Nation Getting More And More Stupid

No Corona beer has nothing to do with a virus

There have always been a lot of stupid people around.  Frankly, I'm not especially smart, but there seems to be a big, intensifying competition out there about how extreme stupidity can get.

I don't want to be a part of that competiton.  However, I can gawk at it, because there's tons of examples out there.

I'll start with a relatively mild one, and then let it go downhill from there. You are going to be rolling your eyes and shaking your head, guaranteed.

CORONA BEER CAUSES COVID-19?

Then there was the poll that suggested 38 percent of Americans would never drink a Corona beer because it's similarly named to the Coronavirus.  As if you could get the illness from anything with the word "corona" in it.

By that logic, I guess you could get the illness by going outside on a sunny day.  After all, the sun has a cornona, right?

To my relief, this 38 percent number in the poll could easily be misleading because the poll was poorly worded.

According to HuffPost, the questions and some of the answers went like this:

Question: "Is Corona related to the coronavirus?"  Disconcertingly, 16 percent of beer drinkers were "confused" at this.  Hopefully, the respondents were drunk when they were asked.  Everybody is confused when they're drunk.

Question: "In light of the coronavirus, do you plan to stop drinking Corona?"  Four percent of people who say they usually drink Corona beer would stop because of this. Dummies.

Question: "Would you buy Corona under any circumstances now?"  This was the magic question that got all the publicity. Thirty-eight of beer drinking Americans said they would not.  I'm just hoping and praying most of those who said they would not simply don't like Corona beer and wouldn't drink it even if the coronavirus wasn't a thing.

Or, as HuffPost notes, people might stop drinking Corona because it reminds them of something unpleasant they'd rather not think about, or that drinking a Corona in front of friends or in public would set them up to be the butt of a joke.

So, my bad for not thinking through the logic, or lack thereof, in the way the poll question was worded.

That doesn't mean there's a lot of stupid people out there.  It gets worse. Keep reading.

IT'S THE DEMOCRATS' FAULT

Some of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters have noted that so far, early in this coronavirus epidemic, the majority of cases have been reported in states and cities run by Democrats.

There could be lots of reasons for that.  Bad luck? More widespread testing in those districts? More people in these areas that have traveled to countries that have been particularly hard hit? All plausible explanations. Who knows, right?

Well, the MAGA crowd sure knows what's going on, apparently.   According to Raw Story, here are some of the reasons why the coronavirus has hit places like Washington State and California, both blue states.

I don't want to provide links to these people's Twitter accounts because I don't want to reward them, here's a sampling:

Some moron named Bob Berger tweeted, "Have you noticed all new cass of the coronavirus are in Democrat states Wash. Or. Cal. I'll (sic) RI. do you think the dems are dumb enough to get sick to make Trump look bad just saying."

Yes, because people always want to come down with a potentially deadly illness to own the MAGAs.

 They get worse:  "Prediction: Democrat run cities in the US will start announcing many sick people with coronavirus "symptoms" to crash the Mkts to hurt Trump. It's sad that this is where we are as a country but it's the truth. Democrats know the only chance to beat Trump is a mkt crash."

I'll repeat the above refrain: Destroy their own 401ks to own the MAGA's? Really?

A couple more before my headache gets too extreme: "Notice how the virus is located in Democrat states? Are the Dems purposely contaminating these people? It's a fair question."  So Democrats are into committing genocide?

The answer is apparently yes according to the most stupid MAGAs.  Like this tweet: "Democrat run Blue States will infect the poor with the virus in State Run Hospitals to exploit their deaths against Trump, because, well, it's the Democrats."

This almost, but not quite, makes me wish these ignorant tweeters would come down with the virus. But that would be mean.

GARTH BROOKS AND NOT THAT SANDERS

Garth Brooks wearing a Sanders football jersey.  It references
Barry Sanders, not the Bernie Sanders. But people are too stupid
to understand that, apparently

So this happened to country music legend Garth Brooks last week:

He was in Detroit and part of the plan was to honor Barry Sanders, one of most notable running backs and Detroit Lions NFL players on record.

Brooks wore a #20 Sanders football jersey at his show, and shared a photo of him wearing it on Instagram.

I get it that not every Garth Brooks fan knows who Barry Sanders is.  But it was clearly a football jersey, right?

