Truther, a term that came from the 9/11 Truth movement, but has become more than just an ironic and demeaning term for 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
A Truther can be someone believes in conspiracy theories other than the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
With this in mind I've taken a look at these people, and while I've noticed alot of traits about them, I've narrowed it down to about five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about Truthers:
5. It's a broad and encompassing term.
For most people when they hear the word "Truther" they think of someone whom is apart of the 9/11 Truth movement, or just someone whom believes the myth that the US government, or Israel, or the Illuminati committed the 9/11 attacks. While this is true, "Truther" has become a more broad term and could include not just a member of the 9/11 Truth movement, but any conspiracy theory.
What a Truther really is is a type of conspiracy theorist that both claims they want to know the truth about a conspiracy theory, and then claims they already know what the truth is, but in reality it's anything but the truth.
Think of this type of person as someone whom asks you where the nearest large body of water is and you tell them that there is a pond 100 feet behind them, but they don't believe you and then tell you that nearest large body of water is two miles away, despite the fact that the pond is clearly behind them, and all they would have to do is turn around to see it. Even if they do turn around they'll just insist that it's not really a large body of water.
That's another thing about Truthers...
4. They keep "Moving the Goalposts".
For anyone who has had a "conversation" with a Truther type of conspiracy theorist you probably already know what I'm talking about, but for those who don't I'll explain.
Truthers, when confronted with evidence and/or logical arguments that contradicts or disproves their conspiracy theories, will often claim that what is being presented to them is not enough evidence to disprove what they are claiming isn't true, or that the evidence that you are presenting to them isn't true, and in either case they will claim to need more.
When a skeptic gets into an argument with a Truther and they start doing this a person like myself will usually determine that either the Truther is too dumb to realize what they are doing, or too deluded to realize what they are doing, or are in serious denial and are trying to hold on to what they believe or want to believe is real, but somewhere in their minds they know they're wrong.
Besides just "Moving the Goalposts" another tactic that Truthers like to use is...
3. They call everyone that disagrees with them a shill.
Truthers are under the assumption that they are right, and that everyone else who does not agree with is wrong. For those that continue to insist that the Truther is wrong then the Truther just seems to naturally assume the skeptic is either a sheep that has not "woken up" to "the truth" (their truth mind you) or someone who is being paid to say what they are saying.
Accusing someone of being a shill will often leave many skeptics to question whether or not a Truther seriously believes that a person is a shill, or if they're calling someone a shill as a way to avoid having to address the evidence and logic that a skeptic brings up.
Skeptics are not the only people get accused of being a shill. Truthers accuse each other of being shills, usually over a disagreement about who committed a "conspiracy", how they did it, and for what reason.
Most people would think that with two Truthers, despite their disagreement over how it was done, who did it, and for what ever reason a conspiracy took place, that they would show some unity, but they don't. Infact...
2. They're often aggressive with each other.
To a skeptic watching a Truther try to argue with another Truther can be the most hilarious thing to watch. Not only do these arguments show that their is no solidarity among Truthers of a certain conspiracy theory, but they also seem to try to one up each other in bogus and false claims, as well as sheer insanity.
Ofcourse this only happens with two Truthers that are near or equally aggressive. If one Truther is a newbie or just not as near aggressive as the Truther they get into an argument with, the aggressive Truther can be very domineering as well as very intimidating, and could cause some people to leave a Truther movement, or cause others to form their own Truther movement, or try to force that one aggressive Truther out (but this rarely happens).
The probable reasons why some Truthers are so aggressive towards other Truthers is that they are trying to weed out the weak (a sort of Truther hazing as some might see it) or they're trying to "identify" possible "shills", or they could just so seriously believe that their conspiracy theory is correct that they feel they must do what ever it takes to prevent the spreading of false information by others, including fellow Truthers.
Then there are just those that are naturally aggressive towards others and probably have some serious mental health issue.
Regardless of whether they are arguing with a fellow Truther or a skeptic a Truther will always do this one thing...
1. They will always bring up the same stuff that they think is evidence.
Regardless of whether or not a Truther will keep moving the goalpost on someone, or call them a shill, or just get really aggressive with another person, they will always use the same discredited arguments, and use the same debunked evidence that they believe is real evidence.
The arguments a Truther will make concerning any conspiracy theory are as predictable as phases of the Moon, and the reason I say that is like phases of the Moon they constantly repeat themselves over and over again.
Sometimes the arguments that they make are so common and in lock step that we skeptics know what a Truther is going to say before the Truther says it.
I guess that's the way of the Truther. Keep making the same debunked arguments over and over, while at the same time denying any real evidence.
Maybe we shouldn't call them Truthers. Maybe we should call them "Mythers"? Or liars.
Showing posts with label disinformation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label disinformation. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
5 Things I've noticed about... Andrew Wakefield
In 1998 then Doctor Andrew Wakefield published a study in the medical journal The Lancet that claimed that the MMR vaccine causes autism, which was later found to be not true but still lead to a worldwide increase of measles cases, and in the end destroyed Wakefield's career.
There are many things that I've noticed about Andrew Wakefield (none of them good) and I've come up with about five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about Andrew Wakefield:
5. He committed a terrible fraud.
I'm sure that everybody is aware that his aforementioned "study" was retracted in 2010 by The Lancet after a long investigation by the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer. The investigation showed that not only had he manipulated the data in his study, it also found that he had patented his own measles vaccine a year before publishing his study, and that the study was funded by lawyers who sued vaccine manufactures.
To better understand how Wakefield manipulated the data in his study, please watch this video by Youtube science vlogger C0nc0rdance:
As awful as his fraud was it would not have been as bad as it became if it wasn't for the fact that so many people took his study seriously and decided not to vaccinate their children because of it. This has directly resulted in the world wide increases of measles and mumps infections and infections from other diseases as well because many people were not vaccinating themselves or their children due to fear of any vaccines, a fear that was brought on by Wakefield's study, which has also lead to numerous unnecessary deaths.
As for Wakefield himself his fraudulent study lead to his own career being ruined and his name being struck off the UK medical register, making it illegal for him to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
4. He turned parents in paranoid liars.
One of the direct results of Andrew Wakefield's study is that many parents have become paranoid of vaccines and have chosen not to vaccinate their children despite being legally obligated to do so in many places before they enter them into school, and the fact that it's just good common sense to do so.
Inorder to keep their children in school while at the same time keep them un-vaccinated parents will often lie to health officials and school officials about either their religious or philosophical beliefs inorder to get a vaccine exemption for their child.
