Archives for March 2013

Last year I wrote about the history of Easter. Mostly how it came to get that name since there is no such word in the Bible. Long story short, the holiday got blended with the Pagan celebration of the goddess Ostara a/k/a Eastre. She was, still is I would guess, a fertility goddess so the whole rebirth / resurrection theme fit well with the pagans of the day. And, while odd at its face, the whole eggs, bunnies and resurrection theme has had it’s uses. As I also noted the tradition of handing out eggs replaced human sacrifice. So that was some good news for folks. And, since the traditions were already mangled, Eastern Europeans now celebrate Easter with some fun S&M. Because nothing says “Jesus died for your sins” like a day filled with a few rounds of spank and tickle with a smoking hot brunette. These are the same people who celebrate a child eating demi-god for Christmas, so it all makes sense to them.

Some folks wrote to me to let me know that I had missed the whole Ishtar connection. Since there isn’t one, no, I didn’t. I’ll let Megan Mcardle explain.

My unfavorite new Facebook meme is this bit of sillyness which has apparently been spotted everywhere from the feeds of my college friends to (allegedly) that of Richard Dawkins’ Foundation for Reason and Science:

I immediately knew that this was a bit of nonsense for the simple reason that Easter is an English word. The Greeks and Romans called it Pascha, which is why Easter is Pasqua in Italian, Pascua in Spanish, and Paques in French. How exactly did the name of a Canaanite fertility goddess skip all the way to England from the Middle East without stopping in Rome or Byzantium?

There was (is?) a goddess named Ishatr and she seems to, loosely, be the basis for the goddess Ostara mentioned above but that’s about it. You’re covering about 2,500 years to get from point A to point B just in the names. As to the whole litany of other things allegedly associated with her, they are just wrong. She was noted for killing her lovers, making the animals she had sex with impotent and pissing off Gilgamesh.

That’s not exactly how the story of Jesus’ rebirth goes. Trust me, I’ve read it.

Just because words are homonyms doesn’t mean they mean the same thing. Otherwise anti, ante and auntie would make for interesting families.

“Hi, this is my uncle and antimatter.”

Your great antediluvian.

I digress.

One thing that amazes me is the fact that people seem surprised that Christian holidays have pagan associations. Christianity, for all its many faults, is the most inclusive religion in the world. Initially that inclusion was simply practical. They couldn’t just conquer everyone so they needed to meet them half way if they were going to increase the size of the flock.

And, yes, it is true that Christianity has been the source of some horrid atrocities as well. Just ask a Gnostic if you can find one. People will angrily point that fact out every Christian holiday too.

Face it, Christianity is a roiling dichotomy. It has been since Saul who became Paul donned his sandals on the road to Damascus. That isn’t going to change any time soon.

In the end I look at it this way; there are enough true things associated with religions that I don’t need to make any up. And if you think eggs and bunnies are weird, you just haven’t been to a good penis festival yet.

“Legend Of The Golden Egg Warrior” from CRUSH on Vimeo.

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It’s Lenten season and devout Christians surrender pleasures to remind them of their religion’s humble origins. Devout Christians and Jews recently celebrated Passover, the holiday that celebrates (if that’s the right word) the fact that God “passed over” the homes of the faithful during the legendary 10 plagues of Egypt. So the faithful lived. Then they escaped from Egypt. Then they lived in the desert for 40 years and needed food to fall from heaven so they wouldn’t die. That part doesn’t sound like fun. Deserts just aren’t that interesting. Lots of sand, a couple of crazy Bedouins and more sand. The thing is that most people do when they read Exodus’ account of the plagues and so on is assume they’re allegories. There’s a lot of good reasons for that. They sound like they were conceived by some really stoned desert dwellers. Then again 40 years in the desert might melt a few brain cells. Back on February 11, 2011, I wrote about a modern version of the plagues. Back then I noted I still wasn’t circumcised.

For the record, I’m still not.

In Exodus there were 10 plagues rendered by God upon the peoples of the earth. Well, to be more specific, plagues 1, 2 & 3 were for everyone. Plagues 4, 5, 6, 7 & 9 were for everyone but the Children of Israel (hmm, now might be a good time to get circumcised) and the 10th plague would kill the first born child of every family except for those who marked their door with lamb’s blood. The 8th plague, locusts, is kind of unclear on who was meant to be its target. For our purposes here today let’s just assume that the 8th plague is for everyone and deal with the theology later.

In Exodus 7:14-25, the first plague is enumerated; BLOOD. More specifically, blood that fouls waters and kills all the fish and causes birds to drop from the sky. Well, I’m pretty sure we can check that one off as millions of fish and thousands of birds have been dying, en mass, the world over.

In other words we have proof that some of the biblical weirdness can happen. It has happened in our times.

But what about the 10 plagues? Could they have happened?

Richard Gray, who writes for Telegraph UK, says they not only could, they did.

Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.

But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.

They have compiled compelling evidence that offers new explanations for the Biblical plagues, which will be outlined in a new series to be broadcast on the National Geographical Channel on Easter Sunday.

Archaeologists now widely believe the plagues occurred at an ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses the Second, who ruled between 1279BC and 1213BC.

The city appears to have been abandoned around 3,000 years ago and scientists claim the plagues could offer an explanation.

Climatologists studying the ancient climate at the time have discovered a dramatic shift in the climate in the area occurred towards the end of Rameses the Second’s reign.

By studying stalagmites in Egyptian caves they have been able to rebuild a record of the weather patterns using traces of radioactive elements contained within the rock.

They found that Rameses reign coincided with a warm, wet climate, but then the climate switched to a dry period.

Professor Augusto Magini, a paleoclimatologist at Heidelberg University’s institute for environmental physics, said: “Pharaoh Rameses II reigned during a very favourable climatic period.

“There was plenty of rain and his country flourished. However, this wet period only lasted a few decades. After Rameses’ reign, the climate curve goes sharply downwards.

“There is a dry period which would certainly have had serious consequences.”

The scientists believe this switch in the climate was the trigger for the first of the plagues.

The rising temperatures could have caused the river Nile to dry up, turning the fast flowing river that was Egypt’s lifeline into a slow moving and muddy watercourse.

These conditions would have been perfect for the arrival of the first plague, which in the Bible is described as the Nile turning to blood.

Dr Stephan Pflugmacher, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute for Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin, believes this description could have been the result of a toxic fresh water algae.

He said the bacterium, known as Burgundy Blood algae or Oscillatoria rubescens, is known to have existed 3,000 years ago and still causes similar effects today.

He said: “It multiplies massively in slow-moving warm waters with high levels of nutrition. And as it dies, it stains the water red.”

The scientists also claim the arrival of this algae set in motion the events that led to the second, third and forth plagues – frogs, lice and flies.

