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SIGIR’s Wiccan Scandal

“I never thought I would have to type these words, but a government fraud scandal is gaining press for the (alleged) involvement of a modern Pagan. Wiccan Ginger Cruz, a deputy of Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction(SIGIR) is being accused of sexual harassment, cooking the books, and threatening co-workers with hexes. Among the charges is that Cruz pressured an employee to come up with bogus numbers proving that SIGIR’s work had saved taxpayers some $10 billion, a figure that was used to justify the agency’s request of $30 million in the Fiscal Year 2007 budget. The true savings were said to be only in the tens of millions at best … Cruz reportedly told employees that she was a Wiccan who could cast spells on people, and said she preferred hiring young “hunks” to work in the office. She is also accused of propositioning junior employees in a crude fashion, once even proposing a threesome.

The question now is how true are these allegations? According to Wonkette, Bowen’s office has been leaking rumors that the investigation is a retaliation for his office rooting out fraud and abuse in Iraq, while Cruz has denied the allegations made against her.”

(via The Wild Hunt)

Spiritual Kitsch, Paranoid Process, and Relativist Nihilism

December 13, 2007 / TiamatsVision

“In it’s healthy form, Postmodern spirituality deconstructs the cultural baggage and prerational superstitions of Magic and Mythic and expands Rational natural-world, sensual spirituality into a deeper valuing ofboth the inner world of the psyche and the universal truths and states of consciousness made available through the still valid perennial
practices at the heart of those traditions.

Instead we have what I call spiritual kitsch – a kind of lowest common denominator combining of angels, aliens, karma, positive thinking, narcissistic fantasies about manifestation and how the universe works, extra-dimensional spirit guides, astrology, psychics and everything happening for some cosmic reason – all supported by an imaginary new
science that is really just a self-referential reflection of the marketing material that keeps this segment of the economy chugging along at ever greater profits.”

(via Zaadz)

No Security, Prosperity, Or Sovereignty For Canada in a NAU

December 12, 2007 / TiamatsVision

“Much of Canada’s sovereignty has already been eroded, but a North American Union would be the final nail in the coffin for an independent nation. It use to be the NDP who championed preserving Canadian sovereignty, but they have become a shadow of their former selves, and it appears as if they have been taken over by the very same interests that they had sworn to fight and protect us from. For what it’s worth, I have challenged the NDP to make this issue the pillar of their election platform. The Canadian Action Party (CAP), a little known party with limited resources, is putting the NDP (a national party) to shame, especially in regards to fighting and exposing the NAU agenda. Even with no current members in the House of Commons, the CAP may serve as a real alternative and play a big role in defeating the NAU and preserving an independent Canada for future generations to come.”

(via Stop Lying)

(via NAU Info)

(see also Canada Admits the NAU Exists)

Disorganised atheism in America

December 12, 2007 / Fell

From the good boys over at the Economist:

What accounts for the failure of atheists to organise and wield influence? One problem is that they are hardly a cohesive group. Another issue is simply branding. ‘Atheist’ has an ugly ring in American ears and it merely defines what people are not. ‘Godless’ is worse, its derogatory attachment to ‘communist’ may never be broken. ‘Humanist’ sounds too hippyish. A few have taken to calling themselves ‘Brights’ for no good reason and to widespread mirth. And ‘secular’ isn’t quite the word either; one can be a Christian secularist.

But another failing of the irreligious movement has been its tendency, frequently, to pick the wrong fights. Keeping the Ten Commandments out of an Alabama courthouse is one thing. But attacking a Christmas nativity scene on public property does more harm than good. Such secular crusades allow Christians-after all, the overwhelming majority of the country-to feel under attack, and even to declare that they are on the defensive in a ‘War on Christmas’. When a liberal federal court in California struck the words ‘under God’ from the pledge of allegiance, religious conservatives rallied. Atheists might be tactically wise to accept the overwhelming majority’s comfort with such ‘ceremonial deism’.

Continued.

Moral Dimensions of Political Tribes

December 9, 2007 / TiamatsVision

These past few days I’ve been trying to get through “Beyond Belief:Enlightenment 2.0″(it’s 3 days worth of talks, so you have to find time for it). I found this study being done by John Haidt, one of the speakers, on the Gene Expression blog. I found some of my results rather surprising, in that it wasn’t what I expected. Thought I’d post it for those interested.

“Watching ‘Beyond Belief 2’ I was interested in Jonathan Haidt’s contention that liberals and conservatives exhibit alternative valences on five different “Moral Foundations.” In short, liberals tend to emphasize “Harm” and “Fairness,” and manifest little interest in the values of “Loyalty,” “Authority” and “Purity.” In contrast, conservatives tended to have a more balanced weighting of values across all five dimensions, as well as deemphasizing the first two components in relation to liberals. My own immediate thought was, “Where do I fit in?” I assumed I would be closer to liberals here because on social issues I tend to align with that camp. So I took the Moral Foundations Questionnaire…”

(via Gene Expression)

(Moral Foundations Questionnaire)

The Hypersonic Soundbeam

December 8, 2007 / TiamatsVision

“After years of reading puff pieces about the coming of the “Hypersonic Soundbeam,” a device designed to send targeted blasts of sound waves that can be heard only be selected recipients in an audio environment, it has apparently made its debut in the public sphere, right here in New York. As part of a billboard marketing campaign for a television show. A&E has placed a billboard (on Prince St. between Mulberry and Mott) that shoots sound waves designed to resonate against your head, giving the passerby a distinct feeling that the advertisement is arising from within their skull. The television show is is about ghosts, so that means this is a witty kind of progressive marketing stunt and not just totally fucking creepy, right?IRI Technologies, one of the many companies vending this device to the industry, highlights the invention’s utility like so: “The Hypersonic Sound Waves travel silently through space, up to 300 feet away, then convert into an instant sound source whatever surface [including your skull! -ed.] they impact. Amazingly, if you aim this magical device at a person, their head will become a speaker, and they will hear your message “inside” their head.”

