ONE DOWN, HOW MANY MORE TO GO?
To paraphrase an old lawyer joke...Q: What’s the indictment of one Bush henchman? A: A good start.

MrMR (who knows a thing or two about conspiracies) comments (reminding me that, before Bush can be removed, Cheney has to be unseated, or the result would be to aweful to contemplate)...Gordon Liddy went to jail for more than five years to cover his puppet masters, Mayhap the weight of facing thirty years at the hands of what appears to be a serious prosecutor, might in fact loosen libby's tongue, and rekindle his co-conspiratorial memories of Rove and Cheney , whom he is currently falling on the sword for.

And Ed B. forwards a link to an analysis of how Bush may fair as the pressure mounts, which, although kinda heavy on the 12 step philosophy (remember that 13 steps lead to the gallows) does contain a further link to an hilarious vid-clip of the future POTUS drunk at a wedding.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/271005Bush.htm

WHAT THE FUCK IS A SLEESTACK?
Yesterday I asked what the fuck is a sleestack, and, at Doc40, one gets answers. Some girl sent the short form and a link...
A sleestack is one of the green-skinned, bug-eyed, vaguely reptilian bipeds that menaced the castaway-in-time humans in the classic saturday-morning live-action '70s show "land of the lost."
http://imdb.com/title/tt0071005/

While MrMR (again) who knows a thing or two about the deeply weird sends full chapter and verse...
Sleestak are large green humanoids with both reptilian and insectoid features; they have scaly skin with frills around the neck, bulbous unblinking eyes, pincer-like hands, stubby tails, and a single blunt horn on top of the head. Sleestak are more sophisticated than Pakuni, able to manufacture crossbows, rope, nets, periscopes ("Fair Trade") and other relatively advanced technologies. They were once significantly more developed, however; Sleestak are the degenerate descendants of the Altrusians (see below). The Sleestak have a current population of about 7,000 according to the Library of Skulls ("The Longest Day"), but there were only three Sleestak costumes available for the show's production, which sometimes required creative editing to create the illusion that they were that numerous.
Sleestak live in the Lost City, an underground tunnel complex originally constructed by the Altrusians. They hate bright light and rarely venture out during the day. Sleestak also have a "hibernation season" during which they cocoon themselves into rocky alcoves using some sort of webbing; cool air keeps them in hibernation, and the heat from lava in a pool that the character Peter Koenig (see below) dubbed "Devil's Cauldron" inside the caverns of the Lost City revives them again on a regular schedule (the episode "Follow That Dinosaur"). The Sleestak are very defensive of the Lost City. They know that their ancestors built it, but do not know how or why. They have occasionally tried exploring beyond the chasm that separates the Lost City from the rest of the Land, but their expeditions generally never return and they consider the City to be their only refuge.
The Sleestak have encountered many other humans who have become trapped in the Land of the Lost before the Marshalls arrived, and regard humans as a terrible threat; they attempt to capture and sacrifice humans to their god at every opportunity.
Altrusian moths are required for fertilization of Sleestak eggs, and the Sleestak hunt them when they emerge during the night ("The Longest Day"). In "Blackout," the Sleestak scheme to cause perpetual night by disabling a second clock pylon, allowing them to capture the Altrusian moths. The Sleestak planned to devour these, which would in one thousand hours yield a thousand Sleestak, which could then resume control over the Land of the Lost. Unfortunately, the cold of the long night also began killing the moths.
Sleestak eggs are gestated in a communal hatchery. The Sleestak capture live animals and tie them up there, leaving them for the young to feed on when they hatch ("Fair Trade"). Occasionally, a Sleestak will be hatched that is a "throwback" to their Altrusian ancestors, being born with greater intelligence and with an innate knowledge of Altrusian history and technology—though not, for some reason, knowledge of Pylon operation. The other Sleestak regard these throwbacks as a threat, and so they are also sacrificed to the Sleestak god when detected. One such throwback named S'latch was encountered by the Marshalls in the episode "The Hole", but S'latch was never seen again thereafter.
The Sleestak have a Sleestak Council and Sleestak Leader. The Leader wears a distinctive pendant, and Enik occassionally negotiates with him, as in the episode "Fair Trade".

IF FOX NEWS HAD BEEN THERE
HCB forwards some very funny graphics...
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1ldyn/id2.html

The secret word is Notwithstanding

MIERS DONE GONE LIKE A TURKEY THROUGH THE CORN
And I can’t improve on Wonkette...
The radical right-wing sleestaks that stalk this land hopped up on quasi-Christian kookdom and stronger than ever, have beaten the President into supine submission on Miers and are slavering at the mouth for satisfaction. (But what the fuck is a sleestak?)
http://www.wonkette.com/

NEW TIMES, CLEAR CHANNEL, STARBUCKS
Most of you may not care, others may not know what the hell it’s all about, but this whole New Times takeover and the demise of the Village Voice as we’ve known it is kinda personal. And, if that ain’t enough, any two of the above might provide a reason. Also it’s bringing out the worst in some of my fellow travellers. (Call it Hitchens syndrome, or maybe just chickenshit.) Doc40 has been getting beaucoup hits from an NT server, and also accusations of how I'm afraid of corporate takeover. On the latter matter, quite the reverse, mes braves. I think, in a weirdass way we (the good guys) are gonna win this one. Donnell Alexander goes deep in the current LA CityBeat...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2812&IssueNum=125

BEING SUCH A DAMNED SNOB, I RARELY NOTICE LA ALTERNATIVE PRESS
But they also get their licks in...
With this likely merger, the alternative press in this country will suffer the same kind of corporate consolidation that other media outlets have gone through. Like the daily newspaper chain model that eliminated competition in cities decades ago, this will establish a new paradigm of monopoly, killing the idea of competing editorial voices.
As we’ve seen in places like San Francisco, where the venerable Bay Guardian has been under-attack by the two New Times chain papers in the region, New Times doesn’t like to compete. They like to undermine and destroy. New Times has been negotiating deals with Clear Channel, owner of radio stations and concert venues (nice bedfellows, huh?) to be the only advertising vehicle for Clear Channel properties, blocking other papers from ad dollars.
And Clear Channel is a perfect example of what happens when previously independent media come under one parent company. But where everyone was openly by angered the loss of music diversification, and where Clear Channel was so easily targeted as the enemy all things artistic, somehow the same behavior in the world of alt. newsweeklies has been met with casual shoulder shrugs and a general sense ambivalence.
And now, for the moment, I think I'm done on this topic...

TIS THE SEASON
Frederica, Del. (from Breibart)
The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said. The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said. The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles. State police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham and neighbors said people noticed the body at breakfast time Wednesday but dismissed it as a holiday prank. Authorities were called to the scene more than three hours later. "They thought it was a Halloween decoration," Fay Glanden, wife of Mayor William Glanden, told The (Wilmington) News Journal. "It looked like something somebody would have rigged up," she said.

The secret word is Noose

Indictments today? Yes? Please?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

THE WORKS OF GENERAL ZOD?
(From MSNBC) An Austrian man who claimed he was Superman and could fly was hospitalized early Tuesday after leaping from a fourth-floor window, authorities said. Paramedics rushed the 23-year-old man to a hospital in the city of Graz, about 120 miles south of Vienna, after he jumped from a window and suffered head and back injuries, police said. They said the man - who apparently had drunk several bottles of red wine before attempting the jump - appeared at the window ledge at around 4 a.m. and shouted: "I am Superman! Nothing can happen to me!"

(But hang on a minute. If General Zod is out of the dread Phantom Zone and running for POTUS, (see yesterday) what about Ursa and her fabulous boots?

The secret word is Prostrate

ME! ME! ME! ME! ME! ME!
And while I was waiting for the Grand Jury to hand down indictments (oh please, please) I found this fabulous review on the web...
Jim Morrison’s Adventures in the Afterlife: A Novel by Mick Farren. Really more a collection of character sketches and subplots all held together by their connection to the Lizard King’s adventures in the hereafter. Aside from Morrison, Doc Holiday features in the story a variety of other characters from Egyptian gods to voodoo loas to the founder of the Foursquare Church. The book is filled with humor that requires a breadth of knowledge from pop trivia to historical minutiae - in other words, it’s a lot of fun. The overall story is good and the subplots are interesting, but this book is about the characters and the characters are compelling.

