Close Encounters of the Fake Kind

ITEM: The Fourth Kind apparently makes use of Sumerian motifs, bringing a little AAT to the abduction party. Nothing new for hardcore UFOlogists, but as far as I know only The X-Files has fused the two memes. 

But speaking of Vancouver, a little film somehow escaped my attention last year- it's a Canadian horror epic called Ba'al: The Storm God. Apparently, I didn't miss much. And identifying Ba'al - a title meaning "Lord," and not necessarily a proper name - as a Sumerian god is not a good sign, considering there's a two-thousand year gulf between Sumer and the various Ba'al cults of the Phoenicians and the like. 

ITEM: Art imitates life which imitates art again. We're all supposed to have a hearty chuckle at those New Age flakes in The Men Who Stare at Goats, but lo and behold, the Noetic sciences are alive and well in the military:

Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California. In 2005, a Marine attended a class in San Diego and suggested expanding onto military bases. Ernst and her colleagues researched the military mindset, consulting with veterans who had practiced meditation on the battlefield and back home. 

She also delved into the science behind mind training to analyze how meditation tactics could help treat - and maybe even help prevent - post-traumatic stress disorder. Rooted in the ancient Samurai code of self-discipline, Warrior Mind Training draws on the image of the mythic Japanese fighter, an elite swordsman who honed his battle skills along with his mental precision. 

The premise? Razor-sharp attention plus razor-sharp marksmanship equals fearsome warrior.

I've been keeping my eye on the latest developments in the professional military (read: the mercenary army), wondering when the Supersoldier will finally emerge. This Samurai wrinkle is interesting- I wonder if future recruits will learn the ancient Samurai art of nanshoku.

ITEM: The big movie for the Christmas season is 2012, because nothing rings in the season like genocide and catastrophe. But a post on Mike Bara's Dark Mission blog caught my eye in regards to some of the theorizing on what I like to call "Y2012K"- the research of Andy Lloyd, who believes that Planet X is a brown dwarf star and Nibiru is a moon in its orbit. 

 I've heard theories to this effect and I think they're pretty interesting. Astronomers gnash their teeth and pull their hair, claiming that such an object would be one of the brightest objects in the sky, but I've also heard some more adventurous astronomers claim that Planet X has much longer than a 3600 year orbit.