Penis Conspiracy

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Penis Size Is Shrinking Because...Feminism

Rush Limbaugh finds out why he has a tiny prick...

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Iron Sky

I almost forgot Iron Sky existed since I first heard about it a couple of years ago. The production values actually look quite incredible considering it was made on a paltry budget of just €7.5million. Anywho, from the people who brought us Star Wreck, please welcome...

Moon Nazis!

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Film Review: Apollo 18

You might be forgiven for thinking you missed the previous four outings since Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks, but fortunately unlike the innumerable amount of Police Academy films, Apollo 18 stands alone. The film's viral campaign purports that all footage was edited from 84 hours worth of film recently uploaded to the internet. By whom, we are not told. The idea, obviously, is to rope audiences into thinking that this is the true story of how NASA and the Department of Defence launched a final secret manned mission to the moon after the Apollo Programme had officially been shut down. What the astronauts found there has been kept under wraps ever since.

In 1973, NASA launched Apollo 18, a top secret mission to the moon under military auspices after it was announced that the manned moon missions would be cancelled after Apollo 17. Unbeknown to the world until now, classified footage leaked onto the space based equivalent of Wikileaks, lunartruth.com, unveils the fait of man's last mission to the moon.

In reality Apollo 18 is of course one of those faux found-footage gimmicks resembling a high-tech Blair Witch Project. It's directed by a Spaniard named Gonzalo López-Gallego, written by newcomer Brian Miller and produced by Russian filmaker Timur Bekmambetov. The astronauts are credited as Warren Christie, Ryan Robbins and Lloyd Owen. You can be sure as shit this premise is entirely fictional.

On the moon astronauts Walker (Owen) and Anderson (Christie) discover a Soviet lunar module, a dead cosmonaut and a dangerous form of extraterrestrial life in a plot that will delight conspiracy theorists. Indeed, Apollo 18 feeds a whole subculture of conspiracy theories surrounding the space race involving Nazis landing on the moon, secret bases on the moon and many more if you just take the time to google it all. What's most enthralling about Apollo 18 however is that it is a reasonably convincing simulation of the hours of grainy moon coverage which kept our parents and grandparents glued to TV screens in the heyday of the Apollo missions.

Plot-wise, as a horror/mystery/found-footage genre this is very basic and ultimately rather simplistic. Foremost, the premise of being stuck on the moon rests on its own laurels for the creation of dramatic effect rather than adding anything else to heighten tensions. It's not particularly scary either, relying heavily on sudden noises and jarring smash cuts for cheap thrills. It's psychological devices to 'get you to think' are also reasonably simplistic, for example explicitly having one of the astronauts mention the Watergate scandal when they begin to suspect a cover up as if to allude that of course the government would be within their bounds to send secret missions to the moon without anyone knowing about it! As their situation deteriorates and Mission Control becomes increasingly unhelpful, the intrepid spacemen soon realise they're on their own out there with nothing to rely on but themselves and a space hammer.

It does take a while for Apollo 18 to really get going, and even at such a short run time of 86 minutes it's a little thin on the ground. Amazingly it even feels like it's stalling for time in places. You would think that if this really did come from 84 hours worth of footage then why does it take so long to get to the good stuff? Fortunately its unique visuals are enough to stave off boredom. It's nothing new for the genre admittedly - black and white video, shaky handheld camerawork, strange static interrupting communications and faded colour home movies - but the fact this is all shot in the style of documentaries about 60s and 70s NASA missions are nonetheless intriguing. However, this style doesn't bode well for when the scares begin. Apollo 18's cinematography makes it difficult to see what's actually happening. While in the one sense it captures the claustrophobic atmosphere of compact lunar modules and space suits and adds a sense that you're seeing everything from the astronaut's perspective, it is also frustrating. Further, judging by the implausible variety of camera angles one would think this was the most photographed mission in the history of space travel.

