[MP-Ryan]

...this is why:  http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Latest+American+conspiracy+theory+claims+Newtown+mass/7823274/story.html

Some of the Sandy Hook Truthers, as they've been dubbed, believe last month's mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax.

The Obama administration perpetrated the hoax, the conspiracy theorists claim, in order to ratchet up support for tougher gun control measures.

They call themselves Operation Terror, and many of the movement's adherents appear to have ties to the so-called 9-11 truthers who have long held that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were an inside job by the George W. Bush administration.

Their theories on the Dec. 14 shooting in Sandy Hook appear to lack any basis in fact, reality or common sense. But Google Trends suggests the movement is gaining momentum with both a Florida college professor and a libertarian Fox News anchor in Cincinnati questioning the official narrative on the events.

On various websites and blogs, some Sandy Hook truthers crow about the "smoking gun" they say proves the shooting was a hoax — a photo of President Barack Obama, backstage at a Newtown vigil two days after the shooting, a young blonde girl sitting on his lap.

They insist the girl is six-year-old Emilie Parker, one of the 20 child victims of the shooting. The Sandy Hook truthers claim her parents slipped up in their participation in the hoax, and allowed their eldest daughter to cuddle up to Obama.

"The story that she was killed at Sandy Hook is not possible, because here she is sitting on the president's lap after the shooting," intones the narrator of a YouTube video, one of dozens of its kind, this one the recipient of more than 260,000 web hits.

In fact, it's the dead girl's little sister.

[MP-Ryan]

More info on the wackadoodles in this Salon article:  http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/the_worst_sandy_hook_conspiracy_theory_yet/

[Mongoose]

...I hate humanity.

[IronBeer]

...I hate humanity.

[Ravenholme]

...I hate humanity.

My response too. And yet, on one forum I frequent (Facepunch), lots of people were jumping to the defence of these nutters because it's "Critical thinking". No, it's not, you idiot teens, it is neither critical nor thought.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

It's only "critical thinking" in that it's critical that these people stop talking. Forever. Or at least until their brains start functioning properly again. 

*insert the "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" image macro here*

[Dragon]

Buzz Aldrin once demonstrated a way to deal with such nuts. A punch in the face. This should be made a standard procedure.

[karajorma]

http://thrdgll.tripod.com/buzz.htm

[Flipside]

As I've said before, I preferred the days when people just stood around with placards saying 'The End is Nigh!', at least it was easier to tell who the nutjobs were back then.

Nowadays, these people get onto YouTube spouting half-evidence and assumption as fact, create confusion and misinterpret it as 'reasonable doubt'.

I pity the families, for having the memories of their loved-ones insulted, but I also pity the people who swallow this kind of thing whole, who call others 'sheep' whilst being blind to how easily they themselves have been pulled along by their own fears, and by some undefinable need to hate their own Government on a level that goes far beyond genuine criticism.

[achtung]

http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DWx9GxXYKx_8

Related video.

Yes, the government managed to pull of a psyop of this size without a single person cracking and revealing the truth. That's what it is.

YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE I HAVE FACTS.

Can't lie about the date bits at the end making me feel a little unease, but those could be effortlessly faked.

[Luis Dias]

1. Identify the nutcases.

2. Kill them.

3. Hail the Brave New World.

[headdie]

http://thrdgll.tripod.com/buzz.htm

on the op, looks like a lot of people are still forgetting to take their meds.

[Dragon]

http://thrdgll.tripod.com/buzz.htm

Love it, but it needs at least one more panel.

[Lorric]

I really wish I could remember it, but a long time ago a program aired over here (in the UK) and just picked apart the moon landing. Going over point after point after point after point as to why it could be a hoax, way, way more than just the fact you can't see any stars. Anomolies in the recording, things that look different in one shot to the next, as if it might have been shot over several days, and as if they shot everything in one place, even though they went all over the moon. I think there might have been gear on the astronauts disapperaing and reappearing when they're supposed to be at the same location. At least I think that's what it was, my memory is very hazy on that. So don't quote me on any of those facts. It's so frustrating not being able to remember what it was or more clearly, and not being able to show you. But I remember it being enough to make me think it very well could be, and I didn't want to believe it, but there was too much evidence in front of me not to seriously consider it, just about anything else I probably would have flipped right over to the conspiray side. And I'm no conspiracy theorist at all. It was enough to really make me seriously consider whether the moon landing really was a hoax. It doesn't matter too much in this day and age whether it was a hoax or not, but I wouldn't be so quick to judge on the moon landing. I really wish I could have shown you it. I imagine such a thing wouldn't make it on to TV in America.

