Brent Arthur Wilson, public enemy #275,000

A trial date has been set for 12 July.  Another omnibus hearing is scheduled for 10 June regarding charges for one or more other properties.  I really hope evidence about the home equity loan Brent was supposed to have started the process for comes to light.  That is what makes his case truly emblematic of the YIIKes decade's real estate pyramid scheme.  At his most recent hearing Brent took the dare to make even less sense than before.  From the Missoulian article:

[Judge] Christopher again asked Wilson to accept legal representation from the public defender’s office, again told him she could not rule on any motion that hadn’t been made in writing, and again warned him she would not accept nor perform and fiduciary responsibility in the matter even if he did request it in writing.

“I cannot assume that, I cannot practice law, I can perform only as a judge in this case,” she told him.

“Well,” Wilson announced, “I think it’s apropos then that, for the record, on the record, let the record show that I reiterate the situation from last May 20.”

And this is what he went on to say:

“I, Brent Arthur Wilson the man; on the land, born of spirit, of issue, of messiah on the most high; grantor, trustor, settler of the all capitals B-R-E-N-T A-R-T-H-U-R W-I-L-S-O-N Trust; do appoint and nominate District Court Judge Deborah Kim Christopher as the trustee for the Express Revocable all caps Brent Arthur B-R-E-N-T A-R-T-H-U-R W-I-L-S-O-N Trust, with the following three points of law:”

He went on to talk about trusts.

“The purpose for which a trust may be created is the tangent purpose of the settler in truth. It is the law of the trust,” he said, adding that “Brent Arthur … the man is not defaulted as the trustee for the all capitals B-R-E-N-T …”

Well, you get the picture.

“Do you have any evidence to the contrary, Your Honor?” Wilson asked when he was finished.

The other news was how Brent is in the news.  Even the Facebook group I created about Brent is getting some media attention.  OK, it got some local medium attention as part of an article in the Missoulian about Brent gaining national notoriety.  The group's entire manifesto (i.e. description) was reprinted, and I can't ask much more than that.  Alright, I can ask for a link to the group in the online edition, but a Facebook group is easy enough to find.

The article begins with:

When Assistant Lake County Attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson plugged Brent Arthur Wilson’s name into an Internet search engine Wednesday afternoon, it delivered 4,000 hits.
When she tried it again Thursday morning, it was up past 6,000.

That would have been the 20th and 21st of May.  I don't know which search engine or how she entered the search.  Asking the Googles today about "Brent Arthur Wilson" returns 93 unique pages, and about 800 to 7,200 if you include everything with his name that is a link to one of those pages and each time that link shows up on a site.  I've got over 150 posts and a label with his full name, so if you tell Google to show you every single entry you'll get over 150 links to this blog alone.  It's a similar situation with the Missoulian's site and any other media site in Montana with a news section that picked up at least one article about Brent.  Searching for "Brent Wilson" isn't going to work, as that guy is a rugby star and bass player who also happens to be a legitimate real estate agent in several states.  Entering Brent Arthur Wilson without quotes returns almost 800 unique results out of a possible 275,000.  Most of those are not about anyone named Brent Arthur Wilson, are from news/blog aggregators, or are the results of searches run on other sites, including searches that aren't about our Brent.  That search does return several pages about Brent that are outside of Montana and aren't the News of the Weird entries previously mentioned.

It's not possible to get a good fix on how many sites have written about Brent.  Regardless of the search method used, here are some other examples of Brent's growing notoriety.

Domestic Terrorists or Fierce Patriots? on the investment / money management site Main Street, Seth Fiegerman followed up on Tristan Scott's article from the Missoulian in comparing Brent and Jackiya Ford (whom the article is mostly about) with the all-American domestic terrorists - white stupidists supremacists & separatists - for appropriating the sovereign citizen & redemption scams.  Mr. Fiegerman wrote about sovereign citizens:

They want to rely on common law rather than federal law and restore a certain simplicity to America. The hope is that they can get rid of the big banks and big government so they can be free to live in this country without being “hijacked” by these imposing forces. In essence, they are arguably a more zealous and extreme version of the Tea Party movement. Sovereign Citizens promote individual liberties, but they also have taken controversial steps that endanger fellow citizens; members bill themselves as true patriots and yet they break laws and take steps to undermine the government.

The comparison is hardly new.  I read it a few places before writing this in a post commenting on the Missoulian article:

Some of the more extreme tax protesters have been linked with white separatists / supremacists. Lots of people have already connected the extremist tax protesters to the Tea Baggers Party, and Tea Party rhetoric sounds a lot like sovereign citizen / redemption rhetoric.

Wow!  The Tea Party isn't exclusively white after all!

If you like it when Tea Baggers go ballistic, be sure to read the comments on Mr. Fiegerman's article.

Brent has been linked to the white stupidists and their sovereign citizen's scam by Rick Ross.  The articles are just reprints from the Missoulian, but getting listed on Mr. Ross' site usually qualifies you as a dirtbag.

Some nimrod stopped by the Tree of Liberty forum trying to sell the sovereign citizens scam as a way to "achieve true justice."  Two Missoulian articles about Brent were used to demonstrate how ridiculous the scam is.  If Objectivists who are still getting ready to survive a post-Y2K meltdown and veer into Black Helicopter territory now and then think something promising freedom from the government is crazy you know it's fucking crazy.

More Scenes from My Boring Life

Downmarket Most Dangerous Game meets bum fight:

Man shot with blowgun dart outside Missoula homeless shelter

A 32-year-old homeless man was shot in the cheek with a blowgun dart early Monday morning and police are looking for a suspect who drove away in a white Lexus.

A&C Drugs, the oldest pharmacy in Missoula and the one I've been using since I moved up here has closed.  Even after I moved from Missoula I kept my prescriptions there as they would mail them to me.  They were yet another victim of Medicare Part D, reduction of Medicaid payments, and competition with big box stores offering $4 generics.  Here's a good article on the subject, Disappearing drugstores: Small-town health suffers as rural pharmacies close.  I'll be using the little pharmacy in Superior now.  I hope I'll be able to keep getting Teva's lamotrigine, as Dr. Reddy's may as well be a placebo.  The nearest big box store or chain pharmacy is 60 miles away, and they fill the prescriptions for the community hospital, so they should be able to stay in business.  If they go under I'll do what I can to get generics from specific manufacturers from a chain pharmacy, or get another dispense as written prescription.  I'm considering going to generic topiramate next year, as I'm reading reports that Teva has their act together with their topiramate now.