In all though, Apollo 18 takes an interesting premise but ultimately asks the wrong questions. These sort of historical-conspiratorial things are supposed to make you think about plausibility and possibility of things otherwise taken as truth. However, Apollo 18 rather raises more questions about logical fallacies, plot holes and technicalities rather than encourage any pondering on truth. You begin to ask things like why the earlier Apollo missions didn't suffer a similar fate and how carbon based life can survive in a vacuum? In search of answers I attempted to access their viral marketing site, lunartruth.com, which has since 'mysteriously' been taken down. I say mysterious because I found the usual crackpots on Yahoo Answers all hollering that the CIA had shut it down while another guy brought up something about the video game Modern Warfare and zombies in an attempt to show how it was all interlinked. Indeed, there are actually some people out there who seemed to believe the marketing campaign and that this film is actually real footage. NASA even weighed in on the subject to stress that they had absolutely nothing to do with the film. But then of course they would say that, wouldn't they.

Apollo 18 is a reasonably unassuming effort of rising tension rather than anything deliberately shocking. However, because there's no punchline so to speak its effect as a space-horror is somewhat vacuous. All it eventually amounts to is a sustained suspense which ends only to beg more questions about technicalities than it does about intriguing coverups. Indeed, you start to wonder how some of this footage even made it back to Earth. Maybe there was an Apollo 19?

Anthropogenic Climate Change?

So you'll have watched news reports about how this planet is fucked, taken Al Gore's hockey stick as absolute fact and agree that we should be taxed to high heaven as a means to correct man's negligence. Apparently this is indisputable. Well, below are some articles which may cause you to question some of those preconceived notions. This isn't to say whether climate change is real or not; of course it is. The question is whether it comes through natural planetary cycles or 'us' pumping a minuscule amount of that life-enabling 'toxin' known as C02 into the air.

RESOURCES

Climate Change News: Global Warming Policy Foundation
Science and Public Policy
Watts Up With That

ARTICLES

The Sun as a driver of Global Warming
Greenpeace admit lying over the Arctic melting
Agenda? UN Secretary General calls for 'One World Government' as a means to deal with Climate Change
Depopulation? Don't have children; they're a danger to the planet!
Doubt man-made climate change? You're a heretic!
US Senator: climate change fuelled by fear, not science
Scientific scandal: How climate data is gathered
Reluctance to release raw data: Blocked attempts to gain access from public institutions
Chastised and singled out: Brown attacks 'flat-earth' sceptics
Journalistic tribalism
BBC 'impartiality' and its dated defence of man-made global warming
Cause for alarm?
Rise in sea levels 'the greatest lie ever told'
World Leaders: Closed minded?
New theory proposed to explain Global Warming
'Melting glaciers do not prove global warming claims'
Kilimanjaro's shrinking snow NOT a sign of warming
Head of the IPCC Dr Pachauri: What really gets him going?
The average level of critical thinking in the general public
Global Warming and the chilling effect on free speech
Antarctic sea ice growth UNDERESTIMATED by 50%
Greenland glaciers melt due to sea current change, NOT air temperatures
How cuddly are the WWF?
How going green makes you mean; green consumers more likely to steal and be dishonest

THE WEATHER; HOTTER OR COLDER?

German Scientists: 'Next decade may see no warming'
Global Cooling in 2009
Global Warming? Then why so cold?
UK's winter temperatures below average
Coldest night since 1995 recorded
Dozens of people die of cold in India
150 Indians die in cold wave
Severe cold weather grips Britain
BBC News: Earth has COOLED in the last 10 years

FOLLOW THE MONEY: WHO STANDS TO GAIN FROM THIS AGENDA?

Lucrative business; phishing attack nets €3million of carbon permits
Cap-n-Trade scam to be 'enforced' at state level
Shell: 'Cap-and-Trade is a good thing'
Big oil benefits from theory of man-made climate change
Oil companies against man-made global warming?
Copenhagen: Forcing the developing world to cut carbon emissions will kill millions
Follow the money: the Carbon Trading industry - who stands to gain from pushing climate change
European Climate Exchange chief defends carbon trading scheme

CONSENSUS?

