Saturday, May 29, 2010




Liberty Net Jamfest


I've been trying to listen to the May 22 - 23 recording of the Liberty Net with the emphasis on the word trying. I used to hear the transmissions between the ultra-right-wing ham radio operators live on my portable shortwave radio but reception usually sucks. So now I download the latest meet-up from the archives at http://3950.net.

Last Saturday jammers were out in force, illegally blocking the Lib Netters. Loud rock music and stupid comments from "Buck Rogers in the Holland Tunnel." I don't agree with most of what the Lib Netters espouse; I'm just trying to track conspiracy theories. Discussion during the last Liberty Net dealt with the theory that North Korea blew up the BP oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, causing the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Why? Because South Korea built the rig.

One Lib Netter said he gave that theory a 30 or 40 percent chance of being true, unlike Rush Limbaugh's "Environmental wackos blew it up" speculation that only rate a two percent with him. He read an article that stated that President Obama was covering up the story, keeping it from the American public.

There could have been some more discussion on the topic but the jammers came on and most of the recording is their interference. So much for my tracking.

But there seems to be an alternative for the Lib Netters: the Web. A couple of them worked around the jammers by streaming through Stickam, an online service that carries the Saturday night net live. They could keep commenting via audio or by using the instant messaging feature.

So as disagreeable as some may find their ultra-conservative views, the Liberty Net will keep pushing on, maybe even to the point of doing their discussions only online. That's OK until the cyber-jammers show up but unlike SW transmissions, such jammers should be easier to block and locate.

Free speech means the freedom to speak.

Thursday, May 27, 2010


Sea Hunt: Target USO


** Ahoy! Spoilers! **



"It was shiny and circular like a flying saucer."

And underwater, not in the sky.

I'm watching a rerun of an old TV show called "Sea Hunt" about the adventures of a ex-Navy frogman, Mike Nelson, portrayed by Lloyd Bridges. Usually the flippered hero is out chasing crooks and assorted other bad guys but this time around he's investigating reports of a sea monster off the coast of Mexico. He responds to an urgent message from a friend living in the area of the sighting.

The episode is entitled "Decoy," from the first season of "Sea Hunt" (First broadcast: Sept. 20, 1958). You can watch the episode at this link.

Whatever this unidentified submerged object is, when it approaches the shore, whales go nuts, jumping out of the water. It also emits a strange sound that is picked up by underwater microphones. One fisherman claimed it had eyes that burned and long flowing hair.

When the object is detected by an underwater microphone, Nelson -- ready to go in his scuba gear -- grabs his camera and dives in to find out what the mysterious visitor could be. But the turbulence from the speeding object is too much: he's tossed around like a seahorse trapped in a sealed aquarium bolted to the bed of a pickup truck with bad shocks racing down a potholed street. (How's that for a simile?) The visitor disappears without Nelson even getting a glimpse.

Time for a different tactic. Nelson has some nets rigged up and the object is trapped. He goes down and sees the visitor is manmade: it looks like a submerged Sputnik satellite.



The strange device is still active but Nelson knocks it out by pulling off its radio antennae. Later, after contacting US Naval Intelligence, he talks with an officer about the device.

The Navy lieutenant says that it's an underwater satellite, akin to a space satellite but one that orbits underwater. He doesn't know who made it but it could have been manufactured by one of a dozen countries, big or small. This is the 1950s. Days of the Soviet Union. How many countries belonged to that union? Those commie bastards! But whenever the Cold War situation rears its ugly head in a "Sea Hunt" episode, the foreign nation behind a particular oceanic bad deed is never named.

As for the details reported during its previous "orbits," the burning eyes were a couple of "light sensitive discs" on the sphere. The long, wild hair was kelp it had picked up along the way. If this thing created such strong turbulence, wouldn't kelp be torn apart and forced away before clinging to it?

Don't pay attention to science when watching an old TV show like this. For example, it's explained the small submerged satellite caused the tremendous turbulence from its great speed. And its great speed, Mike Nelson observes, was created from the device "using the pressure of the water itself for propulsion." Huh?

