The "Guidestones" is a monument shrouded in mystery.

From wikipedia:

A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient scripts: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

The artifact is almost twenty feet (6m) tall, and made from six granite slabs weighing more than 100 tons in all. One slab stands in the center, with four arranged around it. A capstone lies on top of the five slabs, which are astronomically aligned. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the structure, provides some clarifying notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones.

The monument was commissioned by a man using the pseudonym "R.C. Christian" in 1979 and was built by the Elberton Granite Finishing Company. The financing was secured through a local bank, and upon completion of the monument, the elusive Mr. Christian obtained all documents related to it's financing and design and since then nobody has been able to uncover exactly who this man was. This author believes he has a good idea of who is behind the monument. But first, let's look at the doctrine contained therein.

What do the Guidestones say?

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature
Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity
Unite humanity with a living new language
Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a one world court
Avoid petty laws and useless officials
Balance personal rights with social duties
Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite
Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature

On their face, these may seem like decent values. But let's examine them.

The Guidestones propose a world population of 500 million. There are nearly 7 billion people living on this Earth today. This means 6.5 billion people must die, with no newborns taking their place. Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity? This is straight out of a Eugenics textbook. Be not a cancer on the Earth, leave room for nature? Does this sound suspiciously like the Global Warming movement? The elite have infiltrated the environmental movement and turned their attention away from large corporations, who are definitely harming the environment with toxic waste and the like, to average, everyday humans who have such a little effect it cannot even be measured in comparison. All this crap about your "carbon footprint" is just that. Did you know that you breathe out carbon dioxide, the evil greenhouse gas? Are you going to stop breathing? But we need to get rid of the SUVs that put out carbon dioxide, right? Wrong again, cars emit carbon monoxide. In fact, the whole of Al Gore's movie is a lie. Carbon dioxide is a life-giving gas (plants breathe this stuff!) and it's levels have been measured at some 14 times what they currently are. Your SUV is not making Mars' polar ice caps melt, and your incandescent bulbs are not effecting the moons of planets millions of miles away. This is a scheme to get you to think that you, me, humans are a "cancer" to nature. [See video, "Case of the Humans"] It is a fact, you could put the entire world population in the state of Texas, and they'd have more square footage per person than people living in New York City. We are not the problem. This is a campaign for world population reduction. So who decides who gets to live? Who decides who gets to reproduce? Not you, I assure you. This plan is now being implemented in China. Does that sound like a good time?

Unite humanity with a living new language? This is ripped right from George Orwell's 1984, where the government creates a new language, Newspeak, to stifle the thoughts of the population. Why would we need a "new language", when we already have a large percentage of the world population speaking English? Wouldn't it just be easier to let things take their course, and allow English to become the language of the world? Maybe, but that's not the plan.

Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a one world court? Can I ask, why do we need a world court? We have done fine for thousands of years without a world court, external disputes notwithstanding. The "one world court" is to be a part of the one world government under the New World Order (aka New Order of the Ages). Once some authority is delegated to this world court, once you give an inch, they'll take a mile. Consider the united States of America, for instance. If you truly examine our founding documents, this is exactly what was proposed by our founding fathers - 13 separate, soverign states who were united for exactly 2 reasons, to protect the rights of their inhabitants and to provide for the common defense of the states as a group. What happened? We have seen over the last 232 years an ever-growing federal government which seizes more and more power and control as time goes on. What do you think, then, the plan for this world government (League of Nations, United Nations, European Union, Asian Union, African Union, South American Union, etc) is? You give an inch, they will take the whole damn mile and keep going. This is a dangerous idea.

Balance personal rights with social duties? So basically what they're saying is something along the lines of what Barack Obama is proposing. Compelled service to your country, even against your will, even in violation of your innate human rights, in the name of "duty". It is not your duty to work for national security. It is your duty to stop anyone from violating any of your personal rights for any reason whatsoever. That is your only duty as an American, to defend our philosophy and our way of life. If the government is the agent taking away your rights, then it is your duty, according to the founding fathers, to alter or abolish it and institute new government that will protect your rights. Your duty, then, is not to give up your rights to help society, but to protect your rights. There is no balance when it comes to giving away your liberty. It's all or none. In the words of the famous Patrick Henry, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" And I promise they will kill me before I let them turn this country into a despotic police state like 1984 or a scientific dictatorship like Brave New World.

