Michael Stuart Kelly

The supermarket getting funds from people on welfare is a clever metaphor. The one that comes to my mind for Barney, however, is "welfare queen." Michael

Ivanka bought a new dog. It's white. The left is going apeshit saying this is proof of her racism. This is a humor thread, so as a joke, that's pretty lame. However, it's true. And that's what makes it funny. Michael

Ellen, I hope you are not including me among Barney's supporters. I only ask because there are no Barney supporters posting on this thread so far. Michael

Brant, It worked that way for a while, but those days are long gone. Now it's just true believer stuff with all money flowing to the top and emphasis on rich and celebrity members, or partnering with well-controlled groups and their leaders like The Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan. Michael

Mark, You would do well to learn more about how Scientology works on the mind. Read the books by people who worked their way out of it. There are quite a few now. (Online, watch some videos by Tory MaGoo. Dig into Arnie Lerma's stuff--it's all online, his comments on the TR's are exceptionally enlightening. Jon Atack's book A Piece of the Blue Sky is one of the better descriptions of how Scientology systems and procedures work. Maybe look into Scientology and psychotic breaks. Just this alone will provide you with a solid background about how Scientology warps the minds of intelligent people. After that, then look into the more modern exposés by Janet Reitman, Lawrence Wright, the Tony Ortega stuff, books by some Miscavige family members, Leah Remini's stuff, and a whole host of others (I happen to like Jesse Prince for a rather colorful and thuggish insider view ). Your characterization of Barney is as if he could become immune to the programming while he was right in the middle of it and turn into a normal conman. (Oddly enough, that would make him some kind of superman and superman he is not.) Going by what most people who have been there write and say, that's just not the way it works. I'm not bringing this up because I want to disprove anything you are writing. I think you are doing excellent work, but misidentifying something fundamental. And when one misidentifies something, one cannot judge it correctly. I'm on board with condemning Barney. But, to be effective and long term, it must be against something real, not a caricature. (And, believe me, I don't think Barney--or anyone else in the cult--was "a naive innocent," to use your dismissive term.) You are very good at the legal and business side and following rabbit holes to uncover things others prefer to keep hidden. On the human nature side, I think your contempt for ARI and Barney are making you dismiss large parts of human nature and attribute motives to them--generally greed only--that are vastly oversimplified. In case you think I'm making excuses for Barney, I'm not. The issue is darker and deeper than simple greed, although greed is part of it, too. Anyway, I've given you a glimpse. You decide whether to pursue it or not. I don't want to get in an argument over this nor write a lot of explanations about it since others have written about Scientology's impact on the human mind better than I can, that is, from an insider perspective I will never have. So make of my observations what you will. Michael

I forgot to announce his departure. Late, but not forgotten... Michael

I love this guy, President Trump's favorite meme-maker. We need to get a petition going or something to keep him from shutting down. They left is doxing him and his family. Michael

Titania McGrath is a parody account (and sometimes he/she's funny as hell), but there's nothing funny about the tweet below. I couldn't get past 20 seconds of this video with Marianne Williamson, but her star is rising among the Dems. She probably won't get to the nomination, but I bet she becomes a power broker behind the scenes. Rand called this crap she just did "sanction of the victim." In this case, the person assuming unearned guilt and apologizing for wrongdoing he and she did not commit is the real victim. Marianne-baby is serving up their souls for racist barbecue and making them say they are glad to be cooked... Michael