After a five-year absence I'm back on The WELL.  As I wrote on my member page, I pretty much spend my life just dicking around anyway.  The more things I have to do in a half-assed way, the less I ruminate on how much less my life sucks than a young woman living in Yemen or the parents of a child with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

One of the things I do to waste time / procrastinate / calm me the fuck down is look at visitor statistics for the various sites I run (I'll be updating the stats for Crazy Meds Real Soon Now), including the results of search terms used to find them.  One visit to this blog resulted from the search straitjacket design.  The result teh Googles gave me was for a page on paddling.net  Specifically the review of a strait jacket [sic] by someone named Beaverman.  "Beaverman" reviewing a straitjacket for a paddling site?  Kinky!  Unfortunately not.  Reviews for Lotus Designs Strait Jacket PFD, of which Beaverman's is the first, has to do with a jacket or vest one wears when kayaking or canoeing or something like that.

I've got traps out for hornets and yellow jackets, and traps for other social wasps.  The traps for other wasps have fruit juice in them, the traps for the hornets have only sexy pheromones.  I'll give you one guess as to which ones the hummingbirds are trying to feed from.  I can't find any reference to hummingbirds being attracted to yellow jacket sex pheromones.

The Once and Who the Hell Knows about the Future Domain

Thanks to forum member Sduibek crazymeds.com is now a valid address for Crazy Meds.

Way back in October 2003 I thought I had registered crazymeds.com with 1&1.  For some reason it didn't work and the domain was squatted.  Then and there I should have gone elsewhere, but as I wasn't thinking clearly enough to properly register a domain I wasn't thinking clearly enough to find another registrar and domain host.

crazymeds.us is still the primary domain.  At some point that may change.

You're a legal genius Brent Wilson. Or maybe crazy after all.

Judge Deborah Christopher declared Brent Wilson sane enough to represent himself at trial, with the usual caveats judges give to people who want to do that.  E.g. "You're an idiot."

Yesterday's promise of courtroom antics were fulfilled when Brent appointed Judge Christopher the trustee of the BRENT ARTHUR WILSON Express Revocable Trust.  Brent was very insistent about the capslock name, so it's pretty obvious he knows how to game the system; as long as the system is Linux- or DOS-based.  Judge Christopher declined.

Although Brent managed to address Judge Christopher correctly during this hearing, he refused to rise for her when she entered the court.  I think he had risen in another way and didn't want everyone to know.  Really, Brent, there are better ways to stalk meet women.

More details at the Missoulian.  I'll post any video I find of this hearing.

Jackiya Ford: Crazier than I thought

I thought the previous post about Brent was it for the day, but I'm in serious procrastination mode.

Jackiya Ford has some serious crazy and/or fraud going on.

First there's Mcjala Entertainment, her combination record label / promotions & bookings company / Millennialist church.  The website is sadly defunct.  Archive.org isn't aware of it.  A few of its pages are visible, for now, in Google's cache, such as Jackiya's narcissistic About Us / featured artist page and a page plugging the music of the artists they represent.  I'll give you one guess as to how many that is.  Without the graphics, especially on the site's home page, the Millennialist cult church aspects of Mcjala Entertainment are missing.

As someone who has been diagnosed as bipolar by numerous psychiatrists for the last 25 years, and who has lived with people with equally official bipolar diagnoses, I know crazy.  I'm not qualified to diagnose anyone, especially not over the InterGoogles, but I'm pretty good at spotting someone being mentally interesting to some degree.

Jackiya Ford's LinkedIn page screams "batshit crazy."

Sure, lots of people pad their resumes.  Many outright lie.  So her claims of having a law degree and a business degree with 4.0 GPAs could be simple fraud.  But Jackiya also wrote that she marched with Dr. Martin Luther King. That must have happened in a past life as she was born in 1972.  How reincarnation works with homo-hating Christianity (check out her YouTube play list) is beyond me.  She must have been born self-aware like those freaky kids from the Dune books that sucked, because one of her current jobs is "Freeman on the Land" and she's been doing that since 1972.  Those 4.0 GPAs are apparent as part of her duties as a Freeman is being a "Sovern Citizen."

While you're at the YouTube, be sure to listen to Send Me YHWH I'll Go.  Listening to her music you can hear how much Jackiya loves Jesus.  Really LUVS Him, and she'll be the best girlfriend He'll ever have.

Like any musician Jackiya has a MySpace page.  Unlike her Facebook page, the MySpace page still exists.  For now.  It's a typically ugly MySpace page, but it has one thing you'll find on just a few - an awesome, Dr. Bronner-like rant of pure crazy.  In case it goes away, here's a more legible copy of the dense text:

What If you wake up one day and realize that your entire life you've lived a lie? Everything you've been taught in school and about life was a lie. What if I said your birthrights were sold you into slavery the very day you were born? Your Birth Certificate, Social Security Card, Drivers License and any other contract you've signed in life was a contract signed with the devil, to take away your true GOD given freedom B.K.A BIRTHRIGHT. Want the TRUTH? God says that my people perish for lack of knowledge.... Ready to really go down the rabbit hole... Pray and ask GOD for Guidance and Wisdom and be assured that he will give it to you. Seek and you shall find. Ask and it shall be given, Knock and the door shall be opened. SEEK TRUTH, embrace knowledge. Study the U.S. Constitution, Common Law,Etymology and the Black Laws Dictionary--(STUDY EVERYTHING YOU CAN)know it & learn it by hard. Learn about the original people of the Land. Separate yourselves from those who embrace the darkness and walk into the Light. Don't worry about what others do unto you. Give it to God and Believe their days are numbered. Know who you are and who's you are. You will never be the same. Life will never be the same.... Know it doesn't matter where you've been or what you've done but it's where your going that counts. These are evil times that we live in. WOE unto those that operate in a De facto Government, WOE unto those that say there is NO GOD. And WOE unto those that have touched the anointed ones of GOD. We are living in a time when the MEEK shall surely inherit the Earth. IT IS WRITTEN. The Word of GOD shall not return unto him Void, but shall accomplish that in which it was sent out to do. I would like to dedicate this site to my grandmother who’s called me on my gift to sing the Gospel and believe GOD in all things early on as a little girl. Carrie Lee Patterson, proclaimed the prophecy that one day Ahayah was going to use me for his glory.( R.I.P. “I Love you grandma.”) Look out for my Album (My Life 4 the Gospel) (2010). My sound is hot and quite commercial. Yet most importantly, I sing to represent Ahayah, in the name of Yashua. Many people feel that they've got what it takes, but I think by now we all know that many are called but few are chosen. Ahayah, has raised up a new generation of nobody's to help him speak the true unmerited Gospel. Yah calls them a pecuiliar people... I understand and I accept the call by AhaYah, that I’ve been chosen to represent in such a way that'll tickle the hearts of mankind. I have full intentions on ministering the true unedited Gospel of my God; until the day I die. I can not be moved, brought, broken, shaken nor turned. I'm In this till I die. As far as the Illuminati's out there; know that GOD of Heaven is the GOD of Israel; who was and Is and is to come. Repent and turn from your wicked ways for his return is at hand. "What profit is it for a man to gain the whole world; yet loose his soul. I love what I do, I love what I’ve become ,I know who I am, I love being me, and most importantly I love living for Ahayah in the name of Yahshua. For those of you who don't know what Ahayah means or Yahshua; Ahayah is God's real name before man changed it. Yahshua is Jesus's real name before man changed it. Know the truth will set you free. However, "Need I say any more," Because when it’s my time to shine. I plan on shining just as bright as the North Star. SO! "WATCH OUT WORLD.... HERE I COME (By the grace of God as he leads me)....." In the true name of Yahshua. WORD OF THE DAY: The true beauty of a woman comes from within. It’s not necessary for a woman to reveal her body for attention. A real man is a man who loves & fears "Ahayah". It is then when Ahayah will lead him to a true beautiful woman that will love & honor him just as Ahayah Loves the Church (the called out ones)(The Remnant). A woman that is spiritually inclined. A woman that knows the truth about historical facts. A woman that respects herself. A woman that will refuse to sell her soul to the devil. A woman that Ahayah has created just for him. (A woman of Virtue). Wake up people if you’re living your life as if these aren't the last days than you’re sadly mistaken and obviously blind to the truth. Open your eyes..... The signs are all around you..... Yahshua, really Is coming sooner than we all think. "I'd rather live my life as if there was a God and die to find out there is none; than to live my life as if there isn't a God just to die & find out there is one. - Anonymous. Shout out to the 144,000 ( one hundred forty-four thousand); and the 2 (two) witnesses at the waling wall.

For anyone who doesn't believe that commercial soap was covered with wacky religious rants, or hasn't seen a classic Dr. Bronner label for some time:

Dilute! Dilute!  OK! 

picture via sethwhite.org

Brent Arthur Wilson: Sane enough to stand trial

Hot off the Missoulian's press, or however they print their website:

POLSON - A drifter known for his courtroom antics and accused of trying to steal a foreclosed house in Polson is competent to stand trial.

Brent Arthur Wilson, 53, is back in the Lake County jail after being committed to the Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, where physicians determined he was fit to stand trial.

Lake County District Judge Kim Christopher sent Wilson to the state mental hospital after he refused to participate in court hearings or to work with a public defender.

The article continues at the website, although it's mostly a brief rehashing of what's happened so far.  

An omnibus hearing is scheduled for today.  We'll just have to wait for more antics, and if Judge Deborah Christopher rules Brent competent enough to defend himself.  

Drug-Drug interaction checker is working again

The folks at AIDSmeds changed the URL for their drug-drug interaction checker.  I'll try to update those pages today.

Edit:  As of 6:10 PM Mountain Time the drug-drug interaction checker is working again.  Copyright dates on most, if not all pages have been updated, and a few broken links I spotted have been fixed.

Do I still live in Montana? You bet!

I was in Superior the other day and saw a totally FAH-bu-lous secondhand shop and beauty salon now occupies the building built atop the burned-out ruins of the hotel where Gideon first forgot his Bible a little over 100 years ago.  It replaced the 24 hour gym and "supplement" shop that was there.  Across the street the marquee over the dive bar (as if there is another kind in these parts) no longer advertises the 3 to 7pm happy 'hour' and which nights ladies drink half-price.  Now they have Wii championships.

In places like Missoula, Kalispell, Bozeman, Butte and Billings that sort of stuff is normal, but Superior?

A little before, and since then, several stories made the news that, while maybe not only in Montana, are certainly Rocky Mountain flavored...

Tea Baggers who are trying to unseat Republican incumbents for being RINOs are everywhere.  One such in Montana is Ron Lake trying to unseat Republican state Representative Jeff Welborn in the June 8th primary.  From Mr. Lake's campaign flier:

It is going to take real Republicans committed to conservative values to make things right again, not Republicans who are ‘in bed' with Big Government. 

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when a person runs as a Republican, when he gets to Helena, I think he should vote as a Republican.

Good, wholesome, American conservative values coming from someone who is a registered violent offender, and whose offenses include breaking into someone's apartment to use their phone to place "long distance phone calls" to "adult entertainment" providers.

Tea Party values: Republicans who are in bed with Big Government are bad; Republicans who are violent criminals addicted to phone sex are good.

On the subject of family values, Missoula has a brand new law (as of today) that prohibits discrimination based on sexual identity.  Yay!  Certain people are uncomfortable with that sort of thing.  Especially priapic anti-porn crusader Tei Nash.  Nash, who is squarely in the "God hates fags" camp, decided to take a gentler approach this time.  He doesn't have a problem with how people are or anything, he just doesn't want pre-op trannies using the ladies room because it will confuse little kids and lead to sexual assault.

