails = chemtrails” meme is repeated (again), and when I point out the inaccuracy of this statement, the original poster (surprise surprise, Clare Swinney), starts shouting ‘disinformation agent’ at the top of her voice, whilst completely avoiding the actual mistake she’s made (again).

So, why continue? I’m never going to change the mind of someone like Clare, so why persevere?

The thing is, not everyone is like Clare, and there are probably plenty of people (like myself) who do catch a whiff of this thing called ‘chemtrails’ on the internet, and then do some ‘research’ to discover what it’s all about. And if you’re the type of person who believes what they read, then if the only type of site you find when googling up ‘chemtrails’ are the likes of Uncensored, Northland NZ Chemtrails and Pacific Chemtrail, then you’d very quickly start to believe that a persistent contrail is a chemtrail, that the presence of aluminium and barium in water samples is somehow unnatural, and that a pretty sunset or a 22° halo indicates the presence of man-made chemicals in the atmosphere.

Chemtrail believers often decry ‘disinformation’ agents who spread incorrect facts, but are amongst the worst perpetrators of such behaviour themselves. Hence the desire to add some balance (i.e. facts) to the discussion. Hopefully people doing some online reading on the ‘chemtrail’ phenomena will also stumble across sites like this one, Contrail Science and Contrails North NZ that will let people realise that those long white clouds formed by planes are nothing but condensed water vapour and nothing to worry about.

After all, there are plenty of things that are worth worrying about in this day and age, so having one less thing on that list is surely a good thing.

What in the world are they smoking? [part 2]

So, in our last episode, we’d just discovered that Murphy’s geoengineering article had stirred up some interest. What’s the skinny…?

00:00 – 00:10
The ‘people’ want someone to investigate.

00:10 – 03:00
We’re off to talk to G. Edward Griffin. What does he know about it all? He’s aware of it! “It’s an open and shut case,” he says. Some reminiscing about early jet travel. A quick explanation of contrails. Which. Is. Wrong. He totally lays the “persistent chemtrail = contrail” meme on us. Seriously? They are going down this path?

03:00 – 04:00
Some talk (from scientists, I assume) about geoengineering and the moral implications thereof (and whether or not geoengineering could actually be controlled).

04:00 – 05:20
Griffin tells us that it seems to be NATO countries doing the spraying (and New Zealand, and Australia, and Cuba, it would seem). “Anyone who wants to investigate that,” he points out, “has to take that fact into consideration.” Griffin offers to help.

05:20
“We’re not scientists.” Ne’er a truer word spoken.

05:20 – 06:00
Some more words of wisdom from Griffin; rallying the troops for the investigation ahead.

06:00 – 06:40
Some DJ going on about criss-cross contrails.

06:40 – 07:20
Conspiracy website owner gives his theory: spraying is to counter global warming.

07:20 – 07:30
Yes, geoengineering has been discussed.

07:30 – 08:05
We’re off to Northern California! Dane Wigington owns some land and has tested some stuff.

08:05 – 08:10
Slo-mo handshake! Awesome!

08:10 – 08:20
Dane establishes some credentials.

08:20 – 09:30
We look at the sky. It’s cloudy. Supposedly all contrail-formed cirrus. Oh, there are some contrails. Apparently on cloudy days it gets hazy and harder to see to the horizon. Go figure.

09:30 – 13:30
Aluminium! Thousands of times higher than normal! Apparently. Some results from a nearby skifield show aluminium levels of 61100ug/l. Which is a lot. That’s interesting. (I hope they didn’t take the snow from anywhere where people might have skiied.) The soil is more acidic than in the past as well, apparently. He doesn’t really seem to be following the sampling guidelines though. The assumption here, of course, is that it’s all down to the ‘chemtrails’. Not any other sort of airborne pollution (or something else entirely)?

13:30 – 14:15
Sad music. Young girl tell us to ‘wake up’. Oh, awesome, more non-scientific sampling. “We collected some rain-water in some jars.”

