THE TESLA COIL ATE MY BRAIN

Which is actually a lame excuse for being, with LA in the nineties, too burned to even think let alone come up with a witty, thought provoking, revolutionary blog entry.

The secret word is Fried

Max Roach -- RIP

ELVIS IS A LONG TIME GONE FROM THE BUILDING

Elvis with Little Junior Parker and Bobby Bland

Elvis Presley died thirty years ago today. I think we can all accept by now that he’s not hiding out in Hawaii under the name John Burroughs. I have written so much about Elvis down the years I have little left to say. Why don’t we just let the performances be the tribute? Here are three tunes from three essential peaks in the man’s career – “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Jailhouse Rock”, and “In The Ghetto.”

We can, however, mark the occasion by laying to rest an unpleasant rumor that been circulating for a half century that claims Elvis once remarked “The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.” The evidence seems to have finally been amassed that this was an early piece of anti-Presley, anti-rock disinformation.

The secret word is Left

WAR FOOTNOTE

In the last year 99 military personnel serving in Iraq have committed suicide.

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE DOC40 RAN A PICTURE OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR

It’s hot here at the night computer, and the wee hours could grow depressing, so why not a picture of Liz when she was hot and not in the least depressing? (Also I think the time is right.)

This is another theft from Tom Sutpen. I just can’t help myself.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 24

And while I post this cover, Dr. Adder writes, “some Ph. D at Oxford catches up to where Philip K. Dick was 40 years ago, and somehow it's a major revelation to the New York Times.” And Dr. Adder is right. The idea that we all might just be part of some third party’s computer simulation, construct, or nightmare has been well known to paranoids, acid heads, schizophrenics, and comic book writers for at least a half century, and the concept is even employed in a Daffy Duck cartoon. How do these fools get tenure while I have to work for a living and call it fiction?

"Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims. But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation. This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits. You couldn’t, as in “The Matrix,” unplug your brain and escape from your vat to see the physical world. You couldn’t see through the illusion except by using the sort of logic employed by Dr. Bostrom, the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford." (For more of this nonsense)

The secret words are Red Pill

THE DEAD ZONE

Meanwhile Sky passes along this frightening report that, if this is some asshole’s computer simulation, it is managed worse than the real world.

"The oxygen-poor "dead zone" off the Louisiana and Texas coasts isn't quite as big as predicted this year, but it is still the third-largest ever mapped, a scientist said Saturday. Crabs, eels and other creatures usually found on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico are swimming in crowds on the surface because there is too little oxygen in their usual habitat, said Nancy Rabalais, chief scientist for northern Gulf hypoxia studies. "We very often see swarms of crabs, mostly blue crabs and their close relatives, swimming at the surface when the oxygen is low," she wrote in an e-mail from a research ship as it returned to Cocodrie from its annual measurement trip. Eels, which live in sediments 60 to 70 feet below the water surface, are an even less common sight, she said. The 7,900-square-mile area with almost no oxygen, a condition called hypoxia, is about the size of Connecticut and Delaware together. The Louisiana-Texas dead zone is the world's second-largest hypoxic area, she said." (For more)

'TWAS BRILLIG AND THE SLITHY ROVE

Discussion of the possible plans of the hideous Karl Rove continued today like one of his own demon talking points. The theory I liked best and made the most sense was that, instead of attaching himself a single candidate like a strategizing incubus, Rove will actually rove free (pun accidental) as the non-aligned Destroyer of Hillary. Assuming of course that Hillary is nominated. Orca also suggested in an email that Rove is a victim of the Roy Cohn syndrome. (Cohn-- the gay homophobe and anti-Semitic Jew.) “You are well aware, I assume, of the long standing rumors of Turd Blossom's gayness (gives the nickname whole new meanings I'd rather not even go into). Believe he understands that trigger in the American psyche that gets set off by gays because he so fears his own deep-closeted Richard Simmons. Who was Jeff Gannon with during those overnight visits to the West Wing?” And Noudela send another video that certainly demonstrates Rove dancing to be, to say the least, strange.

