"Eternal Devotion to the Dark Goddess" is finally ready.
  Yeah, I know. It's about damn time. Four years is a long time
to wait between releases, but keep in mind that don't make music for a
living and thus I need a full time job to pay the bills. The down side is
that I can't spend as much time making music as I want to, but the up
side is that I have full creative control over every part of the music and
art that go into Fireaxe. I feel that it's worth the trade-off. But even if
I were independently wealthy and could spend as much time as I wanted
making music I don't think that I could write and record more than one
CD every two years. Inspiration is critical to the creative process and
good ideas don't happen on demand. You can't force a good song out
of you. If you try it generally sounds derivative and flat. So part of the
reason that Fireaxe releases don't happen very often is that it takes time
for me to collect and assemble enough cool ideas to produce a work of
art that measures up to my standards. I'm not going to produce junk.
And yeah, I do other things besides just work and create music, so
sometimes by favorite hobby has to be set aside now and then. But now
the wait is over.

If you write reviews or put samples on your website I'll give you a
CD for free. Since I am not making any money with the current
recordings, you are free to make duplicates of them to distribute as
long as you obey the following guidelines:

1. You can only sell the duplications for the price of the medium or
  less, plus any delivery cost. You are not allowed to make any
  profit with the music.
2. You should tell me how many copies you gave out and who got them so
  I can keep track. Also, if they have an e-mail address I'd
  like that as well so I can add them to the mailing list.
3. You are likewise free to adorn any webpages or duplications with the
  gifs and jpgs on my website as long as you include an obvious
  link back to my website. This includes putting Fireaxe song
  samples on your site as well.
4. You are free to play any Fireaxe songs (in unaltered form) provided
  you are an unsigned band without a marketing tie-in. You are
  not allowed to record those songs onto anything that you will sell.

http://neptune.net/~bev/Fireaxe.html

We laugh at independents because we know that most Americans have taken one side or the other, and use that idea set as common ground with others to drum up public support for their businesses, personalities, films and books. You can convince anyone youre a friendly good guy by being liberal and permissive, or convince those experienced enough to be cynical that youre a realist by drawing a clear line between whats acceptable and not. Its more than a political view; its a definition of your personality, and a reflection of the audience to which you want to appeal. In a more cynical statement, we want liberal neighbors and conservative bankers and lawyers, because those are the personalities who either leave us alone or work carefully with our money, respectively.

With this in mind, Pauls success is nothing short of amazing. Candidates like Nader and Badnarik appeal to a small few who are already alienated, but scare off most voters because the single-minded single-solution approach they have taken does not address a range of problems. Paul took basic conservative values, and applied to them a traditionalist twist as interpreted through the mechanism of modern libertarianism. He is both recognizably part of something we would like, which is a solid and moral conservative leader, and a bridge to a new way of thinking about government.

How Ron Paul Changed Conservatism

This post is a very long and detailed examination of what James Watson said, what the data reveal about James Watson's claims (i.e. are they, or are they not factually accurate), and what the media and scientists told the public about what the data reveal about James Watson's claims.

Contrary to the above claims, differences in intelligence between income groups are not larger than intelligence differences between racial groups in the US, nor do differences in income or wealth account for the racial differences. Whites from households in the lowest income bracket have higher IQ scores than blacks from households in the highest income bracket

Watson would only be retracting his intelligence claims if he considered those claims tantamount to claims of 'superiority' or 'inferiority', which he clearly emphasizes he doesn't. Watson is saying that questioning that all races are equal in intelligence is not racism, it is trying to figure out why the world looks the way it does, with the greatest engineers and the greatest musicians disproportionately coming, in a systematic way, from different racial backgrounds. In other words culturally separated people of African descent have been musical innovators across a diverse range of cultures (in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, North and South America, and the Caribbean), while culturally separated people of East Asian descent have excelled at math and science across a diverse range of cultures (in Asia, Europe, North and South America, and the Caribbean).

This is not a claim of racial 'superiority' or 'inferiority', either in terms of legal worth or even in terms of overall talent - since groups all have different strengths and weaknesses. It is simply the recognition that people of different genetic heritage, on average, reveal different talents wherever they are found in the world, and there is one explanation that best accounts for these observations: evolution.

In other words, Watson was thinking like a scientist. Which is exactly why he was punished.

James Watson tells the incovenient truth at Gene Expression blog

Yet another way our society is brainwashed into believing socially acceptable dogma over any shred of reality.

