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Home >History > Front page updates January 2021
Updates made to The Millenium Project in January 2021
When lunatics test the boundaries (23/1/2021)
Imagine you created a new political party with the aim of totally reinventing everything to do with the way Australian society is structured, everything to do with how people vote, and basically everything. Then imagine that nobody took any notice of you. This would get you annoyed, so you would probably take to YouTube to tell the world about how you were being overlooked by the media and others who should be supporting and promoting your vision. Here is Teresa van Lieshout (yes, that really is her name) of the Voter Rights Party telling someone that he should have interviewed her. (She made a shorter video aimed at main stream media outlets who weren't paying her enough (any?) attention but for some reason my downloading program could only capture the audio. Pictures are needed to capture the full flecking of foam.)
Teresa doesn't believe that COVID 19 is any sort of threat. She is opposed to any measures that authorities take to try to 
reduce the spread. She opposes any vaccine. Her party is appreciated by election officials because it's so easy to count and audit the stacks of zero and one votes at polling places. (I have been a polling place official at several elections and we can't go home until all the votes have been counted and allocated to candidates. Smaller piles make for faster counting.)
The newspapers, television, radio and other media outlets might ignore Teresa, but as a bona fide member of the journalists' union I feel obliged to bring her story to the masses.
Put on a raincoat and enjoy!
And speaking of YouTube, here's how it's done (23/1/2021)
Stolen. Anonymous.
Swansong for Hillsong? We can only hope. (23/1/2021)
I haven't paid much attention for a while to the pretend church, Hillsong, but the international chain of money laundries has been getting some media attention lately, especially in the US. The "pastor" in charge of one of the most lucrative franchises, New York City, has been forced to resign over some "inappropriate" sexual activity resulting in a charge of "moral failure". In his favour he was only being adulterous with female celebrities, not just any women he happened to pick up in bars (standards must be maintained). And definitely none of that gayish homosexual stuff that the "church" finds abominable. He'd been banging the help and the congregation for years and everybody knew it but there were blind eyes to be turned, so it's a bit of a mystery why he suddenly had to go now. 
One can only assume that his employers were looking for a way to get rid of him and accusations of sexual misconduct worked so well when Brian Houston took over the business from his father.
There have been several other high-profile "pastors" leaving the "church" for personal and family reasons and maybe we can hope that more decide to earn an honest living elsewhere. Unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of replacements.
One thing that is certain is that there won't be an exodus from the top of the Australian hierarchy. Brian and Bobbie Houston own the business and its impressive tax-free income stream and all the people leaving are just employees of the corporation and can be replaced. The replacements might even work for less money and I'm sure that new franchise agreements can be drafted ensuring that more of the collection plate money goes to where it should,
The New York Post has been following the story closely and you can read about the saga here.
Sleeping with kombucha in your sock cures cancer!! Really!! (23/1/2021)
I was very pleased to find this excellent educational graphic and my pleasure was increased by knowing that it came from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, my favourite TV and radio network. I sometimes feel that the commercial media in Australia would use the things generated by this as headlines to attract eyes and minds to advertisements, with suitable uncritical editorial below to reinforce why consumers should buy the advertised snake oil.
See more from Judy Horacek here
And some good news! (23/1/2021)
In just the three months between September and December 2020 the wide-ranging influence of the anti-vaccination liar movement was highlighted. In fact, if they were even more influential Australia might increase its lead over all the other countries as the place with the highest level of childhood vaccinations in the world.
I expect that the next newsletter from the Australian Vaccination-[gotta lie] Network will recognise this achievement and congratulate the health authorities on the success of the vaccination programs. And if they do, air traffic controllers everywhere will be glad that the COVID19 epidemic has severely reduced the number of planes that would have to avoid the flying pigs. They will, of course, point out that vaccination and immunisation aren't the same thing, because the first is useless and dangerous and can't cause the second. But lying and misrepresenting science is what they do for a living.
