So, I'm working on this big Kirby piece and what do my wondering eyes behold in a Yahoo news link?
Hoping to bridge the gap between airplanes and rocketships, the U.S. military is preparing to test an experimental aircraft that can fly more than six times faster than the speed of sound on ordinary jet fuel.
Officially, it's known as the X-51, but folks like to call it the WaveRider because it stays airborne, in part, with lift generated by the shock waves of its own flight. The design stems from the goal of the program -- to demonstrate an air-breathing, hypersonic, combustion ramjet engine, known as a scramjet.
51 = 3 x 17, of course. More:
"We built a vehicle around an engine," said Joseph Vogel, the X-51 project manager with Boeing, which is building a series of four test planes under a $246.5-million (=17) program managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.
And:
NASA tested the concept in 2004, breaking the record for a jet-powered aircraft with a speed of Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph. But the vehicle, known as X-43 (=17), only flew for a few seconds and its copper-based engine was not designed to survive the flight.
So, what does this have to do with Kirby? Well, Machine Man (who believes it or not ties into the John Lilly memes we've been looking at- more on that later) was originally named X-51 and made his first appearance in 2001: A Space Odyssey...
Here's an interesting gallery of UFO art, mainly from the Medieval and Renaissance era. Nothing new for most of us, but a handy rejoinder for all of this scurrilous nonsense floating around about UFOs never being sighted before WWII. Link courtesy of The Daily Grail.
Efforts to reach the Martian moon Phobos have long been outshined by missions to the red planet itself. Now, scientists in Russia, Canada and the U.S. are preparing their own missions to the largest moon of Mars.
In fact, some scientists think Phobos and Deimos could be asteroids that somehow ended up orbiting Mars instead of crashing into the planet, or they could be leftovers from the time of planetary formation. Another option is that the moons are fragments of Mars, blasted off the planet's surface by a large asteroid or comet impact.
More money than ever is being sucked into the vacuum of space. Now there are contests being set up to create the most effective colonization hardware. The headline reads "Private Moon Rover aims for Apollo 11 landing site":
Nearly 40 years after Americans first set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 with NASA's historic Apollo 11 flight, a host of private rocketeers are hoping to follow to win a $30 million prize. Here, SPACE.com looks at Astrobotic, one of 17 teams competing in the Google Lunar X Prize...
Of course there are 17...
"Unlike during the Apollo era, it's clear to many people that the future of the lunar frontier will be a mixed colony of humans and robots simultaneously," Gump explained. "Our goal is to be a company to which you can outsource things. You want to scout a landing site ahead of time, you hire us. You want to get a soil sample before sending your mining machines, you hire us. You need some electrical power supply, we'd have a service."
Wow. They really have this worked out, don't they?
The immersive nature of our new popcult mythology (particularly the transformative power of RPG) is creating a movement of "real-life superheroes." I will definitely have to take a deeper look into this if there is a revised edition of Our Gods Wear Spandex. I just hope these kids stick to a modest agenda and stay away from any real danger.
Mexico: State of Chihuahua Terrorized by "Man-Bat" A Report By Prof. Ana Luisa Cid
According to information supplied by Ing. Francisco Prieto Torres, residents of La Junta, Guerrero (Chihuahua) have reported the appearance of a "Man-Bat".
They describe it as a very tall entity, standing some 2 meters tall, with two pairs of wings (one pair larger than the other). Its face is covered in fur and has red, bloodshot eyes. Also reported are a pair of small, kangaroo type hands that it held loosely, as though it lacked any strength in them.
And what's this?
One of these days I will write that "Mothman and Me" post. Let me also add that Chris Carter wrote a "manbat" episode of The X-Files...
Saturday: I was on my walk, thinking about the blogs. I was feeling like I was being manipulated somehow in recent megaposts, mostly pertaining to Obama and the weird symbolism that surrounds him. I was thinking that I didn't want to be in constant reaction mode, dishing out these symbols that were very probably being spoonfed to us as distractions. I then pondered the nature of Synchronicity, wondering if we are not somehow complicit in the process- do certain syncs appear when one focuses on them? I'm not talking about the attention-response theory that skeptics apply to Synchronicity...
...I'm talking about how I turned the corner while mulling these ideas around and parked in front a house was a contractor's flat panel truck with the name "Phoenix" emblazoned all over it. As I walked by I also noticed "666" in the license plate. I'd never seen or heard of this particular company before as their phone number showed they are outside the county. Sadly, I couldn't get a picture of it since there were a bunch of people out in the yard and my attempts at sneaking a pic on my phone resulted in some very grainy shots of their lawn.
Early AM, today: I was lying in bed, stewing. I had to talk to the missus about something important but she was sleeping quite deeply. So I began to think "wake up, wake up." She immediately opened her eyes. I chuckled and said "I willed you to wake up!" She said, "that's what you just said to me in my dream." Strangely, she knew what I was going to tell her, even though we had never discussed it previously.
The Swine Flu epidemic is being magnified to the nth degree in the Internet hothouse. A lot of this is because the Western Hemisphere hasn't seen this kind of outbreak in a while, whereas Asia recently dealt with SARS and the Avian flu. All I can is be very careful but don't panic. That kind of stress can knock down your immune system at exactly the wrong time.
