SORRY FOR THE GAP!

I was in hospital with a serious infection for a couple of weeks, but I'm back now and should be back on track by this evening, so January 28th and beyond WILL be up and ready to read for y'all! In the meantime, I guess I'm going to let this gap stand, and rectify it next year!

THE ONE JFK 50TH ANNIVERSARY ARTICLE YOU SHOULD READ

The 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK has resulted in a lot of published words, very few of them worth your time. If you should choose to read only one article from the torrent that is still washing over the info-sphere, I believe you should make it this one. Written by Robert Kennedy Jr., this article stands as a clear-headed and definitive knock-out blow to all the shoddy historical revisionism being peddled in the mainstream press, where we've seen doctrinaire conservatives try everything from belittling the man's legacy and achievements to trying to claim him as one of their own. The article also serves as a big, angry FUCK YOU middle finger right in the face to the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou likes of Noam Chomsky, who attack JFK from the left, claiming there couldn't be a "conspiracy" behind his murder because there was no significant difference between him and Richard Fucking Nixon. Chomsky and his ilk often come across as even more bitter, dismissive and inexplicably hostile than the bloviating jerkwads of the Right... not an easy thing to do! Anyway, read this article and make sure the people in your life who should be reading it are sent a copy of the link, as well. This needs to be read by one and all.

PENTAGRAM SAM - DA GRIMSTON AND MIST-E... OCCULT RAP

He's got Satan on speed-dial, apparently. A few too many Lovecraft references here for anyone out there to take this too seriously. Still, kind of fun.

TORONTO MAYOR ROB FORD ADMITS OF POLICE: "OF COURSE I KNEW THEY WERE ON TO ME!"

The fun starts ten minutes and 35 seconds deep into the morbidly-obese, crack-smoking, pig-eyed mayor of Toronto's "impromptu" interview with Toronto talk radio fixture John "Johnny" Oakley.

R.I.P. PETER WINTONICK, GLOBAL AMBASSADOR FOR DOCUMENTARY FILM

Montreal-based, Ontario-born documentarian Peter Wintonick passed away today at the age of 60. He had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer. Join me in celebrating this great man's life and work by watching his most well known and important film, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media.

SPOOKY EXPERIMENTS THAT "SEE" THE FUTURE

According to this NPR article...

One of the most respected, senior and widely published professors of psychology, Daryl Bem of Cornell, has just published an article that suggests that people — ordinary people — can be altered by experiences they haven't had yet. Time, he suggests, is leaking. The Future has slipped, unannounced, into the Present. And he thinks he can prove it. 

Sadly, the link from the above-quoted article leads to an online dead end. If I find Dr. Bem's study published elsewhere, I will check it out and post my thoughts in this space.

JESUS WAS A CROSS MAKER

My good friend Albert V - of the Future Seeing Visions blog - has just turned me on to the works of Judee Sill, "the shockingly talented occult folk singer that time forgot." Click the link to find out more about her strange, short life, and check out this choice cut, titled Jesus Was a Cross Maker.

THE PSEUDO-SACRIFICIAL "SLUTTING" OF HANNAH MONTANA

By now, you've all probably heard about the controversy surrounding Miley Cyrus' performance of her already controversial single, "We Can't Stop", at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Also controversial was the video for the single, which was expertly dissected by CollegeHumor.com in their excellent music-free version. So I suppose Sunday's VMA performance means that Cyrus has scored a controversy hat-trick, triple play or trifecta, depending on your choice of sports analogies.

For all of you not living in the USA, which means you're currently unable to access the performance due to MTV.com's anal-retentive region blocking policies, here is a Youtube version that at least lets you see what all the fuss is about. I don't know how long it will be up, though, as others have been removed already tonight:

For those of you whose delicate constitutions prevent you from watching an ostensible human being completely and utterly debase herself in a doomed attempt to acquire whatever wispy shreds of "street cred" she can dig her manicured little claws into, Buzzfeed provides a countdown of what they consider to be the "weirdest and craziest moments" from the performance. I think they make some great observations, but they missed a few. 

