Youtube says Glenfield night market, Auckland, New Zealand.

Safe trip to the foody conquistadores!

>> ^lantern53:

There is far more evidence that God exists than that God does not exist.
Study near-death experiences.


We've covered this before lantern... which is more probable: a person hallucinates when their brain is deprived of oxygen ooooor, magic sky-daddy controls the universe, but forsakes millions of people who don't know him just because of where they were born (say in the middle of the Amazon before the conquistadors showed up).

Study Occam's Razor

When the Spanish conquistadors spread disease to conquer South America, they did so with all sorts of dirty tricks and plays they could ever think of, all developed from within their own warring times. They used it once more during the Napoleonic invasion, when Napoleon has sent his generals to conquer Spain. This is when the term 'guerrilla warfare' derives from. Since the Spanish weren't able to fend off the 'Le Grande Armee' in numbers, resources, as well as military technology, they refused to fight the French in open ground as it meant a massacre.

On the surface the Spanish towns welcomed their foreign occupants, giving the soldiers shelter and food. But then the shelters were 'accidentally' burnt in the middle of the night or a curious food poisoning quickly spread amongst the French ranks. Spaniards would also introduce a young, blossoming senorita with strikingly beautiful eyes to a battle wary French captain as they share a bed at night, only to find the captain dead next morning with a rope tied around his neck.

Strategy evolves as time goes on, and it is a matter of familiarizing yourself with these new tactics. Dirty or not, he won the game by tricking the opponent without using illegal means, such as using maphack or looking at his opponent's screen. He still played within the game's rule boundaries and successfully pulled off a good con.

Now, since this video has gotten out he won't be able to pull off this trick as often because everyone has familiarized with these tactics, and the community has learned to be more cautious against such tricks. Tactical evolution

I don't think this is the highest valuation ever on the Roadshow. I pretty clearly recall seeing an episode where a woman had found a Spanish conquistador helmet in the attic of the house she bought, just laying up in the rafters. It was in perfect condition and inlaid with gold as I recall and was valued over 1 million by itself.

I will give my interpretation of the movie.

I believe the movie to be about death as a natural and needed event, and coming to terms with that.
In the conquistador times, he searched for the tree of life to please the queen and help defend Spain. But he failed to learn the lesson the native was trying to teach him. Death is needed, and should not be averted. And that's when you get the first clue to the meaning of all this. He drinks the sap, and he dies, but new life grows out of him.

In the modern days his wife is dying, and he does everything he can to avert death. He says so himself. "death is a disease". Eventually he finds the cure, but too late for his wife, and he never comes to term with that. He planted a tree over her grave. Hundreds of years later (I wanna believe the 3 parts of the story are set about 500 years between each other, so the future part would be somewhere in the 25th century) he is still alive, having cured death, but he still grieves over the death of his wife, and can't let go, and his tormented by that. And the tree he planted is now dying as well.

In the end he comes to realize that only by dying can life be renewed, and does life have meaning. When he dies the tree comes back to life. Nothing is lost, everything is transformed. Everything must die, so that new life may appear. And it's also about accepting death. Not wishing it obviously, but accepting that it will come for you, and everyone and everything else. Everything dies, even stars. But because your atoms carry on to something else, you also truly never cease to exist. You know... "We are all made of star stuff" kind of message. I don't find the movie religious in the slightest.

My interpretation of the movie is that tom's contemporary wife was writing her book based on memories of a past life. Current day Tom discovered the tree of life and used it to "cure" death, becoming immortal himself, but too late to save his wife. He planted a seed from the tree on her grave, and hundreds of years later I guess he's become rich enough to pay for an Alcubierre bubble ship to take himself and the tree, which now houses her soul, out to the supernova for a reunion. The conquistador's unique death, after ingesting the tree of life's nectar, created some kind of open tunnel for his soul to move between lifetimes. That's the only explanation for the most confusing part of the movie for me: when space-Tom appears to the mayan guard. I know it's not supposed to be literal but part of me wonders if immortal Tom has not truly re-incarnated 1,000 years back in time, and now has a chance to cherish every moment with the next incarnation of his true love.

I wonder how many years in earth time passed during his journey? Could be millions. Who's to say what's happening to the passage of time inside tha bubble?

HA! "titanic" and "icebergs"!!! HA HA! Eat that you liberal c---------s!!!

carrots?
caltrops?
conquistadors?



ARGUING WITH A LIBERAL: A ONE-ACT PLAY

Non-Liberal: I disagree with that point of view because---

Liberal: ---IT BE RACISM!

THE END

Conquistador of Calories.

I think that shall be my official title from now on.

Wow! With all that gold floating around I'd be worried about some Conquistador's sniffing around looking for some loot.

