The Bathwater Conspiracy


Book Description

Nothing about this case makes sense. Detective Carson “Mac” McHenry can’t figure out why the Darmes are so interested in this one dead girl or why the secretive federal police have rushed the autopsy or why, a few days later, the records of the dead girl's murder have been erased from all official government channels. Even stranger to the detective is the manner of death – injuries consistent with a violent beating and sexual assault. Crimes rarely seen in current society. Crimes eradicated decades earlier. The Bathwater Conspiracy follows Mac and her partner Nguyen as they wander a dystopian post-apocalyptic cityscape in search of clues to the Alfreda Longwell's murder. Their off-the-books investigation leads them from the halls of Alesha’s university to the Decayed Area, a blasted wasteland at the city’s edge where technophobic religious fundamentalists struggle with scavengers and lunatics in a never-ending fight for survival. When the pair discovers a secret government project gone horribly wrong, they must work to uncover the details of a plot which will rock the already fragile political landscape of the city to its core… Janet Kellough’s latest novel offers a tightly-plotted mystery and a fascinating glimpse at genetic engineering run amok in a near-future world. Touching on issues of bioethics, gender, religion, and more, The Bathwater Conspiracy will appeal to fans of science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, and police procedurals alike.




Conspiracy Panics


Book Description

Examines contemporary anxiety over the phenomenon of conspiracy theories.




The Flat-Earth Conspiracy


Book Description

Wolves in sheep's clothing have pulled the wool over our eyes. For almost 500 years, the masses have been thoroughly deceived by a cosmic fairy-tale of astronomical proportions. We have been taught a falsehood so gigantic and diabolical that it has blinded us from our own experience and common sense, from seeing the world and the universe as they truly are. Through pseudo-science books and programs, mass media and public education, universities and government propaganda, the world has been systematically brain-washed, slowly indoctrinated over centuries into the unquestioning belief of the greatest lie of all time. A multi-generational conspiracy has succeeded, in the minds of the masses, to pick up the fixed Earth, shape it into a ball, spin it in circles, and throw it around the Sun! The greatest cover-up of all time, NASA and Freemasonry's biggest secret, is that we are living on a plane, not a planet, that Earth is the flat, stationary center of the universe.




The AIDS Conspiracy


Book Description

Since the early days of the AIDS epidemic, many bizarre and dangerous hypotheses have been advanced to explain the origins of the disease. In this compelling book, Nicoli Nattrass explores the social and political factors prolonging the erroneous belief that the American government manufactured the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to be used as a biological weapon, as well as the myth's consequences for behavior, especially within African American and black South African communities. Contemporary AIDS denialism, the belief that HIV is harmless and that antiretroviral drugs are the true cause of AIDS, is a more insidious AIDS conspiracy theory. Advocates of this position make a "conspiratorial move" against HIV science by implying its methods cannot be trusted and that untested, alternative therapies are safer than antiretrovirals. These claims are genuinely life-threatening, as tragically demonstrated in South Africa when the delay of antiretroviral treatment resulted in nearly 333,000 AIDS deaths and 180,000 HIV infections—a tragedy of stunning proportions. Nattrass identifies four symbolically powerful figures ensuring the lifespan of AIDS denialism: the hero scientist (dissident scientists who lend credibility to the movement); the cultropreneur (alternative therapists who exploit the conspiratorial move as a marketing mechanism); the living icon (individuals who claim to be living proof of AIDS denialism's legitimacy); and the praise-singer (journalists who broadcast movement messages to the public). Nattrass also describes how pro-science activists have fought back by deploying empirical evidence and political credibility to resist AIDS conspiracy theories, which is part of the crucial project to defend evidence-based medicine.




Silent Manifest


Book Description

En route to colonize the extrasolar planet Tau Ceti III... Donn Cardenio, damaged veteran of Earth's disastrous first interstellar war, and two hundred fellow Caretakers are charged with caring for a quarter million embryos en route to colonize the extrasolar planet Tau Ceti III. Cardenio considers this assignment a chance to redeem himself from the ravages of the past great war. But, when one of his Caretaker colleagues snaps, Cardenio is forced to begin an investigation that leads to more questions than answers—questions about his relationship with his lover, his own past, and the nature of the mission he's on. Unfortunately for Cardenio, nothing is as it appears. His fellow Caretakers do not share his reverence for the lives in their charge; friends and lovers hide vital truths; and his enemies and rivals become allies. By the end of the mission, Donn Cardenio will confront the terrible reality of what he's done to determine how the future will unfold.




The Darkest Sides of Politics, I


Book Description

This book examines a wide array of phenomena that arguably constitute the most noxious, extreme, terrifying, murderous, secretive, authoritarian, and/or anti-democratic aspects of national and international politics. Scholars should not ignore these "dark sides" of politics, however unpleasant they may be, since they influence the world in a multitude of harmful ways. The first volume in this two-volume collection focuses on the history of underground neo-fascist networks in the post-World War II era; neo-fascist paramilitary and terrorist groups operating in Europe and Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s; and the manipulation of those and other terrorist organizations by the security forces of various states, both authoritarian and democratic. A range of global case studies are included, all of which focus on the lesser known activities of certain secular extremist milieus. This collection should prove to be essential reading for students and researchers interested in understanding seemingly arcane but nonetheless important dimensions of recent historical and contemporary politics.




