THE DOCS COMPUTER HAS CRASHED. BADLY
More info when I'm not on a ten-year old machine.

BAD? AS OPPOSED TO WHAT?

History never looks like history when you’re are living through it. – John W. Gardner

I don’t want to alarm anyone but, this is all looking exceedingly unpleasant. Reading between the war-media bullshit, as we have trained ourselves to do, it would appear that, in Iraq, the US is losing control of the cities, and calling down airstrikes, while reluctant allies pull out of the hotspots. Both Sunni and Shi-ite insurgents move through the civilian population like Chairman Mao’s fish through water. Civilian casualties, and incidents like yesterday’s aerial blitz on a Falluja mosque strengthen Iraqi resolve, and move matters inexorably towards a full-scale popular uprising – something with which the US military is totally unequipped to cope. A mendacious and unnecessary war has gone beyond being illegitimately waged and is now being arrogantly lost, in classic ‘Nam fashion, and at mind-boggling speed. Meanwhile the poor fucking grunts, some already there a year, have their tours extended, and spring moves towards summer in one of the most environmentally unappealing places on the planet. In a parliamentary democracy, it would only be a matter of time before a vote of no confidence would be organized, and the current leadership removed from power. But that is not the American way, and so the gang in the White House fumblingly presides over what may well be the collapse of the First Crusade of the Third Millennium, and who knows what the hell will follow, as the whole of Islam, in all its infinite numbers, engages against us. I’d just love to be wrong, but I’m started to worry that these larcenous pygmies-in-power may have actually triggered an epic, if not an apocalypse.

MAYBE GREENLAND MELTING?

And as the war hots up, this story from Nature comes at me...

Greenland's huge ice sheet could melt within the next 1,000 years and swamp low-lying areas around the globe if emissions of carbon dioxide and global warming are not reduced, scientists said on Wednesday. A meltdown of the massive ice sheet, which is nearly two miles thick would raise sea levels by an average seven yards, threatening countries such as Bangladesh, islands in the Pacific and parts of Florida. ''Any area that is less than seven meters above sea level would be flooded,'' said Jonathan Gregory, a climate scientist at the University of Reading in southern England. Researchers have already calculated that an annual average temperature rise of more than three degrees Celsius would be sufficient to melt the ice sheet in the future.

LINK

I wrote the cover story in today’s LA CityBeat. It’s a profile of publishers-to-the-damned Adam Parfrey and Richard Metzger. http://lacitybeat.com/

CRYPTIQUE – Check with the Mamalukes. Bang or whimper?

ECCLES?

A while ago I started to collect found email poetry of the kind that’s used to beat spam blockers, but then I got bored and gave it up. But I decided to post the following because it included the world eccles and I wonder how many of you out there are old enough and English enough to recall the Famous Eccles.

compassion shoelace splint gracious mitigate degree fowl biaxial salaried alden munich sherbet adverbial calcify
bank lobule gczk jzdk
pistachiopocketful swag eccles numinous cecil who'd inaugurate was inequity rerouting artillery haiku october

But with Jungian synchronicity, Beck sends me this...

This is an authentic subject heading for a Viagra email ad I received today. Since I know what the ad is for, this phrase is evidently to be taken to mean something about virility and tumescence, or to paraphrase Neil Young, the wiener and the damage done. So while I'm disconcerted about the word shrink in the beginning, "tete bidirectional denial" clearly states that this product is designed to circumvent psychological problems within the marriage, and promises that taking this pill will result in a "transoceanic revolt muscle tsunami, " especially on intercontinental flights. I leave the Bulldog Drummond part and the rest to your imagination.

Subj: aberrate shrink vicar polarimeter bissau individualism tete bidirectional denial transoceanic revolt muscle tsunami ccny mistress drummond rhenish signboard

But I guess this is just one way to take some time out from the ugly fact of a full scale shi-ite uprising in Iraq, and avoid commenting that one of the most provocative things an Army of Occupation can do is this start shutting down newspapers. I guess Bush and his gang are too fucking stupid to learn any of the lessons taught to the Brits in Northern Ireland over the last 30 some years.

CRYPTIQUE – We don’t need no stinking cryptique.

I'LL LIVE

Thanks for all the cards and flowers, friends and neighbours. I'll be answering the email in dribs and drabs. The old bolshevik is recovering and now reflecting on how even staying indoors these days can give a boy combat fatigue. Talking it slow, but gotta give you a heads up for Thursday when Condee meets 9/11. After all the prima donna stalling, she better play like it like Joan Collins in Dynasty or she's the sacrificial toast.

More tomorrow, I hope.

CRYPTIQUE -- Fax more soup and bourbon.

FIRST THE TECHNOLOGY

First the technology crashes and then the humanity. Doc40 has to take a couple of sick days. (And no, I haven't been drinking.) With luck, I'll see you all in a day or so.

CRYPTIQUE -- Who needs it?