SATURDAY MORNING PICTURES (how does it feel?)

Napoleon in rags and the language that he used? As regular visitors to Doc40 may have gleaned, it’s been a long hard week during which I have done one hell of a lot of writing – some of great interest and some the was the literary equivalent of hanging sheet-rock – but I will let you into a small secret. In pauses while I wait for the words to come, I’ve been sniffing around YouTube seeing what goodies a poor boy could find. Last Wednesday, I posted a clip of The Who doing “My Generation” at the Marquee in 1967, and now my friends (try this for size) we present eight fucking minutes of Bob Dylan and the Hawks doing “Like A Rolling Stone” at Newcastle City Hall in 1966. This was a manner of music that at the time, like The Who, made you feel you could tear the world apart with you bare hands. (And I guess I still have the metaphoric bleeding fingernails.) And guess what? If all that wasn’t enough, I was actually there. I was at that show! I even remember what I was wearing. All decked out very Chelsea Girl style in a white denim suit, a black and white paisley shirt, and white Victorian lace-up boots with Cuban heels that were extremely Brian Jones, and later, after the show, the ensemble almost got me beaten to death by blind drunk homophobic Geordies who decided that, despite my matching girlfriend, I qualified as queer.

How did it feel? It felt like the power structure would fall like a house of cards. That’s how it felt.

The secret word is Then

AND just to show the other side of the coin, here’s a demonstration film of the Johnny 7 One Man Army from approximately the same period.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 22

Unfortunately the concept of revolution was apt to become a little confused at times. It was probably the acid in the water supply.

I THINK I WANT ALL MY FOOD SERVED LIKE THIS FROM NOW ON

Does that seem an unreasonable demand? (Or maybe I just need some sleep and should post something more logical later.)

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting, over among the permanent links, near the top, is the World Super Clock . Check it out. It counts everything.

The secret word is Infantile

WE BID YOU ALL A LAST DUBAI

This is real, not a Spielberg set for his next Philip K. Dick movie. This is Dubai. This is what the mega-rich demand from their architects. Halliburton is moving there. It will be the capital city of Cheney the Merciless when he ascends to Evil Dictator of the Planet. Hitler wanted to level Berlin to build his insane Germania. (Rhymes with megalomania.) The oil barons have done it in Dubai, and on imported near-slave labor who’s pay, and working and living conditions are described by Human Rights Watch as “inhuman”. And why, as Valerie noted when she sent the pic, does it all resemble the tentacles of Cthulhu?
.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Godzilla hates cats.

The secret word is Wrong

IS ANY EXPLANATION REQUIRED?

Whiskey river take my mind.*

(Don't let her memory torture me.)

I have written myself into the ground. My hands hurt, my arms ache, my brain is mush. I feel like I don’t have another word left in me tonight. And I’m wracked with guilt over all the calls I haven’t returned and all the emails I have yet to send. If there was ever a time to hide in a quiet Tennessee hollow, this is it. Because it’s fucking August, and I attempt to create while cities turn into overheated ghost towns. Even the fucking Iraqi government is on vacation. The only thing that refuses to cease is the lying propagandist bullshit that flows relentlessly from the leadership machine of the Loathsome Decider. But I’m sure you didn’t click on here to listen to me bitch and moan deep into the night. So, my friends, in return for all the nanoseconds you have wasted stopping by to visit here (in addition to Willie*) is a clip of The Who, doing My Generation live at the Marquee, back when the world was young and 100% of us were still alive and kicking. (And it's loud and marvellous!)

The secret word is Tomorrow (when the sun will doubtless come out.)

CLONES, I TELL YOU! CLONES!

They are coming for us! More and more of them! There may be pods in the laundry room! Will no one help us?

The secret word is Idiopathic

PENGUINS NO LONGER MARCHING

Remember how, a couple of years ago, we all got all misty about the movie March of the Penguins? Well, it seems like the penguins’ marching is being made more and more difficult. Recent temperature increases in the Antarctic are impacting some penguins' abilities to feed and breed, creating population dips in a species that can't handle the heat. Here’s a new and much more depressing film.

CRYPTIQUE – The doctor dies of the disease. Will the patient survive the remedy?