Other things that some parents will do inorder to fool health and school officials is that they will go to a fake doctor (ex. Naturopath, Homeopath) and get them to write up an exemption from getting vaccinate for their children, or write up they vaccinate the child when really they didn't.
These types of actions are dangerous not only to the children whose parents did not vaccinate them, but also to anyone that couldn't get vaccinated for a legitimate medical reason, or those who the vaccine didn't immunize them for some reason.
3. He's become the Lord Voldemort of science and medicine.
Much like Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter book series Andrew Wakefield's name is something you don't use in a discussion about science and medicine, unless he is used as an example for when bad or fraudulent research is taken to seriously by the public.
As for the scientific and medical communities any research done by him before his 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" is somewhat taboo, and is usually avoided in research unless necessary. Any research done by him after his 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" is to never be used, unless you never want to be taken seriously and risk your career.
Also, you don't compare a doctor or scientist to Andrew Wakefield as doing so would be considered a huge insult, unless their research was sloppy or fraudulent and caused peoples' deaths.
2. He created alot of waste.
While the dramatic increase in vaccine preventable infections has been the most obvious result of Wakefield's fraudulent study, another thing his study has done is wasted alot of money.
The amount of money wasted because of Wakefield's study is probably within the hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly within the billions. These costs include health care and hospital stays for people (especially children) who got an infection from diseases that are vaccine preventable.
Other costs include lost wages for parents who had to stop working inorder to take care of their sick children, and wasted money (not to mention man hours) to disprove and try to undo the damage caused by Wakefield's "research", money that could have used for more legitimate and better research projects.
Then there are the costs of funerals that can go into the thousands per funeral, and with thousands having died because of his research, the costs really adds up, but is overshadowed by the amount of pain caused by those deaths, which is a cost that is immeasurable.
1. He refuses to accept responsibility for what he's done.
Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" has been described as "the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". So far he has never accepted any responsibility for the damage done by his "study", nor has he faded from the public light.
To this day he continues to claim that his study was accurate, and that he didn't commit fraud, and that there is a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and public health officials to discredit him, and that they were paying bloggers to so, and also inflate the reports of deaths from measles.
In 2012 Wakefield attempted to sue Brian Deer, the British Medical Journal and it's editor Fiona Godlee for defamation, which was described by many as being frivolous, and was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.
To this day Wakefield continues to work in autism research and claim the title of "doctor", both of which are considered to be highly inappropriate for him to do, and that many have said he should stop doing. He currently lives and does all of this in the United States because legally he can not in the United Kingdom.
There are many things that I've noticed about Andrew Wakefield (none of them good) and I've come up with about five different things.
So here are five things I've noticed about Andrew Wakefield:
5. He committed a terrible fraud.
I'm sure that everybody is aware that his aforementioned "study" was retracted in 2010 by The Lancet after a long investigation by the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer. The investigation showed that not only had he manipulated the data in his study, it also found that he had patented his own measles vaccine a year before publishing his study, and that the study was funded by lawyers who sued vaccine manufactures.
To better understand how Wakefield manipulated the data in his study, please watch this video by Youtube science vlogger C0nc0rdance:
As awful as his fraud was it would not have been as bad as it became if it wasn't for the fact that so many people took his study seriously and decided not to vaccinate their children because of it. This has directly resulted in the world wide increases of measles and mumps infections and infections from other diseases as well because many people were not vaccinating themselves or their children due to fear of any vaccines, a fear that was brought on by Wakefield's study, which has also lead to numerous unnecessary deaths.
As for Wakefield himself his fraudulent study lead to his own career being ruined and his name being struck off the UK medical register, making it illegal for him to practice medicine in the United Kingdom.
4. He turned parents in paranoid liars.
One of the direct results of Andrew Wakefield's study is that many parents have become paranoid of vaccines and have chosen not to vaccinate their children despite being legally obligated to do so in many places before they enter them into school, and the fact that it's just good common sense to do so.
Inorder to keep their children in school while at the same time keep them un-vaccinated parents will often lie to health officials and school officials about either their religious or philosophical beliefs inorder to get a vaccine exemption for their child.
Other things that some parents will do inorder to fool health and school officials is that they will go to a fake doctor (ex. Naturopath, Homeopath) and get them to write up an exemption from getting vaccinate for their children, or write up they vaccinate the child when really they didn't.
These types of actions are dangerous not only to the children whose parents did not vaccinate them, but also to anyone that couldn't get vaccinated for a legitimate medical reason, or those who the vaccine didn't immunize them for some reason.
3. He's become the Lord Voldemort of science and medicine.
Much like Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter book series Andrew Wakefield's name is something you don't use in a discussion about science and medicine, unless he is used as an example for when bad or fraudulent research is taken to seriously by the public.
As for the scientific and medical communities any research done by him before his 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" is somewhat taboo, and is usually avoided in research unless necessary. Any research done by him after his 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" is to never be used, unless you never want to be taken seriously and risk your career.
Also, you don't compare a doctor or scientist to Andrew Wakefield as doing so would be considered a huge insult, unless their research was sloppy or fraudulent and caused peoples' deaths.
2. He created alot of waste.
While the dramatic increase in vaccine preventable infections has been the most obvious result of Wakefield's fraudulent study, another thing his study has done is wasted alot of money.
The amount of money wasted because of Wakefield's study is probably within the hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly within the billions. These costs include health care and hospital stays for people (especially children) who got an infection from diseases that are vaccine preventable.
Other costs include lost wages for parents who had to stop working inorder to take care of their sick children, and wasted money (not to mention man hours) to disprove and try to undo the damage caused by Wakefield's "research", money that could have used for more legitimate and better research projects.
Then there are the costs of funerals that can go into the thousands per funeral, and with thousands having died because of his research, the costs really adds up, but is overshadowed by the amount of pain caused by those deaths, which is a cost that is immeasurable.
1. He refuses to accept responsibility for what he's done.
Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 autism/MMR vaccine "study" has been described as "the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". So far he has never accepted any responsibility for the damage done by his "study", nor has he faded from the public light.
To this day he continues to claim that his study was accurate, and that he didn't commit fraud, and that there is a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies and public health officials to discredit him, and that they were paying bloggers to so, and also inflate the reports of deaths from measles.
In 2012 Wakefield attempted to sue Brian Deer, the British Medical Journal and it's editor Fiona Godlee for defamation, which was described by many as being frivolous, and was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.
