OPEN THE POD DOOR, HAL
Regular readers will know that, over the last few month, we’ve more that once discussed The Singularity, that moment a quarter of a century or so in the future when Ray Kurzweil thinks computers will be smarter than we are, and human and machine will merge and blur. (And I suspect may be the cyberpunks' version of The Rapture.) The following comes from HCB who has been rather quiet for a while but seems to be feeling better and we all wish him well.

SIGNS THE SINGULARITY HAS ARRIVED
by Dave Price
With all the worrying about the future of technology, it's important for people to know when the Singularity has arrived. This helpful guide will provide some hints as to when you may have passed the event horizon in the predictability of human technological development.
10) You're late to work because can't remember where you left the encryption keys to your backup consciousness cache.
9) TV watches you more than you watch it.
8) Your divorce proceedings include nasty fight over who owns the source code to your wife's operating system.
7) Your cats have higher incomes and several more advanced degrees than you. Occasionally, they let you pet them while they do differential calculus (they think you're so cute when you do that).
6) You're evicted from your body, which is seized by the county and sold for back taxes.
5) More computers own people than people own computers. Video game violence takes on an entirely new meaning.
4) Civilization collapses and rebuilds itself several times during your daily commute to work. This generally causes you only a slight delay.
3) Political analysts are surprised when third-party AI candidate is elected President with 99.99999% of the vote as several trillion voters are created minutes before polls close.
2) Goldfish crackers beg you for mercy, try to wriggle away, then scream when you bite into them. Your kids love this.
1) "Blue Screen of Death" no longer just a figure of speech."

CRYPTIQUE – How far down the rabbit hole do you really want to go?

SYD BARRETT -- RIP

I'd write more only I feel like shit, cold, sore throat, who knows what? In other words Syd's dead and I ain't feeling so good myself.

But our pal hipspinster has been writing lots including an unusal incident that befell us on July 4th. http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

IT'S THE RAPTURE! RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES!








and here's the theme from MrMR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P3qYmOWJCY&search=the%20doors%2C%20the%20end

BOOK SIGNING SATURDAY
ANOTHER ADVERTISEMENT FOR MYSELF
I’ll be signing copies of my new novel Conflagration (and anything else you care to bring) between 2pm and 4pm this coming Saturday (July 8th) at Dark Delicacies – one great bookstore – which is located at 4213 W. Burbank Boulevard in Burbank. The toll-free phone number is 1-888-DARKDEL.

LA CITYBEAT (read all about it!)
I have a stunning analysis of the state of the opium war in this week's LACB
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3994&IssueNum=161

"We’ve got twenty-five hundred dead, people running all over the world doing stupid things, and officers asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’ "

In the current New Yorker, Seymour Hersh warns that Bush and his odious henchpeople are about to something really fucking stupid – and maybe nuclear – in Iran. To the point that even the Pentagon has started to balk.

"Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President’s plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States."

Read this and weep...
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060710fa_fact

The secret word is Help!

FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED
As far as we both could tell, Andy and I acquitted ourselves quite excellently last week in our first alien blues outing in a hell of a long time, and will be doing it a whole bunch more. Our pals hipspinster and coiled soul seemed both to most dig the rebop...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

http://coiledsoul.livejournal.com/66854.html?mode=reply

Pic by Alex

BEEN REAL BUSY, BUT...
But here’s a riff from the new LA CityBeat on the mob (as in lynch, not Tony Soprano)

http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3982&IssueNum=160

IS THIS ANY WAY TO START THE WEEK?
I open the LA Times and read the following. It ain’t like it’s news. It’s just that, each time anyone takes a serious look, it’s so much worse than we though it was. Meanwhile the oil barons have their shills and trolls out telling us it ain’t happening and that Al Gore is homosexual. These bastards have to be hurt.

