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Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#21 - 2011-10-17 01:54:18 UTC
The New World Order concept - of a shadow government that controls and manipulates governments, industry, and media organizations worldwide - predates 1990; it is accused of being the same group of people who, among other things, created the Federal Reserve Act (1913), supported the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and supported the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, all for their own agenda. The World Bank and national central banks are said to be the tools of the New World Order; war generates massive profits for central banks because government spending (hence borrowing at interest from the central banks) increases dramatically in times of war and distress.

Many conspiracy theorists believe that Denver International Airport is the western U.S. headquarters of the New World Order, and a massive underground base and city is believed to exist underneath the airport. Reasons for this include the airport's unusually large size (larger than some major cities), distance from the Denver, Colorado city center, and the set of environmentally themed murals by artist Leo Tanguma depicting burning cities, gas-mask wearing soldiers and girls in coffins, and the capstone of the Great Hall which includes Masonic symbols and strange writing.

There is a dedication marker in the airport inscribed with the Square and Compasses of the Freemasons, along with a listing of the two Grand Lodges of Freemasonry in Colorado. It is mounted over a time capsule that was sealed during the dedication of the airport. The Freemasons participated in laying this capstone (the last, finishing stone) of the airport project. The capstone also is inscribed with a line that simply states "New World Airport Commission".
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#22 - 2011-10-18 02:08:59 UTC
The Clinton Body Count, as it is popularly known, is a conspiracy theory that Bill Clinton, while he was president and before, was quietly assassinating his associates (ostensibly anyone who got in the way of his career, such as Vince Foster). It was started as a retaliation to the Bush Body Count (which ostensibly had various members of the Bush family responsible for events like JFK assassination and the October surprise killing lesser co-conspirators on their way). The Clinton Body Count is a list of about 50–60 associates of Clinton who have died "under mysterious circumstance". The list began circulating over the Internet starting in the mid-1990s. The list grew out of a 1993 list of about 24 names prepared by the pro-gun lobby group American Justice Federation which was led by Linda Thompson.

Snopes.com has debunked this list, noting 1) many of those claimed to be assassinated actually died from very well documented accidents that leave no possibility of assassination 2) a political figure who becomes President of the United States will have a loosely defined circle of "associates", and many of these associates are in dangerous positions (police officers, pilots, soldiers) or older men in high stress jobs (therefore at greater risk of dying of stress related disease or suicide).
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#23 - 2011-10-19 00:51:18 UTC
The Order of the Illuminati was an Enlightenment-age secret society founded by university professor Adam Weishaupt on 1 May 1776, in Upper Bavaria, Germany. The movement consisted of advocates of free thought, secularism, liberalism, republicanism and gender equality, recruited in the German Masonic Lodges, who sought to teach rationalism through mystery schools. In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up and suppressed by the government agents of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria, in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian monarchy and its state religion, Roman Catholicism.

In the late 18th century, reactionary conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist John Robison and French Jesuit priest Augustin Barruel, began speculating that the Illuminati survived their suppression and became the masterminds behind the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. The Illuminati were accused of being subversives who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a revolutionary wave in Europe and the rest of the world in order to spread the most radical ideas and movements of the Enlightenment — anti-clericalism, anti-monarchism, and anti-patriarchalism — and create a world noocracy and cult of reason. During the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of European ruling classes, and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in 1848 the very revolutions they sought to prevent.

During the interwar period of the 20th century, fascist propagandists, such as British revisionist historian Nesta Helen Webster and American socialite Edith Starr Miller, not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which serves the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both finance capitalism and Soviet communism in order to divide and rule the world. American evangelist Gerald Burton Winrod and other conspiracy theorists within the fundamentalist Christian movement in the United States — which emerged in the 1910s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment secular humanism, modernism, and liberalism — became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in America. Right-wing populists, such as members of the John Birch Society, subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities (Skull and Bones), gentlemen's clubs (Bohemian Club) and think tanks (Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission) of the American upper class are front organizations of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government.

Skeptics argue that evidence would suggest that the Bavarian Illuminati was nothing more than a curious historical footnote since there is no evidence that the Illuminati survived its suppression in 1785.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#24 - 2011-10-20 01:25:40 UTC
In late February 2008, Rush Limbaugh [a conservative American radio pundit] announced "Operation Chaos," a political call to action with the initial plan to have voters of the Republican Party temporarily cross over to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Hillary Clinton, who at the time was in the midst of losing eleven straight primary contests to Barack Obama. Limbaugh has also cited the open primary process in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, which allowed independent voters to cross over into the Republican primaries to choose John McCain over more conservative candidates (such as Fred Thompson), as an inspiration.

