Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Of course the Emmys are rarely, if ever, worth watching. However, this clip from the introduction is awesome, as Conan stumbles through one TV show after another, all the major networks in harmonious satire.
As for me, well tomorrow we are going to try to beta release the software I've been developing at Macalester. It is mostly finished and it's going to be kind of exciting to have something in the field. However, this means that I'm not going to sit around and fiddle with my website in the waning hours of the summer. Sorry! I might have a post later tonight after I run around a bit. Or maybe not.
Hopefully the del.icio.us bookmark things, while a bit glitchy, are still interesting to look at. At the least I'll throw in a couple of those every day so there is something actually worth checking out....
Here are some exciting pictures of the situation at 1511 Grand Ave. early this morning. I am releasing these to the local media for use, but I would really like to be credited as "Dan Feidt / HongPong.com". I am a resident of #15 at 1511 Grand. After WCCO interviewed me in the morning, Channel 5 and Channel 9 came through around lunchtime! Those camera guys in the last photo were from 5 and 9. The woman in the reflective red vest was from the red Cross, offering us shelter.
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Abby's room got the worst of it. Mattress and many furnishings soaked.
Hey all, well now it's August and I am sort of bedded up with a busted ankle. I was messing around on Saturday night and twisted it pretty well. It swelled right up but I thought it would wear off pretty quickly. Unfortunately, by Monday night my whole foot was club-shaped, kind of purple on the side. Bending the foot on the straight-ahead axis works all right, but side-to-side and turning are not good.
So today I went into the clinic and got some X-rays. No bone fractures and I can hobble around on it. So they gave me a brace. The doc advised a few Advil every day for a week and it would be all right. Then I asked, hmm, what about a little Vicodin?
And so Vicodin was had. These dog days of August will be a little hazier. I think they'll probably be updates tomorrow since even walking a couple blocks sucks right now.
In the meantime, VH1's Best Week Ever has random facts about Jews according to Mel Gibson.
This was from the Apocalypto trailer, a single frame of madness.
We all know he's fuckin crazy. Anyway... We here at HongPong.com have been on his case for a while.
One of the things about taking a break on the site is that you're not sure where to get going again. Now that I am opening up the content to more things, I'm thinking about how to streamline the content while sticking to some general direction in the site's form. Random content is part of the appeal, but more focus - or rather a more clear set of foci - would make the site a lot more enjoyable for all.
At the same time I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time working on it, especially in the nice summer with a more full-time job starting up next week. So there's a balance to be found...
Or a bunch of randomness.
The HBO show Entourage would be far less watchable without Jeremy Piven as Ari Gold, the fanatical agent. Fortunately someone did an Ari clip video. Some guest stars have been excellent, in particular Bob Saget's turn as a brothel-crazed bong smoking Bob Saget.
Saget's career also blew up a bit with this odd music video that went around a while ago. Jamie Kennedy and George Lucas roll on the strip with Saget.
Fuck Colgate - free Crest Whitestrips!!! Won't make you feel like a piece of shit!!
Which brings us to TourettesGuy, a strange man with his own set of online videos, wherein he misses a shot in pool, screams and shouts "Bob Saget!!"
And of course, "Don't talk shit about Total!" and the new one, Tit Dirt. A major crowd favorite.
Cartoon Network is throwing free Adult Swim shows up including a new Venture Brothers. Venture Brothers is hit-or-miss but this one was entertaining (link only temporary)
The quasi-anarchist-subversive site Disinfo notes that
'New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.
It is interesting that the Pentagon itself is taking over all these functions. They are already combing my phone records, high school GPA's for recruiting, all kinds of things. On the other hand, Disinfo is an entity on MySpace. BlackListedNews has some interesting stuff, but they're on Myspace too..... Even Alex Jones is on MySpace, yet he says:
...the purpose of this profile is to test the censorship of MySpace--primarily based upon political content... I disagree with the censorship and control of MySpace, which is only one step away from China's Internet policy where anything critical of the government is kept from dissident eyes.
The flick A Scanner Darkly even has a myspace page... and Alex Jones is in the movie:
This is all getting much too circular...
Software notes: Civilization IV for Mac has just been released. Sweet. Also if you need an OS X timer program (my new/old oven doesn't have one), Chimoo Timer is your best free bet.
Billmon tells a quality story about catching the Cairo-Luxor train on his trip to cover economic fora in Egypt.
I liked Alternet's Top 10 Signs of the Impending U.S. Police State, especially, well, comprehensive domestic monitoring and "the Long War."
Andy Rooney can't handle Ali G.
I am posting some goofy stuff to spice your Thursday. Take it with triple grains of salt. Aside from the Zogby Poll, most everything below is basically fruitbat tinfoil stuff, the skimmings of the crazy paranoid side of the internet.
Empirical 9/11 skepticism: Zogby Poll: Over 70 Million American Adults Support New 9/11 Investigation:
May 22, 2006 -- Although the Bush administration continues to exploit September 11 to justify domestic spying, unprecedented spending and a permanent state of war, a new Zogby poll reveals that less than half of the American public trusts the official 9/11 story or believes the attacks were adequately investigated.
911Truth.org Urges 2006 Reform Candidates to Recognize a Powerful New Constituency
The poll is the first scientific survey of Americans' belief in a 9/11 cover up or the need to investigate possible US government complicity, and was commissioned to inform deliberations at the June 2~4 "9/11: Revealing the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future" conference in Chicago. Poll results indicate 42% believe there has indeed been a cover up (with 10% unsure) and 45% think "Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success" (with 8% unsure). The poll of American residents was conducted from Friday, May 12 through Tuesday, May 16, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/- 2.9. All inquiries about questions, responses and demographics should be directed to Zogby International.
According to Janice Matthews, executive director of 911truth.org, "To those who have followed the mounting evidence for US government involvement in 9/11, these results are both heartening and frankly quite amazing, given the mainstream media's ongoing refusal to cover the most critical questions of that day. Our August 2004 Zogby poll of New Yorkers showed nearly half believe certain US officials 'consciously' allowed the attacks to happen and 66% want a fresh investigation, but these were people closest to the tragedy and most familiar with facts refuting the official account. This revelation that so many millions nationwide now also recognize a 9/11 cover up and the need for a new inquiry should be a wake up call for all 2006 political candidates hoping to turn this country around. We think it also indicates Americans are awakening to the larger pattern of deceit that led us into Constitutional twilight and endless war, and that our independent media may have finally come of age."
(The poll sponsors see knowledge of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 as a bellwether issue, because if people do not know this elementary fact, they have probably not been exposed to any independent 9/11 research at all. Because the number of respondents who support a new investigation of 9/11 (45%)) is roughly the same as the number who knew about the collapse of Building 7 (52%), it can reasonably be extrapolated that if the entire public were exposed to independent 9/11 research, about 90 percent would support a new investigation of the events of that fateful day.)
Wow. No wonder Loose Change is a top Google Video download. Scholars for 9/11 Truth have had trouble with their Wikipedia entry.
