You might want to avoid reading the following tortuous paragraph. I copied it down while in flight today, as it struck me as so obtuse.

“In his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism, clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet provides and initial explanation of how this surveillance program could be so massively advanced with the help of the corona pandemic. In his sociopsychological analysis, Desmet illustrates “how humanity is being forcibly, unconsciously led into a reality of technocratic totalitarianism, which aggressively excludes alternative views and relies on destructive groupthink, vilifying nonconformist thought as ‘dissent'”. He speaks of mass formation (US-American virologist, immunologist, and molecular biologist Robert Malone later even interpreted this condition as mass psychosis), and he rightly warns, with good reason, “of the dangers of our current social landscape, media consumption, and dependence on manipulative technologies.” This silent unchallenged endurance of the deprivation of freedom by the technocratic standards ultimately amounts to mental enslavement. Thus, the slave trade, which Dunning cites as a historical example of extreme predatory capitalism, Finds its modern counterpart. In his book, Desmet offers simple solutions – both individual and collective – to prevent “our willing sacrifice of our capacity for critical thinking.”

I ask that you not so much pore over the excerpt from the book The Indoctrinated Brain, by Michael Nehls, MD, PhD, as set it aside for later interpretation. On the inside of the back flap of the paper cover of the hardcopy edition, Nehls’ CV reads like the second coming of Obama, “the one”, you know, said to have done so much good, and who is so worshiped by liberals and leftists with spinning spirals in their eyes, oblivious to all the real damage he did to the people of this country. He was a terrible leader in terms of actual accomplishment, but man, he could sell it.

Here’s more from the back cover of the book: 

Based on the long chain of evidence of a targeted neuropathological attack on autobiographical memory, I argue before you, as my jury, for the existence of a two-stage perfidious master plan of indoctrination, implemented by a small elite without regard for life and limb, in full awareness of its implications. […] We have no choice but to resist this assault by building resilience against outside influence, and time is of the essence. 

I think it was the year 2000 or so when I first stumbled on the book Propaganda, by Jacques Ellul. Nehls is aware of the two bombastic classics, Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. He makes no mention of Ellul, though he would have benefited from reading the tract. Written in the 1960s, Propaganda examined it as practiced in the three great centers at that time: The Soviet Union, China, and the United States. My take was the US was far superior to either of the other two, and that the Soviets even came off as ham-handed. It stands to this day. Nehls apparently does not have a clue that propaganda has been with us and studied and practiced for decades, and that he cannot save us. What we have seen with Covid and Climate Change and the ascent of liberalism behind both is merely what I experienced as a boy growing up in the 1950s and 60s: Total immersion in fear. Frightened people are easier to govern. That’s all.

I did not mean to go off on him like that. I copied the opening paragraph from above from page xxii of the introduction. I am of the studied opinion that if a person cannot think properly, then he cannot write clearly. The opening paragraph I used above … I am not clear on its meaning. I do not regard him as a critical thinker. He does not get his meaning across. He comes off, especially with the inside cover CV and back cover braggadocio, as a pompous ass. And anyway, if he thinks propaganda and mind control only came about in 2020, he’s a loon.

He thinks 911 was real, he thinks that the SARS-CoV-2 virus came from a Wuhan lab, even as that is easily seen as misdirection … look here, not there. He thinks, as the subtitle of the book states, that we folks have mental freedom, and we might lose it.  And since he writes like a pompous ass, he cannot possibly reach the very people he claims to be saving.

I had a private email discussion with a friend of the blog who introduced me to a newspaper called County Highway. It is 20 pages deep, large-style old fashioned newspaper print. While one has to go online to order it ($50 yearly) none of its material is available online. 

Central to our discussion was how we receive and process information. Be honest now, how many here see a long paragraph,

and avoid reading it? Too much work. I do that too. But I often force myself to focus and read long tracts, just as I am going to read Nehls’ book. 

I have friends who proudly claim “I don’t read.” How then do they come by their opinions? They are not thinking, cannot be thinking. They are only receiving information from talking heads, videos,  but it is preprogrammed for them, and they accept it uncritically, having decided in advance which ideas they are open to, and which not. Consequently, they are Zombies. And worse yet, they are shielded, cannot be reached with any counter-information. 

That, Dr. Nehls, is how propaganda works, with captive audiences. If we approach these Zombies with anything the are not preprogrammed to accept as true, their eyes roll and dart, and everything bounces off. They are wards of the state.

It is but a very short walk from deliberately not reading to functional illiteracy. Dr. Nehls, with his overly dense writing and multi-syllabic and not clearly explained wording, can only reach a precious few, probably academics. He is not reaching the very people he imagines he is saving.

And, Orwell and Huxley aside, who wrote during more literate times, the true genius of American propaganda is that we here in the land of the free truly believe we are getting it done, critical thinking-wise. You would think a country big and wealthy as ours could produce a few more mirrors.

We just these past two days had opportunity to take advantage of a generous gift from our son and daughter-in-law to spend time at the Devil’s Thumb Ranch, in the lodge. It is a resort that sits outside of two small towns south of Rocky Mountain National Park, Winter Park and Fraser. We have been to the resort on several occasions before, but have never stayed there, as it is too pricey. We stayed in the nearby towns instead, and traveled out to cross-country ski on the 6,000 acres of trails, all built on roadbed, and many groomed. But this time, combined with a 30% discount by the lodge and a $300 remaining balance, we were able to stay there.

I made an important discovery on this trip: My XC ski equipment is not only outdated, but is old. I felt like Jed Clampett driving that old rig through Beverly Hills as I watched skiers my age zoom past me. It’s not that some of them were skate skiers, who are naturally fast, but regular Nordic skiers were going so much faster too. I talked to a gal at the rental desk before we left, and she said that over time XC skis have gotten much skinnier. Devil’s Thumb is mostly groomed, but I have to ski outside the grooves as the edges of my skis rub against the inside of the groove, creating friction. But I also noticed that skiing flat I could not generate much speed.

Time to buy new skis, I said. My ever-thoughtful wife suggested that when we go to DT, we rent. That would be twice a year, tops. Nordic skiing down where we live, near Conifer, is spotty at best. Even when we get good snow, which we often do, it usually turns to ice or mush quickly, as our normal winter temperatures are in the thirties or higher. Most people around here are snowshoers or fat bikers. Neither appeals to me, but they are adapted to the weather here.

Speaking of old but still useful (me), we own a 4Runner that we purchased in 2005 and that has 220,000 miles on it. In 19 years it has never failed us, or even failed to start. This year I put rock salt in the back for weight and safety, and we have all-terrain tires on it. So yesterday we awoke abut about 5:30 AM, and the Starbucks at Safeway, ten miles away, opens at 6 AM. It was snowing heavily, so much so that if I put bright headlights on, it was hypnotic. But we did not hesitate, even for a second, to hop into the 4R and head down the road. The 4R is that dependable, probably the best investment we ever made.

Which reminds me, as I am going to write about Michael Mann below. I have an idea for a vacation for him. I want him to fly to Bakersfield, California, and rent a vehicle, ideally an EV (electric vehicle), and then drive across Death Valley.

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I was stunned by the recent court case in DC wherein Mark Steyn, Canadian pundit, was ordered to pay $1 million in punitive damages to Michael Mann. I listened to reenactments of that trial for eight days straight, and came away after the verdict suspicious that Steyn had deliberately walked us into a trap. This cannot have been a real trial. It was like watching a baseball team where one team scored homers and doubles and feasted as its players circled the bases, only to have the umpires declare the game in favor of the team that did not score. It was that bad. The defense feasted on Mann’s team. They played poorly, scored no runs, and yet Mann was awarded a stunning victory. That does not happen in real life. This was a staged event, I am quite certain. But if it is consolation, the $1 million award is fake too.

My only puzzle is how a jury was selected that would come down with such a ludicrous verdict. The answer is simple, I suggest … they were mere spectators, hired to show up, nothing more. The verdict was written in advance, and on Mann’s side, it was understood that no matter how poorly they performed, they would win. This was the only reason why Mann even sat through it, as he was embarrassed and humiliated throughout. The $1 million is “punitive” damages, and that sums it up. Mann’s been raked over a coalbed in the years since his “Hockey Stick” came to be, with scientists deriding it as poorly constructed and designed to come up with a predetermined outcome. He was given a chance to punish his critics in a fake trial, and took it.

Several things that tend to add to this claim that the trial was fake:

The courtroom selected for the trial is small with low ceilings and poor ventilation. It was hot and stuffy throughout. Why not a better venue? No one cared about it. Finally, after repeated complaints from Steyn, they moved to a larger venue.

Also, the jurors were perpetually late, slowing down the proceedings. Most judges would not put up with that, and in fact can levy fines for tardiness. The judge in this affair did nothing, perhaps because they were just actors, and he couldn’t do anything.