No, really.  notmybathroom.com  

I'm surprised Mr. Nash's head didn't literally explode when his daughter came out in front of him and half the county at the overflowing city council meeting about the ordinance. 

At least cowboys are still heroes in Montana.  Especially cowboys who rassle space aliens to prevent a plane from being hijacked.  OK, it was just one cowboy and he helped the flight crew subdue someone who had too much to drink who was ranting about being a being from another planet, but the guy really is a cowboy.

If we have space-alien-rasslin' cowboys, we need Indians who still hunt tasty critters with handcrafted bows.  And teach kids about it in schools.  Not just about how it used to be, but what bow hunting is like now with handcrafted bows.

All that plus Brent and Jackiya!

I don't know what I was worried about, I totally live in Montana!

I don't think that was how YHWH wanted you to spread the word

Jackiya Ford's story is the one with legs.  As expected, she's in News of the Weird.  It's not surprising to see her story in Fark.  You know she's got it going on when they're writing about her in India and using her to illustrate a point in the endless argument about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the Pravda.ru forum. That's why she has her own tag now.

I also found a blog entry from someone who claims to know Jackiya.  All of the comments have to do with the homeless and the politics of welfare.

There's an answer to my question about how white separatists / supremacists feel about someone like Jackiya using their scam to have all the fun crooked mortgage brokers had.  On Stormfront (a very large and active site for those people) there's a topic with a title about a "Negress 'Sovereign Citizen'".  There is much outrage about how such thefts hurts working people and how ludicrous she is for claiming to be a so-called sovereign citizen in the first place.  Amazingly enough the sovereign citizen concept is praised all over that site as a way to avoid paying unconstitutional taxes to a corrupt and tyrannical government.

The site for her combination record label-promotions and entertainment company-millennialist church is "temporarily unavailable" due to a problem with the account.

Litany of complaints. Don't bother reading.

There's one licensed plumber in this part of the county.  Fortunately Kelvin is an ace.  The sort of guy who grew up making stuff from the remnants of pipes and faucets using wrenches and hacksaws that had seen better days.  The plumbing in my house always finds a way of surprising him.

When Kelvin was here previously he needed to run 150 feet of a snake to get to a clog that was responsible for waste water overflowing into the basement / garage.  The access point for the upstairs pipes - only output from the upstairs fixtures spilled into the basement - is about 40 feet north and 10 feet below the farthest fixture, AKA the kitchen sink.

The plumbing here must be based on Monty Python's third season title sequence.

This time around something blocked the flow of water into the water heater.  Whatever it is^*, 120 psi of compressed air from either direction isn't enough to dislodge it.  Kelvin decided to just screw it and route water from the sink in the downstairs bathroom into the water heater.  Everything works fine now.

While he was dealing with that a plumbing mystery has been solved.  For a couple years the water pump would turn on once or twice an hour.  I couldn't find a leak anywhere.  Kelvin was here installing a new toilet and he couldn't find a leak either.  When a pipe under the driveway burst and was later repaired the pump would still kick in several times a day for no good reason, stop doing it for a couple months, start again, and finally stopped.

And then it just stopped.  Why?  It sealed itself.  Huh?

So how hard is the water here?

 

Not as hard as lots of places, but I've been spoiled by the water in Missoula, San Francisco and Hawai'i.

Meanwhile the furnace / boiler is still shot. It's not talking to the thermostat  in the front part of the house, but that doesn't matter as the water for the baseboards doesn't circulate if I manually override the thermostat control.  It can burn all the oil it wants to, not much happens in the way of heating the house.  On a good day that fucker is 65% efficient, and that's probably with the door to the boiler room open so the heat from burning the fuel oil comes upstairs.  

I don't know what to do, have it repaired, replaced, or just get some space heaters.  Switching to propane seems too expensive.  The three to five grand for a new boiler I could do, but digging and installing new pipes from the tank to boiler would cost a shitload.  Then there's my fear of propane go boom in case of a fire.  The fuel oil tank is way the fuck underground.  Plus if I did get propane installed I'd want to use it for the water heater and the clothes dryer.

And I'm still stuck with baseboard radiators that aren't all that hot.  Switching to some other method of heating this dump, along with everything else, would probably cost more than it's currently worth. 

On top of all that the methylphenidate is giving me trouble.  The split 5mg AM & 5mg afternoon doses weren't doing anything.  So I tried 10mg with breakfast.  That seemed to work for a few days.  Until yesterday, where I felt kind of off.  Today it's the same, only a little more so.  It's like I'm on the verge of an aura.  I have the headache and I'm more confused than usual, while everything else is somewhere between psychosomatic and actual onset.  If I do nothing else except pay attention to how I feel, I can just notice my stomach tightening, and a tingling in my right hand that comes and goes.  I haven't been able to walk straight for over two years now, so that's no longer a reliable indicator, but it's been worse today and yesterday.  So it's back to minimal functionality.

I've been working on the forum software upgrade as best I can.  So far so good now.  No idea when it will be ready.

^*At long last, has some piece of Bob Crane's corpse surfaced?

Fuck my life

It's snowing.  Normally I'd like that.  Not today.

This morning the furnace decided to go haywire.  It burns fuel oil just fine, it just doesn't heat the house.  When I turned the thermostat off it kept burning fuel oil as well as ever.

Around the same time the hot water thought it was time to take a vacation.  The water heater still works.  Barely anything to absolutely nothing comes out of the taps when I request hot water.  No problem with the cold water.  Lots of cold water any time I ask for it.

At least I don't live in Haiti.  Or Nashville / Middle Tennessee (although I have plenty of Nth cousins X times removed living in eastern Tennessee).  Or Louisiana.  Or Iraq.  Or Afghanistan.  Or wherever else things are going to suck way more than my life.

 

Won't you please adopt a home today

Brent and Jackiya aren't the only ones who've adopted the sense of entitlement, and brain-twisting ideology that justifies it, that was once the province of Identity Christianity and its pea-brained offspring.  "Home adoptions" are happening around the country.  The Missoulian ran an article about it.  What's happened here in Montana is far more interesting.  

