Conspiracy theories are fun. They let you make sense out of things that otherwise make little, or give reason to otherwise unreasonable actions, and are fun to think about, but I worry when people 100 percent subscribe to a given theory, despite tons of evidence to the contrary.
What are your favorite Conspiracy Theories, which do you tend to believe, and which do you really hate with all your passion?
I have a thing with 9/11 ones. I don't think it was an inside job - at all, but I do think there are probably about fifty million things we *don't* know about that day that I'm pretty happy not knowing. Maybe I trust too much in my government, or don't trust my fellow Americans enough, but sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I LOVE pro-wrestling conspiracy theories, because those could actually be true sometimes. Was the Screwjob for real or not? Who knows, and it's been played out and twisted and talked about so many times that whatever the truth WAS, probably no one remembers. Remember that Ladder match between Vince, Shane, and Austin? Who lifted the brief case? Who was it SUPPOSED to be?
I also love me some movie conspiracy theories, which if you'll afford me the ability to rip off a Cracked article, I'll highlight a few of my favorite:
1. James Bond is a code name, not a person - The 007 isn't one person, but rather a series of code-names, allowing the series to explain the fact Bond would be like 600 years old by now. However, the kind of 'meh' (if you ask me) Skyfall, made a point to debunk this one.
2. Radio Flyer's little brother dies - I HATED this movie, as it attempted to at once tackle child abuse, and give a happy, fanciful ending to a situation that likely wouldn't have got one.
3. This is my own, but I think "The Power Rangers Movie" is actually about...Power Rangers Fandom. Think: A plastic man drives a bunch of parents insane via plastic things the parents don't understand, but go insane over, and the only way to STOP the fandom, is to introduce newer, different, plastic things to fight them.
This is a good little article, too.
I also love me some movie conspiracy theories, which if you'll afford me the ability to rip off a Cracked article, I'll highlight a few of my favorite:
1. James Bond is a code name, not a person - The 007 isn't one person, but rather a series of code-names, allowing the series to explain the fact Bond would be like 600 years old by now. However, the kind of 'meh' (if you ask me) Skyfall, made a point to debunk this one.
2. Radio Flyer's little brother dies - I HATED this movie, as it attempted to at once tackle child abuse, and give a happy, fanciful ending to a situation that likely wouldn't have got one.
3. This is my own, but I think "The Power Rangers Movie" is actually about...Power Rangers Fandom. Think: A plastic man drives a bunch of parents insane via plastic things the parents don't understand, but go insane over, and the only way to STOP the fandom, is to introduce newer, different, plastic things to fight them.
This is a good little article, too.
Beyond that I consider myself a pretty opened minded guy and am always happy to delve into the depths of bizarre things people know and then hide from us.
So what say you, Otters?
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Blog Otter Award: Your Favorite Loser is my favorite winner, making a quality "He Hate Me reference"
1. If you go to Rockstar Social Club and give "Meekin's Mobsters" a search, you'll find the official Blog Otter crew.
2. Great discussion on people hating other people yesterday, and I think my favorite part of this blog is we have legitimate heat with folks. Maybe we need to have a NPP v. BOD contest for charity.
Tupac faking his death only to come back 7 years later.
ReplyDeleteyay, i won i won!
ReplyDeleteunless i'm failing english... thats unpossible!
'Remember that Ladder match between Vince, Shane, and Austin? Who lifted the brief case? Who was it SUPPOSED to be?'
ReplyDeletebossman. if any corporate member interfered he'd be fired. bossman happened to be fired from the corporation (forget why) shortly before the event. briefcase was raised. the next night, bossman (coming out to hard times) stormed the corporation in the ring and faced off. they all hugged and he said, "i love you guys!" and they welcomed him back
this isnt so much a conspiracy theory a la roswell, but i think its ignorant to think that we're the only forms of life in the universe. everyone always seems to focus on carbon-based life as the only option, but really, life could be something that isn't even in our understanding
ReplyDeleteI agree. I'm also a big fan of thinking beyond our 'perceived consciousness'. The amount of things we know, the amount of thinks we think we know, and the amount of thinks we want to know, are probably .001 percent of the things we don't know.