Ok, so let's get down to brass tax, as they say. Who is this mysterious R.C. Christian? Well, I cannot give you an exact name, but we can learn some interesting things if we know what to look for. To understand this name, you need to understand a little about ancient and modern secret societies and their symbolism. You'll need to do your own research in this area, as it is much too large of a topic to go into here. For some great insights, read Codex Magica by Texe Marrs and Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall. I will quote from the latter.

Who were the Rosicrucians? ...Who was the mysterious person referred to as "Our Illustrious Father and Brother C.R.C."? Did those three letters actually stand for the words "Christian Rosie Cross"? Was Christian Rosencreutz, the supposed author of the Chymical Nuptials, the same person who with three others founded "The Society of the Rose Cross"?"

There you have it, folks. Rosicrucian = Rosie Cross, or a cross with a rose. You will see this symbolism everywhere. Just look for it. The founder, "Our Illustrious Father and Brother" was cryptically named "C.R.C" which, it is thought, stood for Christian Rosencreutz. R.C. Christian is nothing less than a symbol to the initiates of the order. They know exactly what it means. It means that the Rosicrucian society (very heavily interlaced with, and quite possibly the precursor or controller of modern Freemasonry) erected these stones, which just happen to coincide with their tenets and philosophy.

Many people are familiar with Freemasonry, but few know anything about the Rosicrucians. To again quote Mr. Hall:

Freemasonry is the bright and glorious son of a mysterious and hidden father.

That father is Rosicrucianism. This society goes as far back, at least, as Sir Francis Bacon (Rosicrucian, Freemason, Editor of the King James Authorized Bible, and most likely author of the literature attributed to the nearly-illiterate William Shakspear, aka Shakespeare) and they are still working their magic in and on the world today. How many other ciphers, symbols, mysterious monuments, and cryptograms are hiding all around you?

Martin Büsser (*1968), in einer Rezension zu: Hartmann/Geppert, Cluster. Die neue Etappe des Kapitalismus in konkret 8/2008 Damit ist alles Wichtige zu Verschwörungstheorien gesagt.

I think you're getting my points. 1) So many mixed drinks have delightfully raunchy names. 2) So many seem to be a delightfully raunchy name with no standard definition attached to it. In point of fact, I believe the drink I had consisted of blueberry vodka, blue curacao, peach schnapps, soda, and a dash of lemon. Similar to, but not exactly the same as, one of the linked-to-recipes.

Point #1's just a fun tidbit. Point #2, well... on the one hand, it should be profoundly satisfying since it can be explained as an application of the mutability of a living vernacular. Not that precise definition of the term "blue balls" is the sort of thing that an Academy of the English Language would likely concern itself with, but still. If some bartender out in Kansas starts serving Jack Daniels, creme de menthe, gin, and Red Bull when customers order "blue balls", then in the unlikely event people keep ordering that there, bam, the word's acquired a new meaning. A trivial application of a vital grand concept: language through time is like life through time, subject to natural evolution and to evolution through selective breeding (biologists be damned, chihuahuas are not canis lupus anymore. More like rattus chihuahuacus.) Yes, it sucks in that it decreases the precision of language - there is definitely something to be said for the idea of a language in which every word has exactly one and only one denotation and connotation so that infinite gradations of meaning can be communicated with inerrant precision due to words serving as quanta of meaning (essentially, a vocabulary that's the exact opposite of Newspeak). But, hey, you want that, just make a deliberate effort to speak and write that way and work towards breeding the language you want. It'll take the cooperation of others and may be the work of generations, but it can be done.

Just kidding!!!  

For all you fine ass fangirls and boys, NewSpeak will be there eating bad food, bitching about lines and trying to take too many pictures too. 

Catch us if you can!

What are you doing online right now? Go get something signed and nab us some schwag.

Don't party too hardy this weekend in America's Finest City. Remember, next weekend you're coming with us... to the Sketch Comedy Show Sunday, August 3!

Stay tuned for more updates.

And we will... update you. Now scram!

