A Conspiracy theory: Did the US Vice President kill the Pope?

I don't think it happens very often that a U.S. Vice President visits the Pope in the Vatican. Maybe I am wrong.

J. D. Vance visited the first Jesuit and first Latin American Pope (age 88) on Easter Sunday! Within hours after the visit the Pope died! What kind of Easter egg did Vance present?

Or was it just rare and unfortunate timing/coincidence?

Caution: Satire!

Beware of the AI hype: I asked Google AI search following, but the answer was very poor/disappointing:

Perhaps the biggest conspiracy theory in a generation Covid-19

What if the Covid-19 lab leak hypothesis was true?

Did the Communist Party of China release the SARS-CoV-2 virus in late 2019 to interfere with the US presidential election? I bet, the scientists of the dual use research conducting Wuhan Institute of Virology knew exactly that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was very infectious, but overall rather harmless (except e.g. for immunocompromised individuals or the elderly). If it was not this institute, then this virus was released in a different way. 

Some other inconvenient facts:

1. The Chinese authorities were very reluctant to cooperate after the pandemic broke out.
2. The U.S. government was seriously compromised as it promoted and financed so called gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Anthony Fauci was the greatest perpetrator and enabler of the pandemic.
3. The lab leak hypothesis (or the intentional release of the virus) was never really investigated by Western countries if I am not mistaken

Perhaps, a perfect covert destabilization/sabotage campaign or even unconventional warfare was committed.

Conspiracy Theories about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941

Every year we commemorate this day that will lives in infamy! Every year several conspiracy theories are warmed up again and are regurgitated!

Most of these conspiracy theories are garbage and they only superficially sound convincing or plausible. They often claim to tell you the truth! Purveyors of such conspiracy theories have often ulterior motives like implying that the U.S. was imperialist and a war criminal as well.

However, as usual history is most of the times much more complicated than what talking heads like to select for their presentation. See e.g. Events leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan in the first half of the 20th century was a military dictatorship invading and attacking various countries etc. to build their empire.

Here are two examples:

1. The November 1941 U.S. oil embargo against Japan provoked the attack (see e.g. here). Picking one singular measure out of a history of many events and measures by various parties involved to explain a course of historical events is a sure sign of demagoguery 
2. The U.S. had advance intelligence information of an imminent attack on Pearl Harbor, but did not warn the military command stationed in Pearl Harbor. How many lives were saved by keeping it secret from the Japanese that the U.S. was able to crack/decipher their diplomatic and some of their military codes?

Commonalities Between Conspiracy And Apocalyptic Theories

Posted: 10/18/2019

The commonalities are:

1. Both are typical human follies and obsessions
2. Both are produced again and again in abundance by humans
3. Both are usually unsubstantiated conjectures that are never verified once in circulation in the public opinion. Even successfully and credibly refuted theories live on, because plenty of humans prefer ignorance
4. Both have extremely long lifespans (possibly several decades) before they fade away or become obscure
5. Both reflect primitive, ancient and medieval thinking
6. Both were supposed to become close to extinct with the spread of Enlightenment and Rationalism. Here we are in the 19th year of the 21st century and both types of theories are still alive and kicking. Both are now spread much more easily through the Internet ...

Definition of insanity: To do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome/result.

This definition also fully applies to conspiracy and apocalypse theories! 

Why are humans so obsessed with obsessions?

Misguided Critics Of Pearl Harbor Attack 1941

Posted: 9/9/2017

Trigger

In recent times, I have seen a number of libertarian articles quite critical of the Pearl Harbor Attack of 1941 and the subsequent U.S. intervention in World War II.

Here is one of them: Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy

Similar, critical articles come out almost on cue every anniversary of the attack.

Recurring Themes Of The Critique

Usually, we find following typical arguments in those articles:

1. The U.S. intelligence service was able to crack one of the Japanese government cipher codes
2. The U.S. first imposed severe economic sanctions on imperial Japan, which is for e.g. naive libertarians akin to an act of war
3. The Commander in Chief of Pearl Harbor (Husband E. Kimmel) and the second in command (Walter Short) were made scapegoats in the aftermath of the infamous attack

As far as the story of successful cracking of imperial Japanese cipher codes are concerned, the story is not that simple as you may guess from reading about it on e.g. the NSA Museum website:

1. It were the diplomatic messages not the military messages that the U.S. was able to read
2. Would it have been prudent to save Pearl Harbor, but jeopardize the capability to continue to read secret messages? What would you have done, had you been in the shoes of the decisionmakers at the time?

I don’t think, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on imperial Japan preceded the brutal invasions and attacks carried out by the military of imperial Japan on its Asian neighbors.

That Kimmel and Short were probably made scapegoats was all too human in the face of such a devastating attack. Hopefully, one day a U.S. President will find the courage to restore these two officers.