Well I’m disappointed in The History Channel. They aired a program this last weekend in their “History’s Mysteries” series on Conspiracy Theories. And it did a good job in presenting a case for the conspiracies, and nothing for discounting them.

Personally, I’m a big fan of conspiracy theories. I love anything dealing with the Illuminati, Knights Templar, New World Order stuff…but don’t believe in it. A good book for people like me is “The Illuminatis Trilogy” by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. It’s a novel (very surreal novel) that incorporates all types and forms of conspiracies and secret organizations in such a way that both honors them and makes them believable and also mocks and tears them down as well as the belief in them.

But this show this weekend, focused on the Knights Templar which supposedly became the Freemasons, The Skull & Bones, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group. The collection of which are interrelated in some way and have been working to bring about a New World Order. Interestingly enough, a term used by the 1st President Bush, who was a member of The Skull and Bones as well as the CFR and the Trilateral Commission.

Anyway, the show interviewed a few people that had some “knowledge” of these groups, but mainly focused on three men. A guy who was an expert and full blown believer in the theories, a guy who was a true disbeliever, and a third who was in the middle.
The problem is, the two guys who believed in the conspiracy theories to a more or less degree were much better speakers than the disbeliever. (The disbeliever having also been a member of the Freemasons, by the way.) While the two believers had many arguments on why these secret societies really are up to no good were presented in very compelling ways, the non-believer pretty much only said one thing of any value: “This interest in conspiracy theories has all the trappings of a scholarly field, but with none of the logic that a legitimate scholarly field should have.” Great comment, but the rest of the show took a much different stance.

The main narration of the show discussed the history of these groups, their public faces, and then what is known about their secret workings, and a lot of speculation of their very secret agendas. The thing is, all the speculation was not countered. It was presented in a pseudo-objective manner with nothing to refute the speculation, so we’re left with a show that in the end seemed to encourage belief in these conspiracies. So much so, even very skeptical me half believes it. And I don’t believe that any group of human beings can keep deep secrets secret, much less work in tandem to bring about a New World Order. After all, this agenda has supposedly been active for more than 200 years, at least. Since all but one signer of the Constitution were members of the Freemasons.

Here’s some interesting tidbits. Things that *I* find compelling FOR the belief in Conspiracies. All the above mentioned organizations do exist in the first place, even if their public agenda is presented as very benign goals. The fact that so many very influential members of world governments, bankers, industrial leaders, and even the media are members of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, were members of the Skull & Bones, and attend the Bilderberg meetings, is certainly odd.

But then, these are groups that are supposed to be think-tanks and commissions geared to having powerful people work together to solve problems shouldn’t be that weird when you look at it objectively. I mean, would these groups really benefit from having Joe and Blow Schmoe as members? Of course all the members are going to be powerful leaders. But I bet all the members of those groups make up less than 15% of the world’s leaders and power players.

The Bilderberg Group really intrigues me, though. It’s a yearly week long meeting of some of the most powerful people in the western world in complete secret. The location always changing, and the whole affair kept in the utmost secret. Again, summits happen, people get together to solve problems, discuss issues…but why in COMPLETE secrecy? The most anyone has ever been able to get from these meetings are visual confirmation of attendees and the location. If it’s completely benign, why does it not only not release or reveal what the meetings are about but also why does the media not try harder to cover it? Since most of the Western worlds media owners are attendees, it makes for some suspicion in that area.

I have a hard time believing in wide conspiracies, because humans just aren’t capable of keeping anything secret for long. And the idea that a small group of people are pulling the strings for other secret societies such as the Freemasons, smacks too much of the belief of God because “the universe HAS to have meaning!” Humans want to believe in great and grand workings behind the things we are powerless to control.

But, then again, what if the Illuminati and the grand conspiracies DO exist. They’re NOT secret now, are they. We’re discussing them, so people HAVE been leaking information….

Some interesting links:
Info on the CFR, Trilateral, Bilderberg
What are the Bilderberg Conferences
Trilateral Commission info and a lot of other links
More Bilderberg info
More Trilateral Commission “info”
The Freemason refutation of a lot of these theories
And some more refutation
Collection of info on conspiracies, some pretty humorous

CNN article on the body-mod ritual of suspension.

