The conspirators shift gears

If, like me,  you find yourself perusing conspiracy websites every so often, you're probably wondering what the conspiracists are gonna do now.

I mean, the whole lot of 'em claimed that Hillary Clinton was in league with the Illuminati at the very least, and at worst was herself the Antichrist.  The election was rigged in her favor, they said, and anyone who got in her way would be steamrolled.  Some claimed that her opponents wouldn't only be shoved out of the way, they'd be assassinated.  She'd win the presidency, then proceed to destroy America.

And then two things happened.  (1) The election was pretty fraud-free, as anyone with any knowledge of the electoral process anticipated.  And (2) Donald Trump won.

Now, if we were talking about normal people here, the expected response would be for them to have a good laugh at themselves, and say, "Wow, I guess we were wrong!  What a bunch of nimrods we are!"  And then vanish into well-deserved obscurity.  Alex Jones, especially, who a few weeks ago was in tears on-air when he spoke of the inevitability of a Clinton presidency, should be clean out of a job.

But these aren't normal people; these are conspiracy theorists.  Which means that the logical thing to do is to assume...

... that Donald Trump himself is part of the conspiracy.

I shit you not.  One week, and they're already turning on him.  Our first contribution from the Loose Grasp On Reality cadre is William Tapley, a right-wing evangelical loony who calls himself the "Third Eagle of the Apocalypse."  (What happened to Eagles #1 and 2, I don't know.)  Tapley says that not only is Trump being controlled by the Illuminati, so is Melania.

The evidence for this?  A mural in the Denver International Airport that has two figures, a man and a woman.  The woman looks vaguely like Melania Trump.  The man, Tapley says, looks as if he is having a lewd act performed upon him by the woman.  For some reason, the only possible conclusion we can draw from all of this is that Trump is a member of the Illuminati.

"Please don’t tell Anderson Cooper what you and I both see," Tapley says, in a video you can watch at either of the links posted above.

Don't worry, Mr. Tapley.  We're not telling Anderson Cooper anything.

If that wasn't enough, we have a second contention, which is that Donald Trump wasn't born in the United States, he was born "Dawood Ibrahim Khan" in the Waziristan region of Pakistan.

While this is funnier than hell from the perspective that Trump was one of the most prominent spokespeople for the whole Obama birtherism thing, I have to admit that as a hypothesis, it doesn't have much to recommend it.  As far as I can see, they just found a photograph of a blond kid in vaguely Middle Eastern garb, and proclaimed that it must be Donald Trump as a child.

Dawood "Donald" Ibrahim-Trump

So it was kind of reassuring to find that the other trending story on conspiracy websites these days is that the earthquake that struck near Christchurch, New Zealand a couple of days ago was caused by a "seismic blasting ship" sent for some reason by President Obama.  Wikileaks, which at this point has damn little credibility left even without this story, apparently said so.  "These is science showing disturbances that are linked to the earthquakes," one commenter said (verbatim).  Which is enough proof for me.

Thanks, Obama.

Anyhow, I find it fascinating how quickly the conspiracy nutjobs are pivoting on Donald Trump.  I guess if your baseline assumption is that you can't get elected without the blessing of the Illuminati, it stands to reason, if I can use the word "reason" in this context.  But at least it's a mood lightener after the last week, which I sorely needed.  Nice to know there are still people out there who are both crazy and relatively harmless.

Puppies from hell

Is it just me, or are the claims of the ultra-religious getting nuttier of late?

Maybe it's just because the craziest ones are the ones that get the most press, and I'm falling for some kind of media-driven dart-thrower's bias.  But consider -- just in the last couple of months, we've had the following:

• a pastor who claims to be able to exorcise demons via Skype, followed by;
• a Catholic priest who says that no, that's impossible, but he can exorcise demons without ever meeting the allegedly possessed individual;
• a guy who wants to be paid by the South African government because he believes his prayers kept the electricity going during the World Cup;
• some people who think that a supernova remnant that has been nicknamed "The Hand of God" is... actually the hand of god;
• some people who think that Siri is predicting the opening of the gates of hell, this coming July;
• and a guy who has founded a service to send explanatory emails to your loved ones if you're taken away during the Rapture.

Now, allow me to reiterate up front something that I've said many times, to wit: I know that there are reasonable, logical, and smart people who belong to all different sorts of religions.  I have a good many religious friends, and I respect their right to their views, just as they respect mine.  Put another way; just because I happen to be an atheist doesn't mean that I'm issuing some kind of indictment against the brains, rationality, or motives of all religious people.

But it does seem like the extreme wing of the religious world has shown increasing signs lately of the sort of comical wackiness that is really hard for me not to ridicule.  Or maybe I'm just noticing it more, I dunno.  But take, for example, William Tapley, self-proclaimed evangelist and End Times prophet who calls himself "the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse," and who seems to have spent considerable time doing sit-ups underneath parked cars.

Before I tell you about Tapley's latest pronouncement, it bears mention that he's been in the news before.  He's the one who said, back in 2011, that the decorations in the Denver International Airport were rife with "phallic symbols."  To me, most of what he claims are sexually suggestive designs just look like... random designs.  Tapley insists, though, that the Evil Male Genitalia are there, and that he has a "gift from god" that allows him to see penises where others don't.

Myself, I don't think that's anything I'd brag about.

But now, he's come up with something even wackier than Devil Dongs Over Denver.  Ready?

Okay, you know the adorable Budweiser commercial, featured on the Superbowl, that showed a cute yellow lab puppy who keeps running away to go back and visit his buddy the Clydesdale horse?  Of course you do.  The YouTube video has gotten over 38 million hits, and that's not counting the people who saw it during the game.

Not what it appears to be, says Tapley.  The commercial...

... is a warning of the imminent apocalypse, as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

The puppy represents the Antichrist, Tapley said, in his own video, which is linked in this story that appeared over at ALWire.   Note that the puppy came from "Warm Springs Puppy Adoption;" "Warm Springs," Tapley said, refers to "the Lake of Fire" where all of the unbelievers will end up burning for eternity.  (He doesn't specify what the "puppy adoption" part represents.)

Fig. 1: Evil Satan-Spawn from the Maw of Hell.  Don't let the fuzzy widdle face fool you.  [image courtesy of PharaohHound and the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's the direct quote, which I swear I am not making up:  "(Hell) is where our puppy dog comes from. … But this puppy dog is more than a cute, warm, fuzzy animal.  He is a symbol of the Antichrist."

Yup.  Right.  And I suppose this is a symbol of the Beast With Seven Heads:

 Fig. 2:  Looking into the mesmeric depth of his eyes is placing your immortal soul at risk!  [image courtesy of Nicholas Suzor and the Wikimedia Commons]

Okay, look.  I know that, to some extent, this is going for the low-hanging fruit.  But still; there are people out there who believe this stuff.  And they vote.  Despite the fact that you'd think that anyone this insane would not be allowed outside unsupervised.

On the other hand, maybe we could look upon this as movement in the right direction.  Perhaps enough people are recognizing the inherent craziness of the far reaches of the religious worldview that it's forcing the remaining adherents further out into the ozone layer.   Maybe this outburst of lunacy is just growth pains, as humanity progresses on its way to adopting a more reasonable outlook.

Or maybe Tapley is just a raving whackmobile.  I suppose that's just as likely.