Brent Wilson encapsulates the real estate pyramid scheme of the YIIKes decade by targeting foreclosed properties, 'adopting' more than one house, renting out one he wasn't living in, and being in the process of getting a home equity loan on one of the adopted properties when he was caught.  And I'm sure lots of felons wish they had the balls to sass a judge.

Jackiya Ford runs Identity Christianity through the looking glass.

But there is one guy who, at first, seems to be a real hero of the foreclosed upon.  From  'Home adoptions' in Lolo, Polson: Sovereign squatters a national movement:

The most brazen attempt at a property takeover by the sovereign citizen movement may have occurred last year in a Miami suburb.

There, one Angel Cruz showed up with 20 black-clad followers and 10 hired – and armed – security guards, to take over a strip mall branch of the Bank of America.

Wearing counterfeit U.S. Treasury badges, according to a story by Casey Sanchez in the SPLC’s Intelligence Report, the 30 blocked the bank’s entrance, parking lot and drive-through lanes.

Cruz apparently believed what he was doing was legitimate. A week earlier, Sanchez reported, the 49-year-old had stopped by the Palmetto Bay Police Department and asked that officers back him up during his “eviction” of the Bank of America.

“To an incredulous police officer,” SPLC’s Intelligence Report said, “Cruz handed over a ‘court order’ signed and sealed by a ‘judge’ from ‘The United Cities Private Court’ ” – United Cities being a company Cruz started.

The 20 followers who joined him were employees of United Cities. For turning over their personal assets, including cash, they had been promised new cars, 30 years of job security and that their mortgages and credit card bills would be paid off by their new employer. SPLC says Cruz intended to accomplish this using “fake bank drafts and fistfuls of ‘United States Private Dollars,’ a counterfeit currency he churned out in his Orlando, Fla., home.”

The so-called court order he handed over to police “referenced a pending $15.25 billion lawsuit against Bank of America filed by Cruz the previous month in Miami-Dade County Court,” Sanchez wrote. “Cruz claimed the bank had wronged him because an Orlando branch refused to cash $14.3 million in phony United Cities bank drafts.

“Taking his beef public, Cruz also had posted a YouTube video announcing his upcoming ‘foreclosure’ of two Miami-area Bank of America branches, while ranting about the Federal Reserve as ‘Satan’s banking system.’ ”

Angel Cruz: bastard love child of David Koresh and the Montana Freemen?  Did he get the modern equivalent of a pitchfork-and-torch-wielding mob together to go after a facilitator of the real estate pyramid scheme and foreclose them?  Hell yeah!

No, not really.  He went after Bank of America because they wouldn't accept a couple million dollars in homemade Monopoly money from the crazy multilevel marketing scam Cruz had going since the mid-2000s.  Long, serious journalism version.  Shorter News of the Weird version.

I still think Brent would make a better cult leader, since he totally looks like Charlie Manson.

Reverend Colonel William Potter Gale must be spinning in his grave

Brent Wilson copycat Jackiya Ford had her first day in court yesterday.  From the front-page story in today's (30 April, 2010) Missoulian she's certainly following Brent's game plan, even if it's a water-downed version.

Not guilty plea entered for woman accused of stealing Lolo home

A woman accused of staking claim to a man's home by inhabiting the residence refused to enter a plea at an arraignment hearing Thursday because she does not recognize Montana as a legal entity.

[...]

Thursday's court hearing revealed little more of the ideology behind Ford's alleged acts, but a lawsuit she filed against county officials who stymied the deed transfer suggests a pronounced sense of entitlement.

In the lawsuit, Ford accuses officials of preventing her from filing her land patents with the county, of violating her birthright and of being unruly toward her. Ford, who said she is pregnant, is seeking compensation for "mental damage and scars due to duress and coorersion (sic) of all parties involved."

[...]

At Thursday's arraignment hearing in Missoula District Court, Ford asked to have the criminal case transferred to U.S. District Court, where she filed the lawsuit against Missoula County, and asked for access to the jail's law library.

When Desmond read Ford her rights, she asked the standing judge to clarify.
"Question. Are these rights outside of the Constitution of the United States?" Ford asked.

No judge sassing, no demanding to be her own lawyer, nothing as entertaining as Brent.  There is, however, one thing Brent can't top.

She's black.

What difference does that make?

Jackiya Ford essentially followed the instructions of the Redemption Movement by the book with preemptive lawsuits against county officials and filing land patents.   The Redemption Movement evolved from the Sovereign Citizens Movement, both of which came out of the Posse Comitatus (the vigilante group founded in the 1970s, not the 19th-century law).  The Posse Comitatus was key to Identity Christianity growing from an obscure cult to the de facto religion of white supremacists.  The late Rev. Col. Gale of this post's title was the founder of The Church of True Israel, as well as the Posse Comitatus and other paramilitary organizations.  Another group with the same lineage is the Aryan Nations.

I love it.

You go, girl!  This is post-racial America.  A pregnant African-American woman has every right to join up with the Sovereign Christian Redemption posse to get some real estate she's entitled to.  Emphasis on the Christian part as Jackiya is a professional gospel singer with her own record label / production company / sect. She has a single available on iTunes and a video, of sorts, on the YouTube.

Some of the more extreme tax protesters have been linked with white separatists / supremacists. Lots of people have already connected the extremist tax protesters to the Tea Baggers Party, and Tea Party rhetoric sounds a lot like sovereign citizen / redemption rhetoric.

Wow!  The Tea Party isn't exclusively white after all!

The front page of today's Missoulian is now doubly ironic.  Right next to Jackiya's story is one about a bunch of asshats in Kalispell propagating a Montana stereotype:

Protesters rally as white separatists watch Nazi film in Kalispell library

At least the protesters outnumbered the dickweeds 20-to-1.  So much for the "white homeland."

Brent Arthur Wilson in the media spotlight

Chuck Shepherd wrote up Brent's doings the Creme de la Weird entry for his News of the Weird column of 25 April, 2010. 