Frogs development from tadpoles into fully formed adults is governed by hormones that can speed up their development in times of stress.

The arrival of the toxic algae would have triggered such a transformation and forced the frogs to leave the water where they lived.

But as the frogs died, it would have meant that mosquitoes, flies and other insects would have flourished without the predators to keep their numbers under control.

This, according to the scientists, could have led in turn to the fifth and sixth plagues – diseased livestock and boils
Professor Werner Kloas, a biologist at the Leibniz Institute, said: “We know insects often carry diseases like malaria, so the next step in the chain reaction is the outbreak of epidemics, causing the human population to fall ill.”

Another major natural disaster more than 400 miles away is now also thought to be responsible for triggering the seventh, eighth and ninth plagues that bring hail, locusts and darkness to Egypt.

One of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history occurred when Thera, a volcano that was part of the Mediterranean islands of Santorini, just north of Crete, exploded around 3,500 year ago, spewing billions of tons of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.

Nadine von Blohm, from the Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany, has been conducting experiments on how hailstorms form and believes that the volcanic ash could have clashed with thunderstorms above Egypt to produce dramatic hail storms.

Dr Siro Trevisanato, a Canadian biologist who has written a book about the plagues, said the locusts could also be explained by the volcanic fall out from the ash.

He said: “The ash fall out caused weather anomalies, which translates into higher precipitations, higher humidity. And that’s exactly what fosters the presence of the locusts.”

The volcanic ash could also have blocked out the sunlight causing the stories of a plague of darkness.

Scientists have found pumice, stone made from cooled volcanic lava, during excavations of Egyptian ruins despite there not being any volcanoes in Egypt.

Analysis of the rock shows that it came from the Santorini volcano, providing physical evidence that the ash fallout from the eruption at Santorini reached Egyptian shores.

The cause of the final plague, the death of the first borns of Egypt, has been suggested as being caused by a fungus that may have poisoned the grain supplies, of which male first born would have had first pickings and so been first to fall victim.

But Dr Robert Miller, associate professor of the Old Testament, from the Catholic University of America, said: “I’m reluctant to come up with natural causes for all of the plagues.

The problem with the naturalistic explanations, is that they lose the whole point.

“And the whole point was that you didn’t come out of Egypt by natural causes, you came out by the hand of God.”

Dr. Robert Miller misses the beauty of the concept of God. It’s not that He creates crap out of nothing, it’s that He can alter what exists to do what He wants. Aside from the whole create the firmament thing, every miracle in the Bible can be recreated. Does that mean they are proof that God doesn’t exist?

Oh wait, science has figured out how nothing becomes something.

Guess what, it could simply reaffirms what I just said. That is what faith means. It doesn’t mean hating anyone or fearing anyone or hiding from anyone. It just means that you can live with the idea that you’re not the most developed being in the universe.

God knows I’m not.

NEW GOD FLOW (Unofficial Fan Made Video) NSFW from nachojohnny on Vimeo.

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Pop quiz, if you’ll pardon the expression. What do Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont & Virginia have in common? You can marry your first cousin in every one of them. Well, as long as your first cousin is a member of the opposite sex anyway. But all is not lost. If you’re in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont or Washington D.C., then you’re one of the lucky few who can marry your gay first cousin. In fact, if you’re in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, New Mexico & Vermont you can even have sex with the horse you rode to church after you marry your cousin. Which means that in Connecticut you can marry your gay first cousin while having sex with a horse and be completely within the law.

Plan your vacation now.

But, before you rush out the door you need to be aware that one state listed above puts a serious limit on your fun. You see, for all the debauchery that’s allowed, Alabama won’t you let you brew your own beer.

Yeah, that was what they spent their citizens’ tax dollars on this week.

If you’re in a state where cousins can legally marry each other, but home brewers are forbidden to practice their craft, you must be in Alabama.

Indeed, Alabama now stands out as the only state where home brewing is illegal. Mississippi voted this week to legalize the hobby lager lovers and hopheads in America have enjoyed, even before George Washington and Sam Adams boiled up their first brews.

Alabamans don’t just get slapped with a ticket if they start mixing up a batch. It’s a felony.

But to a feisty band of Yellowhammer State tipplers, it’s ridiculous for the government to meddle with their malt. They won’t be satisfied until Alabama has the same rights enjoyed everywhere else in the country.

“This is not about alcohol. This is about civil liberties,” said Kraig Torres, owner of Hop City Craft Beer and Wine in Birmingham. “If I went around in Alabama and said, ‘you can’t have a gun in your house,’ I’m pretty sure people would be upset.”

Residents who want to buy shotguns, rifles or handguns don’t need permits, licenses or registrations. However, it’s unclear how regulations apply to gunsmiths who forge firearms in their residences.

Torres lives in Georgia and operates his flagship store there. While he’d like to sell beer-making ingredients and cookbooks in his Birmingham venture, he has gotten into trouble with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

In September, before he opened Hop City, state agents inspected the store. Torres said they confiscated $7,000 worth of beer-making kits and cookbooks on a follow-up visit. A lawyer for the beverage control board told HuffPost that Torres removed them from the store after he was told they were contraband.

Alabama maintains a fervent temperance movement. It’s been 80 years since Prohibition’s demise, but there are 25 dry counties in the so-called “Heart of Dixie.” Some teetotalers there wish the libations had never started flowing again.

“We’re talking about a mind-altering, addictive drug,” said Joe Godfrey, a pastor and executive director of ALCAP, a group that opposes loosening any restrictions on alcohol. “This isn’t barbecue. People are killed on the highways. You hear all the time about people being killed under the influence of alcohol. You never hear about people getting killed by barbecue.”

Torres’ experience was a rare instance of the state enforcing the home-brewing ban, according to interviews with home brewers and an Alcoholic Beverage Control Board lawyer. Just this month, however, a prosecutor in Mobile County was disciplined for flouting the home brew restrictions, Al.com reported.

Home-brewing advocates said the felony status scares away some and forces others into the shadows even though the chance of punishment looks slim.

“Home brewers would like to be able to practice their hobby in the open. They have to be fairly secretive,” said American Homebrewers Association Director Gary Glass. “It just doesn’t make sense that it would be prohibited. Many of the Founding Fathers were home brewers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.”

Bills to legalize home brewing sit in both houses of the Alabama legislature awaiting a vote. It’s the third straight year legislators have proposed changes to the home brew law.

Partisan squabbling on unrelated issues may derail it again, according to observers and local media reports.

“We hope it passes so we can move onto more important business,” said Bob Martin, an ABC board lawyer. “We really don’t care. It’s a hobby. It’s not our real concern unless we found out someone was making it and selling it illegally. Generally, we’re not going to go into their homes.”