To this day Wakefield continues to work in autism research and claim the title of "doctor", both of which are considered to be highly inappropriate for him to do, and that many have said he should stop doing. He currently lives and does all of this in the United States because legally he can not in the United Kingdom.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Using the fear of God to promote a Anti-Vaccine agenda
Yesterday I saw an article making rounds on pro-science and anti-anti-vaccination Facebook pages that was written by a "Christian" blogger who was claiming that God does not support vaccines. (Read the article here)
The author of the article uses several classic anti-vaccination claims to spreed her propaganda, although the one that was mostly talked about in that article is the claim that vaccines contain parts from aborted fetuses, which is false.
She combines this along with passages from the bible and her "interpretation" of those passages in an attempt to make it seem like God does not approve of vaccines.
Before I begin I'm very well aware that many of you reading this are atheists, but for the moment just for fun consider the possibly that God exists, and if you are someone that believes that God exists then please and hear what I have to say.
First, God is, according to Judea-Christian beliefs, an all powerful being that created the Universe and everything about it, including what does and does not work.
If God is all powerful and didn't want people to use vaccines, then couldn't God just will vaccines not to work?
I asked this question in the comments section, and the author responded to me:
First, before anyone points it out I believe she meant to say (although I could be wrong) that research into vaccines have not been proven to be clinically effective. This is ofcourse not true. Vaccines are very effective, and there are multiple published research papers showing how effective vaccines are. Doing a simple Google Scholar search for vaccine effectiveness will bring up thousands of papers concerning vaccine effectiveness.
The second thing the author claims is that no vaccines have a life time immunity. This is completely false.
Certain vaccines (as seen here) only provide immunity for a few years, but for other vaccines they could give a person immunity against a disease for the rest of their life, although for most additional vaccinations are recommend just to be safe, and with certain vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine, getting another vaccination several years after the first one is usually all that it takes for lifetime immunity.
I replied to the author's reply to my comment pointing these things out to her, and also once again asking her the question if God did not want people to use vaccines then why didn't he just make them not work at all:
I asked my question in this way (although I did make a little typo near the end *grumbles*) in hopes of preventing her from skirting around the question.
Not only did she not answer my question, she didn't even publish my reply. This is not surprising since she is well known for not publishing comments she doesn't like and doesn't fit her views. Infact it's very surprising she published my original comment in the first place.
So why exactly did she not answer my question that if vaccines were against God's will then why would they work at all?
Probably because the answer is (atleast for people who believe that all that works in the Universe is a result of God's will) they wouldn't, but they do work, and even she doesn't say vaccines don't work, she just thinks they're not effective.
With this in mind only one logical conclusion can be made: Vaccines are okay with God.
So why does this woman insist that God is not okay vaccines? There are two possible reasons:
First, she truly feels that God is against vaccines, but when she's confronted by someone whom can poke holes in her logic she just ignores the person and anything that person may present that questions her beliefs and would force her to reconsider them.
Second, her beliefs about vaccines are separate from her belief in God, and that she is using the fear of God's wrath, along with cherry picked passages from the bible, her own interpretation of those passages, disinformation, misinformation, and good old fashion fear mongering to promote her own anti-vaccination propaganda.
The author of the article uses several classic anti-vaccination claims to spreed her propaganda, although the one that was mostly talked about in that article is the claim that vaccines contain parts from aborted fetuses, which is false.
She combines this along with passages from the bible and her "interpretation" of those passages in an attempt to make it seem like God does not approve of vaccines.
Before I begin I'm very well aware that many of you reading this are atheists, but for the moment just for fun consider the possibly that God exists, and if you are someone that believes that God exists then please and hear what I have to say.
First, God is, according to Judea-Christian beliefs, an all powerful being that created the Universe and everything about it, including what does and does not work.
If God is all powerful and didn't want people to use vaccines, then couldn't God just will vaccines not to work?
I asked this question in the comments section, and the author responded to me:
The second thing the author claims is that no vaccines have a life time immunity. This is completely false.
Certain vaccines (as seen here) only provide immunity for a few years, but for other vaccines they could give a person immunity against a disease for the rest of their life, although for most additional vaccinations are recommend just to be safe, and with certain vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine, getting another vaccination several years after the first one is usually all that it takes for lifetime immunity.
I replied to the author's reply to my comment pointing these things out to her, and also once again asking her the question if God did not want people to use vaccines then why didn't he just make them not work at all:
Not only did she not answer my question, she didn't even publish my reply. This is not surprising since she is well known for not publishing comments she doesn't like and doesn't fit her views. Infact it's very surprising she published my original comment in the first place.
So why exactly did she not answer my question that if vaccines were against God's will then why would they work at all?
Probably because the answer is (atleast for people who believe that all that works in the Universe is a result of God's will) they wouldn't, but they do work, and even she doesn't say vaccines don't work, she just thinks they're not effective.
With this in mind only one logical conclusion can be made: Vaccines are okay with God.
So why does this woman insist that God is not okay vaccines? There are two possible reasons:
First, she truly feels that God is against vaccines, but when she's confronted by someone whom can poke holes in her logic she just ignores the person and anything that person may present that questions her beliefs and would force her to reconsider them.
Second, her beliefs about vaccines are separate from her belief in God, and that she is using the fear of God's wrath, along with cherry picked passages from the bible, her own interpretation of those passages, disinformation, misinformation, and good old fashion fear mongering to promote her own anti-vaccination propaganda.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Facebook needs to start enforcing it's own rules!
Yesterday I saw something on Facebook that really p*ssed me off!
Granted I see lots of things on Facebook that p*ss me off (sometimes on an hourly bases) but the things that usually get my teeth grinding are just rude, or offensive, or ignorant, or all of the above. What I saw wasn't neither rude nor offensive, but it sure was ignorant, and it was definitely dangerous.
What ticked me off was an infograph posted on Green Med Info's Facebook page concerning a "study" about "GMO" insulin (which all insulin is) that claimed that certain people with type 2 diabetes can develop type 1 diabetes from injecting insulin. (Link to original post here)
While people with type 2 diabetes can develop type 1 diabetes over time there are usually several factors that can cause this, such as a person's diet, or whether they exercise, or if they take the medication that has been prescribed to them, or genetics. Insulin is not one of the causes. Infact it could prevent a person with type 2 diabetes from developing type 1 diabetes.