You know, you really ought to read this book if you haven’t, and buy it, if you haven’t, or republish it as a handsome paperback if you’re in that line of work.

LATE NIGHT FINAL FOCUS
In one of those moments of weary clarity, I had a final thought on the whole New Times business (see most of yesterday) and recalled the story of how LA New Times carried nothing on the attack on the World Trade Center in their issue of September 11th, 2001. Maybe the destruction in New York fell outside their formulaic editorial parameters, or maybe the attack happened too close to deadline for coverage to be cost effective. I’m not sure this is true, but I repeat it because this is a blog, not the Washington Post and it makes me viciously happy. I also wonder if New Times papers will be reporting the story below that Colonel Boylan does want over-signified.

I found this anonymous comment on the web. I post it without any of my own.
Recently, the publisher for whom I currently work told me that he had finally discovered that dirty, little secret of publishing success: pay the writers nothing. The alternative weeklies, like many industries, have done good business paying writers little or nothing. And, now, with fear as an incentive, they will be able to exploit this dirty secret in ever more-effective ways.

While reading the merger coverage, I also found myself getting extremely bored with snide cracks about tired old hippies by left-over failed-yuppie hacks. Try saying to my face, you 1960-born scumsuck.

The secret word is Unreconstructed

Or maybe Teargas

MILESTONE/MILLSTONE
"U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the force's combined press center, wrote in an e-mail to reporters, "I ask that when you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq. The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."
And my only reply is yes, Colonel, I am one of those who have an ulterior motive. I want to know for what, in the name of holy hell, these 2,000 Americans, plus Brits, and also tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, gave their precious lives.

POST SCRIPT (WHICH OF COURSE, IN THE BLOGOSPHERE, PRECEDES THE SCRIPT IT POSTS)
It just occurred to me that maybe New Times is the alternative we deserve in a world where Britney Spears hires a limo to transport her dog across the country and some corporate CEO drops a quarter of a million bucks on champagne and lap dances at Scores, and the poor don’t even complain, let alone revolt. (For further clarification take a look at the pic of the NT honchos in the NY Times report.)
Or this shit happens (from some girl)...
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1231684&page=1


ROSA PARKS -- RIP

NEW TIMES/BAD TIMES
Hell, I didn’t like it when underground became alternative...
The news was out yesterday that the long rumored a merger between the New Times corporation and Village Voice Media is a done deal, and, as of now, no one in the alternative ink business really knows what the outcome will be but many are affeared. Especially, as always, the workers being sold down the proverbial river. I think I said about all I had to say in LA CityBeat a couple of weeks ago, and I only need repeat these kind of corporate powerplays can only devalue what little resistance remains in the world print at a time of war, pestilence, global disfunction and a collapsing White House.

But shall we take this in increments?

My original diatribe stands, so far I’ve been proved right, and the piece can be read at...
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2698&IssueNum=122

The only thing to add is that, having written for The Village Voice for six or seven years in the days of (variously) Lester Bangs, Nat Hentoff, Stanley Crouch, Michael Musto, and Cynthia Heimel, I mourn for its debasement and wonder how any of them would fare under the New Times junta.

For the full news report try the NY Times (plus a picture that says it all)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/business/24voice.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1130288453-UvQsChtID2CArIVXF/lH5A

or Editor & Publisher
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001351490

And although I wonder what makes Dan Savage think New Times is in anyway anti-establishment, here’s the reaction from another independent alt weekly.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=23784

Natalie Nichols blogs a major insight into the scumbaghood of NT fuhrer Michael Lacy...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

And local reaction in LA can be found if you scroll down a bit at...
http://www.laobserved.com/

Much more will very obviously follow.

The secret word is War

CRYPTIQUE – You ultra-right gangster, you would be well advised to behave with discretion!

AND ON A HAPPIER NOTE
Here’s a killer review of my brand new CD "To The Masterlock" by asyd.
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1434

AND THANK HEAVENS FOR GENERAL ZOD!
http://www.zod2008.com/index.htm

WEEKEND READIN'
A whole lot of really interesting stuff has been coming down Doc40's pike in the last 48 hours with which to occupy ourselves as we wait to see if the entire Bush White House is going to do the perp walk next week, so, without further preamble, lets get to it.

First up is an entire (albeit short) book by firebrand Tom Vague, Getting It Straight In Notting Hill Gate, that tells the story of my old manor from the Teddy Boys and race riots of the 1950s, through the adventures of likes of Boss Goodman, Mike Moorcock, Lemmy and me, (and, a little later, The Clash) all the way to the contemporary horror as the old freak/rude boy ghetto is bought out as the playground of the rich and fashionable. There are a few inaccuracies, but all in all it’s on the money.
"HISTORYtalk has teamed up with local writer Tom Vague to develop a pop history of Notting Hill. Tom has been charting the area's pop culture for a number of years as part of his London Psychogeography Project. Any comments or memories that readers may have about the music scene in Notting Hill from the 1950s through to the present day are welcome. Tom can be contacted at tvague@kcchg.org"
It’s on Acrobat and can be printed out or downloaded
http://www.historytalk.org/Tom%20Vague%20Pop%20History/Tom%20Vague%20Pop%20History.htm

Kaymo sends a stunning analysis by the editor of no less that Harpers that contends the US is already a facist state. "On the evidence of the wonderful work currently being done by the Bush Administration with respect to the trade deficit and the national debt -- to say nothing of expanding the markets for global terrorism -- I think we can look forward with confidence to character-building bankruptcies, picturesque bread riots, thrilling cavalcades of splendidly costumed motorcycle police..."
http://organicconsumers.org/Politics/harpers101205.cfm

A weird blog from Dr Mysterian (another good Doc) that links B horror movies and obscurist rock & roll.
http://drmysterian.com/blog.html

And just a plain old fashioned interesting blog...
http://theapologist.blogspot.com/

The secret word is Paragraph

CRYPTIQUE – You bloodthirsty human scum, we will mercilessly crush you with the weapon of singlehearted unity!

HAPPY 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR TO THOSE WHO KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M TALKING ABOUT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar

The secret word is Grapeshot

LAUGH OR FUCKING CRY
Kaymo sent over the following that would have me rolling on the floor if this slick-suited sonofabitch wasn’t so hideously representative of the purblind arrogant dullard crooks who are currently running the nation into the bleeding earth. The only good news is that there’s a warrant for this monstrosity’s arrest, and we can only hope he ultimately does serious time, in some a real nasty Texas pen.

10 MIND-NUMBING QUOTES BY TOM DELAY
1) "So many minority youths had volunteered that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." --Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988 GOP convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War
2) "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" -Tom Delay, to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005
3) "I AM the federal government." -Tom DeLay, to the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 2003
4) "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." -Tom DeLay, explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News
5) "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." -Tom DeLay, March 12, 2003
6) "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills." -Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999
7) "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not saying that... It does take a father, though." -Tom DeLay, in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004
8) "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church." -Tom DeLay
9) "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist." -Tom DeLay, during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996
10) "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." -Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995

DOH!
Link from some girl concerning what happened when Islamic fundamentalist edited The Simpsons. http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article320877.ece

LA CITYBEAT
I have a somewhat fluffy column on TV revisionism in this week’s weekly tab.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2763&IssueNum=124

The secret word is Thug

CRYPTIQUE -- What the fuck does Bono think he's up to?

BEYOND THE WILDEST NIGHTMARE
While still dealing more the usual crap that flesh is heir to, (maybe one day I’ll look back and laugh and tell you all about it) I can only keep Doc40 rolling with stuff like this monstrous little horror story from Mike Musgrove at the Washington Post forwarded by some girl...

