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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

What the Ancient Maya Tell Us About 2012

by Mark van Stone, FAMSI (Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies Inc.)
This is the most definitive article on the subject I have seen.

"
Maya Scholars, in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and North America, have been watching with amusement and dismay as self-styled experts proclaim that ancient Maya prophets foretold an earth-shattering happening to occur December 21, 2012. This predicted phenomenon gets described in contradictory but often cataclysmic fashion -- as an ecological collapse, a sunspot storm, a rare cosmic conjunction of the earth, sun, and the galactic center, a new and awesome stage of our evolution, and even a sudden reversal of the Earth's magnetic field which will erase all our computer drives. One even predicts the earth's initiation into a Galactic Federation, whose elders have been accelerating our evolution with a 'galactic beam' for the last 5000 years. In sum, the world as we know it will suddenly come to a screeching halt."

"These predictions are alleged to be prophecies by so-called 'Ancient Mayans' whose 'astronomically precise' calendar supposedly terminates on that date. According to such accounts, these mysterious Maya geniuses appeared suddenly, built an extraordinary civilization, designed in it clues for us, and then suddenly, inexplicably, vanished, as if they had completed their terrestrial mission. These same experts claim special credibility for the Maya prophecies by asserting that these historic sages, with their possible extraterrestrial origins, had tapped into an astonishing esoteric wisdom."

"Could Any of This Be True?"
"The credibility of those claims deserves rational attention - which is what I intend to provide. Neither mystic nor prophet, I am a Mayanist. More specifically, I am a professional art historian and an epigrapher (less formally, a glypher), one who can read and write Maya hieroglyphs. For over a decade, I have focused my scholarly research specifically on Maya culture and writing, making some surprising discoveries that can present a more definitive perspective on the prophecies of the ancient Maya seers. As we approach the critical year, it is time to offer a more viable account of the Maya prophecy and expose both the fallacies and ethnocentricism tainting the current sensational accounts."

Lots more here :-
http://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/index.html
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Scientology Ads Take Over the Web

Scientology Ads Take Over the Web
by Jordon Golson, GigaOM, July 7, 2009.

"Google AdSense is serving up ads from the Church of Scientology, the cult/religion founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard — and Seth Weintraub, for one, can’t seem to ban them from his site. Weintraub’s Macintosh rumors page, 9to5Mac, might seem an odd place for Scientology to advertise, but the Church is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz to promote the organization."
"Weintraub noted that he didn’t have a problem with any advertiser in particular, until his readers started complaining about the adverts, especially since he hadn’t noticed any rise in ad revenue. However, when he attempted to rid his site of the ads with competitive URL filtering — one of the tools Google gives its AdSense users, they had no effect. Weintraub writes in Computerworld, “I’ve…put every Scientology URL in the filter. To no avail. The Scientology ads keep coming.” It seems this isn’t a new problem, either; other users have been having similar problems dating back to February."
more...
http://gigaom.com/2009/07/07/scientology-ads-take-over-the-web/

"Google didn’t respond to requests for comment."
Why aren't we surprised !!

Comments - at GigaOM

"And if it’s not Scientology itself, it’s a Scientology front group like Narconon. Those Narconon ads are everywhere, usually deceptively hiding behind another name.
What’s really annoying is how Google News indexes all the
Scientology public relations releases, as if they were actually news. Scientology starts churning those out whenever some negative story appears, to bury it.
Anyways, the Scientology Office of Special Affairs internet
patrollers will show up soon to comment here and explain this."
Bob Dobbs

"As much as people are getting frustrated about this topic which is starting to appear in a large number of articles now… I am a very positive person and you must look for the positive in every situation.
For people like me who focus on making money from their websites, this is an area that we can get some money out of Scientology group… haha! (Jokes).
Happy making money online!"
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Making money from visitors to websites is surely not a responsible thing to do when users clicking on the ads could easily be seduced by Scientology.
It seems obvious that Scientology is a destructive cult. No doubt (most) ex-Church Of God people wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole!
Of course, it would help a lot if the websites could filter the Scientology ads effectively ....
and perhaps the mighty Google should ignore its huge profits for once, and ban ads from organizations that are widely regarded to be run by con men and women - who use powerful mind control techniques, and ruin peoples' lives and bank balances.
(Sure! ... I'll be amazed if that happens!)

http://hubpages.com/hub/Sorry--I-Dont-Want-A-Scientology-Ad-On-My-Hubs-Get-It-Off
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