Conspiracy theories and Conspiracy theorists

[Ellen Stuttle]

16 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ellen,

I was going to post the following in Trump Humor, but I think it is appropriate right here.

Michael

Michael,

On the issue of "Trump supporters," what kind of people they are:

I'm so struck by the image of the guy in that picture.

He takes me back to my youth, when, because of my horse thing, I spent a great deal of time amongst rancher and farmer folk, Western and country.  He's the sort of person who's my idea of a "Trump supporter."  Can you imagine a guy like that wanting a totalitarian strongman?  No way.

Ellen

[merjet]

14 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

I'm so struck by the image of the guy in that picture.

That is The Big Lebowski. Link.

[Ellen Stuttle]

1 hour ago, merjet said:

That is The Big Lebowski. Link.

Shatters the image.  I've only seen Jeff Bridges in one movie ("Fearless") and didn't recognize him.

Apparently Bridges the person, not the person he looks like to me in the picture, supported Hillary and found the support for Trump "shocking" - link.

[william.scherk]

 A mild viral infection took this to half a million views.  The reaction by Delingpole (at Breitbart) is pretty funny.  The trip  point is the claim "GLOBAL LAND TEMPERATURES HAVE PLUMMETED" ... which is a combo of wrong, stupid, and deceptive.

See also the point-counterpoint rebuttal at the Weather Channel.  The Daily Mail, which started the round of hooey via David Rose, also takes some cheap shots.

Somewhere on this forum are transcript excerpts from a Rush Limbaugh show. My gleaning of the transcript reveals a Rush getting a bit worried about something suspicious in the Ivanka+Donald Al Gore meeting. As if something awful could happen next, and Trump might take wrong counsel.

I think Rush is relatively uninformed.  The climate-change landscape he sketches is one sickened by communist-world-government infections, wholly and completely a fraud if not a crime.

I'd love to get prepped and have an hour of his time, to challenge some of his stances. He is not a Skeptic, oh no.  He is in possession of certain knowledge. This sets off Objectivist bells for me. 

A sample:

Quote

 The climate's changing all the time and nobody denies that, but the idea that we control it is what's absurd, and the idea that there is man-made climate change is absurd.  And, you know, even... It is not true. There has not been any documented temperament increase!

 That means any claim of global warming is untrue from the get-go. That makes Lukewarmers gullible fools. It even means Ellen is on the verge of being fooled. It certainly blows David Rose out of the water, and makes the Weather Channel lady an evul agent of deception.

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In fact, this hoax, can I tell you one thing it's about, the one thing?The entire concept of man-made climate change is based on one thing, and that is computer models, not data, because there isn't any data. 

This is true-ish at one edge, and wrong at the three others.  The thing that the concept is based on is atmospheric physics.  Bob could run us through this in a trice:  Fourier, Arrhenius, Tyndall and the discovery of the key to Earth's 'goldilocks' climate for life.   Bob would quickly explain why Earth is warmer with an atmosphere than without.  And that CO2 is of atmospheric processes, not quite a regulator and not quite an inconsequent.

There is data from the spectral bands. There is data from radiosondes. There is data from ice-core samples. There is data from temperature sensors. There is data from black-body radiative physics. There is solar data.  There is ocean data. There are measurements that represent data.

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How many times do you hear a climate change prediction include something like, "And in the next year or two, temperatures are expected to rise one or two degrees centigrade"?  You never hear that, do you?  You always hear, "In 30 years, maybe 25, certainly in 50 years."  

Here we are at the edge of 2017.  The first 'alarm' was raised -- to pick a point -- in 1987.  The alarm was that CO2 emissions could increase the 'rate' of warming from outside a historical band.  The alarming suggestion contained a prediction that the 'pulse' of increase would increasingly show up in a march of average global temperatures.  At the most basic -- the alarm was rung that ''dangerous" levels of warming would begin to become apparent. 

