How to be... Charles Manson/Osho/God etc

Chap-Hop

One may describe the Chap-Hop ouvre as as kind of retro-futurist music scene which re-imagines 80's and 90's dance/hop-hop music through the musical style of the early 20th century.

Moosed

So how about this year we reject the red cap and embrace the moose?

Taliban or Con Man?

Taliban impostor 'dupes Afghans and vanishes with cash'

An impostor posing as a leading Taliban negotiator held secret talks with Afghan officials, report US media.

The Afghans thought they were dealing with Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Mansour, a top Taliban commander.

But he may not even have been a member of the Taliban, reports the New York Times, which broke the story.

He was paid "a lot of money", then he disappeared, say diplomatic sources. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has denied reports he met the impersonator.

The man is said to have travelled from Pakistan, where it is thought the Taliban's leadership is based, and reportedly had three meetings with government officials.

The fake Taliban leader was flown to Kabul on a Nato aircraft and taken to the presidential palace to meet Mr Karzai, unnamed Nato and Afghan officials told the New York Times.

Mr Mansour was civil aviation minister during Taliban rule, but BBC correspondents say it is not clear if Afghan officials would recognise him these days.

Shopkeeper?

Doubts about the man's identity arose after someone who knew Mr Mansour told Afghan officials he did not recognise the impersonator.

"It's not him," an unidentified Western diplomat in Kabul, said to be deeply involved in the negotiations, was quoted by the newspaper as saying. "And we gave him a lot of money."

The Washington Post quoted Afghan officials as saying that the man was a lowly shopkeeper from the Pakistani city of Quetta.

During a news conference on Tuesday, President Karzai denied the meeting ever took place.

"We have not met anyone named Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour has not come to Afghanistan," Mr Karzai said in Kabul.

"Do not accept foreign media reports about meetings with Taliban leaders. Most of these reports are propaganda and lies," he added.

Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan refused to comment on the reports.

It is not clear whether the imposter had any links to the Taliban or if he was simply a conman. Some suggest he might have been a Pakistani intelligence agent.

An Afghan intelligence official told the BBC the real Mr Mansour is a senior Taliban member in charge of weapons procurement.

He was once touted as successor to Taliban founder Mullah Omar's second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was arrested in Pakistan in January.

President Karzai has said that talks with the Taliban will be essential to end the nine-year war in Afghanistan, although diplomats have said meaningful negotiations are still some way away.

In many cases the government is not sure who it is dealing with or whether they have the authority to speak on behalf of the Taliban, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul.

Western diplomats have previously conceded that some of those claiming to represent the Taliban have turned out to be frauds.

Mullah Omar last week said rumours of talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government were a ploy by Western powers.

Nato said last month channels of communication had been open for some time, but were not yet at the stage of negotiation.

Correspondents say there have been contacts between some insurgents and the Afghan government, although not at a senior level.

Quackery

A French farmer has been given a one-month suspended jail sentence and fined 500 euros (£428) for feeding his ducks marijuana to rid them of worms.

Police arrested Michel Rouyer after they discovered 12 cannabis plants and about 5kg (11lb) of the drug during a visit to his home after a theft.

Mr Rouyer said there was "no better worming substance" for ducks and that his flock was in excellent health.

A police spokesman said it was the first time they had heard such a claim.

Mr Rouyer, who lives in the village of Gripperie-Saint-Symphorien on France's Atlantic coast, did also admit to smoking some of the marijuana.

I Don't Know - the Smarter choice

I don't know about you, but quite often there seems to me only one sensible answer the questions posed in these attempts to canvass opinion: I don't know.

But that's not really what I mean. What I really mean is: "it depends". And for that reason, I might not answer.

Yet the standard way for pollsters to treat people like me is to ignore them.

"Excluding don't-knows and no answers" say the reports, before telling us that most of us think we should or shouldn't do this or that. It's as if the "don't knows" haven't been paying attention while the "no answers" don't care.

Strip out the apathetic and the ignorant and see what's left, they seem to say.

But isn't it at least arguable that we've thought about it and decided uncertainty is the best response?

Tax rises? When, for who, how much, for how long, for what purpose? Maybe, maybe not. It depends.

Climate change unstoppable? Now where did I put my crystal ball and my vast science library?

