Michael Stuart Kelly

LOL... BREAKING: Trump ends US China trade war; swaps Hong Kong for California in unprecedented deal Man, would that be The Art of the Deal... Michael

Brant, I used to think this way, but now I'm contemplating a new idea. I'm considering the possibility that this oil base of international import and export currency is like the housing subprime mortgage bubble, with sliced-diced derivatives, collapse. That things was a scam, granted, but everything was going fine until the bankers got greedy and actually tried to foreclose on the mortgages (the dogshit) they were using to prop up partytime. Those mortgages could have been bought by very forgiving profiteers of the derivatives explosion without even putting a dent in their profits. They would simply let the people stay in the houses, but take over the loans and payments and structure them for chump change payments for the next 100 years, thus keeping the mortgages as healthy, but noooooooooo... They got greedy and wanted to roast the goose that laid the golden eggs and eat the damn thing. Then they wondered why no more eggs bundled and packaged derivatives. I think if oil falls as the main reason to preserve the dollar for international payments of imports and exports the world over, in the jockeying to fill the breach from major countries that do currency manipulation, particularly China, the whole thing will fall apart in a similar manner and the price of the dollar against other fiat currencies will end up in the toilet, leading said fiat currencies to follow close behind (including China and whoever else is playing). Michael

I am very close to this thinking: Glenn is one of the few people out there who sees Iran through a religious/ideological lens--the kind that motivated the communists and Nazis. Except in the case of Iran, their ideology is tied up with a particular interpretation of Islam. The top people there, the Twelvers, actually do believe they will aid Allah's plan of sending the Twelfth Imam back by setting the world on fire. I think the probability of this being their main motivation is way above 50%. The good news is that the probability that this is a popular position with the Iranian people is way, way, way below 50%. Michael

Brant, I'm not so sure. International payments used to be in British Pound or French Francs. After the Bretton Woods agreement (1944. where the World Bank, IMF, etc., were established), this changed to the American dollar. I always thought this change was due to some kind of treaty or something. But trading US protection of Saudi Arabia for it doing all its foreign oil business in dollars makes a lot of sense. I imagine Saudi Arabia brought all the Sunni Muslim countries with it. And that would be the risk of the dollar. If Saudi Arabia feels betrayed by the US and the other Sunni Islamic countries goes with it, meaning if a new currency starts being used for international agreements, all those dollars the world over will start being sold off and coming back to the US. Then you will see inflation like you have never seen in your life. The US has used its privileged currency position to export inflation for decades and decades (by printing oodles of money to pay some government bills and favor some cronies, then sending the rest abroad. I'm not worried, though. President Trump is a great deal maker. Michael

Saudi Oil, Attacks, Dollars and Iran The recent drone strike on Saudi Oil fields, which is currently blamed on Iran has thrown another monkeywrench in the messes in the world mix. The following recent video by Glenn Beck breaks all this down with a clarity I have not seen anywhere else. I still don't trust Glenn because of the way power went to his head, but he seems to be straightening out a little and, based on this video, I have subscribed to his YouTube channel again. When he is good, he is very, very good, But when he is bad, he is... Er... He sucks the bigass green weenie. Back to point, I believe this Middle East state of affairs has the potential to trigger a major war. We need to keep an eye on it. Michael

I decided to look for the sources and knew I would see something predictable. But it was even worse than I thought. The sources are given in the subheadline: While looking at the article, I typed the word "official" in my brower's page search function and saw the term "official" was used 102 times. That's an amazing amount of times in an article of about 4,400 words or so, seeing that the vast majority of times were used as fact sources or quote sources. Seeing a number and seeing an item by item list give very different impressions. So here's a list of how this word was used. It's not a full list since I skipped some items. But all items below were copy/pasted directly from the article without repeating any item. (This means the beginning two, which are the same, were two different items in the article.) Very few names were given. In fact, the only officials named were Farkas, Rogers, Ruppersberger and Jaffer: These four were used very little as sources, though. Why so many anonymous officials as sources? I guess the idea was to make this article sound... well... official. Oh... incidentally, there were images, too: Wow, a Former Senior Intelligence Officer instead of an official... I guess that makes it official, then... LOL... What a piece of garbage... Michael

Beto, the game: LOL... Michael

This Twitter thread is extremely interesting. Click on the date in the tweet above to see the whole thing, but here is the text: Basically, since the left is losing its influence in the Supreme Court, it is making first efforts to invalidate the institution in order to enable Blue States to ignore Supreme Court rulings. That's why the NYT of all things published this current crap against Kavanaugh. Man, talk about a poorly thrown Hail Mary pass. Half-assed would be an improvement. Get your popcorn, folks. It's going to be quite a show watching the political left get ground into irrelevance (for a while) by the American people. Michael

