ORANGUTANS EVEN MORE ENDANGERED

And check out this bad news about some of our nearest relatives from Martin Hickman writing in The Independent/UK

“Hope of Freedom for Orangutans Dashed
248 endangered primates left in cages after mining company pulls out of rescue.

A world-renowned programme to return hundreds of orang-utans threatened with extinction to the wild has been thrown into disarray by the withdrawal of Britain's biggest mining company from Borneo.
Conservationist Lone Dröscher Nielsen interacts with a baby orang-utan (AP)
Dozens of orang-utans that had been due to be released this month have been left locked in cages after BHP-Billiton warned it could no longer guarantee the safety of the animals on forests it had been surveying for coal.
With BHP's support over the past two years, orang-utans from a rehabilitation centre - made famous by the BBC TV series Orang-utan Diary - have been released onto BHP's land in Kalimantan. But last month the world's largest mining company told investors it was withdrawing from the area for "strategic reasons" which it declined to explain.
A planned airlift of 48 adult orang-utans scheduled to take place on 20 July was cancelled a week before it had been due to take place.
Lone Dröscher-Nielsen, the former air stewardess who cares for 650 orang-utans at the Nyaru Menteng Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre, said BHP had warned that the Indonesian government was likely to hand its coal concessions to other companies who would not match its environmental stewardship of the land.
She added that it now seemed unlikely the Anglo-Australia mining giant would fund a plan to a create a 250,000-hectare wildlife reserve in central Borneo that could have sited 1,000 orang-utans, a genetically viable long-term population.
Some conservationists fear that orang-utans could be wiped out in the wild in little more than a decade due to the destruction of their habitat for logging, mining and palm oil plantations.” (Click here for more.)

The secret word is Shame

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

People would constantly tell Crayola Frozdick that she looked like Greta Garbo, but she would never respond to the comparison.

FULL AUTO STUNGUN

We seem to be in a meme of danger-tech. The following comes from Tim via Facebook, as the whole question of police power is raised in the US.

“Leading stun gun manufacturer Taser International Inc. unveiled on Monday a device that is capable of deploying three shocks without having to be recharged — a move that comes just days after a British Columbia inquiry urged stricter limits on the use of the weapons.
Typically, law enforcement officers using stun guns — also known as conducted energy weapons — have to reload after each deployment. Officers using the weapons no longer have to wait to deploy the weapons again, and now can deliver multiple shocks in quick succession.
This capacity could help officers who have missed a target or have more than one suspect to subdue. Whether or not law enforcement officers should be given the ability to shock people multiple times has been a contentious issue in Canada. One of the recommendations of a report on stun gun use released Thursday by former B.C. Appeal Court justice Thomas Braidwood suggests such use is unwarranted and potentially deadly.” Click here for more

THE FEAR OF THE MAN-EATING ROBOT

The following comes from our good pal Valerie (who also sent the Superman cover below.)

“When Robotic Technology, Inc., and Cyclone Power Technologies announced earlier this month they had completed the first phase of their project to build a robotic vehicle that could scavenge sticks, grass, leaves and other biomass to fuel itself, the companies had no idea that their proposed machine would set off one of humanity's worst fears: the dawn of an artificially intelligent race of self-sufficient mechanical devices with a hunger for organic meals (including people). The companies quelled last week's clamor that their Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) was being developed as a carnivore by pointing out that it will, in fact, be a vegetarian.” (Click here for more)

The secret word is Snack

“Open the goddamned pod door yourself, smartass.”

SUPERMAN’S ANTICS COULD BE A LITTLE STRANGE

WHEN MEXICO HATED ELVIS

The following was sent by HCB, reminding us in the process that Elvis Death Day is a little over two weeks away.

