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Post by peterscreek on May 17, 2011 20:31:51 GMT -4
I was in the Pentagon...once...at least that's what the sign at the rail stop said it was. Got lost as hell in there, wandering from ring to ring, as I was walking, there was a "decor change", then a couple of stiff Marines, with bayonetted weapons, and a door that said something to the effect of "Secretary of Defense"... ...it was one of those "well, THIS isn't where I'm supposed to be" moments... Been there, done that...except I wound up outside the door of the Under Secretary of the Navy, think it was. No guards there but since I was on active duty at the time, there was a very strong "you're in the wrong place, Sergeant!" feeling to it.
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Post by echnaton on May 17, 2011 22:43:24 GMT -4
I used to help out when George HW Bush was traveling to Houston. One rainy day they had the Presidential Limo parked under the stands at A local school football stadium waiting on the helicopter to land. Two Secret Service agents were standing there, talking and laughing and when I got to an invisible line, they just looked at me. That was enough for me.
Another time we were waiting for Bush to come out of church, the agents were standing there talking, then in unison, their heads popped up and they started scanning the crowd with their eyes. The positions and postures that before had looked so casual suddenly were strategic and intimidating. A few seconds later Bush walked out and stepped into the Limo. Once he left, the agents again took a casual posture as they prepared to go back to Bush's Houston residence at the Houstonian Hotel.
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Post by ka9q on May 20, 2011 18:57:52 GMT -4
Wait...there were two George Bushes who were president...?
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Post by grashtel on May 20, 2011 21:21:39 GMT -4
Wait...there were two George Bushes who were president...? Of course not, those who are truly conspiritoraly aware know that George Bush never existed.
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Post by gillianren on May 20, 2011 21:51:32 GMT -4
Oh . . . . Wouldn't that be a different world!
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Post by ka9q on May 21, 2011 3:38:40 GMT -4
A much better one, I'm sure...
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Post by Count Zero on May 23, 2011 22:22:22 GMT -4
That's awesome! I wish we'd thought to try this on Rocky/DavidC: "No plane hit the Pentagon." "What Pentagon? Prove that any such place exists. No, those pictures could have been faked. People who say they've seen it or been their could be lying or hypnotized. Construction records can be faked. Satellite pictures could be faked. People could be threatened or bribed to go along with "the official story" that the Pentagon exists... Etc, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc..." As an extra added bonus, I just spent a week in the D.C. area and never once laid eyes on this so-called "Pentagon", which is supposed to be one of the worlds largest buildings! Just don't ask me to prove I was there. He's currently getting spanked on JREF if you really want to deal with him. < checks> No thanks. I'd rather pick my nose with a soldering iron.
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Post by scooter on May 24, 2011 0:12:55 GMT -4
I just visited your link...now I need to find all the pieces of my brain scattered about the room here.... he's a real piece of work there...
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Post by twik on Jun 20, 2011 16:54:52 GMT -4
I'm tempted to buy this book - sounds very interesting.
Has anyone ever read West's "The Meaning of Treason"? In it, she made an interesting suggestion that having the occasional traitor was the price society pays for having people who are not always going to be in lockstep with the government - they're the outliers of a population with the moral integrity not to bow down to tyrants. A necessary evil, if you will - get rid of the trait for treason, and you would delete something beneficial in smaller doses. I wonder if conspiracists are similar - they are the outliers of a healthy ability to detect lies and nonsense, but they've taken a healthy trait and taken it to an unhealthy extreme.
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Post by randombloke on Jun 20, 2011 18:54:55 GMT -4
Interesting hypothesis. May I present an alternative?
I propose that they are the pathological outliers on the "empathy" trait spectrum; that is, they cannot conceive of a mind that does not work like theirs does (the basis of empathy being that you feel what I feel because you can imagine the internal states that lead to the external signs I am displaying) and so require the world to fit into a model based around humans all acting as the conspiracy theorist would in a given situation.
Unfortunately this is insufficient to explain everything; what if the pathologically empathic mind is also sweet and kind and generally inoffensive? They might end up confused, by people being violent perhaps, and possibly invent external actors to 'force' violence on a person/population (demons and gods and whatnot maybe?) I suppose.
So I must further propose that in addition to pathological empathy they also must have developed (though not necessarily in pathological forms) personalities disposed to lying and concealing secrets for personal gain and/or disposed to working under orders/threat without consideration of the consequences.
Of course, now that we have two competing hypotheses, wee need to create a proposal and apply for funding. I wonder if NASA have a spare half-mil in their budget this year?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 23, 2011 16:19:15 GMT -4
Oh . . . . Wouldn't that be a different world! You mean a world where Al Gore was president on 9/1/01? No thank you. (there doesn't appear to be an emoticon for "I'm really freaked out by the mere thought, so I'll just settle for *shudder*)
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Post by ka9q on Jun 23, 2011 23:03:22 GMT -4
Nor does there seem to be one for "should'a, would'a, could'a"...
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ong
Mercury
BANNED
Posts: 7
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Post by ong on Jul 9, 2011 5:57:32 GMT -4
You clowns better stick to the Apollo missions because you sound like totally mindless blithering idiots when you're trying to do your politically corrected kindergarten mocking - parroting what the talking heads on your tv set taught you to chant in lieu of actual sentient thought - of what you call "truthers" and "birthers" and "conspiracy theories".
Do you even know what the word "conspiracy" means?
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Post by ka9q on Jul 9, 2011 6:10:29 GMT -4
Do you even know what the word "conspiracy" means? Um, an agreement among two or more people to commit an illegal act, followed by at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement even if it's legal... And I didn't even have to look it up! It is a legal term laymen ought to know, if for no other reason than to understand just how easy it can be to technically commit a conspiracy.
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Post by tedward on Jul 9, 2011 6:20:19 GMT -4
Do you even know what the word "conspiracy" means? Its the bit where you pick a cabbage off the top of the pile only to find its a cauliflower?
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