If passed, the bills would allow Alabamians to whip up limited quantities of intoxicating drinks like beer and wine. Liquor would remain off-limits. It would also pave the way for tasting events and competitions, advocates told HuffPost.

Home brewing was for outlaws and scofflaws throughout the country as a result of Prohibition until then-President Jimmy Carter signed a federal law decriminalizing the pastime in 1978.

Hobbyists cheered Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant for ending the state’s ban this week.

“I’m going to have a pint with friends at our local bar in town and then open a bottle of home brew at home” to celebrate, said Craig Hendry, president of Raise Your Pints, a group that hired lobbyists to overturn the ban.

“We want to be talked about in a positive light, not as another state that was the last to do something.”

I should note that incestuous marriages are also legal in Alabama. That’s right, you can marry your sister or brother as long as you’re sober.

Obviously this is a state where common sense went to die. But, if you’re still intent on taking the family down there so ya’ll can marry each other, here are a few other laws you’ll need to be aware of.

• Bear wrestling matches are prohibited.
• Boogers may not be flicked into the wind.
• Dominoes may not be played on Sunday.
• It is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of spooking horses.
• It is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.
• It is illegal to impersonate a person of the clergy.
• It is illegal to maim oneself to escape duty.
• It is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church.
• It is legal to drive the wrong way down a one-way street if you have a lantern attached to the front of your automobile.
• Masks may not be worn in public.
• Putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.
• Women are able to retain all property they owned prior to marriage in the case of divorce. However, this provision does not apply to men.
• You may not have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at any time.
• You must have windshield wipers on your car.

What scares me is the fact that each of these laws were enacted in response to the actions of their citizens. There was a blindfolded dude driving a car with no wipers while flicking boogers on his way to watch a bear wrestling match (the ursine kind, not the hairy gay guy kind, they have standards you know) with an ice cream cone in his back pocket.

Yep, welcome to sweet home Alabama.

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Life is full of lessons. And lessons learned by one generation do not necessarily benefit the next. Children of my era were tossed from our homes and told to go play. Nowadays a parent would have to be insane to do that. The risk of a child being killed is simply too great. When I was young I was told how to treat a lady. My grandmother would flail me if I failed to follow those rules. Above and beyond showing respect I was taught to open doors and help her sit at a restaurant. I recently did that for a nice lady I’d met and she politely mentioned that she wasn’t crippled. So we live, we learn and things change. Still and all there are some things that don’t change. Or so we tend to believe.

Sadly a school in Maryland has joined a growing, and disturbing, list of schools that seems hell bent on turning kids into soulless automatons. They have banned hugging. And homemade cookies.

From the same state that suspended a 7-year-old for turning his Pop Tart into a Pop Tart shaped like a gun, comes a ban on hugging.

Southern Maryland Newspapers Online reports on the new guidelines for visitors, parents and students for St. Mary’s County public elementary schools:

Birthday invitations should not be handed out at school, Hall said, because students who are not invited could have their feelings hurt. She said school PTAs could develop phone and email contact lists, with parents’ approval, to distribute.
Foods for celebrations should be limited to store-bought items that contain ingredient lists so as not to interfere with children’s food allergies, according to the rules.

Parents visiting the cafeteria should not hug or touch children other than their own, nor should they discipline other children, the guidelines say. Parents should also not walk with their child when he or she leaves the cafeteria.

Other changes include limiting recess visits for parents, prohibiting visits from siblings and a new ban on approaching teachers in person to schedule meetings. Visitors must also now check in with the front desk and have their photo taken. The complete list of rules can be read in the Best Practices on School Visitors document.

The rules were chosen by a panel of parents and teachers over four meetings.

To the best of our knowledge, the school has no current plans to ban Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or award-winning books.

This isn’t the first school hugging ban. Schools in Oregon and Florida banned two people wrapping their arms around each other in 2010. For a variety of reasons, the act of expressing emotion with physical contact was also banned in schools in New Jersey, Brooklyn and New Zealand in 2012.

I may be childless but I’m not clueless. When I have made foods for my nephews and nieces to take to school I always include a list of ingredients. In fact, to make it a fun project, I have the kids write the lists. Considering that several commercial brands have been shown to contain ingredients that are not listed or are in radically different amounts than listed, I’m not sure what benefit this rule has.

And the no hugging thing is stupid. Do they really want to reinforce the idea that all adults are possible pedophiles?

The more kids are forced to do things alone and without contact the more likely they are to grow up to be like Tyree Carter; library lover and public masturbator.

Here’s the real reason your pages were stuck together.

Tyree S. Carter, 20, was allegedly caught openly masturbating in the Racine Public Library in Racine, Wisc. Wednesday morning.

The employee who spotted Carter says he was “standing in the open, not trying to conceal the act,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Journal Times.

Police say Carter ultimately admitted to the act, saying it was the first time he had done it in public.

Carter’s bond was set at $1,000, and on Thursday, he bonded out of jail on the condition that he “stay out of all the libraries on the face of the earth,” court records state.

Brian Mackus, a former page at the Edison Public Library in Edison, N.J, says he’s not terribly surprised that someone was masturbating in a library.

“It’s not uncommon for people to use public terminals for adult material,” he told HuffPost Weird News. “Some of our terminals in the children’s secton had outside Internet functionality turned off to prevent this very thing.”

Nevertheless, Mackus, 28, did not recall any specific incidents of someone masturbating at the Edison library.

“The worst I had to deal with was taking body books away from giggling middle schoolers trying to make sense of a poorly drawn vagina,” he said.

Kids giggling at naughty bits is a timeless tradition. I did it, you did it, all God’s chillens did it. That is a long leap from whipping it out in public and grooming the one eyed wonder weasel.

Of course, to one family, masturbation is the only way to go. And, in their case, I find that I heartily agree. You see they’re actively trying to reduce the number of stupid people and they’re doing it by leading by example. They have stopped breeding.

Most of the doomsday hoopla disapppeared after the overhyped Mayan prophecy date of December 21, 2012 came and went, but there are still people making life-changing decisions about the supposed impending end of the world.

Take Brad and Krystal, a couple with three children from Tulsa, Okla. Fearing that a catastrophic economic collapse and the end times are right around the corner, they decided it’s just not a good time to have any more children.

“We would not want for her to be pregnant and in a bunker,” Brad said

The couple, who wouldn’t let their last name be used, are featured on the March 19 season finale of the National Geographic series “Doomsday Preppers.”

Besides holding off on more kids, they’ve prepared for their doomsday fantasies by taking family vacations to bunkers, instead of traditional choices like the beach.

Krystal says the decision to cap their brood wasn’t approached lightly.

