Month: March 2014

War isn’t over.

By the time you’re done reading this post, the situation in Ukraine most likely will already have changed.

Today there was a bit of relief from the building tension when Vladimir Putin said there was no need for immediate action in Ukraine. Just as quickly as that happened, Russia fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

Reuters reports that a US official said proper notification of the ICBM test was given prior to the launch, and the dummy warhead hit its target as expected…

The Obama Administration is urging a pullback by Russia in Ukraine. That likelihood would appear slim regardless of the hour you’re checking..

But in trying to understand what exactly is happening in Ukraine, Crimea, and Russia, one must consider several things.

First, HISTORY!
The only part of Ukraine with a majority of Russians today is Crimea..  Crimea was  a ‘gift’ to Russia in the mid 1950s. But it goes back further than a present to the USSR: In the 1800s, there were three years of bloody fighting between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain, and Sardinia.  Russia lost that war but Crimea remained a part of the motherland.

Besides a bloody history, there’s another important feature in this part of the Russian continent: Gas! Gas and EU agreements–and Russia supplying a lot of the product to Europe.

To understand the crisis, there’s history and lots of text to pour over. It’s not easy–no war ever starts out of no where and no peace ever comes from war. We are heading into troubled times, I fear..

In 2012, President Obama scored debate points over Mitt Romney when he joked that the 1980s were calling to ask for its foreign policy back. Obama went on to say that the Cold War was over and that Russia was not an enemy.  Mitt Romney responded by saying that Russia was a geopolitical foe.

I don’t present these videos as any endorsement of a candidate (or former candidate) but as a message: You never know where your foreign policy crisis may be. And it’s also never safe to assume State Department or CIA meddling in an independent nation will ever lead to any good results.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1409sXBleg]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHDASkfrFUg]

Of massacres and mom jeans

I listened to Clyde Lewis last night.. He titled his show “Foreign Horrorspondence” and focused on the newest world crisis in Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia. As usual, it wasn’t the typical approach you’d find from other sources.. Lewis detailed some old Nostradamus quatrains about the ‘ring of steel’ and the new world war coming after the games of slaughter. Lewis believed the games of slaughter were the 2008 Olympics–they began the same day that Russia invaded Georgia–and thinks we are heading towards a new world slaughter because of recent actions. While it wasn’t anything to do with ghosts and goblins, there show shook me.

I have always had a special place in my heart for Nostradamus, even though I believe much of the whole ‘prophecy’ business to be mostly nonsense. But something about a radio show host like Lewis bringing all of these strange facts together compels me to start believing..

If you haven’t noticed lately, it’s been feeling like ‘war’ for a while now across this planet.

And we begin there today..

Vladimir Putin is calling the actions in Ukraine a ‘coup’ ..

The nation of Ukraine is filled with a vast amount of religious people. In Crimea, one of those, a bishop, is urging calm. However, a Ukrainian Catholic leader says people must be ready to sacrifice lives..

While the nation of Russia is basically ignoring anything coming from the Obama Administration, the White House and the US continue to look at a ‘broad range of sanctions’ against Russia.. That may be difficult since the European Union relies heavily on natural gas coming from Russia. This could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of the world economy. Some actually believe that, due to the crisis in Ukraine, a world economic crisis is brewing..
Russia and China are happily joining hands on the matter–which is bad news for the United States..

Timing is key, on all events.. including Crimea. While the world watches turmoil and conflict, the earth wanted to be heard, too. Either HAARP is operational again or natural events led to this, but Crimea had a 4.1 earthquake yesterday..

While Sarah Palin may not be the world’s finest expert on Russian affairs–thought she could see Russia from her house–she did have this snappy one liner about how the Obama Administration is dealing with Pootie Poot: ” People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil. They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates”

Perhaps the new faced-shiny Sarah is talking about this now famous photo released by the White House of Obama ‘calling’ Putin over the weekend:

Along with Palin, Twitter has unleashed some of the more humorous quips about Obama’s ‘mom jeans’ phone threat..

