Conspiracy Con 2011 - The Live Blog - True Otts and Conspiracy Gaming

My first stop is to catch the tail end of Len Horowitz and Sherri Kane who are ranting about…well, I'm not sure what. Something about "True Ott" and the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. "Now that we know that truth about this…we had to ask Brian Hall for extra security. We're not going to stay around for obvious reasons."

Horowitz is a dentist who found he could make a lot more money selling new age cures to the gullible than doing root canals. Unlike most of the people here, he's tan and fit and looks more likely to be shilling for Thigh Master than Rebirthing Ourselves in the Creator's Image.

I'm not even going to try to understand what's going on. So I duck out and stop by Steve Jackson Games where, in my now-softened frame of mind, I part with 40 devalued fiat federal reserve "dollars" for "Illuminati: The Game of Conspiracy."

The card deck features eight illuminati cards – The Bavarian Illuminati, The Gnomes of Zurich, etc. – 83 "group" cards – fast food chains, the FBI, etc. – 15 "special" cards – market manipulation, murphy's law – two black dice (with white dots), and a 16-page instruction book. The object of the game is to control the world. That's about as far as I get.

The more interesting part of the conversation is with a young man named Christopher Gordon, who looks like the host of an MTV music video countdown but who is in real life a mortician. His take on his profession is anything but grim.

Indeed, we're all going to die and Gordon sees his role as supplying a more natural and affordable way to go than the American Way of Death. Before I leave he presses a handful of DVDs on me in hopes that he can persuade me to see the light. One is titled "Henrick Palmgren interviews Michael Tsarion, David Icke PLUS 67 OTHER INTERVIEWS IN 8 DAYS OF AUDIO ON MP3'S."

If nothing else, this cabal promotes a degree of multi-partisanship unseen anywhere else in the political spectrum. I ask: Where else can you find Phyllis Schlafley's Eagle Forum cheek-by-jowl with Democrats Against UN Agenda 21, the MUFON Symposium, and the Green Party?

The next stop is Douglas Dietrich, where I take 2,000 words of notes and wonder about the origins of psychosis. 

Carolyn's Conspiracy Cocktails

As I prepped myself for the upcoming Conspiracy Con, I thought it would be appropriate to have some conspiracy cocktails.

As I thought about it, I developed a few rules. Conspiracy cocktails:

• They should use as many ingredients as possible
• Absinthe must be an ingredient
• Obscure, arcane ingredients are preferred
• Color should be black or unnatural
• Conflicting and negating flavors aren't a problem. If you don't like the taste, keep adding ingredients until you do.

So herewith: Carolyn's Conspiracy Cocktails (CCC -- which if you squint could look like 666). The preparation for all except the Conspiracy Coffee is the same: Shake with ice and serve on the rocks or straight up with a splash of soda.

9-11

2 parts tequila
1/2 part each:

• Midori
• absinthe
• blackberry brandy or crème de cassis
• blue curacao
• chocolate liqueur
• lime juice
• orange juice

Orange or lime twist

Conspiratini

1 oz Gin
1 oz Dry vermouth
1 oz Rose's lime juice
Dash absinthe
Dash crème de violette
Dash orange bitters
Orange or lime twist

Conspiracy Con

1 oz white rum
1/2 oz Midori
½ oz fresh lime juice
dash of absinthe
dash of crème de violette or St. Germain
dash blue curacao
lime twist

Black Ops

1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
1/2 oz dark rum
½ oz absinthe or pernod
fresh lime juice
Dash bitters
Lime twist

Conspiracy coffee

Mix in an Irish coffee glass:

• 1 oz Irish cream liquor
• Dash absinthe
• Dash chocolate or coffee liqueur

Stir as you add hot coffee. Or mix it cold for a Conspiracy Alexander

Illuminati Beware: Preeminent Gathering of Conspiracy Theorists Celebrates its 10th Year in Santa Clara

The annual conspiracist mind meld, Conspiracy Con, celebrates its 10th birthday – and 10^th year in Santa Clara – on June 5 and 6 at the Santa Clara Marriott.

Conference organizer Brian Hall, describes the event as "a forum for… the most controversial speakers in the world," on "Mind Control, Secret Societies, Shadow Government, The Federal Reserve, 9-11, Occult Technologies, Suppressed Knowledge, New World Order, etc."

