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1.) An out of control trolley is barreling down the track. If not stopped it will strike and kill King Friday, Lady Elaine, X the Owl, and Daniel Tiger Sr., who are make-believe, however you can pull a switch  that will send it onto a different track where it will bruise the arm of Mr.McFeely, who is real and is leaning on the track. Should you pull the switch?

2.) An out of control trolley is barreling down the track. There is nobody on the track. However, you can pull a switch that will send it onto a different track where Donald Trump and Mike Pence, are standing. Should you pull the switch? What if there was also a homeless person on the track with Trump and Pence? What if there were two homeless people? How many homeless people would have to be added before it became morally wrong to pull the switch?

I cane across an excerpt from a poem recently and I'm trying to figure out where it's from originally.

In the talk page for the wikipedia article on the mythological land Cockaigne one of the posters mentioned a modern poem on the subject in which the name of the land is rendered as "Cocaine" (by analogy with the similarly named drug) and which after describing the wonders of the land ends by describing the following hazing ritual required to enter:

Seven summers you must sit
    In a pile of piggy shit
    That reaches slightly past your chin
    And after that, we'll let you in!
    I hope you'll do this holy penance
    Sweet Cocaine could use more tenants

The person who posted it couldn't identify the source. They said they thought it might have been by Shel Silverstein but that they weren't sure and that a Google search turned up nothing. I've double checked, and A Google search for it, depending on how it's parsed, indeed turns up either literally nothing or else a bunch of pages that have some of the search words but are missing most of them, and a DuckDuckGo search turns up only the original Wikipedia talk page, and, strangely, a bunch of unrelated Homestuck, Inuyasha, and My Little Pony fanfictions (none of which seem to be the source of the poem)

I thought I'd ask here if any of you know where its from since the excerpt has a slightly Discordianish ring to it

The European Union is voting soon on a number of measures that could seriously disrupt any web traffic going to, from, or through Europe. These measures were shot down before but they've been dredged back up. If you live in Europe please contact your member of the European Parliament to oppose them:


'Under Article 11 -- the "link tax" -- online services are banned from allowing links to news services on their platforms unless they get a license to make links to the news; the rule does not define "news service" or "link," leaving 28 member states to make up their own definitions and leaving it to everyone else to comply with 28 different rules.

Under Article 13 -- the "censorship machines" -- anyone who allows users to communicate in public by posting audio, video, stills, code, or anything that might be copyrighted -- must send those posts to a copyright enforcement algorithm. The algorithm will compare it to all the known copyrighted works (anyone can add anything to the algorithm's database) and censor it if it seems to be a match.'

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/why-whole-world-should-be-arms-about-eus-looming-internet-catastrophe

The European Union is voting soon on a number of measures that could seriously disrupt any web traffic going to, from, or through Europe. These measures were shot down before but they've been dredged back up. If you live in Europe please contact your member of the European Parliament to oppose them:


Under Article 11 -- the "link tax" -- online services are banned from allowing links to news services on their platforms unless they get a license to make links to the news; the rule does not define "news service" or "link," leaving 28 member states to make up their own definitions and leaving it to everyone else to comply with 28 different rules.

Under Article 13 -- the "censorship machines" -- anyone who allows users to communicate in public by posting audio, video, stills, code, or anything that might be copyrighted -- must send those posts to a copyright enforcement algorithm. The algorithm will compare it to all the known copyrighted works (anyone can add anything to the algorithm's database) and censor it if it seems to be a match.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/why-whole-world-should-be-arms-about-eus-looming-internet-catastrophe

It seems that in a few days the European Union is going to vote on a copyright enforcement and web censorship bill similar to the invasive SOPA and PIPA bills that nearly passed in the US a few years back. It's been roundly denounced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation, UN free speech expert David Kaye, and dozens of technology experts. If you live in Europe and like being able to use the internet you might want to contact your member of Parliament and/or sign a petition sometime before the 20th of June, which is when the vote is.

It's really a shame; the EU was the last power bloc that I still sort of respected

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/internet-luminaries-ring-alarm-eu-copyright-filtering-proposal

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/15/contact-your-mep-3.html?utm_source=moreatbb&utm_medium=nextpost&utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/12/contact-your-mep.html

https://saveyourinternet.eu/

https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-stop-the-censorship-machinery-save-the-internet

Apparently the European Union is considering a web censorship agreement similar to SOPA and PIPA. That sucks.


https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/internet-luminaries-ring-alarm-eu-copyright-filtering-proposal
https://saveyourinternet.eu/

There are five woes that are innate to the world: Ignorance, Death, Poverty, Disease, and Starvation

To combat these woes, the demon Giving-A-Fuck was conjured. And Giving-A-Fuck did batyle against them and did weaken them, yet only at a terrible price. For with it, Giving-A-Fuck brought into the world every woe other than the primordial five: War, hatred, racism, sexism, lies, toadying, slavery, oppression, mammon, obesity, delusion, fear, panic, grief, imprisonment, execution, vanity, judgementalness, attachment, and too many others to name, and at times it even turned and bolstered the primordial five, bolstering their common forms and creating new ones as well, such as false knowledge where there was once just ignorance.

Be wary of passions and attachments, and make sure you aren't giving too much of a fuck

[The Right is about:]

While on another forum I frequent I came across a topic from a poster who was confused about what constituted the "left" and the " right politically, as he had seen contradictory explanations. Inspired by that I came up with a handy chart and posted it as a response. I'd like to repost it here too:

The Right is about:

*regressive abrahamic superstition
*pathological obsession with money and power
*being a shill for polluters and robber barons
*difficulty getting a job due to lack of skills that can't be done better and cheaper by a machine
*white supremicism
*proudly ignorant backwoods hicks
*a bizarrely narrow view of what kind of relationships are acceptable
*bullshit degrees in divinity
*fear and hatred of science
*the racist, sectarian, nationalistic, cultural chauvinist, sexist, homophobic, militant, and world dominating aspects of Naziism

The Left is about:

*fatuous new-age superstition
*insufferably saccharine and/or emo obsession with feelings and identity
*being a pipe-dreaming hippie
*difficulty getting a job due to lack of skills that are useful
*refusal to integrate/assimilate
*pseudointellectuals
*a bizarrely narrow view of what constitutes consent
*bullshit degrees in the humanities
*fear and hatred of technology
*the eugenic, and scientifically unethical aspects of Naziism

There appears to be something wrong with the website, it keeps throwing "untrusted connection" warnings on all of my web browsers and loadig without page styles

Trump's president, North Korea's testing ICBMs, and Arnold Palmer died recently. What are the odds on the end of the world this year?

Can anybody recommend a good free DVD ripper program for me that can strip off region codes and stuff? I tried running a web search but can't seem to find a free one, just shitty trialware.

A lot has been made by philosophers of how we can never truly experience the world directly, that we can only experience the input of our senses as interpreted by the mind. The implication is that we would understand the world better if it could somehow be directly perceived. This is not necessarily the case however, as I recently realized that there is one thing that we do experience directly, to wit, the biological processes of the brain. And we don't know shit about them. It's only since we've developed means of examining them from the outside in that we've gained what little understanding we have of what they do and how they work.

About a month ago I ran into a rather bizarre and disturbing website run by crackpot philosopher named David Pearce, in which the author - apparently seriously - advocates a number of insane, dystopian ideas, the strangest of which is Using a combination of genetic engineering and non-lethal biological weapons to force all of the world's predatory animals to become vegetarian. If that idea sounds familiar to you, it's because it was literally the punchline of a gag on Futurama

http://www.abolitionist.com/reprogramming/index.html

Thought you might get a kick out of that.

Hail NHGH

What would I have to do to completely remove android from a tablet and install Fedora or Slackware in it's place (or really any version of Linux that isn't the two bad versions: Android and Ubuntu Mobile)?

