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The guardian reports on a sobering event in Washington DC.
US police have arrested a man wielding an assault rifle who entered a pizza restaurant that was the target of fake news reports it was operating a child abuse ring led by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top campaign aide.
[...] The suspect entered the restaurant and pointed a gun at a restaurant employee, who fled and notified authorities, police said. The man then discharged the weapon inside the restaurant. There were no injuries.
[...] [Police] said the suspect during an interview with investigators revealed that he came to the establishment to "self-investigate" Pizzagate, the police statement said. Pizzagate is a baseless conspiracy, which falsely claims Clinton and her campaign chief John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the restaurant's backrooms.
(Score: 5, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:08PM
Thanks very much for that link, which I found totally useful and informative and not at all wacko tinfoil-pants-on-head the-reptilons-are-feeding-on-my-dreams internet conspiracy theory loon crazy.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:17PM
When he posts such simple and glaringly obvious bullshit like that as if it were legitimate it gives me great comfort.
That's because it confirms just how untethered the guy is from reality. How all his long racist and reactionary posts, despite being well-formed with good syntax, really are the product of a defective mind suffering from a severe reality-gap.
Unfortunately, what makes me fear for the future is that it seems like mental defectives like himself are on the rise. Looks like Reagan's legacy of deinstitutionalization is really beginning to wreck havoc on our society. Its enough to erode my belief in democracy. I still think the alternative is worse, but democracy is looking a lot less good nowadays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:13PM
I seem to recall that one of the Founding Fathers said that an educated and well-informed citizenry is essential for democracy to work. Unfortunately, VLM and all his other conspiracy-theory loving buddies are showing, in a negative sense, exactly why this is so true.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:42PM
Looks like Reagan's legacy of deinstitutionalization is really beginning to wreck havoc on our society.
Because ridiculously growing medical costs wouldn't have done it anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:58PM
You didn't even try to verify one fact, did you? Just jumped right to assuming it was wrong because it sounded crazy, didn't you? You'd think you'd know better after Snowden.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:11PM
Citing snowden is the biggest cop-out ever.
For every snowden there are literally a million conspiracies that are not true.
I am especially reminded of the completely made-up satanic ritual abuse [wikipedia.org] hysteria that ruined a lot of lives.
Pizzagate is just more bitch-hunt logic. Hillary's a satan worshipping pedo so anything that 'proves' it is true, anything that does not is irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:28PM
I see you've made up your mind on something you can neither prove nor disprove. In the words of Dean Yeager: Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable. You are a poor scientist, Anonymous Coward.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:20PM
> I see you've made up your mind on something you can neither prove nor disprove.
Lolwut?
Are you talking about yourself?
Because damn, that's some hardcore denialism on your part.
It could be true. Anything could be true. Its pretty revealing to go through this thread and tally up all the people who are arguing in support of this conspiracy theory. What is the common thread here? Bitch-hunt.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:59AM
Undoubtedly, but in the end if she weighs the same as a duck...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:15PM
Not a lot to verify, to be honest, there's just a bunch of circumstantial and often tenuous connections pulled in from all sorts of different directions. Even if we were to assume that all the individual pieces of information are true, there's not enough holding it all together to give it any credit. It's Dan Brown stuff, where if you pick the right sequence of words or letters out of the bible you can get it to quote the free software manifesto, Mein Kampf or the script to the Star Wars holiday special.
"As we can see, Trump is wearing a RED tie. Now RED is a colour often associated with communism, including such organisations as the USSR (Or, in Russian, the CCCP). Now, throughout his career Trump has had dealings with an organisation called the Casino Control Commission, or the CCC. In the 1980s, a prominent member of the Pennsylvania branch of this organisation, or the CCCP..."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:20PM
S'what I'm saying. Don't assume. Check into it yourself.
Right at this moment, there's not a serious case by my digging but I was anything but thorough. I'm neither giving them the benefit of the doubt nor withholding it, which is where any intellectually honest person should be at this point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:38AM
I find that there is just enough circumstantial evidence there to warrant suspicion. It's certainly not enough to justify the conclusion given, but it's not as contrived as your analogies make it out to be either. I'm not saying all the conclusions are necessarily solid, but the pizza emails are reasonable evidence that there could be something amiss there, even if it's just drugs and hookers.
Just because someone has an an elaborate conspiracy theory doesn't mean there isn't a conspiracy.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:42PM
You didn't even try to verify one fact, did you?
You mean the pictures and "pedophilia symbology" and satanic symbology? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that they aren't photoshoped.
The use of fucking triangles in a logo for a pizza place or a heart in a logo for a nearby charity that campaigns against child slavery is almost too much of a coincidence to deny.
