Dear Republicans

The Real Immigrants

Solar Can Heater

After seeing a video on YouTube about solar can heaters I thought it was fun to build one myself and test it. I had plenty of wood laying around from building my greenhouse so I used the "leftovers," that's why there are different planks on the backside. I deliberately made the container 100 centimeters tall and 50 centimeters wide because plastic plates that go on the front are also sold in those dimensions.

Once I had the box ready it was preparing the aluminum cans that go inside. I drilled extra holes in the top and bottom of the cans for the airflow that must occur inside. I used an extra sturdy can to house the aluminum cans because they crunch and break very easily without support. For the solar heater I used 35 aluminum cans in rows of 7 wide, 5 high. 

Next came the paint job. I also screwed 2 additional pieces of wood in place that give some airspace on the top and bottom. Drilled holes in them for the air to move. The cans are also firmly in place and can't go anywhere. I used dull black spray paint. Wanting to be thorough I had to get one more, so the paint cost just under €10. Spraying paint is fairly easy. The paint does has to settle for 24 hours so doing everything takes a couple of days. 

Finally, I screwed a plastic plate (2 millimeters thick) on the front. I keep this heater indoors but I suspect for outdoor usage you need a thicker sheet or glass. I drilled a hole through the back to where the upper vacant area is and ran a hose through it.

Results so far are encouraging. I have a simple thermometer on the back that measures the box itself near the exit hose and even after 10-15 minutes sunshine it shoots up to 24-25 Celsius. A few weeks ago on a really good day it got up to 33 Celsius. Maybe inside it's even warmer but I don't have a fancy gizmo at this time for measuring. When you put your hand over the exit hose you can feel the warm air rushing through your fingers. At the very least I can say that it definitely works.

Molyneux's Debate Technique

In the video above Stefan Molyneux tries to win a debate by deciding what a valid argument is and what isn't, which basically amounts up to him being right and the other person being wrong. Others have noticed his debating techniques as well and complied a list 7 years ago that is valid till this day. Here are some points.

1. Tangents;
When you ask Stef a question (in a verbal debate), he has the habit of very briefly and unsatisfactorily responding to it and then going off on a tangent for two minutes possibly in the hope that neither his discussion partner nor the audience will return to his unsatisfactory answer to his question and instead reply to the last thing he said (the tangent).

2. Misrepresentation;
Stef will misrepresent positions:
1. Create straw men and attack them
2. Say something like ‘but isn’t one plus one two?’ (in other words, put forward something that is both completely true and uncontroversial and completely irrelevant) so that there seems to be agreement when in fact there is not.

3. Cherry picking and ignoring questions;
Very often Stef does not even try to create the impression that he has answered your questions and will just downright ignore them.

4. Confusing quantity with quality;
When you call Stef on his not having answered your questions he tends to say something like ‘I participated in several threads on this topic, did 3 podcasts and had 2 personal conversations with listeners so don’t tell me that I haven’t engaged in the debate.' He sure has engaged in debate but he has not actually addressed let alone answered your most important arguments.

5. Psychologizing;
Stef wont address your arguments but instead try to steer the discussion toward your psychological state (that may account for your position in his eyes).

6. Ridiculing & Bullying;
While psychologizing, when applied wrongly, is already a form of bullying, there is also more obvious bullying going on on the board, like when Stef makes fun of other posters.

The video above falls under point 15.

15. Ending the debate;
Usually, in large part thanks to Stef's evasiveness, debates don't go very well, the core problem is not being discussed explicitly and instead there's a circling around that problem, with points being revisited and revisited.
The clever thing that Stef then does is take the initiative to end the debate, by for example sighing or just saying something like "okay, I don't think we're not moving forward anymore, so I'm gonna stop' or 'this has been a merry-go-round and I'm getting off now' or something like that. So he identifies what has been happening in the debate and then says that therefore it's time to stop. By so taking the initiative (especially if he accompanies it with a sigh or some other mild form of contempt) he can make it seem (to the audience and even in some cases to his discussion partner) as if the cause of the fruitlessness of the debate was his discussion partner (who kept going around in circles, who just wouldnt accept some point, whatever), not him.

Before you debate Stefan Molyneux it's probably a good idea to familiarize yourself with his debating techniques because in my opinion he's a pathological narcissist who convinced himself he's some great philosopher who simply can't be wrong and he'll put you through the wringer to maintain that public perception.

