The Not So Secret Fraudster

The three people who died at James Ray's Sedona Arizona Sweat Lodge weren't the first deaths to happen due to this activity, but they have to be the downright stupidest examples of such a tragedy. Usually, when somebody dies, it's an Indian elder who dies voluntarily. On some occasions, the deaths are accidental, due to poor health. But the incident in Sedona is probably the first time so many people died at the hand of one misguided (at best) individual who put himself across as an enlightened expert at something he didn't know anything about.

That's the worse part of this. The deaths of these three people and the endangerment and injury of so many others were senseless. The ironic part is Ray is right in one regard. In a sense, they brought their fates on themselves. They plainly should have known better than to trust someone just a little bit of research would have told them might be just a little bit full of shit, and that it might not be such a good idea to fast for three days, including going without water, before piling into a sweat lodge with numerous other people adding to the heat. Yes, they all acted stupidly.

Well, that's Ray's philosophy, as espoused in his venture The Secret. Bad things happen to good people and to bad alike because of their thought processes, their attitudes, their negativity.

That's why 9/11 happened, according to Ray. That's also why, to his way of thinking, the Jews were victimized by the Holocaust.

Strangely, so far Ray has avoided assigning blame to the victims of this tragedy. He's too busy trying to dodge the blame himself-for organizing the event, and abandoning the participants while his crew refused to allow anybody to leave after it became obvious many were sickened by the experience, to the point in some cases of unconsciousness. And just think, they only paid nine thousand dollars for this experience-this once in a lifetime chance for spiritual growth.

Now three of them have died, there is already lawsuits pending and more expected, Ray's publisher has put a hold on any further books by the self-styled guru, and the entire incident is now being investigated as a homicide.

All because some jackass managed to convince a bunch of foolish, deluded people that the answer to all life's problems can be summed up with platitudes about positive thinking while leading them into rituals for which he had no qualifications to perform.

I think I'll just go off in a corner now and think some good positive thoughts, about life, death, and justice.

A Little Sarah For Your Trick-Or-Treat?

Hell, why not? I have an idea for what would probably be an award winning Halloween costume. Sarah Palin, of course, carrying Trig, dressed as-wait for it-

A Blessed Angel.

Yeah, I know, I'm a dick. Of course to make this work you're probably going to have to rent a Downs Syndrome afflicted baby, which shouldn't be that difficult. Steal one if you have to, most parents probably wouldn't mind. Your Sarah can give him adoring looks, then disgusted ones when she's playing the part of thinking no one's looking.

You can go all out and make it a family affair. Have someone dressed as Bristol with a basketball under her top, and Levi Johnson in the act of undressing for a Playboy shoot. For that matter you can have a Willow tagging along, being stalked by A-Rod. You can have the youngest girl licking her hand and slicking down Trig's hair. See, the sky is the limit with this stuff.

Hey, give me a break now, it's Halloween. So what if she called Trig a blessed little angel or a retard? I'm like one of the commentors at Wonkette. Maybe the truth is a strange mix of the two versions. Maybe she actually called him a "retarded little angel", or a "blessed retard".

Who cares? I just think it's funny. But then again, I thought it was funny when Mount Redoubt erupted during the height of the Palin Alaska lawsuit ethics charges controversy, then stopped erupting not too long before she resigned as Governor. Hell I'm waiting for it to blow again. And bear in mind that when I say that, I am a Palin supporter.

How To Be A Prick For Halloween

You dress as the Swine Flu of course. If you really want to be an asshole draw a star and crescent on the costumes chest. Who says Halloween has to be nice and wholesome?

Chipmunk WIsdom

Yo, we are all connected

Somebody Please Help, There's Democrats On My Face

Rob Taylor of Red Alerts has dug up the horror story to end all horror stories. Seems that a company called Neocutis has started making dermatological skin care and anti-aging cream from the stem cell lines of aborted fetuses, according to Christian watchdog group Children Of God For Life, which through a spokeswoman issued the following statement-

“It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain,” stated Executive Director Debi Vinnedge. “There is simply no moral justification for this.”

I have to agree with Miss Vinnedge, and like Rob, I am appalled. Okay you women out there who might be tempted to use this product, it's time for some straight talk. We all know that the vast majority of fetuses aborted in America today are the spawn of Democrats and other leftists. Think about that, and ponder the potential implications.

Talk about every day and night being Halloween. Sure you might look good for a while, but later on down the road, do you really want to look like one of the women in the following photograph?



You have been warned.

In Bayside New York, there is a City Council race under that might see the election of the country's firs pagan council member, Jim Halloran-who also happens to be a Republican. A conservative Republican.