"The Greenland ice sheet — two miles thick and broad enough to blanket an area the size of Mexico — shapes the world's weather, matched in influence by only Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere. It glows like milky mother-of-pearl. The sheen of ice blends with drifts of cloud as if snowbanks are taking flight. In its heartland, snow that fell a quarter of a million years ago is still preserved. Temperatures dip as low as 86 degrees below zero. Ground winds can top 200 mph. Along the ice edge, meltwater rivers thread into fraying brown ropes of glacial outwash, where migrating herds of caribou and musk ox graze. The ice is so massive that its weight presses the bedrock of Greenland below sea level, so all-concealing that not until recently did scientists discover that Greenland actually might be three islands. Should all of the ice sheet ever thaw, the meltwater could raise sea level 21 feet and swamp the world's coastal cities, home to a billion people. It would cause higher tides, generate more powerful storm surges and, by altering ocean currents, drastically disrupt the global climate."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-sci-greenland25jun25,0,6885120,full.story

The secret word is Ruin

Cartoon by Toth (sent by Valerie)

"Sweetie daring, of course I’ll be sober in time to go see Mick and Andy"

(Graphic from Valerie)

MORE DAMNED GIG ADVERTISING
Just a final reminder that tomorrow night (Thursday ), Mick Farren and guitar partner Andy Colquhoun will be playing their two-man alien electric blues as part of Tequila Mockingbird's Club Fluffer at Zen Sushi, 2609 Hyperion Avenue (323 665 2929.) Showing up around 9.30 is still a good idea. And, yes, there’s a $5 cover, and other attractions include The Jane Cantillion Cabaret, Miss Lady La Diva' Burlesque, Backbiter, and the incredible song stylings of The Bunny.

I THOUGHT ISAAC ASIMOV HAD FIXED THIS YEARS AGO?
The following report came from The Times of London via MSNBC
"The race is on to keep humans one step ahead of robots: an international team of scientists and academics is to publish a "code of ethics" for machines as they become more and more sophisticated. Although the nightmare vision of a Terminator world controlled by machines may seem fanciful, scientists believe the boundaries for human-robot interaction must be set now - before super-intelligent robots develop beyond our control. "Security, safety and sex are the big concerns," said Henrik Christensen, a member of the Euron ethics group. How far should robots be allowed to influence people's lives? How can accidents be avoided? Can deliberate harm be prevented? And what happens if robots turn out to be sexy?" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2230715,00.html

Clearly what’s being proposed is a modern and for-real version of The Three Laws of Robotics formulated in 1940 by Isaac Asimov and John W. Campbell for use in science fiction, which are as follows.

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I feel, however, that at least two other factors are on play here. One is Ray Kurzweil’s concept of The Singularity, when in about 30 years time, machines will be self-aware and smarter than we are. The other is, of course, the logical assumption of fictional artificial intelligences like HAL9000 and Skynet, that humanity is a worthless viral infection and should be erradicated. A sentiment with which I don’t always disagree.

The secret word is Exterminate

(The email address is still byron4d@msn.com)

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised with the emphasis put on sex robots especially in view of this graphic sent by Valerie.

I STILL HAVE A NEW BOOK OUT
Here are a couple of reviews, and also a highly salient comment from our pal AlanB that decries the current publishing practice of expecting books to sell themselves.
http://alanburridge.blogspot.com/2006/06/motorblog-fanfare-of-silence-in-his.html

This is from the redoubtable Harriet Klausner
"The fearsome "Four" teens (Cordelia, Jesamine, Argo and Raphael) function as one when they must psychically battle the Dark Things in the Other Place in their quest to contain the evil Mosul Empire and its malevolent enchantress Queen Jeakqual-Ahrach. Their current assignment is to drive the Asian horde out of the once free Commonwealth of Virginia. However, the quartet realizes that their powers as a group and as individuals are growing rapidly, but none of them comprehend that a by-product of their rising skills is an increasing dependency on alcohol and sex at first.
Each soon recognizes what is happening as they covet sex to the point that it engulfs their every moment, but none apparently can stop the desire for more. Each turns to some form of gratification with Jesamine making it with Prime Minster Jack Kennedy, a bull who can keep it up. However, the heroes must return to form soon as the enemy enchantress has created twins to destroy to quartet and Jesamine has been abducted into enemy held territory across the channel near what is left of Paris. Together they are nearly invincible, but their individual needs and desires keep them divided.
CONFLAGRATION, the sequel to KINDLING, is an interesting erotic alternate historical fantasy. The story line spends quite a bit of time in the first segment showcasing the wide sexual appetites of the Four, but once an assassination and the abduction occur, the plot goes hyperspeed thriller though the passion cravings grow too. Though a bit muddled, fans who appreciate a different type of alternate historical fantasy, will want to read this tale and its predecessor as Mick Farren brings out all the chains, whips, and assorted XXX paraphernalia in this rousing tale. "

