Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Diggin' for gold


From fellow traveller .sWineDriveR., originally posted on VAPID BUCEPHALAS, a fine collection of images both beautiful and strange, an animated GIF of the world's most famous anthropomorphic chocolate homunculus:  Choco.

I created Choco many years ago, but it's sWD that has really brought him to life with numerous drawings and comic strips.  One day we'll have to get back to the series of strips we were collaborating on.  Problem is, I'm very lazy.  Anyway, I love this little GIF and it gave me a big smile.

This is as good as an opportunity as any to let you know there's a long-standing Choco page on Facebook, which has all the Choco-related LoS posts and strips, plus some other sketches and storyboards.

More recently created is a Laws of Silence page on Facebook which, for the moment, merely allows us to advertise posts, but which may become "LoS Lite", with links and musings too little to develop into posts.  Or maybe not.

Please check out one or both of these pages and don't hesitate to "Like" them.  If you haven't subscribed to LoS by RSS or e-mail, it's an easy way to keep up with new posts as they come out. 

At the moment, we've got a doozy of a post in the boiler, a collaboration between The Gid and I, a little different from our usual subjects; after a busy January for LoS, things have slowed down a bit because we've been devoting all our writing time to completing it.  So, stay tuned....

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Call of doody


This photo, snapped in Mali by Agence France-Presse photographer Issouf Sanogo, has caused the French military to pitch a fit.

"This is unacceptable behavior," Col. Thierry Burkhard told the French paper Liberation in Paris. "This image is not representative of action by France in Mali."

Because nobody's dying or killing there, see, they're using water balloons and spitballs.

Apparently the brass are working hard to identify and one would imagine, reprimand this soldier.

The photographer, meanwhile, seems to hope he hasn't caused the lad any grief:

"I don’t know the identity of the soldier in the scarf and I’d have a hard time recognising him even if I did see him again....I think -- and I hope -- that it’s impossible to tell who he is. I’m not even sure if he knows what people are saying about him."

In an interview, he stressed that the soldier wasn't posing, but merely protecting himself from dust, which is clearly quite heavy in the air behind him.

What strikes me is that in almost every article I've read on this, in English and French, the mask is said to evoke the character Ghost from the Call of Duty video game....a game that's been in the news quite a bit lately.  Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, for example was said to be have played it obsessively.

Interesting that once again the press is linking real and imaginary violence so quickly.

I'm a fairly pacifist guy, so I don't go around glorifying war or soldiers, but hell, their job sucks, they have to kill people.  Why not, as William Burroughs explained regarding the title of Naked Lunch, let everyone see exactly what it is on the end of the fork....or rifle, as it were.

What do people think the French doing in Mali, anyway, building latrines and teaching hygiene?

Like an old LoS pal once remarked about the totenkopf on SS uniforms.  "Hey, at least they were putting it right out front there."  Not comparing the French army to the SS, mind you, but hell, let's not candy-coat the facts.  In an age where we've sanitized war reporting, where in the US they tried to ban the images of coffins coming home at Dover  for concerns of "sensitivity" and "privacy"--not of course out of the fear people would see concretely what it's all about and start to question why.

The totenkopf, btw, features in a wide variety of military insignia.  Wikipedia shows a variety of pre-Nazi (18th, 19, 20th century) uses from France, Spain, Prussia and Poland.  Even the USAF 400th Missile Squadron used a totenkopf with crossed missiles as an alternative insignia up until 2005 or so.  The photo you can see on the Wikipedia pages even includes a death's head scarf or ascot of some kind.

Why?  Cuz it's badass, that's why.  Why do you think pirates used it?  If you're going into battle, why not look fearsome?  Easier than painting yourself blue like some latter-day Pict!

Personally, if the French military are serious about rooting out al-Qaeda fighters, they should probably spend more energy looking for 'em than searching for this guy in a skull scarf.  If they're so concerned about their image, I'd suggest re-thinking the stupid raids they do every once in while that either lead to the deaths of their commandos (Somalia, 2013), or the hostages they're supposed to rescue (Niger, 2011).

SS-Gruppenführer Hans Heinrich Lammers , 1938, looking all Nazi n' shit

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Here's lookin' at you, kid!

Eye of Horus in the Sky
I'm once again led to a post by Guffey's Cryptoscatology; this time it's a passing reference to the phrase "Eye in the sky".

In addition to being the name of a novel by Philip K. Dick, who later in life thought he might be the subject of government mind control experiments involving the use of satellites, this expression, says Cathy O'Brien (Trance-Formation of America), was used by her handlers (including Temple of Set founder and Army intelligence officer Michael A. Aquino) to refer to the network of satellites that monitored her every move.  For mind-control purposes.

