Blinded By The Light

Instead of saying "If You Watched This Elizabeth Holmes TED Talk From 2014, It Was Clear She Was a Fraud From Day One." they could have said "This was before Trump, and anyone - with common sense - could see it from a mile away":

"She used plenty of interesting factoids. She said words like engagement, knowledge, and access. She shifted to a personal story. She lulled us, she calmed us. She talked about things we care about. That are quite serious.

And yet, we were not really listening.

She never really said anything about the science.

Or the tests.

Or the clinics.

Or anything concrete.

She mentioned a few notes here and there about blood tests and fingers. The word nanotainer should have been like a neon sign to all of us, a blinking light at an adult book store eliciting scrutiny and skepticism. Really? Nanotainer? You might as well use the phrase Theranos wellness center. (Wait, she did use that phrase.) 

Words matter. 

But not back then.

Whenever the public's ready to blame itself, I'm ready for their apologies. Promise.

Ladies And Gentlemen, I Think We've Found A New MLK

The best ending to Black History Month I could find:

If you want a true taste of America's higher aspirations, watch this clip and smile,...

Fools Like When Everything's An Opinion So They Don't Have To Check And See If They're The Ones Being Fools

  “One wonders if the organizers of TEDx whiffed on vetting Hyde, which wouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes of Googling.”

“Since 2002, [Snapple] has been slinging bottle-cap factoids. Some are true, some are outright false, and plenty others are incomplete or ambiguous to the point of absurdity. But it’s easy to pluck out the spurious ones with a search engine and the right kind of bullshit detector.

It might be argued that if ever there was a time to relish being a skeptic, this is it. Not necessarily because people used to be more careful with what they said, but because we're way better equipped to call them on it. The Internet is lambasted as an abyss of lies, when really it’s a place to organize around the question of what’s real.”

C.H.U.M.P.s

Since Oct. 25th, 2005 (the day I asked my wife, "Honey, are you in a cult?") the world couldn't be bothered to check the facts and act accordingly. Instead, just as my cult-loving wife predicted, western society has laughed while telling me what they "think" - allowing whatever happened, right or wrong, to happen. 

This has immensely validated the only firm truth I've ever learned, not from Google, but from the ghetto: 

Fuck a fact - all that matters is what you can "put your hands on."

And that's why things are the way they are.

Please make a note of it,....

 

NewAge Cultism: TED Is A Scientology Summer Camp

Being a Boomer phenomena, and since it took TED so long to ban quackery, this is hardly a surprising revelation:

Boomers are cultists,...

Because I Had No Family They Could Do Anything To Me

No, I'm not becoming a TED head. I just don't get to hear from others raised in foster care much - especially not anyone successful - and this guy seems to know the score. 

He says foster kids deserve respect, which is true, because our mere existence - isolated in the world - is a bigger accomplishment than most other's major achievements. You got a PhD, or your Masters, studying, or pretending to be "oppressed" by men, whites, blacks, whatever? Or maybe you think you're smart, because you have money? Ha. Good for you - you also had parents and a family:

I've survived almost every evil ever invented in the history of man, and I beat most of it alone, as a child.

I tucked myself in, read my own bedtime story, and sang myself to sleep - despite everything - and I'm still here. 

Unfortunately, as this speaker makes clear, this broken society - which is always ready to unleash some new degradation on me - still hasn't learned how to value the wisdom inherent in that yet.

Excuse me if I don't hold my breath, waiting,...

I Need Donations (But Spreading This Around Will Help)

Cool - about 9 months ago someone on Reddit got the word out about TED - finally:

The TED name is being dragged through the mud in Valencia, Spain, where a TEDx-approved event is promoting pseudoscientific stuff like (and I quote): crystal therapy, Egyptian psychoaromatherapy, healing through the Earth, homeopathy and even "basic mind control".

I'm not really sure how this event got approved by the TED headquarters, but almost every respected scientific journalist in Spain is outraged by it.

Some of the speakers (Google-translated for non-Spanish speakers).

Amma - Mahatma (Great Soul) of Hugs, Lots of Politicians go to Her to Receive Her Blessings.

José Rius - Reiki Master, Master Reconnection, Basic Mind Control, Zen and Crystal Theraphy Specialist.