LINKED WITHOUT COMMENT
Except I wonder when the mine owners will allow the US coal industry at least to make it into the 20th century

WHAT THE FUCK IS KARL ROVE UP TO?

"It was a dirty job, but Rove liked to do it."

When I read news (oh boy) I flatly didn’t believe it. “Karl Rove, President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist, announced Monday he will leave the White House at the end of August. On board with Bush since the beginning of his political career in Texas, Rove was nicknamed "the architect" and "boy genius" by the president for designing the strategy that twice won him the White House. Critics call Rove "Bush's brain." Yeah right, that sonofabitch, known to his boss as Turd Blossom, is about as likely to ride quietly off into the sunset as Sauron would be to trade the Dark Tower for a Florida timeshare. So what’s the deal here? Is he bailing ahead of subpoenas and even indictments? R. J. Eskow in HuffPo today seemed to be of that opinion…
“Rove is facing a Congressional subpoena. And let's not forget his role in the Libby scandal. In what was probably a public threat/negotiating ploy, Libby's lawyers threatened to submit evidence that Scooter's actions were part of a broader criminal plot to protect Rove. It apparently worked, since they suddenly reversed themselves and offered only a token defense. Then, in what was an extraordinary exception even for cases of Presidential pardons, Scooter never served even a single day in jail. Funny, that. So Rove is either leaving now because a) he wants to write that book, b) he wants to spend more time with his family, c) he thinks this will lower the pressure to have him testify before Congress, d) somebody said "we'll fix it with Scooter but when the heat dies down you have to leave town," e) all of the above, or f) there's something else going on we may never know.”
But then again I wonder. I could easily see him trolling the slime trails of the Republican primaries whoring out as a kingmaker-for-hire figuring which wannabe might have a prayer in this shambles of America that Rove helped create. This evil motherfucker is about the most wholly amoral political manipulator since Joseph Goebbels. This is the bastard who ran the Bush 2004 election on insinuation and homophobia, and I’m telling you, citizens, we do not, for a moment, want to turn our collective back on this very dangerous, slithering scumsucker.

The secret word is Wormtongue

(But check this video clip Noudela just sent in which Rove jokes about being president.)

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 23

And talking of Karl Rove’s deft use of homophobia as a tool in the political power game, we should not forget it when we congratulate ourselves on the supposed progress we have made towards tolerance and enlightenment since the 1960s, when books like this were on the racks in the drugstore. If the hate and bigotry wasn’t so deeply ingrained in too much of the collective psyche, it could not be exploited by the likes of Rove and they would find themselves out of ammunition. And unemployed.

MORDOR INCORPORATED

The article was about a proposed new skyscraper in San Francisco, taller than the Trans America Pyramid, but the illustration jumped out at me so hard I had to steal and post it. A symbolic landscape I know from my nightmares, and, for all of my days, have been doing my damnedest to fight. And yet it still encroaches, like the bumper sticker “Frodo Failed – Dick Cheney Got The Ring”. But my sword is still dully gleams, my staff is not broken although I may lean a little more heavily upon it, and sometimes in the night, I long for the Grey Havens, and some rest and respite, and yet we have to go on. No choice in the matter.

The secret word is Nazgûl

But, neighbor , what better antidote, short of pharmaceuticals, for this pre-dawn desperation than Buddy Holly!