It's focused too much on race for my tastes, but that was the context of Watson's flap to which it is a reply, and I again would like to mention white third world nations in Eurasia like Russia and other Eastern European states which have average IQs just a few points above Mexico.

Why can't we accept that some people are smarter than others, and while we can't measure it with money, there's a rough correlation between being smarter and being more able to provide?

The unscientific bias of this society, and Slashdot (posts modded "Troll" for mentioning scientifically accurate information), worries me.

The Enlightenment was the idea of rationality, and his definition of Romanticism is probably limited, because while it celebrated human choice it based itself on the antiquities and beauty of nature.

Death metal, more profoundly than black metal, understood that the Enlightenment was a rejection of nature along with the church, and that the best aspects of Romanticism were its praises of nature and the chaotic, bloody, struggle-bound process by which our world came about.

Metal as refutation of the enlightenment at Death Metal Blog

The reviews started in 1987 on bulletin boards, but moved on, and made it to the internet around 1992 or so in FTP form. Since 1993, they've been on the web. Check out any of our band reviews to celebrate this anniversary:
 
  Abigor
  Abomination
  Abruptum
  Absu
  Absurd
  Abyss, the
  Acerbus
  Agathocles
  Adramelech
  Adversary
  Amebix
  Amorphis
  Anarchus
  Ancient
  Ancient Rites
  Angelcorpse
  Antaeus
  Arcturus
  Asgard
  Asphyx
  Atheist
  Atrocity
  At the Gates
  Autopsy
  Auzhia
  Averse Sefira
  Baphomet
  Bathory
  Behemoth
  Beherit
  Belial
  Betrayer
  Blasphemy
  Blasphereion
  Blood
  Bolt Thrower
  Brutal Truth
  Burzum
  Cadaver
  Candlemass
  Capharnaum
  Carcass
  Cartilage
  Cathedral
  Celtic Frost
  Cenotaph
  Ceremonium
  Ceremony
  Cianide
  Corrosion of Conformity
  Cryptic Slaughter
  Cryptopsy
  Cultus Sanguine
  Dark Funeral
  Darkthrone
  Dark Tranquility
  Dawn
  Dead Brain Cells (DBC)
  dead horse
  Death
  Death Strike
  Deceased
  Deeds of Flesh
  Deicide
  Demigod
  Demilich
  Demoncy
  Deteriorate
  Dimmu Borgir
  Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (DRI)
  Disfear
  Disharmonic Orchestra
  Dismember
  Dissection
  Divine Eve
  the Doors
  Drogheda
  Emperor
  Engrave
  Enslaved
  Entombed
  Eucharist
  Exhumed
  Fallen Christ
  Fearless Iranians From Hell
  Fleshcrawl
  Frozen Shadows
  Gehenna
  Godflesh
  God Macabre
  Gorgoroth
  Gorguts
  Graveland
  Grotesque
  Gutted
  Havohej
  Hellhammer
  Hemdale
  Hetsheads
  Hypocrisy
  Ildjarn
  Immolation
  Immortal
  Impaled Nazarene
  Imprecation
  Incantation
  Infester
  Infernum
  Inquisition
  I Shalt Become
  Intestine Baalism
  Kataklysm
  Katatonia
  Kilcrops
  Killing Joke
  Kong
  Korrozia Metalla
  Kreator
  Krieg
  Kvist
  Lepra
  Lord Wind
  Luciferion
  Magus
  Malediction
  Manes
  Marduk
  Massacra
  Massacre
  Master
  Mayhem
  Merciless
  Molested
  Monastery
  Monstrosity
  Morbid Angel
  Morpheus Descends
  Mortem
  Motorhead
  Mortiis
  Mortuary
  Mysticum
  My Bloody Valentine
  Mythic
  Mütiilation
  Napalm Death
  Necromantia
  Necromass
  Necrophiliac
  Necrophobic
  Niden Div 187
  NME
  Nox Intempesta
  Nuclear Assault
  Nuclear Death
  Num Skull
  Obituary
  Oppressor
  Ophthalamia
  Organic Infest
  Pathologist
  Pentagram
  Pestilence
  Possessed
  Powermad
  Profanatica
  Prong
  Pyrexia
  Rachel Barton Stringendo
  Ras Algethi
  Repulsion
  Resurrection
  Resuscitator
  Revenant
  Rigor Mortis
  Rise
  Rotting Christ
  Sacramentum
  Sadistic Intent
  Saint Vitus
  Samael
  Sammath
  Sarcofago
  Sarcophagus
  Seance
  Sentenced
  Sepultura
  Septic Flesh
  Setherial
  Sinister
  Skepticism
  Slayer
  Sodom
  Sorcier des Glaces
  Sort Vokter
  Speckmann Project
  Suffer
  Suffocation
  Supuration
  Summoning
  Swordmaster
  Tartaros
  Terrorizer
  Thanatopsis
  Tha-norr
  Therion
  Thorns
  Throne of Ahaz
  Torchure
  Torturer
  Troll
  Ulver
  Unanimated
  Under The Pagan Moon
  Uncanny
  Ungod
  Unleashed
  Vader
  Varathron
  Veles
  Voivod
  Von
  Watain
  Witchfinder General
  Xibalba
  Yamatu
  Zyklon-B
 