What gets me so angry about that post isn't just the sheer ignorance of it, or how outright dangerous it is for the people at Green Med Info to promote something like this (because despite the fact that it promotes quackery and fraud medicine, better known as alternative medicine, people do listen to and take "advice" from that page) this type of "info" could kill a person with type 2 diabetes if they take it to seriously and decide to stop taking insulin. Either that or result in a person developing type 1 diabetes, or slipping into a diabetic coma, or losing a body part. The very worst thing that could happen is that the parent of a child with type 2 diabetes reads that and decides not to give their child insulin and what I listed above happens to that child, and there is little they can do about because they are at the mercy of their parent (unless they tell a teacher or family member about what their parent is doing and that person gets the authorities involved).
Now, back to the original reason why I'm writing this.
I, along with many other people reported this post to Facebook hoping that the social media website would take down the post due to the fact that it could cause some people to do something that was dangerous and hazardous to their health, and warn Green Med Info not to post something like that again.
Facebook has done nothing.
As many of you have probably found out over time this isn't the only time that Facebook has failed to remove a post or a page that promotes stuff that's either dangerous and/or violates it's own rules.
There are lots of pages on Facebook that promote a great amount of medical misinformation that in the hands of an uninformed person could cause that person to do something that results in their death or the death of others. The biggest violators of this would be anti-vaccination pages and HIV denialism pages, two types of groups that promote medical misinformation that has led to multiple deaths. Such pages should not be allowed because the "information" they a spreading is harmful.
Then there are the pages that promote bigotry, which antisemitism seems to be the the one mostly promoted.
While the spreading of medical misinformation may be dangerous and for some people questionable whether or not it violates the rules, promoting bigotry in what ever form it may come in clearly violates the rules.
Now sometimes Facebook will do the right thing and remove a bigoted post or page, but more often than not it just doesn't happen and the person or people running the page continues to spew hate speech.
Facebook needs to better enforce it's own rules and take down posts and pages that violate it's own rules and promotes things that are dangerous.
I'm aware that the main reason why the people at Facebook do not often take down these pages is because of free speech concerns, and while I do understand that reasoning the fact remains is that Facebook has a set of guidelines and rules that everyone is suppose to obey, and when they don't enforce those guidelines and rules they become meaningless.
I know that Facebook is a private company and can remove any content it so chooses to. I just wish it would start doing so.
Granted I see lots of things on Facebook that p*ss me off (sometimes on an hourly bases) but the things that usually get my teeth grinding are just rude, or offensive, or ignorant, or all of the above. What I saw wasn't neither rude nor offensive, but it sure was ignorant, and it was definitely dangerous.
What ticked me off was an infograph posted on Green Med Info's Facebook page concerning a "study" about "GMO" insulin (which all insulin is) that claimed that certain people with type 2 diabetes can develop type 1 diabetes from injecting insulin. (Link to original post here)
What gets me so angry about that post isn't just the sheer ignorance of it, or how outright dangerous it is for the people at Green Med Info to promote something like this (because despite the fact that it promotes quackery and fraud medicine, better known as alternative medicine, people do listen to and take "advice" from that page) this type of "info" could kill a person with type 2 diabetes if they take it to seriously and decide to stop taking insulin. Either that or result in a person developing type 1 diabetes, or slipping into a diabetic coma, or losing a body part. The very worst thing that could happen is that the parent of a child with type 2 diabetes reads that and decides not to give their child insulin and what I listed above happens to that child, and there is little they can do about because they are at the mercy of their parent (unless they tell a teacher or family member about what their parent is doing and that person gets the authorities involved).
Now, back to the original reason why I'm writing this.
I, along with many other people reported this post to Facebook hoping that the social media website would take down the post due to the fact that it could cause some people to do something that was dangerous and hazardous to their health, and warn Green Med Info not to post something like that again.
Facebook has done nothing.
As many of you have probably found out over time this isn't the only time that Facebook has failed to remove a post or a page that promotes stuff that's either dangerous and/or violates it's own rules.
There are lots of pages on Facebook that promote a great amount of medical misinformation that in the hands of an uninformed person could cause that person to do something that results in their death or the death of others. The biggest violators of this would be anti-vaccination pages and HIV denialism pages, two types of groups that promote medical misinformation that has led to multiple deaths. Such pages should not be allowed because the "information" they a spreading is harmful.
Then there are the pages that promote bigotry, which antisemitism seems to be the the one mostly promoted.
While the spreading of medical misinformation may be dangerous and for some people questionable whether or not it violates the rules, promoting bigotry in what ever form it may come in clearly violates the rules.
Now sometimes Facebook will do the right thing and remove a bigoted post or page, but more often than not it just doesn't happen and the person or people running the page continues to spew hate speech.
Facebook needs to better enforce it's own rules and take down posts and pages that violate it's own rules and promotes things that are dangerous.
I'm aware that the main reason why the people at Facebook do not often take down these pages is because of free speech concerns, and while I do understand that reasoning the fact remains is that Facebook has a set of guidelines and rules that everyone is suppose to obey, and when they don't enforce those guidelines and rules they become meaningless.
I know that Facebook is a private company and can remove any content it so chooses to. I just wish it would start doing so.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Anti-vaccers go to far... again.
This weekend members of the Anti-vaccination movement/cult proved once again just what type of people they really are, and just what lows they are willing to go to inorder to spread their propaganda.
And by "people" I mean scum bags.
This whole thing that I'm p*ssed off about starts off with something that has nothing to do with either vaccines or autism, but actually has to do with the kidnapping of over 200 school girls in Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram, who are threatening to sell the girls off as "wives" (i.e. sex slaves).
So far there has been a huge outpouring of both condemnation against the terrorists who kidnapped these girls, and support for bringing the girls home.
Infact First Lady Michelle Obama recently posted this picture on the internet to show her support for these girls and their hopefull rescue, and also encouraging the terrorists to let them go:
Unfortunately there are some people who don't care how serious or sensitive a situation such as this is and will take a photo like this and digitally manipulated a photo such as this inorder to promote their own propaganda...
That is exactly what happened with this photo:
Now I could get into how BS the information on this poorly photoshopped picture is, or how insulting it is to autistic people, but I just want to focus on the group that decided it was okay to manipulate a photo of the First Lady showing her support to bring home a group of kidnapped school girls who may very well be sold as sex slaves if they aren't found and freed!
The group who manipulated the photo is call The Canary Party, a Anti-Vaccination group that barely pretends to be a political group.
Besides just publishing lies about and conspiracy theories about vaccines, they also publish anti-GMO propaganda, pro-alternative medicine propaganda, insist that autism is an epidemic, makes autism look like it's something that is life destroying and that autistic people can't function in society, both of which are horrible lies, and declares that anyone that says they are wrong to be bullies.