EVEN GETTING OUT WON'T BE EASY

“Troops Out Now” is an easy slogan, but actually to extricate the US military from Iraq and George Bush’s asinine and foully fucked-up war is not that easy in the context of any kind of geopolitical reality. (Not to mention what would appear to be US enthrallment to the Saudi Royal Family.) To get out of Vietnam, once Nixon’s place in history was history, was comparatively easy. Most of us remember, or have at least seen the films, of the choppers taking off from the US Embassy roof in Saigon. Iraq will be a lot more complex. I don’t always agree with John Gray of the Guardian but in this instance, he has a point…

“Forget all the talk about Iraq being as bad as Vietnam. Today's conflict is far worse. The US was able to walk away from Vietnam with relative impunity because Vietnam was essentially a peripheral country. Iraq, by contrast, is a key factor in global oil supplies, so an American withdrawal would be a devastating blow to US power. In Vietnam, US withdrawal was feasible because there was an effective government in the north ready to take over in the south. Nothing like that exists in Iraq where almost a third of the population, according to Oxfam is in need of emergency relief. And whereas the feared domino effect never materialized in Southeast Asia after the US left Vietnam, the consequences of the Iraqi debacle are already apparent. Surrounding states such as Iran and Turkey are being irresistibly drawn into the conflict, threatening to unleash regional war.”

A REALLY BAD IDEA

This story headed “Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing” culled by HCB from the New Scientist strikes me as a really bad idea. So bad in fact, that the H. P. Lovecraft, Yog-Sothoth crowd are waiting for something really nasty to happen should it happen to get loose.

An 8-million-year-old bacterium that was extracted from the oldest known ice on Earth is now growing in a laboratory, claim researchers. If confirmed, this means ancient bacteria and viruses will come back to life as ice melts due to global warming. This is nothing to worry about, say experts, because the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease. Kay Bidle of Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, and his colleagues extracted DNA and bacteria from ice found between 3 and 5 metres beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica. The ice gets older as it flows down the valleys and the researchers took five samples that were between 100,000 and 8 million years old. (For more…)

The secret word is Telluric

But after all this grim shit, here are a whole bunch of optical illusions to mess with when stoned.

REQUIEM FOR BAT BOY

In this week’s LA CityBeat, I mark the passing of the Weekly World News and fifteen years of the inimitable and irreplaceable Bat Boy, and report on the less than happy condition of the other supermarket tabloids.

A BUSY DAY IN HISTORY

“Happy anniversary, folks.”

In 378 at the battle of Adrianople, Gothic horsemen destroyed the attacking Roman forces led by Emperor Valens. The Goths killed an estimated 20,000 of the 30,000 Romans. In 1945 the U.S. bomber Bock's Car dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, destroying a third of the city and killing 40,000 people, according to U.S. estimates. Japan's government surrendered 5 days later. In 1968, the Manson Family conducted their slayfest at the home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, and, in 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing impeachment by Congress for his role in Watergate, resigned.

Of the above, only Charlie Manson has a music blog about him.

The secret words are Helter and Skelter

EVANGELISM IN (VIDEO) ACTION

This is a still from Left Behind: Eternal Forces as devout Christians gun down the unbelievers. The Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game is a real-time strategy game that makes players commanders of a virtual evangelical army in a post-apocalyptic landscape that looks strikingly like New York City after 9/11. The game is inspired by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' ultra-violent novels about a blood-soaked Battle of Armageddon pitting born-again Christians against anybody who does not adhere to their particular theology. In LaHaye and Jenkins' books, the non-believers are ultimately condemned to "everlasting punishment" while the evangelicals are "raptured" up to heaven. With tanks, helicopters and fearsome firepower from automatic weapons, Left Behind players wage a violent war against United Nations-like peacekeepers who, according to LaHaye's interpretation of Revelation, represent the armies of the Antichrist. Each time a Left Behind player kills a UN soldier, their virtual character hollers "Praise the Lord!" To win the game, players must kill or convert all the non-believers left behind after the rapture. They also have the option of reversing roles and commanding the forces of the Antichrist. But that’s not the truly weird part, an evangelical organization called Operation Straight Up is mailing care packages containing the Left Behind: Eternal Forces video game to soldiers serving in Iraq. (Thanks to Ilene Proctor.)

