“Don’t ask
me, my hands are tied.”
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
One of the
things I really miss now I’m back in England is a proper hotdog. Okay, I know
probably half of you are disgusted by now and are just straining at the leash
to tell me all about the bugs and the rats hairs and the diseases and all the
other hotdog horror stories, But hey, a coke and a hotdog, what more can the
hungover ask. And the tradition is a noble one and even comes with it's own landmarks
Nathan’s on Coney Island, Pinks in Hollywood, but I’m no frankensnob, I’m just
as happy with a Sabrett from a pushcart in Manhattan or the ones in the 7/11
revolving on those hot rollers. I take
my dog with mustard and ketchup. I like relish but it tends to get on your
shirt. And that's my sunday dog tale and I’m sticking to it.
Click heref or Billie Holiday
The secret
word is Bun
Yossarian -- RIP
Yossarian -- RIP
BUT LET’S TALK ABOUT FROGS FOR A WHILE
Because
their bodies absorb just about everything in their immediate environment, frogs
are bellwethers of toxic pollution and what happens to them today happens to us
tomorrow and right now they are dying.
“Widely used pesticides can kill frogs within an hour, new research
has revealed, suggesting the chemicals are playing a significant and previously
unknown role in the catastrophic global decline of amphibians. The scientists
behind the study said it was both "astonishing" and
"alarming" that common pesticides could be so toxic at the doses
approved by regulatory authorities, adding to growing
criticism of how pesticides are tested. "You would not think products
registered on the market would have such a toxic effect," said Carsten
Brühl, at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany. "It is the simplest
effect you can think of: you spray the amphibian with the pesticide and it is
dead. That should translate into a dramatic effect on populations."
Trenton Garner, an ecologist at the Zoological Society of
London, said: "This is a valuable addition to the substantial body of
literature detailing how existing standards for the use of agricultural
pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers are inadequate for the protection of
biodiversity." Amphibians are the best example of the great extinction of species currently under
way, as they are the most threatened and rapidly declining vertebrate group.
More than a third of all amphibians
are included in the IUCN "red list" of endangered
species, with loss of habitat, climate change and disease posing the biggest
threats. Brühl had previously studied how easily frogs can absorb pesticides
through their permeable skins, which they can breathe through when underwater.
But pesticides are not required to be tested on amphibians, said Brühl:
"We could only find one study for one pesticide that was using an exposure
likely to occur on farmland."
His team chose widely used fungicides, herbicides and
insecticides. The most striking results were for a fungicide called
pyraclostrobin, sold as the product Headline by the manufacturer BASF and used
on 90 different crops across the world. It killed all the common European frogs
used as test animals within
an hour when applied at the rate recommended on the label. Other fungicides,
herbicides and insecticides also showed acute toxicity, even when applied at
just 10% of the label rate, with the insecticide dimethoate, for example,
killing 40% of animals within a week.
The study, published on Thursday in
Scientific Reports [will be live after
embargo], concluded: "The observation of acute mortality in a vertebrate
group caused by commercially available pesticides at recommended field rates is
astonishing, since 50 years after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent
Spring one would have thought that the development of refined risk-assessment
procedures would make such effects virtually impossible." A BASF spokesman
disputed the findings: "This study was performed under laboratory
'worst-case' conditions. Under normal agricultural conditions amphibians are
not exposed to such pesticide concentrations. According to our knowledge, no significant
impact on amphibian populations has been reported despite the widespread and
global use of the fungicide pyraclostrobin." Brühl said the method, a
single spray directly on to the frogs, sometimes at just 10% of the label rate,
was a "realistic worst-case" scenario. He added that in the field,
multiple sprays of a variety of pesticides was likely and that chemicals might
run off into ponds where frogs lived. Sandra Bell, Friends of the Earth's
nature campaigner, said: "From frogs to bees, there is mounting evidence
that the pesticide bombardment of our farmland is having a major impact on our
precious wildlife. Strong action is urgently needed to
get farmers off the chemical treadmill.
"As well as banning the most toxic products,
governments must set clear targets for reducing all pesticides and ensure
farmers have safe and thoroughly tested alternatives."