1984 by George Orwell

Harcourt ©1949

www.signetclassics.com

Vi har inga höga priser jämfört med övriga Sverige. Vår höga självfinansieringsgrad beror på att vi har hög fyllnadsgrad på våra tåg och bussar. Vi behöver emellertid få in mer pengar för att minska fyllnaden något. (sds 4 juli 2008 )

Så säger Skånetrafikens vd Gösta Ahlberg i dagens Sydsvenska som en vänlig själ, eller snarare förvirrad tidningsbärarvikarie, släppt på dörrmattan. (Tack för en gratis tidning.) Jag vaknar till ur sommarlättjan, fjärran från pendlarstimm i öresundståg. VAD är det han säger? "Våra pendlare betalar mer av kollektivtrafiksnotan än andra pendlare i Sverige, och det beror på att de trängs så mycket på sina tåg och bussar. Så för att minska trängseln tänker vi höja biljettpriset ännu mer, bra va? Så blir vi av med de fattigaste pendlerna som står och tar upp plats."

After crafting his own political treatise, though not without the odd mistake mind, the plucky fellow who went by the eponym of ‘the most praised one’ decided that it was time to leave a legacy for future adherents wishing to adopt his ideocult.

‘The most praised one’ set about raping, pillaging, robbing, terrorising, beheading, pirating and converting his way to an early grave.  He had hoped that his biographers would not pay too much attention to his obvious deficiencies, shortcomings and general bloodymindedness, but sadly, he was wrong.

Nevertheless, not only did his companions record his conduct accurately, but unbeknownst to him, in the two centuries following his demise, frank biographers were still committing his dire deeds to paper.

As fate would have it, nearly a millennium and a half after his death, his devotees were still waxing lyrical over his dastardly deeds. They revelled in his cult, decapitated sacrifices for his pagan idol and avoided passing water in his direction.  In short, ‘submission’ had risen in popularity beyond even the cult founder’s wildest expectations.

In fact, so revered was said cult founder, that, try as they might, other inhabitants of the planet who viewed the cult and its founder in an irredeemably bad light, just could not get those in the media to tell the truth about the man and his aberration.

Indeed, so hampered were these inhabitants that they took to banging their heads against brick walls in order to express their disapproval.

This brings us to 21st century planet earth, where journalists and other worthies feel it their duty to aid a similar cult, which developed in approximately the same timeframe.

Jerome Taylor, writing in the Independent recently, decided to donate his pennyworth on the topic of the day: the rebranding of ‘jihad fi sabeelillah’ (جهاد في سبيل الله) by the US State Department.  He also decided to mention an absurd article in the New York Times by a couple of academics keen to stress the ‘benefits’ of using the correct terminology:

“There's an interesting little co-authored op-ed in the New York Times about the pitfalls of labelling those people who we tend to call "terrorists" and how we often inadvertently end up playing into our enemy's hands.

“One of the terms they point to is "jihadi" or "jihadist". The US State Department recently sent out a memo to all its staff asking them to refrain from using these words when referring to militants or terrorists but the White House, and many others in the media (including myself) continue to use the term.”

He goes on to mention the ‘core’ of the article in the NYT:

"But PW Slinger, a fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, and Elina Noor, an academic in Malaysia, say that by doing so we end up lending far more legitimacy to militants than perhaps we want to."

Really?  How so pray tell:

“Their argument is that in Islam "jihad" is thought of as something positive. Far from the violent images it often erroneously conjures in non-Muslim minds, jihad refers to the daily striving or struggle that all Muslims are expected to go through in order to live better lives.”

But that’s it.  They’ve got it.  Of course.  Muslims, and especially those who can read and understand the Qur’an, think that Jihad is positive.  I certainly concur there.  They’re right.  If you were a member of a worldwide cult, whose principal text implores you to exert all your efforts militarily and financially for the ‘cause’ that you follow obediently, then you’d certainly consent to such entreaty.

As for the ‘violent images’ that the use of the Islamic terminology Jihad ‘erroneously conjures’ up ‘in non-Muslim minds’: well, I’m not sure the thousands of Israelis killed and maimed each year would agree with you.  In fact, none of the victims of Islam would be too keen on such an assertion.  I suspect when they read the word Jihad, or hear it uttered (one can hear it used in its proper context at just about any Cairo mosque on a Friday), then their brains match the new stimuli ‘Jihad’ with previously stored schemata on the subject which complement the lexeme perfectly.

This ‘rebranding’ of Jihad is but another modern example of the Doublespeak and Newspeak so sagaciously prophesied by Mr Orwell.  And on the subject, who are THESE people to go against the quintessentially natural development of lexis.  Jihad is an English word.  It entered the language via Arabic, from where it is borrowed.  Even if we did employ it in a different sense or give it an alternative connotation, would that be so wrong?  It has happened on thousands of occasions with respect to words borrowed from the Romance languages, and no-one bats an eyelid.  We call them ‘false friends’.

