What We Mean When We Say ‘Conspiracy Theory’

What exactly do we mean by the phrase “conspiracy theory”? The problem is vexing enough in the academic literature, where scholars have made countless attempts to formulate a firm definition, none of which has managed to push its rival definitions off the stage. In everyday usage, the term is even more slippery: Its meaning constantly stretches and narrows, particularly when …

As Afghan Opium Production HIts All-Time High, ISIS Makes Billions

Since around 2003, when Afghanistan was raided by the US government, opium poppy cultivation and heroin production has risen exponentially. Prior to the US invasion, Afghanistan’s opium production had been nearly eradicated by the Taliban. In 2014, reports concluded that Afghani opium/heroin production is at an all-time high. The poppy fields, guarded by the US military at times, are the source of most of …

“Modern feminism can’t survive without victims”: Why rape survivors terrify Fox News & the gun lobby

Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich this week told students at Iowa State University that guns “can be a woman’s best defense against a sexual assault,” and called opposition to campus carry laws a ploy to turn women into victims “in order to uphold an anti-gun political philosophy.” Pavlich dedicated most of her talk to arguing that guns make women safer while feminism …

The Art of Becoming Human

About 180,000 people enlist in the United States military each year, many of whom will come home with physical injuries or psychological damage. Recruits are trained to kill, taught to de-humanize others, to participate in torture, but are expected to forget upon returning to civilian life. That 22 veterans commit suicide per day is a grim reminder not only of the harsh …

Obituary of the Democratic Party

Ordinarily I detest alliteration as the contrived deliberate mind-numbing of critical sensibilities, but here it works—and deserves usage. “Pusillanimous”—my trusty Webster’s Ninth Collegiate—is defined as, “lacking courage and resolution: marked by contemptible timidity” (1586), akin to cowardliness, itself opening a definitional Pandora’s box: “COWARDLY, PUSILLANIMOUS, CRAVEN, DASTARDLY mean having or showing a lack of courage. Cowardly implies a weak or …

The Sickening Child Porn Crisis Infecting U.S. Government Agencies

Daniel Rosen, a senior State Department official arrested last month for soliciting sex online with a minor, was reportedly arrested again Sunday night in Washington, D.C., and charged with an earlier crime of voyeurism after police searched his cellphone. And he is only the latest in a long string of government employees to have been accused of crimes against children. Public records and reports …

Prominent U.S. Scientist Sounds The Alarm On Geoengineering

J. Marvin Herndon, Ph.D is a scientist of considerable notoriety. An interdisciplinary scientist, Dr. Herndon earned his BA degree in physics from the University of California, San Diego in 1970 and his Ph.D in nuclear chemistry from Texas A&M University in 1974. Holding Post-Doctoral qualifications in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, Herndon has been profiled in Current Biography and in 2003 was hailed as the “maverick geophysicist” by The Washington Post. Dr. Herndon contacted …

Big Pharma Giant Guilty of Selling Tainted Children’s Tylenol – Knowingly

How far does the fraud and contamination of our country’s products go? The list is seemingly endless. Recently adding on to the list, mega-company Johnson and Johnson was recently found out to be knowingly selling adulterated bottles of Tylenol that contain metal particles. The makers of this children’s Tylenol seemed to think it was OK to pollute our nation’s children  – even …

On Beheading Arabs, Netanyahu’s Legacy of Darkness, and the Mitzvah of Voting Against It

Push Comes to Shove Dept: Facing a startlingly tight election, Israeli political leaders are descending to newly toxic depths with hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s latest brazen declaration that “those who are against us – we must take an axe and chop off their heads.” The “racist call to murder” by those deemed “disloyal” to Israel prompted condemnation, demands for Lieberman’s arrest …

Catholic Church Claims It Can Refuse To Pay Victims Of Sex Abuse Because Of Religious Freedom

THE CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE OF MILWAUKEE SOUGHT TO INSULATE $55 MILLION OF ITS FUNDS FROM LAWSUITS BROUGHT BY VICTIMS OF PRIESTLY SEX ABUSE, ACCORDING TO A LETTER PENNED BY THEN-ARCHBISHOP OF MILWAUKEE TIMOTHY DOLAN, SO IT TRANSFERRED THOSE FUNDS INTO A SEPARATE TRUST SET UP TO CARE FOR THE ARCHDIOCESE’S CEMETERIES AND MAUSOLEUMS. ONCE THE SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS SOUGHT THOSE FUNDS IN …