CONFESSIONS OF A SHADOW WARRIOR

I am an eclectic person with a decidedly different take on just about everything. I am apt to discuss everything from today's politics to astrophysics to ghosts in the machine (yours, mine, ours). My posts are sometimes personal stuff, sometimes special interests, reviews of books I've read or films I've seen or places I've been, sometimes they are biting editorial opinion. Sometimes poetry. Sometimes select reprints. Subject matter? Read and find out. That, even I can't predict.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

kosovo 2007

BBC NEWS
Crucial talks on Kosovo's future
By Kim Ghattas
BBC News, New York

The leaders of Serbia and its breakaway province of Kosovo are preparing to hold their first face-to-face talks at the United Nations in New York.

Foreign ministers of the six major powers involved in negotiating the ongoing dispute between the two sides have urged them to seek common ground.

Serbia has rejected a UN plan to grant Kosovo supervised independence.

The UN has administered Kosovo since a Nato bombing campaign forced out Serbian troops in 1999.

Ahead of Friday's historic talks, Serbian President Boris Tadic warned the UN General Assembly in New York of unforeseeable consequences if Kosovo declared independence unilaterally.

'Unacceptable'

He clearly reaffirmed his country's position that an independent Kosovo would be unacceptable.

And he warned that if there was a one-sided recognition of that independence, it would set a precedent, with separatist movements everywhere seizing on it.

After a meeting of the so-called Contact Group - made up of the US, Britain, Russia, France, Germany and Italy - UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Belgrade and Pristina to show a "constructive spirit".

Kosovo's quest for independence has the backing of the US and most of the EU, although countries like Spain fear the impact it would have on separatists like Spain's Basque movement.

Serbia's ally at the UN Security Council, Russia, also opposes independence for the province.

The Serbs say they plan to propose a comprehensive blueprint for autonomy and hinted they might give up control over Kosovo's borders.

But Kosovo has made clear it will accept nothing short of independence under UN supervision at the end of the negotiating process on 10 December.

With both sides sticking to their positions, it is unlikely the negotiations in New York will lead to any breakthrough at this stage.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7017438.stm

Published: 2007/09/28 03:52:39 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Kosovo 2007

Saturday, September 22, 2007

VERY SCARY VIDEO OF GHOSTS AND EVP

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The Jena Six

The Jena 6 need your help. Please sign the petition at http://colorofchange.org/jena/
and at http://www.petitiononline.com/aZ51Cqm... (more) (less)

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Mothman Again?

Sightings of mysterious giant bird continue in San Antonio

Web Posted: 07/28/2007 01:30 AM CDT

Joe Conger
KENS 5 Eyewitness News

Loch Ness has its monster. Does San Antonio have one, too?

Strange sightings of a huge flying creature have been reported as recently as six months ago. Is it a monster or myth?

Guadalupe Cantu III was busy working his newspaper route, but he says the big news of that day 10 years ago flew right over his car. He says he's seen what most have not — an unidentified flying object, one that still scares him.

"We were afraid that it would come at us. So we stayed in the car till it passed this way," witness Guadalupe Cantu III said. "This thing's all feathers, all black. Much bigger than me. It looked at us. It had very stooped-up shoulders." The beast has been spotted from the Rio Grande Valley to the mountains of New Mexico.

"(It) looked like what was possibly two people standing on top of a mountain up there," said David Zander, who saw the monster in New Mexico. "Something that big ... I guess it kinda makes you feel like it could come over and carry you off if it wanted to."

More coverage
KENS video: Watch the broadcast
• Web link: Cryptozoology.com

San Antonio's Ken Gerhard has written a book on these dark birds as big as planes, with wingspans from 15 to 20 feet.

Native Americans called them thunderbirds: depicted in their art, their flapping wings were said to cause explosive noises.

"What's interesting is that the reports of these giant, raptor-like birds do continue into modern times," said Gerhard, a cryptozoologist. Cryptozoology is the study of and search for legendary animals to prove their existence.

He says there's solid evidence something is overhead.

"I believe there's a good chance that a lot of large, prehistoric animals, if you will, remain undiscovered by modern science," he said.