Scientific Consensus? Maybe not.
Over 30,000 Scientists sign petition against man-made global warming
New peer-reviewed papers show alarm over man-made global warming unjust
List of peer-reviewed articles sceptical of man-made global warming
And they call this a consensus?
Lord Monckton wins global warming debate at Oxford Union
More than half the British public disagree that Climate Change is man-made
Growing number of prominent scientists now becoming sceptics

'CLIMATE GATE'

Climate Gate: Scientists manipulate data to 'prove' global warming
Excerpts of e-mails showing how scientists manipulated climate change data
Discussion and further links to the Climate Gate scandal
Lord Lawson calls for public inquiry into UEA's manipulation of climate change data
Profile: Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson's book: An Appeal to Reason
The Times Book Review: An Appeal to Reason
Opinions on hacked e-mails
Leaked e-mails say 'doctor the data'
Obama's 'science tsar' linked to Climate Gate
Scientists involved forced to publish full data
Climate Gate: The worst scientific scandal of our generation
UN body wants probe into climate scandal

DOCUMENTS & GRAPHS

Chart of Global Temperatures throughout the Ages
Plan for Propaganda: How to manipulate the masses
The fallacy of Al Gore's 'hockey stick'
The Medieval Warm Period

VIDEOS

Channel 4 Documentary: The Great Global Warming Swindle
Summary of 'The Great Global Warming Swindle
The Seriously Inconvenient Truth About Global Warming
Doomsday Called Off
George Carlin; funny, but think about it

Book Review: The AntiTerrorist Handbook

So I probably don't read as much as I should, but lately I have been trying to rectify this. In my quest to do so I stumbled upon this little recommendation thrust upon me by one of those Amazon emails.

Excerpt from TheAntiTerrorist Handbook

The Breathing Tax

"Temperature went up significantly up to 1940, when human production of CO2 was relatively low. In the post-war years, when the industries and all economies in the world really got going, human production of CO2 just soared, and the global temperature was simultaneously going down. In other words, the facts did not fit the theory.

I do believe in Global Warming, but I don't believe that humans' CO2 is causing that warming."

- Professor Tim Ball
Department of Climatology
University of Winnipeg

"Picture the scene: You've left the house, forgetting you've only got five units of credit in the carbon bank (owned by the Rothschild family, coincidentally) which is communicating with the RFID chip in your right hand—the one you queued up to get inserted back in 2010, remember? It's a good thirty-minute ride back home where your Family Carbon Credit Charger™ is situated, and you know that once your five remaining Carbon Credits® run out, you're going to light up like a Christmas tree on the Carbon Debtor Detector Unit™ within one of the hundreds of Carbon Police vehicles patrolling the city.

You begin to take shallower breaths and hold them for longer. You're getting a little dizzy but you know that if you can make it to the Pay As You Breathe® City Carbon Credit Top Up Unit a couple of streets away, you'll be just fine. The Pay As You Breathe® rate is three times higher than the direct debit rate, of course, and you resent having to pay that much for something that was free only two years ago, but thinking about that upsets you, and getting agitated is only going to have you breathing harder, so you push it to the back of your mind and pick up the pace in order to get there before your remaining three credits run out. You can just about make out the City Carbon Credit Charger™ in the distance, despite the fact your vision is now beginning to blur due to lack of oxygen. You make it with half a Carbon Credit Unit® to spare and let out a huge sigh of relief, which, of course, uses up the rest of your credit. You then spot a passing Carbon Police patrol car as it turns on its light-bar and does a screeching u-turn in the middle of peak traffic. You touch your right hand to the receptor pad on the City Carbon Credit Top Up Unit® but instead of charging your credit, it flashes a message advising you to remain where you are and await assistance. Sure enough, the patrol car stops right alongside you and a Carbon Revenue Collection Agent steps out and approaches. "Afternoon, sir, I see you've just run out of carbon credit. Please pop your hand on the unit there, charge up and I'll pretend I didn't see it this time. After all, we're not monsters, you know."