ReplyDeleteHaha that's a fun one, but the thing is don't a lot of artists record like, hundred and hundreds of tracks and then widdle it down to 12-14 tracks for an album? That's why he was able to be so prolific and keep releasing new material.
ReplyDeleteI mean it seems the cool thing about hip-hop is all you really need is the guy and a producer and a studio, and you have yourself a creative playground.
ya know?
ReplyDeleteI know!
ReplyDeleteCouldnt agree more! I got reallt into theoretical physics and universe design a few years ago. There is 0 doubt in my mind there are life forms, probably more then we want to know, in our universe. You cam start with our understanding of life, carbon and theorized carbon based life, then move on to thd multiverse ideas, etc. Even the idea of an ultimate creator has grown on me, mostly due to the discovery of the god particle.
ReplyDeleteConspiracy theories are religion for the nonreligious... you never have to prove what you believe because anything that disproves it is all part of the cover up. They also provide people an excuse to not vote a lot of the time because "It is all just a planned out ruse". Conspiracy theorists should be marginalized whenever possible because it may seem harmless but it is actually a very dangerous way of thinking... particularly the illuminati/freemason/new world order/one world government etc... types.
ReplyDelete...or this could all jsut mean that I am in on it and this is what they WANT you to think! (See how easy that is?)
Are you religious?
ReplyDeleteNo
ReplyDeleteI hate that there are people who even to this day believe that we never landed on the moon.
ReplyDeleteHi five.
ReplyDeleteI HATE this one also
ReplyDelete:: Fist Bump ::
ReplyDeleteOr... DO YOU?!?!?!?!?
ReplyDelete(Seriously you can make anything a conspiracy just by doing that)
I personally believe that Michael Jordan's whole baseball thing was just to cover up a gambling suspension.
ReplyDeleteIm with parallax, im not huge into them for multiple reasons. The ones that really annoy me are 9/11 and the new world order/one govt type of stuff.
ReplyDeleteI do however think its ignornant to believe that the govt discloses everything to us...theres a plethora of knowledge that I believe were not privied to.
Ditto. And maybe it's all the Tom Clancy I've read, but I'm kind of okay not knowing everything. A person is smart, people are dumb, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteI'd say check out "Jordan Rides the Bus" for a cool little perspective on that.
ReplyDeleteYES! I forgot about that one.
ReplyDeleteHeh, I think Religion gives people purpose, and we find religion wherever we can find it. Be it medicine, writing, working out, being a husband / wife. We all find a purpose.
ReplyDeleteTHREADJACK:
ReplyDeleteThe reason Hayes got suspended was because he gave alcohol to a female employee who was returning from rehab? This story from Daily Kos takes the typical shots at wrestling we've all grown to know and love. Also blasts the SLI saying its just a front.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/10/1246048/-WWE-Wrestling-s-Racist-Sexist-Employee-Who-They-Never-Fire
Well said. Id love to get full disclosure on some stuff but think its probably better off not knowing.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's not like being able to know does us any good. We learned we killed the Sha in Iran and set off the chaos in the middle east.
ReplyDeleteDo we care that Obama tried to apologize on behalf of America for it?
naaahhhh
Not usually hundreds for a single album, but yes. There are a lot of songs that are cut. Usually in the demo stage so you won't get complete songs, however with hip hop it's different. Since the beats and synths are all programmed, the 'Demo' will just be the poem you put on it.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall, Tupac also wanted to get out of his recording contract with his label. While a band can break up and nullify the contract, a single person cannot. Therefor he owed something like 6 albums to the label. He was preparing to give them six albums mostly of filler so that he could then go off and do his own thing. Thus all the post mortem tracks.
However moronic nonsense got in the way and we lost a really amazing artist. Also Big E was killed. He was ok. Not great but not slouching either.