The secret word is Hallelujah

BRIEF AND SILLY

This has to be by far the most foolishly pretentious guitar in the history of rock & roll. (Shared with us by HCB)

Gotta sleep now, and write more later.

The secret word is ZZZZZZZZZZ

Lee Hazlewood -- RIP

THE BADGERS OF BASRA

"Hi, I’m a badger but I’m also a nocturnal bio-weapon.”

This strange tale of the Iraqi War sent by UK Steve, has been somewhat overlooked for a couple of weeks. I don’t know how many of you have heard it, but I wouldn’t put it past the Brits to turn ravening badgers on the natives. The British Empire was run on that kind of thing. Just ask the Irish.
Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic. But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers. The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport. "We have been told these are indigenous nocturnal carnivores that don't attack humans unless cornered." The director of Basra's veterinary hospital, Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, has inspected several of the animals' corpses. He told the AFP news agency: "These appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known locally as Al-Girta. "Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific."Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy dean of Basra's veterinary college, speculated that the badgers were being driven towards the city because of flooding in marshland north of Basra. But the assurances did little to convince some members of the public. One housewife, Suad Hassan, 30, claimed she had been attacked by one of the badgers as she slept. "My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer," she said. "It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey," she told AFP.

The secret word is Set (Puzzled? Look it up.)

FREE SAMPLES

I keep finding all these sites where you can download bits and pieces of The Deviants and like stuff. Human Garbage, is the live recording of the 1984 show at Dingwalls Dancehall in London with Wayne Kramer and Larry Wallis dueling on guitars and a rhythm section of Sandy and George Butler. I, of course, am the one in front sweating and bellowing.
And there’s also a Stiff collection on which you can not only hear The Deviants doing Let’s Loot The Supermarket (Like We Did Last Summer) but also the Pink Fairies “Between The Lines” and Larry Wallis’ original “Police Car.”

NEVER TOO YOUNG

Since The Simpsons Movie seems to be exploited all over, let’s put Bart to our own nefarious use. What did the Jesuits say? “Give us the child until he’s seven and he’s ours for life”? Maybe the same applies to freeform anarchy.

(Graphic from Nuzz)

ALTHOUGH, IN CARTOON LAND, THERE CAN BE CONSEQUENCES

SWINE

I have never had anything specific against Starbucks. I’ve never been in one, I didn’t like the ambiance, and thought they were just part of the corporate profitmass. It was only a day or so ago that I heard – and then had confirmed – the story of how the scum-sucking swine, in the immediately aftermath of 9/11, actually insisted on charging rescue workers at Ground Zero for water. For the full story….

The secret word is Porcine

AND TALKING OF PROFITS...

Here is a piece by Allen Ginsberg from two wars ago, demonstrating that nothing changes. (Thanks Valerie)

These are the names of the companies that have mademoney from this warnineteenhundredsixtyeight Annodominifourthousand eighty Hebraic

These are the Corporations who have profited by merchan-dising skinburning phosphorous or shells fragmentedto thousands of fleshpiercing needlesand here listed money millions gained by each combine formanufacture and here are gains numbered, index'd swelling a decade, setin order, here named the Fathers in office in these industries, tele-phones directing finance,names of directors, makers of fates, and the names of thestockholders of these destined

Aggregates,and here are the names of their ambassadors to the Capital,representatives to legislature, those who sit drinkingin hotel lobbies to persuade,and separate listed, those who drop Amphetamine with

military, gossip, argue, and persuadesuggesting policy naming language proposing strategy, thisdone for fee as ambassadors to Pentagon,consultants to military, paid by their industry:and these are the names of the generals & captains mili-tary, who know thus work for war goods manufacturers;and above these, listed, the names of the banks, combines,

investment trusts that control these industries:and these are the names of the newspapers owned by thesebanks and these are the names of the airstations owned by thesecombines; and these are the numbers of thousands of citizensemployed by these businesses named;and the beginning of this accounting is 1958 and the end1968, that static be contained in orderly mind,coherent and definite,and the first form of this litany begun first day December1967 furthers this poem of these States.

