BIG BROTHER IN CYBERSPACE

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that George Orwell conceived the idea of 1984, and the total surveillance police state in the United Kingdom…

“British Internet service providers and telecoms are being asked to retain individual user data for a year's time as part of a new move to solidify police crime surveillance. The British government has said the information is needed to keep tabs on criminal and terrorist activities and is not linked to anti-piracy lobbying and such, though opponents see it as a potentially oppressive big-brother move. The plan calls for the tracking of all e-mails, phone calls and Internet use, including visits to social network sites. reports British newspaper.
Originally, Britain's Home Office Secretary Jacqui Smith sought to create a centralized national database, which drew the ire of many critics and was shelved, she announced Monday. "My key priority is to protect the citizens of the UK, and communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and pedophiles, save lives and tackle crime," Smith told British media, including the BBC. "It is essential that the police and other crime-fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job. However, to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store."
A state-run database run containing personal data was considered "extreme" and a great intrusion of citizen privacy. The government said with the new plan, its interest lies more in communications rather than content.
Companies such as BT, Virgin Media, O2 and others will be required to keep a customer's personal data with regard to phone and Web usage for up to 12 months. Law enforcement and other security agencies will have to request data from the ISPs and telecoms on a case-by-case basis. "What we are asking the industry will put a burden on them," Smith said, adding companies would be "recompensed" in some manner.
According to the Financial Times, the Home Office will spend 2 billion pounds (about $3 billion) over 10 years to pay for the new plan, which is still in the agreement stage with communications companies. British telecoms already provide data traffic information in some form to assist anti-crime and anti-terror units.”

The secret word is Data
The secret message is 44696420796f75207265616c6c79207468696e6b
20697420776f756c6420626520736f6d65746869
6e6720696d706f7274616e743f

Tom McGrath – RIP

FACECRIME

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..." – George Orwell, 1984

A BAG OF WEED

But it's Saturday, so lets leave the worry and paranoia for Monday. Click here to watch the Family Guy production number “A Bag Of Weed.” (Donated by the good Munz.)

MAYDAY

YESTERDAY...

“I found these rather fantastic photographs from Google’s Life magazine collection. They feature some teenagers at a ‘rave’ on Eel Pie Island at Twickenham on a Wednesday night August 31 1960. There is practically no other information other than the photographs were taken by a Peter Hall (I’m presuming not the theatre impresario who became Sir Peter Hall).”

When I saw the above (and the below) on the excellent Nickel In The Machine site, I suffered a definite pang. 1960 was in my first year in art school, I was a precocious 16 year-old junior beatnik, and such as these were the first girls I ever lusted after. They seem a little more self-invented than today, but, otherwise, what has really changed, except time has long-gone moved on and taken from me the glory of youth?

The secret word is Lost

The message is 5768656e20746865206d75736963e2809973206f
7665722c207475726e206f757420746865206c69
6768742e

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG

Back when the world was young
Drunk on cheap well whiskey
And confused on mescaline
Walking rattlesnake curves
On sidewalks that refused to lay down
Resisting
Resisting
Resisting all the importunate invasions of reality
Back when the world was young
Searching for the gateway
To the Secret Garden
The Maps to the Labyrinth
And the Silver Key
With a woman in red shoes
Whose name was maybe Dolores
Dolores?
Or perhaps her name was...Laverne?

Back when the world was young
And fear was so perfectly academic
And the scales were so perfectly poised
That I could still pace the razor’s edge
Without cutting my feet or losing any further toes
And I believed
And I believed
And I believed in every fucking drop of rain that fell
Back when the world was young
And you had but to softly ask
The crushed whisper of velvet
The sheer innocence of pure desire
And the requested favor was granted and gratified
So will somebody give?
So will somebody give?
So will somebody please
Give the anarchist a cigarette?

This poem can be found, with accompaniment by Jack Lancaster, Wayne Kramer, and Doug Lunn, on the CD The Deathray Tapes (Alive Records)

MORE TALES OF ARLEN SPECTER (but Elvis?)

Elvis? Yes, Elvis!
Four days before Elvis Presley died, a Philadelphia psychic called Marc Salem wrote a prediction of his death that included pre-quoting the exact headlines from both the Philadelphia Daily News (The King Is Dead) and the Philadelphia Inquirer (The King Dies At 42). Salem wrote out his prediction on slips of paper that he then placed in an empty aspirin bottle, which was, in turn, baked into a pretzel, with orders that it should be broken out and opened if Elvis died. And guess who supervised the entire bizarre process? None other than Arlen Specter, a former Philadelphia DA and a future senator. Such is the measure of man who holds a nation’s fate in his hands.