You and I are not going to agree on this one. I don't go in for every theory out there, but there are plenty of "conspiracy theories" that turned out to be true. In fact, I'm working on an article on that topic.
ReplyDeleteGulf of Tonkin Incident
Essentially, the Vietnam War started on a lie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/02/politics/02tonkin.html?_r=3&pagewanted=print&
JFK
Did you know that an official governmental body investigated the assassination and released a report in 1979? “In conclusion, the committee found that the scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John f. Kennedy.”
They still say Oswald was involved, but more than one shooter makes it a conspiracy by default.
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-1b.html#summary
The Mafia
Prior to the 1950s, they were considered to be a myth; a conspiracy theory.
http://www.history.com/topics/the-demise-of-the-mafia
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
This is really nasty. To me, it serves as an example of what people are willing to do regardless of who it may hurt.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762136.html
That's just a few. I have gotten to the point where I just don't trust anything anyone in authority says unless there is some kind of proof or documentation,and then I want to see it. I have strong opinions about this stuff, and I wouldn't have brought them up on this blog...but that's the topic, isn't it? The well on this is really deep and there are so many different perspectives involving wealth and power, and what people do to obtain both.
I'm happy to have *rational* discussions about this and just about any other topic with folks.
I thought Jordan's gambling problems were fairly open and public.
ReplyDeleteThe one id absolutely want full disclosre is to the UFO, NASA stuff. I absolutely believe in aliens and absolutely believe the govt has knowledge far beyond our understanding of it.
ReplyDeleteThat holographic T-Pac at the festival in Indio was damn creepy.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Though I wonder why the Aliens would want to work with our government, isn't there some rule that says every time one culture has come in contact with another, it didn't end so well for one of them?
ReplyDeleteMost artists (I they are smart) record constantly. Tupac was trying to fulfill his contract with Death Row Record so he pumped songs out constantly. In fact the documentary of his life it was said the ay he got out of jail he hit the studio and did 3 4 songs.
ReplyDeleteDr. Dre has hundreds of song sitting around for the fabled Detox album, but that shit will NEVER come out.
I believe in life beyond our planet, but I don't believe that UFOs came to Earth and visited us up til the point when everyone had a video camera in their pocket and suddenly the visits stopped.
ReplyDelete'I do however think its ignornant to believe that the govt discloses
ReplyDeleteeverything to us'
does anyone actually think this?
Actually I heard a new conspiracy involving Eazy E. Apparently Suge Knight hooked him up with the chick that gave him AIDS:
ReplyDeleteSnoop dog album "Doggystyle" there is a skit on the cd if you listen very very carefully you can hear some guy in the background talking and he says "Im not worried about that HIV having ass..
I laughed for days on that one.
I always think it's funny how other countries are so nonchalant about reporting UFO sightings but the US tries to cover it up.
ReplyDeletefrank zappa's estate has a full time employee whose sole job is to manage a literal vault of recordings that zappa left behind. honest to god, even after we're gone there'd be another lifetime of zappa recordings to release
ReplyDeleteNot at the time.
ReplyDeleteI heard that. It was also one of the reasons his dad got killed.
ReplyDeleteBiggie was overrated.
ReplyDeleteThat statement gets you dirty looks. It may even get you killed if you say that in Brooklyn.
No, I didnt phrase that correctly. I meant to say that some people think the govt is just a benevolent entity with no agenda of its own.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite conspiracy theory is the one where HHH is apparently the devil and ruined the careers of about 184 people. I also love how during his alleged "Reign of terror", he barely won any matches clean. I think Booker T at WM 19 is the only one where I agree that Booker looked awful.
ReplyDeleteYea, I dont know where to draw the line either. I do believe we have alien craft, that has helped us reverse engineer some stuff.
ReplyDeletei grew up in birmingham and was still there was jordan played. as you approached downtown on I65 there was a giant billboard that said "michael jordan's current batting average: [whatever it was]"
ReplyDelete...not exactly the compliment they probably intended it to be
Haha. I know exactly what skit that is.