And this is from Regina Schroeder in Booklist
"The Four of Farren's Kindling (2004) are plagued by visions of mysterious, pale twins. Meanwhile, freeing Virginia from Mosul rule goes well, with the Kingdom of Albany turning back the horde with surprisingly little supernatural aid. When Prime Minister Kennedy goes to London to negotiate with the English and Norse, the Four accompany him per the mysterious Yancey Slide's advice. They meet spies from the Morgana's Web network and hear rumors about the envisioned twins related to a breeding program Jeakqual-Ahrach has been working on. Then in one chaotic day and night, Kennedy is assassinated, and Four member Lady Cordelia is kidnapped and, with a detour past a pyramid being built in Amiens for some nefarious Mosul purpose, whisked to Paris. The other three Four (Argo Weaver, Jesamine, Raphael Vegas) come to her rescue, with Yancey and a group of Rangers striking at the heart of Jeakqual-Ahrach's most destructive plan yet. The struggle for freedom from a nearly unstoppable colonial force that Farren's fantastic alternate history portrays is altogether gripping."
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

CRYPTIQUE – For 16 minutes in every hour I sit with my eyes closed and wonder if I’d like to be dead.

THE BUNNY IS NOT IN THE BAND
(Although he will be appearing at the same show)
This coming Thursday (June 22nd ), and for the first time in at least two years Mick Farren and Andy Colquhoun will be playing their two-man advanced alien electric blues as part of Tequila Mockingbird's Club Fluffer at Zen Sushi, 2609 Hyperion Avenue (323 665 2929.) Showing up around 9.30 would probably be a good idea, and there’s allegedly a $5 cover, because, unlike the musicians, the strippers like to be paid. (Yes, my friends, there will be strippers as well as a bunny .)

The secret words are Be There

DARE WE HOPE?
A puff piece on Barak Obama in this morning’s Washington Post is the kind of flurry that marks someone considering a run for President. I sure hope he is, because by 2008 things could be so fucked up he might be the only one with enough smarts to begin digging us out of a hell of our own creating. Pundits accuse him of being too young, but, in fact, by my arithmetic, he’s actually a year or so older than JFK when he took office.
For the story...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700736.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

AN OBSCURE AND BIZARRE RUMOR FOR THE WEEKEND
I discovered this oddity in my web wanderings...
"There is a rumor I've heard for some time now, that the reason lucky strike cigarettes are named as so, is that back in the day, apparently before marijuana was illegal, every so often, a pack of lucky strike cigarettes would have a bonus marijuana cigarette tossed in. if you were the recipient of one of these packs, you indeed got the "lucky strike"."
For the full story.... http://www.snopes.com/business/secret/luckies.asp

The secret word is Drag

ALL THE LUCIFER YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT
Last week, I made the Satanic rounds and here’s the infernal dope...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3916&IssueNum=158

I also managed a media column about Larry Flynt.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3912&IssueNum=158

The secret word is Heck

WE HAVE A REMEDY
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la
(A joke for elderly Who fans, but check the la-count.)

"Say hello to my asymmetric friend!"

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE
For the last week, I have been immersed in a big-ass in-depth piece on all the June 6th, 666analia that was going down, and now I’ve been, seen, analyzed and written, I’m feeling a bit fried. I was going to couch-out, but all the talk of asymmetric warfare up on the big, old, slow, coming-up-to-a-thousand message board (over there on the right>>>) moved me to the following observation...
Asymmetric warfare is not a really new term. I think it was spawned in Vietnam. It basically means a modern, wealthy, high tech army with state-of-the-art weapons fighting a ragged-ass poor army with AK47s, RPGs, improvised explosives, plenty of ingenuity and a willingness to die. The peculiar testament of history is that the latter of these two almost always wins in the long run. The Pentagon hates the whole concept and has little clue how to wage it, which is ironic because the original fight that cut America loose from the British Empire was pretty fucking asymmetric.

