The Whirled's still turning: snippets for a Sunday afternoon

So another month almost got away from me while I was occupied with for-pay work and other real-life matters. But just in the nick of time, here are a few snippets to snark us out of April and right into May Day, aka International Workers' Day, aka Loyalty Day. (And simmer down: while Herr Twitler is disturbingly, disgustingly authoritarian and seems hell-bent on destroying the Constitution, he didn't make up Loyalty Day. It was actually first observed in the U.S. back in 1921, during the first Red Scare, and became a legally designated holiday in 1958.)

Almost-May-Day or not, it's just another day in Scamworld...

Kind of like Donald Trump writing a book about humility
Convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray, aka The Scumback Kid on this Whirled, is apparently trying to regain his status as a Number 1 New York Times Bestselling Author with his upcoming book, Redemption: The Price of Leadership.

In Redemption James Arthur Ray brings his nearly 30 years of experience in business, entrepreneurship, meteoric rises and epic falls to suggest that leadership is about “paying the price.”

In some cases, followership is also about "paying the price," and in some cases that price is your life.

I don't think Death Ray quite understands the meaning of the word, "redemption."

Ramtha Hearts Drumpf
I used to write fairly frequently about the imaginary-friends sector of the New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality industry. In other words, I used to be a lot more fun than I am now. But never mind that. One of the elder stateswomen of the imaginary-pals biz is crazy J.Z., who has a 35,000-year-old made-up mate named Ramtha. Recently I found out that Ramtha is quite the Donald Trump fan, despite the fact that his inventor has a history of being a donor to the Democratic party. That must make for some interesting convos at the dinner table and family gatherings.

Ramtha cheers the new president: “That man is trumping deceit. He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t do drugs, he does business!”

As a kicker, Ramtha predicts Trump will receive the protection of UFOs while flying in his jet: “And the first time he looks out the window … when he sees two silver disks as escort, he is going to know it all — and this is a man who is not afraid — he is going to know it all.”

Mike Wright, a [J.Z.] Knight spokesman, said in an emailed statement that Knight continues to support Democratic candidates and causes in local and state elections.

“She did not vote for candidate Trump but she sees what Ramtha describes as ‘purposeful good’ in his election,” the statement said.

And...

The Ramtha controversy that dogged local Democrats erupted in 2012 after videos were leaked by a conservative group of Knight, as Ramtha, making racist and offensive comments. That included referring to “the invasion of the Mexicans who just breed like rabbits” and saying Jews had “earned enough cash to have paid their way out of the (expletive) gas chambers by now.”

Knight’s defenders argued the videos were heavily edited and that her comments were taken out of context.

Uh-huh.

The Law of Extraction, eleven years later
I've flung thousands of words onto this blog (and some other forums) in the eleven years since the infamous New-Wage moviemercial, The Secret, came out. The Secret promoted a simplistic, pseudoscientific, magical-thinking philosophy called the Law of Attraction, but what it was really promoting was the Law of Extraction, as in extracting money from gullible people's wallets.

Besides criticizing the basic premises of The Secret, and slamming its shameless pandering to narcissism, greed, and envy, I've written a lot about the various talking heads for whom The Secret was a cash cow, including creator Rhonda Byrne. Around the time of the five-year anniversary of the release of The Secret I posted about the misfortunes of some of the Secret "stars."

Back in March of this year, one of The Secret's most boastful "stars" (and a once-frequent star of this blog, until I grew bored with him), Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, commemorated the ten-plus year anniversary of The Secret. As he'd done hundreds of times previously over the years, he spent the entire blog post Joe-splaining that The Secret (despite originally being heavily promoted by its creators as the only seekrit a person would ever need) was only an introduction to a concept, and that if The Secret doesn't "work" for you, it's your fault for not understanding it properly or not doing the work or whatever. As is the case with nearly all of his blog posts, the real purpose of this post post was to give Joe a forum to boast about his success and try to funnel people into his overpriced "Miracles Coaching" scam.

Some things never change.

But here's what's kind of scary, to the point that I even wonder if this comment is even real. It appears after Joe's post:

from "Donald" March 5, 2017 at 10:06 pm
Hi Joe!! I recently signed up for your Miracles Coaching. I am excited! I was recently diagnosed with cancer, which they said could be cured with surgery. But, I have decided to put my faith in you and spend the money on coaching instead. I think the universe will cure me through you! My doctors were totally negative about my decision, telling me I was “choosing certain death.” Can you believe that? Anyway, I would rather give my money to you than some negative doctors! Wish me well, my friend!

Captain Kirk goes berserk
Earlier this month actor William Shatner got into a big twitter fight over vaccinations. When my favorite physician blogger David Gorski, aka Orac (Respectful Insolence) interevened in the conversation, the former Captain Kirk/Denny Crane turned on the good doctor and spit out accusations that were parroted from Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams' fierce defamation campaign against Dr. Gorski. Among other sources, Shatner cited Adams' ill-named "Truth Wiki" entry on David Gorski.

Orac wrote about it on this April 6 blog post.