"May 1959: While Elvis Presley’s popularity in the U.S. was arguably at its all-time peak, Mexico was in the midst of a huge anti-Elvis backlash. Tijuana tabloids called him a racist and homosexual, after the singer reportedly told gossip columnist Federico de León "I'd rather kiss three black girls than a Mexican." A Mexican woman in the same column was quoted saying "I'd rather kiss three dogs than one Elvis Presley.” Mexican Radio Exitos read de León's column over the air and spearheaded a boycott of the "insolent artist," while the powerful student group Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (FEU) held public record burnings. When Elvis’ movie King Creole screened in May 1959 at the Américas Cinema in Mexico City, newspapers who’d advertised the film under the title Melodía Siniestra (Sinister Melody) reported a “riot” occurring. Mexican counterculture novelist Parménides García Saldaña wrote a short story, "El rey criollo," about the screening where several hundred gatecrashers reportedly shredded the seats and threw lit papers onto patrons from the balcony. “Before the film began,” wrote Saldaña, “it was pure chaos, a f-ing riot as they say more vulgarly. The different gangs shouted ‘Here the Guerrero [neighborhood],’ ‘Here the Roma’ ...And then some chicks come in with leather jackets with swastikas painted on them, pony tails and bobby socks, real rock and roller like…a group of guys gang up around them [and shout] “Dance!’ Mexican reporters suggested Elvis’ hip-wiggling and mannerisms proved he was either maricón (homosexual) or actually a woman in reverse-drag." (Click here for more.)

Merce Cunningham – RIP

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 57

A modest suggestion in these economic hard times.



The secret word is Initiative

OH NO!

Doc40 is having having technical problems due to corporate failure. Normal service will be resumed in 12 to 24 hours.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 0000a)

In which Marilyn, after several weeks in hiding, finally meets with The Controller in the back of a Buenos Aires taxi. The Controller is out of focus and Marilyn is far from happy. “I don’t know how long I can keep on doing this?”
The Controller is motionless and grim. “Keep doing what exactly?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
The Controller remains out of focus and refuses to offer her a way out. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about ducking the Apollonian gestapo. I’m talking about making nice with Dionysian assholes. I’m talking about running through the sewers of Vienna, following the neuron trail of Harry Lime and the Vril, and avoiding the wrath of the Mole Men and the lesbian advances of Spider Women who want to go out and die after they’ve had me. And living on gin and Nembutal, and…"
The Controller interrupts her. “You’ve always lived on gin and Nembutal.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So what is?”
“I never know if my destination is a womb or a tomb.”
“You’re just tired.”
“I’m tired in two hundred different realties.”

(THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN NOW HAS IT’S OWN PAGE SO THE WHOLE THING CAN BE READ WITHOUT SCROLLING. CLICK HERE)

SATURDAY PICTURE SHOW – BOB AND JOHN ON HEROIN IN A LIMO.

Click here for the notorious clip from Eat The Document which is probably about as inspiring as a hamster on a piano eating popcorn.

I'M YOUNGER THAN THAT NOW...

The secret word is Jones

WE’RE ALIVE!

Seemingly the world has survived the total eclipse over Asia. The Wheel of the Dharma did not grind to a halt. The axis did not tilt. The poles did not hop to a reversal. The tectonic plates are still where they were yesterday. The Reptile Men did not emerge from their caves in Tibet. The Vril did not manifest. Children did not act in paranormal unison. The Yangtze did not run red with blood, and as far as I know, the Earth is not hurling towards the black hole at the epicenter of the Milky Way. Pretty good. Pretty neat, as Jim Morrison once remarked. On the other hand, the bloody red sun in fantastic LA proved relentless. The heat was unabated. I have email to address about Victor Renquist and other topics, and I continue to work on the Five Year Plan, but I am hot and exhausted and must, perforce, cease.

The secret word is Bed

“Where is George Harrison now that we need him?”

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Aunt Periphery and her followers were more inclined to trust the dead than the living.

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE PUBLISHED IN PAPERBACK

Can't write tonight. I'm working on The Five Year Plan.

(I also learned that there are more than 200 commercial fart noise applications for the iPhone, and it kinda depressed me.)

The secret word is Overcome

THE ALASKAN BLOB THING

Stories surfaced about the huge carnivorous slimy blob floating in the sea off Sarah Palin country just like the start of some classic monster movie. Indeed, it was such a familiar scenario that I was reminded of Hedorah – the extraterrestrial kaiju formed from pollution – who was the bad guy in Godzilla v The Smog Monster.

“A group of hunters aboard a small boat out of the tiny Alaska village of Wainwright were the first to spot what would eventually be called "the blob." It was a dark, floating mass stretching for miles through the Chukchi Sea, a frigid and relatively shallow expanse of Arctic Ocean water between Alaska's northwest coast and the Russian Far East. The goo was fibrous, hairy. When it touched floating ice, it looked almost black.
But what was it? An oil slick? Some sort of immense, amorphous organism adrift in some of the planet's most remote waters? Maybe a worrisome sign of global climate change? Or, as folks who followed the blob via the Internet wondered, was it something insidious and perhaps even carnivorous like the man-eating jello from the old Steve McQueen movie.” (Click for more. And click here for a trailer of Godzilla v The Smog Monster.)