Well, I just lost a lot of respect for CNN. Granted, they can’t be “up” and “hip to” every counter and sub-culture out there, but they can tone down the blatant and unfounded sensationalism somewhat.

Basically, a group of people wre found on a beach practicing “suspension.” A ritual in which one suspends themselves on hooks through their flesh. Usually through the back over the shoulders, sometimes from the chest, or from many points along the front or back.

It’s a very personal, spritual, powerful way some people reach a mental “place” outside their body. No, not astral projection, just an altered awarness and mental state. And it’s not a new pastime–very few people practice this extreme form of body modification. I mean, sure, thousands of college kids have gotten their navels and tongues pierced over the last ten years, but it takes a very dedicated, very intensely concious person to agree to and then practice the act/art of suspending themselves from very large hooks. Do you really think this is going to be some craze that sweeps the nation?

Native Americans performed this ritual both as a rite of passage and as a part of vision quests, for centuries. There’s evidence of other primitive cultures around the world performing similar rituals for either developing oneself as a warrior, or for a spiritual ritual.

“New craze.” Sheesh. What bad journalism.

A suspender’s web site (may be disturbing to some)
An About.com explanation of suspension (have your pop-up ad killer on)
Art, an member of Sci-Fi’s “Mad Mad House” performing suspension

“Chronicles of Riddick” is at the cheap movies now. Holymotherofflippingfreakingoodnessheck! I have not walked out of a theater as excited and inspired and as this in years! As completely unimpressed as and nonplussed as I was coming out of “Tomb Raider” is completely opposite to what I feel post-Riddick.
The 1st “The Crow” movie inspired me to see it in the theater about 5 times. (That’s a LOT for me.) I wanna see Riddick at least as many.

“Chronicles Of Riddick” is the sequel to “Pitch Black.” A very solid, good sci-horror. Not tremendous, but very solid and…with a very inspired spark. The cinematography, the attention to details, set “Pitch Black” apart for me. “Riddick” to that inspiration and improved upon it tenfold. You don’t HAVE to see “Pitch Black” before seeing “Riddick,” but I highly recommend it. You get some set up to who Riddick is and important bits of how he and two other characters, “Jack” and the priest, are important to him…which drives a lot of his motivations throughout the movie.

What’s interesting, is “Riddick” is almost right out of the “Fading Suns” game setting. No, I know it’s not really. I mean I’m certain movie writers, directors, producers, etc, don’t have time for silly role-playing-games. But 75% of everything in “Riddick” can be found in “Fading Suns.” Heck, even down to some hair cuts! I’d say if you took “Dune” and “Chronicles of Riddick” and smyooshed them together, you’d get “Fading Suns.” I’m thinking of getting back into that game system big time now. =)

Back to the movie. The writing was on a level above normal sci-fi and three levels above normal action movies. Sure, there’s not a lot of dialogue (but then neither did “The Ice Storm”,) but what there is always was appropriate to the moment and setting. (Except the use of “Jesus” as a curse. You wouldn’t think his name would still be around to be used as a curse word 10,000 or so years in the future, but then, it looks like Islam sort of survived.) There were one-liners, yeah. But they weren’t your normal Swartzenegger one-liners. They were a little better, and definitely more naturally delivered. They always seemed natural and part of the characters and never took me out of the setting to think “Oh geez, how cheesy.” And when a line would come close to the line, there seemed to always be follow-up dialogue that seemed to convey “yeah, that last line was a little cheesy, so now you will pay for that, cheesy line giving character.”

There was a certain amount of Shakespeareaness to the plot as well. (Extremely evident at the end.) It gave the plot a little more depth than your regular sci-action movie. Nice to see!

But again what impressed me were the details. For example, when an armada of ships leave a planet, you can see fine billowing of dust falling down around people down below. Subtle, not pointed up, but there to give a layer of reality. Likewise, space travel reality. We all know real space travel takes a freakin long time. We see characters get ready for some kind of stasis in prep for interstellar travel. It’s never pointed up, there’s no ship computer saying “commencing hibernation preparation,” you’re never told by anything exactly what they’re doing or why, but the savvy viewer will get it. We’re not bonked over the head constantly with “this is what the future is like bonkbonk!” It presents settings, actions, items, everything out there to be observed and not necessarily explained. Which I LOVE. It makes everything a little more believable, realistic, and not pandering. It’s obvious the movie was created by people who love sci-fi for its own sake, and not simply as a setting for money-making action movies.

Go! See the movie! Go go go now!

CNN article explaining SciFi special a hoax

Background (in case you don’t want to read the article nor watch Sci-Fi channel commercials,) in conjunction with M. Night Shaymalan’s new movie “The Villiage”, Sci-Fi Channel produced a documentary that was supposed to be an expose’ on M. Night that gets “too personal” and M. Night refuses to be a part of any more. It’s supposed to be very revealing and a little mysterious.

Here’s the deal, it’s a documentary produced by the SCI-FI Channel, to be aired right before the release of a new spooky movie, made by a director known for spooky “what’s real, what’s not” themes. Is there anyone with an IQ over 90 who actually thought the documentary was totally real?

But, because reasonable people like us understand this, we can still be excited about the air of mystery around it and enjoy the feeling of spookiness about it and participate in the fictional drama.

So it really, really surprises me that CNN would make some big deal about the fact that this fictional documentary was…fictional. Who didn’t “get it”? And why ruin that dramatic feeling by making a big deal about it being a hoax? It’s entertainment for goodness sake, not some “48 Hours” or “Nightline” special.

Here’s something I don’t get: the article mentions a couple of times that people felt they “went over the line.” But they don’t explain HOW. What the heck is “over the line”? Was it over the line for the surprise ending of “The Sixth Sense”? Was Orson Wells’ “War of the Worlds” over the line? Was the Web marketing of “Blair Witch”, which claimed the movie was real, over the line? Every “got” that. The whole premise was fun to consciously “buy into.” Why make a big deal it was faked as if you were personally hurt or damaged by it?

I just don’t get it.

Since upgrading my blog software to MoveableType 3.0, my MT-Blacklist no longer works. So, I’m getting about 500 spam comments a day.
(Well, if I didn’t need the logs to tell me, that MT-Blacklist was doing a heck of a job before I upgraded MT!)
I’ve decided to turn off unregistered commented on the blog until I can find a solution.
I swear to god if I ever met a spammer I would take great pleasure in strangling him with his own intestine.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/13/terror.security.reut/index.html

I actually heard someone from the Bush administration today on NPR, who otherwise had perfect diction, pronounce “terror” as terrah.
What a bunch of lackies and sycophants he has up there with him.

Anyway, really, what good is the alert system when you’re constantly being told “terror is immenent! But we have no information, so go about your normal business.”
The only reason I can see is what I mentioned earlier equating the Bush administration with Nazi Germany: You use the threat of some vague terrorist agenda which is either completely fabricated or overblown, to remove some civil liberties, sieze a little more power in the name of “Security”, and convince the population that you are on the watch and can be trusted to look out for us and protect us.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/12/senate.marriage/index.html
I just love this part:
“…that when it comes to conferring legal status on relationships, that is a matter left to states,” Lynne Cheney told CNN’s “Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer.”
“Of course, what’s happened is we’re in a situation now where the ability of states to do that has been called into some question by the actions of the court in Massachusetts,” she said.

Basically she said: “We’ll let the states decide how they want so long as their decision is what we want it to be.” How else can you define what she said? In the matter of same-sex marriage you have two choices: recognize it or don’t. Massachusetts exercised their right to choose the other option in this matter “left up to the states,” and since it’s counter to the position of the Conservative Republicans it’s “called into question.”

And if I had any respect for Dick Cheney before (which I didn’t) here’s what he said back in 2002: “It’s really no one’s business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard,” he said back then. “I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that’s appropriate. I don’t think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.”
But after he and Bush got elected, he’s now agreeing with Bush to amend the US Constitution to limit the definition of marriage for all US citizens.

Here’s a really funny part of the Constitution that people seem to forget. It’s the 10th Amendment–the last item in the Bill of Rights: “Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Now, I’m not a Constitutional lawyer, but the intent of this amendment seems pretty clear to me. Here’s a bunch of stuff the Federal Government has the right and responsibility to do, but everything else is up to the individual states and the people themselves. It seems to me the Founding Fathers wanted the people to be responsible for themselves, the states to do most of the governing themselves based on what’s best for their citizens, and then finally the Federal Government to handle a handfull of things which is pretty much limited to national military security, trade and commerce. The Conservative Republicans want to insert their own biased and contrived morality unto the entire population regardless of what the people or the states want.

