The fall of the Guidestones

Ten years ago I wrote a piece here at Skeptophilia about the mysterious Georgia Guidestones, a granite monument that since 1980 has stood on a hill in Elbert County, Georgia.  People have called it "America's Stonehenge," which in my opinion gives it more gravitas than it deserves.  It's got a set of ten inscriptions that seem to fall into two categories: (1) not bad ideas but impossible to achieve (such as "Unite humanity with a living new language") and (2) vague pronouncements that seem to be attempting profundity but don't quite get there (such as "Prize truth -- beauty -- love -- seeking harmony with the infinite"). 

The building of the monument was funded by one "R. C. Christian," almost certainly a pseudonym.  But a pseudonym for whom?  No one knows for sure, but there's some speculation it it's either Ted Turner or a white supremacist doctor from Fort Dodge, Iowa named Herbert Kirsten.  The mystery adds to the site's appeal, and it became quite a tourist attraction, attracting thousands of visitors per year.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Quentin Melson, Georgia Guidestones in Elbert County, GA, CC BY-SA 4.0]

Unfortunately, it also attracted the attention of conspiracy theorists and evangelical wingnuts, who promptly proclaimed it as (respectively) an icon of the Evil New World Order and a manifesto from Satan himself.  Both of these impressions were enhanced by one of the inscriptions, which recommends keeping the human population at five hundred million "in perpetual balance with nature," a move that would probably be highly unpopular with the other seven billion humans on the planet. 

This is how it came to the attention of one Kandiss Taylor, unsuccessful candidate for governor of Georgia, whose motto "Jesus Guns Babies" made her the target of hundreds of posts on social media such as the following:

She was also brutally lampooned by the inimitable John Oliver in one of the funniest segments he's ever done.  You should take seventeen minutes right now to watch this, but do not, I repeat, do not attempt to drink anything while doing so.  You have been warned.

Anyhow, Taylor, who apparently gets most of her exercise doing sit-ups underneath parked cars, said that the Guidestones are satanic in origin, and that if she became governor, her first action would be to have them destroyed.  She received immediate support from loony Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, because of course she did, who said that the Guidestones "revealed a world genocide plot," if you can apply the word "plot" to a message engraved in enormous letters on a giant rock on top of a hill outside of Atlanta.

But all of this is just a lead-up to what happened this week.  On Wednesday, an unknown person blew up one of the Guidestones and did enough damage to the others that they had to be demolished.  A car was captured on surveillance footage leaving the scene right after the bomb went off, but so far, no suspects have been identified.

This, of course, prompted conspiracy types to stop chewing on the straps of their straitjackets long enough to engage in some triumphant, and long-overdue, "I told you so"s.  Kandiss Taylor tweeted, "God is God all by Himself. He can do ANYTHING He wants to do.  That includes striking down Satanic Guidestones."

Apparently, though, sometimes The Almighty needs help from a random wacko with dynamite and some county workers with bulldozers, and "ANYTHING" doesn't include putting Kandiss Taylor in office, given that she lost the Republican gubernatorial primary to Brian Kemp after receiving only 3.4% of the popular vote.  Even with that poor showing, however, Taylor has refused to concede, claiming that she actually won but was cheated out of the election by voter fraud.

Because of course she did.

After reading all this, I've come to the conclusion that one of the two following conclusions has to be true:

1. The aliens who are running the computer simulation we've all been trapped in for the last six years have gotten bored and/or drunk, and now they're just fucking with us.
2. A significant percentage of Americans are absolutely batshit insane.

What's most striking about the Guidestones, though, is that things in this country are crazy enough that a story which can be summarized as "Unknown bomber destroys weird monument that far-right nutcake politician thinks is a message from Satan" hardly creates a blip on the radar.  Are things this bad elsewhere?  Or is my assessment correct, that somehow the United States has cornered the market on whackjobbery?  It's getting to the point that I'm concerned my readers from other countries are judging me just because I'm American.  I'm going to be taking a trip out of the country next month, and I'm wondering what I should tell people.

Maybe I could pass for Canadian.  Although I wonder if I have the capacity for sustaining that level of niceness.  I suspect I'd tolerate stuff for a while, then something would make me say, "Are you fucking kidding me right now?", and the people nearby would slowly turn to stare at me, in the fashion of the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but instead of pointing and shrieking, they'd point and yell, "AMERICAN!!!!!"

Anyhow, if option one was correct, I'd like the aliens just to give it a rest for a while.  I'm not sure how much more of this I can take.  Maybe I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, and things have always been this weird, but even so, I'm undergoing lunacy fatigue.  So let's just have some normal news, of the kind Walter Cronkite used to deliver, for the next few weeks.  Thanks ever so.

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Spellcheck eugenics

Yesterday we looked at a website haunted by the ghost of a little girl named "Repleh Snatas," which would be kind of creepy if she'd actually existed; today we continue in an appropriately surreal fashion, wherein we consider a link sent to me by a different loyal reader of Skeptophilia that gives you instructions to see if you're one of the targets of the Illuminati.

In the website Corruptico: All Answers Exist Within Your Actions (whatever the hell that means) a post appeared called "Microsoft Word 'Spell Check' Embedded Eugenic Code," wherein we learn that to tell if you're destined to be executed when the New World Order arrives, all you have to do is type your name into a Microsoft Word document and see if it flags as misspelled.

[Image is in the Public Domain]

Here's how the author explains it:

There’s a program for that. One created by no other than Microsoft Crypto Jew eugenicist himself, Bill Gates.

According to former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton’s first nephew, Greg T Dixon, a Masonic High School friend and informant deeply connected to Freemasonry, included within Microsoft’s Word “spell check” lies embedded code that filters out the names of people not making the elitist final eugenic cut.  

The program works simply enough, for which anyone, even children, can easily access to check and see their chromosomal eugenic status. All you have to do is type in your last name (surname) to see if it is underlined by a red squiggly line underscoring the surnames of those NOT making the genomic eugenic cut.  

That it [sic], you’re done!

Which brings up a variety of questions, the first of which is, what the fuck is a "Crypto Jew?"  Is this some kind of superhero who runs around with a yarmulke and a black cape, defending liberty by using pieces of matzo like ninja throwing stars?  Because that would be kind of cool.  My wife is Jewish, and if I knew she had a secret identity that involved fighting crime by wearing a mask and slinging kosher food at wrongdoers, it would make her even more awesome.

But considering the claim itself, we're on shakier ground.  Spellcheck?  Really?  It couldn't be that the spellcheck feature includes lists of the more common names, so that you don't get flagged every time you write "Smith?"  I guess I'm fortunate; my own last name is also an English word, so I don't get red-lined.  Lucky thing:

Apparently, many people who are being told they are elite and making the “eugenic cut” are actually not going to be around after the Democide, if the true elites have their way, by proxy, their names were purposely left off of earlier editions of MS Word, and this is why older versions prove more accurate.  

Go ahead.  If you dare, type your surname into MS Word to see your fate, it’s a fun and simple way to see what side of the railroads tracks you’re on.  