“It’s been a long hard decision to not pursue [a family],” she said. “But we look at the fact that if we have to go into the bunker, I’ve had my first son C-sectioned, so my next one would have to have a C-section at that point.”

It’s a painful, but pragmatic decision, according to Brad.

“Without the medical attention that she would need in the bunker, she would probably not make it,” he said.

Now that’s a style of family planning we should all endorse. If you’re dumb enough to believe in the apocalypse or fairies or anything like that you should immediately remove yourself from the gene pool.

Also, while you’re at it, don’t vote either.

Thanks.

Crystal Castles – Insulin (NSFW Music Video) from David Dean Burkhart on Vimeo.

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Back on March 17, 2011 I posted an often overlooked aspect of St. Patrick’s day. For example, every red headed Latin person you meet is part Irish. There is no exception to that rule. Why that is so is the subject I wrote about then. I mentioned this yesterday to a red headed Latina and she called shenanigans. Well, actually she said a wide variety of disparaging things about my possible heritage and diminished intellect, none of which are acceptable for sharing in public. So, for Rosa, I am re-posting the original story.

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The little, poorly made, nameplate on my desk says World News Center. Since that is so, I feel it is my duty to look beyond the musty confines of my locale and imbue you with knowledge of the greater world around you. I can already hear some of you saying, “Hey Doofus! It’s St. Patrick’s day. We already get that. Wear green, drink beer! What else do you need to know?” Well, ye of little knowledge, you’d be surprised. St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, for example, bears no resemblance to the Bacchanal celebrated in America. It’s a somber, religious, holiday where people pray for enemies to no longer taint their shores and for blessings to be laid upon their homes and families. To be polite, it’s not exactly a wild party.

More importantly to our blog here today, it’s a Catholic holiday. I point this out not to exclude any other religions but to explain something that happened around 150 years ago that is very important to a lot of people.

The Irish in America at that time were trying to fit in. Many joined the military. There they were subjected to abuse, both verbal and physical, by the Protestant leaders who ran things. Even so, they fought and died for their new country. They fought insurrectionists, they fought Indians, they fought anyone they were told to fight until 1848. That was when they were told to fight Mexicans. More specifically, Catholic Mexicans.

Combined with the abuse and torment heaped upon them by Protestant officers, that was too much for them to bear. The Irish, en masse, defected to the Mexican army. While almost none of the soldiers spoke Spanish, that didn’t matter. Since they were Catholic, and had their priests with them, the priests spoke Latin. Just like the Mexican priests did. Just like all priests did back then. All negotiations for land, intermarriages and service in the Mexican army were handled by the priests.

The Irish knew they would be facing a far superior force in the American army and that their future looked to be short. They did it anyway. What happened next is why there’s a Día de San Patricio in Mexico and other Latin countries to this day. Viva San Carlos has the rest of the story.

Dubious about why they were fighting a Catholic country and fed up with mistreatment by their Anglo-Protestant officers, hundreds of Irish, German and other immigrants deserted Taylor’s army and joined forces with Mexico.

Led by Capt. John Riley of Co. Galway, they called themselves the St. Patrick’s Battalion (in Spanish, the San Patricios) and fought against their former comrades in all the major campaigns of the war.

The history of the San Patricios is a woeful tale of angry, bewildered, naive, or calculating young men, from varied backgrounds, who deserted for a myriad of reasons and paid a fearful price.

The San Patricios, in the words of one Mexican general, “deserved the highest praise, because they fought with daring bravery.” But eventually, Mexico surrendered, ceding almost half its territory to the United States.

Each San Patricio who deserted from the US side was interned after the war in Mexico and subsequently given an individual court-martial trial. Many of the Irish were set free, but some paid the ultimate price. Roughly half of the San Patricio defectors who were executed by the US for desertion were Irish.

There are ceremonies there twice a year, on September 12 which is the anniversary of the executions, and on Saint Patrick’s Day.

It also clarifies the reasons for the war, and the active participation of immigrant people (most notably Irish but also Scots and Germans) who joined the Mexican side and paid for that decision with their lives.

Heroes
The Saint Patrick’s Battalion in the US-Mexican War, has placed the Irish as a revered race in Mexico; even to this day, an Irish person in Mexico will be told a countless number of times about the famous ‘Irish Martyrs’ who defected from the US Army and gave their lives trying to save Mexico from US aggression from 1846-1848.

A main reason for their hero status in Mexico is derived from their exemplary performance in the battlefield. The San Patricios ultimately suffered severe casualties at the famous battle at Churubusco, which is considered the Waterloo for the Mexican Army in this war. Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who also commanded the armed forces, stated afterwards that if he had commanded a few hundred more men like the San Patricios, Mexico would have won that ill-famed battle.

The importance of these Irish renegades has not waned in Mexico over the years. In 1959, the Mexican government dedicated a commemorative plaque to the San Patricios across from San Jacinto Plaza in the Mexico City suburb of San Angel; it lists the names of all members of the battalion who lost their lives fighting for Mexico, either in battle or by execution.

A major celebration was held there in 1983, when the Mexican government authorized a special commemorative medallion honouring the San Patricios. First there was a special mass at a nearby parish, then school children placed floral wreaths at the plaque; the Mexico City Symphony played the national anthems of both Mexico and Ireland; Mexican officials eulogized the Irish Martyrs, and a few words were spoken by Irish Ambassador Tadgh O’Sullivan.

Beginning in 1993, the Irish began their own annual ceremony in Clifden, Co. Galway, John Riley’s hometown.

While the brave soldiers of Saint Patrick’s Battalion are not particularly well-known outside Mexico, it is clear that their god-like status in Mexico is enough to compensate for the attention they failed to receive in other countries. There is still a fond memory of “Los Colorados” the red-headed Irishmen who gave their lives in the struggle for Mexican sovereignty.

There are Irish names in prominent places – if you can recognize them. There’s “O’Brien City,” for instance, better known as Ciudad Obregon in the northern state of Sonora. Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928) was a famous and admired Mexican soldier and statesman.

Today few towns in Mexico are without a street by the name. O’Brien became the Spanish “Obregon,” just like O’Dunn and McMurphy are changed to American-English “Dunn” and “Murphy.” Sainte mait cuzat! (Irish for “Good health to you.”)

The story of the San Patricios has already been given the film treatment by Mark Day of California and it was shown on RTE earlier this year.

However it has also attracted the attention of Bill McDonald, producer of Silver, and he has shot a new version in Durango in Mexico, with Tom Berenger in the lead role as Sergeant Riley from Clifden!

More extraordinary again is that Prince Albert de Monaco, son of Princess Grace, appears as a member of the San Patricios’ famed artillery crew, “James Kelly”. Actor Mark Thomas, close friend of Prince Albert’s, had a role and involved the prince in the production since he was interested in the San Patricio story and in trying his hand at acting.