All of that is bad enough by itself, but then they go and manipulate a photo of the First Lady showing support for those many kidnapped school girls inorder to promote their lies while completely and totally disregarding the seriousness of the kidnappings, as well as being completely insensitive to what these girls are going through.
I guess there really is no low for the Anti-Vaccination movement. But on the bright side it does appear that this "stunt" has backfired on them, as they are receiving a bunch of negative comments on their Facebook page.
One last thing: I really hope these girls are freed and freed soon, and that the scum bags who kidnapped them are left in such a way that they can never do something like this ever again.
And by "people" I mean scum bags.
This whole thing that I'm p*ssed off about starts off with something that has nothing to do with either vaccines or autism, but actually has to do with the kidnapping of over 200 school girls in Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram, who are threatening to sell the girls off as "wives" (i.e. sex slaves).
So far there has been a huge outpouring of both condemnation against the terrorists who kidnapped these girls, and support for bringing the girls home.
Infact First Lady Michelle Obama recently posted this picture on the internet to show her support for these girls and their hopefull rescue, and also encouraging the terrorists to let them go:
That is exactly what happened with this photo:
The group who manipulated the photo is call The Canary Party, a Anti-Vaccination group that barely pretends to be a political group.
Besides just publishing lies about and conspiracy theories about vaccines, they also publish anti-GMO propaganda, pro-alternative medicine propaganda, insist that autism is an epidemic, makes autism look like it's something that is life destroying and that autistic people can't function in society, both of which are horrible lies, and declares that anyone that says they are wrong to be bullies.
All of that is bad enough by itself, but then they go and manipulate a photo of the First Lady showing support for those many kidnapped school girls inorder to promote their lies while completely and totally disregarding the seriousness of the kidnappings, as well as being completely insensitive to what these girls are going through.
I guess there really is no low for the Anti-Vaccination movement. But on the bright side it does appear that this "stunt" has backfired on them, as they are receiving a bunch of negative comments on their Facebook page.
One last thing: I really hope these girls are freed and freed soon, and that the scum bags who kidnapped them are left in such a way that they can never do something like this ever again.
Friday, April 4, 2014
10 reasons why AIDS Denialists and the Anti-Vaccination Movement are a lot alike
AIDS Denialism and the Anti-vaccination movement. Two groups that promote what many scientists and and doctors and skeptics alike consider to be the two most dangerous and deadly types of pseudoscience there is. In fact many skeptics have debated which one is more deadly!
Regardless of which one is more deadly, both of groups have an awful lot in common, and I've come up with about ten different things that both groups have in common:
They become very upset when someone questions their claims.
Anti-vaccers and (as I have learned in the past few weeks) AIDS denialists really do not like it when someone questions what they are claiming. It doesn't matter how nice you are to them, or how many facts you present to them, if you question their claims they will become very anger and start throwing around accusations and insults and start spamming people with a bunch of propaganda. This is of course annoying at best, and usually just something that gets them blocked on an internet site, but sometimes they take it to the next level and start doing the next thing on this list...
They use intimidation tactics.
AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers just seem to love to use intimidation tactics. Many times these intimidation tactics can be a benign type, like fear mongering and emotional appeal, which is used to sway people who might be on the edge of whether to believe them or not over to their side, or it can be an aggressive type, like death threats, or threats of lawsuits, or harassment, which is used in an attempt to frighten people away from questioning their claims, or to stop skeptics from debunking them.
They claim to do research.
Both AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers will often say that they have done their own research into the claims that they are making, and then through this so called research they will claim that they have come to a conclusion, and then proclaim that their conclusion is correct and that all others are incorrect. This is ofcourse if they're not simply claiming that the contradictory information isn't apart of some "big pharma" disinformation propaganda campaign to "slander" Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists. And that's another thing...
They think there is some kind of big pharma conspiracy.
Many Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe that not only what they believe is true, but they also believe that pharmaceutical companies also know "the truth" and that they're keeping this so called truth hidden from the public so that people will keep buying their products, products that Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists believe that no one actually needs and sincerely believes is dangerous.
The reasons why these two groups claim that the pharmaceutical companies are keeping this so called "information" hidden is because if people knew "the truth" (i.e. their truth) that they would no longer buy anything from these pharmaceutical companies and they would go out of business. That, or according to some Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists, vaccines and HIV medication is part some kind of NWO/Illuminati plot.
They have no problem censoring people.
Ever make a comment on an Anti-vaccer's or AIDS Denialist's page or comment section for a Youtube video, and said comment either criticizes what they are saying, or debunks what they're saying? Well then you probably know that not many people are going to see it because most administrators of such sites will usually remove such comments pretty quickly... and probably ban you. While this type of censorship is bad they do have every right to do it because they have every right to control the content that is on their webpages.
Some of these people will take the censorship of people who disagree with them to the next level and actually try to get entire webpages and videos from various social media websites removed, either by flagging a webpage or a group or a video as inappropriate or harassing, or even by sending out bogus DMCA takedown notices (which is illegal).
There's no science behind their claims.
While I have no doubt Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe in their claims, the fact is that there is no science based evidence behind either of these groups claims. In fact all of the claims made by both of these groups have been disproven by scientific research, which is why no legitimate scientist or doctor takes these two groups claims seriously and try to get other people not to listen to these groups.
They endorse alternative medicine.
Considering the fact that both Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialist believe in big pharma conspiracy theories it should not be surprising that people in both groups prefer to use and endorse alternative medicine.
Many of the biggest endorsers of the anti-vaccination movement and AIDS denialism are either homeopaths, or naturopaths, or are in some other type of pretend medical field.
Many of the sites that promote these two groups and their beliefs also sell alternative medical products.
They encourage stuff that has legal consequences.
Both groups tend to encourage their followers to do stuff that could lead to a person getting into legal trouble, such as getting sued, being imprisoned, or even having their children taken away.
For Anti-vaccers the legal consequences could result from falsifying vaccination records inorder to get their child in school, to getting sued by the parent of a child that got sick from their child due to a disease that was preventable through vaccination.
For AIDS Denialists, especially for ones that have HIV, the legal consequences could result in them being imprisoned if they have sex with someone and they don't disclose their HIV positive status with simply because they don't believe that HIV exist, or that it causes AIDS.
Their beliefs have lead to deaths.
It is an undeniable fact that the claims from both of these groups have lead to numerous deaths, all of which could have been prevented.
