"Mass-staria." This just in from ABC News: SPLC Paranoia Explained! Also, Is Mark Potok a castrato? We report, you decide.

A castrato (Italian, plural: castrati) is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity. Castration before puberty . . . prevents a boy's larynx from being transformed by the normal physiological events of puberty. As a result, the vocal range of prepubescence (shared by both sexes) is largely retained, and the voice develops into adulthood in a unique way. . . This, combined with intensive training, gave them unrivalled lung-power and breath capacity. Operating through small, child-sized vocal cords, their voices were also extraordinarily flexible, and quite different from the equivalent adult female voice, as well as higher vocal ranges of the uncastrated adult male . . . Listening to the only surviving recordings of a castrato, one can hear that the lower part of the voice sounds like a "super-high" tenor, with a more falsetto-like upper register above that. Castrati were rarely referred to as such: in the eighteenth century, the euphemism musico (pl musici) was much more generally used, though it usually carried derogatory implications. -- Wikipedia.

"Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!" "Il Musico." The Music Man, Mark Potok. "There's trouble, terrible, terrible trouble, right here in River City."

Meet Mark Potok. If Mussolini was "Il Duce," Potok is "Il Musico," the Music Man of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

You remember the original Music Man, don't you? Robert Preston played "Professor" Harold Hill in the 1962 musical film. Harold Hill, "The Music Man," is a con artist who swindles the famously stubborn natives of River City, into paying him to create a boy's marching band, including instruments, uniforms, and music instruction. Once he has their money, he intends to hop the next train out of town leaving them without their money or a band.

But how to convince the good citizens that they are in need of expensive instruments? Why, they got trouble, right there in River City, in the form of a pool hall. So effectively does The Music Man portray the evil of pool, and the potential salvation of their children by means of a marching band, that the townsfolk can't hand him their money fast enough. My favorite snippet from the song, "Ya Got Trouble":

One fine night, they leave the pool hall,
Headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry!
Libertine men and Scarlet women!
And Rag-time, shameless music
That'll grab your son and your daughter
With the arms of a jungle animal instink!
Mass-staria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!

"Mass-staria." That is exactly what Mark Potok deals in. And for the same reason as "Professor" Harold Hill -- money. Or, at least, that is the standard reason given for such breath-taking public lying. There may be a more powerful reason than money, however. Sipsey Street will report, you decide.

Now here is the story based on Potok's "expert" opinion that has Rush Limbaugh's knickers in a twist, and rightfully so.

First we had Joe the Plumber, now we've got Bill the Gunner. This is the guy who is exercising both his First and Second Amendment rights, and thereby has all the collectivists wetting their beds in stark panic. "OOOH, Margeret, a dangerous man with a gun!" "Don't look at him Edgar, he might shoot you." Good man. The official caption that goes with the ABC story below: "William Kostnic wears a 9mm pistol as he stands outside a town hall meeting on health care held by President Barack Obama, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009, in Portsmouth, N.H."


Disclaimer: Warning! This story is an example of the dreaded brain disease, conflatus maximus. Credulous or weak minded people should not be exposed to its contents lest they become infected themselves. In mild cases, conflatus maximus has been known to cause extreme body swelling (for example, the horrible case of Mark Pitcavage, ADL), illogical toxicity and inability to reason. In severe cases, it can lead to cranial detonation.

Typical mild presentation of the logical disease conflatus maximus. Mark Pitcavage of the ADL in his natural habitat.

Fear for Obama's Safety Grows as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash

Violent Signs, Gun, Standoff Latest in Emerging Anger Towards the President

By BRIAN ROSS, ANNA SCHECTER and MEGAN CHUCHMACH

August 14, 2009

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.

The Secret Service is investigating a Maryland man who held a sign reading "Death to Obama" and "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids" outside a town hall meeting this week. And in New Hampshire, another man stood across the street from a Presidential town hall with his gun on full display.

Los Angeles police officers apprehended a man Thursday after a standoff with him inside a red Volkswagen Bug car in Westwood, CA – the latest disturbing case even though officials said the man had mental problems.

"I don't think these are simply people who are mentally ill or off their rocker," Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told ABC News of those behind the threats. "In a very real sense they represent a genuine reaction, a genuine backlash against Obama."

Experts say a sharp growth in so-called militia groups that helped spawn a wave of domestic terrorism in the 1990s – and are now using YouTube, rock music and the Internet to recruit members and spread hate and fear - shouldn't be ignored.

"It's certainly a scary time," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett, now an ABC News consultant. Garrett said the Secret Service "cannot afford to pass on anyone," and he believes "they really do fear that something could happen to [Obama]."

Garrett said statements like one recently made by controversial radio host Rush Limbaugh comparing a logo for the White House plan to a Nazi symbol "legitimizes people who are on the edge to go do something or say something."

"And if you go and take a look at this, you will find that the Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo," Limbaugh said.

Later, someone painted a swastika outside the office of Congressman David Scott of Georgia, one of Obama's supporters.

Secret Service Security Around Obama

While officials told ABC News that the President's daily threat matrix has yet to reflect a sharp increase in threats, White House officials privately admit deep concern and have told the Secret Service to keep security tight, even if Obama objects.

