Some developments in Iran and surrounding regions:

The best way to deal with inflation is to print more money – or at least, new money, right? And the best way to fight a fire is with flammable liquids and tanks full of oxygen with leaky valves. Iran is knocking three zeros off its currency. Sounds like a winning strategy to me. What could possibly go wrong?

The Euronews channel is planning on creating broadcasts in Persian and Turkish languages. Persian is spoken in many parts of Iran and Afghanistan and Turkish is spoken in some other nation… I think it might be Duckistan. Now being a European broadcaster it will probably have lots of anti-Semitic content and “death to America” chanting but it is also likely to introduce subversive concepts and ideas; even if only to decry them. Actual information and polluting concepts like liberty and tolerance of opposing views are likely to creep through and continue the process of contaminating the tribal purity of this most pristine region of the planet.

I remember reading that, in the early protests of Iran’s recent and fraudulent election of mid-2009, the protesters wore masks and the pro-government religious militias did not but in the later protests at year’s end the militia members wore masks and the protesters did not. There was a sense that the spirit of confidence had switched sides. Regime thugs were more often being pulled off their motorbikes and the bikes burned. Cops and soldiers were refusing orders to attack protesters (the original revolution in Iran was successful when it became obvious that the army was not going to intervene on behalf of the Shah). As well, the later unrest had moved beyond the students and urban dwellers to the religious conservatives of the Koran-belt. And with Revolution Day approaching, and protests scheduled to resume, things could heat up very quickly.

Given the videos that have circulated on the web of regime supporting thugs running down protesters with trucks (and reversing to try to make certain that the injured were killed) and religious militia members shooting people from their motorbikes, Perhaps some preparation would be in order before the Feb 11th events. Long poles with big knives securely attached could be used to puncture truck tires so that sledge hammers could be used on the windows and the occupants pulled out before they can run over people for protesting the government. What happens to them then is the crowds’ business. And chains could be distributed to throw into the wheels of the Basij motorbikes. It is hard to shoot reformers when you are flying over your handlebars. In short, I recommend taking this event seriously. It might be a long time before reformists get another try. The latest uprisings saw attacks on police stations and Basij headquarters. More of that is needed. Focus on the apparatus of state power. Don’t just burn down police stations. Bust in and take weapons.

I am, of course, doing far less than the jihadis on Facebook and al YouTube do when they call on Muslims to rise up against Western nations. These corporations go to extremes to protect the content of terrorist groups; from ignoring their own terms of use to violating the law of the US – the nation in which the operate. You see, it is illegal to knowingly provide services to people who are designated terrorists and groups designated as terrorist agencies. In theory at least. I don’t advocate purposeful attacks against innocent civilians but instead encourage the people of a totalitarian regime to rise against their owners by any means necessary. This would get me banned from Facebook or YouTube. Calling for Muslims to bomb infidels and encouraging a new Holocaust against the Jews would get me at worst a removal of the content. YouTube has a policy of three banned videos and you’re out. It does not enforce this policy for jihadis. Neither company is anywhere near as fast to act on complaints about content promoting terror as they are in banning material that terrorists might find offensive.

I hope Iranians achieve freedom. I hope YouTube and Facebook find some responsible management. I hope Biden and Obama get high cholesterol  from all that ice cream.

Those phrases in this post’s title are the ones which have been used to promote certain views without forcing the advocate to adopt the smell of bat-shit that such beliefs would otherwise impart. Examples include the 9/11 conspiracy, the theory about how Sarah Palin wore a prego-suit to cover up her daughter’s pregnancy and even the Obama-was-born-outside-the-US theory (less crazy but equally false) I joke about his birth certificate as well but when it comes down to it there are 3 reasons why Obama does not release the long form of his birth certificate: 1) The short form is sufficient 5) not releasing the long form looks just suspicious enough to keep a certain fraction of his critics distracted and looking obsessive when they would otherwise be looking at the actual issues that would embarrass him. It could be one of the few clever things Obama has ever done.

What are some of the questions that are “just being raised” and “put out there” these days? Well, like 9/11 trutherism and Holocaust denial and rehashed anti-Semitic blood libels, just look for a group of people who are suffering and ripe for exploitation for political purposes. Enter the dead, injured and homeless of the Haitian earthquake.

