Book Your Round Trip to the Moon! Guaranteed!

by | Sep 20, 2009 | Advertisers, Brisbane, science

The one thing I love even more than 50s SF stories are advertisements from the 50s for Space Age promises. I bought a few copies of "Astounding Science Fiction" at a secondhand book store in Paddington (that’s a suburb of Brisbane) today. The owner told me that she picked them up in a deceased estate. They are all from the 50s and in near perfect condition.

I love this back cover of the November 1954 edition which promises "A Bona Fide Opportunity to have your name "On File" with the first company embarking on commercial flights to the moon!"

Working in advertising these days, I’m often trying to think up innovative prizes to offer people for taking part in competitions but I’d never thought about guaranteeing a trip to the moon. These guys were WAY ahead of their time. I wonder if the Science Fiction Book Club in NY still have those names on file? Maybe they will pass them onto Virgin Galactic? Assuming, of course, that the people who added their names to the list in 1954 still want to travel to the moon….

The inside cover offers readers a copy of the book "Across The Space Frontier" written by "seven of the greatest living space experts", including former Nazi and then director of NASA Dr Werner von Braun.

One of the other copies of ASF I picked up (December 1950) had this advertisement on the inside front cover which reads:

"Dianetics – the first true science of the mind. Dianetics started in Astounding Science Fiction. It is not the first, nor will it be the last time, Astounding Science Fiction precedes science generally."

America After 9/11

by | Sep 16, 2009 | geopolitics, US politics

Do you really think America wasn’t involved in torture, secret prisons or wanton death and destruction before 9/11?

The record shows that they existed before. In fact, 9/11 was in many ways a REACTION to those things, not the cause of them. The USA has NEVER lived up to the virtues Temporal Flush mentions here. Read Zinn’s “People’s History”. The myth of America may survive in the minds of many Americans who don’t read the history of their own country, but outside if the US borders, many people know the other side of the story.

All 9/11 provided was justification to be more aggressive with programs that had been running for many decades in one form or another and continue today under the Obama administration.

There are two Americas – the mythical one that most Americans seem to believe is real, the country that are the good guys, the white knight, the protector of democracy and freedom – and then there is the real America, the one run by corporations and the wealthy elite, the one that, for the entire country’s history, has oppressed the poor and the weak in countries around the globe and at home. The one that stole land at the point of a gun, first from the Native Americans, then from the Mexicans, then from the Cubans, then from the Alaskans, then from the Hawaiins. The one that built its power and wealth on the back of the slave and segregation and imported Chinese labour. The one that did and does deal with the most despicable dictators around the globe to protect American corporate interests.

9/11 may have brought some of the other America to your attention, but it’s a mistake to think that it started then. It’s always been there. You just weren’t paying attention.

Proof that Mormons aren’t allowed to think for themselves

by | Sep 14, 2009 | Melbourne, Mormons, religion

As some of you may know, my girlfriend Christine (aka @fddlgrl) is a “formon” (that’s an ex-Mormon, I have to thank Mr Deity himself for introducing me to that term). She grew up in Utah in a tiny, mostly-Mormon town, the full deal but she broke away from the church when she was about 18.

Anyway I know she’s had lots of debates with active church members about Prop 8 (the Californian law, sponsored in large part by the Mormons last year, which banned gay marriage) and whether or not Mormons are allowed to speak out against it without being ostracized. This clip supports her argument that Mormons can’t speak out without fear of retribution. This guy tried expressing his disappointment with the LDS’ church’s support of Prop 8 and watch what happens.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubZQ5TgFRac&w=425&h=344]

(source: skepacabra)

So what does this tell us about religious organisations like the Latter Day Saints? They don’t appreciate it when people inside the church start thinking for themselves. Why not? What do they fear? That one person actually thinking for themselves might start a trend? If they aren’t scared, why not let the guy speak his mind? If they are so sure of the moral superiority of their position, why not allow, in fact ENCOURAGE, free and open debate?

Because, my friends, religion is an act of mind control. It exists to pray on the minds and the wallets of the weak.

This is the same reason Father Peter Kennedy was defrocked from the Ca$holic Church earlier this year and why Father Bob Maguire in Melbourne has been told to resign. They had the temerity to think for themselves instead of obeying orders and sticking to the script.

If you are a member of either of these religious “institutions”, I invite you to argue with me in the comments section below.