Saturday, January 08, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
BATS DIE
I really don’t want to engage in End Times alarmism, if for no other reason than Christians who believe the Rapture is coming at any minute can be downright dangerous. The modern world, on the other hand, is becoming frighteningly like a stress-toxic pressure cooker with the seals about to blow. Bees, birds, and now bats are all dropping dead. This latest horror story comes from DTA.
"In February 2006 some 40 miles west of Albany, N.Y., a caver photographed hibernating bats with an unusual white substance on their muzzles. He noticed several dead bats. The following winter, bats behaving erratically, bats with white noses, and a few hundred dead bats in several caves came to the attention of New York Department of Environmental Conservation biologists, who documented white-nose syndrome in January 2007. More than a million hibernating bats have died since. Biologists with state and federal agencies and organizations across the country are still trying to find the answer to this deadly mystery. We have found sick, dying and dead bats in unprecedented numbers in and around caves and mines from New Hampshire to Tennessee. In some hibernacula, 90 to 100 percent of the bats are dying. While they are in the hibernacula, affected bats often have white fungus on their muzzles and other parts of their bodies. They may have low body fat. These bats often move to cold parts of the hibernacula, fly during the day and during cold winter weather when the insects they feed upon are not available, and exhibit other uncharacteristic behavior. Despite the continuing search to find the source of this condition by numerous laboratories and state and federal biologists, the cause of the bat deaths remains unknown. A newly discovered cold-loving fungus, Geomyces destructans, invades the skin of bats. Scientists are exploring how the fungus acts and searching for a way to stop it." (Click here for more)
Click here for Bauhaus
The secret word is Extinct
CATS LIE
Research revels what has long been well known by those who live among them. Cats are deceitful creatures.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2011) — A cat regularly vomiting hairballs or refusing to eat probably isn't being finicky or otherwise "cat-like," despite what conventional wisdom might say. There is a good chance that the cat is acting sick because of the stress caused by changes in its environment, new research suggests. Healthy cats were just as likely as chronically ill cats to refuse food, vomit frequently and leave waste outside their litter box in response to changes in their routine, according to the Ohio State University study. Veterinary clinicians refer to these acts as sickness behaviors. (Click here for more)
Thursday, January 06, 2011
THIS IS MIKEY. HE’S A TERRORIST
The Transportation Security Administration, under scrutiny after last month’s bombing attempt, has on its Web site a “mythbuster” that tries to reassure the public.
Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy.
Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list.
“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.” Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name “was on the list,” she recalled. The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried. After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year’s vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home.
“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal,” Mrs. Hicks recounted. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.” It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government’s “no-fly” list, which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger “selectee” list, which sets off a high level of security screening. At some point, someone named Michael Hicks made the Department of Homeland Security suspicious, and little Mikey is still paying the price. (His father, also named Michael Hicks, was stopped for the first time on the Bahamas trip.) Both lists are maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They are given to the Transportation Security Administration, which in turn sends them to the airlines. A spokesman for the T.S.A., James Fotenos, said that as a rule, “there are no children on the no-fly or selectee lists,” but would not comment on Mikey’s situation specifically. Click here for more
Click here for the Rolling Stones
The secret word is Disorder
APOCALYPSE 2
Although the mainstream media is still mostly treating the falling birds and related phenomena as something of a joke, large numbers of our friends and neighbours are finding it highly disturbing. Click here for George Noury on his Coast To Coast radio show out of Las Vegas. And while you’re getting pissed off – or if you prefer your propaganda short and fragmented – click here.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
I have no idea what’s going on here except that I have consumed (and created) more than enough science fiction to know that thousands of fish washing up dead and flocks of birds dropping from the sky is a extremely bad sign. In popular culture such occurrences are portents of something Biblical, extraterrestrial, or from the black helicopter shadowland. You can choose your personal favorite in evil omens. Me? I’m reserving judgment and waiting to see what happens next. Here’s a Huffpo round up of the news stories. It at least gives an idea of how many of these occurrences have occurred.