First Cuban state media, then Venezuelan President, Hugo “sulfur-smeller” Chavez, then every jackass on the net has decided that the US has used the HAARP station to induce the earthquake in Haiti both to provide an excuse to take over Haiti and to practice for its use on Iran. The Sichuan quake in China was caused by the same weapon of course (the 12th day of the month – spooky). After all, why would the US respond so quickly with military troops if they were not looking to take over the country (I seem to remember some leftists claiming that Bush was “occupying” New Orleans before they figured out that it was more effective to accuse them of ignoring it after hurricane Katrina – propaganda is a many splendored thing and needs to adapt with changing events). I have seen comment threads on this issue where people who ask how such a weapon would work are chastised as being scientifically illiterate and asked to Google various HAARP conspiracy sites. Apparently the explanation of “electromagnetic” energy and “harmonic resonance” are of sufficient scientific literacy to explain everything and everyone is a douche-bag for not understanding that.

In the same line of (Ha!) reasoning, people are asking why Israel has responded so quickly and with so many resources. Guess what the answer they are coming up with is. No really, guess.

Those juice are stealing organs from Haitians. Unlike the lie about Israel hunting down innocent Palestinians to steal their organs, this one does not even have a real event to twist into a blood libel (the IDF briefly harvested some tissues like skin and corneas from mostly Israeli citizens and a few dead Palestinian terrorists without prior consent – a practice that is actually advocated by some Western nations as a means of supplying organs and tissues; instead of an organ donor card, donation refuseniks would have to carry an organ retention card). It is just assumed that the Juice can not be in Haiti with medical equipment without a lust for human flesh as a motivation.

So here is my question which I am “merely raising” and “putting out there”: Is a large portion of humanity so squirrel-molestingly brain-damaged because of genetics or from environmental pollutants?

The TV and print Democrats are mostly trying to spin this in opposite directions while some are huddling in the corners of newsrooms and studios mumbling something about “game over, man”.

The office holding Democrats are taking it much better on account of being in complete denial.

Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy has clawed his way out of the ground, raised an army of dead senators and is wreaking a terrible undead revenge on the people of Massachusett(e)s.

Obama just took Biden out for some ice cream.

Aghalaghala

You may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging for a while now. My career/education plans have made an unscheduled flight plan deviation into the side of a mountain and I have been trying to get a permanent job while working irregular hours as a retail worker. I had really thought that this time things were going to work out but that’s life. Now I need to find a relatively stable job that will allow me to make student loan payments and keep the wolf from the door until I’m old enough to get geriatric profanity disorder and get locked away.

But since there is some material regarding Haiti that just begs me to address it. So let’s begin.

I am not even going to look for a link on the Pat Robertson story regarding his comments about Haiti’s earthquake being a result of some pact made with the devil at Haiti’s independence. Now, there is a precedent for the Judeo-Christian God holding future generations responsible for the misdeeds of their ancestors – I think seven generations is the norm. But I think that this would be the first time he has applied this standard to gentiles and punished people for the acts of someone they are not even all descended from. Unless Robertson thinks that this “pact” was made by all the Haitians of the time in a big open air festival of devil-pact-making. It’s hard to know exactly what the model of reality that Robertson uses actually looks like; he has a long and distinguished history of making comments so insane that they make you feel like you are tilting your head left and right at the same time.

I have heard of both of these next two related stories earlier from net news searches about Haiti but since Dave in Texas of Ace of Spades HQ fame put links to both of them in one post, saving me from having to look them up again, I will tip my hat in his direction. Speaking of bat-shit crazy, Hugo Chavez accused America of attempting a military take over of Haiti because of all the soldiers they are sending. Okay, Hugo (the smeller of sulfur) Chavez is bound to say something like that. But hey, why let him have all the fun? A French governmental  Minister said essentially the same thing. Only with him it was likely less to do with pure insanity and more to do with sour grapes. Many people in France’s ruling class and academic circles never really got over being a colonial power. They still see all french-speaking nation as being their bitches and don’t like other potential alpha dogs sniffing around them – especially an Anglo alpha dog. This attitude explains why France has made so many disastrous foreign policy mistakes which have caused their former colonies to stagnate or become resentful of France after the dictators they had supported to maintain their political and cultural influence eventually fall. Certain African nations have become so tired of the French machinations that they have removed French as an official language or begun removing it from their education system in favor of English, Arabic or local languages. Haiti speaks french (or their ruling elite does – everyone else speaks a french creole) and the idea that America might get in there giving aid and emergency assistance at a time of crisis is terrifying to certain Frenchmen. So labeling it a military occupation is seen as a great way to limit America’s involvement since the claim will fly well with the UN, and similar evildoers. In the long run it will damage France’s relations with Haiti but that is the foundation of French foreign policy; make friends today even if it makes enemies tomorrow.

