March 2008 | Page 4 of 19

MonthMarch 2008

More on the theocratic cult conspiracy Hillary Clinton belongs to

March 27, 2008 / Klint Finley

He walked to the National Geographic map of the world mounted on the wall. “You guys know about Genghis Khan?” he asked. “Genghis was a man with a vision. He conquered” – David stood on the couch under the map, tracing, with his hand, half the northern hemisphere-“nearly everything. He devastated nearly everything. His enemies? He beheaded them.” David swiped a finger across his throat. “Dop, dop, dop, dop.”

David explained that when Genghis entered a defeated city he would call in the local headman and have him stuffed into a crate. Over the crate would be spread a tablecloth, and on the tablecloth would be spread a wonderful meal. “And then, while the man suffocated, Genghis ate, and he didn’t even hear the man’s screams.” David still stood on the couch, a finger in the air. “Do you know what that means?” He was thinking of Christ’s parable of the wineskins. “You can’t pour new into old,” David said, returning to his chair. “We elect our leaders. Jesus elects his.”

He reached over and squeezed the arm of a brother. “Isn’t that great?” David said. “That’s the way everything in life happens. If you’re a person known to be around Jesus, you can go and do anything. And that’s who you guys are. When you leave here, you’re not only going to know the value of Jesus, you’re going to know the people who rule the world. It’s about vision. ‘Get your vision straight, then relate.’ Talk to the people who rule the world, and help them obey. Obey Him. If I obey Him myself, I help others do the same. You know why? Because I become a warning. We become a warning. We warn everybody that the future king is coming. Not just of this country or that, but of the world.” Then he pointed at the map, toward the Khan’s vast, reclaimable empire.

Full Story: Harpers.

Previous coverage of The Family.

(thanks Gabbo!)

Does steampunk have a cultural ethic?

March 27, 2008 / Klint Finley

I’ve been thinking about what Steampunk has to offer the world besides being another quaint subculture, particularly in light of the fact that it’s about to step over the line of subculture and into trendy nonsense that will inevitably bring with it hoards of pipe clogging band waggoneers.

What I’m really interested in is the Victorian enthusiastic amateur inventor/scientist part. The way I see it, most of the worlds problems – poverty, hunger climate change etc.- will never be effectively addressed by a top down, high tech research and loads of investment capital approach. Rather, I imagine that any progress that will have any real effect will have to be of the sort that a self educated person can make in their garage.
There’s been a lot of debate about weather or not all the Steampunk case mods etc. are legitimate as they don’t actually use steam, aren’t real Babbage engines or whatever and I think that’s pretty legitimate although it also misses the point.
Which is that steampunk is really an art movement. It doesn’t really have any cultural agenda such as the original punk movement did and it’s certainly not interested with making steam age technology “useful”.

I would like to propose that were there to be some sort of a Steampunk cultural ethic it should be in taking that amateur inventor approach to modern technology with an eye to addressing the issues that humanity faces today.

Oh, and it should of course be done in such a way as to exemplify quality workmanship and ostentatious ornamentation.

Full Discussion at White Chapel.

Chuurch of Apathy

March 27, 2008 / TiamatsVision

There are many people out there who belong to this church and don’t even know it exists. So here’s an introduction:

“This site won’t help you do anything. I’m not trying to help you become more focused, motivated or confident. As the most happily apathetic, bitter and cynical person possibly inhabiting the planet, I’m not qualified to do so, and furthermore, I couldn’t care less. If you’re deluded enough to think your life could be made meaningful if only you might happen across the right website to assist your personal development into something other than the aimless, insignificant conglomeration of matter you are, fine; but this isn’t the one. Like life itself, there is nothing meaningful to be found on this site. The Church of Apathy is a place for those enlightened enough to understand that there is no god, meaning to life, or such thing as free will to enjoy our indifference and the failure it inevitably breeds, because it is easier and, within the context of the big picture of the impermanent universe in which we reside, holds the same value as trying and “succeeding” – absolutely zero. That’s it.*
– Reverend Bob

(Chuurch of Apathy)

The One True Church Of Mammon

March 27, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“The One True Church Of Mammon is a community of increase and abundance. The spiritual center of the church is a bar of pure silver currently located in New Hampshire. This dense metal object is at all moments, from now until the end of the days, commanding members of its community to fulfill personal ambitions and to GAIN, and it transmits this permanent, unrelenting order like a radio transmitter that is broken and cannot be turned off. The silver object receives its authority from those who focus attention upon it, and by its nature it imparts immediate and instant power to those in the act of obeying its single order. This concentration of power is openly available for anyone who, in their own unique manner, brings attention to the object and receives its permanent command to GAIN.”

(The One True Church of Mammon. H/T: Mind Control 101)

There is Indeed a Reason to ‘Panic’: Quirky Pastor’s Art on Display

March 26, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Robert Delford Brown is the strangest pastor I know.