Just remember that, if the RED LINE appears, your fate is most likely sealed, and you will probably be killed at a FEMA death camp here very shortly via a hollow point bullet to back of the head.

Well, I'm not sure I would call this "fun," since it involves death camps and gunshots to the head, but it certainly is... interesting.

I do have a few questions, however.  What if your last name gets flagged and your first name doesn't?  This seems kind of unfair for people of Polish descent, such as "John Szczpanski."  Do Our Evil Overlords kill him because of the Szczpanski part, or let him go because his first name is John?

And what about people whose parents were trying to be clever, and gave them first names that appear to be deliberately misspelled?  A few years ago, I taught a girl whose name was "Kaytlynne."  This gets autocorrected to Kaitlyn (in fact, I just had to type it three times to get the Blogspot software to believe me that NO, THIS IS REALLY WHAT I WANT TO WRITE, DAMMIT).  Is this some kind of plot on the part of the parents to get rid of her?  This happens all the time to my wife, whose last name is Bloomgarden.  Autocorrect separates it into "Bloom garden," and then the red lines go away.  Is it telling her, "Maybe you really want to start spelling your name like that from now on.  Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge?"

So anyway, I encourage you to check your own name.  (Sorry for the bad news if you're Polish.)  I'm lucky -- neither my first, middle, nor last name gets red-lined.  Of course, the Illuminati Crypto Jews may change their minds after reading this post.  I'll be able to tell if I start getting mail addressed to "Gordin Bonnetski."

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This week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is about our much maligned and poorly-understood cousins, the Neanderthals.

In Rebecca Wragg Sykes's new book Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art we learn that our comic-book picture of these prehistoric relatives of Homo sapiens were far from the primitive, leopard-skin-wearing brutes depicted in movies and fiction.  They had culture -- they made amazingly evocative and sophisticated art, buried their dead with rituals we can still see traces of, and most likely had both music and language.  Interestingly, they interbred with more modern Homo sapiens over a long period of time -- DNA analysis of humans today show that a great many of us (myself included) carry around significant numbers of Neanderthal genetic markers.

It's a revealing look at our nearest recent relatives, who were the dominant primate species in the northern parts of Eurasia for a hundred thousand years.  If you want to find out more about these mysterious hominins -- some of whom were our direct ancestors -- you need to read Sykes's book.  It's brilliant.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Notes from the multidimensional realm

In today's episode of Missives From Insane People Who Still Somehow Get A National Platform, we have: Paul McGuire, self-styled "End Times author," who appeared last week on the Jim Bakker Show.

It bears mention that Bakker himself is nuttier than squirrel shit.  Bakker, you may remember, is the one who predicted a couple of years ago that we atheists were imminent to start publicly beheading Christians.  As of right now, my total is a shameful Zero Christians Beheaded, which either means Bakker is a fucking loon or else I'm way behind on my Decapitation Quota.

Then, last year, Bakker railed against liberals for "blaspheming against Donald Trump."  Direct quote, that, despite the fact that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English says that "blaspheme" means "to speak irreverently about God or sacred things."  Which elevates Trump just slightly beyond his station.  Oh, and if that weren't enough, Bakker's also the one who claimed that the U. S. government was being run by witches.

So it's not like Bakker himself is exactly a pinnacle of normality.  But his guest, Paul McGuire, makes Bakker look like Mr. Sane Rationality 2018 by comparison.

Although it bears mention that Bakker treated everything McGuire said as if it were revealed truth, so maybe they're not that far apart after all.

In any case, here's what McGuire had to say:

President Trump is currently engulfed in the greatest spiritual battle in the history of all mankind...   The physical battles that we see in our world and nation right now are a direct manifestation of the spiritual battles going on in the invisible realm...  There are people very high up in what is called the globalist occult or globalist Luciferian rulership system, and this rulership system consists of what used to be called the Pharaoh-God Kings, it’s what Aldous Huxley called "The Scientific Dictatorship," and these are advanced beings who know how to tap into supernatural multidimensional power and integrate it with science, technology, and economics. 

The highest level of the pyramidic organizational structure in which the highest ranking officers, if you will, of the New World Order and Mystery Babylon are ruling the earth through an organizational structure that looks like the pyramid on the back of the U.S. dollar.  And they control the world because they understand that the true control of the world is done through supernatural mechanisms.

So there you have it.

You know, I have to admit that if I were a Luciferian multidimensional being in charge of Mystery Babylon, I would definitely use my supernatural Pyramid Powers to smite the shit out of Donald Trump.  It may seem petty of me, and there are probably more worthy targets, but I'd love to use occult magic to seal his mouth shut.  Or make it so every time he tweets, no matter what he writes, it comes out "I [heart] the New World Order."  Or attach a thousand-watt LED to his forehead that lights up every time he tells a lie.

Of course, it'd be lit so often that it'd interfere with air traffic.  So that'd be bad.

Looks like Lucifer has been hitting the gym lately.  (Fallen Angel, Alexandre Cabanel, 1847) [Image is in the Public Domain]

But what strikes me about McGuire's claim is that despite all of his dire warnings... nothing is happening.  Trump is still in office, his toadies in Congress are looking like they've greased the rails for Brett "Documents Withheld" Kavanaugh to be appointed to the Supreme Court, and the administration as a whole has undone decades of progress on environmental and social issues without anyone being able to stop them, or even slow them down.  So if there really are Luciferian multidimensional beings, I would be really glad if they'd get off their asses and do something about this.  Because it's increasingly looking like we've invented time travel, and transported the entire nation back to 1830.

In any case, that's the view from the lunatic fringe for today.  Now, y'all'll have to excuse me, because I'm late for a meeting of the Pyramidic Organizational Structure.  I hope one of the other Invisible Realm Operatives brings donuts.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is part hard science, part the very human pursuit of truth.  In The Particle at the End of the Universe, physicist Sean Carroll writes about the studies and theoretical work that led to the discovery of the Higgs boson -- the particle Leon Lederman nicknamed "the God Particle" (which he later had cause to regret, causing him to quip that he should have named it "the goddamned particle").  The discovery required the teamwork of dozens of the best minds on Earth, and was finally vindicated when six years ago, a particle of exactly the characteristics Peter Higgs had described almost fifty years earlier was identified from data produced by the Large Hadron Collider.

Carroll's book is a wonderful look at how science is done, and how we have developed the ability to peer into the deepest secrets of the universe.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Soul singer

A couple of days ago, a friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link with the message, "I thought I'd seen it all."

Well, I can say from painful experience, never give the universe an opening like that.  Every single time I think I've found the weirdest, goofiest claim ever, people take it upon themselves to come up with something even loonier.

This is why today we're looking at how Lady Gaga's announcement that she has fibromyalgia was her way of admitting that she'd sold her soul to the Illuminati.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

That, at least, is the contention of a group of people who evidently have been doing sit-ups under parked cars, as reported by Mariel Loveland, writing for Ranker.  These folks claim that the documentary describing the singer's chronic illness, Five Foot Two, was filled with hints about the real cause of the disease.  Loveland writes:

According to Anonymous, at one of these very same Lower East Side Clubs she sold her soul to the Illuminati for fame and fortune.  But Gaga, always one to push the envelope, reportedly went about "donating" rather than selling her soul to the organization.