I immediately thought of the hit song of the same name by The Alan Parsons Project; Eye in the Sky is the group's only hit, from the eponymous album.

Now, these lyrics are a goldmine for anyone who wants to see a revelation of the method by a cryptocracy bent on implementing the New World Order.  Themes of surveillance, mind-reading, lies and illusion.  I could quote specific lines, but the whole song is rife with weirdness, if it's to be interpreted as something other than an out-of-love song.  The second and last verses and the chorus are pregnant with meaning:  "some of the lies" are "worth believing".  "Don't leave false illusions behind."

What always got me is not that the eye can see every move you make (the refrain of a mega-hit song from an album entitled Synchronicity by the Police!), but can also read your mind.  Whose mind?  We don't know.  The "you" could be "us".

I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind

Arrogance of a cryptocracy?

The album cover features the eye of Horus and was designed by a graphic design team known as Hipgnosis.  Great pun.  "Hip" means "in the know" and "gnosis" refers to "hidden knowledge".  And of course it refers to hypnosis.  Trance-Formation, anyone?

Alan Parsons also made a solo album called The Time Machine, based on the book by H.G. Wells.  Wells also wrote a book in 1940 called The New World Order in which he promoted the idea of a single world government in order to end war and lead to peace.

The Eye in the Sky Album has some other evocative song titles:

1.     "Sirius"      
2.     "Eye in the Sky"      
3.     "Children of the Moon"
4.     "Gemini"
5.     "Silence and I"      
6.     "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned"      
7.     "Psychobabble"      
8.     "Mammagamma"      
9.     "Step by Step"      
10.    "Old and Wise" 


Sirius has been linked with Lucifer and is the subject of enormous speculation.  Robert Anton Wilson has a lot to say about it, and it is the subject of a book by Robert Temple called The Sirius Mystery:

Temple's book and the debates that followed its release publicized the existence of the Dogon tribe among many New Age followers and proponents of ancient astronaut theories. Speculation about the Dogon on numerous websites is now mingled with fact, leading to wide misunderstanding among the public about Dogon mythology.

Of these, I would propose that songs 1-7 are especially resonant with regard to NWO conspiracy theory.  Number 9 as well, as most agree that gradualism is part of the program.  Whazzat you may ask.  It's like the metaphor of the frog in hot water.  Throw a frog in boiling water, he jumps out.  Throw him in cold gradually and gradually turn up the heat, he notices nothing and eventually boils to death.

In addition to the handy "every move you take" stalker element of the song, the group has acknowledged it was inspired by the constant surveillance described in 1984.  Songwriter and vocalist Eric Woolfson (Wolf's son?) was also an avid gambler and was fascinated by the surveillance cameras in the casinos he frequented; you know the type, I imagine, inverted smoked glass domes that hide the camera?  They call 'em an Eye in the sky....

Woolfson?  Parsons?  Widow's son?  Alan Parsons, Jack Parsons?  Gemini was a support project by NASA to get men to the moon....

Ah, games of chance where the house always wins, corralled into a dayless/nightless consumption machine, all watched over by machines of loving grace.  The casino is almost like the NWO engineer's wet dream.  A milking mechanism for money.

So, enjoy that song next time ya hear it.  I quite like it myself, but it'll never sound the same after this....

Lyrics:

Don't think sorry's easily said
Don't try turning tables instead
You've taken lots of Chances before
But I ain't gonna give anymore
Don't ask me
That's how it goes
Cause part of me knows what you're thinkin'

Don't say words you're gonna regret
Don't let the fire rush to your head
I've heard the accusation before
And I ain't gonna take any more
Believe me
The sun in your Eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing

Chorus:
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
And I don't need to see any more
To know that
I can read your mind, I can read your mind

Don't leave false illusions behind
Don't Cry cause I ain't changing my mind
So find another fool like before
Cause I ain't gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies while all of the Signs are deceiving

Get yer cryptocracy on, muthafuggas.  I'm drunk, I'm stoned, I'm Irish.  Balls out balls to the wall; we got yer New World Odor, right here. Meh. Blah.  Unfold.

Fold.

P.S.  The next day.  Forgive my drunken ending.  Thought it might be worth adding this photo of Alan Parsons from 2006.  Apparently, his fascination with the eye hasn't diminished over time.  Also, in 1978, his Egyptophilia shone through once more with an album entitled....Pyramid.