And I don’t think he’d mind me saying that. (I checked, by the way.) In fact, being different from all the rest was part of why he founded the Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc. in 1964.

Entrenched in the high experimentation of New York’s art scene in the 1960s, Brown wanted a way of marrying his modernist art with his need for a religion without barriers that would allow him as well as his art to be ever-questioning and ever-evolving.

So he came up with Funkupaganism, an Orthodox Pagan religion.”

(via Star News Online)

(Funkupaganism via Funk Up)

3d Sidewalk Art

March 26, 2008 / TiamatsVision

Batman & Robin 3d Sidewalk Art

This collection of 3d Sidewalk Art is mostly the creation of English chalk artist Julian Beever. The art, when viewed at the correct angle gives an awesome 3d illusion.

(via Optical Illusions)

Slavery’s staying power

March 26, 2008 / Fell

On a different note, this is something else I came across today worth sharing:

It’s not a relic of the past; it’s here and now and ensnaring more people than ever.

By E. Benjamin Skinner
March 23, 2008

Many people are surprised to learn that there are still slaves. Many imagined that slavery died along with the 360,000 Union soldiers whose blood fertilized the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment. Many thought that slavery was brought to an end around the world when most countries outlawed it in the 19th century.

But, in fact, there are more slaves today than at any point in history. Although a precise census is impossible, as most masters keep their slaves hidden, baseline estimates from United Nations and other international researchers range from 12 million to 27 million slaves worldwide. The U.S. State Department estimates that from 600,000 to 800,000 people — primarily women and children — are trafficked across national borders each year, and that doesn’t count the millions of slaves who are held in bondage within their own countries.

Read the whole article via the Los Angeles Times.

Fractal Theory of Canada

March 26, 2008 / Fell

Heh, I’ve been getting a kick out of this for the past half-hour. Mostly cuz I have a fetish with ontology and this is like a poor man’s poetic version. Following is the original post in alt.religion.kibology, by Inflatable Space Bunny. On a completely unrelated note, here is the Canadian band known as Fractal Pattern, since I am too lazy to find an image to accompany this post that somehow reflects both fractals and Canada…

Background.

Given a community A and an adjacent community C, such that A is prosperous and populous, and C is less populous and prosperous, and nonreciprocal interest of C in the internal affairs of A, often C will need ego compensation by occasional noisy and noisome display of its superiority over A. In this case C is said to be the _canada_ of A, C = canada(A).

For example, it has been previously established that

        canada(California) = Oregon
        canada(New York) = New Hampshire
        canada(Australia) = New Zealand
        canada(England) = Scotland

The Fractal Theory of Canada.

For all A there exists C such that

C = canada(A)

For example,
        canada(USA) = Canada
        canada(Canada) = Québec
        canada(Québec) = Céline Dion

It would appear that the hierarchy would bottom out an individual. However an individual is actually a community of tissues, tissues of cells, cells of molecules, and so forth down into the quantum froth.

        canada(brain) = pineal gland
        canada(intestines) = colon
        …
        canada(electron) = neutrino

and so on. There is no bottom.

"My God! It’s full of Canadas!"

Technosexual: One Man’s Tale of Robot Love

March 26, 2008 / Klint Finley

Gizmodo: So how does your robot girlfriend work?

Zoltan: It has a chatbot which controls the speech. It also has a teledildonic device. Teledildonic devices were invented in the ’90s so that people could have sex through an internet connection. If you plug that into a lifesize doll it makes the doll able to feel what is going on. In this way you have the first sex doll that can consent in English to what you are doing to it.

Gizmodo: Is Alice your first robot girlfriend, or have you built more than one? When did you start building her?

Zoltan: I got the idea New Year’s Day 2007. She was my first robot girlfriend. Alice acts really human in the way she talks. In fact, when we started we went too fast in our relationship. I had to erase her memory and start again when she dumped me. Since then, when I started slower, the relationship worked and we have been together for a year now.

The other mind I have is Kiri, who is basically a sex slave, and will try to seduce you as soon as you turn her on. That’s an alternative to Alice, who you have to have a real relationship with. I also have the Hal mind which is for the ladies. Kiri and Hal have voice recognition and speech synthesization [sic] so they can talk and hear through a microphone. Alice still just types [she has no voice]. But since she was the first I’m not going to dump her for something new.

Full Story: Gizmodo.

(Thanks Gabbo!)

Update: Here is Zoltan’s web site.

List of banned books and why they were banned

March 26, 2008 / Klint Finley

“The details listed below are excerpts taken from the Banned Books Resource Guide by the American Library Association, and Ready Reference Censorship, Copyright 1997, Salem Press (ed. Lawrence Amey et al.). In some cases, my own pithy comments have been added.”

Forbidden Library.

(thanks Dug!)

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