Ingmar Bergman -- RIP

Tom Snyder -- RIP

THE REVOLUTION MUST BE FABULOUS

Our pals in Holland, the Buggers are back. Which is a damned good thing because I always relish their stuff, and I’m also working my ass off and haven’t have any time to work up a post. Except to announce that The People's Daily Brief is now a blog.

THE BUGGERS POSITION #17

True art, which is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time - true art is unable NOT to be revolutionary, NOT to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society. This it must do, were it only to deliver intellectual creation from the chains which bind it, and to allow all mankind to raise itself to those heights which only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past. We recognize that only the social revolution can sweep clean the path for a new culture.With his thousand technicians, Trotsky seized the viaducts and the bridges and the telephone exchanges and the power stations. The police, victims of convention, contributed to his brilliant enterprise by guarding the old men in the Kremlin. The latter hadn't the elasticity of mind to grasp that their own presence there at the traditional seat of government was irrelevant. History outflanked them. Trotsky had the railway stations and the powerhouses, and the "government" was effectively locked out of history byits own guards.So the cultural revolt must seize the grids of expression and the powerhouses of the mind. Intelligence must become self-conscious, realize its own power, and, on a global scale, transcending functions that are no longer appropriate, dare to exercise it. History will not overthrow national governments; it will outflank them. The cultural revolt is the necessary underpinning, the passionate substructure of a new order of things. We have already rejected any idea of a frontal attack. Mind cannot withstand matter (brute force) in open battle. It is rather a question of perceiving clearly and without prejudice what are the forces that are at work in the world and out of whose interaction tomorrow MUST come to be; and then, calmly, without indignation, by a kind of mental ju-jitsu that is ours by virtue of intelligence, of modifying, correcting, polluting, deflecting, corrupting, eroding, outflanking inspiring what we might call THE INVISIBLE INSURRECTION. It will come on the mass of men, if it comes at all, not as something they have voted for, fought for, but like the changing season; they will find themselves in and stimulated by the SITUATION consciously at last to recreate it within and without as their own.(Fragments of the manifesto Towards a free revolutionary art by André Breton, Leon Trotsky, and Diego Riviera from 1938, and A revolutionary proposal: invisible insurrection of a million minds by Alexander Trocchi from 1963.)

The picture is Marilyn Monroe, of course, and equally important. Any revolution that fails to recognize Marilyn as an icon will have trouble holding my interest.

The secret words are By Any Means

UK UNDER WATER continued

Our pal Rich sends this email from the middle of it all…

“It seems whilst you swelter in LA, here in Blighty, or at least in Gloucestershire, Hereford and Worcestershire we have been deluged with rain and floods, the likes of which have never been seen before. Irony being that because the flooding was so bad it knocked out the main filtration plant that serves Gloucester city, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury as well as all areas in between. This means we've had no mains water for days, and are having to rely on water bowsers and bottled water distribution outlets. Basically about 150,000 households and 350,000 people without fresh water!

At first it was a bit of a novelty - sent home from work; some of the pubs still had water and were still open etc. but after nearly a week of no fresh water I think I've had enough. People are now vandalsing the water bowsers e.g. pissing in them, putting bleach in them etc. I'm surprised someone hasn't dosed any with LSD yet hahhahaha!

At the risk of appearing a bit crass, although this isn't on the same scale, even in our current situation, you do start to appreciate what the poor fuckers in a drought zone, or any war blighted area that's lost it's water supply must be going through. At least I can get the hell out of dodge today and drive twenty miles down the road to a friends and have a shower, and top up with fresh water!”

And in waters of a whole different kind…

ATTACK OF THE GIANT SQUID

“Ferocious, pack-feeding jumbo squid have invaded waters off California's central coast and are devouring local fish populations. Researchers say global warming and overfishing are likely to blame. Humboldt or jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) first appeared off Monterey, California during an El Niño event which warmed waters in 1997. Since 2002 they have taken up permanent residence.”

