Your pet conspiracy/disaster theory.

[Brendan]

I don't give a second thought to the illuminati, giant asteroids, comets or climate change (It's happening but I don't believe it's going to be the end of civilization as we know it. ) but there is one thing that I am waiting for. With our hugely dense populations I harbour the belief that the next major catastrophe is going to be a disease epidemic of staggering proportions and we are long overdue. Whenever I read newspaper articles like this (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20081007060254757C735421) a small part of me can't help but think we are going to face an outbreak of The Stand like proportions any day now.

I'm also semi-convinced that with all the horrendous, nasty natural shit on my mother continent, Africa is going to be the birthplace of the plague.

So, what semi-rational disaster/conspiracy theories do you subscribe to?

[Talisker]

http://exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm has pretty much all of 'em covered.

[Acid]

My wife's is Princess Di - she was, of course, murdered by goons in the employ of the Queen.

Mine is overpopulation. I'm convinced that, by the time my children are old, there will not be enough resources to feed/clothe/power/heat/shelter all of the people on Earth. It doesn't help that people in poor nations (including the US Midwest) crank out 20 kids per household.

Damn it, Idocracy is not entertainment, it's prophesy!

[Rward]

Health authorities urged people not to panic and warned those who developed such symptoms who had been in Zambia, or had contact with the deceased, to get help.

The first victim was tourism operator Cecilia van Deventer, 36, who was flown to the Morningside clinic on September 12 from Zambia in a critical condition after being ill for three weeks. She died two days later.

On September 27, the paramedic who had flown with her from Zambia, Hannes Els, 33, of Speciality Emergency Services in Lusaka, returned to SA and was admitted to the Morningside clinic with similar symptoms, said Morningside manager Jaco Erasmus. Els died on October 2.


Great, more Xenophobia coming to your area, Soon!

[Hanzii]

I don't actively fear the epedemic, but I see it as a real possibility... but so is a huge fucking asteroid.

My wife's is Princess Di - she was, of course, murdered by goons in the employ of the Queen.

Mine is overpopulation. I'm convinced that, by the time my children are old, there will not be enough resources to feed/clothe/power/heat/shelter all of the people on Earth. It doesn't help that people in poor nations (including the US Midwest) crank out 20 kids per household.

Damn it, Idocracy is not entertainment, it's prophesy!

There's plenty of room. Were just not using it properly.

[Nellie]

Plenty of room, it's access to water that seems to be where we are heading at the moment so that's my favourite distaster theory at the moment, WWIII will start over squabbles over water.

[Adam Altmann]

I fear that the world is about to be cast into darkness by a sinister, primeval power, and that our collective fate rests precariously on the shoulders of a random farm boy, as ordained by prophecy some millennia ago.

[Bahimiron]

I was hoping this would be a 'pet conspiracy' theory without the disaster element.

I'm pretty sure pennies contain tracking devices.

I have proof, but this simply isn't the thread for it!

[MonkeyPunky]

I'm pretty sure our older/larger dog is the one knocking food off the table but she lets the puppy take all the blame because the puppy instantly looks guilty when they are discovered.

[Nengjanggo]

I'm pretty sure our older/larger dog is the one knocking food off the table but she lets the puppy take all the blame because the puppy instantly looks guilty when they are discovered.

I hope you scold her while wearing your tinfoil hat.

[Supertanker]

I'm partial to the gamma ray burst. Nothing we can do about it, certain death assured. Having grown up during the cold war, I'm much happier knowing we could all die at any moment for reasons beyond our control.

[Mike O'Malley]

Favorite conspiracy- Ron Brown and Hillary Clinton?

[AaronSofaer]

My pet disaster conspiracy theory is absolutely the pandemic that destroys all human civilization on this planet, leaving alive only those who have no contact with any outside society.

[madkevin]

Let's just say it involves a Byzantine plot encompassing the Catholic church, the Masons, and Colonel Sanders. But perhaps I've said too much.

[Skipper]

My favorite pet conspiracy? UFO's. Not really that I find them believable, but rather that they bring an unending supply of kooky people to the TV on the channels I watch. It's fun. I even have nicknames for some of the "regulars" they have on those shows.

