Merging with the Kingdom of Yahweh

by Christian Walters

I was hoping to have this space dedicated to a bitchin' interview with John Hodgman, who just came through Atlanta on a book tour. But he decided to get interviewed by Suchita Vadlamani instead, only because she's smoking hot and is also on TV every morning. She almost read his book!

Maybe later.

Instead, I want to warn you all about driving in Australia. Don't do it. The marmite-a-thol they use for fuel attracts sharks, and their spiders are strong enough to steal your hubcaps and smart enough to avoid jury duty. They have mutant cats you can't sneak up on, and cults that disregard traffic laws and have fugly websites.

I would take you on the tour of what this apocalyptic cult says, but it's basically summed up on their timeline. It's nothing you haven't heard anyway (although the red dragon might be new). But this fun bunch of guys* have interpreted scripture to say "you are not subject to the laws of the state of Victoria." So, no drivers licenses, no car registrations, no gun permits, and no steady source of income to pay their fines.

According to some Aussie News Sources, the Kingdom is ignoring traffic laws, making fake tags, and stockpiling weapons. Like it says in the Bible, I guess? The reason so many of us are unsure that Jesus ever existed was because he refused to get a government-issued I.D. and scraped the Mule Identification Number off. The weapons thing is... more of a stretch, but is an old cult favorite, so what the hell?

To continue with their disregard of Parliament, they claim they'll violate the law against booby trapping their license plates with rivets and razor blades. Another entry in the "Are you sure this is okay with God?" pile.

I've never been to Australia, so I can only guess what the net effect on traffic would be down there. If they tried that crap in Atlanta, it would be unimaginable. No one alternating their merges? No one using their turn signals? Ignoring the speed limit? It would be gridlo--... hmmmm.

Okay, so maybe this isn't the scariest cult around for those of us who live in large, poorly designed cities. If you ignore traffic laws in Atlanta, you will be mistaken for a native. Take it to extremes, and you will get capped. (Isn't that just like a cultist? Brings a booby trapped license plate to a gun fight.) But we're talking about Australia.

It took me awhile to look them up, but I found the Australian traffic laws. They are written on the desiccated skin of a dead Tasmanian who came to Canberra wanting to find where "that Hobbit movie" was made, so it took some work. These are the rules the Kingdom of Yahweh are too holy to follow:

1) no more than two dead aborigines strapped to your roof after 10pm except during hunting season

2) spiders larger than 4 meters in diameter have right-of-way at uncontrolled intersections

3) driving without a knife is strictly prohibited (Refer to the Paul Hogan Official Knife Identification Guide for a list of approved weapons)

4) do not ride your alligator on controlled-access roads if your blood-alcohol level is greater than 10.5%

5) a shark on the roof does not count towards your occupancy total for HOV lane access

6) when tracking something, move the animal droppings fully off the road before tasting

I do not know what life in Australia will be like if people cast these rules aside, and I do not want to know. Hell on Earth, and not just because of the vegemite and Fosters and unregulated Yahoo Serious. Yet this is exactly the kind of society in which the Kingdom of Yahweh wishes to live, at least until 2012 when we all die anyway.


After Australian society breaks down, Air Supply will be hunted for their pelts and the aphrodisiac properties of their powdered bones.

So far, the Australian authorities have vowed to persecute the Kingdom of Yahweh lawbreakers just like they would any other violator: strapping an electric eel to their giblets and playing non-stop Midnight Oil videos. (Many objective observers feel this to be overly harsh, at least on the eel.) I hope the Aussies mean it, but those freedom of religion types are always bitching about this kind of thing. Already there are legions of American snake-handlers planning a trip Down Under to show their support, as soon as they can figure out how to drive their El Camino there.

So we here at Totally Overlapping HQ will keep our eyes on this, unless we forget. In the meantime, if you have to drive in Australia, please take recommended precautions: park your car just outside the rental agency, and run screaming down the wrong side of the road.

Happy Holidays!

*I don't have the group's demographic breakdown, but come on. They're mostly guys.

Christian Walters lives, loves, and drives in the Atlanta area. He's a technical writer by training, and a Rock Band Adonis by nature. He has honed his reviewing skills on bad movies, which are as rare as pollen grains these days. He has always been a fan of science, and has studied it as much as he could by flinging a Frisbee around campus while getting a liberal arts degree.

Mormon Backlash

By now, you've probably heard that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a. the Mormons, a.k.a. the Osmonds) pumped millions of dollars into the campaign to pass California's Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in the state. This despite the fact that Mormons make up a tiny fraction of the state's population and otherwise have no business doing that kind of overt politicking as a tax-exempt religious institution. Well, it turns out many Mormons are pretty pissed at their beloved church and are publicly tossing their memberships due to what they see as hateful bullying and outright bigotry. But putting aside for a moment the fact that the church itself is one of the most well documented and astoundingly lucrative cons in the history of man, do these people really have a leg to stand on? I'm all for Mormons renouncing their faith if they choose to (maybe if enough of them leave the fold, Utahans will finally be able to get ahold of some decent porn), but since the religion is based on the Bible, it really has no choice but to renounce homosexuality. I mean, God (or his ghostwriters) made it pretty clear that gays should be held in the same esteem as adulterers, shellfish eaters, and women who braid their hair. It seems to me that by fighting gay marriage, the Mormon church is just putting their money where their mouths are. Which, for those of you playing at home, is somewhere inside their own asses. More details here.

