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Custom 1956 Chevrolet Truck - Under Pressure
Perry Petersen's Bad Blown '56 Chevy
Related Video
We caught Perry Petersen of Glendale, Arizona, just before he headed into the show area of Firebird Raceway for the Truckin' & 4x4 Nationals this past year. The truck had some unique features and just plain looked so good on the tarmac that we had to show it off.
When we asked him what made him build it, he replied, "I rode in one when I was 16 years old and wanted one ever since." And about seven years ago, he started building his truck to make that childhood dream a reality. He says it took about five years to get it on the road and he's been refining it ever since, and plans to continue making it better.
We think the truck looks great the way it sits, especially with 468 inches of 6-71 blown Chevy big-block backed by a 700R4 trans sitting between the framerails. And his choice of feeding the motor with dual quads topped with a classic intake from The Blower Shop is hot-rod perfection.
We were also impressed with his choice of suspension. He wanted his truck to handle and harness the power of the blown big-block, so he built the suspension accordingly. He used a '75 Camaro front clip to get lighter suspension components and better suspension geometry as well as disc brakes up front. To get discs on the rear, he kept the leaf-spring suspension and installed a narrowed disc brake rearend. He also installed antisway bars front and back, "so it," says Petersen with a knowing grin, "handles real good." We believe him.
A major part of the look of any truck is the choice of rolling stock. In Petersen's case, he went with 16-inch-wide Mickey Ts wrapped around modified late-'70s IROK wheels on the rear to make his statement. "I took these wheels," said Petersen, "split 'em and widened them. They're 12 inches deep, all to the inside, so they match the front." The front tires are 205/75-15s.
After he was done with the performance parts, he got in deep with the custom styling. It has a '96 bed on it. He shortened it and narrowed it 13 inches, and then refit the original fenders before making his own steps. He built the tonneau cover, added a Pontiac Trans Am wing, shaved the driprail and door handles, and put the gauges in the dash. The interior is styled with mid-'90s pickup seats and console, and he did the door panels to match. He sourced most of these components from a recycling yard. The dash, tach, boost gauge, and clock, are housed in welded exhaust tubes of different sizes. He smoothed the dash, got rid of the heater controls, and made his own steering column and bracket to complete the interior.
Which brings us to date - except that we just heard he's taken it apart again. This time, he's going to put a narrowed rearend in it and use a set of polished-aluminum wheels with lots of negative offset for the rear this time, er, next time around. That's just the way it is. These projects are never finished.
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KY meditation medical meditation for habituation
How to Do It.
Sit in a comfortable pose. Straighten the spine and
make sure the first six lower vertebrae are locked forward. Make fists of
both hands and extend the thumbs straight. Place the thumbs on the temples
and find the niche where the thumbs just fit. This is the lower anterior portion
of the frontal bone above the temporal-sphenoidal suture.
Lock the back molars together and keep the lips closed. Vibrate the jaw muscles by alternating the pressure on the molars. A muscle will move in rhythm under the thumbs. Feel it massage the thumbs and app!y a firm pressure with the hands.
Keep the eyes closed and look toward the center of the eyes at the brow point. Silently vibrate the five primal sounds, "Sa Ta Na Ma," at the brow. Continue 5 to 7 minutes. With practice the time can be increased to 20 minutes and ultimately to 31 minutes.
What It Will Do for You.
This meditation is one of a class of meditations that
will become well-known to the future medical society. Meditation will be used
to alleviate all kinds of mental and physical afflictions, but it may be as
many as 500 years before the new medical science will understand the effects
of this kind of meditation well enough to delineate all its parameters in
measurable factors.
The pressure exerted by the thumbs triggers a rhythmic reflex current into the central brain. This current activates the brain area directly underneath the stem of the pineal gland. It is an imbalance in this area that makes mental and physical addictions seemingly unbreakable.
In modern culture, the imbalance is pandemic. If we are not addicted to smoking, eating, drinking or drugs, then we are addicted subconsciously to acceptance, advancement, rejection, emotional love, etc. All these lead us to insecure and neurotic behavior patterns.
The imbalance in this pineal area upsets the radiance of the pineal gland itself. It is this pulsating radiance that regulates the pituitary gland. Since the pituitary regulates the rest of the glandular system, the entire body and mind go out of balance. This meditation corrects the problem. It is excellent for everyone but particularly effective for rehabilitation efforts in drug dependence, mental illness, and phobic conditions.
source Sadhana guidelines
pinklotus advaita
freedom YIS
yoga Oneness Deeksha
poems drawings

subset: commoncrawl


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Consumer spending may be rising, but some big retailers still aren't out of the woods. Indeed, some stores — including department-store giant Macy's — are still releasing coupons so frequently that their customers would almost be crazy to pay full price.
The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that retail sales barely grew in July, their weakest showing in six months. And Macy's reported that second quarter sales fell far short of expectations. The bottom line: Retailers will have to continue to sweeten the deal to get shoppers in the door.
According to data that deal site DealScience.com ran for MarketWatch, covering between 3,000 and 4,000 brands, the average major retailer releases just over one new coupon each week. (DealScience looked at coupons released online, not via apps, and excluded coupons mailed to consumers or in-store circulars.) Some retailers, like Best Buy and BigLots, very rarely release storewide coupons (coupons that are good for nearly everything in the store or for free-shipping sitewide), while others release them approximately once a month, says Brandon Hunt, the co-founder of DealScience.com. More frequently, stores release coupons for certain items or types of items in its inventory (like, say, a sale in the shoe department). The most frequent discount amount is 20% off, adds Cory O'Daniel, the company co-founder.
All that said, some stores release coupons much more often than others, and at those places, "you should never buy anything that's full price," says Matthew Ong, a senior retail analyst at NerdWallet.com.
It's never been easier to find and use coupons, thanks to your smartphone. The Coupons.com and Coupon Sherpa apps have tons of deals on groceries and everyday items; and RetailMeNot's app uses your GPS and then will message you to let you know if there is a coupon for a store that you're near. Often you can hold up your smartphone at the register to redeem the coupon, so you don't even have to deal with printing coupons.
Plus, savvy consumers can combine coupon deals with other offers to save even more. You can often use a coupon to increase the discount on a sale item, or combine it with a free shipping offer or sometimes even another coupon. And increasingly, you can do all that and earn loyalty points at the store, which you can later redeem for freebies. Try an app like Saving Star or Cellfire, which store all of your loyalty cards and then send you deals from those stores, to make the process easier. Read: The ridiculously simple way to save on everything.
There are some caveats with couponing. Some stores will raise the price of an item and then issue a coupon for it — which means that when you use the coupon to buy the item you might not really be saving anything, says Ong. "You have to do an upfront price compare," he says. (The RedLaser and ShopSavvy apps can help with this, as they let you scan an items' bar code and then give you prices for that item at other retailers.) And, since consumers are more tempted to buy things when they have a coupon, they have to be careful that they aren't buying items they don't really need.
Still, coupons can be a great way to save. And, at these five stores — which release coupons or deals the most frequently — it's almost silly not to use them.
Sears US:SHLD — by far — releases coupons the most often, as it typically sends out 21 a week (yes, you read that right), DealScience.com data reveals. Of course, the coupons aren't usually for the entire store (they're often just for one department), but the store gives consumers an average of 11 days from the time they were released to get the deal. The most common discounts are 10% and 20% off.
Sally Beauty Supply
Sally Beauty Supply releases an average of more than five coupons per week — but perhaps most remarkable is the fact that the average length before expiration is an unusually long 24 days. The most common discounts are 20% and 25% off.
Gap averages nearly four coupons or discounts each week — the average expiration is 10 days — with 20% and 25% offers on rotating categories of items the most common among them. Frequent Gap shoppers may want to combine this offer with a Gap credit card, as it gives you a $10 reward card for every $200 you spend at Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta (all of which are owned by Gap Inc.
This online retailer sends out nearly three coupons a week and gives consumers an average of 18 days in which to redeem them. Even better for consumers, some of its most common deals are for 70% to 80% off (just be sure to do a price comparison on those items to make sure the deal is still a good one).
(This story has been udpated from the original.)
More from MarketWatch:


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We will, if the authors (Laurence Johnson, Alan Levine, Rachel Smith, and Sonja Stone) of the 2010 Horizon Report are as accurate as they have been in the past, soon be as proficient in and comfortable with simple augmented reality, gesture-based computing, and visual data analysis as we currently are with other more familiar educational tools and trends.
The report itself suggests that simple augmented reality, "the concept of blending (augmenting) virtual data—information, rich media, and even live action—with what we see in the real world, for the purpose of enhancing the information we can perceive with our senses," will reach maturity as an educational tool within two or three years. Simple augmented reality, the writers note, "is older than the term itself," having first been used more than 40 years ago. As is often the case, however, diffusion of innovation has occurred gradually and appears to be working its way into educational settings for "discovery-based learning." Current applications already include augmented reality in showing learners how to repair cars, interact with books and other physical objects, and work in collaborative learning environments.
Right behind augmented reality is gesture-based computing, according to our Horizon Report colleagues: "In schools where the Microsoft Surface has been installed in study areas, staff report that students naturally gravitate to the devices when they want to work together to study collaboratively." Those familiar with TED talks have already seen the MIT Media Lab demonstration of the Sixth Sense gesture-based system which shows where we might be headed with this technology, and Georgia Tech University researchers "have developed gesture-based games designed to help deaf children learn sign language," the Horizon Report writers note.
We come full circle in our exploration of overwhelming amounts of information when we reach the final of the six trends explored: visual data analysis, a way to "make it possible for almost anyone with an analytical bent to easily interpret all sorts of data." Tools including Many Eyes, Wordle, Flowing Data, and Gapminder are already available to trainer-teacher-learners, and they are helping us spot patterns which might otherwise remain hidden.
"The promise for teaching and learning is further afield," the Horizon Report authors tell us, "but because of the intuitive ways in which it can expose intricate relationships to even the unitiated, there is tremendous opportunity to integrate visual data analysis into undergraduate research, even in survey courses."
What this suggests, of course, is that those of us involved in workplace learning and performance need to see the simple augmented reality writing on the virtual wall: if students—future employees in the workplaces that we serve—are already using these resources in their educational endeavors, we are going to have to be equally adept at and comfortable with these tools if we're going to be prepared to meet their workplace learning needs.