If anyone shares my concerns about the Red Cross (helping Nazis, providing assistance to terrorist groups and purposefully giving AIDS and hepatitis to Canadians as a cost saving measure and then insulting us for calling them out on it etc.) but want to help the people of Haiti, you might consider making a donation to Pan American Relief. Val at Babalu Blog endorses them so they are at least not likely to be pro-Castro DNC partisan lobbyists. It is not that a donation to the Red Cross won’t help Haitians or that I am encouraging people not to donate through the Red Cross but for some of us they have burnt too many bridges and there are alternatives.

Well, that’s all for now. I suspect that people will say a lot more stupid things about Haiti and other topics in the near future. I picked a poor time to go slack on the blogging as issues like Fistgate, Climategate and… well, everything Democrats and other leftists say and do, have been providing huge amounts of gripe-worthy material that I have left ungripe-ed. I hope I can get back on the blogging horse now.

Recently I overheard some ironic subject matter that I would like to share:

The Vatican criticized the new movie, Twilight: New Moon. Not for the obvious reasons – that it turns movies about vampires and werewolves into a chick flick genre – but for being a “moral vacuum with a deviant message”. In other news, the Pope, who granted a bishop who covered up for molesting priests a promotion, just replaced a bishop who had been caught at an airport transporting child porn. That would be a good example of a moral vacuum. In pre-Constantine Rome, Christianity would have been the virtual definition of a deviant message. Whether it still is is a matter of opinion. Pope Benny also thought that Lord of the Rings was too long and there was too much salt on the popcorn. If you work at the Vatican and you are picked to be the Pope’s secret Santa, don’t give him coupons for the movies.

A female member of government for the nation of Afghanistan appeared at an anti NATO protest to speak against the ongoing military operation in Afghanistan. As soon as NATO surrenders her nation to the Taliban they will promptly kill her by stoning or lashings for having done a man’s work and for having collaborated with the invaders and their blasphemous democracy and while this may be just what she wants, many people (maybe not a majority) inside Afghanistan and in NATO countries think that losing the country to the thugs who throw acid in the faces of little school girls is not a positive thing. Oh well.

The media love whistle-blowers. They never feel so noble as when they risk jail to protect a source. When a group of Russian hackers helped a whistle-blower publish files showing climate scientists manipulating data about global warming and conspiring to not comply with FOIA requests, the media is largely refusing to report on the revelations until their lawyers can assure then that reporting on info that is publicly available on the Internet via an innocent third-party is all right. Early speculation that the exposed files might have been salted with fake e-males seem unfounded as the climate “scientists” involved have refused to discuss the issue due to their high moral stance against improperly attained information. This is the second major episode of climate science fakery in as many months but it is nice to know that the media are getting around to asking if they are allowed to talk about the issue.

Enough irony for now. Time to kill wookies online.

Update: (It’s not really an update since I have not posted this at the time of this inclusion but I don’t want to reword the draft.) It is not just the incriminating e-mails. Comments in some of the code used to generate those fancy little squiggles illustrating the apocalyptic climate trends – comments about what the code is doing and why – are far more damaging to the alarmist’s case and the field of climatology in general (via Al Fin). There is a lot of data in these files but it looks like whoever wanted to exposed it knew what to take. I suspect there is a lot more to be discovered in these files and even some of the media is starting to clue in/admit what is happening.

It seems that the people of Montevideo got on someone’s bad side. (via BotJunkie)

Here’s a tip: When giant robots come stomping into town accompanied by UFO’s… don’t wait and watch to see if they are friendly. You can always come back later if they prove to be peaceful.