Yet, this is a non-sequitur; an irrelevance: Jihad IS used to mean ‘holy militaristic striving’ and to the best of my knowledge is never used to mean ‘struggle’ or ‘strive’ in the everyday sense, even in the mundane language of the mosque.  In five years of listening to Arabic being used in the media, in the street and in the mosque, I have never ONCE heard it used in the commonplace, everyday, innocuous, spiritual fashion implied by Mr Taylor, the US State Department or these academics.  To say that Jihad used in English or in Arabic connotes something else is to LIE and to commit a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

Elsewhere, Ian ‘got talent...but could do better’ McEwan is also making headlines in a similar vein.  He’s accused of ‘despising Islamism’, whatever that is, in an interview for an Italian newspaper.  Now, Mr McEwan’s contribution as a writer can be summed up in a few words: waffly, self-important tomes.  Still, he fills a void for the Guardianistas (or should that be Independientes?) of our ‘beloved’ establishment.  Unlike his contribution to the Islamic terrorism debate, which can be described as disingenuous, to say the least.

McEwan, like the ‘novelista’ he so very is, chooses his words with unparalleled care and consideration: he uses the terms ‘Islamism’ and ‘Islamist’ to capture the ideology and protagonists ‘inspired’ by Islam.  To his defence, he’s not alone on that score; the neologism Islamism is often banded about nowadays in textbook Newspeak.  But, why not just use the simpler terms ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’: they’re straight from the Arabic and encapsulate the full unadulterated meaning of the opinions he was trying to convey.

Back to Master Taylor again:

“Slinger and Noor…”

They sound like a pair of dodgy fertiliser salesmen, but I digress:

“…quite rightly question, then, whether it is a good idea to refer to people we would generally consider our enemies in such favourable terms. By effectively calling them what they want to be called, they argue, we are doing the equivalent of, say, calling Hitler the "leader of the National Socialist Aryan patriots". In short we're buying into the propaganda of our foe."

Indeed.  Yes.  You’re onto something there.  Why not just call anyone anything.  In fact, why use a language at all?  We could just as easily communicate in grunts; signalling our intentions and nuances with different intonation.  It’d be so much simpler:

“It also, they say (and I think this is far more important)…”

Oh yes, far more important, but bollocks nonetheless…

“…"serves to isolate the tens of millions of Muslims who condemn the violence that has been perpetuated in the name of Islam".”

Yes.  Quite right.  Those ‘tens of millions’ who don’t read the Qur’an, the Ahadeeth or the Prophet’s biographies, the Sirat.  Yes, those ‘tens of millions’ who don’t realise that the profession of faith and the endorsement of the Islamic creed involves the tacit approval of the (pseudo)Prophet’s actions as communicated through the Qur’an and the Ahadeeth.  No, those ‘tens of millions’ probably know nothing of the violence, terrorism, paedophilia, rape, murder and all round skulduggery to which they ‘unwittingly’ subscribe.

I’ll grant you that there are, to use Imam Taylor’s (صلى الله عليه و سلم) figures, literally ‘tens of millions’ of ‘bad’ Muslims who: have never read the Qur’an; never read the Ahadeeth; will never read the Dead Paedophile’s biographies; never pray; and most certainly never visit a ‘masjid’.  Alhamdulillah!  I guess these ‘Muslims’ probably ‘condemn the violence that has been perpetuated in the name of Islam’ that you opine about.  But, these people aren’t really Muslims, at least according to the clerics, the Qur’an itself or the Man with a Plan, Muhammad bin Abdullah.  Besides, they’re in the minority.  The vast majority of Muslims are constrained to subscribe to the violence of which Mullah Taylor writes and do so obediently: they have to, as they’d be apostates if they didn’t.

Take it away Jerome:

“The term they suggest we might want to use instead is "muharib" or "hirabi". "Hirabah" in Arabic means barbarism or piracy. By describing militants as hirabis we would essentially be taking the moral or theological high ground away from them. "Unlike jihad which grants honour," they write, "hirabah brings condemnation: it involves unlawful violence and disorder."

Well, this is either a deliberate case of misinformation and hoodwinking, or the ‘fertiliser salesmen’ are making it up as they go along.  I’d opt for the latter: you see, the verb to wage war is Haaraba (حارب) from whence we derive the word for war, Harb (حرب).

