FOR MY NEXT TRICK I’LL NEED A VOLUNTEER

The film version of Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats hasn’t arrived in Hong Kong yet, but I just recently finished the book, which I highly recommend. It is so jaw-droppingly weird that it’s hard to know how much of it is for real, and how much is simply the recollections of people who believe it’s real.

Of course, those of us who have been paying attention already know that some of it – like the First Earth Battalion, the MK-ULTRA experiments, loud continuous music as entertainment performance art enhanced interrogation torture – is very true.

Now more evidence of the CIA’s interest in out-of-the-box ideas has apparently surfaced: a CIA manual written by magician John Mulholland on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft.



It’s now available on Amazon.com.

Which is very tempting. But the conspiracy theory hobbyist in me can’t help looking at this and wonder if all of this is misdirection in and of itself.

One of the points made in The Men Who Stare At Goats is that whoever spins the story first dictates the narrative, which is why in the long run we look at stories like MK-ULTRA and goat-staring and playing the Barney “I Love You” song to Iraqi prisoners in shipping containers, and we laugh when perhaps maybe we shouldn’t. Is “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception” the latest example of that tradition?

Maybe. Maybe not. It’s hard to know for sure. Which is the point, really.

Which is why the other thing I can’t help thinking, of course, is this:

If this is what we’re just now learning about what the CIA was doing 50 years ago, what fun things will we be learning 50 years from now about what the US govt has done in Iraq, Iran, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and even on its own home turf in the name of keeping Americans safe from Teh Terrorz?

And will we still be laughing then?

Or am I ruining it?

Oh well. Never mind. I’m still probably going to buy me a copy. And yeah, I’ll probably check out the film too.

Nothing up my sleeve,

This is dF

BEING A CONSPIRACY THEORIST MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YR SORRY

As I've mentioned before, I likes me a good conspiracy theory. They are great entertainment. However, it’s important to keep track of where the fun ends, and reality begins. Which is why, whenever a news story breaks that seems to give credence to the more outrageous claims on one side of a politically charged issue, I find it’s helpful to await further developments.

One recent example is the census worker who was found strung up with the word “FED” scrawled on his chest. A whole lot of left-wing bloggers jumped on that one suggesting strongly that the Teabagger hysteria over the census being a plot by Obama to turn America into Cuba had gone too far and the extremists were ready to start killing people.

Turns out it was a suicide insurance scam. And now Michelle Malkin is demanding retractions and apologies.

And you thought irony was dead.

On the flip side, we had the story that someone had hacked the email server of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and posted over a thousand emails of scientists discussing global warming research.

Global warming skeptics and general-purpose right-wing bloggers jumped all over the emails, claiming that the emails provided conclusive evidence that scientists were actively colluding to alter data to fit the global-warming theory. While they were at it, they complained that the MSM [mainstream media] was in on the conspiracy by refusing to report the content of the emails and treating it as a plain hacker story.

Turns out they were cherry-picking emails, and that when you actually sit down and read them in context, none of them demonstrate any evidence whatsoever of a conspiracy to commit science fraud.

Unless you want them to.

That’s the great thing about conspiracies: there’s an explanation for everything that contradicts yr own claims.

What fun!

Back to reality,

This is dF

COME HELP BASTE THE TURKEY

As I’ve posted here in the past, the main thing I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving is that we don’t celebrate it here in Hong Kong. Yes. I am the Scrooge of Thanksgivings.

But then I’m an agnostic with historical perspective who doesn’t care for turkey or American football. So there’s not really a lot there to hold my interest.

Still, I suppose it depends on how you go about “celebrating” Thanksgiving.

As this marquee sign for San Francisco’s Market Street Cinema illustrates [via YesButNoButYes].



That’s more like it.

Butter my buns,

This is dF