Don't have a cow, man

The Inspector, Karen Liebowitz
And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke — Numbers 19:1-2 (KJV)

Robert Guffey's Cryptoscatology turned me on to the bizarre and frightening story of Clyde Lott, cattle breeder and fundamentalist Christian, who is seeking to breed an unblemished Red Heifer in order to bring about the construction of the Third Temple which will then bring about the Second Coming of Christ, along with the end of the world as we know it.

Why the Red Heifer?

The red heifer or red cow (Hebrew: פרה אדומה; parah adumah) was a sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible the ashes of which are used for the ritual purification of an ancient Israelite who had come into contact with a corpse.
....
In Daniel 12:10, God tells Daniel that in the last days, "many shall be purified and made white"; a reference to the purification ritual of the Red Heifer, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (Isa 1:18, Num 19:6). The analogy appears to relate to a partner of the returning End Time messiah.
....
The absolute rarity of the animal, combined with the detailed ritual in which it is used, have given the Red Heifer special status in Jewish tradition. It is cited as the prime example of a khok, or biblical law for which there is no apparent logic, and is therefore deemed of absolute Divine origin. Because the state of ritual purity obtained through the ashes of a Red Heifer is a necessary prerequisite for participating in Temple service, efforts have been made in modern times by Jews wishing for biblical ritual purity and in anticipation of the building of The Third Temple to locate a red heifer and recreate the ritual.
....
The Temple Institute, an organization dedicated to preparing the reconstruction of a Third Temple in Jerusalem, has been attempting to identify Red Heifer candidates consistent with the requirements of Numbers 19:1–22 and Mishnah Tractate Parah.
....
During a March 2010 radio interview a Temple Institute representative claimed that there is now "definitely a kosher red heifer here in Israel."
....
The non-canonical Epistle of Barnabas (8:1) explicitly equates the Red Heifer with Jesus.
....
Some Fundamentalist Christians believe that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ cannot occur until the Third Temple is constructed in Jerusalem, which requires the appearance of a red heifer born in Israel. Clyde Lott, a cattle breeder in O'Neill, Nebraska, United States, is attempting to systematically breed red heifers and export them to Israel to establish a breeding line of red heifers in Israel in the hope that this will bring about the construction of the Third Temple and ultimately the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Not forgetting that for fundamentalist Christians such as Lott, the Second Coming will be preceded by the reign of the Antichrist.  The Second Coming will result in the Last Judgement, the end times thought by some to be described in the Book of Revelation.

His is what would be generally described as a "futurist" interpretation of Revelation:

Futurist interpretations generally predict a resurrection of the dead and a rapture of the living, wherein all true Christians and those who have not reached an age of accountability are gathered to Christ at the time God's kingdom comes on earth. They also believe a tribulation will occur - a seven-year period of time when believers will experience worldwide persecution and martyrdom, and be purified and strengthened by it. 

Those not included in the rapture will be condemned to hell on earth, forever.  Which is actually probably pretty accurate, for the reconstruction of the Third Temple must be on the Temple Mount where we currently find the Dome of the Rock, the second holiest site in Islam.  Destruction of this mosque would lead to such a violent Holy War that it could easily finish in nuclear holocaust.  Even after the Israelis trounced their Muslim adversaries in the Six Day War, they left the Temple Mount in the hands of their enemies.  Even in victory, they couldn't risk the all-out Jihad of the entire Muslim world should they have chosen to occupy it.

So breeding the Red Heifer is just one way to bring about the Apocalypse.

La vache qui rit
 
One happy heifer

Being the goofball I am, the words "red heifer" made me think of the only red heifer I know about: La vache qui rit, aka The Laughing Cow(Red Bull energy drinks don't count, a heifer is a female, a bull, a male!)

This brand of cheese dates to 1921, when brothers Leon and Jules Bel founded the company and created the first spreadable cheese found in individual, foil-wrapped portions.

The cow itself was trademarked in 1921 by Leon, becoming France's first brand-name cheese.  In 1924, friend Benjamin Rabier created the caricature of the cow which is pretty much the same version we see today.

Obviously, this jovial bovine is not the Red Heifer of the Book of Daniel.  For starters, her nose and hooves have white hair; according to the stringent standards of the rabbis, this disqualifies the Laughing Cow as a sacrificial candidate.  Furthermore, it's a cartoon character.

Funny thing though, is the name of the founders:  BelBel and the Dragon is an apocryphal book of the Bible, chapter 14 of the extended Book of Daniel, the very book in which the Red Heifer makes an important appearance in an end of days context.

