We all like a good conspiracy theory and not all are just theories. Truth is we were tricked into Vietnam after being told American ships were attacked in the Golf of Tonkin and that was a lie. We were also tricked into Iraq after being told they had mass weapons of destruction. Heck, for years people who thought the Bildergerg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Tri-Lateral Commission met in secret to discuss worldwide approaches to common problems was non-sense. Well, they do meet in secret, you don't know what is discussed and they are pretty open about it now. As for how serious these conspiracies can get, giving LSD to adults without their knowledge, testing spreading viruses through the New York subway system and giving children cereal that was radioactive, yeah, those things were all done by the CIA and have been documented by the United States government. If you doubt it, you might want to go to the congressional website and look up the church committee. But, just because some conspiracies are real does not mean that all of them are or even that all of the stories get the real story straight.
One popular conspiracy theory for the past decade or so was by Dan Brown and it is the idea that Jesus had a baby with Mary Magdalene and that the truth is being hidden by the Vatican in it's "Secret Library". In case you have read this nonsense as anything more than a decent book and a couple of mediocre movies, let me explain a few things.
Firstly, the library is not secret, it is restricted. This is very common for libraries holding original documents from antiquity. In fact many libraries are limited to people having Masters or Doctorate degrees. I know, I have visited one of them at a major university. Secondly, the requirements to look at or even touch these books can be quite limited as they do not wish the books to age anymore than can be avoided. Lighting, air, temperature, moisture and other things can all increase the decay of these books and that is why they are often protected in the same way as some of the greatest art treasures.
The Vatican has well over a million documents and books that are kept protected in their non-public library. The odds are that even they do not know what is in all of the books and papers. Lets not forget that the Dead Sea Scrolls are still being deciphered and we have had those for decades. The value of some of these documents is incalculable. Thieves would love to get in there; but, it is very well guarded.
Now Dan Brown and others have repeated an old gnostic (read heretical) theory that Jesus and Magdalene had a child and that it is being hidden because Jesus having a child would destroy his perception of divinity. At first blush this sounds vaguely reasonable until you consider the fact that God is Jesus' father with the virgin Mary and that is how Jesus came into being. We are all God's creation, why would a physical relationship matter when we were all physically created by him. You don't have to agree with the theology. The point is that anyone that knows the bible well would not be bothered at all if Jesus had kids. Other than the Catholic church most churches allow their pastors to marry. Another equally dumb theory is that the Vatican is hiding evidence of aliens. Again sounds vaguely plausible except that these are all ancient documents not modern day photographs. The bible itself talks about lights in the sky and the Vatican's answer is angels. What definitive document from the 1300s could exist that would prove aliens from another planet and be accepted as being correct. Modern people didn't even believe stories by sailors in the 1400s of giant squid until we filmed them in the last few years.
YouTube - What Is The Vatican Hiding In Its Archives?
The truth is that we don't get told the whole story about many things by the government. The U.S. and all countries hide a lot of things from the public especially the things they did that would be considered evil. It is equally true that industry does not tell us things like their plans for the future. Insider trading is very common on Wall Street and future technologies are regularly hidden by the government and private industry.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Some Annoying News Articles and Something Really Interesting About History.
Rolling Stone - 5 Bizarre Conservative Theories About the Mizzou and Yale Protests. If we are going to promote capitalism then we have to live with it. If we are going to promote democracy then we have to live with it. If I spend $500 on a meal at a restaurant, I expect a great meal. If I hock my life with loans for the next 30 years and spend as much as a house would cost me, guess what, I have a right to complain if I feel I am being treated unfairly by the college that is getting that money. It is one thing to disagree with their complaints of racism, it is another to say that they don't have the right to raise them.
Yahoo - AFP - GM to sell Chinese-made cars in the US: report. Lets just title this one, American companies pouring salt in the wounds of American workers. By the way, GM says that this isn't even a cost saving purpose. You mean they could have made it for the same here and chose to have it made in China without saving a dime? That is their claim.