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May 27, 2011
Patrick Warburton
Download CarCast Episode Here (Click Me!)
Show Summary
Adam Carolla and the Professor Sandy Ganz have 'Special Guest' Patrick Warburton on the show. Patrick has been in many shows from Seinfeld, to the numerous voice characters over the years. The guys chat about the crazy people at car swap meets, and some of Patrick automotive endeavors. Patrick brings in his 1969 Dodge Charger 'Angelina' for a peek.
Show Links and Contacts
Here is Patrick's website – www.PatrickWarburton.com
And if you want to wake up early and do some scavanging here is the info to the Pomona Swap Meet www.PomonaSwapmeet.com
Patrick Warburton's 1969 Dodge Charger
Image Gallery
[nggallery id=165]


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According to the Gods: a 2011 Team-By-Team Preview
Boston Red Sox
Three days ago, I ended a cell phone call that had lasted an hour and a half and stood in the atrium of the corporate office building where I work and stared out at the parking lot and the cold blue sky. The feeling in my body—a dry, raw throat, a thudding in my head, exhaustion spreading through my limbs—was as if I had just spent the duration of the long call inconsolably sobbing. In fact, I had been on the phone with AT&T, pleading and demanding and, ultimately, producing something like muted, measured howling, the sound a hybrid creature might make if that hybrid creature was partially a middle-aged cubicle occupant and partially a small jittery woodland mammal ensnared in the sharp teeth of a powerful metal trap. I don't feel like going into the details of the situation that resulted in and was completely unresolved by the one and a half hour phone call, but—in a life pocked, like everyone else's, with such random victimizations—it has been my most frustrating experience yet with an utterly indifferent, incompetent corporate behemoth, and it has fucked with my life for several weeks. After ending the long and useless cell phone call, I wanted to drop atom bombs or dig a hole in the ground and fall in or smash things with a baseball bat or climb back into the womb or drink a river of bourbon or sleep for the next ten or twelve years. Instead, I took a deep breath, walked back upstairs, apologized to my boss for missing a meeting, returned to my cube, woke my computer, and worked.
The 2011 baseball season is about to begin amid this crystallization of my place in the world: more or less a speck, powerless. I look to this Juan Beniquez card for signs that the coming season will be a good one for the team I've looked to for three and a half decades to provide everything to me that has ever been otherwise lacking in my life. I've looked to the Red Sox to make me feel happy, to make me feel victorious, to make me feel powerful, to make me feel like the year, whichever year it is, is the year, a year that will not slip past like nothing, like I wasn't even here in the first place. I look to Juan Beniquez and my 43-year-old eyes see a guy on the brink of a baseball life of transience, a major league equivalent of a powerless speck. I know now that he left the Red Sox soon after this 1975 card came out and traveled from team to team for years, never really settling anywhere. This can't have been easy to hear, again and again: Juan, you're gone, Juan, you're gone.
But I also look to Juan Beniquez and see a battered, well-handled 36-year-old baseball card, beloved. I see the small hands that reached for it and held it again and again. The year this card came out was my first full year of collecting cards, and following my big brother's lead I sorted the cards into teams, my little collection of Red Sox by far my most valued rubber-band wrapped stack, and within that stack I sorted by that most fundamental of sorting systems, still relatively new to me, the alphabet, and so Juan Beniquez was on the top of my stack of Red Sox the year I fell in love for good with that team and with cards and with baseball. Below him was Burleson and Carbo and Cleveland and all the others, but he was on top, the first of the Red Sox. I have always thought of him this way, though I hadn't realized it until now. It's the reason why—even though he left the team the next season and played for many years and for many other teams after leaving—I still think of him as a definitive Red Sox player from my childhood. I still think of him not as a Texas Ranger or California Angel or Seattle Mariner but instead exactly as he is here, a young, whip-thin guy with a sly grin on his face, holding his bat straight out in front of him like he's mocking a dowser or making fun of a teammate by pretending his bat is that proverbial barrier from disgustingness, the ten-foot pole. Or like he's holding the bat out playfully for someone to try pulling it out of his hands, an offer to take him up in a tug of war.
I see myself as the seven-year-old boy who didn't have any notion that he'd grow up to be, like pretty much everyone else, more or less a powerless speck, and when I was a seven-year-old boy I imagined myself right into the card. This, along with Juan Beniquez' defining status throughout 1975 as the first of the Red Sox, is why the card looks so beat up. I see that little kid handling the card again and again, his imagination carrying him into the world of the card. The little kid, with a bright-eyed grin, grabs hold of the outstretched bat and tries to pull it from Juan Beniquez's hands. The little kid giggles as the tug-of-war ensues, Juan Beniquez keeping the sly deadpan smirk on his face. It's not a real struggle but something else, something more important: a game.
The 2011 season is about to start and I try not to hope for anything anymore because hope distorts and disconnects and ensnares but despite knowledge of such things I feel once again an echo of that old giggly feeling, like I'm part of the game, like I'm connected, like I've got my hands on something and I have the power to pull it toward me. There's hope.
How to enjoy the 2011 baseball season, part of 21 of 30: To keep on top of all things having to do with the consensus favorite to reign atop the vicious A.L. East, read Joy of Sox; to get the front line view of a rabid camera-packing Red Sox fan, check with A Red Sox Fan from Pinstripes Territory; and be sure to appreciate while you still can one of the all-time Red Sox greats in what looks as if it might be his last go-round, Tim Wakefield
2011 previews so far: St. Louis Cardinals; New York Mets; Philadelphia Phillies; Washington Nationals; Pittsburgh Pirates; Arizona Diamondbacks; Colorado Rockies; New York Yankees; Cleveland Indians; Detroit Tigers; Milwaukee Brewers; Minnesota Twins; Atlanta Braves; Cincinnati Reds; Oakland A's; Seattle Mariners; Chicago Cubs; Baltimore Orioles; [California] Angels; Texas Rangers


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The finalists in the 2013 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards gathered in Christchurch last night for the awards ceremony. The awards night is always themed and this year the organisers went for a 'Witch in the Cherry Tree' theme in honour of Margaret Mahy. The book of the year was also renamed the 'New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year' this year. I was nervous myself, hoping that my favourites would take out the award, so I'm sure the authors and illustrators themselves were incredibly nervous. Overall, I was pleased to see a couple of my favourites win awards, but I was disappointed that others missed out. I think that Red Rocks and The Nature of Ash are amazing books and if I could give Rachael and Mandy an award I would.
Read below to find out who won each category, as well as the Honour Book and Children's Choice Award.
Best Young Adult Fiction and New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year
Into the River by Ted Dawe
Best Non-Fiction
100 Amazing Tales from Aotearoa by Simon Morton & Riria Hotere
Best Junior Fiction
My Brother's War by David Hill
Honour award, Junior Fiction
The Queen and the Nobody Boy: A Tale of Fontania series by Barbara Else
Best Picture Book
Mister Whistler by Margaret Mahy & Gavin Bishop
Best First Book
Reach by Hugh Brown
Children's Choice
Melu by Kyle Mewburn, Ali Teo & John O'Reilly, Scholastic NZ


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Volunteer coverage
Generally, volunteers are not considered employees for purposes of Ohio workers' compensation. However, some volunteers performing emergency service duties must be covered under Ohio workers' compensation law. Public employers may also elect to cover certain volunteers performing non-emergency duties.
Volunteers performing emergency service duties
Volunteers, such as firefighters, who provide emergency services are covered under Ohio workers' compensation.
Examples of volunteer emergency service duties would be:
- Volunteer firefighters.
- Volunteer auxiliary police officers.
- Volunteer emergency medical technicians.
Reportable wages for volunteer emergency service personnel are subject to minimum payroll reporting requirements. You must report at least $300 per volunteer per year subject to a policy minimum of $4,500. If the volunteer's wages exceed $300, you must report their actual payroll. Employers should maintain rosters of volunteer emergency service personnel. Refer to the Public Employer Payroll Reporting Requirements page for more information.
Volunteers performing non-emergency duties
Private employers and non-profit organizations
Individuals performing non-emergency volunteer services for private employers, including for non-profit organizations such as churches, are not covered under the workers' compensation policy of that organization.
Public employers
Public employers, such as state agencies and political subdivisions, may elect to cover volunteers who perform non-emergency duties. Political subdivisions include cities, counties, townships, villages, and other public employer taxing districts. Volunteers who perform non-emergency duties include persons assigned volunteer work instead of a fine or jail sentence and individuals picking up trash in parks.
Public employers may elect to cover these volunteers for workers' compensation by submitting a Contract for Coverage of State Agency or Political Subdivision (U-69) to BWC. Refer to the form for application requirements. Payroll reporting information for U-69 Contract Coverage is found on the Public Employer Payroll Reporting Requirements page.