Which is pretty darn generous.  I know I'd want something in return for my soul, and more than just membership in the Illuminati.  I mean, don't they have some kind of signup bonus?  Like back in the day, when you'd sign up for a checking account, the bank would give you a toaster or something.

So according to Loveland's informant, the Illuminati were waiting for her after a concert, to make her an offer she couldn't refuse.  Here's her alleged account of what happened:

…This man, a strangely ageless man in a suit, spoke to me.  He was leaning against the wall smoking, and he said to me, "I think you've got what it takes. Do you want it?"...  I asked what 'it' was I thought he was coming onto me, but he smiled and said, "Everything.  Success.  Fame.  Riches.  Power.  Do you want it all?"

Kind of tempting, that would be.  So she went for it, and sure enough, she became famous and rich and so on and so forth.  But like Faust and so many others have discovered, you can't just sell your soul to the devil and expect to get off with a slap on the wrist:

[T]his chronic pain is caused by conflicting forces battling for supremacy inside herself...  The singer allegedly wants to "rid her body of the dark spirituality" that she welcomed via "Satanic rituals early on in her career."  These dark forces allegedly cause her chronic pain...  They may give you special powers, outer beauty, talent, and wealth for a while, but it doesn’t last.

And of course, no claim of the Illuminati would be complete without a contribution from Alex Jones.  About a concert where she appeared to float upwards, followed by some flashing lights, Jones said:

They say she’s going to stand on top of the stadium, ruling over everyone with drones everywhere, surveilling everyone in a big swarm.  To just condition them to say "I am the Goddess of Satan" ruling over them with the rise of the robots in a ritual of lesser magic.

Which, I think we can all agree, is the only possible explanation for a pop singer doing something flamboyant.

Then we get to hear all about how Gaga's actual name, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, contains an anagram of the name Lina Morgana, a different pop singer who Gaga supposedly murdered, and how Gaga keeps flashing the All-Seeing Eye symbol during her concerts, either as a sign of her soulless condition or as a desperate plea for help from her fans.  The upshot is that we should all either boycott her concerts, or else rescue her from the Forces of Evil, whichever version you decided to go for.

At that point, my eyes were crossing, so I didn't get any further in the article.

I think what bothers me about all of this is not that loony people have come up with conspiracy theories.  That, after all, is what loonies do.  But here we have this poor woman, who through no fault of her own has contracted a debilitating disease, and she makes a documentary going public with her struggles, and she's repaid by raving wackazoids like Alex Jones claiming that she got her just deserts for taking up with the Bad Guys.

The object lesson here is that fame comes at a price, and I don't mean "your soul."  It means your privacy, and in a lot of ways, your chance at being treated compassionately and empathetically.  All the more reason why I'd never want to be famous, not that it's all that likely in any case.

Thus sayeth Lord Steven

I'm not in the habit of using Skeptophilia as a forum to give publicity to weirdos, but sometimes I find a member of the Wingnut Coalition that is so delightfully out there that I just have to tell you about it.

In this case we have a guy who calls himself "Lord Steven Christ."  As if "Christ" was Jesus's last name or something.  (Although musician and stand-up comic Stephen Lynch did riff on this idea in his song "Craig," which is about Jesus's bad-boy brother, Craig Christ.  Note: the song is hilarious, but at the same time runs pretty close to the edge of sacrilege more than once, and is highly NSFW.  You have been warned.)

Anyhow, Lord Steven's website is a sight to behold.  First off, he's very fond of having photographs of himself all over the place, usually shirtless and in mid-flex.  It also has links to three dozen or so videos, the general gist of which is that the Earth is concave and the sky is made of glass.

I'm not making this up.  So now we've gone one step past the Flat Earth lunacy; the Earth is actually shaped like a bowl.  The reason we can't see this -- why, for example, someone with a telescope can't see Japan over there on the other edge of the bowl -- is because "light bends to the center so you can't see the other side."  Whatever that means.  But anyone who doesn't believe this, Lord Steven says, is delusional.  He says that NASA and the other pesky people who investigate the universe and have come up with different answers are "lie-n-tists."

But the most interesting part of his spiel is his take on religion, because in his opinion there should be only one religion, and that is the religion of Lord Steven.  In fact, he wrote a letter to Pope Francis demanding that he turn over the keys to the Vatican forthwith, which I include in toto below because it's just that wonderful:

Dear Jorge Bergoglio: 

As your fellow Jesuit colleagues should know very well, I am the Returned Christ.  I am awaiting exaltation to world authority over all mankind.  I am ready to establish my Kingdom. 

According to the Malachy papal prophecies, you know that you, by taking on the name Francis di Pietro, have fulfilled the office of the last pope dubbed as Peter Romanus. According to the prophecy you are called to feed the people.  You are to feed them with the truth of the reality of the Kingdom of God, in which I am on the verge of establishing.  You are also commanded to tell the people that I, Christ am back, returned in a new body with a new name "Steven", the Crowned One.  You are commanded to help educate the people of my return and the hoped for liberty and righteousness to all the people that fear my name. 

You also should know that I am the "Dreadful Judge" that is mentioned in the Malachy prophecy, which also states that Rome will be destroyed.  I am here to execute judgment upon the entire Earth, and to educate the masses about taking cover prior to the hail descending from the sky, and the sun burning up the Earth. 

I am here to implement my universal mark upon humanity.  This will separate the sheep from the goats.  All who submit and wear my Seal of the Living God will be protected and blessed, those who refuse will be left to perish outside of safety. 

I command you to conceal not my identity and my message to the masses.  For the time is short and judgment is at hand.  You are to point them to me as the returned Christ. 

I expect a quick response from you confirming your obedience to me. 

The Lord Steven Christ

So that's pretty unequivocal.  I haven't heard what, if anything, Pope Francis responded, but I'm guessing that Lord Steven's demands were ignored given that I haven't heard anything about Francis resigning.  As far as the rest of his message, I have to say it's pretty nice of him to Educate the Masses before the hail descends and Earth gets burned up by the Sun, but I'm a little less enthusiastic about Perishing Outside of Safety.

I guess you can't have everything.

He also has other stuff about how he's in favor of the New World Order as long as he gets to be in charge, and that his followers need to get this complicated star-pattern design tattooed on the back of their right hands so he'll know who not to smite.  "Please also be wise and reverent in relating to me," Lord Steven writes, "because there are many proud and bashing people online that do not understand who they are relating to."

Here's Lord Steven's seal, in case you are interested in a hand tattoo.

Then there's his diatribe against Alex Jones, because apparently Lord Steven is of the opinion that like the Highlander, amongst the wingnuts There Can Only Be One.  He says that Alex Jones is a "child," and that it'd help us to see that if Alex would dress up in a bib and a frilly bonnet and hold a rattle.

Which is a mental image that will forever haunt my nightmares.