Nope. Some now erstwhile Garth Brooks fans exploded in anger. The football jersey Brooks wore said "Sanders" so these ignoramuses just automatically assumed Brooks was campaigning for presidential candidate and Democratic-Socialist Bernie Sanders.

As Snopes reported, one person wrote: "I had no idea you wer a big freaking liberal socialist! I've listened to your songs for the last time!" Another wrote, "If this is for Bernie Sanders, I'm done with you. I thought you wer a true American that loves our country."

You wouldn't believe how many similar declarations there were out on social media over the past few days.

As far as anybody can tell, Garth Brooks has in actuality not given any kind of opinion on who he favors for president. Other than perhaps Barry Sanders, who tweeted, "Hey @garthbrooks, want to be my VP? #Number20For2020."

Brooks tweeted back, "I would run any race with you."  At least the country music star is keeping a good sense of humor about this whole thing.

TIN HAT TIME!

I'll leave you with this, um, creative theory from an actual U.S. Congress candidate Joanne Wright who apparently approvingly retweeted the following now-deleted missive:

 OK, my headache just got much worse. Time to shut this post down for today.

Another Sign Of The Apocalypse: Super-Crazy QAnon Conspiracy Book Selling Like Hotcakes

The idiots of Qanon prove that there are zillions of suckers
born every minute. 

These are the kinds of stories that just make me want to give up.

A book called, "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" was a big boffo seller on Amazon, at least earlier in March.  

QAnon, for those who mercifully haven't heard about it yet, is probably the most bonkers conspiracy theory in history.

The basics of the conspiracy are that the world is run by a Satanic cabal headed by Hillary Clinton. She and other prominent Democrats also supposedly run a child sex ring in the nonexistent basement of a Washington DC pizzeria.

Moreover, according to this wild and stupid conspiracy, Donald Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are secretly working together to destroy this evil cabal.

As NBC reported in March , the book was at No. 9 in all books about politics and No. 1 in all books about "Censorship."

Apparently, "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" is full of garbage that comes at you willy-nilly.

NBC describes it thusly:

"On one page, the book baselessly claims that the United States created AIDS, polio, Lyme disease, some natural disasters, two Indiana Jones movies and the Pixar movie Monsters Inc."

Wow, that's some busy government we have doing all that! I wonder why this secret cabal took the time to make these movies?

NBC's report goes on helpfully:

"The book posits that Monsters Inc shows off a government plan to collect children's blood 'that gives (government figures) some form of high or youthful look."

Oh. But then why doesn't Hillary Clinton not exactly look like a spring chicken? Oh, sorry, we're not supposed to question the logic of these insane conspiracies, are we?

The reason that this weirdness is doing well on Amazon has to do with the old, sad fact in America: There is a sucker born every minute.

Social media has been playing wack-a-mole with these whackadoodle conspiracies. NBC quotes conspiracy theory research Mike Rothschild saying YouTube recently changed its algoritms to make it more difficult for the grifters pushing Qanon to make monetize their video creations.

So, Rothschild said, these grifters are no dummies: "They absolutely exploited flaws in Amazon's algorithms." The book, Rothschild said is "a bold new step in the endless grift at the heart of Q."

In an earlier article from last August NBC tried to explain why people fall for conspiracy nonsense that is batshit crazy.

People have always thought that many things don't happen by chance. There's an underlying reason. That's how conspiracy theories are born.

I get the NBC story on why people believe conspiracy theories, but I'm still struggling with how people get to that state of mind.  According to this article, people who are generally anxious and feel like their life is not fully in their control anymore, gravitate to conspiracy theories.

Alright, so I get it how people believe in things like a conspiracy over the assassination of JFK, even if the theories are pretty off. But how do people get to insane things like Qanon?

What's really dangerous is the people like Alex Jones who peddle conspiracy theories to the masses.  I'm sure he doesn't believe the crap he spouts. He knows he can make money off it because of all the gullible people out there.

As thoughtcatalog.com points out, these gullible people are willing to believe the global elite are planning to murder 80% of the world's population, that children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre were just crisis actors that were part of a "false flag." Jones had a guy on his show and demonstrated support for the dude who was claiming that the 2,000 children that go missing everyday are being sold to Mars as sex slaves.