Washington Post - Time for GOP panic? Establishment worried Carson or Trump might win. Another article about how the "Republican Party" establishment wants to tell you who should be the party nominee. If Trump or Carson is the nominee you watch, the party will change the rules of getting nominated just like the Democrats with their "super delegates".
Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - The Case For Bernie Sanders. Like my recent post on how the Republican party wants Trump and Carson out, this is an article on how the Democratic party wants Bernie Sanders out. Neither party wants to know what you think.
Now for something fun on a very late Friday night - Saturday morning.
Gobekli Tepe.
Archeology has argued for years that man was pretty stupid for just about all of our history and then somehow miraculously became smart about 5,000 years ago. Prior to that it was believed that people barely worked together, were uncoordinated in any real way and were "hunter gatherers" What they did not believe is that farming communities were around longer than 5,000 years or so or even real cities. It is also believed that Sumeria was the seat of civilization and then Egypt. The Egyptian pyramids are believed to be about 5,000 years old (I should point out that there are questions about the Sphinx's age). Well, not long ago giant monoliths were found in Turkey that are 12,000 years old and they have art carved in them.
Now here is where it gets fun. It is believed that about the same time as GT was built, man learned to farm because it is believed that about 20 miles away the first wheat was farmed. I should point out that up until the 1800s most people never travelled further than 20 miles from their home. No cars, no trains and few owned riding horses. The only time large groups of people travelled far even 1,000 years ago was either for war or trade, not to grow wheat. If we accept that answer then we must conclude that 12,000 ago the people of GT invented both farming and the creation of giant monoliths that weighed tons and constructed buildings with them.
So here is my question. If man creating farming allowed him to build giant building because he was freed up from hunting and gathering all the time, why didn't anyone else build such structures for another 7,000 years. We know farming took off like mad. By the way, the people who built GT continued using it for a few thousand years so they didn't just die off. Oh, and when they did disappear they buried the whole place under dirt not to be found until the 1900s.The truth is that we don't know much about the years prior to Sumaria 5,000 years ago. In fact, we know practically nothing about those times as GT is proving.
These are some interesting things to look into. Here is what is not interesting. Ben Carson claims that the pyramids were used to store grain, supposedly by Joseph. That is idiotic. Firstly, no evidence of grain storage has EVER been found in the pyramids. Secondly, it would be the dumbest place in the world to store grain as it was completely enclosed, there was no way in until it was robbed and the robbers basically burrowed into it. I should also point out that the bible does not talk about the pyramids as far as we know. The truth is that the open areas inside the pyramids are incredibly small compared to the overall size and not even suitable for grain storage as it is a complete waste of structure. Beyond all that, why would people spend years building a pyramid to store grain when they could build storage buildings in months and big ones that were well protected. Egypt had a pretty good army.
Yahoo - AFP - GM to sell Chinese-made cars in the US: report. Lets just title this one, American companies pouring salt in the wounds of American workers. By the way, GM says that this isn't even a cost saving purpose. You mean they could have made it for the same here and chose to have it made in China without saving a dime? That is their claim.
Washington Post - Time for GOP panic? Establishment worried Carson or Trump might win. Another article about how the "Republican Party" establishment wants to tell you who should be the party nominee. If Trump or Carson is the nominee you watch, the party will change the rules of getting nominated just like the Democrats with their "super delegates".
Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - The Case For Bernie Sanders. Like my recent post on how the Republican party wants Trump and Carson out, this is an article on how the Democratic party wants Bernie Sanders out. Neither party wants to know what you think.
Now for something fun on a very late Friday night - Saturday morning.
Gobekli Tepe.
Archeology has argued for years that man was pretty stupid for just about all of our history and then somehow miraculously became smart about 5,000 years ago. Prior to that it was believed that people barely worked together, were uncoordinated in any real way and were "hunter gatherers" What they did not believe is that farming communities were around longer than 5,000 years or so or even real cities. It is also believed that Sumeria was the seat of civilization and then Egypt. The Egyptian pyramids are believed to be about 5,000 years old (I should point out that there are questions about the Sphinx's age). Well, not long ago giant monoliths were found in Turkey that are 12,000 years old and they have art carved in them.