Alien life-forms? Unless you've bumped into one lately, withholding judgement seems reasonable enough.

Maarten Hajer, an academic, says that apart from holding reasonable doubts, many people are "citizens on standby". They don't show up in surveys, but they are "people with many political skills... who are not necessarily interested in employing them".

That passivity can change in an instant. Those who "[show] up in surveys as 'not interested in politics', they can transform overnight into activists".

The "don't cares" and "don't knows" may appear meek and mild in the abstract conditions of a survey. But when an issue is real, specific and maybe here and now, they can quickly change to "do care" and "do know".

In short, it depends. But as to whether these people are apathetic or ignorant? They may be. They may be anything but. And if you want to know what might turn citizens on standby into active citizens with strong opinions… ask the don't knows.

Darwin & Mars

A lonely island in the middle of the South Atlantic conceals Charles Darwin's best-kept secret.

Two hundred years ago, Ascension Island was a barren volcanic edifice.

Today, its peaks are covered by lush tropical "cloud forest".

What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem.

By a bizarre twist, this great imperial experiment may hold the key to the future colonisation of Mars.

Saint Binew

The Church of Saint Bob the Agnostic is pleased to announce the elevation of K Roth Binew to the ranks of Discordian Saints (First Class)

"I drink to bring myself down to the level of the common man. But remember: the common man drinks, so I must drink twice as much! "

Strip for Jesus

Ohio strippers stage picket outside church services

Several Ohio strippers are protesting outside a church whose members want to put their strip club out of business.

The bikini-clad dancers are picketing a congregation that has photographed customers' number plates and asked if their wives know where they are.

The Fox Hole club's owner has told the pastor he will call off his protest if the church ceases its demonstrations.

But the pastor has refused, saying, "as a Christian community, we cannot share territory with the devil".

"Light and darkness cannot exist together," Pastor Bill Dunfee told the Associated Press news agency, "so the Fox Hole has got to go."

The strippers have been sitting in deckchairs outside New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw, Ohio, during Sunday services.

Some hold signs bearing Christian messages such as "Jesus loves the children of the world" and citing Bible verses.

The strip club is about nine miles (14.5km) from the church.

"Everybody has sinned, and that doesn't mean I'm not going to get into heaven," Fox Hole stripper Laura Meske, 42, told AP.

"I believe in Jesus. I don't believe what they preach. They preach hate."

The confrontations between the two camps have reportedly been largely friendly, with Mr Dunfee and congregants greeting and chatting to the strippers outside the church.

POwnEd

Mu?

Canadian priest sorry for giving dog Holy Communion

A priest in Canada has apologised after giving Holy Communion to a dog.

Reverend Marguerite Rea of St Peter's Anglican Church, in Toronto, received complaints from Christians all over Canada after she fed communion bread to a German Shepherd cross named Trapper.

Area Bishop Patrick Yu said the priest had contravened church policy with her "strange and shocking" actions.

Ms Rea said it had been a "simple church act of reaching out" to a new congregation member and his pet.

"If I have hurt, upset or embarrassed anyone, I apologise," she told her congregation on Sunday morning, the Toronto Star reports.

The canine controversy began last month when four-year-old Trapper and his owner, Donald Keith, 56, attended the church in Toronto's downtown area for the first time.

"The minister welcomed me and said come up and take communion, and Trapper came up with me and the minister gave him communion as well," Mr Keith told the Toronto Star.

"I thought it was a nice way to welcome me into the church. I thought it was acceptable. There was an old lady in the front just beaming when she saw this."

But not all parishioners at the service were quite so charmed by the sight of the priest leaning down and placing a wafer on the wagging tongue of Trapper, a German Shepherd-Rhodesian ridgeback cross.

Communion bread is considered by Anglicans to represent the body of Jesus Christ.

One onlooker filed a complaint with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto about the incident and has since left the church.

When news spread of the canine communion, St Peter's Church began receiving e-mails from angry Christians all over the country.

"Communion is a symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus' body; he died for all of us. But I don't recall anything from the scripture about Jesus dying for the salvation of our pets," said Cheryl Chang, director of the Anglican Network in Canada, the National Post newspaper reports.

"I can see why people would be offended," said Bishop Yu.

"I have never heard of it happening before. I think the reverend was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming."