“Millions of dead fish surfaced in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay in the U.S., Tuesday, while similar unexplained mass fish deaths occurred across the world in Brazil and New Zealand. On Wednesday, 50 birds were found dead on a street in Sweden. The news come after recents reports of mysterious massive bird and fish deaths days prior in Arkansas and Louisiana. The Baltimore Sun reports that an estimated 2 million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay, mostly adult spot with some juvenile croakers in the mix, as well. Maryland Department of the Environment spokesperson Dawn Stoltzfus says "cold-water stress" is believed to be the culprit. She told The Sun that similar large winter fish deaths were documented in 1976 and 1980.” Click here for more
Click here for The Band
The secret word is Creepy
Gerry Rafferty – RIP
THE CONSPIRACY CONGEALS
Click here for a video explanation forwarded by our good pal Helga LA that covers the New World Order/black helicopter school of paranoia. It accounts for the birds that came down in Arkansas but takes no account of the episodes in Sweden and elsewhere.
ABEL FERRARA’S GO GO TALES IS FINALLY SCREENED
The Abel Ferrara film Go Go Tales has finally been given a New York release after being shelved for almost three years. The Village Voice reported…
“A highly personal movie, Go Go Tales finds Ferrara in a frenzied yet pensive mode. Virtually the entire movie is set within the tawdry NYC confines of Ray Ruby’s Paradise, an institution that equally suggests an off–Wall Street titty bar and the magic theater from Steppenwolf (and was constructed for the movie in Rome’s Cinecittà studios). Paradise’s nonstop sweat-perfumed hubbub is immediately established with a blast of Archie Bell & the Drells to herald the contortions of a hula-hooping stripper. The beat goes on for some 90 minutes of choreographed pole-writhing, lap-dancing, and flamboyant backstage catastrophes—notably a tanning-bed fire—interspersed with the machinations of club proprietor and compulsive gambler Ray Ruby (up-for-anything Willem Dafoe) as he dodges his numerous creditors and schemes to game the Lotto.”
Click here for the trailer. The heads up came from Dangerous Minds
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
BIG BROTHER JUST GOT BIGGER
All the better to watch you with…
“In ancient times, Gorgon was a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them. In modern times, Gorgon may be one of the military's most valuable new tools. This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town. The system, made up of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, can transmit live images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements. It can send up to 65 different images to different users; by contrast, Air Force drones today shoot video from a single camera over a "soda straw" area the size of a building or two. With the new tool, analysts will no longer have to guess where to point the camera, said Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, the Air Force's assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." Click here for more
The secret word is Hide
ALTHOUGH YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY…
The world is about to end anyway. (Word from Doug the Bass)
“RALEIGH, N.C. – If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she'll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here. Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin May 21, 2011. To get the word out, they're using billboards and bus stop benches, traveling caravans of RVs and volunteers passing out pamphlets on street corners. Cities from Bridgeport, Conn., to Little Rock, Ark., now have billboards with the ominous message, and mission groups are traveling through Latin America and Africa to spread the news outside the U.S. "A lot of people might think, 'The end's coming, let's go party,'" said Exley, a veteran of two deployments in Iraq. "But we're commanded by God to warn people. I wish I could just be like everybody else, but it's so much better to know that when the end comes, you'll be safe." Click here for more
Click here for Blind Willie Johnson
A TRUE TESTIMONIAL
“I have a friend, a former bad boy. He used to sell rolls of bennies at the truck stops on 1-99 in the fifties. From there he went on to buying bulk methedrine from pharmaceutical warehouses and selling it to the San Francisco Hells Angels. His amphetamine fueled story went on for some years after that. He's not that guy any more. In fact, he counsels street schizophrenic addicts. Consequently he follows the literature, popular and professional, on street drugs. I dropped by his apartment this morning and he pulled out a copy of "Speedfreak". He showed it to me and said, "This is a really interesting book. Have you ever heard of this guy? " As a speedfreak from back in the day he says you got it right. I thought you might like the words of appreciation. By the way, did you know that if you spray bug spray on an old window screen and let it dry, you can scrape it off in powder form, snort it or shoot it and get "high"? That's the kind of shit his clients do when they can't afford good drugs.”
