Alien Jesus Collective

Aviation Week reports what they know about Blackstar, a US military spaceplane intended to guarantee American access to space in the wake of the Challenger disaster.

A large “mothership,” closely resembling the U.S. Air Force’s historic XB-70 supersonic bomber, carries the orbital component conformally under its fuselage, accelerating to supersonic speeds at high altitude before dropping the spaceplane. The orbiter’s engines fire and boost the vehicle into space. If mission requirements dictate, the spaceplane can either reach low Earth orbit or remain suborbital.

The Blackstar was capable of surprise surveillance flyovers, microsatellite launches, and even ground strikes using hypervelocity weapons. These weapons are one of the more fascinating aspects of the story. The so-called “rods from god” consist of a simple tungsten shaft 20 feet long and one foot in diameter, and would hit the ground at 12,000 feet per second. Given the Pentagon’s current inclination to militarize space, I don’t think they’d be mothballing Blackstar unless they’ve got a pretty impressive replacement operational. Black triangles, anyone?

You know we all love the Time Cube here at Alien Jesus, and as I was moderating comments tonight, I came across a post from the proprieters of Cubic Awareness Online. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. A mixture of words and pictures, scienitific proofs, and videos bring the complex reality of the Time Cube to the masses, yearning to no longer be educated stupid.

Think of it as the Time Cube concordance you never knew you needed!

Good news kids! We’re now offering full text of all articles via our RSS feed. You need never use your browser again! If you’re on a Mac, I’d recommend NetNewsWire. Windows users: your guess is as good as mine. Linux users, write your own client.

Leave it to the Japanese to put a unique spin on alien encounters:

Nirasawa does not rule out that the schoolgirls’ slippers may have been pilfered by bug-like ETs.
“There’s a possibility,” he says. “I’d say if that was the case, it would probably have been Martians.”

The report is from the Mainichi newspaper, and originally appeared in Japan’s Weekly Playboy (WARNING: may contain perverse sexual imagery previously unimagined by Americans and/or God-fearing Europeans). I’ve got a bad feeling our alien overlords look like Hello! Kitty…

State of the Union address tonight kids, and that means all patriotic Americans need to stock up on booze and play The State of the Union Address Drinking Game 2006. It’s probably ok to play even if you’re not located in the US, but for those of us who call him our President, there’s an added incentive to drink.

This could be mere internet paranoia, but if anyone can confirm it I’d love to hear from them. Supposedly, Homeland Security officials have been training bank employees in some new procedures for safe deposit boxes in the event of a national emergency:

…only agents from Homeland Security (during such an event) would be in charge of opening safe deposit boxes and determining what items would be given to bank customers…no weapons, cash, gold, or silver will be allowed to leave the bank - only various paperwork will be given to its owners.

Any bank employees out there care to drop the dime on Michael Chertoff?

Teddy Stern has posted a fascinating look at what Jack Abramoff was up to in the late 80’s: writing and producing Dolph Lundgren movies!

Back in the mid-1980s, after completing his term as Chairman of the College Republicans, Jack headed out to Hollywood to try his dirty hand at film producing. He produced just one film, Red Scorpion, a B-movie dick flick starring Dolph Lundgren. On top of producing, Jack wrote the story. Joseph Zito, the mastermind behind Friday the 13th Part 4, directed.

This is truly mindboggling. Be sure to check out the trailer!

So Phoenix threw a marathon Sunday morning, and since the compound is within spitting distance of the course Buck and I decided to take a few pictures. Take my word, when Soylent Green makes the McDonald’s value menu, the top marathon runners will be the last ones anybody wants to drop in the tanks. Way too damn stringy. Anyway, the 2006 Alien Jesus Collective Nu-Metal Marathon Pictures of the 2006 Sponsor Name Musical Style Marathon by Buck Huff are here, and mine are here.

I’m not usually one for vicious scepticism, but looking at the brochureware for Life Technology Research International®’s “The Hyperdimensional Oscillator™” gave me a real patent medicine vibe. There’s quite a cottage industry built around Tesla’s “lost” inventions, and it just bugs the hell out of me. Nikola Tesla was a brilliant inventor, the equal (or better) of Thomas Edison. Unfortunately, he didn’t have Edison’s business acumen, and his patent for radio was tied up in the courts until after his death. His openness to ideas outside the mainstream have made him a beloved figure in the “paranormal” community, and his inventions inspired the set design for countless sci-fi and horror movies. A seminal figure. The downside of this? Companies that attach Tesla’s name to a product in the hopes that some of his luminence will rub off and turn their 99¢ keyfob into an $89.95 profit center. Goddammit, Tesla deserves better!

BBC reporter Chris Hogg (and I’m not making that up!) filed this story about a new pig mutation bred by scientists at National Taiwan University. By adding genetic material from jellyfish to pig embryos, they’ve produced a glow in the dark pig.

Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before. But the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better. They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, they say.

I think they’re trying to capture the small but lucrative “luau rave” market. If they aren’t, all I can say is wtf?

New Scientist News reports the Norwegian government is building a Noah’s Ark of sorts for seeds on an Arctic island. The plan is to have seed samples for all the world’s crops. In the event of a global catastrophe, these seeds could be used to reestablish humanity’s agricultural base.

This seems like a wise contingency plan, but I do see a few problems with it. From the description:

The $3 million vault will be built deep inside a sandstone mountain lined with permafrost on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen. The vault will have metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete and will be protected behind two airlocks and high-security blast-proof doors. It will not be permanently manned, but “the mountains are patrolled by polar bears”, says Fowler.

So a ragtag band of catastrophe survivors will have to make it to Norway, build a boat, get past postapocalyptic polar bears, and somehow open up this vault. And if they succeed, they’re still a growing season away from their first meal! A noble effort, but the corpses of the dead are still going to be the most plentiful food source when the world goes boom.