So anyhow, the whole thing is highly entertaining, in a weird, performance-art sort of way.  I strongly recommend watching some of the videos.  I watched one of them, after fortifying myself with a glass of scotch, and only twice had to pause it and put my head down on my desk to recover.  After a second glass of scotch, though, some of it actually started to make sense, so I decided I'd better either stop watching or stop drinking.

Which was a rather easy choice to make, honestly.

But I felt obliged to pass along the website to my readers, in the hopes that you'll find it as engaging as I did.  Unless, of course, you're a "proud and bashing person," in which case you'll probably just roll your eyes and stop watching.

Spellcheck eugenics

And to end the week in an appropriately surreal fashion, yet another reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link that gives you instructions to see if you're one of the targets of the Illuminati.

The website Corruptico: All Answers Exist Within Your Actions (whatever the hell that means) a post appeared called "Microsoft Word 'Spell Check' Embedded Eugenic Code," wherein we learn that to tell if you're destined to be executed when the New World Order arrives, all you have to do is type your name into a Microsoft Word document and see if it flags as misspelled.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's how the author explains it:

There’s a program for that. One created by no other than Microsoft Crypto Jew eugenicist himself, Bill Gates. 

According to US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton’s first nephew, Greg T Dixon, a Masonic High School friend and informant deeply connected to Freemasonry, included within Microsoft’s Word “spell check” lies embedded code that filters out the names of people not making the elitist final eugenic cut. 

The program works simply enough, for which anyone, even children, can easily access to check and see their chromosomal eugenic status. All you have to do is type in your last name (surname) to see if it is underlined by a red squiggly line underscoring the surnames of those NOT making the genomic eugenic cut. 

That it, you’re done!

Which brings up a variety of questions, the first of which is, what the fuck is a "Crypto Jew?"  Is this some kind of superhero who runs around with a yarmulke and a black cape, defending liberty by using pieces of matzo like ninja throwing stars?  Because that would be kind of cool.  My wife is Jewish, and if I knew she had a secret identity that involved fighting crime by wearing a mask and slinging kosher food at wrongdoers, it would make her even more awesome.

But considering the claim itself, we're on shakier ground.  Spellcheck?  Really?  It couldn't be that the spellcheck feature includes lists of the more common names, so that you don't get flagged every time you write "Smith?"  I guess I'm fortunate; my own last name is also an English word, so I don't get red-lined.  Lucky thing:

Apparently, many people who are being told they are elite and making the “eugenic cut” are actually not going to be around after the Democide, if the true elites have their way, by proxy, their names were purposely left off of earlier editions of MS Word, and this is why older versions prove more accurate. 

Go ahead. If you dare, type your surname into MS Word to see your fate, it’s a fun and simple way to see what side of the railroads tracks you’re on. 

Just remember that, if the RED LINE appears, your fate is most likely sealed, and you will probably be killed at a FEMA death camp here very shortly via a hollow point bullet to back of the head.

Well, I'm not sure I would call this "fun," since it involves death camps and gunshots to the head, but it certainly is... interesting.

I do have a few questions, however.  What if your last name gets flagged and your first name doesn't?  This seems kind of unfair for people of Polish descent, such as "John Szczpanski."  Do Our Evil Overlords kill him because of the Szczpanski part, or let him go because his first name is John?

And what about people whose parents were trying to be clever, and gave them first names that appear to be deliberately misspelled?  A few years ago, I taught a girl whose name was "Kaytlyn."  This gets autocorrected to Kaitlyn (in fact, I just had to type it three times to get the Blogspot software to believe me that NO, THIS IS REALLY WHAT I WANT TO WRITE, DAMMIT).  Is this some kind of plot on the part of the parents to get rid of her?  This happens all the time to my wife, whose last name is Bloomgarden.  Autocorrect separates it into "Bloom garden," and then the red lines go away.  Is it telling her, "Maybe you really want to start spelling your name like that from now on.  Hint hint wink wink nudge nudge?"

So anyway, I encourage you to check your own name.  (Sorry for the bad news if you're Polish.)  I'm lucky -- neither my first, middle, nor last name gets red-lined.  Of course, the Illuminati Crypto Jews may change their minds after reading this post.  I'll be able to tell if I start getting mail addressed to "Gordin Bonnetski."

Floating cities and fused books

Confirmation bias really bugs me.

This is the tendency of people to accept minuscule amounts of evidence if it seems to support what they already believed.  It's a natural enough human failing, I suppose; as Kathryn Schulz points out, it's only possible for us to consider being wrong in the abstract.  When we try to think, in the here and now, of what we might currently be wrong about, it's impossible to come up with a single thing -- even if we know it's highly unlikely that we're right about everything we believe.

But still.  Confirmation bias is such an amazing fuel for woo-woo belief, it's hard not to hate it.  And I saw two examples of headdesk-quality confirmation bias just in the last two days, claims that would be immediately ridiculous to anyone who didn't already have their heads in the clouds.

I use the clouds analogy deliberately, because the first claim has to do with there being a giant floating city in China.  This particular far-fetched tale is popular amongst the crowd who thinks that what we experience is constantly being manipulated by HAARP and "Project BlueBeam" and other such mind-altering ray guns from space.  Here's the photograph that gave rise to the claim:

Now, I have to admit that it's pretty creepy looking, and that if I saw something like this, I'd be mighty freaked out.  But listen to how the source I linked above explains it:

Project Blue Beam... claims that NASA will soon attempt to inaugurate the Illuminati-sponsored Satanic New World Order (NWO) agenda under the authority of the Antichrist by using holographic image projection technology to simulate the second coming of Christ, or a space alien invasion of Earth.

There's also a bit in there about this signaling the "return of the biblical Fallen Angels."

The problem is, even if this isn't a digitally-altered photograph, there's a perfectly reasonable natural explanation -- that this is an example of atmospheric refraction, where strong temperature gradients in the atmosphere causes the air to bend light rather like a lens.  On rare occasions, this leads to the illusion that a distant object is hovering above the horizon.

But of course, understanding that requires that you know some physics.  Much easier to babble about the Illuminati and Fallen Angels.

The second claim has to do with the revelation that someone found a bible page "fused to a piece of steel beam" after 9/11.  Much is being made of the fact that the page is the "turn the other cheek" passage from the Gospel of Matthew, and that this is god sending us a personal message.

Notwithstanding the religious conundrum of why an all-powerful god would choose to make a page from the bible survive rather than all of the innocent people on the hijacked airliner, we also have the minor problem that (1) the earliest iteration of the story dates from 2011, not 2002 as mentioned in the claim, and (2) paper, being flammable, would not "fuse to steel."  It would simply burn to ash.

This didn't stop The This Isn't Really History Channel from doing a documentary about it in 2013 (and also claiming that the discovery was made in 2002 and for some reason kept secret for nine years), and from the religious passing the story around on social media as if it were some kind of miracle, rather than being evidence that god has an odd set of priorities.

You see what you want to see.  Whether it's god sending message in 9/11 debris, or floating cities heralding the beginning of the Satanic New World Order.