So what could the giant birds be? Some witness sketches eerily resemble prehistoric creatures, like the pteronadon of 160 million years ago.

However, Gerhard theorizes it could be a creature that's a little less extinct — if that's possible — a pteratorn.

"These are the surviving ancestors of modern condors and vultures. They lived up until 6,000 years ago, we know for sure, in parts of North America," Gerhard said. "In fact, over 100 specimens have been recovered from the La Brea tar pits in California."

But critics have another take: human error.

"Was it really as big as he thought it was?" asks Ben Radford, editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine. "When there's enough information to come to a determination, I've always found an explanation for it."

Radford says the eye can be deceived.

"Eyewitness testimony is very unreliable. And so it's hard for a person to tell — even experts to tell — 'Is that thing I'm seeing out there, is it small and nearby? Or is it huge and farther away?' " Radford said.

But in one sighting in San Antonio, three people gave similar accounts, witnessing the same fly-by of a huge, winged creature. A trio of South Side teachers traveling a deserted road had their cars "buzzed" by the monsters, and it made the papers in February 1976.

In fact, for decades papers throughout South Texas have chronicled the flying creatures. In the age of the Internet, the reports continue, like this one from a recent sighting near Huebner and Babcock roads.

"The creature was large, at least 6 feet," the report reads. "I don't know if I ever want to see another one."

"If I were outside there walking, it would've gone after me," witness Cantu said.

Cantu believes most sightings go unreported because people are afraid of the ridicule they could face.

However, he says a face-to-face encounter with the creature would be much worse.

"I think if you do see it, then you might wind up missing," Cantu said.
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA072707.mysterybird.KENS.ba5c450e.html

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Islamism Spreads to Turkey

July 22, 2007
Turkey’s Ruling Party Leading National Elections
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

ISTANBUL, July 22 — The ruling party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a strong lead in the national elections today, according to preliminary results, setting the stage for a final confrontation over who should run Turkey.

With 57 percent of the national vote counted, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development party had taken more than 48 percent of the vote, far higher than the 18 percent garnered by the secular opposition Republican People’s Party and the 14 percent taken by the Nationalist Action Party.

The results, broadcast on Turkish television at 8 p.m. local time, represent a slap to the state establishment, whose secular and nationalist parties were predicting that voters would punish Mr. Erdogan’s party for trying to push what they said was an Islamic agenda.

But while Mr. Erdogan’s party is expected to garner the largest portion of the vote in this young, predominantly Muslim democracy of 73 million, it will have to share the Parliament with the two opposition parties and with a broad new array of independents. Though Mr. Erdogan’s party will be able to rule alone, it does not appear to have won enough of the vote to approve constitutional amendments on its own, and will need to seek coalitions.

“I believe our democracy will emerge much stronger with this election,” Mr. Erdogan said, voting with his wife Emine in Istanbul, the Anatolian News Agency of Turkey reported. “This isn’t just a message to our country, but a message to the world.”

Turkey is a NATO member and a strong American ally in a troubled region and its stability is crucial. The election comes after three months of political uncertainty, after a showdown over the presidency led to today’s elections ahead of schedule.

Turkey’s secular state elite, backed by its military, used a legal maneuver in May to block Mr. Erdogan’s candidate from becoming president. Their objection was that the wife of the candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, wears a Muslim headscarf.

The episode brought out strong emotions in Turks and deeply divided the nation. In its essence, the disagreement is a power struggle between Mr. Erdogan and his religious colleagues, and the secular state elite — judges, military officers and bureaucrats — who have steered the state since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s secular revolution in 1923.

There is also a fear among secular, urban Turks that politicians from Mr. Erdogan’s party, who come from a religious, merchant class in Turkey’s countryside, will change Turkey’s secular system and limit freedoms for their own secular way of life.

“They are trying to tear apart the basic values of our republican life,” said Ekrem Tekbalta, 57, a well-dressed lawyer, who voted in an affluent neighborhood in central Istanbul.