Disaster theory though, I'm sort of with Nellie. Squabbles over some sort of depleting resource will start the next world war. And god help us at that point. There are way too many nasty weapons now that will tally up massive casualties.

[Drastic]

The Large Hadron Collider actually did destroy the Earth by opening an unspeakable dimensional gateway. We're all actually existing now--not really living--in the simulation space of Yog-Sothoth's mind.

Sure, laugh now, but just keep that in mind over the next few years. It'll look more and more correct.

[salwon]

The Clinton Death List is pretty awesome, as is 9/11 Truth. It's just so easy...

[Sarkus]

There are three that I find intriguing:

1) The 9/11 theory that the plane that crashed in PA was actually shot down.

2) That there is something more to the Rudolf Hess weirdness from WW2.

3) LBJ was involved in the JFK assasination conspiracy.

[Robert Sharp]

Pigs are taking over the world.

Are pigs pets?

[Bahimiron]

I like to think that Bush handlers, or Rove himself, arranged the 'leak' of the Killian documents to CBS Evening News in 2004.

[Adam Altmann]

Are pigs pets?

For years I've thought it would be pretty awesome to have a really little one. I don't think they come in that size, though. I looked, once.

[Miramon]

I have to assume that around 1969 some aliens noticed the Apollo mission and stepped in with advanced technology, bribes, and other black ops to derail NASA with the imbecilic Skylab, Space Shuttle and ISS programs that have set us back generations in space travel.

I mean, no human engineer could ever have come up with "better, cheaper, faster", since it's plainly impossible -- it seems like only a malicious attempt to destroy the program could justify Goldin's tenure.

Anyhow, "they" have apparently achieved their goals at least with respect to the US now that the US has decided to stop launching manned missions using our own technology. Can you imagine NASA guys in the 60s being told that if they want to get to space in 2008, they'll have to hitch a ride on a Soyuz? The horror!

OK, I really don't believe all that, but it's hard to swallow the terrible results from our manned space program over the last 30 years otherwise.

[Funkula]

My pet disaster conspiracy theory is absolutely the pandemic that destroys all human civilization on this planet, leaving alive only those who have no contact with any outside society.

Madagascar?

[Matt Bowyer]

I am pretty sure that the "textile plant" a few blocks from my old house in Virginia is actually a cover for a secret government facility, complete with a guardhouse, acres of unused land, and an underground entryway. It's completely hidden from the road thanks to dense tree cover, and I have, no lie, seen an unmarked helicopter land there. The fact that it remains fully staffed into the night doesn't hurt my case, and the fact that my hometown is a blurry mess on Google Earth, preventing me from looking at it in any kind of detail, also is a point in my favor. Sure, they CLAIM it's because it's a presidential birthplace, but OTHER towns with presidential birthplaces show up just fine there.

The fact that the company is publicly traded on the stock market is one of those facts I choose to ignore, like any good conspiracy theorist. It's all part of the cover, man!

[playingwithknives]

My wife's is Princess Di - she was, of course, murdered by goons in the employ of the Queen.

Let me reiterate that Prince Harry is definitely the son of Charles and Diana, and that the Diana and Hewitt affair happened after the birth, and the fact he resembles the clone of a young James Hewitt is purely coincidental.

[Miramon]

I once got back from an InfoWarCon in Crystal City to my then home in New Jersey (working at Bellcore at the time) to find an unmarked generic white van with dark tinted glass and festooned with weird looking antennas parked in the shared driveway of my condo complex. There had been presentations on Van Eck radiation, and even a NSA booth on the show floor, so it was kind of creepy. But I'm sure it was just a coincidence....

[Jon Rowe]

2 words


Zombie Appocalypse

[John Many Jars]

There was a great band called the Hollywood Brats, very much a British New York Dolls. Their self-titled album was supposedly recorded in 1973, with no knowledge of the Dolls, but it was not actually released until 1980.

But, unless I'm hearing the lyrics wrong, one of the songs refers to "New Wave beauties." New Wave, in 1973? They could be referring to the French New Wave in cinema...OR they could be a New-Wave era retro conspiracy to pass off a Dolls homage as a forgotten peer to that band of bands.

[edit]Oh, and I recently learned that the guitarist has admitted to using a false bio in a later band, claiming that they met as workers on an offshore oil rig, causing the British music press to dub their style "Rig Rock."