14:15
And more sampling. Surely that pond in the video isn’t the pond he’s talking about? Anyway, further analysis in part 3…

Nikola Tesla’s 1899 Yakutat Bay Weapon and The 111 Year Anniversary Christchurch Earthquakes by The Biblical Prophet

Here’s one over at you-know-whos that I’m not entirely sure is just standard bat-shit-crazy, or a fantastically well thought-out parody designed to get under the ‘delete-any-comment-that-disagrees-with-my-viewpoint’ policy being operated by that site’s owner. (Or maybe something else entirely?)

Basically, what Freemason Illuminati (who would also appear to have made the ‘Elijah the Proper John‘ comments on the same page) has done is to make a vague claim that the US Geologic Service is in on some sort of conspiracy that is suppressing the fact that good ol’ Nikolas Tesla invented some type of earthquake machine back in the 19thC, and that some published research they’ve done is, in fact, disinformation. (Tesla’s invention, it would seem, was used to help cause the recent Christchurch earthquake, as part of some 111 year thing the Freemasons have got going on with earthquakes — if I read correctly, which I probably don’t. Anyway…).

His comment (supposedly) recounts the history and technical points that are pertinent (or, as the case may be, totally irrelevant) to the discussion at hand.

But what’s interesting to me is that they’ve just cut’n'pasted the abstract from an actual USGS research paper (Geological and Geophysical Evaluation of the Mechanisms of the Great 1899 Yakutat Bay Earthquakes), and then replaced sections and words with what they imagine are ‘the facts’. Main differences from the first couple of hundred words are highlighted with yellow (generally removed on the left, and added on the right):

Original
We have used tectonic, geologic, and seismologic observations to reevaluate the mechanisms and seismotectonic significance of the two great (Mw = 8.1 and 8.2) September 1899 Yakutat Bay earthquakes. In their comprehensive study of these earthquakes between 1905 and 1910, Tarr and Martin (1912) showed that these events were accompanied by shoreline changes in Yakutat Bay that ranged from 14.4 m emergence to 2.1 m submergence, uplift of about 1 m at Yakataga 160 km west of Yakutat Bay, and by several zones of surface fissures on land. Although major earthquake faults were not found, Tarr and Martin postulated that the shoreline displacements were caused by vertical movements on a system of concealed steep normal faults and that the fissure zones on ridges were along subsidiary faults.
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Our geologic studies in the Yakutat Bay region indicate that: (1) the emergent shorelines along Yakutat Bay define a broad upwarp roughly 50 km x 30 km that is primarily related to reverse slip on local concealed shallowly dipping thrust faults; (2) the reported subsidence was due largely, or entirely, to nontectonic surficial submergence of unconsolidated deposits; and (3) most, if not all, of the zones of surface fractures related to the 1899 earthquakes are “sackung” that were probably caused by large-scale gravitational slumping of steep slopes, rather than faulting. A small number of early damped seismograms and the vertical uplift data were used to constrain the fault slippage that occurred during the two great earthquakes of 1899.

Freemason Illuminati
We have used tectonic, geologic and seismologic observations to reevaluate the mechanisms and seismotectonic significance of the two great man-made Mw 8.1 and 8.2 September 1899, Yakutat Bay, Weapons of mass destruction. In their comprehensive study of these Tesla Weapons between 1905 and 1910, Tarr and Martin [1912] showed these events and what accompanied their deployment, including the all time world record for shoreline changes in Yakutat Bay man beat nature with simply the record uplift ever recorded that ranged from 47.2 ft. emergence to 6.9 ft. submergence, uplift of about 3.3 ft. at Yakataga 160 km west of Yakutat Bay, all caused by Nikola Tesla who was several thousand miles away at Knob Hill in Colorado Springs. There were similar noises at both places. The same crackling sound that gives away the biggest secret of all time. Although major earthquake faults were not found, Tarr and Martin “postulated” that the shoreline displacements were caused by vertical movements on a system of concealed steep normal faults and that the fissure zones on ridges were along subsidiary faults. 

