A BRIEF HISTORY OF RABBIT EARS Part 1

Gloria Steinem wearing the classic Hefner-Rotwang BE Mk1

VIRTUAL APOCALYPSE

Ever wonder what might happen if a massive online-world game like World of Warcraft came to an end? This what went down with a game called Tabula Rasa. The online world was shut down in on Feb 28, 2009 when, hit by the hideous economy, it failed to attract enough subscribers to survive, but at least it went out with a bang.

“So many players got wind of the impending badass finale that the servers slowed down under the load. You got trippy time distortions, teleportation, and direct communications from the actual Creator. Some players tried to predict what exactly would happen when the event began, and where it might be focused. Some seemed to want closure, frantically attempting to obtain the final pieces of certain equipment sets or to finish uncovering all areas of the world. By the afternoon, the West Coast server Hydra was the last server standing. As more and more of its citizenry logged on for the last hurrah, and foreign players from dead servers poured in to squeeze a few more hours out of the game, it became increasingly congested, buggy, and lag-ridden. The intended scenario was indeed playing out not just in the game and the fiction but as a metagame: the active duty population swelled as humanity prepared to make its final stand.” (Click here for more)

THE MIND BOBBLES

This has to be the most absurd toy to be marketed this century.

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

A reality string becomes tangled aboard the alien space craft as it transits a brane, and Uncle Bill is less than happy with the result. The bubble helmet is too small. His leg hurts, and who the hell is the child wearing what are clearly a pair of original Rotwang rabbit ears?

SPACE OPERA

THE LAST SANE REPUBLICAN

This is Charlie Crist. He’s the governor of Florida, he has a hot wife, and is maybe the last sane Republican left standing as the Raving Looney Shotgun Hillbilly Jesus Party has their way with the rump of the GOP. Crist has a 66% approval rating in his state, and is now preparing to run for the Senate. He has broken with extreme right orthodoxy on the environment, and how to deal with the economy. To the horror of the Shotgun Hillbillies, he has even appeared with Barack Obama in support of the economic stimulus plan. Taking all this into account, it will be interesting to watch how swiftly he’s destroyed, or maybe forced to become a Democrat.

THE NEW FACE OF SPOCK

Star Trek (and therefore Spock) is always with us. It has been with us for all of my adult life. Even though it’s been a while since we had a new TV series, the current and heavily promoted movie keeps the franchise alive. Our pal Hipspinster has told us all (maybe more) that we need know about the movie. Click here.

The secret word is Ears
The secret message is 4c697665206c6f6e6720616e642070726f737065
722e

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

The designer of the Frozdick family’s rabbit ears was the notorious Dr. Rotwang who once made ears for Adolf Hitler. (See Monday)

THE CULMINATION OF A VERY BAD IDEA

THE FALL OF MISS CALIFORNIA

There’s little to beat the satisfaction of watching the enemy fuck up, especially when the fuck up is all down to the enemy’s own rank stupidity. Thus the case of the born again, but increasingly disgraced Miss California, Carrie Prejean, makes me exceedingly happy. Okay, so you want to insert a wingnut ringer into a major beauty pageant so she can spout homophobia every chance she gets. The trick is to make damned sure that your ringer is on solid ground with all of the pageant rules and regulations, and maybe even send in some mean and burly, Robert Mitchum-looking continental op to make damn sure the dingy broad hasn’t been contravening said rules by posing topless or participating in any other forms of porn, and getting gestapo intense on her ass if she doesn’t check out. I mean, isn’t all this cloak and Uzi stuff what fascists find fun? But, as John Belushi used to put it, no. The fools pick this Prejean idiot to be their shill and she’s hung out to dry in a matter of days on the strength of half a breast and a pair of pink panties. And then, just to cement the absurdity, Ms Prejean spouts the following Pentecostal psychobabble when confronted with her past.
“I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, ‘Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people ... you need to witness to them and you need to show that you’re not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA.’ And I knew right here that it wasn’t about winning. It was about being true to my convictions.”
The Raving Looney Shotgun Hillbilly Jesus Party advances to oblivion.

The secret word is Implant
The secret message is 41206c6f6e67207269666c652c20612074616c6c
206275696c64696e672c20616e64206120666966
7468206f66204a61636b2044616e69656c73

THOUSAND-HAND GUAN YIN

As a departure from out usual pervert cynicism, click here for something that’s simply nice. (And nicer when you’re high.) Supplied by Marjorie, who passes on the startling information that “all 21 of the dancers are complete deaf-mutes, relying only on signals from trainers at the four corners of the stage.”