Internet dudes find link between Titan Corporation defense contractor and massive 5.5 ton cocaine bust. On my birthday no less: San Diego Defense Contractor Linked to Company in 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust:
The MadCowMorningNews has uncovered evidence implicating a San Diego defense contractor, The Titan Corporation, in fraud involving the shadowy St. Petersburg FL company involved in last month’s mysterious 5.5 ton cocaine seizure in Mexico.
Titan is already embroiled in major scandals which include the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and conviction and a $28 million fine for fixing a Presidential election in the African state of Benin. The company is also receiving attention for its role as the biggest campaign contributor of disgraced former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
A MadCowMorningNews investigation of Titan Corp. also revealed that the firm has a curious and so-far unexplained connection to Makram Chams, a mysterious Lebanese man who provided assistance to Mohamed Atta and other terrorist hijackers in Venice Florida before the 9.11 attack.
Chams, who owned a convenience store in Venice, befriended and assisted the terrorist hijackers before disappearing after the 9.11 attack, leaving behind a thriving Kwik-Check mini-market which has since stood abandoned in the heart of the Venice business district.
Evidence in SEC filings recently brought to our attention reveal what happened to Chams: he went to work for Titan. According to documents filed by the company, Chams was a contractor working for Titan Corp in Saudi Arabia as recently as last year.
This was posted on some site called LibertyPost with a lot of strange comments afterwards.
A little more silly conspiratoria: France saves us from British terror bombing: I ended up with some more wild conspiracy stories and I will post them in the name of Thursday afternoon boredom. The idea is floated around paranoid corners (cloakanddagger.de) that last Thursday's Amtrak powerdown was in fact a narrowly averted "false flag" terrorist attack that "Dunblaine Pedophile Tony Blair" and "N.S.A. British-Mossad" nearly pulled off, but a French/American team killed the power to prevent trains sailing into government-planted bombs (noted on Alex Jones' PrisonPlanet). And former Illinois governor George Ryan and Fidel Castro are both Mossad agents. I really really don't believe it - in fact it is sort of an obvious inversion and the silly writing style doesn't enhance the entertainment value. But there you are. There were also theories that the London bombing was staged by the Brits. Check Total Information Analysis for more along these lines.
Obligatory scheming shadow powers note: The Bilderberg Group is meeting in Ottowa, Canada June 8-11 according to AmericanFreePress.net. They are "especially concerned about Venezuela" right now according to the strange AFP.
Some vet named Patrick Briley: CHERTOFF CREATED TERROR PRETEXTS FOR US POLICE STATE and Did the Fed's Cover Up Oklahoma University Bombing?
There Is No Conspiracy - Only Official Policy. Mostly related to Chavez. Sure, whatever.
The Late Great Sherman Skolnick: An oddball Chicago guy named Sherman Skolnick passed away at 75 after decades of messing with the notoriously corrupt Illinois legal system through the "Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts." Here's part 29 of his "Overthrow of the American Republic", Coca-Cola, the CIA and the Courts, part 16. Here's the Cloak and Dagger Obit. This really weird biography from DailyCatholic.org says he managed to get a federal judge thrown in jail, which is quite impressive.
PP also has paranoid things to say about mysterious Mexican separatists that wish to secede from the southwest US and form "Aztlan". Here's what Aztlan say today about Sensenbrenner's anti-immigrant proposals. I guess they are playing into his hands. I have heard that the NSA, FBI, etc. monitor these sorts of secessionist groups, which I would say is probably a logical thing to do.
Of course you can trust this man - Jeff Rense
I had an argument about skim vs 2% milk the other day, then ran into this milk conspiracy on arch-conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense's site, Rense.com: The Pus-Bacteria Moustache Marketing Milk And Disease and more "truth" about milk. Rense has plenty of other weird stuff like UFOs, and this thing about how AIDS was created by the government as they engineered a "Gay Cancer". (check out the shady polio vaccine site too). 9/11 was a Cheney-orchestrated Reichstag Fire type event. Ok fine.
Well that is all from the crazy paranoid side for now. I don't really know how to lend coherence to this post and I sort of feel like a bastard for even writing it. Go back to your fucking cable news now!
As for me, well this week is pretty much make-or-break in the career department. Quite a few links have piled up that might be interesting:
An Oreo filling-powered rocket and silly Japanese inventions from XFM.net. Cracked.com presents Five Steps to a Horrible Comedy (as well as the less funny acing job interviews). It is kind of funny that Cracked itself is still alive. A.Norman sends along a nice cartoon. Check out the ten highest-radiation cell phones. My Sanyo falls right in the midrange, at about 1.13 watts/kilogram. I swear this shit is going to give me cancer. I have a wireless router next to the head of my bed and I wonder how my brain cells like all those damn packets.
The MacBook has motion sensors that can be used to make light saber sounds. Optical illusions have something to do with your brain only handling one part of an image at once. Both of these via XFM.
A student speaker at New School had the guts to go up against John McCain and generated a small media frenzy about it.
Valerie Plame bits: Newsweek on Cheney's handwritten notes about gittin' Wilson and a Fitz filing. Wayne Madsen seems to admit that he got bamboozled on the matter of Karl Rove's impending/collapsing indictment last week. Tough break. I consider Madsen to be a most unusual source, with a lot of question marks. The stories about the Ohio vote fraud were weirder and more conspiratorial than any other I ever found, as have been the NSA stories. Wild enough to interest me, but I'm just not sure if I can support this guy or not. However, I'll still hold out a little faith that he'll finally get the bombshell he's looking for. (Side bonus: a good old summary of Ledeen's ties to the whole Niger-uranium forgery case. Not fresh though)
Tiny slice of conspiracy thinking: fake a middle solution: The "illuminati strategy", or so they say, is to control both sides of a debate, in order to create the desired political outcome. Thus "left" and "right" are convenient solutions. In some ways that is useful, but in reality, sorry guys, there are a lot of different interest groups in the world that aren't just the illuminati. But then again, it's a pretty good way to look at Hannity & Colmes. I didn't like Pair.com and their fucked-up thinking, but if you want more on the illuminati Third Way illusion, this is it. I meant to post this with Pop Conspiratoria and forgot it. Also here is OpusDeiAlert.com complaining that Opus Dei is really a bunch of evil Jewish guys and Ratzinger is an "Anti-Pope", whatever that means. I promise this is the end of this particularly silly (and somewhat offensive) shit, but Opus Dei is still spooky.
Pixeldusted sent along what he called Stat Porn - area-adjusted statistical maps from Worldmapper.
That guy named Bill from Brooklyn sent a story in the NY Times about a bizarre trick that physicists are doing with light.
There is talk of a certain wobbly quality in the American economy and Pravda has a bit on the looming petrodollar problem. Libertarian Republican Rep. Ron Paul on the declining dollar.
NSA Total Big BrotherGate: Read Billmon on the Leviathan and it's all-consuming total power complex. You won't regret it. William Arkin's WaPo Early warning Blog has some damn good stuff on the NSA spying programs. This Salon interview with an NSA insider is worth reading:
The fact that the federal government has my phone records scares the living daylights out of me. They won't learn much from them other than I like ordering pizza on Friday night and I don't call my mother as often as I should. But it should scare the living daylights out of everybody, even if you're willing to permit the government certain leeways to conduct the war on terrorism.