"I think the president has, in effect, triggered fears amongst fairly large numbers of white people in this country that they are somehow losing their country, that the battle is lost," Potok told ABC News. "The nation that their Christian white forefathers created has somehow been taken from them."

OK, I'm not going to bother deconstructing this morass of conflation, elision, illogic and hysteria. I'm going to leave that to the defamed. Hopefully, Rush Limbaugh and other defamed parties will sue the bastards, and put the "poverty" back in Southern Poverty Law Center.

No, forget facts, this is Music Man stuff. "Mass-staria!" Paranoia and horseshit presented as "expert" opinion (and gullibly repeated on state-run media) doesn't get this deep on its own. It is either motivated by lust for money and power, or, perhaps, ABC has provided us with a more logical explanation.

You see, when I went to their web site to download the above article, I noticed they had posted this one from last year as a "related" post, perhaps in a Freudian slip. I think it explains everything.

The three men involved in a supposed assassination plot against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama were allegedly on a methamphetamine binge. (ABC News Photo Illustration)

The Paranoia and Psychosis of Meth

Medical Experts Say the Supposed Admissions of an Obama Assassination Plot Fits Behavior Pattern of Users

By ANNA SCHECTER

August 28, 2008

One of the men investigated for allegedly threatening presidential candidate Barack Obama's life while on a methamphetamine binge, is scheduled to appear in federal court this afternoon on a charge of possessing the narcotic.

Tharin Robert Gartrell is currently in custody, along with two other men who face meth-related and illegal possession of firearms charges.

The arrest of the three men has focused renewed attention on the paranoia and psychosis that go along with abuse of the drug which is widely used across the country.

Medical experts say their supposed admissions about an assassination plot fit into the expected pattern of erratic behavior from meth users.

Gartrell, Shawn Robert Adolf, and Nathan Johnson expressed strongly racist views and spoke about killing the Democratic presidential nominee while using meth, according to U.S. Atty. Troy Eid. The talk, Eid said, does not meet the legal standard for filing charges for threatening a presidential candidate.

Doctors who study the effects of meth on the brain say the men would not likely have been able to carry out their alleged threats because meth make its user virtually incapable of completing any task besides getting more of the drug.

"There's no way they could have gotten their act together to do anything because they are so paranoid, their thinking is so altered that they start things and they can't finish them," said Dr. Richard Rawson, a professor at the UCLA School of Medicine who specializes in the study of methamphetamines and their affect on the brain.

"But," he said, "It is scary to have the words methamphetamine, guns, and Democratic National Convention all in the same sentence."

Rawson said the scales have tipped to where "hard core" addicts are using more and more meth while the number of new users is declining.

"There is this corps of more severely addicted people and they're not the dabblers. They're heavy users and they get more meth psychosis, paranoia, and judgment impairment," said Rawson. "It's more like heroin addiction."

Part of the reason for this trend stems from recent laws that restrict the amount of pseudo-ephedrine, a key ingredient in meth manufacturing, that an individual can purchase at one time.

The effect has been that it is more difficult for people to get the ingredients to make meth at home or in their vehicles: "We've seen a decline in homemade meth because of this law."

A mobile methamphetamine lab was found in the vehicle of one of the men arrested. Rawson said that some highly addicted people will get around the new laws by doing something they called "smurfing," where they go from one drug store to another and buy the maximum legal amount of pseudo-ephedrine off the shelf in order to have enough of the ingredient to "cook" the drug.

Though the new laws have helped to reduce the number of new meth users, they don't necessarily translate into a smaller quantity of the drug overall in the United States.

Rawson says that Mexican cartels have moved in to supply the meth markets that are already well established.

The result, he said, is higher priced meth that is more potent and more addictive.

OK, what could be clearer? Don't get it yet? Look, ABC is state-run media, just like Pravda in the Soviet Union. Back then, the juxtaposition of stories on the front page always meant something. If they put a story about CIA spies next to an innocuous one about a member of the Presidium visiting Africa, you just knew that next year, whatever else happened, that guy was NOT going to have his dacha by the lake anymore.

Likewise, as the empire crumbled, disaffected typesetters or editors could put stories next to each other that, taken together, presented information damaging to the regime.

So, what is ABC, or one of its employees, trying to tell us here?

MARK POTOK AND HIS BUDDIES AT SPLC ARE ALL CRANKHEADS!

Nothing could be plainer! What else can explain such deep-seated paranoia? SPLC has been jumping at illusory boogeymen for years, seeing "racist terrorists" where there were none, exaggerating their prowess and danger when there were, claiming that their natural enemies, such as those of us in the constitutional militia movement, were supposedly their friends. I mean, real nutjobbery.

Who indeed would say such outlandish, easily disprovable things without apparent embarrassment merely for money? No, friends, this is not ordinary, if venal, conflation purveyance. THIS is drug-fueled paranoia.

It fits. Think. Why else would SPLC demand open borders and slander the Minutemen as "nativists"? Why to maintain their supply from Mexico.

It is as plain as the lack of baritone in Mark Potok's girlish, tremulous voice: He's both a crankhead AND a castrato.

Q.E.D.

Mike Vanderboegh, Conflation Detective, First Class.

"Elementary, my dear Watson!"