There we go again. The strangest conspiracy theories involve sexual crimes against children. I'm glad people are fighting back. Jones is being sued for his terribly harmful antics, and it's not going well for Jones at all. 

The best explanation for Qanan and its popularity that I've seen came from columnist Clarence Page.

He writes:

"The Qanon theory, whatever its origins, sounds tailor-made for core Trump supporters who need supporting arguments for the alternative scenarios spun by the White House, conservative media and other Trump allies.

Qanon is scary partly because its promoters want it to be. 'Triggering the libs' or 'owning the libs' - i.e doing things specifically to upset liberals - is its own reward to many on the right. But paranoid politics can pop up on all political sides - and often does."

Unfortunately, the game of "owning" the other side, the enemy, has become more important than facts in this world. The most dangerous part of all this is that when we ignore facts for fun and profit, those facts always come back to bite us on the ass. Often with tragic results.

Alex Jones Is Looking To Hire. Sane People Need Not Apply

Would you work for this guy? He's hiring. 

I love picking on Alex Jones because he's such an easy target, and let's face it, I'm a bully.

The latest news, as reported in the Huffington Post and other news outlets, is Jones is looking to hire more employees at his batshit InfoWars network.

As the Huffington Post notes, a lot of people had a lot of fun making tongue-in-cheek  "job inquiries" on social media.

Some of my favorites:

--- Does your insurance plan cover chemtrails?

--- I will have my lizard people send uou my resume via chemtrail, as we discussed earlier telepathically.

 --- Do you provide tin foil hats, or do I have to provide my own?

--- Does the commitment have to be court-ordered, or is voluntary commitment sufficient?

--- What is the preferred number of false flag jobs a candidate needs in their resume?

Did Late 1970s Rock Band Supertramp Forecast the 9/11 Attacks?

There's a lot of crazy conspiracy theories about every major news event and tragedy we've ever had.

Does this goofy album cover from 1979 foretell
the 9/11 terror attacks? One wacko in Britain
seems to think so. 

That certainly includes the terrible terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Some theories are nuttier than others. I don't mean to make comedy out of a national tragedy, but here's a 9/11 conspiracy theory that is the nuttiest ever.

Apparently to at least one person, the cover of Supertramp's 1979 album "Breakfast In America" foretold the terror attack, according to the UK Mirror. 

As you can see, the album cover is pretty goofy to begin with. It's a view out a plane window of the lower Manhattan sky line, rendered mostly in white diner supplies.

On the wing is a matronly, happy waitress, hoisting a glass of orange juice like some low brow Statue of Liberty.

Now, the theory about Supertramp was posted by somebody on David Icke's web site. Icke promotes all kinds of out there conspiracy theories

I'm not sure if Icke endorsed the Supertramp theory, but like I said, it's doozy.

I am not making this up. So here goes;

The fact that the album came out in 1979 is somehow a reference to 9/11. I'm not sure how.

The planes that flew into the World Trade Center had breakfast served on them, and the name of the album is "Breakfast in America."

Also, breakfast in American is somehow equated with a fight for freedom. I'm not sure how.

And notice the position of the glass of orange juice in front of the twin towers on the album cover. See? That's a fireball!

The goofy waitress is showing the terrorists precisely where the target is!

Also, a mirror image of the album cover makes the "U" and "P" in "Supertramp" look like "9/11"

I guess. If you say so.

For fun,  we ought to investigate this conspiracy further, beyond the superficial stuff that appeared in the Icke web site. In other words, now I WILL make stuff up.

If you use your imagination enough, you can come up with all kinds of connections. Let's try, shall we?

One of the tunes on "Breakfast in America" was called "The Logical Song"  And these conspiracy theories are logical, right? Um, no?

And the lyrics of "The Logical Song" go something like this:

"I said now, watch what you say
Now we're calling you a radical
a liberal, fanatical, criminal
Won't you sign up your name
We'd like to feel you're acceptable,
respectable, presentable, a vegetable."

See, The New World Order, or whoever supposedly attacked the Twin Towers in Conspiracy World were signalling in 1979, through Supertramp, that we needed to obey these overlords or else!

Another song on "Breakfast In America" was called "Goodbye Stranger" an obvious reference to the people the terrorists were planning to kill.  Or something like that.

The point of this exercise is to prove how easy it is to create half baked, super duper crazy conspiracy theories that people will actually believe. Not many people, but some.