With the AIDS Denialists the deaths are of people with HIV infections who decided not to take any medication that would suppress HIV because they believe that HIV either doesn't exist, or it doesn't cause AIDS. Sometimes it's not just them that die, it's also their children if their children had contracted HIV from their mother while their mother was pregnant with them, and they refuse to let their children have any medication that would suppress HIV.
With Anti-vaccers the deaths come from either their children after they get infect by a vaccine preventable disease and just could not fight it off, or the deaths come from other children that their child infects that were not vaccinated because they were either to young, or couldn't get vaccinated for various medical reasons.
They both act like cults.
Both the Anti-vaccination movement and AIDS Denialists engage in behavior that some would describe as being very cultish like. For example:
They don't like people questioning them. They have enemies lists. They completely disregard what facts are brought before them. They can't stand being question. They put out articles that are blatantly false. They have no regard for rules or laws. And they try to destroy people that take them on.
Sounds like a lot like a cult, and I bet many people would agree with me too.
Regardless of which one is more deadly, both of groups have an awful lot in common, and I've come up with about ten different things that both groups have in common:
They become very upset when someone questions their claims.
Anti-vaccers and (as I have learned in the past few weeks) AIDS denialists really do not like it when someone questions what they are claiming. It doesn't matter how nice you are to them, or how many facts you present to them, if you question their claims they will become very anger and start throwing around accusations and insults and start spamming people with a bunch of propaganda. This is of course annoying at best, and usually just something that gets them blocked on an internet site, but sometimes they take it to the next level and start doing the next thing on this list...
They use intimidation tactics.
AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers just seem to love to use intimidation tactics. Many times these intimidation tactics can be a benign type, like fear mongering and emotional appeal, which is used to sway people who might be on the edge of whether to believe them or not over to their side, or it can be an aggressive type, like death threats, or threats of lawsuits, or harassment, which is used in an attempt to frighten people away from questioning their claims, or to stop skeptics from debunking them.
They claim to do research.
Both AIDS Denialists and Anti-vaccers will often say that they have done their own research into the claims that they are making, and then through this so called research they will claim that they have come to a conclusion, and then proclaim that their conclusion is correct and that all others are incorrect. This is ofcourse if they're not simply claiming that the contradictory information isn't apart of some "big pharma" disinformation propaganda campaign to "slander" Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists. And that's another thing...
They think there is some kind of big pharma conspiracy.
Many Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe that not only what they believe is true, but they also believe that pharmaceutical companies also know "the truth" and that they're keeping this so called truth hidden from the public so that people will keep buying their products, products that Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists believe that no one actually needs and sincerely believes is dangerous.
The reasons why these two groups claim that the pharmaceutical companies are keeping this so called "information" hidden is because if people knew "the truth" (i.e. their truth) that they would no longer buy anything from these pharmaceutical companies and they would go out of business. That, or according to some Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists, vaccines and HIV medication is part some kind of NWO/Illuminati plot.
They have no problem censoring people.
Ever make a comment on an Anti-vaccer's or AIDS Denialist's page or comment section for a Youtube video, and said comment either criticizes what they are saying, or debunks what they're saying? Well then you probably know that not many people are going to see it because most administrators of such sites will usually remove such comments pretty quickly... and probably ban you. While this type of censorship is bad they do have every right to do it because they have every right to control the content that is on their webpages.
Some of these people will take the censorship of people who disagree with them to the next level and actually try to get entire webpages and videos from various social media websites removed, either by flagging a webpage or a group or a video as inappropriate or harassing, or even by sending out bogus DMCA takedown notices (which is illegal).
There's no science behind their claims.
While I have no doubt Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialists sincerely believe in their claims, the fact is that there is no science based evidence behind either of these groups claims. In fact all of the claims made by both of these groups have been disproven by scientific research, which is why no legitimate scientist or doctor takes these two groups claims seriously and try to get other people not to listen to these groups.
They endorse alternative medicine.
Considering the fact that both Anti-vaccers and AIDS Denialist believe in big pharma conspiracy theories it should not be surprising that people in both groups prefer to use and endorse alternative medicine.
Many of the biggest endorsers of the anti-vaccination movement and AIDS denialism are either homeopaths, or naturopaths, or are in some other type of pretend medical field.
Many of the sites that promote these two groups and their beliefs also sell alternative medical products.
They encourage stuff that has legal consequences.
Both groups tend to encourage their followers to do stuff that could lead to a person getting into legal trouble, such as getting sued, being imprisoned, or even having their children taken away.
For Anti-vaccers the legal consequences could result from falsifying vaccination records inorder to get their child in school, to getting sued by the parent of a child that got sick from their child due to a disease that was preventable through vaccination.
For AIDS Denialists, especially for ones that have HIV, the legal consequences could result in them being imprisoned if they have sex with someone and they don't disclose their HIV positive status with simply because they don't believe that HIV exist, or that it causes AIDS.
Their beliefs have lead to deaths.
It is an undeniable fact that the claims from both of these groups have lead to numerous deaths, all of which could have been prevented.
With the AIDS Denialists the deaths are of people with HIV infections who decided not to take any medication that would suppress HIV because they believe that HIV either doesn't exist, or it doesn't cause AIDS. Sometimes it's not just them that die, it's also their children if their children had contracted HIV from their mother while their mother was pregnant with them, and they refuse to let their children have any medication that would suppress HIV.
With Anti-vaccers the deaths come from either their children after they get infect by a vaccine preventable disease and just could not fight it off, or the deaths come from other children that their child infects that were not vaccinated because they were either to young, or couldn't get vaccinated for various medical reasons.
They both act like cults.
Both the Anti-vaccination movement and AIDS Denialists engage in behavior that some would describe as being very cultish like. For example:
They don't like people questioning them. They have enemies lists. They completely disregard what facts are brought before them. They can't stand being question. They put out articles that are blatantly false. They have no regard for rules or laws. And they try to destroy people that take them on.
Sounds like a lot like a cult, and I bet many people would agree with me too.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
And now... Part Six of Debunking House of Numbers
Finally, after over a month of fighting illegal DMCA takedown notices, threats of having his Youtube channel being taken down, threats of lawsuits (as well as other types of threats), having his personnel information shared by a bunch of AIDS denialists, as well as some of those same AIDS denialists trying to silence him in one of the most blatant examples of censorship abuse in internet history in what was a clear attempt by the creators of the "documentary" House of Number to silence any criticism of their so called film, and to hide the truth about their blatant deceptiveness and lying, Myles Power has finally released Part 6 of his Debunking of House of Numbers series.