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The Stuff of Stuff: in hopes of perpetuating only those things which engender thought, wonder, and awareness.
This category, although it requires little time and a lot of wonder to produce, has become, for us, quite important. We hope you're able to find the time in the whirlwinds of your days to sit calmly and peruse the places we guide you to.
This is an especially breathtaking place:


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The conspiracy theory of Disneyland
by Sam Kriss
The monotheistic desert is a passageway through which the Earth's ultimate blasphemy with the Outside smuggles itself in and begins to unfold. The apocalyptic desert is a field through which the Tellurian dynamics of the Earth can be ingrained within anthropomorphic belief systems. In which case, there is no worse blasphemy than 'Thy Kingdom come.'
Reza Negarestani, Cyclonopedia
In my last days in California, I went to Disneyland. What I found there troubled and fascinated me. After my return the same images kept on flashing through my mind: the running children, the laughing children, the children bellowing in fury as their parents dragged them through the exit, the omnipresent insistence on happiness, the cold blank faces of the animatronic puppets, the bloodshot eyes of the actresses playing the various princesses. A lot of it had been unproblematic fun: the rollercoasters, the shooting ranges, the meticulous detailing – but there was something pervasively sinister about the park. Mr Toad's Wild Ride ended implausibly with a descent into Hell, where he presumably now suffers for eternity. The robotic vultures in Splash Mountain cackled over my impending death. The 'happiest cruise that ever sailed' seemed intent on slowly driving me insane with each repetition of its shrieking refrain. I had to find an explanation for what I had seen. I started to read up on the place.
There was plenty to read: so much has been said about Disneyland. The lingering racism of Adventureland has been thoroughly picked apart, the progression of Tomorrowland from naive liberal utopianism to ironic steampunk to brushed-aluminium iFuturism has been exhaustively documented, the strangely totalitarian way in which the Haunted Mansion's automated cars ensure a uniformity of experience for all visitors has been subject to an excess of theorisation. Everyone already knows that if you stand to one side of the statue of Walt and Mickey on Main Street USA, Mickey's snout looks like Walt's erect penis. Baudrillard was fascinated by the place, devoting much of America to a meditation on it. Eco famously compared a cruise down the Mississippi unfavourably to its imitation in Frontierland. But in my research, I found myself heading down entirely unexpected routes.
The theorists of Disneyland all make the same category error: they all approach Disneyland and its projected reality as an intrinsically modern – or indeed postmodern – phenomenon. They're wrong. Walking into the park, a sign informs you that 'here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.' The sign is more accurate than most visitors realise. When you go through the gates of Disneyland you enter the bowels of something sublimely ancient, something whose avaricious fantasies have shaped the nature of our world for centuries, something grasping to claim our future.
The notes that follow are the result of weeks of frenzied research. The employees at the British Library know me well by now: I'm always already there when they open in the morning, pacing up and down in front of the building in the chilly dawn light, taking quick nervous drags from a cigarette. I've been growing steadily more neurotic. The sound of helicopters has me slamming down windows and pulling curtains. My hands shake uncontrollably, even as I type. Still, I feel I have to share what I have learned. I've tried to present my findings as objectively and as comprehensively as possible, but it's not always easy to maintain an academic tone when under such stress. This is the true story of Disneyland.
The Cult of Penew-Nekhet: an overview
The story of Disneyland begins in ancient Egypt, with the Cult of Penew-Nekhet, or the All-conquering Mouse. While animal cults such as that of Apis the bull at Heliopolis date back six thousand years to the predynastic period, that of Penew-Nekhet appears to be comparatively recent. While it may have been operating clandestinely for some time beforehand, its existence is first documented during the reign of Amenemhat II around 1923 BCE. In contrast to other Egyptian animal religions, the Cult was not demotic in character: public ceremonies were rare, with carvings attesting to only one: a monument to Sobekneferu at Gezer records among her few achievements during her three-year reign the 'inauguration of the games of the Mouse.' Instead its practitioners were drawn almost entirely from the aristocratic nomarch-class, with rites performed in secret in their provincial estates. The Cult was also unique in that the archaeological record gives no indication that ritual burials and mummification of mice ever took place: rather, Cultists would adorn the inside of their houses with imagery of mice shown enjoying positions of luxury, often being waited on by cats, as in the ostrakon above. That no mouse-related imagery has been found on the outside of palaces or funerary complexes attests to the shifting nature of the relationship between the nomes and Pharaonic power during the Middle Kingdom: at times the Cult was tolerated or endorsed, as was the case under Sobekneferu; at times it was suppressed – whatever the political situation, its practitioners did their utmost to conceal their secret religion.
The unique character of the mouse-cult can to some extent be explained by the unique character of the mouse in Egyptian thought of the time. In the ancient Egyptian language, the word penew was always singular. Records do not describe an arov penewt, or plague of mice, but always an arov penew, a plague of mouse. Mice were conceived of as a single substance; like flies or worms, they were presumed to emerge from spontaneous generation, with the murine principle of Penew-Nekhet directing their abiogenesis. This is why members of the Cult continued to keep cats and lay traps for mice, while in other cults the killing of the sacred animal was taboo: the object of their worship was not the individual mouse but mouse in the abstract. Mice, which caused famine by eating grain in warehouses, were commonly recognised as a symbol of death, while with their subterranean burrows they were thought to have a privileged connection with the Underworld. The Cult of Penew-Nekhet could therefore be considered as an incipient Satanism in an era preceding such Manichaean moral divisions: the image of the cat waiting on the mouse indicates a total reversal of the accepted moral order. The focus on imagery and representation over the Real is also significant: in such images the seed of Disneyland's spectacle can be seen.
It is not known exactly when the Cult of Penew-Nekhet spread to Greece, but it was well known by Homer's time. In the Iliad he describes Chryses as being among its numbers:
Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand a sceptre crowned with the symbol of the mouse and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs, and who too were worshippers of his cult. "Sons of Atreus," he cried, "may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Zeus, and to the image of the Mouse, before which we prostrate ourselves as one."
While the secrecy of the Egyptian cult and the lack of any records concerning its rituals make it hard to ascertain to what extent the Greek manifestation was continuous with it, the same themes (inversion of morality, adoration of images and representations, the chthonic) are present in accounts of Penew-Nekhet rites. As in Egypt, worshippers of the Cult were drawn from the aristocracy, and it intermittently stood as a vehicle of aristocratic class solidarity against monarchical power. Unlike the contemporaneous Bacchanalian mysteries, practitioners were uniformly male, and there was no element of eroticism. In one fragment from Herodotus, a ritual in Epheseus is described:
The supplicants, wearing the crowns and masks of a king, then threw themselves to the ground before the statue of the mouse, and wailed, "O destroyer, O bringer of famine, may your desolation stretch across the world!" As their wailing grew louder it was joined by the beat of a drum and the sounding of a salpinx [trumpet]. At this point two slaves put the torch to the pyramid of grain that had been built on a stone altar in the centre of the circle and it leaped instantly into flame. The initiates then gathered around the fire, but did not dance to the drum. Instead they cried bitterly, pulling at their hair and clothes, and lamenting the loss of their grain. When I asked why, I was told, "We are rich men, and we have no lack of grain; but during the rite it is as if we are peasants, and our sorrow is real. This sorrow is felt by Nikheis Pondiki [Penew-Nekhet] and by the Earth, and we gain many great powers."
References to the Cult during later antiquity are patchy. The early Christians were aware of it: the apocryphal Gospel of Munimius cautions 'Therefore be not as the hypocrites, who make sacrifices for the eyes of the crowd, nor as the rich men, who in their mansions bow in unison before the Mouse, but worship alone according to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and not the flesh.' It is known that the emperor Elegabalus had the town of Croceae razed to the ground and its inhabitants slaughtered in 218 CE after he applied to join the Cult there and was rejected.
This antipathy between the Cult and Christianity, and the far more established enmity between the aristocratic Cultists and Pharaonic and royal power, melted away with the Donation of Constantine. The first Christian Emperor was drawn from a respectable lineage of Cultists – his grandfather Eutropius was an Illyrian nobleman who, as the Historia Augusta describes, 'Held in his villa secret gatherings of the gentry, for which the city of Sminthium [city of the mouse] in Moesia Superior, which he founded, was named.' Indeed, in some depictions of the conversion of Constantine to Christianity before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, such as the one shown above (which is now housed in the Vatican's private collections), the sign appearing in the sky is not that of the cross, but the trinod, or thrice-weaved circle, of the Cult of Nikheis Pondiki/Penew-Nekhet. As many modern historians have concluded, Constantine was in all likelihood not a genuine adherent to Christianity, but one who saw in this supposedly subversive new faith the potential to build a more unified empire. However, doing so would require the neutralisation of much of extant Christianity. Following from his incorporation of the Christian faith and Imperial power with the Council of Nicaea, Constantine instigated the removal of Arians and other Eastern heretics from the Church hierarchy, replacing them with trusted members of the Cult. Christianity proved a far more amenable vessel than chaotic paganism for the furthering of the Cult's secret plans: institutional Christianity quickly set about suppressing the unbridled, sexualised Dionysian cults, declaring them as Satanic; meanwhile the properly Diabolic mouse-cult was embraced as a means of control.
The period from 325 CE coincides with a spate of church-building across the Roman Empire. New churches appeared in every major city, often built using Imperial funds and government-approved architects. Their design differs markedly from that of previous churches. During the period in which Christianity was persecuted, churches were informal, with prayer being carried out in private homes marked with the symbol of the fish or the Chi Rho. Services were held in the colonnaded atrium, and prayer rites were conducted without a cantor or leader; much of the prayer was silent. While the new, public basilicae featured a nod to earlier forms in the cloister, a walled garden at one end of the building reserved for use by the clergy, the church itself was dominated by the bema, a raised platform in the centre of the transept from which priests could direct their congregation. Liturgy became highly contrived, with themes of sin, worthlessness and abjection predominating. The burning of grain was replaced by a similar ritual, in which a wafer is consumed by congregants; as in the rite described by Herodotus, food is imparted with symbolic-representative value before being destroyed. This revolution in church architecture signals the first major shift in the development of Disneyland since ancient Egypt: the ceremonies of the Cult of Penew-Nekhet were no longer private, voluntary rites conducted by the elite. Instead, they took on elaborate disguises; large populations were made to participate in them without their knowledge.
The power of the Cult-Church complex was struck a harsh blow by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The Arian heresy, banished from the Empire in 325, was upheld by the barbarian rulers that had come to dominate Europe. Under Ostrogoth rule the Papacy continued to function, but without its large network of churches the potency of its rites appears to have waned. Scattered, terrified, and wretched, the Cultists fell back on earlier practices: in the 5th Century, for the first time since the reign of Constantine, private Penew-Nekhet ceremonies reappeared in the homes of the Senatorial class. With the conversion of the Franks to Catholicism the Cult finally began the drive to reclaim its former monarchial power; however this would not reach its goal for several centuries, with the surprise coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800 CE. Once again, royal and ecclesiastical authority were unified through the matrix of the Cult of Penew-Nekhet. A suppressed variant of Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, unearthed by a Franco-American archaeological team at the Palace of Aachen in 1998, records Charlemagne's induction into the Cult:
On the most holy day of the birth of our Lord, the king went to mass at St. Peter's, and as he knelt in prayer before the altar Pope Leo set without warning a crown upon his head, while all the Roman populace cried aloud, " Long life and victory to the mighty Charles, the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans, crowned of God! " After he had been thus acclaimed, the pope did homage to him, as had been the custom with the early rulers. At first the king was displeased that Pope Leo should give to himself a power over that of the Augustus, and swore his regret that he had come to his [the Pope's] aid. However, the next day, the king was called to a second ceremony in the crypts of Rome, whereafter he emerged in a good temper. On his return to Aachen the king then instructed his jewellers that the ears of the Mouse, woven from gold and studded with emeralds, be fixed to his Imperial crown, and sent out inspectors to the churches of his realm to ensure that prayers were conducted in the proper manner as ordained by almighty God.
The history of the Cult through the later Middle Ages is one of degeneration. With the increasing wealth of the Church and European monarchies, the rites of Penew-Nekhet dissolved into empty ritual and spectacle, often focused around orgies and spectacular consumption or destruction of expensive food, lacking the crucial aspects that gave power to the Egyptian and Greek Cultists. Church services based on the old secret grain-burning rites still took place but without a high level of orchestration they lost their value; meanwhile in their private lives the wealthy Cultists tended towards debauched Dionysianism rather than the contrived hyperreality of the early rituals. There were several movements by diehard Cultists to resurrect the true Cult: during the Avignon antipapacy there was a sudden explosion in the use of mice as architectural motifs, such as in the relief on the Palais des Papes shown above. However, the Cult was not fully restored until the 16th Century, with the intervention of Martin Luther.
That Luther was a member of the mouse-cult is incontrovertible. Born into a bourgeois family in 1483, Luther was pressed from an early age into a career in law, one which he found spiritually stifling. In desperate search of the certainty of faith, in 1505 he abandoned his studies and joined the Augustinian friary in Erfurt, under the tutelage of theologian and Cultist Johann von Staupitz.
Seeing the young man's fierce intelligence, devotion to the Church and hunger for truth, von Staupitz inducted Luther into the Cult of Penew-Nekhet, most probably around 1506. It was in that year, according to Luther's brother in the Augustinian friary Josef Endelstinus, that the young man began 'making unexplained absences in the night, wherein he would leave his cell and thunder absent subtlety to the catacombs. There, strange drums could be heard, and among some brothers it was said that they could hear the voices of women, and a chanted prayer unlike any in the liturgy-book.' However, what Martin Luther did next was unexpected: rather than being seduced by the earthly pleasures afforded to him by his membership in the Cult, he became fascinated by its long history and the occult powers believed to be bestowed upon its adherents. Endelstinus later wrote that Luther convinced the friar to arrange for a manuscript of Manetho's Aegyptiaca to be purchased at great expense by the monastery, a copy which he guarded jealously. Eventually, Luther came to the conclusion that the Cult's degeneration was unacceptable. Rather than reforming it from the inside, he hatched a plan to overthrow it and start again, one that eventually manifested itself as the Protestant Reformation.
While Luther's early opposition to the selling of indulgences to finance church construction at first appears to undermine the Cult's programme of church-building, it must be remembered that the churches were by his time entirely non-functional as ritual spaces. The same goes for his frequent assertions that his enemies were part of a sinister, Satanic cult. It is notable that in his many diatribes against the Pope, Luther accused him of every imaginary Dionysian excess imaginable (depicting him as the Whore of Babylon in the woodcut below), yet remained curiously silent on the fact that Clement VII was part of a secretive mouse-worshipping sect. It was not this that aggravated him, it was the degeneration of that sect into a vehicle for mere degeneracy.
In addition to his prodigious work-rate in the production of pamphlets for general consumption, Luther also wrote secret manuals for confidants in his Reformed Cult of Penew-Nekhet. There are many texts purporting to be among this number, many of which are most likely Catholic forgeries. However, one genuine fragment has been found, a palimpsest from among many scraps of waste parchment unearthed at Wartsburg Castle:
We tell them that all men must be able to read the Bible themselves only so that they will believe with ever more vigour that what we tell them is their own belief. It is so much easier to redirect the prayer of one who thinks himself to be acting of his own accord than one who is reading from rote!
Luther's ultimate project was to once again fuse royal and ecclesiastical power through the Cult: his brand of Protestantism lacked any of the egalitarianism of his contemporaries. When the lower classes of Germany rose up against their landlords in the Revolt of 1524-1526, partly inspired by a misinterpretation of his ideas, he quickly penned Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, in which he advised secular rulers to 'kill as many of the blasphemers as is possible.' In this he was entirely successful: when the smoke of the Reformation had cleared and the scores of bodies it had produced had been buried, Europe was full of Protestant princes eager to take the advice of Lutheran priests.
Having acquired a new, Protestant disguise, the Cult of Penew-Nekhet began to infiltrate as many organisations as possible: trade guilds, Freemasonry, the Illuminati, the newly formed United States government, the institutions of the French revolution, among others. Through these hosts it attempted to wipe out the temporal authority of its former, corrupted home, the Catholic Church, leaving the road clear for the new, invigorated Cult to dominate the world. Eventually, the Church was weakened to the extent that it became susceptible to re-infiltration: although the Cult never again controlled the Papacy, the Society of Jesus was eventually drawn into its influence. With the rise of the public sphere (and despite the Cult's dominance in the media) secrecy became paramount; it is likely that at any one time there were no more than five hundred people alive who knew of the Cult's true nature. A few of them can be confidently identified: Viscount Francis Bacon, Oliver Cromwell, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon (whose coronation deliberately mirrored that of Charlemange), Benjamin Disraeli, the Rothschilds, Rockefeller, Mussolini, Rudolf Hess. Always seeking mass participation in its disguised rituals, prominent Cultists covertly engineered spectacles including the French revolutionary Terror and the Black Hole of Calcutta. The culmination of this new, murderous form of ritual was the First World War. The conflict was deliberately engineered by Cultists including Helmuth von Moltke, Leopold Berchtold and Dragutin Dimitrijević as an elaborately orchestrated pan-European rite of death and suffering. However, during its course something went disastrously wrong. The war, which was meant to be fought to an eternal stalemate, instead sparked a series of unplanned revolutions across the continent, starting with Russia in 1917. This was then followed by a second, yet more ruinous war from 1939, in which Cultists on all sides tried frantically to rein in the destruction to no great effect. A secret conference of high-level Cultists, terrified that the forces of global entropy would continue to erode at their hold on power, was held at Hückeswagen Castle in 1948 to determine a new direction. Most of the minutes and paperwork was destroyed immediately afterwards, but one charred scap of paper was discoved by Hans Ufer, a local peasant:
…maintien de la stase soviéto-américaine et de planifier W.D.
28: The policy of mass slaughter having failed, it is therefore RESOLVED that the full attentions of the Organisation will be given over to maintaining the Soviet-American stasis and to plan W.D.
28: Die Politik der Massenmord…
Ufer was convinced that the documented represented a Nazi plot to continue to enact racial policies, and attempted to bring it to the attention of Der Rhein-Arbeiter, a weekly Communist newspaper. Before it was able to go to press, the newspaper's offices were gutted in a fire. The British occupying authorities mounted a brief investigation before summarily ruling out arson.
The last direct evidence for the continued existence of the Cult came with the publication of Nixon's White House tapes:
NIXON: Last month I had to attend another of those things, that god damn Penny Necket thing, bowing in front of the mouse and everything. It's the faggiest damn thing. The faggiest damn thing imaginable.
HALDEMAN: It's unavoidable.
NIXON: I don't like it. All the judges, all the senators, kissing the feet of the mouse for five minutes and then gossiping for fifty. I don't like to see our guys chanting in Greek with the Democrats. Who isn't in that thing? Erlichman, surely, I don't think I saw him. They don't take Jews, do they?
HALDEMAN: He's in it, up to the eyeballs. Kissinger too.
NIXON: Jesus Christ.
From these transcripts it's evident that the rites of the Cult were no longer considered a source of power, but, as in the Middle Ages, had degenerated to the status of fraternity rituals or the cod-spirituality of institutions such as the Bohemian Grove. However, their facile nature did not prompt a purist resurgence. Why? Because by the time of the Nixon administration, the old rituals and the more recent spectacle-terrors had been replaced by something far more effective – the Plan W.D. mentioned in the Hückeswagen fragment: Disneyland.
The Cult & Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago to a family of disappointed California gold-panners. He was a shy, serious and studious child: rarely an entertainer, he spent much of his time alone, drawing. Only a small portion of his juvenalia has been released by the Walt Disney corporation (most of which covers patriotic themes); much of the rest is kept in a locked vault in Burbank, California. The only clue as to its content was provided in a quote by an unnamed Disney employee to Los Angeles Times reporter James McDowell in 1981:
"What can I say? He was a teenager when he drew that stuff. Most of it was your usual Tijuana Bible-type material. A lot of oversized breasts and so on. Engorged penises. And a few depictions of murder victims, sometimes at the same time… there's some unpleasant stuff, sure. But nothing all that unusual."
In 1917 Disney joined the Holy Order of Fellow Soldiers of Jacques DeMolay, a youth Freemasonry society. The same year he dropped out of high school to fight in WWI. Being only 16, he was rejected by the United States Army, and joined the Red Cross instead, arriving in France shortly before the Armistice. Stationed at a church in Saint-Cyr-l'Ecole, a Western suburb of Paris, he was at first highly enthusiastic. However, as described in Scott Gladdy's unauthorised 2004 biography Walt Disney: A People's History, his attention quickly turned to other matters:
At first Walt was much like many other young Americans abroad: he was a regular both at the local taverns and the brothels that had sprung up around the military academy. By February 1919 he was almost unrecognisable. Always a staunch Protestant, Walt had taken to spending most of his day in the Église Sainte-Julitte, a nearby church, in the company of the venerable local Jesuit priest Antoine Sourisse. "He changed all of a sudden," his comrade Roy Michaels recalled later. "He stopped drinking, stopped whoring. He stopped driving the ambulances. We all thought he'd gone queer. But it wasn't that. All of a sudden he had this great unity of purpose. It was kinda terrifying, to tell you the truth."
On his return from France in 1919, Disney started drawing cartoon mice.
Why did the Cult choose Walter Disney to carry out the final stage of its plan? It may have been connected with his ancestry. Walt was a distant heir of Hughes d'Isigney, a Norman nobleman who participated in William the Conqueror's 1066 invasion of England and claimed to be able to trace his lineage to the Merovingian kings of the Franks, and through them, to Jesus Christ. While it's impossible to say for certain that Hugues was a member of the Cult of Penew-Nekhet, there are several indications. In Disney Through the Centuries, Adriana Villalobos's exhaustive history of the Disney family, she describes how Hughes took a 'fanatic interest in the precise procedure in which church services in his new fiefdom were carried out,' and seditious rumours spread among the local peasantry of a secret idol kept concealed in the d'Isigney castle. Eventually William (who as an illegitimate child would have been denied membership in the Cult) grew wary of his vassal and lent him a few hundred soldiers for a suicidal campaign, encouraging him to invade France and reclaim his rightful crown. However, it is equally possible that when Antoine Sourisse induced the young Walt Disney into the Cult it was simply because of his skills as a draughtsman and yearning for transcendence. After all, it had to happen to somebody.