Mr Keith has since been told that he and his dog are most welcome at the church, but Trapper can no longer receive communion.

"This has blown me away. The church is even getting e-mails from Catholics," said the truck driver.

"Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of the people in the church love Trapper and the kids play with him. It was just one person who got his nose out of joint.

"Holy smokes. We are living in the downtown core. This is small stuff. I thought it was innocent and it made me think of the Blessing of the Animals."

A monk asked Zhaozhou Congshen, a Chinese Zen master (known as Jōshū in Japanese),

"Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?" Zhaozhou answered, "Wú" (in Japanese, Mu).

Some earlier Buddhist thinkers maintained that animals did have Buddha nature, others believed that they did not. Zhaozhou's answer, which literally means that dogs do not have Buddha nature, has been interpreted to mean that such categorical thinking is a delusion, that yes and no are both right and wrong. This koan is traditionally used by Rinzai school to initiate students into Zen study.

Some days you're pigeon, and some days you're the statue

Pigeons force Kings of Leon to abandon concert

Rock band the Kings of Leon have been forced to end a concert early after pigeons defecated on them from the rafters of a US venue.

The rockers abandoned the gig in St Louis after three songs when bass player Jared Followill was hit in the mouth and face by pigeon droppings.

Drummer Nathan Followill later apologised to fans via Twitter, saying "it was too unsanitary to continue".

Their publicist added the band found it hard to carry on after the incident.

"Jared was hit several times during the first two songs. On the third song, when he was hit in the cheek and some of it landed near his mouth, they couldn't deal [with it] any longer," said Amy Mendelsohn.

"It's not only disgusting - it's a toxic hazard. They really tried to hang in there."

Opening acts The Postelles and The Stills had also come off stage after their sets were covered in excrement.

The Grammy-winning band are due to continue their tour in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday evening following the incident at at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.

They are currently promoting their fourth album, Only By The Night, and are due to visit the UK later this summer.

Nashville brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared make up the group, along with their cousin Matthew on lead guitar.

Fans who were at the curtailed concert will be offered refunds.

Robert Anton Wilson: The Lost Studio Session
By Robert Anton Wilson
and Joseph Matheny

First recorded in Chicago in 1994, this previously unreleased audio session with the renowned Robert Anton Wilson has been stored away for fifteen years…and almost lost entirely. If Bob knew how many synchronicities surround the rediscovery and release of this “lost” studio session, he would be chuckling in that half jolly, half mischievous way of his. If you believe in any kind of afterlife, maybe you can imagine him laughing right now. I like that image: Bob the laughing Buddha, still having one over on us from the great beyond. -Joseph Matheny

Complete album currently available for digital download from iTunes here, Amazon here, Napster here , eMusic here and Myspace here.

Fat Good vs Fat Bad

Big hips 'impair' women's memory, a study finds

Being pear-shaped may hamper brain function, the researchers believe.

Although carrying excess weight anywhere appears to impair older women's brains, carrying it on the hips may make matters worse, they say.

The Northwestern Medicine team found "apple-shaped" women fared better than "pears" on cognitive tests.

But depositing fat around the waist increases the risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, experts warn.

They said the findings, in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, highlighted the importance of maintaining a healthy weight for both body and mind.

Some of the health risks associated with obesity, such as vascular disease and inflammation, may explain why people who are overweight appear to be at higher risk of dementia.

However, the latest study suggests a bit of extra fat around the waist may actually protect brain functioning.

But...

Having a big bum, hips and thighs 'is healthy'

Carrying extra weight on your hips, bum and thighs is good for your health, protecting against heart and metabolic problems, UK experts have said.

Hip fat mops up harmful fatty acids and contains an anti-inflammatory agent that stops arteries clogging, they say.

Big behinds are preferable to extra fat around the waistline, which gives no such protection, the Oxford team said.

Science could look to deliberately increase hip fat, they told the International Journal of Obesity.

And in the future, doctors might prescribe ways to redistribute body fat to the hips to protect against cardiovascular and metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

The researchers said having too little fat around the hips can lead to serious metabolic problems, as occurs in Cushing's syndrome.

Baudelaire Logic

A drunk man who climbed into a crocodile enclosure in Australia and attempted to ride a 5m (16ft) long crocodile has survived his encounter.

The crocodile, called Fatso, bit the 36-year-old man's leg, tearing chunks of flesh from him as he straddled the reptile.

He received surgery to serious wounds to his leg and is recovering in hospital, police say.

He had been chucked out of a pub in the town of Broome for being too drunk.

The man, Michael Newman, climbed over a fence and tried to sit on the 800kg (1,800lb) saltwater crocodile.

"Fatso has taken offence to this and has spun around and bit this man on the right leg," Sgt Roger Haynes of Broome police told journalists.

"The crocodile has let him go and he's been able to scale the fence again and leave the wildlife park."

I don't think this is quite what the famous french writer had in mind when he wrote;

It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.

Slouch for a better back

Sitting up straight is not the best position for office workers, a study has suggested.

Scottish and Canadian researchers used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show it places an unnecessary strain on your back.

They told the Radiological Society of North America that the best position in which to sit at your desk is leaning back, at about 135 degrees.

Experts said sitting was known to contribute to lower back pain.

Data from the British Chiropractic Association says 32% of the population spends more than 10 hours a day seated.

Half do not leave their desks, even to have lunch.

Two thirds of people also sit down at home when they get home from work.

Airbrushing History

A museum has doctored an image of Winston Churchill to make it more palatable to a contemporary audience. The original image, in which Churchill makes a V for victory sign with his hand while a half-smoked cigar pokes out of the corner of his mouth, has been airbrushed to remove the cigar entirely. The doctored image hangs over the main entrance to The Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience in London.

The museum claims “not to have noticed the cigar was missing”. Manager John Welsh declined to reveal who was responsible for creating the artwork for the display. “We’ve got all sorts of images in the museum, some with cigars and some without. We’ve even got wartime adverts for cigarettes, so we wouldn’t have asked for there to be no cigar.”

The Chap is thoroughly opposed to the rewriting of history and the sanitisation of truths regarded as unpalatable regarding heroes of the past. Some may be uncomfortable with the fact that Churchill was a heavy smoker and drinker, but those who were alive when he saved Britain from the Boche probably didn’t mind too much. The worst part of this story is that visitors to the museum probably didn’t care one way or the other; it was simply some goody-two-shoes jobsworth that took the moral decision for them, and decided that Churchill without his cigar was much more in keeping with the times. So prepare for further museums to be adorned with images of Hitler without his moustache, Che Guevara sin Cohiba, and Harold Wilson idly twiddling his thumbs instead of smoking his pipe.

Voltaire said that “History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead”. In this case of revisionism the trick is upon the living. Airbrushing out his cigar is a vulgar act of cowardice perpetrated by those who seek to pander to modern political correctness to create a 'corrected' truth of the past.

George Orwell foresaw this fetish for a sanitized historical truth in his seminal work 1984.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

Horsley d'oeuvre

Artist Sebastian Horsley, whose work included undergoing a crucifixion, has been found dead at the age of 47.

Horsley, who also wrote a memoir about his heavy use of drugs and prostitutes, was discovered by his girlfriend at his home in Soho, central London.

A play based on his writings, Dandy In The Underworld, opened at the Soho Theatre just days ago.

The play's director, Tim Fountain, said he was "devastated" and that Horsley was "hard wired for extremes".

"Extreme ways of living bring with them great risks as well as rewards," he added.

Horsley, who was the son of a millionaire, described his upbringing as full of "atheism, alcoholism and insanity".

He modelled himself on writers Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde, and often wore a top hat, velvet coat and red nail varnish.



In 2000, Horsely's attempt to be crucified in the Philippines had to be abandoned after the foot rest of the cross broke and he fell while nailed by his wrists. He was caught before any major physical damage was caused.

The artist, who underwent the procedure in preparation for a series of paintings on the subject, did not take any painkillers.

The artwork and footage of the event were displayed in London in 2002.

Horsley was barred from entering the US in 2008 due to openly admitting drug use, and said: "My one concession to American sensibilities was to remove my nail polish. I thought that would get me through."

Act of God

A giant statue of Jesus outside a church in Ohio in the US has been destroyed by lightning.

The glass fibre and plastic foam sculpture caught fire and burned to the ground in what insurance companies have described as an act of God.

A 62ft (19m) tall statue of Jesus outside a church in the US state of Ohio has burned down after being struck by lightning.