The secret word is Uprisng

On the Satan front, my opus will posted on Thursday morning all being well. But our pal hipspinster has already blogged an account on one of the events we attended together...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

THIS IS THE FACE OF BIG BROTHER AND HE IS WATCHING YOU
Read my rap on this sonofabtich in the new LA CityBeat
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3879&IssueNum=157

FOR THE LAST 48 HOURS I HAVE BEEN DOING THE 666 – AND THE PRODUCT OF THESE ADVENTURES – IF NOTHING TOO DENNIS WHEATLEY OCCURS – WILL APPEAR IN NEXT WEEKS LA CITYBEAT

HOWEVER I CAN’T LET THIS ITEM PASS IF FOR NO OTHER REASON THAT IT’S...
A TRULY FABULOUS RUMOR
"A Mayflower Hotel staffer has confirmed that First Lady Laura Bush spent at least one night this past week at the hotel, which is four blocks north of the White House. Mrs. Bush reportedly moved out of the White House after a confrontation with President Bush over his on-going affair with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The Mayflower's official position on the story is that they can "neither confirm nor deny" the identities of their guests. Because it's penchant for security and secrecy is well known to the Secret Service, the Mayflower has become a reliable hotel for U.S. and international VIPs. Some Washington observers believe that the recent flare up between Laura Bush and the president stems from the fact that her poll numbers are twice as favorable as her husband's (60 percent to 29 percent). Laura Bush's recent solo missions to New Orleans, Colorado, and an AIDS conference at the United Nations represent a virtual declaration of independence from the most unpopular president in U.S. history. "She's [Laura's] taking a page right out of Hillary's book," said one Washington pundit. Rice, on the other hand, has been very close and loyal to Bush since she signed on as his chief foreign policy adviser in 2000. WMR has been told of intimate encounters between Mr. Bush and Rice on trips to New York City (multiple occasions) and New Orleans following Katrina."

The secret word is Snigger

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING CONVENTION
The Monday morning online edition of the LA Times, just whispered into my inbox. The lead headline read – "ARMY MANUAL TO SKIP GENEVA DETAINEE RULE." The story continued –
"The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards." This comment followed about halfway down the piece – "The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people," said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. "Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire."
Moves like this only fuel the perception that this country is slipping stage by slippery stage into some vicious form of neo-fascism, and away from the very fundamentals of civilization. For the whole story...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-torture5jun05,0,7975161.story?track=tothtml

The secret word is Barbarism

Don Vito says, "In my day, we’d put a head in this fool's bed."


YOU JUST CAN’T TRUST A REPUBLICAN
(Even in the smallest things)
So there I was in front of the computer – hot night, too fried to be creative, or even turn the damned thing off – so I’m idly web wandering and I check out a bunch of blogs, and even take a notion to look at that of Cathy Seipp, LA CityBeat’s former girl fascist, because the poor woman has cancer and I feel truly sorry for anyone who gets dealt that hand. But she’s still there, totally against socialized medicine even now. And then I spot a link to a blog with an amusingly stupid name, so I take a look and discover that it’s predictable neocon shitheel who, aside from all of his other predictable poison, thinks it’s funny to run what he claims to be a spoiler for the ultimate ending of The Sopranos. Out of a comradeliness, I’m not going to repeat it, or give a link, or even name the site, but the fucking idea is now in my head and I’m going to be looking for indications this scumbag is actually right from now until the end of the series.

The secret word is Reprehensible

CRYPTIQUE – At times, though, head in bed would be more than acceptable.

LUCIFER, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Suzy sent this link that could put a theological cat among the pigeons of orthodoxy. (And how’s that for a bit of fake Blake?)

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it's actually the far less ominous 616.

For the full story...
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/166/story_16630_1.html

The secret word is Redial

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO MAKE THE SAME GODDAMNED POINT?
The Swiss decriminalized heroin and drug use dropped through the floor. Aeswiren sends this from the London Independent...
"Zurich, which adopted a liberal drug policy a decade ago, and has seen an 82 per cent decline in new users of heroin, experts say. The change has been achieved by offering drug addicts in Switzerland "substitution" treatment with injectable heroin on prescription, as well as oral methadone, needle exchange and "shooting galleries" where they can give themselves their fix. The new approach has medicalised drug use and removed its glamour, researchers say. Crime and deaths linked with drugs have fallen, and the image of heroin use has been transformed from one of rebellion to an illness."
For the whole story...
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article623415.ece

FREE BOB DYLAN
From Billy we get a link to a zip file of Bob Dylan’s XM radio show.
http://fuelfriends.blogspot.com/2006/05/happy-hour-with-bob-dylan.html

AND I ALSO HAVE A NEW BOOK OUT TODAY!!!
Conflagration, my 25th novel is published today. Did you notice the fanfare? No, neither did I, but it’s the sequel to Kindling, and, as such, set in the same somewhat steampunk alternative universe, with all kinds of fun like wholly fictional narcotics, sex (both regular and deviant), a couple of paranormal orgies, a black airship, evil twins, and a very nice set-piece battle with Mamaluke cavalry and some slow-moving tanks. Buy one, buy two, or, if you don’t read, just send money. It’s all part of my personal war on poverty, and not having to worry how to pay the phone bill and buy drugs.

