DEE BATE

I watched the Bush/Kerry debate -- twice in fact, once as it happened, and again when I got back from Felix’s wine and poetry fest at the Knitting Factory. Thus I saw it one time sober and one time a little drunk, and laughed my ass off each time as Bush fumbled, stumbled, pouted, took on that now almost trademark deer-in-the-headlights expression, and repeatedly whined (nine times?) that it was hard work? Which seemed kinda rich coming from the man who has taken more vacations than any US president in history.
Yeah, if we have to score the thing like a prizefight, I figure Kerry smote Bush and the only real question is to whether it was a mighty smiting or just a regular smiting. The bout certainly seemed to define the choice for President is between a patrician college professor and an ankle-bitting Bluto.

JACK
But on to the more important stuff, because the inquiring Doc wants to know why Jack Daniels is reducing the alcohol content in Old #7 from 86 proof to a mere 80 proof?

GENE
Gene Vincent was a great lover of Jack Daniels, and, indeed, pretty much anything with an alcohol with, just possibly, the exception of anti-freeze, and if you want to read an except from my fabulous new book about him – http://www.thedonotpress.com/extracts/geneex.html

And on the subject of books and booze, a new book (not mine) on absinth is about to hit the stores (intelligence from fidicen) – http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/3747.htm

FUNDAMENTALIST FOLLIES
How many of you are up to speed on Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). Brownback, even by my expansive standards, is verily weird. He lives rent free in a Christian commune in Washington with the rent paid by some obscure cult, and is the avowed foe of indecency, abortion, Howard Stern, and probably me, if he knew about me. Read an account of Brownback in Neanderthal on the subject of stem cell research. – http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65144,00.html


RICHARD AVEDON RIP


CRYPTIQUE – The dog has met the frog. (This is one for the decoder ring.)

The secret word is Sluggo

THE DRAFT
I have a piece this week in LA CityBeat on the rumors that George Bush is planning to reinstitute the draft. (But an edit killed a neat fantasy – seeing that women will be drafted – of an Elvis-style media event when Paris Hilton arrives at Parris Island for induction.)
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1270&IssueNum=69

TWO QUOTES FROM GEORGE SOROS
I realize that what I am saying is bound to be unpopular. We are in the grip of a collective misconception induced by the trauma of 9/11, and fostered by the Bush administration. No politician could say it and hope to get elected. That is why I feel obliged to speak out. There is a widespread belief that President Bush is making us safe. The opposite is true. President Bush failed to finish off bin Laden when he was cornered in Afghanistan because he was gearing up to attack Iraq. And the invasion of Iraq bred more people willing to risk their lives against Americans than we are able to kill - generating the vicious circle I am talking about.

The Bush campaign is trying to put a favorable spin on it, but the situation in Iraq is dire. Much of the Western part of the country has been ceded to the insurgents. Even the so-called Green Zone (a small enclave in the center of Baghdad where Americans live and work) is subject to mortar attacks. The prospects of holding free and fair elections in January are fast receding and civil war looms. President Bush received a somber intelligence evaluation in July but he has kept it under wraps and failed to level with the electorate.
For the whole story... http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0928-16.htm

AND FROM WILLIAM SHIRER (author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers.

Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were.

LINKS...
Got Milk or got tequila?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0929043limeade1.html

And God’s back. Creationists in pseudo-scientific drag
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

THE SQUID
The squid may be as smart as me
Enough to never leave the sea

THEM WACKY SPEEDFREAKS
Doc40 congratulates Steven K. Konopatzke who attempted to board a commercial airliner with the components of his meth lab in a carry-on bag. On the other hand, we might not buy his speed.

CRYPTIQUE – Verily I say unto you.

Verily I say unto you, let's all start using the word verily.

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS (oh, say it isn’t so)
My informants inform me that, in addition to the discovery of a further twelve hours of sex tapes featuring Paris Hilton and various partners (dare we hope for domestic animals?) Ms. Hilton is also attempting to make the phrase "that’s hot" her legal copyright after which the rest of us English speaking mortals will have to pay her a royalty for the use of these two words. Although it’s not the greatest of the my fury-provoking preoccupations, I must confess I’m not only becoming burned out of the seemingly endless antics of this woman, but also this trend to stake out ownership on bits of the language, which strikes me as the linguistic equivalent of a wild west land grab. Maybe I should copyright the phrase "Fuck off and die"?

XMAS ZEP
And if I did the above, would I make enough on the deal to buy the 12-seater personal Zeppelin feature in the 2004 Neiman Marcus Christmas Book with a pricetag of $10 million? Now that's hot. Right, Paris?

NUTSHELL ON GWB
To be both megalomaniac and feeble minded is infinitely possible.

TWO QUOTES FROM TED KENNEDY
"The President's handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology."
"I thank God that President Bush was not our President at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis."

For the full speech – http://kennedy.senate.gov/GWspeech.txt

CRYPTIQUE – Fuck ‘em if they can’t cast a vote.

WHILE FLORIDA TURNS BIBLICAL AND DESPITE WHAT JEB BUSH MIGHT SAY...
(From a British diplomatic website)
Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism", the British government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King said the US had failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and without immediate action flooding, drought, hunger and debilitating diseases such as malaria would hit millions of people around the world. US President George Bush says more research is needed before he introduces punitive carbon taxes on industry. But Sir David criticised the Bush administration for relying too exclusively on market-based incentives and voluntary actions. "Climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today."

The icecaps are melting
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65067,00.html

"You could hear things going by like missiles. I got a little scared when the tractor-trailer was blown across the parking lot." – Diana Corbett, on Hurricane Jeanne (from NY Times)

LINK
The privatized war – long, but a real eye-opener.
http://harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

A THOUGHT OCCURRED TO ME
Remember when Oprah gave away all those free cars to her audience, and then they discovered they all had to pay the IRS about seven grand before they could take the cars home? I started to wonder if, when celebs show up at corporately sponsored parties, and are given $20,000-worth of gift bag for their trouble, do they have to pay tax on those goodies. I somehow doubt it, but why the fuck not?

QUOTE OF THE DAY FROM EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO
"A year from now I'd be surprised if there's not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." – Richard Perle

CRYPTIQUE – Three and a half minutes without air and your brain starts to die.

THE MORE IT CHANGES, THE MORE IT STAYS THE SAME
What’s the French for the above and did Marcel Proust say it? Damned if I know. Thirty nine or whatever years ago this was a lousy song at the commercial ass-end of protest folk rock. Funny how it resonates here in the Era of the Dumb. (Lyrics courtesy of Mr MR)

Eve Of Destruction
by Barry McGuire

The eastern world, it is explodin'.
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'
You're old enough to kill, but not for votin'
You don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin'
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say
Can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away
There'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boyIt's bound to scare you boy
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'
I'm sitting here just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don't pass legislation
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve
Of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it's the same old place
The poundin' of the drum, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace
And tell me
Over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don't believe
We're on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction.

MONDAY, MONDAY

Almost October, and in the teeth of another week, when Felix Dennis reads his poetry in LA, on the same night as the Bush/Kerry debate, and aliens will again neglect to abduct me, I think I'll go to bed. (I believe I just heard gunfire, over in Plummer Park.)

CRYPTIQUE -- Web humor for Luddites. (nedludd.com)

CRYPTIQUE -- Even after all this time, we still don't expect the Spanish Inquisition.