Now here is where it gets fun. It is believed that about the same time as GT was built, man learned to farm because it is believed that about 20 miles away the first wheat was farmed. I should point out that up until the 1800s most people never travelled further than 20 miles from their home. No cars, no trains and few owned riding horses. The only time large groups of people travelled far even 1,000 years ago was either for war or trade, not to grow wheat. If we accept that answer then we must conclude that 12,000 ago the people of GT invented both farming and the creation of giant monoliths that weighed tons and constructed buildings with them.
So here is my question. If man creating farming allowed him to build giant building because he was freed up from hunting and gathering all the time, why didn't anyone else build such structures for another 7,000 years. We know farming took off like mad. By the way, the people who built GT continued using it for a few thousand years so they didn't just die off. Oh, and when they did disappear they buried the whole place under dirt not to be found until the 1900s.The truth is that we don't know much about the years prior to Sumaria 5,000 years ago. In fact, we know practically nothing about those times as GT is proving.
These are some interesting things to look into. Here is what is not interesting. Ben Carson claims that the pyramids were used to store grain, supposedly by Joseph. That is idiotic. Firstly, no evidence of grain storage has EVER been found in the pyramids. Secondly, it would be the dumbest place in the world to store grain as it was completely enclosed, there was no way in until it was robbed and the robbers basically burrowed into it. I should also point out that the bible does not talk about the pyramids as far as we know. The truth is that the open areas inside the pyramids are incredibly small compared to the overall size and not even suitable for grain storage as it is a complete waste of structure. Beyond all that, why would people spend years building a pyramid to store grain when they could build storage buildings in months and big ones that were well protected. Egypt had a pretty good army.
The Democrats Are Not Having a True Primary, It Is Already Decided.
Yahoo - AP - Big nomination lead for Clinton: pocketing 'superdelegates'.
Talk about a rigged game. Party candidates for President are eventually chosen by only the party at their conventions. People used to joke about how presidential candidates were chosen in back door smoky rooms by the power brokers. This upset people so much that they required the parties delegates to vote for who they voted them to vote for. That is to say that when you vote in the primaries, you vote for a person; but, what you are really voting for is someone who theoretically supports the same candidate that you voted for. That delegate then goes to the primary and only if a majority candidate cannot be found do they have the chance to vote for someone else. That is representative democracy. That has ended with the creation of so called "super delegates" who can vote for whoever they want and are not bound by their states primaries.
Without a single primary vote the majority of "super delegates", party establishment insiders, have already said that they will vote for Hillary Clinton. What is the point of having the primaries? Both the Democratic party and the media are dismissing Bernie Sanders because he cannot win even if he wins the popular vote. This election is a party establishment election in both parties. Both parties are also at risk of losing ANY credibility with their own supporters. If either Sanders or Trump wins the popular vote in the primaries and is not given the party support, people will leave the part.
We need to eliminate the parties and get rid of primaries. That was how we did it back in the beginning of this country. With the parties not representing who people actually voted for, why have them at all or parties?
Talk about a rigged game. Party candidates for President are eventually chosen by only the party at their conventions. People used to joke about how presidential candidates were chosen in back door smoky rooms by the power brokers. This upset people so much that they required the parties delegates to vote for who they voted them to vote for. That is to say that when you vote in the primaries, you vote for a person; but, what you are really voting for is someone who theoretically supports the same candidate that you voted for. That delegate then goes to the primary and only if a majority candidate cannot be found do they have the chance to vote for someone else. That is representative democracy. That has ended with the creation of so called "super delegates" who can vote for whoever they want and are not bound by their states primaries.
Without a single primary vote the majority of "super delegates", party establishment insiders, have already said that they will vote for Hillary Clinton. What is the point of having the primaries? Both the Democratic party and the media are dismissing Bernie Sanders because he cannot win even if he wins the popular vote. This election is a party establishment election in both parties. Both parties are also at risk of losing ANY credibility with their own supporters. If either Sanders or Trump wins the popular vote in the primaries and is not given the party support, people will leave the part.
We need to eliminate the parties and get rid of primaries. That was how we did it back in the beginning of this country. With the parties not representing who people actually voted for, why have them at all or parties?
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