Edit 6 May 2010: URL updated with permanent archive address.

Real Estate Scams = Domestic Terrorism? Why not.

As Tristan Scott wrote in the second story:

The allegations against Ford smack of the recent case of Brent Arthur Wilson, 53, who faces felony charges in Lake County for his alleged attempts to steal a $300,000 house in foreclosure.

California woman charged with moving into, claiming Lolo home she didn't own

Jackiya D. Ford, 37, was arrested on April 14 and her belongings removed from a house built by Bob Paffhausen. She made an initial appearance in Justice Court on April 19 and her bail was set at $50,000.

Paffhausen said Ford had showed up about two weeks earlier to view the house as a prospective buyer. Sometime after that, prosecutors say Ford delivered paperwork to Paffhausen claiming ownership of the house and the land in a 20-mile radius around it. She offered to drop the lawsuit if Paffhausen would pay her about $900,000 in pure silver and gold.

Paffhausen received a call from NorthWestern Energy saying someone had reported a natural gas leak at the house. Paffhausen went to the house, where he found the locks and garage door codes had been changed and notices were posted on the doors claiming the house had been given to Ford by "our Lord and Savior Yahushua."

Smacks of Brent indeed.  I like the part about wanting to be paid in real money instead of the Fed's worthless fiat script.  And her name.  It seemed a straightforward copycat crime.  Brent's meme was spreading.  Why should Wall Street types be the only ones to get paid by the government to commit white collar real estate crime?  Everyone should be able to get in on it!

The next day the Missoulian published this story:

Alleged Lolo 'house theft' may have been inspired by extremist websites

Some highlights:

"It's very difficult to unrecord a document once it's been recorded, so we try to catch these things when they appear on the verge of legality," said Debbe Merseal, Missoula's chief deputy clerk and recorder.Merseal said Ford's filings were so unusual that she sent the paperwork to the legal eagles in the Missoula County Attorney's Office for review. She said the woman tried to have several certified deeds and patent documents re-recorded, but refused to give a reason for the request.

"This definitely was an unusual document," Merseal said. "She described it as a ‘patent sandwich.' I don't believe we've ever seen anything like this."

[...]

The woman first came onto the radar of local law enforcement when she became disorderly in the Missoula County Attorney's Office and had to be removed. She filed "bogus" lawsuits against several sheriff's deputies, said Lt. Rich Maricelli, and demanded settlements be paid in gold and silver.
"It's been an absolute nightmare," Maricelli said.

[...]

Ford told the deputies that she was a "sovereign citizen of the republic of America" and therefore officials had no authority over her. She said she owned the whole mountainside and that they were on private property.At the time of her arrest, she had been living in the house about two weeks.

Ford's alleged intimidation tactics are consistent with the Sovereign Citizen Movement, whose adherents use "paper terrorism" as a form of harassment.

Paper terrorism involves the use of fraudulent legal documents and filings, as well as the misuse of legitimate documents and filings, in order to intimidate, harass and coerce public officials, law enforcement officers and private citizens, according to an FBI news release warning of the practice.

[...]

That FBI issued its news release one day before Ms. Ford was arrested.  The Sovereign Citizen Movement is the third in an ongoing series to educate the public about "U.S.-based extremist ideologies."  The Montana Freemen of the 1990s were sovereign citizens.  This is just one more indicator that they're back.

I don't think Brent is involved with the neo-Freemen, or any other sovereign citizens.  I'm pretty sure his motives are from divine inspiration, and/or getting his share of the good times like everyone deserves and not just Wall Street fatcats. 

I have no idea what motivates Ms. Ford.

New and Removed Entries on the Panoply of Blogs

The following blogs have been moved to the Defunct, but not Forgotten blogroll:

A canna’ change the laws of physics

Adnoxious

Ask A Urinal - Wisdom From Bathroom Graffitti

Fuck You, Penguin

Grammar Police a.k.a. GrammarCops

Making Maps: DIY Cartography

Musings of a phenomenologist

Scalpel or Sword?

Things I've Learned from Wikipedia

This is why we love them

Why The Fuck do You Have a Kid?

They still have great content and, like back issues of Skymall Magazine, if you haven't read it before it's new to you.

Crass-Pollination: An ER blog is now invitation-only.  Pole Leaning Douchebag and Don't Judge my Hair completely vanished.  The latter is sorely missed.

The good news is there are new blogs to take up the space, although not necessarily the place, of the recently removed entries:

Autocomplete fail

Gross N00dz

Learn from my fail

My Very Worst Job

My Very Worst Roommate

People Of Public Transit

That's my boss

Tweetbaggery

Up On The Fridge

Woman fail

Autocomplete fail is the fifth such site I've come across.  Gross N00dz is just that, some of the grossest people you've ever seen with no clothes on.  There may not be enough bleach on the planet to clean your eyes.  The content warning, or something, prevents the last update and title from coming through.  Remember: once seen, it cannot be unseen.

I managed to get the Picture Pool from Texts from Last Night to update.  You need to have a Flickr account to see it.  I still can't get the Horse Head blogs to cooperate.

Forum Software Upgrade

In preparation for the upcoming degradation upgrade of the Crazy Meds Talk forum software I'm updating some operating system software today.

Short notice because I was too stupid to first read the system requirements for the new forum software.  Otherwise I would have planned for this.  I want to test the new forum software and I sure as hell can't do that without installing it.

I have no idea how long the interruption will last. Assuming anyone notices.

------------------

I doubt anyone noticed a thing.

Hero The Cult - Round 2

There are new ads for the HTC Hero smart phone.  A day or two prior to those ads showing up new ads for Scientology appeared.  The old ads for Scientology are in a higher rotation now.   Perhaps the new Scientology ads didn't test as well, or perhaps it's because the new Scientology ads are not as similar the new HTC Hero ads as the old Scientology ads are.

Funny how the Scientology ads kind of vanished until right before the new HTC Hero ads started showing up everywhere.  Suddenly the ads for Scientology were everywhere.  It's as if the clams couldn't afford the air time until HTC's next big media buy, then they suddenly had the money to spend on advertising.  Sort of like how the first big ad blitz featuring those ads that look and sound so much like the previous set of HTC Hero ads appeared shortly before said ads.  Makes you wonder about things, doesn't it?