Now think back to the alarm ten years after  the first ringing.  in 1997   The same but expanded gang was predicting a continued march up.  It was predicting 'arctic effects,'  particular patterns of effects.  And the next ten years  will add to the record high temperatures. And the ten years after that. The signal over the longer period of time will 'shine through'  natural variability. The El Nino will gave way to La Nina, and repeat, and the numbers will continue to march upwards.

But, that doesn't seem to be what Rush is urging us to consider.

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It is a wild guess, and nothing more than if we double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, that we're going to raise temperatures on the surface of the earth in ways that make it very difficult to be living on the planet in 30 or 40 years.  

-- that is a wild guess. The knock-on effects of a global temperature increase can be assessed separately, because the scenarios or projections or analyses use concentration 'scenarios.' The metaphor is to script:  in scene one, emissions increase without mitigation or decrease, in the next emissions rate of increase is turned down, in the third the rate is curbed much more substantially.  In a sense these are If predictions. If ... then predictions.

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The truth is, if there was a two-degree-centigrade warming of the earth, the earth would get a lot greener.  A lot of people would benefit profoundly.  It would not be destructive.  Talking about melting snow caps, ice caps, North Pole, South Pole? The bottom line is, there isn't any data.  There is no empirical data that shows we are warming or cooling based on man-made or man-caused behavior.  Plus, don't doubt me. 

The middle part goes soft.   "There isn't any data" from the North Pole (High Arctic) or from its antipode.  That just is not true.  "Plus, don't doubt me" is uninterpretable. 

If .... there was a 2C warming (over what time is not specified, but let's say 100 years), "it would not be destructive."  That presumes a lot of knowledge, and entirely sets aside all warnings, alarm, and the bulk of the literature for the last thirty years. What gives Rush such titanic powers of discernment? Could it be his political goggles?  Oh, heaven forfend.

 

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Trump is on record as saying that he doesn't believe in man-made climate change, but his daughter met with Algore today. She wants to be climate czar.  So this is one of these things that I'm waiting with at arm's length, because, folks, the climate change issue is all of communism wrapped up in one bundle.  Militant environmentalism actually is the new home for displaced communists after the Soviet Union imploded, and if the leftists and the communists promoting climate change -- if they were ever able to, via policy, realize their dreams -- we would have a worldwide communist government.  

I think Rush is inferring something not yet in evidence. I have seen nothing reliable that says Ivanka Trump wants to be a Climate Czar. All that's in so far is third hand gossip (as Rush acknowledges). I have seen nothing to suggest she is in with the Warmunists.  She may have views and ambitions but she has not made anything clear. If there is a difference of opinion between her and her father, the contours are obscure. We don't know.

But Rush is on the case!

Quote

That's among the many things that's very bad and wrong about all this.  But these are the people behind it and sponsoring it, and that's why it's so important that it has got to be shellacked and resisted.  And we've had some success, because it's not even in the top 10 of the most important issues to people -- and yet, look, you can't stop hearing about it, can you? No matter the fact they know people don't care. No matter the fact they know it's not that important to people. They keep drumming it into you.  

They want you to think it's your fault so that you will accept globally mandated behavioral controls, loss of freedom in order to "save the planet," to give your life meaning and all of that.  

But ... what about Ivanka?

Quote

Ivanka wants to be the climate change czar in her father's administration.  

I am not yet buying this.  

Quote

That worries me to no end.  But I'm reserving all this.  We don't know.  What if he was interviewing Al Gore for secretary of state. 

Oh noes.  But what about Ivanka, again?

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If Trump goes south on climate change, I am gonna... That's just gonna be deeply disappointing and alarming because of what climate change is to the left.  It's everything.  It's everything they want and everything they believe, and it's almost everything they can get to achieve it to accomplish it.

 I am willing to accept that Rush thinks Ivanka is a bad influence on this issue. I am not convinced that there will be any 'softening' of the Trump plans to devalue climate research, to de-politicize, to drain the swamp.  And in any case, does Ivanka got the time and chops to be a science-policy chief?  I think she has business to run, her own and her dad's.  I think Rush's fears will be mostly unfounded.  