We should be terrified that Congress has not been doing its job and because all of the checks and balances put in place to prevent this have been deliberately obviated. In order to get this done, the NSA and White House went around all of the checks and balances. I'm convinced that 20 years from now we, as historians, will be looking back at this as one of the darkest eras in American history. And we're just beginning to sort of peel back the first layers of the onion.
Iraq disintegration notes: Power and Interest News Report is pretty dry, solid geopolitical analysis, and they are smart to look at how ''Iraq's Impending Fracture to Produce Political Earthquake in Turkey''. Inside Higher Ed has a feature on the Middle east wars in US Campuses, noting on the plus side:
Macalester College, for example, is receiving a grant to promote work on a dig in Israel and planning “peace summits” on the Middle East, to bring together various thinkers at the college’s Minnesota campus.
AfterDowningStreet.org has a pretty harsh collection of uncensored Iraq images of the dead, dying and wounded. Also their website runs Drupal, which we are (slowly) moving to, so it's helpful to look at for that alone. Middle East Newsline reports insurgents getting bolder in attacks - just going straight for US bases. Sunnis complain of US "atrocity" killing of civilians. Juan Cole says, yep, it's pretty much impossible to save Iraq. A former diplomat says many inside the government want to speak out on the war, but are afraid to. Analysts in the military say that the war has forced the US to be "reactive" to insurgents and abandon the all-important initiative. Palestinian refugees from Iraq accepted into Syria. Saddam tried to help out the Palestinians a bit with housing & aid, and now they're feeling the backlash as Iraq shears itself apart. A pretty fucked up story about 200,000 AK-47s from Bosnia vanishing due to some corrupt defense contractors or something. Oddly, from a UK tabloid, but whatever. Most of these links came from Juan Cole.
Antiwar.com has switched their blog engine to WordPress. Antiwar really does a good job, and Raimondo's latest bit on American Gangsterism is no exception, as well as "Is America becoming a police state?" and the Next World War.
It's a really nice day right now, which makes it even more shameful to post such random Internet conspiracy material as this. However, I am giving myself a pass since the Da Vinci Code came out today, with heavy melodrama, poor pacing and flat characters. The George Washington Illuminati letters are really pretty good by today's standard. So stick with us, because the traces of Atlantis are here by the Mississippi, and there's a global power grab going on to enslave the masses and beam McDonald's ads into our brains.
First of all, I should put the impressive Internet Sacred Text Archive, which has unadulterated source texts from across the spectrum, from Theosophy and Jainism to I Ching, Forteanism, and Freemasonry, as well as two versions of the probably fake Necronomicon (which is where that grinning box thing comes from). So at the least, these are primary sources you can check out about all manner of esoteric human beliefs.
Here's some official Masonic material about their favorite contributions to American "National Treasures". Some of the many cornerstones of federal buildings laid by Masons, including the Washington Monument. They really like their funny hats. Washington's Masonic National Memorial is bigtime. There is even a Washington Trowel revered as a Masonic symbol, used often in special ceremonies, including the cornerstones of the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress.
Strom Thurmond re-enacts the Capitol Masonic cornerstone ceremony 200 years later. (via the dubious pair.com)
But is the other shit you find around the Internet really even worth looking at? Well no, not generally. This should straighten everything out: from NoGW.com's "The Illuminati & the New World Order".
Now that's what I call political science. Here's some other stuff: TheWatcherFiles.com is mostly about aliens and stargates but also has The Satanic bloodlines including the Merovingian Bloodline. "Project Earth: Satan is on the Prowl" and Reptilian Watch! Fortunately there's a guide to stopping the beams, aliens and military attacks in your head:
If you are a real nuisance you may find yourself being attacked by their electromagnetic weapons, abducted out of your sleep, or chip implanted with their tracking chips that also serve as 2-way transistors where they can harass you by speaking thoughts to your mind or just communicating with you in a sort of telepathic way. I don't' know how else to describe it. Most people don't recognize that one and so think they are hearing from "God" or just thinking the thoughts they are having are from themselves, or think it's just a demonic attack instead of coming directly from military technology. Other people can recognize voices and think they are schizophrenic. Sometimes some people just are, but for most people it's usually just the military and the black technology they're using to invade and torment you with.
We are in the middle of a war and it is a battle for your mind and for your soul. And for most, it's daily.
Crystalinks.com, run by a self-described new-agey "nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn" seemed less militantly angry and more merely reflective about arcane history such as the Priory of Sion, Grail legends, various mystery schools and Kabala.
The Daily Grail and its Red Pill wiki is pretty much what it sounds like.
When I was searching for the exact George Washington-Illuminati letters, I first found them here on watch.pair.com and I looked around that site a bit. As it turned out, whoever runs that site is a raving anti-semite and I was so disturbed by some of the content that I wrestled with even linking to it. The author approvingly quotes the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and Henry Ford's "The International Jew", which is just plain horrible. (the site hosting Ford's evil tract has its own conspiracy stuff as well)
But seeing as how we have already featured links to, say, Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station, we'll let it go today. There is a pretty weird giant conspiracy going on in pair.com-land. Masons are big, naturally, apparently as a way for Zionists to control America and prepare for the Antichrist to rule Israel and then the world. They claim the Antichrist may be a Solomon-like figure probably from the Merovingian dynasty. King Solomon was bad because he integrated the "Babylonian mystery religion" into Judaism, in their view, and the Masonic reverence for Solomon is part of this problem.
Pair.com's really quite strange "Death of the Phoenix" feature was highly anti-semitic, yet also included the following "facts": A Judeo-Masonic conspiracy controls most everything; Atlantis placed colonies from Louisiana to the headwaters of the Mississippi; a fake or authentic Ark of the Covenant was brought to the New World and "Arcadia" in Nova Scotia by the Knights Templar; Hurricanes George and Katrina were generated by the Priory of Sion - which was proven by the 'P' and 'S' paths the hurricanes traced; the Priory of Sion is a front for the B'nai B'rith, which of course is a front for the Elders of Zion; strange riots in Detroit and Los Angeles are prophesied; this summer, fake biblical relics will be found to undermine traditional Christianity and support the Merovingians; Evil Jews ("Crypto-Jew" is a common term) created Opus Dei; Christianity's Calvin was really a Jew named Cohen provoking splits among the gentiles; since Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia are all Opus Dei sympathizers or members, plus with the Jews Stevens and Ginsberg, so the U.S. Supreme Court is going to be converted into a Jewish Sanhedrin court that will try to destroy Christianity, institute martial law and implement "Noahide laws" to subjugate the gentiles.