 

Well, freedb.org is down again. No surprise. It has been down more than up the times I've tried to do it during the last month or so. With its demise, the music industry makes ripping CDs that much more of a pain in the ass. Of course, we hear nothing from the open source community on this... can't criticize our own. But it would be nice if we stopped bending over for record companies and actually fixed this issue.

Macintosh Users: The Apple Cult, the Macintosh, the Rainbow Icon, and the Grim Reality of Apple Users and Macintosh Users Being Perverts of Every Stripe Who Love Poo Sex, Bisexual Predatory Anal, Pederasty, Smug Self-Righteousness, Pretentious False Liberalism and Dog Anal

http://www.anus.com/etc/macintosh

The old tale, attributed to African-Americans but probably invented by a Mongolian copyriter in New York, describes the tar baby left out as a lure for angry people. A tar baby is symbolic because it looks human and because it won't answer you, it can make you angry. When you then start hitting the thing, all it does is stick to you in increasing degrees, like a trap.

In the lore of ancient religions, a distinction was made between transcendental goals (honor, beauty, glory, balance) and karmic ones, or those things important only to people obsessed with material success and status. Most people are caught up in the karmic whirlwind, and so they agonize over the objects they own, their job status, who wore what at what party, etc. People ensnared in such karmic bullshit constitute parasites and obstructions to those with any higher goal, not in the least because a karmically-minded person "cannot see" the value in a higher goal.

article continues: karma

It is no longer recommended to eat fish from the ocean, because they have toxic levels of heavy metals.

It is no longer recommended to stop your car in over 1/3 of the average American or European city, because crime is so out of control.

It is no longer recommended to send smart children to regular schools, because the schools are designed to make dumb children feel accepted.

It is no longer recommended to drink water from rivers, or to eat fruit from trees grown in the suburbs.

It is no longer recommended to live in cities, because the pollution is so strong.

Today, seven billion... in ten years, nine billion. The average IQ is 85-92. Each one of these people produces a bag of garbage a day, and needs food that leaves more heavy metals in the water, more pesticides and fertilizer in our waterways.

Our politicians approve those things that make many people happy because it's what they think they want, but those things never turn out well, and problems remain. These are not problems like war, poverty and inequality, which are universal and will never go away, but problems like corruption, bad leadership, and the results.

Most cities are ugly places lined with advertising. Whatever is popular sells. Whatever sells is good, by most people's definition. They consider themselves successes if they make money and own things, but never think of the condition of their souls or minds.

Where does this course end? Nothing opposes it. It is popular. But who is thinking of the future? And most of all, who is thinking of making great art, great architecture, great music, great thinking? None of these things exist, only an incessant stream of pretty good alternatives.

Is the future of humanity doom, to fade out with a whimper and not a bang?

Some good points here. The right pretends to support traditional values by banning abortion, keeping gays unmarried and bombing Iran. The left claims to support freedom by endorsing a civil rights agenda that penalizes anyone talented, while avoiding foreign policy that needs correcting. The pattern plays itself out in every industrialized nation. The population keeps rising, as does pollution. Are we heading for doom?

I bought CDs today. Remasters, even. If you're curious (no, probably) they were the first two Carcass albums and Morbid Angel - Blessed are the Sick.

I first got all of these on tape, copied to me by acquaintances as part of the underground metal tape trading circuit (of which al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn was a member). I then bought the domestic editions available at the time, before there was money for a real mastering job, and loved those for years.

Ten years later, I'm buying the re-releases. Sound quality is better and original album artwork is intact, and the Morbid Angel CD has some extras in the liner notes and a video track. I don't know what the RIAA thinks of this, but I consider myself a responsible consumer who connected strongly with some music and has no intention to just have copies.