John Michell --RIP

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 55

We haven't done this in while but who could resist "new frontiers of lust" or "deviate desires"?

DEATH OF JOURNALISM (continued)

Following on from Friday’s post, here’s what Frank Rich wrote about the death of journalism in yesterday’s New York Times. I would note, however, that Frank still has a job and a paper to give him one, and maybe that’s why he soft-pedals the idiocy of management…

“IF you wanted to pick the moment when the American news business went on suicide watch, it was almost exactly three years ago. That’s when Stephen Colbert, appearing at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, delivered a monologue accusing his hosts of being stenographers who had, in essence, let the Bush White House get away with murder (or at least the war in Iraq). To prove the point, the partying journalists in the Washington Hilton ballroom could be seen fawning over government potentates — in some cases the very “sources” who had fed all those fictional sightings of Saddam Hussein’s W.M.D.

“Colbert’s routine did not kill. The Washington Post reported that it “fell flat.” The Times initially did not even mention it. But to the Beltway’s bafflement, Colbert’s riff, went viral overnight ultimately to have a marathon run as the most popular video on iTunes. The cultural disconnect between the journalism establishment and the public it aspires to serve could not have been more vividly dramatized.
“The bad news about the news business has accelerated ever since. Newspaper circulations and revenues are in free fall. Legendary brands from The Los Angeles Times to The Philadelphia Inquirer are teetering. The New York Times Company threatened to close The Boston Globe if its employees didn’t make substantial sacrifices in salaries and benefits. Other papers died. The reporting ranks on network and local news alike are shriveling. You know it’s bad when the Senate is moved, as it was last week, to weigh in with hearings on “The Future of Journalism.” (Click here for more)

The secret word is Obsolete

MONDAY MOVIES

For a start, here’s the full version of Barack Obama’s address at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Despite yesterday’s debate, I can’t help but like the guy. He’s gotta be the funniest president since Jack Kennedy. Click here.

And click here for the Stephen Colbert appearance at the same dinner three years ago. (See above)

Click here for a German banking commercial that maybe says more than it intended. (Supplied by Noudela)

Click here for Rock Hudson and Bea Arthur singing “Everybody Today Is Turning On” (Supplied by HCB)

And, finally, click here for the trailer to the highly steampunk movie “9”

EVEN ADOLF HAD HIS LIGHTER SIDE

Two images of Hitler since Friday? People will call us the History Channel.

SUNDAY MORNING

For some deep and atavistic reason, Sundays, more than any other seventh part of the week, make me think about breakfast. At other times, I have posted images of fried eggs, sausages, bacon, tomatoes, and heaven only knows what else straight from the hot grease. This image is not quite the same thing. I guess I posted it for the aesthetics, as I am most unlikely ever to breakfast on grapes, rice cakes(?), and a glass of milk. But, then again, the young lady is equally unlikely to sit upon my table.

The secret word is Grapefruit

POT AND THE PRESIDENT

The following arrived from our pal Roldo…

“I find myself moved to explain to you why I've absented myself from the Doc40 club lest any misunderstanding cast a shadow on any future crossing of paths.
Fact is I totally disagree with you on two most salient points - which doesn't mean I think you're wrong! shit, I've found myself wearing my sphincter for a collar too many times to fall into that but I do see these two scenes quite the opposite to your view.
The really important one is the legalization of Marijuana, which I think would be the worst possible disaster. I'll attach a blog I wrote under one of my many altered-egos in case you're interested in my take on that subject.
My primary disagreement with your stance is the idea that the taxes from Pot would be used to cure economic ills whereas I figure they'd far more likely go buy more bombs for the War On Whatever and pepper-spray for the folks at home.
The second thing is Obama. Man, I just can't buy his act. Everything about this guy screams of the grifter. I'd love to trust him...people I admire and respect trust him - you. Ed Sanders, lots of others...but I just can't.
So I split Doc 40 'cause it seemed impolite to argue with you in your own house as t'were - its your blog site, not a forum - and since these are matters dear to my Head, I figured best if I remove me... like it says in the Texts, "One should never be where one does not belong". But don't, please, take this as any animosity towards you personally. Fuck - I genuinely hope you're right.”