Allen Ginsberg

PLEASE DON'T LET GEORGE BUSH KILL US

The White House – ever a friend of the earth – recently issued a “wolf management proposal” – the 10J rule – that would give states a license to kill grey wolves, possibly leading to the extermination of up to 700 wolves in Wyoming and Idaho combined. This would reverse the welcome gains in recovery of this magnificent species in the Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho regions. To help, click here. (Pic stolen from The People’s Daily Brief.)

SATURDAY MORNING PICTURES (how does it feel?)

Napoleon in rags and the language that he used? As regular visitors to Doc40 may have gleaned, it’s been a long hard week during which I have done one hell of a lot of writing – some of great interest and some the was the literary equivalent of hanging sheet-rock – but I will let you into a small secret. In pauses while I wait for the words to come, I’ve been sniffing around YouTube seeing what goodies a poor boy could find. Last Wednesday, I posted a clip of The Who doing “My Generation” at the Marquee in 1967, and now my friends (try this for size) we present eight fucking minutes of Bob Dylan and the Hawks doing “Like A Rolling Stone” at Newcastle City Hall in 1966. This was a manner of music that at the time, like The Who, made you feel you could tear the world apart with you bare hands. (And I guess I still have the metaphoric bleeding fingernails.) And guess what? If all that wasn’t enough, I was actually there. I was at that show! I even remember what I was wearing. All decked out very Chelsea Girl style in a white denim suit, a black and white paisley shirt, and white Victorian lace-up boots with Cuban heels that were extremely Brian Jones, and later, after the show, the ensemble almost got me beaten to death by blind drunk homophobic Geordies who decided that, despite my matching girlfriend, I qualified as queer.

How did it feel? It felt like the power structure would fall like a house of cards. That’s how it felt.

The secret word is Then

AND just to show the other side of the coin, here’s a demonstration film of the Johnny 7 One Man Army from approximately the same period.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 22

Unfortunately the concept of revolution was apt to become a little confused at times. It was probably the acid in the water supply.

I THINK I WANT ALL MY FOOD SERVED LIKE THIS FROM NOW ON

Does that seem an unreasonable demand? (Or maybe I just need some sleep and should post something more logical later.)

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting, over among the permanent links, near the top, is the World Super Clock . Check it out. It counts everything.

The secret word is Infantile

WE BID YOU ALL A LAST DUBAI

This is real, not a Spielberg set for his next Philip K. Dick movie. This is Dubai. This is what the mega-rich demand from their architects. Halliburton is moving there. It will be the capital city of Cheney the Merciless when he ascends to Evil Dictator of the Planet. Hitler wanted to level Berlin to build his insane Germania. (Rhymes with megalomania.) The oil barons have done it in Dubai, and on imported near-slave labor who’s pay, and working and living conditions are described by Human Rights Watch as “inhuman”. And why, as Valerie noted when she sent the pic, does it all resemble the tentacles of Cthulhu?
.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Godzilla hates cats.

The secret word is Wrong

IS ANY EXPLANATION REQUIRED?

Whiskey river take my mind.*

(Don't let her memory torture me.)

I have written myself into the ground. My hands hurt, my arms ache, my brain is mush. I feel like I don’t have another word left in me tonight. And I’m wracked with guilt over all the calls I haven’t returned and all the emails I have yet to send. If there was ever a time to hide in a quiet Tennessee hollow, this is it. Because it’s fucking August, and I attempt to create while cities turn into overheated ghost towns. Even the fucking Iraqi government is on vacation. The only thing that refuses to cease is the lying propagandist bullshit that flows relentlessly from the leadership machine of the Loathsome Decider. But I’m sure you didn’t click on here to listen to me bitch and moan deep into the night. So, my friends, in return for all the nanoseconds you have wasted stopping by to visit here (in addition to Willie*) is a clip of The Who, doing My Generation live at the Marquee, back when the world was young and 100% of us were still alive and kicking. (And it's loud and marvellous!)