With Buzz, if you were Buzz, would you punch the guy out? If it was me, and it was true, I'm the man that went to the moon, I'm a hero, I've got nothing to prove. I'm not going to punch the man, I'm just going to laugh in his face. But if I haven't gone to the moon, I've got this guy in my face on TV threatening to expose me, I'm going to shut him up with a punch to the mouth.

I think in the end I just want to say that questioning the moon landing doesn't make you automatically nuts.

[MP-Ryan]

I think in the end I just want to say that questioning the moon landing doesn't make you automatically nuts.

It makes you automatically a loon because of the vast amount of evidence that is out there and verified.  It's like denying the theory of gravity, or the theory of evolution, or the fact that the planet is round(ish).  Eventually, there is a pile of evidence so big that denying it is being willfully blind and therefore a conspiracy-theory nutjob.

As an example, the moon landings resulted in the collection of rock and samples from near the landing sites, the landing was independently verified by several countries hostile to the United States, and the LRO has pictures of the landing sites with the landers in place.  Even if everything else had been faked, do you really think hostile nations would give the US the PR coup of saying they were the first nation to land a human on the moon if that wasn't true?

Critical thinking appears to be a lost skill.

[Lorric]

I think in the end I just want to say that questioning the moon landing doesn't make you automatically nuts.

It makes you automatically a loon because of the vast amount of evidence that is out there and verified.  It's like denying the theory of gravity, or the theory of evolution, or the fact that the planet is round(ish).  Eventually, there is a pile of evidence so big that denying it is being willfully blind and therefore a conspiracy-theory nutjob.

As an example, the moon landings resulted in the collection of rock and samples from near the landing sites, the landing was independently verified by several countries hostile to the United States, and the LRO has pictures of the landing sites with the landers in place.  Even if everything else had been faked, do you really think hostile nations would give the US the PR coup of saying they were the first nation to land a human on the moon if that wasn't true?

Critical thinking appears to be a lost skill.

Can you show me?

[MP-Ryan]

Can you show me?

The great thing about the Internet is that I shouldn't have to.  However, Wikipedia has a half-decent primer on the subject:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings

[Lorric]

Yes, I didn't just sit there waiting for you. I found this, which looks to be the photographs which you were referring to:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2034594/NASA-moon-landing-hoax-New-photographs-silence-conspiracy-theory.html

[karajorma]

I really wish I could remember it, but a long time ago a program aired over here (in the UK) and just picked apart the moon landing. Going over point after point after point after point as to why it could be a hoax, way, way more than just the fact you can't see any stars. Anomolies in the recording, things that look different in one shot to the next, as if it might have been shot over several days, and as if they shot everything in one place, even though they went all over the moon. I think there might have been gear on the astronauts disapperaing and reappearing when they're supposed to be at the same location. At least I think that's what it was, my memory is very hazy on that. So don't quote me on any of those facts. It's so frustrating not being able to remember what it was or more clearly, and not being able to show you. But I remember it being enough to make me think it very well could be, and I didn't want to believe it, but there was too much evidence in front of me not to seriously consider it, just about anything else I probably would have flipped right over to the conspiray side. And I'm no conspiracy theorist at all. It was enough to really make me seriously consider whether the moon landing really was a hoax.

Seen it. It was a load of poppycock dressed up to sound real. This page does a very good job of explaining how completely wrong it was about everything.

I imagine such a thing wouldn't make it on to TV in America.

The show was made in America.

I think in the end I just want to say that questioning the moon landing doesn't make you automatically nuts.

Asking for the evidence doesn't make you nuts. It makes you a good rationalist.

Starting from the point of view that man didn't land on the moon makes you nuts. If you're going to claim that everyone else is wrong and your minority view is right, despite the ease with which you could get information to make the decision correctly, then you're nuts.

[Lorric]

Remember, I didn't say I was outright saying the moon landing was a hoax, but that questioning it doesn't make you nuts. I don't want it to be a hoax. I had a huge passion for astronomy when I was younger. The subject still fascinates me, but not to the extent it did back then.

I must try and watch that to see if it matches up with the one I watched. If it's the same one, that's going to be embarrassing. As soon as I saw the word "Fox", that kind of destroyed it's credibility right there. I know I wasn't familiar personally with some of the scientific concepts at the time, but you trust something on TV to get that stuff right. And I probably didn't have internet (or a PC) back then. I'm sure I would have checked stuff out if I did.

Time to find out if it's the one I watched...