[Miramon]

There were many other "New Waves" apart from the New Wave in music. For example, La Nouvelle Vague. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_New_Wave)

Uh duh, how did I miss your reference to French New Wave in cinema? Detached retina?

[Lum]

I still believe nuclear war will end civilization.

[John Many Jars]

There were many other "New Waves" apart from the New Wave in music. For example, La Nouvelle Vague. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_New_Wave)

Uh duh, how did I miss your reference to French New Wave in cinema? Detached retina?

You've got to give up the barroom brawls, Mir.

[Rimbo]

The CD killed off rock 'n' roll. A too-low sample rate destroyed the sound qualities that made it "sound good."

[Staff Sergeant]

Climate change will make mid- and northern-Canada more habitable, and we will stop developing all of our cities in the outer edge. Hopefully.

[Sarkus]

Climate change will make mid- and northern-Canada more habitable, and we will stop developing all of our cities in the outer edge. Hopefully.

That's a conspiracy/disaster theory?

[Miramon]

The CD killed off rock 'n' roll. A too-low sample rate destroyed the sound qualities that made it "sound good."
That's a good one. There has to be some explanation.

[Brendan]

For years I've thought it would be pretty awesome to have a really little one. I don't think they come in that size, though. I looked, once.

Have a look into Chinese Pot Bellied Pigs or Göttinger 'mini' Pigs .

[barstein]

Toxoplasma gondii invasion. Satisfies both categories I think.

[Rimbo]

That's a good one. There has to be some explanation.

It's not really a conspiracy; it's rather that the level of knowledge required to understand the explanation is just too high, AND I'd have to do some legitimate mathematical work to demonstrate it. I first started thinking about it when I was digitizing some old tapes, and realized that a couple of the tapes that had survived reasonably well -- specifically, Sammy Hagar Unboxed and AC/DC Who Made Who -- sounded dramatically better than their CD counterparts.

The gist of it is: because the ear works by frequency analysis, a PCM recording at 44.1kHz either loses clearly audible information if properly anti-aliased/filtered or adds audible noise if not; whereas the same information gets preserved on an analog medium even if the analog medium has a frequency response lower than the threshold of a low-pass filter used when mastering a CD.

And it only really matters with the kinds of sounds that Rock 'n' Roll produce, that happen to be what make it sound good.

[JMR]

God, that reminds me of way back in the early 90's where MTV did a comparison of CD versus vinyl using Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" where the vinyl copy had more oooomph than the CD.


Well efff me, it's up on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7227_ndqQ

[Rimbo]

God, that reminds me of way back in the early 90's where MTV did a comparison of CD versus vinyl using Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" where the vinyl copy had more oooomph than the CD.


Well efff me, it's up on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR7227_ndqQ

It's a great layman's explanation, but it doesn't address the whole "but those nuances are in frequencies you can't hear" objection. The insights I had were twofold; one, that the nuances are very much in frequencies people can hear, and why the only real solutions are to increase the sample rate (96kHz is a good start, but even that's) or to use an encoding other than PCM. Two, that the situation gets worse the more high-frequency sounds you have mixing together. Rock and roll, with its crash cymbals, screaming vocalists and distorted guitars, has all kinds of shit happening in the upper range, and so it's particularly hard hit by the problem.

Here's an attempt to describe what happens:

If you take two sounds and mix them together, assuming that they're in slightly different phase and/or pitch, then the resulting waveform has "kinks" and sharp peaks in it that are a higher frequency than the original two waves. Now if you attempt to record this waveform using a means that doesn't quite capture that "kink" or sharp points, then when the recorded sound is played back and the ear separates the frequencies back out, you end up with a different set of frequencies than what you started with. If you have no anti-aliasing, this ends up being a distortion that sounds like the pitch is rapidly modulating; if you do have good anti-aliasing, you can eliminate that "modulating" sound, but you still distort the original frequencies. And if you put a low-pass filter on when you record, you're still going to be affected, just not as much; plus, you're removing audible data right from the get-go.

And that's just with a pair of sine waves. Now take that explanation and throw in the tremendous amount of simultaneous high-frequency sounds and pointed-peaked source waveforms produced by the typical rock song, and you end up with something that, when recorded at 44kHz, is significantly distorting the end result. Particularly a song like "Smells Like Teen Spirit;" nu metal and hip-hop, not so much.