Congrats all!

He's an idealist, no doubt. I guess we didn't read the same history and anthropology books though. The noble savage was noble to his own tribe and savage to others. The history of civilization is a continuum of war, occasionally punctuated by peace. The campaigns; Romans, Gauls, Vikings, Normans, Spanish Conquistadors, the revolutions; American, French, Bolshevik, and Maoist, the civil wars; American and Spanish, they all point to the aggressive nature of man.

Without government and it's most noble function, rule of law, all would be anarchy and aggression.

Governments of States share the characteristics of the individual; pride, prejudice, suspicion, envy, nationalism, and aggression. The individual is restrained by threat of penalty of law. The State has only the restraint of defeat at the hands of their enemy. This is where Mr. Zinn hits the nail on the head. The Government of the State is a dangerous thing because it lacks that restraint. It's able to wage unpopular geo-political war and push citizens, under threat of penalty, into forced and unwilling aggression.

@snoozedoctor & arsenault (if you really care to learn why sending missionaries to Iraq stirs up so much trouble)

While I think you have made a somewhat valid point... I ask you not to forget that our great and wonderful nation of 'free-peoples' was only gained via the slaughter and removal of an indigenous population. The rationale for this removal often was that it was completely legit due to the fact that Native Americans were 'heathens' and 'pagans' and therefore not children of God blessed with all the divine rights that the good people of America were inherently imbued with... and don't forget our 'Manifest Destiny, which was essentially God's will that America stretch from coast to coast and become the leading power in this hemisphere. Historically, American armies may not have been have entered battle under the banner of a crucifix, but the justifications for their deployment have often been laced with the rhetoric of spreading 'Christian values' and thereby civilizing the heathen peoples of the world... so, even though this country is not technically a 'theocracy', which is a nation governed by a religious body who forcibly imposes one faith upon all of its citizens (which the Ottoman empire was NOT, by the way- political and ruling powers lay in the hands of the Sultan and his heirs, the Caliphate only established to give their dynasty legitimacy, and by and large the Empire was comprised of peoples of MANY faiths- it was no more a theocracy than was the Holy Roman Empire, or any of the Medieval European States, in fact, in a lot of ways, it was probably much less of one. That corsairs or an envoy operating under its aegis chose to justify their actions by using the Koran is no different than the thousands of other actions carried out by European kings, and conquistadors who chose the Bible as their umbrella), the justifications for the actions of the American military have in the past often been aligned with 'Christian' motivations or agendas (once again, see the conquest and 'taming' of North America)... and given the discourse in American politics today, I think it is hard to deny that there is a great portion of this population that would very much like to see it formally defined as a 'Christian Nation', with Bibles in the classroom and Commandments at the Court House, so the perception abroad that Iraq is a 'Christian War' is not unsurprising, its like to spring up anytime a predominantly Christian country sets foot in the Middle East.

But back to history and the motivations of international shenanigans of the more recent past.... Its not only America that is guilty of working in tandem with the motivations of religious institutions and their rhetoric... throughout the Golden Age of Imperialism foreign missionaries more often than not preceded the armies of Western nations throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific, establishing churches and converting portions of the population. Attacks on these outposts of Western thought and culture would often then be used as an excuse for a Western nation to move in and establish a military presence before moving on to full blown colonization (see the French takeover of Indochina/Vietnam if you don't believe me).

In regards to this situation then that pattern is important to keep in mind, because I think it helps explain some of the anger that is being raised by missionary activities in the region. Given the prevailing attitude against Western influence in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries (due mostly to the experience of having been subjugated by Western Imperialist powers in the past), it should not be so surprising that these FOREIGN AMERICAN missionaries would be viewed by Iraqis as a threat to the sovereign identity they are trying to create for themselves. It is not that the Iraqis who might strike out at these people are doing so entirely because they are averse to Christianity, after all, there has been a long standing population of Chaldean Christians within Iraq that has gotten by just fine for centuries- it maybe hasn't been on top and they were pretty fairly discriminated against under Saddam but they certainly have never been outrightly persecuted for not being Muslim. Even today, despite all the turmoil in the country, those who have remained are pretty much just hanging in there and riding things out while the various Muslim factions around them blow one another up.

So, a large component of the problem is that many Iraqis ultimately feel that they are being 'invaded' by Imperialist Western influence, on many fronts, militarily, politically, and via these missionaries, religiously. So, therefore, this conflict of interest goes beyond simply just religion and it is important, I think, that Christians (missionaries and otherwise) realize this, the situation is not just Christian vs. Muslim- Iraqi Muslims are not just angry or striking out because the people of Jesus have dared tread on their sand to convert their neighbors. There are many many other factors involved in this that explain why they would not want missionaries from America to be active within their country... especially at a sensitive moment in history such as this.