Monday, January 03, 2011
I NEITHER LIKE NOR TRUST POLITICIANS BUT IN HER CASE I MIGHT MAKE AN EXCEPTION
Brazil’s first female President, Dilma Rousseff has been sworn into office. She is a former Marxist guerilla who was imprisoned and tortured during the brutal military dictatorship in the 1970s after she was involved in a series of bank robberies. “That at times this tough path made me value and love life much more. It gave me, more than anything else, courage to confront even bigger challenges. It’s with this courage that I’m going to govern Brazil.”
The secret word is Plausible
Anne Francis – RIP
Pete Postlethwaite – RIP
CHUCK COLLAPSES
“Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer Chuck Berry collapsed over his keyboards about an hour into his “Winter Dance” show before a standing-room only crowd Saturday night at the Congress Theater. The 84-year-old Berry’s head lay on a keyboard, and he didn’t move for a couple of minutes before he was helped off stage by three people shortly before 10:30 p.m. He returned 20 minutes later after most of the auditorium had cleared out. He tuned up his guitar and tried to play before telling the audience he had no strength. He then did a variation of his legendary duck walk off stage. A Chicago Fire Department ambulance was called to the theater on the Northwest Side, and emergency crews gave Berry a check-up at the scene, Fire Department Spokesman Joe Roccasalva said. But he said he “felt better” and signed a refusal for further medical treatment, Roccasalva said.
Berry flew into Chicago after performing two New Year’s Eve shows at B.B. King’s Blues Club and Grill in New York City. The St. Louis-based legend was having trouble connecting with his Chicago-based pick-up band all night. In a rare moment earlier in the show, Berry even cast aside his guitar and took over the keyboards to play “Let it Rock.” He performed his best-known hits like “Roll Over Beethoven” in slow, disjointed tempos and when he hit stride with more appropriate understated material like “Everyday I Have the Blues,” he stopped halfway through the song. The only tune he was able to muscle through was his 1972 novelty hit, “My Ding-A-Ling,” which featured a call and response with his adoring fans.”
It’s hard to know what to say about Chuck. On one hand he’s a mean, unlikable, old man who likes to denigrate his audiences, this women, even his own talent, not to mention the cheap pick-up bands and the embarrasment of “My Ding-A-Ling”. And yet, at the same time, he’s one of America’s greatest poets and composers and a virtuoso guitarist when he bothers.
Click here for Chuck in better times
Sunday, January 02, 2011
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
One of the major changes in my emotional environment since I made it back to England is that I am no longer a thrall of the 24 hour cable news cycle. No more Keith Olbermann, no more Rachel Maddow, and certainly no more of Glenn Beck’s daily lunacy. I am now living in a place – with a very large TV – where the news is concise and to the point and comes from all over the world, and is not so completely dedicated to the latest in crypto fascist idiot-howling. Indeed, Brit TV seems very much the way I left it except there’s so much more including plenty to avoid. I am, however, at risk of becoming addicted to Eastenders, and Xmas telly was massively predictable – Lawrence of Arabia, The Man Who Would Be King, Dr Zhivago – David Lean, memories of empire, James Bond, Sean Bean as Sharp, and acres of Dr. Who. And then, on New Year’s Day there’s a Godfather marathon. But the news cannot be totally avoided and too much of it over the Yule has been dedicated to politicians round the globe telling the people who elected them that 2011 is not going to be a picnic – gruel for Sunday prole-breakfast – as though somehow it was our fault. But it isn’t our fault. I didn’t drive the economy into the ditch, motherfucker. That was you, aiding and abetting your corporate masters in any bizarre larceny they could get away with. And, meanwhile, in other news, bankers still pick up their obscene bonus cheques and attend masked balls like they were the fucking Doge of Venice. So – finally getting to the point – that’s when a Jack Daniel’s breakfast seems very damned appealing.
Click here for Lucinda Williams
The secret word is Oblivion
MAYBE HE NEEDS FIREWORKS
Click here on a much more cheerful note for the London New Year’s Eve firework display sent by Helga LA. Truly amazing and damn the expense.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
THE FIRST DAY OF MMXI
I was reluctant to get up and face this first day of 2011 (or MMXI to Latin scholars.) Could I face another decade in what has so far been a gall stone of a century? Obviously I had little choice in the matter, but I could certainly delay the inevitable as long as possible, and accordingly – pausing only long enough to feed Finn – I took a Valium and went back to bed. A some point during this encore slumber I drifted into a half-dream/half-stream of semi-conscious thought that intrigued me sufficiently I felt a need to write it down before it melted from memory.