In this part Myles's friend James Gurney from History of Infection talks about HIV replication and the evidence of it's existence.
Please enjoy!
In this part Myles's friend James Gurney from History of Infection talks about HIV replication and the evidence of it's existence.
Please enjoy!
Friday, March 7, 2014
How perception is used for deception in promoting pseudoscience and conspiracy theories
Perception is one of the most commonly used tools of advertisers. If done correctly it can be used to sell a person a product or an idea, even if it's something they do not want or need. All you need is an image combined with some information (factual or not) that catches a person's eye and makes them interested in whatever is being sold which ultimately leads them to buying whatever it is that is being sold.
Promoters of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories know this as well, and will often times create pictures on the internet of images coupled with text in an attempt to get you to "buy" whatever claims that they are making.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
Looks nice, doesn't it? The pretty, smiling young woman that catches your eye and causes you to read whatever it is that the picture says and perhaps even gets you to try or believe whatever it is that the text is saying, which in this case is an advertisement to get people to try out Earthing.
This is an example of using positive images inorder to fool people into believing that something that isn't true. In this case it the original creator wants you to believe that Earthing works.
Now lets take a look at this next picture, courtesy of Illuminutti.com:
Not as nice looking as the previous picture, is it?
Except for the photo in the bottom left side of the page, everything else about this picture is exactly the same as the one above this one.
Most people probably would not have bothered to read the text on the second picture due to the shear fact that they would be to disgusted by the photo to bother read the text. Even if a person did read the text they probably wouldn't try Earthing in the first place out of shear fear of ending up like that guy.
This is ofcourse why the creators of the first photo wouldn't use such a photo. They know that such a photo would probably make a person sick to their stomach and not even bother to read the text, more or less be even interested in Earthing.
Ofcourse while positive images work very well in promoting pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, negative images can often have the same impact, if not more so than positive images if it's done right:
Now for many people if they saw something like that and then read the text they would probably never eat any GMO foods again, and they probably wouldn't bother to do any research into the claims either. They would just see the image and be to scared to actually investigate what the text is saying, which is probably what the creators of that picture intended it to cause people do.
The fact is that anytime you see stuff like this on the internet you should always question the claims being made, and always assume that whomever made it is trying to screw with your perception inorder to deceive you and get you to to believe them without questioning their claims.
Monday, March 3, 2014
5 Things I've noticed about... Prisonplanet and Infowars
Prisonplanet and Infowars. Both are Alex Jones's main websites, and both are two of the largest conspiracy theorist websites in the world.
Now there are a lot of things that have been said about these sites, and after taking a look at these two sites I've noticed quite a lot of things about them, which I have narrowed down to five things.
So here are five things I've notice Prisonplanet and Infowars:
5. There are a lot of ads on the sites.
I have no problems with any websites having advertisements on them, and with the size of the websites that Prisonplanet and Infowars are it's necessary for these sites to have advertisements on them inorder to make money to both pay people maintain the sites, as well as to pay other employees... and also to make Alex Jones money.
The sites not only have your ordinary, random ads that try to look like news stories, but also ads by sponsors of the sites with products or services that is geared towards the typical fans of Alex Jones (i.e. conspiracy theorists), or it's just advertisements for books and videos and other products that Alex Jones has created himself... or atleast he claims to have created. And ofcourse there are also ads for Alex Jones's radio show.
There are also articles on those those sites as well, not just ads, but the thing about that is...
4. Alex Jones doesn't write a lot of articles on those sites.
On any given day if you go to Infowars and Prisonplanet you'll find a whole bunch of articles on there, what you hardly ever see however are articles written by Alex Jones. Infact seeing an article on there that was written by Alex Jones is more rare than seeing an article on there that actually tells the truth instead of being a manipulative form of propaganda.
Not only does Alex Jones not write a whole bunch of article on his sites, but neither does his staff. Many of the articles on those sites are actually from other websites, some of which mainly promote conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, and some are from legitimate news sites.
Even when someone there does write an original article, they always seem to do this one thing...
3. They cherry pick stuff.
Most of the articles on these two sites that are written by actual staff members of Alex Jones's tend to be just cherry picked from other legitimate news articles, with parts of the legitimate news articles being taken apart and having pieces of it taken out of context, and then the writers ad in their own comments to make it sound like the original article agrees with their point of view, even if it doesn't. Or they trash the original article completely and make it sound far worse than what it actually is, especially if the article says something negative about conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists.
Even the articles that are completely and totally original still read like they're cherry picked. This is probably because they are written in such a way that it's obviously intended to manipulate it's readers into believing in the two sites' obscure world views. Now this isn't to much of a surprise, and that's mostly because...
2. They're stereotypical conspiracy theorist websites.
Whenever I'm asked about a conspiracy theorist website the first thing that comes to mind are these two websites, because not only are they two of the largest conspiracy theorist websites out there, they are also two of the oldest.
Besides just the other stuff that I mention above (cherry picked and manipulative articles) both sites also do a lot of other things you would find on other stereotypical conspiracy theorist websites, such as posting Youtube videos that are often manipulative and irrelevant (although they usually make these videos themselves), and has a comments section which tends to be a gathering place for other conspiracy theorists with even wilder conspiracy theories, and can be pretty hostile towards people who don't share their views.
Even the lay out of the sites themselves seems just like what you would find on a well made conspiracy theorist website.
1. They're shrines to Alex Jones.
Ever page that I go to on either one of these websites has either a picture of Alex Jones on them, or atleast has his name somewhere on the page. Even though these are his websites, this just seems a bit egotistical to me.
Some people might argue that those websites are about promoting the "truth", which couldn't be further from the truth. The only thing these websites do is promote whatever Alex Jones wants to promote and wants you to believe, and ultimately promotes Alex Jones himself.
These websites are not alternative news sites like they try to make themselves out to be. They're just shrines to feed Alex Jones's ego and wallet.
Now there are a lot of things that have been said about these sites, and after taking a look at these two sites I've noticed quite a lot of things about them, which I have narrowed down to five things.
So here are five things I've notice Prisonplanet and Infowars:
5. There are a lot of ads on the sites.
I have no problems with any websites having advertisements on them, and with the size of the websites that Prisonplanet and Infowars are it's necessary for these sites to have advertisements on them inorder to make money to both pay people maintain the sites, as well as to pay other employees... and also to make Alex Jones money.