Earlier this month, the world's most widely used insecticide
was for the first time officially labelled an "unacceptable"
danger to bees feeding
on flowering crops, by the European Food Safety Agency. The agency had
previously stated that current "simplistic"
regulations contained "major weaknesses".
"There is an urgency to address [the amphibian issue]
as pesticides will be applied again soon because it's spring, and that's when
we have all these migrations to ponds," said Brühl.
"We don't have any data from the wild about dead frogs
because no one is looking for them – and if you don't look, you don't find. But
the pesticides are very widely used and so have the potential to have a
significant effect on populations."
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
MAYBE IT’S A BANG BUT MORE LIKELY IT’S A WHIMPER
It’s been a
while since we ran anything by our pessimistic pal Chris Hedges. Maybe I was
making the transition from US politics (barking and dangerous) to Euro politics
(old, corrupt, and dangerous) but this scenario of doom is too good to miss.
The Mayans didn’t put us out of our misery but capitalism may well do the deed.
“The experience of a relatively easy 500 years of expansion
and colonization, the constant taking over of new lands, led to the modern
capitalist myth that you can expand forever,” Wright said. “It is an absurd
myth. We live on this planet. We can’t leave it and go somewhere else. We have
to bring our economies and demands on nature within natural limits, but we have
had a 500-year run where Europeans, Euro-Americans and other colonists have
overrun the world and taken it over. This 500-year run made it not only seem
easy but normal. We believe things will always get bigger and better. We have
to understand that this long period of expansion and prosperity was an anomaly.
It has rarely happened in history and will never happen again. We have to
readjust our entire civilization to live in a finite world. But we are not
doing it, because we are carrying far too much baggage, too many mythical
versions of deliberately distorted history and a deeply ingrained feeling that
what being modern is all about is having more. This is what anthropologists
call an ideological pathology, a self-destructive belief that causes societies
to crash and burn. These societies go on doing things that are really stupid
because they can’t change their way of thinking. And that is where we are.”
And as the collapse becomes palpable, if human history is
any guide, we like past societies in distress will retreat into what
anthropologists call “crisis cults.” The powerlessness we will feel in the face
of ecological and economic chaos will unleash further collective delusions,
such as fundamentalist belief in a god or gods who will come back to earth and
save us. “Societies in collapse often fall prey to the belief that if certain
rituals are performed all the bad stuff will go away,” Wright said. “There are
many examples of that throughout history. In the past these crisis cults took
hold among people who had been colonized, attacked and slaughtered by
outsiders, who had lost control of their lives. They see in these rituals the
ability to bring back the past world, which they look at as a kind of paradise.
They seek to return to the way things were. Crisis cults spread rapidly among
Native American societies in the 19th century, when the buffalo and the Indians
were being slaughtered by repeating rifles and finally machine guns. People
came to believe, as happened in the Ghost Dance, that if they did the right things the
modern world that was intolerable—the barbed wire, the railways, the white man,
the machine gun—would disappear.” Click here for the rest
Click forthe Gates of Eden
The secret
word is Hollow
LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES
The great H.
R. Giger and his alien. Seemingly Giger is well pissed off by the lack of
credit he has received for his creation. Click here to read all about it on
Dangerous Minds.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
Shinjuku is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city of
Tokyo, mainly because it’s wild, wooly, crazy-neon gorgeous, and a bit yakuza
from what I could see. And also our good friend Yukiko lives there. It has an
array of bars to rival Lower Manhattan or Brighton, buts it’s big on tourism
and that spawns weirdness like the saloon in the picture that I couldn’t resist
posting to share its bizarre wonder. I mean, could you imagine curing your
Sunday morning coming-down hangover in a joint like that? I wouldn’t even fancy
it for the Saturday drunk of the night before. (Did I mention the giant
animatronic strippers?) Fortunately there is an invisible but very serious and
very Japanese sign that says “NO ANARCHISTS, DOGS, OR ALCOHOLIC POETS “ The
place is also way out of my pay grade and Tokyo social strata and they would
never let me in which probably just as well but I still gawp such garish glory.
Click here for Don Henley’s best drunk song ever.
The secret word is Equilibrium
Saturday, January 19, 2013
SELF PROMOTION SATURDAY #1
Seemingly the summer fun
starts here. It’s funny to think about June with snow in the garden.
I couldn’t find a decent song
about June. Would you settle for May? Click here
The secret word is Monolith
SELF PROMOTION SATURDAY #2
People seem
to be writing nice things about me. I stumbled across this on an old io9
“For a speculative fiction
ride of sex, drugs, and rock&roll that's less experimental (ahem, easier to
read), I prefer Mick Farren, singer of the proto-punk band The Deviants, White Panther Party
member, and Elvis scholar. Out of print, but well worth the hunt, are his
multiverse romps in The DNA Cowboys Trilogy and Necrom, some truly weird fun shit. The dimension-tripping
demon Yancey Slide from those adventures also turns up in the more recent Kindling and Conflagration He also wrote the Victor Renquist novels, a series of vampire novels
that aren't totally lame. 2002's Underland has the CIA, vampires, and Nazis duking it out with flying saucers in
the Hollow Earth beneath Antarctica. Yeah. Hell, just track down anything you
can by Mick Farren.”
While this was on
Disinformation (and I was alerted to it by our good pal Rich Dana of
Obsolete.)
“Truthfully, I wasn’t even
totally stoked on Illuminatus. Kind of thought it was structured almost
intentionally lazily which gave him (and Robert Shea) the ability to write down
whatever thoughts happened to pop into their heads while they were stoned with
zero regard for structure. Because of that I would actually recommend the much
more underrated DNA
Cowboys Trilogy by Mick Farren if you’re into this sort of epic
mindfuckery. Mick Farren is crazy under-appreciated, just saying.”
Click here for me
SELF PROMOTION SATURDAY #3
If you want
to make me feel more appreciated you could always buy on of these.
Click here
in the US
Click here
in the UK
ONE WAY TO BEAT THE CCTV
I found
this on one of the more aggressive mail order operations that hit my inbox.
“This military soldier
skull face mask offers full face coverage. Eco-friendly, odor-free, and
poison-free ABS construction ensures that you can wear it safely and
comfortably. The mesh covered eye holes provide good eye coverage while
offering great, fog-proof visibility. Foam padding accents, an adjustable
elastic strap, and durable but lightweight construction ensure a good,
comfortable fit. “
IT MAY NOT CURE THE FLU BUT IT SURE IMPROVES THE EXPERIENCE
It’s
amazing what you find on the interwebs.although Maker's Mark isn't my favourite bourbon.
“A small-batch ice-cream company claims to have scooped up a
cure for the worst epidemic in years — a bold new flavor called “Influenza
Sorbet.” The virus-soothing treat — made by Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams — blends
Maker’s Mark bourbon, lemon and cayenne pepper to mimic an old family flu
remedy. The dessert, which sells for $12 a pint, includes ginger and honey.
Owner Jeni Britton Bauer, who operates Manhattan ice-cream trucks, says it
eases sore throats and clears up nasal passages.”
DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?
This is Barbara Markay. Her 1980 disco single was “Give Your Dick To Me”. It was not a hit.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
KNOW THY FOE
This woman
is among the righteous, activist, theocrat, Jesus-wants-me-for-sunbeam defenders
of Christian values. But she also pimps out her daughter for prostitution and
kiddie porn. I lifted this tasteless true tale from Dangerous Minds in order to
pose the question – “Is there any way of stopping these swine from polluting
the planet short of rounding them up and killing them?"
“Take a good look at the face of Lisa Biron, a New Hampshire
attorney who provides pro bono legal work for the anti-LGBT Christian group,
the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian lawyers. Fighting gay
rights and woman’s reproductive rights are the main focus of the group’s
litigation.
Biron has been found guilty—it took a jury just one hour to
convict her—on eight felony charges involving child endangerment and producing
child pornography. Via WMUR:
“A Manchester lawyer has been found guilty of exploiting a
14-year-old girl to produce child pornography, The Associated Press reported.
Lisa Biron, 43, was accused of videotaping the girl having sex with two men.
Biron faced eight federal indictments on charges of child sexual exploitation,
transporting a child across state lines to produce child pornography and
possession of child pornography, and was convicted on all of them after the
jury deliberated for less than an hour. The trial began Wednesday, with
prosecutors calling to the stand two men who said Biron videotaped them having
sex with the 14-year-old. The final witness for the prosecution was an FBI
agent who specializes in computer forensics. He testified that he retrieved
pornographic images from a computer that had Biron listed as the owner. He said
a confiscated iPhone also had a sexually explicit video involving the girl.”
According to the Joe.My.God blog, as Biron
was being led away post-sentencing, she was overheard speaking to her father
and blaming her 14-year-old victim, saying that “she had a part in this”
Click here to take away the bad taste are eleven minutes of MC5
“YOU EXPECT A BLOWJOB AFTER THE SHIT YOU PULLED?
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
SUNDAY BREAKFAST
Did you
ever have one of those lost and out-of-focus mornings when you wish it was
still Saturday night? Or have we put all that behind us?
Click here for the Ronettes
The secret
word is Dissolute
BUT LITTLE TOMMY WILL SAVE US ALL
This will
probably get me on some Scientology shitlist.
“Tom Cruise will save the world from aliens — not on the big
screen but in real life.
His day job as an actor pales next to the billion-year contract of service he signed with the
Church of Scientology, according to a bombshell new book, “Going Clear:
Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief.” New Yorker writer Lawrence
Wright details Cruise’s demigod status within the church, as well as the
group’s ultimate purpose — protect humanity from aliens living in our bodies,
who are bent on destroying us and ultimately the planet. Cruise was introduced
to the religion when he was 23 years old by his then-girlfriend, actress Mimi
Rogers. Seven years his senior, Rogers was an avowed member of Scientology;
they married in 1987. Cruise was quickly intrigued, but he kept his initial
participation low-profile. He began undergoing “auditing” — a process in which
church members are queried about every aspect of their lives — under his given name,
Thomas Mapother IV. It took several years for church leaders to realize that
for all of their celebrity acolytes — including John Travolta, Priscilla
Presley, Kirstie Alley, Kelly Preston and Sonny Bono — they had a true
superstar at their disposal.
Cruise would later come to believe that in the hierarchy of
Scientology, he was No. 3, behind only the founder, the late L. Ron Hubbard
(known as LRH) and No. 2 David Miscavige, who goes by COB, for Chairman of the
Board of the Religious Technology Center.” Click here for more (although it is from
the NY Post.)
Click here for Monster Magnet
THE FROZDICK FAMILY
Lois Lane
Frozdick, despite her height, was warmly welcomed to the Galactic Sisterhood.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
GODDAMN IT TO HELL!
I am still
numb from the news about my old friend Wilko Johnson. What is there to say
except…except…keep driving that plane.
THE LUNATICS BUILT THE ASYLUM
Did you
ever wonder why the ultra-rich and mega-powerful are such unmitigated swine? Kevin Dutton attempts to explain in Scientific
American, in a story titled "What Psychopaths Teach Us About How to
Succeed"
"Traits that are common
among psychopathic serial killers -- a grandiose sense of self-worth,
persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse and the
manipulation of others -- are also shared by politicians and world leaders.
Individuals, in other words, running not from the police. But for office. Such
a profile allows those who present with these traits to do what they like when
they like, completely unfazed by the social, moral or legal consequences of
their actions. ...
"If you are violent and
cunning, like the real-life "Hannibal Lecter" Robert Maudsley, you
might take a fellow inmate hostage, smash his skull in and sample his brains
with a spoon as nonchalantly as if you were downing a soft-boiled egg.
(Maudsley, by the way, has been cooped up in solitary confinement for the past
30 years, in a bulletproof cage in the basement of Wakefield Prison in
England.)
"Or if you are a
brilliant neurosurgeon, ruthlessly cool and focused under pressure, you might,
like the man I'll call Dr. Geraghty, try your luck on a completely different
playing field: at the remote outposts of 21st-century medicine, where risk
blows in on 100-mile-per-hour winds and the oxygen of deliberation is thin. 'I
have no compassion for those whom I operate on,' he told me. 'That is a luxury
I simply cannot afford. In the theater I am reborn: as a cold, heartless
machine, totally at one with scalpel, drill and saw. When you're cutting loose
and cheating death high above the snowline of the brain, feelings aren't fit
for purpose. Emotion is entropy -- and seriously bad for business. I've hunted
it down to extinction over the years.' ...
