Creationism in a cheap tuxedo

I didn't go to see Expelled yet, although I sympatise with host Ben Stein, whose approach plays into the conspiracy theme of the movie: somehow, scientists are scheming to keep the unwary public from learning the truth about the supposed falsity of evolution.

Reviewers hated it, saying it confuses the debate among scientists about the details of evolution – how it works and what descended from what – with a nonexistent dispute about whether evolution occurred. I guess the movie manages to expose the rancor and malice on both ends of this issue. It isn't an argument so much as it's a war, complete with soldiers and battles and funding and propaganda, such as the science community's reply, http://www.expelledexposed.com/ (even more ludicrous!)

The flick was produced by BC millionaire and Bowen Island resident Walt Ruloff, former owner of hi-tech company ITLS. With or without intelligent design, Walt is laughing all the way to the bank. It did pretty good at the box office. Well... not so good, the producers have run into legal trouble over their unlicensed use of the song "Imagine", having failed to seek the permission of the copyright holder, John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono.

Brenda is back

I'm embarrased by the number of people who just can't accept this woman was convicted of a crime. Other than Alyn Richard Waage, the mastermind, most of the men involved in the Tri-West Investment Club scheme received reduced sentences of four to five years in prison after laundering 60-million dollars! (Waage's son cooperated with the Feds in exchange for a lighter sentence)

And now after CBC campaigned to save Brenda's ass... Aren't there more worthy causes for the media to embrace during prime-time newscast? They've paroled her in five days!!! Before you buy her upcoming book and patronize her website (brendamartin.com was purchased last week), check this out. Brenda tells all under name Sandi Smyth:
http://www.thewantednovel.com/edjournal.html

Spiral Island

It looks like an island, it feels like an island but it just happens to be made of spiraling pop bottles.

Eyes forced shut

To claim Stanley Kubrick -- arguably the finest film director ever -- was a major 20th century figure is an understatement. It's nice to know that some conspiracy lovers -- ready to challenge official reality -- question if Kubrick died from natural causes or was assassinated. The last major film to reveal occult secrets like Eyes Wide Shut was Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Soon after its release, Polanski's lover and unborn child were slaughtered by Manson's occult "family," and he was later run out of the States. (Polanski screwing a 13-year-old girl didn't help.)

Conspiracy rumors argue Kubrick's swan song, Eyes Wide Shut, earned Kubrick his death certificate. He warned of things to come way ahead of the curve: Lolita (1962) was a sexual taboo-smasher, 2001 (1968) anticipated Von Daniken's Ancient Astronaut craze, and A Clockwork Orange (1971) predicted the violently grim Brave New World Order police state. Some also allege Kubrick filmed NASA's faked "moon landings" and wrote the "script" for the Apollo 13 disaster/hoax. Eyes Wide Shut, a sexual thriller about the decadent underbelly of the rich and powerful, has a creepiness that chills. The film's highlight is a masked-ball orgy into which Cruise's character sneaks, barely evading punishment when his uninvited entry is discovered. Kubrick warns that anyone who reveals upper-crust secrets can be snuffed. Was he predicting (and warning of) his own farewell?

The secret king

Sinister tales circulate about the occult roots of Nazi Germany, but little documentation has ever been uncovered — until now. The Secret King reveals the true story of Heinrich Himmler’s “Rasputin,” the magus Karl Maria Wiligut, commissioned by Himmler to write private reports on runes and ancient Germanic traditions, and to preside over secret SS ritual ceremonies.

The basis of this book revolves around obscure texts of the little-known and enigmatic figure of Karl Maria Wiligut, a name first encountered back in the early 90s from an interview with co-author Michael Moynihan. He expressed plans to publish Wiligut's writings and in 2001, Dominion press finally released The Secret King.

So, who would want to read about nearly century-old German mystical texts that were not widely distributed even during the historical era in which they were penned? Evidently, thousands of readers, as the authors assert judging from the sales of The Secret King's first edition that sold largely on word-of-mouth alone. Nazi occultism: the majority of books on this nebulous subject trump sensationalism over scholarship. However, the Pagan and non-Christian spiritual currents did exist within the Third Reich, and The Secret King gives a fascinating overview of a number of occultist individuals, many of whom were well-received in Nationalist Socialist circles.

Repent sinner hunt

If you've set foot on the streets of the greater Vancouver area in the last several years, you've almost certainly seen one of these small signs. If you're of an inquisitive mind-set, you may have wondered where they came from. The "repent sinner" phenomenon is fairly well-represented on the 'net. It's all just speculation, though. "A crazy jamaican lady". Who is she? What's her motive? Are now MORE than one repents sinner?

David William Littler started his own inquiry. Let the hunt begin.

http://www.bjorn-comic.com/hunt1.htm

Back to our roots

Australopithecines first walked upright: 3.5+ million years ago.
First appearance of Homo: about 2 million years ago.
First stone tools/weapons: about 2 million years ago.
First handaxes: about 1.6 million years ago.
First appearance of Homo sapiens: about 100,000 years ago.
First hafted weapons: 25-100,000 years ago.
First known migration by boat (Australia): 50,000 years ago.
First colonisation of America: 12,000 years ago (perhaps earlier)
Large mammals extinct: mostly by 10,000 years ago.
First known agriculture: around 10,000 years ago

Only very, very recently we formed our post-industrial revolution culture, it was overnight that we understood ourselves as "modern men." Free Spirit spheres rescue the primeval, primordial and primal in us for around $80 a pop.

Export yourself

Like an endangered species, the Green movement is all the rage; Wal-Mart is marketing it and venture capitalists are investing in it. But it had better be more than that; it had better become the movement to end all movements or we will all be facing what Al Gore calls "an inconvenient truth." Contemporary designers and architects have sought to adapt domestic environments within new parameters. The physical aspects of being human — the need to eat and sleep — will never change, but there are global challenges to the prescriptive notion that a home must have a kitchen, a living room, a dining room.

The work of internationally regarded architect Sean Godsell, the Mobile Dwelling Unit (MDU) utilizes recycled shipping containers to provide temporary emergency or relief housing. MDU is based on the concept that, around the world, there could be colonies of standard container docks where an urban nomad population could arrive and plug in its module houses. The Container Home Kit is a prefab house in which containers can be linked to make a 2 or 3-bedroom house. According to Sean, the short answer to the question of shipping container’s sudden appearance in the spotlight is a straightforward one: Because they are there, and there are so many of them. The abundance of shipping containers is a byproduct of a trade imbalance that means that many more arrive in Canada than leaves.

www.containercity.com

Zero garbage

Almost everything that we recycle is not re-anything, it is downcycled. A plastic bottle cannot become a plastic bottle again; at best it becomes polar fleece, which we eventually throw away. It takes the plastic bottle a little longer to get to the landfill, but it gets there nonetheless. Don't stop recycling your plastic bottles, though. Downcycling is still less bad.