During the denouement Nelson tells one of the fishermen that he doesn't blame him for thinking the device was from another world.

But Nelson's friend, the one who called him in to investigate, says: "Who can say with all that is happening today?" Spooky.




Another episode - "Underwater Narcotics" - from Season 3 matches "Decoy" for being offbeat. Here is a plot description:

(First broadcast: Aug. 27, 1960) "Mike discovers a plant growing profusely on the ocean floor that turns out to be a hybrid cannabis..."

Underwater marijuana? I don't use drugs but, man, that has to be one salty smoke. The kelp aftertaste must be a killer.

Unfortunately this episode doesn't seem to be available for viewing online. I caught it on the This TV network early one morning.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010


XR #73


It's up, the latest PDF version of my hardcopy zine, the Ray X X-Rayer. Go to www.xrayer.com, scroll down to the PDF zine section and click on XR #73b. Snail mail readers have received a pamphlet version, a double-sided sheet, but I didn't want to confuse my online readers with the details of printing that out. So what's online is just three pages, 1-3, no special lay out. And with the problems I had putting together the hardcopy pamphlet, I should've stayed with a straight lay out instead of getting compleX.

Of course, each X-Rayer reformats a few posts from this blog into an easy-to-read zine.

Friday, May 21, 2010


Conspiracy Theorist Rush Limbaugh


Environmental "wackos" might have blown up the BP oil rig that is gushing disaster into the Gulf of Mexico, according to Rush Limbaugh.

Sure. And if someone attacks this blog and shuts it down, I'll blame it on neo-Nazi Zionist Amish radicals. (We all know how dangerously tech-savvy Amish radicals are.)

I used to tune in Rush's right-wing conservative circus / radio show to verify that he remained a bloviating bag of bullshit. But thanks to the Internet Rush's stupid comments can be found without the pain of listening to an entire program.

One of the few times I tuned in Rush he was saying that the Democrats might have screwed up the economy so that Obama could be elected. I did some Googling and learned that informative comment was spewed way back on December 22nd, 2008. When I heard it I thought how appropriate it was to spread such negative BS during the holiday season.

His "Democrats did in the economy" theory involved NY Senator Chuck Schumer starting a run on a California bank during the summer, creating panic and unease that helped the evil liberal Demos win the White House and gain more seats in Congress. Rush said that this part of a plan by Obama and the Democrats to push the nationalization of US industries -- that Commie take-over type of stuff that the John Birch Society used to foist on the public.

But what's so funny is that Rush in the past wouldn't tolerate any Illuminati / New World Conspiracy theories to discussed on his program when listeners called in. At cuttingedge.org -- a web site warning the public that the NWO plot is "spiritually based," i.e., it's God Vs. Satan -- there is an open letter to Rush, taking him to task for his disbelief:

"On March 11, 1998, Rush Limbaugh reiterated his long standing policy against any consideration of 'Conspiracy Theories' as a possible explanation for any event(s) that have occurred in history, or which might occur in the future. In a phone conversation with another Conservative host, Rush said that such a belief constituted 'Intellectual Laziness', and, of course, he, Rush Limbaugh, would not and could not condone such a belief."

But on occasion Rush is throwing out stuff just as "intellectually lazy" as anything promulgated by the anti-NWO crowd. Environmental wackos blowing up the Deepwater Horizon rig to stop President Obama's plan for more offshore drilling. It's like something out of a bad movie -- a bad movie like "Special Bulletin," a made-for-TV turkey from 1983 in which radical scientists concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons build a homemade A-bomb and threaten to set it off unless all nuclear detonators are removed from Charleston, South Carolina. Of course, the wackos end up accidentally blowing up Charleston.

Anyway, here's an audio link so that you can hear Rush in his own words theorizing why environmentalists decided to save the environment by destroying it:



And by the way, Rush has also claimed that Obama wants to ban sports fishing. Now there's a fish story if I ever heard one.

Thursday, May 20, 2010


Gulf Oil Spill: The Nuclear Option


(Composite image by Ray X).



Russian science journalist Vladimir Gubarev has a solution to the Gulf oil spill: nuke it.