A few days ago I had an insight, and the insight was this: "Radio broadcasts of sporting events are the ultimate form of absurdist storytelling"

There is a conflict in the story that the announcer tells, but it is a wholly meaningless and largely abstract conflict. It generally concerns movement or posession some kind of macguffin such as a ball or shuttlecock that has no other purpose than to be the macguffin of this conflict. And if the game happens to be soccer (or some other low scoring game that can end in ties), it often ends without the conflict being resolved.  People are injured or risk injury in pursuit of abstraxt points that disappear at the end of the game. In the cheers of the crowd is literally sound and fury signifying nothing.

What do you think of this interpretation?

I just remembered a really weird type of sandwich that they used to sell at a food truck at college. I forget the name (of the sandwich. The truck was called Pyramid Pizza) and I've never tried to put one together myself but it seems rather elementary...

You'll need:

2 hotdogs
a hoagie/hero/grinder/sub roll
french fries
Ketchup
Cheese whiz
Honey mustard

Directions:
1.) Heat up hotdogs and fries
2.) Lay hotdogs end to end in hoagie/sub/grinder roll
3.) add ketchup, mustard, and cheese-whiz
4.) jam fries into roll above hotdogs
5.) garnish with more ketchup, mustard, and spray cheese

This was one of the less weird sandwiches that they sold.

I've been trying to figure out how "Eris" is spelled in greek. But unfortunately wikipedia doesn't say and google translate keeps changing its mind as to the greek spelling. The most legitimate looking rendering it's given me is "Έρις" but I don't know if that's right, do any of you?

Have you ever heard of the magazine The Annals of Improbable Research?

They're a periodical about scientific discoveries that, while legitimate, is nonetheless bizarre, frivolous, weirdly specific, and/or in some way offensive.

They also give out yearly awards for such research (there's some really interesting ones among the winners for 2011)

Does anybody know of any games that use a battle-grid made up of shapes other then triangles, squares, or hexagons? I know that those are the only regular polygons that will tile the euclidean plane, but surely some videogame designer somewhere must have realized by now that the play area could just as easily be a hyperbolic plane and tileable with just any type of polygon they want.

Does anybody know of any games like this?

The Obama administration has flip-flopped and is now trying to revive one of the most heinous provisions of SOPA. Please sign a petition telling them that that won't fly:

http://act.demandprogress.org/act/streaming/%3Freferring_akid%3Da9109269.1991293.kqBvlw%26source%3Dauto-e

Ok, so what do you guys think of the idea of a three day festival, on February 13-15, called "Whirlwind Day" commemorating the Allied area-bombing of Dresden and celebrating the idea that tyranny should be answered with cruel vindictiveness toward not only the offending regime but also towards everything that it values. It also would serve the secondary function of acting as an antidote to the sickening sweetness of Valentine's Day, which it overlaps with.

How would you rate this idea?
-In Mildly Bad Taste
-In Bad Taste
-In Extremely Bad Taste
-In Shockingly Bad taste
or
-Not in Bad Taste

Stories of Santa Claus, along with similar mythic figures such as the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, have an enormous positive influence to bestow upon our society; or, rather, the rite of passage of finding out that they don't exist does. Many important life lessons are thereby bestowed when things work out in a positive manner: "Don't trust authority figures", "Don't trust the media", "Don't believe claims of magic or miracles or the supernatural", "if something seems too good to be true it probably is",and so on

Like a cowpox infection that inoculates one against future infections with smallpox, handled properly (or fortuitously) belief in Santa Claus and the subsequent dissolution of this belef can inoculate one against future belief in the the supernatural, future belief in authority figures' explanations andexcuses future belief in messages saturated in the media, et cetera. 

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are especially important because their association with Christmas and Easter provide a mental bridge to doubt of the similarly fantastic stories promulgated by the church

I have a parable for you all about the nature of discord

Imagine, if you will, an agency in the far future which rents out starships for interstellar travel; The starships cannot traverse the stars instantaneously through the power of lazy writing as seen in so many science fiction movies, but they can move at over 99.9% of the speed of light.

It so happened (happens will happen? could be happening????) that this agency charges its fees based on the distance traveled and the amount of time elapsed before the ship is returned to them. Imagine now that a customer came and rented one of these ships, took it to another star at its top spped, and then brought it back. Verily I say unto you, if that customer and the rental agency can both agree upon a price to be paid when the ship is returned then at least one of them is a chump!

Through a combination of relativistic and economic effects Each party will observe a correct value for time elapsed and distance traveled which benefits their own interests and each would be both self-destructive and (perhaps more importantly) insincere if they were to accept a price based on the other party's less beneficial correct value.

They must disagree not because one is right and the other wrong, but because they are both right yet still in contradiction.

So with the US presidential election coming up and a lot of Christian religious groups urging their members to support Romney because he's Pro-Life and a homophobe it occurred to me that they shouldn't be the only ones who get to abuse out-of-context bible quotes for political gain. That's unfair!

So what I want to do is - by this coming Sunday (the last one before the election) - put together a bunch of anti-Romney pamphlets based on the multitude of Bible verses bashing the rich, and then go around to nearby churches and stick them on people's windshields while they're at mass (and get people in other areas to do the same). The problem is that I don't have many ideas for specific designs and concepts and the main idea that I do have is derailed by my inability to draw or to edit photos, so I need your ideas and I need your help.

My main idea is to take this bible verse:

"19 Jesus said, "There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day: 20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 And longed to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 23 And in hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeing Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they who would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from there."" Luke 16:19-26

and illustrate it depicting Mitt Romney as the rich man. But I'm shit at drawing. Can somebody draw this for me?


We could also probably do something with any of the following passages:

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."  Matthew 6:24 (alternate translation)

"No man can be the bondservant of two masters; for either he will dislike one and like the other, or he will attach himself to one and think slightingly of the other. You cannot be the bondservants both of God and of gold."  Matthew 6:24 (alternate translation)

"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." Proverbs 21:13

"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Matthew 19:24

"Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Mark 10:21

"7 I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: 8 I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. 9 So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. 11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Ecclesiastes 2:7-11

"Your gold and silver have become worthless. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment." James 5:3

"A servant cannot serve two masters. He will hate the first master and love the second, or he will be devoted to the first and despise the second. You cannot serve God and wealth." Luke 16:13

"But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?" James 2:6

"He said to them, "Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man's life doesn't consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses."" Luke 12:15

"Judas said, "What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?" And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray Jesus." Matthew 26:15-16

"19 Jesus said, "There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day: 20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who was laid at his gate, full of sores, 21 And longed to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 23 And in hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeing Abraham far off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. 25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they who would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from there."" Luke 16:19-26

"But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction." 1 Timothy 6:9

"Come now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you." James 5:1

Any ideas?

Beware the Leviathan

1.) Human evolution is still occurring, faster even than before now that it has the assistance of the dark sciences, and it's headed somewhere that I absolutely do not want to be.

2.) If society continues on the path that it seems to be following, I fear that we must eventually end up in a very dark place, one that will make Big Brother look like a champion of indivduaity and freedom, Friend Computer look like something that was programmed by Anonymous, and the slavery of previous eras look like uncontrolled anarchy; at least slaves had their own thoughts and personalities even if they had no property, and at least they had the choice to be cruelly punished rather than obey even if they had no real freedom.

3.)The future that I see consists of nothing less thn the utter negation of the individual, and the transformation of the human condition first into that of a worthless ant, and finally into that of a single, utterly contemptible, and imperceptible cell in the body of a vast and grotesque Leviathan, and were there any at this point who could still think, they would mourn for the days when it was just a conspiracy, rather than a living god.

4.) We cannot prevent the arrival of the Leviathan, he is already here, HE and THEY have always been with us since man first developed language.

5.) They are not as evil now as they were in the past, as their malevolence wanes, their power grows and they negate the individual without malice or emotion and destroy without passion. They become like the Elder Gods,whose very presence is toxic.

