History Channel Info-tainment

This past weekend caught a repeat showing of what was sold as a sensational take on the Mayan Long-Count calendar by visiting a mysterious island. I should have known better as it was short on real information and long on faux-drama. This two hour show is called Apocalypse Island and is supposed to recount the quest of a chap named James Turner.

It seems back in 1996, after coming off two years at the Palenque Mayan site in the Yucatan peninsula, Turner took a break to visit Juan Fernandez Island. After a bruising tumble and a night asleep he wakes to behold what he takes to be a monument to the Mayan sun god with a crouching jaguar behind it. So he spends the next decade plus doing research. So History Channel decides to broadcast his quest. Including way too many minutes getting from Valparaiso, Chile to the island on a small fishing boat. Along the way, they interview such heavyweights in Mayan lore as Whitley Streiber. Turner opines that a Mayan king from Palenque built the monument and his tomb, which has never been found, might be on the island. And then when they reach this monument, they clamber atop it. And thus ends two hours of your life.

Now there are lots of issues with this whole theory that I have not found addressed in Turner's web-site yet. And it seems others also have issues as this History Channel forum bears out. I will give Turner some kudos for logging in there to defend himself.

My largest issue I have with this show is, they never show how the Mayans got from Yucatan, across the Equator, and south to flyspeck islands off Chile that a guy named Selkirk got abandoned on for four years. Which explains why one island is called Alexander Selkirk Island and another is Robinson Crusoe Island. There is evidence or suggestions the Mayans made it to Florida, but no evidence is offered in the show on how the Mayans got to these islands. Unless they hopped a ride on Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki, except Thor left from Peru on the Humbolt current.

The show also pitches this hazardous trip by boat is the first time Turner has returned to these islands since 1996. As Turner's own postings in the History Channel forum shows, he has used the airstrip many times to get back to the islands and his monument. Which shows how deceitful this show is. Again it purports this is Turner's first return visit. And it endangers Turner's basic premise, this is Mayan built for the solar and Venus transits in 2012. If Turner has visited here many times, then why hasn't he taken some random debris samples from the base of his sun-god/crouching jaguar to see if there are signs of humans working the rock. Oh wait, its a UNESCO site these islands. But would it be truly hard to get permission to take a few rocks for study? Its the hummingbird that is endangered. And it seems an American millionaire, Bernard Keiser, easily got permission to search the island for lost pirate gold.

Before I forget, the whole story angle of the island being the burial place of a lost Mayan king from Palenque. How can anyone categorically state that everywhere in Palenque has been explored and no tomb has been found hence this king must be buried elsewhere? It is very strange considering only recently the Valley of the Kings in Egypt surrendered another tomb, KV-63, for study. And before Howard Carter found KV-62, King Tutankhamun, everyone in 1921 thought the valley was fully explored. I have to place this as another example of shoddy reasoning for simple sensationalism.

And again I return to the History Channel forums and Turner's own web-site where he says that what ended up on the screen was not what he wanted. That they dictated what would be shown because they did not want it to be boring. I have to wonder what kind of contract Turner signed that would prevent him from yanking his name from this show if he thought this show was truly bad since what is in the show reflects upon his professional reputation.

So overall, everyone involved in the making of this show come off as shabby and unprofessional. I have to wonder if this is the same crew that gave us Simcha and his Lost Tomb special on the James ossuary. Seems that way.

Anime Music Videos - Record of Lodoss Wars

Record of Lodoss Wars: Adesso e Fortuna sung by Sherry - Japanese version.




Record of Lodoss Wars: Adesso e Fortuna sung by Sherry - English version.



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Lyrics by Linda Hennrick. Music by Akino Nii. 1992

Caught by the Moonlight
A silent mist
S shimmer in the trees
Oh what a night for dreams
A night of destiny
Others are sleeping
So unaware of the magic in the air
Magic you were just for me
Io sono prigioniera

Sweet fascination
Though I don’t understand
The words you say
You whisper soft and low
And I am swept away
Touch of enchantment
I tremble when you
Hold me close this way
Drawn like a moth to a flame

Io sono prigioniera
My fate is in your arms tonight
Though love is shining in your eyes
Will you be mine tomorrow
Io sono priginiera
My heart will nevermore be free
A part of you I’ll always be
From now to eternity

Deep as the ocean
With every kiss
I’m deeper in your spell
Love me again tonight
You are my one desire
Waves of emotion
I know that this
Is where I want to be
Locked in your arms with no key

Props For Pols

I guess the Democrats have decided to put yet another set of props in the closet to be dragged out at another time of need. They certainly put in storage those Grecian columns from Denver. Jeremiah Wright got shoved in the closet while still screaming about chickens coming home to roost. Van Jones joined the flashy shoes in their boxes on the floor.