In a Pravda article he explains how the Soviet Union used nuclear bombs to seal off wells:

"The USSR had a sad experience in containing oil-well flowing in Central Asia. Two breakdowns occurred almost simultaneously... The two giant flames were extinguished with the help of nuclear explosions. They drilled two wells to approach the emergency wells under the ground and lowered nuclear devices into the wells. The troubled wells were blocked as a result of the explosions."

The Russian science journalist explains that he was present during the successful explosions. Gubarev then writes that the Soviet scientists wanted to promote their oil-spill-stopping technology to other countries but the US declined due to concerns about radioactivity.

The atomic bombs used by the USSR were still powerful but relatively low yield. The first one used to seal off a burning gas well in 1966 near Bukhara in Uzbekistan was a 30-kiloton bomb. (The Hiroshima bomb was 20 kilotons. The US B53 nuclear bomb, its most powerful warhead, could yield 9,000 kilotons.)

From what I've seen of BP and its cohorts in this disaster, Halliburton and Transocean, I don't want them near any nukes. BP -- British Petroleum -- used to promote itself in ad as a green company, saying it was investing in alternative energy sources such as biofuels, hydrogen and solar power.

But as noted in a New York Times article, "Despite its new sunburst logo and 'Beyond Petroleum' slogan, BP still invests $12 billion, or 25 times more, on oil and gas than on its wind and solar division for the simple fact that, right now, there's a huge market for oil and almost none for solar panels." ("How Green Is BP?" December 8, 2002). Later on it decided to "throw in the towel" with its alternative energy efforts (businessinsider.com - Feb. 5, 2009). So much for its new green and yellow sunburst logo.

Besides BP's dodgy use of advertising to influence public opinion, take a look at the explosion back in March 2005 at its Texas City refinery. 15 workers killed, 150 others injured. Why? Because BP, to save money and increase profits, cut back on maintenance and safety costs, the decision being traced back to the Powers-That-Be in London.

So no nukes for BP. Unless you want to go to Louisiana and look at tar balls glowing in the dark.

Beyond Petroleum, their ass.

Saturday, May 15, 2010


XR #72

Available for download at http://www.xrayer.com . Scroll down to the PDF archives.

Now to wait and see how well the hardcopy version, the digest-sized edition I sent without an envelope, made it through the snail mail system.

Saturday, May 08, 2010


Review: Stanton T. Friedman Is Real





What's with the organ music?

Opening scene, "Stanton T. Friedman Is Real." The doc's subject is standing at a podium, speaking at the 2001 MUFON conference. In the background a musical selection is played, added post-production, the kind of tonal atmosphere one would hear at an old time tent revival decades ago in rural USA.

I suspected why Paul Kimball, the documentarian, picked that particular piece. I'm not surprised when later on an interviewee refers to Stan as an "evangelist."

But despite that editorial musical commentary, STFIR is a balanced documentary, showing different POVs regarding Stan's work and the ufological field in general. I was an "informed viewer" going in, i.e., I was familiar with the subject matter. But the doc still held my interest; I learned all sorts of new stuff.

Also, it's doubtful I'll ever make to Roswell during one of its goofy Crash Festivals, but STFIR shows some scenes giving a viewer a feel for the place and its cash cow event.

Paul does have an eye for recording or setting up a scene. Yes, there are some staged ones -- Stan walking down the middle of an empty road in the middle of nowhere, straight towards the camera on the pavement -- but such scenes do work. Paul also engages in other cinematic tricks, tilting the camera or presenting scenes in black-and-white, but these tricks enhance, not detract from, the doc. Let's face it: a documentary with only talking heads, one interviewee after another giving his opinion, can be boring, despite how interesting the comments may be.

Among those interviewed are Kevin Randle and the late Karl Pflock, familiar names in the UFO field. Like I said before, I was already interested in the topic, having read and researched saucer stuff for many years. I wonder how well this doc would play to someone with little knowledge of ufology. Would it hold their attention? STFIR does move along at a good pace and as noted does have a few visual tricks so maybe it would play well to a general audience.

Also, Stan's personality comes through, especially during the segments of his lectures. Talking about "the Cosmic Watergate," Stan holds up some government materials he gathered through the Freedom Of Information Act, pages of redacted sections, each page almost completely covered by black boxes. Useless to a researcher. Such a presentation does play well to a general audience.

So how did Paul Kimball convince Stan to be in this documentary? One could call it nepotism: Stan is Paul's uncle. I'm not knocking it. The avuncular relationship probably helped to put Stan at ease during the filming, letting his personality shine through.

But there is one question left unanswered for me. How did Stan react to the doc? After the first viewing, did he turn to Paul in the screening room and ask:

"Hey, nephew, what's with the organ music?"


(In case the above link is missing or broken, "Stanton T. Friedman Is Real" can be viewed on You Tube.)


Hey, Kids – Wanna Drive Yourself Insane?

So this time around I decided to format the hardcopy version of my zine as a digest.

For those of you unfamiliar with zining, a digest-formatted zine is when you take 8 1/2 X 11 paper, turn it sideways, fold it down the middle, and staple it along the crease. It looks neat but there’s a downside. How to you get the pages in the proper sequence?

Four sheets folded convert into an 8 page edition. Not only do the pages have to be out of sequence to be in the proper sequence, you have to make sure each double-side sheet has the correct pages on each side. For eXample, this means sheet A has to have pages 8 and 1 on one side, then pages 2 and 7 on the flip side.

I wanted to do all the formatting on my computer instead of printing out the pages in sequence, then taping or gluing them down as I did in the past. I think I’ve figured it all out, no mess lying around my desk, paper trimmings, but what an eXcruciating HEADACHE I got! Now I have to make sure to print everything in the right sequence or I’ll have a fatal migraine.

The upside to the digest format: I can address each copy on my computer with a plain sheet of paper instead of messing around with envelopes. Word allows me to type in addresses sideways, perfect for the format.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010


Papernet: MY ZINE


Should you ever tell a zinester what to do? Fuhgeddaboudit. Especially if that zinester is Fred Argoff, creator of the paper zine Brooklyn!

In B! #68 -- which just arrived via snail mail -- Fred has an essay entitled YOUR FRIENDLY LOCAL NEANDERTHAL which addresses the issue of paper versus photons.

He explains that a couple of people have told him that his zine should go digital instead of being exclusively hardcopy. One person stated that Fred was wasting his time with B! because it wasn't being produced as an e-zine.

Fred's response is summed up in two words: MY ZINE. As in, this is my zine, not yours.

As he explains: "You want to read your zines off a computer screen? Go right ahead. But for long as there is a zine called Brooklyn! it shall be produced on paper."

His zine. His call.

I agree with him. If you don't like what he's doing, then start an ezine about Brooklyn.

Me, I'm both paper and photons. I blog first, then collect some of my posts into a paper zine. For me online has priority, then the hardcopy comes later. That's how I work as a zinester. Other creators have their own priorities.

The reason why most zinesters end up doing what they do is because they're fed up with gatekeepers and critics. Gatekeepers, editors and publishers who subjectively deem the good and the unworthy. Critics, those who can't create but sure can criticize. Sometimes there isn't much difference between the two categories.

Zinesters both online and offline can bypass all the bullshit. Individuality can stand out; homogenized crap no longer rules.

Sure, you can suggest something to a zinester, make a helpful comment, ask a question. Just don't tell him what he should do.

If something is that important, do it yourself. And maybe after see you all the effort that is involved, you'll start to appreciate the labors of a creator.


(Contact Fred Argoff at 1170 Ocean Parkway, Penthouse L, Brooklyn, NY 11230-4040.)

Sunday, May 02, 2010


No Accidents: It's All A Conspiracy




Interesting tidbits from the latest gathering of the Liberty Net that started on Saturday night, May 1, around 10 PM and carried into Sunday morning.

(For those of you unaware of this net, it is a weekly on air meeting of ham radio operators in the US who share extreme right-wing views.)

A main topic: the tremendous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was emphasized that the offshore rig explosion occurred on Earth Day. Of course, that can't be a coincidence, say a few of the LibNet gang. The Mega-Conspiracy must have planned the explosion and the resulting spill for that particular date.

It's all a plot by President Obama, claimed a LibNetter, to push liberal green energy sources over traditional ones. How else can you turn the public against new offshore drilling?

Also the contrived spill forces this country to use oil under the control of China. Obama, of course, is really a communist, he serves his red masters, at least not when he's working for Islamic terrorists.

I heard the Liberty Net via an audio stream on a stickcam.com site. The site also includes a running chat session that parallels the broadcast. Online commenters blamed the usual suspects for the oil rig disaster. Russia, China, or "the HEEBS" must've "torpedoed" the platform.

But most of the action was still on air, especially when it came to connecting the dots. That recent coal mine explosion in West Virginia -- the Mega-Con had to be behind that to get people against coal. See how it all fits together?

What's next on the secret agenda of the Mega-Con? One LibNetter said an explosion at a nuclear power plant.

So if by some chance a nuke plant does have problems, it isn't an accident: it's a calculated move by the Mega-Con.

Subscribe to the LibNet POV and you'll believe accidents never happen. There is never an element of chance; everything is mapped out by the great shadowy powers that control our fates.

I suppose if I could have the same mindset, then the world would be easier place to deal with. No disturbing gray to challenge me.

Saturday, May 01, 2010


Facebook Crosspost SNAFU

Facebook is still not crossposting from this blog. So I'll just paste links over there for those you like to use FB as a central info service. But there are other options.

http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=337187

Just click on above link, sign up, and FeedBlitz will deliver my posts to your email account. I've used it for some time now and no problems.


http://www.google.com/reader


No problems with Google Reader so far. You can follow your favorite sites all in one place. I also use Bloglines but have been having trouble with it. Sometimes it gets wonky. Check out the box on the right side of my blog, Subscribe To Ray's X-Blog. Other services besides Google are available.

There is also Google Friend Connect. I'm not familiar with it, never took the time to use it, but it allows you become a follower of a blog.

So keep up the great work, Facebook. It's not like users are completely stuck with your service.


Notable Points: TJ And The Star Fleet


At ufodigest.com contributor TJ Morris has posted another intriguing article with concepts spanning from the metaverse to the xenoverse. Such a sweeping span would boggle the average reader but TJ puts her cosmic concepts into personal terms, showing how they relate to her earthly existence. She admits her experiences sound like science fiction but insists they are true.

Entitled "TJ Morris Shares The Andromeda Galaxy Star Fleet," I gleaned these fascinating details from her essay:

> In a previous existence TJ lived in the Andromeda galaxy.

> Here on Gaia (planet Earth in the Milky Way galaxy) she searched out other intelligences beyond this world through meditation and prayer.

> She's now in contact with the Andromeda Star Fleet hovering over our world, a global fleet of 27 different species.

> She and the intelligences of the Star Fleet will work with quantum scientists to explain exobiology and existentialism to the people of Gaia.

> Andromedians can communicate through common speech or by telepathy. Their telepathic range is about six feet on our planet.

> TJ has trained for this work in both reality and dream state.

Here is the link to her article.


Time Suck


I wasted about an hour yesterday trying to get the crosspost app at Facebook to automatically include posts from this blog. The feature worked OK until recently; it just stopped without warning.

I'm not a Facebook fan but some people check out all their stuff there and so I used crossposting to make it more convenient for them to follow my thoughts.

Someone (Hat Tip: Doug) told me that the app would work again if you reset it. But with all the digital knowledge crammed into my head, I couldn't remember how to access the crosspost feature.

Of course, Facebook's Help was useless. I managed to find the answer via Google and even that took some time. When I did access the proper Facebook page, the link box I needed was missing. Taking a chance, I clicked on Page 2 and the link finally appeared on that page. Convenient, easy to access Facebook. I've heard complaints that changing the privacy settings involves even more hoops to jump through.

Now to see if this post will go through. If not, I'll do it the old-fashioned way, pasting the link in at Facebook.

Computers suck time!!

And as a time suck, Facebook is the worse. Don't be surprised to see me disappear from there.

I should be researching and writing, not trying to figure out nonsense.