I'm not sure where all of you are located, but remember that many parts of Mexico are very crowded, very hot and very poor. People often keep lifestock on their small plots and backyards. Diseases that are merely troublesome elsewhere become deadly in environments with poor hygiene and sanitation.
Whatever this is- and I think we need to take all of the theorizing with a grain of salt until we have more data- the best weapon is common sense. Keep your hands and face clean, take your vitamins and supplements like zinc and lysine and keep some Echinacea on hand. I'm due to travel in May, and will probably bring a mask and goggles on the plane with me.
Keep aware but stay centered and calm and focused- that's an important tool in dealing with any kind of disease. If you don't have a mediation practice, it might be a good time to start. Whatever happens, fear is always your enemy.
It turns out that Salma Hayek's masque was held at La Fenice ("The Phoenix") Opera House in Venice. Looks like A-Lily-N Cole wore appropriate jewelry...
Like The Matrix, the 1997 film The Fifth Element mines the feverishly imaginative world of comic books. But whereas The Matrix derives from Marvel Comics and manga, The Fifth Element draws its visual punch from French comics, formally known as bande desinee (BD), familiar to readers of the American magazine Heavy Metal, which reprints a great deal of comics from Europe. Bande desinee is, like manga, a medium and not a genre. Any number of types of stories are produced, usually in hardcover oversized albums. But the most familiar form of BD to American readers are the kinds of outrageous and decadent science fiction yarns serialized in French magazines like Pilote and Metal Hurlant. These sci-fi stories are characterized by lavish, nearly-baroque art and design, and a narrative sensibility that emphasizes sophomoric nihilism, sadistic violence and decadent sex.
The dizzying visual imagination of the BD sci-fi subculture is mirrored in The Fifth Element . In fact, Besson enlisted one of BD’s premier talents, Jean Giraud, to forge the visual look of the film. Giraud is known to BD readers by his pen names ‘Gir’ and ‘Moebius.’ As Gir, he has drawn the long-running adventures of the Western hero, Lieutenant Blueberry. And as Moebius, he illustrated a large body of science fiction stories, often in collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky, the South American filmmaker best known for his films El Topo and Santa Sangre.
Giraud’s own work is also of a distinctly spiritual bent, but defining the precise nature of that spirituality is often elusive. Moebius is (or was) the follower of a French New Age guru named Jean Paul Appel Guery, who changed the course of Moebius’ work from dystopian sci-fi to incredibly opaque new age sci-fi. Moebius has also worked on several sci-fi/fantasy films, including Alien, Willow and The Abyss.
Besson also enlisted the visual talents of another French legend for The Fifth Element.Jean Paul Gaultier, the fashion maestro best known for his work with Madonna, designed many of the sexually-provocative costumes for the film, and gave the film a distinctly decadent and androgynous sheen.
The plot of The Fifth Element. concerns a struggle between the forces of good, here in the form of the alien Mondoshawans and their human accomplices; and the forces of evil, represented by a malevolent Death Star-like planet (known only a “Mister Shadow”) and its alien and human enablers. Gary Oldman, scenery-chewer extraordinaire, plays Zorg, an evil weapons manufacturer who works in concert with the alien Mangalores to help make manifest the destruction of earth by this ultimate Evil.
The Mondoshawans send their champion, the so-called “Supreme Being”, to Earth to help destroy the Ultimate Evil, but the Mangalores shoot down their ship before it can reach the Earth. A salvage team is sent to the crash site (which is on a moon) and a piece of a arm is recovered, which turns out to be from the Supreme Being. The severed limb is brought to Earth and through DNA something-or-other is reconstituted into an intact replication of the supreme one. Happily, it transpires than underneath their bulky and cartoonish armor, the Mondoshawans look like hot, young, naked supermodels. Hence LeeLoo, the reconstructed supreme being, is played by hot, young, naked supermodel Milla Jovovich.
However, LeeLoo freaks out when she is reborn, busts out of her rebirthing chamber and ends up in the care of soldier-turned-cabbie Korben Dallas (played by Bruce Willis). At her urging, Dallas then brings Leeloo to the priest Father Cornelius, played by Ian Holm. Cornelius is part of a hereditary line of priests that do the Mondoshawan’s bidding in protecting the Earth.
What must be done next is to recover the ritual stones symbolizing the four elements and get LeeLoo to Egypt post-haste, in order to perform the ritual that will repel and destroy “Mister Shadow." However, the stones are being kept by an alien chanteuse on a galactic pleasure cruiser halfway across the galaxy. Hence, Dallas, Cornelius and LeeLoo rocket out to the cruiser to recover the stones. Along the way, LeeLoo immerses herself in human lore and language, with the aid of a laptop computer supplied to her by Father Cornelius. The messianic troupe also make the acquaintance of a maniacally-epicene galactic talk show host named Ruby Rhod, played by Chris Tucker.
Along the way they are countered by Zorg and his Mangalores cohorts. All sorts of mayhem ensues, and the alien singer protecting the stones is killed by the Mangalores. As she lays dying, she tells Dallas that the stones are located inside her body, and Dallas must pull them out of her corpse. Zorg is also after the stones, but is ultimately destroyed by a bomb he places on the cruiser (literally ‘hoisted on his own petard’, you might say). Dallas, Cornelius and LeeLoo escape just in the nick of time and return to Earth to perform the ritual.
The trip back seems to be going well until LeeLoo stumbles across the subject of war in her humanities studies. She is so driven to despair by visions of man’s inhumanity to man that she is unable to perform the ritual. The stones are put into place, but the Fifth Element isn’t activated. Cornelius reckons that LeeLoo needs a first hand lesson in the ways of love to ease her despair over man’s barbarism, so he orders Dallas to have a snog with her. Dallas and LeeLoo neck and the Evil Planet something-or -other is destroyed in an orgasmic burst. The film ends as Korben and LeeLoo enjoy a hearty shag in a sarcophagus-type reactor chamber in a Nucleo Lab, as the President of the Earth and a worldwide television audience look on.
METATEXT
Aside from the obvious comic book, action movie and Solar ritual drama motifs, Besson seems to borrow heavily from Alchemical symbolism. Or, more precisely, Jungian interpretation of Alchemical symbolism. That final scene where Korben and LeeLoo copulate in the reactor chamber while the lord of Earth look on is directly taking it cues from three of the pivotal stages of Alchemist’s so-called “Chemical Marriage” process.
As depicted in numerous Alchemical texts like the Mutus Liber, the Chemical Marriage is a process in which the Sun (represented by a king), and the Moon (represented by a queen) are reunited into a single primevel being, the Royal Hermaphrodite, or the Rebis. In some texts the King and Queen copulate in a chamber filled with Mercurial water ( water collected from the morning dew), in others they commingle in a furnace.
Another product of this Royal Copulation is the Lapis, otherwise known as the Philosopher’s Stone. The Philosopher’s Stone is the device the Alchemists beleived could transform base metals into gold. This fabled Stone is now familiar to hundreds of millions of people the world over thanks to the Harry Potter novels.
Alchemy is the most arcane of ancient sciences, and since the Alchemists deliberately obscured their teachings either in wordless books or in arcane symbols, scholars disagree as to their meaning. Was the Chemical Wedding purely symbolic and spiritual, or was it some arcane recounting of an actual process? My vote is for the latter, but no one can say for sure. Carl Jung thought it was a metaphor for a person’s “individuation process” where the two halves of human nature- spiritual and rational- are conjouned.
However much Alchemy is scoffed at today, in many ways it was the forerunner of modern chemistry, and had a huge influence on modern medicine as well. Sir Issac Newton, arguably the most important scientific thinker in history, was obsessed with the alchemical arts. When Sir Issac wasn’t discovering the laws of gravity or inventing calculus or revolutionizing the study of Astronomy, he busied himself amassing England’s largest Alchemical library and conducting Alchemical experiments.
The language of Alchemy is the crux of The Fifth Element. The Alchemists believed that all matter was composed of four fundamental elements- Earth, Air, Water and Fire.
Some historians that the word "Alchemy" itself is derived from Al Khemiya which in turn is derived from Kemet (“the black land”), the name the ancient Egyptians new themselves by. ”Egypt” is a Greek name given to Kemet by the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty, and derives from aigis or “shield.”
The etymology of the word “Alchemy” is directly referenced by the location of the Mondoshawan temple in Egypt. And again, the use of the four elements is drawn from Alchemic arts. And the “Fifth Element” is not LeeLoo alone, but the by-product of the Coninunctio, or the Chemical Wedding between Korben and LeeLoo.
Their make-out session overseen by the priests in the Mondoshawan temple was their nuptials, and the episode in the rebirthing chamber was their royal consumation. The kings, queens and princes of the Earth are their to witness their apotheosis, which signifies the supreme status of the Alchemical arts in this ritual drama.
Not surprisingly, this Alchemical ritual drama is rife with Solar imagery. The big baddie, Mister Shadow in the tale is depicted as a Black Sun, a burning orb that gives no light nor heat. In other words, a spiritual force that exists only to serve its own needs, and possesses neither love nor compassion. It is pure, elemental Evil. It’s a sun that gives off light instead of shadow. It’s accomplice, Zorg, is a disciple of Evil. He believes that destruction and warfare are necessary facets of existance, and that personal enrichment is the highest good.
In the Alchemical Wedding drama of The Fifth Element, Korben is the Sun King and LeLoo is the Moon Queen. Leeloo herself represents the prima materia of the Alchemical grail quest.
LeeLoo is reconstructed from a genetic fragment recovered from the Mondoshawan ship, which crashed on a barren and dusty moon. The moon, being traditionally untouched by man, is thereby a source of the prima materia , or the “untouched matter” which the Alchemists sought to transform into gold. The Moon also reflects the Sun, which accounts for the solar touches in LeeLoo’s outfit.
Korben is a depicted as deactivated soldeier from an elite military order. Exactly which order Korben serived is no mystery to those familiar with medieval or military iconography. When we first meet Korben in his small, Spartan apartment we see has a golden trophy adorned with the Templar cross (00:18:27) And in a nod to Horus, Korben’s never-seen mother complains that she has left him 17 messages on his answering machine in the same scene.
Finally, the Mondoshawan priests dress in red and gold robes, and their Egyptian origin and extraterrestrial and godly alliances links them with the Shemsu Hor, the priest kings who ruled Ancient Egypt when the Netjer, or gods, returned to the Heavens. The Shemsu Hor are traditionally believed to be the guardians of the sacred arts, not the least of which is Alchemy.