Quote

It's that bad.  That's why I spend so much time, so many years on this trying to persuade people to don't get anywhere near sidling up to this notion of man-made climate change.  It's one of the most bogus hoax scams run on the people of the world, and it ought to be proven simply by the fact that it originates at the U.N.  That's all anybody ought to know, or need to know.

If Rush's take on things was all anybody ought or need to know, what price debate?

In any case, Rush is on the outer circles of influence on the President-elect. Let me know when he gets a summons to Trump Tower. That will likely be the same week Alex Jones gets his embassy posting.   

I wish Rush would give us the gen on Pete Saghetti! next.  Or maybe he has.   I have sent him a few links to material on "moral panics."

 

Edited December 7, 2016 by william.scherk
Fun links; Peter S Agate or Peter S Aghetti, or Pete's a Gate? Grrrrammar.

[merjet]

Jeff Bridges had a change of heart between June and November (per Breitbart).

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/06/28/jeff-bridges-endorses-hillary-clinton-president-dont-dig-trump/

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/11/21/jeff-bridges-donald-trump-im-rooting-guy/

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

 

3 hours ago, merjet said:

That is The Big Lebowski. Link.

Shatters the image.  I've only seen Jeff Bridges in one movie ("Fearless") and didn't recognize him.

 

Ellen,

You have to see the The Big Lebowski. I put off watching it for years because they advertised it with one of the bowling alley scenes. And who the hell wants to see a movie about a bowling alley (at least in my generation)? That's what I used to do for normal entertainment, sort of like a person nowadays watching a YouTube video. Who would want to watch a movie about that?

Imagine the trailer:

(Guy in front of a computer from different angles, especially the computer screen and close-ups of his eyes. Scary music.)

Voice Over (gruff and scraggly): "YouTube, the land that time forgot... Where anything can happen... David doesn't know what awaits him this time... Do you have the courage to log on and click?"

(Sudden BAM! with fast-cut computer graphics galore, then long lingering wavy and blinking images fading out as the computer screen slowly consumes the entire field of vision. Slow dissonant music slides up and also fades.) 

But the movie is so much more than what I imagined. There was a meme in the culture for the longest time that came from it: "The dude abides."

This meme came in a stoner package, but it meant something deeper. Something like don't take superficial shit so seriously you end up hating. Have a good time, instead. In fact, a tongue-in-cheek religion has been founded based on this movie, and, ironically, that religion is now taken seriously by some: Dudeism.

I didn't know any of that until I saw the movie and read up on it. And I thought: Dayaamm, that was fun just learning about all this. Imagine, all this cool stuff happened right under my nose.

Nowadays, with social justice warrior crap, the AGW power grab, the level of nonstop retarded discourse of TV pundits, the social engineering, the cookie-cutter TV shows and movies, the sameness of pop songs, and on and on, it's like the fun has been sucked out of the mainstream culture.

You have to go underground to have fun anymore. There's too much hatred and mediocrity in the main arenas.

At least we know that Trump's election showed there are a huge number of people who feel just like this. They are rejecting the hatred and opting for fun once again. For building stuff and having a good time doing it.

And the haters are shitting bricks.

But the dude abides...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, william.scherk said:

"Plus, don't doubt me" is uninterpretable.

William,

"Don't doubt me" is a Rush meme. He says this often.

He says it seriously and playfully at the same time.

It's rhetorical emphasis he and his audience find fun. Nothing more and never gotcha-worthy.

 

Michael

[william.scherk]

Further to the hilarity at Breitbart (James Delingpole) ...   from the (presumably) Pan-Pizzagate! forces of Warmunism at Mic.

Quote

The Weather Channel brought the heat Tuesday afternoon when it addressed a Nov. 30 article posted by far-right-wing news site Breitbart, which used a video from its site to stoke climate change conspiracy theories. 

