Messages

  "Conspiracy Coincidence Syndrome: When you look into this kind of material long enough, any nastiness that happens to you---not just a burglary, which disturbs anybody, because it reminds us of our vulnerability, but even "small" things such as strange phone noises, damaged (opened?) mail, or men in black hanging around your corner---can make you wonder: Are they really real, after all? And are They just checking me out or preparing a preemptive strike? What is that sound in the backyard? Don't let that bother you. It happens to all of us. Besides, if you do let it bother you, you will become as paranoid as most of the fulltime conspiracy researchers I have met. Of course, if I am an agent of the CIA or the Rockefellers or somebody like that, I would try to keep you from getting too alarmed about all this, wouldn't I? Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not plotting against you....Or did I quote that already? Well, it's worth remembering...." -Robert Anton Wilson, Everything Is Under Control

"In a discussion Bert said that reality can be described in many ways,
but the description that an individual accepts is the one that conforms
to that individual's preconceptions. Omar expanded on this by defining
objective reality as the fantasy that has recieved the majority vote and
subjective reality as a personal fantasy. Mal concluded the discussion by
saying, "Reality is the original Rorschach." -Zen Without Zen Masters

"You cannot see the back of your own head, no matter how intently you stare into the mirror or how quickly you turn around. Even the most clear-sighted have blind spots. These places to which we ourselves are blind are often astonishingly visible to others. The sword of self-knowledge, the ability to see oneself clearly, spans the abyss of ignorance. Below its stretched length blaze the swirling fires of ego while fogs of delusion and self-deception flow from every side." -Essential Sufism

certainly has musical qualities, which according to the defiinition of psalm i learned in sunday school, the example thereto standing would indeed indubidibly qualify as thereof, ergo; a psalm.

Good point - didn't think of it that way. I agree.

i liek to write rap psalms.

I read one of your poems in this thread.
Got anymore you would care to share?

Not a sermon.

A psalm.

Not a psalm. A poem by T. S. Eliot. It's part
III of The Waste Land. You can listen to him
read it here.

Just out of curiosity, from where? Here?

No, I copied it from the actual book.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.

*shamelessly plagiarized

Just out of curiosity, from where? Here?

Slazinger says that every successful revolution, including Abstract Expressionism, had that cast of characters at the top ,Äì Pollock being the genius in that case, Lenin being the one in Russia's, Christ being the one in Christianity's. He says that if you can't get a cast like that together, you can forget changing anything in a great big way.

"Paul Slazinger says, incidentally, that the human condition can be
summed up in just one word, and this is the word: Embarrassment."
-Kurt Vonnegut

"Life is a combination of magic and pasta."
-Federico Fellini

"Smitty described the following voting system to Omar: Each candidate would have a yes or a no box after his or her name, allowing each voter a choice between voting for a candidate or voting against another one. Each negative vote would cancel a positive vote. This, Smitty explained, would prevent a politician who was elected from assuming he had a mandate just because a few voters found him a better gamble. When he asked Omar what he thought of the system, Omar replied, "I never vote. It only encourages them." -Camden Benares, Zen Without Zen Masters

Link to a site about Tank Girl, where I also found the picture

http://www.twisted.org.uk/tg/

I also loved the movie Tank Girl. Cool link, thanks!

Sorry to be completely off-topic, but, EvilPoet, is that a Jamie Hewlett drawing in your avatar? It sure looks like Hewlett...

I'm not familiar with Jamie Hewlett's art so I have no idea.
I found the avatar here - it doesn't say who the artist is.

[Does "Planet X" exist, and could it come close to Earth?]

On a similar note, has anyone ever heard of the Planet X Theory?  I remember reading something about it about a year ago, and how it's dead set to smash into earth in like 2012 or something. . .

How nice, wormwood is scheduled to show up right around the end of the mayan calender. Good to know, the end of Kali Yuga seems kind of boring so far.

Its probably bullshit, but we'll find out.

i've heard alot of bullshti concerning this.

anyopne remember the exact date? i want o mark it on my calendar so i can get the day off from work

Does "Planet X" exist, and could it come close to Earth?