This is fascinating- screen goddess Salma Hayek and French billionaire hubby threw their second wedding ceremony in Venice (named for Inanna/Ishtar/Hathor/Venus) and the theme was masquerade.
And look who showed up- Lestat, Aeon Flux and A-Lily-N Cole!
Rumors of Will Smith playing an Egyptian Pharaoh in his next movie are now confirmed true. Smith will star in The Last Pharaoh as Taharqa who became infamous for defending ancient Egypt against invasions by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon. The film will focus on the charachter of Taharqa as he prepares to battle against all odds.
Industry insiders say the budget and scope of the film will be similar to other epic war movies such as Kingdom of Heaven and Troy. Infact the screenwriter of Braveheart is currently working on revisions of the script. Film will be produced by Smith’s own production company Overbrook and would mark the first “historical epic” film to his resume. Via: Variety
From the Last Man on Earth to the last superhero to the Last Pharaoh. Is there some semiotic significance here that we're missing?
Not That I Mind, Dept.: Interesting bit of comedy/aversion therapy advertising for German online retailer. The shopping malls were supposed to disappear 10 years ago with the dot.com boom, but had a major comeback during the real estate "boom." I'm reading a lot of stories on the business sites predicting the end of several retail outlets- is this ad part of some agenda in that regard?
I just hope it's not too late for all of the beautiful farmland and wetlands that these temples to consumerism were inflicted upon...
Gillian Anderson, known to many as Agent Scully from The X-Files, is heading to a brand new science-fiction franchise, as she prepares to appear in Doctor Who. Anderson, according to a report from London's Daily Telegraph, will appear as The Rani, acting opposite Matt Smith's Doctor.
An insider for the show said of Anderson "Gillian obviously has a massive sci-fi following and it's felt that it would be a major coup to have her appear in Doctor Who." They continued saying, "The team behind the show are keen for the next Doctor to have lots of new enemies and Gillian would be a glamorous and impressive addition to the list. The Rani would be a perfect role for her as the character used to be regarded as one of the Doctor's most deadly opponents."
Man, this is timely- me and the missus just picked up a boxset of the first Who series after seeing the '63 pilot at DragonCon. We both were fans in the 70s but I'd only seen bits of the post-Baker era Who. We just hit a con last Sunday and I was amazed by how many vendors were hawking Who DVDs. I guess the recent series have really revived the franchise.
A caveat within itself, but still augurs well. I just wish everyone would stop bashing poor Nemesis- it was a good movie bogged down by the aversion to the Trek franchise garnered by the almighty suckitude of Voyager and Enterprise- and the post-9/11 mood. Click here for review.
I'm going into geek overload this year- next week, Wolverine...
"We're definitely feeling the crisis. Clients are being tight with their money. They're afraid. You can't charge for the extras any more and there is pressure to cut prices. Everyone wants a deal. Special promotions are essential these days."
I had no idea prostitution was legal in Germany, but it should be legalized everywhere. A well-regulated, safe, clean sex trade would cut down on human trafficking and organized crime and protect sex workers from exploitation and predation. As with marijuana, prohibition of prostitution only deprives municipalities of billions in tax revenue and breeds crime and corruption.
Alex Grey will be doing a talk on his book on Damanhur at the EastWest Gallery in Manhattan on Friday the 24th. The place is pretty fascinating- a massive underground temple built into a mountain- definitely check out the site.
CAIRO (AP) — Archaeologists exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed four new temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city....These temples mark the latest discovery by archaeologists digging up the remains of the city on the military road known as "Way of Horus." Horus is a falcon-headed god, who represented the greatest cosmic powers for ancient Egyptians.
...found the call to respect religion rather odd, given the usual attack lines of skeptical groups. I'm not sure where one draws the line between making fun of someone that believes that beings from Zeta Reticuli visited them in their bedroom last week, and respecting another person that believes that some Jewish guy resurrected from the dead 2000 years ago and in doing so absolved the entire world population of its sins.
I would imagine this edict is not a consensus view in skeptical circles, although there was little debate about it in this booklet. I guess it ties in to the suggestion to make allies - although again, if that was the case then skeptical groups could make great steps by engaging with the 'real' researchers of paranormal claims out there, rather than making fun of them and their topics.
19. Remember that “skepticism” is different from “atheism.” ....You don’t have to be against god to be against fraud.
That policy is certainly not going to please militant atheists like PZ Myers, who attacked this kind of backsliding in a recent rant. But it speaks to a long-standing question of mine concerning the skeptic movement - might it not exist primarily to suppress unsanctioned belief systems- and as we see above, bolster the officially-sanctioned ones?
After all, how productive is it really to worry about a handful of grannies dabbling in mediumship or palmistry or therapeutic touch when thousands and thousands of people are killed every year over beliefs in spirits and gods and sacred texts?
I've been watching it online. Not The X-Files, but better than most of what's out there. Interesting that all of the weirdness comes from laboratories and not from outer space or the spirit realm, but there may be a limit on how far they can stretch credulity in that regard.
For some reason "6:17" seemed to have special significance in last week's episode- it flashed onscreen and seemed to be a fascinating topic of conversation.
W. S. Merwin won his second Pulitzer Prize for poetry on Monday for “The Shadow of Sirius,” a collection that the Pulitzer board described in its citation as “luminous” and “often tender” — and that Merwin called a happy accident.- NY Times
In a recent City Journal piece, neocon Benjamin Plotinsky tries desperately to shoehorn exoteric Christianity into the endlessly-mutating narratives of modern sci-fi, along with some incredibly archaic Reagan-era political meanderings. It's all very tired, shallow and outmoded, unless you believe that Enterprise (which limped along for five low-rated seasons) was superior to Next Generation (which set syndicated ratings records and spawned four feature films).
But it does show that the old establishment is paying attention, finally, even if the Plotinsky's of the world are too locked into their outmoded, dualistic philosophies to ever understand where this is all going. By the way, City Journal is the official house organ of William Casey's Manhattan Institute, those wonderful folks who helped bring you the Iraq War.
His great themes, however, and his great scenes, go unremarked: George Clooney as Michael Clayton, at the end of his rope, receiving some silent and inexplicable dispensation from three horses on a pre-dawn hillside in Westchester, N.Y.; Al Pacino as Satan in The Devil's Advocate, riding the New York subway, informing a man who has just pulled a knife on him that the man's wife is at home, splayed merrily across their green bedspread and enjoying a crack orgy with his best friend ("You ain't right, man," says the rattled aggressor, backing off. "Oh, I'm right!" Pacino promises him.)
That's my favorite scene in Advocate and up there with the confrontation between Michael and Karen- if Gilroy indeed wrote that, he's due for Secret Sun sainthood. If you haven't seen that film, drop what you're doing and watch it.
Melissa Chantel Huckaby, 28, is tied to a report that someone in January took a 7-year-old girl to a park for four hours and brought her back high on muscle relaxers.
The incident was reported on January 17 by a family in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park. Huckaby lived in the same complex, also where 8-year-old Sandra Cantu lived before police found her dead body on April 10. Police arrested Huckaby four days later on suspicion on kidnapping, raping and killing Sandra.
The January report alleges that someone took a 45-pound blue-eyed dark-haired girl to a park. The woman and the child were gone for four hours, from about 1:30 to after 5 p.m., according to the police log. The woman who took the girl drove a purple Kia Sportage, according to the report.
A woman accused of kidnapping, raping and killing an 8-year-old Tracy girl told three of her friends separately that she was once raped herself.
At the time of the rape, Melissa Chantel Huckaby was 18, just out of high school and still living with her parents in La Habra, a city in Orange County, the friends said.
Callers have inundated the phone lines of Tracy police, saying it can't be. Veteran homicide and sex-crime researchers say they cannot recall a case quite like it. Even the investigators themselves looked at the evidence and initially said "no way."
On the same day that thousands mourned the loss of Sandra Cantu, the public defender of alleged murderer Melissa Huckaby asked to have the 8-year-old’s body exhumed for a second autopsy.
In a report filed yesterday from the San Joaquin County Superior Court, defense attorney Sam Behar called for a second autopsy so Huckaby can defend herself against allegations of rape. According to the report, Behar’s office hired Dr. Terri Haddix as its pathologist on Wednesday to perform the proposed autopsy.
All of my instincts are telling me there is more to this story. As I've said before, it's imperative that authorities outside the municipality and county get involved so justice can be done for Sandra and her family.
WASHINGTON, DC -- April 19, 2009 -- Retired navy captain and Apollo XIV astronaut Edgar Mitchell today called for the U. S. government to disclose to its citizens and other Earthlings what he asserts are the realities of long-standing extraterrestrial visitations and interactions with our planet.
Speaking this morning at "X-Conference 2009" in Gaithersburg, MD, a suburb of the nation's capital, Mitchell told several hundred attendees and a phalanx of video cameras that, with our planet confronting population pressures and critical questions of environmental and energy sustainability, the need for disclosure about extraterrestrial involvement with Earth is critical.
Once NASA's space shuttle fleet is retired next year, U.S. astronauts might arrive at the International Space Station via Chinese spacecraft, according to U.S. President Barack Obama's science chief.
Libertarian commentator Justin Raimondo has taken up the secession meme, arguing that America has never truly been a nation, but in fact a confederation of different cultures with different customs:
A nation is, after all, more than a state: it derives its identity from a common culture, one that is largely shared by all citizens, including not only language but a certain mindset rooted in custom and economic convenience.
Untied to GOP dogma, Raimondo points out that the states with the most militant anti-"socialists" are actually the biggest beneficiaries of socialism in the form of tax injustice:
However, when this cohesion is lacking – when tax-eating states, say, are arrayed against tax-producing states; or, to put it another way, when red states come up against blue states – longstanding allegiances are called into question and old bonds begin to dissolve.
The corporate media has been deliberately suppressing those statistics. If you start seeing stories emerge on this disparity, that might be a sign something is on the way. In the meantime, watch Brave New World for a sneak preview of our possible future...
I am so geeked for this movie I could wet my pants. Me and the missus just watched the first X-Men movie the other night (which is a double geek-gasm with Patrick Stewart as Chuck X) to get the juices flowing- we'll be hitting 2 and 3 before May Day (tonight we got Iron Man, which the missus hasn't seen yet).
I am so down with Hollywood's take on the X-verse that I'm pretty close to considering it canonical. Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool? Are you kidding me? Opening day, baby....