As the only TV I get is via satellite, my advertising landscape is different than it is for those who watch via cable, over-the-air local reception, or teh InterTubes, so "everywhere" for me is somewhat less hyperbolic than you might think.  Agencies can buy in bulk from companies that own multiple channels and really save, on the proviso that most of the spots will be preempted by local carriers.  So buying five spots an hour on the Discovery networks means I have the opportunity to see the same ad five times an hour on seven different channels (the People Blowing up Stuff at Work Channel, the Way Too Many Children Channel, Animal Planet, the Sex, Drugs and Circus Freaks Channel, the War Channel [not to be confused with A&E's Nazi Network], the Science Films They Should be Showing in Schools Channel, and the Serial Killer Channel), while someone with basic cable would see the same ad once or twice an hour, the other times local ads and national ads targeting a specific region would be seen.  Basic cable would probably have only the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and TLC to watch it on.  While it's possible for the satellite provider to preempt a bulk ad with one they've sold, that doesn't happen nearly as often.

As Ian Flemming wrote, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."  Given how complicated the world is these days I'm willing to add a margin of error of one.  Twice may still be anomalous, or it could be evidence of collusion.

Video of Brent telling Judge Deborah, "You are not God."

Video and mugshot courtesy of the Lake County Leader.

Forum Software Upgrade and More Fantabulous Procrastination

I'm preparing for an upgrade to version 3.0.whatever-is-current of Invision Power Board.

Crazy Boards runs under IPB 3.0.x, so look there if you want an idea of what the new software is like. We won't look exactly like that, especially since they're fond of modifying the software, but you should get the general idea.

I can't give you an estimate yet as to when it'll start, how long it will take, etc. As always such things depend on my mental and physical health, as well as consecutive hours of relative clarity of thought.  I've downloaded the software and gave the upgrade manual a quick scan, so at least I've started.

As much as I'd rather leave the software as it is, Invision software has announced that the version of the software we now have will no longer be supported. In addition to the usual health excuses, I've been putting off the upgrade because version 3.0.lower-than-it-is-now was really fugly and, in some areas, had less functionality than what we have now. I'm still not a big fan of how it looks, but it does everything the 2.3.5-and-up version does in addition to all the new bells and whistles.

I like 3.1 a lot more, but it's still in beta. I just can't wait for that version if I need any technical support, as support for 2.3.get-with-the-program will end before 3.1 will be stable enough for general release, let alone stable enough for me to install.

As for the procrastination, I've created yet another stupid Facebook group.  Fans of Brent Arthur Wilson.  Why? Brent Arthur Wilson encapsulates the entire zeitgeist of the real estate pyramid scheme of the previous decade. He's probably a criminal. He may be crazy. But is he all that different from the predatory lenders offering, or the would-be house flippers taking out loans where one made payments only on the interest until that final, big-ass balloon payment? Is all the paperwork he filed packed with Biblical references any more bizarre than the recursive, debt-based derivatives that led to the near-collapse of our financial system?

To top it all off, he sasses and mouths off at the judge who is currently in charge of his immediate fate. While acting as his own lawyer. So not only is he charged with stealing oversized houses like the bankers themselves, he's a one man pitchfork-and-torch-carrying mob who doesn't consider himself subservient to a judge, or anyone else who considers one person as being the better of another.

News you can confuse, use, or lose.

There's a proposal before the Missoula city council to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Naturally a bunch of closed-minded bigots will have problems with that sort of thing, but this one is really special.  NotMyBathroom.com allegedly represents 17 or so groups opposed to the proposal because it would allow men to use the ladies' room and thus frighten and confuse children.

I shit ye not.

It will also force ministers to perform gay marriages, give homosexuals 'special' rights, and the usual litany of orgiastic end-times tribulations.

But they don't hate homosexuals.  Really.

And the various groups that are part of the umbrella organization can't be identified because, you know, gay bashing isn't protected speech.  And since contributing over $100 to a political campaign goes on the public record, everyone who gave more than $100 to California's Prop. 8 suddenly felt threatened and oppressed by homosexuals.

Who is behind the frightened people in the bathrooms?  Tireless WalMart-funded anti-porn crusader Dallas Erickson.  It doesn't matter that there's hardly any porn where he lives, that most of it is in the form of Playboy, Penthouse, and video equivalent, and next to impossible for someone under 18 to look at.  He's one of those guys who stays up late all night worrying that someone is having a good time.  Scroll down to Time to stop this permissiveness to see one of his great anti-porn rants.

Here's the Missoulian's story on NotMyBathroom.com

You know how first / emergency responders have large-scale drills to work out various scenarios.  A bunch of people with nothing better to do act like they've been killed or injured by an earthquake, terrorist attack, bioweapon oopsie, whatever, and the coordinated police, fire, and appropriate other agencies figure out how well their plans would work when there's nothing else happening outside of the few blocks they've roped off.

How do you do that when you don't have much money?  Actual headline:

Playing with fire: Agencies stage disaster using Hot Wheels, Army men

 

The concept of getting paid to be a fireman who plays with army men and Hot Wheels must be giving 8-11 year-olds total hard-ons.

Where do you go if your end-times, Mormon-offshoot religion is too freaky-weird for Utah and Idaho?  Montana!

Religious sect rejected by Utah, Idaho moves to Fromberg

A religious group led by a man who claims to be the Holy Ghost has moved to the Fromberg area after a brief stay in a small Idaho town where residents protested the group's building plans.

Their Fromberg neighbors are wary of the group and law enforcement officials have been notified of the group's activities in Utah and Idaho.

Members of the Church of the Firstborn and General Assembly of Heaven had fled to Idaho from Utah last year after their large home in a Salt Lake City suburb was raided by federal officials investigating claims of child sexual abuse and assassination threats against President Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Last September, the group started moving from Idaho into two homes on a lot at 605 Bridger-Fromberg Road. The main home had been rented by Larry Daniels, who was sentenced last week to prison for murdering his adult son in the house.