In the story, columnist James Delingpole accused climate change "alarmists" of "icy silence" in the face of reports that the global temperature saw its "steepest fall on record" this year.

To support their claims that the falling temperature suggested a "global warming" hoax, Delingpole embedded a video from the Weather Channel reporting on how the Pacific's La Niña would impact winter in New England. 

Not so fast, said the Weather Channel.

In a note to the conservative news outlet, Weather Channel staff wrote point-blank: "Earth is not cooling, climate change is real and please stop using our video to mislead Americans."

 

View image on Twitter

 

 Follow

The Weather Channel 

 

✔@weatherchannel

Note to @BreitbartNews: Earth Is Not Cooling, Climate Change Is Real and Stop Using Our Video to Mislead Americans http://wxch.nl/2gzJpQG 

11:38 AM - 6 Dec 2016

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The Weather Channel called the Breitbart article a "prime example of cherry-picking" information to come to the dangerously misleading conclusion of referring to climate change — the effects of which are easily observable — as nothing more than a "scare." 

But Breitbart maintains that any reporting that insists otherwise is propaganda. 

Climate change denial has a bigger platform than ever, as President-elect Donald Trump promises to cut funding from NASA's climate change research division and continues to hem and haw about whether he believes humanity has an effect on climate change at all. More frightening still, the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology tweeted outBreitbart's article in a seeming endorsement of the outlet's doubt in the existence of a phenomenon that could displace 13 million people in the United States alone by 2100. 

Add all that to the fact that Breitbart founding member Steve Bannon has been tapped as chief White House advisor, and the end result is a perfect storm of see-no-evil denial heading to the White House on Jan. 20. 

 

 Follow

Sci,Space,&Tech Cmte 

 

✔@HouseScience

.@BreitbartNews: Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists http://bit.ly/2gINZNf 

11:12 AM - 1 Dec 2016

Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists

Land temperatures have plummeted by 1 degree - the biggest and steepest fall on record. But the news has been greeted with an eerie silence.

breitbart.com

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The Weather Channel took Breitbart's argument point by point, refuting each claim. In the future, though, the weather station suggested the outlet's writers run any article on climate change past them first. 

"Finally, to our friends at Breitbart: The next time you write a climate change article and need fact checking help, please call," the note ends. "We're here for you. I'm sure we both agree this topic is too important to get wrong."

 

 

I dunno about "refuting each claim." Is that even possible?

-- from the international communist plot at the Weather Channel:

The Breitbart article heavily references a piece that first appeared on U.K. Daily Mail’s site.

Here’s where both articles went wrong:

CLAIM: "Global land temperatures have plummeted by one degree Celsius since the middle of this year – the biggest and steepest fall on record."

TRUTH: This number comes from one satellite-based estimate of temperatures above land areas in the lower atmosphere. Data from the other two groups that regularly publish satellite-based temperature estimates show smaller drops, more typical of the decline one would expect after a strong El Niño event.

Temperatures over land give an incomplete picture of global-scale temperature. Most of the planet – about 70 percent – is covered by water, and the land surface warms and cools more quickly than the ocean. Land-plus-ocean data from the other two satellite groups, released after the Breitbart article, show that Earth’s lower atmosphere actually set a record high in November 2016.

CLAIM: "It can be argued that without the El Niño (and the so-called "Pacific Blob") 2014-2016 would not have been record warm years." (David Whitehouse, Global Warming Policy Foundation, quoted by Breitbart)

TRUTH: NOAA data show that the 2014-16 El Niño did not even begin until October 2014. It was a borderline event until mid-2015, barely above the El Niño threshold. El Niño clearly added to the strength of the record global warmth observed since late 2015. However, if the El Niño spike is removed, 2016 is still the warmest year on record and 2015 the second warmest, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather (Berkeley Earth).