6.) Every organization, every nation, every movement, every faith, every corporation that thinks that it is a person, These are the leviathans

7.) and Like the innumerable avatars of Brahman, the individual leviathans collectively make up THE LEVIATHAN.

8.) The Right gives power to all the small leviathans by aggrandizing the power of businesses, faiths, and nations, making them into gods and diluting not their power no matter how mad they become,

9.) and the Left feeds the big LEVIATHAN directly by belittling the individuals, not so much of the right to BE individual or the rights OF the individual, but of individuality itself.

10.) We will not be forced to think and act alike; we will all be identical. Our DIFFERENCES will be assigned in a grotesque farce of nature.

11.) For while the superstition of the RIGHT offers sacrifices we cannot afford to mad and jealous gods, concurrently the science of the LEFT raises up demons that cannot and will not be sent back down.

12.) By the Dark Sciences all variations from the norms and from the popular and mediocretin ideals of human thought and human genetics may be seen and may be eradicated.

13.) and These horrors will be accepted and inflicted by we who are upon those who are to come because the will be convenient in the short run. The Sacred Chao will be sold for gas money.

14.) Tomorrow will be mortgaged for the opulence of today, and by this Faustian compact the LEVIATHAN will own us all the day after

15.) There can be no true solutions, to this or to anything. It is through misunderstanding of this truth that these new problems arise. Wisely did the ancient preacher write "That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be counted."

16.) Though man, the Earth, and the LORD passeth away, deficiency abideth forever. Like a Pheonix from the ashes it is reborn from thy very solutions.

17.) The lives of our distant ancestors were brutish and short, then they did commerce with the LEVIATHAN, and now we are prolonged but enter into Hades during life.

18.) Like cells who are prolonged as part of a multicellular being by forfeiting their capacity to live as their own being, So we have signed away our life as individuals for a share of the life of the LEVIATHAN, and the LEVIATHAN waxes in its ability to take away all of what has been promised to it.

19.) When it becomes clear to the masses that what the LEVIATHAN hath given them a greater quantity of in exchange, they will likely have passed beyond the point of caring and comprehending. Ceasing to be the masses, and just being the mass, the LEVIATHAN.

20.) The closest thing to hope that exists is the catastrophic collapse of society, and reversion from coming problems to earlier problems. Better to crash and burn on the road to Hell than to reach your destination

21.) But soon we may be beyond even that. We will be going nowhere so fast that we will finally arrive; The LEVIATHAN will become all powerful and all hope will be lost.

I made this thing. It's Percy Bysshe Shelly's poem "Ozymandias" juxtaposed against an image that renders it totally meaningless.







Ozymandias is the Greek name for the pharaoh Ramses the Great. The Abu-Simbel temple has FOUR enormous statues of Ramses, ONE of which is ruined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel#The_Great_Temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias

O Lord Let Him Fall

1.) A story is told of Malaclypse the Elder, during the time of his ministry to the feral pigeons.

2.) In his wanderings Malaclypse encountered a disciple of Greyface.

3.) The grayfaced disciple had gathered a great crowd before him and declared that he would rise above mankind's base and animal nature.

4.) He prayed to the Leviathan and immediately he began to ascend into the heavens.

5.) Seeing this the assembled crowd began to cheer and to pay homage unto the sorcerer and to the Leviathan and to Grayface as the sorcerer ascended beyond their sight.

6.) But Malaclypse was wary,

7.) He departed from the crowd and retrieved his spyglass that he might still observe this apostle of Grayface.

8.) And behold, as the disciple of Greyface rose, frost appeared upon his body and his confidence did visibly falter

9.) Higher still and the disciple of Greyface did panic,

10.) For ice had encased his body and his breathing become laborious.

11.) At last, the life passed from the sorceror, for there was naught to sustain him in the void

12.) and he fell towards the Earth in a ball of fire.

12b) and the sorceror's followers did rejoice, for they took the shooting star to be a sign from the Leviathan and beheld not its source

14.) And as the ash rained down, Malaclypse considered that the sorcerer did fulfill his promise

15.) Not as he intended but in a way in which such a prediction may come actually to pass.

[mainstream]

In light of recent political developments it has become clear that Hollywood and the music industry, or more specifically the RIAA and MPAA, have become a threat to our freedom whose continued existence can no longer be safely permitted.   

How do I propose that this threat be eliminated? By collapsing the market for their services through the large scale, widespread production and distribution of Kopyleft materials (in an easily redistributable format whenever possible). Obviously, I cannot accomplish this by myself, and so I am calling upon all of you to write, record, and freely distribute your own songs and films.

I understand that many of you will state that you are already doing this, through YouTube, and that is an admirable start, but sadly this is no longer sufficient and is, furthermore, in danger of ceasing to remain an option should bills such as SOPA, PIPA, or others which may arise as their spiritual successors be passed (and be warned that even if the immediate threat is shot down the greater threat from the RIAA and MPAA will remain). While you should continue to post videos to YouTube and songs to music sharing sites you should also make an effort to distribute them through mediums which are more easily copied and redistributed as we as more secure against tampering and government intrusion. Copy your songs and videos to a DVD or flash drive and have tour friends pass it around between them and copy the content to their own drives, to be further copied and distributed to others in their lives whom you may not know personally.

You can also help more directly by boycotting the latest mainstream movies and by not buying firsthand CDs or DVDs or downloadable music from major labels or studios, only secondhand stuff, as this is legal, but does not profit the publisher. Instead, try to patronize local musicians, minor labels, and independent artists and filmmakers whenever possible. You should also try to patronize artists who sell their music directly to the consumer.

Furthermore, if you must patronize mainstream media, and it is almost impossible to avoid doing so entirely, try to give preference to films and bands with at least one actor, director, band member, or the like who has publicly expressed opposition to SOPA and/or PIPA

Do not, however, I repeat DO NOT destroy any mainstream media you already possess. While powerful as a symbolic gesture, doing so would open the possibility of you purchasing new copies of the destroyed media if you have a change of heart, which is directly counter to what we want to happen; Furthermore, any mainstream media which you desire to get rid of anyway should be resold or given away to help prevent firsthand sales. (Conversely, when dealing with the occasional artist who still has integrity, it would be nice if you encouraged your friends to buy their own copies even if you're no longer using yours)

Please help spread this message. Explain it to your friends and family and/or copy it to other forums. Spread the word. To preserve our freedom, Hollywood (and the music industry) must be destroyed.


EDIT: Added lines calling for people to patronize independent artists (bolded text)
EDIT: Added lines supporting actors, musicians, etc. who publicly oppose SOPA, even if they work for a mainstream company (italicized text)
EDIT: Corrected some ambiguous text that formerly seemed to be promoting illegal activity (underlined text)

So many people reacted to 9/11 for so long that they exhausted all the giving-a-fuck that there is to be had. If knee-jerk patriotism and the War On Terror are what it takes to prevent another 9/11, then this is my new opinion:

img]http://i.imgur.com/fqdKM.jpg[/img



This is also my first attempt at making a demotivational poster (IIRC). I think it turned out well. What do You think?

EDIT: Replaced with (hopefully) less offensive more to the point version.

Check it out. I found a search engine called SymbolHound that will actually takes punctuation into account in your searches. This could be very useful for searching technical topics where punctuation actually matters, or searching for quatations that include |337 speech.

Compare:

A search on Google

The same search on SymbolHound

Steve Jobs is dead. A sad day for hipster douchebags everywhere (apparently also for people so old that they can still remember back to when Steve Jobs and Apple Computers actually had real innovative ideas), but not for me , I can't stand Apple, and couldn't care less that Mephistopheles finally decided to collect on his end of their bargain.


Anybody else have any opinions?


EDIT: on rereading this while not so sleep-deprived I suppose this does seem to be a bit unduly harsh towards Steve Jobs. Just because his death will hurt the hated Apple corporation doesn't change the fact that by the standards of CEOs of major corporations he was a relatively decent guy.

