/ 15 February 2006

Ruining your day, and an introduction to Planet X

This week’s column has two themes. One is a look over some everyday things you might take for granted. And, for the hell of it, an introduction to one of the many genres of weird subjects out there.

Stepping back from the big media-fed “Holy jihad, Batman!” wankfest that’s erupted recently over some arbitrary doodles that appear to infringe on some people’s “religious” ideas of reality, I can do no better than to point you towards a United Kingdom Daily Telegraph article looking at the whole highly suspicious charade. Read ‘If you get rid of the Danes, you’ll have to keep paying the Danegeld’.

Also read the admittedly sometimes nutty thoughts of a Russian ultranationalist politician, on the whole deliberate “stir up the anti-doodles” brigade.

As the United States and its oil-hungry allies keep talking about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), it should be pointed out that they themselves are using WMDs. Of course they call it “depleted” uranium or “DU”. (This means semantically pretty much the same as saying “not so deadly” cyanide.) It’s a radioactive weapon of mass destruction. Browse through info at Depleted Uranium Watch and pause by the Campaign against Depleted Uranium. Then look over some BBC links.

Naturally there’s an opposing view — read Military Analysis Network.

Seeing as at least 10 New Mexico senators, two days ago (February 12), have called for the governor of New Mexico to declare a public health emergency because of aspartame — a chemical in your food locally, read Senators Ask Gov to Declare Emergency.

Based on the above, it behooves me to throw some links at you about this. Aspartame, an artificial sweetener that you’ve been persuaded by adverts is “better for you than sugar”, is called by a variety of names, including “Nutrasweet”. If you’re lucky, you’ll just face potential brain lesions or cancer from using it. If you’re not lucky, the effects are even worse.

This chemical is widespread throughout local products, because it increases the profit margins for food makers — and it’s in potato chips, snacks and cold drinks (especially the “diet” ones). Now turn over that snack you’re eating, and read the label — then browse through the Aspartame (Nutrasweet) Toxicity Information Centre. Read Aspartame and Blindness and consider Debunking Aspartame Myths. Read The Lowdown on Sweet, and why is it not surprising that Donald Rumsfeld was connected to the Food and Drug Administration approval of aspartame for human use? Watch Meet Donald Rumsfeld.

Time, methinks, to go through your kitchen and start throwing out products. Naturally, if the media locally stumble on to this, you’ll see paid industry “medical experts” telling you not to worry and keep on buying aspartame products. I wouldn’t.

By the way — ever wondered if your milk is kosher? Ever been curious about how “extra vitamins” get into that milk you drink? Or that much-touted “vitamin D” in your margarine? I know you picture some idea of bottles of pills of vitamin D being dumped into big vats in a factory. However, “vitamin D-3 can come from four different sources: pig skin, sheep skin, raw fish liver and pig brains. Most of the time, vitamin D-3 is extracted from pig skin and sold to dairy processors.” Mmm. How about them apples? Restrain your automatic response, caused by years of propaganda and parental conditioning, and read thoughtfully through the articles at Not Milk.

Another chemical that helps food makers tart up their technically tasteless products and fool your mouth chemically into thinking it’s eating a “tasty” object is “MSG”. Look on your food-packet label now, class. Monosodiumglutamate. Pity about the diabetes, cancer, migraines, obesity and retinal damage. Read through the data at Truth in Food Labelling.

On to your cosmetics. (Yes, I’m just ruining your whole damn day, aren’t I?) Let’s leave aside your disgusting habit of believing that splattering whale vomit and toilet water (that is, “aftershaves” and “perfumes”) on yourself is a good thing. Instead, look closely at your “skin creams”. See the word “collagen”, or remember the adverts using that word? Now, collagen is “the fibrous protein constituent of skin, cartilage and bone”. In other words, it’s a body part.

Ever wonder whose body? Or what body? Read Cosmetics Made from Executed Chinese Prisoners. (But don’t worry — your skin cream is probably made from mashed-up dead animals’ skin — or foetuses. Oh, yummy.) To cut through the bollocks, a good starting point is The Truth about

Moisturisers and Dry Skin.

Now that I’ve shown that a rethink might be useful for your perception of news, war, snacks and cosmetics, let’s go overboard into some fun fringe thought. Why? Because no one else will. Get your tin-foil hat on, and here goes: this time round, I want to introduce you to a concept known as “Planet X”.

The idea of a “Planet X” is a long-held one — according to the official view, it comes from the days before the discovery of Pluto. Read Wikipedia and Planet X. However, this phrase has a different meaning nowadays.

Thirty or so years back, according to the writings of Sumerian scholar (and possible nutter) Zecharia Sitchin, he wrote that we should be on the lookout for the return of the planet that he called “Nibiru” — the home planet of the ancient race that created humankind, according to Sumerian legend. (Funnily enough, the ancient texts refer to the hybrid “thing”, or “humans”, made by this visiting race as “The Adam”). Sounds like a familiar legend, doesn’t it? Read an Interview with Sitchin.

This alleged mystery planet has become known commonly as “Planet X” (for those who don’t buy into Sitchin’s work or who prefer to think of it as possibly the “Wormwood” mentioned in Revelations.)

Before you laugh, the geeks will have noted that astronomers have been uncovering “new” planets on very wide orbits within our solar system up to very recently — for instance, an MSNBC article titled ‘A Mystery Revolves around the Sun’.

The theory goes that when “Nibiru” (aka “Planet X”) begins to return towards us, we’ll see a variety of changes within the Earth itself, as new gravitational effects begin to make themselves known. What kind of effects you ask? Weird weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, a heating up of the atmosphere. Gee, pretty much what we’ve been seeing over the past decade or so.

Science doesn’t seem to be saying too much about the idea of a “new” Planet X (least of all one that might be heading towards us). Note the “oops” factor in ‘Tenth Planet May Be Bigger Than Expected’.

As to what the truth is — who knows? There do appear to be a number of global changes unfolding. For instance, there are no good answers currently about just why the Earth’s magnetic pole is drifting from the United States towards Siberia. Read Earth’s Magnetic Field Moving Fast.

And “something” is moving around inside the Earth. Whatever “it” is, it is big enough to change the shape of the Earth itself and cause the gravity field of the Earth to alter. This is from National Geographic News — read Why Is Earth’s Girth Bulging?.

There’s apparently a major anomaly that has developed in the past three weeks — involving some ongoing standard “wobble” in the Earth called the “Chandler’s Wobble” that has stopped. Read Major Anomaly in Chandler’s Wobble.

If you want to step off into high weirdness, read a quick intro to Nibiru and then do some reading at Zecharia Sitchin Official Site. See more Nibiru-related material or use the search feature at the left, on the data-filled site of Steve Quayle.

Until the next time, if the weirdness doesn’t get me.