Exposing the Right and Fighting for Democracy


Book Description

This book celebrates the life and work of scholar-activist Chip Berlet. His contributions over four decades have had broad-ranging impacts on activists, independent intellectuals, and academics, from think tanks and social movements to generations of scholars. Berlet’s work over the decades has covered a wide range of topics, from the Christian Right, armed militias, social movement theory, and white supremacy to conspiracism, civil liberties, and government surveillance. This book features contributions reflecting on many of these topics by leading scholars and activists who have been inspired by his work and example. This book will be of great interest to scholars, students, and activists within anti-racist, anti-fascist, and progressive social movements.




Revolution of the Heart


Book Description

If you were to travel the world, you would quickly come to realize that the vast majority of humanity has the same list of wants and needs: food, shelter, water, education, justice and safety, to name a few. Joys and sorrows, hopes and desperations are also similar in many ways. Even though it sometimes justifies our personal paradigm to believe differently, WE ARE ALL FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME. If at the core we are all the same, why then is it that we collectively are having such a hard time? Essentially, this last question is where the inspiration for this book comes from. The content of the book comes from the author’s decades of research, observations and experiences gained while living and working in more than nine different countries, visiting over sixty countries spread on six continents. A love, a passion and ultimately, a belief that humanity has the power to choose to create a better life for all is the driving force behind this exploration of human suffering and how to ultimately rise above it. This need for a better life for all has never been as apparent as it is now. Our collective denial of the reality of suffering is being confronted. We are starting to realize that there is no choice but to deal with it: problems are not going away but rather, they seem to be multiplying exponentially. Perhaps we live in times where it has become luxurious thinking to believe that someone else will fix the environment, the economy, social injustices, international conflicts, human trafficking, or poverty. It is time for greatness on a mass level to be expressed. This book is meant to appeal to the heart more than the mind. The expression ‘analyzing something to death’ couldn’t be more appropriate than now. All potential progress seems to be continuously stalled with the belief that there is a need to generate more data to really understand the problems. Will we die as a species because of our mind’s obsession for analysis or will our hearts see through the smoke of insanity, put out the fires so that at some point, hopefully sooner than later, the mind will be able to see clearly through its confusion. Ultimately, the question is how will we individually and collectively deal with the problems currently facing humanity? This question is essentially addressed to the vast majority of humanity as most are suffering from the excessive greed that has swept the planet. There are countless ways one can contribute to the betterment of the world. It always starts with people taking one small step to make a difference. It starts with YOU! Never underestimate the power that one person has to change the world. The purpose of the book is threefold: to bring about an awareness of the current situation on the planet so that people can start to question their current paradigm and see how they feed into the problems rather than help solve them; to encourage a new level of personal responsibility that is necessary in any time of change or crisis; and provide information and tools to help in the transformational process by empowering people. The book is divided into three parts: Part 1: It’s All About Me, Isn’t It? – The Individual Part 2: What About the Others? – The Collective Part 3: Together – The Individual and the Collective Each part has a different number of chapters. The general book outline follows: Foreword: This part introduces why the book was written. The foreword sets the stage for what is to come in the book and encourages the reader to read right through as some chapters are more challenging than others and that the solutions proposed are spread throughout the book. Part 1: It’s All About Me, I




Understanding the Consumer


Book Description

Understanding the Consumer brings together marketing theory and practice in a truly consumer-centric approach. It challenges the lip service usually paid to this concept and demonstrates that a fundamental understanding of the consumer is critical to the future of effective marketing. Drawing on cutting-edge developments in the literature it reconceptualizes how consumers respond and act in the marketplace with particular attention to: - relationships with suppliers, products and brands - their innovative, creative and resistant behaviour - the complexity and unpredictability of their consumption behaviour - their increasing need to get closer to production. The book challenges existing functionally driven marketing thinking and shows how a more holistic approach to the marketplace will drive better theory and practice. It combines a jargon-free approach to the subject with an illustration of the relevant theory using practical, topical examples from the marketplace as well as drawing on other business related disciplines including sociology and economics to support its arguments.




Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability


Book Description

For a brief time in history, it was possible to imagine that a sufficiently advanced intellect could, given sufficient time and resources, in principle understand how to mathematically prove everything that was true. They could discern what math corresponds to physical laws, and use those laws to predict anything that happens before it happens. That time has passed. Gödel’s undecidability results (the incompleteness theorems), Turing’s proof of non-computable values, the formulation of quantum theory, chaos, and other developments over the past century have shown that there are rigorous arguments limiting what we can prove, compute, and predict. While some connections between these results have come to light, many remain obscure, and the implications are unclear. Are there, for example, real consequences for physics — including quantum mechanics — of undecidability and non-computability? Are there implications for our understanding of the relations between agency, intelligence, mind, and the physical world? This book, based on the winning essays from the annual FQXi competition, contains ten explorations of Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability. The contributions abound with connections, implications, and speculations while undertaking rigorous but bold and open-minded investigation of the meaning of these constraints for the physical world, and for us as humans.​