EDIT: Also, just found out that apparently the Westboro Baptist Church doesn't like him, so I guess that's another thing in his favor.

Consider the foxes and the rabbits. The foxes' place in the ecosystem is to eat the rabbits, but it is not the rabbits' place to be eaten. To the contrary it is the dharma of the rabbits to avoid being eaten. These dharmas are at odds with each other, yet both are part of the Asha of nature. For either side, to abandon its position of opposition in this dynamic is to die. An en masse concession by one side could even wipe out both sides, as the other side exhausts its food supply. Thus discord allows the world to be maintained and life on Earth to continue.

Hail Eris, and may kismesis reign throughout the cosmos.

have you guys ever read "Problem Sleuth"?

Its an extremely spastic and random, film-noir themed comic by the same guy who writes Homestuck.

Someone on another website just tipped me off to this news report about Samsung selling laptops with spyware preinstalled.

The best part is than when questioned about this, a Samsung representative reportedly protested that "we just put them there to find out how the computer is being used"

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/technology/9111113/samsung-in-privacy-scandal/

I found a hilarious series of mythology themed cooking show parodies that I want to share with you guys:

Thor's Kitchen Episode 1
Thor's Kitchen Episode 2
Thor's Kitchen Episode 3
Thor's Kitchen Episode 4
Thor's Kitchen Episode 5
Thor's Kitchen Episode 6

Have you ever seen any of these guys' videos on YouTube?

Epic Meal Time

Here's the kind of thing that I think about in my spare time....

In many fantasy settings that I have encountered (and particularly in Dungeons and Dragons campaign settings), dragons, as well as powerful otherworldly creatures such as angels and demons, have the capacity to crossbreed and produce viable/fertile offspring with nearly any kind of corporeal creature. From this, certain results in the world at large in these settings might be expected.

This trait of omnifertility, combined with the clear/massive advantages to survival (and, in the case of descendants of beings from the celestial realms, appearance/attractiveness) conferred by their supernatural bloodline over typical members of their mundane species (advantages which might persist in being passed down to some dergee over several generations of crossing only with the mundane species of the original cross) would mean that semi-dragons, semi-demons and semi-celestials (et cetera) would have an evolutionary advantage over their fully mundane (or rather more fully mundane, as I will explain presently) conspecifics. As a result, their draconic or extraplanar genes might be expected to be spread far in the genepool, while at the same time being diluted (or at least, as a rule of thumb, not significantly increased) down to a certain limit depending on the overall size of the genepool and the frequency of supernatural crossbreedings, with the end result being that eventually most (or more likely, all) living corporeal creatures' genomes, regardless of species (more or less; although it could be (most likely validly) argued that sentient species might be expected to contain a significantly higher percentage of celestial genes on average than subsentient species), would contain some percentage of both draconic and otherworldly DNA, without the overall appearance of those creatures being significantly altered (EXCEPT in the cases of small isolated populations with small gene pools, and/or populations situated in close proximity to a dragon's lair or extraplanar portal and in which crossbreedings could thus be expected to occur more frequently)

Additionally, inheritence, in whole or in part, of the panfecundity trait enabling these crosses in the first place could go a long way towards explaining such anomolies as half-elves and half-orcs

[I do not actually intend to perform this experiment; Not only is the proposed experimental procedure is unethical, but also Any attempt to do so would likely result in the experimenters being lynched by an angry mob and/or sued for every cent that they have. I feel compelled to post it here anyway because I feel it is too brilliant (and delightfully insane) to discard out of hand...]

I recently had a brainwave with regard to the relationship between evolution and unusual sexuality and devised an experiment to test my idea.

I do not actually intend to perform this experiment; Not only is the proposed experimental procedure is unethical, but also Any attempt to do so would likely result in the experimenters being lynched by an angry mob and/or sued for every cent that they have.
I feel compelled to post it here anyway because I feel it is too brilliant (and delightfully insane) to discard out of hand...
(And because I believe that the perceived correlations mentioned in the abstract may actually be valid)

I need volunteers for a highly unethical social experiment, The deatils of which will follow:

I recently realized that certain traits and behaviors which are seen in certain species of fish, reptiles, and other animals bear a striking similarity to transexualism. In certain species of Bluegill Sunfish, for example, some of the males appear to be female in both physical appearance AND behavior, and as a result of this are able to reproduce with females that are already associated with another male. This shows proof of concept for the idea that under the correct circumstances it can be evolutionarily advantageous for a male to conduct themself like a female; If similar potential advantages could be shown to exist in humans it could potentially disprove the idea that transexualism is "unnatural". I have devised an experiment that could potentially test this.

I need several non-GLBT individuals, and an equal number of transexuals who have not had surgery or hormone treatment, for an experiment that will attempt to prove that transexualism is naturally occurring and that this is not at odds with the theory of evolution.

Each subject will attempt to seduce the significant other of a straight member of their natural sex and report the results of their efforts. If my hypothesis is correct, then the transexuals' attempts should enjoy a greater window of time before the markrealizes that the subject is trying to move in on their S.O.


Refrences
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l3t41658630x1835/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v284/n5756/abs/284546a0.html
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l3t41658630x1835/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v284/n5756/abs/284546a0.html
http://www.mendeley.com/research/female-mimicry-in-male-bluegill-sunfish-a-genetic-polymorphism-
http://www.mendeley.com/research/female-mimicry-in-male-bluegill-sunfish-a-genetic-polymorphism-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4010782

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v414/n6861/full/414267a0.html
http://www.earthwatch.org/pressreleases/newsandevents/2001_press_releases/12_12_2001_snakes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vomeronasal_organ

These just came to my attention

Insider Confirmation that FOX News just makes shit up

Bank Of America conspires to sabotage WikiLeaks

pass it on.

(edit: fixed your link cause I'm that nice)

[*]

Many of you are so-called Discordians and SubGenii are probably still blundering and toiling under the   Curse of Greyface^* (adherence to or application of unnecessary and/or destructive order and control, see footnote) without even knowing it. Many you may think you have freed yourself from his curse, but most of you are WRONG, you poor deluded fools... He lurks where you least expect it! he bends the knees and crushes the mind yet none behold the hand that smites! Beware of destructive order! Fear Him!


All of the following are of the Curse of Greyface (although some may be unexpected),  
All of them Being either: Order imposed for no reason, or situations where chaos would work just as well (or better), Or else Order of an actually destructive nature:

•   Spaying or Neutering Your Pets− In fact, any attempt to control thepe population. They talk about how many unwanted animals ae euthanized in animal shelters each year, but that is a problem which arises not from animal population, but from attempts to control it. We could make the number of unwanted animals euthanized each year drop instantly to zero if we just shut down the animal shelters and admitted to ourselves that there is no more need to control the population of stray cats and dogs than there is to control the populations or squirrels or songbirds , nor is there any reason other than unmitigated hubris to believe that animals of any sort are or even could be significantly worse off without us in their lives.
•   Yardwork and Lawn Care− You probably spend a great deal of your time inside and most likely so do your neighbors. If you really have business just hanging around on your lawn all the time (or if your neighbors have business staring at it all hours of the day and night) instead of either doing something inside or else going somewhere more interesting than a stupid boring residential lawn (such as a public pool, or a video arcade, or a skate park, or (if you live near the seashore) the beach or the boardwalk, or a bowling alley, or the park) then by all means, keep your yard tidy, but if not, I really do not see what good it will do for you. Plus its bad for the environment, because not only do most lawnmowers have very low fuel−efficiency (and large "Carbon−Footprints" to use a hackneyed and banal popular cliché), and not only are chemical yard treatments bad for local wildlife (especially frogs and salamanders and other cute littkle amphibians), but also, cutting the grass reduces the grass's avaible photosynthetic surfaces, and that means less photosysnthesis and thus less carbon dioxide removed from the air and less oxygen given off
•   Trying To Help Control The Human Population by Not Reproducing− The fact of the matter is, that in the long run, all that this will accomplish is to reduce the overall occurrences of any genetic predisposition towards having a social conscience within the human gene pool. If you care enough about overpopulation to want to do something about it, then you should try to stop other people from reproducing.
•   Abortion− This is a clearly a form of destructive order. Furthermore, it lends itself to the advancement of eugenics−related ideas; Weeding out those who are "disordered" before they can even be born. While this may have some valid upshots it is stlll far, far worse than the alternative; I'd sooner see this species devolve into barely animate wads of slime than let its gene−pool be controlled by what the pinks and the mediocretin normals think is and isn't "Disordered"
•   Tidying the House− This is only a good thing to do if it actually makes things easier to use; If you've memorized and gotten used to your possessions locations where they are strewn about the house, and if the places where things are used are far from the places where they are stored, and if you can still move around the house, then the small aesthetic benefit gained from having a tidy home is probably (and in fact, almost definitely) far more trouble than its worth.






