"Behold, Atlantis Rising!"

I am absolutely speechless: "Dubai has thrown a spectacular light show to celebrate a new $1.5bn marine-themed resort built off the Gulf coast on an artificial island in the shape of a palm tree. Organisers claimed that the fireworks display for the $20m party could be seen from space," the BBC says.

Sirius Star: ISS Unveiled

The hits just keep on coming. Today is the 10th Anniversary of the launching of the Zarya rocket, which kicked off the International Space Station, or ISS.

I was lucky enough to be at mission control in Moscow's Star City when the Russians launched the first stage of the International Space Station (ISS). They called it Zarya, which means Dawn. 

The enterprise itself was meant to be just that - a new dawn for human space exploration. Moments after the launch, the then head of Nasa, Dan Goldin, said: "Within a few years, the brightest star ever will appear in the sky." He said it would be a sign of hope because nations who had once fought each other had now come together to use their ingenuity, not to blow up humanity, but to make a better world.- BBC

Goldin. Dawn. Gotcha.

Astronaut Theology: Let's Play a Game

I'm always looking for ways to be The Secret Sun more exciting and interactive. One of the ideas I came up with is "The Allegory Game." The point of this game is to look at a particular sequence in a film and see if in fact it's actually an allegory of something else, something not part of the external narrative. 

Seizing "The Sirius Star"

A lot of you have commented on the big story of the day- the seizing of the Sirius Star oil tanker (which is 330 metres long) by Somali pirates (don't forget Somalia is next to Kenya, where the family of our "serious man for serious times" Barack Obama hails from).

 

Jack Kirby's Entheogenic Space Odyssey... in 1958

Have fungi, but be careful...

Secret Sunbather Ned Sonntag sent me this vintage page from the great Jack Kirby, from a comic called Blast-Off, published in 1965. But the story itself was actually drawn in 1959, for the same title (Race to the Moon) that Kirby wrote his prophetic Face On Mars story. 

Stairway to Sirius: Death and Restoration, Part I

Left to Right: The Solar Obelisk, Heavenly Beam, 

Stairway to Sirius and Goddess Columbia.

A hawk-eyed Secret Sun reader caught this news story:

The Moon Sacrificed to the Sun

While the excitement over the election wanes, the Mediastorm returns to its usual diet of madness and atrocity:

(CNN) -- Eight people were arrested Tuesday, one on a charge of murder, in connection with the fatal shooting of a woman at a remote Louisiana campsite during what police say was an initiation ceremony for the Ku Klux Klan. The woman, whose identity has not been confirmed, was recruited over the Internet to join the Klan by the suspects, said Capt. George Bonnett of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office.