THOSE WHACKY CHRISTIANS JUST WON'T STOP

Two days ago, we posted a link to the attack ads being run by the absurd Tim James who seems to think that you have to believe the nonsense below in order to serve as Governor of Alabama. The whole thing would be laughable except politicians who profess these primitive beliefs expect to hold positions of power in the hierarchy of a nuclear superpower, and also, if it suits their purpose, become the willing shills of big insurance or big oil to the total detriment of those who elected them. How, I ask myself, do they manage to exist in the same universe as Stephen Hawking, the Hubble telescope, or the works of Albert Einstein? How do they reconcile themselves with concepts like dark matter, black holes, the speed of light, and the curvature of space – or even the mathematical underpinnings of the very computers on which they create their idiotic web posts.

“The question of the age of the earth has produced heated discussions on Internet debate boards, TV, radio, in classrooms, and in many churches, Christian colleges, and seminaries. The primary sides are Young-earth proponents (biblical age of the earth and universe of about 6,000 years.) Old-earth proponents (secular age of the earth of about 4.5 billion years and a universe about 14 billion years old.) The difference is immense! Let’s give a little history of where these two basic calculations came from and which worldview is more reasonable. Where Did a Young-earth Worldview Come From? Simply put, it came from the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn’t say explicitly anywhere, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Good thing it doesn’t; otherwise it would be out of date the following year. But we wouldn’t expect an all-knowing God to make that kind of a mistake. God gave us something better. In essence, He gave us a “birth certificate.” For example, using a personal birth certificate, a person can calculate how old he is at any point. It is similar with the earth. Genesis 1 says that the earth was created on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:1–5). From there, we can begin to calculate the age of the earth. Let’s do a rough calculation to show how this works. The age of the earth can be estimated by taking the first five days of creation (from earth’s creation to Adam), then following the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and 11, then adding in the time from Abraham to today.”

I might treat these fools with marginally more sympathy if they stuck to their geneology and magical thinking and didn’t try to back up The Bible with all this absurd pseudo-science.

“If the items were really millions of years old, then they shouldn’t have any traces of 14C. Coal and diamonds, which are found in or sandwiched between rock layers allegedly millions of years old, have been shown to have 14C ages of only tens of thousands of years. So which date, if any, is correct? The diamonds or coal can’t be millions of years old if they have any traces of 14C still in them. This shows that these dating methods are completely unreliable and indicates that the presumed assumptions in the methods are erroneous.” (Click here if you really need to read more.)

Click here for devotional, out-of-sync Elvis

The secret word is Impossible

THE SUN WILL NOT COME OUT TOMORROW

I never liked the comic strip Little Orphan Annie mainly because Harold Grey was a highly reactionary FDR-hater and defender of the plutocracy in the person of Daddy Warbucks – plus I found Punjab, the turbaned giant, extremely creepy – and I won’t mourn her demise although I do thank the J-Walk blog for the heads up, and note it as one more symptom of how print must mutate or die.

“Even after 86 years, all good things must end and so it goes for the Little Orphan Annie comic strip. An announcement by Tribune Media Services said Little Orphan Annie has been canceled. The last time to catch Annie in the funny papers, according to the NYDailyNews.com, is June 13. In 1924, Little Orphan Annie made her debut in The New York Daily News.”

Click here and suffer.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 74

Just the book for that Louisiana weekend at the beach. (But click here for Dr. John and hope to start the mojo rising.)

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

When Amanda “Leather” Frozdick married her robot, the nuptials were not well attended.

25 YEARS AFTER THE MOVE BOMBING

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here.

And click here for Grace Slick (It’s all the same struggle, my friends, from here to Thailand, and it’s not over yet by a long way.)

DNA? I DON’T THINK SO

Ever since I’ve been able to read, I’ve avoided medical books like the plague. I only had to read the symptoms of a disease to believe that I had it. The same kind of acquired hypochondria must surely go quantum for doing your own DNA testing. I’m kinda relieved that these kits are not going on sale today.

“Now you can get instant photos, a pint of ice cream, and a home test to reveal your genes at Walgreen's. But those newest test kits have been pulled from the shelves, due to an outcry from scientists and genomics professionals, which prompted the Food and Drug Administration to contact Pathway Genomics, the makers of the Insight kit, marketed to "Discover Your DNA." In response to concerns from the FDA and Federal Trade Commission, Walgreen's has postponed the sale of those DIY genetic test kits. The test is not just for breast cancer, but is a very broad genetic screening, checking your risk for more than 70 diseases and conditions. That's an overwhelming amount of information, and the FDA is concerned, saying in a statement, "These kits have not been proven safe, effective or accurate and patients could be making medical decisions based on data from a test that hasn't been validated by the FDA.” Click here for more.

The secret word is Genome

HELLO KITTY

Click here and then click some more.

WITH HER FOG, HER AMPHETAMINE, AND HER PEARLS

Folks do say that here at Doc40 we’ll use any excuse to post retro-cheesecake pinups. The excuse here is that I’m attempting to raise the profile of my soon too be published, cultural history of amphetamine – Speed-Speed-Speedfreak. (And, yes, I am probably damned and will certainly go to hell.)

Click here for yet more Bob (Let me know when the Dylan clips get tired.)

NEANDERTHALS JUST COULDN’T LEAVE THOSE HUMANS ALONE

If The New York Times is to be believed, some Neanderthals just could be stopped from slipping out and hanging with the humans.

"Neanderthals mated with some modern humans after all and left their imprint in the human genome, a team of biologists has reported in the first detailed analysis of the Neanderthal genetic sequence. The biologists, led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have been slowly reconstructing the genome of Neanderthals, the stocky hunters that dominated Europe until 30,000 years ago, by extracting the fragments of DNA that still exist in their fossil bones. Just last year, when the biologists first announced that they had decoded the Neanderthal genome, they reported no significant evidence of interbreeding. Scientists say they have recovered 60 percent of the genome so far and hope to complete it. By comparing that genome with those of various present day humans, the team concluded that about 1 percent to 4 percent of the genome of non-Africans today is derived from Neanderthals. But the Neanderthal DNA does not seem to have played a great role in human evolution, they said. Experts believe that the Neanderthal genome sequence will be of extraordinary importance in understanding human evolutionary history since the two species split some 600,000 years ago.” (Click here for the rest)

The image is another Frazetta

Click here for the Hollywood Argyles

The secret word is Cave

AND TALKING OF NEANDERTHALS...

This man is Tim James. He wants to be Governor of Alabama. Click here for his creationist hillbilly attack ad. (And check out the goons behind him.)

THE NAME IS…

Well no, it’s not the metal band, it’s this guy called Richard Smith. A Brit tabloidy website called Metro informs us that…

“A 41-year-old care worker from Carlisle called Richard Smith, whose friends have traditionally known him by the nickname Spiff, decided that even that nickname wasn't enough to keep him happy, and has changed his name by deed poll to Stormhammer Deathclaw Firebrand. Mr. Firebrand now plans to change all his bank, tax and work details so that he is officially known by the Firebrand name. ‘It’s just a strange name I like the sound of,’ Stormhammer explained.”

I just hope the cops never pull him over as he’s driving home from the pub.

BUT THIS IS STORMHAMMER (the artist formerly know as Smith)

Click here for Metallica (and I wrote the lyrics for this ditty.)

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

No one was exactly surprised when Bluto Frozdick ran off and joined the navy.

SPACE OPERA (1956)

Click here for Louis and Bebe Barron

SPACE OPERA (2010)

ALIEN V PREDATOR

I may have the reputation of cleaving to the paranoid, but I could detect a pattern if I tried real hard. A lot of those in power and a lot of corporations would be delighted if every outbreak of real or manufactured hysteria could be met with more robots, more cameras, more drones in the sky, and more surveillance software. It’s Skynet meets Big Brother.

“After years of political pressure from Texas politicians, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said Monday that he expects the federal government to deliver unmanned aircraft to watch over the border with Mexico by this fall. Cuellar, a Democrat from Laredo, said he has had discussions with top officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's office of air and marine operations, and they agreed to the timetable, subject to Federal Aviation Administration approval to allow the surveillance planes — often referred to in the political vernacular as "Predator drones" — to fly over Texas. Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, said the administration is "working as quickly as we can on this." Cuellar said the FAA told him that regulators' main concern has been with Texas' heavy airplane traffic — both private and commercial. If approved, the unmanned aircraft in Texas would add to the federal government's existing border effort, which includes a handful of other unmanned aircraft, 20,000 Border Patrol agents, about 650 miles of border fence and 41 mobile surveillance systems, according to Customs and Border Protection. The plane, which is made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and officially called a Predator B, is able to spot illegal border activity and send images in real time to border officials. At that point, Border Patrol agents could be dispatched, according to Customs and Border Protection.” (Click here for more)

Click here for the Rolling Stones

The secret word is Spy

SEX EDUCATION ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE

Click here for Buddy Holly

HERE ON DOC40 CUTE IS SEVERELY RATIONED #2

But, damn, it’s a bear with a bear.

Click here for Henry Hall
Click here for Elvis

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 73

An author who goes by the name of "Fridays"? (I can’t think up an appropriate TGI pun. Can you?)

SPACE OPERA (Another Frazetta)

Frank Frazetta was not as well known for his space art as he was for the sword and sorcery stuff, but this is beautiful.

THE SAGA OF “THIS MAN”

I am maybe a late-comer to the mythology of This Man, but he’s such a paranoid gem that I can’t just let him pass. The idea of increasing numbers of people having the same dream is something that could take us from H. P. Lovecraft to Arthur C. Clarke (in Childhood’s End mode), via Rod Serling, and I would happily steal it as an element for Renquist V but sadly it’s too late for that. The saga of This Man starts with…
A Legend
“From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moscow etc. At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.”

The legend is followed by…
A Theory
“This Man is a real person who can enter people's dreams by means of specific psychological skills. Some believe that in real life this man looks like the man in the dreams. Others think that the man in the dreams looks completely different from his real life counterpart. Some people seem to believe that behind this man there is a mental conditioning plan developed by a major corporation.”

Then comes…
The Debunking
“This Man turns out to be the creation of Andrea Natella, the director of Guerriglia Marketing, an advertising agency that uses non-conventional communication techniques, like the creation of fictitious events or campaigns reaching the limits of legality, which stages "subversive hoaxes" and creates weird art projects that are mostly about pornography, politics, and advertising.”

Debunking is naturally followed by
The Movie Deal
“Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures is putting together This Man, which will be written and directed by Bryan Bertino, who last directed The Stranger for Rogue Pictures. A press release from Ghost House says the story is “based on real life accounts,” and will follow “an ordinary guy who discovers that people he has never met are seeing him in their dreams. Now he must find out why he is the source of nightmares for strangers all over the world.”

But – and here’s the bit I really like – after all of the above has come to pass, hundreds people really start to dream about This Man. We have to double down on the conspiracy theories, and mass panic breaks out. Can’t you just visualize the endless potential, and don’t you just love it?

Click here for the original This Man
Click here for a weird This Man video
Click here for the Everly Brothers

The secret word is Spooky

AND WHILE THE SECRET WORD IS SPOOKY...

Click here for the most surreal Max Fleischer Betty Boop ever – except for maybe the one in which the clown discovers the big mega-switch and turns off the planet’s gravity, but I haven’t found that one on the web.

DEFEND CIVILIZATION! (As we know it?)

Missile Command was a machine in the pub in the 1970s and the very last videogame I knew how to play, and even then I wasn’t aware I was defending the planet Zardon. Hell, I thought I was defending Bristol or Milwaukee, and the fun was always in the virtual potential for the mass destruction of millions of humans. If I’d known it was just Zardon, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Click here for Bruce Cockburn

GRATUITOUS LIZ

FINALLY FRAZETTA

Yesterday we marked and mourned the passing of the great Frank Frazetta. Click here for a slide show of his work.

