It’s All Too Real

Do you ever take a moment to worry about humanity? I do. It kind of comes with the turf around here. It’s not just the residents of Florida, although they are cause for a pause, it’s just that people everywhere say and do some incredibly dumb things. That would be bad enough, I suppose, but then those self same people who have trouble with the usual reality try and impose their version of it on the rest of us. I’ll give you an example. There is one thing that pedophiles and rapists have in common; they are cowardly losers who assert complete control over their victims. Their actions have nothing to do with sex or love and everything to do with power. One thing they aren’t, according to anyone with any experience, is gay. Oh there may be the occasional gay person who commits these crimes too, but they are in the vast minority. Another thing is true too. When you see a gay person walking their dog that is all they are doing. They are not boinking it as well. I say this despite the fact that there are those who sadly believe otherwise.

Logic, reason and facts are woefully denied them. And that’s the way they like it.

Dylan Stableford, of YAHOO! News, says that it’s worse out there than you might think.

13% of Americans think that our president is the Anti-Christ.

Seven percent of American voters believe the moon landing was faked, 6 percent say Osama bin Laden is still alive, and 13 percent think President Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

This is according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling, which recently conducted a survey on 20 “widespread and/or infamous” conspiracy theories.

According to the poll of 1,247 registered American voters, 37 percent believe global warming is a hoax. Among Republicans, the poll found that 58 percent believe global warming is a hoax, while just 25 percent do not. Among Democrats, 11 percent believe global warming is a hoax, while 77 percent do not.

Nearly a third (29 percent) of those polled believe aliens exist, which could explain why 1 in 5 (21 percent) American voters says a UFO crashed in Roswell, N.M., in 1947 and that the U.S. government covered it up.

Fourteen percent, by contrast, believe in Bigfoot, the poll found.

Voters are split (44 percent say yes, 45 percent no) on whether President George W. Bush intentionally misled the American people about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A vast majority (72 percent) of Democrats think Bush lied about WMDs while just 13 percent of Republicans think so.

Meanwhile, a majority of voters (51 percent) say a larger conspiracy was at work in the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy—just 25 percent say Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

And there are more than a few American voters who believe the government is evil:

• 14% of voters say the CIA was instrumental in creating the crack cocaine epidemic in America’s inner cities in the 1980s.
• 9% of voters think the government adds fluoride to our water supply for sinister reasons (not just dental health).
• 15% of voters say the government or the media adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals.
• 5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons.
• 15% of voters think the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry “invent” new diseases to make money.
• 4% of voters say they believe shape-shifting “lizard people” control our world by taking on human form and gaining political power.
• 11% of voters believe the US government allowed 9/11 to happen (78% do not agree).

Perhaps most surprising: 5 percent of those polled believe Paul McCartney actually died in 1966 and was secretly replaced in the Beatles.

Maybe Macca’s replacement was a lizard.

“Take me to your lizard” is one of the best lines in a very funny book. It is not, and I promise you this, a nonfiction book.

But all is not lost. Scientists – remember them? – have announced they found the literal Gates of Hell. I see package deals being offered to the people above.

Claudine Zap, a very cool name, has the whole story.

Or would that be the “hole” story?

It sounds like something out of a horror movie. But Italian scientists say that the “Gate to Hell” is the real deal—poisonous vapors and all.

The announcement of the finding of the ruins of Pluto’s Gate (Plutonium in Latin) at an archeology conference in Turkey last month, was recently reported by Discovery News. Francesco D’Andria, professor of classic archaeology at the University of Salento in Lecce, Italy, who has been excavating the ancient Greco-Roman World Heritage Site of Hierapolis for years, led the research team.

D’Andria told Discovery News he used ancient mythology as his guide to locate the legendary portal to the underworld. “We found the Plutonium by reconstructing the route of a thermal spring. Indeed, Pamukkale’ springs, which produce the famous white travertine terraces originate from this cave.”

Scribes like Cicero and the Greek geographer Strabo mentioned the gate to hell as located at the ancient site in Turkey, noted Discovery, but nobody had been able to find it until now.

“Pluto’s Gate” has been documented in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, which noted in its description of ancient Hierapolis, “Adjoining the temple on the SE is the Plutoneion, which constituted the city’s chief claim to fame. It was described by Strabo as an orifice in a ridge of the hillside, in front of which was a fenced enclosure filled with thick mist immediately fatal to any who entered.”

Strabo (64 B.C.- 24 B.C.) wrote, “This space is full of a vapor so misty and dense that one can scarcely see the ground. Any animal that passes inside meets instant death. I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell.”

The portal to the underworld seems just as bad for your health today. The professor said, “We could see the cave’s lethal properties during the excavation. Several birds died as they tried to get close to the warm opening, instantly killed by the carbon dioxide fumes.”

According to Discovery News, the fumes emanated from a cave below the site, which includes ionic columns with inscriptions to Pluto and Kore, gods of the underworld. Also discovered: the remains of a temple, and a pool and stairs placed above the cave. D’Andria is now working on a digital rendering of the site.

Amazingly, this isn’t the first entry to the underworld in the world. In the Karakum Desert, reports the Daily Mail, a fiery pit that’s been lit up for over 40 years has inspired visitors to Derweze in Turkmenistan—and on the Web. Geologists drilling in the area came across a natural gas cavern. Hoping to burn off the gas, they set it on fire. The flames continued to burn, leading locals to dub the site the “door to hell.”

You see why we don’t need conspiracy theories or made up demons? The real world is chock full of enough tangible terrors and devilish delights to keep me entertained for a life time.

And maybe beyond.

SKRILLEX & WOLFGANG GARTNER – THE DEVIL’S DEN (Unofficial Music Video)

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