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[A conversation Lynn C. Rees had once with his oldest niece]

Crazy Uncle: Do you know what a good cat name would be?

Teenage Niece (impatient): What?

Crazy Uncle: Chairman Meow

Teenage Niece (bewildered): What?

Crazy Uncle: Do you know who Chairman Mau is? Mau DzeDung?

Teenage Niece (with half-eye roll): No.

Crazy Uncle: He ruled China. He killed 100 million people.

Teenage Niece (incredulous): Really? Did he get punished?

Crazy Uncle: No, he died in his bed, of old age.

Teenage Niece (still incredulous): Really? That sucks.

Crazy Uncle: Yes it does. Do they teach you, um, history or whatnot in school?

Teenage Niece (authoritatively): No. My history teachers suck.

Good news for the niece: Justice may have happened after all.

The World’s Most Dangerous Man™, Edward M. Luttwak, has revealed he was in Peiping when Mau died. Coincidence? Never: with Luttwak, paradoxically, there is no coincidence, only the Romanian Death Cuff. Watch and gape below at a man who’s killed ninjas while armed only with a paperback edition of The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Johns Hopkins University Press, January 1, 1979).

[ by Charles Cameron — keeping you in the “loopy” loop ]
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There’s more ridiculous sloshing around on the web than I can hope to monitor, but my personal collection hit a couple of high points recently that I thought I should share with you. Did you know, for instance, that Israel recently exploded a nuclear bomb in Syria? How could you consider yourself informed, and be unaware of such a thing? It was on YouTube…

But pshaw, that’s secular nonsense, and as you know, my tastes run to the religious. So did you know the emeritus Pope Benedict had a demonic advisor by his side while he was making a major speech?

That sure as hell beats out the namby-pamby 10 Weirdest Fundamentalist Christian Conspiracy Theories an Alternet writer came up with, eh?

In any case, please watch both the above videos: I trust you will then realize that the world is in far worse shape than you thought it was before reading this post.

After all, it’s on YouTube.

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How about this?

Latest conspiracy theory from #Iraq: US will strike rebels not Assad. Iran will blow up Sayyida Zainab shrine & then massacre Sunnis in Iraq

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) September 8, 2013

Hang on a moment, Sayyida Zaynab is the shrine dear to Shiites that Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada is defending, as this graphic suggests:

And last but not least, consider this, from a US Senator:

Coincidence!?!? — or just a clumsy creative leap?

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NB: Updated to replace “Hezbollah” with “Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada” above — h/t Phillip Smyth.

[ by Charles Cameron — a qualit with little time for quants making another graceful retraction ]
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I haven’t been too convinced that algorithms were good at understanding my interests — remember that ad for “bold” Christian shirts (and babe) some fool code placed on Islamic Awakening — a site I was visiting to read up on Awlaqi?

Well, those algos are improving… Here’s what YouTube thinks I might want to listen to next, hot from the digital presses…

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Turing Test: check!

I’d say YouTube’s algorithm has finally figured out — at least momentarily — the basics of who I am.

[ by Charles Cameron — two short video clips for your refreshment ]
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Even the magisterial Zen needs a break from time to time, so here’s my Sunday Surprise for this week — enjoy!

Under Snow (2011) from ma.ja.de. on Vimeo.

[ by Charles Cameron — at the confluence of two relatively new religious movements ]
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I’ve known for a while that Minister Louis Farrakhan had expressed a positive view of L Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, but this short clip from a Nation of Islam leadership talk took me by surprise:
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I am not a member of either faith, let alone both — but as a student of religions I find possible confluences between them — such as this one promises to be — fascinating.