In Bel and the Dragon, there are, curiously, two incidents related to food.  In the first, Daniel challenges the Persian King Cyrus's belief that his idol is a living God.  Cyrus says his proof is that the God consumes a ritual meal overnight.  By scattering ashes on the floor, Daniel is able to prove that the meal is in fact consumed by the priests who hide inside the statue and come out at night to gobble up the ritual offerings; their footprints give them away.  Cyrus then has the priests, their wives and their children killed on the spot and allows Daniel to destroy the idol.  Yahweh is a jealous god and when affronted, thinks nothing of allowing the murder of women, children, etc.  Remember the Apocalypse!

In the brief but autonomous companion narrative of the dragon (14:23-30), "there was a great Dragon, which they of Babylon worshiped."....  Daniel slays the dragon by baking pitch, fat, and hair (trichas) to make cakes (mazas, barley-cakes, but translated "lumps") that cause the dragon to burst open upon consumption.

So, given the family name and the centrality of food in these two stories, is it not possible the Bel brothers chose the Red Heifer as a sly nod to the Book of Daniel?

Also interesting is that Bêl is not a name but a title meaning "Lord" or "Master".  Feminized, it's Bêlit, meaning "Lady" or "Mistress".  As in....the Scarlet Lady?  More on that later.

I iz not the Red Heifer you iz looking for

L'Homme qui rit

The Man Who Laughs in French, L'Homme qui rit (1869) is one of Victor Hugo's more obscure novels, written after he had embraced Spiritist and Deist religious views.

Is it also possible that the vache qui rit is a comical nod to Hugo's novel?  The first major character in the novel is a snake-oil salesman who "dresses in bearskins and calls himself Ursus (Latin for "bear"). His only companion is a large domesticated wolf, whom Ursus has named Homo (Latin for “man”). 

I was only attracted to the novel because the title was an echo (or vice versa) of our lovable cow, but I was surprised that this animal/human transvestism is a feature of the novel, because what is the Laughing Cow but an anthropomorphized animal?

The second major character is a starving boy lost in the snow.  He encounters a hanged criminal, and takes the dead man's shoes.  He then walks some more and encounters another corpse, a women in rags, frozen to death.  He discovers an infant child clutching at the woman's breast, from which hangs a single drop of frozen milk. (OK, not to take things too far, but milk?  And cows?)   He realizes the girl is blind. He eventually stumbles upon the caravan of Ursus, the animal man.

A flashback later in the novel reveals that in this first encounter, Ursus thinks the boy is laughing as he holds the nearly dead blind girl; upon closer look, he sees the boy's face has been mutilated into a clown's mask, carved into a smile.  He is l'homme qui rit, Gwynplaine.

The girl is eventually named Dea (Latin = "goddess").  Due to her blindness, she can't see Gwynplaine's deformity and the pair fall in love.

As it turns out, Gwynplaine was the victim of court scheming, sent off to a group of kid traffickers who disfigured him in order to sell him as a freak to a travelling carnival or circus.  After intrigue involving an arranged marriage and investiture as the rightful Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone, he is ordered to take his seat in the House of Lords. "But, when the deformed Gwynplaine addresses his peers with a fiery speech against the gross inequality of the age, the other lords are provoked to laughter by Gwynplaine's clownish features."

Gwynplaine/Lord Fermain (fer = "iron" / main = "hand") renounces his peerage and returns to search for Ursus and Dea, who he eventually finds.

Dea is delighted that Gwynplaine has returned to her. She reveals her passion to Gwynplaine, and then she abruptly dies. Gwynplaine then walks, as though in a trance to the edge of the ship, speaking to Dea, and with the reflection of a distant light in his eyes, though the sky is starless. He throws himself into the water, and is thus reunited with Dea in death. When Ursus, who has fainted in Dea's last moments, comes to his senses, Gwynplaine has vanished, and Homo is staring mournfully over the ship's rail, howling into the sea from which Gwynplaine will not return.

So, the deformed clown is united with the goddess by throwing himself in the water, and the wolf/man mourns their death.  This paring of a laughing man and a goddess, whom Christians would automatically label a false deity, may have some importance in our unfolding poetic discourse.

