1963 Self-Immolation in Vietnam: Staged?

Our friend Petra Liverani sent this piece to all her blog followers, me included. At POM, it is right up our alley! 1963 was a long, long time ago, but those of us alive at that time (I was 13) were stunned by the image. It is forever embedded in our brains, as was surely the intent of planners of that era, if Petra knows what’s up. 

Petra’s blog is Psyop Detective. It should be on our blogroll here, and will be before the day is done. If you want to review the comments she has drawn on this particular post, go here

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Prompted by the mention of the alleged protest self-immolation by Vietnamese monk, Thích Quảng Đức, in 1963 in the comments on Is It “Inappropriate” To Ask Basic Questions About “Burning Man” Aaron Bushnell? by Celia Farber, I wondered if the 1963 self-immolation might reveal anomalies too.

Sure enough, things don’t add up, just as they don’t with Aaron’s seeming self-immolation. While I must admit that Aaron’s immolation is quite convincing, one oddity I noticed was that after tipping what seemed like petrol over himself, when he put the lighting tool to his garment nothing happened and one must wonder why considering that as soon as he put it to the ground, immediately the flames started up. The fact that he was completely aflame for almost 40 seconds without collapsing also seems very odd – any enlightenment on the trickery welcome. I know there are fireproof suits but as there was no evidence of face-protection and the seeming immolation was so long it seems unlikely the trickery involved a fireproof suit.

See also article indicating that the January 2001 self-immolation by five people in Tiananmen Square was faked.

Continue reading “1963 Self-Immolation in Vietnam: Staged?”

This is not helping

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.

Devil’s Thumb and, also, reflections on the Mann/Steyn verdict

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.

I have so little to add …

This link is to “Jake the Asshole” on YouTube.  Jake did a two+-hour video that was more or less an open mic taking comments from his many followers. I watched maybe thirty minutes of it, enough to conclude that the guy is not only not crazy, but is even smart and funny.  In this video, which is thirteen minutes and fun to watch, at 5:45 he inserts a Three Stooges clip, which is hilarious and completely appropriate.

Continue reading “I have so little to add …”

Not only is there no God, but try getting justice from our justice system

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”

The Wolf of Wall Street

Statistics is a much maligned field. Its practitioners are seen as dull, gray cardboard cutouts. Its methods are tedious and complex. Its results can be stunning. 

I studied the topic in college, but unfortunately was enrapt of a young female during that time, and so had little ability to focus. Much of it went by me, and I felt fortunate to pull a C out of the courses. The young female? If my fellow classmates that I saw at my fiftieth class reunion in 2018 are any hint, she is probably married and as big around as a water tank. Something to do with aging and estrogen, I am told. 

In real life I saw the field applied almost magically with election results and a process called “exit polling.” Many people might note that the entire population of our country can be polled by using a sampling of 3,000 people, maybe even fewer. The quality of results depends on the selection of people to be polled. But when dealing with people who have just now voted, many variables are eliminated. People can lie in polling, over-enthused about their own importance. They might not even vote. Exit polling reduces the field of data to people who have actually voted, and by rigorous questioning, places them in various categories that resemble to electorate as a whole.  

The idea is to construct a microcosm of the larger population in the smaller one, a tiny mirror image. If done correctly, and if bias is eliminated in questioning, the sample can be deadly accurate. In fact, it was often said during the days of exit polls that the results were more accurate than the elections themselves, which can have many mechanical shortcomings. 

But statistics never yield concrete answers. They only state probability – that is, if a poll finds that Elmer Fudd is ahead of Bugs Bunny, it will give a range of probability, as in “Fudd leads Bunny by seven percentage points with a margin of error of one percentage point either way,” or that the lead is 6-8 points. The likelihood that the result will fall within that range is called a “confidence interval,”  and the level of confidence is stated as a standard deviation (don’t go there), usually with a professional poll in the area of 97% or so. So there is a 97% chance that on election day Fudd will beat Bunny by 6-8 points. But suppose Elmer leads by only 1/2 point with a 1 point margin or error. Then the result might fall between Bugs winning by a point or Elmer winning by 1.5%. The results are said to “cross zero”, so no winner is named in the poll. 