The first Mickey Mouse cartoon was released in 1928. Steamboat Willie was an enormous popular and critical success; most audiences were too focused on the short animation's sight gags to pick up on its disturbing subtexts. Mickey Mouse is a destructive outside agent who emerges into the ordered environment of the steamboat and comprehensively reorders it according to his own schematic principle: living animals are rendered inorganic tools, turned into musical instruments, forced by Mickey to play along to a piece of music that simultaneously emerges from them and is extraneous to them. Essentially, Steamboat Willie provides a coded account of the activities of the Cult of Penew-Nekhet since the Christianisation of the Roman Empire.
The Walt Disney company's growing successes coincided with a sudden paranoia on the part of its namesake. Disney believed that many of his lower-level animators were Communist infiltrators; at times he believed himself to be the last bulwark against a Communist tide taking over Hollywood. As his delusions grew, so did his dream of Disneyland. As his friend and animator Ward Kimball recalled:
Walt was always deadly serious about Disneyland, far more so than any of the movies, even though they were raking in so much money. He insisted on planning every last detail. He was seriously fanatic about it… one time he said to me, this isn't just a holiday park. This is something that's gonna change the world. He was always talking about how Disneyland was going to beat the Reds and bring in a new age. Frankly, none of us had a clue what he was talking about.
Ground was broken on what would become the Disneyland site – a placid field of walnut trees in Orange County – in 1954. The entire project took only one year to complete; it was opened with a televised fanfare. Few at the time recognised Disneyland for what it was. Disneyland was never an interactive 'park' in which visitors were free to view the attractions at their own pace, but a show as tightly choreographed as any film. All the rides progress in a strictly linear fashion; the banter of the entertainers is entirely scripted; if you drop a piece of litter in the park an appropriately dressed actor (smocks for Fantasyland, jumpsuits for Tomorrowland) will appear from a hidden doorway and silently tidy it away. The guests are forbidden from reinscribing anything onto the text of Disneyland. In fact, the park is constructed in such a way that any deviation from the correct order of things is punished instantly – dozens of visitors who committed the sin of jumping out of cars on rides or trying to cross the lines between the Disneyland simulation and the vast 'backstage' areas have been crushed to death by various pieces of machinery. To survive, guests must be entirely passive. Their responses to the park are, at every moment, utterly controlled.
Disneyland is the ritual of the Cult of Penew-Nekhet on a grand, industrial scale.
The truth: Nazi rockets and tellurian dragons
In all this several questions remain unanswered. Why did the nomes of Egypt supplement their public religious devotions with another, secretive faith? Why did the Cult of Penew-Nekhet survive from the second millennium BCE to the present day, when so many other mystery religions faded away? What interest would a four thousand-year-old cult have in building an amusement park? And why build that park in Orange County, home of the US weapons industry?
Essentially, the central question is this: does Penew-Nekhet actually exist?
One of the chief engineers in the Disneyland project was the German rocket physicist Wernher von Braun (shown above with Walt Disney). Responsible for designing the Nazi V-2 rockets that were launched at the United Kingdom during the final stages of World War II, von Braum was brought to America in June 1945 as part of Operation Paperclip, the then-top secret relocation of Nazi scientists to the United States to work on missile programmes targeted at the Soviet Union. As well as being a gifted scientist von Braum was also a devoted mystic: under his leadership, research at the Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde was carried out not only into guidance and propulsion systems for flying bombs but into the potential for the weaponisation of the occult. As well as séances and rituals carried out in Greek and Egyptian, captured French resistance fighters made to perform slave labour at the site's factories claimed that the HVP team performed child sacrifices. In particular, von Braum was fascinated by the interior of the Earth, telling his friend and deputy Walter Thiel that 'the quest for outer space and the quest for the subterranean world is one and the same thing.' Like many Nazi occultists, von Braum believed there was life below the Earth's crust; however, he did not ascribe to the hollow-earth theories popular at the time which held that the planet contains within it the mystical land of Hyperborea from which the Aryan races originate. Instead, he believed the chthonic world to be as profoundly un-human as the black reaches of space.
Among von Braum's most prized possessions was a copy of De Interioribus Terrae, a short text by the 16th century mathematician, occultist, and early disciple of Luther's reformed Penew-Nekhet Cult John Dee. After a discussion of the mystical nature of soil and its Demiurgean power to create life, Dee turns his attention to the centre of the Earth:
While no man of Faith can reason against the reality of Hell, it is evident to all learned Men that Hell does not exist below the Ground, no more than Heaven is to be found among the Clouds, and yet, as is well known, below the Soil there lies a great Heat, and a great Fire, as it is said in the Bible: where the Worm dieth not, and the Fire is not quenched. And indeed the Book is forever unerring, for in this Fire lives the Worm, called also Dragon, formed in delicate Crystal from solid Phlogiston, who with a noble Sweep of his Tail does traverse the Fire below our Seas faster than any Merchant-Ship, and who, far from being consigned to the Pit, is a Creature of Grace, and as Fire to Air or Mercury to Saturn, takes his Place as a Consort to the Angels.
Could this worm exist? Recent geophysical surveys (often suppressed by the government agencies and universities funding them) utilising sophisticated equipment such as the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility have detected fluxes and eddies in the Earth's magma that are inconsistent with all known models of fluid dynamics, but that are explainable through the presence of large mobile organisms living within the mantle. The presence of life under the crust is not as implausible as it may seem: the mantle is home to untold billions of extremophile bacteria consuming nutrients dissolved in the molten rock. The liquid core of the Earth constitutes over 99% of its volume and much of it is entirely unknown to science; however it is possible to posit with some confidence that the tellurian dragons would have to be very large to survive in the heat of the mantle and to create the fluctuations observed by the ESRF – up to eight miles in length. Without any oxygen, their metabolism would function in a vastly different manner from that of life on the surface; they would certainly be silicon- rather than carbon-based. They would also be largely solitudinous, looping slowly around the Earth's core in mournful sequestration – given the relative poverty of the subterranean ecosystem, it's unlikely that a population of more than a hundred thousand could be supported. And given the great age of the Earth's interior, it is entirely possible that at some point in their billions of years of evolution, the tellurian dragons attained sentience.
In almost all cultures there exist myths of giant worms or dragons, who are generally believed to breathe or in some other way be associated with fire. In ancient Egypt this place was taken by Penewap, a god of the underworld (and, more generally, of death and evil) represented as an enormous serpent. This was not his only form, however; Penewap was also believed to come to the earth's surface to wreak havoc in the form of the mouse – the morphological similarities between penew and penewap hardly need mentioning. Could it be that the cultists of Penew-Nekhet, so obsessed with obscurity and representation, used the image of the mouse to disguise the true object of their worship?
If the Cult had a Secret that it guarded throughout its four-thousand year existence, it can only be that of how to communicate with – and control – Penew-Nekhet or the tellurian dragons. If contact were to take place, the cultists would find in their hands a weapon of unimaginable power. The dragons could obliterate any enemy: burst the ground from under their feet, send their cities tumbling into the abyss, immolate their armies with molten fire. Given their ability to churn the molten rock of the Earth's core, they may even be able to affect the planet's magnetic field, leaving a specific area vulnerable to a cascade of destructive cosmic radiation. Or, perhaps, our magnetic field could even be redirected, used to assault other planets in the solar system or beyond.
Given the ubiquity of dragon-myths across the planet, it is certain that the subterranean worms have, accidentally or not, forced their way into our world. It is not inconceivable that the parting of the Red Sea, the volcanic eruption that obliterated Minoan civilisation, and perhaps even the calamitous 1755 Lisbon earthquake were all precipitated by the Cult of Penew-Nekhet through its various attempts to gain the attention of tellurian monsters. But how can such communication be established? John Dee wrote:
The Worm hears no Prayer, though many who call themselves Witch or Sorcerer have offered up Entreaties to him, rather he understands the Language of all celestial Beings, that is, the Language of Mathematics, the Language of the Imagination, and the Language of Sympathy.
In all the permutations of the Cult's rites, from private rituals to religious services to orgies of bloodshed to Disneyland, imagination and sympathy – or the emotive – have always been central; and these are precisely the qualities to which the dragons respond. The Cult has always attempted to form concentrated loci of high emotion. In much of its documented history this emotion was sorrow, terror, or abasement, but often accompanied by joy – the redemption of Communion, the cathartic bliss following the grain-burning. Conceivably it is the swing between two extreme emotional states that is most effective: witness the joy of the children as they enter the rides, and their fury as they are dragged away. The fact that Disneyland is aimed at children is significant: children experience emotional states far more intensely than adults; as such they are ideal vehicles for communicating with the worms. Like children, the dragons do not respond to erotic energy (they may reproduce asexually): this is why sexual or orgiastic cults from that of Dionysus to Crowley's Satanism have sprung up and faded away in succession. To communicate with the dragons requires the assumption of a mindset that is entirely other and wholly unhuman – hence the austerity of the early rites, and the perverse hermaphrodite wholesomeness of Disneyland, filled with monstrous animal-headed figures.
At the same time though, the dragons, who with their cold silicon sentience can imagine no world other than that which they inhabit, are enormously responsive to the human power for imagination, fantasy, and deceit. The rites of the Penew-Nekhet Cult have throughout their history been based heavily on the projection of a hyperreality. The fascination with symbolism and the representative was not just a mechanism for maintaining secrecy: the Greek Cultists really believed that they had been transformed into peasants during the grain-burning rituals; the visitors to Disneyland are invited to really believe that they are in the presence of Mickey Mouse. The map becomes the territory – by imagining another reality, the Cult affects concrete change to this one.
What is Disneyland? Disnyland is a vast machine for the weaving of fiction and the production of human emotion. It was built away from Hollywood because it was never really part of the entertainment industry. It was always a weapon. It is the weapon. It is a signal-beacon for the underground monsters. They swarm there now, miles underneath southern California (perhaps accounting for the frequent seismological activity there), waiting for the Cult to give them their orders. Now it remains only for the Disneyland weapon to be used.
I have recorded the truth. Not in its entirety. My account is, of course, an unacceptably Eurocentric one: it would be absurd to assume that some form of the Penew-Nekhet cult has not developed in China (the fact that the Hong Kong Disneyland is, uniquely, owned by a Chinese corporation and licensed from Disney may well be significant) and the mass human sacrifices in the Aztec Empire have the faint odour of the cult about them. I've not been able to work out the exact nature of the cult's Plan – they have, after all, already been in effective control of the world at several points in history. Perhaps the Disneyland weapon is not meant for use on Earth at all; perhaps the cult is about to drag us, unknowing, into an interplanetary war. But what I've written will have to do. I don't know what's going to happen to me now. The cult of Penew-Nekhet has guarded its secrets for four thousand years; it has in the past carried out acts of horrific violence to further its aims. It doesn't matter. The truth is more important.
My hands have stopped shaking.


