But back in 1996, users of the proto-Web community Usenet got spammed with messages that reached an almost transcendent level of bizarre—a weirdness so precise it implied the influence of a very human intelligence. “Markovian Parallax Denigrate,” read the title of each post, followed by a mountain of seemingly meaningless word spew:
Unraveling the Internet’s oldest and weirdest mystery
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Nov 20, 2012 -
68 comments
In 2007, Beck, then the host of “Glenn Beck,” on CNN’s Headline News, brought to his show a John Birch Society spokesman named Sam Antonio, who warned of a government plot to abolish U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, “and eventually all throughout the Americas.” Beck told Antonio, “When I was growing up, the John Birch Society—I thought they were a bunch of nuts.” But now, he said, “you guys are starting to make more and more sense to me.”
A secret history of Glenn Beck, by way of Robert Welch, Willard Cleon Skousen and the John Birch Society. From the
New Yorker.
posted by gerryblog
on Oct 15, 2010 -
41 comments
Thinking about becoming a parent? You might find the US Consumer Product Safety Commission's
list of recalled items fun! It looks like there's just under a zillion things out there that might harm your new tot. And that
doesn't include ... y'know ...
toys.
posted by GatorDavid
on Aug 6, 2009 -
23 comments
"To make off with hubby's fortune, yea, I think I heard of that happenin' once or twice around L.A. And… you want me to do what exactly?" He found the paper bag he'd brought his supper home in and got busy pretending to scribble notes on it, because straight-chick uniform, makeup supposed to look like no makeup or whatever, here came that old well-known hard-on Shasta was always good for sooner or later. Does it ever end, he wondered. Of course it does. It did. Thomas Pynchon's next novel, the 416-page
Inherent Vice, is
described by Penguin Press as "part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog." While we wait for its August 4 publication, we can read
an essay on the dystopian musical he co-wrote at Cornell or watch
a clip of that movie they made of Gravity's Rainbow.
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 6, 2009 -
76 comments
"Civilization is Just a Thin Veneer. In the absence of law and order, men quickly revert to savagery. As was illustrated by the rioting and looting that accompanied disasters in the past three decades, the transition from tranquility to absolute barbarism can occur overnight. People expect tomorrow to be just like today, and they act accordingly. But then comes a unpredictable disaster that catches the vast majority unprepared. The average American family has four days worth of food on hand. When that food is gone,
we'll soon see the thin veneer stripped away."
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Jan 28, 2009 -
179 comments
Traditionally, media doesn't print names/photos of people only accused, but not yet convicted, but not always. Lots of towns have a police blotter section where arrests are listed.
Here in Seattle, the FBI recently
asked
the public for help in identifying two men seen acting suspicious on the ferry system. The
Seattle PI has decided not to publish the photos.
Other local media have. The
commentary on if the PI made the right choice follows predictable paths...
posted by nomisxid
on Aug 21, 2007 -
33 comments
Game developer/ perfume critic Theresa Duncan has died, and longtime companion Jeremy Blake is missing. The art world is
buzzing about the seeming suicide-by-water of video installation artist Jeremy Blake. The
perfume blogs are fizzing with sadness over the death of Theresa Duncan, whose suicide preceded Blake's. The cops are not releasing the notes left by the late,
pretty people, but a clue might be found in the
paranoiac screed Duncan posted on her blog in May, in which Blake's ex-girlfriend, the CIA, FBI, Church of Scientology, Jeff Gannon, bloated plutocrats and many other bugbears of the
psy-ops crowd were put on Duncan's mental merry-go-round and given a real strong spin.
posted by Scram
on Jul 21, 2007 -
37 comments
Right Web , founded in 2003, is a program of the International Relations Center (IRC) that tracks the work of those, in and outside of government, who have been instrumental in shaping or supporting U.S. policies in the global war on terror, also has the archives of
Group watch (1985-1991), which profiled more than 125 private, quasi-governmental, and religious organizations that were closely associated with the implementation of U.S. foreign policy, especially in Central America.
Profiles of Right wing
individuals,
organisations,
corporate, and
government.
posted by adamvasco
on Feb 5, 2007 -
8 comments
Covert Call allows you to alter the caller id that is sent to the phone you are calling. It can operate just like a calling card, all for the price of a normal long distance call. Caller-ID spoofing for 5¢ a minute, for all your prankster/paranoid/social engineering needs.
posted by crunchland
on Feb 10, 2005 -
12 comments
RFID to track students in Spring, Texas... the information is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators. That's right: constant and continual monitoring of all the schoolkids in the district by the local police department.
posted by Irontom
on Nov 17, 2004 -
74 comments
Tracy Givens'
weblog: "The Voice to skull continues along with the attacks to my body" ... "some of the neighbors might be experimenting with a crude homemade device"... "They have child rapers in my fan club. Found it on line."
posted by snarfodox
on Aug 15, 2004 -
29 comments
Are we witnessing the
end of the 4th Ammendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure? The
United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled (parts
1 and
2) that police in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business.
posted by Irontom
on Mar 29, 2004 -
31 comments
Heaven or Hell? It's Your Choice
A new
shareware E-Book is out, penned by the likes of
Captain Crunch and
Matthew Smith, that makes the claims:
Don't bother planning your pension, the world is about to change and we can prove it, please just take 2 minutes out of your life to read this page, it may change your life.
Artificial intelligence is coming and it may become smarter than any of us. Smart networks using grid technologies could become a threat to us ALL, this is the real Matrix.
From Dot.Net to the X-Box, from M-Theory to the Playstation 3 the future is V.R. / A.I. and Nanotech.
If you ever wanted to know what the system is and what it has done to you, then this ebook is for you.
You left school, you were standardised, you took an exam, you were graded, they made you believe in money, this is the last great social control mechanism. There's more to this, than you can imagine.
...and there you have it. Or do you?
posted by metameme
on Jul 7, 2003 -
24 comments
DARPA looking for proposals to create the Matrix. "The Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals to develop an ontology-based (sub)system that captures, stores, and makes accessible the flow of one person’s experience in and interactions with the world in order to support a broad spectrum of associates/assistants and other system capabilities. The objective of this "LifeLog" concept is to be able to trace the "threads" of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships. "
posted by bendybendy
on May 13, 2003 -
14 comments
... and the doctor says,
I can clearly see you're nuts.
A PRODIGY IN MANY FIELDS. Perhaps I rank historically among the 50 or 100 most intelligent and talented people in the most fields ever.And so begins the best resume ever.
posted by patrickje
on Nov 5, 2002 -
59 comments
A new definition of 'Gun Nut' Alaska state appeals court says a judge "erred" when she removed a gun permit from a man who "claimed someone had implanted a computer chip in his head and injected him with deadly chemicals". Apparently "general concerns about mental illness" are not allowed to be considered in such cases.
posted by kokogiak
on Jan 11, 2002 -
25 comments
McCarthyism Watch: "The fact that they asked for anything but flag stamps did raise a question for the clerk." At which point do the anecdotes about irrational patriotism and paranoia add up to a genuine cultural shift? I mean,
stamps?
posted by muckster
on Dec 12, 2001 -
53 comments
