centre of the universe - the dreaming

I know. It's hard to believe that right-wingers could be involved in something as clearly steeped in socialism as conspiracy theories, but there is evidence that this is precisely what could be happening. While those on the right of the political/philosophical spectrum seem to take great glee in dismissing everything a left-wing-nut might say as "madness" and "fear-mongering", I noticed something today. I was driving to work, and there was a discussion on the radio about the climate change conferences taking place in Copenhagen. The discussion began with a guest on the program claiming that Canada is entering in to these conferences with a Black Spot on our reputation. We are considered to be, as it were, stodgy climate-change deniers with our heads fully planted in the [oil] sands. This guest indicated that there is at least one group of environmentalists at Copenhagen who are pushing for Canada to sign a treaty that would bind us to reducing our emissions to 40% below 1990 standards.

I'm not going to comment much on that, because I'm pretty sure it's not going to be taken seriously by anybody, either in the 'for' column or in the 'agin' column. But here is what I do want to say:

This is the running theory coming out of the right, near as I can tell:
There is no such thing as "Global Warming". Even though "scientists" have declared this decade the warmest on record since records began being ...erm... recorded in the 1850s, there is no such thing as Global Warming. It is natural for the earth's atmosphere to warm up and to cool down, and there is no solid evidence that supports the claim that anthropomorphic climate change is a real issue (climate change caused by people, what). There is, however, evidence that scientists colluded to keep certain information out of the hands of the drooling masses. This evidence is called "climategate" and it is proof that left-thinking scientists worked together to create of their scientific studies a kind of propaganda.

Not only that, but all these environmental groups are working together to undermine the GLOBAL ECONOMY and, in fact, Copenhagen isn't *actually* a series of conferences having to do with climate change at all, but is in fact a secret socialist agenda to DESTROY WESTERN CAPITALIST ECONOMIES and pull the fleece over the eyes of the common man when what they're really up to is GLOBAL REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. Environmentalists and scientists and socialists all working together are spreading the lie that humans have any effect whatsoever on the health of the planet and the atmosphere. In fact, if it weren't for one or two rational voices here and there from the right wing, all you idiots out there would just blindly believe whatever they tell you because you can't be bothered to think for yourselves. You want sound bites and science-*sounding* information, but you wouldn't be able to understand the REAL issues and evidence, so it's just being kept from you by a conspiracy of former communists who worked in Russia and East Germany.

When the Berlin Wall came down, those people - those Russians and communist Germans - were out of their jobs, which were to quietly but steadfastly destroy the capitalist economy of the west and to institute a socialist [note: this is the conspiracy, here - we all know that socialism and communism are not the same thing at all] agenda world-wide. When they lost their jobs, they attached themselves to environmentalist organisations because this was an easy stopping place for them to blend their anti-freedom ideas of wealth redistribution with well-distributed vocal protesters around the world.

So, in essence, climate change is a myth created by former cold-war communist anti-capitalist bureaucrats working with socialist dissenters who are using the environment as a front for their continued efforts to break the world's economy.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

Labels: conspiracy theories, Politics

The truth of the matter is that even though there was an outbreak of what the government and the CDC called "Swine Flu" in the 1970s, the H1N1 virus that's been declared a PANDEMIC by the World Health Organisation is actually a man-made virus. The original virus, which only really affected swine housed in overcroweded conditions, passed the animal/human barrier and spread from pigs to humans. At the time, the then-called 'swine flu' was little more than the typical seasonal influenza. However, the US government, then (and now) in the pocket of 'big drug' companies, was pressed to encourage US citizens to pay for immunizations, so that the drug companies could realise an economic benefit. At the time, revenues had been dropping steadily since the end of the 50s and 60s when prescriptions of painkillers, tranquillizers, and other drugs used to control mood disorders and mental illnesses had been at an all-time high.

Drug companies developed the vaccine, as most vaccines are developed, by incubating the virus in the albumen of chicken eggs (the whites). What the researchers didn't know then was that the Swine Flu (Influenza C) virus *mutated* with a virus in several of the egg whites. This was the H5N1 strain of the Influenza A virus. A mutation occurred between the two subtypes of virus. This produced several sub-types of the Influenza A virus, such as H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3. The vaccine was first tested on pigs. While the vaccine did seem to aleviate the incidence (and severity) of influenza infections, something strange began happening.

Those *humans* working with the swine began falling ill. It turned out the mutated Influenza strain could cross the pig/human species barrier. Scientists postulated that in incubating the mammalian virus in a cross-species manner (chicken eggs) had provided the virus the opportunity it needed to assimilate the mammalian DNA strands. Once a virus gets into the swine population, it can easily cross to humans...not through the meat (who would poison bacon? A kind and loving God would never do that), but the same way human viruses are spread - through body fluids like snot and spit and puke and poop.

