Jul 16 2012

A good conspiracy theory should be entertaining; chemtrails aren’t

Categories:

Skepticism

by PZ Myers

But it is so stupid that we can poke fun at it!

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28 comments

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1

billygutter01

16 July 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Stand by for influx of:

“Big Pharma Shill”

“NWO”

“FEMA death camps”

“Open your eyes sheeple!”

And maybe even a little “Reptilian overlord”…

Have I missed any of the dog whistle, foil-hat buzzwords?
2

billygutter01

16 July 2012 at 10:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Have I missed any of the dog whistle, foil-hat buzzwords?

Silly me:

“Illuminati”

“Freemason

“HAARP”

“Moon Hoax”

There. That’s better.
3

Lynna, OM

16 July 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Ah yes, right-wing conspiracy theories. So much fun … until they start passing laws based on the rat nests of illogic lodged in their brains.

Michelle Bachmann is hard at work fertilizing the conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood is taking over in the USA. She promotes this anti-muslim nonsense at the same time that she promotes Mitt Romney for President.

Coverage in Salon.

Coverage on The Maddow Blog.
Excerpt:

The Minnesota Republican, joined by Republican Reps. Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney and Lynn Westmoreland, sent letters to the inspectors general of five government agencies responsible for national security to demand they investigate infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood into the highest reaches of the federal government. In particular, Bachmann singled out Huma Abedin, the wife of former congressman Anthony Weiner and a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In case Abedin hasn’t already been through enough already, Bachmann is now questioning her loyalty to the U.S. by asserting that Abedin has three family members who are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood (Abedin is Muslim). She’s been targeted before by anti-Muslim activists, and Bachmann notes that Abedin’s position “affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.” Bachmann also claims the state has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

The new witch hunt appears to have begun in earnest a few weeks ago, when Bachmann told a fringe religious right activist that “there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood” and that security agents are no longer allowed to learn about terrorist attacks.

But intensity of the nonsense has only grown since. Bachmann suspects pro-Muslim forces have not only secretly gained influence in the State Department, but have also secretly gained influence at the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Justice. She also wants the Office of Director of National Intelligence to do an internal investigation to determine “the extent to which Muslim-Brotherhood tied individuals and entities were involved” in DNI activities Bachmann doesn’t like.

Perhaps now would be a good time to note that, just last year, Bachmann was named to the House Intelligence Committee and won the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa.

Incidentally, Bachmann doesn’t have credible evidence to bolster her strange theories, but that’s apparently beside the point — McCarthyism isn’t about proof; it’s about irrational fear and sowing seeds of distrust.
4

Glen Davidson

16 July 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

We need a more intelligent bunch of evil billionaires, is all I can get out of it.

If it’s Ahmanson behind the chemtrails, I can see why they might have failed. Being opposed to evil materialistic science isn’t likely to produce very toxic chemtrails.

Glen Davidson
5

Woo_Monster, Sniffer of Starfarts

16 July 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Chemtrail conspiracy theorists are much more entertaining than 9/11 Troofers. Chemtrail-morons are not shitting on the memory of the dead (because no one is fucking dying from chemtrails, of course). They are not pissing on the friends and family of people who have lost someone.
6

Woo_Monster, Sniffer of Starfarts

16 July 2012 at 11:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

After reflecting more, some chemtrailers almost certainly do shit on the memory of the dead, every time they misidentify the cause of any death to the evil government/bilderberg/the jews/the nephelim/whatever other fuckwit fantasy they imagine.
7

feralboy12

16 July 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“Illuminati”

“Freemason

“HAARP”

“Moon Hoax”

This Trilateral Commission stooge is trying to distract us from the real problem. Don’t be fooled.
8

Philip

16 July 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The next time somebody uses the “Reptilians are controlling the world” ~~theory~~ conjecture, I am going to ask them if they have any idea how hard it is for an Argonian to get by on Earth. The plastic surgery alone costs a bloody fortune!
9

Fred Salvador

16 July 2012 at 12:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The tache is gone, the English accent is convincing, and pretending to be a cartoon is certainly an impressive ruse, but the man in this video is clearly Nephilimfree.
10

DonDueed

16 July 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The bad news: the Chemtrail Conspiracy is REAL!

The good news: the conspirators also believe in homeopathy, and are attempting to poison us with ultra-minute doses of toxins.
11

hypatiasdaughter

16 July 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

#9 Fred Salvador
Then I hope he never takes the gas mask off. Nephy breeding??!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
12

robro

16 July 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I once had a colleague suddenly start telling me about Chem-trails at work. I had recently encountered the whacky idea through eSkeptic, so I was taken aback. This was someone who had been very supportive and helpful to me in my career. Someone I had a lot of respect for. It was difficult not to say “are you nuts!” My tongue bleed, and I’m still not sure that I didn’t communicate my shock anyway.

