11/15/09

do the hokey pokey

I found this on Jane's Intelligence Review. I don't subscribe so no access to the other 4000 words. Damn.

In recent weeks, Thailand has again been forced to imagine a future without its long-standing monarch. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who will be 82 years old in December, appeared in public for the first time on 23 October, having been admitted to hospital on 19 September for fever, fatigue and lack of appetite, providing Thais with an intimation of his mortality.

No official diagnosis has been given for his illness, making it more difficult to gauge the true state of his health. However, what is not in doubt is the importance of his continued reign. Seen by many of his subjects as their main protector against the rapacity of politicians and the ambition of generals, the end of Bhumibol's reign is viewed with widespread trepidation and dread. This is particularly the case given that his chosen successor, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, is held in lower esteem than his father.

As convention and the law preclude any serious public debate on monarchical succession, discussion within Thailand about the future barely touches on such concerns or the reasons for such unease. The absence of open debate on the role and shape of the monarchy in the post-Bhumibol era also obscures the motives and dynamics behind much of the political manoeuvring, posturing and crises that have distracted the country and eroded international interest in Thailand's economic potential.

end excerpt
Well, there are some clues.

The diplomatic row between Cambodia and Thailand involves an ancient temple, Preah Vihear.
The Preah Vihear Temple was built at the beginning of the 9th century, and construction continued through the reign of King Suriya Woraman the first, 1002-1050, to be finished in the reign of King Suriya Woraman the Second, 1113-1150, when the prosperous and strong Khmer empire ruled the region 300 hundred years before the emergence of the Sukhothai Kingdom (see The Preah Vihear Temple: Politico-historical Case Study and Nationalism by Charnvit Kasetsiri, p.2)
Cambodia and Thailand have an ongoing border dispute over the area. See maps here.

To Western eyes, we see some trees and villages, an old temple, middle of nowhere. We wonder what is all this fighting about. It doesn't make too much sense to our modern minds. There must be some reason this is so important, some reason we're not tuning into.

Yes, I deduce it is location location location.

Wikipedia notes:
Preah Vihear is unusual among Khmer temples in being constructed along a long north-south axis, rather than having the conventional rectangular plan with orientation toward the east.
Hmm. So I looked up the longitude and latitude. Yeah. Jackpot.

Great circles are straight lines that go all the way around the center of the earth. The equator is a great circle. Meridians of longitude that cross over the north and south poles are also great circles. For every location on a great circle, it's antipodal location is also on the circle. Other than the equator itself, any great circle crosses the equator at two antipodal locations, 180° apart. Other than the equator and meridians of longitude that run due north and south, any great circle reaches it's maximum latitudes at two locations that are 90° of longitude east and west of the two locations where the great circle crosses the equator.

Easter Island, Nazca, Ollantaytambo, Paratoari, Tassili n'Ajjer and Giza are all aligned on a single great circle. Additional ancient sites that are located within one tenth of one degree of this great circle include Petra; Perseopolis; Khajuraho; Pyay, Sukothai and Anatom Island.

Near Ollantaytambo, Machupicchu and Cuzco are within one quarter of a degree. The Oracle at Siwa in the western Egyptian desert is within one quarter of a degree. In the Indus Valley, Mohenjo Daro and Ganweriwala are within one quarter of a degree. The ancient Sumerian city of Ur and Angkor temples in Cambodia and Thailand are within one degree of the great circle. The Angkor temple at Preah Vihear is within one quarter of a degree.

This circle crosses over the source and the mouth of the Amazon, the dividing line between upper and lower Egypt, the mouth of the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus River and the Bay of Bengal near the mouth of the Ganges. The circle also crosses over a number of areas of the world that are largely unexplored, including the Sahara Desert, the Brazilian Rainforest, the highlands of New Guinea, and underwater areas of the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea.

The alignment of these sites is easily observable on a globe of the earth with a horizon ring. Aligning any two of these sites on the horizon ring will align all of these sites on the ring. 3-D world atlas software programs will also draw this great circle around the earth. The four images below are centered on the two locations where the great circle crosses the equator and the two locations where the great circle reaches it's maximum latitudes. The circle crosses over the equator at 48° 36' west longitude and 131° 24' east longitude. The maximum latitude of the circle is 30° 22' north latitude at 41° 24' east longitude and 30° 22' south latitude at 138° 36' west longitude.











Hmm, who likes circles and rituals and pyramids and antiquities and Brazil and Egypt and the South China Sea and magic numbers?

Page 2 of the Great Circle site: Golden Section:
Ninety miles northeast of Angkor Wat are the Angkor temples at Prassat Preah Vihear. Preah Vihear is 4754 miles from the Great Pyramid. The line of ancient sites crosses over the Great Pyramid and Angkor Vihear....Twenty five miles northwest of the city of Nazca is a figure known as the Hummingbird. The Hummingbird is 7,692 miles from the Great Pyramid. The line of ancient sites also crosses over the Hummingbird.
You have to go through, it's all there. Control over these various locations around the globe, which form a giant pentagram inside a giant circle. Think of where the conflicts are and have been. Look at these maps.

That's what it's all about.

This is why they have a woody over controlling antiquities:
Cuno argues that nationalistic retention and reclamation policies impede common access to this common heritage and encourage a dubious and dangerous politicization of antiquities--and of culture itself. Antiquities need to be protected from looting but also from nationalistic identity politics. [which are bad, see?] To do this, Cuno calls for measures to broaden rather than restrict international access to antiquities. He advocates restoration of the system under which source countries would share newly discovered artifacts in exchange for archaeological help, and he argues that museums should again be allowed reasonable ways to acquire undocumented antiquities. The first extended defense of the side of museums in the struggle over antiquities, Who Owns Antiquity? is sure to be as important as it is controversial.
I could speculate much more about this, how it connects to the stolen Saudi jewelry and why the Thai people are freaking out given that their country suffers from deep corruption....

....thus perhaps explaining the dread of losing their king. But you can speculate yourself what control over this lynch-pin site might mean for people who like conducting large-scale satanic ritual sacrifices.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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A. Peasant said...

oh hey thanks dub. i'm glad somebody clicked through, i thought it was rather enlightening myself. i see you have lots of links collected -- there's a lot more at the last page of the great circle site:

http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/ref.html

i looked at them all earlier today, some are defunct but many still work and full of interesting things. i'll try to sort it out a little more for another post.

hey btw, would you rather have the campfire link on my blogroll than the stargazers link? what do you prefer?

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Good site I posted a link. I am not familiar with all of them and haven't had time to read much but I am very familiar with Sacred Texts.

Anonymous said...

This one is a must

http://www.thenazareneway.com/index_essene_gospels_of_peace.htm

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