Russian Firm Reveals Plan To Build Hotel In Space
Looking for a real getaway? It sounds more sci-fi than real, but outer space may be a future vacation spot. Daily Mail reports:
Russia yesterday announced plans for a hotel in orbit 217 miles up which would house seven guests in four cabins and have huge windows for views of the Earth turning below.
Just getting there will be an adventure in itself – it will take two days aboard a Soyuz rocket – and it won’t exactly be a budget holiday: A five day stay will cost you £100,000, on top of £500,000 for your journey.
The hotel, or the Commercial Space Station to give it its proper name, is due to open by 2016 and, according to those behind it, will be ‘far more comfortable’ than the International Space Station used by astronauts and cosmonauts.
In the weightlessness of space, visitors can choose to have beds that are either vertical or horizontal, while…
Iraqi Christians Cancel Christmas
Arts & Crafts on the Victory Base Complex, Iraq Photo: Staff Sgt. Joy Pariante
Christmas isn’t always accompanied with holiday cheer, sometimes it comes with death threats. MSNBC reports:
Iraqi Christians on Wednesday called off Christmas festivities across the country as al-Qaida insurgents threatened more attacks on a beleaguered community still terrified from a bloody siege at a Baghdad church two months earlier.
A council representing Christian denominations across Iraq advised its followers to cancel public Christmas celebrations out of concern over new terror attacks and as a show of mourning for the victims of the church siege and other violence.
Church officials in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, the southern city of Basra and in the capital confirmed they will not put up Christmas decorations or hold evening Mass and have urged worshippers to refrain from decorating their homes.
Even an appearance by Santa Claus was called off.
“Nobody can ignore the threats…
Jesus Shooting Santa
A man in Santa Maria, California has stoked outrage locally with his lawn display of Jesus shooting Santa Claus with a double-barreled shotgun, to protest the lack of attention paid to Christ at Christmastime. Residents are concerned by the scene’s close proximity to a school bus stop. I think it’s healthy for kids to see Jesus “taking out the trash.”
This Christmas, Bring Home A Crucifix Tree
Christian-themed retailer Boss Creations is “putting the ‘Christ’ back into Christmas.”
Putting one of these in the living room is a real conversation-starter…and after the holiday season is over you can hang laundry on it, or something.
Halloween and (Black and Orange) Magic
“Not pagan Samhain celebrations or the like,” to quote Chiropteran, “but bright-orange, screaming-pumpkin, Trick-or-Treating Halloween.” It’s all about doing magic with the wild, pop mystery explosion that Halloween has become. The Universal Monsters (Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein, Mummy) as the spirits of the North, South, East, and West; invocations of Jack Skellington; Jack-o-lanterns as the undead spirit servants we all carve every year to protect our homes from evil.
Halloween and Black (and Orange) Magick
Chiropteran – Well, yesterday was October 1st, the official opening day (by my reckoning) of the Halloween season.
This year, as part of my overarching goal to get my magickal butt in gear, I’ve decided to do a nightly meditation/devotion/working to hammer my Halloween Magick system into shape.
(I don’t know if anyone’s interested in the particulars, but here goes anyway, for any of you who are…)
I started last night by turning the lights down and reading some H. P. Lovecraft…