Doc_M here is my take on the death of the conquistador. (spoilers head).

The beauty of this movie is that it allows for multiple interpretations of the entire time line and not just the ending.

One interpretation is that the movie is told using non-linear story telling. The non-linear interpretation leads to the following time line:
The protagonist loves his wife (in the year 2000). She dies while writing a book about Spain set in the 1500s. The protagonist's medical research leads to life extension technology. He prolongs his life for 500 years until the technology to travel through space becomes available. In a romantic gesture he casts his wife's remains (the tree) and himself into the nebula.

The second interpretation of the movie, which I feel more comfortable with, is that the scenes in the movie occur on a linear time line set in the year 2000 (i.e., There is no space travel). The scenes in the bubble are a visualization of the protagonist's inner space. We see this inner space every time the protagonist withdraws into himself. The scenes involving Spain are a visualization of the chapters in the book. They are shown every time someone writes into the book. In beginning the wife is doing the writing, and towards the end the protagonist is writing the final chapter as per his dead wife's wishes. The final scene shows the protagonist coming to terms his wife's death; the blooming tree is a visual depiction of his mind having an epiphany and the conquistador's death shows how the protagonist ended the book (accepting death as the spring of new life). Finally, once he has made peace with his wife's death he is able to fulfill her last wish - planting a tree over her grave.

Obviously Aronofsky wanted to make the movie consistent with the first interpretation. That is why the movie has the whole subplot involving the life-extending medical research. It is also the time line suggested by the movie's trailer. But I also think he consciously wanted the movie to be consistent with the second interpretation and this is not just me reading way too much into the story. The metaphor of 'mind as deep-space' is common in many mystic philosophies. You might have heard the term 'psychonaut' to describe people who engage in deep meditation or those who consume hallucinogens. Also, some of the scenes in the bubble show transitions of the protagonist withdrawing into his mind: example, consider the scene where he lies down with his wife on the hospital bed; the very next scene begins in the bubble and you can see the ghost image of the hospital bed and his wife slowly fading away as he is drawn into his mind.

For this and many others reason I love the Fountain.

In reply to this comment by Doc_M:
I think I've got this film figured out, but I still don't understand the death of the conquistador. If you get it, help me out here.

Doc_M here is my take on the death of the conquistador. (spoilers head).

The beauty of this movie is that it allows for multiple interpretations of the entire time line and not just the ending.

One interpretation is that the movie is told using non-linear story telling. The non-linear interpretation leads to the following time line:
The protagonist loves his wife (in the year 2000). She dies while writing a book about Spain set in the 1500s. The protagonist's medical research leads to life extension technology. He prolongs his life for 500 years until the technology to travel through space becomes available. In a romantic gesture he casts his wife's remains (the tree) and himself into the nebula.

The second interpretation of the movie, which I feel more comfortable with, is that the scenes in the movie occur on a linear time line set in the year 2000 (i.e., There is no space travel). The scenes in the bubble are a visualization of the protagonist's inner space. We see this inner space every time the protagonist withdraws into himself. The scenes involving Spain are a visualization of the chapters in the book. They are shown every time someone writes into the book. In beginning the wife is doing the writing, and towards the end the protagonist is writing the final chapter as per his dead wife's wishes. The final scene shows the protagonist coming to terms his wife's death; the blooming tree is a visual depiction of his mind having an epiphany and the conquistador's death shows how the protagonist ended the book (accepting death as the spring of new life). Finally, once he has made peace with his wife's death he is able to fulfill her last wish - planting a tree over her grave.

Obviously Aronofsky wanted to make the movie consistent with the first interpretation. That is why the movie has the whole subplot involving the life-extending medical research. It is also the time line suggested by the movie's trailer. But I also think he consciously wanted the movie to be consistent with the second interpretation and this is not just me reading way too much into the story. The metaphor of 'mind as deep-space' is common in many mystic philosophies. You might have heard the term 'psychonauts' to describe people who engage in deep meditation or those who consume hallucinogens. Also, some of the scenes in the bubble show transitions of the protagonist withdrawing into his mind: example, consider the scene where he lies down with his wife on the hospital bed; the very next scene begins in the bubble and you can see the ghost image of the hospital bed and his wife slowly fading away as he is drawn into his mind.

For this and many others reason I love The Fountain.

I think I've got this film figured out, but I still don't understand the death of the conquistador. If you get it, help me out here.

* Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
* Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion."
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it."
* On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him."

* Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ."
* In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess."
* On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead.
* The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
* As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous."
* The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell."
* What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs."
* The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated."
* "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next."
* Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
* "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead."