The lead OJ actor has a new gig

I have not paid much attention to the Trump impeachment proceedings, assuming it is all a sideshow complete with clowns and carnival barkers. It could be that something real is in store, as Trump is, like all presidents before, just an actor. In my worst imaginings, he is set up to act as controlled opposition in the Climate Change game and will take all of the remarkable skeptical community down with him.

Climate Change is one of the biggest hoaxes I have seen, and I have lived through McCarthyism, the assassinations of the 1960s, The Cold War, The Missile Crisis, The Iran Hostage event, Jonestown, the Iraq Wars (including the alleged starving of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi kids and old people), the Soviet Collapse, AIDS,  911, the 2000 election, and, oh yeah, I almost forgot, Bill Hicks’ cancer death. Commenters will add to this list no doubt. In the end, we might have 33 or more major hoaxes.

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United Nations & Proper Introductions

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My first two posts have left me feeling like I owe readers a more proper introduction. There have been some side glances perceptible towards me in that my username, Fauxlex, is spooky-sounding (I mean, it does have two X’s). A commenter versed in Latin who may or may not have been Miles Mathis himself called the name into question as meaning “false law” or “false principles”. He was not the only one, and they are correct on the facts. While this was not anything I considered at the time, it is a valid translation of my username. I have to own that. Now, taking a step back from myself, I completely understand why the name might seem nefarious. The real truth is that in college, I spent a month in Manhattan doing a seminar at the United Nations. This was for college credit…a paper had to be written, but ultimately what we got to do was meet with the UN Missions of upwards of 50 countries. You name the country, and good chance I met with them. We got to ask them anything we wanted without restriction, since these were supposed to be well-trained diplomats versed in the art of clever answers. I could tell you all many, many stories from this month. Anyway, during this month, one of my favorite stops was to Chinatown on a quest to buy a fake Rolex. All you really have to do is say the word “watch” while in Chinatown, and you will be approached by a stranger and handed what looks like a Chinese food menu, but is actually a menu of fake watches. You pick one out, various signals are given, money is exchanged, and pretty soon a fake Rolex is yours. This was a lot of fun…I cherish my fake Rolex as being a great memento from this time. Many years ago, when creating a username to comment in a completely unrelated sports blog, I came up with “Fauxlex” (pronounced Fo-lex). It made sense to me because “Faux”-lex rhymes with Ro-lex. Fauxlex, Rauxlex. A fake Rolex is a Fauxlex. This is why I uploaded the photograph as my main avatar…it was taken the day of that purchase in the NYU dorms, where we were staying.

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Baseball’s sign stealing scandal: Bang the can slowly

AstrosI had an interesting conversation with a buddy a couple of days ago as we hiked a Colorado trail. He’s a baseball fan, and so am I, him Cubs, me Reds, and we both agreed that the teams we support were not good enough last year to be part of the sign-stealing scandal. I cannot rule that out, however.

First, a couple of baseline thoughts:

  • Baseball has a very clean image, and to the casual viewer it would appear that games are very hard to fix. Instant replay tends to get every umpire call right. But games are actually easy to fix. Baseball hitters are some of the best athletes in the world, able to hit fastballs traveling nearly 100 mph. Pitchers are only good to the extent that they are able to fool hitters by concealing their pitches. They cannot just overpower them. However, if a batter knows what pitch is coming, the odds are high that he will send that pitch to the cheap seats. That’s really all it takes to fix a game – tipped pitches.
  • We are told that last year that the baseballs used in Major League games were “juiced.” Home runs were up for nearly every team. The aerodynamics behind a juiced baseball were said to be compressed seams that allowed it to go further and faster than in years prior.

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Martha Gellhorn: The Forest Gump of war correspondents

Gellhorn

I have no idea where I am going with this, or if it will see light of day. Enjoy my “process,” such as it is, as I do not outline blog pieces, or even plan them in advance. Yesterday I had no idea that I would be writing about Martha Gellhorn today. I just finished this piece with the words “I get it” way down below. There comes a certain point when writing this stuff that I realize I have reached an appropriate ending.

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Freddy and Co.(Queen)and The Queen

https://www.royalmint.com/our-coins/events/music-legends/queen/

It’s been a while since POM visited the Freddy Mercury/Queen mystery.  There were some comments that wondered if the whole thing wasn’t some “project.”  I don’t know, but I do find it a bit unusual to find this in the 2020 offerings at The Royal Mint.  All those British bands, and this it the only one with its own minted (official) coin.  I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, yet it eludes me.  Might need help with this one.queen_1oz_gold_proof_coin_in_case_left

Supernatural Experiences

magickinesis

 

One thing I noticed in the comments to “Resolving the Tokarski Phenomenon” which interests me is a chain of comments skewing towards the Supernatural. This seems to be par for the course at this blog; it is a frequent occurrence in the comments. Now, as I explained in my first introduction…my mind is coldly, coldly logical, and I recognize this as a bias of mine. It helps to understand your own biases, because there is no getting around a bias unless you first understand that your bias exists. When people respond to my article about genetic engineering with comments about shape-shifters, the brain of “logical me” has learned to immediately disregard these concepts. At least I am able to recognize that I have disregarded something for no definite reason, except for a knee-jerk bias against the Supernatural.

 

This is where I wanted to share my own story involving the Supernatural…

 

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Odds and ends

Just a few matters here, some loose ends to clear up.

A writer using the pseudonym Dagen D. Proveritas submitted an essay at the Miles Mathis site called I’ve Been Considering Matthew Shepard and I Believe His Murder Was Faked. It’s a good piece of work, a bit longish for my taste. Because it is Mathis, Mathew is linked to the actors Sam and Cybill Shepard. On what evidence? The last name. However, there is no mention of anyone being Jewish.

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What Keeps Montana’s Timber Industry Alive: Is it Socialism or Fascism?

Please note facsi on either side of the American flag. Fasci will remain for Trump’s State of the Union address.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an address to Congress on March 3, 2015 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Netanyahu was invited by House Speaker John Boehner to address Congress without informing the White House. AFP PHOTO/MANDEL NGANMANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

In the not so recent past Montana’s private logging contractors and saw-mill owners operated predominantly on privately-owned lands.  The old growth was “high-graded” (stripped off), and much of that land was sold off to the federal government and real estate corporations (REITs).  In other words, after the easy-to-access, high-value old growth on private land was liquidated, the timber industry has been going through a structural transition (merger, acquisition, liquidation) for decades. This is the trend. Mills have closed, workforce numbers declined, and the “timber economy” in Montana and other Northern Rockies states has trended downward, with no end in sight. 

A significant portion of all wood-fiber production has relocated to the Southeastern states for a variety of quite logical, ecological and economic reasons.

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“Normal” in America: Can a Corporation Posing as a Country have a Soul?

“Iran Must Begin Acting Like A Normal Nation,” Says Totally Normal Nation

Webster’s (1828) defines morality:

MORAL’ITY, noun The doctrine or system of moral duties, or the duties of men in their social character; ethics.

The system of morality to be gathered from the writings of ancient sages, falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.

1. The practice of the moral duties; virtue. We often admire the politeness of men whose morality we question.

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