Day 2 of my malaria prophylaxis medication, using the apparently psychoactive Lariam/mefloquine drug that can result in psychosis and “suicidal ideation” in a minority of users. I noticed a slight affect on balance and vision, but quite mild and transient. As psychoactives go it seems a bit wussy. Here’s hoping it has a stronger affect on the malaria parasites…
Back from Florida, an interesting place. From what little I could see, most of the state seems to be composed of condos, fake pirate ships, strip malls, and bait shops. There is a lot of water. I didn’t see any alligators. I kept thinking of De Soto and other crazy Spanish invaders.
So if I understand things correctly, the primary purpose of invading Iraq was to eliminate non-existant WMDs. The next “purpose” for the invasion was to apparently to eliminate a despotic regime that was torturing and killing specific segments of Iraqi society in a sectarian manner. This minority regime was removed, and has been replaced with a majority regime that seems to be torturing and killing specific segments of Iraqi society in a sectarian manner. And it’s allied with Iran. This must be what the necons meant when they said they were going to redraw the map in the Middle East. It seems as if Iran’s borders have been extended west into Iraq and east into Afghanistan. Well done lads.
I’ve been looking for just the right xmas decorations and then I came across this: an original Roman soldier’s Sol Invictus ring. The Sol Invictus cult was a deity that Constantine pimped up in Rome as a final attempt at a compromise cult that would satisfy Christians, Mithraists, and old-school pagans. The Sol cult bequeathed many of the totems now taken as “Christian”: the cross as a religious symbol of triumph over adversity, Sunday as sacred, and most especially, a birth festival on December 25th (the “Festival of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun“). I do admire the early Roman cross motif though…
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If I was feeling especially flush, I could splash out for this ceremonial Sol Invictus goblet, a veritable steal at only $35,000 or so.
Joseph Goebbels – Nazi Reichsminister fr Volksaufklrung und Propaganda, on the idea of memes:
An idea always lives in individuals. It seeks an individual to transmit its great intellectual force. It becomes alive in a brain, and seeks escape through the mouth. The idea is preached by individuals, individuals who will never be satisfied to have the knowledge remain theirs alone. You know that from experience. When one knows something one does not keep it hidden like a buried treasure, rather one seeks to tell others. One looks for people who should know it. One feels that everyone else should know to, for one feels alone when no one else knows. For example, if I see a beautiful painting in an art gallery, I have the need to tell others. I meet a good friend and say to him: “I have found a wonderful picture. I have to show it to you.” The same is true of ideas. If an idea lives in an individual, he has the urge to tell others. There is some mysterious force in us that drives us to tell others. The greater and simpler the idea is, the more it relates to daily life, the more one has the desire to tell everyone about it.
Via WFMU.
I thought it was somehow important to list which Facebook groups I am in:
California Love Agnostics and Atheists Amalgamate Eddie Izzardites Lazy Asses Zoolandericous Arrested Development, whut. I Break For Sherpas! [That hansel is so hot right now] Futuramarama Premed But Hate Every Other Fucking Premed Student Bitch, I Live In a Garbage Can I Miss In-n-out Soy Milk Lovers Just Say No To Spanish Midgets With Sideways Ponytails I’m Awesome, You’re Not. Norcal Pride Frozen Californians Club The Original Zoolander School For Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too Vegetarian Hot People Showgirls – the Greatest Movie Ever Made Mullet Hunters of NYU People Who Think Poop Is Funny I Left My Heart In San Francisco I’ve Got a Fever…and the Only Prescription Is More Cowbell! Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Want To Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too I’d Be A Slut If I Didn’t Go To NYU I Have a Love-Hate Relationship With My Breasts The Bluth Company Diet Coke addiction Househeads Cali at NYU Drugs, Alcohol, Violence and Insanity Have always Worked For Me Sarcastic Bastards Boys Should Be Spanked To Death God I’m So Fucking Awesome. I Have No Clue Who the Fuck You Are But You Can Be My Facebook Friend Anyway Cause You’re Hot I nose around the facebook profiles of people I’ve never met and join groups they’re in Techno-heads Anonymous I Believe In Sex Before Marriage jungle/dnb appreciation club Northern California Kicks Southern California’s Mystic Tanned Ass No, I’m Not Talking On a Cell Phone, I’m Talking To Myself Wearing Sunglasses at all Times Keeps Me Separated From You, the Underlings Girls Only Like Guys With Skills…you Know Like Numbchuck Skills and Bow Hunting Skills I Like Looking at Pictures of Myself FUCK YOU LADY THAT’S WHAT STAIRS ARE FOR (An Avenue Q Fan Group) No Matter What We Planned On / Were Doing, We End Up at Josie Woods Every Fucking Night Fuck God!!! Who’s With Me? Patrick Bateman Is One of My Role Models. Fuck You, Microsoft Word Paperclip! Has Patrick Inhaled Too Many Orgo Lab Fumes?
So evil Yahoo bought delicio.us, a collaborative tagging website. The usual suspects have been writing lots of crap about “Web 2.0” over the last few years, about how it was going to turn us into a hive mind and free our souls, or something similar. Sites like this that used lots of tagging were, apparently, the Answer to some great Question, online harbingers of some kind of cybernetic Rapture.
Notwithstanding the booster drivel, it both amuses and saddens me that “Web 2.0” is indeed turning out to be just another exit strategy and key hype spew for tool makers, as was predicted by naysayers all along.
Yahoo is where good ideas go to die in its evil, uncaring corporate bosom of anti-user hostility. EGroups. Geocities. Broadcast. The list goes on and on.
When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements – the invention of some new valve or sprocket – while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism
(Julian Barnes – Flaubert’s Parrot)
The young and the naive at least have an excuse for credulous optimism. Those old enough to know better usually *do* know better, but have a vested interest in the whole bubble boosterism.