It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. The pages coming out of your color printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track you down if you ever cross the U.S. government.
Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from many color laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page, viewable only with a special kind of flashlight. The article quoted a senior researcher at Xerox Corp. as saying the dots contain information useful to law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital "license tag" for tracking down criminals.
The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use color printers.
Now, the secret is out.
Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer privacy group, said it had cracked the code used in a widely used line of Xerox printers, an invisible bar code of sorts that contains the serial number of the printer as well as the date and time a document was printed.
With the Xerox printers, the information appears as a pattern of yellow dots, each only a millimeter wide and visible only with a magnifying glass and a blue light.
The EFF said it has identified similar coding on pages printed from nearly every major printer manufacturer, including Hewlett-Packard Co., though its team has so far cracked the codes for only one type of Xerox printer.
The U.S. Secret Service acknowledged yesterday that the markings, which are not visible to the human eye, are there, but it played down the use for invading privacy.
"It's strictly a countermeasure to prevent illegal activity specific to counterfeiting," agency spokesman Eric Zahren said. "It's to protect our currency and to protect people's hard-earned money."
It's unclear whether the yellow-dot codes have ever been used to make an arrest. And no one would say how long the codes have been in use. But Seth Schoen, the EFF technologist who led the organization's research, said he had seen the coding on documents produced by printers that were at least 10 years old.
"It seems like someone in the government has managed to have a lot of influence in printing technology," he said.
Xerox spokesman Bill McKee confirmed the existence of the hidden codes, but he said the company was simply assisting an agency that asked for help. McKee said the program was part of a cooperation with government agencies, competing manufacturers and a "consortium of banks," but would not provide further details. HP said in a statement that it is involved in anti-counterfeiting measures and supports the cooperation between the printer industry and those who are working to reduce counterfeiting.
Schoen said that the existence of the encoded information could be a threat to people who live in repressive governments or those who have a legitimate need for privacy. It reminds him, he said, of a program the Soviet Union once had in place to record sample typewriter printouts in hopes of tracking the origins of underground, self-published literature.
"It's disturbing that something on this scale, with so many privacy implications, happened with such a tiny amount of publicity," Schoen said.
And it's not as if the information is encrypted in a highly secure fashion, Schoen said. The EFF spent months collecting samples from printers around the world and then handed them off to an intern, who came back with the results in about a week.
"We were able to break this code very rapidly," Schoen said.

LAUGH?
This from Sid S.
Go to google. Run a google search on the word FAILURE and the read the first result. (This may not last.)

KEN MATSUTANI GET WELL SOON!

The secret word is Struggle

WOKE UP THIS MORNING
And the stress was waiting, tres beaucoup, but, while I cope and until I come back with more, check out this piece of nastiness (from some girl). Seems like I recall similar stories at the Greenham Common anti-nuke protests back in the UK.
http://www.sploid.com/news/2005/10/did_washington.php

The secret word is Weight

AN "I WISH I’D WRITTEN THAT" MOMENT
In San Antonio they tell me that power and money are one
They can buy us or sell you to keep you afraid, on the run
But no one can stop us!
My vision is clearly in sight
And the Free Mexican Air Force
Mescalito riding his white horse
Yeah the Free Mexican Air Force is flyin' tonight

Razored this from Miss Templeton’s weblog. (See yesterday.) I have to do much more research as to it’s origin
http://horslipsmusic.blogspot.com/

(Email address as ever – byron4d@msn.com)

The secret word is Thompson

SINGLE THOUGHT ON A VERY SLOW SATURDAY
After a week that left a quantum deal to be desired, I actually slept all day and, when I woke, the weather had changed to autumn and, after the raw heat of the previous day, the transformation was not a moment too soon. But, before I fell into my ten hour near-coma, a thought slow-danced through a mind that was attempting to blank itself out for its own protection, or at least lose itself in contemplation of sex, drugs, or vintage rock & roll. It came in the form of a question I’d dearly love to pose to George W. Bush...
"Yo, Georgie, I was just sitting here wondering if you’d install some incompetent, numbskull rich-boy halfwit or woman-of-no-importance to head up your own Secret Service detail, or to pilot Air Force One. No? Of course not. Dumb question, right? Then pray tell me Mr. President, how come you make such appointments to FEMA, Homeland Security, the United Nations and the Supreme Court, where my safety and that of the rest of the world hangs in the fucking balance?"

RELATED GAME
Sent over by Bill although I have managed nothing better than a zero score.
http://www.imgag.com/product/full/ap/3067907/graphic1.swf

UNRELATED GAME
http://www.bunnysneezes.net/page16.html
This ingenious, creative and non-competitive, gothic, virtual paper-doll game comes from a new friend Miss Templeton whose weblog, although nominally dedicated to Irish rock & roll and (seemingly) the consumption of alcohol, currently contains nice remarks about me, a shared affection for Wednesday Addams, and fine picture of Elvis getting drunk.
http://horslipsmusic.blogspot.com/

The secret word is October

CRYPTIQUE – Am I sure Hank done it this way?

PLEASE, SHUT THE FUCK UP
Really, enough. In LA the temperatures once again push close to the 100F mark, the planet’s in the toilet, I don’t feel well, and although I know I’ve said all this before, the Fundamentalists keep pushing their crap to the point that, if I had the strength I’d reach for my revolver. Pat Robertson will not do the decent thing and just shut his mouth so, between pimping his brand of canned shakes, he’s now telling us that Jesus is now on the way back (something he might, in actuality, do well to fear...)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051009/en_afp/quakesasiausreligion_051009185041

AND MEANWHILE IN KANSAS THEY’RE PLAYING GET THE LESBIAN
(Gimme a break...)
Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant "by means other than sexual intercourse."
According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court. Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.
More on this in Natalie Nichols column in LA CityBeat
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2734&IssueNum=123

OH AND HERE’S A JOB APPLICATION...
http://www.cronyjobs.com/

The secret word is Exhaustion

CRYPTIQUE – Let the air be dead

AND NOW, A PICTURE OF OUR GLORIOUS LEADER...
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5812/438/1600/cthulhu1.jpg

The secret word is Arkham

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PUNK ISSUE
Two new stories from your humble servant in today’s issue of LA CityBeat. The first is a erudite bit on the roots of punk (this being a special punk issue)...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2704&IssueNum=122

And the second is a scurrilous attack on the New Times "alternative" newspaper chain...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2698&IssueNum=122

And already my comments seem to be causing a minor flurry...
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2005/10/waiting_for_new_times.html#more
and...
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=10408

From Chris Morris
Mick's screed about the NT/Voice merger is RIGHT FUCKING ON. Beautifully framed. And it's nice to see that it's got the NT people steamed. The truth always hurts. (BTW, spread the word: I'm gonna be hosting "Watusi Rodeo" on Indie 103.1 – LA area – at 11 a.m. this Sunday.)

If anyone has anything to add, I am, as ever, at byron4d@msn.com

LETS HEAR IT FOR JOHN DENSMORE
It’s refreshing to learn (from HCB in this case) that, here in Paris Hilton’s world, there’s someone who won’t do it all for money, and that one Door still stands by his former man. (Although if I was offered a million or so bucks for one of my cheesy old songs I might think long and hard.)
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-doors5oct05,0,7733555.story?track=tottext

HALF PRICE DRINKS
And if you want to hear one of the cheesy old songs and know why it’s highly unlikely that I’ll placed the dilemma of being bought out, even for a beer commercial, there’s a free MP3 download at...
http://vslam.blogspot.com/

IN OTHER NEWS
Terminal alcoholics who get nervous with an empty glass in front of the them can now rest easy thanks to a beer coaster that can tell when a glass is empty. The coaster, fitted with sensors, measures the weight of the beer and sends a signal behind the bar when it's time for a refill.

Stately Wayne Manor burned down. The old Pasadena mansion built by the Busch beer family and used in the 1960s Batman series (POW!) burned down last night. Nothing to do with the wild fires, seemingly a remodeling accident.

AND SOME WEIRD PICS...
If you wonder why we’re all fucking crazy in LA, what do you expect when shit like this appears in the evening sky (after a missile lauch from Vandenberg Naval Base, perhaps part of the Star Wars defense idiocy.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/vandenberg/

CRYPTIQUE – Now witness the firepower of this fully operational battle station.