You've seen that seemingly compassionate smile before, when your friend Bob was in the same position last week. And you remember the multiple tasering he got when it was revealed that he'd had his chip deactivated by a back street mobile phone vendor.

You hold your breath and nod emphatically while rubbing at the receptor pad like your life depends on it. The resulting high-pitched beeps arouse the agent's suspicion and he scans your hand with his Citizenwatch 5000™, to discover that you have several outstanding parking tickets and your credit has been suspended. "I'm afraid you're going to have to accompany me to the station, sir. Do you have anyone we can inform of your incarceration?"

You wish you'd stayed at home and paid those bloody tickets, instead of demanding proof of claim that the tickets actually applied to you, a non-'person', living man-on-the-land, but all of that is forgotten as you slowly lose consciousness whilst hyperventilating in the back of the Police car. Just before you pass out, you hear, "Sir, you are now in contravention of the Exhalation Act 2011. You have the right to remain silent..."

Bearing in mind that we humans exhale carbon dioxide at a rate of 450ml per minute, and we're supposed to be cutting down our output to save the planet, it stands to reason that the carbon tax should be extended to breathing, surely. Or at least it stands to reason as a politician might see it."

Review

I guess the cover is a little intimidating, but I have to say it is quite an eye-opening read.

Let's not beat about the bush here, this is what the vast majority of people would call 'subversive literature'. The author's views are controversial and probably challenge the vast majority of beliefs and preconceptions you've ever had about the world. Now, I have always been interested in conspiracy 'theories' and as such, this book could be seen as somewhat pandering to some of me preconceived beliefs anyway. But, I have always tried to keep an open mind and see both sides of any story. Yet some of the points made are difficult to argue with. If you have ever had some sort of niggling feeling that something isn't quite right with the world, but could never put your finger on it, this book pretty much grabs you by the hand and slams it down on exactly where that sinking feeling you've had in the pit of your stomach is.

So, what's it all about then? Well, in short it is a collection of conspiracy 'theories' brought together in one coherent world view. Rather than those of a supernatural and somewhat 'outlandish' claims (e.g. Aliens, Planet X, Nazi flying saucers, Lizard People etc), the AntiTerrorist, as the author refers to himself, explores the society, politics and economics of the world around us. It is an attempt to shatter the left-right paradigm and 'democracy' that so many of us in the Western world buy into. It is done so humorously, yet with an unapologetic and devastatingly sharp edge. Essentially, the author asserts that we live in a Police State no better than Russia or China. He aims to prove his case by going through a number of issues and the motives behind instituting such a state by 'The Powers That Be'. In doing so, he covers; the law and our rights as citizens under it; the dumbing down of our populations through the education system; plans for global governance; vaccinations; fluoridation of the water supplies; the engineered collapse of the global economic system; the global warming scam; television propaganda and the need for not only an awakening to reality, but spiritually also. It is obvious that most people are so entrenched on the issues mentioned that the views portrayed in this book are likely to offend them. And the author argues that it is because of the social engineering that we have all been subjected to that this is the exact reaction the 'elite' want from you. But the methodology in which the author addresses said issues, whilst may not change your mind, will at the very least raise questions and hopefully, as is the desired aim, get you to research further yourself. At the end of every chapter he even lists key word terms to enter into search engines as encouragement.

However, it does suffer from a severe lack of references. Whilst there are many quotes from important people around the world in various fields of study highlighting a 'global agenda', they are poorly referenced. There is no bibliography or index at the end of the book and whilst he may occasionally mention exactly where he got a certain piece of information from, he just as equally does not. More minor annoyances include the lack of a contents/chapter page at the beginning of the book and about half a dozen grammatical/spelling errors. Whilst this doesn't take away from the overall content of the message, some poor editing in places may lead one to question the professionalism of the author/editor, and, for the more hard-nosed, give the green light for character assassination of the author in order to completely discredit the message altogether.

Overall though, if you are open minded enough, and not one of those knee-jerk reactionaries who froth at the mouth when your belief system is challenged, I would definitely nudge you toward giving it a try. Whatever you believe, I highly recommend you take a gander.