SECRET OF THE MOTORCADE

MrMR has once again clued us in…
“Have you ever wondered what all those extra SUVs are in the Presidential or VIP motorcades? You know, the ones with blacked windows that no one gets in or out of. Well, wonder no more. They are the heavyweight protection and have a 6-barreled 7.62 mm mini gun that fires over 4,000 rounds per minute. The vehicle is also armor plated, and the wipers need to be running to remove spent casings when the weapon is firing.” (Click here for a shoot 'em up promo video from the company that makes this monster.)

The secret word is Ratatatatatatatat!

AND TALKING OF CARS

After k2 posted his or her comment yesterday (see NO MONEY DOWN) I Googled the Nucleon and this is what I found…
“The Ford Nucleon was a nuclear-powered concept car developed by Ford Motor Company in 1958.. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine, rather, a vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle featured a power capsule suspended between twin booms at the rear. The capsule, which would contain radioactive core for motive power, was designed to be easily interchangeable, according to performance needs and the distances to be traveled. No operational models were built.” Which was probably very good for the health of the 20th century. (Click here for more.)

A REASONABLE QUESTION

“Did we finally reach Palookaville?”

YOU KNOW TIMES ARE BAD WHEN…

…up market strip joints like Scores in New York close their doors and go belly up. Scores was once the up-market lap-dance emporium where Howard Stern held court when he was the King of All Media. Now it’s history. As Fox News (who else) tells it…

“NEW YORK — The Manhattan strip club Scores is shutting down before the end of the year, company officials said, after surviving FBI raids and ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani's crusade against smut. Scores co-owner Elliot Osher confirmed the closing and said another club with new owners would open in its place at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge. The closing was blamed on a weak economy and the possibility that the club could lose its liquor license. State authorities this year revoked the liquor license for a spinoff version of the club on Manhattan's West Side after a police raid led to prostitution charges against several dancers. Scores first opened its doors on East 60th Street in 1991. A series of club spinoffs opened around the country, but many have since closed.”

The secret word is Liquidity

NO MONEY DOWN

I guess what I really want from Detroit is a car that’s lightweight, non-polluting, made in a union shop, and looks just like this. Like Eddie Cochrane once remarked, “there’s a car made just for me/to own that car would be a luxury.” Am I the only one who feels like this?

And HCB writes in an email, “the determined sonsobitches who pretend the way to save the auto industry is to eviscerate the workers. Union busters have their own subdivision in hell where they have to endlessly re-experience the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire.”

BETTIE PAGE – RIP

LIZ ON THURSDAY

And it’s Liz posing unhappily on the beach in Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer. I’d like to pretend I was so school-boy, hip-literate that I came to the work of Tennessee on it’s own merit, but the truth is that I went to see the movie because my dirty minded little homies told me Liz’s white, one-piece swimsuit became transparent when wet. When I actually shuffled into the cheap seats of the local cinema, I discovered that Suddenly Last Summer was a twisted epic in which Liz on the beach is attracting young boys for her husband Sebastian, and is later threatened with a lobotomy by Sebastian’s mom, played by Katherine Hepburn, who brings in Montgomery Clift (baby) to declare Liz insane when she threatens to blow the whistle on Sebastian’s predatory gaiety. And, after the whole story ended in cannibalism, there was no stopping me. I promptly boarded the streetcar to the glass menagerie. (And, around the same time, I also discovered the work of Hank – the other of the Williams boys.)

AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO SEBASTIAN

Who was eaten alive by the teen-boys he’d previously been debauching.

NOTHING MUCH CHANGES EXCEPT THE COSTUMES...

...and the style and the bells and whistles. Although we do have admit that we're suckers for the innocent simplicity and historical romance of that old time revolution. Thanks anonymous.(Click here for a larger image.)

The secret word is Plutocrat

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill enters by the exit to confuse those who are not paying attention.

This blog is sanctioned by Shiva.

VIDEO GAMES AS A REHEARSAL FOR THE REAL THING

The following came from our pal Faux Smoke. I have posted it in it's entirety. The links are hot.

"So, out of boredom, I put this together & now I'm probably going to post it somewhere or another & email it to a few people... I figure, you probably get a hell of a lot more traffic than I do, to say the least. So I'm sending it to you & presuming you read it, you might decide to consider whether this is worth a post on your blog or not. No worries or concern either way, like I said, I did this out of boredom so don't think its my life's work or anything. End Note ]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171494

& BAM! A recruitment center in Second Life is the answer?

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20081205/tc_zd/234710

If you're wondering what exactly Second Life is, well... here's the wikipedia page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

Me personally... I don't play crap like Second Life & think that the military fucked up by making a choice to promote through the game, they'd probably have had better luck through a number of other franchise titles. Call of Duty... Medal of Honor... on & on, I could make a list of games that would have probably been a bit more appealing & worth-while for the military in comparison to a largely peaceful & easy-going virtual community. Hell, now that Kojima is basically gone from the Metal Gear series & it is essentially owned by Konami, the U.S. military might have been able to buy a smash-hit title to fill with propaganda... Nonetheless, point being, people bitch about violence in video games & the content of games & all sorts of crap, yet, nothing about this. A-okay I suppose? Eh...

