Haven’t blogged on the anti-vaccination movement for a few days
26 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of information, economics of media and culture, health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, conspiracy theories, modernity, vaccination, vaccines
Edward Snowden misspoke on a secret American spy base located in Auckland
17 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: 2014 New Zealand election, conspiracy theories, conspiratorial left, Edward Snowden, paranoid conspiracies, Twitter left
Edward Snowden made a last-minute intervention in the recent New Zealand election to claim that there is a secret American spy base located in Auckland. I have persistently asked on Twitter where it is so I can look it up on Google maps Street.
Today, Bryce Edwards revealed in a reply to one of my tweets that Edward Snowden got mixed up. It is yet to be revealed where this secret spy base really is so I can still look it up on Google Maps Street view.
If there is a secret spy base anywhere in New Zealand, I’m sure the neighbours would have noticed and lodged objections to the resource consent for the planning permission because of all the cell towers.
The GCSB’s Waihopai spy station pictured above which was built decades ago in rural New Zealand is decidedly conspicuous.
Fake Paul McCartney | Moon conspiracy
17 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, Music Tags: conspiracy theories, The Beatles
“Paul is dead” is an urban legend suggesting that Paul McCartney of the English rock band the Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike.
In September 1969, American college students published articles claiming that clues to McCartney’s death could be found among the lyrics and artwork of the Beatles’ recordings. Clue-hunting proved infectious and within a few weeks had become an international phenomenon. Rumours declined after a contemporary interview with McCartney was published in Life magazine in November 1969.
The ruling class versus YouTube
06 Feb 2015 2 Comments
in Marxist economics, Public Choice Tags: conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, ruling class, YouTube
12 Men Walked On the Moon, and They Left Some Things Behind
14 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture Tags: conjecture and refutation, conspiracy theories, moon landing hoax
![[optional image description]](https://i0.wp.com/cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/apollo17.jpeg)
more than 70 spacecraft, including rovers, modules, and crashed orbiters
• 5 American flags
• 2 golf balls
• 12 pairs of boots
• TV cameras
• film magazines
• 96 bags of urine, feces, and vomit
• numerous Hasselbad cameras and accessories
• several improvised javelins
• various hammers, tongs, rakes, and shovels
• backpacks
• insulating blankets
• utility towels
• used wet wipes
• personal hygiene kits
• empty packages of space food
• a photograph of Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke’s family
• a feather from Baggin, the Air Force Academy’s mascot falcon, used to conduct Apollo 15’s famous “hammer-feather drop” experiment
• a small aluminum sculpture, a tribute to the American and Soviet “fallen astronauts” who died in the space race — left by the crew of Apollo 15
• a patch from the never-launched Apollo 1 mission, which ended prematurely when flames engulfed the command module during a 1967 training exercise, killing three U.S. astronauts
• a small silicon disk bearing goodwill messages from 73 world leaders, and left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11
• a silver pin, left by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean
• a medal honoring Soviet cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin
• a cast golden olive branch left by the crew of Apollo 11
via Carbon Dating » 172 Men Walk On Moon and http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/12/the-trash-weve-left-on-the-moon/266465/
Apparently, this is how the Mont Pelerin Society rules the roost!?
05 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: conspiracy theories, Leftover Left, Mont Pelerin Society, neoliberalism, nutters on the bus, Quacks, vast right-wing conspiracy
Solid lines refer to funding and dashed lines refer to mostly ideological connections
HT: old-rothschild-and-rockefeller-hands-controlled-the-libertarian-communist-dialectic/
Public opinion on conspiracy theories
23 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, liberalism Tags: conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories do have the odd hole in them
21 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, defence economics, liberalism Tags: conspiracy theories
The Left-wing’s debating toolkit on global warming
10 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in global warming Tags: conspiracy theories
How much of the political spectrum is neoliberal (and under the Svengali influence of the @MontPelerinSoc)?
06 Oct 2014 1 Comment
in liberalism Tags: conspiracy theories, Eric Crampton, intellectuals, Leftover Left, Mont Pelerin Society, neoliberalism, progressive left, Thomas Sowell, Twitter left
When I feud with strangers on other blogs about neoliberalism, I often asked them is to nominate which parties are neoliberal. Obviously the right-wing parties are neoliberal.
What is routine, however, is for this remnant of the Left over Left to nominate the Labour Party as a cauldron of neoliberalism as well. Tony Blair, Bob Hawke, and Paul Keating are hate figures as is Roger Douglas in New Zealand.
Neoliberalism is more about smearing labour parties than the right-wing parties, and, in particular, factional enemies further to the right with you on the old Left. Looks like to be a neoliberal is what it was like to be a capitalist running dog in the days of the cultural revolution.
These days it’s quite common to nominate the Mont Pelerin Society as the global ringmaster of neoliberalism.
As global ringmasters go, they have a crap website. The super profits of supreme power should at least extend to a decent website.
Eric Crampton was tweeting live from his first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society a few weeks ago. I asked him how did it feel to be in the inner circles of supreme power. His tweet was they must hold all the conspiratorial meetings in side rooms because he did not feel any more powerful than the previous day at his desk at his University
No one had ever heard of the Mont Pelerin society until the Twitter Left put it at the centre of a global conspiracy.
It is much easier to do to explain your defeat at elections on a conspiracy, rather than on your ideas having been tried and failed time and again.
These allegations of a secret conspiracy led by the Mont Pelerin society is a rarity in the stock and fair of conspiracy theories. The leader of the conspiracy is actually unknown. Most conspiracy theories allege that the secret machinations are by relatively well-known people you are trying to smear or don’t like.
These allegations of a global conspiracy led by academics is the ultimate ego trip by proxy. Academics dream of supreme power. When they do not have this power themselves, they fantasise that the right-wingers at the other end of the corridor at their university have it instead.
Richard Cohen: NSA is doing what Google does
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, liberalism, war and peace Tags: conspiracy theories, Edward Snowden, Left wing paranoia
Greenwald likens Snowden to Daniel Ellsberg, who revealed the Pentagon Papers to The Post and the New York Times more than four decades ago.
Not quite. The Pentagon Papers proved that a succession of U.S. presidents had lied about their intentions regarding Vietnam — Lyndon Johnson above all. In 1964, he had campaigned against Barry Goldwater for the presidency as virtually the peace candidate while actually planning to widen the war.
As the Times put it in a 1996 story, the Pentagon Papers “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.”
In contrast, no one lied about the various programs disclosed last week. They were secret, yes, but members of Congress were informed — and they approved.
Safeguards were built in. If, for instance, the omniscient computers picked up a pattern of phone calls from Mr. X to Suspected Terrorist Y, the government had to go to court to find out what was said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act established a court consisting of 11 rotating federal judges. These judges are the same ones who rule on warrants the government seeks in domestic criminal cases. If we trust them for that, why would we not trust them for other things as well?
via Richard Cohen: NSA is doing what Google does – The Washington Post.
Some people are still shocked when they learn that governments spy on people. What next? Will people be shocked to learn that the police investigate innocent people in the course of routine enquiries.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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