Conspiracies | Bill's Views on Most Everything

Tag Archives: Conspiracies

Unjustified Causes Part Two: GMO’s

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Bill One comment

In this part two of my series on spurious causes I address the campaign against genetically modified organisms. The GMO’s most people are concerned about are in foods. Despite an overwhelming body of research confirming that GMO’s are safe, there is a huge movement opposing their use in foods. The illustration at left is an example of truths and falsehoods mixed together.

This brings me back to a common theme underlying many causes: fear. I would like to think most fearmongers are Republicans; they have Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. In these three popular campaigns, however, many of the adherents are mostly liberal in their thinking. It just illustrates that I am the only truly rational person around.

So, here we go on applying my advanced reasoning powers to examining how the international agribusiness conspiracy is systematically poisoning the world population, producing hordes of mutants ready to run amok killing the innocent. Oh, wait, I have seen too many zombie movies.

I think Anti-GMO activists have also seen too many Zombie movies as well. There are no studies showing any adverse effects on humans or livestock from GMO’s. In the U.S., most of the corn, and soybeans produced are GMO varieties. No ill effects.

The opponents cite studies that have been refuted or make claims with no scientific basis. They are also concerned that there may be problems from GMO’s in the future. Well, folks, we are in the future. These products have been around for more than 20 years in many cases. No zombies yet.

The health food industry has jumped on the no GMO bandwagon in a big way. They accuse big agribusiness of dangerous practices for profit, but they sell No-GMO products with big markups and scared people who have bought into the hype into paying inflated prices.

The justified fear of adverse health effects from pesticides and herbicides in the diet and drinking water has spilled over into the GMO movement. The anti-pesticide movement has strong scientific support. The anti-GMO movement has none, but the fear spills over.

Marketers are exploiting the fear by putting organic foods and No-GMO foods In the same category. Who loses? The Whole Foods customer. The customer is subjected to the classic propaganda technique of the half-truth. Pesticide residue bad, true; GMO’s bad, false. The association is what sticks in people’s minds, scientific fact notwithstanding. This technique is one the Nazi’s used to justify killing Jews. Good people were taken in. Good people are beIng taken in today for profit, not genocide

Posted in Fear, Food, Myths, unjustified Fears

Three Unjustified Political Causes

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Bill Leave a comment

Gas Rig in Western Colorado

There are three causes, fracking, GMO’s, and the XL pipeline that to me are spurious. There is a lot of hysteria around the issues with little critical examination taking place. People seem to be taken in by bad science, bad reporting, and demagoguery.

Fracking is an old technology that expanded when horizontal drilling along with fracking opened up huge amounts of territory to oil and gas extraction. The oil and gas was there all along, geologists knew about it, but it was trapped in what the industry calls tight strata, mostly shale.

Traditionally, oil and gas has come from fairly porous rock that allows the oil and gas to migrate to the wells. Tight strata is not porous, and the oil and gas tends to stay in place. hydraulic fracturing breaks the rock, allowing the oil and gas to move to the well. Fracking is not new technology. It was being used around my home town in the 1950’s. The big change came with horizontal drilling, hugely expanding the amount of rock that can be fractured from one drill hole.

If there is impervious rock above the area being fractured, the only route for the oil and gas to escape is up the drill hole. Done right, the oil and gas go into a pipeline or a tank with no surface contamination. The problem is that it is often not done right.

BP Spill

It’s been clear for a long time, reinforced by the big BP spill in the gulf, that drilling so often not done right. Oil companies are infamous for lying, cheating, and stealing. They get away with it in part because nobody knows what they are doing. Meters are bypassed, mineral rights owners, including the Government, are underpaid, horizontal wells go outside their boundaries, and proper drilling methods are bypassed.

The big BP spill in the gulf happened because a defective blowout preventer was put in service. No one is going to know, right? It is a mile under water. We all know and BP is going to owe billions.

The problems we are seeing with fracking, groundwater contamination, flaming water faucets, polluted water dumped into streams, all come from cheating. With fracking, drillers cheat by not properly lining the drill holes. The correct method is to pump concrete between the side of the hole and the smaller steel casing that carries the oil and gas to the surface. It requires high pressure pumps and a lot of concrete. Done right, it works just fine. But, it is a long way down that hole and you cannot stand beside the wellhead and tell what was done. What can be done is to sample ground water and air. If there is contamination, it was not done right. Incidentally, our old friend Halliburton is the big oil well service company that does much of the well lining.