Two ultra-senior corporate executives recline in a skyscape boardroom like suave and elevated demons in some elegant enclave of a post-theological Hell discussing how to bend the planet to their totalitarian capitalist whim. Strange aircraft fly by in the toxic miasma beyond the glass. The dialogue, as far as I can reconstruct it, went something like this.
The first corporate demon explains, “So we find ourselves a charming sociopath with sufficient cheap charisma to be celebrity-marketed to the terminal lumpen.”
“Gender?”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
The second corporate demon nods and pours herself a cognac. “Right.”
The first corporate demon continues. “We inculcate them with a blunt-instrument measure of political ambition.”
“Power for it’s own sake?”
“For pleasure and profit.”
“And then?”
“We equip them with money, media access, and surround them with a impenetrable phalanx of attendant minders and handlers. The resulting illusionary cocoon of mindless praise and endless flattery, plus totally controlled and wholly favorable mass media access, will smooth the inevitable rough edges to create a superficial faux-socialization and the kind of shoddy appeal that is needed to succeed in the already farcical democratic process.”
“The selected sociopath achieves high office?”
“The very highest.”
“And then?”
“And then he or she proceeds to unravel what remains of civilization as it has been know, clearing the way for our full and complete totalitarian hegemony.”
“Would we allow the sociopath nuclear capability?”
“Of course. It’s goes with the position of power.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Yes.”
At this point the dream morphed into a memory of the movie version of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone, and words of the Martin Sheen character Greg Stillson. “The missiles are flying. Hallelujah!”
But then the movie sequence is cut short by the smile of the first corporate demon. “But if that should be the case, we can retire to the Strangelove Bunkers until the dust has settled.”
Click here for the clip in question
Click here for Elvis
The secret word is Disturbed
Friday, December 31, 2010
ANOTHER YEAR FOR ME AND YOU…
Click here for Gracie
Click here for Amos Milburn (lifted from our pal Kevin on Facebook)
The secret word is Resist
Thursday, December 30, 2010
WHY I DIDN’T STAY IN THE USA?
Once upon a time, the shenanigans of lumpen fascism were amusing. They were so extreme they couldn’t be taken seriously, but after discovering the congressman who spent his weekends in a Nazi uniform playing out Waffen SS reactments, I started to feel a little skittish, like some evil was on the air. Our very good pal Richard Metzger just crystallized the same feeling, I think, on Dangerous Minds… “And where is this mess headed when the stupidest people in the country are the only ones reliably voting? It’s really getting frustrating to read the news these days. I feel like there is a new low reached almost daily. The dumbness used to be a little more spread out. I can’t help but to feel we’re about to reach a tipping point towards some SERIOUS BAD CRAZINESS. If you can convince a man that dinosaurs and unicorns were on Noah’s Ark, you can convince this man of ANY darned thing (like millionaires and billionaires pay too much in taxes or that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president)."
Or try this news report for size…
“Kentucky's state-backed $150 million creationist theme park, The Ark Encounter, will allow visitors to explore a literal interpretation of the Bible's story of Noah and the ark. But pseudonymous liberal Kentucky blogger Media Czech raises two important questions about that interpretation and how it will be manifest in theme park form. First, were there dinosaurs on the original ark? Second, what about unicorns? Now, the blogger has found answers to both questions at Answers In Genesis, the official blog of the group behind The Ark Encounter. The group says "yes," to both, which implies that their creationist theme park will include dinosaurs and unicorns on the Ark. Here's Answers In Genesis explaining why dinosaurs were on the Ark, although the group prefers to call them ‘dragons’” (Click here for more)
Or this one…
“First Lady Michelle Obama's push against child obesity, which mostly calls for reforming school lunch programs, is either nanny state big government "run amok," as Sarah Palin put it, or, as some conservatives concede, a relatively unoffensive effort to make kids healthier. The issue has exposed a slight but interesting divide in the conservative commentariat, which cannot seem to agree on whether they should let the first lady's effort slide or oppose it with all their might. The split reveals a difference of opinion on just how "laissez faire" school lunchrooms should be as well as the limits of anti-Obama opposition just for opposition's sake.” (Click here for more including Palin’s response.)