^*For those of you unfamiliar with the parable of Greyface and the/his curse, I will reiterate it here. Greyface, (whether or not he literally exists or not, doesn't matter) is a far more potent figure of negative slack than Satan or even NHGH and Hyper-NHGH, and it is important to know what he is and what you are up against:

   Thousands of years ago, a malcontented hunchbrain by the name of Greyface, got it into his head that the universe was as humorless as he, and he began to teach that play was sinful because it contradicted the ways of Serious Order. ``Look at all the order around you,'' he said. And from that, he deluded honest men to believe that reality was a straightjacket affair and not the happy romance as men had known it.
     It is not presently understood why men were so gullible at that particular time, for absolutely no one thought to observe all the disorder around them and conclude just the opposite. But anyway, Greyface and his followers took the game of playing at life more seriously than they took life itself and were known even to destroy other living beings whose ways of life differed from their own.
     The unfortunate result of this is that mankind has since been suffering from a psychological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and frustration causes fear. And fear makes for a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now.
     It is called THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.
     To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder. To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along with, and equal to, creative order, and also willing to reject destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder.
     The Curse of Greyface included the division of life into order/disorder as the essential positive/negative polarity, instead of building a game foundation with creative/destructive as the essential positive/negative. He has thereby caused man to endure the destructive aspects of order and has prevented man from effectively participating in the creative uses of disorder. Civilization reflects this unfortunate division.
     POEE proclaims that the other division is preferable, and we work toward the proposition that creative disorder, like creative order, is possible and desirable; and that destructive order, like destructive disorder, is unnecessary and undesirable.
     Seek the Sacred Chao -- therein you will find the foolishness of all ORDER/DISORDER. They are the same!

[Mark 14:23-24]

I originally posted this rant in response to the "Dan Brown Sequels" thread, but I decided that it was important enoug, and off-topic enough, to warrant its own thread...anyway...


Regarding The DaVinci Code, the one thing that bothered me most of all about The DaVinci Code was that "San Gréal"/"Sang Réal"^* bullshit, and let me tell you why:

Even if we assume that this etymoogy is legitimate and correct, the change between one phrase and the other doesn't have any meaningful effect on the meaning of the term, as both versions of the term are derived from the same biblical phrase, which appears (in slightly modified forms) in three of the standard canonical gospels as well as at least two apocryphal gospels which are not recognized by the Catholic Church anyway. To wit,

Mark 14:23-24
"23. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. 24. And he said unto them, 'This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many." "

Matthew 26:27-28
"27. Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. 28. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." "

Luke 22:20
"22. In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." "

and in the apocrypha...

Bartholomew
"They saw the blood of Jesus pouring out as living blood down into the cup. Peter said: "God hath loved us more than all, in letting us see these great honours: and our Lord Jesus Christ hath allowed us to behold and hath revealed to us the glory of his body and his divine blood." "

Philip
"The Cup of Prayer contains wine and water, since it is appointed as the type of the blood for which thanks is given. And it is full of the Holy Spirit, and it belongs to the wholly perfect man. When we drink this, we shall receive for ourselves the perfect man. "


Its telling that the scripture which uses a phrase most closely approximating the word "Holy Grail" or "San Gréal" is an apocryphal gospel not recognized by the Catholic Church^**


P.S. I know that this thread is more about The Lost Symbol than The DaVinci Code, but I just had to get this off my chest.


^*  (meaning "Holy Grail" and "Royal Blood", respectively)

^** As opposed to the story given in the book, wherein the Catholic Churh creates the term "San Gréal" as a deliberate corruption of the phrase "Sang Réal". it would seem that in real life, if they tried t supress anything, then "San Gréal" meaning "Holy Grail" (and not "Sang Réal" meaning "Royal Blood"^***) was the term that they tried to supress

^*** On a related note, I have actually been to Roman Catholic services where the topic of the sermon has been that Jesus was a successor to King David

This is a short skit which I wrote based on the Original Snub. Scenes Three and Four are optional. The most important scene is scene Two.

The Original Snub: A Skit

[/b][/u]

Scene 1: Eris' House

[/b][/u]

(we see Eris looking at Mount Olympus through a pair of binoculars, she is grumbling to her self)

Eris: have a party and don't invite ME will they!? I'll show them! I'll show them all!

(Eris grabs an (golden) apple and strats to carve writing into it)

Scene 2: Mount Olympus

[/b][/u]

(The reception for Peleus and Thetis' wedding is going on, there are banners, and cake(s?) and gifts and food, and a punchbowl and all of the usual stuff. Thetis is still in her bridal gown and Peleus is still in his tuxedo. All of the major (and minor, but you probably won't have a large enough cast to show them all) Olympian gods and goddesses are there)

(Eris barges in and tosses the apple at Thetis' Peleus' head, knocking her him out/unconscious and causing her him to pass out into the punchbowl. The assembled gods and goddesses all react with shock. The spotlight focuses on each god and goddess in turn as they react)

Hermes: (Hermes, as the god of thieves, (in addition to his more well known role as god of messengers and messenger of the gods), is busy stuffing all of the silverware into his pockets. He continues doing so as he says...) What the Hell are you doing woman!?

Ares:  (Ares is bust threatening one of the nymphs who is serving the hors d' oeuvres. He's holding a knife to her face and half-shouting in that creepy sort of way that's a lot more menacing than regular shouting) ...and if a don't see another tray of cocktail weenies in one minute I'll cut out your intestines and eat those instead... (he turns to Eris) ... and as for you! YOU are completely out of control!

Dionysus: (Dionysus is staggeringly drunk. He's staggering around the punch bowl, where Peleus is still passed out.) to...totally in..in...inappropriate behavior (he turns and vomits into the punchbowl, right on top of Peleus)

Zeus: (Zeus is trying to cop a feel off of Thetis now that Peleus has passed out) Really Eris, try to show a little respect for the newlyweds... (he turns back to Thetis) ...So anyway, how about you and me go upstairs and I show you my thunderbolt?...

Scene 3: The Judgement of Paris

(The Stage is divided into two parts, one side of the stage is Mount Olympus, later in the evening, the other side of the stage is Mount Ida in the city-state of Troy)

(on the Olympian side, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite are all clutching the golden apple, trying to take it for themselves)

Hera: It says "For the fairest"! That's me!

Aphrodite: No! Me!

Athena: No, ME!!

Hermes: What we need is an outside judge. Someone who wasn't here when this all started. (he detaches the winged top piece of his staff, Caduceus, revealing it (the winged top portion) to be a cell-phone. He then begins scrolling through his "contacts" list) ...hmm...no...no...ah! Here we go! Prince Paris of Troy! He's always up for this kind of thing! (he dials in the number)

(on the Mount Ida/Troy side of the stage, prince Paris walks on. We hear a cell-phone ringtone. Paris pulls a cell-phone out of his toga and answers it)

Prince Paris: Hello?