ReplyDeletehi paul!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it counts as a "conspiracy theory", but the level of deception that went into covering up FDR's paralysis is pretty interesting and proof that people only see what they want to see.
ReplyDeleteAnother one that bugs me is the story that Jackie Kennedy was either trying to help the Secret Service agent climb into the car or retrieve a piece of JFK's brain/skull after the assassination. She was clearly scared out of her wits (and who could blame her?) and trying to run away before the agents caught up to the car and ordered/pleaded with her to stay put. Makes perfect sense to me that you'd panic and try to flee after seeing your husband's head blown off, but I guess that story wasn't "dignified" enough and they didn't want it to look like she was abandoning her spouse.
Did you know that the JFK "acoustics evidence" has been shot down (no pun intended) multiple times as either being inaccurate or taking place after the shots were fired?
ReplyDeleteIt's a bird, no, it's a plane, no, it's. ..an anti smark!!!
ReplyDeleteI suppose you're not "ANT" from the old AOL "Ant" are you?
ReplyDeleteSay what you will, but facts are facts. Start at the 15:30 mark, I fail to see how RVD got "Buried". He got the clear visual pin on HHH.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6DBiKho7o0
The issue isnt that sone conpiracies are true
ReplyDeleteA Relegion may also be true.
He's addresing the fact that counter evidence is useless to the most dogmatic in both cases
And the title reign he got from that win pushed him into megstardom... oh wait...
ReplyDeleteWas that meant for Ant_sma?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to point out I had never seen the actual 'film' of that assassination until like, 3 years ago? Throughout highschool we read about it, but never saw the actual full-color video of the assassination. Brutal. Simply brutal.
ReplyDeleteIt was.
ReplyDeleteThe JFK thing has so many moving parts. Ive gone back and forth so many times times on what I think about this.
ReplyDeleteThe Mafia and Tuskegee things I dont really consider consider conspiracy theories though, more "people being ignorant" to whats going on. This is just me thougj
zappa owed 4 albums to warner bros and he so wanted to get out of his contract that he delivered them all at once, and they wouldn't accept them.
ReplyDeleteso he did a huge reorganization of everything and then went on the radio and played the entire set, asking fans to record it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4ther
Right, it's like when someone says "The towers fell at free-fall speed" and then I'm like, well, no, they didn't , then I get a "They're controlled by corporations man, you can't believe everything you read.
ReplyDeleteTo go along with that... the infamous "flu game" of the playoffs...
ReplyDelete... he might have been a bit more exhausted from partying before.
Look up "House Bill 15090" for the AIDS conspiracy.
ReplyDeleteI love Zappa in theory, but can't really get into his music. One of those "I Respect the hell outta the guy, be he's not for me" kinda situations.
ReplyDeleteAny recommendations on what to listen too to change my mind on that?
I give most conspiracy theories the side-eye, but don't people think something's up with the whole JFK thing? Do you guys honestly believe Oswald planned it and killed the guy on his own, only for Jack Ruby to avenge his favourite president's death (again, on his own)? Doesn't that strike people as extremely fishy?
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying there was a 2nd shooter, but there's no way we've gotten the whole story on that.
Google Kylie Ireland/Michael Jordan" wen you get time.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome.
The issue isn't that Triple H had to cheat to win. The issue is that by not losing to them, he severely halted or outright stopped their momentum. If you think for a second that RVD winning the match and the title wouldn't have been better for his career, then you might have a point. But those wins WOULD have helped those guys significantly (and would not have hurt Triple H), whereas a loss stopped them from hitting that next level.
ReplyDeleteI think that one's basically confirmed that he was hung over and not actually ill with the flu.
ReplyDeleteThen again that's par for the course in the NBA. "Flu-like symptoms" are never the flu. If someone has the flu, the announcers will tell you they have the flu. "Flu-like symptoms" have long been an NBA codeword for "this guy partied so hard last night, he's going through 8 different kinds of withdrawal right now and is a threat to puke on the court at any time". Probably since the 80s coke/drug days.