“One Man’s Hero” a film of the San Patricio Battalion (a Paramount Release) can now be rented at Blockbuster. It white washes the injustices of the US army against the Mexican civilian population and the burning of churches but at least acknowledges the event in history.

Finally Hollywood tackles the US-Mexican War with dignity.

Many of the Irish who did survive stayed in Mexico, raising families, building churches and becoming a part of the everyday fabric of Mexican life. Other Irish refugees settled in Puerto Rico. Again the priests handled all negotiations and, to this day, there is a San Patricio mall in Guaynabo.

It is also why there are many red headed Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the world today.

As you can tell from the video below, the Irish have had a profound influence on the world’s gene pool. So, before you go out and dye the city green, take a moment to reflect on the meaning of the day and the many people who died so that you might celebrate it.

DJ Papito Red – Shake It – (Fast and the Furious 4 Internet Promo)

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When Pope John Paul II visited Miami in 1987 a T-shirt maker printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the visit. Instead of “Vi el Papa (I saw the Pope)” the shirts read “vi la papa (I Saw the Potato).” Let’s hope we can do better when the next pope comes to town. Because, let’s be honest, this new pope will come to America. Pope Francis is from South America and Latins are the largest group of Catholics in the world. More importantly, for us Gringos, is that many of those faithful have migrated to our beloved Casa del Norte. In a day filled with papal firsts, (1) 1st pope from the Americas, (2) 1st Latin pope, (3) 1st Jesuit pope, it was also a day that was steeped in tradition. Pope Francis is not going to wander far from church doctrine but he will be far more involved with the laity than any pope in modern history. Which would make him more of a traditionalist than any pope since about 1600.

He takes over a church that is awash in scandal and intrigue. I see no reason to wander down that rat hole now. The facts are known well enough. What is less known is that the traditional Italian hierarchy isn’t actually the history of the church. There had been African and Greek popes until about 800 AD. Well, Jesus was from the Middle East (next door to Africa) and the original Bible was written in Greek.

But then the Italians, essentially, wrested control and outlawed anyone not Italian from holding any position higher than priest. The alleged exception to that would be the Frankish Pope John VIII. I’ll deal with her later.

This was during the dark ages. Far from being the light that led the masses out of their turmoils, the church dramatically reduced access to knowledge, printed materials and money. It became a corrupt power broker. Regular readers already know how that held true until people learned to read thanks to porn.

Molly Oldfield and John Mitchinson, the brains behind the BBC quiz show Q1, took some time out of their busy day to gather some background on the whole pope thing.

I admire the Pope. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can tour without an album. Rita Rudner

Holy Father
“Pope” comes from the Greek “pappas” meaning father. The term used to be applicable to all bishops, but gradually came to denote the Bishop of Rome. The Pope also holds several other titles: Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of Apostles , Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City and Servant of Servants of God. The word papa means pope (Italian), father (English), shark (Swahili), arse (Maori) and potato (Quechua).

Becoming Pope
Theoretically any male, baptised Catholic who has reached the age of reason, is not a heretic, not in schism, and is not “notorious” for simony can become Pope, although for th past 600 years the cardinals have selected one of their own number. The last non-cardinal was Pope Urban VI, elected in 1378.

Dressing the Pope
The newly elected Pope addresses the crowd from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica but as there is so little time between the election and first appearance there must be three different sets of Papal robes on hand – small, medium and large – which nuns will speedily alter to ensure the new Pontiff looks impeccable for his first public appearance. Benedict XVI sparked a flurry of media attention when it was suggested that his signature red loafers were made by Prada. The Vatican’s newspaper l’Osservatore Romano declared the claims “frivolous” and added that the Pope “does not wear Prada, but Christ”.

Transporting the Pope
The Pope travels in specially adapted cars which allow as many people as possible to see him. John Paul II asked the press to avoid the word “popemobile” as he thought it was undignified, but his wishes were widely ignored. The popemobile he used to travel around Ireland in the 1979 is now owned by the Dublin Wax Museum, who hire it out for around €300 plus VAT. In 2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, sold his 1999 VW Golf for $13,000. It was reported to be in “well-cared-for condition” and was later resold on eBay for $244,000 to the Golden Palace casino of Austin, Texas as a “celebrity status item”.

Antipopes
The antipopes were acclaimed by a large section of the Catholic church to be legitimate candidates for the papacy, while a rival was already in place. As they were unofficial, records aren’t as sturdy as the papal records, but it is thought there were more than 37 antipopes between 217 and 1439.

Four Popes
Fourteen different years have seen three popes hold their position, but 1276 saw four different popes following the death of Gregory X. Innocent V became the next pope; he introduced the wearing of white cassocks (a tradition from the Dominican order he belonged to) but died five months into the job. Adrian V was then elected but died five weeks later. The fourth Pope that year was John XXI, who lasted into 1277 before being crushed to death when his study’s ceiling collapsed.

Pope John XX
There was no Pope John XX. The mistake arose when historians in the 11th century thought there had been another Pope John between the antipope Boniface VII and the true Pope John XV. The latter Johns were adjusted to hold their correct numbers but John XXI and XXII kept the numbers they had taken themselves, as they believed there had been 20 Johns before them.

Papal pay
In 2001, Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls ended speculation about the Pope’s personal wealth by saying: “The Pope does not and has never received a salary.” The Pope-elect’s private property is either donated to the Church or, if it’s hereditary property, transferred to another relative, used to endow a foundation, or placed in trust. When John Paul II died in 2005 he left no possessions and asked that his personal papers be burned.

The Vatican
Vatican City has one of the highest crime rates in the world (608 crimes, 500 people in 2002). The small size (just 0.44sq km) accounts for the anomaly but also means the country has two Popes per sq km.

Let’s wander back up to the whole Pope John XX thing. The reason the numbering is off is because, up until then, the church admitted that there had been a Pope John VIII a/k/a Pope Joan. In fact, most of the modern dogma comes from the church’s dealings with a world that was changing in the 1300s. Gay saints and married popes were accepted until around then.

Many people point to Liber Pontificalis (Book of Popes) as proof that Pope Joan never existed. However, that book is so rife with political alterations and factual errors that it is rendered meaningless as a historical document.

Given the amount of circumstantial evidence, excellently compiled by Donna Woolfolk-Cross in her fiction book Pope Joan (she is a historian, not an idiot), it is far more likely that there was a female pope. Admittedly one elected by accident.

This pope, however, is no accident. If he can emulate Sister Mary Clarence and evangelize the populace, then there may be hope for more than just us after all.

Hope isn’t such a bad thing to have.

Vaya con Dios Padre.

MATER SUSPIRIA VISION – Seduction of the Armageddon Witches {2011} from Diego Barrera on Vimeo.