Peter Joseph found out as well. See video below.

The Ayn Rand Hypocrisy

Immense hypocrisy by Rand. A hardcore advocate of capitalism and property rights she does a complete 180 degree turn when it comes to the Native Americans. And this from someone who held a lifelong hatred for the Bolsheviks (for confiscating her family's wealth). The Yankee snake oil double standard should be obvious.

Happy Slave Labor Day

Explain The Difference?

Red Sunflower

TZM+ Week 33

Lets see. Last week the number was 533.143, this week it's 533.316 which means that there are an additional 173 subscribers to the main website. Not a decline, nope. An increase. YouTube. Last week 85.294, this week 85.439. An increase of 145 subscribers. So if some psychopath claims the Zeitgeist Movement is dying they just want to see it that way. Numbers don't lie, idiots do.

Chomsky Truth

Mario Rodriquez & Machwon/JimJesus (Mirrored)

Article mirrored from 'Debunking the Bunk.'

I will inevitably get back to James Kush soon. However, a recent happening on the "Fans of V-RADIO" page has spiked my interest in kind of pulling what FPS fans (First Person Shooter) call a "DOUBLE KILL!" against Mario Rodriguez A.K.A "Mario Brotha" and JimJesus/Machwon.

I was initially going to work on Mario towards the end as he was the easiest by far to expose as a blogger with little to nothing in the form of integrity in his approach. His blogging style really looks like something a group of children are doing on Facebook to cyberbully some poor kid. Which while still terrible and obviously relevant is far more obviously bad.

Recently a Free Market Advocate named Jacob Spinney who is frequently on youtube and was part of a marvelous debate with Brandy Hume on the topic of the Venus Project came to the "Fans of V-RADIO" facebook group. Since the bloggers that for some reason seem obsessed with VTV use his facebook group using false identities and under false pretenses (They are obviously not fans.) it was only a matter if time before they wanted to spend some time on the topic and find a way to equally dishonestly spin it.

This ended up manifesting in some very sloppy trolling masquerading as journalism by Mario Rodriguez. Who apparently figured he could get away with making a up story that VTV censored Jacob Spinney. 

Of all of the bloggers I have seen making fools of themselves and making actual bloggers look bad, Mario is by far the most crude. He always refers to VTV as the "fat elf" referring to the photo they took from Neil's private facebook account illegally where he is engaging in Live Action Role Playing also known as "LARP". So he uses the nickname "Fat Elf" when talking about him. One would think that anyone old enough to operate a computer let alone run a blog would of also gained in maturity enough to realize that making fun of someone for being fat or obese is not only cruel, it is an attempt to discredit VTV through completely irrelevant ad hominem. And while LARP might be an unusual hobby, I would say it is a more constructive use of one's time then say scribbling childish insults on the internet giving bloggers as a whole a bad name.

After the ad hominem, Mario goes on to say that Brandy Hume "lost" the debate to Jacob Spinney on youtube because she stopped making videos after that. This is another absolute fallacy tactic that has been a plague on the internet perhaps since it's inception. The idea that just because you posted last, you have won. You ever get irritated with two people who endlessly want the last word? You know why the "last word" has value? Because some people are still stupid enough to believe that the person who stopped posting must of done so because they have "retreated".  And that therefore, they automatically were incorrect.

Suppose you and I were having an argument about the color of a car. You say it is orange, I say it is red. My computer breaks down so I stop posting in the debate. Does that mean the color is suddenly orange? No. But in the world where internet tough guys try their hand at swinging word fists rather then actually debating there are still people foolish enough to consider that whomever posted lastmust be right.

At the text on the bottom, Mario declares that VTV did in fact censor the conversation. And that VTV's welcome message to Jacob Spinney was also deleted from the facebook group. Both of these statements were completely false. 

So eventually VTV confronted the blog a bit further by gathering all of the information in this picture that I pulled from VTV's facebook:

  
I think VTV pretty clearly handled this issue. As the picture speaks for itself. He used a bit more ridicule then I would of. But that being said it's fairly evident that Mario is still up to his typical sensationalist games, poor research and when all that fails, simply lie. Entertain the crowd with a lot of potty mouth and maybe they will be laughing enough not to realize that reading your scribbles is dropping their IQ.

