THE REAL REASON POPPY BUSH SHAVED HIS HEAD?

George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush – former United States President and Capo di Tutti Capi of the much-feared Bush Crime Family – has been enjoying a lot of good press recently, raking in the accolades for shaving his head along with his huge platoon of Secret Service agents after one of their own had a child fall ill with cancer.

Frankly, he probably deserves all the good press that this gesture has gotten him. I mean, after all, I’m sure all this shaving of heads – and God only knows what else – has absolutely nothing to do with the Bushes’ well-known sexual fetish for bald-headed men.

Furthermore, it would be the very height of effrontery for me to suggest this story may have been floated as a cover for preparations in anticipation of an Eyes Wide Shut-style Reptilian Illuminati orgy ritual to celebrate the House of Windsor’s most recent “Royal Baby” being named “George” in Bush’s Satanic honor.

Because that would just be a completely batshit crazy thing for me to suggest, now, wouldn't it?

SUPERHACKER BARNABY JACK DIES AT 35

According to this Reuters article by Jim Finkle, famed super-hacker Barnaby Jack...

...a celebrated computer hacker who forced bank ATMs to spit out cash and sparked safety improvements in medical devices, died in San Francisco, a week before he was due to make a high-profile presentation at a hacking conference. The New Zealand-born Jack, 35, was found dead on Thursday evening by "a loved one" at an apartment in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood, according to a police spokesman. He would not say what caused Jack's death but said police had ruled out foul play. The San Francisco Medical Examiner's Office said it was conducting an autopsy, although it could be a month before the cause of death is determined.
Jack was one of the world's most prominent "white hat" hackers - those who use their technical skills to find security holes before criminals can exploit them. ... Jack had planned to demonstrate his techniques to hack into pacemakers and implanted defibrillators at the Black Hat hackers convention in Las Vegas next Thursday. He told Reuters last week that he could kill a man from 30 feet away by attacking an implanted heart device.

Much more at the link, but you get the general gist. 

WHO IS BEHIND THE "SEASTEADING" MOVEMENT?

Just over three years ago, Alternet published a very interesting article, authored by Mark Ames, which explored the personalities behind the ongoing attempts to actualize the longstanding science-fiction dream of escaping burdensome taxes, regulations, and moralistic prohibitions - not to mention the teeming, unwashed masses - by heading out to sea on giant, floating, libertarian cities. The best part about this article? Ames doesn't shy away from naming names.

The article begins:

What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in? We finally have the answer, and you're not going to like it: a new fleet of castles that float in the oceans. The super-wealthy are already building their first floating castle, a billion-dollar-plus luxury liner that offers permanent multimillion-dollar housing with the best protection of all: moats made of oceans, keeping the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance.

So click on through to catch a frightening glimpse of the collective fantasy being dreamed into reality by such aquatic would-be John Galts as blood-soaked Bush Crime Family bag-man Frank Carlucci, libertarian icon Milton Friedman's perverted grandson Patri, and bizarre right-wing PayPal founder, Peter Thiel, always keeping in mind that you most definitely are not going to be invited along for the ride.

CONSPIRACY BELIEVERS FOUND TO BE "SANER" THAN SKEPTICS

That is the thrust of a recent Pak Alert Press story, which highlights a number of "recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK" that suggest that, contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, "those labeled conspiracy theorists appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events." The article continues:

The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent. Entitled “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,” the study compared “conspiracist” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist” (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites. The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

Read the rest of this intriguing article at Pak Alert Press...

REJECTING SKEPTICISM AS A WORLDVIEW

Game reviewer Stephen Splatz has written a wonderful extended essay on the topic of skepticism in which he methodically dissects it as an all-encompassing worldview. Titled "Why I Am No Longer a Skeptic", the essay places modern skepticism in its proper context of intellectual history, correctly identifies it as reactionary philosophical positivism, and highlights a number of problems that have lately come to a head, both in the skeptic community in general, and among some of the movement's premiere spokespersons. 

It begins...