The secret word is Mutant

KEYSTONE NARCS

The ever-alert Munz sent us this tale that would seem just one more reason to legalize marijuana. Whatever it might do to stoners, it makes cops terminally stupid.

“An undercover Iredell County Sheriff's Office deputy recently purchased drugs from undercover Statesville police officers, raising questions about communications between the two agencies. Statesville Police Chief Tom Anderson said undercover officers from his department were working a week-long case when they met with someone interested in selling a small amount of marijuana. The undercover SPD officers met with the individual in the parking lot of a local store to make the deal, Anderson said.
But the officers became suspicious that the seller was, in fact, an undercover deputy, Anderson said. SPD officers placed a call to Capt. David Ramsey, who heads the sheriff's office narcotics unit, and were told the seller was not a deputy, Anderson said.
"At that point we proceeded like we normally do and placed him under arrest," the chief said. After the arrest, investigators from the sheriff's office arrived and confirmed the seller was an undercover deputy and he was released.” (Click here for more.)

EGO

As Stu recently pointed out in a comment, a lovely review of the ancient Deviants album Ptooff! (originally sent by the excellent Joly) just made me irrationally happy. (Click here to read it, and click here for a sample track.)

IT HAPPENED

Forty years ago today human beings walked around on the goddamned moon and it was a wonder to behold, until the inset of Richard Nixon came up in the top right hand corner and then we threw things at the TV screen. Humans had flown all the way through space in a tin can powered by hundreds of tons of exploding explosive, and controlled by hardly more RAM than it takes to run a printer. It was a recklessly absurd dream and we, humanity, pulled it off. It was awe inspiring. By 2001, we’d be in orbit off Jupiter with HAL 9000. But along the way, we wised up. We don’t have dreams any more. We traded them for new aps on the iPhone. Now we bleat and twitter. Infinitely more sensible, and so easy when we have neither aspirations or shame. Look where dreaming and voyaging across the void really got us. For a moment we questioned the nature of our position in the cosmos, and entertained the brief concept that all things were possible. And that could not be allowed to continue. But it happened, and a few will remember.

So be warned. Don’t come round here with all that crap about how all of Apollo 11 was faked in a movie set in Arizona. Don’t bother me. Tell it to the Flat-Earthers. I don’t want to hear it. The moon landing was too big, too complex, too grand, there was too much telemetry, and too many people. It was too breathless and too complete. Don’t diminish what we did manage to achieve before we surrendered or gave up. (If you want to read the argument, click here.)

The secret word is Slave

STARSHIPS OF PERVERSION (part one)

Life and function keep taking odd twists which I’m never sure if I should read as Jungian signposts or just ignore so as not to exacerbate my paranoia. The current confusion is as follows. Back in 1996, an assemblage of musicians including myself Andy Colquhoun, Wayne Kramer, Jack Lancaster, and a whole bunch of favorable, stalwart, and highly talented men and women, recording under the collective title Deviants XVI, cut an album/CD called Eating Jello With A Heated Fork. One of the tracks was a discreet sado-masochistic love poem called The Arts Of Darkness.
Today, some thirteen years later, our good friend Butlincat informs us in a comment that this same piece has mysteriously appeared on YouTube as the audio background for what appears to be a slideshow about how Stonehenge is a inter-dimensional portal that allows UFOs to penetrate our reality. The juxtapositioning is, to say the least odd enough ponder on a warm Sunday with the air conditioner humming. Click here to see for yourself.

(And click here maybe to buy the CD.)

STARSHIPS OF PERVERSION (part two)

The secret word is Wormhole

THE HELL OF MARIJUANA ADDICTION

Munz sent us this nonsense from The New York Times as an example of what we may well see all over the panting media as marijuana legalization looms closer to inevitable. Multiple last stands to keep the killer weed illegal will be made by the drug enforcement industry, the incarceration industry, the spurious and almost discredited rehab industry, and folks who just like to throw other folks in jail, not to mention the ever adaptable doctors who, after condemning dope for close to a century, couldn’t wait get their beaks wet with $100 marijuana cards when medicinal marijuana became a reality.

