The Never-Ending Ritual: Play Ba'al

Well, there it is. Kind of says it all, don't you think? 

You just gotta laugh. Because if you don't, you could well go mad.

Keep Rollin', Rollin', Rollin' (Down the River Styx)

Well, that Old Devil Time strikes again and takes another giant away off the boards. Burt Reynolds had what you might call a checkered career but when I was a kid he was nothing less than what nearly every red-blooded American male aspired to become. 

Burt Reynolds was the alpha-male's alpha male. He was a boss's boss.

ApocalypseNews 2Night: Lusting After Strange Gods

Here's the real truth about "Robot Sex Culture," Mildred: THE HUMAN EXPERIMENT HAS FAILED. Don't believe me?

Entrainment Tonight: Mother of Pearls

Why aren't you wearing your Pearls, citizen? We noticed you didn't wear your Orange yesterday, either. I need to swipe your social credits card, please. 

OK, I think we might have a bit of a problem here. Sit tight, I need to call my supervisor.

Dubai is Babylon 2.0

I get the feeling a lot of people still don't quite take Dubai seriously and see it as a weird artifact of a prolonged oil boom that brought shiploads of eff-you money to a bunch of desert sheikhs who never quite figured out what they wanted to do with it all.

Apocalypse 2Night: What Could Go Wrong?

A Silicon Valley startup that literally wants to kill you so it can preserve your brain for future digitizing and uploading? 

What could go wrong? Sign me up already.

Ritual Olympics: The Locusts are Coming.

The Winter Olympics just wrapped up, and did so in style. 

The Mother of All Modern Rituals

You can keep your Mandonna EgyptoRoman war is peace rally. Nothing will ever be as over the top -- or as revealing-- as the opening of the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai in 2008.

 

Stairway to Sirius: From Oslo to Oannes

OSLO - Obama's speech at the Nobel ceremony really caught my attention, in that it wasn't a peace speech at all. It was an apology-for-war speech.

Secret Sun Picture Parade: Pieces of Eight

Phallic Phireworks

Ah, subtlety. Reader Davidly alerts us to this HuffPost headline on the "Stimulus Package" deal. Deep background on fireworks and obelisks here. More HuffPost symbolism here. Kenneth Anger could not be reached for comment. 

Seen From Space: Planet 51

Thanksgiving? Pretty long lead time, especially given all of the scenes in the trailer. A couple of the shots here remind me of the Dubai development video we saw a couple months back, with all of the satellite shots and sacred geometry. 

Sirius Star: Pirate Fighters or Welcome Wagon?

Well, you knew this was coming. We're now going to have an international phalanx of warships in the Gulf of Aden and presumably, the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

 

The New Pyramid Power

GERMANY: Two intellectuals have launched a project to build a copy of the Egyptian pyramids in the declining eastern city of Dessau as a burial site not for a lone king but for five million people. They say it would grow slowly - one concrete memorial slab at a time - but could within a couple of decades dwarf the Great Pyramid of Giza.

 

(Secret) Season's Greetings

Rockefeller Plaza, seen from space. Note alignment of tree and 30 Rock obelisk.

 

Yahooccultism: Speaking of Ferris Wheels

Just the other day we were looking at the Ferris Wheel symbolism that has been popping up in strange contexts. Now comes this story on Yahoo News: 

Trapped passengers evacuate Singapore ferris wheel

Stairway to Sirius: Death and Restoration II

Anyone with a passing familiarity to esoteric symbolism is still reeling from the Atlantis Rising ceremony that was put on last week. The headline had it that the ritual could be "seen from space," and indeed it would have been incomprehensible to anyone less than two thousand feet or so in the air.

Sirius Star: As Seen From Space

 

 Here's an odd little twist to the Sirius Star drama- an inexplicable article in the Guardian showing the tanker as seen from a space satellite. First the Dubai ritual, now this. 

"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.

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.