Back in 2007 when President Bush was in the White House, the Democrats like film maker Michael Moore found something else to politically club the sitting President with. They painted him as a heartless man and that we must do something to help these people.

When the lights came up, Reggie Cervantes, a former 9/11 "first responder" who now lives in Oklahoma, spoke first."It was funny. It was real," said Cervantes, 46, who says she suffers from pulmonary ailments, esophageal reflex, post-traumatic stress disorder, ear and eye infections and other problems stemming from time at ground zero. Of the trip, she said: "It feels surreal. Were we really there?"

From WCBSTV:

Friends say EMS worker Brian Ellicott was a hero. The 45-year-old spent hours working at Ground Zero after the attacks on September 11th. His union says he died last week of cancer after being exposed to toxic dust. Other first responders say they're sick, too.

Now we receive word here in 2010, just three years later that President Obama will not fight for the 9/11 first responders plight. There will be no money spent on them and their health issues. But President Obama is willing to spend money defending terrorists in criminal courts, criminals who aided and abetted the 9/11 attacks that have caused these heroes to fall ill. I will say this now, Obama has his priorities totally screwed up. He is willing to break faith with American citizens but is willing to grant American legal rights to foreign born terrorists who are most happy when killing Americans.

Senator Scott Brown[R-MA] gets it right when he said - "In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them." So too does many other average Americans. Even Mayor Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, now gets it as he opposes having KSM's trial so close to Ground Zero. Unlike Obama we remember all the vicitims of the 9/11 attacks like Louis Aversano Jr.

Throwing NASA Away

The rumored Obama budget for NASA calls for a future heavy lift rocket to get people and material into space. Once again Obama gets things wrong. NASA and the USAF have a heavy-lift rocket for getting material into orbit; it is called the Titan IV rocket which grew out of the Titan ICBM that was also used to launch the Gemini space capsules into Earth orbit. NASA has a new man-rated rocket currently in development, it is called the Ares rocket. They have already spent $9 billion in tax dollars to create Ares. How far has NASA gotten in building Ares? They had a successful test launch at Kennedy Space Center on October 28, 2009. That is how close Ares is to being mission capable.

But President Obama, in his proposed budget for NASA, does not call for the $3 billion a year extra NASA will need to finish Ares and to field the Orion capsule that will take human beings back to the Moon. Instead NASA will get about $1 billion extra, told to focus on near-Earth science missions to study the discredited hunch of global warming, hope Russia will rent Soyuz missions to the space station, and pray private industry will step up and build a space taxi.

Yet another example of how President Obama and his administration are good at squandering tax money. $787 billion stimulus. $40 billion to GM. $300 million sent to Hamas in Gaza. What is throwing away another $9 billion as Democrats raise the debt ceiling to a height that can only be reached by Orion? Obviously squat even as they put into the unemployment column thousands of highly skilled people who once worked at NASA and its contractors.



Ares test launch October 28, 2009. KSC, Cape Canaveral, FL.

The Thrill Is Gone

I find it amusing that I accidentally find from Yahoo! ten signs a guy is not right for you. Reading them I see they can be expanded to apply on a political front. Like President Obama.

1. You have a list of things he needs to stop doing/saying/wearing if he wants your relationship to work. Lets see - "Let me be clear." "I inherited this mess." "Bipartisanship." Teleprompter where ever he goes. Will he ever make up his mind about the tie?

2. You don't trust him. KSM trial. Gitmo. Honduras. Israel. Poland. Czech Republic. Missile defense.

3. You avoid conflict at any cost. Well we are still confrontational with him, so I guess that is a good sign proving how broke things are.

4. When you're sad, you don't turn to him for comfort. Not after his shout-out to his buddies before talking of Major Hassan murdering 13 soldiers. No way.

5. One of you is struggling with an addiction. His addiction is to power and how wonderful he is. Very selfish.

6. You can't really imagine him as the father of your children. Look at reasons behind #5. Too involved with himself to be there. Can't he eat his waffles in peace?

7. Your long-term, non-negotiable goals in life are incompatible. All he wants to do it seems is max out our joint account credit cards to buy beer and pizza for his friends while we shop at Salvation Army.

8. You don't respect each other. After surrounding himself with such suspect people as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn plus Jeremiah Wright. Of course not.

9. You're not attracted to him. After all of his talking about himself and how he plans to make things better by spending our money, he makes us ill instead.

10. On paper he seems great, but you have this strange feeling... Actually we got a strange feeling in the gut because we could not get any of his paperwork from college or his medical records. Those Grecian columns and faux Presidential seal really set off alarms.

And We Used To Control The Lightning!

In twenty years or less the words Rick Delanty screamed to the people huddling in the valley in Lucifer's Hammer will be true in the real world.