The technologies of 3D-printing/rapid prototyping are pretty cool and they are making progress but as for actually making spare parts and every day objects that you would ordinarily buy through conventional supply chains, retailers are not yet all that nervous. Many of the systems use plastics, ceramics and even cement which are useful for some applications but many spare parts and other components require the strength and heat conductivity of metals. So a system that could create metal objects layer by layer would enable a lot of new manufacturing processes.

Ta-Da!

In addition to using less energy and having far less waste material to recycle than traditional machining of metal, not to mention working without cutting fluid, this system allows things to be made which would be impossible or very complex with current technology. A solid metal part with voids inside them to make them lighter is possible. You could print an object with an internal honeycomb structure for high strength with less material. If you currently want to do that you need to create the outer and inner structures separately and join them together.

 

The article says that two metals may be used either to create an alloy during fabrication or to embed one metal inside another. But I can’t see why future systems should be limited to two metals. It also sounds like glass can be deposited via the same technique but the proposed application of embedding an optical fiber in a metal part sounds to me like the fiber would need to be fabricated separately and laid down as the object is made. The creators are hoping to make a version of the technology that is small enough to have on the International Space Station. Other isolated locations would also benefit from not having to have as many replacement parts on hand. It sounds like quite a spiffy technology.

BotJunkie made me aware several days ago of Petman. Now humanoid robots are nothing new these days and without arms and with tethered cords, this might seem rather primitive. But between the speed and the agility this bot is far ahead of the pack.

The company which makes it, Boston Dynamics, also made Big Dog – the scary-ass cool-beans buzzing robot mule (notice that he looks clumsy but does not wipe out on the ice as I tend to):

They are working on the noisy power source so he will eventually not sound like a swarm of bees with PMS.

 

Here is the most advanced version (at least, the most advanced one that is not classified and carrying a grenade launcher and a machine gun).

(1:09 = LOL)

A commenter asked me recently about a mutual acquaintance of ours who is an agent of the Illuminati – Anglican church branch (retired, though with global domination conspiracies you are never really retired, you just scale back your more nefarious deed doings). He was wondering what this fellow thought about this issue of the Roman Catholic church taking in Anglican priests and parishioners and allowing these defecting congregations to maintain Anglican rites and letting them keep their priest even if he is married with kids as is permitted in the Anglican church. To paraphrase the Illuminati agent in question, he said that while he could see how some Anglicans might be offended at what might be poaching of members and clergy, it didn’t put a bee in his bonnet personally.

 

I suppose that this Anglican churchman realizes that Anglicans have been benefiting from Catholic defections over the issues of homosexuality, women clergy, divorce and the centralization of final authority under one person. Both Catholic priests and laity have come to Anglicanism because, except for their stances on these and some other minor issues, the two faiths are hard to tell apart. Granted, this move by the Pope is aimed at whole congregations and is far more in-your-face than quietly ushering people in one at a time but most people don’t expect a massive wave of apostasy toward the Catholic church. If anything, there is at least as much concern that the Anglican church may become indistinguishable from the United Church of Canada.

 

Personally I think it could be a smart move for the Catholic church and neither good nor bad for the Anglican church. African dioceses of the Anglican communion have been greatly at odds with the Western industrialized side of the faith, and over these very issues of homosexuality and women in the church. Since church policy is set largely by consensus it makes for some frantic Lambeth Conferences. Even those things which get made into Anglican Church policy can often be subject to the desires of individual archbishops as some Anglican churches oppose homosexuality and ban women and gay clergy/marriages. Catholics could stand to gain some churches and since Africa is not very far along on its demographic transition it could well see enough growth to make up for the losses to both churches from secularism in the West. Both churches will benefit from this population boom (until it runs out of steam) but Catholics would gain both from natural increase and from defections. Already both churches are addressing their clergy shortages in the West by importing African born clergy.

 

If this move does result in many congregations switching to Catholicism it will have some interesting effects. Anglicanism will lose people who are more “conservative” on these swing issues of homosexuality and women clergy and thus could become more “liberal”. Meanwhile, liberal Catholics will wonder why it is permissible for former Anglican priests to marry and have kids while lifer Catholic priests can’t. They will either pressure the Papacy for change or switch to the Anglican church. Or just leave.

