Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

Zika: 4,180 becomes 270 becomes 6

If you’re following the news, public health officials are manufacturing a scare around the so-called “Zika” virus. We were initially told of an outbreak in Brazil in which it was discovered that there were 4,180 cases of microcephaly, or babies born with small heads. This sort of symptom is usually the result of an “insult” to the fetus during development, and can be cause be a host of factors environmental and physical.

Later, Brazilian officials reviewed their records and reduced the number of real cases of microcephaly from 4,180 to 270. And then there was this, reported by AP:

“Brazilian officials said the babies with the defect [microcephaly/small heads, brain damage] and their mothers are being tested to see if they had been infected. Six of the 270 confirmed microcephaly cases were found to have the [Zika] virus.”

That is not enough to indicate cause and effect. In the US every year we have 25,000 cases of microcephaly, none related to Zika.

What’s up? Why the hoax? Why the scare? I cannot begin to know but can guess that it comes down to two things: spreading fear, and siphoning resources into pharmaceutical corporations. After all, they need to develop a vaccine now.

Here’s a Huffington Post article advancing the scare and panic line.

Here’s a Jon Rappoport piece trying to set the record straight.

Hitting the right notes

The rising star of Mary Sheehy Moe

Most of politics, just like the events we see around us, is fakery designed for effect. It is just a distraction, as public opinion is managed, and not heeded. There is precious little connection between elections and public policy, as the power of suggestion and advertising are all the public needs to imagine that we have representative government. Why give people more than they expect?

I dabbled briefly in politics back in the 90s, and carried away some perceptions that took a long time to gel into a solid outlook. My strongest take on the whole of the political class was seediness … such shallow, manipulative and ambitious people. Eesh! At the center of Montana politics at that time was Max Baucus. He left me feeling so cold. He was both ruthless and mean, surely a sociopath, and yet so admired within his party. Power is a magnet that can transform a stuttering geek into an admired leader.

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The Sean Penn affair

I was more than a little skeptical about the the curious affair of Sean Penn and the “drug lord” Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. None of it makes sense. I read an interview with Penn by Charlie Rose. My stereotype of Penn is that he is a man who drinks too much and can’t think very well. But he comes off well in the interview. My stereotype of Rose is that he is arrogant, and that like all American journalists basks in the glow of his own admiration, suffering from supreme stupidity. That was affirmed.

To set the backdrop, one needs to understand a few things:

  • There are no white hats and black hats in the world drug trade. There are only black hats.
  • Mexico and the United States are not two separate countries. Each is run by oligarchs, and each has a puppet civilian government. The oligarchs have no use for borders, so at high levels there is cooperation on matters like immigration, trade agreements, and drugs.
  • The DEA is not interested in stopping the world flow of drugs. They don’t chase and jail bad guys.  The drug trade is run by the intelligence agencies of the world. DEA chases, jails and kills competition.

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Murky planet

I live by Carl Sagan’s maxim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” It makes life easier, as I fear treading nowhere. I often encounter people spreading notions of space aliens, NSA watching my every move, remote viewing, Illuminati running everything, and I have no fear. If they bring the evidence I will join them. However, they always come up short. It always falls back on one person’s experience or deep knowledge without anything objective to harden the case.

People who read me regularly may be surprised at those words, as I do make claims that shock them – Bernie Sanders is a sheep dog*, Donald Trump might be genuine even if stupid on a high level, John F. Kennedy Jr. was really the love child of Jackie and Aristotle Onassis. And John Lennon did not die in 1980.

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The market-based fake friendship world

In the YouTube video between Peter Joseph and Stefan Molyneux below, the one below the fold that is too long and tedious to watch (meaning only guys like me watch it), Joseph makes an interesting and dead-on point that I want to repeat:

Commerce robs us of our humanity. We don’t enter into relationships voluntarily, and we only behave in a friendly manner due to financial issues. We suck up to the boss, treat strangers with fake good will. We associate with people we do not like (think office Christmas party) because we have to. We act submissively to people who are no more talented than us, often less (“the boss”).

In real life friends are rare, real friends. Those are relationships based on genuine interest, leaving each with a good feeling and no obligation.

Most of what we do in this country is based in fake feelings driven by financial need. The market distorts our lives.