The secret word is Diverse

H5N1
This virus, also known as the Avian or Bird Flu has been all over the news today, and Doc40 the Uberparanoid really wants to know why. I guess the trigger to the mini-furor it is the story of how researchers have replicated the 1918 Spanish Flu virus that started the historic pandemic that rivaled WWI in bodycounts. (Some girl sent over a concise report –
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2005/1006/620625089HM1FLU.html )
Since then, though, H5N1 has been the scare story de jour with talking heads telling us we’re all doomed, because we’re well overdue for a massive flu pandemic, although making no mention of how part of the doom is in that the Great Global Superpower offers only Third-World health care to its non-wealthy citizens, organized, if at all, by deny-all-claims insurance companies and HMOs. Then Sen. Barack Obama (we hope a future president) warns that, should H5N1 mutate from hens to humans, the US is totally unprepared and lags desperately behind the UK and other developed nations in vaccine readiness. Just to confuse us further, Bush himself makes mention of Bird Flu in some White House al fresco Q&A media opportunity and declares that, if an outbreak happens, he’s real ready for it. He will use the military to quarantine the effected areas. (As some girl noted "him and what army?") Since this is plainly asinine, we have to wonder what the fuck is going on?
Perhaps...
1) Bush’s handlers think macho talk about influenza will smokescreen the general condition of chaos and fuck-up that surrounds the President Inept.
2) Bush’s handlers think influenza panic will provide another stepping stone to their desired Neocon Global Police State.
3) The pharmaceutical companies think influenza panic will smokescreen the fact that they are robbing us blind on a daily basis, and Michael Moore is making a film about them.
4) All of the above.
5) All of the above and more.
I’d write more about this deeply weird facet of homeland security only I don’t feel so good.

The secret word is Poorly

SHINING
HCB has alerted us to the a fabulous faux-trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining that’s making the rounds. Easy access via this site. Hit the first link to the trailer, but also scroll down because there’s more...
http://www.tatteredcoat.com/archives/2005/09/28/the-shining-redux/

CRYPTIQUE – You wicked bloodsucker, we will annihilate you with a fresh revolutionary upswing!

SUPREME SACRIFICE
If your mind boggles that our pal Georgie Bush, in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA scandal, is now appointing a lawer pal, Harriet Miers – who has never been a judge, and about whom no one seems to know very much at all – to the Supreme Court, try a little inside info from wonkette...
A Legal Times profile of Harriet Miers upon her promotion from deputy chief of staff under Andy Card to White House counsel includes information not likely to show up on an official bio, among them:
She is immensely, perhaps irrationally, into birthdays: "She always remembers everybody's birthday, and has a present for them. She'll be finding a present for somebody in the middle of the night.... 'Can't it wait until next week?' 'No,' she'd say, 'It has to be done now.'"
She has dated Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht "over the years." [NOTE: Absolutely no other article online mentions this fascinating fact.]
She's nit-picky micromanager who failed upwards at the White House: "She failed in Card's office for two reasons," the [former White House] official says. "First, because she can't make a decision, and second, because she can't delegate, she can't let anything go. And having failed for those two reasons, they move her to be the counsel for the president, which requires exactly those two talents."
Not even the president can think of much interesting to say about her: In 1996, at an Anti-Defamation League Jurisprudence Award ceremony, Bush introduced Miers as a "pit bull in Size 6 shoes," a tag line that has persisted through the years, in part because colorful anecdotes or descriptions about Miers are notoriously difficult to find.
We're not even that excited about the possibility of her being gay.
http://www.wonkette.com/

The secret word is Time

MEANWHILE DOWN YONDER...
I happened across this New Orleans website by complete accident and aside from the recipes, pics and eclectic NOLA tales there is – if you scroll down a bit – also some excellent first hand refuting of the tales of horror, rape and cannibalism after Katrina that still seem to be accepted a fact by far too many. Do check it out for yourself before this ugly crap becomes ingrained as history.
http://www.gumbopages.com/looka/archive/2005-09.html

CRYPTIQUE – Fuck Thomas Hobbes and the Leviathan he rode in on.

IN THE MATTER OF PENGUINS
I’ve had a whole bunch of other things on my mind of late so I really haven’t been paying much attention to who’s been going to see what films and why, and also so many recent Hollywood movies have been so fucking dire that what little notice I did give to the subject was pretty damned depressing. In a spare moment, however, I did notice a report that March Of The Penguins has been the surprise hit of the summer, which, at first, made me very happy because I am a bigtime, lifelong penguin enthusiast, and intended to rent the DVD as soon as it came out. I was therefore somewhat taken aback though to find that March Of The Penguins has been annexed by the Christian Right who claim to have found God in the study of the emperor penguin, and now "rejoice in penguins as upholders of family values" and as "obvious proof of intelligent design." They are now apparently running special excursion to screenings and taking flashlights so they can note down anything God might say to them during the course of the film. First I groaned, but then I recalled how emperor penguins aren’t actually monogamous, and many change partners each year. Some are also gay. And, of course, they are birds, with their own unique but impenetrable belief systems.

The secret word is Snowed

WOULD YOU BELIEVE
Would you believe that, back in the day, these guys wanted me to quit the band so they could concentrate on elevating their musicianship without my insane distractions?
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Eslugnoir/Fuz/bonus.html

AUGUST WILSON -- RIP

I see the comments board has reached all the sevens. Dunno what the Rastas will have to say about that.

(Have much to say, especially about penguins, but it's been a hardwork weekend and it will have to keep to the morrow.)

The secret word is Later

REPUBLICANS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS...
"But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." – William Bennett, former Education Secretary, former Drug Czar, author of The Book of Virtues.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9535204/

TURN UP THE SPEAKERS
This comes from logicgrl and is well worth the effort...
http://filmstripinternational.com

FIFTY YEARS
Fifty years ago today James Dean died near Paso Robles as his Porsche Spyder poughed into Donald Turnupseed’s ragged Ford, and the actor from the edge of the world became an icon and we kids thought we might ride to freedom on his doom.
Too many half centuries bear down – the dawn of Elvis, the death of Charlie Parker, Miles and John Coltrane, "Be-Bop-A-Lula", Night of the Hunter...
How much...
How much...
How much longer
(I had a pony, his name was Lucifer)

My TV proves that LA is on fire yet again, and I may have to ponder all this mortal history through the smoke-filled night.

The secret word is Conceivable

(Over on the mighty comments board, Billy Oblivion has a point, and hipspinster blogs on the fires http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/.)

GO FIGURE THIS ONE, PAT ROBERTSON
While the Gulf Coast is under water, LA is now having a late September 100F heatwave, and Chatsworth (porn capital of Planet Earth) is on fire. No George, the jury is not still out on global warming. They have come back and pronounced you guilty as charged. Do the decent thing and resign.

CRYPTIQUE – When strippers talk about agriculture and animal husbandry.

AIN’T RETRIBUTION SWEET?
Could it be that House Majority Leader Tom Delay (the man I’ve always though of as Bush’s loudly born-again Martin Borman) will really wind up as someone’s bitch in a Federal joint? Maybe not, but I can hope.

And talking of hope, I hoped this was a joke, but I’m not so sure...
http://www.happynews.com/

Some mornings the smoke screen is so thick you can’t see the hand in your pocket.

Which reminds me that I should let those you know who are still interested that I continue to battle the king size nicotine jones. I had a bit of a lapse through my last couple of days in Tokyo, but hell, I was smoking Mild 7s and a poor boy can hardly taste those suckers.
I’d pray for strength but...

GOD SEEMS TO BE A BIT OF A PROBLEM
(from Wonkette http://www.wonkette.com/ )
According to a study published in the Journal of Religion and Society, heavily religious democracies such as the United States lag significantly behind less pious, more science-friendly nation states in most key quality of life indicators. The study, conducted by social scientist Gregory Paul, gets this bracing executive summary in the London Times: In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from " uniquely high" adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates.

The secret word is Dogbreath

MEANWHILE, BACK IN SHINJUKU
(With the right translation, nothing is ever lost)

Kaoru extends his index finger and, almost without hesitation, the bug alights on it and sits passively. The bug is tiny, but strangely cartoon-Japanese with tiny bobbles on the ends of its antennae. I ask Kaoru if this is a trick. Is the insect attracted to, like, the sweat on his skin? Or is it magic? He grins. It’s magic. But much magic had been performed during the seven days in Tokyo. Earlier in the week, I had given Kaoru a Sopranos t-shirt which he didn’t understand, David Chase’s NJ crime-family saga not having penetrated Japan, but he wore it proudly to the show in any case. It seemed, in a minor way, symbolic of how we handled everything from food to cultural fusion. Don’t quite understand what something is all about? What the fuck? Go for it anyway. It has to be interesting. And isn’t going for it the first function of art?

