Alien Jesus Collective

Here’s the full gallery of fireworks pics from the Deer Valley show. All were shot handheld with a Nikon Coolpix P5000 in fireworks scene mode. The results are arguably better than what my old Coolpix 5700 can do on a tripod in full manual mode. There’s a little bit of a learning curve with it, but the P5000 seems to do a great job with anything I throw at it. Wish the wide angle was 28mm equivalent instead of 36mm, but that’s a minor quibble. If you’re in the market for a pocket point and shoot, this is a camera you should be looking at. More pics I’ve shot with it can be seen here.

It’s the 100th anniversary of Bohemian Grove this year. How do the gnomes of the redwoods celebrate?Honor a former Bond girl and Page 3 pinup model!

Sian said: “I’m flattered to be in the hearts and minds of such important people but my modelling career is in the past now. And, since they are so secretive, how do I know if this will be a nice gentlemen’s dinner or men leaping around doing weird and distasteful things in a forest?”

The £5,000-a-year club’s strict code bans its 2,300 members from discussing its activities but, speaking on condition of anonymity, the 25 members leading the hunt for Sian assured us that their intentions were honourable.

One of them, a California financier, said: “The poster hangs on the outside wall of a cabin in an area of the camp called Skidoo and has become rather famous throughout the club because of the artistic photography and the beauty of the subject.

“This summer will be the 100th anniversary, so we thought a black-tie dinner honouring her would be a nice thing to do.

Found via Wonkette’s superior coverage

Representations of Batman in fine art through the ages are on display at the bat-tastic Bat-Blog.

Starry Night in Gotham by Vincent VanGogh

A 13 year old kid’s mother dies, leaving him a £16,000 inheritance. Kid parleys that into £250,000 over the course of three years using various online scams. Lawsuits ensue.

He even employed a personal bodyguard, flew abroad on business trips and claimed he was going to buy a private jet….”He would not eat sandwiches unless the crusts were cut off. And once he started making money he refused to attend school unless the local council paid for him to go to a private school.”

There’s a gallery of Lizard People up at Worth1000.com. Lots of generic authority figures, but unfortunately not many identifiable government officials. Nice scene from the Vatican though:

Ganked from BoingBoing.

Astronaut Charged With Kidnap Attempt

I don’t know what to say about this one, it kind of speaks for itself:

Police said Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport — wearing diapers so she wouldn’t have to stop to urinate

Dressed in a wig and a trench coat, Nowak boarded an airport bus that Shipman took to her car in an airport parking lot. Shipman told police she noticed someone following her, hurried inside the car and locked the doors, according to the arrest affidavit. Nowak rapped on the window, tried to open the car door and asked for a ride. Shipman refused but rolled down the car window a few inches when Nowak started crying. Nowak then sprayed a chemical into Shipman’s car, the affidavit said.

First, throw the bums out.

Second:

Found at thisispopculture.com

What’s going on in Paraguay? The US State Department says nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone agrees there have been 400 US troops in Paraguay for a little over a year now, all of whom have enjoyed some level of diplomatic immunity. There’s also consensus that this immmunity is coming to an end soon. There are multiple theories regarding why US troops are there. Nothing too shocking so far, but there’s more to this story.

The most interesting piece is just starting to get play in the US, but it has shown up in a major British news outlet. The juicy items:

~ Jenna Bush has been in Paraguay recently, supposedly as a UNICEF volunteer (maybe teaching mixology?).

~ It’s rumored that Bush the Younger just bought 100,000 acres of land in Paraguay’s Gran Chaco region.

~ The land parcel in question is near other huge parcels owned by Bush the Elder and Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

~ Underneath this part of Paraguay you’ll find the GuaraniAquifer, the largest freshwater aquifer in South America.

~ Also nearby is the town of Mariscal Estigarribia, with a runway that may or may not be big enough to land any plane the US Air Force has.

~ The World Bank has been involved in Paraguay for several years now. Hard to say if the World Bank will help Paraguay as much as they’ve helped in Africa.

So is the Bush family buying huge tracts of land in what’s described as Paraguay’s “wild west”? And if so, why? Speculate in the comments.

A building at Ft. Meade that housed the US Army’s 902nd Military Intelligence Group suffered a six alarm fire on October 21st. What’s interesting about this is the 902nd’s involvement with the “abandoned” Total Information Awareness program, and their work infiltrating subversive domestic groups like the Quakers. Some news photographers on the scene were forced to delete all images they shot of the blaze, but a few pictures have made it to the Internets. There’s also a nice roundup of coverage on Wonkette.

Featuring Ken Lay, Woodrow Wilson, Benito Mussolini, and Henry Ford as the Beaver:

It’s sad and confusing not to live in a democracy, anymore. And while it’s quite plainly true, it’s a bit too unthinkable for most sane people to accept. It goes in the same mental basket as more outlandish (if not unthinkable) thoughts — such as dynamite on the WTC or no airplane crashing into the Pentagon — even though, in this case, it’s not conjecture, it’s just plain real.

So what I’m coming to grips with is accepting that I don’t live in a democratic nation, and that the propaganda state attempted in 1930’s Europe did finally reach fruition here in the U.S., just as Henry Ford and those of his ilk predicted.

Douglas Rushkoff in Arthur Magazine: Acceptance (doesn’t equal) Acquiescence

A fine interview with John Hodgman from the Boston Phoenix. Chupacabras, mole men, eel pickers…the man really covers the gamut of human knowledge. He’s not really a PC, but he’s a veritable database of cryptozoological information. You have to wonder, is the study of hobos a form of cryptozoology?

Bonus: here’s Hodgman’s explanation of Senator Ted Stevens’ explanation of how the Internets is a series of tubes.