In one sentence, quantization and aliasing problems for certain types of music are audible by the human ear at 44kHz and can only be cured by increasing the sample rate or by translating the audio data into a format other than digital PCM.

[dashingly]

www.frankolsonproject.org

[shift6]

My favorite conspiracy theories involve the "purity" of royal bloodlines, because you know that some queen or princess somewhere along the way got jiggy with the pool-boy, the kid ascended to the throne, and the "pure" royal blood has been tainted ever since.

[Hanzii]

I'm pretty sure that's not atheory but a pretty common occurence. I even think some of these are in the history books.

[Funkula]

I saw a thing recently talking about a joke that has been found in writings dating to the Roman era. Caesar's procession is going through the streets of Rome and he notices a young man who bears a striking resemblance to him. He orders a halt and calls the man over to speak to him. "Hail, Citizen. May I ask, was your mother in service at the palace?" The citizen replies, "No, Caesar, but my father was."

I think I saw that somewhere other than here, but if it was here, sorry for the repeat.

[Sarkus]

I'm pretty sure that's not atheory but a pretty common occurence. I even think some of these are in the history books.

Yeah, no question. For example, it's not even clear the Russian monarchy can legitimately trace itself beyond Catherine the Great. And there are also serious questions about whether the last king of Italy was even related to his "parents."

[Brad Grenz]

Project Lucifer. Although I think the predicted event was supposed to happen last Summer...

[Nellie]

Actually my new one is that the banks are playing small child with a tantrum. They fucked Themselves over and unless we bail them out They're going to fuck everyone else over by continuing to crash the Stock markets until they get what they want.

$700billion of bad debt off our books? not enough, watch the nasdaq nose dive until you promise more dammit!

[shift6]

I'm pretty sure that's not atheory but a pretty common occurence. I even think some of these are in the history books.
That's just what they WANT you to th...

oh, wait.

[madkevin]

The CD killed off rock 'n' roll. A too-low sample rate destroyed the sound qualities that made it "sound good."

Except rock is hardly dead, so your basic premise is flawed.

[Skipper]

If you have no anti-aliasing, this ends up being a distortion that sounds like the pitch is rapidly modulating; if you do have good anti-aliasing, you can eliminate that "modulating" sound, but you still distort the original frequencies. And if you put a low-pass filter on when you record, you're still going to be affected, just not as much; plus, you're removing audible data right from the get-go.

And that's just with a pair of sine waves. Now take that explanation and throw in the tremendous amount of simultaneous high-frequency sounds and pointed-peaked source waveforms produced by the typical rock song, and you end up with something that, when recorded at 44kHz, is significantly distorting the end result. Particularly a song like "Smells Like Teen Spirit;" nu metal and hip-hop, not so much.

In one sentence, quantization and aliasing problems for certain types of music are audible by the human ear at 44kHz and can only be cured by increasing the sample rate or by translating the audio data into a format other than digital PCM.

Okay Rimbo you are way beyond my audio knowledge here. But isn't oversampling something that specifically attacks that weakness of aliasing the digital signal? A/D and D/A converters have come a looooong way since that first dip into digital audio we had back then. I would think that you can get extremely high fidelity now, to the point that you shouldn't be able to tell any difference (unless you're the hearing equivalent of a supertaster.)

[Marged]

I don't have a particular disaster theory but I have fantasies about being prepared to survive in the event of a big huge emergency. I remember looking for plastic spice shakers online and found this site (http://www.containerandpackaging.com/FoodStorage/foodstorage.asp). I spent a lot of time mulling over the "food storage calculator." 10 lbs of soup mix! 120 lbs of dry milk! It sure made me want to buy some containers. I also really like this woman (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/garden/31disaster.html?scp=1&sq=dry%20milk%20survival&st=cse) and have considered getting her book.

I have fantasies about extremely frugal living. I read Mennonite cookbooks and want to learn how to can. Now if only I can get Geoff to drink reconstituted dry milk... (unlikely...)