Until alternate energy is much bigger than it now is, we need oil and gas, and domestic production is preferable to foreign imports. Otherwise, turn off your air conditioning, junk the furnace, and sell the car. So, let’s regulate. We need monitoring for contaminants and on-site inspectors. All that is done in construction, but the oil and gas industry has avoided most oversight.

Fear is the reason for the opposition to fracking. People don’t understand the technology, big oil rigs along subdivisions and water trucks on the highway are imposing. They see news reports that show flaming faucets

Flaming Faucet

without explaining the cause other than blaming fracking. Flaming railroad oil train wrecks. Pipeline leaks in California. The oil and gas industry has a public relations problem.

The biggest fracking failure was 45 years ago in Western Colorado. The government detonated a 40 kiloton nuclear bomb down a drill hole near Parachute, Colorado. Lots of natural gas was liberated, but it is radioactive. People just will not accept radioactive gas coming into their homes. I think this long ago event is what started fracking fear.

Unless you get around on horseback or bicycle, stay off the power grid and light, heat, and cool your house with renewable energy, you need oil and gas. With regulation, it can be safe. We can then put more time and energy into developing clean energy.

Parts two and three will examine GMO food and the XL Pipeline. Stay tuned.

Posted in Energy Policy, Environment, Fear

Fear

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Bill 3 comments

Fear is part of life. We are wired to react to threats in a number of ways. Fight, flight, freeze, hide, or cry for help. In our society, there is little to fear. In most of the country there is little violence. Sometimes we experience a flash of fear in traffic, or when we slip on the ice. For the most part, however, we are safe.

Why, then, to we have a culture of fear? Gun and ammunition sales are booming, security system companies are busy, people are taking self-defense classes, and living with fear and anxiety on a daily basis.

Within our generally safe country there are acts of violence. School shootings, workplace violence, robberies, gang shootings, random killings, it goes on and on. These acts, while horrific, are but a small part of life in a country of 314 million people. They just do not affect most people. The only time I have been truly terrified was when I was caught in a lightning storm when hiking above timberline. I have never run so fast as that day.

The most important fear creator is television. It is hard to get good video of a drop in the unemployment rate, but easy to show police cars, fire engines, ambulances, yellow crime scene tape, and bodies on gurneys. The longest running TV shows are cop shows and doctor shows, with lives hanging in the balance every week. “If it bleeds, it leads”, the mantra of local TV news.

Yes, they are showing real violence, but I have personally never been a victim of violence. As a volunteer firefighter, I did see the aftermath of terrible accidents, but we were there to respond to those events. In my daily life in the same area, I never saw an accident. We are however, deluged with depictions of violence.

Political groups use fear to get support for their agendas. Fear of economic collapse, of attacks by armed liberals, of rampant gang violence, of invasion by militant Canadians wielding hockey sticks, of invading Chinese hordes. Oh, and let’s not forget aliens and Zombies. I may be a bit silly, but you only have to watch the news to see the fear.

Perhaps the most fearful group is the gun owners. The gun literature is filled with articles on how to defend one’s home or auto from armed intrusion. Sales of AR-15 rifles with 30 round magazines are booming (15 rounds in Colorado). There is a general ammunition shortage as the hoarders buy almost everything on the shelves. The fear generated by the gun press is feeding on itself, fear begetting fear. Here are all these manly men buying guns and ammo to protect themselves from…nothing.

Another popular way to generate fear is with a conspiracy theory. New World Order, International Jewish Conspiracy, International Communist Conspiracy, the Illuminati, Masons, Catholics. It goes on and on. The fun thing is that you can make up a conspiracy, write about its nefarious aims, and watch it take a life of its own. Net result, more fear.

The source of fear is inner. Guns, politics, survival hoarding, nothing will alleviate the inner fear except dealing with the feelings generating fear. Those feelings usually are a product of an abusive childhood. Only confronting the feelings and working through the damaged thinking will work. AR-15’s just don’t help.

Posted in Fear