After Faux Smoke’s input of yesterday it does seem like it’s forum time at Doc40, and that’s how it should be. Debate is always better than a soapbox. It also saddens me that our good friend Roldo should feel he needs absent himself from the general fun because he disagrees with some of the positions I adopt.
As to trusting Barack Obama, I have to say again that the brevity of a blog does allow the essay that I probably need to write about my reservations about Obama, but also his basic strengths that I sensed as early as the 2004 Democratic Convention. I can only reply that, first and foremost, Barack Obama is a politician, a lawyer, and a capitalist, and I have lived far too long in this wicked world to thrust any single part of that particular combo. On the other hand, I would have unreservedly supported Jack the Ripper if I thought he had a chance of unseating the asinine evil of Bush-Cheney and would prevent it being perpetuated by the blundering McCain and the idiot-psychotic Palin.
Trust is an odd concept. Would I trust (say) Bob Dylan, Miles Davis or Keith Richard? I’ve always trusted them to play the music and keep me entertained. But that’s the limit of it. In the same way, I trust Obama to attempt to clear up the mess left by blind cowboy madness of George Bush. My expectations are limited, but as long as he doesn’t seriously let me down, he will have my support. He is not a socialist or a revolutionary. I don’t expect him to be either. After the last eight years, an adequate and intelligent president will be more than enough.
I don’t perceive the aura of the hustler, but maybe Roldo has seen something I haven’t. Barack Obama is the product of democracy. As a process for selecting leaders, democracy is certainly better than the right of inheritance, or simply slaughtering all your rivals to power. And democracy is a popularity poll, and Americans apparently like their leaders with a certain trace of the hustler and the used car dealer. Maybe I’m naïve, but if Obama is the ultimate grifter, my hopes are still he’s grifting for us.

The question about marijuana is more complicated. I may be overly hopeful, but I feel that dope is closer to becoming legal right now than it has ever been in my lifetime. I sense the nation is undergoing a long overdue sea change. Gay marriage is suddenly happening, almost without comment, one state at a time, and pot could easily go the same route, while an Obama-led Fed looked the other way. If such is the case, though, we have to face some hard realities. Legal marijuana is a very cheap crop to produce. Prices running to hundreds of bucks an ounce are the product of illegality. Legalization could cut prices by as much as 90% and I’m sure there are growers in Humboldt and BC who would hate to see that happen.
I support legalization and taxation – while far from perfect – as the best chance of maintaining some kind of level playing field for both consumer and supplier – and maybe doing something positive for all the victims of prohibition and the War on Drugs. I would fight like a maniac to keep Pfizer or RJR from taking over the dope supply, but, at the same time, I have major misgiving about some nebulous condition of decriminalization, which seems tailor-made for racketeering and abuse. I’d like to see dope treated as a commodity no different from gin or gasoline (which are both taxed and regulated), and if those taxes go to military industrial repression, it’s a citizens responsibility to stand up and scream. I could, of course be wrong, but, hell, if legal dope doesn’t work out we can always turn to weed bootleggers without losing a damned thing.
So come back Roldo. Argument is strength.

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

Clint in his Bruce Weber period.

THE PRINTED WORD WILL BECOME THE DOMAIN OF PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO READ THE PRINTED WORD

Our pal Faux Smoke writes, “What's your take on all this e-reader/e-book business of late? Think it'll be the item that saves an industry, or just is all of this just a marketing tactic?" (Click here for a really dumb puff piece on the Kindle.)

My reply has to be that I don’t believe that the Kindle or any similar device will save book, newspaper, and magazine publishing as so many desperately hope. The e-book has never caught the public imagination and I feel it’s highly unlikely this will be changed, even by more evolved user-friendly hardware. The truth is that books have a special affinity for those who read them. They not only have a total functionality, but a unique warmth -- a smell even -- that cannot be replaced by a machine. A book also fills the very important need for collectable objects that reflect the owner’s tastes, ideas, and personality. In the necessary brevity of a blog, I can’t reason the case at the maybe needed length. All I can say is look to the rise of vinyl audio in the age the mp3 by way of a model.
Much of the problem in book publishing is rooted in the cowardice and stupidity that has increasingly gripped the mass publishing industry. Hundreds of viable authors have been dropped, while multi-million dollar advances were handed out to literary nonentities like Sarah’s Silverman and Palin (and OJ bloody Simpson.) The corporate thrust has been to sell books to the illiterate, avoiding the real truth that mass publishing (with the exception of the occasional big score like Harry Potter) is mutating into a highly plural, boutique business. Major publishers have also traditionally been the bankers of literature, who provide the capital so authors can write the books and -- like the actual banks -- they are now failing in that function.
Newspapers and magazines are also suffering from their own management failures, despite how much they bleat about being ruined by the internet. They have a huge internet readership but are unable to create a business model that can capitalize on it. They have done nothing to address the almost total loss of revenue from classified advertising caused by Craig’s List, and, worst of all, they have failed to cater to their loyal core of readers by dumbing down content, reducing it to sound-bite sized idiocy, and failing to recognize that city-centric papers are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. They cut the pay of the trivial, but lay off the profound.
I could go on for pages about all this, especially how I grieve for the destruction of the alternative press that I help to create forty-some years ago. Just take this as a first salvo to which we will have to return.
Faux Smoke ends his letter – “Hope for a sequel in the Renquist quartet sooner than later? Sooner? Please say the word is good... or tell me who I need to start sending death threats to.” My answer is that the word is currently not good. Another freak LA heat wave makes it hard to be an optimist and, as I sweat, I wonder if I am unemployable, if I’ll even survive. But, damn it, I continue to write. I’ll work on a list of worthy candidates for death threats.