The whole thing is kind of maddening.  I know we all do it, to some extent; there may well be unconsidered parts of my own belief system that I am taking for granted because of the same kind of confirmation bias that plagues everyone.  I get that.  But it sure would be nice if we spent more time doing analysis of what we're claiming -- and applying a little bit of rationality to what we believe to be true.

Royal baloney

Sometimes I wish that if people want to espouse crazy worldviews, they'd jump right in and do it, and not claim that there's a logical argument and evidence that supports it.

I mean, just go for it, okay?  No half-assed looniness, here.  If you believe that the universe was created by a Giant Glow-In-The-Dark Bunny from the Andromeda Galaxy, then believe it.  Don't try and convince us by claiming that the DNA fingerprint of rabbits matches the spectral lines of the stars in the Andromeda Galaxy.  Because then you've crossed the line from Interesting Woo-Woo to making yourself look ridiculous.

Which is something that someone should explain to Eric Dubay, a blogger whose "About Me" states that he is a 32-year-old American who lives in Thailand, teaches yoga and wing chun part time, and is a full-time exposer of the New World Order.  Because Dubay, who predictably enough thinks that the United States is being run by a cadre of Illuminati, has put together an argument for his views using genealogy.

Dubay says that every American president has royal blood.  34 descend from Charlemagne, and 19 from King Edward III of England.  This can't be a coincidence:

If America declared its Independence from the European monarchies in 1776, how is it possible that every single president has descended from European monarchs?  If presidents are democratically elected as we are told, what are the odds that we would always choose members of British and French royal bloodlines to lead us?

The whole thing is one big conspiracy to keep the aristocracy in power, Dubay says:

Researchers like David Icke, Michael Tsarion, and Fritz Springmeier, along with foundations like the New England Historical Genealogy Society, Burkes [sic] Peerage, the Roman Piso Homepage, and other reliable genealogical sources have documented these royal presidential bloodlines.  Actually, by branching out far enough on the presidential family tree, the dedicated researcher will find that all 44 presidents share kinship, belonging to the same general ancestry, often called the 13th Illuminati bloodline, the Merovingian line, and/or the Windsor-Bush bloodline.

The fact that he goes to David Icke as a source should put you on notice right there.  And he goes on to say that not only have the elected presidents all been cousins, so are the people they ran against.  So we'd have elected members of The Family even had the other candidate won.  As an example, he says that George W. Bush and his opponent, John Kerry, are...

*cue ominous music*

16th cousins.

That was the point where I started laughing.  Because if you're not conversant with all the once-removed lingo of the genealogists, "16th cousins" means that Bush and Kerry share one set of great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.  At an average generation time of 28 years, this means that this set of great-etc. grandparents lived almost 500 years ago.

Let's throw in a few other inconvenient facts.  If all two presidents share is descent from Charlemagne, that pushes back their common ancestry to about 1,200 years ago.  Meaning that Charlemagne and whichever of his various wives and mistresses were involved were the pair's mutual 40-times-great grandparents.

Besides just being ridiculous, which is problematic enough, there's another major flaw in Dubay's argument -- and that is that just about everyone with ancestry in Western Europe is likely to be descended from Charlemagne.  Charlemagne, when he wasn't ruling the Holy Roman Empire, seems to have spent a lot of his time doing one other thing, if you get my drift.  So if you're of western European descent, congratulations -- you have royal blood.

The difficulty is that you're also descended from most of the rest of Europe at the time, including the peasants.  The total population of Europe in the 8th century was about 30 million, give or take; but consider that from a purely mathematical standpoint, if you trace your family tree back that far, doubling at each generation, you would have 2 raised to the 40th power ancestors -- or about 1.1 trillion people.

This means that at that point, you (1) are descended from lots of people multiple times, (2) are probably descended from every single individual who left descendants, and (3) are related to every single person currently alive who has European ancestry.

Including Charlemagne.

Let me put this in a personal way.  I'm a descendant of Charlemagne at least twice, through my descent on my dad's side from the Lyell family (landed Scottish gentry, although they certainly didn't have much money to speak of by the time they got to the United States) and on my mom's side from the de la Tour family (petty French nobility, whose scion kind of blew his reputation by going to Nova Scotia and marrying a Native American).  So is my wife, who not only descends from Charlemagne, but from the aforementioned King Edward III of England (through her descent from the Hylton family, including the "Mad Baron Hylton," about whom I should tell you some time).

So yes... my wife and I are distant cousins.  Maybe one of us should run for president.

I see a resemblance, don't you?  [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So sorry, Mr. Dubay, but there's no conspiracy going on here, unless you count the fact that every president thus far has had at least some western European ancestry.  Until we elect a president who is of 100% Chinese descent, we're pretty much stuck with Charlemagne's progeny.

And of course, it still doesn't matter, because anyone of Chinese descent almost certainly has Genghis Khan as an ancestor, because old Genghis proved pretty conclusively that you can make love and war more or less simultaneously.

So that's that.  And now I'm going to go get some breakfast, and figure out how many people my wife would have to bump off in the line of succession before she could become Queen of England.  I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life as Prince Consort.  Seems like a good gig.

Time's wasting, Mr. President!

What is it about President Obama that has brought out the conspiracy wingnuts in droves?

Maybe it's just that I wasn't as aware of such things back then,  but I don't remember crazy conspiracy theories erupting around George W. Bush.  There were lots of people who suspected that he had that IQ of a baked ham, but you didn't hear the sort of loony claims that we're seeing with Obama.

Yes, I know he's African American, but can it really be that simple?  It's not like other African Americans are the targets of this sort of thing.  No one is saying, for example, that Kanye West is in league with the devil, except possibly Beck.  But being in league with the devil is only the beginning of what you hear, where Obama's concerned.  Being in league with the devil is mild.

Here's a sampler of some Obama conspiracy theories I found -- all from the last couple of days:

From a letter to the editor in the Davidson County (Tennessee) Dispatch:

God states that seven kings must come before the rise of the Antichrist. Revelations 17:10 says the seventh king will reign for a short amount of time. Is Barack Obama the seventh king? 

Obama's lifted sanctions off Iran with promises that a peace treaty will be made but does nothing to inspect Iran as they continue to make nuclear weapons. Does Obama already know Iran's actions and is helping Iran? God says Israel must be attacked by Iran to start a war between all nations before the Antichrist can rise to create a peace treaty between these nations. Everything God said is happening. The Lord can return for God's children at anytime.

From an article in The Daily Coin:

The ever encroaching police state, the fact that all financial markets, over the entire global, are rigged. Since when does the President come out and tell Congress that he needs omnipotent powers to continue to expand the wars of aggression? What next, maybe world war; cast a dragnet across the internet to begin scooping up owners of alternative news websites? Perhaps begin systemically killing the bankers in the back office with the codes and programs that run the derivatives markets and rig the equities markets?

From Family Research Council's commentator Craig James, in response to a caller who claimed that Obama was planning to stay in office for a third term, and using that term to convert all Americans to Islam:

Obama trying to stay in power for an illegal third term is a concern of mine.  I plan to pass a note along to [FRC President] Tony Perkins on how we could escape that. 