George W. Bush: PEACEkeeper

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Vitamins Schmitamins

As an open skeptic, I sometimes have a reputation among my friends and family as a chronic naysayer who doesn't believe in anything. And to that I say nay. I believe in some things. I just doubt I'm correct in those beliefs. But I really get some eye rolls when I publicly poo-poo the flagrant use of vitamin supplements. Everyone seems to be popping these pills, simply because they hear that vitamins are good for them. But what they don't realize is that even though certain doses may be good for them, that doesn't mean any dose will do. Science, it turns out, backs this up. Several major studies recently have revealed that vitamin supplements often don't do what they claim to and can even hurt you if abused. Vitamin E, for example, was found to do nothing to prevent cancer or heart disease. In fact, those taking excess amounts of vitamin E via supplement pills were found to have increased instances of various cancers. Turns out too much vitamin C, which people take thinking it will stave off cancer and other illnesses, can also increase your cancer risk. And vitamins aren't the only potentially useless pills cluttering up your medicine cabinet. The popular herbal supplement ginkgo biloba, which is touted as helping with memory loss and fighting off dementia, doesn't do squat to keep your mind sharp. And it can raise your risk of internal bleeding. Read all about these studies and more here.

Florida: A Little Less Crazy After All

Sometimes it seems like Florida is nothing but a malignant tumor of ignorance and hatred dangling off America's chin. But then there's good news like this. A circuit court judge has ruled that Florida's ban on gay adoption is unconstitutional. No, not the adoption of gays, silly. Gays adopting kids. After testimony from numerous experts in child psychology and social work, Judge Cindy Lederman ruled that there was no rational or scientific basis for denying gay people the same adoption rights as straights. Indeed, any infringement on gay rights should be ruled unconsitutional, since the primary arguments against state-recognized homosexuality are religious and, therefore, a violation of the Establishment Clause. Weirdly, gays in Florida have always been allowed to act as foster parents, which was another issue Judge Lederman raised in her ruling. In fact, this legal challenge against Florida's gay adoption ban came from a gay man who wanted to legally adopt the two children he's been fostering since 2004. Hopefully this will be a kick in the pants for the two other states with anti-gay adoption laws. In Utah, no unmarried couples are allowed to adopt, be they gay or straight. And Mississippi bans gay couples from adopting, but not single gay people. Truly, family values at work. More details here.

Anti-Scientology Swordsman Killed

A bald, tattooed gentleman dual-wielding a couple of samurai swords was shot and killed by a security guard at the Cult of Scientology's Celebrity Centre in Hollywood after charging the building in some kind of crazy rage. A cult spokesperson said the man had a "relationship" with the cult a while back, but no further details were available. Since the guy wasn't wearing a ridiculous mask, it's probably safe to assume he had nothing to do with the anti-Scientology group Anonymous, though he may have been a member of the international terrorist organization known as Cobra. But he obviously had some kind of beef with the cult. Could he have been one of the unlucky few chosen to service L. Ron Hubbard aboard his international waters pleasure yacht? Perhaps. More likely, he was just insane. But let this be a lesson to everyone that the best way to protest oppressive cults is with the pen, not with two samurai swords. More details here.

Chinese Anti-"Chinese Democracy"

Chinese Democracy, the long-awaited new album from what’s left of Guns n’ Roses (mostly just the Rose at this point), is a lot of things: surprisingly good, late ‘80s rocking without sounding like a relic of the late ‘80s, chock full of bewildering musical decisions that even more bewilderingly took fifteen years to make. But a “venomous attack” on China? Not so much. However, that’s just what the Chinese government is claiming in their state-sponsored media as both a general rebuke against the album and as a sort of backdoor explanation for why the thing will never be allowed to be legally imported into the country. Of course, that won’t stop intrepid Chinamen (can we call them that anymore, or is that term now considered so retro it’s not racist?) from torrenting the thing from behind anonymous proxy servers. After all, the Chinese have continued to enjoy this very site even though it’s sometimes banned in some places in the country with no apparent reasoning or method. While the title track from the album does engage in a little gentlemanly prodding at China’s disastrous history of human rights abuses between the serpentine wails from what’s left of Axl Rose’s throat, I’m sure that Mr. Rose would love to have his album sold in the country. If only to recoup the expenses of whatever the hell he’s been doing these past fifteen years. More details here.