That I am in Tokyo at all is nothing short of magical, maybe even miraculous. That I should be flown in to read poetry, perform some rock & roll, and, as a postscript to the show, participate in a group discussion, for just one night and one night only, under the auspices of something called Tokyo Hipster’s Club (ambiguous initials THC) was hardly a run-of-the-mill occurrence in the first place. I would say that I wanted to go back to Tokyo so badly that I willed it to happen, except that would be a diminishment of all the good work put in by the formidable Gaku Torii and his partner Maki Fujimoto, the amazing Yukiko Akagawa, Ken Matsutani, the Marble Sheep and everyone else who worked so hard in reality to make my grandiose subjective illusion possible.

On the second hot, humid day in town, the phone rang. The entire two-day THC show had to be moved. An elderly geezer who dwelled near the venue had complained about noise potential and seemingly obtained some kind of legal injunction. I have heard messages like this, all the way back to Phun City and beyond. Old geezers with lawyers are simply a part of outlaw rock & roll. I will not panic, believing instead that all will ultimately be well. I mean, I have to believe all will be well. If it isn’t, my life will become temporarily untenable at a modest five thousand miles from home. And, hey! A few hours later, the problem has been solved. The entire show has been moved.

And the move is truly magical. The replacement venue is a cavernous, high-tech sound stage in the TV studios under the Tokyo Tower. Smaller than the Eiffel Tower, on which it seems modeled, the Tokyo Tower is nonetheless awesome. On the way into the studio complex, I notice a gift shop selling little five-inch models of the tower. Decided I wanted one, and cursed, when on leaving, I discovered the gift shop was closed. Maybe I should have made the purchase earlier, but there was so much to explore. The studio came with lavish TV-star dressing rooms and a green room fully stocked with beer and food. All conspired to enhance the feeling that I was doing was somehow of validity and importance. Although I am just one among the kick-ass band Slunky Side and star-veteran headliners Sheena and the Rokkets, my dressing room, maybe on a account of the presence of marijuana, becomes the party room.

On a trip to the green room for more beer, I peer, with a private eye gesture, through the blinds of its huge picture window. I find the window overlooks old buildings with elaborate tiled roofs at the edge of a park. I ask Ken what they are. He tells me a temple. Out back, temple ladies in identical trad costumes (nuns? I dunno) are taking a cigarette break.

The stage is all Jim Morrison could have hoped for. Lights, back projection, ample space. I commence with the now accustomed anomaly of reading poetry in English to a Japanese audience. This time, though with the band of Marble Sheep, plus Nabeji of Slunky Side, rising and falling, free-form, behind me. Then we get down to some old school psychedelic punk and all is well. After a super-rapid change into a dry shirt, I return to the stage with Gaku as moderator and translator Yusuke Inoue for a question and answer session that is, to say the least, a little strange until I take matters into my own hands and launch into an impassioned rant in a fervent but translatable monotone. There’s no point in any specific rhetoric about Bush, Blair or Koizumi. I talk generally about how we all live on an increasingly damaged planet that we must nurse back to health. As I write, Tokyo’s thirteenth typhoon of the season is spiraling in, New Orleans – home of the blues – has drowned. The war in Iraq drags on for Japan, Britain, and the US alike. And what is yet to come? The politicians are too self-interested to act for anyone but their corporate masters. We all, as artists, must hone our skills as weapons and get back into the fight using music and the visual, verbal and electronic arts as tools of change that transcend international boundaries. It’s maybe our only chance. The words seem now to connect as totally as the music. And afterwards I am treated as something of the hero.

Or maybe I’m just delusional, but I don’t think so. Sure I was rabble rousing to my own gratification, but I was also telling the truth as I saw it.

But the fun is not entirely over. The following night, I find myself on a street in Kitazawa (I think), a heaven of bikers, artists and hustling, high-heeled B-girls. The mission is to see Ken Matsutani play solo guitar at a tiny record store/performance space, that reminds me of the places like Café Bustello and Downtown Beirut on New York’s Lower East Side that I used to play with Henry Beck and Johnny Collins back in he 1980s as Tijuana Bible. Ken finishes a long and lyrical improvisation, and then invites me up to add some "satanic" words to his swamp guitar. I assume the stance of Victor Renquist and my Sunday-best-but-throat-ripping Beefheart delivery and launch into a lazily menacing amalgam of the off-the-cuff couplets, all I can remember from "Long Walk With The Demon", "Solitaire Devil", "Dogpoet" and more. The tightly packed crowd loves it. Wow! How much validation can a poor boy take.

Going back to the top of the story, Kaoru’s bug trick takes place during an improvised picnic on Yukiko’s roof in Shinjuku. Later a huge full moon rises over the corporate towers like a manga panel. Even though I have to fly back to LA the next day, magic really does fill the air, and I am extremely happy.

And there’s even a postscript. After my rant at THC, Yukiko tells me that my old friend Wayne Kramer, whom I haven’t seen in a long time, is expressing the self-same sentiments, and I should check out his journal. I do, and find the this is perfectly true, as in...

"I have wonderful friends all over the world. Indeed, we are all part of a new world order, a new global tribe of artists and doers and thinkers and creative people who are trying to do things that matter. The Internet allows us to stay connected. We're always conspiring on some project or another."
http://www.waynekramer.com/wk/report.cfm?&k_diary_id=27

The secret word is Together

MAYBE I SHOULD JUST STOP WATCHING TELEVISION
Of course, I won’t. In this week’s LA CityBeat I even have a riff on how TV news came through with unexpected courage in the midst of Katrina.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=2645&IssueNum=120

On the other hand, as I sat watching JetBlue 292 endlessly circling LAX, I had to wonder at my own part in this lifelong cathode conspiracy. Yes, it all came out okay in the end, and as Mr MR remarked in a subsequent email "let's take the jet blu pilot and just make him head of FEMA, the dude can handle an emergency!" But I had to ask myself was that what I really wanted, or was I vicariously waiting for the twisted metal and the all-consuming orange fireball? Sometimes it seems a little too hard and maybe needlessly narcissistic to be too openly honest with oneself.

BLAME IT ON ELLEN
And if I didn’t watch TV, would I know about the following? It was, in fact sent by a.g. ford, but, without TV, there’d be no Pat Robertson...
Pat Robertson on Sunday said that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of expressing its anger at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for its selection of Ellen Degeneres to host this year’s Emmy Awards. "By choosing an avowed lesbian for this national event, these Hollywood elites have clearly invited God’s wrath," Robertson said on "The 700 Club" on Sunday. "Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?"Robertson also noted that the last time Degeneres hosted the Emmys, in 2001, the September 11 terrorism attacks took place shortly before the ceremony."This is the second time in a row that God has invoked a disaster shortly before lesbian Ellen Degeneres hosted the Emmy Awards," Robertson explained to his approximately one million viewers. "America is waiting for her to apologize for the death and destruction that her sexual deviance has brought onto this great nation."
For more...
http://datelinehollywood.com/archives/2005/09/05/robertson-blames-hurricane-on-choice-of-ellen-deneres-to-host-emmys/

A PIECE OF THE ROCK
And, of course, it was only my TV that informed my how the insurance industry is already attempting to weasel out on claims by policy holders in New Orleans or Biloxi, asserting that it was not a hurricane that caused the damage (covered) but the resulting flood (not covered). Already Mississippi and Louisiana Attorney Generals are going after the cheap four-flushing bastards, but the odds may well be that, if forced to pay up, they'll declare bankruptcy and go running for a Bush government bailout.

MEANWHILE...
I’m still working on my Tokyo thoughts. Maybe a weekend treat.
And talking of Tokyo, here’s a video clip from Yukiko...
http://images2.jokaroo.net/videos/grandpajapan.wmv

And some retro-naked hippies from HCB...
http://www.nakedhippies.blogspot.com/

Also some Orwellian fun.
http://studentsfororwell.org/

The secret word is Tubular

CRYPTIQUE – We already put a man on the moon.

SO NOW WHAT?
As I watch, Rita turns into a level 5 and, while still recovering from my adventures in Tokyo, I wonder what the hell is going to be left at the end of all this? I also just realized that, before I went away, I forgot in the confusion to issue a warning that I was on BBC 3 in the UK in a show called Forty Years of F**k. Sorry about that, I hope it will repeat.