Now, I suspect at least one of the ‘fertiliser salesmen’ knows enough Arabic for them to be aware of the two ‘aitches’ (H – ه and ح).  One being not phonetically dissimilar to the Standard English equivalent, whilst the other is strongly aspirated.  This is where I think there is a (deliberate) case of doublespeak: ‘Muharib’ (محارب) means ‘warrior’, and has been used in Islamic literature since the beginning.  It denotes the same idea as in English, but significantly it negates the idea of the ‘cause’ being in ‘Allah’s cause’, i.e. a ‘holy’ warrior (مجاهد).  The specious argument that the term Mujahid should not be used, or its English equivalent ‘Jihadist’, is that Muslim terrorists are somehow not ‘fighting in Allah’s cause’ (يجهادون في سبيل الله).  Well, I think the Qur’an would disagree, as would the majority if not all of the commentators and biographers of Islam and Muhammad.  The very words ‘Jihad in Allah’s Cause’ occur several times in the Qur’an and always in the context of conflict with ‘infidels’.

As for ‘hirabi’ (حرابي), I’m not sure that is even an Arabic word.  Perhaps it’s a new coinage.  If it is, then it’s a noun to denote someone involved in ‘harb’ or war.  Logically then, according to Arabic morphology, ‘hirabah’ (حرابة) would mean a ‘little war’, conflict or violent incursion.

However, I think the deliberate use of these words from the root H R B (ح ر ب) cause further confusion:  the words used by Arabs to denote ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ are Irhab (إرهاب) and Irhabi (إرهابي) respectively.  These words originate from a different root, H R B (ه ر ب); it is the ‘English-like’ aitch this time.  Moreover, Arabs prefer to use words originating in the root H M J (ه م ج) to encapsulate wanton barbarity and destruction: words like barbarian (همجية), barbarous and barbaric (همجي).  There is a deliberate attempt here to mislead, confuse and misdirect through the use of alternatives for actions which can only constitute one thing.  Terrorism committed by Muslim terrorists is called Jihad (جهاد), even by the most authoritative Islamic sources.

Of course the poor old Berbers of North Africa don’t get a say in any of this.  They will forever be tarnished with the implication of ‘barbarism’, even if they were forced to submit unwillingly to the Moongod and were then deceived into committing acts of ‘barbarity’ in his name.

“Navigating the literal minefield of these topics is never an easy one and no doubt there will always be much disagreement over which terms are suitable and which are not. But regularly questioning the words we do use, particularly those that get picked up and repeated by the media, can only be a good thing, right?”

One cannot but agree.  Yet, being ignorant of terminology which, when used in context by Muslims, often has life or death consequences for millions of peace-loving humans is a crime.  A hate crime.  It’s a pity the silly legislation enacted around the world supposedly contrived to protect freedoms and dignity couldn’t be used to prosecute people who mythologise like this fellow and his cohorts.  Myself, and ‘tens of millions’ of others like me wish the Great and the Good would be more candid about Islam, and tell the truth.  Instead, people like this chap and the academics of whom he writes continue to trundle out the same tired old logical fallacies; the same lies; the same falsehoods.  They wish to deceive, not to inform.  That is a hate crime.  I’ll call it ‘the linguistic Jihad’.  Alas, the death and destruction which it wreaks do not imply words and scraps of paper.

The word Jihad (جهاد) only actually occurs 4 times in the Qur’an itself (9:24, 22:78, 25:52 and 60:1).  However, the triliteral root J H D (ج ه د), of which Jihad (a noun) is but one derivative, occurs a further 37 times throughout the Qur’an as a verb or an adjective, with the same core meaning.

All but 10 of the 41 occurrences of the root, were ‘revealed’ in Medina where most of the violence, particularly against the Jews, took place.  The root occurs 10 times alone in the repulsively brutal and sadistic, but innocuously and deceivingly entitled chapter ‘At-Tawbah’, which means ‘The Repentance’.

Of the 6 canonical collections of Hadeeth (‘prophetic’ traditions), each one includes a sizeable chapter on Jihad.  They contain no less than thousands of references to Jihad in its authentic context, all denoting militaristic striving.  In Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim alone, the two most ‘reliable’ collections according to historical data and Muslims alike, there are over one thousand relations of speeches straight from the pseudoProphet’s mouth on Jihad.

The table below lists every J H D root derivative occurrence in the Qur’an.  It is clear from the context exactly what Jihad and its core root denotes in Islam’s most trusted source.

Source: The Noble Qur’an – Translated by Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan.