Friday, March 19, 2010

Really, CNN?


Stunningly lame
but that's what happens when "news" worships celebrity idiot culture.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Book reviews & Hitchens quotes

Black Collar Crimes – An Encyclopedia of False Profits and Unholy Orders by Michael Newton
Loompanics Unlimited, 1998
One of the better titles in the Loompanics catalog. Loompanics called it quits last year so you’ll have to go here to get some of their titles: http://www.paladin-press.com/loompanics.aspx

Unfortunately, Paladin only bought their survivalist type of books. So, the “fucked up religion/politics/ideas” titles are gonna be harder for you to find. Though Albris and Amazon will probably be the place to find them along with the usual (at least for me) used book stores & garage sales. Which brings me to this – Black Collar Crimes. This is a rogue’s gallery of tax scammers, money launders, murders, anti-abortion zealots, pedophiles, rapists, arsonists, pimps, and adulterers. All of these are based on actual settled cases. While the crimes may vary all these criminals mentioned in the book are all “holier than thou”. All believe that “god was on their side” and thought that there way was the “righteous path”. Everyone from televangelists to Boy Scout leaders to Wicca high priests are here. The book is all done in an alphabetic, encyclopedic form - which makes it easy to follow. Some useful information for your Black/Death Metal or Power Electronics band, nerd-o. Seek it out.

Christopher Hitchens:

Pg 60. “God is NOT Great” (2007)

“The element of the wish for obliteration can be seen without disguise in the millennial sects of our own day, who betray their selfishness as well as their nihilism by announcing how many will be “saved” from the ultimate catastrophe. Here the extreme Protestants are almost as much as to faults as the most hysterical Muslims. In 1844, one of the greatest American religious “revivals” occurred, led by a semiliterate lunatic named George Miller. Mr. Miller managed to crowd the mountaintops of America with credulous fools who *(having sold their belongs cheap) became persuaded that the world would end on October 22 that year. They removed themselves to high ground –what difference did they expect that to make? - or to the roofs of their hovels. When the ultimate failed to arrive, Miller’s choice of terms was highly suggestive. It was, he announced, “The Great Disappointment.” In our own time, Mr. Hal Lindsey, author of the best-selling The Late Great Planet Earth, has betrayed the same thirst for extinction. Indulged by senior American conservatives and respectfully interview on TV, Mr. Lindsey once dated the start of ‘The Tribulation’ - a seven year period of strife and terror – for 1988. “

Pg. 79, ibid

“Well, I too have marveled at the sweet little ears of my female offspring (my daughter), but never without noticing that (a) they always need a bit of a clean out, (b) that they look mass-produced even when set against the inferior ears of other people’s daughers, ( c) that as people get older their ears look more and more absurd from behind, and (d) that much lower animals, such as cats and bats, have much more fascinating and lovely and more potent ears.”

from his “Arguments from Design" chapter