The church is led by 43-year-old Terrill Dalton, who said group members are peaceful and felt drawn to Montana.

"We all prayed about where to go next and a lot of people had the same feeling that we ought to go to Montana, somewhere nigh unto Billings, not the city, but nearby," Dalton said.

Geody Harman is the church's co-leader, Dalton's "first counselor." Asked how many people live on the property, Harman had to stop and count.

"Fourteen or 15, something like that. No, it's 16," Harman said. That number includes the 36-year-old Harman's wife and their nine children.

The article continues at the link to the Missoulian.  It's '90s nostalgia.  These folk are the Church Universal and Triumphant of this decade. 

Our good buddy Brent Wilson just can't keep his mouth shut.  The headline in the early edition of the paper I get has a much better headline: Alleged house thief continues to mouth off.  "Mouth off" isn't as good as "sasses," but is still pretty good.

Brent is obviously crazy, and medication would likely help him, especially since he insists on acting as his own lawyer, but I think he's great.  The way he attempted to steal the houses is totally batshit crazy, yet he managed to get a home equity loan for one of them.  He claims to neither have nor need constitutional rights, which is probably his justification for treating Deborah, sorry, Judge Christopher, just like any other person.  A bit dickish perhaps, but it's not like he called her a bitch or threatened her.  He's just asking to be held in contempt of court and/or in crazy lockup, but it could all be weird judicial kung fu.

There's no video of Brent mouthing off, but here's a direct link to the video when he first sassed Judge Deborah Christopher.

Sassing judges: never a good idea

One reason why I love living in Montana: reading this sort of headline in the local paper.

Man accused of stealing Polson-area foreclosed house sasses judge.

Details and video of sassing at the link.

The way he stole foreclosed houses is pretty imaginative.   He'd find a foreclosed house that was on the market, take down the "For Sale" signs, break in change the locks, and file a bunch of weird paperwork.  For example:

"The designation trustee and steward as used herein," it reads, "shall include said resurrected and non-resurrected sons of man, and their heirs as required by context.

"Witnesseth that the trustee, for a valuable consideration paid by the trustee to the creator, Yahweh, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, has and by these presents does grant and convey stewardship unto brent-arthur: in fee-farm, all that certain lot of land situated on Lake, the county, Montana, the land, commonwealth yiisra'el, and more particularly described as follows:"

What follows is a lengthy description that begins with the "third planet from the sun" and ends with plat tract book information.

The document appears to be notarized, but in her charging affidavit, deputy county attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson notes "it does not list the notary's name, expiration of their notary power, or their location." Instead, under an illegible signature, it reads, "My commission expires: upon my final breath."

"I couldn't believe the Clerk and Recorder would take something like this, but what I learned was they can't stop anybody from recording anything," [Ed] McCurdy says.

Ed McCurdy is the Realtor of the foreclosed property in the above example. Mr. Wilson was able to get at least one home equity loan on one of the properties he and Yahweh "own."  I thought lenders were being more careful these days.

Great picture of him in court.  There's something familiar about about this guy...

I couldn't help it.

Most Heartrending Consumer Medication Guide Ever

I saw an ad for Sabril (vigabatrin) in the current issue of Neurology Now, unlike any ad I've seen for a prescription drug in a consumer-oriented magazine. The ad was nothing more than a headline reading "Help for hard-to-treat seizures," the Sabril logo
and 2.75 pages of patient /consumer information. That's it.  No smiling people, no images implying one's life getting back together, no toddler with the helmet on the ground instead of on her head. Just easy-to-read text on epilepsy-awareness purple. If you fill out and send in the postage-paid card attached by the ad, Lundbeck will mail you a package of education materials that may have warm & fuzzy pictures.

Like most ads for medications these days the bulk of the ad buy is comprised of some or all of the medication guide / patient information leaflet.  Sabril's medication guide is also unlike any I've ever seen due to two words used repeatedly throughout the document: your baby.

Whenever the phrase "your baby" is used in consumer information it's always in the context of warning you that a drug could harm your baby if you take it while pregnant and/or breastfeeding.  Infants and 0-year-old children get all sorts of medications and have their own doctors, but in the world of consumer medication information babies rarely do.  Babies get vaccinations, caffeine citrate oral solution is given to premature babies, but little else.

In the second paragraph it states that Sabril is used to treat babies and you and your doctor or your baby's doctor have to decide if the infantile spasms (West Syndrome) is so bad you'll risk vision loss (which is not total blindness, but blurry tunnel vision). 

And the which sucks less for your baby equation is repeated over and over.


There are treatment options that probably suck less. There's prednisone, prescription-strength & pharmaceutical-grade vitamin B-6, ACTH (at the low, low price of $23,000, yes, 23 THOUSAND DOLLARS a vial), Topamax (topiramate), Lamictal (lamotrigine), Zonegran (zonisamide), Depakote (divalproex sodium), Keppra (levetiracetam) and Klonopin (clonazepam).  If the kid's been weaned the ketogenic diet is also an option.

If you look at these treatment guidelines and the American Academy of Neurology's official ones, the only treatments that "probably" work are ACTH (dropped by most insurance companies due to cost), Sabril, and the ketogenic diet, which can take anywhere from two to five months to start working.  Everything else is classified as "maybe it will work." B-6 is probably listed as first-line treatments due to a lower side effect profile.  I don't know why prednisone is, as it has a possible side effect of death.

Left untreated or poorly treated, infantile spasms can result in death.  Which sucks less?


Sabril was approved for use in the US in August 2009, but available to desperate parents since 1988 after the FDA updated its personal use guidelines. Lundbeck doesn't make it any easier to obtain Sabril now that it is approved in the US.  Lundbeck's SHARE program that doctors, pharmacies and patients must pass in order to prove they are qualified to respectively prescribe, dispense, and take (or give to their babies) is just as, if not more complicated than the Clozaril registry upon which it was probably based.  At least there is just one Sabril registry.  Every company that manufactures generic clozapine has its own registry.