As I get a lot of questions on what my position is on global warming, I’ve decided to answer them and hopefully put the issue to rest (although I’m sure that won’t happen).   Here are some of the common questions I get.

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I hope this does not make me a conspiracy theorist, because on this one, I think the government is hiding something and I disagree with those who have dismissed this as a non-event.

On December 9 1965, a fireball streaked across North America and was sited in the Great Lakes region of both the United States and Canada.   There’s no doubt that this happened, as it was seen by many and produced sonic booms which were recorded on seismometers.   It was also seen in Pennsylvania, where some reports indicated that debris or meteorites may have started grass fires (there were grass fires, but whether or not this caused them is unproven.)

In the town of Kecksburg PA, local residents reported that an object landed (or crashed) in a small wooded area.   It has been pointed out that it’s not uncommon for observers of a meteor or other falling object, such as a satellite, to mistakenly believe that it has landed somewhere it has not due to an illusion which occurs when the object crosses over the horizon.  If there are trees or some other obstruction in the foreground, it can appear that the object has landed in the area behind the obstruction.   This phenomena is fairly common and it’s certainly possible that this is what occurred in Kecksburg, although there is some evidence to the contrary.

The Pennsylvania State Police were called and arrived to search the area, and the local volunteer fire department was also on the scene.   The State Police initially stated that they were turning over the site to the US Military, implying that there was something significant in the area and beyond their experience of jurisdiction.   However, later an official statement was released stating “The Pennsylvania State Police have made a thorough search of the woods. We are convinced that there is nothing whatsoever in the woods.”

At this point, the official documentation ends.   While there’s no doubt that something was reported and that there was an official report, any information about an object in the woods that night comes only from eyewitnesses – who are, of course, notoriously unreliable.   There are, however, a few pieces of indirect documentation to the event.   A Journalist from a local newspaper filed a report stating that an object had been found and the military had secured the area.   The reporter Bob Gatty, was at the site at the time and his story indicates that he had verified these events and seen them himself.   Despite these reports and the fact that the State Police had clearly stated that they did summon the military, the official line is that the US military never went to the location that night.

There is no doubt that many people in the area believed something did crash at the site on that night, although this does not mean anything did.

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I have stated before that I don’t buy into the claims of a conspiracy surrounding the Kennedy assassination.   It’s simply not that difficult or complex a task to shoot a man who is in an open car, moving at a slow speed and on a known route, especially when you have a good place to lay in wait.   In the years since the assassination, there have been many who claimed to have information about a conspiracy, but no solid proof of any kind.

There is, however, one mystery which remains – the identity of two key witnesses, whose testimony could be the biggest blow to conspiracy theorists since the assassination.   Having been more than forty years, the likelihood that either of these two witnesses are alive is diminished by the day, but given that they were described as “young” at the time, it is still likely that at least one and possibly both are alive.

Most conspiracy theories claim that at least one shot came from the so-called “Grassy Knoll” area.   The two areas that are cited are the area behind a small concrete retaining wall and the area further back, behind a stockade fence.

There was, however, a person, or perhaps two persons at this location at the time of the assassination, and of this there is no doubt.    There are two photographs taken only seconds before the assassination which show a figure in this area, dubbed the “Black Dog Man,” because of the resemblance to a black dog.   Since the time of the assassination, many have come forward claiming to have found a figure hidden in the shadows of one of the many photos and films taken that day in Dealey Plaza.   What makes the Black Dog Man photos unique is that there is fairly universal agreement that they do indeed show a human figure.   This is not an issue of blurry shadows playing tricks with the eye.   There is somebody or something there.

There have been numerous attempts to enhance these photographs, with varying degrees of success.  However, due to the limitations of the film used and the lighting conditions, no enhancements have ever yielded any significant results that would help identify the figure.   There is one more photo that may have captured the “Black dog Man” within less than a second of the fatal shot.   The Moorman photo was taken by Mary Moorman at almost the exact time of the fatal shot, but unfortunately, the photo was taken with a Polaroid camera, resulting in an image of limited photographic quality.

