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Saturday, July 07, 2012
Thursday, July 05, 2012
ALL HAIL THE GOD PARTICLE!
While the
very essence of the universe is revealed, not a million miles from Cern,
benighted oafs angrily assert that the universe was made just six thousand
years ago by their implausible skygod.
The secret
word is Hopeless
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS
This is
maybe less than kind but, when I saw reprint of Nick Kent’s 1975 review of
Motorhead’s debut at Hammersmith Odeon on the Rock’s Back Pages weekly
newsletter, I just couldn’t resist. A comrade from the trenches of the NME slagging
off three of my old mates, one of whom would become his own action figure, it was too fine to pass up. What you might call a witness to history. But what is
the historical outcome of all this? Was the critic wrong or did Lemmy take
Kent’s advice, rethink his battle plan and repopulate the combo? Don’t you miss
the 20th century?
“In fact, Sunday night at the Hammersmith Odeon was very
much yer connoisseur's guide to rampantly uninspired heavy metal thunder,
kicking off with Motorhead's shocking performance which promptly prefaced the
slickness to come with one of the most horrendous displays of H. Metal Savage
incompetence possibly ever performed.
Of course, it didn't exactly help that guitarist Larry
Wall-lace's bank of amplifiers quickly developed severe feed-back problems
rendering most of his playing inaudible beneath a plethora of teeth-grinding
electronic incontinence, but aside from that, the fact that Lemmy's consortium
raging through the likes of 'Bye Bye Johnny' and 'I'm Waiting for the Man'
ultimately comes on like nothing so much as Budgie on methedrine can't exactly
gladden the soul of the more discerning metal aficionado. Forced exile camping
it up at the Roundhouse should keep them from harm until such time as they see
their way to approaching their craft with something other than all the panache
of a butcher stripping meat from an overripe carcass. Interestingly enough,
Motorhead were given an immensely hard time from the crowd. They turned quite
nasty in fact towards the end, displaying all the earmarks of that rarest of
commodities in London – an uncompromisingly ballsy audience.”
Click here for Laz with Motorhead
The secret word is Afterbirth
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
THE DUMB OF TEXAS ARE UPON US
Those
mindless bumpkin zombies of Christian values also known as the Texas Republican
Party have published their 2012 platform online. It calls for just about every kind
of nasty, vicious, and backward legislation short of reinstating slavery. The
Texas GOP are just heading out for the 15th century and damn the
last vestiges of civilization which – in the modern conservative world – is
strictly for the rich anyway. Some of the most horrific proposals are in the
section titled Educating Our Children which – in addition to calls for a wider
use of corporal punishment – seem designed to keep the youth of Texas ignorant,
dumbed down, fearful, and hag-ridden by religion. Here are a couple of examples….
“We oppose the
teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification),
critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of
Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior
modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs
and undermining parental authority.
“We
recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We
believe that parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior
to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence
until marriage.”
Click here
for the whole depressing document.
Click here
for George Strait
The secret
word is Imbecile
Andy Griffith -- RIP
Andy Griffith -- RIP
A FEAST OF BOB
It all started with a link on Dangerous Minds to a Bob Dylan clip from a
1984 Letterman show on which Bob played blinding versions of "Jokerman", and "License To
Kill" backed by a
rocking combination of members of the Plugz/Cruzados. (And, according to the
late Willy DeVille, Bob called him to ask where he could buy a sharp suit on 14th
Street for the show). After that, I can across a whole bunch of Bob and figured I should post
a few before Sony or someone rips them down.
OUR PAL HCB WRITES FROM PHOENIX, ARIZONA...
“The weather is
reminding me more and more of the kind of devastation I used to see in the
first chapters of Flash Gordon serials, when Ming the Merciless was shooting
the world with the Purple Death ray.”
Friday, June 29, 2012
THE ELVIS MOUSE
I suppose
it was inevitable. (And could only trigger an impromptu Elvis Friday.)
“Hair samples of Elvis
Presley, bought on eBay were sent to a gene sequencing lab to identify
different behavioural traits (varied from sociability, athletic performance to
obesity and addiction). Using this information, transgenic mice clones with
parallel traits were produced. The genetically cloned models of Elvis (in this
case) are tested in a collection of various contemporary scientific mouse model
environments, simulating some of the significant biographical circumstances of
his life.” (Click here for the whole weird story)
Click here
for the uncloned Elvis
The secret words are Hillbilly and Cat
Thursday, June 28, 2012
A HAND IN EVERY TILL
International
bankers continue to act as though they own the planet and we are only pawns on
their chessboard. No lessons are learned. No sentences are handed down. No
executions are conducted the cellar. Fraud, larceny, and criminal incompetence
continue unchecked. In recent weeks JP Morgan has been caught playing the same
old billion dollar shell game. In the UK, customers of Nat West and RBS have
been unable to access their own money after an unprecedented computer failure
following the outsourcing of a creaking computer system to poorly trained
and even more poorly paid technicians. And now Channel 4 News tells me that…
“A vast story has broken,
concerning banking dishonesty on what the regulator, the FSA, calls a “serious,
widespread and extended” scale. It has called the action misconduct, and fined
Barclays, as have American regulators, which all adds up to £290m. In
short, Barclays got the people who report their interest rates to the British
Bankers Association (these are collated from all the major banks to fix the
official Libor rate) to try and manipulate their rate. It’s one of the biggest
scandals to hit the City of London and it speaks of extremely loose and even
louche practices. The reporting from Barclays, according to the FSA, amounted
to a straight lie. The bankers, on senior executives’ instructions (we’re not
told any names) were simply told to understate the true level of interest to
enable the bank to sustain trading profits. It’s all so bad, that the ever
resistant Barclay’s boss, Bob Diamond, has finally given in on his huge bonus
and accepted that he cannot claim it. The biggest question tonight, given that
it is so widespread and so deep - why is this activity not regarded as fraud,
and why is no-one being prosecuted?”
