Just how brainwashed are you?

Watch embedded below, or click the link: WTC7 — This is an Orange.

If, after watching the video, you irrationally feel very defensive of the the government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory, you may need help…

Tip of the hat to Gerard Ryan for the video link.

Facebook poll:

Should “In God We Trust” be taken off our currency?
- YES! YES! YES!
- It probably should be.
- I don’t care either way.
- NO! NO! NO!
- It probably should remain on there.

My thoughts:

Since the Declaration of Independence makes it clear that governments created by humanity derive their powers from the consent of the governed, not from any gods, I think it should only be decided by a vote.

Furthermore, if one’s faith — or lack of faith, or indifference — is threatened by having the motto removed, one’s faith is pretty shaky.

And if one wants the motto to remain simply to coerce others to honor one’s personal religiosity, then one deserves to have Thomas “freedom of religion” Jefferson fly out of his tomb and clock one’s noggin with a cornerstone of Monticello.

And if one believes America will suffer the more if she doesn’t appease God Almighty with a phrase on her currency, one believes in a rather insecure and wimpy little god almighty.

And if one doesn’t know that the motto didn’t appear on any U.S. currency until after a civil war in 1864–almost a hundred years after the birth of the nation–then one is also ignorant of the history of the great United States of America.

So, since there’s not a “vote on it” option, I guess I don’t care either way :-)

Ram Bomjon from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal, may be enlightened.

While some say he is the reincarnation of the Buddha, Ram himself has clearly stated he is not (Duhhh…like, dude, Siddhartha Gautama already reached nirvana, so, like, why would he be coming back here for another round?)

A couple of years ago, in 2006 and 2007, he gained a lot of media attention for spending months in meditation — supposedly without food or water. Unfortunately for Ram, the further he moved into the jungle to be alone and meditate, the more people followed to hang out with him, until thousands of visitors were making the trek to watch him sit all day in unmoving silence.

I vaguely remember the media bubble popping with rumors that he’d been proved a fake. Then I ran across this video investigation done by a crew from the Discovery Channel…

Let me see if I have this straight: a boy goes off to be alone and meditate. Strangers throw a party on whatever spot he retreats to in search of solitude. The world puts him on a pedestal, then denounces him as a charlatan.

I’m guessing Buddha Boy, who, after the media’s feeding frenzy disappeared into the jungle for a year and then reemerged briefly in 2008, is glad the world moved on. Actually, I’ll bet he doesn’t care whether the rest of us have moved on or not…the world is what it is.

Watch the documentary embedded below, or click this link: The Boy with Divine Powers.