Author Archive | lifobryan

Bombs & Karma

By on April 19, 2013 in News 0

Picture: Richard Adams (CC)

Picture: Richard Adams (CC)

Ever since the tragedy at the Boston Marathon on Monday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of karma. Several posts have called out the irony (or Orwellian Doublethink) of the US licking its wounds, while it inflicts similar wounds on innocent bystanders worldwide. Clusterbombs, murdered Afghan and Pakistani wedding parties, “collateral damage” to the civilian population in Iraq, to name a few. I am trying to resist the reductionist conditioning of my western brain that wants to distill the vast cultural complexities of “karma” into a dualist cause & effect dynamic. However, there seems to be something darkly significant to the recent trend of our own innocents being killed by our own citizens. Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, possibly Boston, etc. Anyway, this train of thought led me back to an old classic essay on karma from Robert Anton Wilson. Deepleaf Productions hosts a nice collection of RAW audio & text, and here is an excerpt from Cosmic Trigger:

A Lesson in Karma

Robert Anton Wilson
from Cosmic Trigger – The Final Secret of the Illuminati

Lao-Tse says (at least in Leary’s translation) that the Great Tao is most often found with parents who are willing to learn from their children.

… Read the rest

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Creepy Easter Bunny Photos

By on April 3, 2013 in News 0

Early Christianity had a classic “habit” of retro-fitting Pagan seasonal celebrations with quasi-literalist Catholic theology, and this has resulted in some truly surreal mashups of cultural traditions.

For example, ritual symbols of fertility and renewal that were intended to honor the Goddess of Spring (who was known as Eostre, Ostare, or Eastur), originally held immanent seasonal meaning. However, these same symbols were eventually stapled haphazardly into a culture-collage of rabbits, eggs, grass, and an undead savior returning from the grave for your soul.

Add contemporary Capitalist opportunism to the mix, and the result is one of the most disturbing manifestations of Christo-pagan-consumerism: the Shopping Mall Easter Bunny. Enthroned like a springtime Santa in a pastel cardboard holiday-land of cellophane grass littered with jellybean droppings, this crypto-pookah has been terrifying generations of children for years.

Some of the other seasonal holy-day mashups retained at least some coolness (halloween costumes & Christmas gifts).… Read the rest

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Petition the White House to Build a Death Star

By on December 17, 2012 in News 7

According to the Washington Post, the official petition to secure resources and funding for a Death Star has passed the 25,000-signature threshold, which means that according to stated White House policy, it will require an official response.

The petition can be found on the White House’s “We the People: Your Voice in Government” website, and claims “By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense.”

The Obama administration has yet to issue a statement as to whether or not the project will be seriously considered. However, it is widely expected that both economic and reality factors could prove prohibitive. A different administration, such as that of Jar-Jar W. Bush and Darth Cheney, might have viewed the proposal more favorably. A Death Star project would undoubtably garner wide support in a Republican congress, and both Haliburton and Koch Industries are expected to submit construction bids.… Read the rest

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Gays Get The Blame for Hurricane Isaac

By on September 2, 2012 in News 34

According to this article in THE ADVOCATE, the American Family Association considers Hurricane Isaac to be yet another punishment from God aimed at homosexuals. In the article, Pastor John McTernan provides some fascinating numerological & etymological support for theory, noting that the name “Isaac” means “laughter” and it’s been 7 years since Katrina:

Defend & Proclaim the Faith’s Pastor John McTernan wrote Monday that the hurricane’s landfall and the scheduling of Southern Decadence is no coincidence. “Isaac, of course, is a biblical name meaning laughter,” he wrote. “The fact the events are seven years apart is very significant as this number is biblically important. It is the number of completion: God created the universe in seven days. The church, city and nation have not repented and the homosexual agenda is far worse than it was in 2005.”

Previous to Hurricane Isaac, others have shared the same sentiment. The Reverend Grant Storms, a veteran antigay activist who has railed against Southern Decadence, was recently convicted of indecent exposure for masturbating in public.

… Read the rest

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Eleven Scary Evil Monsters from World Religions

By on August 17, 2012 in News 11

Picture: J.A.S. Collin de Plancy (PD)

Via Mental Floss:

Terrifying monsters have lumbered, lurched, stalked and devoured their way through many world religions for untold millennia.

They were sometimes devised to frighten for purposes of cultural control – or as mythologic personifications of harsh, inexplicable forces. In the case of the Book of Revelation, monsters often symbolized the oppressive political tactics of the Roman empire.

Today’s religious monsters might well include: a ghoulish pedophile Priest with scaly-gropy fingers; or a polyester-swaddled fire-breathing Baptist Preacher; or maybe a grinning Televangelist that spews fundamentalist bile from its jack-o-lantern head; or a shape-shifting Republican p

olitician that can somehow take the form of & draw hateful power from every pitchfork wielding mob it encounters, no matter the religion.

Now if only Sam & Dean from “Supernatural” would hunt THEM!… Read the rest

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Game of Thrones Author Rips Republicans for Voter Suppression

By on August 17, 2012 in News 8

Picture: "Yerpo" (CC)

Via The Raw Story:

From the author of a fictional world where seasons can last for years, a critique of tactics employed in our present world … where an election season can last for decades:

“I would be remiss if I do not at least make passing mention of how depressed, disgusted, and, yes, angry I’ve become as I watch the ongoing attempts at voter suppression in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, and other states where Republicans and their Teabagger allies control key seats of power,” George R.R. Martin wrote on his blog on Saturday.

“It is one thing to attempt to win elections,” he continued. “But trying to do so by denying the most basic and important right of any American citizen to hundreds and thousands of people, on entirely spurious grounds… that goes beyond reprehensible. That is despicable.”

Martin was referring to Republican efforts to pass laws that require a photo ID for voting, efforts that research shows suppresses the votes of poor, elderly, young and minority voters despite the fact that few cases of voter fraud have been documented.

… Read the rest

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Vandals Desecrate Masonic Monument with Pink Paint

By on August 16, 2012 in News 13

PIC: Image derived from original photograph by 'Autopilot' (CC)

The Daily Grail reports that:

The House of the Temple, a Masonic landmark in Washington D.C. that featured in a recent Dan Brown novel, was vandalized over the weekend, with pink paint thrown over one of the sphinxes that ‘guard’ the front entrance of the building. Photographer Luis Gomez took the shot and posted it on his “One Photograph a Day” blog on Monday.

The big question about this is why PINK paint? Was it an activist statement suggesting that Freemasons are anti-gay? Or perhaps, the vandal was suggesting Freemasons are “pinkos” (as in communist sympathizers)?

Or perhaps, in true Dan Brown fashion, a disgruntled, gay, anti-communist, Freemason (who also happened to be a student of classical literature), knew that the Latin word for pink is “roseus” …. and therefore used pink paint as a cryptic signal that Freemasons are actually Rosecrucians.… Read the rest

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Mysterious Silhouette on Mars

By on August 15, 2012 in News 17

Picture: NASA (PD)

Via Yahoo:

A mysterious blotch that appeared along the horizon in a photo from the surface of Mars stirred speculation about what it might be, as two hours later it was gone.

One image from the Curiosity rover as it landed on the fourth planet from the sun showed a “faint but distinctive” image on the horizon, the Los Angeles Times reported. However, a subsequent batch of images sent from the unmanned rover two hours later showed no trace of the blotch.

One theory put forth by space enthusiasts in the L.A. Times story is that Curiosity had somehow snapped a photo of part of the spacecraft that escorted the rover through the Martian atmosphere crash-landing a distance away.

Opinions welcome. A few to get us started, based solely on the contour & shape of the smudgy silhouette:

  1. Bigfoot
  2. Martian Nephilim
  3. Mr. Clean
  4. Jawa Sandcrawler

Read more at Yahoo.… Read the rest

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Two Crashes and Bitchin’ Technology at Roswell

By on August 15, 2012 in News 1

Picture: Roswell Daily Record (PD)

According to this story in the Huffington Post, there were actually two UFOs shot down near Roswell NM in 1947.

Curiously, the technology used to fly the UFOs (as described in the article) was contemporary with the technology used to shoot them down.

It would certainly be specular if the craft were extraterrestrial in origin. And it would be just as spectacular if the US Air Force employed 1980s-era weapons to disrupt 1980s-era flight technology in the 1940s.

Read more at the Huffington Post.… Read the rest

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