This story from the Village Voice seems to go to great lengths to try to dissociate Halloran and his beliefs from the more ominous racialist aspects that have ingratiated themselves into the modern Asatru-Theodish movements, particularly within the American prison system, where white supremacist gangs have formed around a concept of the worship of the old Norse Gods, such as Thor and Odin.

The practices and beliefs of this most racist group of pagans, or heathens, are known collectively as Wotanism, and was formed by a man named David Lane. The Voice story goes into great detail in trying to draw a distinction between the two while acknowledging the existence of the racists within the separate movement, but in doing so has drawn a great deal of ire from many, including Rob Taylor from Red Alerts, and from Jason Pizl-Waters of The Wild Hunt Blog.

I don't know, they both might be right. I might be hopelessly naive in wanting to give the Voice the benefit of the doubt and assume the author of the piece is just going way overboard to be objective in pointing out to excruciating detail that Halloran is not an adherent to the more racialist oriented sects within the Asatru-Theodish movement. I can see where others would feel differently, given the Voice's pretty clear left-leaning bent, that he might be trying to throw a monkey wrench into Halloran's candidacy for the benefit of his Democratic opponent.

But really, once the story of Halloran's religious beliefs becomes more widespread (and how could it not, seeing as how Halloran himself makes no attempt to conceal his path, and in fact openly and publicly proclaims it unabashedly), people are naturally going to become more and more familiar with the racist elements that make up a a segment of the heathen movement.

The Voice might then be doing it's readership, and Halloran, a service by putting all this information on the table and going to great lengths to absolve Halloran of any but the most tangential connections to them.

It's really not much different from that old saw about Wiccans and witches being, in the public mind, "devil worshipers". It's not true, and it's not fair, and it needs to be hammered home. Let's not shoot the messenger just because he doesn't necessarily follow the word-for-word script we would like him to pronounce. It would be pretty disingenuous for a writer to do a piece on Wiccans for the benefit of a general readership intended to be objective and yet make no mention of such fallacious beliefs. Talk about an elephant in the room.

I wish Halloran luck, and hope he wins. It is a great affirmation to me for a pagan to run for and potentially win elected office running on a conservative platform. And he well might win. He is said to be running a strong race.

But if he doesn't win, it would be kind of misplaced to blame the Village Voice for his defeat.

You Will Never Escape

This is really such old news I have to wonder why I'm even talking about it, but I feel compelled to address to some extent the trends in some communities to ban scary costumes for school Halloween celebrations.

No vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, or anything remotely suggestive of any kind of weapon, murder, or mayhem. I mean, you can make a case for rules such as discouraging costumes that play on racial or ethnic stereotypes, to a point, and I at least can certainly understand the desire to discourage pre-teen girls, or even fully teen girls for that matter, from dressing as sexy French maids.

Still, as is usually the case, the worry warts tend to take their good intentions way too far, and in some cases are offering suggestions that would limit costumes to historical figures (presumably only the more wholesome or allegedly positive ones) or, in a suggestion that has got to be fraught with the possibility of sarcastic irony-wholesome foods and snacks.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not so sure if I had a twelve or thirteen year old daughter that I would particularly like the idea of her going dressed in a costume that looks like something that people like to eat, regardless of whether or not the food item in question was wholesome and nutritious, any more than I would want her to dress as Britney Spears flashing her vagina.

Let's just have a day, just this one day a year, where kids can have fun and be themselves by escaping from themselves and their mundane lives for just a few hours. Is anybody really so feeble minded as to think that a kid that dresses up as Jason Voorhees is a potential mass murdering psychopath?

Or has Halloween school celebrations become just another avenue for the indoctrination and brainwashing of American schoolchildren to make them adhere to the preferred social attitudes, mores, role models, and lifestyles of the day?

Don't they deserve a break from the bullshit every now and then? Don't we all?

A Beautiful Horror

The winner of this year's Halloween/Samhain photo is Tasca "Frantic Psycho" Sexton, of Paintsville Kentucky. I don't know whether she was actually trying to pose as a vampiress, a zombie, or maybe just a spaced out meth freak, but whatever it is, it works for me.

Her MyYearbook site. You might have to start a MyYearbook account before you can view her page, or anything else there, but hey, you should do that anyway.

When Every Day And Every Night Becomes Halloween

I recently had a discussion on Renegade Eye with a certain Daniel Hoffman-Gill, who insists that it is perfectly understandable why a person might choose to undergo gender reassignment, which of course is the modern euphemism for sex-change, doubtless an attempt to underplay the sexual components of the procedure.