How can I say this? Because President Obama, in his faux populism mode, is going to eviscerate any chance of NASA returning to the Moon in his upcoming budget. He is trying to prove he is a fiscal conservative by slicing less than 3% from the current bloated budget. There will be no Ares rockets or Constellation program. Instead NASA will focus on monitoring climate change while pushing off to the future a new heavy-lift rocket and outsourcing to the private sector creating a space taxi to the International Space Station.

Meanwhile the Peoples Republic of China is still pushing forward with their space program. If President Obama's budget cuts stand, then we will see a red flag fly over the Moon. It will be China which will harvest the Helium-3 to create feasible fusion power. Along with materials to make orbital solar power satellites to beam energy down to China. Which will make China the OPEC of the future as they sell clean power to the rest of the world. Meanwhile the US piddles with wind power or the US will buy power from China in the future.

President Obama is going to sell our secure energy future for the the slim chance of improving his current popularity ratings. If this happens, then as Rick Delanty says, we will be peasants cowering at the sound of thunder because we have given away our future. Lets stop this right now. Burn up the Internet and phone lines to Congress. Tell them if they buy off on this, then they are politically dead. Think of your children and grandchildren. Or get used to them living a life not as rich or full as yours.

John Cox on Pied Piper Obama

Thank you John Cox for this excellent cartoon.

New O Logo

A Hero Honored

When many people think of a hero, they think of the likes of the already mortally wounded Sgt Rafael Peralta falling on a grenade to save his men in Fallujah. Or an oversized teenage boy named Lucas who fell on two grenades at a place called Iwo Jima and lived. Both of these men were United States Marines.

Well here is the story another hero who happened to be a Marine, though that service was far in the past. Ray Vivier would serve his time in the Corps Stateside and then muster out. He would marry, have five children, build a career, and lose it all due to alcoholism. Then in the evening of his life he would start to rebuild his life while living under a bridge in Cleveland. Which lead to him living in a boarding house and earning a living as a welder. It was at the boarding house it seems the Marine Corps tradition of leaving no one behind kicked in once again. As a fire set by arsonists raged through the boarding house, Ray would personally rescue five people before the fire claimed him as a victim. Recently Ray Vivier's ashses were interred at Arlington; on hand was his ex-wife and his oldest daughter who placed his urn as the rifles barked their own salute twenty-one times. Rest in peace Marine for now your posting is in Heaven.

About That No-Fly List

By now most people are aware of how a typo allowed the Underwear Bomber to come up initially clean on the TSA No-Fly List even as his father and the UK's MI-5 both warned how much a terrorist wanna-be the guy is. As attention was focused upon TSA and their rapid response which made no sense, it was realized that no one had been appointed yet to head the agency because it took almost 300 days for the Obama administration to nominate anyone. Then it came to light how the nominee had used official police computers to further a vendetta against his ex-wife while at the FBI and tried to gloss over that action before the Senate. Now the man has withdrawn his nomination after citing the usual bovine scatology of it wasn't his fault - lets ignore he thinks the world hates the US because we are allies with France and Israel plus its his personal opinion that white supremacists are a greater terrorist danger. So attention has turned to the No-Fly List. In the past week I received in the mail the February 2010 issue of American Rifleman that is put out by the NRA. Two paragraphs in one article leapt out at me as being relevant to the Underwear Bomber and the No-Fly List.

However, many Americans - including federal air marshals, young children, military personnel fighting real terrorists overseas, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and a notable figure of America's modern civil rights movement, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia - have already been misidentified as terrorists by the Transportation Security Administration's "no-fly" list. As a result they have been prevented from boarding commercial aircraft. And the "no-fly" list is merely a subset of the larger TSDB[the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database -ed.], which included about 400,000 individuals as of Sept 9, 2008, according to the FBI.

Futhermore, a May 2009 report on a study of the TSDB, conducted by the Department of Justice's inspector general, found huge problems with the watchlist's administration. For example, the inspector general found that "initial watchlist nominations created by FBI field offices often contained inaccuracies or were incomplete," that "the FBI did consistently update or remove watchlist records when appropriate," and that in 80 percent of the closed investigations, the FBI failed to remove subjects from the watchlist in a timely manner or failed to remove them at all. The report also discovered that 35 percent of the names in the watchlist "were associated with FBI cases that did not contain current international terrorism or domestic terrorism desingations." - Cox, Chris W. Gun Owners Under Watchful Eyes pg 17-18, American Rifleman February 2010.

Like the problems with the climate databases in the UK and United States that have come to light, one question has to be asked. If the master databases are so riddled with problems, how can any information derived from them be used to make decisions? The simple answer is, you can't. To do otherwise is to act as a willing fool. 300 people were saved because citizens took their own fates into their own hands, not because the system worked. Something to think about.