LEGAL DOPE – EVERYONE HAS A PROBLEM

A while ago we noted how the Humboldt marijuana growers where moaning about their possible loss of income in the event of legal dope in California, and now, with Washington DC teetering on the brink of allowing medical marijuana, doctors have started pissing and moaning about how they don’t know how to control dosage and other nonsense.

“For doctors such as Pradeep Chopra, long accustomed to prescribing carefully tested medications by the exact milligram, medical marijuana presents a particular conundrum. On Tuesday, the D.C. Council gave final approval to a bill establishing a legal medical marijuana program. If Congress signs off, District doctors -- like their counterparts in 14 states, including Rhode Island, where Chopra works -- will be allowed to add pot to the therapies they can recommend to certain patients, who will then eat it, smoke it or vaporize it until they decide they are, well, high enough. The exact dosage and means of delivery -- as well as the sometimes perplexing process of obtaining a drug that remains illegal under federal law -- will be left largely up to the patient. And that, Chopra said, upends the way doctors are used to dispensing medication, giving the strait-laced medical establishment a whiff of the freewheeling world of weed. Even in states that allow for marijuana's medical use, doctors cannot write prescriptions for it because of the drug's status as an illegal substance. Physicians can only recommend it. And they have no control over the quality of the drug their patients acquire. "I worry about that," said Chopra, a pain medicine specialist. "That's what's throwing a lot of [doctors] off." The District's measure, like those elsewhere, specifies certain conditions and illnesses that qualify for medical marijuana. A patient who has HIV, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, cancer or a chronic debilitating condition will be able to receive a doctor's recommendation to possess up to four ounces in a 30-day period. Unlike in many states, the District law would not allow patients and caregivers to grow their own marijuana, at least initially; an advisory committee would later decide whether to permit cultivation. Until then, patients could only acquire the drug illegally or from five to eight government-regulated dispensaries. Hunter Groninger, medical director for palliative care at Washington Hospital Center, said he would be uncomfortable recommending marijuana because the medical community doesn't know enough about its benefits. Because there are no uniform standards for medical marijuana, doctors have to rely on the experience of other doctors and their own judgment. That, they say, can lead to abuse.” (Click here for more)

Click here for The Rolling Stones

The secret word is Procrastination

Frank Frazetta -- RIP

I MEAN, SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE ABOUT ALL THESE DAMNED DRUGS

Click here for The Smoke

PUT ON AN IRON SHIRT…

HCB our friend, home-boy, and once-and-future co-conspirator has a fine review of Iron Man 2 on the Culture Catch site.

“It might be fair to say that what Vanko really wants is to humiliate the rich, handsome, babe-magnet Stark because he’s spent his entire life in a dark, decrepit Moscow hovel with his bitter, dying alcoholic dad. Seems like there’s more than a whiff of old-school Soviet Union/American Cold War jealousy at work here. Nevertheless, Vanko does manage to montage his way through the construction of a state-of-the-art Stark-killing supersuit in his filthy living room, pay for a ticket to the Riviera, kill a number of unfortunate race car drivers at the Grand Prix, and get brought in through the back door to work for Stark’s wealthiest competitor. You’d think getting bottomless funding, unlimited resources, and a staggering amount of Stark-worthy ass kissing would mellow the guy, but you’d be wrong.” (Click here for the whole thing)

Click here for Max Romeo remix

THE GIRLS ALL AGREE

“The lady from yesterday, the one in the bikini, was certainly right about the Tommy Gun.”

Click here for Warren Zevon

SUNDAY BREAKFAST (Capitalism In Action)

Today’s breakfast is symbolic, phallic, and satiric as the cat and I rest up and brace ourselves for a coming week of what may well be continued chaos. The ad campaign is from a nightmare. (Can you imagine the ad agency meetings?) The boy is plainly a nasty little plutocrat bully who thinks he's winning, but the little girl is holding all the bananas.