Daniel, who seems to have taken to studying the Bible lately, insists that there are some unfortunate souls who are "born in the wrong body".

Of course, there is only one problem with that explanation. Daniel is-an atheist. Wrap your head about that one, if you can.

Now I'll admit, Daniel's views might be a bit more nuanced than I am giving him credit for-but I don't think so. As a general rule, a person who is an atheist doesn't believe in the soul. The body is all there is, and once that's gone, that's it.

That being the case, there is no possible way a person can be born "in the wrong body". The body is, in effect, the sum and substance, the total, of who he or she is.
To put it even more bluntly, a person who believes this, and yet also believes he or she was born in the wrong body is, in effect, suffering under a grave delusion that is almost akin to a psychoses. But hey-why stop with the atheists?

Daniel has stopped talking to me since I pointed all this out to him, but that's all right. He's studying the Bible now, after all. And in the meantime, should he ever find himself lonely and in need of female companionship, I have a pretty good idea as to who, and where-and to what-he might turn.



Well, we all want the things we can not have, right? If there is no other option, perhaps we can become that thing we most desire, as a last recourse.

Whatever the case, just remember, kiddies-once its gone, it can't grow back.

The WInchester Mystery

Of all the haunted houses in the world, none has a more remarkable story than the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose California, pictured above. It started out as a relatively modest eight room home, but when Sarah Winchester purchased the property in the eighteen hundreds, she added on to it continuously for more than thirty years, until her death in 1922.

She did this on the advice of a Boston medium who told her that she and the entire Winchester family was cursed by the many victims of the Winchester Rifle, developed and patented by her father-in-law. Driven nearly mad with grief over the death of a beloved daughter and then her husband, she turned to spiritualism as a refuge, and it became her prison. She moved to San Jose, purchased the property, and began construction, which went on around the clock, seven days a week. As soon as she died, construction halted immediately.

She was told that the spirits would never leave her in peace unless she did this. According to some sources, they instructed her as to how to proceed during the course of her nightly seances. According to others, she designed the home in order to confuse the spirits, and in the meantime slept in different rooms every night to throw them off the scent.

There are stairs that ascent to solid walls. There are doors that open up to sheer drops. One closet has no floor, and to step therein would lead to one being dumped unceremoniously into the kitchen sink below.

There is a winding staircase made up of 43 steps that ascend all of nine feet. Even that, however, is secondary to her lunatic decision to install a window-in a floor, thankfully in a small area cordoned off by a banister.

So what is the truth? Was Sarah Winchester stark raving mad, or perhaps clinging by a thread to her sanity, her tenuous grip on reality further debilitated by a severe arthritic condition? Or was this condition in fact the only thing that forced her to retain some small semblance of sanity?

Or, seeing as how it is highly unlikely that Sarah Winchester was truly haunted by what she believed was haunting her, is it possible she was the victim of a cruel and deliberate hoax by demonic entities-or perhaps by more human agents?

Well, what would be the point, if the answer were the former? My guess is, Mrs. Winchester was the victim of a series of cons that pretty much amounted to the most bizarre transfer of a personal fortune ever recorded.

By the time she died, she had spent all of 5.5 million dollars on the house, over a thirty year period.

Of course, we will probably never really know the answer for sure, but one thing we do know. The house was quite advanced in some respects. It contained one of the few existing examples of the day of indoor plumbing, featuring steam heat and heated showers, as well as push-button gas lights.

More impressively, it sits on a floating foundation, which has allowed it so far to survive two major earthquakes.

As if that were not enough, there might even be a ghost in the basement.

What more could you ask for in the way of a haunted house? If you do ever visit it, however, you are strongly advised to watch your step.

The Thing With Two Heads

One of the best "so awful it's good" movies ever made, starring Rosie Grier as a convicted death row inmate, and Ray Milland as the dying, brilliant, and as fate would have it, racist surgeon who has managed to transplant his head on Rosie's body. Now, Rosie is wanted by the law as an escaped felon, and Ray is along for the ride all the way.

You can watch the entire movie on YouTube, in nine separate installments. I chose to use this one because it has one of my all-time favorite bad movie lines-"honey you get into more shit-"

This is seventies Blaxploitation movie making at its zenith, and a perfect Halloween drinking party movie.

Happy New Year

Well, that's what Samhain is to most pagans anyway, so this video seems appropriate in a things coming full circle kind of way.

By the way-a good time to get off those drugs, Amy.

'Til Death

This story kind of hit home, as I had a couple of ancestors back in the middle of the nineteenth century who married on Halloween. I don't know what big a deal if any that would have been in those days, or whether the planned date was intentional or coincidental for that matter, but I am reasonably sure in any event their nuptials were nothing like the story that follows.

