The Cosmic Grim Reaper

We humans have a special place in our hearts for tales of terror associated with the unseen and supernatural forces that lurk in the darkest recesses of our collective imagination. This is an affinity that is cross cultural and transgenerational.

Today being Halloween my mind couldn’t help but wander over recent tales that humans have waived for themselves before and after the dawn of the space age concerning the terrors that lurk in the depths of cosmic night. Here is a collection of tales from the darkest recesses of the cosmic crypt. The cosmic grim reaper lies in wait; scythe in hand, in some dark corner of the universe ever ready to bestow some dark faith upon us. So happy Halloween to you all and may you all suffer a frightful and delightful night of terror. So go to Cosmic Visions for your treat.

Author’s note: This posting has been in the works in some form or other for nearly a year. Recently while searching the Internet for an illustration to grace this piece I came across a wonderful painting by the London based Welsh artist Leighton Johns. On a whim I used the ever dependable and very indispensable image search feature on Google and typed the words “The Cosmic Grim Reaper” and stumbled upon Mr. Johns’ wonderful blog site. I encourage my readers to visit Leighton Johns’ blog spot and view other wonderful examples of his work.

The Alien is here

Alex needs to wonder about Alien technology no longer. He can just ask them. Extraterrestrials have been visiting us for a long time. They even are presumptuous enough to interfere in Earthly politics:

OCTOBER SURPRISE: UFO ALIEN NOW ENDORSES McCAIN!

Posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
By Gerry Dorsey

WASHINGTON, DC – In a shocking reversal with major implications for the U.S. presidential election, political kingmaker, the Alien has switched his endorsement from Barack Obama to John McCain amid furor. Both political camps are buzzing about the implications, as the Alien has correctly predicted the winning president in every election for the past 28 years.

Ongoing investigation points to Cindy McCain as being the cause for this historic shift in allegiances.

Uncovered photos suggest that in a last ditch effort to help her husband’s failing campaign, Cindy McCain seduced and then blackmailed the Alien for his endorsement…..

The Night America Trembled

Today marks the seventieth anniversary of the 1938 Orson Welles Radio broadcast that panicked America. This year also marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the motion picture release of the War of the Worlds directed by George Pal as well as the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Jeff Wayne’s Musical adaptation of The War of the Worlds. In order to commemorate these anniversaries we would like to offer our dear readers a very special Wellsian treat with the following triple feature:

The Night America Trembled

The Night America Trembled is a television documentary that first aired on September 9, 1957, hosted by legendary dean of American journalists, Edward R. Murrow, and is an account of the panic and mayhem that ensued as a result of the Mercury Theatre’s infamous broadcast.

An Animated Film Version of Orson Welles Radio drama War of the Worlds

This is a full feature internet video clip of a Gerry Anderson (of Fireball XL 5 and Thunderbirds fame) style version of the War of the Worlds. They took the whole of the 1938 version of the Orson Welles infamous radio broadcast and created an Andersonsque animated full length presentation of it. This is truly amazing and awesome to the max. Well worth watching again and again.

The War of the Worlds Part 1: The Coming of the Martians

The War of the Worlds Part 2: Earth Under the Martians

George Pal’s Motion Picture Version of the War of the Worlds (1953)

This was the very first time that H.G. Wells’ novel was brought to life on the silver screen.

No internet censorship in Australia

There’s now an official movement to stop the government’s mandatory internet censorship. Go to the website, sign the petition, write to the Minister or send an e-mail but if you think the intellectual freedom that the internet allows is important please take some action!

Reverse gears please Mr Rudd

Not happy that the government has stuffed up the financial markets to the extent it has, its now looking at extending government guarantees even further:

TREASURY officials are working on options to extend the Government’s bank guarantee to some cash management funds under which the funds would open their books to prove that their assets are bank quality.

Regulators then would assess whether the bank deposit guarantee should apply to the funds, The Australian reports.

The plan could provide an acceptable compromise to Kevin Rudd’s reluctance to extend the $1.2 trillion bank deposit guarantee to market-linked investments and offer greater security for cash management trust investors.

Expect more market distortions and more pleas from investors to extend the guarantee to *their* investment. I fear this government is not going to learn The Lesson until one of the guaranteed financial institutions goes bust and the taxpayer has to pick up a billion dollar bill.