Meanwhile, it’s been brought to my attention that an Idaho weatherman on KPVI-TV who goes by the name of Scott Stevens seriously claims Japanese Yakuza used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge itself for the Hiroshima atom bomb attack - and that this technology will soon be wielded again to hit another U.S. city. For the full story...
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2005-09-20-wacky-weatherman_x.htm

I heard nothing about this while I was in Japan and I also cannot confirm that the President immediately hired Stevens to head up a massively funded division of Homeland Security. It would seem, though, the Yakuza notwithstanding, The National Enquirer thinks Georgie is back on the sauce...
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/celebrity/63426

The secret word is Abandon

OKAY SO IT’S TUESDAY...
Just back from Tokyo Narita and boy are my arms tired (literally) – plus I guess a pun on the word "disorientated" comes into play. Very happy with the trip but pissed off that my faithful and longtime Zippo was confiscated under some asinine new fucking international law to defend us from terror. And then I land in the USA only to find that hurricane Rita is now bearing down on the Florida Keys and Panic Mk II is underway, my elderly cat has fleas for the first time in 12 years and is very unhappy, and then a thunderstorm cracks over LA just as I’m looking to sleep. And what is Bill Clinton up to? I guess a coupe d’etat is to too much to hope for.

I did, however, get a couple of super-cool Deviants t-shirts in the mail from this firm in the UK that is definitely worth checking out. No, I’m not making any money, but I did get a couple of free ones. http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-DEVIANTS-T-SHIRT_W0QQitemZ7542866066QQcategoryZ42443QQcmdZViewItem

More about my Oriental adventures when I have gathered my scattered wits, attended to crucial email, and generally debriefed myself.

The secret word is Jetboy

TODAY I FLY TO TOKYO FOR SOME READIN’ AND ROCKIN’ SO DOC 4O WILL FOR SILENT FOR PRECISELY A WEEK – UNLESS OF COURSE YOU HAPPEN TO BE AT THE TOKYO HIPSTERS CLUB NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT. I leave you with this thought...
"According to all aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly because its body weight is not in the right proportion to its wingspan. But ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway."

The secret word is Rising

SEE YOU ALL NEXT MONDAY

THE DOG DID NOT EAT GEORGE’S HOMEWORK, BUT, IF IT DID, IT’S REALLY THE FAULT OF HILLARY AND THE MEDIA
Ben Stein is a piece of human redundancy who wrote speeches for Richard Nixon, a novel about Quaaludes, did a bit of acting, and then hosted a quiz show. He also lives in LA and will be crying like a baby for FEMA and rescue when the next 7.4 hits us. Here, from The American Spectator, he does us a favor in 12-step tabulating all the standard arguments that will be used by Bush supporters and rightwing gum-flappers in the coming days, so we can all anticipate the mind-boggling bullshit in store. Over to the wholly ludicrous Ben Stein...

"A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:
1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.
2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one.
3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.
4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.
5.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.
6.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell.
7.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say otherwise is scandalously untrue.
8.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the city is a miracle of bravery and organization.
9.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say otherwise is pure slander.
10.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.
11.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will recover and be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of George Bush that does not resemble him in the slightest will not speed the process by one day.
12.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care.God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God bless those helping them, starting with George Bush."

Below is something of a rebuttal from Michael Moore, although I really don’t think it’s worth bothering to debate the Stein doctrine. If someone starts spouting this crap at you, and is within easy reach, my best advice is to simply punch them hard between the eyes and be done with. If violence, even in the face of extreme provocation, cannot be considered an option for moral, religious, health, or gender reasons, simply and clearly enunciate the words "Shut the fuck up you abject cretin" and spit in their drink. Here’s Michael Moore...

"There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show."

The secret word is Abdicate

CRYPTIQUE – The threat level is stuck on stupid.

FALANGIST FUNNIES
For a long time I have wished people would stop using the word conservative when they mean neo-Nazi psychopaths. The lethal debacle on the Gulf Coast does, however, seem to be separating the sheep from the gauleiters. The Katrina deathtoll has even moved the pitbull Robert Novak to question Bush competence in today’s edition of his syndicated column...

"The common complaint is that the president has let the lawyers take over. Chertoff, a former federal judge and assistant attorney general, is a quintessential lawyer who has surrounded himself at Homeland Security with more lawyers. Michael D. Brown, who as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is Chertoff's subordinate, is also a lawyer. Neither Chertoff nor Brown was experienced in politics or large-scale management before joining the Bush administration."

Unfortunately Novak doesn’t go on to say the Bush seems fucking incapable of appointing any public officials except by the criteria of graft, cronyism, and deliberate incompetence when put in charge of stuff the necons don’t like – as in FEMA and anything to do with peace or poor people. But it is major turnround. Out on the fringes, though, it’s rabid storm trooping as usual like this clip sent over by some girl by some character called Michael Calderon at David Horowitz's Frontpage Magazine. I guess this is what passes for humor among fascists...

"Expect heavily armed and infuriated conservatives to launch a cleansing war against the traitors. The armed will mow down the mostly unarmed segments, especially those elements that devoted 40-plus years to anti-American hatred to destroy this country. Should the likes of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Michael Moore, Ward Churchill, Dennis Raimondo [sic], et al. act out their sedition ... expect their bodies to be found shot full of holes ... Leftist professors will be strung up. It will be every man, woman, and child for themselves."

The secret word is Heil

A LETTER TO BOB
Dear Bob,
What is this shit, man? I went along the Victoria’s Secret TV commercial because I’m a guy and I understand. And I’ve stood up for the pencil moustache when friends said it made you look like a Jivaro shrunken head of Vincent Price, and I really did enjoy Masked and Anonymous, but, fuck it, did you have to sell The Times They Are A’Changing to Kaiser Permanente – a fucking HMO, and the reason why, in America, you stay healthy or die? Do I really have to come over and piss on your grave after I’m through with Mick & Pete.
As always,
Mick

WHEN I FIND MYSELF QUOTING CHURCHILL TWICE IN 24 HOURS, I KNOW WE’RE IN TROUBLE
"The responsibility of government for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence." – Winston Spencer Churchill

Spin that at your peril, Coulter, Hannity, Malkin, Limbaugh, and the rest of fawning Bush lackeys. Your boy deserves nothing but disgusted contempt. His phoney authority died in the course of last week, somewhere in Jefferson Parish, so shut the fuck up. You only dishonor the dead.

Some girl just sent over a perfect example of how the mainstream is finally getting it, and the cry is not just from a bunch of old veteran freaks...
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden5sep05,0,6258105.column

Also from Bob Herbert in the NY Times...
"Like a boy being prepped for a second crack at a failed exam, Mr. Bush has been meeting with his handlers to see what steps can be taken to minimize the political fallout from this latest demonstration of his ineptitude. But this is not about politics. It's about competence. And when the president is so obviously clueless about matters so obviously important, it means that the rest of us, like the people left stranded in New Orleans, are in deep, deep trouble."

I WOULD DRAW THE PRESIDENT'S ATTENTIONN TO THE THREE "R’s" WHICH MAY BE HIS ONLY REMAINING OPTIONS...
Repentance
Resignation
or failing those...
Revolution

None of these words is a secret.

WINSTON CHURCHILL CALLED IT THE BLACK DOG. THE MOMENT OF BLEAK AND WEARY DEPRESSION WHEN IT SEEMS AS THOUGH THE FIGHT IS ENDLESS. SELF-SATISFIED STUPIDITY REIGNS, LOYAL OPPOSITION IS WHOLLY INEFFECTUAL, AND THE DEAD BODIES PILE UP IN MOUNDS. IT HAS RAINED UNTIL SEPTEMBER AND I AM ANOTHER DAY OLDER AND DEEPER IN DEBT. LIKE THE SONGS SAYS, "I COULD SLEEP FOR A THOUSAND YEARS."

