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Tales From The Other Side - Alternative Culture to enlighten a mediocre mood

Alternative Culture and ideas, ready to be injected into your Reality.

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Tales From The Other Side - February 2007

Get More Tales on Google

February 27th 2007 11:45

Need some more Tales to keep your day going?

Well fear no more!

You can get regular updates on your Google homepage or Google reader, just by pressing the one little button.

Go on. You know you want to.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Internet

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The uselessness of ‘knowing’

February 19th 2007 05:41

I explained the whole JFK conspiracy to my Girlfriend the other day. I won’t go into the details of it here, but basically, it suggests there is much more to President Kennedy’s assassination then is widely believed. After I explained it, she looked at me and said ‘That’s why I hate stuff like that. You know something but it’s so useless… like I know that but… now what? What am I supposed to do with that information?’.

Knowing alot can help fill in your understanding of what constitutes reality

And that, I think, is the ticket. What good is it to know what something is, if you can’t apply the information?
As far as I can see, the value is in gaining a higher force than information and knowledge; Understanding. One may know a dozen facts about what people around them do, and each one of these facts may be trivial or useless. However, when something big goes down, one can help themselves to understand what has happened through the greater understanding about the nature of their friends they have achieved through these hundreds of ‘useless facts.’

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture

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Flying Spaghetti Monster

February 17th 2007 07:15

Some of you may be familiar with the Flying Spaghetti monster. The huge flying set of spaghetti and meatballs that created the Earth with it’s noodly appendages.
Perhaps nobody has had the will to explain it to you in person. This isn’t because they’re embarrassed of their faith. It’s just because it’s disrespectful to discuss what it means to be a Pastafarian unless you’re wearing full pirate regalia.

WWTFSMD

To take it down a notch, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a piece of inspired silliness with a very serious message. The religion was formed as a reaction against the push for intelligent design to be taught in classrooms. The claim was made that if you give one religion time in a science lesson, you’d best give them all a chance. Even if they’re pasta.
Now the Flying Spaghetti Monster is something of a cultural phenomenon. A cult icon to millions of nerds, geeks and chefs.
Have faith.

Image.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Religion

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Every Time you Laugh, Bin Laden’s Beard Shrinks.

February 16th 2007 05:30

I remember the fuss that came out with the ‘Find Bin Laden’ books. People jumped up and down, saying ‘you have no right to make fun of this!’
In today’s society, you don’t have a ‘right’ to make fun of terrorism. I would argue that the time for such rights has long passed. It’s no longer a right.
It’s a responsibility.
I think of it this way. Picture a posse of terrorists, watching TV. In the first scenario, they are watching the news. “New evidence today suggesting Al Qaeda may have been planning a terrorist attack on Australia’s Sydney Opera house have sent chills of fear down the spines of ordinary everyday Australians.” I can imagine that being a bit of an ego trip.
Scenario two. A group of terrorists, again sitting down, watching TV. This time though, they are watching themselves being mocked on Team America, or Family Guy.

Somehow I doubt watching this kind of portrayal of terrorists as incompetents, is quite as ego-inflating then the typical ‘oh my God we’re all going to die’ News stories.
Terrorism is used to create terror. Unfortunately, terrorists aren’t the only ones with this agenda. The Government uses fear to manipulate their people. Companies use fear to manipulate their consumers. Maybe we just need to fight all this negative energy through laughter. Through mockery.
You think that’s pointless? How much respect do you think Bush has lost, because nine out of ten times we see his image, he’s being degraded or mocked. How many people oppose Michael Moore on the grounds that they consider him purely ‘fat and dumb?’ Mockery doesn’t overpower something, it sucks the power from it.
So, your choice. Read and laugh and relieve yourself of terror.
Or take it all too seriously and remain in it’s thrall.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture

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Justice for None

February 15th 2007 05:27

One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, "Back to Germany."

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for it" (his words).

He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George W. Bush and his neocons. He seemed resolute, but troubled, nonetheless, as if being too young on one end and too old on the other to fight what he saw happening was wearing on him.

I gotta tell you - it was chilling. I let him talk, and the whole time, my gut was churning, like I had mutated butterflies in my stomach. When he was finished, he shook my hand, gripping it really hard, until his knuckles turned white and he was shaking. He looked me in the eyes, hard, and said, "I will pray for your family and your country." He let go of my hand and hobbled away.

I have related this event to you in the hopes it will serve as a cautionary anecdote about the state of our Union, and to illustrate the path we Americans are being led down by a group of fanatics bent on global economic and military dominion. When a man who survived the fruits of fascism decides its time to leave THIS country because he's seeing the same patterns that led to the Holocaust and other Nazi horrors beginning to form here, it is time for us to recognize the underlying evil inherent in the actions of those who claim they work for all Americans, and for all mankind. And it is incumbent upon all Americans, Red and Blue, Republican and Democrat, to stop them.

comparing the Bush White house to Hitlers Germany

Those who forget the past...

Image and content by Joey Picador. Viewable HERE.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics

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On Johnny and Sorry

February 14th 2007 04:55

Wow, what a mess. The Howard government surely buggered this one up. I mean, maybe they could have sort of, kind of kept some credibility about their refusal, if they hadn’t apologised to the Vietnam Veterans. However, they did, and by doing so, took away all credibility from the idea and apology would lead to the implication of ordinary innocent Australians in the atrocities against the Aboriginal Australians; unless of course he was suggesting that we all actually were responsible for the treatment of Vietnam vets. Which is funny, as I’m a child from the eighties.
So what of the other arguments we hear all the time? Well, you’re average redneck Aussie will argue that ‘it’ll mean he has to give the Aboriginals money!’ This is pretty much a null and void point, for as John Howard himself has recognised the term sorry as having no legal value.
So what’s the other argument? That basically, to apologise to the Aboriginal people would be to imply a divided Australia. For a country to apologise to itself would be ridiculous – it would be implying the existence of an Aboriginal and an Non-Aboriginal Australia, which is in opposition to the concept of a united nation

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics

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Bolt: Australia’s David Irving

February 12th 2007 04:35

MATURE CONTENT

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics

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Dead People Read Your Script 4. Soldier in Iraq

February 8th 2007 12:52

Let’s look at the facts. There is a war in Iraq. Soldiers have gone to fight in Iraq. Some have lived. Some have not.

Now, some of these soldiers are there for things they believe in. Some are just trying to find a role for themselves. The thing is, a living soldier can express what they believe in. A dead one, obviously doesn’t have that same luxury

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics

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Holocaust Denial

February 7th 2007 03:26

Fiction?

Andrew Bolt denies Global Warming existed.

John Howard contests the stolen Generation

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Subcultures

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Quick plug for Getup.org

February 5th 2007 12:23

Getup are a group who push for progressive change in Australian politics, looking for members to hit the 20,000 mark. Right now they're 85% of the way there. You can join the movement Here.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Internet

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Right or Effective?

February 4th 2007 01:50

You know what bugs me the most about the Howard Government? The fact that they’re so often right. Like about the Sorry issue. Exactly which point do you want to argue with them on? That they should be responsible? That they should say sorry, even though it could be seen by a majority of Australians to implicate innocent individuals?
I mean you’ve got to hand it to them; on a very specific technicality, they’re right.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics

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Part of the Problem, Part of the Solution

February 3rd 2007 01:54

It's when you're part of the problem that you have the most potential to be part of the solution like Oscar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party during World War Two, who saved oodles of Jews.
Nazis aren't known for saving Jews, as a general rule. And fashion photographers aren't well known for battling against Anorexia.

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Health

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