Meta-Humor
Topic: by Lenny
As many of you know, a friend and I are writing a novel, a satirical take on all those Left Behind books and the like.

When writing fiction I try not to read any, for the obvious reasons. But sometimes you can't help it. So, yesterday I was rereading the Illuminatus! Trilogy for the first time in ten(plus) years, and came across this passage:

_______________

     "Got your book review read, Eppy?"

     "Have it tomorrow, dear boy. Can't be any faster, honestly!"

     "Tomorrow will do..."

     "It's a dreadfully long monster of a book... and I certainly won't have time to read it, but I'm giving it a thorough skimming. The authors are utterly incompetent -- no sense of style or structure at all. It starts out as a detective story, switches to science-fiction, then goes off into the supernatural, and is full of the most detailed information of dozens of ghastly boring subjects. And the sequence is all out of order in a very pretentious imitation of Faulkner and Joyce. Worst yet, it has the most raunchy sex scenes, thrown in just to make it sell, I'm sure, and the authors -- whom I've never heard of -- have the supreme bad taste to introduce real political figures into this mishmash and pretend to be exposing a real conspiracy. You can be sure I won't waste time reading such rubbish, but I'll have a prefectly devastating review for you by tomorrow at noon."

     "Well, we don't expect you to read every book you review..."

_______________

The book she refers to is, of course, the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Then again, she could very well be referring to the book that I am writing with Josh.

9/11 Intelligence Bill Expands Powers of Patriot Act
Topic: police state
Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:54:28 -0800

Summary: The intelligence reform bill passed by Congress includes little-discussed provisions that would greatly expand the government's policing power and centralizes the intelligence community's surveillance powers which civil liberties advocates say increases the likelihood for government abuses. Amy speaks with Robert Dreyfuss of Mother Jones and Timothy Edgar of the ACLU.

Read More...

Article analyses U.S. blunders in Iraq.
Topic: war in Iraq

Iraq spent another night in total darkness due to a cascading infrastructure failure that shut-down electricity throughout the country. It was another major tactical victory for Iraq's global guerrillas in their campaign to keep the country in perpetual failure. In contrast, the US is focused almost exclusively on what they consider Iraq's most important need: January's elections for self-determination. This asymmetry demonstrates a problem that will continue to dog US efforts in the country.

Read more at Global Guerrillas here.

Blowback from Iraq War is Global
Topic: war in Iraq





And it's growing...


Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:51:49 -0800 Blowback is a term invented by the Central Intelligence Agency to describe the unintended consequences of policies kept secret from the American people. Chalmers Johnson’s excellent book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, helped popularize the term. Originally intended for internal use only, blowback increasingly characterizes global reaction to Bush administration policies in and out of the Middle East.

read more here.

Space Mixer
Now Playing: that "it's better in the matinee" song by Franz Ferdinand
Topic: Physics
I get some ridiculous links when I go to my blog, and I just had to share today's:

Gravity Breakthrough
New understanding of gravity solves today's greatest physics mysteries! TheFinalTheory.com.

The Theory of Everything
Learn about the quest to develop a theory of everything. space-mixing-theory.com.

Quick links to a grade "A" number one jerk.
Now Playing: "Joe Louis" by John Squire (live in Japan).
Topic: by Lenny
In order that you all will know what to avoid, I am offering a quick link to the postings that are original "Lenny" items (not just links) here.

And don't forget to check out our new project here in Pittsburgh, Blastfurnace Internet TV. Let me know what you think (and if it works)!

Convergent evolution
Topic: Evolution

If it walks like a flamingo and looks like a flamingo, it is not necessarily a flamingo - or even a close relative. A controversial genetic study suggests we have completely misunderstood how the majority of birds are related, and that some species that look almost identical are not related at all.

The discovery comes from an analysis of the evolution of the bird gene beta-fibrinogen. It suggests that the Neoaves, a group that includes all modern bird species except waterfowl, landfowl and flightless birds, actually comprises two distinct lineages called the Metaves and Coronaves, and that many birds which look alike are not in the same lineage.

New Scientist article: here.

Death Hyperlink: Internet Suicide Pacts
Topic: Psychology/Psychiatry
Medical Journal Warns of 'Cybersuicide' Trend

Dec. 2, 2004 - The car, parked on a deserted mountain road near Tokyo, had its windows taped shut from the inside. In the car were small charcoal burners -- and the bodies of seven people.

Within a few miles of the scene, another car held two more bodies.

WebMD article: here.

A series of scientific experiments ...the greatest religious discovery of the 20th century.
Topic: Physics and Metaphysics

"A series of scientific experiments in the early 1980s changed forever our understanding of the nature of matter. It is likely that it will also prove to have been the greatest religious discovery of the 20th century.

"Physicists call it entanglement, and it describes the state of two or more particles once they have interacted with one another. From then on, irrespective of time and space, a correlation will always exist between them. What happens to one will affect the other - even if they are now at opposite ends of the universe.

"The word entanglement is really a misnomer. Some scientists use "non-separability" to describe the same condition. And the difference is significant. For if matter emerged from energy in the singularity of the big bang, it would seem to follow that all the particles of which it consists are in that state of correlation. They have not become entangled, but at the fundamental level they have never been - and can never be - separated.

"Although it is now more than 20 years since non-separability was proved experimentally, its significance has yet to enter the public psyche. It seems to be too immense a concept, too remote from our everyday lives - until we view it from the spiritual perspective."


Guardian (UK) article: here.

St. John of the Apocalypse.
Topic: by Lenny


St. John of the Apocalypse.


      Human beings are social creatures. Isolate one from fellow humans, for even a short time, and strange things start to happen. Bio-survival terror kicks in, psychological imprints become suspended. Hallucinations and paranoia occur.


      John is alone - very alone - on a small chunk of lava floating somewhere in the Mediterranean. He has been here before, perhaps not on this very island but in this predicament. Following his muse, his God, he does things no other artist would ever do. These impossible gestures are the refiner's fire, his life an alchemical experiment. As his final hour arrives, he is more determined than ever to be more like God. To this end, the aging preacher has come to this rock, first to search his soul, and then to die.


In The Beginning...


      ...was the word.


      The word is a divine creation existing only among humans and the Gods. It is an abstraction, a painting, a poem, a ritual. One not only writes as a reflection of reality, one writes in order that they might create a reality. The first words were not words at all, magcal cave paintings with which man altered reality.


      The mystical experience (perception of reality) is one of self-transcendence: transpersonal identification, self-forgetfulness, and openness to things not literally provable. Revelation has a subjective quality: What you are experiencing is real because you know it is real.


      Words do not just describe reality, they are reality. Figures, abstractions, characters, letters and numbers endlessly recombine to spell out past, present and future: Thy Will be done.


Poison visions of a beast from the sea.


      Nearing death, John retires to the island to be moved. He writes furiously, stream-of-consciousness, hopped up on Wormwood, looking for something in the words, writing on current events, his hallucinations and his faith, as if it all were real, for it is real in the sense that William Blake, Finnegans Wake, the montage and the cut-up are all real. Real because you know it is real. More real than real.


      He understands inherently what students of the mysteries will codify in years to come: as above, so below. A talisman on the wall of the cave will find success in the hunt.


      His head is spinning. He takes the world around him, the politics, its Gods and Demons, breaks it down to its fundamental components. The mad man views recent history through a symbolic lens. As a rule these symbols must speak of what is to come, for what is to come has already happened.