Which also would appear to conform to an emerging pattern of how when a part of the ocean become too damaged to support life as before – ie fish and aquatic mammals – the squid, jellyfish, and other invertibrates move in, in what seems to be the end of this sea as we knew it. (For more of the story and squid vid. via Valerie)

The secret word is Suckers

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

SATURDAY SEXISM

Ever since I first learned how to post pictures on Doc40, there has been an ongoing discussion about how I have a notable penchant for posting what some girl, one of the original and old school Doc 40 crew, disparagingly refers to as “cheesecake.” This first image would, I believe, certainly qualify as cheesecake, and the story the story set-up certainly plays to serious 20th century, Stepford-style objectification. On the other hand, I fucking love the art. It’s a great Wally Wood classic, the undisputed mega-star of EC and Mad, and, this being the cover of an EC Comic, there will, without doubt, be an evil twist, and the bald, bespectacled nerd will, no question, get his, and find that he’s some 1950s equivalent of a dickless alien and all the deep frozen hotties are of absolutely no use to him. That’s why the Comics Code was invented to put EC out of business. (About the same time as they jailed Chuck Berry and drafted Elvis.)

The set of images below are, however, are an entirely different matter.

J.K. ROWLING SWIMSUIT ISSUE

My mind boggles at state of the consciousness of the picture editor at the London’s tabloid Daily Mail apparently who dispatched a photographer with a telephoto lens to take bathing suit pictures of J. K. Rowling. Are they kidding me? J. K. Rowling! What the fuck is these fools problem? Rowling has created a series of books beloved by mega millions and made more money than Belgium, so does that mean she is fair game to be invasively photographed half dressed? And who wants to see this? What weirdoes are getting off behind this? For chrissakes, we have Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan for that kind if shit. (Except it seems to be driving them – when they’re not driving themselves – to coke and booze.) And if it’s valid, where the hell are the pictures of Tom Clancy or Dan Brown in a Speedo?

The secret word is Vicarious

I'M OSCAR AND YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO FIND ME ASLEEP AT THE FOOT OF YOUR BED.

And if you are the only person the planet not to have heard the story of Oscar the Kitty of Death, here’s the link. (From Valerie who does not seem to be getting email.)

Or, as HCB puts it – So elephants learn to avoid landmines and cats can sense death, where does that leave Paulie Walnuts?

Perhaps listening to Dick Dale and the Del-Tones?

The secret word is Roasting

(Assinine, but I couldn’t resist. It’s too hot to think tonight.)

THE VEEP FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

In the this week’s LA CityBeat I have a media column that examines why so many jokes are made and satirical bits done that have the basic premise the Dick Cheney is an alien.

(But enough with the jokes, why doesn’t Congress just get on and impeach the bastard?)
And talking of crazed tyrants…

WE LOVE YOU STALIN, OH YES WE DO!

And just to prove that the USA does not have a lock on historical irrationality, seems that the kids in Moscow think Uncle Joe was, well, you know, like…radical.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's youths admire Soviet dictator Josef Stalin -- who presided over the deaths of millions of people -- and want to kick immigrants out of Russia, according to a poll released on Wednesday. The poll, carried out by the Yuri Levada Centre, was presented by two U.S. academics who called it "The Putin Generation: the political views of Russia's youth". When asked if Stalin was a wise leader, half of the 1,802 respondents, aged from 16 to 19, agreed he was. "Fifty-four percent agreed that Stalin did more good than bad," said Theodore Gerber, a sociologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Forty-six percent disagreed with the statement that Stalin was a cruel tyrant." Stalin, who took over from Vladimir Lenin, built a system of terror and repression in which tens millions of people died or were killed. He died in 1953. (For the rest of the story.)

The secret word is Bolshevik

FRANK-ZAPPA-STRASSE

Frank Zappa is to have a street named after him in Berlin. The German city's Marzahn-Hellersdorf district board approved renaming 'Road 13' as 'Frank-Zappa-Strasse', the first street in Germany named for a rock musician. (Although for some unclear reason, Frank’s window Gail seems to have problems.) But negatives aside, here a video of Willie the Pimp to mark the occasion. (And chide Los Angeles for not doing the same.)

CRYPTIQUE – What’s the ugliest part of your body?

AARDARKS?

There comes a moment in this world after a combo of wine and vodka when there's nothing left except to reveal that the secret word is Aardvarks.

But this is a link to Brian who is blogging his way through pancreatic cancer. Put him on your mailing list for links and fun, okay? (See comment on the Bible "spoiler" post, just a scroll away.)

Unless you want to watch a weirdass rendition of TheSimpsons theme. Or some Les Paul and Mary Ford from OOSoul.

HOLY SHIT. THIS IS ENGLAND...

and so is this...

(Thanks Valerie)

UK UNDER WATER?

We’ve had so little detailed coverage out here about the disastrous weather in the UK, I still have to get my mind around it, and any firsthand reports and impressions would be very welcome because the US media are so fucking parochial. Munz did, however send over a report that contained a chilling paragraph.

“In April 1989 Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, gave her Cabinet a seminar on global warming at No 10 and one of the speakers was the scientist and green guru James Lovelock. A reporter asked him afterwards what would be the first signs of global warming. He replied: "Surprises." Asked to explain, he said: "The hurricane of October 1987 was a surprise, wasn't it? There'll be more." The floods of 2007 were a surprise as well, and if Dr Lovelock is right, there'll be more of them too. Welcome to the weather of the 21st century.”

WHEN CONSERVATIVES FEAR A POLICE STATE...

When the following words come from an old-line conservative like Paul Craig Roberts – a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan – I must confess, neighbors, I start to fret.
“Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran. Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future."
Click here for Roberts full column. (And thanks for the tip, Anne.)

The secret word is Reichstag

MR MOJO WRESTLING

“I’m dead, you moron.”

Quite by accident, because I don’t in anyway follow these things, I discovered that some wrestler formerly know as Johnny Nitro has changed his name to John Morrison and is doing some weirdass lizard king act. What’s with these fucking wrestlers with their steroids, homicide and psychosis? Is nothing neither sacred nor sufficiently profane?

SPOILER

(Donated by Miss Templeton)

FIRE UP THE JETS AND LET'S BLOW THIS FERSHLUGGINER PLANET!

Okay so we got through the weekend with Dick Cheney at the helm and we’re still here. (Or did some enterprising Colonel fix the Go Code and disconnect the button?) But then I read how, with the grimmest interpretation, Bush and Cheney have granted themselves the power to arrest and a seize the assets of any of us they don’t like, and no Democrat has said a fucking word -- in my hearing at least -- when they should be screaming bloody fascist murder, maybe its time to evacuate. Or do we, as always, stay and fight? And why does it always seem so much more bleak on Monday?

Or maybe the question of the day should be what kind of omen is a pink dolphin?

The secret word is Owl

TODAY DICK CHENEY RUNS THE COUNTRY

WASHINGTON - President Bush will have a colonoscopy Saturday and temporarily hand presidential powers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House said. The procedure will be supervised by Dr. Richard Tubb, the president’s doctor. It will be done by a team from the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md. Because the president will be under the effects of anesthesia, Bush has elected to implement Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, making Cheney acting president until Bush indicates he is prepared to reassume his authority. In 2002, Bush transferred presidential powers to Cheney for more than two hours. (Thanks for the heads up Ruben.)

So I’m I wondering where I can bet a bet down that we make intact it to Sunday. But while I was looking for a bookie, my eye was drawn to another item on the same AP page, that maybe says something about the state of the union. I mean, I do recall happier times when drunks only microwaved poodles, light bulbs, or Zena Warrior Princess plastic action figures.

DAYTON, Ohio - Investigators looked throughout China Arnold's home to find whatever fatally burned the woman's infant, finally identifying a kitchen appliance. The microwave was the murder weapon," detective Michael Galbraith testified Thursday at a hearing to determine if Arnold will stand trial on aggravated murder charges in the death of her month-old daughter, Paris Talley. Prosecutors and police say the infant had high-heat internal injuries but no external burn marks, evidence that led the coroner to conclude the infant had been placed in a microwave. Galbraith said the infant's DNA was found in the home's microwave. Arnold, 26, has pleaded not guilty in Paris' death on Aug. 30, 2005. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Galbraith testified that Arnold told him during his initial questioning: "If I hadn't gotten so drunk, I guess my baby wouldn't have died."

With all of the above in mind, the secret word can only be Nuke

And this has to be the theme.

This blog is still affiliated with The White Panther Party

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 21

Big yup. Definitely. Sure as shit, Sherlock, CA is irredeemably in the crapper. It’s all those little green immigrants coming out of the cracks in the sidewalk to assault the state’s very oddly dressed womenfolk. (Thanks HCB)

And while we’re on the subject of immigrants, and being one myself, I simply have to regale you all of the wholly diabolical connection forged by Republican criminal Tom Delay between abortion and illegal immigration in a speech he gave at the College Republican National Convention a couple of days ago. I quote verbatim…

“If we had those forty million children that were killed over the last 30 years, we wouldn’t need illegal immigrants to fill those jobs.”