The first human victims of what we now know is H1N1 were misdiagnosed with seasonal influenza. This strain of the disease has been around for years. However, with the advent of much more powerful diagnostic and imaging equipment, it became much easier to discover the strain of influenza affecting humans. Early in 2008, in Mexico, doctors discovered an outbreak of H1N1 among the human population. By the time the WHO (the World Health Organisation, not the band) had been able to confirm Mecian doctors' information, the virus had begun to spread through to the United States. Within a year, H1N1 was declared a pandemic (The WHO's definition of "pandemic" is very specific - an infectious disease must be passed by humans to humans on a certain number of continents). The Big Drug companies saw this as a boost to the lagging economy - they could sell outrageous amounts of vaccines to countries and this would boost their bottom lines and please shareholders.

The drug companies in turn indicated to the various health ministers from various countries that they could produce mass quantities of vaccines, but that they would have to ensure a certain purchase lot size to make the manufacture economically feasible in a time of economic slow-down. Governments were in for billions of doses of the medicine for a flu that, for the most part, was no more dangerous than any seasonal influenza (incidentally, the WHO's definition of 'pandemic' specifically excludes seasonal influenzas). Therefore, government health authorities and well-placed vocal healthcare providers were encouraged to warn the public, based on the WHO's confirmation that H1N1 had indeed become a pandemic, about the disease.

Big Drug marketing departments and political spin doctors knew that fear sells faster than sex, and so engaged the media in a massive campaign of "public information" messages (they did the same thing in the 70s with the outbreak of actual swine flu; this strain is a mix of avian flu and swine flu). This had the exact desired effect; people demanded a vaccine...which the Big Drug companies just happened to be able to manufacture...at a price.

However, as with anything in the scientific community, there were those who were annoyingly vocal about their opposition to the idea that H1N1 is any more fatal than any normal seasonal influenza. These opinions were harming the sale of vaccine, so the government had to manufacture a shortage. Everyone knows that the best way to sell your product is to claim there isn't very much of it.

Therefore, local governments have created a shortage of the vaccine, which has increased demand for it, ensuring the governments will be able to fill their orders and provide enough vaccine for everyone who wants it - but only if they're willing and able to follow a highly contrived 'distribution schedule'. If the governments claimed pregnant women and young children were most at risk, that would tug at the heartstrings of every man, woman, and child in the country. Everyone loves pregnant chicks and babies, right?

This is what a Conspiracy Theory about Hamthrax might look like.

Labels: conspiracy theories, sicky mcsickerton

hello.
welcome to my odd theory about part of what's happening in north american economics right now.
i ought to say right at the outset that what makes this different from the mad ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic is that i fully admit this is somewhat of a crackpot theory postulated by someone who has no formal education nor experience in that of which they speak.

there are a few people who control the oil supply in the world. a handful of relatively obscure, mind-bogglingly rich people. add into that milieu a few ridiculously large corporations. this handful of people get to decide the 'price point', more or less for oil as a commodity. they also, it is rumoured, more or less kaiboshed or delayed development (or at least promotion of development) of alternate energy sources, particularly in the automobile industry. the big auto corporations didn't actually put any energy-efficient or alternate fuel source vehicles on their design block because 'big oil' didn't want them to. 'big oil' wanted to continue to reap capitol gains hand over fist.

big oil kept raising the price of oil. artificially inflated it. why? because they could. and don't fault capitalists/consumerists for wanting to exploit the system that reaps them the most benefit. it's the nature of the model.

eventually, the artificially inflated price of oil began to actually hurt the big auto manufacturers. nobody was buying their big, expensive, inefficient vehicles because nobody could afford to run them. auto companies began laying off its employees. those employees began to not be able to pay their own bills. which added to the already distressing 'credit crunch' (or: "in which folks buy things they can't afford, with money they don't have, and rack up interest they don't understand"). when the auto manufacturers realised that nobody wanted to buy their crappy cars, they went to the government for a 'bailout'. which essentially is giving taxpayers' money to auto companies to subsidise them for the crappy cars none of the taxpayers wanted in the first place.

have you ever read kafka?

as the realisation sunk in that the artificially inflated price of oil was actually harming folks who could more or less control a large part of the consumption of oil, big oil figured they'd give consumers a break for a while to build false confidence in the market.

the crux of what i'm saying is that this 'crash' in commodities and resource markets is entirely manufactured by a handful of extremely wealthy individuals who control massive corporations.

please eat this message as soon as you are finished reading it.

Labels: big oil, conspiracy theories