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What to say about Conspiracy Nation.
A click on the link and quick load of the page, and you may feel like you know what
the site is about. There's astronauts, a big chain, a fnordy-sounding please-quote-me quote
with a bit of latin in it. Scrolling down, we see our first warning sign. But one Cheshire
cat gif can be forgiven; the Cheshire cat part almost cancels out the gif part.
Scrolling down more, we see funny little pictures next to links.
Okay, you think, this guy has a sense of humor. I was worried for a second.
You were right to worry.
Clicking on any of the links next to the Cheshire cat lead you offsite. Clicking
on the links next to the pictures leads you to a page with a long list of links. This
is a trick; half the links on this page are offiste, just like the Cheshire cat links.
This is a trick, because it makes you want to find the things the webmaster wrote himself
that much more. It's like building a giant maze, putting cheese at the end, and then
replacing the cheese with a lousy webpage. It's just plain wrong.
Now, the meat and potatoes. You've overcome the Cheshire cat, you've dodged the offsite
links, you weathered the pea soup background, and found original content by the webmaster.
Now, now you discover the terrible truth.
I'm a nice guy. I'm not going to make you wade through all that crap. Here's an excerpt:
James Bond Hoffa Preston Esquire the Attention Defecit Squirrel wrote:
One is called, "The Mackerel," because he is a slippery character. There is also something fishy
about Alan Greenspan of the "Federal" Reserve: It is hard to get a straight answer from him!
The other is called "The Meathead," due to his uncanny resemblance to Rob Reiner, "The Meathead"
in the show, "All In The Family." Ben Bernanke, annointed as the next "Fed" chief, has been half
of a Mackerel/Meathead tag team these past few years.
The M3 data will no longer be made public, beginning in March 2006. Who is responsible for the
decision?
The Mackerel: "Hey, I don't know! Ask The Meathead!"
The Meathead: "Hey, I don't
know! Ask The Mackerel!"
"I don't know. Ask The Meathead!"
"I don't know. Ask The Mackerel!"
"I'm Mackerel. He's Meathead," smiles one member of the merry team. "He's Mackerel. I'm Meathead,"
smiles the other.
In 1987, following the stock market crash, The Mackerel was worried. "Oh dear, oh dear. Whatever
shall I do?" he mumbled. Wearing carpet slippers and an accountant's visor, he paced to and fro,
down there in the basement. And then he got an idea. "I know! I will print lots of new dollars!"
(That is why it is called "dollar debasement," because it happens down there, in "de" basement.)
Feel like you missed something? That's because you don't live in the webmaster's brain.
Let me explain something about allusions: if you're alluding to something your intended
audience can either know or find out easily after they're done listening to you, you're
creating depth and weeding out potential hecklers at the same time. If you're bringing
up things people can only know if they had nine channels running in picture-in-a-picture
windows on their TV at precisely 19:05 hours last Tuesday, you need to clarify things a
little. If you're alluding
to a joke you heard at your solo tea party while drinking cups of pure
imagination, you'd better not expect anyone outside the land of make believe to put up with whatever
you have to say. Basically, the webmaster's problem is that he assumes we can hear the
voices in his head. It's not his fault, really, just that we, the readers, are only getting
half the conversation. I'm sure if Mister Fluffkins would just speak a little louder, the
Meathead/Mackerel banter would be funnier than midgets and listening to foriegners
talk combined. Reading this, you get the impression that the webmaster knows a little about
what he's talking about, sometimes. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell, because his site
is a mess. Even when he tries to use things like paranthetical notation, he leaves out
little things like quotation marks or complete sentences. There's basically no way to tell whether it's him,
his imaginary dog, CNN, FARK, or a grey alien coming up with his content, or what any of it
means. The context problem is only worsened when he jumps from topic to topic to topic,
which he does in his Princess Di articles a lot.
Alright, you're saying, so he's the brilliant kid that eats legos, and he has a website. You
don't have room to talk, Mister Scope.
And you're right. Actually, I would probably get along great with the webmaster from this
site in real life; people like that are the only people out there actually worth talking
to. But you're missing the point.
This is what happens when he comes up with his own conspiracy theories:
Bigby says:
After Descartes death on February 11, 1650, his secret papers including an encrypted notebook
found their way into the safekeeping of Claude Clerselier in Paris. Avid student of Descartes,
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, learned of these secret documents and begged Clerselier for permission
to study them. This was briefly allowed. The secret notebook, entitled De solidorum elementis,
contained apparent gibberish: astrological signs and a series of numbers: 4 6 8 12 20.
Leibniz, credited along with Isaac Newton with inventing calculus, was no slouch when it came to
puzzles. He quickly understood the hidden meaning.
Actually, anyone who plays D&D can understand the hidden meaning. He goes on past this point,
weaving a wonderful tale involving decapitations, lands of ice and bears, royal plots,
secret wars, and magical powers, to reveal the truth that proves everything you know is
wrong: Four siders. 4,6,8,12,and 20 are the number of sides the regular polyhedrons have.
What I'm trying to say, is take the normal grain of salt, and double it. If you're patient
and willing to spend the time deciphering the half of the conversation you're missing,
this website is hours of entertainment and joy. And, some of it is obviously based on reality
and, therefore, maintains more than a smidgin of validity, even if the webmaster's brain is
more cream cheesed than mine is. That all said, here's my review:
Length: Sunday Afternoon. The site is deceptively large, because it links to so much offline
content. However, when you find an onsite article, it's usually brief and entertaining.
Lucidity: Tinfoil. We covered that.
Readability: Sanskrit. It's written in a dialect you have to be the webmaster to understand.
Fortunately, its etymological roots are based in english, so decipherment is possible and
time consuming fun.
Annoyance: Giffy. That's just the front page. Everything else is tolerable.
Accuracy: Farscape. Actually, that's me copping out. I honestly don't know. That's just
my middle-of-the-road option. Your guess is as good as mine.
What have I learned from this site? The truth may be out there, but whether something's true or
not, it's more fun if a deranged person says it.
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