Mann’s team submitted false evidence to the jury, claiming that Mann had lost out on a $9 million grant due to the articles that led to the lawsuit. This evidence was shown to the jury. The real number was something like $112,000. The defense demanded the evidence be withdrawn and the jury told to ignore it. The judge did nothing. That’s grounds for appeal.

During jury selection, Bill Nye, the “science” guy, was allowed to sit with the potential jurors and cajole them about his very good friend, Mann. That by itself is grounds for appeal.

The words “punitive damages” were never to my knowledge uttered throughout the proceedings until the closing argument by the prosecution at the end, and in an “oh by the way” manner. I suggest he did this because he knew what was coming down and wanted it to be not out of the blue.

Anyway, it was a trial where all of the proceedings favored the defense in every way, and where the prosecution did nothing of note for its client, and where the prosecution won hands down. Fake, fake, fake.

But there cannot be an appeal of a fake proceeding, right? So this trial, fake as it was, stands as precedent and warning to anyone who wants to take on the climate alarmists. Even if their science is junk, be wary, as they are juiced, and backed by very powerful forces. They shoot to kill.

The title above is a take on a quote by Woody Allen, “Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.” I am in a funk now, the Mann v Steyn et al court case in DC being decided in the defendants’ favor, but the jury inexplicably awarding punitive damages to Michael Mann in the amount of $1 million against Mark Steyn.

I might write more later, maybe not, as this is such a stain on jurisprudence. But then, what did I expect? I’ve been personally involved with the court system, and found as the scions of justice imprisoned an innocent man for fifteen years and then allowed a guilty man to go free that there is no justice, and that we should not expect it.

Michael Mann is a xxxxxxxxxx human being. He is xxxxx, xxxxxxx, and xxxxx. He is said to be a crack scientist, but I’ve seen no reason to think that. I have to believe he is 1) a hired gun, and 2) a xxxxxxxxx. Who better to attack and defame honest and courageous people than such a man as Mann?

Continue reading “Not only is there no God, but try getting justice from our justice system” →

We’ve been traveling and are currently staying in Fort Myers, Florida. Twice is not a trend, probably just coincidence, but last time here a few years ago, I came down with sniffles and sneezes and a hacking cough. That last time it happened, I returned home to Colorado thinking I would have a week to ten days to recover from a cold, which was all I thought of it. I was very surprised to completely recover in one-half day, including the plane trip.

This time I have been trying to come up with alternative explanations. One was sand flies. We were in Grand Turk, and the front of my legs is covered with bites. I don’t spend time on the beach, only pass through it on my way to the water, so I wondered where they got me. Turns out it was the open-air restaurant where we ate… I wore shorts the entire time, and that explains why they only got the front of my legs.

I looked up toxic effects of sand fly bites, and there are really none beyond itching and red pustules. So my Fort Myers effect must be something else.

The other morning as we got in our car, there was a mosquito inside, and we swooped it out.  Then I realized something: We are in lush green area with lots of water around, and there are no bugs!  Our aunt says they spray regularly, and every restaurant, park, beach and business that entertains people outdoors sprays for bugs. Early explorers here must have had to cover up despite the heat to avoid being eaten alive.

Here’s my guess: I am having an allergic reaction to chemicals used to control bugs. Our aunt says our cousin, who comes down often from Connecticut, has the same reaction. Home in Colorado, at 7,800 feet, we have few bugs,  naturally, and no agriculture around us with fertilizers and pesticides and the like. So we live relatively pure lives, and some of us are affected when we travel to places that depend on tourism and so treat pests.

The people who live here have adapted, I would say.

By: Steve Kelly (former writer for POM)

60 million wild, migratory buffalo once wandered freely across the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

Many are unfamiliar with the immense collective violence visited upon wild buffalo under the doctrine of Christian discovery and Manifest Destiny, as first imagined and articulated by Pope Alexander VI in his papal bull (Inter Caetera) of 1493 to the ‘royal’ Christian ruling families of Portugal and Spain.

Continue reading “Buffalo genocide (or how history rhymes its repetitions)” →

I walked away from this blog in a state of (kind of) malaise, feeling repetitive and no new ideas coming to me. A  good thing came of that state of mind … I have no need to write on a regular basis. If it happens, it happens. But I am not done.