Alien Treknology

Let’s just suppose for a moment humankind develops the sudden urge to leave its planetary cradle and take the real giant leap to the other worlds of our solar system and elsewhere in our galaxy. Problem is we just do not have the technology to embark on such a trek. Such technologies are still in the realm of the make believe world of Star Trek.

But, let us imagine we were really desperate and would stop at nothing to get our hands on such futuristic technology. And, by way of a secret covert government operation do manage to get our hands on just that type of Alien Treknology from the sentient creatures that have been violating our air space for the past sixty years in a real life Roswell incident. Utilizing the talents of earth’s best and brightest what can we possibly hope to learn?

In the History Channel’s UFO Files documentary – Alien Engineering we are given the opportunity to explore just such an imaginary possibility.

Using real science, this documentary takes a look into the possible theories of how alien craft could operate – from the propulsions systems, to levitation, to teleportation, and faster-than-light travel. So join me today and let’s take a look at the exciting possibilities of Alien Treknology.

Electric cars coming to Australia

A few months ago I mention Shai Agassi plan to bring electric cars to Israel. Now Australia is also top on his list:

Australia would become the third country in the world to run an electric car network with the infrastructure already set up in Israel and Denmark.

The visionary project is the brainchild of US software entrepreneur Shai Agassi, founder of Better Place, who dreams of replacing the world’s petrol guzzlers with more environmentally friendly vehicles.

Keen to cut our dependence on oil, he devised the plans that would make electric cars cost competitive and appealing.

The plan is to market the cars in a similar way to mobile phones. Theres a video here of his Australian plans. My only concern is the plan seems to depend on the government’s $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund so what is the extent of the government’s subsidy?

Today Australia, tomorrow the World

As we all begin to feel the “benefits” of the federal government’s interference in the market I see the rest of the world wants to join in:

“Leaders pledged to undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems,” the 40-member Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) said.

“They agreed to take quickly appropriate initiatives in this respect, in consultation with all stakeholders and the relevant international financial institutions.”

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao called for more regulation of the world’s financial system, saying after the summit: “We need to draw lessons from this crisis.

“We need financial innovation to serve the economy better. However, we need even more financial regulation to ensure financial safety……

I have a very bad feeling about this, I remember how the Chinese have previously ensured safety:

Lesson forgotten

The Rudd government’s recent bank deposit guarantee was generally hailed as good policy. Unfortunately it diverted money away from other investments into now government guaranteed safe saving deposits. The result; mortgage and property funds have frozen withdraws:

The latest victim is blue chip funds manager Perpetual which froze redemptions today in seven of its funds containing around $2 billion in investors savings.

The Perpetual move comes hard on the heels of Challenger Howard, the biggest mortgage fund in the country ($2.9 billion) freezing redemptions earlier this week.

Before Perpetual’s freeze today, some 24 funds in the mortgage and property sector holding $14.4 billion of savings on behalf of 93,000 investors had suspended redemptions. Any other fund in the sector still open must be seriously considering its options.

Back in 1946 Henry Hazlitt wrote the free market classic Economics in one Lesson. The lesson can be summarized into one sentence: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.“

Sadly our free market hating Prime Minister has no interest in learning the Lesson.

Nohoperstan

Angela Shanahan lives in the socialist paradise of Canberra and doesn’t like it:

have plenty time to digest this information because I find myself in a traffic jam. Unlike in the halcyon days of yore, before Canberra’s state-like status went to the heads of the ruling left-wing junta, traffic jams have become common, caused by a combination of scaling down the number of lanes for general traffic (because of bus and cycle lanes), lowering the speed limit by 10km/h and some highly inefficient and expensive roadworks.

So, as I creep along, I mull over my almost $1000 water bill and my $2000 electricity and gas bill, the highest charges per unit of any jurisdiction in Australia, including some new taxes, the legality of which are being challenged. The price of water has gone from 47c a kilolitre in 1991, when I first came to Canberra, to $4.20. And it is not as if we are allowed to use much.

One Canberra economist, Terry Dwyer, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, has estimated that new water prices and restrictions have cost Canberrans almost as much a head as the cost of George W. Bush’s US bank bailout.

Its not going to get any better either. In all likelihood Canberra will soon get a Labor-Greens government giving it the most left winged administration in Australia. The scary thing is Canberra is a public service town. These are the people who are supposed to run the government. If this is what they do to their own city what would they do to the country if allowed?