The secret word is Flummoxed

The secret message is 4e6f206f6e6520686572652067657473206f7574
20616c697665

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Uncle Bill suits up for his second trip in the alien spacecraft.

SPECTER’S MAGIC BULLET

As Senator Arlen Specter changes side from the Republican to Democrat, and moves President Obama closer to an absolute majority in the Senate, let’s not pretend that Specter is looking out for anyone but Arlen Specter. Specter’s political career was set in motion back in the 1960s when, as an aggressive young staffer on the Warren Commission, he was rewarded for concocting the Magic Bullet Theory of the JFK assassination on which the entire Warren Report depended for the credibility of its “lone gunman” scenario. Who could forget the Magic Bullet – Commission Exhibit CE399 – that went through 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, and 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone with its copper jacket totally intact, and was then supposedly found, in its near pristine condition, on the stretcher used for Governor Connally, in the corridor at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, after the assassination.
And while we’re at it, check out the fine careers of other Warren Commission notables, starting with Gerald Ford who got to be president for his loyalty.
(Click here for more on the Magic Bullet or here for a longer Wikipedia entry.)

The secret word is Labyrinth

The secret message 506172616e6f696120737472696b657320646565
702e20

HELP ME! I’M THREATENED!

The following arrived today with more bad news about our wildlife…

Dear Mick,

In the next few weeks, the U.S. Forest Service plans to reopen a road that runs through the heart of grizzly bear habitat in Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. With encroaching development on nearby lands, the Sweetwater Valley -- inside the Shoshone National Forest -- has become a secure oasis for threatened and imperiled wildlife. In the eight years that the road has been closed, an abundance of wildlife has thrived here, including grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, cougars and moose. In fact, grizzlies that have just come out of hibernation are grazing right now on grass and other plants found in the valley.
There is no rationale for the Forest Service's proposal to reopen the road, which leads nowhere and has languished for years. Reopening the road would only disturb and threaten the Sweetwater Valley's wilderness and wildlife.
Please urge the Forest Service to leave the road closed. Time is running out, as forest officials plan to reopen the road in the next few weeks.

Sincerely,Frances Beinecke

President Natural Resources Defense Council

Click here to send your protest

This blog is still approved by the Corleone Crime Family

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 2135)

In which, for some days, Marilyn has been followed everywhere by the wholly inane and annoyingly butch drag-queen Jane Russell replicant, who not only shows off her legs and wears identical clothing to Marilyn, but insists on looking at herself in a small mirror at approximately three minute intervals. Marilyn first theorized that the replicant was some kind of infiltrated Apollonian psyops device, but this was rejected out of hand by Dionysian Intelligence. (An oxy-moron, Marilyn thought, if every there was one.) They informed her that the Russell was a model 20 back-up guardian, and that Marilyn was lucky to have such singular personal protection. Realizing that she has no immediate way of ridding herself of the unwelcome presence, she turns her back on the thing and drinks a Coke.

(Pic supplied by Valerie)

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

WANT A DRUGLESS HALLUCINATION?

As a longtime connoisseur of hallucinations, I can totally assure you that this works really well, despite the somewhat lame music. Click here and follow the instructions.

OR WOULD YOU PREFER A BIZARRE RELIGIOUS ILLUSION?

As in the face of Jesus in the wafer of a Kit Kat. (Image supplied by Wendy)

The secret word is Worship
The secret message is 47616262612d67616262612068657921 (If you need the decoding instructions, just shout.)

SWINE FLU AND PUPPIES GLOWED IN THE DARK

Did someone say creepy, or maybe our just desserts? As the media panics about a swine flu pandemic, the following was sent by our friend Diva. Is humanity stone crazy now? Goddamn

“A cloned beagle named Ruppy – short for Ruby Puppy – is the world's first transgenic dog. She and four other beagles all produce a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light. A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones. Lee and researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. Much of Hwang's work on human cells turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later concluded.” (Click here for more.)

WILD ONE

WILD TWO

WILD THREE

WILD FOUR

WILD MORE

The secret word is Rebellion

The secret message is 576174746120796f7520676f743f