That's pretty appalling stuff. I'm sorry if you think it's offensive, but I did too. Here's the table of contents, which is one of the more peculiar things I've seen:
DEATH OF THE PHOENIX: FINAL ACT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ACT I. Sleepy Hollow Revisited - The Templar symbolism of Hurricane Katrina - Judeo-Freemasonry / Zionist agents orchestrate downfall of the U.S. - Why the United States must be sacrificed
ACT II. The Ark & The Grail - Jewish discovery and settlement of the New World - Ark of the Covenant in the “New Jerusalem” - The Judeo-Masonic history of Louisiana - The “Sionist” conspiracy to repossess the Holy Land
ACT III. The Dawn of Aquarius - New “Radical” Reformation planned for the West Coast - Prophecies of Kim Clement & Chuck Pierce for Los Angeles / San Francisco - Zionist plan to take out the Muslim community in Detroit
ACT IV. Death of the Phoenix - Prophecies of imminent New Madrid earthquake with epicenter in St. Louis - Destruction of U.S. agriculture belt and manufacturing infrastructures - Destruction of Christianity to begin with the Bible Belt
ACT V. Exodus / Aliya - Jewish exodus from the U.S. before it self-destructs - Secular media to preach Kabbalist gospel to the Jews - Reestablishment of Sanhedrin in Israel to administer Noahide Laws - Plans to establish subsidiary Sanhedrin in the U.S.
ACT VI. The New Reformation - Opus Dei Supreme Court and 2nd Vatican Inquisition - Dominionist theocracy to precipitate 2nd U.S. Civil War - Sanhedrin to rescue civilization from Christian terrorists - Noahide Laws to exterminate Christians
ACT VII. Atlantis Rising - Merovingian bloodline to avenge Atlantean gods via weathermancing - Pre-flood civilization expected to rise on ruins of the U.S.
ACT VIII. A Better Country - The United States of America may fall before the Tribulation begins. - Persecution of U.S. Christians. How to prepare for martyrdom
Ok then. There were links offsite to various other things, and my favorite was Michael Ledeen's "What Machiavelli (A Secret Jew?) Learned From Moses." This was of course turned to make an anti-semitic argument, but it is still classic Ledeen:
After receiving the Commandments and crushing the heretics of the golden calf, he continued on to the borders of the Promised Land. There, at G-d's instructions, Moses organized an espionage mission headed by Joshua and Caleb, in preparation for the invasion and occupation of the country. After 40 days the spies returned. The good news was that the land was beautiful and bountiful; the bad news was that the inhabitants were big and strong, impressively armed and well fortified. All the spies, save Joshua and Caleb, argued it was suicidal to attack, and the vast majority of the people agreed. Fearing they were about to be destroyed in battle, they turned against Moses. "And they said one to another: 'Let us appoint a captain, and let us return into Egypt.'" Recently freed from Egyptian slavery, the Israelites nonetheless demanded a return to bondage rather than fight for freedom.
....
The revolt against Moses in the name of slavery is one of the most powerful of the "infinite examples" to which Machiavelli refers in order to show the difficulties in leading to freedom a people that has become accustomed to living in slavery, a fundamental Jewish theme that is as important to us today as it was in the Italian Renaissance. As Machiavelli puts it, "It is as difficult to make a people free that is resolved to live in servitude, as it is to subject a people to servitude that is determined to be free."
How, then, do we achieve the mentality of free men and women, and not of slaves?
.....
Listen to his political philosophy, and you will hear the Jewish music.
.....
These are not ideas that abound in the Christian liturgy. The notion that G-d wants us, above all, to devote our lives to the creation of the good society is, however, a very Jewish idea. Medieval and early modern Christianity relegated the accomplishment of justice to the hereafter. In this life, the important thing was fulfilling the sacraments. Insofar as politics was a religious concern, it was dominated by the notion that man should "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," and give G-d his due in other activities.
Machiavelli will have none of this, insisting that achieving glory for one's country is the single act most pleasing to G-d.
So: Was Machiavelli Jewish? Well, maybe not entirely, but certainly quite Jewish, maybe even very Jewish. If his great contemporary, Christopher Columbus, was most likely a secret Jew, if many crew members of the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were baptized on the gangplank, if, a century later, a majority of the founders of the Jesuit order were recent, probably opportunistic converts from Judaism, the notion that Machiavelli might have embraced much of Judaism is not so far-fetched.
Infowars.com had a feature about the occult activities of Thomas Jefferson. Check AmericanMafia.com for stories on the mafia.
This was a very silly post, loaded with bad and apocryphal material. Hopefully I haven't alienated any readers - I just wanted to throw in some weird shit to mark the weird popular-conspiracy riff that culture is into right now. Time for my tinfoil hat.
This is apparently the 701st entry on HongPong.com. I'll be damned.
First the Boondocks. The Creative Mafia Syndicate will prolly get me for this, so enjoy it now. Boondocks is now running their very first comics so if you want to see where it started, check that out.
What happens when you combine Legos and Counterstrike? At Techeblog, Genius.
This site is full of modern marvels, including the Whiskey Bottle PC, a pen-sized scanner, and a sweet Top 20 collection of gadgets including a clock propelled by a mouse, an RSS feeder that prints onto toilet paper, pseudo-skin gear and cardboard speakers. (via the time-wasting genius of GM)
I've got a strange day ahead of me and I don't know where I'll be at. But this should provide some amusement. And check out the new links under "allied operations & sites of interest", I guarantee you'll find something interesting.
I was so impressed with Wednesday's South Park episode and how it got rid of Isaac Hayes' character, while at the same time nailing Scientology for its founder's pedophiliac appetites. The solution to a libel suit was Super Adventure Club - and to make it crystal clear they put "This is what Super Adventure Club actually believes" during a brief explanation of its founding myth, going around the world and sodomizing children, which makes you immortal because of invisible spirit particles in the children. And something about an alien overlord.
You bastards. It wasn't Chef, it was that fruity little club that brainwashed him. Here are video clips of key scenes on rooftopreport.com, which appears to be some chick celebrity gossip site. Chef's death in Quicktime.
There is a whole internet storm around this, as some people want to boycott Mission Impossible 3 unless Tom Cruise quits pressuring Viacom/Paramount/Comedy Central not to rerun the original South Park Scientology episode.
Here's the king Fruit Bat himself, appearing in his only Outsider-conducted interview in 1968. From XenuTV.com: The World in Action: The Shrinking World of L. Ron Hubbard. Download the WMV here, or see it recut as "As Mad as the Madman" (5 minutes).
Note the little Star-wreath hat logo. That is the Sea Org logo (the ad is on clambake.org). "It is possibly a bit above your reality to say that we intend to salvage this sector. No one has been able to do it for 75 million years. We are the first." According to Xenu.net:
In the Advanced Orgs in Edinburgh and Los Angeles, staff were ordered to wear all-white uniforms, with silver boots, to mimic the Galactic Patrol of seventy-five million years before. According to Hubbard's Flag Order 652, mankind would accept regulation from that group which had last betrayed it.
The Sea Org order 652 has the memorable quote: "We are faced with a society in which governments aren't governing, SPs are fighting imaginary Martians, and a planet whose inhabitants must have an engram to run out on the 4th Dynamic." Funny, that's what I said to my roommate yesterday.