But the
problem goes far deeper than even astronomical global racketeering and levels
of greed that now covert sums of money that can only be abstractions. The Nobel
economist Paul Krugman reports in the NY Times how bankers and their political
lackeys are so busy looting the coffers and so dedicated to their notional games
of impossible acquisition, they have abdicated any responsibility for an
economic crisis that could lay waste to the developed world.
“None of this should be happening. As in 1931, Western
nations have the resources they need to avoid catastrophe, and indeed to
restore prosperity — and we have the added advantage of knowing much more than
our great-grandparents did about how depressions happen and how to end them.
But knowledge and resources do no good if those who possess them refuse to use
them. And that’s what seems to be happening. The fundamentals of the world
economy aren’t, in themselves, all that scary; it’s the almost universal
abdication of responsibility that fills me, and many other economists, with a
growing sense of dread.”
The secret word is Suppurating
PUSHING CITIZENS TO EXTREMES
As
governments seem wholly unwilling to bring criminal bankers to justice, angry
and frightened citizens look to more drastic measures. I wouldn’t actually
recommend extreme revenge. It’s probably illegal to suggest such things.
Click here
for Gene Vincent
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
THE WORLD IS TOO COMPLICATED!
The world
is too complicated! We cannot save it! I have no time! I turn your over to
Henri the cat! Click here!
The secret
number is 101
Monday, June 25, 2012
KNOW THE ENEMY
Oft times I
have complained there – probably ad nauseum – about how the War on Drugs has
dragged on and on for more than my entire not inconsiderable lifetime to the
detriment of all and the near destruction of Mexico and Columbia. In that time
there has been no sign of compromise or even sanity. In a vicious vacuum devoid
of all social and philosophical credibility, death and incarceration continue
unabated to feed the funds and fantasies of darkest law enforcement,
neo-fascist billionaire beer barons, screaming moron media and the politicians
who ride it, plus the growing privatised prison industry. Michelle
Leonhart is a senior DEA official. Watch this inane power-idiot in action. As
our good pal Richard Metzger
writes in Dangerous Minds…
“Why is someone as blinkered as Michelle Leonhart serving as
a top DEA administrator? Her opinion about marijuana being as dangerous as
other illegal drugs like heroin, crack, or meth hardly rises to the level of superstition let alone any kind of objective science.
This dumbass obviously has no idea what she is talking
about. This is an infuriating display of complete idiocy and willful ignorance.
Or else she’s just lying and stonewalling with the DEA party line, of course,
but the “deer in the headlights” uncomprehending look on her face as she’s
being grilled probably indicates that she’s being sincere. And stupid.”
Click here
for the witless La Leonhart
The secret
word is Void
Sunday, June 24, 2012
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
Sorry
friends. My brain hurts. I’ll leave you with this question and catch up with you
all tomorrow.
If I was a Hun on my pony
Following my leader
To the rape and pillage the Roman Empire
Would I have been
In any way aware
I was a vassal of apocalypse
Terminating a culture
A system of supposed civilization
And ushering in Dark Ages
And centuries of war, pestilence, death,
And ignorance?
Or would I merely have viewed it
As just another day on the job?
Click here for The Beatles
The secret
number is 451
Friday, June 22, 2012
THE BANKER
There’s
really nothing to say about this little gem from Bill Nighy except its
hilarious and subversively on the money. Click here.
The secret
word is Ruin
MARILYN SEZ…
“And for
bankers who refuse to compromise, we have plenty of lampposts and lots of
rope.”
PURE EGO
A glowing
review by the excellent Ben Graham of last Friday’s poetry show here in
Brighton was posted on Facebook. One section, however, gave me cause for a
certain old guard pause and posed three possible questions.
1) Have I
been doing this for too long?
2) Have my
visions become archaic?
3) Do I
give a fuck?