Click here for the Everly Brothers
Click here for The Who

Lena Horne -- RIP

BUT DON’T FORGET…

“With a bikini, matching heels, a coffin, a Thompson submachine gun, and a very nice art nouveau lamp, a girl can go just about anywhere.”

GET OUT OF THERE!

Click here for the video.

BUT…

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Emmaline Frozdick had been warned to stay away from the Black Lagoon.

LET SLIP THE DOG!

I woke up on Thursday morning, after just two hours sleep, to the sound of agricultural-strength garden impliments. I had typed to dawn on my very first roll with Renquist V, and had maybe written more than was good for me. The agricultural-strength garden implements didn’t sound like they were going to go away any time soon, and I figured my only options were homicide or television. I’m probably too old for murder, and the polls were closing in the UK, so I figured I’d check up on the Brown demise. A routinely annoying morning so far. And then the TV wired me into its cable world, where mobs appeared to be burning down Athens, and the NYSE was plunging to hell like a cut-cable elevator, accompanied by so much ill-informed morning media hysteria that it seemed close to a prologue for a remake of The Road Warrior. Which gave me pause.
Later the hysteria calmed down and the bizarre mini-crash was blamed on a typo, which, if believed, is a hell of a way to run a stock market, and, if not believed, is a hell of a lame cover story for some economic version of The China Syndrome. More disturbing, were the cable news hired heads, in full panic, fascist-xenophobe theorizing about how the only way to fix the global economy was to let Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal all fall apart and asset-stripped by the German and US banks. I felt ill. Massed weedwhackers screamed metal machine music. The lackeys superrich are insane, myopic and stupid and if we don’t turn the dogs on them they’ll kill us all.
Jeffrey Kaye has what seems to be a workable analysis on FireDog Lake

“The crisis in Greece and the European Union in general is exposing the deep flaws within the post-Soviet economic and political structure in Europe. The fires in Athens are a harbinger of a bigger crisis to come, one that Americans will have to pay attention to. But do not count on the U.S. press to honestly report what will happen, or the U.S. government to stand aside in neutrality. The Obama administration is pushing the Europeans and the IMF to get the bailout deal in place quickly, even as right-wing Republicans are screaming they will not support the U.S. paying its portion of the IMF bailout funds.The people of Greece seem determined they will not pay for the orgy of corruption and double-dealing that has left their economy in tatters. Whether it was Goldman Sachs playing funny with derivatives to help the Greek government to hide its debt, or German companies rushing to buy up newly privatized industries, or the wide-spread corruption of Greek politicians, they are saying something that American workers and middle class might be thinking, and that has some people afraid: "'let the plutocracy pay'...'Why should we, the little man, pay for this crisis?'” (Click here for more.)

Click here for the Internationale (you’ll feel a whole lot better – and there’s also a nice sheep in the video)
Image from Valerie

The secret word is Unleash

BUT I’D STILL LIKE TO GET SOME SLEEP

(Image from Mother and Doctor)

DON'T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

This is Tempest Storm – the prima Bay Area/Vegas stripper of the 1950s. If memory has not distorted she cheated on bandleader Harry James with the young Elvis Presley.


Click here for Little Richard

BUT, IF ELIZABETH WARREN HAD A FAN CLUB, I’D JOIN

Elizabeth Warren is the Harvard law professor who also heads up the Congressional Oversight Panel, which has monitored the iniquities of the TARP program with hearings, studies, and undescribed horror. The bankers fear her and she is the only person on my TV who makes sense and isn’t Jon Stewart or a cartoon character.

WHERE?

SPACE OPERA VIDEO SPECIAL

Click here

“THEY'D JUST FUCKED WITH THE WRONG MEXICAN”

Although not due for release until September 3rd (my birthday incidentally) Robert Rodriguez has put together a special trailer for his movie Machete as a special Cinco De Mayo message for the state of Arizona. (Click here, but you’re supposed to be 18 years-old) Thanks to HCB for the heads up.