Jon, A cool million so far. Tim even thinks these souvenirs are going to be reminders for many people to go vote for him at voting time. Michael

This says it all. NYT reporters aren't even pretending they're not hacks anymore. Michael

Jonathan, I looked. Nothing but retweets. Lot's of 'em. (burp...) Michael

They're trying to re-smear Kavanaugh with sex crime allegations. New York Times is doing it at that. Some eminent nobodies who work for the NYT wrote a new book that makes new claims and now the anti-Trumpers, especially the left, want to investigate Kavanaugh all over again and impeach him. I believe all the author nobodies really want to do is cause a splash to sell a few books before the title goes into the bargain bin. I'm not even going to provide links to this trash. When my conspiracy itch acts up, I start thinking this fake news media effort is to get the public warmed up for more of this kind of crap (i.e., habituated again) because President Trump will be replacing a Supreme Court justice before too long (probably RBG) and this level of smearing is exactly what they are going to do to his choice irrespective of who it is. Also, the Crazy Lady's father recently came out in support of Kavanaugh. Maybe this new smear is payback for that. Whatever it is, I hope they keep it up. In the 2020 election, President Trump will not even have to campaign to win by a landslide. They are doing his campaigning for him. Michael

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Also, here's a Spotlight documentary on MK-Ultra and Olson's death. It was made eight years after Olson's remains were exhumed. I'm still watching it, but it's good so far. (Later): Finished the thing. It's good and in line with the book. Oddly enough, Olson worked on stressing others (and killing them) with chemicals (his specialty was aerosol delivery), but the stress of shame led him to mouth off about his unhappiness with the covert CIA work. So the CIA dosed him with LSD without his knowledge, apparently to do an "Artichoke" interrogation on him (meaning, probably to scramble his brain with drugs and see what he talked about under questioning that was made to not look like questioning). After that drug experience, Olson changed and got depressed, but still kept yapping. So he went to NY for a friendly trip with some friendly CIA friends. As the saying goes, three went out and two came back. President Ford, at the advice of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, apologized to his family and the US government gave them money. Michael

Here's a recent radio minterview with Kinzer to get a better gist of the book. It not only deals with drugs and stress, it also deals with James Bond-level poisoning and other goodies. (Gottlieb was like Q, the gadget guy, in Bond stories. Except Gottlieb was real and deadly.) There is a fact Kinzer said in this interview that is not in the book. The same medical examiner who worked on the Epstein "suicided" case also worked on the Frank Olson case (an MK-Ultra insider who was "suicided" out a tenth-floor hotel window in the 1950's). That would be Dr. Michael Baden of JFK assassination (and other celebrity deaths) fame. I tried to corroborate this with a quick search online, but couldn't. Still, I believe Baden was involved in the Olson case in some manner, either back then or more recently when Olson's remains were exhumed. Michael

This is probably a good place to mention a book I just listened to on audio: Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer. This is specifically about the CIA's covert MK-Ultra program. I know enough history to know where Kinzer fudged a bit (like leaving out Lifton's work on the North Korean POW story where there actually was a form of brainwashing that happened, see here, and a few other items), but man has this guy Kinzer researched the Dickens out of this. And even with his slant, he seems to be trying to be fair as much as he can muster. Let's look at what this book means in terms of persuasion. Gottleib's big dream was to create a Manchurian Candidate, that is, erase a person's personality (prompt amnesia) through chemicals and stress, then replace it with a new personality that contained hidden commands that could be triggered at will by a controller. MK-Ultra proved that chemicals and stress could dismantle a personality, but it fizzled on prompting amnesia and fizzled entirely on the second part of implanting a new replacement personality. Nowadays, what remained of this body of research is used by the government in sundry interrogation manuals and by corporations in marketing when stress is a factor. Essentially, stress is used for preparation. It disorients the target and, in excess, make him regress to infantile behavior. Call it a softener-upper before the real work begins. If you want to get really creeped out by true government history, this book is an easy factual read that delivers the creep factor in abundance. btw - For those interested, if you take out a subscription to Scribd (not an affiliate link--and it's about 10 bucks a month), you can not only read a ton of PDF books, you can listen to a ton of audiobooks without extra cost. I listened to the audiobook version of Poisoner in Chief on Scribd. In fact, I have recently listened to a bunch of audiobooks there. Michael

OMG! LOL!... Imagine using this attitude to win votes. Based on this, I see a Trump tidal wave coming, much bigger than before. (Besides, he forgot to call people racist as he stormed off. ) I've got to pay more attention to Brandon. He's become highly entertaining these days. Michael

Ellen, Done. Michael

Nice Brazilian Surprise - Olavo de Carvalho While I was in Brazil, I kept seeing the name Olavo de Carvalho on news articles and around and about. But I never got into him for some reason. In my perception, he was a political and cultural pundit of the mainstream back then. Neither perfume nor stink. But now I see I should have read him. Like David Horowitz, he started out as a Marxist, rejected Marxism and gradually evolved into adopting the conservative-libertarian kind of views I hold (with some differences, as always). He has become one of the intellectual forces behind Presidente Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil's more-or-less equivalent to President Trump). What's more, he now lives in Richmond, Virginia. Just recently, Dr. Steve Turley interviewed him. This is a very interesting conversation and is more about philosophy than Brazil, especially about the nature of modern philosophy. There's some focus on the Frankfurt school, which I remember was a big thing in Brazil among the intelligentsia. But speaking of that, there is one comment Carvalho made about communism in Brazil that I witnessed. He said communism (in academia) was not preached so much as protected. Nobody really read the books or understood it in depth, but it was a no-no to bash it. This is 100% in line with what I experienced. Even with the famous leftie singer (Geraldo Vandré) I once produced. If you are interested in a clear but different discussion of philosophy that is quite compatible with most Objectivist ideas, watch these videos and enjoy. I certainly did. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. I'm going to get some of his books, but unfortunately, they are mostly in Portuguese. I kinda like the title of one (translated): The Collective Imbecile. You can read a translated excerpt on his site: An essay from The Collective Imbecile. It starts out discussing intellectual things in Brazil, but as it goes on, I swear I see modern academia in the US in it, especially the social and fine arts humanities departments. Here is an excerpt. He is discussing the similarities in ideas between two intellectuals who are influential in Brazilian academia. See if this doesn't describe modern American higher education in the social sciences and humanities, from which springs BLM, MeToo, diversity qua diversity, multiple gender movements and all the rest. Michael

Ellen, I'm not going to judge William's scientific competence because of the enormous amount of minutia that kind of discussion devolves into, but what you call environmentalist religionism is not what I mean when I say he is faith-based. I certainly don't see William as Gaia-oriented. (Besides, I consider the Polar Bear and Whale people to be useful idiots of the environmentalist movement, which I consider Marxist at root.) However, the image of William dressed like a hippy-Indian, chanting mantras, burning incense and hugging a tree while standing barefoot in a poison ivy patch is somehow cute... I'm thinking something more along the lines of how Richard Dawkins wages his Crusade against Religion as the root of all evil in the name of Science. In other words, Scientism. Technocratic morality, so to speak. God is Science, the Devil is Religion, and Technocrats are the only ones fit to rule over mankind--as High Priests at that. I agree William's no scientist, he's a foot soldier, but his approach is like the negativism preached by the Frankfurt school and postmodernism. It's to tear down (deconstruct) by messing with patterns and a mishmash of minutia, not build up. And he does it with the certainty of universal applicability only faith can provide. Details to these types of people are not important. Besides, why bother with them when copy/paste data dumps or RSS feeds nobody is going to read work perfectly at times for the gradual erosion of public confidence in targets? William is not doing science qua science. He is doing science as audience perception. When he presents science, think Postmodern Scientism Sermon and you will come close to how I see him. Michael

According to to the disgruntled Tweet poster, the following Saturday Night Live sketch came out one year and one day before President Trump was elected. And, man, does it piss off the anti-Trumpers. Here's the rest, and for added humor, Trump haters didn't believe it was a real SNL sketch. Finally, something Trump from SNL that has a little humor to it. LOL... Michael

I haven't kept this thread going much, but the WalkAway movement is stronger than ever. Brandon Straka has already become a celebrity. And you know you're making a real difference when your opposition imitates you. I swear, I keep going back and forth on whether this lady just did a parody or not. She sure likes her some free money, though. Michael