Hence this expanded Useless Eater Blog post, in which I will attempt to catalog every element from this performance, offering occasional attempts at analysis and interpretation... though I must confess that I mostly found it baffling. 

1. First things first, Cyrus emerges from a giant, mothership-like Teddy Bear that is sporting 70's-style Battlestar Galactica "Cylon" goggles, complete with oscillating monocular eye-beam, not unlike KITT, The Hoff's ride from cheesy 80's TV favorite, Knight Rider.

2. As if emerging from a giant Teddy wasn't enough, Cyrus is also wearing a teddy... WITH THE FACE OF A TEDDY BEAR ON IT! Once again, she hits a hat-trick/triple-play/trifecta. 

3. The face of the Teddy on Cyrus' flimsy teddy has its tongue sticking out, just as Cyrus does while she clumsily makes her way down the steps towards the stage. 

4. For some reason, Cyrus' hair is done up to look like a couple of horns have sprouted from the top of her skull. Oh, and MTV decided to censor the word "molly" from her lyrics, as it appears to be a not so subtle reference to the rave drug MDMA.

5. At one point, Cyrus pretends to stroke her long, waving hair... despite the fact that she's sporting a Pixie cut. She almost appears to be in a hypnotic trance of some sort, like she's going through the motions of some programming that was installed in her psyche at a time when she had enough hair to pull off such a move. It's actually kind of disturbing. My Facebook friend Adam Gorightly wondered if perhaps this performance was the revelation of Hannah Montana's mind-control "alter", and called her performance "Illuminaughty!"

6. Cyrus displays an extremely odd gait as she crosses the stage, her bizarre crotch thrusts and air-humping not unlike the visual equivalent of uncomfortable fuck-grunts.

7. Throughout the performance, Cyrus is constantly “spanking” her vagina for some reason.

8. She is joined on stage by a circle of sad, dopey looking pink and white dancing Teddy Bears.

9. A handful of Black back-up dancers walk clumsily onto the stage with giant Teddy Bears of their own strapped to their backs for some reason. One of these dancers - a giant, frowning Negress who happens to have a spectacular badonk-adonk - begins throwing candies (or is it condoms?) into the audience with barely concealed contempt.

10. Oh my. Now Cyrus has begun wagging her fanny with all the passion and verve of a homeless geriatric splattering the sidewalk just steps from your favorite Chinatown restaurant with hot gutfuls of Lysol-scented vomit. I believe the kids call this abomination "twerking".

11. The "twerking" is alternated with that idiotic "invisible rainbow" move that so many musical acts seem to think is cool these days, even though I believe it originated with the Backstreet Boys.

12. Cyrus' dancing is completely off tempo. She appears to be drunk or, as previously contemplated, hypnotized.

13. What is up with the constant crotch pointing, slapping, spanking, etc, etc, etc?!

14. At one point, Cyrus appears to feign anilingus on the aforementioned candy-throwing Negress with the titanic mega-booty. More spanks and crotch-pointing ensue.

15. Yet more idiotic "twerking" and uninspired dancing.

16. Every once in a while, the Teddy Bear on Cyrus' teddy looks like the notorious Illuminati Eye. It's formed by the bear's black nose and white muzzle, with the tongue creating an eyelid effect. I know, I know...

17. At this point, Robin Thicke shows up wearing a referee costume and they perform a duet, segueing into Thicke's own summer succès de scandale, "Blurred Lines". It's at this point that Cyrus rips off her teddy, stripping down to her underwear and a giant We’re Number One.foam finger hand.

18. Godzilla save us... we are subjected to EVEN MORE "twerking".

19. Cyrus uses the giant foam finger/hand exactly the way you'd expect her to use it if you've been reading along until now.

20. The finger, by the way, has a red tip that’s supposed to be a painted fingernail, but which looks to me more like it’s been smeared with menstrual blood... which, considering Cyrus' state of undress and how many times she slides it over and across her vagina, would not be beyond the realm of possibility.