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As everyone now is aware, there was an earthquake in Haiti recently that caused a great deal of devastation.   In terms of seismic energy and ground shaking, the earthquake was not one for the record books, and was considerably less powerful than many other earthquakes the world has experienced in recent years.   However, due to the construction of buildings in Haiti and the location of the epicenter, not far from Port Au Prince, the quake resulted a great deal of devastation.

Of course, most rational people realize that these things happen.  Earthquakes have caused damage and loss of life since antiquity and Haiti is located right near the boundary of the small Caribbean plate – a seismically active area.   The fact of the matter is that places like this experience earthquakes and when these quakes are severe enough and occur close enough to human settlement, they can be disastrous.  It was well known that Haiti lacked the kind of construction and infrastructure that can hold up to an earthquake, but as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, there wasn’t much they could do about that.  This wasn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened and it won’t be the last.

That explanation doesn’t seem to cut it for some.   They insist that the United States Government, the Illuminati, the Jews, the Freemasons, Major League Baseball, the Crabpeople or whoever else they choose to fear was actually behind the earthquake.   Why?    Perhaps so they could end up spending a lot of money on the relief effort or maybe they’re just really mean.

Their weapon for causing the quake?   HAARP, of course!

This crudely edited video, which implies that HAARP is the reason for the quake is not the only one that was posted on Youtube and there will likely be even more, as well as rantings on conspiracy theorist websites. Apparently the idea that earthquakes simply happen is not good enough for some.

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We’ve reported before over the professional disgrace of Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield is one of the worst cases of everything a researcher and a physician should not be.   With complete disregard for the safety and welfare of others and his own professional obligations Doctor Mister Wakefield has not simply cherry-picked or spun data in favor of his claims:  he just plain lied.   Let me make this clear again:  he didn’t take improper measurements or use the data in an improper way, he simply made up facts that were not true.   And if that’s not bad enough he did it in regards to a matter of extreme consequence to public health and to the state of medical research.

Sadly, he’s gotten quite a lot of support and many have even seen his disgrace by British and other national medical bodies as more proof that he’s being persecuted by a big conspiracy.

No surprise, the GMC (General Medical Council) – the British body responsible for investigating things of this nature has returned its verdict:  guilty of professional misconduct, violations of ethics and other infractions against professional standards.

Via the Times Online:

Doctor in disgrace

The consultant who sparked the MMR vaccine scare now faces being struck off

The descent into professional disgrace of Andrew Wakefield is now almost complete. The doctor who fanned an unwarranted panic by suggesting a link between the three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism — prompting a fall in vaccination rates that spawned a startling rise in cases of measles — was condemned yesterday by the General Medical Council for acting “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research. He now faces the possibility of being struck off the medical register.

Nobody can doubt the GMC’s diligence. After conducting hearings over a period of two and a half years, it ruled that Wakefield had carried out invasive and unnecessary tests on children that were against their best clinical interests: he paid children £5 for blood samples at his son’s birthday party, acting, said the GMC, “with callous disregard” for the suffering of children.

The Lancet long ago regretted having published Wakefield’s initial study 12 years ago. No respected research has ever supported the findings that led Wakefield to brand his studies a “moral issue” that made him unable to support the continued use of the MMR jab. Indeed, a landmark study in Japan found that, on using single vaccines instead of the MMR, the number of diagnosed cases of autism actually rose sharply.

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Recent a depleted uranium debunker sent me a link to this news story “Iraq: Depleted Uranium Babies.“    It’s not surprising to see yet another trumped up and unfounded news story about the supposed effects of depleted uranium, but this one stirs up one sore spot.   There is a photo which is commonly used in claims about depleted uranium.  Like many images, it’s not what it seems, but the source is still not known.   In the past, other reputed photos of depleted uranium-enduced deformitives turned out to be taken in the US in the 1950’s, pulled from medical textbooks or from a museum in Bangkok.

The above image has been reported to show a child in Iraq after the US invasion.  It’s also been claimed that it shows a child in Kosovo or Bosnia, in Afghanistan or a victim of the Chernobyl event from Ukraine or Belarus.    These claims, however are false.