In other words, if you foul sluts get yourselves knocked up, you take that pregnancy to full term, bitch, because it’s your patriotic duty to keep this nation supplied with cheap unskilled labor. And you think I’m making this up – and I would if I was you – I offer a full video not only of Delay, but also an excellent expose by Max Blumenthal of the wholly unbelievable slime that are the College Republicans. Loath as I am to hit you with a link to HuffPo because Arianna’s doing a lot fucking better than I am, you gotta see this to believe it.

The secret word is Dreadfulness

MORE MUSIC! MORE MUSIC!

I’ve come up with another of those sites where you can listen to free samples of the music we’ve labored on all these years. In this instance it’s The Deviants Dr.Crow recordings from four or five years ago. If you want a quick trial shot, I’d go for track 5, “Taste The Blue.” Believe me. I sang the damned thing. (Actually I’m still pretty pleased with it.) Or you could go for “You’re Going To Need Somebody On Your Bond” where I duet with Johnette Napolitano, who sings much better than I do.

I NEED A DRINK...

…while I’m catching up on the backlog of stuff that remains after being deprived of internet access for almost five days, despite the disapproval of these cuties from The Women’s Christian Temperance League. (Another picture stolen from the great Tom Sutpen.

But fortunately Doug the Bass has come through with something truly fascinating to which, I believe, everyone with a computer can relate.
"The Japanese have finally revealed a mystery for you. How does the small arrow on your computer monitor work when we move the mouse? Haven't you ever wondered howit works? Now, through the miracle of high technology, we can see how it is done. With the aid of a screen magnifying lens, the mechanism becomes apparent. Click on the link and you will find out. The image may take a moment or two to download and when itappears, slowly move your mouse over the light gray circle and you will see how the magic works."

ALL THE LIES ABOUT DOPE

This week, LA CityBeat has a marijuana issue and I contributed a catalogue of lies. (And also do some sparring on the letters page, and preview Holly Hunter’s new TV show.)

The secret word is Viper

A LOVE SUPREME

Thanks to Doug the Bass for reminding me the that John Coltrane died forty years ago today.

BREAKDOWN!

WELL MAYBE NOT, BUT THE DOC40 MODEM BLEW ITSELF OUT ON SATURDAY MORNING. IT TOOK UNTIL NOW TO GET A REPAIR MAN FROM THE MIGHTY TIME WARNER.

MORE TO FOLLOW WHEN I'VE STAGGERED THROUGH THE BACKLOG

The secret word is Bollocks

(pic stolen from M.Boufant)

I AIN'T GONNA SAY A WORD

BUT BEFORE YOU SETTLE DOWN FOR YOUR WEEKEND JUST WATCH THIS! AND THIS TOO!(Thanks Valerie)

MAYBE I'M ILLUSION IT?

I like nothing more than to smoke a whole lotta dope on a Saturday and stare at an optical illusion. But I’m not too sure about this one. I seem to be seeing less action than some have claimed, although the little snake tongues are a puzzle. I guess illusion is in the opticals of the beholder.

The secret word is Look

FOR WOODY

Woody Guthrie was born on this day in 1912. He died almost forty years ago, but is far from forgotten, and the same damned fight for dignity and equality still goes on. (See the last minute stuff above and ask yourself how come The Taser victims are all black or Latino?)

"Yes, as through this world I've wandered/I've seen lots of funny men/Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen."

(And the very moment I finished writing this came in from The LA Times – “A nationally lauded program that has helped thousands of mentally ill homeless men and women break the cycle of psychiatric hospitalization, jail time and street life is now on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's list of budget cuts”)

FREE SAMPLES

It’s weird how these things appear and you have no idea why they are lurking on the web or how they came to be there. This collection was recorded in 1995 in front of a live audience in Santa Monica, and the players – in addition to me and Jack – include Wayne Kramer, Andy Colquhoun, Doug Lunn, and Brad Dourif (that’s right, Doc from Deadwood and Wormtongue from LOTR.) All the tracks are fucking great, but I’m kinda fond of “The Disgruntled Employee” and “When The World Was Young.”

