I Saw An Alex Jones Sticker On A...

 ...well, it doesn't really matter what kind of car I saw it on.  Just seeing one at all in Saskatoon was a surprise.  One sticker read "Alex Jones Was Right!"  A second was a generic Infowars sticker.  And the third mentioned something about freedom.  Someone who believes the swill Jones puts out is the kind of person who I wonder how they get dressed by themselves in the morning.  I'm guessing he believes the full gamut of nonsense, such as that Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro's secret son.  Maybe they'll get a clue someday, but I doubt it.

Missed One.

It would be a full time job to try to keep up with all the conspiracy theories out there.  It probably wouldn't be possible.  But I'm surprised I missed this one.  I overheard some kid on the bus ranting about Justin Trudeau, and one of the things he mentioned was claims Fidel Castro is Trudeau's father.

That was a conspiracy theory I'd never heard before, but some research shows it's been floating around since at least 2016.  The claim is that Margaret Trudeau had an affair with Fidel Castro, and Justin resulted.  Supposedly Castro's eldest son Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, commonly referred to as Fidelito, referred to Justin Trudeau as his half-brother in his 2018 suicide note.  Believers think Justin Trudeau looks a lot like Fidel.

Unfortunately for the conspiracy crowd there's no evidence Margaret Trudeau met Fidel Castro before 1976, when Justin was 4 and a half.  He was conceived in April of 1971, shortly after the Trudeaus were married in March of 1971, being born on Christmas Day of  1971.  So somehow Margaret Trudeau was able to meet Fidel Castro with no one knowing about it.  Yeah, no, didn't happen

But in the end the real question should  be "So what?"  It would be an issue for the Trudeau family, but not really for anyone else.  Being Fidel Castro's son would not legally disqualify Justin Trudeau from being Prime Minister.  Unlike the US there is no provision in the Canadian Constitution requiring a PM candidate being a "natural born citizen,"  and his mother was Canadian anyways.  The last Prime Minister not born in Canada, John Turner, is still alive.  He was born in England, and became PM under the 1982 Constitution.

Of course we did see this with the Obama birther theories.  Deviating from the standard "Obama was born in Kenya, so he can't be President!" nonsense some birthers decided his real father was either African America journalist, activist, and poet Frank Marshall Davis, or Malcolm X.  Since both men were born in the United States I'm not sure how they figured this was useful in their crusade to get Obama out of office.

It would be interesting to know what this kid has been reading, because he mentioned a couple of other crank ideas.  Something from some Wexit idiot seems likely.

HRH Antichrist!

The latest issue of the Globe tabloid had me rolling my eyes with its cover story that Queen Elizabeth has made Prince William King.  In case you didn't know, that isn't going to happen.  The line of succession is quite clear, Charles will be the next King, unless he dies before the Queen.  The Queen just can't arbitrarily make someone King.

So I was sitting here tonight, snooping around to see how many people actually believe this kind of thing.  But as I did I found an interesting example of kookery.  Some folks believe Prince William is the Antichrist. I shouldn't have been particularly surprised, since there's a few people who believe King Juan Carlos of Spain is the Antichrist.  So why not the much better known William?  I suppose there's even  someone who has a theory that Crown Prince Naruhito, heir to the Japanese throne, is the Antichrist.

Specifically I stumbled across this page, but of course there are others out there.  I find it amusing that it talks about Princess Diana's supposed  "prediction" that the succession would skip a generation, and that William will be the next monarch.  Personally I wouldn't call that a prediction, I'd call that wishful thinking.

Fair warning, Help Free the Earth seems to be run by people who'll believe just about every conspiracy theory they've run across.  That includes that persistent piece of scumbaggery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  They try the old "We don't hate Jews, only Zionists." dodge, but you can bet your bottom dollar they've never heard of a Jew they don't think is an evil Zionist who wants to take over the world.   On the other hand I find it amusing that they think Alex Jones is actually a tool of the New World Order. You'd think more conspiracy theorists would consider the possibility that other conspiracy theorists are trying to manipulate them for the bad guys.  Of course it's probably as much about being jealous that Jones has a significant public profile, and they don't, as any belief Jones works for the enemy.

It Won't Be Long.

If you haven't already, go to  YouTube, or your favourite news site, and check out footage of today's meteor incidence in Russia.  It's amazing to see one so visible during the day.  And the sonic booms are loud even if you're just listening via your computer.

As we get more information about this we're also likely to see a bunch of  nonsense as well.  Some will claim that it wasn't actually a meteor, but some sort of weapon.  Others will claim it was an alien spacecraft, or a sign of some horrible thing that will soon come out of the sky and kill us all.  The fact we're about to have a very close visit by an asteroid will help drive certain theories, although scientists say the two have nothing to do with each other.  And no doubt some religious fanatic will claim it's a warning from God about Russia not doing something, or doing something.