At the point in which Limbaugh announced his gambit, Obama had seemed on the verge of clinching the Democratic nomination. However, Clinton subsequently won the Ohio primary and the Texas primary (while losing the Texas caucus and the overall delegate split) with large pluralities from rural counties; thus reemerging as a competitive opponent in the race. Statistics released by the state of Texas show Hillary Clinton won the primary due to a large number of Republicans crossing over to vote for her. Whether these voters were Operation Chaos Operatives or simply Republicans who preferred Clinton is impossible to tell.

On April 29, 2008 Limbaugh declared an "operational pause" in Operation Chaos, saying that Obama's defeat in the 2008 Pennsylvania primary and fallout from statements from Obama ally Reverend Jeremiah Wright could have damaged his campaign to the extent superdelegates would shift to Clinton's side. Determining Obama had weathered that storm, Limbaugh lifted the pause the next day and renewed his call for his listeners to vote for Clinton in the upcoming Indiana and North Carolina primaries. Obama won the North Carolina primary[91] but was narrowly defeated in Indiana, where Clinton won decisively in rural counties that normally vote Republican in presidential elections.

The overall legality of Operation Chaos in several states, including Ohio and Indiana, is disputed. In Ohio, new party members are required to sign a pledge of loyalty to the party they join for a minimum of one year, making participation in "Operation Chaos" a possible felony (election falsification) in that state. However, the state attorney general there refused to press charges on anyone, saying that it would be nearly impossible to enforce because of difficulties proving voter intent and concerns that a loyalty oath would violate freedom of association.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#25 - 2011-10-21 00:49:10 UTC
The Philadelphia Experiment is the name of an alleged naval military experiment said to have been carried out at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA sometime around October 28, 1943. It is alleged that the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge was to be rendered invisible (or "cloaked") to enemy devices. The experiment is also referred to as Project Rainbow.

The experiment was allegedly based on an aspect of the unified field theory, a term coined by Albert Einstein. The Unified Field Theory aims to describe mathematically and physically the interrelated nature of the forces that comprise electromagnetic radiation and gravity, although to date, no single theory has successfully expressed these relationships in viable mathematical or physical terms.

According to the accounts, researchers thought that some version of this Unified Field Theory would enable the Navy to use large electrical generators to bend light around an object so that it became completely invisible. The Navy would have regarded this as being of obvious military value, and according to the accounts, it sponsored the experiment.

In most accounts of the experiment, the destroyer escort USS Eldridge was fitted with the required equipment at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Testing began in the summer of 1943, and it was supposedly successful to a limited degree. One test, on July 22, 1943, resulted in the Eldridge being rendered almost completely invisible, with some witnesses reporting a "greenish fog" appearing in its place. Crew members supposedly complained of severe nausea afterwards. Also, it is said that when the ship reappeared, some sailors were embedded in the metal structures of the ship, including one sailor who ended up on a deck level below that where he began, and had his hand embedded in the steel hull of the ship.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#26 - 2011-10-22 00:54:28 UTC
The "Creased Envelope Theory," "Frozen Envelope Theory" etc. suggest that the NBA rigged the 1985 NBA Draft Lottery so Georgetown University standout Patrick Ewing would land with the New York Knicks, the theory being that the NBA wanted to send the best player in the draft to New York to increase ratings in a large television market. The name of a particular theory, e.g. "Creased Envelope," indicates the proposed means by which David Stern, the NBA commissioner at the time, identified the Knicks' envelope.

Until recently, the leading theory was that the New York Knicks' envelope was placed in the freezer so that when Mr. Stern reached into the bowl containing the envelopes of all the teams participating in the draft lottery, he would be able to identify the Knicks’ envelope by its being colder than the others. In 2007, however, a longstanding believer in the fix, ESPN columnist, author, and podcaster Bill Simmons, released footage of the 1985 draft pick on YouTube, strongly supporting the Creased Envelope Theory.

The footage allegedly showed Mr. Stern's assistant banging one of the envelopes around on the rim of the drum, presumably creasing one of the corners. Every other envelope goes in cleanly. When selecting envelopes, ostensibly at random, for the draft pick, Stern reaches in and grabs a handful of envelopes, turns them over to look at them, and then drops all but one of them. The one he picks up is the one with the crease in the corner. That envelope is placed at the #1-spot, and is later revealed to be the Knicks' envelope. Mr. Sterns looks at no other envelopes while picking them for the remainder of the draft.