If you want actually to buy a copy hit Alive/Total Energy mail order, linked on the right.
I also discovered these weird Google books that seem to be portions of novels and I have no idea why they exist. This is the one for Darklost, and, if you haven’t read any of The Renquist Quartet, this is at least a taste. Who knows? Maybe it’ll hook ya.

REASONS FOR IMPEACHMENT

It’s all fine and dandy to laugh at Dick Cheney and cast him as a human-devouring, A. E. Van Vogt space monster, but, something has to be done about that bastard. I lifted this impeachment plan from a much longer piece in HuffPo that had in turn lifted it from Slate. I’m not a lawyer but it holds water for me.

"A bill of particulars against the vice president has been sketched by constitutional law expert and former Justice Department official in the Reagan years, Bruce Fein, in Slate of June 27: "Impeach Cheney: The Vice President has Run Utterly Amok and Must Be Stopped." He urges the House Judiciary Committee to commence an impeachment inquiry: "As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify." Moreover, Fein posits that President Bush has outsourced a major share of his presidency to Vice President Cheney. Here is his review of the record of Cheney's abuses and excesses:
- The vice president "asserted presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes."
- Cheney "claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President's say-so alone, a frightening power indistinguishable from King Louis XVI's execrated lettres de cachet that occasioned the storming of the Bastille."
- The vice president "initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists...The legal precedent set by Cheney would justify a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to kidnap American tourists in Paris and to dispatch them to dungeons in Belarus if they were suspected of Chechen sympathies."
- The vice president "has maintained that the entire world is a battlefield. Accordingly, he contends that military power may be unleashed to kill or capture any American citizen on American soil if suspected of association or affiliation with al Qaeda."
- Cheney "has championed a presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties."
- Cheney "has advocated and authored signing statements that declare the president's intent to disregard provisions of bills he has signed into law that he proclaims are unconstitutional, for example, a requirement to obtain a judicial warrant before opening mail or a prohibition on employing military force to fight narco-terrorists in Colombia. The signing statements are tantamount to absolute line-item vetoes."
- The vice president "engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program targeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. He concocted the alarming theory that the president may flout any law that inhibits the collection of foreign intelligence, including prohibitions on breaking and entering homes, torture, or assassinations."
- The vice president "has orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications."
- Cheney "urges application of the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists who expose national security abuses, for example, secret prisons in Eastern Europe or the NSA's warrantless surveillance program."
- He "retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, through Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the Administration's evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq." (Does Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald think that the vice president, and not just Scooter, was involved in obstructing justice?)
- Fein puts forward a provocative argument questioning what could be termed a sanctioned coup d'etat: "The Constitution does not expressly forbid the president from abandoning his chief powers to the vice president. But President Bush's tacit delegation to Cheney and Cheney's eager acceptance tortures the Constitution's provision for an acting president. The presidency and vice presidency are discrete constitutional offices." Section 3 of the 25th Amendment provides a method for the President to yield his office to the vice president, when 'he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.' There is no other constitutional provision for transferring presidential powers to the Vice President."
But "without making a written transmittal to Congress, President Bush has ceded vast domains of his powers to Vice President Cheney by mutual understanding that circumvents the 25th Amendment. This constitutional provision assures that the public and Congress know who is exercising the powers of the presidency and who should be held responsible for successes or failures. The Bush-Cheney dispensation blurs political accountability by continually hiding the real decision-maker under presidential skirts."
Bruce Fein's conclusion: "Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law."

The secret word is Thirteen

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 20

Why does looking at this make me immediately think of Dick Cheney. Like an “origin” episode in which he stows away on the spaceship, eats the crew, assumes human form when he reaches Earth and…

(And the only way we know he’s not human is that he can’t shoot straight.)

THE BOVINE DIVERSION

“Maybe the aliens had the right idea.”

