Silenced Majority Portal

Onward Christian Soldiers (Boy Choir with Older Men) / Patriotic Muppets

Pakistan: 4 Inch Alien Accidentally Stoned by Children

This is a nice relief from Madonnas on burnt toast and screen doors. Or angels.  

Startling To Painful Religious Album Covers

These are some of my picks. 

Dancing Illegal in Des Moines Iowa After 2 A.M.

Huffington Post reports that dancing is illegal after 2 A.M. in Des Moines but it's more or less a "blue law."  A group found out when they sought to hold an "after hours" party in their own building.  

The city council is considering repealing the law, as Des Moines is often perceives as dull.  The ordinance dates to 1942 and there is no dancing between 2-6 AM during the week and not til 8 AM on Sunday.  This is even true for free dances.  

My son is just now reminding me of when he was six and I took him to North Dakota, where we found out that it was illegal to buy toys in grocery stores on Sunday.

The couple pictured at the left is an actual Des Moines couple dancing.

This all puts me very much in the mind of when I lived in Minnesota in the early '70s and in Mankato, there wasn't an actual gay bar but there was a disco called "Trader and Trapper" which was probably the only possible alternative.

The only possible outlets for vice were volleyball/beer parties on the local farms and the adult bookstore, which was one of the only places that was hiring.

Jackson-Inspired Artwork & Flash Mob / Is Michael in Heaven? Did He Really Have 10,000 Books?

See Best, Worst and Weirdest Art Inspired by MJ here. Here is a composite:

 

July 8 Flashmob

Is Michael in Heaven goes into the Top Five MJ stories I found worth reading.

Michael Jackson was raised by Jehovah’s Witnesses and flirted with Scientology and Islam. Now many Christian groups wonder if the King of Pop is residing with the King of Kings.

Seattle PI Blog reports that Michael had 10,000 books. They reported that a judge who knew him said in an interview:

"He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house. And I know that because - and I hate to keep referring to the case, because I don't want the case - the case should not define him. But one of the things that we learned - the DA went through his entire library and found, for instance, a German art book from 1930-something. And it turned out that the guy who was the artist behind the book had been prosecuted by the Nazis. Nobody knew that, but then the cops get up there and say, 'We found this book with pictures of nude people in it.' But it was art, with a lot of text. It was art. And they found some other things, a briefcase that didn't belong to him that had some Playboys in it or something. But they went through the guy's entire house, 10,000 books. And it caused us to do the same thing, and look at it."

"And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very - especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list - he was very well-read. And I don't want to say that I'm well-read, but I've certainly read a lot, let's put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn't flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there."

Apparently MJ was a frequenter of several bookstores and a Johny Appleseed of reading, spreading books to all children.  He would bring in vanloads of kids and buy them whatever books they wanted.  He would often wear a surgical mask and have an assistant hold an umbrealla to shield him from the glare of florescent lighting.  They contrasted him with Kanye West who doesn't like to read and discussed the disconnect between pop and intellect in America.  

That's Not A Gay Rights Rally, THIS Is A Gay Rights Rally

Let me apologize in advance for my really crappy camera work here. In my defense I was caught a little off guard by the Christopher Street Rally in Munich yesterday, because I had no idea it was going on and I was in the Marienplatz shopping district on another errand and I just wasn't able to make the mental gear shift that I needed to, so I'm all over the map with this footage that I literally shot from the hip.

My wife was a bit more focused than I was, so I'll be posting some of her stuff once we go through it.

One thing I didn't notice right away until I got home and looked at it is that the thing that really stands out is the thing that doesn't.  

Not a lot of flaming flamboyant Brünö stereo types to be seen in the crowd, save for this guy I spotted while I was on the second floor of a retail store as he was passing by in the street.

I like the color coordination he's got going there, what with him using all the colors of the German Flag in his outfit.

A little irked I didn't spot him 10 seconds earlier though.