BUT TOMORROW IS ANOTHER SCARLET-O’-HARA, FUCKING DAY, AND THE FACT HAS TO BE FACED THAT, AFTER FIVE YEARS OF THIS ADMINISTRATION, AND FIVE YEARS OF THEIR SO-CALLED NEW AMERICAN CENTURY, THE NUCLEAR SUPERPOWER IS AN OUT-OF-CONTROL SHAMBLES. THE BASTARDS HAVE TO GO. AS IN GO NOW. THE CHILDREN MUST BE EVICTED FROM THE NURSERY, THEY CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH THE TOYS. THE ONLY PERMISSIBLE DEBATE IS OVER THE MANNER OF THEIR DEPARTURE, FOR GO THEY MUST. THE WORLD WILL NOT SURVIVE THREE MORE YEARS OF THIS IDIOCY.

BEYOND ALL EXCUSE OR REASON 1.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, "equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day," has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - "without patients."

More to follow...

The secret word is Aghast

THANK GOD FOR WONKETTE
"We have it on good authority that Christopher Hitchens is preparing a ten-point litany explaining why conditions on the grounds in New Orleans are much better than you think." http://www.wonkette.com/

ANNE RICE
Over the years, I have, now and then, been unkind to Anne Rice. Those of us in the vampire business can take on all the bitchiness of a wolf pack at times. In today’s NY Time, though, she contributed an Op Ed piece that seemed to clarify some of the reasons I was finding myself becoming so angrily obsessive about the disaster.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rice.html?incamp=article_popular

FRESH LINKS
From guys running a blog from a building in downtown NO, which may tell more than any of the increasingly confused news channels.
http://mgno.com/

And an example (despite all the disingenuous explanations) of the probably unconscious spin that placed on even a small thing like a picture caption.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/looters.asp

PLUS
This just in from LK in Paris...UPDATE: Good God. Laura Rozen passes along the following report from a Dutch reader:There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

MY PET GOAT AND THE BUTCHER’S BILL
At the end of the engagement Nelson would ask for "the butcher’s bill." (For the historically-challenged, Horatio Nelson was the Brit admiral who trashed Napoleon by sea.) The butcher’s bill was his name for the casualty figures, and I very tired of reading the butcher’s bill run up by the My Pet Goat inefficiency of George W. Bush.

The words of the President quoted below are simply not those of a leader with the slightest grasp of reality...
"The good news is - and it’s hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house—he’s lost his entire house - there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch."

And talking of reality, there seems to be a fight brewing among the Red-State right, between the humans who have finally realized that their boy is a clown, and the wholly deluded who still spring to his defense. This set of posts seems pretty representative of a trip I took around the rightwing blogs...
http://right-thinking.com/index.php/weblog/comments/10557/

MEANWHILE
In a highly creative use of the internet, a wiki-map of the Gulf Coast has been created at...
http://www.scipionus.com/

The secret word is Accountability

Thanks for all the birthday wishes.

SEE THE CONSERVATIVE COMPASSION
SEE THE PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP
ALL THE FUN OF THE FIASCO
BUT THE POOR DIE IN THE STREET

Around 3.00AM last night I was in the depths of disgust. I had heard the words "shoot to kill" at least seven times on various newscasts, plus Louisiana’s totally ineffectual Governor Blanco posturing about her "300 soldiers fresh back from Iraq" and how "they have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will." Fury gripped me as these assholes attempted to blame the victims for the disaster, as in Michael Chertoff, the ludicrous Secretary of Homeland Security, claiming food couldn’t reach the Superdome because it had "crowd control issues." And then Bush himself bleating how "nobody expected the breach of the levees." Bush simply refuses to accept that he is the leader, the bucks stop with him, and, in a parliamentary democracy, there would be an opposition howling for his head and his resignation after he had allowed a large and decimated city to go without food, water, and medical supplies for four days without doing a fucking thing.
Today, as the first pathetic trickle of relief came in, and the mayor went on radio to curse the feds, I was marginally less furious. Grateful at least for Harry Connick, Kanye West, and few angry TV reporters who were stopping the horror from being buried either in lies and racism, or touchy-feely, self-congratulatory sacchine about white babies saved from wrath of the storm and the evil looters.

The email flies thick and fast, and here are some of the usual suspects.

HCB comments on yesterday’s diatribe against Fox...
Don't forget O'Reilly asserting, several times, that many of the people who stayed in NO deliberately remained behind so they could loot and wreak havoc. The question is, if a handful of street level thugs could successfully anticipate the effect of Katrina, why couldn't the government? As usual the Murdoch Rottweilers have laid down their firewall to allay any criticism of the Bush administration, while Condi takes in a show and buys shoes, and Bush struts about and pretends to give a shit. Funny, even in their little group photo op with the governors, Bush can hardly stay focused as he pretends to listen. Missing, I noticed, the their little assembly, was the governer of LA and the Mayor of NO. We haven't seen him for days, have we?

Meanwhile some girl has the goods on Condi and the comment "i would say it's un effing believeable, but nothing these people do ever surprises me."

Courtesy of Gawker: "Secret service is all over Seventh Avenue. That f---ing worthless bitch is shopping in showrooms right now." Whoa, such language! And how could anyone just assume that our leaders have anything other than the best intentions? We actually have it on good authority that Condi’s snapping up the best of the Spring 2006 collections and sending the fripperies directly to the Red Cross.
"Eyewitness: Sec of State Condoleezza Rice laughs it up at 'Spamalot' while the Gulf Coast lays in tatters. Theatergoers on New York City's Great White Way were shocked to see the president's former national security advisor at the Monty Python farce last night - as the rest of the Cabinet responds to Hurricane Katrina."
According to the Drudge Report, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised. What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the Washington Post’s Robin Givhan).
A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.Angry Lady, whoever you are, we love you. You are a true American, and we’ll go shoe shopping with you anytime. Copyright 2005 Gawker.com

Some girl has also found Fats Domino
(Reuters) - Rock 'n' roll pioneer Fats Domino, who went missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, was rescued by boat from floodwaters near his New Orleans home and is "stressed out" but safe, his agent said on Friday. Domino, 77, beloved for his boogie-woogie piano style and such hits as "Ain't That a Shame" and "Blueberry Hill," ended up as one of thousands of New Orleans residents stranded by flooding after he rebuffed pleas from friends to evacuate as the storm bore down on the city, agent Al Embry told Reuters.
The rotund musician, his wife, Rosemary, and at least one daughter were picked up by rescue boat on Tuesday following frantic efforts by Embry to alert authorities that Domino and his family were believed trapped in their home, Embry said. "We heard he was on the balcony with his family and waving to people." He said Domino and his family initially were taken to the New Orleans Superdome with thousands of other evacuees and have since been moved to an unspecified location "because of all the media attention." "He is doing well, he's just stressed out a little bit," Embry said in a phone interview from Nashville, Tennessee. "But praise God, he got out of the thing." A daughter, Karen Domino White, who lives in New Jersey, told news agencies she had identified her father from a photograph published by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, showing a man being helped out of a rescue boat. Embry said he confirmed details of Domino's rescue in calls to a son of the musician and the governor's office.

While kaymo views the menachious inner workings and dark agendas beneath the veneer of excuses...
Vis a Vis Limbaugh and Reilly etc.... the campaign to turn the disaster of New Orleans into a plus for the GOP is underway. Make it an "urban riot"-- read black youths with guns-- and we know what part of America will start saluting. But for Rove the demise of New Orleans is an electoral plus. It destroys the big Democratic vote center in Louisiana, a state that wobbles slightly in its assigned Southern Strategy Orbit. Once the population of New Orleans has been put in refugee camps, for a good long stay, the campaign to get rid of Louisiana's annoying Democratic Senator Landrieu will get underway in earnest. Rove always has his eye on the prize, the permanent Republican Majority and One Party Rule.

And Rob, a very old pal, also made contact with word on other missing musicians...
My man in the Louisiana music scene, CC Adcock, says Willie (de Ville) no longer lives in NO and has moved back to NYC. Children by the millions still wait to hear about Alex Chilton. (And whether Allen Toussaint is really in the Superdome.) CC actually went in to NO yesterday with his friend, producer Mike Neopolitano (who is also Ani DiFranco's husband), to retrieve some albums he was working on that were on hard drive. CC says that French Quarter is unscathed, but the whole scene is bizarre. And saw few if any cops/troops/rescuer workers, raising questions as to whether what the govt. tells us is true.

Rob also has a great piece in Salon on the Camp Crawford
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/083105M.shtml

The word is Communications. It’s no secret.