If you want to see the original South Park Scientology episode online, you might still be able to here. And make sure you read this amazing Rolling Stone article. And a Daily Show segment.
WaPo: 'South Park' Responds: Chef's Goose Is Cooked. BBC: South Park gets revenge on Chef.
Randomness: Mario was a Communist. You can't deny he raised the Red Star. How did we miss this?
Technorati Tags: L Ron Hubbard, Scientology, Sea Org, South park, Xenu
Introducing: Squarehead Bunny
Whassup sweet babies, just wanted to rap a-choo awhile
"It's hip to be square- proven fact, proven fact- and here I am. Haha, just kidding- say, how you doin' today? Having fun? Having fun just being young, just being yourselves and being young and yeah, yeah. Me too, man, me too- maybe I don't look like I'm on top of the world, but you know, sometimes we have bad days. Sometimes we have good days, too, y'know. The ball bounces our way. The toast hits the ground jelly-up, haha. Haha."
"Hey man, guess what? Well, I was out in the yard this morning just, y'know, doing whatever, and man... You ain't even gonna believe this man, but guess what I found? Grass. Grass, man, grass, just a whole big 'ol lawn full of it. And I'm like, Rock'N'Roll- cool, y'know, just too cool, man, got all this grass, too much to even know what to do with it. So I lwent to town on it, man, just ate the horse snot out of that grass. Man, it was dee-licious and dee-lightful, this grass, and I just got all I could get."
"Man, fuck this carrot"
"See, when I was growing up, we didn't have no grass, man- neighborhood was in the city, but real tight, man, real uptight. Out in the yard, y'know, whatever goes, but man oh man, in my neighborhood you couldn't squeeze out one single little, perfect sphere without everyone in the row of cages knowing 'bout it. Man, if I had had some grass, maybe then... Anyway, didn't get no grass growing up, just trying it for the first time..."
"Imma tell you something- you my friend, and you ain't never need to ask me for any grass- k? 'Cause I'm your friend, you get however much grass you want- hell, got a whole yard full of it. Yessir, just as much grass as you want. None of that hard pellet stuff or that dry, crushed up stuff, just good fresh grass, finest I've ever seen."
"Munch, munch, nawmean? Munch munch, muthafuckas... Fucking munch..."
"So I'm watching this new Woody Allen movie, and I'm like, asides from the big 'ol chest booty on this blond, why am I watching this? I'd had like four and half pounds of grass before this, like for real, because I think I am gonna love this movie, but naw, just some guy who keep getting away with everything. No bunny wanna go watch a movie about some guy not getting chased around or nothin'- just walking around watching him not get caught for stuff he did... Man, all I wanted to do the whole time was just get back home to the lawn, nawmean? Munch munch..."
Thanks to pixeldusted for the post, it says more about the bureaucracy than I can even convey. Sweetness.
OS X is at 10.4.5 right now, but an intrepid hacker known as Maxxus has developed a hacked version of 10.4.4 that can be set up and operate on ordinary Intel-based PCs. I really wonder what Steve Jobs is really thinking right now. He must surely realize this is the most leet (1337) or stylish way to get people around the world interested in running OS X on PCs. Thus, he's prepped to fight Microsoft Windows on his own turf, and the first attack wave could be the hackers. This would be cool as hell.
On the other hand, the bread and butter that kept Apple solvent through the bad years was hardware sales, not OS sales. Nowadays, the iTunes Music Store has good volume but razor-thin margins, and OS sales are pretty much icing on the cake. (also Apple podcasting is starting to do pay subscriptions, via Slashdot) If Apple tried to license its operating system, they could essentially cannibalize their hardware market share.
Oh wait, that already happened in the days of the Mac Clones, a misstep that nearly killed Apple. So when they saw that Maxxus had posted the hacks to one site, the vaunted packs of carnivorous Apple lawyers sent out a DMCA warning to that site, osx86project.org, which is focused on the possibilities of OS X + x86. The proprietors of that site have no wish to offend Apple, and have removed the links to Maxxus' site and the patches he developed.
As I also have no real desire to receive a DMCA notice from Apple, I will leave it to you to google the matter if you really want the patch, or refer to BoingBoing's coverage, MacSlash on it, or Slashdot. As one internationalist hacker type I know remarked,
Dude, it is illegal to DISCUSS how to go around encryption in the US.
Yes, this is what happens nowadays. But it's nothing new. Consumer electronics like your DVD player are now Black Boxes of Mystery which you, as a mere Owner, are un-Privileged to mess around with. It is a horrifying infringement of freedom that will require a second Revolution to defeat. In the meantime, well damn, the OS X patches are still on the Internet (hosted in more rebellious countries) so you can get them.
Linux is booting on Intel Macs now, even via an external USB drive (via MacSlash). Better yet, it is on Gentoo Linux, the same flavor that powers this very website.
In its infinite loop wisdom, Apple decided to embed a secret message to hackers in the new Intel machines, via CNN, slashdot and OSX86project:
Your karma check for today:
There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.
Please don't steal Mac OS!
Really, that's way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.
There is also a hidden kernel extension, Don't Steal Mac OS X.kext . Apple has never made it very hard to pirate the OS — which I think is actually part of a long-term subversive strategy, rather than some kind of incomprehensibly huge oversight on Jobs' part. They have never required call-in serial activation or any of that shit, for example. Again, the OS was always icing on the cake. Bill Gates is perplexed.
Gary Busey nukes conventional cinema: In other news, Gary Busey plays a crazed American doctor stealing organs of Arabs for Israel in a wildly popular Turkish film, "Kurtlar Vadisi Irak" or "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq". Billy Zane is also in it. Apparently it was on Turkish television for a few seasons before getting turned into a movie.
Fortunately I have ascertained a way to download this film from the Internet, as (somehow) it has not yet found an American distributor. Get it off BitTorrent right here. There are warnings that the sound and video quality are terrible (1 or 2 out of 10), but such a spectacle cannot wait. I will post if i find a better version.
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
Starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away
You better stop, hey what's that sound, everybody look what's goin down...
There is one thing you really ought to reflect on this week. Halliburton has a contract to build detention centers in the United States now. Upon some random catastrophic event (or as they say in conspiracy land, a False Flag terrorist attack orchestrated by the government to start Fascism®™), then all the political subversives get taken away. This is the Angry Paranoia™ version from PropagandaMatrix: "Halliburton Detention Camps For Political Subversives" (admittedly it's funny, and I personally nearly ended up in the New York Political Dissident Holding Tank pictured, so I can relate). But this is totally for 
real. Here is the KBR/Halliburton press release:
KBR Awarded U.S. Department of Homeland Security Contingency Support Project for Emergency Support Services
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 2006--KBR announced today that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency......
With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.
"We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency operations support," said Bruce Stanski, executive vice president, KBR Government and Infrastructure. "We look forward to continuing the good work we have been doing to support our customer whenever and wherever we are needed."
The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. [sounds juicy!] The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.
The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.
Ahh the Post-Nuclear Bird Flu concentration camps of North Dakota. 2008 will really be a doozy.
I am intrigued by the Russian moves on HAMAS, because Russia is always intriguing. Russia is huge, they are playing games with the energy (when they shut off the European gas, it was a clever way to remind everyone they can make the European winter very cold & expensive). Israelis are plenty pissed with Russia about the Hamas thing -- Bee stings not bear hugs in Haaretz. More on this later but I don't want to deal with it now. Raimondo on this.
Hamas Assumes Control of Parliament. On the new Hamas agenda: 'learn to queue like the British'
Meanwhile all these strange things are happening in Israel (what else is new). "Hilltop - or down-to-earth? By Avraham Burg" about the crisis of religious Zionism - the Gaza withdrawal kinda shattered the settler messianic theology of "build this settlement or God breaks out the lightning bolts for YOU." So are religious Zionists going to get pragmatic or not?
Favorite Internet List via the geniuses of GorillaMask: The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army: This guy who was in psychological operations (around Albania apparently) made a list of things that were expressly forbidden - either because he did them, or was asked about it and ordered not to do said things. There are some damn good ones:
2. My proper military title is "Specialist Schwarz" not "Princess Anastasia".
3. Not allowed to threaten anyone with black magic.
4. Not allowed to challenge anyone's disbelief of black magic by asking for hair.
7. Not allowed to add “In accordance with the prophesy” to the end of answers I give to a question an officer asks me.
10. Not allowed to purchase anyone's soul on government time.
11. Not allowed to join the Communist Party.
12. Not allowed to join any militia.
13. Not allowed to form any militia.
14. Not allowed out of my office when the president visited Sarajevo.
20. Must not taunt the French any more.
21. Must attempt to not antagonize SAS.
22. Must never call an SAS a “Wanker”.
23. Must never ask anyone who outranks me if they've been smoking crack.
24. Must not tell any officer that I am smarter than they are, especially if it's true.
26. Never tell a German soldier that “We kicked your ass in World War 2!”
29. The Irish MPs are not after “Me frosted lucky charms”.
31. Not allowed to let sock puppets take responsibility for any of my actions.
32. Not allowed to let sock puppets take command of my post.
41. “Keep on Trucking” is *not* a psychological warfare message.
44. I am not the atheist chaplain.
49. Not allowed to trade military equipment for “magic beans”.
51. Not allowed to quote “Dr Seuss” on military operations.
54. “Napalm sticks to kids” is *not* a motivational phrase.
58. The following words and phrases may not be used in a cadence- Budding sexuality, necrophilia, I hate everyone in this formation and wish they were dead, sexual lubrication, black earth mother, all Marines are latent homosexuals, Tantric yoga, Gotterdammerung, Korean hooker, Eskimo Nell, we've all got jackboots now, slut puppy, or any references to squid.
59. May not make posters depicting the leadership failings of my chain of command.
60. “The Giant Space Ants” are not at the top of my chain of command.
66. There is no “Anti-Mime” campaign in Bosnia.
67. I am not the Psychological Warfare Mascot.
68. I may not line my helmet with tin foil to “Block out the space mind control lasers”.
69. May not pretend to be a fascist stormtrooper, while on duty.
71. I must not flaunt my deviances in front of my chain of command.
75. May not conduct psychological experiments on my chain of command.
84. Must not use military vehicles to “Squish” things.
85. Not allowed to make any Psychological Warfare products depicting the infamous Ft. Bragg sniper incident.
94. Crucifixes do not ward off officers, and I should not test that.
106. I may not trade my rifle for any of the following: Cigarettes, booze, sexual favors, Kalishnikovs, Soviet Armored vehicles, small children, or bootleg CD’s.
140. I am not authorized to sell mineral rights.
155. Teaching Albanian children to taunt other soldiers is not nice.
158. The revolution is not now.
162. Past lives have absolutely no effect on the chain of command.
174. Furby ® is not allowed into classified areas. (I swear to the gods, I did not make that up, it's actually DOD policy).
198. Not allowed to lead a “Coup” during training missions.
I was a bit suspicious this was recently written by some recruiter-like guy to make the military seem more palatable, but it's apparently quite a few years old, and he's not in the military any more. It is too bad they are tangled up in all this mess - really such sarcasm ought to be the general mission. Mineral rights?
Blogs are getting big at the U for classwork. Strib website is messed up. Can you believe it takes three steps to even find the index of reporters & staff?
If you can do this ridiculous bouncing object thing for more than 18 seconds, you are amazing.
United Arab Emirates chosen for sub-orbital tourism spaceport. What more can I say?
Christopher Hitchens is a fat boozy British son of a bitch who has believed in everyone from Trotsky to Wolfowitz. Which admittedly isn't very far. But between bottles of scotch he likes to act like some kind of demented nanny: "Garrison Keillor, Vulgarian". Who cares? I don't know. Sorry I wasted your time.
The Recording Industry Jihad. They are trying to screw everyone using the DMCA to say that you can't make backups of your own CDs, as they claim this is basically the same as piracy. So, for them, "Freedom" means "if you break your CD, you are free to go to Sam Goody and Buy a New One," rather than the current legal arrangement, "you are allowed to make fucking backups, because this is not East Germany."
The [submitted arguments in favor of granting exemptions to the DMCA] provide no arguments or legal authority that making back up copies of CDs is a noninfringing use. In addition, the submissions provide no evidence that access controls are currently preventing them from making back up copies of CDs or that they are likely to do so in the future.
A bit more here.
The Onion: Senate Ethics Committee To Meet In New Ethics Committee Mansion.
Sorry that's all for now. Happy Mattress Sale Day.
I'm dead serious, download and play the Mortal Kombat theme song before you read the next post. They go together like grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Leroy Babolian?
FINISH HIM!!
Who's up for some motherfucking Olympic Games?
U.S.A... U.S.A... U.S.A...
Any takers?
Not me, and I would actually watch downhill skiing voluntarily if it were on the rest of the year. During the Olympics, though, with Bob Costas' reassuring voice punctuating the proceedings with international inanities, I just can't be bothered to slog through the coverage of sports like these:
I don't know if I am just jaded or if I no longer able to muster the proper pavlovian response asked of once every two years. The Olympics are supposed to be accompanied by a cold rush of patriotism and allow one to sweat out one's nationalistic demons by projecting one's hostility towards France upon their third-string skeleton rider (racer?) and wishing for his quick and effortless dispatch at the hands of a crack American squad (minus their best member- steroids). I can't get too worked up this year, though. For reasons ranging from Bode Miller's diplomatic ineptitude and general dickishness to the location (Turin? Whatever happened to the hustle and bustle of, say, Lillehamer? or Salt Lake City?) I just cannot muster the necessary amount of patriotic zeal. With the exception of wanting to see a couple of Minnesota girls hit the slalom course (Kristina Koznick and Lindsey Kildow) and Miller fall, I don't have much riding on this game emotionally. But does anyone? Outside of this little charade once every four years, does anyone, and I mean anyone, go to Skeleton events? Speed Skating? Luge? Where did these sports even come from, and who could possibly support themselves off the ticket sales? Who are these athletes and who taught them how to Luge? I don't remember that unit in gym class. Are there just teams of stern, grandfatherly Eastern Europeans who stake out key sledding hills and, upon seeing a bright young man in a cap and mittens deftly weave his way down the bumpy run and to the bottom, sidles up to him and tells him of his own days sledding, and how sledding led to luge and, if it hadn't been for his knee, but, well, you wouldn't want to hear about that...