I'm incredibly disappointed that the level of evidence is on the level of "folded 20 dollar bills predicted 9/11". I admit that I may have missed the really damning evidence, since I only looked through 3/4 of the page (Oh noes! A child sitting on Obama's lap at the white house).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:16PM
You're not interested in the truth? That's fine. Go ahead on with your rose-colored glasses. Don't look for verifiable facts in the story and try to prove or disprove it. Just write it off. It's what we expect of partisan fools.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:27PM
In discussions like this, I recall a quotation I first learned on Night Court from Judge Harry T. Stone: "I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out."
The quote didn't originate on TV (and apparently has a long history [skeptic.com]), but I think it's apt when confronted with conspiracy theories that make all sorts of claims, most of which are provably false (and conveniently discarded from the theory after they are demonstrated to be so), and the rest of which have no hard evidence to support them.
People want to see patterns in random data, casting off any inconvenient bits of information that don't fit the pattern. We even have terms like apophenia [wikipedia.org] to describe this fundamental cognitive bias.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:58AM
If a significant portion of the claims were actually provably false, I'd agree with you. Mostly though it's supposition and evidence that, while provably true, is highly circumstantial.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:34PM
I believe that you are an intelligent person and it seems like you are genuine in your belief in some of the conclusions from that dcpizzagate site. You mention that "there's not a serious case" but that you perceive some sort of pattern from what is presented that seems fishy.
From what I've read on the site, the data that they present is not convincing and the emotional way they interpret the data hurts their credibility in my eyes. I'm used to scientific data (so my standards may be too high) but pictures of a Biden-Obama friendship bracelet, pictures of satan, pictures of logos next to "pedophilia symbology", random social media shit, and coded emails with secret messages involving handkerchiefs does not rate very high on an objective scale.
If you have time, could you write a journal where you point to the specific data that is more convincing?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:55AM
I could but I think it's a case of you evaluating the same data and finding it slightly less indicative of "something going on" than I do. Also, we're currently pushing hard on getting site code tuned up to where it doesn't take a dozen seconds or more to render heavily commented stories and that just ranks higher in my list of interesting/important things right now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:04PM
I hope some more conclusive data arises one way or the other.
The problem is that, while there is obvious physical evidence and testimony that could help prove a child sex ring, I can't think of evidence that would help prove the negative. Negative witness testimony would be unreliable (due to possible coercion) and "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".
Thanks for responding and I also appreciate what you do for this site.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:12PM
Just for fun, soak in the ambiance and look at the anecdotes while totally ignoring the narrative. That alone is kinda interesting and entertaining.
Wait, WTF, look at that weird "art" and who owns it, holy crap. Don't pay attention to the narrative that its a trophy or re-enactment of what so and so did to some kid, or some kind of self help therapy to work thru what someone did to them in their own childhood, just look at the facts or pix. There's some interesting, crazy stuff going on even if the narrative is completely wrong.
Its like reading some of the Greek classics from 2500 years ago with a very secular or at least non-pagan eye. Yeah yeah I'm not very interested in the God Apollo willed it or WTF narrative, you can kinda skim past that stuff, but its an enjoyable pile of anecdotes and events anyway. I wouldn't rely on Herodotus as a primary text for veterinary school, for example, but he tells a hell of an interesting story anyway.
Now after enjoying the facts and anecdotes and "the scene" in general think up your own narrative and see if it matches anything you heard recently.
Or another analogy, think of it like a travelogue book about an interesting, weird, foreign land. I'm not asking you to move there permanently or asking you to convert to pre-islamic egyptian religion, but just look at those pyramids and WTF about them for a bit. Impressive, aren't they? No need to convert to "UFOs made them conspiracy theory" to be impressed. You don't have to worship Ankenaton or Ma'at or egyptian cats or whatever to look at the pyramids and WTF about them a bit. I suppose if you do convert, then looking at the pyramids is even cooler, but whatever.
Its really a no lose situation. The anecdotes and events are entertaining enough in themselves that even if you don't convert religions and become a priest of the God Apollo, or a true believer in pizzagate, its still fun to look at.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:16PM
The email cited is on Wikileaks and it does say that. There is, apparently, such a thing as a "hanky code" (learn something new every day). That the emails were coded talk about pedophilia is not clear. Possible, but not established. I say possible because I'm a freemason and we employ coded language and symbols to communicate in the open. Not established, because it's highly circumstantial and means nothing without real evidence.
FWIW, I never saw, heard, or picked up on anything that connected the Clintons to pedophilia. It's also not necessary to know that they're bad people. Have we really arrived at a discursive space where somebody's really not all that bad until you can prove they're a pedophile?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:23PM
> Have we really arrived at a discursive space where somebody's really not all that bad until you can prove they're a pedophile?
I'd like to think we're in a place where we don't call people pedophiles until you can prove they're a pedophile...