Little-Acorn
Well-Known Member
A year is often marked by an unusual number of incidents that happen in it. 2009 is clearly to be known as "The Year of the Hoax".
Examples include:
* The "Balloon Boy" hoax by a family in Colorado. Turns out the boy was never in the balloon and the family knew it - they just planned it to become famous enough for some kind of reality show.
* An inside whistleblower publishes notes and emails revealing that the University of East Anglia's personnel had been systematically distorting and faking data from weather observations, to make people think the climate was changing when it wasn't. Apparently for the purpose of attracting more govenment money to continue their "research", and possibly to get governments to give them even more for "fighting" the climate change they "discovered".
* Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who campaigned on "Family Values", is found to have had an affair with Cynthia Hampton, the wife on one of his aides. Though the affair took place in 2007-2008, it was revealed in 2009.
* Squeaky-clean golfer Tiger Woods was revealed to have had as many as a dozen different mistresses. The various affairs took place over many years, but were publicly revealed in 2009.
* The Obama campaign promised "Hope and Change" before the election. But after Obama's inauguration, the same old politics as usual prevailed throughout the administration, with more backroom deals, broken promises, wild secretive horsetrading, bills conceived and voted on as far as possible from public scrutiny, and astounding levels from high administration officials of denigration and vilification of anyone who protested or asked for explanations of what was going on.
* In an ongoing hoax spreading over several decades, a diminishing number of advocates still insist that man's actions have something to do with climate change (if there is actually any climate change, see second example above). THis despite more than forty years of such claims having produced no proof whatsoever of any contribution from the actions of humans, to climate change. The hoax continues as unscrupulous "scientists" and their advocates try to coerce governments into giving them more and more money, either to research this supposed "change", or to "fight" it.
* Barack Obama (D-IL) ran for President as a centrist, only to appoint a horde of extreme-left radical advisors and cabinet members, and ram through the biggest spending bills in the nation's history. In the first year of his Presidency, Obama has spent more than every other President in U.S. History, combined.
* Party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi bluffed their way past several Secret Service and social-function checkpoints, and entered a White House dinner party honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They had their pictures taken with Vice President Joe Biden, hung around for several hours, and departed long before it was discovered that they had no invitiation to the party and were not on the guest list.
* Bernard Madoff was sentenced to a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison for his masterminding and running of a Ponzi scheme - a fraudulent investment hoax where new investors are paid with the contributions of previous investors rather than with the profits of their supposed "investments". U.S. District Court Denny Chin called Madoff's activities "extraordinarily evil", involving hundreds of people and billions of dollars.
By the end of 2009, no charges had yet been brought against the people running the Federal Social Security program, a virtually identical Ponzi-scheme hoax involving millions of people and trillions of dollars.
* Attorney General Eric Holder announced that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be given a civilian trial in New York City as though he were a common criminal, rather than the summary military court-marital required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for acts committed during war, including the war declared by terrorists against the United States. This putatively civilian trial enables KSM to continue the hoax that he is an oppressed freedom fighter, and the tired line that the policies of George W. Bush are at fault for the 9/11 attacks.
* The Nobel Peace Prize commission decided to give its Nobel Peace Prize to newly-elected U.S. President Barack Obama, thus continuing their on-again, off-again hoax of awarding a "Peace Prize" to people such as Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat who have done nothing to further the cause of peace.
________________________
These are just a sample of the myriad hoaxes, falsehoods, and general fakery running rampant in 2009, "The Year of the Hoax".
Examples include:
* The "Balloon Boy" hoax by a family in Colorado. Turns out the boy was never in the balloon and the family knew it - they just planned it to become famous enough for some kind of reality show.
* An inside whistleblower publishes notes and emails revealing that the University of East Anglia's personnel had been systematically distorting and faking data from weather observations, to make people think the climate was changing when it wasn't. Apparently for the purpose of attracting more govenment money to continue their "research", and possibly to get governments to give them even more for "fighting" the climate change they "discovered".
* Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who campaigned on "Family Values", is found to have had an affair with Cynthia Hampton, the wife on one of his aides. Though the affair took place in 2007-2008, it was revealed in 2009.
* Squeaky-clean golfer Tiger Woods was revealed to have had as many as a dozen different mistresses. The various affairs took place over many years, but were publicly revealed in 2009.
* The Obama campaign promised "Hope and Change" before the election. But after Obama's inauguration, the same old politics as usual prevailed throughout the administration, with more backroom deals, broken promises, wild secretive horsetrading, bills conceived and voted on as far as possible from public scrutiny, and astounding levels from high administration officials of denigration and vilification of anyone who protested or asked for explanations of what was going on.
* In an ongoing hoax spreading over several decades, a diminishing number of advocates still insist that man's actions have something to do with climate change (if there is actually any climate change, see second example above). THis despite more than forty years of such claims having produced no proof whatsoever of any contribution from the actions of humans, to climate change. The hoax continues as unscrupulous "scientists" and their advocates try to coerce governments into giving them more and more money, either to research this supposed "change", or to "fight" it.
* Barack Obama (D-IL) ran for President as a centrist, only to appoint a horde of extreme-left radical advisors and cabinet members, and ram through the biggest spending bills in the nation's history. In the first year of his Presidency, Obama has spent more than every other President in U.S. History, combined.
* Party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi bluffed their way past several Secret Service and social-function checkpoints, and entered a White House dinner party honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. They had their pictures taken with Vice President Joe Biden, hung around for several hours, and departed long before it was discovered that they had no invitiation to the party and were not on the guest list.
* Bernard Madoff was sentenced to a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison for his masterminding and running of a Ponzi scheme - a fraudulent investment hoax where new investors are paid with the contributions of previous investors rather than with the profits of their supposed "investments". U.S. District Court Denny Chin called Madoff's activities "extraordinarily evil", involving hundreds of people and billions of dollars.
By the end of 2009, no charges had yet been brought against the people running the Federal Social Security program, a virtually identical Ponzi-scheme hoax involving millions of people and trillions of dollars.
* Attorney General Eric Holder announced that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be given a civilian trial in New York City as though he were a common criminal, rather than the summary military court-marital required by the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for acts committed during war, including the war declared by terrorists against the United States. This putatively civilian trial enables KSM to continue the hoax that he is an oppressed freedom fighter, and the tired line that the policies of George W. Bush are at fault for the 9/11 attacks.
* The Nobel Peace Prize commission decided to give its Nobel Peace Prize to newly-elected U.S. President Barack Obama, thus continuing their on-again, off-again hoax of awarding a "Peace Prize" to people such as Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat who have done nothing to further the cause of peace.
________________________
These are just a sample of the myriad hoaxes, falsehoods, and general fakery running rampant in 2009, "The Year of the Hoax".
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