As for figure skating, let's face it- it's the only aspect of the Winter Games anyone gives two shits about, and it's not even a sport. This is not to say that it is not an athletic endeavor requiring thousands of hours of diligent, painful study, but it is not a sport in the traditional manner. Sports derive from war games, and thus speed, strength, endurance and an ability to drive past or score on one's opponent are easily-comprehended goals. Whipping about on metal blades for the express purpose of spinning in the air and waving your arms around emotively is a more difficult-to-grasp skill on the bloody fields of Agincourt or Thermopylae. For some reason, it strikes a spider-vein in the female population of America and, despite the fact that your average American woman has never laced up a pair of skates and breathes heavily at the top of the stairs, several days of couch time are dedicated to watching starving children perform circus tricks on skates for the glory of their nation. Does the skater above look like she is capable of dealing a fatal blow? Even the curlers look more dangerous- at least they have sticks and rocks.
The worst part, of course, is the Maurie Povitch sob stories that accompany each athlete. Divorce, poverty, instability, scabies, arterial sclerosis and painful long-term surgical treatments haunt the pasts of these brave young Americans who, being between the ages of sixteen and thirty, have had a lot more time on their hands to grapple with their demons than I feel I might have time for if I were training six hours a day to compete in the zenith of human sport. Last night they appeared, young and vital-looking, and gave no hint of the physical and emotional ravishing they have endured. Somewhere in a US Olympic training facility, thousands of portraits stamped "B.Hallward" sit in protective sleeves. It is not the manipulation aspect that bothers me, particularly- I have grown weary and become acceptant of constant and intrusive media manipulation- it is the banality of the event that must be sensationalized through the hyberbolic tales of woe that gets to me. The endless seven minute sequences of sports you don't care about spliced in with Bob Costas' studio presence and those little athlete vignettes that always start and finish with the athlete, in their gear, looking brave and heroic in the face of such stiff competition and such long odds. Something along these lines:
Some Douchebag With Skis Had Sad Childhood, NBC Reports...
Hello, readers.
I am here to make a terrible confession. I have to admit to something, before shame eats away at me like salt-laced plow-snow on the rocker panels of a '74 Dart. I am totally, ridiculously, blindingly head-over-hells in lurve with NBC's The Biggest Loser.
For those of you unfamiliar with the program, NBC finds dangerously obese Americans who share a desire to lose weight. Competing either individually or in (generally) couples or family teams, these contestants are physically-trained within an inch of their lives for ten days, whilst learning about healthy eating and whatnot. After the ten days, they are weighed, and a preliminary prize (tonight, in a 'dream wedding' themed episode, a lavish honeymoon) is given. After that, they are turned loose and return to their hometowns to do all the work themselves without trainer supervision for something like six months. Aided by numerous sepia sequences bip-bopping gooey melodies in the background, we the viewers get to see the remarkable transformation in the lives of these people as they transition from prize hog to deflated balloon. Sometimes the fat dissolves to reveal beautiful, picturesque individuals and sometimes they look like trolls in wet gunney sacks, but their delight is always evident- the patina of exploitation just cannot dull the shine these people accrue through months of grueling physical labor.
And what labor it is- a good quarter of the show is the workout sessions of these individuals, pockmarked nodes of fat wriggling about under the voluminous skin of the heifer-human hybrid huffing it through another hill climb. Now is the time to feel smug, before the hard work and restraint force you to reconsider your wicked ways and sympathize- nay, connect, with the rapidly-dimishing men and women on the picture box. Muscles and smiles and puppies and special "surprise" visits from the telegenic and intellectually unintimidating personal trainers are harnessed together for a kind of tearjerker deathray, a combination of so many instinctual cultural cues that all Americans are rendered powerless to resist. In the face of such an authentic forgery of actual human emotions, one's eyes well up as quickly as if one had been pepper sprayed. With the twin voyeuristic urges of pleasure and pain sated, the show maintains your interest with the siren song of an eventual, winner-takes-$50,000 weigh-in.
I needn't tell you that I am practically salivating by the time the two tubby teams tilt the scales at the final weigh-in, aprons of lard disappeared from their body and tingling with anticipation. Sometimes the contestants are hardly recognizable by the end, having lost as much as 94 pounds and 30+% of their body mass. The rising strings, the transformation tale of grit and determination and a high tolerance for public humiliation, all in the name of fifty thousand bucks and half column in next week's People- Fat Ass Not So Fat, Anymore- Thinks America Cares About Her Life. The story is pure Horatio Algier, the kind of inspirational influence that has driven American efforts to expand our minds and extend our abilities to their furthest- so long as there's cash in it. When I see those whittled figures take to the stage and weigh in like steer at the 4-H show, I too dream of one day being obese enough to qualify as a contestant on a fat farm TV show. It is a dream I think we all can share, having a major network pay for us to undo thirty years of neglecting our bodies and stuffing our faces, possibly even rewarding us with large cash prizes at the end. In exchange for my dignity, I would snigger at the sucker's deal I was giving them in exchange for my fifteen minutes, a home gym, and thousands in specialists' bills.
God Bless America for having an endless supply of the morbidly obese. Without the Calorie-Industrial Complex, none of this would possible. Fifty years of research have gone into creating the starchy, fatty, greasy cuisine that is the real star in this drama. When one thinks of all the poor, urban populations that this food was tested on before it was deemed worthy of more widespread distribution, the dedication of company's like RJR Nabisco is all too evident. Outside of the watchful eyes of horizontally-organized global conglomerates, a show like The Biggest Loser mightn't even be possible.
"You have won the battle of the bulge, and that makes you the biggest loser."
Oh, and the host who says that is a little porky herself- I'm just saying, special "biggest host" episode?
Today's News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd:
Recently opened archives in Moscow show that in the 1920s, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered his top animal breeding scientist to create interspecies "super warriors." Stalin's half-men, half-apes would be "invincible," "insensitive to pain" and "indifferent about the quality of food they eat."
Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.
According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."
In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine". The order came at a time when the Soviet Union was embarked on a crusade to turn the world upside down, with social engineering seen as a partner to industrialisation: new cities, architecture, and a new egalitarian society were being created.