[A third term] would be horrible.  It’s not like we’d have Ronald Reagan staying in office for another year or so while we’re in a state of emergency.  It’s not like we’d have someone who really cares about you and me.  We’re talking about someone who is there in that office as the leader of the free world, the United States of America, who doesn’t get it.  That’s the concern.  It fires me up, the thought that the guy can stick around in that office beyond a year and three-quarters.  He’s got to be gone.  We will follow up on that.

From conservative talk show host Michael Savage, who claims that Obama caused the measles outbreak:

I was asked about the origins of the measles outbreak in America and it’s pretty clear to me that it came in with the illegals.  We know that Obama committed a crime against humanity by dumping many, many, many, many ill people, mothers and children primarily, on us this summer unscreened, many of them brought in a killer virus, measles, tuberculosis and other illnesses. 

And all of these are just from the past couple of days.

What gets me about all of this is how these claims keep sprouting, like crabgrass in a garden, even though they never come true.  We've been hearing for years now about how Obama was the Antichrist (or some other wicked dude from the Book of Revelation), and that this means the End Times are imminent.  And lo, here the world still is, un-Ended.  We've heard over and over about how Obama wants to herd us all into FEMA camps and cut our heads off with guillotines, and we're all still running around with our heads firmly attached.  We've heard that Obama wants to silence people who dislike him by any means necessary up to and including assassination, and yet Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Alex Jones and Ann Coulter are still alive and kicking and spewing their rhetoric on a daily basis.

So if Obama is an evil mastermind, he's kind of an incompetent one, you know?  He's like one of those guys on Scooby Doo who has everyone convinced that there is a scary ghost haunting the carnival, and no one can figure it out except for a bunch of goofy teenagers, who unmask the ghost and it turns out to be the carnival owner, who would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for Those Meddling Fox News Commentators And Their Stupid Dog.

I'm kind of sick of waiting, frankly.  I mean, at this point I've been warned so many times that I'm ready for something to happen, and now's as good a time as any.  We're all snowbound, here in the Arctic tundra (a.k.a. upstate New York), and I'm feeling a little stir-crazy with the cabin fever.  Let's stir things up, okay, Mr. President?  Get together with your wicked Illuminati friends, and cast your spells to summon up Satan or whatever, and let 'er rip.  Because so far, you've kind of sucked at establishing a New World Order (or converting us all to Islam or bringing forth the Beast With Seven Heads, or whatever people think he's doing over there in the White House).  So far, you look pretty much like a typical politician, doing what politicians do.

And life can't be that prosaic, right?

Of course right.

Orgone to the rescue

Are you worried about the New World Order?  Do you fear that the Reptilians are powerful enough to infiltrate the government unchallenged?  Do you look up at passing jets and fret about the toxic stuff in the chemtrails they leave behind?  Are you terrified that we might be attacked by zombies?

Fear not, for we have a great weapon at our disposal.  These assorted bad guys are no match for the...

Orgone Blaster.

Yes, "orgone," the completely nonexistent "universal life force" proposed by Wilhelm Reich all the way back in the 1930s.  Reich and others went through all sorts of gyrations to try to prove it existed, to no avail.  Also to no particular diminishment of their claiming that "orgone" was the magical be-all-and-end-all of the universe, influencing everything from weather patterns to the motion of galaxies to the "psychosexual energy release" experienced during orgasm.

Reich even developed an "orgone accumulator box" that seems to have done nothing but give test subjects a nice place to nap for a few minutes.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

You'd think that the fact that no one has ever been able to demonstrate that orgone exists would put a damper on people's claims involving its mystical properties.

You'd be wrong.

The site I linked above, written by one Sherry Shriner, would be the odds-on favorite in a competition for the Most Quotable Woo-Woo Website.  It tells us that not only does orgone exist, it can be used as a first line of defense against... well, everything.  If the Illuminati do anything, all we have to do is focus our orgone on 'em, and they'll retreat in disarray like the sorry sonsabitches they are.  But don't just take it from me, here's a direct quote from the website:

My Orgone has destroyed the Capricorn Star-Ship, the Shema star-ship, Planet X - Comet Elenin, and thousands of UFOs!

It Works Folks! It's the Only thing that works against Alien-Demonic-Zombie-Vampire- beings! The "dead" hate it! The Aliens hate it! Politicians who have been soul-scalped by Reptilians hate it! Obama hates the White House, Michelle sleeps in Hotels around D.C...the White House Senior Staff meets in air-sealed rooms under the Capitol...why?? Because they HATE the Orgoned air in D.C. !! 

Orgone will cleanse your air/water/food, dissolve chemtrails above your home, keep evil beings out of your home and yard, stop night terrors, it has 101 uses.

Yup.  If you ever are threatened by alien demonic zombie vampire beings, you now have your answer.

You can "orgone" water, too, she says, and shows a photograph of what appears to be a SuperSoaker. I pictured the people in The Walking Dead fighting off zombies with water pistols, and the image was so strangely hilarious that I had to put my head down on my desk for a while.

But in the parlance of the infomercial... "Wait!  There's more!"

The average OB (Orgone Blaster) can neutralize the evil effects of a [cellphone] tower! Not only that, those who are using them are finding that they are neutralizing chemtrails as well!! Not only that, they will repel anything evil and keep it away from your yard, home and family!! Unwanted aliens and demons on your property? No problem bury a few of our OBs at each corner of your property!

We also find out that these things kill viruses, stop thunderstorms and tornadoes, get rid of migraines, helps you sleep, and "lower utility bills... and even lower gas mileage if you put one of them by your engine!"

Because, you know, we all want lower gas mileage.

Other features on the page include references to the Antichrist and the Book of Revelation, angels, and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  I mean, the phrase "no stone unturned" could have been coined by someone taking a look at this website.

Going to the "order page" tells us how to get a hold of these amazing devices, which look like little blobs of gray modeling clay.  You have your small blobs, which are $10 each (special discount -- get 20 of 'em for only $200!).  Large ones are $20, or 10 for $220, proving that whatever "orgone blasters" do in the way of repelling zombies, they do nothing for improving your math skills.

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering if I've been bitten on the ass by Poe's Law once again, and let me assure you that this is not satire.  In fact, this is not Shriner's first appearance in Skeptophilia -- earlier this year we considered her claim that we're all being controlled by government-implanted microchips, but we can neutralize them using magnets.  She made the International Skeptics' Forum back in 2007, in a posting called "Sherry Shriner, Woo Extraordinaire... at last, we have found a website with everything."

So much as you might think that no one could possibly believe this stuff, the website has every indication of being completely serious.  As for Shriner herself, she is well regarded enough in the woo-woo world that she was interviewed over at Strange Frequencies (for a not-to-be-missed transcript of the interview, go here).

So there you have it.  If you're worried about... well, anything, you've found your answer.  Myself, I'm going to save my money.  I figure that if there are that many evil Illuminati bad guys in the world, I'm probably going to be better off applying for membership than trying to fight them off 24/7.

The guiding stones

(The last of a series of reposts, for your enjoyment while I'm on vacation.  First posted in September 2011.  I'll be back in the saddle on Monday!)