[Dave Markell]

Okay Rimbo you are way beyond my audio knowledge here. But isn't oversampling something that specifically attacks that weakness of aliasing the digital signal? A/D and D/A converters have come a looooong way since that first dip into digital audio we had back then. I would think that you can get extremely high fidelity now, to the point that you shouldn't be able to tell any difference (unless you're the hearing equivalent of a supertaster.)

I knew one of those in grad school. He insisted that the only way to properly listen to recorded music was on an elaborate reel-to-reel tape setup he built. While he scorned CD's, he was almost as harsh in his criticism of vinyl and casettes. Me, I couldn't tell a difference :-).

[Stewpot]

I read a conspiracy once which suggested that aliens had made contact with Earth's leadership, but it was decided to keep it quiet because many of Earth's civilizations wouldn't be able to cope with the idea.

When I'm at my most cynical, this makes sense to me.

/pardon me while I get my tinfoil hat

[barstein]

Those of you who might have a real desire to listen to a very interesting and extremely well-read conspiracy speaker/analyst, check out Dave Emory (http://www.kfjc.org/programming/program_info.php?houroftheweek=90&info_id=19). Many hours of free recordings & streams on this site (http://wfmu.org/playlists/DX). Mostly historical/political and lighter by comparison on aliens and other science/sci-fi concepts (in fact, he tends to be pretty skeptical about that sort of thing).

[Sarkus]

Those of you who might have a real desire to listen to a very interesting and extremely well-read conspiracy speaker/analyst, check out Dave Emory (http://www.kfjc.org/programming/program_info.php?houroftheweek=90&info_id=19). Many hours of free recordings & streams on this site (http://wfmu.org/playlists/DX). Mostly historical/political and lighter by comparison on aliens and other science/sci-fi concepts (in fact, he tends to be pretty skeptical about that sort of thing).

I'm not sure that claiming the Nazis are still in control is "lighter by comparison" to alien conspiracies.

:-)

[Rimbo]

Except rock is hardly dead, so your basic premise is flawed.

If you go to rock concerts today, it's all paunches and receding hairlines. You and I are old fogeys, madkevin, so it's always going to seem alive to us.

Okay Rimbo you are way beyond my audio knowledge here. But isn't oversampling something that specifically attacks that weakness of aliasing the digital signal? A/D and D/A converters have come a looooong way since that first dip into digital audio we had back then. I would think that you can get extremely high fidelity now, to the point that you shouldn't be able to tell any difference (unless you're the hearing equivalent of a supertaster.)

Oh, you can get extremely high fidelity -- at 192kHz. Or using non-PCM encodings*. But no matter how much you antialias, you're still suck encoding at 44.1kHz. You can make that one sample a really, really good one, but you can't store every sharp peak without distortion, and you can't avoid distortion without clipping sharp peaks.

Another way to think of it is that when we speak of the range of human hearing, we're talking about the range of individual harmonics within a sound, whereas when we're talking about Nyquist, we're talking about the distance between peaks in the final mix. A lot of people, even those who know a lot about digital audio, aren't really aware of the distinction. The practical upshot of this is that a Nyquist frequency above the maximum range of human hearing still has lots of distortion -- given the right frequency profile -- well within the range of human hearing. And it just so happens that Rock and Metal music have that worst-case-scenario frequency profile.



*Not advocating DSD as an alternative to PCM, either; rather, I think the kind of discrete frequency analysis performed by compressed audio formats (e.g. Vorbis) is a more accurate way to represent how the human ear recognizes sound digitally, which is why these compression methods work so well.

[barstein]

Those of you who might have a real desire to listen to a very interesting and extremely well-read conspiracy speaker/analyst, check out Dave Emory (http://www.kfjc.org/programming/program_info.php?houroftheweek=90&info_id=19). Many hours of free recordings & streams on this site (http://wfmu.org/playlists/DX). Mostly historical/political and lighter by comparison on aliens and other science/sci-fi concepts (in fact, he tends to be pretty skeptical about that sort of thing).I'm not sure that claiming the Nazis are still in control is "lighter by comparison" to alien conspiracies.

:-)I wasn't judging either subject. "Lighter on X" in this case was intended to mean "less talk about and/or interest in this than that".

[madkevin]

If you go to rock concerts today, it's all paunches and receding hairlines. You and I are old fogeys, madkevin, so it's always going to seem alive to us.