Imagine two Americas, one almost entirely urban, technocratic and information-based, one mostly rural/exurban and working class, very much in the resource/producer colony mode. Sci-fi? For now, sure. But if you can't speculate on a blog like this one, where can you?
But I wonder if the global decision-makers are doing a bit more than speculating, and are using talk radio and the news media to bring these new Americas about. Like Fox News' recent "tea party" protests, for example. Here's what the rest of the world is watching on rival network CNN:
Wow.
Huffpost claims it's not playing too well with the unconverted, but they're not exactly unbiased observers. CIA-alumni Kos noted that these kinds of rallies bring out the weirdos, no matter what side they are on. Which prompted this comment:
Just as the percentage of difference in the genetic code between chimps and humans is very small, the difference between the Democrats and the Republican is smaller than most people realize.
This chimp has lost his hair, revealing a disturbingly human anatomy underneath. It really makes you think about our origins and place in the grand scheme of things.
The missus and I had a very strange encounter with a pair of chimps trapped in a miserable cage in a run-down zoo, and I was stunned by the humanity of these animals. Being right up close to chimps, you feel a very close kinship to them, which is disturbing when you think what evil, miserable bastards they can be (I'm a gorilla man, myself).
Being prone to major geek relapses, I found this cartoon reunion of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation oddly stirring. Having had my geek innocence ruined by semiotics and parapolitics, I found the juxtaposition of said reunion and a subplot featuring corporate Evangelicalism battling its Janus twin (reductionist atheism) slightly disturbing. I'm not one to see hidden agendas in every dopey-ass cartoon that crosses my path (not conscious ones, at least), but I can't help but wonder what's the point of all this here.
That being said, as geek fodder, ST:TNG still rules. After that, um...
Even though Sarah Connor Chronicles is being written off as canceled by most observers, an new interview with Brian Austin Green gives me a small ray of hope. It's a great show with a small but very hardcore fanbase, though perhaps a bit too dark and heavy for network TV. Fox may be waiting to see how the new Terminator movie performs before making a final decision.
I don't know what it is, but I find most TV these days to be extremely off-putting. For sure, most shows are over-produced and under-written. Sarah Connor was teamed with Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, which I have a lot of problems with (ethically and morally, it's the opposite of Sarah Connor), even though I'm a recent convert to the Firefly/Serenity universe. More on Dollhouse once I watch a few more eps of it...
...in our political system to cheer one ray of sanity sunlight in the never-ending bipartisan Clownshow: Barack Obama takes time off from lustily enshrining Bush/Cheney secrecy and war policies to introduce funding proposals for high speed rail. We're also seeing light rail make a quiet comeback (it has to fly under the radar to avoid attacks from the oil industry's pet polticians).
Wouldn't it be nice if major metropolitan areas in North America all had adequate rail transportation? Roadways in the entire northeastern corridor have become completely bogged down- as have our pitiful commuter railways. Wouldn't it be nice to stop letting the oil and car companies dictate public policy and have semi-civilized public transportation? We could also reduce congestion at airports (I don't know about you guys but I hate flying these days) and overcrowded hubs like Penn Station.
We've heard it all before, but I can dream, can't I?
What would Jesus do, Mel? Probably not bang a hot 20-something Russian model while the little woman sits at home and reads scripture to the kiddies. Drip by drip, the Evangelical house of sand falls back into the sea - Gibson's Passion of the Christ was a huge rallying tool for them in 2004. Will Mel's personal Traditionalist church go on the auction block to pay for Mel's (alleged) sins of the flesh? Can Mel's new counter-reformation survive this mess? Cults of personality usually don't...
CAIRO – Doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Anthony have been missing since they committed suicide in 31 B.C. Now archaeologists plan to excavate three sites in Egypt that could contain their tombs.
The celebrated queen of Egypt and the Roman general could have been buried in a deep shaft in a temple near the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement Wednesday.
Excavation work on the sites will begin next week.- AP/Yahoo News
(CNN) -- The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship bound for Mombasa, Kenya, was attacked Tuesday by Somali pirates, according to a NATO source with direct knowledge of the matter.
"The pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at the vessel, which sustained damage," said a statement from New York-based Liberty Maritime Corporation, which owns the vessel.
The ship was carrying U.S. food aid for African nations, the statement said.
Cheers to Strangey for the tip.
UPDATE: Obama held 17 meetings on the US ship seized by pirates.
Conscious Media Network has an interesting interview with William Henry on the topic of Stargates. You need to be a member, but registration is free. Worth checking out. Here's the spiel:
William Henry 's breakthrough research on stargates in ancient art, myth and texts has been documented in 14 books and numerous DVD programs. Hundreds of thousands of listeners hear him regularly as the co-host of Whitley Strieber 's Dreamland. He is also a regular contributor on Coast to Coast AM? with George Noory.
In his temple-quests in Egypt, France, Scotland and America, William uncovered and followed a visual code of this Way to the Stars in ancient art. What he discovered and brought to the world 's attention is truly amazing. The symbolism used by the ancients to depict their gods traveling the stars matches that used by modern science to symbolize wormholes.
The new First Pet Tuesday took his bow, wowing a pack of media and leading his grinning new owners across the world's most exclusive dog run.
"I love him," gushed 10-year-old Malia Obama, who gave the frisky, white-pawed Portuguese water dog pup a fierce hug after the pooch pulled her past photographers. "He's perfect!"
"He's got star-quality," Obama joked at one point, adding, "That's a good-looking dog, though, let's face it."
Who wants to bet that the Sandra Cantu story is going to rip a lid off of something rotten? Commenters on the Tracy Press site are not convinced that Melissa Huckaby's "confession" is the end of the story, no matter how hard the media tries to bury the lede. Several commenters are asking is this woman isn't covering up for someone else. And now this pops up out of nowhere:
The number of women accusing a Tracy plastic surgeon of sexually assaulting them has grown to 64 — one of them a 16-year-old.
Peter Chi, 46, of Livermore, will appear in court for further arraignment on Tuesday.
The ear, nose and throat doctor performed more than 5,000 surgeries during his 13-year medical career. Tracy police arrested him in February on charges that he raped eight women. That number quickly tripled.
But women kept calling in with allegations of rape, police said today. Investigators added dozens more charges.
In a criminal complaint filed today, police allege that 64 women ranging in age from 16 to 63 had come forward with accusations of rape.
Even some former employees claimed sexual assault.
Officially, Chi faces 49 charges of sexual battery by fraud, 16 for rape and one for committing a lewd act on a child — all felonies.
A judge ordered Chi in February to surrender his medical license and to stay away from his Tracy Boulevard practice.
What is Melissa talking about to police? Get the state and the FBI over there. If clergy are involved, chances are good that local officials are as well. I've saved the comments on my hard drive just in case church authorities pressure the newspaper to have them removed. You'd be shocked how many stories like this are suppressed in the media by that kind of pressure.
I thought this was all a bunch of pseudoscientific malarkey. Apparently not:
The solar system might once have had another planet named Theia, which may have helped create our own planet's moon. Now two spacecraft are heading out to search for leftovers from this rumored sibling, which would have been destroyed when the solar system was still young.
"It's a hypothetical world. We've never actually seen it, but some researchers believe it existed 4.5 billion years ago — and that it collided with Earth to form the moon," said Mike Kaiser, a NASA scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Theia is thought to have been about Mars-sized. If the planet crashed into Earth long ago, debris from the collision could have clumped together to form the moon. This scenario was first conceived by Princeton scientists Edward Belbruno and Richard Gott.
Former genius Phil Spector convicted in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson. This was no surprise to anyone familiar with the man. From Wiki, on the recording of the Ramones' album, End of the Century:
Early in the sessions, Spector reportedly held the Ramones hostage at gunpoint. According to Dee Dee, when Spector took Joey away for a three-hour private meeting somewhere in his cavernous mansion where the album was to be recorded, Dee Dee went looking for them. "The next thing I knew Phil appeared at the top of the staircase, shouting and waving a pistol," Dee Dee later wrote:
“ "Phil," I challenged him, "I don't know what your fucking problem is, waving that pistol around and all that stuff.... I've had it. I'm going back to the Tropicana."...
"You're not going anywhere, Dee Dee," Phil said.
He leveled his gun at my heart and then motioned for me and the rest of the band to get back in the piano room.... He only holstered his pistol when he felt secure that his bodyguards could take over. Then he sat down at his black concert piano and made us listen to him play and sing "Baby, I Love You" until well after 4:30 in the morning.
Spector did nothing of any real significance after those sessions. It's a fine line between genius and madness. And it's never pretty once that line is crossed.
Case in point: the 17th hole on Sunday, where the Augusta Chronicle reports that a patron leaped into the greenside bunker just a few feet from Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. (For the hyper-obsessives among you, that shot above is of the ninth hole; apparently any photos that exist of this incident have been destroyed.)
Bonus factoid: Gillian Anderson married Clyde Klotz at the 17th hole. Don't ask me why.
Gibson's wife Robyn files for divorce on Maundy Thursday. Obviously sending a message there. Gibson's drinking problems are well-documented, now there are reports of an affair. How incredibly not surprising.
WASHINGTON — The first family has settled on a first pet: a 6-month-old Portuguese water dog that the Obama girls are naming Bo. The selection was one of the White House's most tightly kept secrets.
President Barack Obama's daughters, 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha, picked a black and white pup, a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Associated Press Saturday night.
Ten and seven. And wouldn't you just know it, dogs have risen in the celestial sphere this weekend as well:
Soaring high in the eastern sky and almost overhead at around midnight are the two stars marking the Hunting Dogs, known as Canes Venatici. Located about a third of the way from the end of the Big Dipper's handle and below it, these dogs were placed in the sky to assist Bootes, the Bear Driver in his daily task of pursuing the Big Bear (Ursa Major) around the pole of the heavens.
Unlike the two faithful canine companions of Orion, the Hunter (Canis Major and Canis Minor), which are separate constellations in of themselves, the two Hunting Dogs of Bootes are both considered a single constellation (hence the plural "Canes" as opposed to the singlular "Canis").
Washington, April 1 (ANI): A new study has suggested that some of Egypt’s most magnificent pyramids were deliberately designed to follow a pattern of invisible diagonal lines, which would point towards Heliopolis, the city of the Sun God.
These invisible lines would connect most of the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the Old Kingdom between 2630 and 2323 BC, Giulio Magli, professor of archaeoastronomy at Milan’s Polytechnic University, told Discovery News.