I'm just afraid now that I've analyzed "Breakfast in America" further, the conspiracy wackos will turn to me for more proof that one of the worst attacks on innocent civilians was at least partly the work of a half-forgotten British rock band.

Hey, you want more proof Supertramp was behind this horrible terrorist attack?  In 1974, the band released an album called "Crime Of The Century"

Novel Pope Resignations Theory: It Was Gangnam Style, Psy Antichrist Conspiracy

As everybody knows by now, Pope Benedict XVI is resigning effective February 28, making him the first Pope to resign, rather than just die in office, in nearly 600 years.

Is this guy part of an evil plot to rid the world of
Pope Benedict, install the Antichrist and bring on the End Times?
One person, at least, believe so, we think.

The pope says he's quitting because he's too infirm to fulfill his duties. Which makes sense. The guy's 85 years old. Being Pope is as lot of work, I imagine and not every octogenerarian is physically up to the task.

Of course, that's not going to stop other theories from cropping up.

Already, I've found what might be the most novel one possible. It's hard to follow, but apparently, the current Pope has to leave by February 28 in order for a false pope to approve the anti-Christ, and this is all somehow being accomplished Gangnam Style, and Psy, the guy who made the uber viral Gangnam style video is somehow involved. I think.

Does this mean the Pope is going to do a Gangnam Style video to celebrate his retirement?

The guy who made the video on the Gangnam Style theory on the Pope has a whole slew of YouTube videos with his unique take on the inevitable End Times. It's certainly worth  perusing his other videos just for fun.

But here, just watch, and try to make sense out of his Gangnam Style Pope resignation. 

Sandy: It's Obama's Fault, Say the Theorists

I knew as soon as they said Hurricane Sandy would be a very huge, very weird, very destructive storm for the U.S. that the conspiracies would start flying immediately.

And they have.

As this comic from Infowars shows, a number of
people think Obama is controlling the
weather for his politcal gain

The inevitable theory is this: U.S. military intelligence has figured out how to control the weather. Obama has ordered a massive storm so that it causes widespread chaos, and now right before the election he can grandstand and say what a great job he does marshalling FEMA and other forces to help our citizens.

Then he would be a shoo-in for reelection.

Yeah.

Yes, I know all the conspiracy minded people out there are going to blast away at me and say I'm part of the coverup for scoffing. I'm sure I'll get trolled mercilessly but so be it.  People all hate it when their belief systems are criticized. Everyone. Including me. Including people who embrace, um, unusual theories.

There's tons of Web sites like Infowars that have lots of conspiracy theories. Some make sense and might actually be true.  Some stories on these sites actually are true.  A few are wayyy over the top

Here's my response to the Obama and Sandy theory:  There's got to be at least a few Romney partisans in military intelligence. And it would take quite a team to help Obama steer a deadly storm into the U.S.

Someone from that team, the Romney guy, surely,  would be outraged at Obama's efforts to control the weather and unleash a deadly storm on the U.S. This outraged person would find and steal some proof that Obama is doing this and mention it to the press.

Yes, yes, the press is part of the coverup, say the conspiratorial types. But I know how the media operates. If anybody got a bombshell like this, they would broadcast it so big. It would be beyond the story of a lifetime.

And when the story got out, do you think people would vote for Obama knowing he created a storm that killed a bunch of people and wrecked half the East Coast? The mildest thing that would happen to Obama in that situation is he'd be tried for treason and executed.

Even if Obama got away with it initially and nobody found out about his evil storm deed before the election, it would come out later. And he'd be impeached quicker than you could say "John Boehner."

And I'm surprised, if weather modification really existed, that nobody's proven it to the public. For years, the suspicious ones have been talking about HAARP, which supposedly is the Pentagon's High Prequency Active Auroral Research Program, which, under the theory, has been causing all those weird storms that have been hitting the U.S. and elsewhere for years.

 I know the conspiracists say they have proof and the main stream media is once again  covering it up.  However I don't think Fox News, for example, would keep their mouths shut.

I know I'm spelling this all out too much, but it's fun to do so. Say what you want about Obama. Love him or hate him. But no, he didn't cause Hurricane Sandy.

But go ahead and write out the evil Obama/Sandy narrative. It might make for a profitable screenplay or something.