But totally confounding that argument, here’s a link to some free downloads of my music.
http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_BAND.asp?band_id=2509

The secret word is Contradiction

IMPORTANT STUFF! BATWOMAN IS A LESBIAN AND SHE FIGHTS CRIME!
I spent a goodly part of the day hiding from the TV. I had the feeling that I was being softened up for a possible -- and wholly idiotic -- Bush attack on Iran, at exactly the same time as Haditha was demonstrating that, like most troops in prolonged counter-insurgency campaigns, the Marines in Iraq have gone trigger happy and are shooting everything that moves. Even the commercials offered no solace. Big energy is currently running spots that inform us how CO2 is a wonderful substance what makes the grass grow, and what’s a little global warming and a few dead polar bears as long as we maintain our standard of living? Fortunately I did more retain more vital data like...

Kathy Kane, the gay Batwoman will appear in costume for the first time in a July issue of 52 [a yearlong DC Comics series]. Batwoman was introduced in 1956, but she was one of several, often silly additions to the Bat family, including Ace the Bat-Hound (1955), Bat-Mite (1959) and Bat-Girl (1961). In her latest incarnation, Batwoman is a wealthy, lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in 52.

MEANWHILE...
In LA CityBeat, I have some observations on patriotism. http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3842&IssueNum=156

The secret word is Selective

Mona says "No code. Just a pint of Guinness."

"I am the Mekon and I don’t like this sort of thing."


DID ANYONE MISS THE ALIEN HEAD INSIDE THE DUCK?
http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/offbeat/2006/05/29/barnard.ca.alien.head.xray.kxtv

send by the fabulous w&c

"I’m getting outta here before somebody sneezes!"

THE PANDEMIC RACKET
For some reason I have always had an irrational distrust of the drug Tamiflu. Now lazzafairy sends over the following and the bits fall into place. This is a blog, and no, I haven’t fact-checked the allegations. It’s not my function. Either it’s absolutely true – and highly plausible judging from other behavior by the bastards in power – or it’s the best fabricated rumor about Rumsfeld I’ve seen in a while.

Do you know that 'bird flu' was discovered in Vietnam 9 years ago?
Do you know that barely 100 people have died in the whole world in all that time?
Do you know that it was the Americans who alerted us to the efficacy of the human antiviral TAMIFLU as a preventative.
Do you know that TAMIFLU barely alleviates some symptoms of the common flu?
Do you know that its efficacy against the common flu is questioned by a great part of the scientific community?
Do you know that against a SUPPOSED mutant virus such as H5N1, TAMIFLU barely alleviates the illness?
Do you know that to date Avian Flu affects birds only?
Do you know who markets TAMIFLU?
ROCHE LABORATORIES.
Do you know who bought the patent for TAMIFLU from ROCHE LABORATORIESin1996?
GILEAD SCIENCES INC.
Do you know who was the then president of GILEAD SCIENCES INC. and remains a major shareholder?
DONALD RUMSFELD, the present Secretary of Defence of the USA.
Do you know that the base of TAMIFLU is crushed aniseed?
Do you know who controls 90% of the world's production of this tree?
ROCHE.
Do you know that sales of TAMIFLU were over $254 million in 2004 and more than $1000 million in 2005?
Do you know how many more millions ROCHE can earn inthe coming months if the business of fear continue?
So the summary of the story is as follows: Bush's friends decide that the medicine TAMIFLU is the solution for a pandemic that has not yet occurred and that has caused a hundred deaths worldwide in 9 years. This medicine doesn't so much as cure the common flu. In normal conditions the virus does not affect humans. Rumsfeld sells the patent for TAMIFLU to ROCHE for which they pay him a fortune. Roche acquires 90% of the global production of crushed aniseed, the base for the antivirus. The governments of the entire world threaten a pandemic and then buy industrial quantities of the product from Roche. So we end up paying for medicine while Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush do the business.
ARE WE CRAZY!!? OR ARE WE IDIOTS!!?
AT LEAST PASS THIS ON SO THAT IT CAN BE KNOWN!