Weird, because they actually stopped showing the head shot portion of the tape recently. I mean it was on TV when I was little and my mom was like, "Why would they show that?"
ReplyDeleteYou know, before I saw the footage, I had wondered if JFK could have survived if he'd had access to modern medicine. But once you see what happened with your own eyes, you knew he was gone after the second bullet.
ReplyDeleteThing is, I remember RVD being white hot in early 2002, but... He had already cooled off quite a bit by the time that match came. He was trading the IC title with Eddie and Benoit at the time, so... I'm pretty sure he was already destined to be a midcarder by then. He was simply the 1st challenger in HHH's reign, no more, no less.
ReplyDeleteHHH is not my favorite wrestler (lol Eugene), but I do feel that 90% of the criticism from this blog is totally unwarranted. He was booked to have a long title reign, and he accepted. I would have too.
I agree.
ReplyDeleteThird bullet. Second one hit him through the back of the neck.
ReplyDeleteI had to google zaputer film after seeing Watchmen.
ReplyDeleteit really depends on what kind of music you like. with zappa, what i've found happen is that you come to like *him* doing all the different styles, and not necessarily the styles themselves.
ReplyDeleteorchestral? check
jazz/big band? check
straight ahead rock? check
psychedelia? check
doo-wop? check
progressive? check
avante-garde explorations in sounds? check
computer-produced? check
guitar virtuosity? check
Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteAfter the whole NSA thing I look at a lot of the wacky theories a little differently. After all the whole "the NSA spies on everything you do, has backdoors into every tech company in the world, has giant computer databases storing all your data and is building secret prisons in the American southwest" was just stuff that nuts that looked like Dale Gribble said.
ReplyDeleteExcept now the whole thing is basically confirmed. At this point it's like seeing a real live vampire. You have to think "so wait, is EVERYTHING real?" Are werewolves and space aliens and killer robots real also?
(don't hate me for that reference, it was the first thing that popped into my mind)
You're right. My mistake.
ReplyDeleteVery true. I remember Joey Harrington's flu-like symptom game where he threw for like 450 yards and 5TDs or something.
ReplyDeleteThat guy needs whatever he was on the night before, every day.
... and when you're not at work.
ReplyDeleteHe vetoed losing the title to Booker because he would lose the title to Goldberg at Bad Blood. Neither happened.
ReplyDeleteWait, who killed The Shah and what set off chaos in the middle east?
ReplyDeleteThere must've been a second spitter.
ReplyDeleteI'm so fucking weird with the rap i like. I like inspirational "Fuck all you assholes I made it" stuff across all artists, 2pac, Biggie, Dre, etc,
ReplyDeleteButtt when you get into like "I smoked a whole bunch of weed, got drunk, and fucked bitches" over and over, I kind of go cross-eyed. Also anything that is DIRECTLY offensive to women without a kind of wit/irony to it, really puts me off.
For a guy who likes Eminem, what'd you say I should check out. I like good stories, I like pop culture references, and I really like absolutely BEZERK rhymes.
I also LOVE hip-hop with real instruments backing it up, when done right. I just recently came across B.O.B and that "Don't Let me Fall" song is some kind of magical.
If he can get away with it, more power to him. Holding the title directly leads to more money, so... I don't blame him (or anyone) for not handing over 6 figure paydays to other guys if the bosses agree that you can do it. Lots and lots of money on the line.
ReplyDelete(and you do realize he did eventually lose the title to Goldberg right? that seems to be missing from your argument)
Yea, after that awful Summerslam debacle.
ReplyDelete"The money is in the chase". They built up a perfectly fine and logical chase where Goldberg was robbed, put his career on the line for another shot, and won clean. I still fail to see the problem to be quite honest. (Zero proof or evidence that Goldberg's popularity suffered from it, it's all opinion and speculation)
ReplyDeleteOnly if you want to see her...h, "reenactment" her telling of the story is safe.
