Editor’s Note: As an independent news source, The Gralien Report takes pride in providing quality content to its readers which, as the subtitle within the banner at the top of this page reads, falls into the category of “weird news, anomalies, and exopolitics from beyond the fringe.” Occasionally, there are also political news items of a terrestrial nature that fall into our areas of consideration; in this case, they have to do with the potential for future dissemination of content on the web by independent sources like us. Thus, our very own Matthew Oakley presents the following commentary regarding the controversies surrounding the recent Stop Online Piracy Act bill.

The current SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) bill has been sending controversial shock waves across the internet. There is hardly a blog or forum that can be found that does not show strong opinions regarding this new bill, and the almost unanimous argument seems to center around the infringement of the First Amendment. Websites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, AOL, eBay, Mozilla, and a slew of others have recently united in dissent of this standing proposition before the United States Congress.

Brought before the House of Representatives in late October as the SOPA, also called the E-PARASITE Act (Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation) or H.R.3261, the bill would allow government regulation of websites such as Google, amongst others, disallowing them to advertise or support what are being called “rogue websites” that allow the P2P (peer-to-peer) sharing of almost any sort of media imaginable. Those against the bill state that it would allow the government to shut down any website that they felt was pirating or providing “counterfeit” content.

Read more of this entry…

I try not to focus too heavily on mainstream politics here at The Gralien Report. However, a common running theme we feature here does have to do with pulling back the unrealistic facade presented by mainstream organizations, whether that be among scientific establishments, government organizations, or as this case details, the media.

In the video clip above, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show does a pretty effective job exposing the way the mainstream news sources–and not just one or two, but a variety of them–have dismissed or outright ignored Ron Paul, the Libertarian Congressman and now three-time Presidential candidate from Texas. Despite what your own political feelings toward the matter may be, one must acknowledge unconditionally the ridiculous bias these news sources are showing… and despite my own political feelings toward the matter, I commend Jon Stewart and the staff at The Daily Show for highlighting this so effectively for us. Trust me, this is far more important than many realize… and I’m about to tell you why…

Read more of this entry…

We’ve all heard of altitude sickness before, and even of the sort of light-headed sensations that can sometimes occur while ascending to great heights while traveling by air. Maybe you’ve even seen that classic episode of The Twilight Zone where William Shatner spies a terrible gremlin on the wing of the aircraft he is flying on, which threatens to take down the flight with its apparent appetite for steel. But a recent series of very real incidents involving what officials call an “outbreak of insanity” on various airlines has prompted baffling statements from pilots and FAA officials.

According to a report appearing in USA Today, the most recent of a series of incidents where passengers have behaved erratically–and even tried to open emergency doors in mid-flight–occurred Tuesday night. A Delta Air Lines Airbus A320 flight en route toward Boston was interrupted when a disgruntled 43-year-old passenger, Robert Hersey, apparently attempted to open an emergency door on the plane. Witnesses to this apparent instance of “air insanity” noted that Hersey had been seen drinking, however, and “appeared upset when the flight was late.” He was arrested by Massachusetts police after an emergency landing took place.

Read more of this entry…

Man has always held a particular fascination with the dark side. Whether it be the intrigue and thrill of embracing certain cultural taboos while behind closed doors, or conversely, donning the appearance of darkness and danger so as to stand out in a crowd, the embodiment of negativity in our culture has always harnesses a particular appeal. As the controversial performer Marilyn Manson once put it, perhaps this is because “we all fall a little short of the glory” ourselves, and there is a certain natural tendency that results to embrace mankind’s darker shortcomings, if only in sparing amounts.

As evidence of this, according to the numbers there seems to be a rise in interest among subjects pertaining to Nazism, says Clive Anderson, who yesterday presented his program “Nazi Gold: Publishing the Third Reich,” on BBC Radio 4. Writing for BBC News Magazine, the author delved into this odd, slightly disturbing trend a bit, noting that “The phenomenal and continuing success of books about the Nazis includes fiction, non-fiction and science fiction.” The well known occult connections to Nazism, as well as “Nazi magic, Nazi weaponry and Nazi doctors” are all elements Anderson lists at the forefront of this mounting wave of interest… or obsession, perhaps. After all, numbers have risen in the last decade, according to Anderson, who points out that “a staggering 850 books about the Third Reich were published in 2010, up from 350 in the year 2000.”

Anderson, wondering if such fascination is “necessary to understand the workings of a deranged mind,” also cites “something bordering on hero worship” and that the potential for “some form of Nazi fetish” could be at play here, emerging like a serpent time had forgotten from beneath the doldrumous surface of a placid, stagnate lake. Is this really the case? Or, perhaps, with time and distance separating us somewhat from the horrors of war, do people now feel more comfortable having frank discussions about the wicked atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis? One might even argue that such sentiments even embody an odd sympathy for their culture adopted by some, which, perceived as a moment in time, shows the Nazis as people forced into a kind of extreme nationalism as the byproduct of economic turmoil… thus resulting in something horribly corrupted; an unethical regime whose outward and self-imposed dehumanization revealed the darkest elements of the human soul.

Read more of this entry…