The secret word is Tomorrow (when the sun will doubtless come out.)

CLONES, I TELL YOU! CLONES!

They are coming for us! More and more of them! There may be pods in the laundry room! Will no one help us?

The secret word is Idiopathic

PENGUINS NO LONGER MARCHING

Remember how, a couple of years ago, we all got all misty about the movie March of the Penguins? Well, it seems like the penguins’ marching is being made more and more difficult. Recent temperature increases in the Antarctic are impacting some penguins' abilities to feed and breed, creating population dips in a species that can't handle the heat. Here’s a new and much more depressing film.

CRYPTIQUE – The doctor dies of the disease. Will the patient survive the remedy?

Ingmar Bergman -- RIP

Tom Snyder -- RIP

THE REVOLUTION MUST BE FABULOUS

Our pals in Holland, the Buggers are back. Which is a damned good thing because I always relish their stuff, and I’m also working my ass off and haven’t have any time to work up a post. Except to announce that The People's Daily Brief is now a blog.

THE BUGGERS POSITION #17

True art, which is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time - true art is unable NOT to be revolutionary, NOT to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society. This it must do, were it only to deliver intellectual creation from the chains which bind it, and to allow all mankind to raise itself to those heights which only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past. We recognize that only the social revolution can sweep clean the path for a new culture.With his thousand technicians, Trotsky seized the viaducts and the bridges and the telephone exchanges and the power stations. The police, victims of convention, contributed to his brilliant enterprise by guarding the old men in the Kremlin. The latter hadn't the elasticity of mind to grasp that their own presence there at the traditional seat of government was irrelevant. History outflanked them. Trotsky had the railway stations and the powerhouses, and the "government" was effectively locked out of history byits own guards.So the cultural revolt must seize the grids of expression and the powerhouses of the mind. Intelligence must become self-conscious, realize its own power, and, on a global scale, transcending functions that are no longer appropriate, dare to exercise it. History will not overthrow national governments; it will outflank them. The cultural revolt is the necessary underpinning, the passionate substructure of a new order of things. We have already rejected any idea of a frontal attack. Mind cannot withstand matter (brute force) in open battle. It is rather a question of perceiving clearly and without prejudice what are the forces that are at work in the world and out of whose interaction tomorrow MUST come to be; and then, calmly, without indignation, by a kind of mental ju-jitsu that is ours by virtue of intelligence, of modifying, correcting, polluting, deflecting, corrupting, eroding, outflanking inspiring what we might call THE INVISIBLE INSURRECTION. It will come on the mass of men, if it comes at all, not as something they have voted for, fought for, but like the changing season; they will find themselves in and stimulated by the SITUATION consciously at last to recreate it within and without as their own.(Fragments of the manifesto Towards a free revolutionary art by André Breton, Leon Trotsky, and Diego Riviera from 1938, and A revolutionary proposal: invisible insurrection of a million minds by Alexander Trocchi from 1963.)

The picture is Marilyn Monroe, of course, and equally important. Any revolution that fails to recognize Marilyn as an icon will have trouble holding my interest.

The secret words are By Any Means

UK UNDER WATER continued

Our pal Rich sends this email from the middle of it all…

“It seems whilst you swelter in LA, here in Blighty, or at least in Gloucestershire, Hereford and Worcestershire we have been deluged with rain and floods, the likes of which have never been seen before. Irony being that because the flooding was so bad it knocked out the main filtration plant that serves Gloucester city, Cheltenham and Tewkesbury as well as all areas in between. This means we've had no mains water for days, and are having to rely on water bowsers and bottled water distribution outlets. Basically about 150,000 households and 350,000 people without fresh water!