If you can't have a Halloween wedding in Sleepy Hollow's Old Dutch Church, where can you? Evidently, the old three hundred plus year old Old Dutch Church wasn't having any of it, and when they found out just what the couple's (pictured above) plans were, they pulled the rug out from under them. Or so it would seem.

Elmsford couple Jim Nieves and Lisa Panensky, who planned a Halloween wedding at the Old Dutch Church on Saturday, are looking for a new venue after plans for their union unraveled over the weekend.

Nieves e-mailed a music request for the ceremony, which included traditional classics and, in the spirit of Halloween, theme music from "The Addams Family" and "The Munsters."

But the Rev. Jeff Gargano, the church's pastor, said the "fun gothic" tunes were not allowed in the historic 17th-century church.

Evidently, it didn't help the couple's cause that the bride planned to wear a black cocktail dress with a black veil and flowers decorated with miniature skulls-fake ones, we assume.

Look, this is an old, conservative, traditional church in a rural part of New York State. The fact that Washington Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and actually mentions this church somewhere in the story, should not be construed as an indication that this is an anything goes type of environment. A good rule of thumb is, when you are planning something off the wall, check around first.

Not that I don't feel for the couple. They are obviously upset that their hopes are dashed, and now they are stuck with preparing for a wedding to which dozens of invitations have been sent out. But they, not the Old Dutch Church, bear the onus of responsibility here.

What's more, Reverend Gargano even offered to marry the couple in the Church's historic old cemetery. He's probably bending over backwards doing that, and he has offered to refund the couple's money. They have refused on both counts. It's hard to feel too sorry for them.

Dedication

For she who walks between worlds

The Pagan Temple-Nominated For Next Year's Nobel Peace Prize

Well, since Obama has won the latest Nobel Peace Prize for virtually and literally doing nothing but talking about peace-and frankly, not even talking a lot about peace at that-it has got me to thinking, damn, I deserve the prize myself. I at least deserve a damn nomination.

I have been trying to make peace between two fellow bloggers, both of whom I consider somewhat to be friends. Unfortunately, Agent Beakerkin of The Department of Homeland Security is having none of it when it comes to my attempts to bring to an end the long-standing, bitter feud between himself and Trotskyist and former wrestling promoter Renegade Eye, whom Beak refers to as the "Lunchroom Lenin" and the "Cafeteria Commissar".

Click on the link I provided to Beakerkin's blog, which is a post in which he explains in his own fashion his utter contempt for all leftists in general, but communists especially, and most especially for Renegade Eye, and you can see I have my work cut out for me.

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Sure, I get it that these two are never going to be friends, and they are never going to make peace with each other, nor is Beak going to get over the many ways in which he has been slighted and assaulted by certain people whom he insists were acting at Ren's instigation-nor do I fault him for that, to tell you the truth.

But let's be frank here. Obama is not going to make peace between any of the warring factions of our globe, any more than he is going to make peace between Democrats and Republicans-or between Democrats and other Democrats, for that matter. Did that stop the fucking Nobel Committee from nominating, and awarding him the prize? Hell no. They had to go and do it anyway, just because he-well, talks the bullshit they like to hear.

Well, by God it's my turn. For trying to bring about peace between Beakerkin and Renegade Eye, I hereby nominate myself for next years Nobel Peace Prize.

I want that fucking million dollars and I want it by this time next year, by God.

Palin Endorsement Bucks GOP In New York

If you really, honestly, REALLY want to know the REAL reason Sarah Palin is the target of so many vicious assaults, you need look no further than this article from the Kansas City Star's Prime Buzz, which tells of her endorsement in the New York 23rd Congressional race of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Party candidate Dede Scozzafava, whom many conservative Republicans accuse of not being truly conservative enough to run as a GOP candidate.

In other words, Scozzafava is a typical New York Republican, much like the inside the beltway crowd of country club, so-called moderate Republicans who went quietly but obviously ballistic when fellow RINO John McCain chose Mrs. Palin as his running mate. And let's face it, despite the fact that Palin breathed a kind of life into his campaign that was neither warranted nor deserved, the two of them had very little in common. McCain was not conservative enough. Palin, if anything, is too conservative, certainly too conservative for the chattering classes who run the present day GOP and whose main area of conservatism is a concern for tax breaks for their wealthy friends and government welfare for their corporate buddies, especially those within the military industrial complex (for those out there who insist that is conservative, which I don't buy for a minute).

Palin's statement in support of Hoffman is as follows-

"Doug Hoffman stands for the principles that all Republicans should share: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty," the former Alaska governor wrote on her Facebook page. "Political parties must stand for something."