text:
Free Your Android!
Android is a mostly free operating system developed mainly by Google. Unfortunately, the drivers for most devices and most applications from the "market" are not free (as in free speech, not as in no cost). They frequently work against the interest of the users, spy on them, and sometimes cannot even be removed.
This campaign can help you to regain control of your Android device and your data. We collect information about running an Android system as free as possible and try to coordinate the efforts in this area.
Do you want a mobile device that was really yours when you bought it? Do you want a mobile device that does not spy on you and hand over your data to big corporations? Then read on!
Liberate Your Device
Learn how to liberate your device and how to regain control of your data by switching to a free Android operating system with free (as in freedom) apps. We have collected information to help you regain control.
Help Making Liberation Effortless
Liberating devices should be effortless, so that everybody can enjoy freedom. There are many ways you can help to achieve this goal, even if you don't know how to program.
Why Your Mobile Device Needs To Be Free
Mobile devices are small computers that we carry around all the time. They know our current location and contain private pictures. We use them to communicate with our friends, our family and maybe our secret love. They also provide access to the internet and have built-in camera and microphone. Being such powerful tools, they can bring great risks to privacy, but at the same time we can achieve great things with them: it depends on who controls them.
Freedom and Control
Most mobile devices are not controlled by the users, but by the manufacturer and the operator. The software that runs on them is not Free Software. Even Android phones ship with non-free software and proprietary add-ons that often work against the full interest of the user. Software updates will only be made available as long as the manufacturer still has a commercial interest in your device. The applications (apps) available from the official market are commonly non-free. Nobody is allowed to study how they work and what they really do on your phone. Sometimes they just don't work exactly as you want, but oftentimes they even contain malicious features.
Running exclusively Free Software on your device puts you in full control. Even though you may not have the skills to directly exercise all of your freedom, you will benefit from a vibrant community that can do it together.
Our mobile devices contain more personal information than most private diaries. But proprietary systems, even most Android phones, are designed to hand over this data to companies like Google or Apple. Most users do not have full control over the personal data on their device. Convenient solutions for synchronisation and data backup trick more and more people into storing all their data on centralised servers run by some profit-driven corporation. These are usually based in the US and are required to hand your data over to the US government on mere request. Whoever has personal information about us is able to manipulate us. Therefore, non-free devices are a threat to democracy and to our society.
Privacy is one of the most important reasons to support Free Software. Proprietary add-ons like Carrier IQ spy on smartphone users without their knowledge. Many apps from the market contain malicious features. They read your private data, such as your address book, and "phone home", or they use Google Analytics to send data to Google. These are just a few examples out of many that have been discovered so far. The lack of freedom impedes independent inspection and secret spy features only become known by accident.
Most smartphones require you to connect and identify yourself to a centralised server before you can use them properly. Users have to trust the server without knowing what information is stored and how it is processed or related to other data. A phone running only Free Software does not require you to provide data to an untrustworthy company or pressure you to do so – at least this is very unlikely, as the software's actions would be obvious and the community would be able to develop an alternative version. The convenience of "value-added" services that are often coupled with such connections can be provided using Free Software as well. This keeps you in control of your personal data. Your diary remains in your possession. You can have your cake and eat it too.
Planned obsolescence is a serious problem that has both financial and environmental drawbacks. More on Sustainability of Free Software.
Other Related Initiatives
Even though this campaign is about Android, there are other initiatives that make it possible to use small mobile computers with (mostly) Free Software. Due to the driver situation of mobile hardware, none of these initiatives really can run such machines in freedom. Non-free drivers and firmware are needed for many peripherals to work.
On our wiki, we collect other initiatives. Please help us to maintain this list.
Join the community or ask questions.
If you have any questions about this campaign or have questions on liberating your phone, just ask the community. Send an email to our mailing list. Everybody interested in the campaign is subscribed there and is insterested in exchanging knowledge.
For general information about FSFE's work that is not related to the "Free Your Android" campaign, please use the general contact page.
Participating Organisations


