Beyond Belief?

At what point does a conspiracy theory go beyond belief?

Take for instance...

Here's a GoPro video taken from inside a Cessna Caravan making a ditched landing in the ocean just offshore from Hawaii. Incredibly the only fatality was Hawaii's health department director. Her name was Loretta Fuddy.

From Wikipedia:

Deliana Fuddy was a practitioner of Subud spiritualist movement, and she was the chairwomen of Subud USA's National Committee from 2006 to 2008.
Subud's founder was Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo.
Also from this Wikipedia article:
Fuddy became the acting Director of the Hawaii Department of Health on January 26, 2011. Governor Neil Abercrombie appointed her Director of the department on March 2, 2011.

From the White House archives an attorney representing President Barack Obama addressed a letter dated April 22, 2011 to Loretta Fuddy requesting two copies of Obama's long form birth certificate.
From the same White House archive is a reply from Loretta Fuddy to President Obama dated April 25, 2011 confirming the two copies and attesting to their authenticity. She states in her reply, "I am making an exception to current department policy which is to issue a computer-generated certified copy." By that I would assume, although there is room for debate here, that she is saying the birth certificates issued to President Obama were the exception, that is, they were not just made available but were generated on a computer rather than being photocopies of an original paper document.

So Loretta Fuddy, who was the lone fatality in this December 11, 2013 plane crash, once chairwoman of this Indonesian-founded Subud religious organization, less than two months after taking office was the primary contact person as well as the person who granted authority for and attested to the authenticity of Barak Obama's long-contested (apparently computer-generated) birth certificate.

Oddly enough there was a birther movement effort late in 2013 which according to this recent CNN article was attempting to demonstrate to high government officials that this long-form birth certificate was exactly that, computer-generated. Low and behold out of nowhere the lady responsible for the computer-generated document dies in a plane crash. What a coincidence.

Now with reference to this religious movement called Subud, conspiracy theorists have claimed to have an early photograph of this group's founder - Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo - and that he bears a strong resemblance to the former President of the United States, President Obama. This would be an amazing coincidence considering how little resemblance there is between Barack Obama and his own father as stated on his "computer-generated" long form Hawaiian birth certificate released just months after said Hawaiian health department director Loretta (Deliana) Fuddy's appointment.

Well the conspiracy just begins taking wings from that point but I mean, just how gullible can a man get? At what point does it all go beyond belief?

Shithole Defined

It dawned on me just now that according to liberals, Democrats, the mainstream media, and countless others including Black congressmen as well as some leaders of African nations, and according to the population of the world in general, the word "shithole" can be assumed to mean "a place where Black people live". This meaning as it is being used by politicians and the media this month, is so clear that nobody can dispute it.

I dispute it, of course, because I am not racist. But who am I anyway - just another deplorable nobody.

A Separate Reality

It's not quite 1:30 in the morning. I've been asleep but woke to a cold bedroom and came downstairs to add some wood to the fire. I turned on my computer and almost immediately found this news featured on my MSN home page:
Russia researcher testifies that Trump had ‘pattern’ of Kremlin-connected money laundering
Just when you think... 
Just when you think you understand what's been going on and that it was the Obama administration and the Clintons doing dirty deals with the Russians, they hit you with this, which, if you take the time to think about it, could be a complete "Deep State" fabrication.
Or not...

Flake Lives Up to His Name Yet Again

I think it was yesterday that I heard Jeff Flake, U.S. Senator from Arizona, commenting on President Trump's fake news awards which the President presented last night.

This morning I find an MSN article about these awards. The article include the quote I heard plus another Flake quote:

"The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy," Flake said in a speech on the floor of the Senate. "When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him 'fake news,' it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press."

What could possibly have triggered me?

I suppose as a starter I am old school when it comes to freedom of the press. In the first quote Flake seems to imply that it is the function of the press to defend a consensus-defined government. Whatever the consensus of the "democracy" is, it is the job of the media to defend that consensus. You might argue with me by saying Flake doesn't make that implication but in the second quote, if you take the flip side of the coin he describes, then if you should distrust any leader who questions the press, then you should trust any media that agrees with our leaders. That's what he's getting at, isn't it? Trust the media? Don't trust President Trump?

