Patrick Hruby on Sports Conspiracy Theories
posted by ModeratorFiled under: Conspiracy Theories, Illusion and Magic
The Truth Is Out There: From The 1985 NBA Draft Lottery To The Olympics To Game-Fixing … Which Conspiracy Theory Can You Believe?
by Patrick Hruby
The Post Game
May 30, 2012
“You know,” says the magician, “it’s very easy to fix flipping a coin.” For instance: The tosses before football games. Turns out they’re totally riggable. Even with a straight coin. Con men know how. So does the magician, Richard Kaufman. He’s in his 50s, has dark, curly hair, works as the editor of Genii, the nation’s leading magic magazine. Specializes in card tricks. Only now, here in the sunlit kitchen of his suburban Washington, D.C. home, he’s talking tumbling coins.
Heads or tails. Even odds. As indifferent as the universe itself, like the flips that sent Lew Alcindor to the Milwaukee Bucks, Bill Walton to the Portland Trail Blazers, Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon to the Houston Rockets.
Unless …



Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.
Conflicting reports about a bullet that hit the top of Lou Dobbs’ house in Sussex, New Jersey, are raising new and serious questions about the credibility of Lou Dobbs, CNN and its President, Jon Klein. Reports in the 

David Aaronovitch calls his new book “my war on stupidity.” Before dashing into the fray, it seemed prudent to figure which side I’m on. So I ordered the book.
For this Project (1997), Fontcuberta fabricated a story about an evidence for a “Soyuz 2″ mission involving cosmonaut Ivan Istochnikov. Soyuz 1, an actual Soviet space mission in 1967, had ended with the death of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov when the spacecraft crashed on landing. In 1968, according to the fabricated story, “Istochnikov and his canine companion Kloka mysteriously vanished after leaving the [Soyuz 2] capsule for a routine space walk. When the Soyuz 3 arrived for a docking maneuver, it found only a vodka bottle containing a note, floating in orbit outside the empty, meteorite damaged ship.” To avoid embarrassment, Soviet officials deleted Istochnikov from official Soviet history; however, the “Sputnik Foundation” discovered Istochnikov’s “voice transcriptions, videos, original annotations, some of his personal effects, and photographs taken throughout his lifetime.” The exhibition of artifacts (e.g., photographs) related to “Soyuz 2″ was shown in many countries, including Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, Japan, and the United States. Among other reactions to the exhibition, a Russian ambassador “got extremely angry because [Fontcuberta] was insulting the glorious Russian past and threatened to present a diplomatic complaint.”
San Francisco (AP) — The fast-moving Conficker computer worm, a scourge of the Internet that has infected at least 3 million PCs, is set to spring to life in a new way on Wednesday – April Fools’ Day.
New York — A man who claimed a construction barrel was used to cover a New York City fire hydrant subjecting him to a $115 ticket has won his appeal and will get his fine refunded by the city. 