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I know you’re just sitting around eating your triple decker bacon burger, with extra cheese, and a side order of cheese fries with a 32 oz Mountain Dew while begging for sweet oblivion to take you away. You aren’t even alone in that regard. Not that I’m joining you any more, I’ve altered my life a little and seem to be on the path to live longer than previously expected. Actually, according to Death Date, I died in 1993. So I may have pushed the edges already. Anyway, I’m alive and hoping to stay that way. However, for those of you who aren’t so hoping, I may have some good news. My pal Suzanne Shelton reminded me of a great yarn that used to get told in church when I was a kid. Long story short, the election of the next pope will signal the end of the world or the end of the Catholic Church.

Or something like that.

For those of you who weren’t raised Irish-Catholic Huffington Post has some history for you.

After Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, those familiar with a 12th-century prophecy claiming the next pope will be the last questioned if Judgment Day is quickly approaching. Scholars, theologians and churchmen, however, all treat this “prediction” as fiction passed off as reality.

The “Prophecy of the Popes” is attributed to St. Malachy, an Irish archbishop who was canonized a saint in 1190, according to Discovery News. In his predication, dated 1139, Malachy prophesied that there would be 112 more popes before Judgment Day. Benedict is supposedly the 111th pope.

The foretelling offers brief descriptions about each pope, and some of them appear to align with reality in some way. For example, Benedict is apparently denoted as the “glory of the olive,” and the Olivetans are affiliated with Benedictine Order, NBC News notes.

Curiously, the “Prophecy of Popes” stops at the 112th pope and ends with a cryptic warning of doomsday.

In the extreme persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit … Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people. The End.

Following Benedict’s resignation, theorists began questioning if Malachy might actually be right.

However, although Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana might bear the same name as the person mentioned in the prophecy, there are no Roman-born cardinals in the running to be Benedict’s successor.

“There are no Pietros among the living cardinals; two Pierres (as second name): Nasrallah Pierre Sfeir and Jean-Pierre Ricard; and one Pedro: Rubiano Sáenz,” according to librarian Salvador Miranda, creator and producer of the website The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church.

Like any good conspiracy theory, there are many holes in the lore of St. Malachy, according to Father James Weiss, a professor of church history at Boston College.

First of all, there is no original manuscript of the prediction. Malachy’s vision was allegedly discovered and published by Benedictine Arnold de Wyon in 1590. Prior to that date, there is no mention or record of it, Weiss told The Huffington Post.

Reputable church historians and clerics have considered it a forgery since the 18th century.

“Between the summer of 1590 and the fall of 1592, there were four popes [elected during] a period of rapid turnover,” Weiss said during a phone conversation with HuffPost on Wednesday. “It was also a point at which there was intense rivalry between France and Spain to control the papacy for their own political reasons.”

The prophecies surfaced after the first of the newly elected popes died. “It is widely thought, also given who the author was and his relationship, [that the prophecies] were published to establish the case for election of one particular cardinal,” he added.

Text from St. Malachy’s “Prophecy of Popes.” Story continues below.

Another point Weiss raises is the line between the prediction for No. 111 “glory of olive” and No. 112 Petrus Romanus.

“It reads, ‘In the extreme persecution in the Holy Roman Church there will sit…’ It’s an incomplete sentence,” Weiss said. “Apparently a lot of scholars believe that line is an incomplete sentence indicating that there will be unidentified popes between the [“glory of olives”] and Peter the Roman.”

Despite the fascination surrounding it, Malachy’s prophecy is regarded as malarkey by church officials and scholars.

“Theologically and organizationally, the church pays no attention to this,” Weiss said. “The only thing that you would say to someone who was obsessed or curious about it would be, ‘Our times are in God’s hands and we can trust God’s providence.’ But that won’t satisfy a lot of people.”

Weiss is certainly not alone in his stance on St. Malachy’s prophecy.

Dr. Thomas Groome, chair of the Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College, has a similar notion.

“For myself — and even as a native Irishman — the ‘Prophecies of St. Malachy’ are a grand old fun tale that have about as much reliability as the morning horoscope,” he told HuffPost in an email Wednesday.

Thomas J. Reese, SJ, of Georgetown University, had only this to say about the buzz: “St. Malachy’s prophecy is nonsense.”

Nonsense? NONSENSE?????

Well, yeah, I guess it is.

The prophecies are very accurate up to the time they were “discovered.” Or written down. Or whatever. After that they tend to fall apart. Simply put it’s pretty easy to prophesize what’s already happened.

But, hey, what about Petrus Romanus? Since there are no Romans named Peter in the conclave that proves the prophesy is wrong.

Oddly enough, that’s the one part that could prove it right.

You see Peter, on whose bones the Catholic Church is literally built, wasn’t a Roman either. He was a Jew who was executed in Rome. Also, ever since the 1600’s popes have chosen their names after they are elevated to papal status. Whatever their name is now is meaningless. Still, prior to that there was never a second pope named Peter.

The next pope named Peter would be living in Italy since that’s where the Vatican is. Using the map locations as they were known by St. Malachy, and others, such a pope would be in Rome. Therefore, any Pope Peter would be Peter the Roman.

Feel free to mess with people’s heads with that tiny fact.

KILLER NUN (Giulio Berruti, 1978) (NSFW) from Spectacle Theater

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While the nice people at WalMart may think that they are a great place to shop and that people go there because it’s a great way to save 19% versus shopping at Jewel, the reality speaks otherwise. In Illinois, for example, you get a lot of people who wear tinfoil bikinis or big fuzzy bird outfits. These people, while bizarre as hell are usually harmless. The same applies to the folks out in Wyoming or Nevada (where bunghole fingering seems to be a state wide hobby). While you might not want to shake hands with these people, and you certainly wouldn’t let them near your food or your children, there’s no real reason to call 911 upon sight. Let’s be honest, for all their talk about reasonably priced, deep fried, frozen foods they are really just a destination for folks in need of cheap guns and bad flannel jammies. And people often wear the latter when purchasing the former.

But, in Florida the reality is far darker. When WalMart opened the day after Thanksgiving several people were shot while arguing over parking spaces. Yes, you read that right. Of course your shock level goes way down when you realize that a Google search for meth labs inside WalMarts turns up 277,000 hits. That is considerably more than tap dancing Islamic fundamentalists by the way. Just in case you wondered what the real threats to our land are.

Police in Orange City Florida are still sorting out the story of the guy who unloaded a full clip into a moving car in a crowded parking lot because he wanted to mark it for the cops.

A man arrested for opening fire in a busy Walmart parking lot said he was trying to stop a shoplifter and is now defending his actions.