"Psychopaths are
fearless, confident, charismatic, ruthless and focused. Yet, contrary to
popular belief, they are not necessarily violent. Far from its being an
open-and-shut case -- you're either a psychopath or you're not -- there are,
instead, inner and outer zones of the disorder: a bit like the fare zones on a
subway map. There is a spectrum of psychopathy along which each of us has our
place. ...
"[In a test designated as Case 1, subjects were told
they could save five lives, but to do so they had to flip a switch that would
kill one person. In Case 2, they could also save five lives, but they could
only do so by pushing another person to his death.] Just like most normal
members of the population, psychopaths make pretty short work of the dilemma
presented in Case 1. Yet -- and this is where the plot thickens -- quite unlike
normal people [who have difficulty with Case 2 because it is more personal],
they also make pretty short work of Case 2. Psychopaths, without batting an
eye, are perfectly happy to [push that person to his death].
"To compound matters further, this difference in
behavior is mirrored, rather distinctly, in the brain. The pattern of neural
activation in both psychopaths and normal people is well matched on the
presentation of impersonal moral dilemmas -- but dramatically diverges when
things get a bit more personal.
"Imagine that I were to pop you into a functional MRI
machine and then present you with the two dilemmas. What would I observe as you
went about negotiating their moral minefields? Just around the time that the
nature of the dilemma crossed the border from impersonal to personal, I would
see your amygdala and related brain circuits -- your medial orbitofrontal
cortex, for example -- light up like a pinball machine. I would witness the
moment, in other words, that emotion puts its money in the slot. But in a
psychopath, I would see only darkness. The cavernous neural casino would be
boarded up and derelict -- the crossing from impersonal to personal would pass
without any incident. ...
" 'Intellectual ability on its own is just an elegant
way of finishing second,' one successful CEO told me. 'Remember, they don't
call it a greasy pole for nothing. The road to the top is hard. But it's easier
to climb if you lever yourself up on others. Easier still if they think
something's in it for them.'
"Jon Moulton, one of London's most successful venture
capitalists, agrees. In a recent interview with the Financial Times,
he lists determination, curiosity and insensitivity as his three most valuable
character traits.
"No prizes for guessing the first two. But
insensitivity? The great thing about insensitivity, Moulton explains, is that
'it lets you sleep when others can't.' "
Click here for Fun Boy 3
The secret word is Impasse
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR ELVIS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
Did you
notice I was gone? Were you irked by my absence? I figured after the bloody
Maya let us down and the planet went on tediously turning, and at time when the
solstice Saturnalia of alcohol, tryptophan and figgy pudding was rolling, I may as well
low and play with my toys. But now it’s Elvis’ birthday, a long-time post-Yule
call to arms, and thus it’s time to rise up and return to my well-worn personal trench.
In this instance, I will to turn you over to Keith Richards and his fanboy
Presley assessment. Click here
Click here
for “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” (referenced by Keith in his comments.)
The secret
number is 78
NOW CAN I WORRY?
In October
1979, a moment in history was created when the reactor accident and potential
meltdown at The Mile Island finally broke Alfred E. Neuman’s cool, clueless,
what-me-worry exterior.
Monday, December 31, 2012
TWO THOUSAND AND…
Another
year for me and you? And what will this number-tainted twelve month serve up on
its mystery platter. Regular readers will be aware that – like, Stephen King –
I’m a screaming triskaidekaphobe so my expectations are not too fucking lofty
for the upcoming. But poor numerology is no excuse for not continuing the good
fight while our strength holds. I also picked up this interweb tidbit...
“The number 13 has been a
magical number since the Ancient Egyptians first depicted the Ladder to Eternal
Life. They believed that there were twelve steps on the ladder to eternal life
and knowledge and to take the thirteenth step meant going through death into
everlasting life. Thirteen, for the Egyptians, was associated with
immortality.”
On the other hand, thirteen steps traditionally led to the gallows in old time western movies.
Click here for The Renegades
Click here
for Siouxsie
The secret
word is Annual
Jerry
Anderson – RIP
Fontella
Bass – RIP
BOB'S BOOT HEELS WANDER
But note
the stiff little index fingers. Then click here for seven fine minutes of Ma.
(The image was provided by UK Steve)
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