Mortal Kombat & Grand Theft Auto were corrupting the youth & Doom fueled the Columbine high-school shootings, though, the military trying to recruit kids through video games isn't a problem or even an issue known by most folks. World of Warcraft & 'video game addiction' are supposed to be news worthy instead...

But hey, don't think this is the whole of it, not in the least... check this out...

http://www.americasarmy.com/

Propaganda just met the 21st century & that's typically old news for most kids. That's a video game made by the united states military, published & put out with an interactive online community, all filled up with advertisements for enlisting in the service. Notice, the title got a T for Teen rating by the ESRB... & that's important because it means that my previous use of the word "kids" is very appropriate. For a bit about why this game receiving a T for Teen rating is an issue.. well, here's a link to the controversy section of the wikipedia page for this game...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Army#Controversy

So... other than trying to recruit kids & glorify war & military life, what is the military doing with video games? Would you believe me if I said, trying to prevent suicide?

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/12/01/army-suicide-rates-video-games

Want to play the demo? Link follows...

http://willinteractive.com/demos/beyond-the-front/

I suggest you might consider clicking through it to at least read the disclaimers... a bit interesting if nothing else.

However, this still doesn't end there... We have veterans protest outside a U.S. Army-sponsored video game tournament... "It's like giving candy to kids," Sacramento Veterans for Peace president John C. Reiger said. "It's sort of like military pedophilia in a way, preying on our young people."

http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=51581&catid=2

I know that a whole hell of a lot of people don't really give a damn about video games for the most part, though, as video games have increasingly become integrated into our culture, especially the culture of the youth, the issues that arise around them have become far more serious & relative to each & every one of us, regardless of if we play them or not. First it was the odd video game instead of a pinball machine... Now, well... GTA sold over $300 million in a 24 hour period of time, beating out the Harry Potter craze & taking the world record in the process for highest ever entertainment earner within the first 24 hours after release.

Not only this, though, in a time when the economy & market are typically fucked, the video game industry has been relatively unscathed... in actuality, the video game industry is bigger than ever & more or less, growing while near to all else is faltering.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hbnOSsybCzJICcuK2m2m-ROwF32Q

We're looking at something that has gone vastly & immensely beyond Pong & Tetris. Video games have become so influential & substantial that they have become an industry in its own standing, one that has an impact in the economy & entertainment industry. More over, these games have come to the point of being not only considered with seriousness by the military, yet, seized upon by the military as a viable tool for recruitment.

So... how to end this? Why not with a quote, from a character in a video game, about war?

"War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War, and its consumption of life, has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID tagged soldiers carry ID tagged weapons, use ID tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control. Information control. Emotion control. Battlefield control. Everything is monitored, and kept under control. War has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control. All in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction. And he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war...becomes routine." -- Solid Snake, from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots."

HIS BRAIN IS SQUIRMING LIKE A TOAD

Since the subject of Jim Morrison has once more come up, Munz alerted us to the following story…

“George Morrison, 89, a retired Navy rear admiral and the father of the late rock icon Jim Morrison, died in a Coronado, Calif., hospital Nov. 17 after a fall. Once the youngest admiral in the Navy, Morrison had a long career that included serving as operations officer aboard the aircraft carrier Midway and commanding the fleet during the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which led to an escalation of American involvement in Vietnam.”

Which, as Munz points out, “means that Jim Morrison's father was directly involved in the false flag incident that began the Vietnam War as we know it.” A whole new take on “father, I want to kill you.”

The secret word is Snake

And while on the subject, click here for a seconds-of-amusement Doors oddity sent by UK Tim. (I took me a few seconds to figure it out.)

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 97)

In which Marilyn attempts to make conversation with the other guests at the banquet for assembled sentients. “What have they done to the Earth?” She asks. “What have they done to our fair sister? Ravaged and plundered, and ripped her, and bit her, stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn, and tied her with fences, and dragged her down. I hear a very gentle sound, with your ear down to the ground. We want the world and we want it...” She pauses and frowns. Something is very wrong. “Oh dear. That’s not me. I’m channeling Jim Morrison. We must have had an iconographic poetry distort.” She attempts to dismiss the glitch with a bright disarming smile. “At least we’re still speaking English…aren’t we?”

RUMBLINGS FROM THE EAST

Alerts to this story came in from a number of sources…
CHICAGO — Workers who got three days' notice their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won't go home without assurances they'll get severance and vacation pay they say they are owed. About 250 workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind. Leah Fried, a United Electrical Workers organizer, said the Chicago- based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days' notice required by law before shutting down. During the peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said. "We're doing something we haven't since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," (Click for more)

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” – Che Guevara

The secret word is Rising

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

“Oh my God! I seem to have given birth to a litter of puppies!”

(And talking of litters, I’m agonizing over adopting a new feline friend. If anyone has a smart, sturdy, ideologically sound, long haired, male kitten, I can offer it a fabulous home. Email byron4d@msn.com )