See more from Jason Adam Katzenstein here
You now have to have an account at Instagram to see this. Sorry!
It's holiday time!! (30/1/2021)
I'm having a short vacation this weekend so I've put things together early just like the way your Mum would cook you a big stew for you to eat over the weekend at your student digs when the ramen ran out. There will be much recycling.
I was reminded during the week of this excellent essay from 1811.
The Necessity of Atheism
Percy Bysshe Shelley
This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken. A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any proposition is the only secure way of attaining truth, on the advantages of which it is unnecessary to descant: our knowledge of the existence, of a Deity is a subject of such importance that it cannot be too minutely investigated; in consequence of this conviction we proceed briefly and impartially to examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is necessary first to consider the nature of belief.
When a proposition is offered to the mind, It perceives the agreement or disagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their agreement is termed belief. Many obstacles frequently prevent this perception from being immediate; these the mind attempts to remove in order that the perception may be distinct. The mind is active in the investigation in order to perfect the state of perception of the relation which the component ideas of the proposition bear to each, which is passive; the investigation being confused with the perception has induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active in belief. -- that belief is an act of volition, -- in consequence of which it may be regulated by the mind. Pursuing, continuing this mistake, they have attached a degree of criminality to disbelief; of which, in its nature, it is incapable: it is equally incapable of merit.
Statistics? What are they? (30/1/2021)
A couple of videos from a few years ago about vaccination. They deal with the way anti-vaccination liars abuse statistics (particularly false correlation) to spread fear and confusion. Some of them claim to be scientists and those scientists must know that they are lying, but like the rest of the anti-vaccination movement they don't care about this because the end justifies the means. And the end is more dead children.
Part 1
Part 2
Quintessence Nook (30/1/2021)
2001 was ushered in to the sound of pedants bleating about when millennia, centuries and decades really started, but everybody ignored them as they had a year before. The makers of M&M chocolates had had a boom year for sales and hoped to continue by rejigging their machinery to stamp "MMI" on the little buttons of deliciousness. Students in Graduate Management Schools polished their MBA preparations by writing essays about the market effects of the change. The better essays were plagiarised by their supervisors and published in prestigious journals. Web sites which in 1999 had been predicting the end of everything as Y2K struck and which had been offered for sale for millions of dollars had quietly disappeared before 2001 started.
It was a time of hope. And the year was divisible by 3. And here are some memories from twenty years ago.
100 Year Old News: Theosophy and the Human Dino
Do you ever wonder about the relationships and connections between dinosaurs and humans? Some of the clues to these links are that both races lived on earth and ate things. Both races also reproduced, breathed air, drank water and appeared in films by Walt Disney and Stephen Spielberg. But these have never been enough for me, because these connections could always be explained 
away by skeptics as just coincidences. At last someone has come along with a tentative theory suggesting that as the dinosaurs were ascending humans were descending, and we may have inherited a slight scaliness from these reptiles. The formal statement of the thesis is: "1st human race hovers over, within, and through the 5th race of the dinosaur-animal. 2nd race exists side by side on an inner level or soul level with the 6th race animal. Finally, the 3rd race human has progressed to the point where the form is sufficient for inhabiting, however since the 2nd-6th race is androgynous and a dual race, the 3rd – 7th race must split." Wow! We must keep looking for shistas until the lifewave returns again..
The Mars Records
You know how you hate it when the relatives drop over to tell you about their fabulous holiday in some place you can't afford to go to? Well, if the person who owns this site was your uncle, you would sit up and take notice because he has been to Mars. Not just any old Mars, but the one up there. Out in the solar system. The red one. He has photos of the place where the implant was put in his neck, and he has some tasteful photos of his groin showing where the probing was done. He even has a 375 page book that you can download and read for free. Now, I ask you, if this was just someone telling a story would he give it away for nothing? Of course not. Be careful, though, because strong forces want to suppress this site. Just look at that hole in the tyre – only a ray gun could do that sort of damage.