Aura Küpper - Energetic Healing through Earth, Rebirthing Therapy, Angelic Reiki and author of a book called "Doctors from Heaven".

Adoracion Ferreres - Master in Clinical Psychology and Natural Therapies. Technical Expert in Bio-Energetic and Holistic, Egyptian Psycho-Aromatherapy and Transpersonal Homeotherapy.

The whole event is "women-oriented" and marketed as a female empowerment gig, which to me adds insult to the injury, as if women were incapable to distinguish true science from utter superstitious, anti-scientific bullshit.

Seeing the TED name associated with this freak show in a country where science and education have already been cornered and budget-cut by its own government is extremely sad. TED should react and examine its own standards in order to avoid being ashamed by these hordes of rain-makers and mystic scam artists in the future.

Ask and you will receive - today I found this hysterical screed from Natural News' freakazoid ringleader, Mike Adams:

Allow me to be the first to announce that TED is dead. Why? Because the group that organizes so-called "TED talks" has been thoroughly hijacked by corporate junk science and now openly rejects any talks about GMOs, food as medicine, or even the subject of how food can help prevent behavioral disorders in children. All these areas of discussion are now red-flagged from being presented on any TED stage.

This is openly admitted by TEDx itself in a little-known letter publicly published on December 7, 2012.

In that letter, TED says that people who talk about GMOs are engaged in "pseudoscience." Those who discuss the healing potential of foods are spreading "health hoaxes."

The letter also advises TEDx organizers to, "reject bad science, pseudoscience and health hoaxes," meaning anyone who talks about GMOs, "food as medicine" or similar topics.

And, sure enough, here's the letter from TED, and a list of some of the banned topics - all of which are TMR favorites:

"Healing," including reiki, energy fields, alternative health and placebos, crystals, pyramid power

"Free energy" and perpetual motion machines, alchemy, time travel

The neuroscience of [fill in the blank] — not saying this will all be non-legitimate, but that it’s a field where a lot of goofballs are right now

The fusion of science and spirituality. Be especially careful of anyone trying to prove the validity of their religious beliefs and practices by using science.

That wording, alone, says this was a major "win" for common sense. And that means it was a good day. After all these years, a finger's been put in the dyke, somewhere where it matters:

Amongst the real barbarians - those who've encouraged it and/or let the nonsense go on.

So yeah, right now, you guys can't see me but - whether I need money or not - I'm smiling,...

ADDED:

 

Journalists - do your jobs!

 

Some White Guys Are Getting Legit Through Beatboxing

 

TED's easy - I'd love to see this guy against Biz Markie, or Rahzel, in front of a Rap crowd who can catch the references and knows what they're listening to. But still,....

 

I Finally Found Something That Suits The Times I Live In

I came up in foster homes, which means I wasn't raised by my parents, filling my head with nonsense fairy tales of religion and how perfect I was, but was constantly given guidelines - by strangers - on what was expected of me and the difference between right and wrong. My upbringing was so unique, the rest of the world looks like that, above, almost every time I engage with it. 

 Just plain weird.

And this is why. You see, unlike with the rest of you, becoming a liar wasn't one of the foster care guidelines. Because of my up-bringing, I am actually less likely to lie than the rest of you, more likely to feel disgust towards you for doing it, and I'm happy to expose the lies (and liars) I encounter because it's how I derive fun from living in a world of deception. I don't worry about busting someone else's bubble, or their carefully-constructed facade, I worry about protecting myself.

And - as this speaker makes clear - you're almost all professional liars. I'm the one put-upon here. That's who I've always been. Surrounded by fools who think lying is an acceptable way of life and no compulsion not to lie about it. They want me to join them. Tell me:

Was "medical" marijuana really about helping people with AIDS, or did gays just want to smoke and were willing to exploit anyone and anything - including the deaths of their loved ones - to get what they wanted?

I was there - they're liars.

To me, you're all the gay reach-around artists of my youth, still trying to make me think you're a girl. (The good kids were always their focus, as though gays were demons from Hell, doing Satan's bidding.) Sorry, but I've never been a "Lola" fan, never thought deception was doing the right thing, and never found men or women lying - or the new levels of wannabe "honesty" they've produced - attractive.