“Farren links back to an era when outlaw giants like
Burroughs, Thompson and Morrison still strode the earth, and rock n’ roll and
outsider poetry were linked, along with wider and more amorphous notions of
youth-as-rebel-culture and drugs-as-shamanic-tools, standing firm against
the rapacious advances of the military-industrial greedheads and all who served
them. Such an era may seem quaint and discredited now from our lonely 21st
Century beachhead. And yet we at the Midsummer Poetry Ball still broadly
advocate and stand behind such principles.” (Click here for the whole thing.)
So while
I’m basking in the wonder of me, KUSF in San Francisco devoted an hpur show to
the works of the Deviants plus side project like Tijuana Bible. (Click here for
a listen)
And if all
that wasn’t enough, here’s a clip of the Deviants’ D-Day show in Wolverhampton.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
FULL SPEED TO THE DARK AGES
This essay by John Atcheson provides one more well considered confirmation that arrant and vicious stupidity has to be halted if any of us are to survive.
“We are witnessing an epochal shift in our socio-political world. We are de-evolving, hurtling headlong into a past that was defined by serfs and lords; by necromancy and superstition; by policies based on fiat, not facts. Much of what has made the modern world in general, and the United States in particular, a free and prosperous society comes directly from insights that arose during the Enlightenment. Too bad we’re chucking it all out and returning to the Dark Ages. Literally. Two main things distinguished the post Enlightenment world from the pre Enlightenment Dark Ages. First, Francis Bacon’s Novo Organum Scientiarum (The New Instrument of Science)introduced a new way of understanding the world, in which empiricism, facts and … well … reality … defined what was real. It essentially outlined the scientific method: observation and data collection, formulation of hypotheses, experiments designed to test hypotheses and elevation of these hypotheses to theories when data consistently supported them. It was and is a system based on skepticism, and a relentless and methodical search for truth.
It brought us advances and untold wealth and health.
From one-horse carts to automobiles to airplanes. From leaches and phrenology
to penicillin and monoclonal antibodies.
Until recently.
Now, we seek to operate by revealed truths, not
reality. Decrees from on high – often issued by an unholy alliance of
religious fundamentalists, self-interested corporations, and greedy fat cats –
are offered up as reality by rightwing politicians. For example, North Carolina
law-makers recently passed legislation against sea level rise. A day later, the
Virginia legislature required that references to global warming, climate change
and sea
level rise be excised from a
proposed study on sea
level rise. Last year, the Texas Department of Environmental
Quality, which had commissioned a study on Galveston Bay, cut all references to
sea level rise – the main point of the study. As Stephen Colbert so aptly put
it: “If your science gives you results you don’t like, pass a law saying
that the result is illegal Problem solved.”Click here for more
Click here
for the Doctor
The secret
word is Dementia
THE FROZDICK FAMILY
It took
Lars Frozdick some time to talk the other three guys into taking part in the
experiment but eventually they came on board.
Monday, June 18, 2012
THE AUM NUKE
Here at
Doc40 we love a good conspiracy theory, especially when it involves DIY nuclear
weapons. Although I cultivated a morbid interest the Aum Shinrikyo death cult through the 1990s – they
were the characters who, in 1995, loosed Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway –
I hadn’t heard this quite amazing story until I read about it in Bill Bryson’s book In a Sunburned
Country…
“In January 1997, according to a report written in America
by a Times reporter, scientists were seriously
investigating the possibility that a mysterious seismic disturbance in the
remote Australian outback almost four years earlier had been a nuclear
explosion set off by members of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.
"It happens that at 11:03 p.m. local
time on May 28, 1993, seismograph needles all over the Pacific region twitched
and scribbled in response to a very large-scale disturbance near a place called
Banjawarn Station in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia. Some
long-distance truckers and prospectors, virtually the only people out in that
lonely expanse, reported seeing a sudden flash in the sky and hearing or
feeling the boom of a mighty but far-off explosion. One reported that a can of
beer had danced off the table in his tent.
"The problem was that there was no obvious explanation.
The seismograph traces didn't fit the profile for an earthquake or mining
explosion, and anyway the blast was 170 times more powerful than the most
powerful mining explosion ever recorded in Western Australia. The shock was
consistent with a large meteorite strike, but the impact would have blown a
crater hundreds of feet in circumference, and no such crater could be found.
The upshot is that scientists puzzled over the incident for a day or two, then
filed it away as an unexplained curiosity-- the sort of thing that presumably
happens from time to time.
"Then in 1995 Aum Shinrikyo gained sudden notoriety
when it released extravagant quantities of the nerve gas sarin into the Tokyo
subway system, killing twelve people. In the investigations that followed, it
emerged that Aum's substantial holdings included a 500,000-acre desert
property in Western Australia very near the site of the mystery event. There,
authorities found a laboratory of unusual sophistication and focus, and
evidence that cult members had been mining uranium. It separately emerged that
Aum had recruited into its ranks two nuclear engineers from the former Soviet
Union. The group's avowed aim was the destruction of the world, and it appears
that the event in the desert may have been a dry run for blowing up Tokyo.”
Click here
for Bob
The secret
word is Roentgen
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