From the depths of the ice comes the silent killer


Just when you thought it was safe, a virus has re-entered our world from 30,000 years in the past!

As a matter of fact, it was the biggest virus ever discovered, and now according to all reliable informants on the topic, it is awake. 

The journal NATURE reports more on Pithovirus sibericum.. Apparently enough industrial excavation led to the virus, deep in the permafrost of Siberia, to come alive again. Well, I suppose it never died.. Just slept for 30,000 years under the sea.

This particular virus was frozen, it’s said, in 28,000 BC. Also in 28,000 BC, New Guinea became populated by colonists and harpoons, needles, and saws were invented.

I wonder what other surprises deep drilling has in store for us?

If they can resurrect Pithovirus sibericum, why stop there! The sky’s the viral limit!

Rob Ford suffers the celebrity syndrome: Sweating it up on Kimmel

Rob Ford continues to be the best thing to comedy in years..

And someone in the Ford camp decided it would be a good idea to go on to the most edgy late night show on TV: Jimmy Kimmel.

What ensued was a strange affair, with Kimmel dabbing Ford’s sweat off of his head and Kimmel playing some of the more shameful videos for Ford to watch ..

The MONTREAL GAZETTE has the best breakdown of the show ..

And despite the celebrity treatment that greeted Ford in LA and the most likely ratings boost for Kimmel, I don’t quite know what this does to revamp the image of Rob Ford. Unless he just likes being the image he is known as..

Some of the best comedy here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOBvGFvsgEc]

All in all it’s another crack in the wall

Three days ago, it was reported that the Wanapum Dam in Washington state had a major crack–a 65 foot crack to be exact..

At that point, engineers had started an emergency project to bring stability to the dam and ensure that the crack does not worsen, or even worse, spill.

Officials are now saying that the crack, even in a worst case situation, would not lead to much of a threat of flooding.

However media reports are absent one startling fact: The dam is about 20 miles from the Hanford nuclear waste site. Hanford has been in the news, sort of, since there’s a high amount of birth defects in Washington state lately.. Hanford has not been cited, but it just seems to be close in proximity to the defects with unknown causes. And now this dam is close to Hanford..

So many things of a negative aspect seem to be near Hanford..

SONY should be careful of what it’s BRINGING

The HORROR REPORT and other sources reported on the strange death of Elisa Lam since 2013.

We showed you the video that went viral of Lam behaving odd before she eventually succumbed to her tragic fate in the water tank of the Cecil Hotel..

And last week, we reported that SONY was going to make a movie about the whole event–though they downplayed the Lam aspect and wanted to focus more on the supposedly haunted ‘Cecil’ instead..

The Sony plan may be backfiring.

The “BRINGING” is being penned by Brandon and Phillip Murphy, brothers. But critics (AND ME) have labeled the idea tasteless and exploitative. .. Lam was a Chinese Canadian student, and the South China MORNING POST has gone in depth on its reporting of the BRINGING .. The paper called Mosiac Media Group, which represents the Murphys, for statements–but the group did not comment on controversy.

The BRINGING is being produced by Matt Tolmach and Daniela Cretu. You may know the name Tolmach since he is the producer of the latest installment of the Spider-Man flick, being released next month.

It sounds like someone at SONY didn’t have their spidey senses working when they rushed this script so soon after the death of this young girl.

But will pizza drivers delivery to the ‘haunted’ Ellen mansion?

Oscars watchers laughed and chuckled as Ellen DeGeneres brought a pizza man live on stage during the telecast.. The pizza guy didn’t have a clue–he thought he was delivering food to writers and producers, but did not think he’d be thrust into the spotlight of Hollywood elite.. He said he got a $600 tip from the one delivery! Not bad ..

Ellen is also in the news for some other darker reasons. There are several reports surfacing now that Ellen and Portia Di Rossi’s house, just freshly purchased for a cool $40 mil, is haunted..