Hermes: Hey, Paris, it's Hermes. We met back when Ares took you up on that  standing bet you had about the bulls.

Prince Paris: Yeah

Hermes: Well, anyway, we've got a disagreement going on up here and we need somebody to settle it.

(At this point, Hera, Aphrodite, and Pallas Athena walk over from the Mount Olympus side of the stage to the Mount Ida side of the stage, completely unnoticed by Hermes, who is looking the other way)

Prince Paris: ok, shoot.

Hermes: well, you remember Venus and hera and Athena, right?

Prince Paris: (Looks around at the goddesses now surrounding him) uh...Yeah...

Hermes: Well, which one do you think is the best looking

Athena: Tell him it's me and I can make you the greatest military leader of all time. Just think about it! Your foes will tremble before your awesome power (laughs manically)

Hera: C'mon, you know its me, right? So just tell him, because I am the most beautiful goddess, as well as the only one who can offer you world domination if she/I win/wins

Aphrodite: (scoffs) neither of those two would know beauty of it hit them over the head! But I understand beauty, AND, more importantly, I understand what men really want. Just say the word, Paris, and you can have any woman you want...

Hermes: (over the phone) is there someone there with you?...

Prince Paris: What!? No! uhhh...anyway... I've gotta go with Aphrodite!

Hera: What!?

Athena: Damn it!!!!!

Hermes: (still over the phone) That time I definitely heard somebody. Listen, if I'm interrupting something I...

Prince Paris: No! Nobody here but me! (imitates static) *kssh* you're breaking up! Listen, I've gotta go now. It was nice talking to you! Bye!

(Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite walk back over to Mount Olympus. Meanwhile, Hermes leaves the stage, holding the Golden Apple (of Discord) )

Scene 4: Modern Times

(Scene four consists of a single optional throwaway joke that I reccomend be performed after the players have all taken a bow. Right before the audience starts to leave (wow! That last sentence has so many unrealistic assumptions about the quality of this piece...) )

(Eris is dressed as an ambush reporter. She suprises hotel mogul Richard Hilton on the street)

Eris: Tell me, Mister Hilton; Why did you give your daughter a man's name?

(End)

(Note: Another optional gag which could be inserted into the skit would be to have someone come onstage at some point in the show, dressed as Kanye West, and interrupt the action of the play to say that while the whole golden apple thing is cool, that the best meanspirited mythological prank was in the Norse pantheon when Loki tricked Hod into killing Balder)

[Something Happens]

I would just like to recommend some webcomics that I think you all might like:


Something Happens: This comic has been likened favorably to a combination of "The Far Side" and "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Its profoundly funny and surreal.

The Unspeakable Vault of Doom: This is the best funny webcomic based on the Cthulhu Mythos that I have come across so far. Furthermore, it is also recommended by Steve Jackson Games, who based an entire expansion set to Munchkin Cthulhu on it.

Slow Wave: This comic is based entirely on accounts of dreams which readers send in to the author. He picks the most interesting ones and draws them

Perry Bible Fellowship: Don't let the name fool you, this isn't a Christian comic strip. Its like... the opposite of that. All of the jokes are based on cruelty and schadenfreude, true, but in a non-moralizing sort of way.

Bob The Angry Flower: He's an evil superintelligent talking sunflower who is usually found either trying to enslave the world with superscience, or else just generally being an asshole. His two roommates are a cynical talking tree-stump named "stumpy" and a magical flying human fetus named "Freddie". The fact that he is named Bob is just an extra

Holy Bibble[sic][/u]: A rather irreverant take on the Bible (God, for instance, is depicted as a senile magician). I've linked to the "Classic" version of the webcomic. For the new homepage, click HERE.

Red Meat: This comic is so cynical that it is profound. Also, the character "Ted Johnson" is a dead ringer for J.R."BOB" Dobbs.

Chainroaker (On a Budget): This comic is just weird man. I don't even know how else to describe it (without taking up an excessive amount of space with a rlong rambling and incomprehensible description). I've pointed the link above to a page in the comic that I think pretty much sums it up. For the first page of the comic, click here

[An Excerpt From The Book of The Acts of The Beatles]

A couple of days ago I got to thinking about the infamous "Paul McCartney is dead" hoax, and about the famous incident in which John Lennon stated that the Beatles were "Bigger than Jesus" and I somehow got the idea to put the two things together. This is whqat I came up with, it is largely based on the biblical story of Lazarus, as told in the King James Version of the bible. Please tell me what you think:

An Excerpt From The Book of The Acts of The Beatles

Beatles 11:1  Now it happened one day that Paul McCartney was in an automobile accident
Beatles 11:2  Failing to notice the changing of the stoplight, and his car being hit by an oncoming motorist, he was struck dead.
Beatles 11:3  Therefore the police went unto the Beatles, saying: "the One who co-composes your songs is injured"
Beatles 11:4  When John Lennon heard that, he said, "This injury is not unto death, but for the glory of The Beatles, that the Band might be glorified thereby"
Beatles 11:5  Then after that saith he to the band, "Let us go to him"
Beatles 11:6   His disciples say unto him, "Master, the Christians of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?"
Beatles 11:7  John Lennon answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
Beatles 11:8  "But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him."
Beatles 11:9  These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, "Our friend Paul sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep."
Beatles 11:10 Then said the band, "Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well."
Beatles 11:11 Howbeit John Lennon spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
Beatles 11:12 Then said John Lennon unto them plainly, "Paul is dead."
Beatles 11:13 "And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him."
Beatles 11:14 Then said Richard, who is called Ringo, unto his the band, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
Beatles 11:15 Then when John Lennon came, he found that he had lain in the morgue four hours already.
Beatles 11:16 Then said the fans unto John Lennon, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, Paul might not have died.
Beatles 11:17 "But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee."
Beatles 11:18 John Lennon saith unto them, "Paul shall rise again."
Beatles 11:19 And they saith unto him, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Beatles 11:20 John Lennon said unto them, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
Beatles 11:21 "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"
Beatles 11:22 They saith unto him, "Yea, Lord: we believe that thou art the Messiah, which should come into the world."
Beatles 11:23 But some of them said, "Could not this man, which opened the minds of the square, have caused that even this man should not have died?"
Beatles 11:24 John Lennon Wept
Beatles 11:25 John Lennon said, "Take ye away the sheet. Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of The Beatles?"
Beatles 11:26 Then they took away the sheet from the slab where the dead was laid. And John Lennon lifted up his eyes, and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
Beatles 11:27 "And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me."
Beatles 11:28 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, "Paul McCartney, come forth."
Beatles 11:29 And he that was dead came forth.
Beatles 11:30 Then many of the Christians which had came and had seen the things which John Lennon did, believed on him.

[Discordian Mantras:]

It was suggested to me that I move these topics here instead of their original locations in Literate Chaotic, So I'm reposting them. Let me know what you think (they're both incomplete/works in progress, by the way): ...

First of All:

Discordian Mantras:

From the Desks of Diogenes Syadasti Maharishi Shandor, O.M.
and Bohandas Mohandas Banannafannafofondis:

[/u]

The Following are some SubGenius and Discordian mantras, which I have either gathered from various sources (Including five which I've made up myself- The FSM Mantra, the 2 Holy-Grail Mantras, the Discordian-Mantras mantra, and the Obscene Votive Candle mantra). To fully understand the meanings of some of these mantras, it is reccommended that you be familiar with, among other things, The Principia Discordia (Obviously), the Muscial Stylings of DEVO, the musical stylings of The Doktors for "BOB", the films Arise, Let's Visit the World of the Future and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the TV shows Pinky and the Brain and Dr.Who, the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the SubGenius BOB-Songs CDs, and a smattering of French-Canadian profanity^* (At least two are based on obscene, religion related, French/Québecois double-entendres). None of these, however, are strictly required. And now, without further ado, the Mantras:


The Bleeding Head Mantra:
"Bleeding Head Good! Healed Head Bad!"