So it happened that this last week a man got in touch with me concerning my work on Columbine. He wanted to get to know me and offer up his own ideas on the subject. He said that most sources had dried up and that mine was one of the few remaining.

We had an exchange, which I enjoyed. I began to realize about this man, who will remain anonymous, had the very thing I had been lacking … psychic energy. I don’t need to prod him or pull him along. He’s on his own and will figure things out, and even set me straight.

One thing that needs to be understood came from another source, anonymous, and some months ago, that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were real people who really attended Columbine. In my work, they became literary devices, which is why Michael Moore in his movie Bowling for Columbine had to place them in a bowling class at 6AM. He hired two actresses to claim that they had taken that same class with the boys.

There is a key to this riddle, and I will write about it in the not-too-distant future. For right now, I have recovered from some medical issues that were nagging, inability to walk properly for nearly a year but one of them. It is all behind me now, and I have noticed a return of something that was lacking … psychic energy. Also, physical strength. New adventures await my spouse and I.

_____________________

“Maisie Dobbs” ** and her co-conspirator Billy Beale are on a case, she a private detective, he her companion/employee. She has discovered a placed called “retreat” where veterans of the Great War have taken up residence, some disappearing. All of them, taking up residence, turn over their accounts to the owner, who uses the proceeds to pay bills. Upon leaving, what is left is returned to them. Maisie is suspicious of foul play, and enlists Billy to take up residence and observe. Prior to doing so, he wants a means of communication that will rouse no suspicions. Billy lays down wires to tap into the main house to be able to contact Maisie while out late in the day walking the grounds, as wounded veterans are apt to do.

“Nicely done, and quick too. Managed to save meself some work by using the bottom wire of this ‘ere fence.” Billy pulled back the grass to point to the wire in question. “I hear that’s what they’ve done  over there in America, y’know – used the fences on farms to make connections between places, like.” Billy pushed back his cap and wiped the bottom of his hand across his forehead. “Stroke of luck it bein’ there – the telephone – see more of them in the towns, don’t you? S’pose it’s used by them what live in the terraced cottages in the ‘amlet. I tell you, no one will see that line, mark my words.”

Maisie and Billy will go on to solve the mystery. Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisey Dobbs detective series, will go on to write twenty or more sequels. My wife introduced me to her and I’ve a pile of delightful reading ahead of me.

_____________________

That passage, which occurs late in the book Maisie Dobbs, reminded me of another book I read long ago called Bad Land: An American Romance, by Jonathon Raban. My late Aunt Dorothy had given the book to my late mother, who gave it to my brother, who offered it to me. Later, thinking she would be interested, I offered the book to Dorothy. I did not know she had originally owned the book and started the circle.

My mother was born in Wisconsin, near Sheboygan, and was the oldest of seven sisters, Dorothy one of them. Some time in the late 1920s, their farm house caught on fire, and Mom ran to the nearest neighbor for help. Running back she came upon her parents and six sisters alive and well, and a house that had been reduced to cinders.

Grandpa George had a brother, my Uncle Mike, who was a dry land farmer near Ekalaka, Montana. George got in touch with Mike and asked if he could come and work for him in his time of need. Mike agreed. George did not tell Mike that he was bringing his wife and seven daughters. Such conniving, but he had no choice, mouths to feed. I asked Mom if there was any insurance on the house. “Wasn’t done back then” was her answer.

I interviewed my mother for posterity years ago, and learned two things about that time: When my Grandma Marie got off the train in Baker, Montana, she looked about and said “This is it?” It was late August, and the Eastern Montana prairie was brown and parched, unlike lush green Wisconsin. The other was my Uncle Mike, whom she said was always angry. She said reflectively that she would have been angry too if a family of nine moved into her homestead, which was a three-room shack with an outdoor privy.

George would eventually find another home, which is pictured to the right here. It looks oddly like the cover photo of Raban’s book. My copy of the book remained with Dorothy after her death, and so I have sent away for another. In the meantime, I am reminded of a passage in Bad Land wherein the saying used among the farmers of that time was “Good neighbors close gates.”

The passage talked about how the fences out on the prairie were used to conduct telephone signals, and that if someone forgot to close a gate, the signal went down. It brought me full circle to Billy Beale in the Maisey Dobbs book.