Click here for (what else?) Sex Pistols
The secret word is Porcine
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
BRAVE NEW TYRANNY
In recent times, Doc40 has run a bunch of stuff by our pal Chris Hedges, and this essay in which he mashes Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984 as two parts of the same evolution to tyranny is well worth passing along. It took our good friend Aeswiren to provide a heads up for this post. Over the last few weeks I have rather been ignoring US politics as I sorted out my bearings here in the UK. I would note, though, if things were really as bad as Hedges assumes, we’d both would have been hauled away in the black helicopters of the Though Police months ago.
“The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second. We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled. Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure.” Click here for the whole thing.
Click here for the complete 1954 BBC TV production of 1984
The secret word is Pessimism
SPEED EXCERPT
Our pal Jon alerted me to how Alternet had posted a lengthy excerpt from my recent book Speed-Speed-Speedfreak. It was news to me, but I link it here because I figure it’s a good read. (Although you could actually buy the book, which would contribute to my survival.)
“In the fullness of history, all the different varieties of speed may have been products of the twentieth century, even though they are still around nearly a decade into the twenty-first, and show no sign of waning. Speed is too much of a reflection of its time. The twentieth century was an era of acceleration. Humanity went from its first powered flight to a moon landing in less than 70 years. Two atomic weapons were deliberately detonated over inhabited cities, while other cities were turned into unstoppable firestorms by tons of conventional explosives dropped from high-flying aircraft. Millions died in two devastating world wars, and millions more in smaller wars, insurrections, and ethnic cleansings. We have seen the computer grow from a mechanical adding machine to an entity so powerful and omnipresent that speculation is now possible about the likelihood of machines merging identities with humanity.
The event of rock & roll added a frenetic thrashing drive to the world's entertainment, and television warped the world's perception. The twentieth century was an era of massive overreaching that culminated in us pushing our planet to the very edge of environmental catastrophe, as melting icecaps change the course of the ocean tides. The twentieth century was also a time of scarcely believable greed and all too grandiose dreams. The developed nations of the West demanded more and more, and we grew furious if TV commercials reneged on their promises and we couldn't instantly have it all. The West grew fat even as famines decimated developing nations. We burned energy as if there was no tomorrow, and in so doing, made tomorrow considerably more problematic.” Click here for more
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
THE GREAT WHITE SPOT IS BACK
As Europe and North America are beset by unusually extreme weather, word comes that meteorological anomalies are not wholly confined to the planet Earth. Saturn (above) is currently experiencing the reemergence of the Great White Spot, a massive storm system in the planet's southern hemisphere several thousand kilometers across. The Great White Spot is Saturn’s the lesser known equivalent of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. A periodic storm that flares up about every 28.5 years. It previously appeared in 1876, 1903, 1933, 1960, and 1990. As such, we shouldn't be expecting another appearance until around 2018, although huge, Spot-like storms do occasionally show up at times that don't fit the cycle, including 1994 and 2006. Click here for the story
Click here for The Doors (at risk of being repetitious)
The secret word is Interplanetary
LET IT SNOW
Monday, December 27, 2010
SHAKE AND SHIVER
I am not so overweeningly egocentric that I take seismic events as a personal affront but it did strike me as a tad heavy on the synchronicity when, within hours of having posted on Facebook how, after leaving California, “although England freezes, I no longer need concern myself about the next earthquake” our pal Joli sends me this report of a quake in the north of England.
“People described hearing and feeling the earth moving for "well over a minute" just after 2300 GMT on Tuesday. The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 3.6, was felt in locations across Cumbria and in Lancashire, south-west Scotland, parts of Yorkshire, Northumberland and the Isle of Man. Police say there are no reports of injury or damage. The tremor was picked up by the British Geological Survey. People have contacted the BBC to say they felt the tremor in places including Barrow, Sellafield, Cockermouth, Windermere and Penrith. Cumbria Fire and Rescue service has also confirmed the quake. A spokesman said: "We have had no requests from members of the public. At the moment, we don't believe there is any structural damage." Click here for more
Click here for mean ol’ Chuck
The secret word is Fault
IF HE WAS SO SMART…
Click here for The Byrds
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