“It was as if she woke up one day and decades of her life had disappeared.
Joyce, 52 and a writer in Manhattan, started smoking pot when she was 15, and for years it was a pleasant escape, a calming protective cloud. Then it became an obsession, something she needed to get through the day. She found herself hiding her addiction from her family, friends and co-workers. I would come home from work, close my door, have my bong, my food, my music and my dog, and I wouldn’t see another person until I went to work the next day,” said Joyce, who like most others in this article asked that her full name not be published, because she does not want people to know about her past drug use. “What kind of life is that? I did that for 20 years.”
She tried to stop, but was anxious, irritable, sleepless and lost. At one point, to soothe her cravings, she took morphine that she found at her dying father’s bedside. She almost overdosed. Two years ago, she checked into the Caron Foundation, a treatment center in Wernersville, Pa. Even there, she said, some other addicts — cocaine and heroin users or alcoholics — downplayed her dependence on marijuana.
“The reality is, I was as sick as them,” Joyce said. She now attends Alcoholics Anonymous, which is also open to drug addicts, and recently married.
Smoking pot, she said, “was a slow form of suicide.”

Click here to read more of this ill-informed crapola, and then reflect that the debate is over. The prohibitionists have lost the drug war. Those lying motherfuckers had it their way for some eighty years and couldn’t have made a worse mess. Now fuck off. It’s our turn.

The secret word is Falsehood

Walter Cronkite – RIP

This blog is supported by the White Panther Party.

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL!

SACHS FIEND

Our pal Bernard, as well as the very wonderful Mother and Doctor from the Bangalore Film Society, have insisted that I read Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone story on Goldman Sachs, and here, a little late, but on a warm night when I’ve written too much already, is a link. The story starts…

“The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.”
And then continues at length in the same vein and with horrific detail. Click here.

The secret word is Graft

SPACE OPERA

The problems with the Funtopia website – that tells you more about me than I even want to know – have been fixed. All you need to do is click here.

I AM POSTING THIS ENTIRELY WITHOUT COMMENT

Except to say that Valerie sent it.

GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY, SANITY AT LAST!

The stalwart Munz sent over this press release from California NORML.

"California NORML Release - Jul 15th 2009
Marijuana Legalization Bill Would Net California $1.38 Billion in Revenues
Board of Equalization, Cal NORML Agree On Benefits of Ammiano Bill AB 390

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's marijuana legalization bill would net California $1.38 billion in tax revenues per year, according to a newly released analysis by the State Board of Equalization. The BOE's estimate parallels a similar analysis by California NORML, which estimated tax revenues at $1.01-$1.26 billion.
Not included are savings in law enforcement costs for investigating, arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning marijuana offenders, which are estimated to total some hundreds of millions per year.
"With the state in dire financial straits, it makes no sense for taxpayers to be paying to arrest, prosecute and imprison marijuana offenders, when they could be reaping revenues from a legally regulated market," says Dale Gieringer, author of the Cal NORML analysis.
The BOE estimates that the Ammiano bill would net $990 million in excise tax revenues, plus another $392 million in sales taxes, based on a projected state consumption of about 20 million ounces per year.
The Ammiano bill, AB 390, is expected to be heard by the Assembly next January."

It would seem to be the only sane way to go, but, knowing pot-heads, there’s gonna be a one shitload of argument.

The secret word is Reparations

OLD WHITE MALE

This is an old white male. They are scum. I know. I am one. This one is mean, greedy, fearful, vicious, and stupid, but also sufficiently devious to conform to numerous definitions of evil. He has slimed his way through profits and power since Nixon rolled tape. He wanted to have his own death squad, but when he got one, it fucked up so royally it became an embarrassment to the entire intelligence community. As all this emerges, the old white male should be on his way to jail. Why isn’t he?

This is a picture of Brigitte Bardot, posted for no other reason than it’s a picture of Brigitte Bardot. (And maybe an antidote to Dick Cheney.)

SAVED FROM THE MAN-BEAST

While Democrats fritter away their time on economic recovery and healthcare let’s all give praise that fearless, conservative, god-fearing Republicans are keeping us safe from the really bad shit…

“U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KAN) today with Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) introduced the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009. “This legislation works to ensure that our society recognizes the dignity and sacredness of human life,” said Brownback. “Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human and is a violation of human dignity and a grave injustice.” The Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act would ban the creation of human-animal hybrids. Human-animal hybrids are defined as those part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species. The bill is modest in scope and only affects efforts to blur the genetic lines between animals and humans. It does not preclude the use of animals or humans in legitimate research or health care where genetic material is not passed on to future generations, such as the use of a porcine heart valve in a human patient or the use of a lab rat with human diseases to develop treatments. Brownback continued, “This legislation is both philosophical and practical as it has a direct bearing upon the very essence of what it means to be human, and it draws a bright line with respect to how far we can go in attempting to create new creatures made with genes from both humans and animals.”