However you wish to spin it, though, it's the original premise that is in error. The free press isn't charged with defending the government. It was the hope of the Founding Fathers that the press, when reporting the truth, would not be suppressed. The truth would not be suppressed. That's the key. You don't throw out the baby with the bath water. You tolerate "fake news" because you don't want to suppress the truth when it hopefully does get published. There's nothing at all about freedom of the press that should stop anyone from bashing fake news, Senator Flake.

Flake's comments are as flakey as it gets if you ask me. But who am I to say, eh?

Shithole America

Yesterday, Martin Luther King Day, Newsweek published an article online titled "TRUMP'S AMERICA IS A SHITHOLE COUNTRY"

You read that right. The web address that I give here was copy and paste as of 9:30 AM January 16, 2018. I'll paste it again:

www.newsweek.com/trump-america-shithole-country-780888
I'd copy and paste the title of the article too but the web page won't allow me to highlight and copy.

I wonder how long it will take Newsweek to change the title of this article.

Headline articles on my MSN home page as I compose this post include:

• Warren: Trump is a ‘racist bully’
• Graham breaks with fellow Republicans on Trump comments
• Analysis: Why Trump voters need the immigrants they want to turn away
• Too old for DACA, man who spent 30 years of his life in U.S. is deported
• Melania’s Martin Luther King Day message criticized
• Schumer: ‘I totally believe’ Durbin over Trump
• Inside the tense, profane White House meeting on immigration
• Trump fueling assault on democracy, report says

It takes some serious willpower to believe the word of Lindsey Graham and Dick Durban and ignore everyone else. Newsweek handles the problem first by hitting Trump with an ad hominem concerning women and then suggesting there is a consensus even among his supporters that Trump is a racist.

Is it any wonder that some people think the news is slanted heavily to the left?

Paraphrase

Paraphrase, according to Dictionary dot com means, as a noun, "a restatement of a text or passage giving the meaning in another form, as for clearness; rewording.''

There are two key points in that definition. One is "rewording" and the other is "meaning". Paraphrasing, to me at least, is akin to translating. You use different words, even different grammar if necessary, but your intent is to make the original meaning as clear as possible in a language that is more easily understood, hopefully. Changing the wording with the intent of either masking or altering the original meaning is not, by my definition at least, paraphrasing.

A good example of paraphrasing has come up in the online world recently. I'm a follower of Infowars dot com which recently presented a video of Oprah discussing racism saying (via copy and paste from Snopes):

Of course the problem is not solved. As long as people can be judged by the color of their skin, the problem’s not solved. As long as there are people who still… And there’s a whole generation — I said this for apartheid South Africa, I said this for my own community in the South — there are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die.

It is my opinion that Oprah wasn't referring to generations of Blacks or generations of Asians or generations of First Nations or generations of Jews. It is clear to me that she was referring to generations of white people. So if I were to paraphrase what Oprah said in order to clarify what she meant I would paraphrase it to show that she was referring to generations of white people. That is, after all, what my brain heard when it processed her statement and I suspect I'm not alone here. I seriously doubt that there were very many people whose intellectual subconscious heard Oprah say that generations of Blacks need to die.

Snopes calls it "false" and "absurd" to suggest that Oprah was referring to white people.

Go figure... 