It is important to note that even some of the other anti-TZM bloggers are aware of these tactics and have sometimes called them out on it. Though that is rarely something they want brought up in the context of a debate about the Zeitgeist Movement. I will give them one thing, they are consistent in their working together. They follow each other right off the cliff of intellectual value just like the green turtles in the Super Mario Brothers game.

Muertos for example recently posted this: (Edited for relevant information)

Although I support Kush, Mario Brotha, JimJesus etc. to the greatest extent I can--because I believe all of them, and you, raise cogent issues about groups like Zeitgeist and Desteni--sometimes you guys make it very difficult for us to make any headway in opposing these groups, because, to be quite honest, you guys all go way too far in using anything that comes across the transom that puts these groups in a negative light. The obsessive hatred toward VTV and Voice of Reason, for instance, makes it look like it's personal as opposed to a reasoned opposition to what these groups are based on or stand for. Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning your motives. But when so many of your posts (here, and on Kush's blog, and elsewhere) are about "poop meat," which is such nonsense I can't even get my head around it--and when JimJesus devotes such exorbitant effort to exposing how wrong VOR is on everything he says, which (I might add) is perfectly obvious to the rational world without anyone having to point it out--it makes it rather difficult for some of us to make use of things like the "conspirituality" article, which in fact raises extremely important points about what these groups believe, what they stand for and why rational people should oppose them.

And this makes an excellent point in this article for moving on to my second "kill" by addressing Machwon/JimJesus.

JimJesus seems to have a bee in his bonnet about VTV because he himself is a Free Market Economist. I have noticed that the Free Market economists have been particularly vicious in their attacks on the Zeitgeist Movement. What I always find entertaining about these exchanges is that they act like Free Market or Austrian Economics is a proven fact. They give their debate points as if they are quoting them from textbooks, when the reality is that Free Market or the Austrian School is considered just as fringe as Resource Based Economics. I chuckle at the repeated appeal to authority fallacies often committed by people of that persuasion as they quote Ludwig Von Mises, leaving out the fact that economists largely reject his work.

At some point not long ago there was a debate on the Rick Ross cultwatch forums. Since for whatever reason one of the moderators of that forum was foolish enough to quote the blogs of James Kush and Mario Rodriguez as credible evidence without doing any diligence to investigate their validity, when JimJesus/Machwon made his way to the conversation VTV asked him about a statement he made on the Conspiracy Science forums.

Machwon/JimJesus's reply was to deflect this point. Refusing to answer it. I can't say that is too surprising to me considering at the time one of the people involved in that debate was taking the arguments of Kush and Mario (as ridiculous as they are) seriously. And that did not look too good for them.

For clarity and evidence sake, this is what JimJesus/Machwon said:

JimJesus/Machwon didn't really care for being exposed in that way and as a result felt compelled to write a blog accusing VTV of being a liar. Or that VTV tried to misuse his words in some fashion. VTV did use JimJesus's words to state that someone had admitted that Kush "lied on his blog". And that is not precisely what JimJesus said. But VTV did give him the chance to clarify in the Rick Ross debate. Machwon could of taken that chance to clarify his position. Instead he just tried to claim it was not relevant.

I have noticed a common tendency in internet debate. Particularly when things are highly personal and someone has a tendency to expose a pack of trolls a tactic commonly employed to deal with this is to simply repeat the LIE that someone is a liar. It is an ironic use of Hitler's strategy of "Repeating the lie often enough..." If someone frequently is winning arguments with you just spread around that they are a liar. Then repeat it like a mantra until it has spread enough and enough people have heard it to make it look like there is a massive consensus of the statement that is in reality gossip but will be perceived as fact. This is an extension of the "Poisoning the well" fallacy. It gives trolls a convenient trump card to play whenever an inconvenient piece of data has been added in the debate against them.

Uh oh...he has me now... I know! I will just dodge the truth of his point by calling him a liar! Everyone will believe it since we spent so much time spreading that rumor!

This is why falsely accusing someone of being a liar is technically illegal, and can be used in defamation cases. After you have managed to ruin someone's reputation by causing them to be perceived to be a liar, you have your "Get out of jail free card" anytime that person corners you with facts.

So, lets take a look at his blog.

http://www.jimjesus.com/2012/07/vtv-is-liar-and-pope-is-catholic.html

Calling VTV a liar is like saying the sky is blue; we all already know it's true and it's a waste of breath saying it.

There was not a shred of evidence in this article proving that VTV has ever lied about anything. Just like when he debates his Austrian Economics he just puts that out there hoping that everyone will take his confidence for competence on the issue. His motive becomes pretty clear:

I'm just going to give you a quick taste of how dishonest this guy is, because it's important for members of TZM still giving this guy resources to represent them to know how much damage he's doing to their group. For full disclosure I haven't been very nice to TZM in the public arena but consider this to be another olive branch I give to you when I say you need to walk away from this guy.

Machwon is openly hostile to TZM. He participates in a blog that frequently by his own admission publishes misleading and factually incorrect information. Apparently members of TZM should take his advice however and distance themselves from VTV. Clearly he has their best interests at heart. Which is why he spends so much time being cruel to them while propping up his own fringe ideology. Attempting to bully and shame anyone who does not agree with his point of view when he becomes too frustrated to use logic or reason. (I can understand that. It would be frustrating to attempt to use logic or reason to defend Free Market economics.) 

Anyone who knows anything about propaganda and smear tactics should be able to easily pick out that Machwon's interest in discrediting VTV is because of the strength of VTV as someone who debates on behalf of the Zeitgeist Movement. And while I don't always agree with him, generally does a fine job of it.

VTV is doing more than the lion share of the work convincing people that TZM is a cult. He's used "us and them" language, he has demonstrated to the forum he's willing to lie about the rules of the TZM forums,

This statement, is a lie. VTV did not lie about the rules of the forum. Machwon attempted to ask a loaded question, and VTV gave him an answer that unloaded the question. Machwon tried to ask him if he was implying that the forums were open to being used by non-members of the Zeitgest Movement. VTV explained that initially they were open to everyone, and then eventually they were not. Machwon also later lied and said that VTV simply refused to answer his question. The issue is that there was a chronology point to be made.

If the question was "Were the TZM forums open for anyone to use?"

There was no simple yes or no answer. Because as VTV pointed out in that conversation there was a time when they were. And then there was a time that they were not. Machwon was hoping to trap VTV with a question that was dishonest in it's premise. He failed.



 Continuing further:

Most importantly he's representing himself as some what of a leader and is blatantly lying and engaging in character assassination to this community of cult researchers.

So the argument is "He is lying, and is a liar. Because I say he is a liar. And I have said it quite a bit. I have never proven it."

It would take me hours to sift through the argument on Ross's blog about the Zeitgeist Movement but it reads very well and is a textbook example of what happens when people who are used to debating in a situation where they can get away with simply distracting from the weaknesses of their debates can result to name-calling attempt to debate in a moderated forum. VTV exposed dozens of lies made by these bloggers and obvious misrepresentations of the Zeitgeist Movement.

These people know the red flags of cults and VTV is waving them high and proud and I think it's fucked up and it's fucked up to TZM.

Because again, he is so concerned for the welfare of TZM.  It's interesting that Mr. Ross did not in fact declare TZM a cult. After many pages of weak attempts to prove that it somehow was including some epic fail logic of trying to equate banning someone from an internet forum with "cult abuse" eventually the thread was locked. Machwon lied about that as well, stating that Mr. Ross locked the thread because VTV wanted to turn it into an RBE debate. He has no evidence of that and simply stated it as if it were fact with no qualifier that it was merely speculation on his part. He does that a lot. We will get into that more later.

Because they aren't dishonest and VTV is, that is what I was saying. Mario in the past has used sensational and misleading titles for his videos.

Ok, so VTV is dishonest (unproven repeated falsehood) and Mario is not. Apparently instead he is just prone to using sensationalism and misleading tactics.

misleading [mɪsˈliːdɪŋ]adj tending to confuse or mislead; deceptive

It would seem to me that "misleading" means being dishonest.

You get to see evidence of repetition of falsehoods in this article. It is a tactic common in propaganda as I discussed previously. This is the number of times that Machwon repeated the liethat VTV is a liar often enough:

1. The sensationalist title of the blog:

VTV is a Liar, and the Pope is Catholic.

2.  The first line of the blog:

Calling VTV a liar is like saying the sky is blue; we all already know it's true and it's a waste of breath saying it.