Dude, I go to concerts all the time - Amon Amarth next week! - and I'm almost always one of the oldest people there. At Boris I'm pretty sure I was the oldest person there, and that includes the staff of Lee's Palace and the all of the band members. I went to a death metal festival last summer and I looked like I was someone's chaperon.

Kids still love them the rock. Interestingly* I have a theory about this: What with the internet and all, anybody with even the slightest interest in the history of rock music can download pretty much anything they want if they look hard enough. So when some band name checks My Bloody Valentine (for example) they can scoot over to their computers and within a few minutes they can check out MBV for their own selves. And sure enough, the MBV show in Toronto a couple of weeks back was crammed with kids who were about 5 years old when MBV released their last record.

In other words: you should go to better concerts.

* Not really.

[Athryn]

I don't have a particular disaster theory but I have fantasies about being prepared to survive in the event of a big huge emergency. I remember looking for plastic spice shakers online and found this site (http://www.containerandpackaging.com/FoodStorage/foodstorage.asp). I spent a lot of time mulling over the "food storage calculator." 10 lbs of soup mix! 120 lbs of dry milk! It sure made me want to buy some containers. I also really like this woman (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/garden/31disaster.html?scp=1&sq=dry%20milk%20survival&st=cse) and have considered getting her book.

I have fantasies about extremely frugal living. I read Mennonite cookbooks and want to learn how to can. Now if only I can get Geoff to drink reconstituted dry milk... (unlikely...)

With the way the economy is now, this isn't such a bad idea to learn.

[Skipper]

Yeah I agree. Maybe we should get Marged's address, you know, just in case we have to use that last tank of gas to get to safety.

Seriously though this really isn't a bad idea. Saving for a rainy day is a mantra to live by.

[Marged]

Yeah I agree. Maybe we should get Marged's address, you know, just in case we have to use that last tank of gas to get to safety.

Seriously though this really isn't a bad idea. Saving for a rainy day is a mantra to live by.

Well, while I may have enough dried legumes to last an eternity (purchasing beans and not eating them being a habit of mine), I still have no way of cooking them without electricity... so come the apocalypse, you might want to wait until I get a serious survival thing going on.

[Brendan]

Well, while I may have enough dried legumes to last an eternity (purchasing beans and not eating them being a habit of mine), I still have no way of cooking them without electricity... so come the apocalypse, you might want to wait until I get a serious survival thing going on.

There is always fire and gas. The last of which will be in plentiful supply once you start consuming the aforementioned legumes.

[Bahimiron]

If rock is dead, I guess it's time to start listening to jazz music.

[shift6]

I have a new favorite conspiracy theory. It is my favorite because I came up with it today (I think I did, apologies if I got it from somewhere else and forgot).

McCain hates the Republican party. He hates them for destroying his personal sense of honor and nearly destroying his career. He hates them for all the nasty things they said about him when he ran against Bush, who has turned out to be a flub.

So his grand plan, his master strategy, is to gain the POTUS nomination and then sabotage it in every way possible: picking an unqualified and barely vetted VP, whipping the base up with rhetoric then telling them to tone it down, suggesting policies against the RNC platform, and so on. On November 3, he announces that he is going to increase taxes on business, boost welfare spending, and that he hates fetuses, causing many Republicans' heads to explode. After Obama wins the election, McCain takes a chair on his cabinet as SecDef or special liaison to the AARP or something.

The Republicans reel from this dizzying betrayal and the party dissolves into two major parties: the neo-con religious crazies, which Palin joins, and the Republicans who take McCain's later tell-all book to heart and form a new Reagen-Republicans party, which Arnie joins.

[wisefool]

my pet theory is that Jesus was a proto-commie. he was all into sharing - there's that story where the people who joined the community had to give up everything and share it - well, this greedy woman wasn't sure so she kept some stuff. they found out and punished her.

There's also the camel through the eye of the needle (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_en-USUS292&q=camel+eye+of+the+needle&btnG=Search) which apologists claim is a translation error.

The first 'Christian' worshipers were the disaffected and downtrotten - the poor, slaves (did they have slaves? I guess everyone did back then)

Then Jesus goes postal at the Temple and is like, wtf you financiers, makes an indiana jones whip and kicks all sorts of ass.

"When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the Temple, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said: 'Get out of here.' (John 2:13-16)