Consensus

We all know what a consensus is

The Shithole Democrat

I would like to remind any reader of this post that in the news this week, top story in the mainline media and everywhere else, is the story that President Trump is alleged to have used the term "shithole" in a confidential meeting of congressmen discussing immigration. He used the term to refer to some of the third-world countries where, if the films we may have watched in recent years are showing the truth, many of the residents live in impoverished, disease and crime-ridden shanty towns under unimaginably deplorable conditions.
One Democrat is alleged to have emerged from this meeting and immediately shared this politically incorrect reference with the media which took the football and ran from goalpost to goalpost over and over again day after day twenty-four hours a day and continue to do so while simultaneously proclaiming that the term they are ceaselessly repeating should not be spoken, ever, anywhere.
Am I the only one who sees irony in this liberal behavior? I mean if I had been in that meeting and if I had heard the President of the United States use such language, would my first thought be oh man I need to share this one with the whole world or would I perhaps have taken Trump aside and told him I didn't like hearing him talk that way and if I ever hear that term again I'd make sure he regrets it. I don't believe I would be in any rush to shame the office of the President of the United States publicly when there clearly could have been a better way to handle it.

But then again, I'm not a Democrat.

January Thaw

Back in the fifties and sixties when I was growing up right here in what is now often referred to as the Maine highlands it was common to have a "January thaw". My mother always talked about it as a certainty, something that could be expected each year no matter how cold a winter we were having. As I write, a brisk west wind is rapidly pushing this year's first January thaw off to the east.

For the past few weeks winter here in Maine has been brutally cold. My snow blower blew a drive belt two snowstorms back and the cold and wind were so severe I didn't even want to diagnose the problem for fear of freezing my face and fingers. It was so cold I didn't even want to walk the machine downtown to the repair shop. Finally this past Tuesday it was warm enough to attempt a repair. I wound up making a trip to Bangor for a new auger drive belt discovering along the way that the reservoir for the windshield washer in my pickup had frozen to a solid block of green ice, green from the summer wiper fluid which I forgot to change when fall and winter came along. This demonstrates how isolated I am in winter when it's early January before I even think to use my windshield washer. I haven't been out of town much in the past couple of months.

Last Thursday we had the big snowstorm. I managed to shovel maybe a quarter of the driveway but left it at that. At one point I used snowshoes to get to one of my compost piles with some seriously outdated squash and apples, sinking about a foot deep in the crust-free snow that had accumulated since the start of winter. This part of Maine had accumulated an adequate enough amount of snow to please just about any New England snow enthusiast. Then came the forecast for the second half of this week.

The first signs of the thaw came on Tuesday. My Bangor trip began with cloudy skies and gusty winds blowing a light early morning snowfall onto the highway. South of Dover-Foxcroft the sun was out. The road from there to Bangor heads southeast facing pretty much directly into the sun, low on the horizon of course since it is, after all, January, and it was reflecting directly into my eyes from the soaking wet salt-slurry slicked pavement. Fun driving holding one hand in front of my face blocking the glare and driving with the other. Bangor, though, felt like the first day of spring, sunny and warm with snow melting everywhere. I wasn't ten miles from Bangor on my return trip, though, before it was cloudy again with stiff cold gusts of wind blowing powder snow across the road just as it had done on the drive south. The further north I drove the farther from spring it felt.

I was able to get my snow blower back together and after hours of work get my entire driveway cleared again. I was in a rush to get the job done before the thaw, forecast for Thursday and Friday, turned everything to mush. And turn to mush it did, especially Friday. I'm going to say we lost a good half of our snow accumulation between Thursday evening and Saturday morning. It rained and rained and rained.

So now the freeze begins again! Mentally I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the idea that it's still only the second week in January. There are still months of cold weather and snow ahead for us Mainers. January thaws are such a tease!

Everybody Loves Oprah the Social Justice Warrior

Watch the way Oprah says this. You maybe can excuse the words, but there is no way to excuse the way she said this.

The Trump Tape

While I'm at it today, speaking of Hollywood, I had Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws this past November - yes I know you know Thanksgiving is always in November here in Maine - but anyway one of my brother-in-laws brought up the Access Hollywood Trump tape where, according to this brother-in-law, Trump confessed to molesting women. Actually I think how the conversation actually went down was he asked what's the difference between what Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken and Conyers and all the rest were being accused of and what Donald Trump was accused of and I said the difference is the others admitted it and Trump didn't so he brought up the Access Hollywood tape and I said Trump didn't admit to raping and/or harassing women in that tape. He was talking about how easy it is to molest women when you're rich. He didn't say he does these things.