Is there really a 10th planet?

Many people are fascinated by the idea of finding another planet in our Solar System, but as yet there is no good evidence that there is another large body beyond Pluto.

There are several "Planet X" stories that circulate from time to time in the popular press.

The more scientific Planet X story concerns several astronomers who, after analyzing the orbits of a large number of comets, suggest that there may be a large body in the Oort cloud which is disrupting the orbits of some of the long-period comets that we see, so that they swing into the inner Solar System. Other astronomers have done a similar analysis, though, and they do not see any evidence for a planet. Most astronomers would need better evidence to be convinced of the existence of another planet.

A less scientific Planet X story concerns Zechariah Sitchin, who published a book called The Twelfth Planet in 1976. (Ancient peoples considered the Sun and the Moon to be planets because the move with respect to the stars, so those plus the usual nine give a total of eleven planets that we can all agree on.) Through a combination of some suspect Sumerian archaeology and a complete ignorance of the laws of physics, Sitchin cooked up a hypothesis about a giant planet named Marduk or Nibiru. According to Sitchin, Nibiru swings through the inner Solar System every 3600 years, and the planet and its angel-like alien inhabitants are responsible for everything from the tilt of Uranus to the origin of the human race to the parting of the Red Sea.

I hear that some follower of Sitchin recently predicted the return of Nibiru in the spring or early summer of 2003. Needless to say, Nibiru has yet to be detected by astronomers.

A large planet that plunges through the inner Solar System every few millennia would have strong gravitational effects on the orbits of the planets which would be quite obvious, and astronomers see no sign of such events. However, it is still possible that there is large undiscovered planet in the outer Solar System. If it is far from the Sun, it will be very hard to detect because it will be dim and hard to see, and its gravitational effects will be very subtle. (Thus the scientific debate over the cometary orbit data.)

Those are the two most common Planet X stories. If you were thinking about yet another 10th planet story, please don't hesitate to email me.

Addendum (June 2002): Because we've gotten several questions about this, and because I obviously don't have enough real work to do, I worked out Nibiru's current distance from the Sun assuming that its orbital period is 3600 years, its perihelion distance (closest approach to the Sun) is 1 AU (the Earth's distance from the Sun), and that it would reach perihelion in June of 2003, one year from now. Nibiru would be 4.7 AU from the Sun. Closer than Jupiter. And Nibiru is supposedly three to four times larger than Earth, about the size of Uranus or Neptune [not larger than Jupiter, as this answer previously stated. --BRS]

Has anybody noticed a new planet in the sky? 'Cause I sure haven't, and neither have any of the other amateur astronomers, professional astronomers, or enthusiastic skygazers in the world.

Update (October 2003): Hmmmm . . . still no Planet X! I wonder if it's just been delayed?

See also: The Planet X Saga

Matthew vs Luke - Matthew vs 1 Chronicles. Which one is right?

[Boring Genealogies]

Boring Genealogies

In 1 Timothy 1:4 and Titus 3:9 we are told not "to give heed to fables and endless genealogies" and to "avoid foolish questions, and genealogies." Taking that advice, then, you'll want to ignore the following genealogies.

1. Genesis 10:1-32

2. Genesis 11:10-27

3. Genesis 36:1-28

4. 1 Chronicles 1:1 - 9:44
(The most boring 9 chapters in the bible)

5. Matthew 1:1-16

6. Luke 3:23-38

"People have been reading the Bible for nearly two thousand years. They have taken it literally, figuratively, or symbolically. They have regarded it as divinely dictated, revealed, or inspired, or as a human creation. They have acquired more copies of it than any other book. It is quoted (and misquoted) more often than other books. It is translated (and mistranslated) more than the others as well. It is called a great work of literature, the first work of history. It is at the heart of Christianity and Judaism. Ministers priests, and rabbis preach it. Scholars spend their lives studying and teaching it in universities and seminaries. People read it, study it, admire it, disdain it, write about it, argue about it, and love it. People have lived by it and died for it. And we do not know who wrote it."

Whoops! The post by guest was me.