CLAIM: "Many think that 2017 will be cooler than previous years. Myles Allen of Oxford University says that by the time of the next big United Nations climate conference, global temperatures are likely to be no warmer than the Paris COP in 2015. This would be a strange thing to happen if, as some climate scientists have claimed, recent years would have been a record even without the El Niño." (David Rose, U.K. Daily Mail, quoted by Breitbart)

TRUTH: There is nothing unusual about a drop in global surface temperatures when going from El Niño to La Nina. These ups and downs occur on top of the long-term warming trend that remains when the El Niño and La Niña signals are removed. If there were no long-term trend, then we would see global record lows occurring during the strongest La Niña events. However, the last year to see global temperatures hit a record low was 1911, and the most recent year that fell below the 20th-century average was 1976.

For an even deeper dive on the science, we recommend the blog by our experts.

Finally, to our friends at Breitbart: The next time you write a climate change article and need fact checking help, please call. We're here for you. I'm sure we both agree this topic is too important to get wrong.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: NASA Documents Worldwide Ice Loss

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

20 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

LOL.

Ellen,

Here's another you might enjoy.

(btw - I'm enjoying discussing AGW finally in a thread called "Conspiracy theories and Conspiracy theorists" where it belongs.    )

Michael

[william.scherk]

 

[9thdoctor]

4 hours ago, merjet said:

That is The Big Lebowski. Link.

Correction, that was Jeff Lebowski aka The Dude. 

The one on the left is The Big Lebowski. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

21 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

LOL.  The number of shat bricks might end up being sufficient to build the Great Wall of China.

Ellen,

Would you like some extra butter with your popcorn?

Because here comes a boulder, not a brick.

The name?

Scott Pruitt (see here), the new EPA director.

(I know I'm posting a lot to you right now, but I'm pretty sure you're having a good time. I just want to add to it.  )

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

People who make misleading statements do not properly frame the "debate" about "climate change."

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ellen,

Would you like some extra butter with your popcorn?

Because here comes a boulder, not a brick.

The name?

Scott Pruitt (see here), the new EPA director.

(I know I'm posting a lot to you right now, but I'm pretty sure you're having a good time. I just want to add to it.  )

Michael

I was already enjoying that extra butter since this afternoon.

News travels fast in some quarters, and Larry had heard about it from a couple friends practically as soon as the announcement was made.  The Oklahoma Attorney General.  That's extra-creamy butter.

Note that Pruitt is called a "climate change denialist" in the headline of the New York Times story you linked to.

The way the code language creeps in.  As if anyone denies that climate changes.

Ellen

Added PS:

Question now is if Pruitt can be confirmed.

Quoting from the NYT story, last paragraph:

"At a time when climate change is the great environmental threat to the entire planet, it is sad and dangerous that Mr. Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the E.P.A.,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, who sits on the committee that must confirm him. “The American people must demand leaders who are willing to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. I will vigorously oppose this nomination.”

 

[BaalChatzaf]

11 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

I was already enjoying that extra butter since this afternoon.

News travels fast in some quarters, and Larry had heard about it from a couple friends practically as soon as the announcement was made.  The Oklahoma Attorney General.  That's extra-creamy butter.

Note that Pruitt is called a "climate change denialist" in the headline of the New York Times story you linked to.

The way the code language creeps in.  As if anyone denies that climate changes.

Ellen

Added PS:

Question now is if Pruitt can be confirmed.

Quoting from the NYT story, last paragraph:

"At a time when climate change is the great environmental threat to the entire planet, it is sad and dangerous that Mr. Trump has nominated Scott Pruitt to lead the E.P.A.,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, who sits on the committee that must confirm him. “The American people must demand leaders who are willing to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. I will vigorously oppose this nomination.”

 

Anyone who does not toe the line on human caused climate change is labeled a "denier" and a shill for the energy corporations.   Neo-Lysenkoism has arrived.   