Actually I was just guessing. I didn't know that for sure. But I had watched the video and heard what Trump said and I couldn't recall him actually saying he made a practice of actually physically molesting unwilling women. After that Thanksgiving dinner talk I intended to check my claim so I listened again today on this YouTube video picked at random from the results of my Google search.

As disgusting as Trump's locker room words were in this video, I am inclined to think this backs up what I told the in-laws. Trump does admit to hitting on (attempting to seduce) some married woman and he admits to kissing women and he does indeed appear to give the lady in this tape a socially acceptable peck on perhaps the ear which is the only touching he actually does admit to doing on this scandalous tape but as with so much other Trump speak the Left has successfully used this tape to "prove" to their herds of obedient mind-numbed sheep that Trump grabs women by the pussy.

I'm inclined to think that he doesn't make a practice of behaving that way but the Left doesn't seem to care. Perception is reality for the Left. The end justifies the means.

Hollywood 2018

So how might one spell Hollywood upside down, inside out, and backward?

• p
• a
• r
• o
• d
• y
• o
• f
• v
• i
• r
• t
• u
• e

In other words, Hollywood virtue is

• v
• i
• r
• t
• u
• a
• l
• r
• e
• a
• l
• i
• t
• y

an

• o
• x
• y
• m
• o
• r
• o
• n

My suggestion?

Cut them off at the pass. Turn of the TV and toss it and boycott the box office. Let's redefine entertainment.

Truth

Recently I have come to understand that truth isn't a material thing. It isn't something you can hold in your hands. It isn't something you can possess. It isn't even something you can possess in your mind.

Truth is a state of mind, a willingness to not accept what you have no means of knowing and instead, allow into your mind information often contradictory to what you wish to be real.

Truth is suspension of judgment, suspension of both belief and disbelief.

That said, I'll bet anything that you yourself don't have the guts to watch this entire hour and three quarter video open-mindedly. I dare you to try.

Don't be a coward any longer. Share this challenge with everybody.

Bomb Cyclone

So...

There's this new phrase in weather forecasting here in the USA. It's like two days old now. The phrase is "bomb cyclone" and it's been all over the news, still is today! As of right now it doesn't even come up as a listed term in Wikipedia although I did find something about it commonly being used in Japan. Two winters ago the weather guys and gals were all talking about the "polar vortex". Remember that?

I guess that wasn't scary enough.

Click this link to see how Popular Science introduces this new term.

The term bomb cyclone was used this week to describe winter storm Grayson. A storm like this has always been known in these parts as a nor'easter. I'm thinking with global warming now being openly challenged as a scientific and meteorological reality by increasing numbers of rational people, a good frightening term like bomb cyclone will keep the irrational herds sufficiently in line. The past several years it has seemed to me like the weather guys and gals have been coming up with more and more ways to keep us terrified of Mother Nature's wrath so why not have bombs now, eh?

That said, winter storm Grayson was quite a storm. Wednesday morning (January 3, 2018) the low pressure was centered over southern Florida bringing snow as far south as northern Florida. By Thursday evening the storm was fully formed with the low pressure center over the Gulf of Maine. That's faster than I can drive on I-95! Here in the Maine highlands we had over a foot of wind-driven powder snow by Friday morning (today). The temperature dropped all day and is supposed to plummet for the remainder of the weekend with strong northwest winds still being driven by the westerly side of this intense low pressure center as it slowly moves away to the northeast.

To me this was a classic nor'easter. Let's hope that saner minds prevail in the future and "bomb cyclone" becomes just another relic of global warming paranoia.

Democracy

If it is true, as Karl Marx is quoted as saying, that "Democracy is the road to socialism" and it is true, as Vladimir Lenin is quoted as saying, that "The goal of socialism is communism", then is it also true that the United States is a democracy?

Just askin' you know...
Just askin'