Men who stare at goats. Roflmao!!

[Dr.Phool]

:rofl:

I know the guy in one of these chapters. He was my first martial arts teacher back in 1973. Guy Savelli. He was a little whacked out back then. I see he's still at it. Now he's part of the chimps war on terror.

A few months back, Playboy did a small story a couple of paragraphs long, and I remembered when I studied under him. Then I was browsing the bookstore today, and I saw the book, and read the relevent chapter. Somehow, Guy convinced the CIA and Special Forces that he could kill people with his mind, and supposedly dropped a goat with willpower during a demonstration. He used to talk about this crap way back then. The last time I saw him was on late night tv in Cleveland trying to collect a reward from the Amazing Randi by moving objects with his mind. Never collected it.

Here's some reviews from Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743241924/102-6208343-3175357?v=glance&n=283155

Amazon.com
Just when you thought every possible conspiracy theory had been exhausted by The X-Files or The Da Vinci Code, along comes The Men Who Stare at Goats. The first line of the book is, "This is a true story." True or not, it is quite astonishing. Author Jon Ronson writes a column about family life for London's Guardian newspaper and has made several acclaimed documentaries. The Men Who Stare at Goats is his bizarre quest into "the most whacked-out corners of George W. Bush's War on Terror," as he puts it. Ronson is inspired when a man who claims to be a former U.S. military psychic spy tells the journalist he has been reactivated following the 9-11 attack. Ronson decides to investigate. His research leads him to the U.S. Army's strange forays into extra-sensory perception and telepathy, which apparently included efforts to kill barnyard animals with nothing more than thought. Ronson meets one ex-Army employee who claims to have killed a goat and his pet hamster by staring at them for prolonged periods of time. Like Ronson's original source, this man also says he has been reactivated for deployment to the Middle East.

Ronson's finely written book strikes a perfect balance between curiosity, incredulity, and humor. His characters are each more bizarre than the last, and Ronson does a wonderful job of depicting the colorful quirks they reveal in their often-comical meetings. Through a charming guile, he manages to elicit many strange and amazing revelations. Ronson meets a general who is frustrated in his frequent attempts to walk through walls. One source says the U.S. military has deployed psychic assassins to the Middle East to hunt down Al Qaeda suspects. Entertaining and disturbing. --Alex Roslin

From Publishers Weekly
This exploration of the U.S. military's flirtation with the supernatural is at once funny and tragic. It reads like fiction, with plenty of dialogue and descriptive detail, but as Ronson's investigation into the government's peculiar past doings creeps into the present-and into Iraq-it will raise goose bumps. As Ronson reveals, a secret wing of the U.S. military called First Earth Battalion was created in 1979 with the purpose of creating "Warrior Monks," soldiers capable of walking through walls, becoming invisible, reading minds and even killing a goat simply by staring at it. Some of the characters involved seem well-meaning enough, such as the hapless General Stubblebine, who is "confounded by his continual failure to walk through his wall." But Ronson (Them: Adventures with Extremists) soon learns that the Battalion's bizarre ideas inspired some alarming torture techniques being used in the present-day War on Terror. One technique involves subjecting prisoners to 24 hours of Barney the Purple Dinosaur's song, "I Love You," and another makes use of the Predator, a small, toy-like object designed by military martial arts master Pete Brusso that can inflict a large amount of pain in many different ways ("You can take eyeballs right out... with this bit," Brusso tells Ronson). Ronson approaches the material with an open mind and a delightfully dry sense of humor, which makes this an entertaining, if unsettling, read. Indeed, as the events recounted here grow ever more curious-and the individuals Ronson meets more disturbing-it's necessary to remind oneself of Ronson's opening words: "This is a true story."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

[htuttle]

1. A general who is frustrated in his frequent attempts to walk through walls

???

That guy really should have been in the movie, Dr. Strangelove.

"General Stubblebine"? They could have even used his real name.

[Dr.Phool]

5. I'm gonna call Guy and demand a refund.

He only taught me how not to walk through walls.

[htuttle]

8. "General, could you come in here for a moment?"

<THUD!!>

"Ooof!"

"Use the door, General."

[ewoden]

2. Bush Jr. left the national Guard and volunteered for this unit.. . .

however, the only thing he could kill with his mind was a good idea.

[A Simple Game]

7. Hey, give the * some credit,

it is well known that he helped kill a lot of kegs.

As for the goat and hamster, I think starvation probably had a lot to do with the cause of death.

[IDemo]

3. Google "army remote viewing" for more psychic warfare nonsense

[StClone]

4. Seriously that guy is a Writer for the Power Line site.

Oops that was another Harvard grad.

[frylock]

6. i just ordered this book today!!

I can't wait for its arrival. He has another book as well, entitled Them: Adventures with Extremists that I'd like to check out too.

U.K. journalist Ronson offers a look into the world of political, cultural and religious "extremists" who dwell at the edges of popular culture and the conspiracy theorists who love them. His only criteria for groups' inclusion as extremists is "that they have been called extremists by others," which may explain why the Anti-Defamation League is profiled along with the modern-day KKK, radical Northern Ireland Protestant spokesperson Dr. Ian Paisley and a former BBC sportscaster who believes the world is ruled by a race of alien lizards. The best as well as most timely and unsettling of these essays follows Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical Islamic militant, on his often bumbling effort to organize British Muslims into a jihad. (Bakri was arrested after September 11.) Ronson's journalism is motivated less out of a duty to inform the public than a desire to satisfy his own curiosity. At the heart of the book is Ronson's quest to find the Bilderberg Group, a secret cabal said to meet once a year to set the agenda of the "New World Order." Fortunately for the reader, his efforts lead somewhere: an informant tracks Bilderberg to a golf resort in Portugal; later, a prominent British politician and Bilderberg founder discusses it on the record. Once viewed up close through Ronson's light, ironic point of view, these "extremists" appear much less scary than their public images would suggest. It is how he reveals the all-too-real machinations of Western society's radical fringe and its various minions that makes this enjoyable work rather remarkable. (Jan.)Forecast: In the U.K., Ronson's book was accompanied by a five-part BBC documentary, which helped make him into a star. If he can capitalize on media appearances here, this may turn into a quick cult hit

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

10. Minor correction

The TV series The Secret Rulers of the World was for Channel 4. (As was Ronson's documentary about Omar Bakri Mohammed, Tottenham Ayatollah.)

The link in my post below has e-torrent links to the episodes, although if they don't work I have seen the Bilderberg & Bohemian Grove ones on some conspiracy orientated sites.

[frylock]

11. thanks for the 411..

I'll queue those torrents, ASAP.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

9. Some Ronson links

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=209x2491#2812

which contains this link:

http://www.rinf.com/articles/jon-ronson.html

that has much Ronson multimedia, including E-torrents to the three-part Crazy Rulers of the World series, which is basically a documentary of "The Men Who Stare At Goats" (and includes the video of Savelli messing with his guinea pigs mind!)