Mark, Very good article. I have one disagreement, but I'm not so sure it can be called that because there is no way to verify it. You said something to the effect that people at the top of Scientology (including Barney) are in on the scam. In my own research into cults and my own introspection, I don't believe this is true for all high-level people in cults, not even for the majority. Based on what I have seen so far, only a minority see it for the scam it is. The others truly believe they are doing the Good Work, even if they make money at it. (Their primary stakes are their "Immortal Souls.") So I think it is entirely plausible that Barney was a con outside the cult, meaning he was aware of the student-loan-backed-by-government scam, but, as to the religion and mind-control on the inside, he sounds to me like he was a true believer, even during the years he had Scientology franchises. Those TR's (Training Routines) are brutal, not to mention the audits. He was not immune from going through them, nor from doing penance and suffering punishments for screwing up or sporadically falling out of favor. In the history of Scientology, most all franchises (or missions or whatever one wants to call them) were simply confiscated in 1982--and confiscated is the correct word after all the verbiage is boiled down to the essentials. Hubbard at that time had only four years left to live, so I think he was already starting to go ga-ga from drugs (according to different bios, he took quite a few as he grew older and ended in a terrible mental state right before he died). I don't know what his fight with Barney was over before he threw Barney out of Scientology, you probably know more about that than I do, but it's easy to infer that Hubbard saw how easy it was to simply confiscate franchises after he put Barney's in receivership in 1979. (Notice that just a little while later, in 1982, after perfecting his own scheme and process, which is a hallmark of Hubbard's way of doing things, he confiscated everyone's.) I think only a true believer--meaning Barney--would have allowed that 1979 confiscation to happen. (Was Barney ever in the Sea Org?) It didn't do him any good, either, because he still got declared a Supressive Person (damned and kicked out). If he had not been a true believer, I think he would have fought it a lot harder, or at least fought for a large settlement, created a scandal or something. Other than that difference in perspective, I repeat, you wrote a very good article. Now I'm just musing, but it's hard for me to speculate about Barney's later motivation with Objectivism without including the true believer type of mind. I lean toward thinking he has just as much true believer in him as insider con (essentially using government handouts at a distance--the student loan racket--as his business model). In other words, I bet he venerates Rand in a general, but still true believer way, while understanding Objectivism about as thoroughly as a Sunday-only Protestant understands Christianity. I might be wrong, but that's my impression so far. Michael

Here's a grassroots campaign the Dems are organizing to take out Trump. Michael

Something a Little Different from Canada Here's something a little different, well... maybe a lot different. Trans Activist Sues Brazilian Wax Business after Owner Refused to Shave Her Balls Sorry folks, I tried, but I just couldn't resist this one. LOL... From the article: And if you think this might be fake news, here's the original story at the National Post: Accusations fly at human rights hearing into transgender woman's Brazilian wax complaint. I'm trying to find something funny to say about wedding cakes, but this one takes the cake right out of it. LOL... Michael

So long as the tech giants and mainstream fake news (and even the government) are assaulting all criticism of vaccines as aggressively as they are, I think it behooves independent site owners to keep the criticism alive and support alt tech when it does so. I can hear the mockery now, but if this kind of information is so laughable, why is there so much money and effort going into to squashing it? Powerful deep-pocketed people don't throw their money away on trifles. So, to me, this is an indication that they are afraid for their power and their ability to carry out their plans. To the reader, if you are not aware of what is happening, Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc., have put into place mechanisms to throttle and ban all discussions by anti-vaxxers (their term). And this, in addition to what they have already done over the years like the weird vaccine court. What they recently did to Brighteon and Mike Adams is worse than what they did to Alex Jones and Infowars. I'm not on board with all of what Mike Adams said in the video since he intermingles fact with speculation, but goddammit, he has a right to say it. Besides, after seeing the way people have been experimented on over the decades without their knowledge or consent by all kinds of government agencies and NGO's, etc., the world over, his speculations are plausible. Mike mentioned mosquitoes as possibly being weaponized as carriers of toxins. The government has already done something similar with ticks and Lyme disease. At least, the indications are clear enough for the House to make an inquiry to the Pentagon for information about it. The following video is not hosted at Brighteon yet (it's on YouTube and BitChute, but I'm going to give the BitChute link since nobody knows how long the YouTube video will last). I think this topic is relevant in parallel to what Mike is talking about. The video below is by the Corbett Report. Here are the sources for the video: Michael