I would also add that a pandemic in the USA – be it H5N1 or anything else – would run amok. Lazzafairy sends this from the UK where they at least have a vestige of a healthcare system. With no coordinated (we don’t even dare say socialized) medicine, Americans would have about as much chance as New Orleans in another level 4 hurricane.

The secret word is Sick

THE CHE WHO WON’T GO AWAY
Last week, I found myself watching MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Matthews and that fascist old bag from the National Review whose name I can never remember because she’s so fucking irritating, was making a whole big thing about how kids on the recent immigration marches have been wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. She wasn’t wrong. I noticed much the same myself. Indeed, as a owner of a couple Che shirts myself, plus a large red and black Che flag that hangs on the wall of my study/workroom, I have actually noticed a bunch of Latino and other kids walking around the streets of LA with Che on their chests. Matthews and the old bag seemed ready to make a whole issue out of this, moving towards a paranoid fantasy of some whole new form of Aztlan reconquista communism. I’ve pretty much stopped yelling at the TV screen but I was tempted. "Fools, you don’t know the half of it." The image of Che Guevara may actually have become a non-verbal – and maybe non-philosophical – gesture of the old Howard Beale, "I’m mad as hell and not going to take it any more." The concept is certainly worth a thought.

The secret word is Viva

CRYPTIQUE – Every boredom will be entertained.

AND HERE'S SOME TO GET EXTREMELY MAD ABOUT...

Like the destruction of Andean glaciers out of sheer corporate greed. (And guess who's involved.) http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/pascualama.asp

FILE UNDER FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE
Aeswiren sends over this link (although I’m a little late in posting it) that tells how the staff of Tom Delay the former and now indicted Republican Party terminator believes that the TV satire show The Colbert Report is for real. (For those of you out of the US, Stephen Colbert plays a terminal-dumb, ultra-right news pundit, but it’s a joke.)
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/24/delay-colbert/

Aeswiren adds the following not of confusion
You're the media expert, what is going on there? Do Delay's people expect that Delay's fans (hard to imagine, I know...) don't know who Colbert is, because he doesn't appear on Fox News? Or....they're so desperate.. or they're so stupid... or...?

WE’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE BUT NOW IT’S IN THE WASHINGTON POST
We’ve been seeing studies for years that reefer doesn’t cause cancer and may even retard certain kinds of lung cancer, but how much longer can prohibition be maintained when even pro-drug war scientists admit there’s no risk?

STUDY FINDS NO CANCER-MARIJUANA CONNECTION By Marc Kaufman

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer. The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years. "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."
Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought. Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous. Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex, and neighborhood. They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied. "This is the largest case-control study ever done, and everyone had to fill out a very extensive questionnaire about marijuana use," he said. "Bias can creep into any research, but we controlled for as many confounding factors as we could, and so I believe these results have real meaning."
Tashkin's group at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA had hypothesized that marijuana would raise the risk of cancer on the basis of earlier small human studies, lab studies of animals, and the fact that marijuana users inhale more deeply and generally hold smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers - exposing them to the dangerous chemicals for a longertime. In addition, Tashkin said, previous studies found that marijuana tar has 50 percent higher concentrations of chemicals linked to cancer than tobacco cigarette tar. While no association between marijuana smoking and cancer was found, the study findings, presented to the American Thoracic Society International Conference this week, did find a 20-fold increase in lung cancer among people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day. The study was limited to people younger than 60 because those older than that were generally not exposed to marijuana in their youth, when it is most often tried.
© 2006 Washington Post

The secret word is Delusional

Desmond Dekker -- RIP

WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU...
(Just to set the record straight)
Yesterday, some talking head – with reference to the Attorney General’s hardly veiled threats against the media (see previous post) – misquoted the Nazi-era words of Pastor Martin Niemöller. Just to set the record straight, here’s generally accepted version...

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. "

Not that I believe they are about to come for us, but I do think there are some out there who are are contemplating how to knot the noose.

Or maybe The Clash said it just a well...

