Peruse the digital footprints of the latest anti-government lunatic to die – J. Patrick Bedell, including his thoughts on marijuana as currency, 9/11 as an inside job, a love for libertarianism, and exactly the sort of insane, paranoid gibberish you would expect.
Conspiracies
11
Dec 09
What Climategate and Copenhagen are really about…
In a nutshell (Jeff McMahon at True/Slant):
[US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke] said unparalleled economic growth occurred in the 20th Century because of two factors: access to cheap, abundant fossil fuels and ignorance or disregard for the fact that those fuels produced greenhouse gas pollution that caused global warming. Both of those factors, he said, belong to history.
“Those days are over,” Locke said moments ago in Copenhagen. “What’s required is nothing less than completely redesigning the way we produce and consume energy…. We’re talking about creating an entirely new model of economic growth.”The world has spent a century investing in petroleum infrastructure, Locke said: refineries, pipelines, stations.
27
Oct 09
Opting-Out
If opting-out becomes a reality in the healthcare reform bill, it is almost certain to be a political wedge and a litmus test of Conservative Values for Republicans. No GOP incumbent will stave off primary challenges without walking the coals and rejecting ’socialized medicine’.
As a anecdote, consider this Wired magazine article about parents who opt-out of vaccination for their children (via kottke):
11
Jun 09
James Von Brunn, Renaissance Man
I can’t tell you how weird it is to see “elderly white supremacist” in print? We’ve now found that he also dabbled in the arts (via BoingBoing). TPM has a very complete bio as well as a collection of his various diatribes from around the internet.
31
May 09
Crazification Factor and Conspiracies, v. Chrysler Dealers
Certain segments of our gun hoarding and black helicopter fearing populus is concerned that politics may have been the driving consideration as to which Chrysler dealerships got the ax, with 92% of the fallen being Republican political donors (blind to the fact that the overwhelming majority – 88% of all dealers are GOP fans!). Do they really think in addition to the failing economy, Supreme Court vacancy, need for healthcare reform, and, oh, by the way two wars with a couple in the works, the administration has time to play politics with closing dealers?
21
May 09
How can I miss you when you won’t go away?
Both Obama and Cheney have spoken. Obama’s transcript is at ThinkProgress; The NYTimes Caucus blog provides a summary and links to the full-text at AEI [PDF].
Obama’s National Security Speech: “Chill, I Got This S*#T!”
Cheney’s Personal Insecurity Speech: “OMGZ! Teh Feer! Iz Scerd!
As always thanks to Wordle
Cheney ‘rebuttal speech’ was framed by the press as portraying him as an equal to the President, with the press loving the conflict, even if its imagined. The Elected-President with a 60% popularity rating is going to be challenged by the Former Vice-President (of the losing party no less) with the 30% approval rating. The story should be looking at Cheney’s audacity.
20
Apr 09
Interesting: Israel, Democrats, NSA Wiretaps, Corruption, Bribes, etc., etc.
This story best represents the intersection of several seemingly disparate threads that intertwine the last American decade. It appears that an NSA wiretap ensnared Democratic Representative Jane Harman of California discussing a quid pro quo arrangement with a “suspected Israeli agent”.
22
Dec 08
Difficult time to be a coincidence theorist…
For starters, we have the IT guy who has been at the center of most of the recent technology shenanigans of the Bush years, from the hacking of the Ohio Secretary of State servers on Election Day 2004, and also the administrator of the gwb43 domain that loyal government employed Bushies used to communicate outside of both Congressional subpoena and National Archives scrutiny. His hands were also all over the 2000 debacle in Florida as well. He had been personally threatened by Karl Rove, and had recently been subpoenaed.
He died in a single engine plane crash. Some additional background can be found on at-largely.
4
Feb 08
Where in the world is the USS Jimmy Carter?
As soon as I had heard that a second fiber-optic undersea internet cable (map and story here and here – the number of broken cables now stands at four) had been broken in the Middle East, I automatically thought of the United States, the Bush Administrations desire to hit Iran, and the USS Jimmy Carter.
In the US Navy, tradition is that Presidents names are placed on aircraft carriers. But things would be different for Jimmy Carter, a former Nuclear Submariner. The Seawolf class submarine that would eventually bare his name would also be different than her class-mates.
