And right on schedule...
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR

FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
FEAR FEAR
OH, AND DID I MENTION TERROR?
(And of course the ever popular tax cuts for the rich and quantum profits for the oil industry?)
In the above, my friends, you have the entire 2006 Republican election campaign in a nutshell.
The illustration – send by Valerie – is Cruficied Grouper by Hugo Bruce. (And damn do I feel like a crucified grouper.)

BUT TO STOP YOU ALL GETTING AS DEPRESSED AS I AM,
here’s a bit of video of a monkey annoying Tigers. It was sent by HCB who advises turning off the ghastly audio.
Http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8811551493740102634&hl=en

The secret word is Signifyin’

GORE IS GREAT!
A couple of weeks ago interviewed Gore Vidal -- one of my heroes -- and here’s the teaser...

"[Bush and his cronies] are all sissies. Remember that," he says. "These are people who’ve never been in an army. The men behind the war in Iraq are cowards who did not fight in Vietnam. They’ve run away like the president, who I refer to as the Yellow Rose of Texas. They’re weak little people with an agenda – which is: ‘We’ve gotta show our muscle around the world. Running out of oil? We’ll take it. Show how tough we are. We’re macho.’ And we’re also dumbo, and that is the problem."

For the whole deal...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=4180&IssueNum=166

I also managed a demented deliberation on TV commercials...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=4177&IssueNum=166

VAMPIRE SEA SPIDERS!
Everyone knows we adore cute critters at Doc40, but these, drawn to our attention by HCB, seem pretty fucking extreme. (And don’t they look kinda familiar, Lt. Ripley?) Oh for the happy days of the pandacam.
"Weird spider-like creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean and use a 'straw' to suck on their prey are baffling scientists. These sea spiders, some of which are blind, are defying scientific classification. They crawl along the bottom of the sea floor, sometimes more than 6000 to 7000 metres down, where they live in the dark, feeding on slow-moving soft-bodied sponges and sea slugs."
For the full story...
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1675573.htm

The secret word is Bathyscape

ARTHUR LEE -- RIP

EVIL DOG EATS ELVIS’ TEDDY
The invaluable somegirl and also Valerie (welcome back) both sent versions of the following tale of horror...
"On Tuesday night the doberman pinscher guard dog, after six years' blameless service, went berserk: within minutes Mabel, a 1909 German-made Steiff teddy bear once owned by Elvis Presley, more recently the pride and joy of an English aristocrat, lay mortally wounded."
For the full story...
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1836014,00.html

or
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5240832.stm

CRYPTIQUE – Put a chain around my neck and lead me anywhere.

YOU’RE JUST NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!
As many regular Doc40 visitors know our great and good friend Boss Goodman – former Deviants roadie, former Pink Fairies tour manager, former club DJ, concert promoter, and master chef at the Portobello Gold suffered a left-brain stroke back at the end of March. Since that time, he has received all kinds visits and notes of love and encouragement, but the one linked below really takes the cake. I can’t say more without giving away the surprise, but believe me, it’s scarcely believable.
(The pic was taken by Rich Deakin. It shows Boss at the country estate of Felix Dennis during his recovery from a heart episode that may have been a overture to the stroke. The sculpture, one of a series in Felix’s Garden of Fame is of a young Bob Dylan at the bedside of Woody Guthrie.)

Check this out!
http://www.mannorak.com/clintlet.htm

The secret word is Wow!

(And the headline below is purely coincidental and in no way a joke about Boss's famous girth.)

THE BIGGEST GODDAMNED DAMNED BLOB IN THE UNIVERSE
HCB sent over the following news report. There is no suggestion so far that it’s coming to get us, but you never know. (The blimp! The blimp! Fast and bulbous!)

An enormous amoeba-like structure 200 million light-years wide and made up of galaxies and large bubbles of gas is the largest known object in the universe, scientists say. The galaxies and gas bubbles, called Lyman alpha blobs, are aligned along three curvy filaments that formed about 2 billion years after the universe exploded into existence after the theoretical Big Bang. The filaments were recently seen using the Subaru and Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea. The galaxies within the newly found structure are packed together four times closer than the universe's average. Some of the gas bubbles are up to 400,000 light years across, nearly twice the diameter of our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy. Scientists think they formed when massive stars born early in the history of the universe exploded as supernovas and blew out their surrounding gases. Another theory is that the bubbles are giant gas cocoons that will one day give birth to new galaxies. The finding will give researchers new insight into what the structure of cosmos looks like at the largest scale. "Something this large and this dense would have been rare in the early universe," said study team member Ryosuke Yamauchi from Tohoku University. "The structure we discovered and others like are probably the precursors of the largest structures we see today which contain multiple clusters of galaxies," Yamauchi said.

The secret word is Jello.