“Following these diagonals, it appears clear that the arrangement of the monuments was carefully chosen in order to satisfy a number of criteria, which include dynastic lineage, religion and astronomical alignments,” he said.
CAIRO (AFP)– Archaeologists working in an Egyptian oasis have found a necropolis containing dozens of brightly painted mummies dating back as far as 4,000 years, the country's antiquities chief said on Sunday.
"The mission found dozens of mummies in 53 rock-hewn tombs dating to the Middle Kingdom" from 2061-1786 BC, Zahi Hawass told AFP.
"Four of the mummies date back to the 22nd Dynasty (931 to 725 BC) and are considered some of the most beautiful mummies found," he said.
GIZA, Egypt - The Great Pyramid of Giza was one of the ancient wonders of the world, and even most travelers today would not consider a trip to Egypt complete without seeing the pyramids.
But for some tourists, the pyramids and other sites are much more than stops on a sightseeing itinerary. These visitors view Egypt as an ancient sacred homeland, and they come hoping for a spiritual transformation.
This video will give you vertigo, so just let the music play while you go about your business. My all-time favorite Patti Smith song.
I am the spring, the holy ground, the endless seed of mystery, the thorn, the veil, the face of grace, the brazen image, the thief of sleep, the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace. I am the sword, the wound, the stain. Scorned transfigured child of Cain. I rend, I end, I return. Again I am the salt, the bitter laugh. I am the gas in a womb of light, the evening star, the ball of sight that leads that sheds the tears of Christ dying and drying as I rise tonight. Isabella, we are rising.
When I was young this was my favorite holiday of the Christian calendar- well, after Christmas Eve, that is. That was a magical time in my very magical old church; it was about quiet and candlelight and beautiful songs. Easter was about smelling the damp wind as the chapel windows were opened for the first time of the year, and closing my eyes and seeing luminous spacemen (yes, even then) greeting Mary and Mary at the crypt as my classmates struggled at the lectern with their scriptural readings.
Liturgical Protestantism is mostly dead- killed by the crassness, commerciality, and breast-beating of the megachurches - but it had very deep roots in the rhythms of the seasons. It was a modest, reverent thing- totally unsuited for the gluttonous, narcissistic America of the Me Generation and the Yuppie Revolution.
I don't think we can ever go back there- the fields of the Lord have been salted forever by forty divisive, duplicitous years of the redneck Religious Right. But I think something new will rise - something deep, rich and strange - once the moneymen finally pull the plug on the old charade. That process is happening faster than you can imagine. There's a hallelujah for you.
Actually, I'm sure it's been axed already. Too bad, it's one of the few TV shows that doesn't actually physically repel me. Selling a thought-provoking, anti-authoritarian, female-led action/sci-fi show to America is a tall order, but it made for consistently excellent sci-fi.
But what a great cast- the stunning Lena Headey replaces Linda Hamilton's scenery-chewing with stoic resignation, and Thomas Dekker deftly portrays John Connor struggling to achieve a moment of normalcy before the storm. Amazing chemistry between Dekker and Summer Glau as his lovelorn cybernetic bodyguard. Excellent supporting cast with an evil Shirley Manson, an ethical Richard T. Jones, a frightening Garret Dillahunt, a gorgeous but duplicitous Stephanie Jacobsen, and a surprisingly badass Brian Austin Green. Go watch it on Hulu and/or DVD.
The more I see of the NJUFOBS case, the more I'm convinced it stinks like hell. This video has some dimwit from nj.com yukking it up at Aykroyd's expense. Interesting timing, boring media manipulation.
Is your life a bit dull at the moment? Don't complain too much if it is because it won't be long before you have more excitement on your hands than you know what to do with. Soon you will be longing for those boring days when you had nothing to do.
Yeah, I was just thinking that I don't have enough to do already.
Aykroyd, of "Saturday Night Live" and movie fame, signed numerous bottles of Crystal Head vodka, so named for the alcohol's clear, human skull-shaped jug.
Hueber, 49, of Jefferson, was one of roughly 750 people standing in a line that snaked around the liquor store's aisles and outside along the sidewalk by the Dunkin Donuts near the intersection of Routes 10 and 202.
"It was good for drinking straight up on the rocks," said Hueber, who before getting on line went across the street to the Chevy's restaurant to crack open a bottle and drink some of the Canadian-brewed booze.
While Hueber was there to get a bottle signed by Aykroyd -- an admitted fan of the archeological legend of the 13 crystal skulls, referenced in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" -- hundreds of other devotees clutched Aykroyd-themed items from his many movies. - Daily Record
Mindbomb Addenda: False Flags and Blue Beams
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One thing I had failed to realize about The Eternals was that Kirby's
depiction of the Deviant invasion of Manhattan wasn't quite the exercise in
50s nosta...
"NEBET-HET GISH": An X-FILES X-EGESIS
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Here's the piece that started it all. The Secret Sun, Our Gods Wear Spandex,
the upcoming book- none of it would exist without this X-Egesis, which I
did i...
Modern Mythology, Alt-History and Pop-Cult Symbology from the author of the Eagle Award-winning Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes, published by Red Wheel/Weiser and co-author of The Complete X-Files: Behind the Series, the Myths, and the Movies, published by Insight Editions.
The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll is available from Viva Editions now!