Orange City police arrested Jose Martinez, 35, after they said he unleashed at least five bullets in the parking lot of the Walmart on Veterans Memorial Parkway.

Martinez told Local 6, he was defending himself from a shoplifter who nearly ran him over and injured him.

“The guy put me in danger and other people,” said Martinez as police hauled him off to jail Wednesday evening. “He tried to run me over.”

But police said Martinez only was bumped by the shoplifter’s getaway car because he was chasing after the car and even tried to open the door to the moving vehicle before he opened fire.

Eddie McKee, 42, was caught shoplifting groceries at the Walmart and took off when security confronted him, knocking down a woman, according to police.

Several other people chased after the alleged shoplifter, Eddie McKee, and another man was armed but he never drew his gun. McKee was arrested in DeLand shortly after.

Police said McKee then jumped in his car and took off, but bumped into another car in the parking lot, that’s when police say bullets started flying.

“If the shoplifter was an aggressor towards him, then yes. If he wasn’t, then no, he shouldn’t have discharged his firearm,” said Tasha Olkowski.

“I saw one black gentleman running from the parking lot, he dove in his car. And there were two older gentlemen chasing him down. One drew a gun, ripped open the guys car door and screamed, ‘Freeze, freeze, don’t move!’ And then fired shots,” said one 911 caller.

As the bullets hit the getaway car — piercing the trunk and shattering the back window — police said bullets also hit at least two other cars.

Martinez said to Local 6, he thought nobody else was in danger by his gunfire and he was surprised police arrested him. Martinez started opening fire because he said he wanted to mark the suspect’s car as he fled from the scene. He has his concealed weapons permit but has been charged with two felonies, aggravated assault and shooting into an occupied vehicle.

After reviewing store security video, police said Martinez’s story doesn’t add up. They believe he was never in danger because the shoplifter was driving away from him and everyone else.

The one good thing that has come out of the Trayvon Martin affair is that Florida cops are far less likely, for now anyway, to write off hunting black people as acceptable. We take our progress where we find it.

Where we don’t find it is in Crawfordville, Fla. That is where a nice WalMart customer pulled a .38 on the staff because they wouldn’t honor a bogus coupon.

Some people will do anything to save a buck — even wave a gun at a Walmart employee.

Officials in Crawfordville, Fla., say when Mary Frances Alday, 61, was told she couldn’t use an Internet coupon at Walmart, she got angry. Real angry.

She allegedly called the manager who denied the dollar-off coupon “a bitch,” and then intentionally stuck her with a shopping cart, according to The Smoking Gun.

Alday was escorted out of Walmart, but she went to her car, grabbed a loaded Smith & Wesson .38 Special and came back in the store and threatened employees with it, WTXL-TV reported.

She left the scene, but was later arrested during a traffic stop, and reportedly had to be tased to get her out of her 2011 Ford Escape. She also allegedy hit the investigating officer several times, according to the arrest report obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Alday faces four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of battery, one count of battery on a law enforcement officer, and resisting arrest with violence.

Reports are still not clear but, as best as I can tell, the coupon was expired and for a different chain.

So there you have it kids. WalMart is a dangerous place if you’re in Florida and a silly one everywhere else.

Fuck Me, I’m an Artist – by STEVE FOX from Steve Fox

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I have written about the impending Armageddon so often that it should have it’s own sub-site up here. And when I have avoided Armageddon I’ve written about various forms of the Apocalypse that may befall us. And that’s okay. Everyone needs a good laugh now and then. And God knows the varying responses to the numerous apocalie (is that a word? it is now) have provided gut busting guffaws for the masses. My heroes are still the fun loving, if not all that smart, folks who planned on riding out the last apocalypse in mobile homes. Still and all, much of the gloom and doom associated with those stories has been hypothetical, at best. Rational people knew full well that the Mayans had predicted nothing, that there was no planet Niribu going to slam into us, there are no comets large enough to destroy our sun and so on. Simple physics can prove 99% of the idiots wrong and common sense takes care of the rest.

Until today.

Ms. Marion Webster, no relation to the dictionary, has been fined by an English judge for using her form of vigilante justice to try and stop ninja squirrels from destroying her flowers.

Go ahead and read that again. I didn’t get any of it wrong.

This is pretty nuts.

Marion Webster, a 78-year-old U.K. woman found guilty of tearing up flowers in her neighbor’s garden, may have done it because she believed her own garden had been destroyed by a trained squirrel.

Webster, who has been dubbed a “neighbor from Hell,” according to the Birmingham Mail, was found guilty last week of criminal damage and ordered by a judge to keep the peace for six months.

Prosecuting attorney Kaya Ball told Solihull Magistrates Court that the flowers were not “just an isolated incident.” Since 2002, the West Midlands Police have received more than 40 complaints about Webster’s behavior, a spokeswoman told the Birmingham Mail. Reported incidents have included allegations of Webster yelling and swearing at passers by with no provocation.

“She is very proud of her garden,” one neighbor said, according to the Daily Mail, “and she got it into her head that someone had it in for her and was jealous of her flowers … she became convinced a resident had trained a squirrel to enter her garden after dark and tear up her flowers.”

Ha ha ha, of course the crazy lady is crazy, right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

As has been noted up here before, Chinese scientists, who have way too much time and money, have been trying to genetically alter mice so they can sing. Once they can sing it is hoped they will be able to vocalize. In other words, intelligent, talking mice will be roaming the planet.

Suddenly flower killing ninja squirrels don’t sound so crazy.

And over in Iran, as if our troops don’t have enough problems, various companies have been dumping radioactive waste and other pollutants into the soil and now there is a species of rat that is bigger than a lot of dogs.

Too bad Iran can’t Photoshop its way out of this problem.

Although Tehran has had a decades-long struggle with rats, its rodent problem seems to have grown to epic proportions as of late. Giant rats that have been flushed out of their nests by melting snow are the focus of a renewed extermination effort in the Iranian capital, according to several reports.

Some of the rodents reportedly weigh as much as 11 pounds.

The International Business Times quoted Tehran city council environment adviser Ismail Kahram, who told Iranian news website Qudsonline.ir that the rats “seem to have had a genetic mutation, probably as a result of radiations and the chemical used on them.”

“They are now bigger and look different. These are changes that normally take millions of years of evolution. They have jumped from 60 grams to five kilos, and cats are now smaller than them,” Kahram said, according to the outlet.

The Huffington Post reached out to several rat experts to assess the validity of Kahram’s claim. Dr. David Baker, laboratory animal veterinarian at LSU, told HuffPost that it’s unlikely the rats got super-sized as the result of a mutation.

“Nearly all genetic mutations identified across the field of biology are harmful and confer a disadvantage to the species rather than an advantage. It’s not like in the sci-fi movies,” Baker said in an email.