 "Character, integrity - that's still what matters - that's always what's going to matter." 

Unless she, and the people running foster homes, were lying.

And - considering everything - that's a real possibility,...

 

Million Dollar Baby

Once again, Ann Althouse is celebrating a terrible artist (I got Amanda Palmer's groundbreaking album, which amounted to a groundbreaking single) but, still, Amanda Palmer is an artist:

    

Her TED talk, above, is about being willing to receive something for (what appears to be) nothing - which, in case you haven't noticed, is one thing artists do.

    Music, for instance, is ephemeral - it's never lost on me after doing a show, say, that people just paid for something that's already gone. And, I guess, you have to be married (or something like it) to understand how little even financial success can appear when seen through the eyes of someone not in touch with their/our humanity - who isn't actively part of the exchange being described here. 

   

 I get pissed off when I see those bumper stickers that say "Real Artists Have Day Jobs" because, shit, it's a day job that usually keeps real artists from making what transcends - and thus creates - real wealth. For instance, I spent all this week putting up somebody's fence - while nursing an ulcer - but mostly thinking about the music I'm always desperate to get back to work on, if I can only find some time when I get home after 8+ hours, to face my other responsibilities. It can drain you:

   

 Most people nowadays aren't capable of making dinner after only a day in an office.

 Of course, I'm not exactly what you call the "social media type," so I'm working on something that'll be *a little more significant* than what "shallow" Amanda Palmer's delivered:

   

 And that, my friends, will always be worth it. 

   

 Oh - and to those of you who have donated here, so far, and wonder what it's gotten? I've gone from a broken computer, in a tiny room, just like this one below (this was actually the room next to mine):

   

 To now (after a trip to California to get my equipment) working on my album in this one:

  

[Click to enlarge]

It might not be a million dollars on Kickstarter, but - if that's not a visible, and real-world, improvement in my circumstance - I don't know what is: 

And I Thank You with every fiber of my being.

Now, if you don't mind, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming:

AKA Continuing to tell it like it is,...

Reggie Watts And The Intellectual Scorched Earth Policy

"It's a song about people - and sasquatches,...other fringe science stuff. 

That's French science,..."

 

I Never Stood A Chance (In Hell)

Clearly, I have the correct amount of dopamine in my brain, so I can avoid seeing most of the wrong patterns that others fall victim to regularly. One of the patterns they imagine is I think I'm better than they are for this, when the truth is I only call them stupid because they've punished me, my whole life, for being different in this way. For me, it started with a foster brother who - after I innocently admitted I didn't believe in God - knocked the fuck out of me for saying so.

That's always been the way it is: I'd try to have a nice, calm, rational discussion with someone (after they'd corner me about my "beliefs") and, once they see I don't dabble in the irrational, they'd lash out - and usually, though not always, with violence. (Plotting with others against me, betrayal, and abandonment, are other popular fallback positions.) To this day, I am convinced that my ex-wife's (and our friend's) behavior at the end of our marriage were merely payback for me never being capable of going along with their NewAge view of the world.

Now that I've had a chance to digest all of this, I'm sure that my marriage never stood a chance, because I was always outnumbered by people too arrogant to question why, in some areas of their lives (religion/spirituality, etc.) they were willing to give up the knowledge they possessed when, in every other area, they knew better than to let go of their educations.

To illustrate this, I'm putting these videos (one of which I've posted before) of how our military leaders have been thinking (Don't forget: I'm a veteran) so you can see exactly how far outside of the mainstream I am, and how my ex - who once claimed she could walk through walls - was right in the thick of it, before she went on to kill three people. I think these videos also explain why I think the Oprah Winfrey-led society at large is just as responsible for the destruction of my marriage - and the deaths that followed - as my ex-wife was. They also explain the cultish election of a no-talent nobody like Barack Obama. These, to me, are exposé's of popular madness:

A Man Being Listened To (That No One Can Hear)

Why (Strange) People Believe In Strange Things

Here - Drink Some Water: You'll Be Just Fine

"Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected."

-- Bill Gates, scaring everyone at the hoity-toity TED Conference to make a point about the deadly disease - the same disease Samuel Hahnemann claimed homeopathy was a cure for - as reported by FOX News.