The frame is all that remains of the wood, polystyrene and glass fibre statue, which was hit on Monday night.

It had stood at the non-denominational Solid Rock Church in Monroe since 2004, and had been dubbed the Touchdown Jesus and the Quicksand Jesus.

Firefighters said no-one was injured in the blaze, near a major highway.

The monument - which had reportedly cost $250,000 (£170,000) - showed just the upper body of Jesus, with arms raised.

The fire spread to a nearby amphitheatre which suffered minor damage, fire chief Mark Neu said.

He who is without sin.

Smash and grab raid fails as burglar hit by own rock

He tried once, he tried again, he tried a third time - but each attempt to break the shop window rebounded on him.

The still unidentified burglar was throwing a rock at a shop in Wellington, New Zealand, which sells skateboards and streetwear.

But the rock just kept bouncing back and knocking him on the head until he, and a watching accomplice, gave up.

"We can see from the CCTV images, one of the offenders is seen throwing a rock at the window which then comes down and hits him on the head, at which point they flee the scene."

Monsterbike

Grumpy = Good

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science Magazine.

The University of New South Wales researcher says a grumpy person can cope with more demanding situations than a happy one because of the way the brain "promotes information processing strategies".

He asked volunteers to watch different films and dwell on positive or negative events in their life, designed to put them in either a good or bad mood.

Next he asked them to take part in a series of tasks, including judging the truth of urban myths and providing eyewitness accounts of events.

Those in a bad mood outperformed those who were jolly - they made fewer mistakes and were better communicators.

Professor Forgas said: "Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking, paying greater attention to the external world."

The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style".

His earlier work shows the weather has a similar impact on us - wet, dreary days sharpened memory, while bright sunny spells make people forgetful.

Exegesis

Philip K Dick journals to be published next year

The journals of sci-fi author Philip K Dick will be published next year.

The Exegesis, much anticipated by fans of the writer, will come out in autumn 2011, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt revealed.

Dick, who died in 1982 at the age of 53, had 44 novels published. His first was Solar Lottery in 1955.

He is best known for works including The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - the basis of 1982 film Blade Runner.

Other films based on Dick's books include Total Recall and Minority Report.

Dick's journals include descriptions of a series of "visions and auditions" he says he experienced.

antagonostic

Serious?

“If your friend is already dead, and being eaten by vultures, I think it's okay to feed some bits of your friend to one of the vultures, to teach him to do some tricks. But only if you're serious about adopting the vulture.”

Ninjas vs Muggers

Three muggers in Australia got the fright of their lives when their attack was interrupted by five
black-clad ninja warriors.

The thieves were assaulting a German medical exchange student in Sydney, but the alleyway where they struck was next to a school for ninja warriors. One of the pupils raised the alarm after noticing the attack.

Police say they have arrested two men and charged them with robbery, and are still looking for a third suspect.

"We just ran outside and started running at them, yelling and everything," said ninja master Kaylan Soto who instructed his students to take action. "These guys have turned around and seen five ninjas in black ninja uniforms running towards them. They just bolted."

The victim suffered minor injuries, and the men stole his mobile phone and iPod, according to police. Mr Soto said the man could have escaped the assault with some training in ninjitsu - a Japanese martial art.



As for the attackers, "They just picked the wrong spot," he added.

Isoteric / Agnostic

Isoteric

Thesaurus Entries

a certain, an, any, any one, atomatic, atomiferous, atomistic, corpuscular, cyclic, diatomic, dibasic, either, embryonic, evanescent, exclusive, germinal, granular, heteroatomic, heterocyclic, hexatomic, homocyclic, impalpable, imperceptible, imponderable, inappreciable, indiscernible, individual, indivisible, infinitesimal, intangible, integral, invisible, irreducible, isobaric, isocyclic, isoteric, isotopic, lone, microcosmic, microscopic, molecular, monadic, monatomic, monistic, one, pentatomic, simple, single, singular, sole, solid, solitary, subatomic, tenuous, tetratomic, thin, triatomic, tribasic, ultramicroscopic, unanalyzable, undivided, uniform, unique, unitary, unseeable, whole

ag·nos·tic

   /ægˈnɒstɪk/ Show Spelled[ag-nos-tik] Show IPA

–noun

1.

a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2.

a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

–adjective

3.

of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.

4.

asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.