Even including, Hall continues ominously, "the manipulation of humanity by non-human intelligences...alien, inter-dimensional, demonic, satanic... operating on (and in) this planet, that looks upon humankind as sheep and cattle to be herded and slaughtered at will."

This jeremiad seems surprising coming from the preppy 30-something Hall, a Livermore resident who looks more like a Young Republican than the eminence grise of contemporary American conspiracy theory.

Indeed, Conspiracy Con's success is likely due more to Hall's talent for business administration – and friends in the event-planning business "who held my hand" – than his knowledge of secret cabals. Hall chose Santa Clara for Conspiracy Con for many of the same reasons the 49ers give for wanting to build a stadium here.

"The cost is less and right along there is hotel row," he ticks off methodically. "There are great convention services. It's much closer for me [than San Francisco] and it's much easier to get to. It's very close to the airport."

(This is invariably disappointing to those who expect the city to be a vortex of cosmic power, or the Illuminati's home away from home. Although -- hat tip to blogger Adam Gorightly -- I bet if you plotted it on a map, you'd find that the Santa Clara Marriott sits at the mystical center of secret Kabbalistic geography connecting the Rosicrucian Museum, Winchester Mystery House, Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, proposed 49ers stadium, and the CERN super-collider in Geneva.)

Anyway, Hall's business acumen paid off. The conference draws hundreds every year and features a veritable who's who of the contemporary conspiracy scene.

Past guests include George Noory, host of the popular all-things-conspiracy radio talk show Coast to Coast a.m.; 9-11 Truther movement founding father Richard Gage; and memory-recovering, MK-ULTRA sex slave Cathy O'Brien. This year's lineup includes host of the syndicated late night cult film TV show Cinema Insomnia, Mr. Lobo (www.cinemainsomnia.com).

Hall is vague about what exactly he did before starting Conspiracy Con – "not a heck of a lot." More to the point is what he calls his "waking up journey," which began 15 years ago and culminated in launching Conspiracy Con.

"Some friends showed me some materials that went against everything I had been told. It made its point well enough to [make me] look further.

"There are things going on here right under our noses that are much more serious," he continues. "What is commonly known as the global elite. Are they connected? Is there a conspiracy? No one was putting on a conference on the research, to generate awareness."

ince then, Hall has been a man with a mission. "I see a great imbalance on this planet that gets greater every year. From Kennedy [assassination] to 9-11 and beyond, it will lead to the same people: the people that have manipulated human events for eons." Getting the message out, Hall says, "is the most important thing I can do."

Conspiracism's All-American Pedigree

Conspiracism is as American as the proverbial apple pie, according to Professor Jeff Pasley who teaches Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracies in U.S. History and Culture at the University of Missouri.

"For example, one thing that was widely believed [before the American revolution] was that the British were going to force Americans to become Catholics, based on Quebec's act tolerating Catholicism," Pasley explains. "[This was seen] as the first step in the plan to Catholicize America."

Conspiracy beliefs also use the language of enlightenment, "exposing truth by gathering proof," Pasley explains, while neglecting the rest of the scientific method – experimentation, data collection, analysis, peer review, and retesting.

The age of mass media adds fuel to the conspiracy fires, says Pasley. People have access to a lot more data, but their powers of analysis haven't grown to match it. "Most people's idea of weighing evidence is, 'It's hot today so it must be global warming,'" he says.

The flaw here isn't in the conclusions. Human beings do, in fact, engage in conspiracies; for example, Watergate. The flaws in our global warming conclusion are classic reasoning fallacies: questionable correlation and unsupported assumption. A further problem with conspiracism is un-testability: Contrary evidence is just evidence of a cover-up. For example, the reason you don't agree with me about the reality of global warming is that you're manufacturing the evidence to discredit me, you're just revealing yourself as a tool of the puppet-masters, etc.

Of course, conspiracy theorists have no monopoly on fallacious rhetoric. Politics inspires it in spades. Consider for example: "Dolores Carr: Supported by law enforcement. Jeff Rosen: Supported by bail bondsmen." (Questionable correlation, unsupported assumption, loaded words, impugning motives).

This ad doesn't tell me anything about Rosen, but it does tell me one thing about Carr. Namely, that she's a lawyer, judge and District Attorney who's willing to put her name on this mean-spirited propaganda. It's enough to make me vote for Jeff Rosen, but that would be another questionable correlation: Because Carr runs an ad that I find ethically questionable, therefore Rosen would be a good DA.