The disturbing thing about The Chem-trail Conspiracy Theory is that it may be obfuscating an actual environmental problem that we should be concerned about. I don’t for a minute accept any notion of a secret government experiment, not even one that the government/industry is actually using this Chem-trail nuttiness to cover up the environmental issue.

But the “Chem-trails”…or conning trails are there as everyone can see. There are a lot of them. I’m sure many of you have seen the satellite pictures showing the dense coverage of commercial jet traffic conning trails crisscrossing North America and Europe, particularly concentrating around the big mega-urban centers.

Of course, these artifacts are a normal product of burning hydrocarbons at high altitudes. Like most such products the visible part is mostly water. There is some residue, I assume unburnt fuel, on the water droplets that explains the unusual colors people may see. There is also an assortment of invisible gases. No surprises with any of this…pretty much the same thing coming out of your car’s tailpipe.

I’m no expert, so I can’t say that conning trails are bad. Perhaps they’re harmless to the environment, but I am doubtful of that. If pouring burnt hydrocarbons into our environment at ground level is a problem, it seems likely to be a problem to do it at 30,000 feet. The effects on our environment of this unwitting experiment conducted by the airline industry and the governments that have underwritten it are not clear at best.

Solutions are perhaps not easy. I don’t know if the tradeoffs for switching long distance travel to high-speed rail are environmentally cost effective. From what I have read these are difficult calculations to make.

Still, it seems prudent to be looking at what we’re doing in the upper atmosphere as just a part of normal everyday business.
13

Woo_Monster, Sniffer of Starfarts

16 July 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Nice one, DonDueed

Homeopathic chemtrails. *snort*
14

CSB

16 July 2012 at 1:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

As far as conspiracies go, my personal favorite bit of insanity has to be Project Blue Beam.

It involves NASA using holograms and a Soviet supercomputer to mind-control the entire world into worshipping the Antichrist, and was apparently stolen from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
15

David Marjanović

16 July 2012 at 1:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The bad news: the Chemtrail Conspiracy is REAL!

The good news: the conspirators also believe in homeopathy, and are attempting to poison us with ultra-minute doses of toxins.

Thread won. :-)

conning trails

Condensation trails. Water from the exhaust gas condenses (and freezes) in the deep-frozen air.

Perhaps they’re harmless to the environment, but I am doubtful of that.

Well, they’re additional clouds, so they have an effect on the climate. Look it up, I’m lazy tonight.
16

unclefrogy

16 July 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I knew I had read something about this when it happened so I found this on WIKI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrail

with a link to the article

there is something in it just ain’t no conspiracy

uncle frogy
17

dean

16 July 2012 at 2:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Your conspiracies pale in comparison to this.

http://exopolitics.blogs.com/exopolitics/2012/07/third-whistle-blower-confirms-obamas-participation-in-cia-jump-room-program-of-early-1980s.html

Apparently our government and the CIA have been using technology from “the Greys” to do all sorts of wondrous things. Of course, the current president was, and still is, neck-deep.

Obama as a time travel pre-identified CIA asset
Whistleblower Bernard Mendez’ detailed testimony that Mr. Mendez not only participated in the 1980-83 CIA jump room program with Barack Obama, but engaged Mr. Obama in jump room experiments such as a flare experiment to determine the location the jump room technology was teleporting to, further bolsters emerging evidence that Barack H. Obama was involved at the early age of 19 in a highly classified, top priority U.S. national security project, and went on to be a life-long CIA asset or operative.

The “exouniversity” has all the details. (A colleague sent this to me: one of her former students, seriously into this crap, sent it to her as “proof” of something – she wasn’t sure what.)
18

Markita Lynda—damn climate change!

16 July 2012 at 3:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Some people’s heads are so far out in La-la land it’s amazing they don’t starve. This crap is so obviously fictional—what is wrong with them!?
19

Markita Lynda—damn climate change!

16 July 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

And I thought I was gullible!
20

bricewgilbert

16 July 2012 at 4:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hopefully these are parody. Some of it is for sure, however I take it that way so I can feel better about myself.
21

Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz)

16 July 2012 at 5:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s kinda adorable that he thinks that evil billionaires are automatically competent.