Now we know what Galileo was up against.   The Church Fathers sternly warned and advised  that the science is settled.  The Sun moves and the earth does not.  There is a 97 percent consensus. The other 3 percent were burned at the stake or broken on the rack.  

[Ellen Stuttle]

4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Neo-Lysenkoism has arrived.

Also - a thought that occurred to me because of your bringing up Galileo - Neo-Ptolemaicism in the climate modeling.

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

10 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Also - a thought that occurred to me because of your bringing up Galileo - Neo-Ptolemaicism in the climate modeling.

Ellen

A very apt metaphor  

[Ellen Stuttle]

14 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

A very apt metaphor  

Thanks.  I'll recommend to my husband that he start using it in his talks.  It would be immediately understandable to people who know the history of science.

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

16 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Thanks.  I'll recommend to my husband that he start using it in his talks.  It would be immediately understandable to people who know the history of science.

Ellen

Does your husband work  in the physical sciences or the teaching thereof?  

[william.scherk]

On 12/6/2016 at 11:39 AM, william.scherk said:

 This is where our 'discussion' hits shoals.

.. joins the list of yapping/yammering about the concept:

• When strong or sweeping claims are made, there is most often a critical reaction. This is how issues of fact and import can be resolved, at least in theory. For me, hearing from one 'side' only is a doorway to error.
• Maybe there is a way to personalize discussion  without snottiness and derision towards alternate opinions.
• But your point is well-taken and an important site of discussion
• To habits of mind and discussion  that make a topic-item fraught -- as here with conspiracy ideation -- I hold that the best tools we have to cut through error and bias are in our individual Reason Kits.
• I'll leave that there to be further elaborated in discussion
• Is discussion  worthwhile? Looks like it isn't.
• This is where our 'discussion ' hits shoals. You see bad faith or fixed religious conviction or both. 

Yadda yadda yadda. Blah blah and blah. So revealing of a close-minded ideologue or lover of Satan.

This is originally from an atheist site. It is funny to note where I fell on either side of the outcome over the course of my life, or even the course of my OL career. At some points, discussion does need termination. As long as there is a heartbeat, no. Which is what makes Pizzagate! such a scream.

 

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

Which is what makes Pizzagate! such a scream.

William,

I guarantee you that most of the people looking into pizzagate are creeped out about pedophilia and would love to be wrong about pizzagate. They would love it. Seriously. Why? Because if they end up being wrong, there are no child victims.

It's the urge to protect innocent victims (children at that) moving these people to look into pizzagate, not class hatred or loathing of pizza parlors. And it's not country bumpkin stupidity, either.

I do agree that cool heads need to prevail.

But here. Since you like to laugh at bumpkins, here's one who made a video that's getting some traction:

I prefer to bash the Podesta brothers rather than the guy who made this video. I don't think he's a bumpkin, anyway, but I can see how others might think this.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Does your husband work  in the physical sciences or the teaching thereof?  

He's a full professor of physics at the University of Hartford (name Larry Gould - I kept my maiden name).

Ellen

[william.scherk]

22 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I guarantee you that most of the people looking into pizzagate are creeped out about pedophilia and would love to be wrong about pizzagate.

Okay, I want that guarantee in writing, and I want it enforceable. Thanks.

Pizzagate! is a classic moral panic for the present age. The worst fears instantiated.  Few fears are more compelling than that children -- the most vulnerable among us -- are being abused.  From neglect to abandonment, to active violence, to abduction, to violations of utmost immorality and crime, to torture and murder. We look back in recent Western history and we look at our human history, and we know that children (minors) have been chattel, possessions, trade items and slaves. 

That such things as child sexual abuse exist, we agree.  That such are heinous crimes, we agree.  That law enforcement should give priority to, and work in concert to investigate allegations of such crimes is agreed.  That child-abduction, missing children, serial sexual predators exist, yes. That pedophiles exist, yes. That pedophiles act on their urges and so commit crimes, yes. That pedophiles generally seek the shadows, yes. That they may 'network' with other would-be and active criminals, yes. 