Ellen supposedly has been hearing noises like footsteps and doors closing. One must trust the sources on this story, though, as Ellen herself didn’t reveal any details herself..Ellen and Portia’s house was built for real estate developer Sidney Brody and his wife Frances in 1951.

Known as the Brody House, it’s located in the Holmby Hills neighborhood next door to the famed Playboy Mansion. Brody died in 83 and his wife in 2009.

Supposedly, Ellen is going to have some sort of ‘spiritual cleansing’ to rid the house of spirits and does not want to ‘share her house’ with Brody.. She’s rather just share it with Portia for now.

‘In other news’

NEWS TO KNOW, links from around the world:

Erotic horror star Sunny Leone doesn’t believe in ghosts. Now you know..

Zack Snyder tells the LA TIMES that BATMAN vs SUPERMAN filming is set to start.. Now youn know.

A trailer has been released for DARK HORSE starring Tobin Bell. I don’t know if they will, but the movie should use Katy Perry’s DARK HORSE song for their film..

The movie OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN has gotten itself in trouble over noises used during trailers that were the same signals and tones used by the Emergency Alert System. The FCC won’t let them be on this, and Viacom expects a fine of $1.1 million, NBC UNIVERSAL foresees $530,000, and EPSN $280,000.. Don’t use that tone with them.

When it’s not busy profiting off of the death of Elisa Lam, SONY is doing another horror flick: This time a mother-daughter meta horror..

Movie dates revealed by BOX OFFICE MOJO: July 18th for THE ROVER, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS will be out April 4, and the PURGE pushed back from June to July 18..

Secret German UFO files have been revealed to the public..

The perils of an over-photographed world

I had a conversation the other day with a friend about photographs.. While that subject matter may not be the most thrilling of conversation pieces, it led me down a a path wondering if our supersaturation of cameras  and selfies, now couplies, will lead to a lessening value of the past.
Think of it like this.. 
There are haunting images from the early 1900s .. people seemingly frowning in photos. There’s images of county fairs in which men are posing in top hates and full suits with their wives, dressed in full length attire.. The subjects photographed in the early days of cameras didn’t do self images, didn’t pose for Facebook, and were hardly snapped at all.
That’s why taking a photo, whether it be a family portrait or taking a shot of a dead child in the post-mortem, was a special event. 
It’s been said that Abraham Lincoln loved to have his picture taken. However, even with his affinity for the camera, I doubt he or anyone else would understand or fit in well with today’s self-absorbed selfie culture.
But it brings up the interesting question: Are we over doing it?  
Even during my youth, there’d be a few shots of Christmas, birthdays, or other events. Now, at any given family affair, there could be hundreds if not thousands of images, captured quickly and immediately updated to the servers of your favorite social networking site. The world can see all of your life at a moment’s notice–and most of the world doesn’t even notice at all. 
On the subject of whether we take too many pictures today, I am somewhat torn. I’d personally love to have more images, or even videotape, of my younger days in the late 20th century. I’d be gratified if I could have just a few more snapshots of relatives who passed away. But at the same time, the lack of an immense collection of pictures, it leads me to only cherish more the few I have obtained.
On the flip side, there’s a tremendous amount of snapshots of current affairs. You can flip through but .. well.. there’s often too many. 
People posing, photo bombing…all of that.. Facebook accounts filled with thousands of images, some often appearing almost the same, litter phones across the world. And somehow, that often seems to cheapen a very meaningful event.
Don’t get me wrong.. There’s a value is taking lots of photos. I used to laugh at my wife for doing it, until I realized she captured some of the most precious images of my son’s early smiles I could imagine. I have come to value ALL of those pictures.
But gone are the days of a photo being ‘the moment’ when people stop, drop, and often frown–not because they were unhappy but because in their time it was culturally acceptable and often implied that you should look as serious as you could for an image. Because taking a picture was important. They were few but meaningful… And not, many times, they are plentiful and vacant..
I doubt a happy medium will ever be achieved. After all, the future is now. And with Google Glass and othe devices ready to videotape an entire life on the way, not one moment will be lost.
And they may be the worst thing ever..