The headline says it: Judge denies Jeffrey Epstein bail in child sex trafficking case, citing ‘danger’ to public Michael

Let me give a conceptual referent to what I am talking about. Here's what happened to a heckler at last night's Trump rally. (And notice that there were no masked goons with baseball bats like the Dems use. Instead there was a big honking "Keep America Great" sign. ) I don't see anything comparable coming from the Dems at this point and I can't imagine anything comparable with the current slate of candidates. Maybe things will change enthusiasm-wise, but I don't see how just yet. Michael

Ellen, btw - Axelrod, the guy who elected Obama, is much more worried about Trump being reelected than you are about him not. He sees what I see, except with a Dem accent. He didn't talk about it all, just a small slice, but this guy is wicked, effective and extremely cunning. (The link leads to a video.) Axelrod: Trump "Forcing" Democrats To Embrace AOC's Squad, Accept They Run The Party Trump is forcing Dems to think this way or that? Trump has the power to force Dems into opinions? Right after a "muh racism" Dem stampede? That's quite an admission for a Dem Svengali-of-the-Public to make in public. Michael

Ellen, That is wise. Maybe I'm going a bit overboard, but I'll feel more anxious when I see signs of something to feel anxious about. Oddly enough, I felt anxious about AOC for a while because she had, or was being coached by someone with, President Trump's savvy about keeping the spotlight on him. (Granted, she can't run due to age, but she could be a powerful constant sidekick to the person who does run.) But she fizzled when her sheer incompetence at basic administrative and political facts became part of her image. (Look at her current polling numbers.) As the adage goes, sell with emotion and justify with reason. Well... AOC sells well with emotion, but she turns too many off when she gets to the reason part to be a threat to Trump. Also, I favor saying she is coached more than talented (although, as time goes on and as she learns, I do see signs of some talent emerging). But someone who is constantly and heavily coached in what to say and how to present herself does not stand a chance against someone who is fast on their feet when improvisation is needed. Look at what Trump did to Megyn Kelly, for example. Right at the outset ("Only Rosie O'Donnell...") shows what being fast on his feet with improvisation means. Then he went in for the bloodbath ("blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her whatever...") . Everything that unfolded in public after that showed how ineffective Megyn Kelly was as Trump's support grew. When she cut her hair short as a ploy to look stronger, he had her on the ropes and she never recovered. As to people who hate Trump? I'm not worried about what they think since nothing will convince them. But swing voters, which is where the election will be decided if it is close (and you know what I think of that prospect ), will need a lot more than "Orange Man Bad" and socialism with self-righteous class victims to stop looking at the way the economy is booming and decide to roll the dice on someone else, not to mention so many other issues where Trump's results are shining. Here is an indication that would make me worry. Did you catch any part of Trump's rally last night? I know that the conventional wisdom from political insiders says that crowd size does not matter in elections, but I believe that constant crowd size does. If Trump's crowd sizes ever start falling off, then I will get worried. So long as they are the sizes they keep being, and the Dems aren't able to come close except for a sporadic thing here and there, I don't think Trump will have any trouble. The only reason he lost the House in the midterms is that a slew of Republican House members retired and many Trump voters stayed home. I don't believe they will stay home this go around for the simple fact that Trump is on the ballot. But after he lathers them up in the heat of the election, I'm not worried about Trump haters inspiring enthusiasm anywhere close for turnout. I agree with you that powerful interests are against Trump, but I don't fear them in terms of the electorate. But there is an area where I do worry about them. I worry they will find a way to hack and falsify the voting results or assassinate Trump or something like that. These folks are very good at cheating. But with the scandals that will involve many of them that will soon erupt now that the silly "muh Russians" thing has been killed, I think the nastiness of their cheating heart bite will take a serious hit. So... I feel good about Trump's prospects for reelection, at least so far. I'm not crowing victory in general because someone could still come out of nowhere the way Obama did, but if the ticket is Harris and Pocahontas, I just don't see much of a threat. If the Dems want a woman with a chance to beat Trump, they need to come up with a liberal version of Margaret Thatcher or something like that, in other words, someone who inspires the poetic side of the human heart in addition to showing strong leadership. Can Harris turn into a liberal version of that? I doubt it. She's boring and arrogant. And I just don't see those qualities in the other women who are in the Dem public eye right now. Dem men ditto, except maybe Biden due to his eight years as VP, but he's compromised by needing to carry Obama's legacy--both on legit issues and those that are soon exploding--and he's older than Trump and showing it. I don't want to make light of your fears, but the way I feel right now, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Michael