Beat You!

Haha, American right wing conspiracy types, you won't get to publish this silly conspiracy theory first!  here we go:  Michelle Obama will run for President in 2016, so she can continue Barack's evil plan to...do whatever the hell it is you lot think he really plans to do.  Turn you all into Muslims?  Sell the White House and Statue of Liberty to China?  Whatever.

At the very least this idea will probably be coming to one of the tabloids sooner or later, even if Worldnedaily or some other part of the crankosphere doesn't do it.  But remember, you read it here first!

Assembled For Your Convenience.

Here's a fun one via a post by Ed Brayton.  Mother Jomes has assembled a Venn diagram of various Obama conspiracy theories.  The one about Obama killing Granny Obama to cover up that  he's an evil Kenyan non-American is a new one by me.  The one that's he's trying to smuggle in 100 million Muslims to overwhelm the US wasn't.  But even that one isn't as silly as the Obama went to Mars theory.  So, do you have a favouite out of these?  And of course we all know there's likely to be several missing here.  Sooner or later someone will no doubt claim Obama isn't really black, but a white dude who used some secret trick to make himself look of African descent so he could impliment Communism at the behest of the KGB.

Contradicting Conspiracies.

As I've mentioned before the US Globe tabloid likes to publish anti-Barack Obama stories.  The latest one I've seen claims that Bill Clinton has evidence that Obama isn't a real American citizen. However, he supposedly hasn't revealed it because he's afraid Obama will have him killed.  I found this amusing given that during the Clinton Administration the right wing crankosphere was obsessed with Clinton death lists, lists of all the people Clinton supposedly had killed.  Merely dying in Arkansas at some point could probably get you on a list, no matter how little connection you had with Clinton.  But apparently Clinton must have lost his death squad at some point, since he's apparently worried about Obama's death squad.  Of course if you take the story at face value the best way to avoid being killed would be simply to reveal the information.  There wouldn't be much point in Obama killing Clinton once the cat was out of the bag.  But hey, that's me using rational person logic, which is just what the conspiracy wants me to do.

I wonder if The Globe did any Clinton death list stories back in the '90s.

Who Missed It, Me Or Them?

Over the years I've read and heard about a lot of conspiracy theories.  The flaws in them are obvious, but they often do show a certain level of creativity.  But one idea came to mind that I'm surprised I've never heard of.  In the late '70s and '80s large numbers of people in Southeast Asia, primarily Vietnamese, fled their homelands by boat, resulting in a refugee crisis and the creation of the term boat people.  Large numbers of these refugees settled in the United States.  Given the effect the Vietnam War had on American society I'm surprised I've never run across any conspiracy theories related to these refugees.  You'd think someone would have claimed that the refugees were participants in some sort of plot against the US.  South East Asian refugees did face problems of racism and cultural clashes with local populations, but I've never heard anyone go beyond this to create a conspiracy theory about them.  Or have I just missed them? 

Answering A Stupid Question.

I was just using Google Maps to see how to get to a place in Saskatoon I'm not familiar with, Van Impe Terrace.  Since this street shares its name with US evangelist Jack Van Impe Google Adsense popped up an ad for some Obama New World Order nonsense.  One section of the ad asks several questions, including 'Why is it that in 2009 there have been over 1 million searches on the keywords "Obama Antichrist" and "Obama Messiah"?'  The answer of course is obvious to people who aren't paranoid kooks, namely that the world is full of people who are paranoid kooks who take things like supposed Biblical prophecy oh so seriously.   So of course a bunch of them are going to look up the term "Obama Antichrist."  The fact they end up changing their candidate for Antichrist every few years as major politicians come and go never gets through to them.  Of course given that the author of this, Mel Sanger, is selling it for 20 bucks a pop there's always the chance he himself isn't a kook, just someone looking to exploit this paranoia.

You'll Need A Big Scale.

Browsing through a bookstore today I spotted yet another JFK assassination book. Like many this one claims it was the Mafia that offed him. It got me wondering how much the weight of all the JFK books is. How much would a pile with a single example of every book written on the assassination weigh? Even if you only collected the English language titles I suspect the resulting mass would weigh several tonnes. I doubt there's anyone with a complete collection they could weigh to find out.

Spreading The Stupid.