And let's not forget that Brownback is another member of The Family, that weirdass religious cult for rightwing megalomaniacs with the mysterious and secretive house on C Street. (Click here for more about them.) I don’t think I have anything else to say right now except I’m becoming more and more certain that the wheels are about to come off America.

The secret hyphenation is Post-Capitalism

I KINDA LIKE THIS

Our pal Wendy drew my attention to this. It’s modern music but I think I like it. You may too. Click here.

ANOTHER BILLBOARD ON THE LOST HIGHWAY

(I think it’s near the C Street Exit.)

THE NEWS IS FAR FROM GOOD

A United Nations report that projects the imact of global recession could quite effectively spoil your lunch…

“An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse". The report praises the web, which it singles out as 'the most powerful force for globalisation, democratisation, economic growth, and education in history'
This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet - obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society".The impact of the global recession is a key theme, with researchers warning that global clean energy, food availability, poverty and the growth of democracy around the world are at "risk of getting worse due to the recession". The report adds: "Too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics." Click here for the whole thing.

The secret word is Miasma

(The illustration is not a vision of Hell, just third world food production.)

NUREMBERG REVERSED

Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University and, about half an hour ago on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, he accused the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder of being in the process of reversing the basic Nuremberg principles for the prosecution of war crimes to protect Bush, Cheney, and their hirelings. It may be time to start screaming bloody murder.

WOULD CANDIED BACON ICE CREAM MAKE YOU HAPPIER?

Click here for the whole porky story.

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill is very happy to meet R. Crumb.

SOMETHING TO READ ON A WARM SATURDAY

I don’t usually pass along book reviews, but since our pal Bernard sent me this, and I found it really fascinating and now want to get the book (or some grateful reader could send me one as a gift) I figured I’d make an exception. And also the temperature in LA is rising, and soon even Finn the cat will be walking slow.

“We can put it like this: the Christian Right has diabolically fused biblical storylines, which are generally socially retrograde in the first place, with an updated, inspired jingoism, laced it with an extract from the conservative beliefs of Puritans and Southern slaveholders, and secreted it as a poison into the bloodstream of the American polity. Such at least is the thesis of a recent book by Christopher Collins, called Homeland Mythology: Biblical Narratives in American Culture, which can be usefully paired with the Revs of the Morrow: New Poems by Ed Sanders, which prepares something of an antidote to this toxin by drawing on alternate sources of historical tradition and offering down-home guides to living.” (Click for the whole thing)

The secret word is Toxin

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Lois and Matilda – the daughters of Palindrome (Bobob) Frozdick – have motorized their mission. (And, along their predetermined course, they may pass…)

ANOTHER BILLBOARD ON THE LOST HIGHWAY

WE’RE DUMBER THAN WE THINK WE ARE

A recent Pew poll comparing the attitudes and beliefs of scientists and regular folks reveals that regular folks are dumber than planks – much dumber than planks. And frighteningly ill-informed.

“And while almost all of the scientists surveyed accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming, general public is far less sure.
Almost a third of ordinary Americans say human beings have existed in their current form since the beginning of time, a view held by only 2 percent of the scientists. Only about half of the public agrees that people are behind climate change, and 11 percent does not believe there is any warming at all.
According to the survey, about a third of Americans think there is lively scientific debate on both topics; in fact, there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution and there is little doubt that human activity is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere in ways that threaten global climate.” Click here for the whole sad story.

The secret word is Devolution

NIKOLA TESLA, ON THE OTHER HAND, WAS SMARTER THAN JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY

Today is Tesla’s birthday. He would have been 153. Click here for a handy Tesla briefing. And here to save Tesla's last and only existing laboratory, in Shoreham, NY.

SPACE OPERA

Pic supplied by Valerie and also the Telsa info.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE...

...that we forgot July 3rd was the 40th anniversary of the death of Brian Jones. For a full retrospective on the excellent Houndblog, click here

ADRIFT

The venerable website Funtopia is in temporary cyber-limbo malfunction, but we are assured a rescue mission is already being mounted.