Shit, meet fan: Over 2,000 Files in Jeffrey Epstein Case to be Released Within a Few Days Imagine the fun just about ready to happen. Michael

Pelosi has not been having a good week, but she finally caught a breather also gets to tell Al Green to shut the hell up for awhile. Let the President himself give the news. That's right. The vote was 332 to 95 with one abstaining (I think abstaining is correct--I tried to look it up to be precise, but I can't seem to find the information quickly--search engines and the news media for simple information like this suck these days). btw - All Republicans voted against the bill and 137 Democrats joined them. Michael

Ellen, Did you see what President Trump just did to Nancy Pelosi? I feel sorry for her. (Nah... I don't really. ) Think of this. Trump detected a schism happening in the Democratic Party, a schism so acute that the four Congresswomen who checked all the progressive boxes of what progressive utopian women should be, were accusing Pelosi and Biden themselves of racism. So with a simple tweet, he unified the Dems against him to not only call him a racist, but pass a resolution in the House to condemn him as a racist. Except there were some outcomes not exactly expected or intended by the Dems. 1. Yesterday, the House looked more like an episode of Romper Room than a chamber of Congress. Pelosi definitely did not look like a strong leader. Instead, she looked inept, emotionally discombobulated and not concerned with law or decorum. 2. By knowing exactly when and where to make a small incision with the persuasion knife, President Trump got her to cause the entire Democratic wing of the House of Representatives look exactly like she was, inept, emotionally discombobulated and not concerned with law or decorum. Like the cliché goes, they became the gang that couldn't shoot straight. They got the job done, but in a Three Stooges kind of way while the whole world was watching. btw - As gravy, didn't the House recently and formally condemn anti-Semitism in a resolution based on bigoted comments by Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar? They didn't mention her by name, but they did the resolution with her in mind. And what happened? A big fat nada, that's what. She kept up her anti-Semitism as if nothing happened. That shows what this resolution thing means in legal terms. Besides, does anybody even remember it? 3. The House Dems are now on record, with the unintended public image of trying to enact "President Trump is a racist" into law. And, by extension, many Trump supporters will see this as trying to enact "President Trump's supporters are racists" into law. Imagine what Pelosi will have to do to get the taint of this off her seriousness quotient. 4. Pelosi knows that swing voters can't stand "The Squad" (the four young Congresswomen who hate America) based on recent polling, but she was thrown into a situation where she had to embrace and defend them, thus defend the very qualities that make swing voters detest them. 5. Pelosi now has to figure out what to do about the thirst for impeachment among many of the House Democrats, knowing full well that impeachment, if presented and passed, will almost guarantee a Trump reelection by a landslide and probably guarantee transfer of the House majority to the Republicans--with a wide majority at that. 6. Pelosi has to know that President Trump practically canceled asylum requests from people from Central America and wanted to rant and rail against it as a new crusade, but instead, she has to try to save her own reputation about "muh racists." Notice that one tweet by Trump would have been enough for a shitstorm, but Trump kept hammering the point--in several tweets over several days--that these young Democrats--who should leave America if they hate it so much--now own the Democratic Party. And the press kept up (and still keeps up) the outrage shitstorm that Trump is a racist. Nobody is talking about the policy restrictions in asylum petitions as the policy is being put into place. 7. Calling someone a racist has been the most effective Dem weapon in the Dem arsenal over the last few decades, but President Trump detected the moment to strike. He steamrolled the press into hollering about "muh racism" so much that he practically took the weapon right out of Pelosi's hand at the very moment she mobilized the House Dems to vote on a "muh racism" reprimand. She looked like a comedy show doing it and even got reprimanded herself. (Imagine Trump watching this and laughing his ass off. ) The fact is, racism accusation fatigue has set in with the mainstream public, even those who are not political. People are sick of it. But Trump has engineered another four days or more (probably more) of nonstop "muh racism" outrage in the press. (The poor things can't help themselves. ) This is turning off the public big-time. 8. Like some commentators have asked, where are the polls on Trump's tweets? Or on the House reprimand? Normally there would be polls all over the place with scores of talking head panels on news shows tut-tut-tutting about "muh racism" and now Trump has gone too far, just look at the polling, yada yada yada. But there's a big fat silence from the fake news media about polling this. That's because, at least in a Rasmussen poll, Trump's approval has grown since his tweets, not diminished. And this makes Pelosi's grandstand in the House look like something an amateur would do. And Pelosi is anything but an amateur. But she sure looked like a high-school student in that case. I could go on because, believe it or not, the ripples from this thing haven't stopped, but it's even clear to lefties that President Trump punked Pelosi and her influence with the public big-time. (There are now some mainstream leftie articles out there saying things to this effect.) So imagine what President Trump will do to a Harris and Pocahontas ticket when the spotlight of the entire world is on them and the outraged reactions to what he will do and say about them, including their own emotional discombobulations--and the mainstream fake news media yacking about it nonstop--over months and months of the election. The principle is, when people on the same side express outrage and get results, then the results dry up, they get super-frustrated and start getting outraged at each other. Outrage that causes results is a craving hard for an addict to ignore once the beast is let out into the open. So the Dems, frustrated at not being able to move any meaningful ratings needle on Trump, will eat each other alive. Then we will get to watch as the Democratic Party melts down into goo. Unless something drastic changes, like Trump getting ill, this election promises to be one of the greats fun-wise for people who savor the taste of broiled schadenfreude. Michael