My studies in the Yakutat Bay region indicate that: (1) the emergent shorelines along Yakutat Bay define a broad upwarp roughly 50 km by 30 km that is primarily related to a Nikola Tesla “reverse slip” on local concealed shallowly-dipping thrust faults; (2) the reported subsidence was due largely, or entirely, to Nikola Tesla’s tectonic shock; and (3) most, if not all, of the zones of surface fractures related to the 1899 Weapon are “sackung” that were caused by Nikola Tesla’s large-scale gravitational pumping of the planet itself cracking at steep slopes, rather than natural faulting. A small number of early damped seismograms and the vertical uplift data were used to constrain the fault slippage that occurred when Tesla conducted the weapon testing during the twenty six+ days of near constant palpitation of the earth’s surface due to great Weapon in 1899.

I don’t know — does the mere fact of inserting “Nikolas Tesla” into a scientific text enough times make your desired reading of said document come true? Actually, I do know, it doesn’t.

Now, still not sure of the serious/parody nature of this comment, I thought I’d poke around teh intawebs to see if I could find anything else to help me make up my mind one way or the other. Freemason’s comment title was linked to: thenumberofthebeast.org — which, upon closer inspection, would make you think, “yes, batshit insane”. All the ingredients: long rambling text; terrible layout, injudicious use of comic sans, and a background that makes most of the text unreadable.

A google keyword search on the first bit of text from the ‘altered’ version — Saint John the Baptist: Nikola Tesla’s 1899 Yakutat Bay — leads us to two other sites: one a flickr account which you would think from the content (lots and lots of tesla stuff, registered to a user who lists his occupation as ‘Biblical Prophet’), is certainly related to our Freemason character. And another, which you wouldn’t: golfclubspromotion.com. But then, when you visit, you do — the altered text has been copy’n'pasted here as well, somewhat undermining the golfclub promotion that’s going on at the very bottom of the page.

So, what the hell? Has someone hacked the site? What is going on here? The contact on the golf page is someone called Chris, which coincidentally (uh-oh, I’m starting to connect disparate facts using nothing but coincidence), is also the metatag author name of thenumberofthebeast.org site. The domain name attached to the numberofthebeast.org Chris is imprintX.com, which, at the time of writing had this introduction…

BREAKING NEWS – (10 minutes ago) Christopher [redacted] Put your pens on an (A). That means the same thing as a (P). You say crazy is me?

…and has lots and lots on our beloved Tesla. But also lots and lots (and lots) of products of all shapes and sizes (including Golf Accessories!). ImprintX also seems to be responsible for at least a couple of other golf and general product marketing sites.

So, it is, in fact, some bizarre marketing scheme? Designed to intrigue inquisitive idiots like myself with their crazy talk of tesla, numerology and freemasons, and then, having teased me in, sucker-punch me with an irresistible offer of a new set of novelty golf-club heads at knock-down (dare one say ‘crazy’) prices?

I suppose I could just ask, but, as is often the way when delving around the conspiratorial corners of teh intawebs, my brain hurts a bit, and I think a nice drink a lie down would be better for me…

Disinformation agent

Apparently I am one!

I think, mostly, because Clare Swinney (anti-NWO campaigner extraordinaire) seems unable to answer simple questions regarding the contradictory ‘facts’ she posts.

For example, she seems to be a long time believer in the ‘global warming hoax’. There is no global warming, it’s all a scam by the NWO and whatnot to do whatever it is the NWO want to do this week.

But she’s also a strong believer in chemtrails. And when those beliefs are at odds, what does Clare do? She ignores it. Here’s some irrefutable proof posted by Clare on the existence of chemtrails…

Environmental consultant Mike Castle discovered the primary purpose behind chemtrails when he came across a practical patent for “Stratospheric Welsbach Seeding for Reduction of Global Warming”.

There ya go. Chemtrails are being sprayed to reduce Global Warming. But, wait, doesn’t Clare dispute the existence of Global Warming? How does this contradictory position sit with her? Asking, it seems, brings out the famous cry of ‘disinformation agent!’

It’d be nice to try and nut these ideas out with her on her own blog, but, apparently, I’m banned. I’ve been thinking I should just start up my own conspiracy theory blog for ages now anyway, for, as much as I try to let it go, arguing with crazy conspiracy theory cranks is an itch I just can’t seem to stop scratching. Clare suggested I start a blog. I took her up on her suggestion.