When I sat down on the bus this afternoon I noticed the above scrawled on the panel ahead of me. I wrote the URL down, and then decided I might as well snap a picture while I was at it. Seeing the name I was suspicious it might be an extreme right website. It isn't, just another example of more general paranoid nonsense. There's the typical for the times nonsense about 911 conspiracies and free energy. They also believe in what I consider one of the more stupid conspiracy theories currently going, chemtrails, the idea that the evil whoevers are engaged in some secret scheme involving aircraft sprayed chemicals. Chemicals that they are apparently so stupid as to spray in daylight in such a way as they create giant, easily visible contrails of evil. They of course also have links to various other sources of this kind of garbage such as British nutbar David Icke.

Unfortunately a bunch of stupid people fall for this load of bullshit regularly. Too bad some dumb Saskatoon kid stumbled across this crap and fell for it, and might very well be busy infecting his friends with paranoid stupidism. The irony of these kind of people is that while they claim to be skeptics they in reality don't apply any sort of critical analysis to their own beliefs, instead taking the claims of conspiracy mongers at face value because their ideas fit into existing prejudices and blind spots.

It's Time, Guys.

One of the odder forms of conspiracy theory is the "they're not really dead" idea. Various people, usually celebrities, are claimed to have faked their apparent deaths. Elvis Presley is of course the best known focus of such a theory, but other candidates include Doors' singer Jim Morrison, rapper Tupac, and comedian Andy Kaufmann. Well, guys, if any of you actually did do this today is the day to 'fess up. After all what better day to admit you've pulled off such a great joke than April Fools? Especially you, Elvis, we'd like to know whether you faked your death before you die of old age.

Public Stupidity.

Today there were a couple of protesters in front of Saskatoon City Hall. "911 Was An Inside Job!" stated the sign carried by one. Having other things to do I didn't bother to get closer and find out what version of the theory they believed in. Not that it really matters, the theories that have been widely publicised are all equally full of holes and far more baroque than any credible "the US gubmint did it!' theory needs to be. Whoever these people were they apparently aren't making much of an impact if only two of them showed up. And why they would be out there protesting in the first place is beyond me. The City of Saskatoon has no influence on or connection with Canadian foreign policy.

Does Racism Drive September 11th Conspiracy Theories?

This question came to mind when listening to CBC Radio One's The Current this morning. This morning they were reading letters in response to a segment last week on conspiracy theories. Today's segment included a brief talk with Barry Zwicker, a Canadian freelance journalist who has been promoting the theory that 9/11 was a US government plot. He claimed that the idea Osama bin Laden could have pulled off the September 11th attacks from a cave someplace with a laptop is the least credible theory. Others have made that statement as well. But why? Does it have anything to do with the fact that bin Laden is an Arab? I can't help but think of various theories that ancient peoples didn't build the great works such as the pyramids and so on, that instead it was mysterious "others" who did. I often get the impression that those theories are sometimes driven, even if only subconciously, by racist ideas since those ancient wonders were built by "brown" peoples. I've never heard of anyone trying to claim ancient Greek and Roman wonders were built by aliens or the inhabitants of Atlantis, and I would guess in many cases this is because they're seen as "our" anscestors, are perceived as being "white."

Would we be hearing as many "they couldn't possibly have done it" claims if 9/11 had been pulled off by Japanese cultists, say Aum Shinrikyo? After all the Japanese have a society and economy seen as directly equivalent to Western industrial ones. I haven't seen conspiracy theories about Aum's attack on the Tokyo subway, claiming say that someone gave them the nerve gas they used, and this is probably for the obvious reason that people expect there would be some kooks in a highly industrial and technological country like Japan with the education and skills to cook up nerve gas in their kitchen. Compare this with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, which are perceived as primitive and ignorant backwaters. This of course ignores the fact that bin Laden was of the monied class in Saudi Arabia, the kind of folks who get access to Western technology and education. Bin Laden himself has degrees in civil engineering and economics/public administration. In other words this is not some hick who doesn't have a clue about anything other than being violent, and we know the kind of damage even those kind of people can cause. His educational background sounds exactly like the kind of thing that would make coming up with a plan like the "offical" version of 9/11, and making it happen, completely plausible. It certainly sounds more plausible that theories that for example would require sneaking tonnes of explosives into the structure of the World Trade Center without anyone noticing something very weird was going on.

Addenda: It should also be noted that bin Laden probably wasn't hiding in a cave before the US attack on Afghanistan, given that he was there as a guest of the Taliban government.

In case you've ever wondered, its not only those on the left that would like to see George Bush impeached. There are people on the extreme right that would too, like the woman behind Alexandra's Constitutionlist Corner. But George the Younger is only one of her dislikes, as you can see on her blog. Personally I found the link to Vatican Assassins interesting, as its a website that claims the Jesuits murdered JFK. High kookery to be found there, which makes you wonder about the mental processes of someone who'd take lunacy like that seriously.