THIS MAY, OF COURSE, BE THE ANSWER
A group of fundamentalist Christians from Texas (where the hell else?) want vast numbers of their kind to migrate en mass to South Carolina where they would first take over the state government and then secede from the Union and set up a theocratic free state – presumably with all the Christian trappings like hanging, burning, stoning, judicial torture and brutal repression of everything that makes life living for us sinners, plus huge refugee camps of displaced trailer trash outside Baltimore. I really feel this is a damned fine idea, because the ensuing civil war will be extremely interesting to watch. I’m am not an advocate of nuclear weapons, but in this instance I might just make an exception. Or maybe Federal troops could break out some of those super-psychedelics supposedly developed by Sid Gottlieb at MKULTRA in the 1960s, the ones in vapor form that act on skin contact. The Christian rebs will be convinced it’s their Rapture and give up.
For the real story rather than the scifi...
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/7556-Group_promotes_secession_from_U.S..html

The secret word is Armageddon

LINKS (GET ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT)
MICK ON PIMPING
Great riff of pimpery in LA CityBeat by your humble scribe...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2410&IssueNum=112

THE OSAKA CYBERGIRL
HCB sent the story of the Osaka girl android this morning, but since the TV news got its hands on it,I'm struck that the section of the population who should be most threatened by the realistic female android is TV news persons.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4714135.stm

THE MOST MINDLESSLY ASININE STORY OF THE WEEK
On Tuesday, the NY Post ran a screaming cover story recounting how Osama bin Laden tried to buy a massive amount of cocaine, cut it with poison and sell it in the United States, hoping to kill thousands of Americans, but was thwarted when the Cali Cartel decided it would be bad for business. A subsequent Doc40 investigation revealed that this was maybe a desperate ploy by the a terror-eclipsed DEA for funds and attention that was ignored by the rest of the media as too bizarre to consider. Not the Post though. See...
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07262005/news/worldnews/50787.htm
For more rational takes on the stroy try...
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8729331/
Or...
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/270705cokecaper.htm

AND FINALLY
If hear Donald Rumsfeld correctly, the War on Terror has been renamed the Global Struggle Against Extremists. A fuck up by any other name would smell as...

CRYPTIQUE – Extremism in defense of the extreme.

The secret word is Kevlar

A WEEK FOR FABULOUS IDEAS
About six minutes ago it occurred to me that one – and maybe the only – effective way to reign in both terrorism and The War on Terror would be to legalize recreational drugs in all their multiple forms immediately. The moment that marijuana became legal, corporate jets full of executives and money would fall on terror fountainheads of Afghanistan and Pakistan like the gentle rain. Hashish could be for Kabul what single malt was for Scotland*, not to mention premium Paki black. With wealth comes consumerism, and consumerism means Starbucks, VH1, lap dancers, and Hello Kitty. No time for jihad. Look out Saudi oil. There goes the Wahhabi fundamentalist ballgame, and the Afghans will be having more fun than they ever had slaughtering Americans, Soviets, Brits, and each other, all the way back to Alexander the Great. And for those with a jones to still be cowboys, there would always be illegal boutique grade opium. No government is ever going to legalize the raw milk of paradise.
(* Many of make the mistake of thinking that legalization will mean the neighborhood entrepreneur will no longer be on the run from the DEA. Forget it. The moment legalization comes, Anheuser-Busch, RJR, and Sony will have the shit – and I use the word with extreme precision – sewn up.)

The secret word is Lateral

Check this out. It’s weird and disgustingly amusing.
http://www.director-file.com/cunningham/rubber.html

FROM THE FAR LEFT OF THE BRAIN
Preferring my torture to be delivered by more intimate means that either gravity or centrifugal force, I have never ridden any amusement park ride more physically invasive that Space Mountain at Disneyland, and, mercifully, I am now at an age where no peer pressure could lure me onto one of those new generation of monster roller coasters that have names like The Mangler or The Vomit-Ripper. I did wonder, however, while watching a Six Flags commercial, why parks didn’t give/sell badges or medals to those who have undergone such an ordeal and completed the ride. They could then be collected and worn like campaign ribbons, demonstrating to the world what a desperate and hardened sensation-seeker one really is. I consider this a really good idea and will be home if any amusement park operating corp wants to stop by and hand me a million in small bills for the idea. But, then again, why should they? In my needy pursuit of self-expression I have already given it away for free. Which may be a telling summation of both my condition and character.

The secret word is Irrelevant

NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE?
After feeling disconnected and lousy from the heat all weekend, I turned on Sunday night’s ABC News and discovered that it wasn’t just LA, Chicago, and New York sweltering in meteorological hell, but all of North America was experiencing 100F heat, the North Pole is, as we speak, melting like a gin and tonic at a picnic, and – if that wasn’t bad enough – a huge freak sandstorm (that’s right, sandstorm) was blowing across the Atlantic towards Florida in defiance of most normal wind patterns. It will, we were told, create some lovely sunsets. Okay, so I’ve said it too many times before, but it applies more than ever. This is a none-too original opening for any number of science fiction global-disaster movies, except Hillary Swank won’t bore to the center of the Earth and miraculously save us all with the help of whales. If the bloody superpower in which I find myself residing had anything approaching a genuine leader, he or she would be on TV explaining to his or her fellow Americans just how bad a global weather disconnect we were really facing, and not taking his geo-thermal advice from oilmen, General Motors, and Jerry Falwell. But, hey, this is democracy.

And what is the White House doing as a nation liquefies? Why, neighbors, Georgie is squirming like a toad to get his pal Karl Rove of the hook*, while his media machine defends his asinine war. This time by attempting to prove that suicide bombers are not pissed about US troops in Iraq. Count the number of times you hear the mantra "the attacks predate the invasion" recited by some talking coif, Tony Blair, or even the PM of Australia. Iraq is good, see? For any number of reasons we will continue to invent.

* for the whole story, over to the ever-on-the money Frank Rich
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html?th&emc=th

The secret word is Heatstroke