President Trump is a racist, so says the fake news media and the outrage mob. LOL... Michael

William, Hell, that's easy. I'll see your Stone and raise you a Pelosi. The link goes here: House decides Nancy Pelosi's criticism of Trump violates chamber rules And here I thought she was Speaker of the House with control over her Democrat majority. Michael

Peter, How's this scenario? Hillary Clinton does no debates and does not campaign in the primaries. But the primary candidates are so fractured and weak, and they trash each other so viciously, nobody is a strong winner going into the convention. So with a gaggle of terrified superdelegates and party bosses, they settle on Hillary Clinton in a brokered convention. Michael

Jonathan, Here's a little more relevant information. Even the ruling-class leaning Wikipedia has to admit some things. In my rule of thumb that Wikipedia is ruled by ruling class toadies, and since the following article goes against the ruling class dogma, there is likely magnitudes more information that was omitted or not allowed to be listed (just look at the bias in the title): List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming But wait! There's still some fun to be had! For example, there's this from the World Tribune (a couple of days ago). Galactic cosmic-rays research rains on man-made climate change parade From the article: Here are some more articles (ain't hyperbolic headlines fun? ) covering the same two studies. Man-Made Global Warming Theory Takes Major Hit Scientists Find “Man-made Climate Change Doesn’t Exist In Practice” Finnish Researchers Find ‘Practically No’ Evidence For Man Made Climate Change I have not read the studies mentioned in the article, but, from my limited perspective, this does not look like information put together by kooks, cranks or people who want to destroy the earth. I had to run the two studies down and I found them: Intensified East Asian winter monsoon during the last geomagnetic reversal transition by Yusuke Ueno, Masayuki Hyodo, Tianshui Yang & Shigehiro Katoh Scientific Reports, volume 9, Article number: 9389 (2019) The following is PDF: No Experimental Evidence For The Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change By J. Kauppinen And P. Malmi I don't have any pretty pictures of the globe handy, so I will have to make do with the picture of the Andromeda (M31) Galaxy from the World Tribune article. The caption reads: The Andromeda (M31) Galaxy: ‘When galactic cosmic rays increase, so do low clouds.’ Ain't science funner with pretty pictures? Michael