But supporters of Mr. Erdogan’s party, known by its initials in Turkish, A.K., say that the party has done little to arouse secular fears and that the objection to it has more to do with class than with creeping Islamism.

“For me, we have to be democratic — I don’t care what his wife wears,” said Latif Ererli, a 38-year old textile worker who said he had cast his vote for the A.K. party out of protest to the struggle over the presidency in the spring. “Gul was liked and favored in Europe, but because of his religious identity, they rejected him.”

Others voted for the ruling party because the economy has been growing since it came to power and undertook a series of political changes aimed at achieving membership in the European Union.

“I’m not that conservative, but I voted for them because of the economy,” said Refik Akin, a 27-year-old catering company worker. “We’re happy with the situation.”

A.K. party officials welcomed the early results.

“We’re moving towards a very good result,” said Salih Kapusuz, a senior A.K. Party official, speaking on NTV, a Turkish television station. “ Our nation has approved A.K. party’s five years in government and granted the authority for another five years. Republic, democracy and Turkish nation are winning.”

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

TRICKSTERS AMONGST US

Brad Steiger, our ole buddy, called my attention to this. Henry_Allen

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Tim Binnall, Brad Steiger, and Trickster

Tim Binnall’s season two finale interview with Brad Steiger was inspiring, reminding me of what I consider to be the crucial points of esoteric research and phenomena. (Including UFOs.)

Steiger stressed that at the core of all these anomalous events (always keeping in mind this includes UFOs) is the Trickster element. (Steiger isn’t the only researcher that believes this; see George P. Hansen’s The Trickster and the Paranormal.)

Another point Steiger made was that no one has the answer, (which should seem obvious) and yet so many come out and insist that that is exactly what they have.

There was also the point made that younger researchers sometimes are ignorant of the older, previous researchers that have gone before and set the way for others; Steiger himself, Keel, Sanderson, Fodor, etc. Young ghost busters tromping through haunted houses with high tech equipment, or UFO “researchers” who read one or two books and think they know it all. I’d add to this that it isn’t just young people, nor all young people, but that this attitude is found among all age groups. There are calls to ignore the history and focus on the now, which is a disservice to all research. (At the same time, you don’t want to get stuck in the past.)

The chronic skeptics, in all their varieties, point to the fact that after so many years -- whether it’s sixty years or a thousand -- we haven't found any answers. That’s true, if one means, by “answer,” the final one size fits all solution to the UFO question. We haven't found “the answer.” The point is, we very likely won’t. That’s unacceptable for some. For others, it’s a non-issue, since we heavily suspect we’ll never find the “answer” and anyway, that’s beside the point.

(Painting: section of Boticelli's Adoration of the Magi 1475)

The persistently skeptical also tell us us that much of UFO and anomalous phenomena seems silly and downright pointless. Conflicting information given by “aliens,” their general behavior, the elusive nature; it’s too uselessly complex and nonsensical.

But that’s what makes it fun; and it’s what the Trickster does; confuse and play cruel jokes. Maybe it makes sense to itself; tough if we can’t get it. Or maybe it knows we can’t get it, and that’s why it delights in doing what it does. Maybe it’s nothing personal at all and we’re personifying; it just is what it is, and we are what we are. No matter, for the Trickster is still at it, regardless of what we think about it.

None of this means there really aren’t Martians living beneath the surface of Mars, or that there are bases on the back side of the Moon. (Maybe.) If any of that is so, that’s only a fraction of the Big Paranormal Picture. A lot more is still to come.

And actually, I suspect that it is really very “simple” in a way: as Steiger called it, we live parallel to a “shadow” world/reality. They do their thing, we do ours. Sometimes, more often than some of us would acknowledge, we meet each other, We find ourselves plunked into their world, or we meet up with “visitors” from theirs. The boundaries between the two aren’t all that firm, as much as some of us like to pretend it is. Indeed, one of the main functions of the Trickster is crossing boundaries.

So thanks to Tim Binnall for all his great work in bringing us (and for free) solid interviews with all kinds of UFO and esoteric researchers, including Brad Steiger.

Resources:
Binnall of America
Brad and Sherry Steiger
The Trickster and the Paranormal