The secret word is Evolution

DOWD?

You wanna read some Maureen Dowd while the New York Times is still around? Lately I’ve been kinda off Ms. Dowd. She’s been too much at odds with my beliefs and tastes, and feuding with people I tend to go along with, but this column is kinda fun. Click here

SPACE OPERA

Supplied by Valerie. They call them Starbucks.

MORE CROWS

These are by the late lamented Edward Barker

THE CROWS HAVE IT

Here at Doc40 we have a special affinity with crows. Dr. Crow is our logo, and crows rule the wildlife on the street where we live. I am well aware that they are expert tool-users, and have often noticed the local crow crew giving me a look that indicated the food chain might well be differently linked if the black birds only had opposable thumbs. Now Aeswiren sends us this report that confirms many of our suspicions and even a few of our paranoias.

"In the past, people thought birds were stupid," laments the aptly named scientist Christopher Bird. But in fact, some of our feathered friends are far cleverer than we might think. And one group in particular - the corvids - has astonished scientists with extraordinary feats of memory, an ability to employ complex social reasoning and, perhaps most strikingly, a remarkable aptitude for crafting and using tools.
Mr. Bird, who is based at the department of zoology at Cambridge University, says: "I would rate corvids as being as intelligent as primates in many ways."
The corvids - a group that includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays and magpies - contain some of the most social species of birds.” (Click here for more and some fairly amazing videos)

The secret word is Tweet
The secret message is 54686520626972642069732074686520776f7264

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

Aboard the alien spacecraft, Uncle Bill reads his Manifesto to the Cosmos.

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

(Lifted from No Smoking In The Skull Cave)

NOW EAR THIS

In a new book, Van Goghs Ohr: Paul Gauguin und der Pakt des Schweigens (Van Gogh's ear: Paul Gauguin and The Pact of Silence), German scientists Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans tell the story of what happened when Vincent lost his ear Christmas Eve 1888 in the French city of Arles. According to the official version, the Dutch painter cut off his own ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Van Gogh then walked into a brothel and presented the severed ear to a prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep. But, after ten years of research, the scientists say they are sure it was painter Paul Gauguin who cut off his friend and colleague's ear after a fight. (Click here for more)

The secret word is Slice

"But we're already dead, you dig? Now we can do any damn thing we like, and totally get away with it."

Pic lifted from Tom Sutpen

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? (Leave those buffalo alone)

Another emergency message has come in from Francis at the NRDC…

“Right now, newborn wild bison -- better known as buffalo -- are grazing under their mothers' watchful eyes on the lush Horse Butte peninsula near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. But on May 15, this pastoral scene could turn ugly if the government begins hazing the buffalo back into the park with helicopters, horses and ATVs, as they did last year at this time. If this operation proceeds, some buffalo could die, including young calves and pregnant cows. Please speak out immediately to stop the government's annual hazing operation.This wildlife tragedy replays almost every year on Horse Butte -- a birthing ground for the buffalo. First, a helicopter invades the stillness, circling low to scare wild buffalo out of the woods, so that government agents on ATVs and horses can chase them back to Yellowstone. With no time to rest or nurse during this relentless chase, some calves collapse and even die of exhaustion before ever reaching their grazing grounds deep within the park. The saddest part? This senseless tragedy is unnecessary. The justification for hazing and killing buffalo is that they could spread the disease brucellosis to domestic cattle. That is why buffalo are generally not welcome outside Yellowstone Park in Montana -- and why thousands have been slaughtered or hazed back into the park in recent years. But the fact is, there has never been a documented case of brucellosis transmission from buffalo to cattle in the wild. More to the point, there are no cattle at all on Horse Butte, so there is absolutely no reason to haze and endanger Yellowstone's wild buffalo. So please, help us give newborn buffalo a better chance at survival this spring. As living links to the great herds that once thundered across America's plains, Yellowstone's buffalo are a national treasure. Please join me in urging our government to protect them -- instead of subjecting them to needless suffering. Tell the Secretary of Agriculture to intervene right away and prevent the hazing of wild buffalo in the weeks ahead.” Click here to register your protest.