Well this spurred me down the strange path of gibberish and esoterica on the Internet about the mysterious projects of the Soviet Union. One elaborate story about Soviet electromagnetic research leading to scalar EM weapons was quite an exotic tale. Soviet weather control, applied Tesla Death Ray stuff. It's kind of like Pop Sci Fi from the Cold War, Red Dawn meets electrical engineering. For example, take "Historical Background of Scalar EM Weapons" by Lt. Col. T.E. Bearden (retd.), 1990, which relates
The peculiar "nuclear flashes" seen by the Vela satellites in September 1979 and December 1980 could have been due to a testing of a scalar EM howitzer in the pulsed exothermic mode. In the mode, scalar EM pulses meet at a distance, where their interference produces a sharp electromagnetic explosion (hence the "flash", very similar to the initial EMP flash of a nuclear explosion. Even in the vacuum of space, such an explosive eruption of energy from within the local spacetime vacuum itself may be expected to lift matter from the Dirac sea, producing a plasma. Prompt absorption and re-radiation of energy from this sudden plasma may be expected to present nearly the same "double peak" profile as does a nuclear explosion. This was the profile presented by the flashes. Note that the second flash detected was apparently of an "explosion" primarily in the infrared, almost certainly ruling out a conventional nuclear event. It does not rule out, however, pulsed distant holography using pumped EM giant time-reversed wave transmitters.
He also says that the Challenger explosion was caused by Soviet energy weapons. It is really a compelling kind of story, but of course I'll trust it as far as I can throw it. Also offers this:
In the late 1960's, Lisitsyn reported that the Soviets had broken the "genetic code" of the human brain. He stated the code had 44 digits or less, and the brain employed 22 frequency bands across nearly the whole EM spectrum. However, only 11 of the frequency bands were independent. This work implies that, if 11 or more correct frequency channels* can be "phase-locked" into the human brain, then it should be possible to drastically influence the thoughts, vision, physical functioning, emotions, and conscious state of the individual, even from a great distance.
It may be highly significant that
(1) up to 16 of the giant Soviet woodpecker carriers have been observed by Beck and others to carry a common, phase-locked 10-Hz modulation, and
(2) such a 10-Hz signal has been demonstrated by Beck, Rauscher, Bise, and others to be able to physically entrain or "phase-lock" the human brain, if stronger than the Schumann resonance of the Earth's magnetic field.
This, in turn, leads to Total Conspiracy on the old tinfoil hat - schizophrenic model. But who can deny the mystique of Soviet energy weapons scientists in some secret military city, hunched over their experiments, trying to extract energy from the ether, playing chess and swilling vodka on break? Why not? And what about how the Soviets cooked the U.S. Embassy in Moscow with lots of microwave radiation, the twisted bastards? (this is pretty weird, medical studies of State Dept. staff and Moscow radiation)
And the terrible stories about radioactive contamination around the USSR are also part of this weird backstory to the nuclear apocalypse of the cold war.
Presenting: Stalin's Plan: Neo-monkey-humanoids and Tesla Weapons:
Ok I feel silly right now. But just think: what if the Russians are applying their considerable SAM and directed energy expertise towards Iran? Surely, if Iran would pay, Russia would be down with it.
This guy says that the US military is experimenting with energy weapons that manipulate Iraqis in Iraq. Sounds fanciful, but hey, when in Babylon, do crazy shit like Nebuchadnezzar, right?
And don't forget the classic story of Tesla and the Tunguska Explosion.
One final tidbit: check out the mysterious HAARP, some kind of Alaskan energy device that the U.S. military has set up to muck around with the ionosphere or something. And, um, someone blamed Hurricane Katrina on it. Which goes to show that all this shit about electromagnetic technology is a really great wildcard for any given conspiracy theory. CONTRAILS ARE REAL!!!
My face hurts. Shocking as it may be, I still haven't had my wisdom teeth pulled. Perhaps I have some superstition that I will be less wise when they get yanked.
My left jaw is all swollen up, which gives me a profile more like Dolph Lundgren or something. The wisdom teeth are very impacted, and I fear that at least one has gotten infected in its core.
This started bothering me right on New Year's Eve. On the first I called the dentist to set an appointment and they informed me that it would be referred to oral surgery specialists, who would have to get back to me in a week or two. My file seems to have finally reached the oral surgeons, so I should be able to get the operation very soon.
A final note, as I don't know if I can sum up the energy to write a lot more today. Why does all this pointless spam arrive?
From: bostjh@0733.com
Subject: Kathleen
Date: January 17, 2006 12:47:45 PM CST
To: harlan@e.thwart.net
Reply-To: bostjh@0733.com
Good day, commander,
Belcher
Bye
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
Belcher
It's just too damn good. I put up thumbs of a couple favorites, but check it out for yourself.
Mel Gibson tries subliminal maniacal grin: Apple - Trailers - Apocalypto. Look at about 1:46 in the trailer for this bizarre film. For a single frame, Mel Gibson is chomping on a cigarette, leaning on the clay-encrusted native. Best weird subliminal moment of the year, so far.
Oil prices climb on speculative buying. Chinese claim to develop first live vaccine against bird flu.
Peter Bartz Gallagher has struck up InfantFoundation.com. Thus far it's a few thumbnails of the crew and such, but it's a fine start.
Strib: Older story, but a fun fantasy: Trolleys may be jolly, say Minneapolis officials.
How evil are you? I came up Evil. Must be because I got an ex-stripper on a Clear Channel station today.
National Security bits: Urban design + war on terror = National Security Sprawl. NSA Web Site Puts 'Cookies' on Computers.
Aljazeera.Net - US increases air attacks in Iraq. Antiwar.com: Two False Options - by William S. Lind
Victory is not an option, and it never was. The strategic objectives the Bush administration set for this war – a peaceful, democratic Iraq that would be an American ally, a friend of Israel, a source of unlimited oil and of basing rights for large American forces – were never attainable, no matter what we did. Strategies invented in Fairyland cannot be implemented in the real world. Pity the military that is ordered to try.
Defeat is an option. In my last column I described one way that could occur, an Israeli and/or American attack on Iran that leads Iraqi Shi'ites to join the Sunni jihad and cut our lines of supply and retreat through southern Iraq. There are additional scenarios that could lead to a dramatic American defeat, a defeat we could not disguise to anyone, not even ourselves.
German media suspects US strike in Iran: UPI: German media: U.S. prepares Iran strike
...the respected German weekly Der Spiegel notes "What is new here is that Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack rather than merely implying the possibility as it has repeatedly done during the past year."
The German news agency DDP cited "Western security sources" to claim that CIA Director Porter Goss asked Turkey's premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets. Goss, who visited Ankara and met Erdogan on Dec. 12, was also reported to have to have asked for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation.
[....]
It is possible that leaks from NATO and German security sources are part of a ploy to convince the Iranian government that the Americans and their NATO allies are in dead earnest when they say a nuclear-armed Iran would not be tolerated, and that Iran had better start negotiating seriously.
But the German media speculation about the supposed U.S. plans has been fueled by a number of high-profile visits to Turkey this month, including trips by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, by the CIA's Porter Goss and by the FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also delivered U.S. intelligence reports on Iranian backing for PKK operations aimed against Turkey. There have also been some significant Turkish visits to Washington, as reported by Der Spiegel.
[the PKK Kurdish faction, with Iran, against Turkey and Iraqi Sunnis?! Oy!...