The following is for the reader, not for Merlin (he's too busy trying to win imaginary competitions to worry about things like this). I was interested in the falsified prediction thing. I had skimmed the passage before and at first blush, nothing in the falsification universe jumped out at me. Although the idea was novel and unexpected, it didn't make any sense to me based on what I had skimmed. So I said I didn't understand it. I just now looked with a critical eye to see what I missed, and I began to wonder why I am wasting time on this. Here is the passage in question (Merlin quoting Gilder): And here is the allegedly falsified prediction spelled out. I learned a long time ago that meanings are to be gleaned from context, not in parsing words in such a manner as to attribute wrong meanings to them or wrong intentions to their authors. In writing, a good indication of context is in what precedes a statement. Here's an example of a wrong meaning attributed to a word, but by mistake and not design. There's a famous story from Ira Gershwin (a lyrics writer and brother of George). He once wrote a song that included the the line, "I have loved you for years." During a rehearsal for a musical that featured this song, the singer stopped and asked why she loved the dude four years and not for five years or three years or any other number. The reason this is funny is not just the pun. It's because this is a love song dealing with a universal emotion, love. That's the context. It's not a song about a calendar or timeline even though it is true that the ear hears "for" as "four" and vice-versa. Now let's look at the passage in question. What does "power" mean in that context? This is the main word since it is the thing being shifted or not. So first question. Power of whom? Gilder himself says: "advertising system." He means, of course, the advertising system on the Internet. (Google did not exist at the time he speculated on how the Internet would impact advertising systems.) Next question. Power to do what? Gilder says: "deliver only the ads the viewer wanted." So Gilder says he thought the power to make that decision and effect it would shift from advertisers to customers and, from the tone (using the structure: back then he thought X, implying that now he thinks Y) , he makes it clear he thinks differently now. Somehow this is supposed to be a falsified prediction because Gilder does not call advertisers customers and damned if I still can't see how falsification even applies. Like I said, it's probably because I'm stupid. Just to be clear, Gilder based his previous speculation by focusing only on elements of the Internet while ignoring critical elements of human nature. And now, decades later, he is writing from a deeper perspective of including those elements, which is why he changed his mind. But that has nothing to do with disproving anything by a falsification procedure to test propositions. Gilder's main epistemological approach is not reductive (or deductive). And falsification is purely a deductive process. Gilder's process is mostly inductive when he speculates on large scale trends. Anyway, I hope you--the reader--get something out of this. Granted, the issue is a bit obscure. I mean, after all, who gives a crap that Gilder used to think one thing and now thinks another? Or that Gilder's meanings are not the ones someone else approves of? Or even, if you use the perspective of most readers where their interest is Ayn Rand, who gives a crap about Gilder? The important idea, at least for me, is how the Internet works and how users are being manipulated by large organizations that use the Internet--specifically, private (or semi-private) organizations that are in bed with the government like Google, Facebook, etc.--who claim they are doing the opposite. From a Randian perspective, the idea is that crony corporatism is bad. In other words, I would like this kind of discussion to lead to thinking about ideas, not about someone constantly and indiscriminately crowing: I win and you lose, bwahahahahaha! And if you--the reader--get no value at all from this, "Tough titty," said the kitty, "But the milk's still fine." Michael

Merlin, Your own words. (sigh...) I tried to discuss the ideas, but you're just too smart for me... My problem is my limited capacity to understand the grandeur of intellectual heights you achieve... Michael