Exact Process to Become a Recording Artist
I occasionally mention popular music as a means of illustrating a point or to provide a connection with the zeitgeist, but I have skirted around the problem of how something or someone actually becomes popular music. My most recent foray into the world of recorded entertainment was the release on the Quintessence label of The Three Tenors Sing The Works of AC/DC. This was not the commercial success we had all hoped for, although there was universal critical acclaim for Pavarotti's awesome performance of "It's a long way to the top if you want to Turandot". I just wish I had seen this site before I went into negotiations with the record companies and distributors, because it's such a useful guide to the conciliatory style of language that you need to use when talking to people who might do you a favour.
Vaporised in the implosion of Geocities, but it was too good to lose. A canonical example of Geocities web design.
Time Traveling Unicorns
You hardly ever see a unicorn these days. This is partly due to the fact that they are excessively shy, so you can only see them out of the corner of your eye. The main reason, though, is that they are busy travelling through time. Now, maybe that time travel is metaphorical, in that we all think they are extinct but they have survived to this very day, still charged with the protection of virgins. I prefer to believe, however, that the time travel ability is literal. The unicorns we glimpse today are really here from another time, visiting us to make sure that the virgins are being well looked after. The unicorns which actually exist now aren't seen because they are off in other times making sure that other people are treating virgins properly. This means that at any particular point in time, all unicorns are somewhere else in time (except for the ones visiting this time from some other time, of course). Only the virgins are really here. This all made sense when I wrote it.
Another Geocities site that was too good to be forgotten.
The Armageddon Chronicles
Are we really here? You have to ask yourself that because there is real evidence that the end of the world almost happened in 1998. Well, maybe not the end of the world but at least the end of whatever Revelation said was going to end. I know how difficult it is in these times to tell the aliens from the reptilians from the crustaceans from the few remaining humans, but it is important. It is also important to remember that dogs can tell when someone is from the government (that's why they bark at postmen) which is why the government wants to put microchips in dogs. Don't be fooled. Ruth wasn't. That's why the alien invasion was able to be repelled even though it was in the 4th density.
The Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface System
This site talks about a machine made by Dr William Nelson. I think his version of "Stardust" is fabulous, but I am really pleased to see that Willie has finished his education and is settling down to his new career. I see from the picture that he hasn't completely abandoned all his old fans (or even the young ones) and has included a bonus CD with every one of his new magic $10,000 mind-reading machines. Willie's background in the music business was really useful. This machine deals with feedback and it has lots of channels, just like a studio mixer or the CB radio in the bus. It also does "miasma analysis" and I can tell you that when I was a roadie I often felt a bit miasmic the morning after a late show and a conversation with Mr Beam and Mr Daniels. I remember having a long conversation with Messieurs Moët and Chandon once. That was the night we opened for the Eagles and the paymaster got the bags of money mixed up.
| To the bank again Just can't wait to get to the bank again The life I love is makin' money from my friends And I can't wait to get to the bank again To the bank again With the proceeds of my mind machine Ten thousand bucks that you may never see again, And I can't wait to get to the bank again. |
 Apparently, Willie has made enough money to retire and has closed his site selling these machines. Internet searches now just lead to lots of people who bought them. PB October 2001
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When I went looking in 2021 I found that even the Internet Archive had been thwarted in capturing the magnificence of Willie's original web site, and that's why there is no link.
This site won Loon of the Month. The citation said:
| Loon of the Month | |
| Loon of the Month just had to be Dr Willie Nelson. I am really pleased that he is successful in his new career and I just love the word "Xrroid". It sounds like one of those cars we used to drive back in the late 60s and early 70s. You know the ones – engine capacity was measured in cubic feet and brake linings in square millimetres. I can see the advertising slogan: "The Ford Xrroid GrunTer – her mother will hate you". But I digress … I hope Willie can record my new song with Enrique Iglesias' father:
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See more from John Atkinson here
Go to Part 1
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