Notice that nothing is ever definite with statistics. But it was a rare thing prior to the 2000 election for exit polls to be wrong. What happened in 2000? Bush v Gore, and HAVA, or the Help America Vote Act, which introduced electronic voting throughout the country. Exit polls went south on us, and ceased to be reliable. In fact, in the subsequent years when exit polls were still done, they were massaged afterwards to adjust them to the “actual” vote count. Then they stopped doing them entirely because they were not “reliable.” 

These days I do not trust any election outcome. As our friend Miles Mathis noted recently, popularity polls concerning Joe Biden are fake, and his real level of popularity is probably less than 10%. But no matter, as votes are not counted, and elections are anybody’s guess (Last sentence there is me, not MM.) 

Beneath the fold is an excerpt from a book I read many years ago, The Metaphysical Club: The Story of Ideas in America, by Louis Menand (2001). I was still quite naive when I read it, and was totally taken by it, and still admire the work and its author. It is mostly about four men, Charles Sanders Pierce (pronounced “perz“), Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James and John Dewey. Yesterday I took time to dictate a section of the book about The Witch of Wall Street, Hetty Robinson. It’s a 3,000-word excerpt, I warn you, but for those who dive into it, I assure you it will hold your interest.  Keep in mind that Benjamin and Charles Pierce plied their work before statistics was a formal science taught in colleges, so that their techniques are nothing short of pure and original genius. (If you come upon typos, please let me know in the comments. I used Nuance Dragon to dictate, and then spent as much time fixing typos, but I am sure I missed some.)

[PS: Methodology can be confusing. What the Pierce’s have done is to quantify how unlikely it is that each signature in the (forged) will is exactly like the signature on the original. The extremely high number, one in five to the 30th power, is the result of multiplication of unlikelihoods. For instance, the odds of rolling a one with a die are one in six. The odds of rolling snake-eyes is 1/6 x 1/6, or 1/36. The odds of rolling snake-eyes twice in a row are 1 in 1,296. Etc.]

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Continue reading “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Climate Science on Trial

I am currently listening to a daily podcast called Climate Change on Trial, hosted by two Irish film makers, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. They are covering the defense of the lawsuit filed in 2012 by Michael Mann against pundit Mark Steyn and blogger Rand Simberg. There are ten episodes available so far, and guess who has listened to all of them? I am rapt, even as so far it is been Mann and company making their case and being cross examined. Real fun is in store, more to follow the very first defense witness, prominent statistician, Abraham J. Wyner of the Wharton School.

Climate Change on Trial is all available at Apple Podcasts, and a new episode will be dropped the day after each trial day.

Wyner comes off as a classic nerd who loves his work. Part of his work in statistics is about sports, and I think his podcast, which I have not located yet, draws a large audience because he gets beyond the dull science. Anyway, Wyner testified that Mann’s hockey stick work was “manipulative,” meaning that many outcomes were possible by torturing that data, but that Mann had an apparent predetermined objective, featured prominently by Al Gore and now the cause of trillions of wasted dollars in search of net zero, the hockey stick. Talk about being juiced.

Continue reading “Climate Science on Trial”

NFL: The National Fixedball League

I watched a lot of football these last nine days, and came away with that feeling that outcomes are predetermined.

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But first, Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. I am not buying it. I chose the photo above because something about it says to me that it is lacking electricity. He is about to kiss the bridge of her nose, and she appears to be holding her head in such a way as to avoid making facial contact. They are in public, there’s lots of photos, and in some they are kissing. I could be all wet here, they could be hot and sweaty lovers. But with her showing up at all of his home games, and cameras flipping to her in the booth every time he does something good on the field, there seems to be an element of staging. (Just to stifle rumors otherwise, her long extended wrist and fingers say she is a woman, and not a tranny. She has a male-like face, but no Adam’s Apple.)

Continue reading “NFL: The National Fixedball League”

Viroliegy

Mike Stone runs a website called Viroliegy, and I subscribe to his newsletter. I just added it to the blogroll. I like his work and know that he has a sharp mind, but without tooting my own horn note that everything he has written about in his newsletter has been covered here. I and my commenters and readers are not ahead of him, just with him. For instance, his mother came to the U.S. from abroad, and within three years was dead, according to Stone, killed by doctors. He doesn’t say exactly how she died, but does say that she tested positive for HIV. From his emphasis, it appears that might have been her death sentence – not a virus, but rather, a cure for a supposed virus.

He appears to have believed in the science fraud going on behind AIDS, but came awake at that time. Not woke – awake.

Continue reading “Viroliegy”