Of course, this music is a far cry from the transitory Britney Spears/Fifty Cent crap that would fascinate a moron for only two weeks, and bores smarter people much faster. Maybe the music industry is its own worst enemy. Death metal and black metal just don't play by the same rules as pop, rock, blues, jazz and rap.

I've decided these aren't subgenres or time periods, but attitudes that can be rediscovered in any time. You could do it now, even.

After years of trying, I'm going to just admit that I don't want to listen to anything but art created in this spirit. It's all that interests me (outside of classical/Baroque/romantic/Modern music, which is 80% or more of my listening). I don't want to talk about metalcore, emo, nu-punk, nu-metal, punk rock, and all those recent creations.

I want to talk about the stuff that got away from what all sounds the same to me, the rock and roll and punk and bounce metal hordes, because they seem to be saying the same thing: it's all about you. Death metal and black metal of the underground were scarier, because they said the opposite: life doesn't care about you, look at the big patterns like history and philosophy and DEATH and natural selection.

To this end, there's the Old School Death Metal and Black Metal Search Engine.

Today we renovated the Metal Hall Heavy Metal Forum. It has been running successfully since 2004, using forum software more adaptive than the execrable phpBB, and has grown in size but not uniformly. Our audience is generally death metal and black metal listeners who like underground material that is also musical.

The Market section was underused, in part because our readers tend to have already found ways of acquiring material. Even more, they often use other forums for that. So we nuked the market section. We also ended the Moron forum, which was a place we moved stupid posts to rot, because people were too stupid to figure out it was a place for morons and kept posting in it. We deleted them, and it, and have moved on.

We also added a video forum, and a private forum, for people who are more advanced death metal and black metal fans. We'll see how it turns out. It could be a disaster, or maybe a success, if people are able to meet us halfway and enjoy it.

Metal is not acceptable for its views. It is masculine, assertive, and warlike. It does not use an accepted structure for controllable mainstream music. It does not attempt to distract. It's a war call. And socialized people don't like that.

Metal doesn't have political views, but it has ideological life values that conflict with modern society. Control is how we make money. Control is how we force other people to be our wives, friends, neighbors. Control is usurped by the independent, holistic-moral warrior.

Metal, socially unacceptable for its values? - death metal blog

I've found this to be somewhat true just from listening to people try to hear metal for the first time. If it's heavy metal, they're more relaxed. Death metal they don't even know how to follow. It sounds random to them, confusing and like its going in every direction at once. And then once they see the songs are about death and war, and aren't laments, they get worried. It doesn't fit into the moral paradigm, by sound or by sense. Metal is war, ideological values war against the sheeplike mentality.
 

eXPONENTIATION eZINE ISSUE 6.0 OUT NOW!

In this issue:
* Discover an article pondering "Tradition and Modernity"
* Stumble upon an existential story, "The Death of Elise"
* Try a dish of Vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese
* Learn about the documentary film "Threads"
* Discover "The Birth of Tragedy"
* And more: articles, reviews, news...

A publication of hope and possibility, Exponentiation strikes boldly
against the languor of despair of this functionalistic era. Covering
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remains of human greatness and its possibilities for the future. Stay
in touch with the ideas that will re-make our world and give up on
hopelessness!

www.corrupt.org/zine

Nietzsche, Patron Saint of Black Metal?

Friedrich Nietzsche remains an enigma to this day. Rejecting objectivity, he appealed to the subjective sense of greatness and beauty in the individual in his appeal for a new society, with non-material and non-egomaniacal goals. He overthrew the illusion of morality, and defecated thoroughly upon the idea of Judeo-Christian moral supremacy. He embraced nature red in tooth and claw. Despite all of this seemingly negative outlook, much like the darkness and moribund misanthropy of black metal, his goal was ultimately one of renewal and hope for life, but one that acknowledged for life to rise we must reject the parasitic, delusional and controlling.

Some black metal bands, notably the tedious Judas Iscariot and the epic Gorgoroth, have openly embraced Nietzschean concepts like triumph of the will, the philosophical hammer, and "total war against Christianity." Others seem simply to echo the ideas he praises, such as rise of genetically supreme individuals through natural selection and a rejection of Social Darwinism, and a praise of unique native cultures worldwide. It is then quite possible that both in the first wave of black metal, and in whatever meagre remnants of it exist today, the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche have found a philosophical voice.