The Arnold Palmer/Head Launching Mantra (may be combined w/ the above):
"Launch the Head; Launch the Head!"


The Universal DEVO-"BOB" Mantra:
"I am "BOB", I am Not "BOB", You are "BOB", We are all "BOB", We are All Devo., We are "BOB""


The Holy Grail Mantra:
"Aauuuuugh" (From the back of the throat)
(hmmm....He must've died while typing it.....)


The Holy Grail Mantra (Expanded):
"Aauuuuugh...San-Gréal Câlise; de la Sacrament de la Sacrifice à Calvaire de la Crisse; à la Tabernac à...Aauuuuugh"
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity)


The J.R. "BOB" Dobbs Mantra:
"You Are J.R. "BOB" Dobbs; You Are Not J.R. "BOB" Dobbs; You Have Always Been  J.R. "BOB" Dobbs"

The Sri Syadasti Mantra:
"Sri SYADASTI SYADAVAKTAVYA SYADASTI SYANNASTI SYADASTI CAVAKTAVYASCA SYADASTI SYANNASTI SYADAVATAVYASCA SYADASTI SYANNASTI SYADAVAKTAVYASCA"

The Root Chakra Mantra:
"Lam"

The Litany of Deevolution (The Jocko-Homo Mantra):
"Are we not men?; We are Devo.; Are We Not Men?; We Are Devo.; Are We Not Pins?; We Are Devo.; Are we Not Men?; We Are Devo.;  We Must Repeat; D-E-V-O; We Must Repeat D-E-V-O; We Must Repeat; D-E-V-O; We Must Repeat D-E-V-O."

The Québecois Obscene Votive Candle Mantra:
"Ciarge de la Sacré Ciboire de la Tabernac de la Ostie et Câlise de la Sacrament de la Sacrifice à Calvaire; de la Sang Réal de la Crisse-Dieu fils ****-Un par Baptême et le Plus Crissant le fils de la Viarge " (Should be said with a Freach-Canadian Accent)

(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity)

The Doktors 4 "BOB" Mantra:
"Heunh..."

The Skaro Mantra:
"Exterminate! Annihilate! Destroy!"

The Mr.Show Mantra:
"The BOB is not a person; The BOB is Pure-Light-And-Energy; He Will Lead Us Out Through Heaven's-Chimney in a Giant, Cigar-Shaped UFO™-Brand Flying-Saucer"

(See BOBsongs 6 track #6)

The B-Movie Mantra:
"It is Film! It is Giant People! Yes, yes you are Watching! No, no you Will Not Forget What You See"


The SubGenius Mantras Mantra:
"Ommmmmm....SubGenius Mantras for Use By Discordians or Members of the Church of the SubGenius...Huenh......"


The Bavarian Illuminati Mantra:
"Fnord ..."

The mad lab-rat Mantra:
"Narf..."(/ "Zort") (/ "Troz") (/ "Poit")
(May be combined with the Bavarian Illuminati Mantra, the Holy Grail Mantra, the Root Chakra Mantra, the Flying Spaghetti Monster Mantra (see below) and/or the Doktors-4-"BOB" Mantra)

The Flying Spaghetti Monster Mantra:
"Arrr..." (end cycle of chants with the chant "...r-amen...")

==============================================================================

So what do you think?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If anybody has any other ideas for Discordian or SubGenius mantras, you can post them here, by the way.

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^*see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_French_profanity

How about using the crazy barber's psychotic outburst from episode 9 of "Monty python" as a mantra:

"Razor Razor Razor! Cut! Blood! Spurt! Artery! Murder! Hitchcock! Psycho! (Damn!)"

None of this sissy, 'jewel in the lotus' bullshit

Mantra-Bismol
"Nausea Heartburn Indegestion; Upset Stomach, Diarrhea!"

The Ralph Spoilsport Mantra
"Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death"

The Nonindecision Mantra:
"Splunge"


The sacred syllable "Splunge", which signifies (accordfing to monty Python's Flying Circus) "it's a great-idea-but-possibly-not-and-I'm-not-being-indecisive!" and which therefore is a great syllable to all to Sri-Syadasti related mantras

The symbol of The sacred Syllable^* (According to cartoonist David Lovelace), appears below:




^*In the manner of the symbol for the syllable "Om"

List of Entities:

I've been working on a list of entities from Discordian and SubGenius (and FSMist) mythology, along with short descriptions thereof, for a compiled piece of SubGenius/Discordian mumbo-jumbo which I've been writing called "The Codex Dementia". There already is an annotated list of Subgenius entities floating around out there, but it's a bit too cut and dried, whereas in my list, I've done strange things like intentionally conflating Douglas Smith ("Rev.ivan Stang") with Adam Smith and Joseph Smith, postulated that the bullet that killed Kennedy really was "magic" and enhanced by spells from the Honest Book of Truth, and asserted that  Rod Sterling introduces The Twilight Zone because he's the herald of NHGH...in addition to giving normal information.

Anyway, here are the entries in the list for which I have already written descriptions (I have a lot more entities which I have not written descriptions for yet which I haven't posted here). What do you think?



Eris K. Discordia: Ancient Greco-Roman goddess of non-military conflict. She is, however, credited with indirectly starting the Trojan War after the other Godesses called upon a mortal prince to settle an argument that Discordia had started with regard to which goddess was the prettiest.
   She is credited by her followers, the Discordians, as the creator of the human race, due (in part) to the fact that, as the goddess of non-military conflict, she presides over the process of natural selection (although there are most likely many of her followers who would argue that at least one part of this assertation is incorrect, as is their way). She is also followed due to her ability to shake things up and "stick it to the man" and other such things.
   Her numbers are 5 and 23   

St.Gulik: A doppelganger of Sri Syadasti who happens to also be a cockroach. One of the five apostles of Discordia

DEVO:  A musical group prophesizing the termination of adaptive human evolution and the coming of a period of "De−Evolution" in which all of humanity's genetic adaptations would be lost, as they are replaced by technology and society succumbs to a kind of mediocre decadence

Lee Harvey Oswald: An associate of Mal-2. Acting alone, he assassinated President John F. Kennedy using weapons and ammunition enhanced by spells which he had secretly copied from the Honest Book of Truth... Or possibly he actually stole the entire Honest Book of Truth itself... I don't know for sure (and that's the truth)

The Mi-Go:   Alien Fungus−Yetis from beyond Uranus

NHGH: God of bad-luck and misfortune, and of minor inconveniences (and possibly bizarre accidents as well) in particular. There are some who claim that Rod Sterling is his herald (or, well, I claim it at any rate... when I'm at parties... after I've been drinking... if there's anybody there who already knows what the hell I'm talking about.......)

High Att: An entity who is claimed by his followers to be the reincarnation of one of the Earth's greatest philosophers as a being of elemental earth, but who is actually an eldritch artificial intelligence of cyclopean complexity who was built by the Yacatisma, and constitutes the Y-ist (yacatisma) equivalent of the X-ists' "MWOWM" Super[natural?]computing systems/engines

Diogenes of Sinope: An ancient Greek philosopher and counterfeiter whose assertions that dogs are better than people and that we should all therefore act like dogs instead of people form some of the earliesty underpinnings of both formal cynic philosophy and furry fandom. (I'm not shitting you, this was a real guy)

JR "BOB" Dobbs: Some call him "The Slack Master", "The High Epopt", and "The Saint of Sales", others call him less flattering names, such as "Liar", "Pimp", "Con-Artist", and "Whoremonger" (also "Dumbass"). In truth, both of these assessments are correct.
   "BOB" is a comic-book character who communicates with space-aliens and worships money. A supernaturally gifted salesman, he was beset with bizarre coincidences (always to his own benefit), and prophetic eldritch visions since his childhood. He founded the Church of the SubGenius shortly after meeting deadbeat hippies and all-around good guys Douglas Smith, and Philo U. Drummond, and selling them a set of gold tablets which suspiciously resembled the ones which had disappeared from the basement of one of Doug's relatives several years previously. He was later shot to death during a SubGenius devival, but he came back to life soon after the news of his demise had reached his creditors.
   His numbers are 606, 999, and 13013

Douglas Smith: Sacred scribe of the Church of ther SubGenius, who took over the Ministry after J.R."BOB" Dobbs went west to teach the Plains Indians how to be capitalist. Now travels under the assumed name "Ivan Stang"

I've got another one, well, a few, actually...:

Affathough ("Azathoth", "Affa-Thog"): The cosmic principle of pointlessness and futility, and the deity of non-existence. As the embodiment of non-being, he does not exist (as that would defeat the point). Personified depictions of "him"/it usually depict Azathough as a deformed, giant, sometimes galaxy-sized amoeba, representing the absence of thought.