Aggressive stupidity and the libertarian philosophy

I am putting a video link below the fold here – I don’t know why I am doing that, as no one will follow it. I would not either. It is too long. It is a debate between Peter Joseph and Stefan Molyneux. Both are self-absorbed.

HeadCrusherMolyneux is one of of those people, like a television news reader, who opens his mouth and produces a cascade of words that seem intelligent as they roll out. But he’s not, and worse yet, he is dishonest and full of rhetorical trickery. I found myself wanting to do the old Kids In the Hall trick, and crush his head between my thumb and forefinger. He is that annoying.

Joseph had one simple idea he was trying to get across to Molyneux, that the distinction that libertarians draw between “government” and “free markets” is false – that there is no difference. It’s a very simple concept: Those who amass market power also control government. So debating the relative merits of the two is nonsensical, like trying to distinguish between weather and climate. They are interwoven. There are no free markets, and government is the slave of those who own the contrived marketplace, the only one that exists.

Molyneux reflexively went back to his back yard garden and spoke incessantly of the beauty of the free market, that idyllic place where everyone acts voluntarily and all outcomes are naturally wholesome – government ruins his garden. (Libertarians have stolen the word “freedom” and abuse it, clubbing it like a baby seal.)  It is the curse of Utopian thought, to force an ideal into place in the real world. His garden yields a cornucopia spilling abundance and nourishment. It is all he can see. He is so full of shit.

And this is the problem with libertarians – they have reached a level of intelligence that seems so sensible that they stop there. Libertarian theory sounds smart, and is so easy to mouth. And is so full of holes. Libertarians exhibit what one of my kids’ high school teachers described so well, “supreme stupidity.” (I think the concept was described by Goethe, who said “there is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.” Indeed.)

I have written elsewhere about the holes in the theory, and will stop here with just one: People who want power don’t care how they get it.

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D.M. Murdick, R.I.P. (??? – 12/25/2015)

Acharya-SI knew this was coming, but it hit me hard nonetheless – Dorothy M. Murdock, aka D.M. Murdock, aka Acharya S (teacher) died. The email announcing her death was dated January 22nd, but says she died on December 25th of last year. That is unlikely. I do not know her age, but would guess her to be early 50’s.

Looking about for her biography, I find that she came on the scene in 1995, when she started her website Truth Be Known. I have found no date of birth and no parentage, but find she was educated in some of our best schools, meaning she came from money or was very lucky to have scholarships, fellowships or patrons.

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Unimaginably sophisticated deceptions

I just got done viewing a video link I suggested others watch in the post below. Such suggestions are always done tongue-in-cheek, as if I’ve learned anything in nine years of blogging, it is that people do not want to know things that upset their belief systems. I must be different in structure – that’s all I can make of it, as I love to see cherished beliefs torn apart. I no longer hold on to anything as sacred. I must be growing up emotionally and intellectually at once.

But as I watched the video, which I’ve not seen for a couple of years at least, I once again realized the levels of deception that went into the planning of 9/11. Beyond the events there is a highly sophisticated cover-up, including the so-called “9/11 Truth” movement, an Intelligence operation designed to mislead the curious of mind. As Andrew Johnson, a man I deeply admire, says in the video, good disinformation is 90% truth, with the 10% held back being the essential evidence we are all denied.

I wondered how on earth the average citizen can ever penetrate the levels of deception? People are busy working jobs that drain their energy, and on top of that have families and relationships to maintain. They’ve been brought up to trust the very authority figures they need to mistrust if they are ever to get a grip on things. Add to that the vast amount of entertainment and propaganda we are immersed in … how does anyone ever find out anything true?

The answer is … they don’t. Even if you in the upper 10% on intelligence, even in the upper 3% or even 1% … you are going to get your chain yanked. It is too damned sophisticated to overcome.

Anyway, perhaps you are on in a hundred who will view the video beneath the fold here. Do it for your own enlightenment, but don’t imagine you can turn on anyone else. That does not happen.

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What’s with Trump?

I rarely dabble in party politics anymore, especially since being burned by “The One” in 2008, the fake “community organizer.” In general, Democrats leave me with that not-so-fresh feeling, while Republicans tend to be incredibly stupid, or at least pretend to be so for the sake of gathering votes. It is a carnival of whores.

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