...if you want to know why people like Mike Adams write dozens of lie-filled articles attacking me and adding attacks on my cancer institute for good measure, this is about the best example I’ve ever seen. It’s to poison my Google reputation forever, and it’s largely succeeded, my Wikipedia page and other entries on me that show up on the first page notwithstanding. Last night’s experience reminded me of this in a manner that I never would have predicted in a million years. There’s no way I could ever have predicted that, one day in 2017 (or any other time), a celebrity as big as William Shatner would Google me and use Mike Adams’ attacks on me against me, even though all I did was to try to explain, quite respectfully and uncharacteristically not insolently, a bit about why he was being criticized. One wonders how he would have reacted if he hadn’t found all that misinformation on me. True, I have since learned that Shatner has a history of behavior like this on Twitter and that it’s likely that he would have found some other reason to attack me, but maybe, just maybe, he might have listened a little.

In the Slate piece I linked to in the first sentence of this section, Alan Levinovitz wrote that Shatner's tweets are instructive as a classic case of the way misinformation is spread. As far as I'm concerned, the Shatner v Gorski tweet-fight is also instructive as proof that despite Mike Adams' constant annoying whining about being "censored" by Google et al., he seems to do just fine in the search engines.

Little Loony Lenny: back in the Fatherland?
We in the US can only hope that my UK pal Longdog is right when he speculates that the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld, cancer quack and former Kevin Trudeau b.f.f. Leonard Coldwell, has left the U.S. and is now hiding out in his native Germany. Too bad for Germany, though.

And speaking of Little LoonyC, it appears that you can register for his IMBS-ing U "coaching" training in Germany -- which takes a year to complete and consists of four blocks of "training" at 2,500 Euros for each block, PLUS a 2,000 Euro fee to actually take the "final."

But be warned, prospective student:

All applications are binding and irrevocable! There are no cancellations or repayments! ONLY American law (Court of jurisdiction: Charlotte, North Carolina, USA) German law is not applicable. If you incur any costs for IBMS® and dependents, you are fully responsible and must bear the legal and legal costs for IBMS® and all dependents in full!

So he's ripping 'em off in the Fatherland too (no big surprise there), and it's only a matter of time before they get wise to him. And as usual, his German-language sites proclaim that everything is subject to U.S. law, while his dwindling U.S. platforms cite German law. It's all a ruse to try to keep people from suing him, because you can't just rip people off nonstop for years and years without the thought of a lawsuit at least crossing the minds of the folks you're screwing.

Meanwhile...

Katie and pals are still begging Drumpf for mercy
The aforementioned imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka K.T., aka Katie, is still begging SCROTUS to pardon and free him from Camp Cupcake (his faux-fond nickname for the relatively cushy Montgomery, Alabama prison camp where he's serving his ten-year sentence). I blogged about this back in February. Katie is also begging his followers to plea his case to SCROTUS and whomever else will listen. On March 19 on Facebook, for instance, one of Katie's surrogates, "E.G.," wrote a long-ish screed, complete with Trudeau-ish histrionics.

Imagine, if you would, being sentenced to spend a decade in prison without being convicted of a "crime". No fraud, no felony, and not even a misdemeanor (like your garden variety DUI rap). Picture this draconian sentence imposed on you, not by a "jury of your peers", but by a singularly mortal and fallible federal judge.

Ponder what it would be like to be emphatically and cynically denied every opportunity to defend yourself against ridiculous "charges" leveled against you, not by ANY law enforcement agency, and not by any "complaint" filed against you by any "injured party", but rather by ONE virtually omnipotent and pettily vindictive federal judge. To be forbidden to so much as utter the phrases "first amendment" and "free speech" in "HIS" courtroom, as if these were personal affronts to the judge rather than fundamental rights granted to every citizen of this country vis-a-vis its supposedly respected and revered founding document.

Put yourself in the shoes of a completely innocent person as he is handcuffed and shackled, with bail denied, and thrown into MCC (Metropolitan Correctional Center) Chicago, one of America's toughest jails, to defend himself amongst "real criminals": convicted murderers; armed bank robbers; human traffickers; drug kingpins; mafia hit men; violent and ruthless gang members; and pedophiles. Having the "courtesy" of being offered solitary confinement extended to you by your jailers "for your own protection" (naturally), as you stare down the prospect of ten more years in the federal penitentiary system....

"E.G." went on to describe Katie as "one of the most honorable people I have ever met," adding, "I'm proud to know a person of such rare vintage. They just don't make 'em like that anymore."

Well, yes, they do, E.G. Scamworld is pretty regularly producing con artists, scammers, and flim-flammers.

More recently, Trudeau waxed poetic about his blissful experiences in Camp Cupcake:

I woke this morning. Meditated for an hour...read for 20 minutes...made some fresh coffee...wrote for 30 minutes. And then sat reflecting...smiling...feeling amazing.

What a wonderful gift I have been given to be here. I am so thankful and grateful. Bliss bubbled up inside. I sat just "being"...feeling soooo good!

I looked around me and then thought about all the sad people getting off a train… sitting in traffic… rushing to work...stressed. Miserable...unfulfilled...searching for life’s meaning...struggling with debt.... I smiled again...how lucky am I!?

YOU can feel good in ANY situation. YOU have the power to CHOOSE your thoughts and point of focus...use your power wisely.
Much love…KT
#FreeKevinTrudeau

Free Kevin Trudeau? Why bother? Sounds like you're already free, Katie!

As I said above, some things just never change.

That's it for now... see you next month.