I gave the interviews of Mom and Dad to my brother Steve, who actually took time to sit back and listen to the hours of recordings done on a cassette tape with lots of background noise. His reaction … “What struck me was the poverty of these people in those times.” My dad lived in very similar circumstances Great Falls, Montana. Fate brought them together, as she for a brief time attended Normal School in Billings while he apprenticed there in the sign business. They married on May 18, 1940, and forty years later (to the day) we would celebrate their anniversary while Mt. St. Helen’s erupted. Who else gets a volcano to go off to take note a wedding day? It beats a cake with candles.

Dad was drafted into the military and sent to the South Pacific to serve. Mom took my older two brothers back to Baker to stay with her parents. To the left here is a photo of my older brothers on what is surely Saturday afternoon, getting cleaned up for church the following day. Notice how the photo is rated G. In those days when film was precious, someone took great care to make it so.

When we cleaned out Mom and Dad’s home in Billings after moving them to assisted living, I uncovered a box of photo negatives, large three-by-three scratched up pieces of plastic. I have cousin who earned a photography degree at Montana State University in Bozeman. I asked her if she would clean up the negatives and digitalize them. She did a wonderful job, which is why I have photos of the Baker era.

I knew somewhere was a photo of Mom and Dad, he in uniform, during the Baker/war days. I did not have a copy, but my cousin here in Denver recently sent me 180 photos of the general past, all of great interest. Included was that missing photo. I am complete now, seeing them at the Baker property while he was on leave.

Quite a journey this is, from some guy curious about Columbine to the Baker days to retrieving a long-missing photo of Mom and Dad. I feel whole this morning.

One more thing about Bad Land, which I will write more about later. There is a town out on the prairie of Eastern Montana called Ismay. Sometime in the 1990s someone in that town had a bright idea to temporarily change the name to “Joe, Montana.” The idea was to entice the retired quarterback to come to his namesake and lead the Fourth of July parade. It did not work. After all, it was hard to get someone to leave San Francisco, to get off a plane in parched and dry Eastern Montana, and exclaim “This is it?”

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** On re-reading this piece I came upon the two asterisks I had placed next to the name of the book, Maisie Dobbs**, and wondered why the hell I had done that. Rather than remove them, I thought ” It’ll come to me”, and it just did. I thought the book could be made into a great screenplay, maybe even one of those ten-part series that are so popular these days. I searched for Maisie Dobbs at IMDB, and nothing has been done. I then went on to learn that the movie rights to the book are owned by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. I trust that something good will come of that and that this excellent work of fiction will hit our Samsungs in the not-too-distant future.

Ab at Fakeologist reached out to me for an interview upon reading that I was leaving the building. What we did was great fun, a load of pop culture and jibber jabber, neither of us full of ourselves. POM has been fun over the years, but when out of ideas it is time t0 strap up laces and grab the cane and limp off.

Continue reading “Exit interview” →

This blog started in 2006, my son Steve and I got it going while I lived in Bozeman, Montana. Steve dropped out not too long after that, unable to write day in and day out … unlike me. I was charged, never short of ideas, and in the early days wrote about other Montana blogs. There were quite a few of them, and then slowly they began to drop off, one by one, until today there are only two, Travis Mateer’s ZoomChron, and my own.

Continue reading “The end of the line” →

Demystifying Science: I stumbled upon what I consider a treasure trove of videos at the site linked to the left and also in the blogroll. The very first one that caught my eye was this one,  A Billion Years is Missing, featured above. I once read the works of Immanuel Velikovsky, who claimed that Earth had once had a near encounter with part of Jupiter that had broken away and eventually became the planet Venus. Poor Immanuel was loudly and publicly criticized and humiliated. He never backed down, although his daughter reported that he was almost suicidal for a time.

Continue reading “Sunday notes” →

I listen more than I should to Conan O’Brien, whose father once said to him after he had attained great success as a talk show host that the success was based on a condition that might otherwise be “treatable.” His dad, a microbiologist, wasn’t joking. Conan says that in any other era, he would lack the basic talents necessary to live well and prosper. He would be doing grunt labor in fields or factories, and annoying everyone around with his humor. His would be a difficult and short life.

I’ve not been posting much here, and in part it is because I have removed the one topic that I write so easily about, climate change. Indeed I had gotten highly repetitive, and I could put up a climate piece with one hand tied behind my back. Conan has been asked about the current cancel culture and how humor has to be so carefully structured so as not to bring down the wrath of the embedded liberal censors all around us. He says that is a good thing, maybe somewhat overdue, as once upon a time it was too easy to make fun of gays, cross-dressers, trannies and the like.

Continue reading “Hiatus? Nah …” →