The following, sent over by Rich is all perfectly true, except cow fart -- and now cow belch -- has been used over and over by GM and Exxon, and a host of other corporate polluters as smokescreen (so to speak) for their own environmental atrocities. It’s just the agri-industry doing their bit to wreck the planet. Shall we talk about the disposal of pig shit by the pork corporations?
"Cows could be doing more damage to the environment than four-wheel-drive cars, scientists have warned. Methane emissions from cattle account for a quarter of the gas in our air and researchers are trying to find a new way to feed cattle which leads to less belching. Michael Abberton of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research said the key is developing new varieties of food that are easier for cattle to digest and also provide a proper balance of fibre, protein and sugar. He told a briefing on farming and climate change at London's Science Media Centre that this could open up plant-based solutions as alternatives to reducing stock as farmers look for ways to cut methane emissions amid warming climates. Mr Abberton said the average dairy cow belches out about 100 to 200 litres of methane each day, making diet changes a key potential factor in reducing this greenhouse gas. "There is a common misperception about how methane gets into the atmosphere," he said. "It is actually through belching rather than the other end," he said. He said introducing easier-to-digest legumes that tend to reduce methane emissions is an example of an approach scientists are beginning to explore. Legumes such as clover and alfalfa are commonly used for animal fodder. It also requires farmers to balance cows' legume intake with other food and to develop different species of grass that are also more digestible, he added. "What I'm saying is there are approaches within plant breeding that can lead to reduced emissions," said Mr Abberton. "

The secret word is Moo

A CONNECTION WITH CATTLE MUTILATION?

Enough with the cowboys and aliens, already. This is getting out of hand. (See Tuesday) HCB sent this over long along with the trailer for The History Of America which looks kinda interesting. Seemingly it’s a day for trailers, the remake of Vincent Price’s I Am Legend has been beamed over by Dimitrios “new adaptation of Richard Matheson 's classic with Will Smith. If the fuckers keep the unbelievably pessimistic ending, it should be cool. I’m not holding my breath.”
AND FINALLY I have two pieces in the current LA CityBeat. One on Keith Olbermann and the other on the viruses that lurk on money.

Take a look and get pissed off!

A SHOT OF H.P.

Must write. Must work. Must drive myself crazy. But must leave the DOC40 visitors a quick shot of H. P. Lovecraft in the form an animation of The Terrible Old Man, and promise to be back later.

Or would you rather see a penguin being taught to swim, or a demonstration that in Europe they really have TV commercials, or, if none of that appeals, how about a clip of Spinal Tap with Ric Parnell, a once and future drummer of the Deviants hammering his heart out?

The secret word is Haste

PLUS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

(The disturbing part is that the lady in the picture looks uncommonly like old photos of my late mother.)

Donated by Hermit

THE TECHNOLOGY OF SUBVERSION
Valerie has sent us two killer clips of laser graffiti in action. The first is happening in Barcelona and is the more exciting of the two. The other is in New York and starts kinda slow but is worth some perseverance. I wish I knew a great deal more about how this works and could see it in live action. I firmly believe that we may well have to take to the streets before this current power cabal is run out of office and the era of hideous bullshit ends, and I could see laser graffiti, flash mobs, and any other 21st century technological innovations being totally applied to direct action and rising up angry.

AND talking of angry, China just executed the head of its pure food and drug agency.

DOC’S PAPERBACK CLASSICS # 19

A very bad attack of genre confusion going on here. I mean spaceships, whips, horses, spurs, aliens, girls in boots, cross-dressing cowboys, aside from qualifying as a few of my favorite things, this whole concept is something of a mess. On the other hand, back in the later 1980s, HCB (who supplied this gem) other Doc40 plas and I all wrote scripts for a TV animation show The Galaxy Rangers which had a cowboys in space theme made only slightly less preposterous than Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes by making the horses mechanical. Oddly, I believe The Galaxy Rangers became something of a cult in Germany. Here’s a clip.

The secret word is Yippie

THEY DON’T MAKE BANDS LIKE THAT ANY MORE #2

I came across this picture while working on the super-fine, up coming Bomp magazine wonder book (More about that in the future.) They are the Pandoras from the fabulous 1980S and there is a website about them with video and audio and beaucoup fine stuff.

A GROWTH INDUSTRY?

The above was photographed on Sunset Boulevard and submitted by munz. A few weeks ago the CIA was running recruiting ads during the Fox11, 7.30 reruns of The Simpsons (?), and I’ve also been noticing that those mail-order home-education mills that advertise on late night TV are pushing all manner of forensic-related courses. Could law enforcement be a new growth industry, especially the kind privatized law enforcement about which that Dick Cheney must have wet dreams.

The secret word is Copper

I HAVE TO WONDER WHY SUDDENLY, FOR NO REASON THE BLOGGER POST TITLE FIELD CEASES TO WORK. I GUESS IT WILL COME BACK, OR MAYBE IT WON'T.