The draft pick footage publicized by Bill Simmons was previously available here. However, the NBA has since demanded YouTube remove the footage due to "copyright infringement" - oddly, since the footage contains no game time, and the entire point of broadcasting the draft pick originally was to demonstrate its legitimacy.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#27 - 2011-10-23 02:28:50 UTC
Although the initial French investigation found that Diana, Princess of Wales had died as a result of an accident, a number of researchers, and others, including most notably Mohammed Al-Fayed and the Daily Express have persistently raised conspiracy theories that she was assassinated. This led in 2004 to the establishment of a special Metropolitan Police inquiry team, Operation Paget, headed by the then Commissioner Lord Stevens to investigate the conspiracy theories.

In December 2007, witnesses at Diana's inquest were questioned about a letter to Paul Burrell which Diana had written by hand in October 1993, of which only redacted versions had previously been public. In this letter, Diana said, "This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous - my husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry Tiggy (Legge-Bourke). Camilla (Parker-Bowles) is nothing but a decoy, so we are all being used by the man in every sense of the word."

Richard Tomlinson, a former MI6 agent who was dismissed from the intelligence services and later served time in prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act 1989, has claimed that Britain's MI6 was involved. Previously, rogue agents of the secret service had investigated John Lennon and tried to destabilize the 1970s Labour government. Tomlinson alleged that MI6 was monitoring Diana before her death, that her driver on the night she died was an MI6 agent, and that her death mirrored plans he saw in 1992 for the assassination of then-President of Serbia Slobodan Miloševic'. Tomlinson was arrested by French authorities in July 2006 as part of their inquiry into the death of Diana. French police were also reported to have seized computer files and personal papers from his home in Cannes.
Mirak Nijoba
Gamers Corner
#28 - 2011-10-23 05:06:55 UTC
Hate to be the Break in your Little Story Session here, but I have some Questions about your Corp. Mind if we talk in Eve?
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#29 - 2011-10-24 04:34:17 UTC
The Three Secrets of Fátima consist of a series of visions and prophecies given by an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young Portuguese shepherds, Lúcia Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, starting on 13 May 1917. The three children claimed to have been visited by a Marian apparition six times between May and October 1917. The apparition is now popularly known as Our Lady of Fátima.

According to the official interpretation, the three secrets involve; Hell, World War I and World War II, and the shooting of Pope John Paul II.

The Holy See withheld the Third Secret until 26 June 2000, despite Lúcia's declaration that it should be released to the public after 1960. Some sources, including Canon Barthas and Cardinal Ottaviani, said that Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying that, "by that time, it will be more clearly understood", and, "because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so." When 1960 arrived, rather than releasing the Third Secret, the Vatican published an official press release stating that it was "most probable the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal." After this announcement, immense speculation over the content of the secret materialized. According to the New York Times, speculation over the content of the secret ranged from "worldwide nuclear annihilation to deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that lead to rival papacies."

Some sources claim that the four-page, handwritten text of the Third Secret released by the Vatican in the year 2000 is not the real secret, or at least not the full secret. These sources contend that the Third Secret is actually composed of two texts, where one of these texts is the published four-page vision, and the other is a single-page letter containing the words of the Virgin Mary that has been concealed.

Critics such as Italian journalist Antonio Socci and American attorney Christopher Ferrara have written many articles disputing that the full Third Secret has been released. Their argument that there's proof of a second part to the secret include the following:

  • Bishops working with Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI have commented that the text was written on one sheet of paper rather than four sheets;
  • Lucia stated that she wrote the message in the form of a signed letter to the Bishop of Leiria;
  • Lucia's text contains words attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary;
  • The full secret contains information about the Apocalypse, a great apostasy, and Satanic infiltration of the Catholic Church.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#30 - 2011-10-25 01:38:53 UTC
Majestic 12 is the alleged code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The alleged purpose of the committee was to investigate UFO activity in the aftermath of the Roswell incident—the supposed crash of the alien spaceship near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. The Majestic 12 is an important part of the UFO conspiracy theory of an ongoing government cover up of UFO information. The FBI has declared that the documents associated with the Majestic 12 committee are "completely bogus".

The primary evidence for the existence of a group named Majestic 12 is a collection of documents that first emerged in 1984. The original MJ-12 documents state that:

Quote:
The Majestic 12 group... was established by order of President Truman on 24 September, 1947, upon recommendation by Dr. Vannevar Bush and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal.


In 1985, another document mentioning MJ-12 and dating to 1954 was found in a search at the National Archives. Its authenticity is also highly controversial.

However, before the appearance of the various dubious MJ-12 documents, Canadian documents dating from 1950 and 1951 were uncovered in 1978. These documents mention the existence of a similar, highly classified UFO study group operating within the Pentagon's Research & Development Board (RDB) and headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush. Although the name of the group is not given, proponents argue that these documents remain the most compelling evidence that such a group did exist. There is also some testimony from a few government scientists involved with this project confirming its existence.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#31 - 2011-10-26 05:43:17 UTC
Different Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA and members of other organizations. Various groups and individuals have made such conspiracy claims since the end of the Apollo program in 1975. The most notable claim is that the six manned landings (1969–1972) were faked and that the Apollo astronauts did not walk on the Moon. The conspiracy theorists (henceforth conspiracists) argue that NASA and others knowingly misled the public into believing the landings happened by manufacturing, destroying, or tampering with evidence; including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, rock samples, and even some key witnesses.

The first book about the subject, Bill Kaysing's self-published We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, was released in 1974, two years after the Apollo Moon flights had ended. The Flat Earth Society was one of the first organizations to accuse NASA of faking the landings, arguing that they were staged by Hollywood with Walt Disney sponsorship, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Several motives have been suggested for the U.S. government to fake the moon landings - some of the recurrent elements are:

  1. Distraction - The U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction to take attention away from the Vietnam war. Lunar activities abruptly stopped, with planned missions cancelled, around the same time that the US ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.

  2. Cold War Prestige - The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the space race with the USSR. Going to the Moon, if it was possible, would have been risky and expensive. It would have been much easier to fake the landing, thereby ensuring success.

  3. Money - NASA raised approximately 30 billion dollars pretending to go to the moon. This could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity. In variations of this theory, the space industry is characterized as a political economy, much like the military industrial complex, creating fertile ground for its own survival.

  4. Risk - The available technology at the time was such that there was a good chance that the landing might fail if genuinely attempted.

Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#32 - 2011-10-30 12:29:05 UTC
The Wingdings font included with Windows has a history of controversy. In 1992, only days after the release of Windows 3.1, it was discovered that the character sequence "NYC" in Wingdings was rendered as, in order:

  1. a skull and crossbones
  2. a Star of David
  3. the thumbs-up gesture

This could be interpreted as a message of approval of killing Jews, especially those from New York City.

Microsoft strongly denied this was intentional, and insisted that the final arrangement of the glyphs in the font was largely random. The " 'NYC' in Wingdings" controversy briefly flared back to life after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and various other combinations of Wingings characters have been alleged to have special significance by conspiracy theorists.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#33 - 2011-10-31 05:23:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Kethas Protagonist
The chemtrail conspiracy theory holds that some trails left by aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for purposes undisclosed to the general public in clandestine programs directed by government officials. The term chemtrail is derived from "chemical trail", in the similar fashion that contrail is a portmanteau of condensation trail. It does not refer to common forms of aerial spraying such as crop dusting, cloud seeding, skywriting, or aerial firefighting. The term specifically refers to aerial trails allegedly caused by the systematic high-altitude release of chemical substances not found in ordinary contrails, resulting in the appearance of uncharacteristic sky tracks. Supporters of this conspiracy theory speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be for solar radiation management, population control, weather control, or biological warfare/chemical warfare and claim that these trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

The theory's creation was prompted in part by citations to a strategy paper drafted within the Air Force's Air University entitled "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025." The paper was presented in response to a military directive to outline a future strategic weather modification system for the purpose of maintaining the United States' military dominance in the year 2025, and identified as "fictional representations of future situations/scenarios." The Air Force insists that the paper "does not reflect current military policy, practice, or capability," and that it is "not conducting any weather modification experiments or programs and has no plans to do so in the future."

The chemicals allegedly used are described as barium and aluminum salts, polymer fibers, thorium, or silicon carbide. In other accounts it is alleged the skies are being seeded with electrically conductive materials as part of a massive electromagnetic superweapons program based around the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), an (actual, publicly-confirmed) ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Proponents of the chemtrail conspiracy theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by their long duration, asserting that the chemtrails are those trails left by aircraft that persist for as much as a half day or transform into cirrus-like clouds.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#34 - 2011-11-01 00:37:18 UTC
The Bilderberg Group is an annual, unofficial, invitation-only conference of approximately 120 to 140 guests from North America and Western Europe, most of whom are people of influence. About one-third are from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labour, education and communications. Meetings are closed to the public and often feature future political leaders shortly before they become household names.

Ostensibly, the convention serves as an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States can be brought together with the aim of promoting Atlanticism – better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues. However, because of the political and economic power of the meeting's annual participants and the complete secrecy under which the convention takes place, numerous alternative explanations have emerged. Some on the left accuse the Bilderberg group of conspiring to impose capitalist domination, while some on the right have accused the group of conspiring to impose a world government and planned economy.

Historically, attendee lists have been weighted towards bankers, politicians, and directors of large businesses. The 2009 meeting participants in Greece included: Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis; Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen; Sweden foreign minister Carl Bildt; United States Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg; U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; World Bank president Robert Zoellick; European Commission head José Manuel Barroso; Queen Sofia of Spain; and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attended both the 2008 and 2009 meetings.

The meeting hotels are inaccessible for any other guest for the full period of the conferences and sentineled by private security staffs as well as by local police authorities and secret services. Journalists attempting to cover news of the conferences have reported being subjected to reprisals. During the Bilderberg Meeting at Vouliagmeni (Greece) in 2009, for instance, the British The Guardian reporter Charlie Skelton was arrested - twice - after having taken pictures of vehicles entering and leaving the conference.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#35 - 2011-11-02 01:50:39 UTC
Dominionism is a term used to describe the tendency among some politically active conservative Christians to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action, especially in the United States, with the goal of either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law.

Although dominionism is used in several distinct ways, most usage originates directly or indirectly from a specific passage in the King James Version of the Bible:

Quote:
And God blessed [ Adam and Eve ] and God said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." —Genesis 1:28 (KJV)


Christians typically interpret this verse as meaning that God gave humankind responsibility over the Earth, although theologians do not all agree on the nature and extent of that "dominion".

Writers including Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson distinguish between what they term "hard" and "soft" dominionism. Such commentators define "soft" dominionism as the belief that "America is a Christian nation" and opposition to separation of church and state, while "hard" dominionism refers to dominion theology and Christian Reconstructionism.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#36 - 2011-11-04 05:44:48 UTC
The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument over whether someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians—a collective term for adherents of the various alternative-authorship theories—say that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason did not want or could not accept public credit.

Shakespeare's authorship was first questioned in the middle of the 19th century, when adulation of Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time had become widespread.[4] Shakespeare's biography, particularly his humble origins and obscure life, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and his reputation for genius, arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him. The controversy has since spawned a vast body of literature, and more than 70 authorship candidates have been proposed, including Francis Bacon, the 6th Earl of Derby, Christopher Marlowe, and the 17th Earl of Oxford. Supporters of alternative candidates argue that theirs is the more plausible author, and that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works.

A common theme across many anti-Stratfordian theories is the question of the source of Shakespeare's literacy, given his humble origins. Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, was a glover and town official. He married Mary Arden, one of the Ardens of Warwickshire, a family of the local gentry. Both signed their names with a mark, and no other examples of their writing are extant. This is often used as an indication that Shakespeare was raised in an illiterate household. There is also no evidence that Shakespeare's two daughters were literate, save for two signatures by Susanna that appear to be "drawn" instead of written with a practised hand. His other daughter, Judith, signed a legal document with a mark.

Anti-Stratfordians consider Shakespeare's background incompatible with that attributable to the author of the Shakespeare canon, which exhibits an intimacy with court politics and culture, foreign countries, and aristocratic sports such as hunting, falconry, tennis, and lawn-bowling. They find that the works show little sympathy for upwardly mobile types such as John Shakespeare and his son, and that the author portrays individual commoners comically, as objects of ridicule. Commoners in groups are said to be depicted typically as dangerous mobs.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#37 - 2011-11-06 05:44:24 UTC
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action (MIA) during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia. The term has also referenced issues related to the treatment of affected family members by the governments involved in these conflicts. Following the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, 591 American prisoners of war (POWs) were returned during Operation Homecoming. The U.S. listed about 1,350 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action and roughly 1,200 Americans reported killed in action and body not recovered. Many of these were airmen who were shot down over North Vietnam or Laos.

Considerable speculation and investigation has gone to a hypothesis that a significant number of these men were captured as prisoners of war by Communist forces in the two countries and kept as live prisoners after the war's conclusion for the United States in 1973. A vocal group of POW/MIA activists maintains that there has been a concerted conspiracy by the Vietnamese government and every American government since then to hide the existence of these prisoners. The U.S. government has steadfastly denied that prisoners were left behind or that any effort has been made to cover up their existence. Popular culture has reflected the "live prisoners" theory (most notably in the 1985 film Rambo: First Blood Part II). Several congressional investigations have looked into the issue, culminating with the largest and most thorough, the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs of 1991–1993 led by Senators John Kerry, Bob Smith, and John McCain. It found "no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia."