Contrast that to the meandering, mealy-mouthed statement of Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, considered by many to be Palin's chief rival for the 2012 GOP nomination, when he was asked whom he would endorse-

"You know I haven't been following that, I haven't studied the race at all," he said. "It's not that I would or wouldn't, I just don't know anything about it. I haven't taken the time to study their positions, their records, so I haven't taken a position on it."

That's the kind of thing that passes for statesmanship in today's political climate. Guess which one the GOP establishment will probably pull behind in 2012, were it to come down to a choice between Palin and Pawlenty.

If you guessed NOT the one who fought the Alaska State Republican machine and legislature during HER all too brief tenure as GovernESS of ALASKA, well whatever gave you that idea? Oh, I know, that would be because you would probably be right.

When a politician-strike that, when a public servant is feared, despised and reviled by the key operatives of both political parties, I can't think of a better reason to give such a person my unvarnished support.

I just wish she would come to her senses and stop standing in the way of Democrats aborting their (future Democratic voters) babies. But well, nobody's perfect.

The Things People Will Pay For

Just on a lark, I typed "dick sucking whores" in the Google search engine, and what did it get me? Possibly the most misogynistic website on the internet.

You've been duly warned.

Backdoor Conversions

Father Peter was growing sick and tired of the controversy. All he wanted was acceptance for he and his live-in male partner, his beloved Dick. He thought that since the Episcopal Church had decided to allow the ordination of homosexual priests, they could be happy, and gain the respect, recognition, and acceptance the two so greatly deserved.

But it turned out to be no bed of roses. While it was true that many of his own parishioners within his little church, and in the general Episcopal Community at large, welcomed him and his partner, there were a great many who openly reviled and rejected him.

Now, there was a danger of a threatened split in the Church. Peter and Dick prayed over the matter endlessly, and agonized constantly, wondering how it would all turn out. Then, one day, he heard the news which he was certain would be the answer to his prayers. He delightedly informed Dick, and the two decided to celebrate. After a lavish candlelight dinner, they decided to share the good news with the rest of the church, and so the following Sunday, as the parishioners seated themselves for the service, Father Peter announced that he had good news.

"I just recently learned that we may soon be invited to join the Roman Catholic Church and have Holy Communion with the Roman Catholic Church, a community where homosexuals have been accepted for ages as Priests, though not openly encouraged or acknowledged as gay. Well, it seems that the good Pope has decided to recognize reality and join the twenty-first century. Me and Dick are so excited it's all we can do to keep from constantly jumping up and down with excitement. I invite you all now to join me in a prayer of hope and thanksgiving that this blessed news may soon become reality".

As Father Peter bowed his head, one of the parishioners in the front row turned to the other.

"Do you want to tell him or should I?"

Jay Leno Is Ruining People's Lives

And it just so happens that millions of television viewers are leaving NBC in droves, which is causing problems for local NBC affiliate news broadcasts. While NBC is saving money on the comedian and former king of late night talk, local NBC affiliated stations are plummeting in the ratings during the eleven o'clock time slot, which are making the owners, and the local news anchors, very unhappy.

And really, it's good enough for them. Seriously, who would even notice a difference? Local stations follow the same basic formula. You have the handsome and/or stately distinguished gentleman and the attractive female co-anchor, the jovial meteorologist, and the sports nut who is more of a cheerleader for the local teams than an actual sports journalist.

And of course, there's the bantering and gibes, designed to illicit the down home, kitchen table to living room atmosphere that oozes plastic sincerity. Is it any wonder most people don't bother to change the channel back to their regular local news broadcast? How are they supposed to notice any kind of difference?

Jeez, I've seen some of these clowns get all misty-eyed over an untimely death or a murder, and the next thing you know they're yucking it up over some trivial bullshit before they put on their serious face over some other tragedy, all in the space of two minutes.

Let's face it, most people only watch this shit for the weather, some for the sports. Jay Leno isn't their fucking problem. They are their fucking problem.

Checking In

Halloween, or Samhain, is coming up soon, so I have an idea. If anybody is interested, send me a link to a picture of a sexy ghoul, witch, zombie, etc., etc., and I'll pick a winner. If I choose your submission I'll plug your blog, though to be honest, it will probably be so far down on the days posts a lot of people that come here might not scroll down far enough to see it. Naturally, I'll include the submitted link as well.

I might be offline for a while until then, because I'm trying to catch up with a lot of housework, such as painting, some repairs, and some other projects that are going to take up loads of my time. But I'll still try to check in every now and then.

Until then, stay safe, and don't take candy from a stranger that isn't wrapped.