RETRO DOGGONE
I discovered the reflection linked below in the course of my web wanderings and found it touching and poignant. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for cosmonaut canines.
http://headwideopen.blogspot.com/2006/07/rip-laika.html

The secret word is Whimper

NOTE THE FABRIC

On the left is Miss Israel, on the right in Miss Lebanon. They are at war. Yet the beauty pagents continue as the rockets explode, nations tear themselves apart, and we fear the eventual nuclear option. Doesn't this all make it totally pointless and criminally absurd and increasingly push the mind to the end of its tether?

The secret word is Extinction

"Okay so Farren will be out here pissing and moaning that’s it’s to hot to blog – or do anything else for that matter – and how there are power outages all across the nation, and it’s the end of the world, blah, blah, blah, and then he’ll post this picture because – unlike Stephen Colbert – he thinks bears are adorable, but this bear has some fucking news for all you human’s, okay? This may look way cute, and way cool, but what you don’t know is that this lump of ice I’m sitting on is ALL THAT’S FUCKING LEFT OF THE NORTH POLE, YOU BASTARDS!"

The secret word is Torridness.

Meanwhile, an old friend becomes a new blogger at...
www.valleyboy.net

And I have a media column in today's LA CityBeat on TV coverage of the brand new war.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=4103&IssueNum=164

HEAT?

I CANNOT LIE TO YOU...
So where have all the blogs been for almost a week? The answer is that it’s been too fucking hot (as 100F+ in some parts of LA) to do anything much of anything except my appointed tasks, which in that last 4-5 days have included a major interview with Gore Vidal which will appear in LA CityBeat on the next couple of weeks, and also two live shows which made me very happy. I confidently hope that normal service with be resumed as soon as the temperatures drops at least into the low eighties.

Meanwhile, the lovely hipspinster had been blogging up a storm about Sir Ian Mckellan and the fear of Mercury in retrograde...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

And the Doug the Bass sent over the following with the comment with which I totally concur "Hey, what do you know? Something from the Ayn RandInstitute that I actually agree with."

OPPONENTS OF EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH AREOPPONENTS OF HUMAN LIFE JULY 20, 2006
"President Bush's claim that embryonic stem cell research violates 'the dignity of human life' is morally obscene," said Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "This research has the potential to rescue millions of individuals from painful and life-threatening diseases. Anyone who places the welfare of a few undifferentiated cells above that of actual human beings cannot claim to value human life. "There are no rational grounds for ascribing rights to an unconscious cluster of cells smaller than a grain of sand. But the opposition to embryonic stem cell research is not based on reason--it's based purely on religious dogma. From the development of anesthesia to the introduction of birth control, religion has consistently opposed scientific and medical progress. Today, with their assaults on evolution, cloning, and stem cell research, the religious right is attempting to drag us back to the Dark Ages. "Anyone who values human life must stand up forscience and against President Bush's attempt to impose his religious agenda on America."

The secret word is Swelter

Need I comment?

MICK AND ANDY DO IT AGAIN
Yes my friends, we’re doing it again. Mick Farren and Andy Colqhoun have not one, but two live performance outings with their two-man alien blues this coming weekend. The first is Saturday (July 22) when we get up on a bill with John Sinclair & The Blues Scholars, and Michael Simmons. That will be at Rae's Lounge, 10939 Venice Blvd, Los Angeles, 90034 - (310) 202 8464 (That’s a few blocks west of Overland.) Kicks off around 9.00PM.
I figure the above will be the more alcoholic and raucous of the two events, although much can be said for a more relaxed (and maybe hungover) Sunday evening (7-10pm) with same crew plus John Feins & Louie Lista at the Synergy Café Lounge, 4445 Overland Avenue, Culver City, 90230 (310) 559 8868 ( http://www.synergycafelounge.com/

The secret word is Attend

MICKEY SPILLANE -- RIP

from... http://www.cheblogs.com/roller/page/njon/

THE BLOODY RED SUN OF BUSH’S NEW WORLD
As the air-conditioner struggles in an overheated LA, I avoid the news. After a marginal recovery, the Israelis are bombing Beirut back into the 1980s, while on the level of the neocons playing their grand game of Risk-For-Real, a massive war zone is being created stretching from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas, right to nuke-packing India and Pakistan. If history is anything to go by, it could take the world five hundred years to recover from the first six of this century. Or maybe 5000. At times like these I begin to agree with the friends who tell me it’s fucking hopeless and we might as well just medicate and be damned. Making George fucking Bush president was about as smart as giving a belligerent fifteen year-old a bottle of scotch, a 357 magnum, and the keys to a Ferrari. I also hear a paranoid runor that Rummy has an obsession. He wants to let of a nuclear device in the worse possible psychotic way. He hardly cares where any more.

The secret word is Fantastic

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