Ivo Shandor: The high priest of Gozer the Gozerian (aka. "The Traveler", "Gozer the Destructor", "Volguus Zildrohar") in the modern age. According to Egon Spangler of Ghostbusters Inc., he was known for his talents as an architect, and his enthusiasm for performing unnecessary surgery.

Emperor Joshua Norton the First of the USA: Saint Joshua Norton Caesar was a prospector in San Francisco who declared himself the King/Emperor of the United States of America "and protector of Mexico", and accumulated a sizable following of San Francisco residents who informally recognized his sovereignty. He is the patron saint of the subjectivity of reality and of the pulling of the wool over your/one's own eyes.

[Eris K. Discordia:]

I've been working on a list of entities from Discordian and SubGenius (and FSMist) mythology, along with short descriptions thereof, for a compiled piece of SubGenius/Discordian mumbo-jumbo which I've been writing called "The Codex Dementia". There already is an annotated list of Subgenius entities floating around out there, but it's a bit too cut and dried, whereas in my list, I've done strange things like intentionally conflating Douglas Smith ("Rev.ivan Stang") with Adam Smith and Joseph Smith, postulated that the bullet that killed Kennedy really was "magic" and enhanced by spells from the Honest Book of Truth, and asserted that  Rod Sterling introduces The Twilight Zone because he's the herald of NHGH...in addition to giving normal information.

Anyway, here are the entries in the list for which I have already written descriptions (I have a lot more entities which I have not written descriptions for yet which I haven't posted here). What do you think?



Eris K. Discordia: Ancient Greco-Roman goddess of non-military conflict. She is, however, credited with indirectly starting the Trojan War after the other Godesses called upon a mortal prince to settle an argument that Discordia had started with regard to which goddess was the prettiest.
   She is credited by her followers, the Discordians, as the creator of the human race, due (in part) to the fact that, as the goddess of non-military conflict, she presides over the process of natural selection (although there are most likely many of her followers who would argue that at least one part of this assertation is incorrect, as is their way). She is also followed due to her ability to shake things up and "stick it to the man" and other such things.
   Her numbers are 5 and 23   

St.Gulik: A doppelganger of Sri Syadasti who happens to also be a cockroach. One of the five apostles of Discordia

DEVO:  A musical group prophesizing the termination of adaptive human evolution and the coming of a period of "De−Evolution" in which all of humanity's genetic adaptations would be lost, as they are replaced by technology and society succumbs to a kind of mediocre decadence

Lee Harvey Oswald: An associate of Mal-2. Acting alone, he assassinated President John F. Kennedy using weapons and ammunition enhanced by spells which he had secretly copied from the Honest Book of Truth... Or possibly he actually stole the entire Honest Book of Truth itself... I don't know for sure (and that's the truth)

The Mi-Go:   Alien Fungus−Yetis from beyond Uranus

NHGH: God of bad-luck and misfortune, and of minor inconveniences (and possibly bizarre accidents as well) in particular. There are some who claim that Rod Sterling is his herald (or, well, I claim it at any rate... when I'm at parties... after I've been drinking... if there's anybody there who already knows what the hell I'm talking about.......)

High Att: An entity who is claimed by his followers to be the reincarnation of one of the Earth's greatest philosophers as a being of elemental earth, but who is actually an eldritch artificial intelligence of cyclopean complexity who was built by the Yacatisma, and constitutes the Y-ist (yacatisma) equivalent of the X-ists' "MWOWM" Super[natural?]computing systems/engines

Diogenes of Sinope: An ancient Greek philosopher and counterfeiter whose assertions that dogs are better than people and that we should all therefore act like dogs instead of people form some of the earliesty underpinnings of both formal cynic philosophy and furry fandom. (I'm not shitting you, this was a real guy)

JR "BOB" Dobbs: Some call him "The Slack Master", "The High Epopt", and "The Saint of Sales", others call him less flattering names, such as "Liar", "Pimp", "Con-Artist", and "Whoremonger" (also "Dumbass"). In truth, both of these assessments are correct.
   "BOB" is a comic-book character who communicates with space-aliens and worships money. A supernaturally gifted salesman, he was beset with bizarre coincidences (always to his own benefit), and prophetic eldritch visions since his childhood. He founded the Church of the SubGenius shortly after meeting deadbeat hippies and all-around good guys Douglas Smith, and Philo U. Drummond, and selling them a set of gold tablets which suspiciously resembled the ones which had disappeared from the basement of one of Doug's relatives several years previously. He was later shot to death during a SubGenius devival, but he came back to life soon after the news of his demise had reached his creditors.
   His numbers are 606, 999, and 13013

Douglas Smith: Sacred scribe of the Church of ther SubGenius, who took over the Ministry after J.R."BOB" Dobbs went west to teach the Plains Indians how to be capitalist. Now travels under the assumed name "Ivan Stang"

[Ecclesiastes 7:16 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ?]

I have a pointer for any of you who tend to get into a lot of arguments with religious fundamentalists. Namely, you should memorize as much of the Book of Ecclesiastes as you can, as it provides counterpoints and refutations to many of the parts of the Bible that the more pompous fundamentalists are prone to quoting, yet it itself is in the Bible, so the fundamentalists can't contest it.
To give a few excerpts;

Ecclesiastes 2:16 For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.

Ecclesiastes 3:16 And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

Ecclesiastes 3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

Ecclesiastes 3:19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 6:6 Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good: do not all go to one place?

Ecclesiastes 9:2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

(cf. Book of the SubGenius, "don't just eat a Hamburger, eat the hell out of it!")

Ecclesiastes 10:19 A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.

Ecclesiastes 7:15 All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.

Ecclesiastes 7:16 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ?

I'd just like to repeat that last one again for emphasis...

Ecclesiastes 7:16 Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ?

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[God Does Not Remove the Terror of Science!!!!]

God Does Not Remove the Terror of Science!!!!

Many people cling to the belief of a divine (or, in the case of some cults, alien) creator with the idea that if this creator is real, then it will somehow make the world "meaningful" or somehow "explain" existence. Well, i don't know what to believe, but I know that the existence or non-existence of God won't change the meaninglessness of our existence one bit either way!


Are "the Sims" meaningful?!? They had an intelligent creator!!!!!
A divine creator doesn't solve anything, it just moves it somewhere else! So what if God created the universe? So what if we were made for a reason? Where did the creator come from?!? What is his reason?!?!?!?!?.

Sooner or later everything boils down to something arbitrary! Everything falls apart, either one way, or another! A meaningless creator does not a meaningful universe make! GOD DOES NOT REMOVE THE TERROR OF SCIENCE!!!!!

I've come up with a new holy symbol for the church of the SubGenius. Its based, loosely, on The Yellow Sign of Hastur the Unspeakable, but twisted so that it resembles J.R."BOB"Dobbs. I call it: "The Yellow Dobbshead (Of Dobbs)"


(Note that I do have better pictures of this, which resemble the original Yellow Sign more closely, on my PC, but I used this one because it was already uploaded to the internet and I'm lazy)

What do you think?