ReplyDeleteSo from what I understand, like, a bunch of years ago, Iran elected this guy, the Sha, who wanted to privatize all the oil. The US / England was like, nuh-uh, and staged the killing of their leader.
ReplyDeleteThe Iranians found out it was us, and then went all nutso crazy, understandably. I'm a bit iffy on the details, but it was covered in Argo, and a few other documentaries I've seen.
Obama went over to the Middle East in his first term and in a round-a-bout way attempted to apologize, which is why he won that nobel peace prize, but no one really cared.
Yeah, the JFK thing is *so* deep. I didn't get into that here; I just wanted to make the point that the gov't has officially contradicted itself.
ReplyDeleteWhat qualifies The Mafia and Tuskegee as conspiracy theories to me is that they were both denied as untrue.
I'd be more inclined to believe it if he had simply missed 1 year. But essentially a 2 year suspension to the face of your sport (and cash cow) for... gambling too much?
ReplyDeleteI understand. I was just addressing the topic in general and parallax in particular because I like the guy.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't necessarily subscribe to most conspiracy theories, I'm also not surprised when one turns out to be true. And with the NSA thing, my basic reaction was "well, of course they are", because that's their job. "National security" doesn't just mean spying on other nations for potential threats.
ReplyDeleteUh, that's not remotely what happened.
ReplyDeleteNot everyone can be champ. It was hunter's time. It sounds like anyone with a long title reign automatically "buries the entire roster" by not losing the title to every challenger. Why is Hunter being singled out? Again, I don't get it.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to post a link documenting that and I'll take a look. I was just linking to a government report. JFK is a rabbit hole from hell; here, I was just pointing out the gov't's own contradiction.
ReplyDeleteYou're not allowed to gamble. At all. And he got involved with mobsters. You know, the guys that like to rig sporting events? Not good for the image.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes and no. Meta Data isn't what a lot of folks think it is. Meta data is
ReplyDeleteIP-A went to IP-B at this time.
Now can they dig down and find out that IP-A is Traitor Alex and IP-B is sexydoghump.org? Yes. But it's not like they have farms and farms and farms of servers that are filled with your facebook messages, emails and porno-watching habits.
HOWEVER, if someone ever wanted to ruined America, they'd hack facebook and do a wiki-leaks style release of EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE ever sent, because THOSE are stored somewhere, and they would RUIN everyone.
Meh. I go back and forth on Alex Jones. He's done some good stuff, but I also think he profits from fear mongering, which bothers me.
ReplyDeleteGambling is one of the single worst things an athlete can do to their sport. It always goes the same way, you get in too deep with the wrong guys and eventually it leads to game related outcomes. If Michael Jordan had fallen and fixed games and become Tim Donaghy, basically the NBA wouldn't exist anymore. It may sound like an exaggeration but I totally believe that.
ReplyDeleteAlso his gambling had already reached critical levels. The way the story goes his father was murdered because of Jordan's gambling problem. I mean if that part is true (and nobody really denies it) then everything else is totally up in the air.
You can't have it both ways. You can't claim he's not doing things to hinder other people's careers to the benefit of his own, and then applaud him because he's "able to get away with it."
ReplyDeleteSo if they're monitoring IP-A, which they know is connected to a potential criminal, they can then see whom that IP is currently talking too with regularity. if IP-A goes to a known arms-dealing front-end website, they can THEN go and see whats up, if that makes sense?
ReplyDeleteI DO wish there were some rules about what you can actually be spied on for, (Like if I download movies, am I on a watch list?), but I do like to think the federal government has more to do then check on what kind of freaky shit we watch on the net.
snopes.com is where its at.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to enlighten me!
ReplyDeleteSorry I confused the Sha with a different guy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with pretty much everything other than the mob hit. I think that's basically been debunked. It was an awfully messy and shoddy murder (including the killers using Jordan's dad's car phone) -- way too amateur to be professionally done.
ReplyDelete