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Notice: Dear Customer, the portal will be unavailable from Thursday, September 26 (7:00 pm) till Saturday, September 28 (7:00 pm) due to maintenance activities. We appreciate your understanding.
Masaar Team.
MASAAR e-services portal caters to a comprehensive range of services in line with SMART Dubai initiatives. It is integrated with Government and Non-government agencies and offers unique features for business partners' portfolio, e-payments and application tracking system. Masaar offers more than 100 e-services ranging from Commercial Set-ups, Facility and professional licensing applications and renewals and government services.
The Dubai Healthcare City Authority Excellence Awards reinforce our quest for excellence by recognizing initiatives and innovative practices in the Dubai Healthcare City free zone and bringing these to the forefront of the health sector in the UAE.
Welcome to the Dubai Healthcare City Best Practice Conference 2018, held under the patronage of the Chairperson of Dubai Healthcare City Authority, HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.


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by J.D. Roth
2011 was a wonderful year. I met some awesome people, visited nine countries (U.S., South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Canada, Peru, and Bolivia) and five states, accomplished some long-standing goals, and generally lived life to the lees (to quote my favorite poem).
Having said that, the last six weeks have been very difficult. In fact, they've been the darkest days of my life. And the start of 2012 is going to be a challenge. Why? Six weeks ago, I asked my wife for a divorce.
I'm not going to discuss the whys and wherefores of this decision on the internet. Kris and I are both experiencing enough stress as it is. I'll only say that there's no acute crisis here: nobody's cheating on anyone, and nobody's doing anything rash.
This process is harder on her than it is on my, obviously, since I'm the one initiating it; but trust me: the divorce is no piece of cake for me either. I've turned into an insomniac. I sleep maybe four hours a night. And three times in the past two weeks, I haven't been able to sleep at all. It's miserable.
Kris: "Those are the only two benefits of getting divorced: No clutter and I'm eligible for a Roth IRA again. Wait. Are you writing this down?"
While I'm not going to write online about my reasons for choosing this path, please understand that I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was in the best interests of both of us. (Kris disagrees, obviously.)
Also, it's important to note that Kris and I are working together to build the best possible relationship going forward. We've seen folks go through bitter divorces, and neither of us wants that. We want to remain close friends. And so far — after six weeks — we've been able to do that. We're still living in the same house (although I move into an apartment this weekend), and we plan to see each other regularly. We're doing a "kitchen table" divorce, where we make the decisions and then have an attorney translate them into legalese.
Our biggest conflict so far? (Other than the divorce itself, I mean.) Who has to take the TV? Neither of us wants it. Not kidding. But that problem solved itself last week when it self-destructed while Kris was doing her morning exercise. Now neither of us has to be burdened with it!
This news comes as a shock to many people; others are unsurprised. My request is this: Please be supportive of Kris. She needs it. (I need it too, but I know many people aren't inclined to support me right now. I get that.)
Some will probably view this divorce as a sign of failure. I don't see it that way. I'm glad to have spent 23 years with Kris, eighteen of them as a married couple. But that chapter has come to a close. It's time for us to start new adventures, both together — and on our own.
Though our real-life friends have known of this decision for six weeks, and Kris made an announcement on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, this is the first time we've put the news out onto the web. I'll mention it at Get Rich Slowly soon, as I describe the process of hunting for health insurance and acquiring a new apartment.
Updated: 01 January 2012


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"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!"
Just a few months after finally reaching a settlement with Dickie Scruggs in a lawsuit stretching back 15 years, attorney William Roberts Wilson has moved into the office space that once housed his nemesis' law firm on Oxford's Square.
"Ever since watching 'Intruder in the Dust,' I've wanted an office on the Square," Wilson said. He had previously worked out of Tuscaloosa, but he said that, after a decade and a half of financial issues, he could afford to make the move.
Faulker's Intruder in the Dust may have inspired Wilson. However, it is the similarity of Wilson's story to what one source called the "social hyporocrisy" and "irresistible comedy" of Twain's The Prince and the Pauper that comes to mind.
"Social hypocrisy" and "irresistible comedy" are so common on the Square that Wilson – a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows attempting to assume the role of the King of Torts – should feel right at home.
The government made his move even more affordable today when it settled Wilson's claim Continue reading "Wilson v Scruggs and the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows"


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It was the first spacewalk for Tingle, who arrived last month, and the third for Vande Hei.
Spacewalking astronauts gave a hand to the International Space Station's big robot arm Tuesday. As the federal government geared back up 250 miles below, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle successfully installed the new mechanical gripper.
Because of the lingering effects of the government shutdown, the spacewalk got started in the morning without coverage on NASA TV. An on-air message simply stated: "We regret the inconvenience." Nearly an hour into the spacewalk, however, NASA TV came alive and began broadcasting the event with typical blow-by-blow commentary.
Space station operations were largely unaffected by the three-day shutdown. Considered essential personnel, Mission Control kept watch as usual at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Vande Hei performed a similar spacewalk last October when he replaced the first of two original hands on the Canadian-built arm. This second new hand will go on the opposite end of the 58-foot arm, able to move like an inchworm by grabbing hold of special fixtures.
The bulky bundle of latches — more than 3 feet, or a meter, long and weighing more than 440 pounds, or 200 kilograms — needed to be replaced because of wear and tear. It's been in orbit, grabbing cargo capsules and performing other chores, since 2001.
Tingle had to use extra muscle to release a stubborn bolt securing the spare mechanical arm. "Nice work," Vande Hei said. "And the crowd goes wild," chimed in Mission Control.
Next, the spacewalkers wrested the old, degraded hand from the robot arm. Once the new hand was in place, a software issue cropped up briefly. Six hours into the spacewalk, NASA declared victory. The spacewalk lasted 7 1/2 hours.
It was the first spacewalk for Tingle, who arrived last month, and the third for Vande Hei. "Make us proud out there," astronaut Joe Acaba told the spacewalkers from inside. "We'll have hot chow for you when you get back."
Vande Hei will go back out Monday with another astronaut to finish the job. Then the two Russians on board will conduct a spacewalk February 2 to install a new antenna on their country's side of the outpost.
The space station is home to three Americans, two Russians and one Japanese.


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This week in Tumblr: August 23rd – August 27th
What time of the week is it? That's right, it's Tumblr recap time! As per usual, you'll be able to find an outline below of what happened on our Tumblr blog last week.
- The RJD2 Remix winner was announced! Congratulations once more to Paolo Palazzo. Hear his excellent remix below!
- Beach House released a new song from their iTune Sessions EP called "White Moon". You can have a listen below.
- The Count & Sinden started streaming their entire new album, Mega Mega Mega! It's the club duo's debut and you can hear it all below or on Domino Records' SoundCloud page!
- AmpKit (the iPhone app) allows you to record guitar sounds & effects straight to your iPhone. And now, you can share those sounds directly to SoundCloud! Learn more about it here.
- Oh, look! It's SoundCloud founder/CEO, Alex Ljung! Last week, he made it into Billboard's Top 30 Power Players Under 30. Here's a peek of what was said…(click this link to read the entire blurb).
- SoundCloud founder/CEO Alexander Ljung, 28, says he wants his company, which launched in 2007, to do for music files and musicians what Flickr did for photos and photographers. Given the service's rising popularity, that's an apt comparison. "The growth has been phenomenal," he says. "We've gone from unknown to one of the world's largest and fastest-growing audio platforms in 18 months.
- Yay for praise! SoundCloud is one of Julius Ylitalo's Top 5 essential online tools. Check out the nice quote below!
- Enter SoundCloud, a dead-simple and beautiful way to move music from me to my listeners but also to people I work with on a daily basis.
- Sentric Music, a group on SoundCloud, is a place where users can upload their tracks and get the chance to be upgraded to a Lite account. Antonio Lulić was the winner this month. Check out how he uses SoundCloud.
- Local Natives hit up SoundCloud!
- It's remix time (again)! Grovesnor from Hot Chip announced his remix competition last week. The winner receives a release on Lo Recordings and a Pro account! Find out more here.
- Got a question? Shoot! :)
- Our web developers now have a blog called SoundCloud Backstage. Learn what it's like under the hood here at the 'Cloud!
- Do you have a cool SoundCloud story? If you do, we want to hear it. Please tell us via our Ask page on Tumblr!
- Pay what you want for Camel Audio's sound library called Planet Earth. Additionally, 50% of the proceeds will go to charity! But there's only one day left to do this so check out the library below and head on over to their site to get some tunes.
That's all for now! Next week, we'll have more goodies for you to listen to, find out about and in general, just enjoy!


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San Francisco became the city of love again yesterday when the 9th Circuit lifted its stay on same-sex marriage. Weddings began almost immediately at SF City Hall and continued into the evening.
These adorable boys were handing flowers to every newlywed couple they saw.
Because love is love. So simple even adults know it when they see it.


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Fluorite Teardrop Plugs #FR-022-40-D (22mm)
$ 40.60
Purchase this exact set. No questions as to what the pair you select will look like, the photo provided is the exact set you will receive!
Rainbow Fluorite is an incredibly beautiful stone with a very wide color variance from set to set. Fluorite occurs in a range of colors from colorless to black.
We have hand-selected some of the most beautiful stone available and crafted into beautiful plug sets for your enjoyment. Every set is unique, don't miss out on the chance to own one of these amazing plug sets before the one you like is snatched up!
***These pictures are taken using studio lights, colors may appear darker in different lighting (especially on any translucent pieces).***
*This is a very dark-colored set.*
Style: teardrop cut plug, 2 sides convex
Flare: Double flare (saddle)
Size: 22mm - 18mm x 25mm
Total Length Measurements: 13.2mm and 13.2mm
Wearable Length Measurements: 9.6mm and 9.7mm
Measurements at the wearable area: 18.0mm x 25.2mm and 18.1mm x 25.1mm
Circumference Measurements: 70.5mm and 70.5mm
Diameter Equivalent: 22.5mm and 22.5mm
Fluorite #FR-022-40-D (22mm)


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The Pepsi Center is installing walk-through metal detectors for all games and concerts.
The metal detectors will be installed before the first Colorado Avalanche pre-season game on Sept. 18, according to a news release from Kroenke Sports and Entertainment.
The measure is to ensure the best safety standards for all events, the release said.
"It is a top priority at Pepsi Center to make our fans and concert attendees feel safe inside our walls," Jim Martin, president and chief executive officer at Kroenke Sports & Entertainment said in the release. "We believe that installing (detectors) will only improve our already quality safety procedures and further ensure that security screenings are executed as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Other national venues, including the Staples Center in Los Angeles, have had metal detectors for years, according to Staples' Center staff.
In Colorado, the Pepsi Center will be the first professional venue to install permanent detectors, according to the release.
It is unclear what the exact process — removal of pocket items and belts — will be.
During the last NBA season, the league required fans to be searched with handheld metal detectors and open bags for inspection.
The Pepsi Center did deploy portable walkthrough metal detectors for the Democratic National Convention in 2008, the NBA Western Conference Finals and the 2005 NBA All-Star game.
A call to Pepsi Center officials was not immediately returned.
Ryan Parker: 303-954-2409, email@example.com or twitter.com/ryanparkerdp