And of course this always gets me: “‘If our laws teach that marriage is the sacred commitment of a man and a woman, the basis of an orderly society and the defining promise of a life, that strengthens the institution of marriage,’ the president said.”

Because marriage is currently oh so “sacred”. With a 50% divorce rate (including most of the members of the current administration,) and spur-of-the-moment Vegas marriage performed by Elvis impersonators.
Guess what. For 90% of the time there has been a “Western Civilization,” it’s been socially and legally and morally acceptable for a man to have more than one wife, including in the Jewish tradition. And until the 20th century, most marriages were a commercial venture or a political venture. You married to gain something financial or political, either for yourself if you’re the husband or the father of the bride you arranged to have married off. marriage has historically very rarely ever been over “sacred love.”

I mean my God, it seems to me that while 90% of straight couples today get married because someone got pregnant, because it’s “what you’re supposed to do,” for financial reasons, because of any number of reasons except true love and commitment, the fact that 90% of gay couples DO get married in this society for no other reason than because of love, THAT’S what’s sacred and MEANS something. I think gay marriage is itself a strengthening of the institution of marriage which has been historically NOT about love.

Amateur Poker League
Dodge-Ball League
I started really getting into poker (Texas Hold’em) a year or so ago. My wife bought me a GREAT professional set of 11 gram laminated clay poker chips for Christmas. I’ve been playing on pokerroom.com for a year, but just started playing it semi-regularly in person with real people at the APL games.
It’s a blast! It’s free; you’re playing to earn points which you can then trade in for stuff ranging from t-shirts to Vegas trips. And from what I’ve experienced, each tournament round has about 60 or so participants.

But something I’ve noticed, most players appear to be big time online players. I watch a LOT of TV poker, the World Series of Poker, the Poker World Tour, Celebrity Poker, and read a lot online about playing poker, so I get a lot of tips about “tells” and how to read opponents. And when I play at these APL games, pretty much NO ONE ever looks up from the table. I tend to watch people and notice behavior and look for clues in the other players, which is really what playing poker is all about. But most players there tend to simply play the cards and against the odds, not against the other person.

Which is a mixed bag. Because on the one hand I get an advantage in that I get more practice and experience reading people and discovering tells, but on the other hand since people aren’t playing against the other players, they aren’t doing a lot of the subconcious body activities a person does when they’re playing against people instead on just the cards. Pretty effective “poker face”.

As for dodge-ball–a frind of mine started a local league. We’ve only practiced once so far, and it’s come to my attention that I’m even more out of shape than I ever thought! But it’s a BLAST! I haven’t played dodgeball since I was a kid, and it was the only part of “gym class” I ever looked forward to. I was never a really big or strong or fast kid. I was pretty average. Not a star player but also not one of the ones often picked on and targeted. So I was always able to enjoy the game without feeling either victimized or under a lot of pressure to perform.

Anyway, we’re supposed to play against a local radio station sometime soon. I guess when they finally agree. But it’s obvious I’m going to have to pick up my “getting in shape” program if I’m going to be able to be an effective player.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/07/12/television.pbs.reut/index.html
I really like the comment regarding how the movie is required to bleep a certain word VP Dick Cheney unapologetically used on the Senate floor.

If the show were on right after Sesame Street or something, OK. But we’re talking about a show intended for adults, on a time slot intended for adults, on a network that’s not supposed to be a tool for commercialism or skewed op/ed manipulation.

On the other hand, it IS a somewhat government funded entity (PBS used to be mostly Federally funded, but nowadays it’s less than 10%,) available on non-cable airwaves. To expect PBS to not have to bleep words that are not allowed on other network programs is a little naive. If you want to be gauranteed complete open allowance of material, put the show on Showtime or HBO. Which is one reason why I think “censorship” is a somewhat misused term. Granted, the FCC is a political tool that’s requiring a word to be removed under moral/political objections which TECHNICALLY falls under the definition of “censorship,” but when you have other venues of presenting the material and it’s only one word being bleeped, crying “censhorship” kind of smacks of knee-jerk liberal extremeism. I’m a Libertarian and while I don’t agree with the government enforcing “morality,” this really isn’t censorship in any real conotative way.