Perhaps you’ve seen this photo somewhere or can help trace it to its original source. Here is what we know:

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Okay, so we’ve seen a lot of really stupid and downright crazy conspiracy theories in the past.  Many have claimed the moon landings were a big hoax and others claim that the entire Cold War was staged by a secret underground group that actually ran both the US and Soviet Union.   Given the huge amount of evidence to prove those events independently, it seems a bit far fetched.

But it looks like they’ve been beaten.   There are at least a couple wackos out there who claim that nuclear weapons are a hoax.   Yes, they say nuclear weapons just plain don’t exist and beyond that, nuclear fission is not real.   Yes, that’s right. There no nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the Manhattan project never created a viable weapon and all the thousands of tests conducted by the US, Soviet Union, China, France, the UK and others were just elaborate fakes – at least that’s what some actually believe.

Sure, nuclear weapons development involved thousands and people and their power has destroyed two Japanese cities and been witnessed by millions during testing.    Indeed, some atmospheric tests have created a flash visible many miles away or sent mushroom clouds into the stratosphere, where they could be seen by anyone in Las Vegas.    Tests in the Marshall islands, Nevada and the Soviet Union lit up Geiger counters all over the world, caused power failures in Hawaii, broken windows in Finland and could be felt as shaking miles from the event.    Thousands of troops and technicians saw the events with their own eyes and hundreds of thousands more saw the distant clouds or a flash on the horizon.

The Nevada Test Site is full of craters, which you can even tour, if you want to.   Bikini Atoll has massive holes where large weapons were tested and although most of the fallout has long since decayed away, you can still pick up a slight increase in radioactivity in the areas where weapons were tested, if you use the proper instruments.

Nuclear weapons work on very well understood physics.   Their exstance sparked the development of ICBM’s and eventually lead to space flight.  Their threat caused national governments to institute complex continuity of government plans, to hallow out mountains and to keep aircraft in flight and ready to assume command for decades on end.   Facilities to produce plutonium, enrich uranium and fabricate components were constructed worldwide.

All of this a hoax?    Well, some people actually think so.  Since this provides a good opportunity to provide some information on the topic, lets see how their claims break down.

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It’s amazing how hard conspiracy theorists will dig, looking for anything they can cling to as evidence of their pre-conceived notions.   Here’s a video which claims to prove the Apollo Program was a hoax because of the mention of “classified fiber optics” in the Westinghouse Lunar Television Camera manual.

Now the reality:

When Westinghouse was asked to design a television camera for the Apollo program, they faced a difficult technical problem.  In addition to having to transmit the images within a relatively narrow portion of the spacecraft’s bandwidth, they had to create a camera that would work in the extreme lighting conditions of the moon.   With no atmosphere to defuse light and provide some indirect illumination, the conditions could be extremely bright out in the open and extremely dark in shadows.  This required a camera with very high dynamic range, but at the same time, the camera had to be as simple and free of adjustment as possible.  Astronauts would be too busy with other things to adjust the settings on the television camera during operation.

These requirements exceeded commercial video cameras of the day, but it turned out Westinghouse did have a camera tube that would be perfect for the job.  The only problem is that the technology that would make this high dynamic range, automatically-adjusting camera possible was being used as part of a military project to develop low-light television cameras for remote surveillance and weapon guidance work.    As the Vietnam War increased in intensity, the US military was turning to advanced low-light optics to help locate the enemy in the dark.  Because of this, the technology was classified at the time.

Westinghouse was able to get permission to utilize this classified military technology in the lunar television camera.   Specifically, it was something called the “secondary electron conduction” tube, a specialized variety of vidcon tube that was the bleeding edge of military imaging technology of the day.   The classified system was more or less hidden in plain sight, as it was built into the lunar television camera but never really acknowledged to the public as being a classified system.   Of course, only a handfull of people would ever actually handle or use the television camera and even fewer would ever open it up to service it, so the secret was fairly safe.

As mentioned in the article “TV’s Longest Remote”:

Westinghouse supplied a lot of battle-hardened electronic gear to the Pentagon, including some small black and white television cameras for use on ships and helicopters. Westinghouse also had something that many companies didn’t at the time—a facility for fabricating custom integrated circuits solely for use by the company.