*****************************************

It is virtually self-evident that belief in an odd idea can propel you to do odd things.

Of the many odd things I've run into, however, the Georgia Guidestones definitely come near the top of the list.  Built of polished granite and standing sixteen feet tall, the Guidestones are arranged on the top of a treeless hill in Elbert County, Georgia.  They are so imposing (and so mysterious) that they've been compared to Stonehenge, or to the weird black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

(photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons) 

Not the least mystery about them is who commissioned them, and why.  They were erected, under mysterious circumstances, in June of 1979.  The land on which they stand is owned by Elbert County, and was deeded to them by a "Robert C. Christian," who had purchased the land from a Wayne Mullenix.  I put "Robert C. Christian" in quotes because this almost certainly is a pseudonym -- curious researchers have tried, unsuccessfully, to identify who he is (or was).  (There is apparently persuasive, if circumstantial, evidence that R. C. Christian is Ted Turner.)

The message on the Guidestones is a series of (if you will) Ten Commandments, evidently intended to help the survivors create a better society once the apocalypse knocks off the rest of us.  These pronouncements are presented in twelve different languages -- English, Chinese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, Spanish, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Babylonian Cuneiform, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics.  These last four, I suppose, are there in case the apocalypse spares some (for example) Ancient Sumerians.

The Guidestones themselves have various notches and holes cut into them, apparently in an effort to make them line up with the position of the sun, moon, and stars at various times of year.  The overall effect is to deepen the mystery, and perhaps heighten perception of the structure as resembling Stonehenge. 

Given the time and effort someone put into all of this, and how seriously he seems to take himself (I'm assuming that R. C. Christian is a man, given the male pseudonym), I find it a little disappointing how generally inane the Guidestones' "Ten Commandments" are.  Some of them aren't bad ideas, but are hardly earthshattering ("Protect People And Nations With Fair Laws And Just Courts"), while others seem a little pie-in-the-sky ("Unite Humanity With A Living New Language.")  I have to admit to some disappointment upon reading what they said.  Given all of the mystery, and all the expense someone obviously went to, I was expecting something a little more profound.  (You can read the entire message on the Guidestones here.) 

What I find even more baffling about this whole thing is how people have responded to them.  New Age types mostly think they're great.  Yoko Ono, for example, says they are "a stirring call to rational thinking."  Some prominent Christian thinkers, predictably, disagree, one Evangelical minister calling them "The Ten Commandments of the Antichrist."  An Atlanta psychic, Naunie Batchelder, predicted as far back as 1981 that they were of alien origin, and their purpose would be revealed "within thirty years."  (The aliens had better get on that, as they've only got three and a half months left.)  

Conspiracy theorists, of course, think they're just the bee's knees.  Mark Dice, whose favorite topics are the Illuminati and the New World Order, believes that they are of "deep Satanic origin," and has demanded that they be "smashed into a million pieces."  Dice thinks that somehow the Bilderburg Group were involved with the funding and construction of the Guidestones.  A researcher named Van Smith has done some numerological analysis of the Guidestones and claims that they are somehow connected to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building -- and believes that the dimensions of the Guidestones, when properly manipulated, predicted the date of death of Dubai's emir, Sheik Maktoum bin Rashid al Maktoum.  Noted wingnut Alex Jones thinks the Rosicrucians are responsible. 

All we need is to somehow get the Knights Templar involved, and we'll have a full house of bizarre explanations.

And, of course, all of these folks have followers, and those followers are happy to take action, when they're not picking at the straps of their straitjackets with their teeth.  Chickens have more than once been sacrificed in front of the Guidestones.  They are a frequent meeting site for a coven of Wiccans from Atlanta.  The Guidestones themselves have been repeatedly defaced, most recently by spray-painted graffiti stating "Death to the New World Order" and "Jesus will beat u satanist."  There has been more than one attempt to topple the Guidestones, but given that each of the stone blocks weighs twenty tons, those efforts have been thus far unsuccessful.

So, that's today's little dose of weirdness.  Next time I'm in Georgia, I'm going to make an effort to go see these things.  Not that I particularly think their message is all that profound -- but just to have had a chance to see, first-hand, what all the fuss is about.  And since one of the Guidestones' rules says, "Rule Passion - Faith - Tradition - And All Things With Tempered Reason," I figure I owe them at least that much.

The Cat in the Red and White Lighthouse Signal Stovepipe Mind Control Hat

There are times -- and I say this with all due affection toward my fellow human beings -- that I wish people would just get a freakin' grip on reality.

I mean, yesterday's post was bad enough.  We had several individuals, including (scarily enough) some higher-ups on the Chicago police force, who evidently forgot to read the "All resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer on movies like Minority Report and The Sixth Sense.

But at least the people in yesterday's post can, apparently, tell the difference between a real live human and a cartoon character, which is more than I can say for the folks I ran across last night.

As surprising as it may sound to those of us whose skulls aren't filled with cobwebs and dead insects, this sort of thing isn't unprecedented.  This is far from the first time that we have had someone who has thought that cartoon characters actually existed.  Back in 2008 there was a Muslim imam who issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse, saying, "The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him... Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases."  Not to be outdone, there was a serious discussion in academic circles two years later over the question of whether Dora the Explorer was an illegal immigrant.  Since I started Skeptophilia late in 2010 I've actually written about two additional cases -- one of my first posts ever was about an inquiry done by the Vatican that concluded that the Simpsons were Catholic, and the following year I wrote about a serious academic study done in France that proved that the Smurfs are communists.

How, you might ask, could it get any more ludicrous?  Oh, it can, friends and neighbors.  It can.

Because now we find out the Dr. Seuss's iconic character "The Cat in the Hat" is actually a symbol for the Illuminati takeover of the civilized world.

Avoid looking directly into his evil, evil eyes.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'd like to be able to say that this is all a joke, that we're looking at yet another example of Poe's Law.  But no, these people seem to be entirely serious.  Here's a representative passage:

About the “Cat in the Hat” which incorporates symbolic content of the mind control programs. See Cat in the Hat movie book showing symbolism, such as the RED and WHITE Lighthouse Signal Stovepipe Hat with the GRAMOPHONE HORN inside aka Victor Listening to his MASTERS Voice, FEEline Basement, and holding a “HOE”. Dr. Seuss worked for Army Propaganda and had ties to Standard Oil. It opens to find a public lethargic, unimaginative and un-moving, without eyes to see and ears to hear, to an apparent hidden ideology, Cold War Communism. The moving force, The People of the Pagan Cat (The Cult of Freya), enters the cosmic domain of the American public UNINVITED (Operation PAPERCLIP).”

Yes!  I see it all, now!  And the Fish was Senator Joseph McCarthy, warning the American public of the danger, but would anyone listen?  Nooooooo!

At the end of the story, we're told, the Cat makes everything okay... at least, it seems that way:

The Cat restores order to the mess of CHAOS with Magic and a Luciferian illusion. Finally, Freya Rides and Wotan Reigns again, the cosmos is restored to its natural order and beauty (archaic paganism), and the fish is left with the dilemma of the Cat People’s ILLUMINATED mysticism, magic; and the mysterious SECRET ORDER over CHAOS; and Christianity.”