When I post some more clips later, be sure to look at the crowd and how 'normal' looking most people are. I'm beginning to form the belief that a lot of socially persecuted/ostracized so-called 'fringe' people go for outrageousness as a defense mechanism.

As in:

'Oh, yeah, you think I'm a freak, do you? Lemme show you what a freak REALLY looks like.'

More on this later in my follow up post.

Noonan Unbound, Margaret Ellen Breaks Reagan's 11th Commandment

BREAKING!!!!  This one is totally worthy of a Drudge Siren...

The Up Is Down, Air Is Wet, Water Is Dry, Black Is White, White Is Black, Day Is Night, Night Is Day World we've all been living lately has taken a new turn.

Peggy Noonan just broke her old boss's 11th Commandment:

"Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of a Fellow Republican."

And this time, not on accident in front of a hot mike, using a Barn Yard Epithet either.

No, no, no.

Margaret Ellen didn't just stray of the Reservation, she went to town on dear Sister Sarah, with a kindler, gentler, rat-a-tat-tat, machine gun hand.

http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB...4620819351.html

Who knew the Thousand Points of Light were the glints coming off of razor sharp daggers?

Unbelievable.

I'm not even going to quote any of the zingers here, because the thing is just one relentless slam after another.

Noonan Unbound.

Joe Bob Briggs sez check it out.

If the comments are any indication, she's about to get the same crash course Chris Buckley got last year in what the seething underbelly of the Republican Party has devolved into.

Drove Buckley away from the organization his Dad founded and right into the waiting arms of Tina Brown.

This is a slaughter.

At this juncture I think what we are going to see from here on in is a complete fracturing of the Republican Party, spear-headed by Palin and her die hard supporters such as Hannity, Limbaugh, etc, etc, et al.

They, the True Conservatives, are going to splinter off and form their own Conservative Party. All their rhetoric on AM radio and in the blogosphere has been trending in that direction, for years now, and Peggy's little Declarations of War on Palin might be the thing that gets the ball really rolling towards that.

Here's the thing.

In a 3 way race, if things get bad enough, and stay bad by late 2012, a rabble rouser like Palin could easily beat a sitting Incumbent.

Especially if she has the full weight of the Media Apparatus that Murdoch built behind her.

Do not misunderstimate her, or the Power Mad people behind her.

---

Pew Report on Scientists (Only 6% Are Republicans)

Most view science itself as positive.  Only military and teachers compare in the public eye.  The public is skeptical about our scientific ranking in the world and so are almost half of scientists (the other half consider us top notch.)  Some scientists say that the public expectation is too high, but scientists also used to have a higher public and global ranking.  

They cite as an obstacle lack of sufficient funding (8 in 10!)  Scientists have a more positive view of the government and less positive view of business than the general public, so it is not surprising that very few scientists are Republicans.  It's interesting though that on the result shown to the right, business executives are ranked the lowest in terms of contribution to society's well-being.

80% of scientists believe in global warming but only 49% of the public.  87% of scientists believe in evolution but just 32% of the public.  93% favor animal research but only 52% of the public.  77% of scientists believed claims that the Bush administration censured findings of government scientists, but only 28% of the public did.

the survey

Letter from LSD Inventor Albert Hoffman to Microsoft's Steve Jobs

at the link you can see Hoffman's actual 101 year old handwriting

I met Dr. Hoffman when I was 25 year old student and attended the Conference on Evolution and Lateralization of the Brain in New York City. I asked him any of the experiments he reported on with animals had been replicated with humans. He said they had but  they couldn't report it.   Slugbug       So here is the letter.

Dear Mr. Steve Jobs, 

Hello from Albert Hofmann. I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I'm interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you. 

I'm writing now, shortly after my 101st birthday, to request that you support Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Peter Gasser's proposed study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. This will become the first LSD-assisted psychotherapy study in over 35 years. I hope you will help in the transformation of my problem child into a wonder child. 

Sincerely, A. Hofmann

Der Reviews Are In, Der Brünö Häs Länded

 

The New York Times is ambivalent.