Gwynplaine incarnated by Conrad Veigt

Don't forget the Joker

Hugo's novel and it's various filmed versions have inspired several Batman comics over the years:
    • 1940. Jerry Robinson borrows the physique and grotesque grin of Gwynplaine as his inspiration for the Joker, something revealed by Bob Kane in later interviews.
    • 1998. Artist Brian Bolland is inspired by The Man Who Laughs film for Batman: The Killing Joke.
    • 2003. In the "Wild Cards" episode of the Justice League animated series, the Joker uses "Gwynplaine Entertainment" as an alias.
    • 2005. Batman: The Man Who Laughs.
    • 2008. The Dark Knight. The Joker's permanent grin appears to be caused by a mutilation to his face.
    • 2011. Batman and Robin, writer David Hine introduced a deformed French supervillain named the Man Who Laughs. His backstory states that his father, a fan of classic art and literature, carved a smile onto his face as an intentional homage to Hugo's novel.
      The only reason these Batman references jumped out at me is because of the Aurora shootings, to which a host of Batman references have been associated by various Internet synchromystics, conspiracy theorists and people who pay attention.  Holmes himself said:  "I am the Joker" before opening fire on the apostolic dozen of victims.  This feeds back to our Red Heifer because I've recently run across a lot of references to a woman in red, but more specifically, with regard to Aurora shooter Robert Holmes:

      Loren Coleman has been writing about the symbolism of a "lady in red" (Holmes' Harlots, July 30, 2012).  He links several appearances of the red woman to the Aurora shootings in Colorado, itself one in a series of shootings with patterns pointing to what Coleman calls "Red Dawn" scenarios.  This follows a post of July 22, Blood Red Movie Massacres.  Back on May 3, The Sink Hole's Will Morgan devoted a post to the topic, unrelated to shootings, entitled....Lady in Red.  Morgan links the red lady to the Sacred Whore of Babylon.  Coleman links her to prostitution.  Old acquaintance Tate Bunker, who I haven't actually spoken to in 20 years or so, premiered his first feature film, Little Red at the Milwaukee Film Festival (September 30).

      If you will, the Whore of Babylon is also known as the Scarlet Woman. Interesting that the red women in Coleman's post are harlots, or whores. Echoing Hugo's "Dea" and the stories of Daniel, the word translated here as "whore" can also be translated as "idolatress." Is the Scarlet Woman the "partner of the returning End Time messiah" referred to in Daniel 12:10? Hard to say. "Apocalypse" initially meant revelation, prophetic literature. Like most prophecy, it's pretty garbled stuff, encoded, cryptic. Fun stuff, but this tends to lead to as many interpretations as there are interpreters. So really who knows what the fuck Daniel or St. John were on about. Different Christians traditions have different interpretations. Funny thing is, we've got synchromystics going on about the current ubiquity of a Scarlet Woman, many appearances pointing back to the Batman mythos. So, from the Scarlet Heifer of Daniel to the Laughing Cow, thenceforth to the Laughing Man and finally to....the Joker and the Scarlet Lady. But where is the Antichrist?

      https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitgZtn6TzoX4W_M3nye-_HEXHp84is5-YiSYldEW0k45M6mniE6i9DV1jAseLyRrw8_GhgudM9ozGD1NNYoJ68fUTe-aeB7W385ZlkL4sYxcQmAAo22SZsfb03jRbf-h9QqS40X6plaQzn/s1600/Heathe+Ledger+Joker.jpg
      Heath Ledger as the Joker





      Enter Obama

      A short time ago we posted Barack Obama is the Antichrist. We don't think he is, of course, but a lot of people do. www.beastobama.com may just be the best domain name, evah. We also looked at how Obama was depicted as the Joker in a post about the Batman links to Aurora (20 rosy fingers). This was all in the context of mass shootings, which for many on the conspiratorial right, are merely false flags to scare the sheeple into accepting gun control laws they might not otherwise push for or accept (see Cold, dead fingers). In fact, Obama has begun the process of issuing executive orders to regulate the access to firearms, a fact not lost on the right, to be sure. This is all a prelude, according to the BA is the AC crowd, for the pacification of the people, one more step towards One World Government/Religion and the New World Order of the Antichrist.

      Batrack Obama as the Joker
      If I don't get into whole Whore of Babylon thing, it's because no one knows for sure who exactly she is....each sect takes its prejudice and runs with it. Likewise the New World Order. Suffice it to say that for true believers, everything these days is a step towards that nefarious goal.

      I have no conclusion here, but it was an interesting trip down the path of association. From the Red Heifer to Barak Obama, via cheese, Victor Hugo and the Joker. Not too shabby!

      Friday, January 18, 2013

      “How much of what she says do you think is true?”

      Today I hopped over the the Dangerous Minds website to look at an old Devo video and I see a link to:  Brice Taylor: Mind-controlled Sex Slave of the CIA, Bob Hope and Henry Kissinger.  How timely, eh?  And by utter chance. The Unseen Hand guided me there....God obviously wants me to spread the word....

      The following video is available on You Tube and was originally made for Richard Metzger's Disinformation TV show.  His background coments are enlightening.

      Enjoy the weirdness!