The sites not only have your ordinary, random ads that try to look like news stories, but also ads by sponsors of the sites with products or services that is geared towards the typical fans of Alex Jones (i.e. conspiracy theorists), or it's just advertisements for books and videos and other products that Alex Jones has created himself... or atleast he claims to have created. And ofcourse there are also ads for Alex Jones's radio show.
There are also articles on those those sites as well, not just ads, but the thing about that is...
4. Alex Jones doesn't write a lot of articles on those sites.
On any given day if you go to Infowars and Prisonplanet you'll find a whole bunch of articles on there, what you hardly ever see however are articles written by Alex Jones. Infact seeing an article on there that was written by Alex Jones is more rare than seeing an article on there that actually tells the truth instead of being a manipulative form of propaganda.
Not only does Alex Jones not write a whole bunch of article on his sites, but neither does his staff. Many of the articles on those sites are actually from other websites, some of which mainly promote conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, and some are from legitimate news sites.
Even when someone there does write an original article, they always seem to do this one thing...
3. They cherry pick stuff.
Most of the articles on these two sites that are written by actual staff members of Alex Jones's tend to be just cherry picked from other legitimate news articles, with parts of the legitimate news articles being taken apart and having pieces of it taken out of context, and then the writers ad in their own comments to make it sound like the original article agrees with their point of view, even if it doesn't. Or they trash the original article completely and make it sound far worse than what it actually is, especially if the article says something negative about conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists.
Even the articles that are completely and totally original still read like they're cherry picked. This is probably because they are written in such a way that it's obviously intended to manipulate it's readers into believing in the two sites' obscure world views. Now this isn't to much of a surprise, and that's mostly because...
2. They're stereotypical conspiracy theorist websites.
Whenever I'm asked about a conspiracy theorist website the first thing that comes to mind are these two websites, because not only are they two of the largest conspiracy theorist websites out there, they are also two of the oldest.
Besides just the other stuff that I mention above (cherry picked and manipulative articles) both sites also do a lot of other things you would find on other stereotypical conspiracy theorist websites, such as posting Youtube videos that are often manipulative and irrelevant (although they usually make these videos themselves), and has a comments section which tends to be a gathering place for other conspiracy theorists with even wilder conspiracy theories, and can be pretty hostile towards people who don't share their views.
Even the lay out of the sites themselves seems just like what you would find on a well made conspiracy theorist website.
1. They're shrines to Alex Jones.
Ever page that I go to on either one of these websites has either a picture of Alex Jones on them, or atleast has his name somewhere on the page. Even though these are his websites, this just seems a bit egotistical to me.
Some people might argue that those websites are about promoting the "truth", which couldn't be further from the truth. The only thing these websites do is promote whatever Alex Jones wants to promote and wants you to believe, and ultimately promotes Alex Jones himself.
These websites are not alternative news sites like they try to make themselves out to be. They're just shrines to feed Alex Jones's ego and wallet.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Obama ordered $1 billion worth of disposable coffins for use in FEMA camps? More BS fear mongering.
Reblogged from Is that a FEMA Camp?
Recently the old FEMA camp myth has once again reared it's ugly head around internet, this time making it appear that President Obama has ordered $1,000,000,000 worth of "disposable coffins", as you can clearly see from this screen shot below:
And from this article here.
When I was reading the article one of the first things that clued me in that this was just a bunch of BS and anti-government fear mongering were the pictures.
All of these pictures have been spreading around the internet for years now in various conspiracy theorist websites and forums.
Despite what the website wants you to believe, these pictures are actually pretty old. Infact they've been around since the George W. Bush administration, as have these claims.
The pictures were also taken at a storage facility for Vantage, a company that manufactures plastic coffin liners, not some government storage facility. If it was a government storage facility the people who took the photos would most likely not have been given access to the facility for various security and liability reasons, or at the very least they would have been escorted around the facility to make sure they didn't hurt themselves or damage something.
Also, these so called "disposable coffins" are neither disposable nor coffins. They're meant to hold to coffins, and they're meant to stay in the ground for who knows how long.
While some coffin liners are bought by the government for things like military funerals, most of these purchases are made by funeral home to be used in private funerals.
The second thing I noticed about the article was the total lack of any references to back up all the claims made. All there was were some old pictures, an old video from 2 1/2 years ago that shows nothing but a few documents that means nothing and also has no links to the documents that are mentioned, and some ignorant people who clearly do not know that a coffin goes inside a coffin liner, and also makes up some outrageous claims without any sort of documents or evidence to back up these claims.
The fact is that there is nothing new about this story. This type of "story" has been floating around in one form or another for years and predates President Obama.
President Obama didn't order $1,000,000,000 worth of coffins, and Marshall Law is not about about to be implemented. All this is is more classic fear mongering being promoted by people who are very paranoid, or who hate the government, or (usually) both.
Recently the old FEMA camp myth has once again reared it's ugly head around internet, this time making it appear that President Obama has ordered $1,000,000,000 worth of "disposable coffins", as you can clearly see from this screen shot below:
And from this article here.
When I was reading the article one of the first things that clued me in that this was just a bunch of BS and anti-government fear mongering were the pictures.
All of these pictures have been spreading around the internet for years now in various conspiracy theorist websites and forums.
Despite what the website wants you to believe, these pictures are actually pretty old. Infact they've been around since the George W. Bush administration, as have these claims.
The pictures were also taken at a storage facility for Vantage, a company that manufactures plastic coffin liners, not some government storage facility. If it was a government storage facility the people who took the photos would most likely not have been given access to the facility for various security and liability reasons, or at the very least they would have been escorted around the facility to make sure they didn't hurt themselves or damage something.
Also, these so called "disposable coffins" are neither disposable nor coffins. They're meant to hold to coffins, and they're meant to stay in the ground for who knows how long.
While some coffin liners are bought by the government for things like military funerals, most of these purchases are made by funeral home to be used in private funerals.
The second thing I noticed about the article was the total lack of any references to back up all the claims made. All there was were some old pictures, an old video from 2 1/2 years ago that shows nothing but a few documents that means nothing and also has no links to the documents that are mentioned, and some ignorant people who clearly do not know that a coffin goes inside a coffin liner, and also makes up some outrageous claims without any sort of documents or evidence to back up these claims.
The fact is that there is nothing new about this story. This type of "story" has been floating around in one form or another for years and predates President Obama.
President Obama didn't order $1,000,000,000 worth of coffins, and Marshall Law is not about about to be implemented. All this is is more classic fear mongering being promoted by people who are very paranoid, or who hate the government, or (usually) both.
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