But click here for a link that works. (Thanks to Valerie -- see comments)

WAKE THE WORKERS

Our pal Faux Smoke sent us this story and pic of Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their work stations from exhaustion. It comes from the London Daily Mail which calls the photo “an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see.” The mills may not be dark, but they’re still fucking satanic. Of course, the Daily Mail isn’t the most super-reliable of tabloids, but this would seem to be a fair indictment of routine capitalism (and whatever the hell China is) in action. Which leads us to one manifest conclusion. There’s an absolute ungency for one big, powerful, IWW-style global labor union. But they’ll kill a lot of us before they let that happen.

“Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks. For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company. This photo and others like it were smuggled out of the KYE Systems factory at Dongguan, China, as part of a three-year investigation by the National Labour Committee, a human rights organisation which campaigns for workers across the globe. The mostly female workers, aged 18 to 25, work from 7.45am to 10.55pm, sometimes with 1,000 workers crammed into one 105ft by 105ft room. They are not allowed to talk or listen to music, are forced to eat substandard meals from the factory cafeterias, have no bathroom breaks during their shifts and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC. The workers also sleep on site, in factory dormitories, with 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28in-wide plywood boards. They 'shower' with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they are young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC claimed.” (Click here for more.)

Click here for Billy Bragg

The secret word is Organize

DON’T YOU MISS THE 20TH CENTURY?

When the present overwhelms, the only workable solution can be to take a little refuge in the past. As I escaped from the TV, this Terry O’Neill photograph helped jog my memory. Back in 1975, rumors certainly circulated about Liz Taylor and David Bowie. To which most of us responded, “Liz Taylor and Bowie? Are you fucking kidding?” I mean, David Bowie was hardly in the same weight class as Richard Burton who Liz remarried in the fall of that year. But it was the 1970s, and all things were possible (especially with ‘ludes) and – where celebrity rumors were concerned – I’ve always worked according to the principle that they’re not only true but we’re only hearing the half of it. So David was 100 pounds and full of coke and Liz wasn’t. It was life and life only, and I certainly wished it was me.

Click here for Bob from the same aproximate time. Everyone was in love until punk showed.

THE MIRACLE OF NAUGAHYDE

(But the nauga has, of course, been extinct since the 1980s.)

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Once the novelty of his act wore off Chip Frozdick found himself banned from even the less particular gay bars.

FLUGELRAD AND U-BOAT (A Romance)

NOW EVERYONE WANTS TO SEE YOUR PAPERS

(Banksy on AZ.)

As the oil clogs the Gulf and a sea of troubles yet to be defined will, without doubt follow, plus all the other all too familiar problems still remain, a scramble is underway to the time-honored last resort of every authoritarian asshole probably since the Roman Empire. That’s right. Get hysterical all over the poor fucking immigrants.

“Arizona's new get-tough immigration law has emboldened other state capitols to follow suit. Legislators in at least 10 states -- Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and Maryland -- have called for laws that would mirror Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, according to the Progressive States Network and reporting by New America Media. First out of the gate to actually introduce a bill was South Carolina. Along with 20 co-sponsors, Rep. Eric Bedingfield, a Republican, introduced a bill April 29 that, like Arizona's, requires law enforcement officials to check individuals' immigration status. Some of the language in the South Carolina bill, which was posted on the legislature's website, is virtually identical to the most controversial portion of the Arizona measure signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on April 23. The South Carolina bill reads: "When reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt must be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person." (Click here for more)

While, not to be outdone, the Democrats want a US national ID card.

“A plan by Senate Democratic leaders to reform the nation's immigration laws ran into strong opposition from civil liberties defenders before lawmakers even unveiled it Thursday. Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure. The proposal is one of the biggest differences between the newest immigration reform proposal and legislation crafted by late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment. It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases. "The cardholder's identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer," states the Democratic legislative proposal. The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties defender often aligned with the Democratic Party, wasted no time in blasting the plan. "Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives. Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work.” (Click here for more)

Click here for Bob & Joanie
Click here for Ry Cooder

The secret word is Scapegoating