 

All of this is but a sideshow to the real trends both churches are facing. In the West, while atheism, agnosticism and secularism are growing there is another fast growing group of C&E Christians and even completely unattached Christians. Neither change bodes well for organized religions in the areas. At the same time the spread of Christianity in Asia (and covertly in the Middle East/Muslim regions) along with population expansion in Africa coupled with erosion of traditional indigenous faiths like animism in the region is seeing Christianity – Anglican, Pentecostal, Catholicism and even Mormonism if you consider it a Christian faith – make some impressive though ultimately temporary gains in global market shares.

 

The commenter also mentioned that he didn’t know that religions could, in a sense, merge. It is true that the vast majority of changes in the religious spectrum are divergences into two or more new sects. But mergers are not unprecedented. Anglican and Lutheran churches have agreed to enter into “communion”, meaning that a person in one church can receive communion in the other. Many Anglican churches have a policy that anyone in good standing with their own church can receive Anglican communion (and it’s not like they do a background check as you approach the rail). Religions are like biological species in that we think of these changes as either examples of the whole species changing as a mutation spreads in the population or a diversion of the species into two new ones which eventually change so much that they can not produce fertile offspring when they mate. We rarely think of two species merging into one or creating a hybrid “species” beyond individual hybrid organisms. It was once asserted that the definition of a separate species was that individuals from each group would not create a fertile offspring if they mated, just as donkeys and horses create infertile mules when they mate. You can not get a breeding population of mules. But then it seems obvious that tigers and lions are different species yet their offspring (in zoos) can mate with each other or with either species to produce offspring. So they tweaked  the definition of species to say that they can’t produce “viable” offspring. Outside of a zoo or enclosure setting, offspring of lions and tigers don’t do well. The two species have different hunting strategies and socialization instincts and the mix doesn’t suit them to survive and find a mate. New discoveries further challenge our concept of “species” as viral and bacterial genes merge with multicellular organisms genomes. There is a really, really, REALLY cool species of wasp which transmits a virus to the caterpillar which it injects its eggs into. This virus weakens the victim’s immune system just long enough for its eggs to hatch and eat the caterpillar. It certainly started out as a separate virus of caterpillars which happened to be spread by the wasp but it proved so useful to the wasp that the wasp incorporated the virus’ genes into its own genome so it could produce it as a biological weapon. Species can merge. So can religions.

 

There is actually a greater movement towards merging of religions or “ecumenicalism” as it is called. Like the desire for a one world government, a one-world religion is very tempting to many people. Denominations get together to try to convince each other that they should give up the issues which divide them so that Christianity (and in its more extreme forms, all religions) can become a single, unified, bland consensus. As a secularist I find myself in the uncomfortable situation of agreeing with many conservative Christians in feeling that this is the worst idea ever. It would require all religions to give up the values which conflict with other faiths and create an uber religion that would be far harder to resist than any others as it would have the political backing of vast segments of society. Don’t like worshiping many gods? Well Hindus do so go along or you’re hateful. Don’t believe in prophets or Messiahs? Well shut your blaspheming mouth. Ecumenicalism is almost tailor-made for a totalitarian government. Hmmm. Maybe that’s not a bad idea. As long as I get it implemented first.

I have been in a snarly, pig biting mood lately so I have been kind of weak in the area of blogging productivity. Certainly, seeing that our new God,  (Mmm, mmm, mmm!) Barack Hussein Obama, has won the Norwegian antisemitic and socialistic peace prize for his contribution to theology was a bit of a boost. A tongue-in-cheek movement is afoot to have Obama written in on ballots for the Heisman Trophy. It is blasphemous to mock our new God made flesh but I do approve of him being awarded the Heisman. Somebody needs to get ACORN working on voter registration campaigns ASAP. Where are the Black Panthers when you need them.

What led me to compose this post (or to comp-post as I like to abbreviate it) is this article at Next Big Future about coded programmable magnets. Using patterns of numerous differing magnetic domains they can create magnet pairs that are actually more strongly binding than simple opposite polarity magnets yet their power drops off much faster with distance so they are safer to use and they lose their attraction when you rotate them so you can just twist them apart. A company video is embedded at the article. Metals and programmable magnets with different patterns don’t have the same attraction so a magnet “powerful” enough to lift a shipping container won’t hoist people up by their tool belts or demagnetize everyone’s credit cards. Any number of physical mechanisms could be used to prevent the magnets turning out of alignment until one wants them released – pins, posts, clamps, bits of string and chewing gum… whatever.

Very cool indeed.