The patent owner of this little baby is an American Solo Maverick Inventor in the old model – he cooked this idea up and built a prototype without the help of a corporate research team. Woody Norris is, as an interview posted to his website will have you know, “no techno nerd.” And he’s humble about the source of his inspirations, observing that, “I didn’t invent that [medical sonar imaging device]. It happens and I observed it. And so I claimed it. You know what inventing is — I heard this from somebody else — ‘It’s an accident observed.”

(via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog)

(WSJ Article on Woody Norris via Woody Norris’ blog)

Counterculture Green The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism

December 8, 2007 / Klint Finley

According to “Counterculture Green: The Whole Earth Catalog and American Environmentalism,” by Andrew G. Kirk, the mind-blowing photo of our planet was a catalyst for the ecology movement. The Whole Earth Catalog itself became the voice of a new kind of environmental advocacy that, rather than shunning science as nature’s enemy, embraced it as the key that could unlock the door to personal freedom and create a post-scarcity social utopia. Advances like pictures from space, personal computers, geodesic domes and even nuclear power were all part of what became known as the “appropriate technology movement,” for which the Whole Earth Catalog was both a resource and a summary. No tree-hugging Luddite or apocalyptic doomsayer, Brand, Kirk writes, had an optimistic outlook shaped by “a love of good tools, thoughtful technology, scientific inquiry and a Western libertarian skepticism of the government’s ability to take the lead in these areas.” Brand wrote of his own publication, “This is a book of tools for saving the world at the only scale it can be done, one hand at a time.”

Full Story: International Herald Tribune.

(via Trevor’s del.icio.us)

Draconian copyright laws in the States. Consider Canada?

December 6, 2007 / Fell

In the context of all the good advancing copyright law can do for us as we move further into the twenty-first century (see “How creativity is being strangled by the law“), I almost shed a tear for Americans this afternoon because of these two bills being rushed into action:

House vote on illegal images sweeps in Wi-Fi, Web sites

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.

That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user’s account be retained for subsequent police inspection. [cont.]

Download A Song–Lose Your Loan

Page 411 of this 747-page bill is “Section 494(A): CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION” wherein the bill’s meaning takes a serious detour from its title. To prevent college students from illegally accessing copyrighted material, the section says all schools shall (when you see the word “shall” in a law, it’s a requirement, not a suggestion):

1) Have “a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property”
and
2) Have “a plan to explore technology based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”

The craziest thing about this is that noncompliant schools would lose all their federal funding, for all their students. No more Pell Grants. No more federal financial aid. No more student loans. This is not just draconian punishment for students who break the law, this punishes all students at that institution even if they did nothing!

Beyond that, both requirements actually work against the point of the bill itself–implementation would likely raise school fees. [cont.]

I won’t name names, but recently I helped out a friend occultist in California review Canadian cities to expatriate to. I sent him a bunch of info on crime, lifestyle, popular job markets, and some ethnic/religious backgrounds to the cities to help him decide which was more his flavour.

As we move into an era where identity exists more and more online, and who knows as more transhuman technologies become more mainstream over the next decade. Copyright, essentially communications in general, has become the quiet battleground in the American government. Because these Draconian laws benefit not only the corporations down there, but the right-wing zealous nuts who want the world safe for their Sears-inspired Christian regime, might I suggest you, too, look at moving abroad rather than putting up with the weird Fourth Reich that is bubbling and brewing.

For those of you not caring or fighting your government before it swelters and your personal freedoms are abandoned in favour of a “safe, secure Christian state,” please feel free to inquire with any of us Canadian occultists about which cities might be welcome to you. There’s always South America, Asia, or Europe if you’re thinking more exotic, and I have friends that are always flying down to South Africa to work.

For those of you that decide to fight on your native soil, kudos to you. To the rest of you, if you don’t feel it’s your battle, the world is your oyster. America is not the end-all, be-all of the human experience.

Just a friendly word from Fell. And if there is any interest, perhaps I should put together an Guide to Canada for American Counterculture Expats. Aforementioned Californian seemed to appreciate it and is checking out his city of choice this winter. And I know we’re not exactly 100% sovereign from the U.S.’s influence, but things are nowhere near the psycho state that is growing down there. =]

EDIT — A bit of a perception/context update for the SAFE Act, via the good boys at Ars Technica:

Despite hyperbole to the contrary, the SAFE Act that passed the House yesterday won’t force local coffee shops, libraries, and home users to monitor their network connections for child porn.

Christopher Hitchens on religion vs civilization

December 5, 2007 / Fell

I’m on a George Stroumboulopoulos kick this month. Another segment I’ve just come across on YouTube with bestselling author Christopher Hitchens on the CBC’s The Hour. Simply, he says religion ruins everything, in his book God is Not Great.

I love that quote, from some pro-religious woman: “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”

What is alternative culture now?

December 4, 2007 / Klint Finley

what is alternative culture now?

The second installment of my column for Alterati is up:

Does alternative culture still exist? Coilhouse, an excellent web magazine that calls itself ‘A love letter to alternative culture, written in an era where alt culture no longer exists’ obviously doesn’t think so. Neither does Warren Ellis, who wrote on the topic in his Suicide Girls column. I disagree, but we may have to challenge our notions of what alternative culture is.

Full Story: Alterati.

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