However, he pointed out that there are several species of “giant” rats found around the world that can achieve the sizes described by Kahram. Because their growth plates don’t fuse after puberty, Baker explained, even common black rats can get very large.

“During the Middle Ages, black rats in Europe reportedly grew large enough — and children were small enough — to carry off babies. Those had to have been some big rats,” Baker wrote.

Regardless of size, Tehran is reportedly ramping up its response to the rodents. Apparently a team of army snipers is now hunting the rats by night, using rifles equipped with infrared scopes. IBT reported that 2,205 rats have been killed so far.

It’s like a warped bonus round of “Big Buck Hunter,” except the only ones scoring points off this emergency are the media. The Times of Israel made a “Princess Bride” reference in its coverage about the rats, whereas the Times of London took aim at Tehran’s “experience when it comes to [exterminating]… its political opponents.”

Whether Tehran’s rats are mutated or not, some scientists have reported that certain rat populations are becoming resistant to poison. In 2012, a researchers in Britain published findings that estimated 75 percent of rats in West England were resistant to rodenticide.

Is it just me or does it make you get all squishy inside knowing that the giant rat killer is a Sox fan. No wimpy Cubs fans for a job like that, no sirree Bob. You got something from a low buck horror flick crawling out of the ground you want a Sox fan to deal with that ….. stuff.

And here’s the scary part. Right here in the U.S. of A. we have the genetic cousins of rats and our little monsters weigh in at around 100 lbs. No, that’s not a typo. Capybaras, the worlds largest rodents, have migrated from their South American jungle homes to Southern California and they have infiltrated the water system.

Yet another reason to stay the hell out of California.

TENEMENT (Roberta Findlay, 1985) (NSFW) from Spectacle Theater on Vimeo.

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The mind of a child is a wonderful thing. It sees the fairies and the goblins of the world and does not dispute their existence. It can, without effort, turn a pencil into a rocket ship or a piece of lint into an angry bug. It parses the universe not into black and white but into brilliant rainbow hues with each color hiding a different source of joy. The artists among us, and I mean that to include the mathematicians who envision the heart of the universe and share their visions, retain some of those attributes help them see the unseeable. These people contribute mightily to the human condition. They buoy it in beauty and unforeseen truths. Whether its Harlan Ellison’s paragraph on how jelly beans can be used to foment rebellion to Maya Angelou’s look at the meaning of freedom, these people give us new insights into our world that we might have otherwise missed.

These are the minds that probe and question and love getting answers. They look at the universe and realize we are a young race on a young planet. Might there be elder species roaming the stars? They tend to lean towards answering yes.

But for every Yin there is a Yang. Some do not see the wonders of the world but the horrors of the dark. They are quick to cry “WITCH” at anything they do not understand. If it is beyond their ability to create then it must have been done by supernatural or alien forces. Never mind logic or facts, they knew this to be true. James Fox is one such person.

He creates movies that rational people never see. And now he is offering a reward for whoever can prove him right.

Nearly every day, videos, photos and eyewitness accounts of UFOs pop up on the Internet.

Some are hoaxes. Some are quirks in the weather. Some sightings are never explained and forevermore remain UFOs.

The photo (herein), taken by Hannah McRoberts on Vancouver Island in British Columbia in 1981, is considered one of the most credible UFO pictures.

Still, never has there been widely accepted positive proof of an extraterrestrial spacecraft, though there are those who believe various government agencies around the world have conspired to hide the truth.

Now, however, if someone can prove otherwise, they will be $100,000 richer.

Filmmaker James Fox will make this announcement as part of the promotion for his upcoming movie The 701, inspired by the Air Force’s two-decade UFO study, Project Blue Book.

The massive study into 12,618 UFO sightings, which ended in 1969, was able to explain away all but 701 of these sightings.

Fox, who previously directed Out of the Blue (2002) and I Know What I Saw (2009), will reveal the $100K challenge at the 22nd International UFO Congress (IUFOC), which begins Feb. 27, in Fountain Hills, Ariz.

“One of the aspects that sets our film apart is the producers’ commitment to bringing forth never-before-seen evidence. As part of this effort, we’re offering a $100,000 reward for the best proof that some UFOs are alien spacecraft,” Fox told The Huffington Post exclusively.

“This material can be in the form of a photograph, video or film footage or debris from an alleged crash site. But it must be able to withstand scientific scrutiny by our chosen panel.

“Our intent is not to create another television UFO documentary, but to produce a feature film for worldwide theatrical release — ‘The 701’ — the most compelling film ever produced on UFOs,” Fox said.

“701 is the number the government doesn’t want you to know about. The U.S. Air Force had a serious problem, starting in the late 1940s. Technological devices were invading our airspace with total impunity. Glinting, metallic discs, which could accelerate and maneuver in ways hard to imagine, were being seen in incredible numbers by reliable witnesses. Many of them were pilots.”

Fox, one of the co-stars of National Geographic’s Chasing UFOs, will be sharing the IUFOC podium over the five-day event with former nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman; ex-FBI Special Agent (and host of the Syfy Channel’s Fact, or Faked) Ben Hansen; skeptical research scientist Ben McGee; former UK Ministry of Defense officer Nick Pope; and regression therapist Barbara Lamb, among others, presenting a compelling variety of topics, including:

• Ancient Astronauts and Technologies
• Physics of Space Travel
• A New Look At The Cosmos
• ET/Human Hybrids
• Close Encounters of The 4th Kind: ET Contact

Oh man, where do I begin. How about the obvious? If anyone had verifiable proof of alien life they would be instant millionaires. The reward is just a cheap PR stunt from a talentless hack.

Are the 701 unexplained instances interesting? Absolutely. Are they proof of interstellar visitations? Not even a little bit. As for his assertion that the number 701 has been kept secret by the evil government people who all wear black suits and talk in monotone syllables, he’s just a touch mistaken. That information has been available to the public, and often cited, since 1970 when the FBI declassified a bunch of stuff.

But, let’s be honest here, the people who find idiots like Fox credible are the same ones who believe that the Earth is hollow or flat (it’s 50/50 either way for them). People like Fox prey on ignorance for profit. They know there is no way to prove them wrong since they cite nothing but rumors as evidence. And people like Alejandro Rojas who give these tools free press are just as culpable to the idiocy that washes up on our shores daily.

While I can’t educate the world with a single blog I can ask that my readers do this; when someone states that they KNOW ….. make them fill in that statement with facts. Real facts, not “I read it on the Internet” kind of stuff. If they are unsure of the difference, point them here and let them read about the differences between hunches and theories and facts.

It’s worth a shot.

WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU SPACEMAN! (William A. Levey, 1975) (NSFW) from Spectacle Theater on Vimeo.

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