This is not a tale of how I found Jesus, of how acupuncture cured my hemorrhoids, or of how my alien abductors revealed the ultimate truth about 9/11. I still have no faith in anything supernatural, mystical, psychical or spiritual. I still regard the scientific method as the best way to model reality, and reason as the best way to uncover truth. I'm no longer a skeptic, but not one of my core beliefs has changed.

What has changed is that I have come to reject skepticism as an identity. Shared identities like skepticism are problematic at the best of times, for numerous reasons, but I can accept them as a means of giving power and a voice to the disenfranchised. And indeed, this is how skeptics like to portray themselves: an embattled minority standing up for science, the lone redoubt of reason in an irrational world, the vanguard against the old order of ignorance and superstition. As a skeptic, I was happy to accept this narrative and believe I was shoring up the barricades.

However, it's a narrative that corresponds poorly with reality. In the modern world, science, technology and reason are central and vital, and this is widely recognised, including at the highest level. On any major political decision, the technocrat speaks louder than the bishop, or anyone else, for that matter. Sure, Bush and Blair were noted god-botherers, but if you seriously think that, say, Gulf War 2 was their decision alone, or that that "God wills it" would have convinced anyone they had to convince, then you're subscribing to a cartoon view of history.  

Good stuff, right? And it only gets better from there.

I strongly urge anyone who regularly peruses this blog to read Splatz's essay in full, and to let it serve as an example of the kind of honest, deep introspection and intellectual honesty that all of us who are doing writing or researching on topics in the parapolitical and paracultural milieu should always be striving for.

THE DARK MIRROR OF MAGICK - A DOCUMENTARY

SATANIST STALKS VANILLA ICE ACROSS THE GLOBE!

And all because of his intriguing birthday! Here, let the once-and-future Robert Van Winkle explain the story for himself. He actually tells quite an intriguing tale...

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 20

On this day in 325, the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church is held in the city of Nicea, located in modern day Turkey. Today, this Council is commonly referred to as the First Council of Nicea. Among the many decisions made during this meeting were the settlement of the issue of the nature of Jesus and his relationship to God, settling the date for Easter, and issuing a decree forbidding dudes from cutting off their own dicks. I shit you not. 

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On this day in 1908, Congress ignores the constitutionally mandated tradition of keeping church and state separate by enacting legislation declaring that the motto "in God we trust" should be included on most legal tender.

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On this day in 1875, the Metre Convention is signed by 17 nations, leading to the establishment of the "International System of Units". Today, the only industrialized country that does not use the metric system as its official system of measurement is the USA, with the UK also lagging in the adoption of some elements.

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On this day in 1980, the people of the French Canadian province of Quebec head to the ballot box to vote on a proposal to begin the work of loosening the bonds of unity with the rest of Canada. The referendum measure receives a 60% NO vote.

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On this day in 1983, the journal Science first publishes researcher Luc Montagnier's theory that the HIV virus causes AIDS. Okay, sure, fine, but what is it, exactly, that caused the HIV virus? That isn't as settled a question as most people would like to think. And anyway, if it turns out that HIV wasn't man-made, that doesn't mean the AIDS epidemic wasn't.

BANNED SNL "9/11 FOREKNOWLEDGE" SKETCH

SNL Skit - Brokers from cfulkerson@tradingacademy.com on Vimeo.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 9

"Read Free or DIE!!!" The first ever tax-supported public library opens its doors in Peterborough, New Hampshire on this day in 1833.

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On this day in 1860, a French fellow by the name of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville makes the oldest known recording of an audible human voice - his own, singing Au Clair de la Lune, very slowly - on a machine of his own devising, which he christened the Phonautograph Machine! You can listen to this brief but creepy echo from the far, distant past here, on the machine's Wikipedia page.

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On this day in 1865, after four years of bloody combat that left 600,000 dead, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. This effectively ends the American Civil War. Today, many revisionists try to argue that the Civil War wasn't about slavery - either the practice at it had evolved in the South, or its expansion into the newly developing Western states. Anybody who tries to argue this point is either pathetically ignorant of history or a bald-faced liar, and anything they have to say about any topic can therefore be dismissed as a-historical balderdash and/or right-wing propaganda.

