EVIDENCE OF REVISION, PART FIVE OF SIX

"ZOMG DA SEE-EYE-AYE MIGHTA KNOWN ABOUT DA NINE-WUN-WUN!"

This article is the very definition of the expression "limited hangout", and is insulting to the intelligence of all who read it.

THIS DAY IN PARAPOLITICAL HISTORY - APRIL 10

On April 10 in the year 1606, the Charter of the Virginia Company of London is established by royal charter by King James I of England. In December of that same year, 144 men and boys set out on a ship from Blackwall, London, to establish the colony. The voyage takes 144 days -- far longer than usual -- and 40 passengers die along the way. After that, things really go South...

On this day in 1710, the Statute of Anne enters into force in Great Britain. It is the first ever law to regulate copyright. Contrary to popular assumption, copyright law originally had little or nothing to do with protecting the rights of authors as regards securing access to potential revenue that their work might generate. Rather, it represented a government effort to regulate and control the potentially subversive output of that new-fangled contraption known as the printing press.

On this day in 1904, in Cairo, Egypt, British mystic Aleister Crowley transcribes the third and final chapter of his Liber AL Vel Legis, also known as The Book of The Law. It all began when, during a trip to Egypt, Crowley performed a ritual to invoke the Egyptian deity Thoth. Soon afterwards, his then-wife, Rose Kelly, went into a light trance, repeatedly telling Crowley: "They are waiting for you."  Because Kelly had previously shown little interest in occult matters, Crowley ignored her. But then, one day, the couple paid a visit to Egypt's Buluq Museum, where Kelly was able to find, identify and (most importantly) explain the Stele of Revealing, an ancient Egyptian artifact. This convinced Crowley that Kelly was being truthful, so he began paying attention, at which point his Holy Guardian Angel, a being by the name of Aiwass, dictated the entirety of the Book of the Law through Kelly, whose words were dutifully transcribed by Crowley. The Stele, by the way, is currently tucked hidden away in a disused corner of the Cairo Museum. As the central artifact in one of the most controversial New Religious Movements of the 20th century, it appears to be a source of embarrassment. Recently, an associate of yer old pal Jerky's hunted down the Stele and shot some footage of it on his camera phone. That video, now...

On this day in 1912, the Titanic leaves port in Southampton, England, for her first and only voyage.

On this day in 1919, Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos.

On this day in 1972, 74 nations sign the Biological Weapons Convention, the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the production of biological weapons. Shortly thereafter, HIV and AIDS begin  working their Satanic magic, depopulating the resource-rich African continent. As an added bonus, they also begin to "deal with" America's troublesome homosexual and intravenous drug using communities. By the way, to those debunkers who claim that "conspiracy theories" about AIDS can be proven wrong simply by identifying strains that existed prior to that point in history where the transmission vector becomes so incredibly suspicious, I say to you, does the fact that a rock might be millions of years old mean that it can't be used to bash in another person's skull?

One year ago today, on this day in 2010, Polish Air Force Tu-154M -- carrying a Polish delegation en route to Katyn to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre in which the Soviets killed about 22,000 Polish military officers -- crashes near Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 passengers. Among those killed were President Lech Kaczyński and dozens of senior Polish officials, including former President-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland's top military brass, lawmakers, heads of the Polish National Bank and other central institutions, presidential aides, bishops and priests of various denominations, relatives of those killed in the Katyn massacre, as well as officers of the presidential security detail and crew members. Here is the text of the speech that President Kaczyński was supposed to deliver that day.

OBAMA INFORMATION CZAR WANTS TO COGNITIVELY INFILTRATE YOUR BRAIN

According to the White House Web site, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein is current head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. That means he is in charge of “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.”  Troubling, then, that in an academic article he co-wrote in 2008 entitled Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures, that he blankly states that the government should engage in "cognitive infiltration" of "9/11 conspiracy groups", whatever that means. In practice, what Sunstein argues is that government agents should be assigned to infiltrate "groups" that propose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups. Of course, the fact is that governments in every country and at every level have been doing exactly this all along. It's just that they've had the decency and good taste to at least try to keep their tactics and motivations hidden away from hoi polloi. So there you go, ladies and gentlemen. Cass Sunstein... a name to keep our eyes on!

CONSPIRACY THEORY DETECTOR AT SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Scientific American has published an article by Michael Shermer that purports to educate the reader in a 10 point method to tell the difference between true and false conspiracy theories - in effect, a Conspiracy Theory Lie Detector. Considering the venue - SciAm usually being mired to the nostrils in a paralyzed, reflexive logical positivist posture - this is actually a pretty nifty little reference work.

I do disagree with some of Shermer's tips for sussing out a bogus CT - for instance, I wouldn't be so quick to denigrate the value of "connecting the dots".  Theories of all kinds - not just conspiracy theories - have to start somewhere. Often, an intuitive moment of pattern recognition can start the ball rolling and lead to very fruitful and intriguing results. Of course, connecting the dots is only the beginning. The real work comes afterwards.

In any case, here are Shermer's criteria. Do YOU see any other potential problems with his methodology?

• Proof of the conspiracy supposedly emerges from a pattern of “connecting the dots” between events that need not be causally connected. When no evidence supports these connections except the allegation of the conspiracy or when the evidence fits equally well to other causal connections—or to randomness—the conspiracy theory is likely to be false.
• The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy would need nearly superhuman power to pull it off. People are usually not nearly so powerful as we think they are.
• The conspiracy is complex, and its successful completion demands a large number of elements.
• Similarly, the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets. The more people involved, the less realistic it becomes.
• The conspiracy encompasses a grand ambition for control over a nation, economy or political system. If it suggests world domination, the theory is even less likely to be true.
• The conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger, much less probable events.
• The conspiracy theory assigns portentous, sinister meanings to what are most likely innocuous, insignificant events.
• The theory tends to commingle facts and speculations without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability or of factuality.
• The theorist is indiscriminately suspicious of all government agencies or private groups, which suggests an inability to nuance differences between true and false conspiracies.
• The conspiracy theorist refuses to consider alternative explanations, rejecting all disconfirming evidence and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence to support what he or she has a priori determined to be the truth.