Good article. Effective. Drip... drip... drip... It occurs to me there is an interesting timeline coincidence. Barney was commercially involved in Scientology roughly from 1969 to 1979. Did I get that right? Messing around with franchises would not have put Barney on the inside with the Scientology elite corps (the Sea Organization), but there was one organization under the Sea Org that did a lot of crossover activity, especially regarding law, spycraft (that's not a mistake), intimidation and enforcement, financial investigations, and so on: The Guardian's Office (later called The Office of Special Affairs--OSA). Two of the more notorious Guardian's Office scandals that blew up big time were Operation Snow White and Operation Freakout. (Forgive me for using Wikipedia links. They are easier than combing through the tons of stuff in my own library and all over the place on the Internet. Consider them an introduction and overview only.) Both projects blew sky high around the time Barney left Scientology. Snow White almost destroyed the Church entirely. Briefly, the Church of Scientology, through the Guardian's office, ran the largest covert surveillance operation ever staged against the US government (about 136 departments, agencies and consulates, etc.). It focused a large part of this effort against the IRS. Hubbard's own wife Mary Sue Hubbard (and others involved in Snow White) received a jail sentence in 1979. That's when Barney left Scientology, isn't it? Operation Freakout had less impact, but it involved the FBI, was a criminal conspiracy and all the good stuff one can imagine. Briefly. Paulette Cooper wrote the first exposé of Scientology in 1971 called The Scandal of Scientology. The Church was not amused. So it infiltrated her life and tried to induce her to commit suicide, or at least, be committed to a mental institution. Parallel to this, it forged evidence that prompted investigations against her for bomb threats, constantly made anonymous death threats, impersonated her making threats in public against people like President Ford and Henry Kissinger, spread false documents everywhere she was at talking about her carrying venereal disease and other icky things, sued her for millions, and on and on. Tony Ortega recently wrote a book detailing all this called The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper. Operation Freakout was uncovered in 1977 when the FBI raided the Scientology offices about Snow White (and filled up a 16 ton truck with documents). Knowing how the Guardian's Office operated, I think it would have been impossible for Barney not to have been approached to make sure the students in his franchises were not reading her book and things like that. And, to use Biddle's favorite word, we all know higher-ups like to gossip among themselves. They talk to each other. The point is that these covert operations (and there were many more) were carried out during the 10 years or so Barney operated Scientology franchises and when they blew up, he left. Did Barney jump a sinking ship? Did he get turned off or scared by the scandals? Did he get out while the getting was still good enough to cover tracks of any of his own misbehavior? Is it all just a coincidence and a spat with Hubbard? Did he do like Biddle said and get disillusioned with the religiosity of the Church (if he was able to find any)? I don't know and can only speculate. But the Wikipedia articles are full of names of people who were implicated in the scandals and provide links to sites and sources with more. It would be interesting to see if any of these people were associated with Barney before, during and after his own time in the Church. To the interested, the coinciding timeline is just crying out to be looked at. In addition, I have another question. Why is downplaying the Scientology connection important enough for Barney to make a stink about it (through Biddle)? I mean, a simple, "Yeah, I was part of that crap back then and did some stuff I'm not proud of, but I later changed my mind and got out, so who cares?" would be enough to bury the interest of most people. Is it vanity? Or something else? Like the saying goes, the cover-up is usually worse than the crime (or sleaze, if you will ). Michael

Ellen, And that's the way it should be. To me this is independent thinking at its proper and correct. Notice that we are talking to each other, disagreeing and giving our honest reasons and views. We are not using each other as a prop to put on a show for an audience, nor demanding compliance of the other on pain of [fill in the blank]. So I'm fine with our differences in perspective and conclusions about William. But it sure comes with a temptation. Shall I be catty? Shall I? OK, I shall. He's not worth agreeing over, anyway. Michael

Ellen, Maybe there's a little of that. But I have difficulty aligning the idea of cowardice to what I have seen over many moons--William not backing down against very strong hostility, going back to the Perigo days. I don't recall ever seeing him back down out of fear. He may have, but I haven't seen it. On the contrary, I've seen him thrown off sites several times because he didn't back down. (He can be quite a gossip, too. ) From what I have seen, his "slithering" (btw - I really like that description ) is always substance related, not fear related. He postures for audiences--even if the only audience is himself at times, and rarely signals directly to the person or persons he is interacting with, i.e., groveling or whimpering or things like that. Even on the positive side, he doesn't laugh with others, not even when he is amused at the same things and in the same manner they are. William is always on stage and audience-directed. The person he talks to is a prop. So winning and losing arguments is not about fact. It's about perception of hierarchy by the audience. Better to win or tear down with a lie than admit defeat with the truth, or, at least, one has to look like a martyr no matter what the case. Why doesn't he provide the science related stuff (repeatable results, consistent predictions, falsifiability, etc.) Jonathan constantly asks for? Based on your words, you see him cowering because he knows it doesn't exist. I agree he knows it doesn't exist (otherwise, he would have served it up with fine gesture), but I see him fudging to buy time because any day now, just like with the Rapture and the Second Coming, the science will magically spring into existence and his tribe will breathe a big sigh of relief. Until then, he has to keep the faith and gain converts--hopefully enough converts to enact laws that will force everyone to obey... Otherwise, the evil, greedy, and/or blind people like us will destroy the planet for all future generations... The very survival of humanity is at stake, woman! The whole goddam planet! That's what I see--mostly faith of a religious nature, quirky and whatever, but still faith... added to a striking incompetence at getting new converts. Michael