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On this day in 1992, a U.S. federal court finds former Panamanian dictator and notorious, CIA asset, and Bush Crime Family crony Manuel Noriega guilty of drug and racketeering charges. Sentenced to 30 years in prison, Noriega was ultimately extradited to France in 2010, where he was tried for money laundering, and then back home to Panama in 2011, where he was tried over the murder of a domestic political challenger, and where he remains behind bars to this day.

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On this day in 2003, the world first learns that Patient Zero in the SARS pandemic just happened to fly on seven different planes to six different international locations in the span of six fucking days just two weeks earlier. He flew from Hong Kong to Munich on March 30, then flew to Barcelona where, according to authorities, he began developing symptoms. Undaunted, he hopped another plane to Frankfurt, then switched off and flew to London (same day, different plane). The day after that, he flew to Munich, then headed back to Frankfurt, again on a different plane. Eventually, he made his way back to Hong Kong, where he checked into a hospital and was confirmed to have SARS. Regarding these suspiciously ostentatious travel habits, authorities said: "He travels a lot." In other words: "Move along, nothing to see here."

***

On this day in the year 2003, after the application of a little "Shock and Awe" by the "Coalition of the Willing", the city of Baghdad falls to advancing American forces. In the center of the city, a statue of Saddam Hussein is pulled down in what the mainstream media described as regular, everyday Iraqis turning on symbols of their former leader. In fact, that's still the way Wikipedia portrays those events. In reality, however, even the Pentagon was forced to admit that the whole thing was a stage-managed psychological operation. Oh well, it might have been a Big Lie, but at least it ended the war!

I'm kidding, of course. Because even though Preznit Dubya and all the bought-and-paid-for whores in the right-wing military/industrial/media propaganda complex declared victory, in reality, the war in Iraq had barely just begun. Ten years, six thousand dead Americans, a hundred times that many dead Iraqis and over a TRILLION wasted dollars later, the only undeniable truth about the war in Iraq. is that it was a wasteful, Satanic enterprise built upon a foundation of propaganda, forgery, and lies. There was no valid ethical, moral or legal justification for it, no matter how "easy" the task might have seemed back in the early days of what would ultimately turn out to be a completely Pyrrhic victory.

ARE WE ALL JUST KLEENEX FOR THE ILLUMINATI ELITE?!

I had just begun re-reading Fritz Springmeier's 1995 conspiranoid magnum opus Bloodlines of the Illuminati when I came across a passage that sparked the recollection of an odd event that took place just prior to George W. Bush's theft of the 2000 presidential election. The passage in question is on page 5, in the second paragraph of the first chapter, which focuses on the Astor family.

Of John Jacob Astor, Springmeier writes:

If this man lacked social graces and was so cold, and was so poor during his first years in the U.S., why did he rise to such prominence in Freemasonry? Certainly not because of his social graces. For instance, one time later in life at a meal given for elites, when his hands got dirty at the table he reached over and used the shirt of the man beside him to wipe his hands.

Upon reading the above, I instantly remembered Preznit Dubya's October 19, 2000 appearance on CBS's Late Night with David Letterman, where he notoriously wiped his eyeglasses clean with a sweater worn by one of Letterman's staff during a commercial break. Even though it happened off-air, the cameras were still rolling and Letterman shared this revealing moment with his audience the very next night.

Here's a video of the event:

Meanwhile, as I was looking for the above video on Youtube, I came across yet another unbelievable incident involving Dubya's ongoing efforts at keeping his hands clean, this time involving Bill Clinton and some anonymous Haitian fellow whom the two former Presidents met as they toured the earthquake-devastated nation of Haiti in May of 2010. Frankly, I can hardly believe that I missed this story when it first skittered across the news cycle.

Anyway, here's a video:

So, by using other people as his personal snot-rag, has Dubya been exhibiting a peculiarly Illuminati personality trait? Or is it just that he's something of a germophobic douche-nozzle, as suggested by President Barack Obama in his book Audacity of Hope? Are the two necessarily exclusive? Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, don't ask me; I just write here.

SYNCHRONICITY... IT HAPPENED TO ME!

On Friday, February 15, 2013 - one day after the 1-in-100,000,000 odds simultaneous asteroid fly-by and Russian meteor show - my friend and co-blogger Albert V paid yer old pal Jerky a visit. After helping set up my new computer/scanner/printer, which was generously donated by a former employer, we decided to take a break and listen to FineArtStream.com, which features 24/7 streaming audio of Coast-to-Coast AM, a popular conspiracy and "alternative views" type radio program hosted by Art Bell. The show is something of an obsession with Albert, who listens to it constantly, is always talking about it, and harbors ambitions of one day becoming "the new Art Bell".


Here's the thing about Coast-to-Coast AM... over the span of 20-plus years, Bell often produced up to 7 3-to-4 hour programs each week. This means that - conservatively speaking - there are upwards of 23,000 HOURS worth of programming from which the Fine Art Stream archivists can pick and choose on any given day.  Just keep that in mind.

So there we were, Albert and I, sitting back and enjoying a well-earned break of Il Paesano pizza and talk radio when Bell takes a call from somebody asking if he'd heard anything about an entire town in the American southwest disappearing into thin air.

It was an odd story, but that wasn't what caught my attention. It was the caller's voice.

Albert is an adult student, and he's working towards his Bachelor of Arts here in Toronto. He'd been regaling me with stories about his classmates' youthful exploits when I felt compelled to interrupt him.

"Albert," I said. "Hold on... don't you notice something odd about this caller?"

Albert paused and listened in silence.

"Albert," I continued... "that's YOU!"

And indeed it was. Believe it or not, Dear Reader, the caller on the phone with Art Bell in that decades-old rerun of Coast-to-Coast AM was, unmistakably, none other than my friend and guest, Albert! Albert, who - over many years of obsessive listening and calling in - had succeeded in doing so only a small handful of times; less than a dozen, by his estimate.

So... what are the freakin' odds?! I assume they're slim - though certainly not as slim as those of the previous day's celestial fireworks display. And yet, still, I can't help but wonder what it might possibly mean, this strange coincidence. Was it a sign that Albert could one day achieve his goals, thus donning the mantle of America's premiere late-night conspiracy-and-UFO-obsessed media personality? Frankly, I have no idea. Robert Anton Wilson might have had something worth saying on the topic. Unfortunately, he's dead.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that these things happen. People win lotteries, get hit by lightning - sometimes on multiple occasions. Letters mailed decades ago get delivered. Frogs rain down from the clear, blue sky. And somehow it all evens out in the end. I mean, after all, this isn't the first crazy coincidence I've ever experienced. It isn't even the craziest. That honor goes to the time my old friend Jon P picked up a couple hitchhikers while long-haul trucking across Pennsylvania or someplace, only to soon work out that they were classmates of mine from college! And I went to school hundreds of miles away from home! Now that flipped yer old pal Jerky's wig, right proper!

Now if you'll kindly excuse me, I'm off to buy an armload of scratch-and-win tickets.

AND ON THE DAY THE POPE RESIGNS...

Saint Peter's Basilica is struck by lightning. Within hours of the announcement.

Well played, God... well played.

ALEX JONES IS A FALSE-FLAG OPERATION

Spread the word.

JESUS FISH SPOTTED ON ASTEROID TOUTATIS!

The peanut-shaped near-Earth asteroid known as Toutatis was recently photographed by an unmanned Chinese space station, but I have found an earlier video that shows the asteroid tumbling through space to be far more interesting. Take a look at the screen-shot below and tell me whether or not you see what I see? The video can be watched at the link provided above, or you can watch it, below.

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CONNECTICUT MURDERER AND STAR TREK ALIEN, SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

I'm pretty sure I won't be the only person commenting on the odd appearance of the alleged Newtown, Connecticut grade school massacre gunman Adam Lanza and that that spooky alien from the end credits of Star Trek: The Original Series. But that doesn't mean I'm going to refrain from doing so.

UPDATE! H'WOOD PARTY KIDS PLAY PRETEND BLACK MAGICK!

And the whole thing was caught on camera! Here it is, in all its tacky glory...

Here's a detailed report about the event that goes into all the minutia and even some behind the scenes gossip that might be of interest to any Thelemites and Crowleyans out there reading this.

TORONTO'S CONSPIRACY CULTURE SHOP

Those of you living in or near Toronto who have yet to visit the amazing Conspiracy Culture store need to do so ASAP. It's a beautiful space and Patrick's prices are very competitive with even Amazon's. Also, they has a number of rare books and videos that can't be found elsewhere - including some samizdat-style photocopied books that have long since gone out of print and fetch hundreds on the auction sites. You can watch a video of store co-owner Patrick being interviewed for Space TV, Canada's version of the Sci-Fi Channel.

ACTORS TO PERFORM OCCULT RITUAL AT H'WOOD ART GALLERY

Jeez! First he wanted to adapt Cormac McCarthy's un-adaptable masterpiece novel Blood Meridian for the big screen, now Hollywood wunderkind James Franco wants to bring Crowley back? From the Dangerous Minds blog:

Occult artist / musician / filmmaker Brian Butler will be performing Aleister Crowley’s “Bartzabel Working” tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 4, at the L&M Arts gallery space in Venice Beach, CA. This occult ceremony is part of the gallery’s current “Martian Chronicles” theme exhibit and will employ custom robes made in the original A∴A∴ (Crowley’s magical order) designs and a circle, altar and triangle fabricated in vivid colors. Actor James Franco and Noot Seear from Twilight: New Moon will also participate in the ritual.

To quote my friend, parapolitical blogger Jeff Wells: "I guess Hollywood occult rituals aren't what they used to be."

Read the whole story at Dangerous Minds.

CULT MOVIE PROPHECY OF DOOM COMES TRUE

American International Pictures (AIP) was legendary for churning out an endless stream of product for the nation's movie theater and drive-in screens. They made them fast, and they made them cheap, and most of the time, it was easy to tell. However, hidden among the rock and roll beach romps and teenage werewolves, aliens and cavemen, one occasionally finds the odd shining gem. 1968’s Generation Gap “youthsploitation” satire Wild in the Streets is one such gem.

Wild in the Streets is the story of rock and roll singer Max Frost, whose massive popularity allows him to become both a political force and a messiah of the “youth liberation” movement. After folk singer Phil Ochs turned down the role, producers went with James Dean look-and-sound-alike Christopher Jones.

Max first gets political by backing the Senatorial ambitions of Johnny Fergus, a Kennedy clone, played by Hal Holbrook. Fergus supports lowering the age of suffrage from the then-current 21 to 18.

At a rally for Fergus, Frost electrifies the audience by advocating a voting age of 14 and debuting the rabble-rousing protest song “Fourteen or FIGHT!”

The masses take this message to heart and after some back-and-forth between the political establishment and Max’s band and brain-trust, everyone agrees to the less controversial platform and slogan: “Fifteen and Ready.”

Fergus is swept into office on the youth vote. Max’s gang then use the only member of their entourage old enough to run for office – blissed-out former child star and acid casualty Sally LeRoy – as their puppet in Congress. They succeed in amending the Constitution to allow Max to run for the Presidency, which he does on the Republican ticket. Thanks to a wave of public anger over a police massacre of young demonstrators--a truly chilling cinematic premonition of the Kent State Massacre, which was still two years away at the time--Max gets elected and almost immediately assumes dictatorial powers

Wild in the Streets is a remarkable film on a number of counts, over and above its tremendous commercial success. Though decades of hindsight render its satirical ambitions all too obvious, it was taken as a dead serious Orwellian warning upon its release. This is most likely because Wild in the Streets is, at its core, a deeply conservative film. In fact, upon close inspection, its politics are damn near reactionary.