As per the usual reply to conspiracy nuts: I wish that were true. At least then the government would be getting something done.
22

stubby

16 July 2012 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I rather enjoy somegreybloke. He has some very good vids about choosing a religion.
23

davem

17 July 2012 at 12:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Dean @ 17: Please tell me that that’s a spoof site. It makes the Onion seem so serious. The commenters seem so oblivious – or are they all in on the joke?
24

carbonbasedlifeform

17 July 2012 at 6:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The problem I have with the Chemtrails thing is that there must be conspirators who are saying to themselves, “What I am doing may well be harmful to my friends, family and me personally. But my loyalty to the conspiracy is such that I am not blowing the whistle on it.”
25

carbonbasedlifeform

17 July 2012 at 6:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I went looking for something on chemtrails and found something from Neal Boortz of all people, a response to one of his listeners who e-mailed him about chemtrails.

OK, Jim. I’ll explain. You’re a nutcase. Those “chemicals” you think the military is spraying on citizens are nothing more than ice crystals formed by the condensation created by high-flying aircraft. Somewhere along the line some lonely demented hysteric decided that the military was crop dusting people with all sorts of chemicals designed to make us sick, change our behavior or neuter us. I have no idea in the world what went wrong in your education, upbringing or mental health history that caused you to actually believe this insane nonsense … I can only hope that you don’t vote.
26

maxmogren

17 July 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Humans have been intentionally modifying the weather for over a century and in recent decades weather modification technologies have progressed on par with advances in communication technology to the point where they boggle the skeptical mind.

Geoengineering programs involving atmospheric spraying from planes and atmospheric heating using microwaves from HAARP and radar installations have been increasingly common globally for over a decade. The MSM and you skeptics would better serve their readers by researching these topics before writing about them. Watch the 2009 documentary “What in the World Are They Spraying?” and the forthcoming sequel “Why In the World Are They Spraying?” for a good synopsis of the situation. Google “chemtrails” and “weather warfare” and do a little research of your own.

Contrary to *official* statements about combating climate change with weather modification, it is more commonly used as a weapon of economic and disaster warfare. Causing floods, droughts, and other extreme weather events is entirely possible with existing technology and, stealing a line from Thomas Friedman, “…what can be done will be done and the only question is whether it will be done by you or to you.””

The governments, NGOs, and corporations now slowly going public about their ongoing weather modification agendas would like you to believe that they are acting in the best interests of all humanity just as their so-called “war on terror” (ie, empire building, resource stealing war of terror ) is supposedly intended to protect the masses and “defend freedom”. In reality, Geoengineering (aka Weather Warfare) is being implemented at the expense of the masses and for the benefit of the few who control the tools the change the weather.

Assuming a gradual increase in greenhouse gasses is the primary driver of our rapid uptick in extreme weather events like the recent flooding of Washington DC and Moscow is exceptionally naive when chemtrails and resonating wave clouds are visible in the skies over much of the planet almost every day. Do your own research, study the sky, and see for yourself. All is not as it seems and the MSM is behind the 8 ball as usual on the most important topic of our time. Peace.
27

dmgregory

17 July 2012 at 6:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

billygutter01 @ 2: You called it!

maxmogren @ 26: [Citation needed]

Telling people to “do a little research of your own” doesn’t cut it.

We have researched the topic, and we’ve each independently come to the conclusion that chemtrails are a baseless urban myth.

If you have compelling evidence to the contrary, please link it directly. (Though be warned, if all your sources are .net sites with black backgrounds, we may be forced to go down a waterslide.)

robro @ 12: I had a very similar experience. A former colleague and friend helped me get a job at his workplace. Then he changed drastically, posting all sorts of stuff about fluoride and chemtrails and secret gold… Pretty much the conspiracy theorist’s dictionary.

I tried to stay on friendly terms with him, even when his increasingly extreme views led to him resigning. I’d hear him out, and occasionally suggest evidence against some of the more alarming claims, while trying not to be too confrontational. I looked at it as a shared effort to find truth.

It didn’t work, though. Just last week, he posted a bunch of pictures from an alleged global protest happening now, which the “mainstream media” was supposedly covering up. I searched the images and found them dating back to a (very famous) protest from last year, and a football celebration from earlier still.

Pointing this out got me blocked. He claimed I was dangerous to his efforts to expose the truth and lies in society.

Amazing that someone so concerned with truth and freedom can be so intolerant of research and dissent. :/

Sadly there’s something seductive in these conspiracy stories that can lead otherwise smart and well-adjusted people to shut themselves off from the rest of the world.
28

Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls

17 July 2012 at 6:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

atmospheric heating using microwaves from HAARP a

You mean this, what can’t do much? Much less cause anything other than local disruption? Not much to cause a conspiracy theory, unless one is a paranoid fool, wearing a tin hat.