THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE (Jungian Mix)
When I called the current power structure fascist, some of my nearest and dearest accused me of a certain drama queen hyperbole, but, of late, I find that commentators, bloggers, and columnists are now going to some length to explain why the current power structure really is essentially classic fascism only with less flags and eagles, and no jackboots. I’d feel vindicated except I’ve kinda moved on to thinking in terms of Bush-rule as nothing more than deeply fucking insane. A few have again felt that maybe I was again proclaiming for effect, and cited my well known detachments from reality, but now I again find myself more that born out, at least in the Old School of Uncle Carl Jung, where the President is now identified as not only clinically barking crazy, but also dangerously infectious.
Read all about it...
http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

The secret word is Thorazine

IT’S BEEN REAL
Remember how, earlier in the week, I was concerned that I was becoming increasing detached from reality? (See Tuesday) Well, although it still kinda ebbs and flows, I am reminded by no less than Arianna Huffington that I am not alone and it is in fact quite the happening thing in modern politics...
A top Bush aide actually told the New York Times' Ron Suskind that administration officials disparagingly dismiss what they call "the reality-based community"– specifically, people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality" as irrelevant. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he declared. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality– judiciously, as you will– we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors. . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

CRYPTIQUE – Go Speed Racer!

Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money can not be eaten
– Cree prophecy for North America (courtesy PDB)

or to put it another way...
America currently spends $13 million per hour on foreign oil

The secret world is Glutton

PREHISTORIC WEIRDNESS (Alley oop-oop etc.)
The story at the end of the link below showed up in Wired, and, as a dinosaur enthusiast from infancy, it struck me as weird. Seems as though the Chinese have dug up a prehistoric mammal that ate little tiny dinosaurs, and this could be crucial, especially for those of us who are still processing the asteroid impact, and a brontosaurus with feathers and a sticking out tail that is nothing like the plastic model we bought in the Natural History Museum. The big danger is the that the demented creation Christians will get a hold of this and claim it’s proof that the world is only six thousand years old and Adam and Eve hobnobbed with dinosaurs like in that Raquel Welch movie, along with Lilith and all the others that lived outside the Gates of Eden in the land of Nod about which Christians will never give me a straight answer.
But anyway, there’s the story...
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66254,00.html

The secret word is Gorgo

And hipspinster is blogging some good stuff at...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com

AND FROM THE EMAIL
HCBecks succinct response to the concept of Joey Gallo seeing Don Rickles before he was shot was "from insult to injury".

But the fair some girl is miffed that I didn't mention who told me of the plan to have Keith Richards playing Capt. Jack Sparrows father, for it was she.

The secret world is still Gorgo

Did you ever have one of those days when the entire planet and a couple of extra dimensions of nastiness seemed to be making a study of busting your balls, to the point that you want to scream except that would mean getting out of the fetal position you have assumed in the corner of the couch because you are burned out from humping a desperate fucking keyboard? Sure you have. But did you then take a break from it all and turn on the inevitable television to find our enunciation-challenged state governor Arnold the Barbarian wearing a flight jacket to which I know he’s not entitled (what about daddy’s death’s head, Conan?) telling a malignant and collapsing mud mountain that "we’ll be back"? This lunacy is no longer even morbidly funny. It’s just plain disgusting. When’s the fucking uprising, mes enfants? Could we please make it soon? I have a lot of unanswered email.

The secret word is Contemptible.

CALL THIS A REALITY? (I’m not ready for reality.)
I don’t know if it’s the California rain, or black dogs, or too much bad holiday TV, or something that I ate, or the miasma of endless work in which I currently find myself, or simple being surrounded by a nation that should probably be institutionalized if not actually eased into straightjacket and the straps pulled very tight, but, in the last few days I have found myself tempted to retreat more and more from reality. It’s too early to know what direction this may take but, be assured, I will keep you up to speed.

MOVIE NEWS
Doc40 does not as a rule post movie news, but (see above) I was quite delighted when I was informed that Keith Richards may play Capt Jack Sparrow’s (Johnny Depp’s) father in Pirates of the Caribbean II. And then HC Beck sent over the following...
There is going to be a two-part TV miniseries on Elvis, come May, that takes him from the beginning through the 68 comeback special, which I suppose makes it official, that, like Spade Cooley (who is also the subject of a biopic launched by and starring Dennis Quaid, who is maybe a foot and a half taller than the very short, very vicious Cooley), Elvis went out at an opportune moment. In the future, historians will write that Elvis died in 1968. Don't know if you ever read Bradbury's story about the guy in the time machine pickup truck who fixes wrong deaths, taking Hemingway back to his near-death early-50's plane crash and sparing him the subsequent years of pain and depression. And of course there's the Johnny Cash biopic, which is rolling round the bend. The Elvis TV thing looks to be fashioned by total hacks, but the one bright light, to my eyes, is that they've cast Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Elvis, who is pretty and menacing, as anybody who saw him in Ride With The Devil may remember. He played the evil Confederate killer with the long hair.

CALL THIS A REALITY? (Part 2)
The Christian SS are attempting to destroy away with science yet again and are re-assaulting Darwin because they can’t bear to believe they are descended from simians. (A sentiment, incidently, shared by many monkeys of my acquaintance.) They are now pushing some piece of crap called Intelligent Design, which is Biblical Creationism in scientific drag – which kinda makes it look like the dopey prof in a 1950s Big Ant movie who intones, "this could be the end of civilization as we know it."
Read the full horror...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011105L.shtml

The secret word is Bubbles

CRYPTIQUE – On the night he was shot in Umberto’s Clam Bar, Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo had been to see Don Rickles perform. (And if anyone can explain why this interests me, I will be very happy.)