Tag: conspiracy

It’s a little foggy!

Now I am getting older it’s important to remember where I left the truck.

Fog, rain, snow. It’s a little bit of everything. I was hoping to get in one more hike into the mountains with the kids from work, but it doesn’t look good. Today brought soft wet snow in the high country. If the sun decides to shine and the temperature drops we still might get a chance. A few years ago I took out a young couple from Scotland in mid November. It was a brilliant clear cold day and they got to see some sites from the top of a snow blown ridge.

***

Willow and I were out on Sunday driving the backroads. We managed to bring back a load of pine firewood. The roads were muck and very slippery, Lisa would have hated it. My father used to call those roads ‘gumbo’. I switched the beast into four-wheel drive and managed to keep it between the ditches. 

***

As I get older I wonder if I will succumb to the many conspiracy theories that are so prevalent and popular these days. I say this, because so many of my older friends have bought into the many out there. 

I don’t spend much time on social media so I am not being bombarded with bullshit. Older people have more time with some of these platforms such as Facebook. 

It’s possible that a good conspiracy is easier to believe than the truth. Conspiracy wraps things up nicely and also puts blame or vilifies an organization or government. God knows some are not trustworthy. However, let us not forget, they are mostly incompetent thus making them trustworthy in what they can and can’t actually pull off.

It is upsetting to see people who were once able and healthy skeptics believe nonsense. I think it is human nature to want to understand events. Unfortunately, many events, illnesses, etc are random.

I will use the moon for an example of randomness. From earth we only see one side of the moon, because it takes the same amount of time to orbit the earth as it does for it to spin on its axis. That is quite a coincidence. It also appears about the same size as the sun in the sky. It almost completely blocks the sun in a solar eclipse except for a thin outline. Yet the sun is massive and much further away. What a coincidence that just the right distance and size allows for this coupling. Are we to believe such random serendipity? The mathematical possibilities of these facts are, well, astronomical.

Or would it make more sense that the moon is projected onto the roof of the sky? And we are just living in a giant dome? And? And?

Although I am making fun here, it does bother me to see people who were once so sharp not able to see when they are being fed bullshit.

I will no doubt be there one day. One thing for sure, there is no shortage of bullshit in this world and people peddling it.

End of the Week

Waning.

A good week, plenty of work completed, including starting on some upcoming projects and I was able to get out a few morning to take pictures. The new camera is still proving a challenge and will take more practice to get used to it. 

***

The picture above is of a man who sets up off the highway on the Radium Hill. You have to admire his commitment as he has been there for about two months. He sets up each morning and takes down at night.

I’m not sure of his cause. Probably Covid and the vaccines, presenting his own demonstration, having missed the trucker debacle in Ottawa.

He has six large Canadian flags on both sides of the highway, all flying upside down, signifying distress.

I like to think someone does a wellness check on him once and awhile to make sure he isn’t getting the urge to hang grandpa’s 30-06 out the window.

The Fuck Trudeau flags are nothing new. We live beside Alberta, so we get our share of that hyperbole shoved in our faces from the most well-off, privileged, people in Canada.

My friend has a daughter entrenched in conspiracy theories. She believes them all. Especially about the government, forcing deadly vaccines on us for a made up pandemic, among many other theories, deep state, lizard people, you name it. It is a great sadness for my friend, because his daughter isolates herself and her kids, hiding behind walls, not visiting, as long as it has an internet connection.

But this is what I don’t understand; his daughter is on every kind of government assistance that is offered. If you hated the government wouldn’t you refuse the money? Don’t get me wrong, it is good they have help, but it must go against her strong convictions. Would it not be a red flag to question those convictions?

Which gets me back to the guy on the Radium Hill. He has been there for months now. He is either independently wealthy, or like my friends daughter, taking money from the very government he is protesting. 

He is not hurting anybody flying his flags, but I can’t help but feel sorry for him.

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On a lighter note. I bought Willow a new toy. It looked indestructible.

Eight minute later.

THE GRASSY KNOLL

A good friend and father is worried about his daughter and family.

They are conspiracy theorists. She called him to dissuade him from getting vaccinated for Covid. Bill Gates, nanobytes in the serum, government taking over and the rest of the bullshit.

It’s unfortunate. He is worried, not so much about them not being vaccinated, but what rabbit hole they may go down next. Each one of those holes get deeper.

I understand not trusting the government due to their incompetence, but that’s also why they can be trusted.

Those kids are in their thirties, not quite kids anymore, they have kids of their own, they like to think of themselves as living off the grid.

They have internet service, to keep the kids busy on their iPads and to keep feeding them the latest conspiracy theories.

Neither parents have jobs. Considering their view of the government, they have no problem signing up and receiving every bit of assistance the government is offering.

Regardless of their beliefs, and contradictions, it seems like a difficult life to maintain.