"When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun"

The secret word is Resist

"I'M THE DECIDER, AND I DECIDE WHAT IS BEST."
– George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 18, 2006

From yesterday's New York Times -- "The government has the legal authority to prosecute journalists for publishing classified information, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday.
"There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Mr. Gonzales said on the ABC News program "This Week."
"That's a policy judgment by the Congress in passing that kind of legislation," he continued. "We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected."
Asked whether he was open to the possibility that The New York Times should be prosecuted for its disclosures in December concerning a National Security Agency surveillance program, Mr. Gonzales said his department was trying to determine "the appropriate course of action in that particular case."
"I'm not going to talk about it specifically," he said. "We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity."

Which essentially means – just six months before a crucial election – Gonzales is attempting to put the frighteners to a mainstream media that has only just found itself some minimal courage, as well as firewalling the White House against any fresh revelations of crime or stupidity, and making damn sure reporters stick to the designated talking points. The next and obvious question is, "who among us will stand up to this shit?

The secret word is Dangerous

(from Bro Bill)

MONDAY, MONDAY...
Inspirational words from Charles Montgomery Burns – "Do you know how much it costs to run for office? More than any honest man could afford."

And (from aeswiren) this is a piece of film that essentially shows the proof of Burns’ axiom. (Turn up the speakers!) http://www.filmstripinternational.com/

The secret word is Asshole

"All they will call you will be "deportees."

YOU CAN SING THIS SONG IN ANY DAMN LANGUAGE!
The nasty, vicious, and wholly fabricated current "debate" over illegal immigration is unfortunately nothing new. (Except may the idiocy about singing the national anthem in Spanish.) In addition to the garment business and a dozen or more service industries, big agriculture in California would be crippled without cheap undocumented labor, and its been that way since at least World War II, when the Okies, bulldozed off their farms by the banks, and the Dust Bowl refugees either went to fight or started making a living wage in the aircraft and munitions factories. Woody Guthrie said it all in 1948 in the song Deportees (Plane Crash At Los Gatos.)

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting,
The oranges are packed in their creosote dumps.
They're flying 'em back to the Mexico border
To take all their money to wade back again.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees."

My father's own father, he waded that river.
They took all the money he made in his life.
My brothers and sisters came workin' the fruit trees,
They rode the big trucks 'till they laid down and died.

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightnin' an' it shook all the hills.
Who are these comrades, they're dying like the dry leaves?
The radio tells me, "They're just deportees."

We died in your hills and we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys, we died in your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died 'neath your bushes,
Both sides of the river we died just the same.

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To die like the dry leaves and rot on my topsoil
And be known by no name except "deportee."

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane,All they will call you will be "deportees."
All they will call you will be "deportees."

Dick J. Reavis, supplies some background in his 1978 book Without Documents...
The agreement of 1947 [between Mexico and the U.S.]... contained a novel provision which established amnesty through deportation. Under its terms, undocumented Mexicans who were sent back across the border could return to the U.S. as temporary contract laborers; during the life of their contracts, they could not be again deported. In practice, employers often called Border Patrol stations to report their own undocumented employees, who were returned, momentarily, to border cities in Mexico, where they signed labor contracts with the same employers who had denounced them. This process became known as "drying out wetbacks" or "storm and drag immigration." "Drying out" provided a deportation-proof source of cheap seasonal labor...

At the time, all The New York Times (January 29, 1948) had to say for itself was to mention "the wreck of charter plane carrying 28 Mexican farm workers from Oakland to the El Centro, CA, Deportation Center.... The crash occurred 20 miles west of Coalinga, 75 miles from Fresno."

http://www.bobdylanroots.com/deportees.html

The secret word is Slave

"Do we look like the kind of girls who’d fuck Lemmy?"

LEMMY TOPS MAGIC BUT DON’T BEAT JACK
The following comes from Betsy with – I surmise – a considerable lading of irony...