At first it was a bit of a novelty - sent home from work; some of the pubs still had water and were still open etc. but after nearly a week of no fresh water I think I've had enough. People are now vandalsing the water bowsers e.g. pissing in them, putting bleach in them etc. I'm surprised someone hasn't dosed any with LSD yet hahhahaha!

At the risk of appearing a bit crass, although this isn't on the same scale, even in our current situation, you do start to appreciate what the poor fuckers in a drought zone, or any war blighted area that's lost it's water supply must be going through. At least I can get the hell out of dodge today and drive twenty miles down the road to a friends and have a shower, and top up with fresh water!”

And in waters of a whole different kind…

ATTACK OF THE GIANT SQUID

“Ferocious, pack-feeding jumbo squid have invaded waters off California's central coast and are devouring local fish populations. Researchers say global warming and overfishing are likely to blame. Humboldt or jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) first appeared off Monterey, California during an El Niño event which warmed waters in 1997. Since 2002 they have taken up permanent residence.”

Which also would appear to conform to an emerging pattern of how when a part of the ocean become too damaged to support life as before – ie fish and aquatic mammals – the squid, jellyfish, and other invertibrates move in, in what seems to be the end of this sea as we knew it. (For more of the story and squid vid. via Valerie)

The secret word is Suckers

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

SATURDAY SEXISM

Ever since I first learned how to post pictures on Doc40, there has been an ongoing discussion about how I have a notable penchant for posting what some girl, one of the original and old school Doc 40 crew, disparagingly refers to as “cheesecake.” This first image would, I believe, certainly qualify as cheesecake, and the story the story set-up certainly plays to serious 20th century, Stepford-style objectification. On the other hand, I fucking love the art. It’s a great Wally Wood classic, the undisputed mega-star of EC and Mad, and, this being the cover of an EC Comic, there will, without doubt, be an evil twist, and the bald, bespectacled nerd will, no question, get his, and find that he’s some 1950s equivalent of a dickless alien and all the deep frozen hotties are of absolutely no use to him. That’s why the Comics Code was invented to put EC out of business. (About the same time as they jailed Chuck Berry and drafted Elvis.)

The set of images below are, however, are an entirely different matter.

J.K. ROWLING SWIMSUIT ISSUE

My mind boggles at state of the consciousness of the picture editor at the London’s tabloid Daily Mail apparently who dispatched a photographer with a telephoto lens to take bathing suit pictures of J. K. Rowling. Are they kidding me? J. K. Rowling! What the fuck is these fools problem? Rowling has created a series of books beloved by mega millions and made more money than Belgium, so does that mean she is fair game to be invasively photographed half dressed? And who wants to see this? What weirdoes are getting off behind this? For chrissakes, we have Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan for that kind if shit. (Except it seems to be driving them – when they’re not driving themselves – to coke and booze.) And if it’s valid, where the hell are the pictures of Tom Clancy or Dan Brown in a Speedo?

The secret word is Vicarious

I'M OSCAR AND YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO FIND ME ASLEEP AT THE FOOT OF YOUR BED.

And if you are the only person the planet not to have heard the story of Oscar the Kitty of Death, here’s the link. (From Valerie who does not seem to be getting email.)

Or, as HCB puts it – So elephants learn to avoid landmines and cats can sense death, where does that leave Paulie Walnuts?

Perhaps listening to Dick Dale and the Del-Tones?

The secret word is Roasting

(Assinine, but I couldn’t resist. It’s too hot to think tonight.)

THE VEEP FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

In the this week’s LA CityBeat I have a media column that examines why so many jokes are made and satirical bits done that have the basic premise the Dick Cheney is an alien.

(But enough with the jokes, why doesn’t Congress just get on and impeach the bastard?)
And talking of crazed tyrants…

WE LOVE YOU STALIN, OH YES WE DO!

