Robert Novak? CIA operative?

It is the opinion of this writer, that Robert Novak has been part of Operation MOCKINGBIRD for a very long time. (As has the Post’s Bob Woodward, and through which he gained the acumen for to reach and sustain a relationship with “Deepthroat”–now known to be the FBI’s then-second-in-command, Mark Felt.) Someone (and it appears certain now, that it is either Novak or Rove) knew definitively of Valerie Plame’s employment history. If the source was Novak, that he is also a CIA agent, working within a long-standing media-infiltration project, would be a winning bet.

If Robert Novak is employed by the Central Intelligence Agency via Operation MOCKINGBIRD, and if for whatever reason he confirmed Valerie Plame-Wilson’s identity to Karl Rove, it appears now that Mr. Rove is turning on his ultimate Source: a man who is very likely to be CIA himself. Spooks will be spooks, and spooks–as with any two humans–often don’t like each other. But Federal statutes are also Federal statutes, and the citizenry can’t be expected to abide by that which our Masters do not. What’s good for the goose, etc.

Complete article here

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Got some Circlesquare lulling away in the headphones… evening pleasure reading on ol’ Mmothra’s blog led me to this interesting piece (via Wired). Dealing with the little known Princeton Engineering Anomolies Reasearch (PEAR) program, they’ve been studying the affects of human consciousness over mechanical equipment.

Using random event generators — computers that spew random output — they have participants focus their intent on controlling the machines’ output. Out of several million trials, they’ve detected small but “statistically significant” signs that minds may be able to interact with machines. However, researchers are careful not to claim that minds cause an effect or that they know the nature of the communication.

This is obviously interesting, but moreso because I’ve had a few discussions here and there dealing with the “occult” nature of our genders. It’s been my personal observation that, of those that have come unto me and learned anything that may be considered magical, females are more akin to subtle sensitivies, whereas males must work harder but lack the overwhelming lashback of fear that accompanies women’s foray into esoteric practices.

Here, the Wired article comments on this in a manner relative to my thoughts:—

Gender matters as well. Men tend to get results that match their intent, although the degree of the effect is often small. Women tend to get a bigger effect, but not necessarily the one they intend. For example, they might intend to direct balls in the random cascade machine to fall to the left, but they fall to the right instead.

Results are also greater if a male and female work together, but same-sex pairs produce no significant results. Pairs of the opposite sex who are romantically involved produce the best results — often seven times greater than when the same individuals are tested alone. Brenda Dunne, a developmental psychologist and the lab’s manager, said the results in such cases often reflect the two gender styles. The effects are bigger, in keeping with what the female alone would tend to produce, but more on target, in keeping with what the male alone would produce.

“It’s almost as if there were two styles or two variables and they are complementary,” Dunne said. “(The masculine style) is associated with intentionality. The (feminine style) seems to be associated more with resonance.”

It’s been my experience that guys, when interested in matters of mysticism and magic, pursue it in a diligent, critical way. Developing skills, step by step, they slowly conquer their initial disbelief in the results that, over time, become commonplace — yet occult to those inexperienced with magic. With the women, many who are aware and interested to partake in some trials (most of those I know are in their twenties), and they can easily accomplish these so-called psychic phenomenon much more quickly and with less stress than the men. However, they are afflicted by an emotional lashback, fear that muddies their experience and, more often than not, dissuades them from moving forth with their experiences. This is unfortunate because they need to deal with this fear to really embrace the potential powers that lie ahead of them. And because of this, men seem to have an upper-hand in that those with piqued curiosities move ahead and, at a slower rate, come to deal with the upsets and emotional turmoils that are thrown their way, rather than a tumultous experience all up-front as in many women’s cases.

Dunno if anyone out there has any comments or observations of their own regarding any of this?

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Everyone ought to find themselves disturbed about the Minutemen. They represent the part of the Republican Party which seems to have blatantly embraced fascist tactics. Anytime the government starts authorizing vigiliantes, start getting really afraid.

Minutemen: Home for Extremists

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Poet/alt-country genius David Berman (lead singer of the elusive Silver Jews), in an interview with Pitchfork attesting to the fact that his band’s latest album, Tanglewood Numbers, got a little help from the occult:

Joe Funderburk, the guy who mixed this album… is a white witch from Gulfport, Mississippi. During mixing he would have to take days off to go in the woods with the other witches and warlocks. One day he invited [Steve] West [the drummer] and I. I did not want to go, but we were just getting to know Joe and his wife, Rowena, and both of us wondered if we insulted them by not attending their rituals [whether] they would cast some curse on the record…. So I made West go. Apparently, he danced naked in the woods. He was gibbering and covered in blood when he returned. I made him promise never to tell me what happened that night.

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This entry has nothing particularly stringent to do with the occult, but more with beauty. I just spent the past two days north, past Athabasca (where Nightbreed, the movie based on Clive Barker’s Cabal, has its city of monsters, Midian, located somewhere nearby — we’ve never found it) at a small lake called Baptiste, and all last night — between drinking and fireworks mishaps (no injuries, though a few would’ve been funnier in retrospect) — the aurora borealis were out, aka “northern lights.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacehutobservatory/sets/210704/

Because I’ve spent little time in the U.S. outside of my experiences staying in Seattle (and being attacked by what I swear was a leper, while attempting to purchase a tasty croissant), I have no clue whether as many people have the opportunity to witness this amazing fucking phenomenon first-hand? Two things to living this far north are that a) the sun is up till like 23:00 in the middle of summer, allowing for much more bare-clad women and drinking without stumbling over what you can’t see, and b) in the dead of winter we get maybe seven hours of daylight, if that, and it’s hard to explain how far my penis shrinks back inside of body when the temperature drops to -30°C on a regular basis (I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it’s freakin’ cold). Benefits, year-round I think, are that we do happen to get northern lights.

And it’s just impossible to explain how insanely cool it is to sit beneath a sky aflame in green and red plasma. It’s kind of like Star Trek or something. Some years ago, I was driving down a major road in Edmonton and traffic just stopped. The whole of the sky, literally a good 80 per cent of the sky had erupted into brilliant pink and deep reds. They light up everything, the city, forests, mountains, lakes, et cetera. The whole city stopped to watch, it seemed like.

We are all surrounded by beauty, and while I don’t have the fortune of aurora every night, I tend to personally lose myself in the cloud formations we get during summer here. I love the skies.

Perhaps next time you’re outside (or wherever) consciously see if you can actually find something you like to just lose yourself to. It’s a god-given gift to be able to see beauty, and I think so many of us forget that or take it for granted.

Aurora folklore, via Wikipedia:—

It is believed that during the first millennium AD, auroral activity was low. This might be the explanation as to why northern lights are never mentioned in the Eddas of Norse mythology. The first Old Norse account of norðrljós is found in the Norwegian chronicle Konungs Skuggsjá from 1250 AD.

An old Scandinavian name for northern lights translates as herring flash. It was believed that northern lights were the reflections cast by large swarms of herring onto the sky.

The Finnish name for northern lights is revontulet, fox fires. According to legend, foxes made of fire lived in Lapland, and revontulet were the sparks they whisked up into the atmosphere with their tails.

The Sami people believed that one should be particularly careful and quiet when observed by the guovssahasat.

In Inuit folklore, northern lights were the spirits of the dead playing football with a walrus skull over the sky.

Other older theories speculated in that aurora borealis were the fires of the purgatory mountain on the reverse side of the globe; that the sun flares could reach around the world to its night side, or that glaciers could store energy so that they eventually became fluorescent (because of the midnight sun, northern lights can only be observed during winter in the polar regions).

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