Maxim's Top 10 Living Legends of Sex - and the number of women they are alleged to have slept with:
10. Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones bassist) - 1,000
9. Earvin (Magic) Johnson (basketball star) - 1,000
8. Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead frontman) - 1,200
7. Jack Nicholson (actor) - 2,000
6. Ilie Nastase (tennis star) - 2,500
5. Engelbert Humperdinck (singer) - 3,000
4. Julio Iglesias (singer) - 3,000
3. Gene Simmons (Kiss frontman) - 4,600
2. Charlie Sheen (actor) - 5,000
1. Umberto Billo (Venetian hotel porter) - 8,000

Okay, so that’s the kind of stuff you expect in Maxim, but since the mag is owned by one of my oldest, dearest and richest friends, I won’t belabor the point, but imagine my surprise when I saw the name another old comrade right there on the list. My one time song-writing partner and up-all-week amphetamine buddy Lemmy Kilmister was there at number eight, immediately below Jack Nicholson. I figure the list can only have been based on the boasting of those listed, but, in Lemmy’s case, I totally believe him. Many a time I have seen the man leave a perfectly viable drunken brawl or paranoid fantasy to get himself blown by some pinwheeling distaff damage case. That was just the way he was and good luck to the both of them. My only reservation is to wonder if a gentleman should really keep count, and, if you spend that much of your time engaged in casual fucking, how the hell you have time to do the math?

The secret word is Hump

CRYPTIQUE – Happiness is a warm poppy.

HERE WE GO AGAIN?
An email arrived headed "Carriers En Route To The Gulf" and containing the link below. At first I got a weird access forbidden screen, and then an alarming news report of a impending attack on Iran. So, fellow paranoids, click if you dare and see what you get...

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_military_seen_ready_for_Iran_0511.html

Like we say in the writing game, it's deadline or breadline.

DAMN!
Just as I was getting back into the swing of near-daily blogging, the need to work excessively hard blindsided me. Clearly our current system of government by total implausibility is causing me alternate amusement and vexation, sometimes both in the same hour, but I also seem to be attempting write my way out of emotional trauma – with some debate about whether this is healthy – and, need I say, I also need the money, since tragedy in America, like everything else, is exceedingly costly. Thus all I really have to offer today – except excuses for all the unanswered email – is new piece in LA CityBeat on the mythological downfall of the both FEMA and the CIA -- more on Dusty Foggo. (Oh yeah, and someone from NORML says really nice things about me on the letters page.)
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3779&IssueNum=154

Fortunately aeswiren has sent a link to a fascinating piece on drug fatalities. While kinda academic and focusing mainly on ecstacy and speed, if you scroll down, it does show some fascinating actuarial tables that indicate the smoking marijuana is about a dangerous as playing Monopoly, but the risk of LSD is the same as falling out of bed.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/newcombe.htm

And our pal hipspinster has a new blog about a visit to Doc’s house and the healing power of punk.
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

And for those who like this sort of thing, here’s a bunch of theorizing on prehistoric nuclear warfare. http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/ancatomicwar1.html

And since a whole bunch of new readers seem to have arrived from a site called Freepint, who also say nice things about me, I feel duty bound to return the favor. (I mean, where I come from, a free pint's a free pint. (http://www.freepint.com/issues/180506.htm

The secret word Traction

WHAT ME WORRY?
No, I haven’t gone back into to hiding, although there have been moments when the temptation has been quite powerful. The reality was that I spent most of the weekend engaged in considerable domestic reorganization, which gave me time – while filing and bagging and dumping, and moving desks and bookcases, and reorganizing all the wiring, that goes with such things – to attempt to wrap my aching head around what the fuck is going on. I mean, on Friday, the FBI raided the CIA. Shall I say it again? The FBI raided the CIA! Not even The X-Files every came up with that kinda of scenario. And now Bush wants to send troops that he hasn’t got to defend the Southern Border. This is fucking insanity. Who’s advising the fool now? Michelle Malkin? Okay, so back in the Reagan era there was that hoo-ha about the Sandinistas invading Texas, but Reagan never actually did anything about it except to keep on supporting the Contra cocaine trade. If this house of cards isn’t collapsing, entropy is sure gnawing on the hubris.

The secret word is Duh

It’s never easy for a superhero when his teen-boy sidekick start shooting up. But weren’t Green Arrow and Green Lantern more than lame enough to drive anyone to serious narcotics?

MO DRUG WAR
In this week’s LA CityBeat, I have not one, but two drug related pieces. The first on the FDA’s absurd statement that marijuana has no medical value...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3729&IssueNum=153#

And also a more fanciful musing on the possible Mexican legalization of the personal stash...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3737&IssueNum=153

The secret word is Psychotropic

And dare we hope Boss Goodman might be on the mend? (Check "bulletins")
http://www.mannorak.com/index.htm