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Post by Smilla on Dec 5, 2007 2:05:41 GMT -4
Okay, TC time. That's not the craziest thing in the world to be paranoid about. The NSA and FBI read your email and now your online search activities (a lot). There are some political topics I won't do searches for on my machines at home anymore. There are one or two political issues I won't discuss over the phone. This isn't just because of the political climate (around the world, not just in the West). My mother was one of those Americans who had a tap on her phone in the '60s and an F.B.I. file. One of my current roommates managed to get herself one of those files, too, way back when. So, I know that a reasonable amount of my paranoia is justified. Sadly, we have no real privacy in this society and our government really does like to "take out" people it perceives to be threats to its autonomy, even if those people are doing nothing wrong.
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Sept 30, 2024 8:27:54 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2007 13:41:26 GMT -4
Oh yeah, I was only slightly kidding. I got the hell out of some of the pages as soon as they loaded. Paranoia can be a good thing sometimes.
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Post by Smilla on Dec 7, 2007 23:49:29 GMT -4
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Post by ratscabies on Dec 8, 2007 15:09:45 GMT -4
Here's a chilling story: Remember back in the early days of the internet, and less scrupulous sites would bombard you with pop-up windows? Every time you tried to close one, five opened in it's place, and the only way to make it stop was to quit your browser and start again. Did you ever wonder what might be lurking in the 94th window down that you never even saw, but was accessed by your computer, and your ISP was logged somewhere? Once, I was returning from England, where the band had done a series of shows. As we came through Customs at JFK, the guy in the booth scanned my passport, tapped a few keys on his computer, and asked if I had a computer. I said I did, and that it was in my bag, why? He said that someone with my name and address has been "looking at illegal pictures of children on the internet." (!) I said, "I look at a lot of smut on the net, that's what its for, after all. But nothing with kids in it. Have a look at the machine." He just said to be careful, and sent me on my way. Here's my favorite comment on this. It's an Arlo Guthrie song from 1969. Nice little Christmas ditty with one of Arlo's rambling intro's. I can't find an audio clip, but here's a transcription.
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Post by bklynred on Dec 8, 2007 21:43:33 GMT -4
ratscabies, that's chilling. At least now we know what kind of sites will usually blast you with ads, but still... at the airport? Geesh. Why don't they just send two plainclothesmen to your front door?
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Post by Mugsy on Jan 9, 2008 12:49:41 GMT -4
So what about the theory that William Hearst used his newspapers and clout to pretty much wipe out the legitimate use of hemp because a new machine that would have made hemp paper way more economical to produce than regular paper was about to be unveiled? Hearst had a lot of money tied up in paper pulp. For example, he apparently went out of way to print lurid stories about car accidents in which the driver had been smoking pot (rare) with large headlines and days of followup, while ignoring or back-paging more serious accidents where the driver was drunk. There's a lot more.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2008 12:53:16 GMT -4
Every conspiracy nutbar theorist need to go to this site and watch that film (it's free to download). A lot of it is solidly researched, though you may be offended by some of the religious and 9/11 material. I mean: intellectually-offended.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2008 10:49:49 GMT -4
I've been watching Unsolved History about the Korean airline shot down by the USSR in the 80's. The Cold War political intrigue was palpable at that time and there were some conspiracy theories surrounding this, but looking back now I think it was most likely a bunch of tragic mistakes.
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Post by Smilla on May 23, 2008 20:45:08 GMT -4
Okay, I'm back to one of my highly unpopular theories about Hillary Clinton: she's trying to lose.
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Post by lpatrice on May 23, 2008 22:31:00 GMT -4
More than that: she is trying to completely sabotage the Dems. As for conspiracy theories, one theory I don't get is that AIDS was created to kill black people.........nope. If AIDS were created, and I don't think it was done scientifically by humans...it was created to kill gays - it was not until later that it made the jump into the heterosexual population. There were scattered cases but for the most part it was a gay disease - and then it exploded in Sub Sahara Africa, etc.
Honestly I think it would be impossible to create a disease that targets one segment of the population - maybe back when people were extremely segregated but in this day in age...nope. Even though there is still a lot of self and de facto segregation.
As for Christianity, Christianity did pretty much borrow a lot from the pagan practices. Including most of the Christian holidays. The best thing a Christian or explorer of Christianity could do is read Roman history, and the story of Constantine, who advanced Christianity because he didn't want to lose his empire. Fascinating stuff.
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