Ha ha!  Yes!  What?

And that's not all of the bad stuff that Dr. Seuss was up to.  I bet you never even knew that the famous Horton Hears a Who is actually about the New World Order.  First, there's the fact that the name "Horton" comes from "Horus" + "Aton."  And yes, I'm referring to the Egyptian gods, which are clearly relevant here.  But that's not all:

Here is some of what was revealed about what is currently happening on planet earth.

1. The whos live on a speck (earth).  The mayor of whoville communicated with Horton (god in the sky) who warns him that his speck is not safe.

2. No one will listen to the mayor who is trying warn everyone of the message. He points our that weather changes which are happening are precusors [sic] to the end of the world.

3. He declares that "martial law" should be imposed (this is a kids [sic] movie) and everyone who wants to survive should go underground to the safety bunkers.

4. A black vulture named "vlad" steals the speck from horton and drops it causing the first catastrophe. (planet x passing)

5. All the whos join together and form a wormhole, break the bounds of thier [sic] universe and are heard by horton (god) and are thereby spared and sent to the new world.

And don't even get me started about The Lorax.

You know, the world has got to be a seriously scary place when you see evil symbolism and portents of doom everywhere, even in children's cartoons.  It actually makes me feel kind of sorry for people who believe this stuff.  Now, to be fair, I'm willing to believe that sometimes I might be overly trusting of people -- I tend, usually, to think that most people are acting out of benevolent (or at least morally neutral) motives, most of the time.  And I will admit that there are cases when I'm probably wrong.

But fer cryin' in the sink, I would prefer to think the best of my fellow humans, and occasionally get kicked in the ass, than I would to go around thinking that every cloud in the sky has been seeded with poison by the Evil Government Overlords.  You have to wonder, if that's the way these folks see the world and the human race, why they think it's so important to blow the whistle.  Nihilism would be, on the whole, more pleasant.

Or maybe they're just batshit crazy.  I dunno.

The great Louisiana gunboat conspiracy

There are two reasons that conspiracy theorists drive me crazy.

One is that they consistently accept weird, convoluted explanations for events just because those explanations favor their twisted notions about the way the world works, simultaneously ignoring a simple, rational explanation that fits all of the available evidence.  This anti-Ockham's-razor approach runs counter to any reasonable logic, but they embrace it with a vehemence that is often scary.

The second is that they're damn near impossible to argue with.  Present a counterargument to their favored theory, and you're deluded.  Laugh at them, and you're a "sheeple."  (Wait, isn't "sheeple" plural?  What's the singular, then?  "Sheeplum?")

Come up with a really good counterargument, and you must be one of... Them.

Take, for example, the article that hit the conspiracy site Liberty Federation this week about some military boats that were seen in a river near Slidell, Louisiana.  There's a video, with the tagline, "Is this part of some kind of drill or is it just normal now in the new Amerika to see armed troops patrolling public canals?"

Right.  "Amerika."  *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*  Of course it's the military wing of the New World Order, practicing their takeover maneuvers.  Merely requiring that you ignore the fact that the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, which has been operating there for decades, is only five miles away.

So yeah, this really was just a drill, and the guys really were just ordinary military guys, which one of the commenters on the post pointed out:

We have a unit down there, been training in that area for close to 20 years. Not sure how that guy has never seen them before, we run all over the rivers and marshes (and Lake Pontchartrain) constantly. Completely normal training, guys are preparing for overseas deployment, has nothing to do with the conspiracy BS being spouted below. Not sure why they are transiting through such a populated area, we normally stay farther away from areas like that for various reasons. 

Well, one reason is probably that when they don't, the conspiracy theorists start honking like mad.  To wit, the following response:

so what is next
-shoot shoot You Americans , b.o."s agenda – to a " T " , e. holder is doing flips inside of the west/wing knowing that he is get’’n closer to controlling the whole kitten-ka-bouttle then any A.G. ever – even though it is so Un-American that it is sickening to the stomach – this is this administrations agenda , People wake the " F " UP ^ , this is Your Nation dying at a tic-toc and a tic-toc , Yes , What can We do – Do You not see that every time this administration wins in court or by a legislative mark of the pen , It is always very controversial and they will win it by – chicago bullitics – each and every time – what is it that they (this administration) could/and/would hold against You or Your’s , People it is get"n to be to that close of lose for Us Americans that Yes it could come down to You and what You had said and/or done and You may or/may not feel it was wrong , they (this administration) will find the wrongs and put the blame on You or one of Your loved One’s , People We have the devil in Our House and they know what You have forgotten , As little or as simple it was or is to You , They will see to it that it can make the difference of being a representative of the People ’ or NOT being a representative of the People , This administration is so damn evil that the devil HimSelf has to step-back and try to figure out where the evilness comes from – Since this devil himself knows what is in the winners package – There is Not enough wrapping paper and/or ribbon to put this in a package and say (F^ck You say’s Da devil) wel-come to da jungle where obama loves to be , he feels so much at home that he sends the tranny away – why would you need another pointer when ya have the likes of me – and this is coming from the one that has the wife of an tranny – oh baby it is the stiffy that gets me (says b.o.) fur — sure

I feel like this should come with some sort of Rosetta-Stone-like translation, don't you?  We need someone like the little old lady from the movie Airplane:

So, I feel duty-bound to do my best, here, although my Dumbassian is kind of rusty.  But here's my best shot at a translation of the above:

I dislike President Obama because I think that his agenda is to target American citizens, and perhaps kill them.  Attorney General Eric Holder is certainly part of this, and is so excited by the prospect that he is engaging in gymnastics.  Gosh, this sure makes me nauseated!  I wish that more Americans would be aware of their surroundings.  Every time this administration wins a court case, it angers me.  It is like what happens in Chicago.  President Obama knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake!  He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good or his thugs will murder you and your entire family!  Even Satan is appalled by how evil this administration is.  Satan would like to wrap this administration up with wrapping paper and give it as a gift.  Also, I believe that because President Obama is an African American, he would prefer to live in a tropical rain forest biome.  And his wife is a hermaphrodite.  Oh, my, yes.

So okay, maybe it doesn't make any more sense when you put it in standard English.

The problem is, there are a lot of people who think this way.  If you go over to the Conspiracy subreddit -- which I wouldn't suggest if you want to maintain your sense that humans represent intelligent life -- you will find posts even stupider than this one.  You will find posts that will make this one seem like a doctoral dissertation.  You will find posts that will make you wonder how the people who wrote them have enough brain cells to operate a computer successfully.

I live in hope, however, that the sensible people outnumber the conspiracy theorists, a hope that is bolstered by sites such as the Conspiratard subreddit, which exists solely to ridicule the ideas of people like our above marginally-coherent friend.  I also hope that the majority of the 191,000 who have subscribed to Conspiracy are only amused bystanders, much the way I listen to Alex Jones or read the columns written by Ann Coulter.

So, yeah, I'm an optimist.  It's a dicey proposition, sometimes, but still better than the alternative.

Even here in "Amerika."