And to make the hand even more attractive, Westinghouse had created a very special television camera pickup tube; one that could run circles around conventional image orthicons and vidicons in terms of size, sensitivity, S/N and lag. This was the secondary electron conduction, or SEC, tube. It had an outstanding dynamic range and was so sensitive that, without stretching the truth too much, it could make pictures of the proverbial black cat in a coal bin at midnight.

And there was one other thing unique about this specialized television system – it used a “fiber optic face plate.”  Yes, a fiber optic-based optical adapter that channeled the light from the camera lens into the image sensing tube.    In 1969, the same year that the mission was launched, Westinghouse got permission to file for a public patent on the design.   The patent, which was granted in 1971 can be seen here.    Believe it or not, although the widespread use of optical fiber for high band width communications has only been widespread since the 1980’s, fiber optic technology has actually been around for much longer than that.

And there you have it.   A lot less to this whole  story than some might want to believe.

It just keeps getting lamer.

One could have expected it, but the spectacular light show that was seen over Norway a day ago has inspired a lot of ridiculous speculation by various groups, theorists and “alternative” believers.   The object could have been legitimately called a UFO, as it was unidentified.  This is no longer the case, but that does not mean that the “UFO Enthusiasts” of the world are going to accept the mundane explanation of a Russian missile test failure.

Some of the more out-there headlines include:

• Massive UFO event in Norway: possible first open alien contact, images
• Mysterious spiral light shines over Norway – Could it be … Obama?
• Proof Obama is Messiah as Freaky Celestial Display Appears in Norway
• The Amazing Light Vortex Up In The Skies In The North Of Norway Looks Identical To A Wormhole!
• Norway wormhole is First Contact, claim UFO watchers
• UFO-show in Norway sky welcomes Obama for Nobel Prize ceremony ~ The Financial Armageddon
• Obama ET disclosure uncertain, as voter ballot and citizen groups move to disclose ET presence

Now, before you go and tell me that the claims that this was related to Obama and his being the Messiah are a joke, there do appear to be people who actually believe that to be the case.   Of course, there seem to be a lot of people who thought Obama was the messiah even before this event, so the light show might not really be the inspiration for that hypothesis.

According to one article in “The Examiner” the reason for the spiral light was that extra-terrestrials have decided that they’re finally getting fed up with their existence being covered up by the governments of the world and want to engage the people directly and make themselves known.   The proof?   Voters in Denver have a ballot measure to fund an independent city commission on UFO “truth,”  the UK ministry of defense finally disbanded it’s last vestige of a UFO reporting agency and Obama is headed to Norway to accept the most undeserved award, possibly in the history of the world.   Apparently these aliens are “ethically advanced” and have been trying to get humans to get rid of nuclear weapons since the 1950’s.  They want to send a message to Obama and mankind and let them know that a peaceful world is one with constant conventional war, and not with those un-peaceful nuclear weapons sitting quietly in their silos to deter one.

While we can be sure that this event will live on in conspiracy theories and UFO circles for years to come, lets take a step back and look at exactly what happened to see how mundane it actually was…

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One thing that has been pointed out about “Chemtrail” conspiracy theories is that if there actually were planes spraying chemicals for some evil purpose, they would surely be seen on the ground during maintenance, refueling or topping off the chemical tanks.    It’s a bit difficult, after all, to hide a massive fleet of jumbo jets that are constantly out doing evil bidding (mass vaccination, mass poisoning, causing global warming, attempting to counteract global warming, mind control, poisoning or whatever other story is out there – the chemtrail crowd still doesn’t seem to be in agreement as to what the chemicals are for.)

Unfortunately, the chemtrail community has managed to address this point by producing a lot of photos of what they report are chemtrail planes, spotted in flight, on the tarmac, in hangers and occasionally photographed from the inside, presumably leaked by the murderous henchmen of the evil plots.

The reality of these claims:  Most of these pictures are real, but they’re not what they are claimed to be.   Airplanes are used for a lot more than transporting passengers, and if you look hard enough, you’re bound to find military and civillian aircraft with all kinds of attachments and equipment on them.   These include antennas, refueling booms, air samplers, fuel dump ports, anti-missile systems and other hardware.

Now, lets take a look at some of the image claims and the reality of things…
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