The U.S. conducted some limited operations in South Vietnam in 1974 to find the remains of those missing, and pursuant to the Paris Accords, the North Vietnamese returned some remains too. These efforts halted following the collapse of the Accords and the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, and over the next ten years, little progress was made in recovering remains.

In 1979, the re-emergence of U.S. Private First Class Bobby Garwood constituted the only POW to surface following the end of the war and release of prisoners. Garwood is considered by the Department of Defense to have acted as a collaborator with the enemy after he was taken prisoner, while proponents of the "live prisoners" belief, and Garwood himself, claim he was an American POW abandoned by the military.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#38 - 2011-11-08 00:11:57 UTC
Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated within the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro. One part of Operation Northwoods was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington."

Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated:

Quote:
The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.

Several other proposals were included within Operation Northwoods, including real or simulated actions against various U.S. military and civilian targets. The plan was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer and sent to the Secretary of Defense. Although part of the U.S. government's Cuban Project anti-communist initiative, Operation Northwoods was never officially accepted; it was authored by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy.

Conspiracy theorists often point to Operation Northwoods as a precursor of the 9/11 attacks, which they theorize were carried out by the U.S. government as a false flag operation, which was then blamed on Islamic extremists.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#39 - 2011-11-09 00:43:04 UTC
According to the mainstream narrative of the 20001 World Trade Center attacks, the plane crashes and resulting fires caused the collapse of the World Trade Center. Controlled demolition conspiracy theories say the collapse of the North Tower, South Tower, or of 7 World Trade Center was caused by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.

Demolition theory proponents, such as Brigham Young University physicist Steven E. Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds that they did, without additional energy involved to weaken their structures.

In the article "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe", which appeared in the Open Chemical Physics Journal, authors Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry, Jeffrey Farrer of Brigham Young University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, Steven E. Jones, and others state that thermite and nanothermite composites in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings, which they conclude to be proof that explosives brought down the buildings. Jones has not explained how the amount of explosive needed to do this could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention, but mentioned efforts to research the buildings' maintenance activity in the weeks prior to the event. Federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them, but Jones disputed this, saying that he and others were investigating "superthermite".

Jones also stated that molten steel found in the rubble was evidence of explosives, as an ordinary airplane fire would not generate enough heat to produce this, citing photographs of red debris being removed by construction equipment.
Kethas Protagonist
Protagonist Ventures
#40 - 2011-11-11 00:22:11 UTC
The Oxfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship, popularized by the recent big-budget film Anonymous, proposes that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604), wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. While a large majority of scholars reject all alternative candidates for authorship, popular interest in various authorship theories continues to grow, particularly among independent scholars and theatre professionals. Since the 1920s, Oxford has been the most widely accepted anti-Stratfordian candidate.

The case for Oxford's authorship is based on perceived similarities between Oxford's biography and events in Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and longer poems; parallels of language, idiom, and thought between Oxford's letters and the Shakespearean canon; and marked passages in Oxford's Bible that appear in some form in Shakespeare's plays. Oxfordians point to the acclaim of Oxford's contemporaries regarding his talent as a poet and a playwright, the theory that he was a concealed poet, and his connections to London theatre and the contemporary playwrights of Shakespeare's day. They also note his long term relationships with Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Southampton, his knowledge of Court life, his private tutors and education, his academic and cultural patronage and his wide-ranging travels through the locations of Shakespeare's plays in France and Italy.

For mainstream critics, the most compelling evidence against Oxford is that he died in 1604, whereas they contend that a number of plays by Shakespeare were written after that date. These critics most often cite The Tempest, Henry VIII and Macbeth as almost certainly having been written after 1604.

Oxfordian scholars, on the other hand, have cited examples they say imply the writer of the plays and poems died prior to 1609, when Shake-Speares Sonnets appeared with the enigmatic words "our ever-living poet" on its title page. These researchers claim the words "ever-living" rarely, if ever, refer to someone who is alive, but instead refers to the eternal soul of the deceased. Additionally, they assert 1604 is the year "Shakespeare" stopped writing. If these claims were true, it would give a boost to the Oxfordian candidacy, as Bacon, Derby, Neville, and Shakespeare of Stratford all lived well past the 1609 publication of the Sonnets.
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