3. Second Paragraph:

I'm just going to give you a quick taste of how dishonest this guy is

4. 7th Paragraph: (Ironically stated right next to saying that Mario and Kush are not dishonest, he is instead misleading, in other words, dishonest...)

Because they aren't dishonest and VTV is,

5. Also in the 7th:

VTV doesn't make mistakes because he's too busy intentionally lying.

6. Final Paragraph (Before update)

but that doesn't make them a liar like VTV.

So he offered no evidence of any value to prove that VTV was a liar, yet repeated the phrase that he is a liar ad nausem.  

He did bring up the ridiculous fiasco when James Kush accused VTV of posting Peter Merola's facebook names on his blog. The argument about that was entertaining but full of nonsense. The bloggers on the Skeptic forum stated the argument that screenshots of someone claiming to be VTV posted links to two facebook accounts in the comment section of James Kush's blog was sufficient proof. They went on to invent theories as to VTV's motivations as a major hole in their case is that there was nothing VTV could gain from doing such a thing.

Eventually as the conversation continued, Anti-cultist finally admitted that WordPress blogs have an "edit" function on posts. And that it was actually possible that James Kush edited VTV's posts from what they said to instead give links to the facebook accounts of Peter's parents.

Machwon continues to spread the lie that they irrefutably proved that VTV outed Merola's parents. Apparently posts made linked to someone's IP address on a blog that has an edit function is irrefutable proof.

If that is to be taken as irrefutable proof, an interesting incident on the V-RADIO forums then would offer evidence that Machwon is involved in a heated and steamy affair with "Agent Matt" and James Kush. As Machwon apparently posted this was true several times on the V-RADIO forum. And of course despite the fact that VTV could of edited Machwon's posts on the V-RADIO forum, since we have established that the fact it could be edited does not compromise the credibility of evidence, it must be true. Right?

I hope that Machwon and Matt find happiness together...

Another point on Machwon, in that blog he further goes on to state his theory (as fact) that VTV used Proxy servers to post on the Kush blog. I happen to know that since the incident of Kush editing VTV's posts trying to cause problems between him and Peter Merola, VTV does not post there. Even Machwon's lover Matt pointed out that they had nothing resembling solid evidence of this fact. But when you read the Kush blog you see Machwon repeatedly repeat the lie that it was in any way proven that VTV did this. He even did something I found hillarious and quoted himself starting a conversation on the Skeptic forums as "proof" that he had exposed VTV for posting under proxies. Even though his forum post did not have any more evidence. 

The only thing resembling an attempt at proof that I have ever seen posted that was supposed to prove that VTV could of ever lied was when the bloggers in their never ending cyberstalking of VTV went to an independently run forum about the LARP that VTV participates in, Kanar. The LARP forum certainly proved that group of people did not like VTV too much. But their behavior was not really that different from the trolling that passes for journalism on the Kush Blog or the Skeptic forums in most cases. And they could not agree even amongst themselves on if he was a liar or not. It is again important to point out that we don't know the motives of the people on that forum. Nor can we validate if they have any idea what they are talking about. One point that VTV did make very solidly was that despite the accusations that VTV was convicted of "cheating" in the LARP game repeatedly for some reason he holds positions within the organization that no convicted cheater can hold. That pretty much settled it for me. (He proved he held those positions on the actual official website for the LARP in question.) 

I remember once hearing in reference to the Skeptic forum an interesting critique. And that is that they demand crystal clear proof or evidence in any of their debates with conspiracy theorists, but seem highly willing to believe anything that is posted on their forum if it happens to fit their agenda and confirmation bias of attacking individuals they happen to dislike. An incident where someone actually went to their forum claiming to know a lot about VTV comes to mind. The individual made a lot of crazy accusations about VTV and they lapped it up. Mario made a blog from it. And then the individual revealed that he had been lying all along and wanted to prove the total lack of credibility on the part of the users of the Skeptic forum. And their willingness to accept any information they get if it makes their cyberstalking victims look bad. 

In conclusion, in this blog I have revealed that these bloggers will engage in outright dishonesty, including being dishonest about other people being dishonest. They quote each other as sources and even themselves as sources. That they will engage in hyperbole, sensationalism, repetition of falsehoods to attempt to make them "accepted facts" and even seem to be unaware of the fact that you cannot say someone is misleading and not also mean they are dishonest.