OH YEAH – Tomorrow is my birthday. At least I will not die young. But I still want gifts.

THE DOOMWATCH THAT NEVER SEEMS TO END

WHERE THE FUCK IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?

This is going to appear disjointed because, right now I feel disjointed. Almost a poem of helpless fury. All afternoon, I have been spasmodically watching a great American city – the birthplace of the blues – slip away. Where now is the much vaunted Homeland Security as inhabitants beg to TV cameras "Help us! Help us!"? Maybe too busy spying on librarians?

A massive chant – "Help us! Help us!", while I can personally do nothing except rage. I’ve seen people dying in the supposed shelters at the Superdome and the NO Convention center without food and water, while, tanks roll on downtown streets loaded with heavily armed police and National Guard protecting fucking corporate property. I’ve seen an NBC reporter in shock, telling of the deaths, and how the rumors of anarchy are vastly exaggerated, and trying to make clear the difference between anarchy and folks foraging for food and medicine to survive. He also begs for help.

And yet, on Fox news I’ve watched in disgust as Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly hammer on and on about "the breakdown of law and order", and stack up the buzz words until you need wings to stay above them – "rape", "looting", "crime", "gangs", "chaos" "disorder", "anarchy." On radio, the hideous Limbaugh huffs and puffs that the people still in NO and Biloxi don’t deserve help. They were warned to get out. (And a nod and a foul Limbaugh wink. After all, they’re only poor black people.)

BUT WHERE THE FUCK IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?

Fox would have us believe that relief cannot be brought until the streets are secure. And yet the continue to hamper relief efforts by spreading their horrorshow rumors. I am not going to forget this, you bastards. News crews fly in and out, and even Harry Connick can get in. Are media and musicians braver than FEMA and the National Guard? At the Convention Center, Connick seemingly talked to people and did what he could. The same NBC reporter told how he was the closest thing to an authority figure to come there since the levee burst. Maybe Fox are loyally covering up for the Federal cluster fuck, but, like I said, I ain’t going to forget what I’ve seen. Or the deathly quiet from all of those usually make so much unholy noise about the right to life. Were’s your fucking God today, Pat Robertson? No one to blame, Ann fucking Coulter? Where are the sooo patriotic flags in the windows of the SUV, assholes? Must the weeping be left to atheists?

EMAILS COME FROM THE EQUALLY ANGRY

HCB hasn’t been exactly helpless...Put Irish radio in touch with John Swenson, who's been supplying nightly reports on NO, as have I. The fun part is that John helped them make a connection with the bartender of Johnny White's Sports Bar, which has stayed open throughout, and she's feeding them the right sort of local color commentary. A real coup.

But he’s still pissed enough to be quoting Orson Welles...
Harry Lime: "Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?"
The Third Man
Bush looks down from Air Force One, 2000 feet in the air, and remarks "it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground," Wonder if he feels any more connected to the worms below than he does the red blots in Baghdad?

He also provides a link to a sobering essay by Dion Dennis
http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=468

While kaymo looks dourly to the future...
Or not. Maybe I'm just a cynical old hippy, but I have to wonder if the future New Orleans won't just be a small domed entity around the hotels and the French Quarter-- operated by Disney-- plus the industrial sector that the rest of the country needs, while the ruined slums and suburbs will be left to the Formosan Termites and the waves.This may sound heartless and all that, but this is a Republican country run by flinty hearted Christians who like to spend their money on themselves, right? Why would they want to build housing for hundreds of thousands of poor, nay destitute, African Americans, especially as said housing would just become a huge, juicy target for the next Category 5 Hurricane that happens to slam into that part of the Gulf Coast?
Estimated costs of rebuilding New Orleans are already running over $100 Billion. Seeing as how the country is already deep in the red and has an expensive little war on its hands that won't go away, I don't see how this thing is doable, other than as a limited re-build of a tourist district.But even that may be hard to contemplate, until the many square miles of flooded, ruined homes, mired in filth and corpses have been bulldozed, or cleared away.
And any time, this year or next, or a few more down the road, another big Hurricane is gonna come boiling out of the Gulf. And a little farther down that road, when the oceans are a wee bit warmer, there's gonna be a new kind of storm, Category Six, with sustained winds of 200 mph.In fact this disaster may just be the first of several to come, with Miami, Charleston, Houston, Savannah, Mobile all capable of providing the next. With the obvious fragility of American civilization exposed-- one big storm can disrupt gasoline supply to half the country-- one has to wonder if this may not be the beginning of a long retreat from the southern coasts, a pulling back to higher ground and safer land.

Some girl sends a related link to yet another of global warming symptom in Scotland...
"last year's breeding failures were due to lack of food for seabirds as a result of warming seas along the east coast which are a result of climate change."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4201880.stm

Maybe that’s enough for now. I feel strange. Disgust is tiring. I just heard on TV that Fats Domino is among the missing. And has anyone heard anything of Willy de Ville?

The secret word is Shameful

DOOMWATCH KATRINA
It’s hard to come to grips with the fact that New Orleans as we knew it is history. I also worry about the friends and folks I know down yonder. And between the bouts of numbness with the TV images, I want to leap up and down and scream. "It was a superstorm, motherfuckers, because the temperatures on the ocean surface are too fucking high!" But maybe rage is not yet appropriate.

This email came from Cole Coonce, a stalwart colleague at LA CityBeat, and I share it because it brings the disaster into a tighter, more personal focus...

... as of this morning, the levees have broken and the water in New Orleans is rising an inch every five minutes....
In the days before the hurricane and subsequent flood, I took snaps from a trolley going uptown from St. Charles and of the statue of Ignatius J. Reilly on Canal Street. I also took pics while cycling along the levees that are supposed to keep the Mississippi River in check and out of New Orleans itself. Also is stuff from the French Quarter, where my old pal Bo Fingers insisted we look for his friend Al Broussard, the Human Trumpet. (Turns out Al passed a couple of years ago, but we still have a grand time.)
I left New Orleans early Sunday. All Flights were cancelled, rental cars were non-existent and it was a 20 hour bus ride to Houston 300 miles away (the nearest airport) Sunday morning to Monday morning. The exodus was replete with a stinking backed-up toilet and an air conditioner whose condensation leaked into my lap for the duration... the first 10 miles took six hours... the bus driver bailed on the interstates and took parish highways through swamps, plantation country and sugar cane fields, which allowed for a lengthy meditation on the duality of the South as well as the imminent devastation.... anyway, I finally caught a plane out of George Bush last night...
And, of course, I got off light.So: Also documented is the Natchez Trace in Jackson, Mississippi, where I spent a couple of days last week cycling with my sister and my mom's neighbor, who -- come to find out -- is a DEA agent. Yes, Missisippi: My family got hit pretty hard by Katrina in Jackson and near Hattiesburg.... torn up fences and power lines, uprooted 150 foot pine trees, etc... My good ol Uncle Ed and Aunt Dot cannot get out of their house because of the prodigious amount of debris... but at leeast they lived... still, they are pretty demoralized and their plight makes me rather sad and feeling somewhat guilty about being back in Los Angeles and not back their helping them sift through the damage...
Even though none of these were shot in the storm itself, I still make no apologies for the blurriness of any of these photos. With the camera in hand, I rarely get off the bike, nor stop the vehicle. Except for the stuff in the French Quarter, these pics are all about motion... as was the situation in Mississippi and Louisiana itself.
Keep in mind that a lot of this stuff is now underwater and is teeming with sewage, water mocassins and dysentery.
80 people are dead in Gulfport, Mississippi alone. Trust me: that is a very conservative count. My mom told me the winds of Biblical proportion beat up her house ALL day Monday. Jackson is 180 miles north of the coast. There is more damage than is really fathomable along all those small towns from the coast, up the delta and into hill country. I cannot confirm this yet, but there is a rumor that Richton, Mississippi (where my Uncle Ed is the local doctor) is basically g-o-n-e. So: the only difference between this and the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia not too long ago is that the American peoples of the Gulf Coast were given 48 to 72 hours notice that the shit was going to hit the fan. We'll see how much difference that notice will make in the final casualty count.
http://www.kerosenebomb.com/natcheztrace-neworleans

The secret word is Mortality