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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just "Like" it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
This weekend the acclaimed Chicago violinist Rachel Barton Pine (below) makes her debut with the Madison Symphony Orchestra playing Khachaturian's Violin Concerto in D minor.
The concert by the orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) opens with Prokofiev's Suite from Lieutenant Kijé and concludes with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall, 201 State St., on Friday night, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday night, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon, Oct. 20, at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall. Tickets are $19-$95. See below for details.
"There will be great discoveries in our all-Russian concert, starting with the MSO debut of virtuoso violinist Rachel Barton Pine playing the Khachaturian Violin Concerto, a big, bold and beautiful work in its MSO premiere," said MSO music director and conductor John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson). Lieutenant Kijé is sure to delight you with its wonderful melodies and infectious rhythms. Shostakovich has become a favorite with our audiences, and his ninth symphony is delightfully upbeat."
Lieutenant Kijé is the fictional protagonist of an anecdote about the reign of Emperor Paul I of Russia. The story was used as the basis of a novella by Yury Tynyanov published in 1928 and filmed in 1934, with music by Sergei Prokofiev (below). The plot is a satire on bureaucracy and is often parodied in fictional works making fun of bureaucracies, most famously in the form of the M*A*S*H television episode "Tuttle," featuring a fictional captain of similar provenance. (You can hear the popular "Troika" episode in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
Many of the themes in Violin Concerto in D minor are evocative of the native Armenia of Aram Khachaturian (below). Although the folk melodies aren't played explicitly, one can hear the Armenian roots through the oriental essence of the scales and the rhythmic range of the featured dances. The piece won the Stalin Prize in 1941, becoming one of Khachaturian's favorites.
Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9 is entirely unlike his other symphonies. In fact, it completely disregards the expectations for its programmatic elements. Shostakovich's prior two symphonies are thematically tied to the ongoing war, therefore the public presumed that the ninth symphony would be a grand culmination to Stalin and mark the end of World War II. Instead, the composer (below) produced a short, neo-classical work that generated an abundance of controversy.
In both art and life, violinist Rachel Barton Pine (below) – who has performed in Madison before with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra — has an extraordinary ability to connect with people.
Celebrated as a leading interpreter of great classic and contemporary works, her performances combine her innate gift for emotional communication and her scholarly fascination with historical research. She plays with passion and conviction, thrilling audiences worldwide with her dazzling technique, lustrous tone, and infectious joy in music-making.
A prolific recording artist, she has also championed the works of female composers and African-American composers.
Pine was also recently named the recipient of the Cedille Records Musical Partnership Award for her Rachel Barton Pine Foundation. The Foundation was recognized as an organization that has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the classical music community in Chicago. Cedille noted the Foundation's "support of the Chicago musical community's most valuable asset — its musicians and composers."
Pine was presented with the award by U.S Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose son, Jim Ginsburg, founded Cedille Records. Pine began her Foundation in 2001 to provide instruments and instruction to children who might not otherwise be able to afford them.
You can read the Artist Story online about how Rachel Barton Pine overcame severe injuries and her own personal adversity to achieve her goals: https://madisonsymphony.org/19-20-artist-story-rachel-barton-pine-overcomes-adversity/
The lobby opens 90 minutes prior to each concert.
One hour before each performance, retired MSO trombonist and UW-Whitewater professor Michael Allsen (below, in a photo by Katrin Talbot) will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers' understanding and listening experience. It is free to ticket holders.
The MSO recommends that concert attendees arrive early for each performance to make sure they have time to pass through Overture Center's security stations, and so they can experience the Prelude Discussion.
Program notes for the concerts are available online: http://bit.ly/msooct19programnotes.
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.


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Covers major parts, including engine, all-wheel drive (AWD), transmission, towing and car rental.
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During covered repairs, you will receive towing and rental car reimbursements.
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Includes wear and tear, onboard computers and other items often excluded from service agreements.
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What vehicles are eligible for Added Security®?
- Added Security was created exclusively for Subaru vehicles. Any Subaru model that is still covered under Subaru of America's basic warranty is eligible for Added Security unless the vehicle is used commercially or is equipped with a snowplow.
What is the cost of an Added Security plan?
- Plan costs vary depending on the terms of the plan (e.g., length of coverage, deductible amounts, etc.). Your local Subaru retailer will be in the best position to give you specific pricing for all of the available plans.
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- You can select the length of coverage that best suits your needs. You have a choice between eight different plan terms. You can even choose a plan that covers your Subaru until it is 7 years old or has accumulated 100,000 odometer miles, whichever comes first. The plan term is calculated from the start of the factory warranty and at 0 miles.
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- If your plan includes roadside assistance coverage, Cross Country Motor Club will send you a separate package that will provide a 24-hour toll-free emergency number to call, as well as detailed information about the many other services available to you.
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The Chinchilla (+ Homemade Ginger Ale)
Necessity is the mother of invention; I think many a cocktail owes its existence to low alcohol tolerance.
Granted, some cocktails have an astronomical liquor-to-mixer ratio. You know, the kind so strong that you can enjoy approximately one drink on any given weeknight– maybe one and a half on a weekend– but where's the fun in that?
I may be one of the world's slowest drinkers (I have to microwave my cup of coffee at least three times every morning) but I'd still prefer to drink several lighter cocktails in an evening, rather than one so potent it just sits there, becoming increasingly warm and watery, yet still somehow tasting too alcoholic to be truly enjoyable.
I've been old enough for a while now that I don't feel the need to grimace at the harsh taste of alcohol in my drinks just to feel that I've gotten my money's worth. I want to drink something that tastes good.
This cocktail was born of a collaboration.
I was spending a typical, low-key evening with a few friends– just sitting around the table, drinking and playing board games.
Of these friends, one is the sort who enjoys sipping tequila without even using a mixer, and one is the sort who never drinks any alcohol but is fond of (non-alcoholic) ginger beer (and donuts). That evening, I was the sort who had shown up with donuts, but had neglected to bring over any of my own preferred things to drink.
My pickings were slim: tequila, ginger beer, water, or milk.
So I did what any lover-of-the-tasty-cocktail would do. I poured myself a few sips worth of tequila and topped it off with the non-alcoholic ginger beer. Success! Not that I'd invented any new, crazy flavor; the best part was that it tasted like… ginger beer! (And– dangerous though it may be– that is how I like my tequila best: undetectable.)
But what to name this new Ginger + Tequila combination? Easily solved with a little help from my friends. We dubbed this cocktail the Chinchilla. (Which sounds much more intriguing and less cheesy than a ginger-quila.)
My tequila-sipping friend agreed the resulting drink was tasty. My alcohol-abstaining friend continued to abstain. And I drank multiple Chinchillas, with no adverse effects on my already poor Scrabble skills.
I felt that I'd struck tequila-consumption gold with this drink, so I am sharing the recipe with you here. You can re-create our original Chinchilla exactly with just some store-bought ginger beer and tequila, but I thought it'd be worth a try to make it from scratch using homemade ginger syrup.
The storebought ginger beer was like a spicier, citrusier ginger ale, so I added fresh lime juice and a few peppercorns to my ginger syrup, and loved the result. (Paula thought it was a little too spicy, but you can modify it to your own taste, by leaving out the peppercorns, or adding more brown sugar or lime juice.)
The syrup might take a little longer to prepare than is typical for a cocktail, but you can make extra and store it in the fridge, and you can use it for The Chinchilla or just for delicious Homemade Ginger Ale. I'm sure there are plenty of other great uses for it, too– let me know if you discover some! (Perhaps combine it with actual beer? Or drizzle it over ice cream?)
Print both recipes. (PDF)
Ginger Lime Syrup (for Homemade Ginger Ale)
(Adapted from Sushi Secrets by Marisa Baggett.)
(Makes 1-1⅓ cup, or enough to flavor about 6 drinks)
~ 4-5 oz. fresh ginger, peeled and sliced (about 1 heaping cup)
~ 1¾ cup water
~ ½ cup brown sugar
~ ½ cup agave syrup (or substitute brown sugar)
~ 3-5 black peppercorns (optional)
~ 3-4 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (from about 1 lime)
For Ginger Ale:
~ club soda or seltzer, chilled
~ lime wedges to garnish
How to make it:
1. Peel the ginger (or scrub it clean) then slice it into thin rounds and set aside.
2. In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the water, brown sugar, and agave syrup, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then add the ginger and peppercorns and bring the mixture to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes, then remove from heat, cover, and steep another 10 minutes.
3. Strain out the ginger and peppercorns, then return the mixture to the saucepan and add the fresh lime juice. Bring to a boil, and simmer down until the mixture has reduced into a syrup (5-10 minutes).
4. Allow to cool completely before using the syrup. (Syrup can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for several days.)
5. To make Homemade Ginger Ale / Ginger Beer: measure out 1-1½ oz. ginger lime syrup into a glass. Top with 4 oz. seltzer or club soda. Garnish with lime.
The Chinchilla
~ 1-1½ oz. ginger lime syrup
~ ½-¾ oz. tequila
~ 4-5 oz. club soda or seltzer, chilled
~ 1-2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
~ lime wedge to garnish
How to make it:
1. Measure out ginger lime syrup and tequila into a glass (I used small 7 oz. juice glasses in these photos).
2. Top with club soda or seltzer and add several ice cubes if desired. Give it a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice, then garnish with a wedge of lime.
Print these recipes! (PDF)
Related recipe posts:
> Cara Cara Cocktail (two ways)
> Citrusy Sangria
> Ginger Coconut Rice
April 25, 2013 11:20 am
With dark rum this would have been a Dark & Stormy. I like the idea of your tequila version better, though. Were you drinking Blanco, Anejo, or Reposado do you know? I'm more fond of the anejo, it looses some of the harsher edges.
April 27, 2013 5:26 am
My alcohol tolerance is quite pathetic so I'm with you…rather have a few lighter drinks than one knock-out drink! LOVE the ginger in this. It's my favorite cocktail flavor!
May 1, 2013 9:18 am
Ginger and lime – two things I absolutely love, look forward to trying out this refreshing drink : )