Where was I?

Oh yes. In the final analysis conspiracy theories don't stand up to pragmatic test that the best 

explanation is usually the one requiring the fewest unsupported assumptions. In other words, if you hear hoof beats, it's probably horses, not zebras.

Conspiracy Con9 - The Live Blog: Decent Into the Maelstrom

Dateline: Santa Clara, CA

June 6, 2009 7:53:39 P.M

"It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow." – Edgar Allen Poe, "Descent Into the Maelstrom."

The last speaker on the Conspiracy Con 9 agenda is Anthony Hilder, cinematic auteur of conspiracism whose oeuvre includes the shock-u-mentaries "Reichstag '95: An American Holocaust," "IllumiNazi 911," and "Alien 51: Amerika's SSecret" (you have to imagine the Nazi SS runes here), a comprehensive survey of "Alien Implants, Human Cloning, Missing Children, Anti-Gravity Spacecraft, Reverse Engineering, Operation Paperclip, Biological Weapons, Extraterrestrials, IllumiNazi Agenda, New World Order."

Despite my two-day immersion in all things conspiranoid, nothing prepares me for Hilder. In an interesting example of how sensitive we homo sapiens are to the power of suggestion and "groupthink," I observe that: First, Hilder's initials are 'A.H.' Second, by switching the position of the 'd' in Hilder's name, and replacing 'd' with 't,' you come up with:

Hilder

Hidler

Hitler

My thought processes now match those of everyone else in the room. And without an RF transmitter planted in my brain. Given Hilder's affection for Nazi imagery, it's not a big leap to entertain the idea of Anthony Hilder as a reincarnation of Adolph Hitler. The only differences are that Hitler liked military uniforms and did not, as far as I know, believe in extraterrestrial Lizard People – he probably would have, had he thought of it.

Hitler's -- excuse me, Hilder's -- Free World Film Works website tells visitors that, "Anthony J. Hilder's ever-present goal is to insight a Revelation to avoid a Revolution & form an Alliance of Independent Tribal, Linguistic, Religious, Political, Ethnic and Racial Nation States in opposition to the United Nations. Hilder is fully cognizant that the world must have an option to the U.N. and the chaos & killing that is being deliberately directed by this Brotherhood of Death to bring about our control."

In the next hour Hilder elaborates on his idée fixe: reptiles……the reptilian attack that's going on Mars. The god of Christianity is the God of the evil Reptilians. This is just a lead-in, however, to Hilder's second leitmotif, the big lizard himself, the Templars' apocryphal idol Baphomet, a.k.a. Lucifer. 

There are tens of thousands of Luciferian sacrifices going on in the world today…. Uncle Sam is the satanic goat of bathema. When you fold a $20 bill you'll see the north tower on one side and the south tower on the second side. And on the bottom you'll see s-t-n. Satan… I realized communism, from its inception, has been financed in the U.S. Marx was a Satanist.

And who are these "luciferian" reptiles' terrestrial agents? "Bankers" of course.

These banking bastards are bloodsuckers. Who the hell wants to save General Motors. Let them crash. We must reach out with a giant stake and stick it in their heart, and show no mercy. Hilder emphasizes those last three words.

Franken-Fed – the monster among us. In this picture we see pictures of the Georgia Guidestone, America's Stonehenge. And their suggestion is the reduction of the world's population to one and a half billion. What happens to the other five and a half billion of us? Hilder pauses for effect here, before continuing: That's why they have plastic coffins in Georgia.

If you haven't guessed already, Hilder is on course for that irresistible geography of the dangerous and deranged: Anti-Semitism:

Zionism runs the U.S. congress…One family, the Rothschilds, that owns all the money and calls all the shots, and that family has Reptilian roots. Israel is just a Rothschild front organization.

Hilder turns up the volume, stoking his own adrenalin-fueled rage.

We can end the problem. There is no problem except for those who believe a problem exists. There is no problem. The eye. Is this thing a Luciferian conspiracy? And Uncle Sam is bringing over the mother of Pat Tillman. Whose eyes had just opened…and somebody said, Kill that guy.

I don't want to see public education. I want to see public education destroyed. Why would you give your money to them for the second plank of the Communist Manifesto? Margaret Sanger, she was a close advisor of Adolph Hitler. They created a genetically created disease. AIDS. That's why babies are starving in the first place, because they modified the weather. I've lived in Africa and I've seen what liberation theology has brought….men castrated and their wives forced to eat their testicles...

Take a look at your church. The National Council of Churches. When you put your money into their plates and they take and buy guns for the terrorists. I'm talking about the guys who go into the towns and kill the children and rape the women…"

Instead of testicle-eating, however, I'm thinking of Richard Hofstadter's observation about the sexual preoccupations of conspiracists: "…the sexual freedom often attributed to the enemy, his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and express un-acknowledgeable aspects of their own psychological concerns…Very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments."

Hilder winds up to the climax of his rhetorical masturbation with a call for action:

We are united. And I say yes, get your guns, and yes, get your food, and I say get out of…the dollar…The birth certificates your children have say on the bottom: Department of Commerce. That's because they own them.

But don't rush to get out of Dodge just yet. Before we put on our traveling shoes, Hilder wants to help us get out of the dollar, so to speak, by unloading that worthless fiat money on him: We've got to get "$10 a Barrel" finished. Maybe some of you will help us help you. 

Indeed. As the faithful take out their checkbooks, I bolt. Outside, as my head clears in the chilly evening, I think of the closing exchange of "Alice in Wonderland:"

"'Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; 'Why, what a long sleep you've had!'

"'Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice..."

Conspiracy Con 9 - The Live Blog: Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound

Dateline: Santa Clara, CA

June 6, 2009 7:53:39 2 P.M.

By the time I check back with Conspiracy Central on Sunday it's 3:30 -- half an hour is spent locating my badge because I figure that saying that I lost my badge will finger me as a New World Order plant or worse. I start in the exhibit where I buy a fascinatingly configurable magnetic jewelry "rope" from Denise Wells of Santa Clara and a 1950s Betty Boop alarm clock from Prudence, who sells antiques and amber jewelry and is clearly a fish out of water here.

The folks from Evergreen Spirulina press on me a sample of "Coffee King – the most nutritious coffee in the world, enriched with "spirulina and ganoderma." The taste is of instant coffee, sugar, Cremora and…rotten garbage. My spontaneous review is clearly unwelcome.

While I'm trying to get a "local color" photo, a tall woman with long white hair who will only give her name as "C," confronts me.

"You're taking pictures," she says, leaning in. Explaining that I just want a photo for the local weekly paper, she quizzes me. "But will your boss and your bosses' owners and their owners' owners allow this story to be published?" I explain that my "boss" owns the newspaper and publishes whatever he damn well pleases.

"An independent newspaper?" She advances cautiously. This seems promising. "So you're going to put this in a good light?" she asks. I explain that I call it "reporting" and as such it's not cast in any "light."

What she's really asking is if I'm going to lampoon it. I attempt to explain that the Weekly simply wants a local color story and that there's no percentage for us in ridiculing people who are bringing thousands of dollars – devalued, worthless Federal Reserve notes though they are – into our town. Although I don't tell her, I'm having my own doubts there's any way to honestly report on the conference that wouldn't shine an unflattering light.

She starts in with a phrase that's become familiar in the last 24 hours: "Do you know about –." I answer no, and further, that that's not really my interest. Her face wrinkles up in disgust. "You need to talk to this man," she says, leading me to Dr. Stan Montieth.

Montieth is a retired orthopedic surgeon who operates Radio Liberty. I ask him why, nearly 50 years ago, he came to the conclusion that "there are very powerful forces," the "Brotherhood of Darkness," that control the U.S. government.

"A friend suggested to me that," he begins, but is interrupted by a question. He picks up the story again in a different place. "A man named Benbella was taking over Algiers. I found the same article would be in the Sacramento paper [as] 'Benbella marched into Algiers to cheers of the throng.' Another story would say, 'Benbella marched into Algiers at the head of his communist-equipped troops.'

"Two words change the meaning of the article," he continues. "Of course somebody covered up the communist influence…I suddenly realized that everything I thought I knew, everything I learned about history was wrong and I'd been lied to. I went back and read the Declaration and the Constitution."

Mentally, I cover another square on my metaphorical Bingo card of the conspiracy experience: the friend who asks you to read a book, review some "material," watch a video, meet someone, or talk to someone. Now, if someone was pestering me to "read some materials" or "meet a very special man I know," I'd assume it was either Amway or Scientology and put their phone number on the "block" list. But conspiracy hunters aren't cynics, and a cigar is never just a cigar.

It's the ages old pattern of conversion: Saul at the Damascus gate. First comes the baptism – the hour of first belief. The meeting, conversation, reading – whatever – is the Call of Irresistible Grace in the form of a revealed connection between seemingly unrelated information:

A newswire story is edited differently in two different papers. A child is kidnapped and murdered on the West Coast and a Washington D.C. highflier is arrested for running a prostitution ring. John Kennedy Jr. dies in plane crash at the age of 39, 36 years after his father's assassination, and 3+9+3+6 = 21, as in UN Agenda 21, the New World Order's plan for depopulating the world.

The revelation, this stepping through the doors of perception, is the charism by which believers become certain of divine election and experience release from the prison of ignorance. Then comes initiation and full participation in the community's sacraments. Which is what this weekend is all about: communal worship.

Just as you don't go to a revival meeting to learn about 12th century Christian Eucharistic doctrines, you don't go to Conspiracy Con to examine evidence of Humanoid-Reptiloid war that's raging on Mars as we speak. (Why doesn't the Mars Rover see it? Simple. The Mars Rover is actually tooling around a secret Hollywood set and everyone involved in setting it up has been killed). The talks are the revival meeting and the speakers are visiting evangelists and prophets.

Where there is light, there must also be darkness. And the next chapter of my journey takes me upriver to the mind-bending depravities of the Luciferian Masters of Darkness: Descent into the Maelstrom

Conspiracy Con 9 - The Live Blog: The Worshipful Master

Dateline: Santa Clara, CA

June 6, 2009 5:30:22 P.M.

I woke up this morning under a heavy cloud of FFA (free floating anxiety). I take a few deep breaths and remind myself that I'm at home, not Conspiracy Con. Clearly I'm too close to this story.

I rolled into last night's dinner at about nine o'clock, which seems to me a civilized hour, But most people are already working on the desert buffet. Perhaps they have an early curfew on the spaceship. 

My first order of business was a drink – my third for the day – followed by a scan for an interesting place to sit. I see the guest of honor, George Noory, at a table with the conference producer, Brian Hall. I take a shot, "Is that seat open?" I ask. Bingo.

A young man named Christopher, whose day job is shredding documents for the State of Califonia, pulls out my chair for me and is a delightful dinner companion; a perfect gentleman of the sort that I thought was long extinct. In the raffle I win a copy of "The Broken Code," by Frank LoVe, a book that should be Exhibit A in any discussion of why editors are important: "This book is a bold and bazaar story....No Pope, No Saint, So Science, No Senitor, No Clery, No Ayatollah is spaired the all seeing eye of God."

I don't get an opening to talk to Noory. His eyes scan the crowd like he's looking for someone. He fidgets, glances at his watch, and speaks quietly to the man next to him, his producer. His body language says he'd rather be somewhere else. He talks to the audio-visual crew about the lighting. "Lower," "Light enough to see," he says, "but intimate."

Finally it's time for the Noory, the pro who deftly walks the crazy line without actually seeming actually crazy himself.

He begins where all conversion narratives do, the moment of insight. 

"When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated, I was 13 years old," he begins. "It was a few more years before I started to understand there's something going on here. Then I realized that this was going on long before JFK." 

Now it's my "aha" moment. Everyone I've talked to at Conspiracy Con starts their stories at exactly the same point:"When Kennedy was assassinated…"

A picture comes into focus: Baby Boomers and their world.

Children in the time of the McCarthy witch hunts and nuclear attack drills.  P.S. 107, the elementary school I had the misfortune to attend, stressed the immanent perils of communists lurking in Little League dugouts and atomic bombs screaming through the stratosphere directly on target for 13th St. and 8th Ave. in Brooklyn. Teenagers during the Viet Nam war, learned that the CIA had overthrown governments and engineered coup d'etats, and that the federal government did indeed lie – about the Gulf of Tonkin and plenty of other things. Young adults in the time of Watergate, we wrote term papers while watching the unwinding  -- under Sen. Sam Ervin's beetle eyebrows -- of criminal conspiracies at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

I tune back in to Noory. "Where there's smoke, there's fire," he says, dropping his voice on 'fire." Immediately, he makes an about face, dropping that ball of yarn and finishing on an up note. "We're all in this together. We need to keep hope in us. I hope Obama is successful. When you get negative, then they have you. This is our country and our planet. And nobody is going to take it away from us."

No indeed, I think, and head for the exit. Next: Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound.

Conspiracy Con 9 - The Live Blog: Initial Probe

Dateline: Santa Clara, California 

Saturday June 6, 2009 4:28:05 p.m. PDT

After a tour through the exhbit, where Don from St. Paul, Minn. pressed two handfuls of pamphlets on me with titles such as Orthodox Medicine is Public Enemy #1 and Why Silver is the Answer, I check in with Don VonKliest, "The Value Of Minstrels, Jesters and Entertainers In The Future." An idea that I, as a writer, can't argue with.

VonKliest – a professional TV and radio announcer talk show host – contrasts with the prevailing dreariness. He may be paranoid but at least he's entertaining. He grabs the audience right off.

"What a time it was, to be in the 60s," he says, and starts playing air guitar. She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeaaaah. He's talking my – baby boomer – language. (So many Birkenstocks. So many gray pony-tails.)

We're all in good spirits and I'm thinking this maybe isn't all brain-boiling paranoia, when it becomes clear that Don Von's topic isn't the importance of jesters, thespians, and bards. It's the Navy's swastika-shaped building in San Diego. And other than the clip of his interview with Fox News, the next 45 minutes are unmediated stream-of-VonKliest-consciousness.

Swastika building…George Bush Sr… new world order…Spike Jones and the City Slickers…1942 propaganda song, "Heil Hitler's New World Order"….Prescott Bush…2012…666…the computer in Brussels called "the beast"….the end of the age…can you imagine what the world would be like with no money…it's the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

Time for another drink. Next: At the Foot of the Worshipful Master

Conspiracy Con 9 - The Live Blog: First Contact

Dateline: Santa Clara, California

Saturday June 6, 2009 1:57:14 p.m. PDT

After wresting my car from my 18 year-old, I hit the road for the Marriott, which for the next two days is ground zero of world conspiracy theory. This is the ninth -- and we know that 9 is inverted 6 and three of them are the number of the beast---

Where was I?

This is the ninth time this potpourri of High Weirdness has been held in our fair city, and that alone is worthy of note. That George Noory, host of Coast to Coast a.m. -- the nighttime radio talk show focused on all things conspiratorial, paranormal and extraterrestrial -- was the keynote speaker at Saturday's banquet sealed the deal.

When I asked the event's producer, Brian Hall, why he chose the Santa Clara venue, the answer wasn't that Santa Clara was home to a vortex of cosmic power, or the Trilateral Commission's home away from from home. The reason was pretty much the same as why the 49ers are interested in building a new stadium here: Prices are better than San Francisco, it's easy to get to -- close to the airport, easy freeway access -- and it's easy to park.

I was vaguely disappointed. I'd expected something more...conspiratorial.

When I pulled in to the Marriott, for a minute I wondered if I was in the wrong place because the parking lot was so empty. Then I saw an "Income Tax is Illegal" bumper sticker and I knew I wasn't. At the conference registration desk my announcement that I was press got a chilly reception. "Are you pre-registered?" When I replied that I was, and further that I had spoken to Brian personally, the temperature rose a few degrees. Taking out a credit card to pay for the dinner (not included in the press pass), I was told, "We don't take credit cards. Cash or check only."

I should have guessed. "People don't want to use plastic at an event like this," the woman at the desk explained, emphasizing the this. I felt like a conspirator already.

As a I forked over three portraits of Andrew Jackson, an old man wearing a Greek fisherman's cap and holding an open Bible in which every syllable was annotated with runes, leaned over and asked me if I believed in God Almighty. "I do, but I don't have time to talk now." I was on a mission, and taking a deep dive into the Annunaki messages coded in Deuteronomy -- or whatever -- would occupy the day. He graciously didn't pursue it further.

Saving the delights of the exhibit hall for later, I stopped by Webster Tarpley's talk, "How To Defeat The Wall Street Oligarchs, Shred The Derivatives, And Get Out Of The Depression." What lefty progressive can resist that? However, the front screen read:

Trilateral Commission

Coup d'etat

Obama

Genocide

No oligarchs. No derivatives. Just my old pals, the Trilateral Commission. I decided that before I ventured further I needed to lay in some foundational work with lunch and a drink. At the Marriott Sports bar, I asked the bartender if the Conspiracy Con folks were good tippers. "They don't come in here much," he answered.

Next: Initial probe