And just to prove that the USA does not have a lock on historical irrationality, seems that the kids in Moscow think Uncle Joe was, well, you know, like…radical.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's youths admire Soviet dictator Josef Stalin -- who presided over the deaths of millions of people -- and want to kick immigrants out of Russia, according to a poll released on Wednesday. The poll, carried out by the Yuri Levada Centre, was presented by two U.S. academics who called it "The Putin Generation: the political views of Russia's youth". When asked if Stalin was a wise leader, half of the 1,802 respondents, aged from 16 to 19, agreed he was. "Fifty-four percent agreed that Stalin did more good than bad," said Theodore Gerber, a sociologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Forty-six percent disagreed with the statement that Stalin was a cruel tyrant." Stalin, who took over from Vladimir Lenin, built a system of terror and repression in which tens millions of people died or were killed. He died in 1953. (For the rest of the story.)

The secret word is Bolshevik

FRANK-ZAPPA-STRASSE

Frank Zappa is to have a street named after him in Berlin. The German city's Marzahn-Hellersdorf district board approved renaming 'Road 13' as 'Frank-Zappa-Strasse', the first street in Germany named for a rock musician. (Although for some unclear reason, Frank’s window Gail seems to have problems.) But negatives aside, here a video of Willie the Pimp to mark the occasion. (And chide Los Angeles for not doing the same.)

CRYPTIQUE – What’s the ugliest part of your body?

AARDARKS?

There comes a moment in this world after a combo of wine and vodka when there's nothing left except to reveal that the secret word is Aardvarks.

But this is a link to Brian who is blogging his way through pancreatic cancer. Put him on your mailing list for links and fun, okay? (See comment on the Bible "spoiler" post, just a scroll away.)

Unless you want to watch a weirdass rendition of TheSimpsons theme. Or some Les Paul and Mary Ford from OOSoul.

HOLY SHIT. THIS IS ENGLAND...

and so is this...

(Thanks Valerie)

UK UNDER WATER?

We’ve had so little detailed coverage out here about the disastrous weather in the UK, I still have to get my mind around it, and any firsthand reports and impressions would be very welcome because the US media are so fucking parochial. Munz did, however send over a report that contained a chilling paragraph.

“In April 1989 Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, gave her Cabinet a seminar on global warming at No 10 and one of the speakers was the scientist and green guru James Lovelock. A reporter asked him afterwards what would be the first signs of global warming. He replied: "Surprises." Asked to explain, he said: "The hurricane of October 1987 was a surprise, wasn't it? There'll be more." The floods of 2007 were a surprise as well, and if Dr Lovelock is right, there'll be more of them too. Welcome to the weather of the 21st century.”

WHEN CONSERVATIVES FEAR A POLICE STATE...

When the following words come from an old-line conservative like Paul Craig Roberts – a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan – I must confess, neighbors, I start to fret.
“Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran. Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future."
Click here for Roberts full column. (And thanks for the tip, Anne.)

The secret word is Reichstag

MR MOJO WRESTLING

“I’m dead, you moron.”

Quite by accident, because I don’t in anyway follow these things, I discovered that some wrestler formerly know as Johnny Nitro has changed his name to John Morrison and is doing some weirdass lizard king act. What’s with these fucking wrestlers with their steroids, homicide and psychosis? Is nothing neither sacred nor sufficiently profane?

SPOILER

(Donated by Miss Templeton)

FIRE UP THE JETS AND LET'S BLOW THIS FERSHLUGGINER PLANET!

Okay so we got through the weekend with Dick Cheney at the helm and we’re still here. (Or did some enterprising Colonel fix the Go Code and disconnect the button?) But then I read how, with the grimmest interpretation, Bush and Cheney have granted themselves the power to arrest and a seize the assets of any of us they don’t like, and no Democrat has said a fucking word -- in my hearing at least -- when they should be screaming bloody fascist murder, maybe its time to evacuate. Or do we, as always, stay and fight? And why does it always seem so much more bleak on Monday?

Or maybe the question of the day should be what kind of omen is a pink dolphin?

The secret word is Owl