20. Two rappers show up. I have no idea who they are, but they bring even MORE women with them. This time, however, instead of Teddy Bears, the girls are holding up cheap cardboard cut-outs of status symbols like a Rolex watch, a painting by Picaso, a yacht, a champagne bottle, etc, etc, etc.  

21. The first rapper is dressed in white and black, looking kind of like an up-town Baron Samedi Dimanche, of Voodoo infamy. The other rapper is dressed in a hockey jersey with the number 777 emblazoned across his chest. That number has a great many potential interpretations, mostly dealing with perfection of some sort, which makes its inclusion here completely incomprehensible.

And then the whole thing ends rather flatly and pathetically... a study in anti-climax. The audience seems split between those who are bored out of their minds and those feeling genuine embarrassment and pity for the poor girl. Can anyone possibly hate their parents that much? 

After a few viewings, some questions lingered in my mind. First of all, what was up with all the Teddy Bear imagery? I brought up the issue on Facebook and I'd like to give a shout-out to my fellow psycho-sleuth Drakonas T. who wrote: "I'll TELL you how the Teddy Bears fit into all of this..." and then posted this image:

PEDO-BEAR!!!

Of course! I could hardly believe I hadn't thought of that, myself! So thanks, Drak, for bringing up an incredibly important issue at this point, and in this context. 

Because, who is Miley Cyrus, exactly, if not for Hannah Montana? And when you consider how intensely the Hannah Montana persona/brand was pushed on the "tween" demographic, on an international level and on a historically unprecedented scale, by Disney - which, just to refresh your memories, is one of the most important players in the Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Media-Entertainment Complex - it kind of makes you wonder what that courtship was really all about, does it not? 

I mean, just think about all those millions of young girls who've just spent the last seven years of their lives watching Hannah Montana TV shows and films, doling out literally billions of dollars to listen to Hannah Montana CDs, clothe themselves in the Hannah Montana fashion line, scent themselves with Hannah Montana perfumes, eat Hannah Montana breakfast cereal, sing into Hannah Montana toy microphones and go trick-or-treating in their officially sanctioned Hannah Montana Halloween costumes. 

What is it, exactly, that these kids are supposed to take away from Sunday night's utterly bizarre and depraved debacle?

I ask you, my fellow citizens... WHO, OH WHO WILL THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!

The answer, of course, is the Military-Industrial-Media-Intelligence-Entertainment Complex.

ATTENTION! THERE ARE SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH XEROX OFFICE MACHINES!

If you are in a workplace that depends on the proper functioning of Xerox office equipment, then you had better read this damning report about how using the compression settings, even at the highest resolutions, can lead to the random switching around of numbers, which in turn can have potentially deadly consequences, for instance, in medicine, engineering, the pharmaceutical industry and more.

ADAM CURTIS ON THE GHOSTS IN OUR LIVING ROOM

Around Christmastime 2011, noted British documentarian Adam Curtis - who has brought us such essential viewing as The Power of Nightmares, The Trap, The Century of Self and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - put together an elaborate post over at his BBC blog in which he examined the history of television reporting on supposedly supernatural entities and events. 

Curtis explains... 

Here is ... a brief history of the appearance of ghosts and poltergeists and other spirits on television. Not fictional ghosts - but real ones, or the reports of their appearances, that you find in various news and documentary programmes. But as so often when one looks at material in the archives, it turns out that it tells you less about the subjects of the programmes - the ghosts - than about the strange medium that possesses modern society - television.

As is the norm with Curtis's work, his blog post is meticulously researched, chock full of archival material, generously illustrated, endlessly fascinating and surreptitiously profound. I urge you all to read the whole thing, watch all the embedded videos, and even peruse the articles and research papers to which Curtis links throughout the piece. 

THE ORIGINAL 'MATRIX'?

Based on the 1964 cybernetics-themed sf novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye, the videos below feature both parts of the 16mm film version directed by legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder for German TV, called Welt am Draht. Both parts come with English subtitles.

Here is Part One...

And here is Part Two...

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. 

***

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.

***

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.