That Jim X** is involved in a criminal conspiracy, no.  That 'spirit cooking' is a reliable sign of satanic cult ritual abuse, no. That any complainant has come forward to say "I suspect my child was processed at Comet Pizza," no.  That any complaint has been made that names a crime, a time frame, gives supporting probative evidence, no.

Don't talk about "most people." Talk about your own opinions, said Mum.   I could be quite wrong, but I take away the impression that your first premise is that Something Criminally Awful Really Happened.  In other words, there is a complaint, an accusation of criminal activity that in your mind is more likely than not to have occurred. Ie, child sexual abuse, torture, abduction, imprisonment and trafficking.

Now, back to a guarantee. Let's see something besides a disputed report of "Smoke."  Let's see you tangle with the hypothesis that this is an example of Moral Panic.  That is a null hypothesis. In proving your own 'smoke == fire' estimate, you knock the null out of the park, metaphorically.

Back when, I stupidly asked "WHICH CHILDREN"  and you replied "THE VICTIMS YOU IGNORE,"  which made an estimate that there actually were child victims processed through the DC facility.

It is odd indeed that when asked for details about a purported crime, you bark back the questionable premises. Does not follow. Non sequitur.

The null hypothesis?  Blur, skip, blot, avoid.

Nothing is easier to get people spooked than Child Crimes.  It is the ne plus ultra of Spooking tools.  I guarantee that if you investigate the operation of this Spooking, you will conclude that you have witnessed a classic moral panic, if not quite an instance of mass hysteria, the madness of crowds.

I guarantee it, Boss.

___________________

** Jim X, Jim X. Does anyone remember the fellow accused of crimes of pedophilia, of belonging to a network, and the minor moral panic about his crimes and complicities? Jim X, Jim somebody, Jim. James, James X, James somebody.

For further reading, see Victor, Jeffrey S,  Satanic Panic, Open Court, 1993.

Again and again we are told - by journalists, police, and fundamentalists - that there exists a secret network of criminal fanatics, worshippers of Satan, who are responsible for kidnapping, human sacrifice, sexual abuse and torture of children, drug-dealing, mutilation of animals, desecration of churches and cemeteries, pornography, heavy metal lyrics, and cannibalism. This popular tale is almost entirely without foundation, but the legend continues to gather momentum, in the teeth of evidence and good sense. Networks of 'child advocates', credulous or self-serving social workers, instant-expert police officers, and unscrupulous ministers of religion help to spread the panic, along with fabricated survivors' memoirs passed off as true accounts, and irresponsible broadcast 'investigations'. A classic witch-hunt, comparable to those of medieval Europe, is under way. Innocent victims are smeared and railroaded. Satanic Panic uncovers the truth behind the satanic cult hysteria, and exposes the roots of this malignant mythology, showing in detail how unsubstantiated rumor becomes transformed into publicly-accepted 'fact'.

For a link between the Comet Pizza flap and the urban legends in Victor's book, read up (from both "sides") on The Franklin Cover-up.  Spooooky stuff.  

Edited December 9, 2016 by william.scherk
Spoo Kay

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

27 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

That such things as child sexual abuse exist, we agree.  That such are heinous crimes, we agree.  That law enforcement should give priority to, and work in concert to investigate allegations of such crimes is agreed.  That child-abduction, missing children, serial sexual predators exist, yes. That pedophiles exist, yes. That pedophiles act on their urges and so commit crimes, yes. That pedophiles generally seek the shadows, yes. That they may 'network' with other would-be and active criminals, yes. 

That the ruling class could possibly be involved in pedophilia (starting with the Lolita Express) and is using all its corrupt media and covert resources to protect itself, no.

That's where this always goes.

 

(btw - This time I really do think the kiddie-hump brigade will fall apart like the pedo-ring in the Catholic Church finally did, at least a good chunk of them.)

Michael

[william.scherk]