THE ADVENTURES OF MARILYN (Part 401k)

In which Marilyn, in a rare quiet moment, reflects on all that has been lost and the little that has been gained in the absurd and endless conflict between Apollonians and Dionysian, and how she had never wanted to be involved in the first place. With a grim and weary smile, she wonders how long she can confront the fray and the mountain of problems that are none of her making, and still operate in the fragmented disorientation of a non-linear multiverse, with its Howdy drops and wormholes, its glittering nothings and towering green Martians, its clear and constant dangers, its anomalies and paradoxes, its lost tribes and extinct species, its strings and complex membranes, idiot authorities and absence of orgasm, and its vast quadrants of damaged Earth realities, all plunging to the random and insectoid oblivion of the Nineteen Ways. Marilyn sighs deeply. Why does she even have to know about all this? Why is she even aware of the Nineteen Ways? She reaches for the Nembutal.

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

SPACE OPERA (Wanna buy a used Viper?)

NBC/Universal is auctioning an actual full size Mark VII Viper Raptor fighter ship used in Battlestar Galactica. Also up for sale? A full size Raptor that has a “full, functional interior with light-up panels and monitors throughout...” Or so reads eBay's enthusiastic description of the 30-foot ship. After 43 bids, the price was $28,100.00 -- but this didn't meet the auction's reserve, which means it's still up for grabs at a "live" auction beginning May 8 in Pasadena. (Click for more)

The secret word is Frack

The secret message 5365656b20796f7572206c6f7374207472696265
2e

POT SUCKERS FOR SWINE FLU

Today is something of a grab bag. Too much on my plate to pontificate or even imagine too hard. Munz sent this over, and, although I figure it’s more of a PR stunt than anything else (and also having certain reservations about the medical marijuana movement in that there are times when it seems as much a loophole for the well-heeled stoner as a step to recreational sanity) I’d post it anyway out of a general will to subversion.

“Cannabis Science Inc., an emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company, reported today on the current state of development of its whole-cannabis lozenge in response to Homeland Security Administration Secretary Janet Napolitano's declaration of a public health emergency to deal with the emerging Swine Flu pandemic. The Company's non-toxic lozenge has properties that could alleviate many of the symptoms and harmful effects of the H5N1 bird flu and H1N1 swine flu viruses, and has offered its assistance to HSA today in a letter to Secretary Napolitano. The Company has offered to produce up to 1 million doses of its whole-cannabis lozenge, and provide them to HSA for distribution at cost. Cannabis Science Inc., President & CEO, Steven W. Kubby said, "We have the science and preliminary anecdotal results confirming the anti-inflammatory properties of our new lozenges and indicating they may present an effective and non-toxic treatment for minimizing the symptoms and harm from influenza infections.” (Click here for more)

The secret word is Linkage

The secret message is 4120626f6f6b2069732061206c6f616465642067
756e20696e2074686520686f757365206e657874
20646f6f722e

TRIVIAL PURSUIT

Stephen Saban is my old time homeboy from the SoHo Weekly News. He’s now editing a website called World of Wonder. If you like New York-style style trivial gossip that comes at you like it was really fucking important just click here.

Valerie has also hooked me up with a blog called Violet Planet which is just about the diametric opposite to World of Wonder but should checked out by clicking here.

EL TOPO

And finally Sea Urchin Ben has sent us the original 1970s trailer for Alejandro Jodorowski’s El Topo. Click here.

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

CARS VANISH...

Aeswiren sent us the following…

“Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance. She created the illusion in the car park outside her studio at Uclan's Hanover Building in Preston. The car is now being used for advertising by the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle. Ms Watson, a second year student, said: "I was experimenting with the whole concept of illusion but needed something a bit more physical to make a real impact." She was given the Skoda Fabia from the breaker's yard at local firm Recycling Lives. Owner Steve Jackson described her work as "amazing". "When I first saw the photos I was convinced it was something which had been done on the computer," said Mr Jackson. “But when you look more closely you see the effort and attention to detail she has put into it. It is just amazing."

...AND PARROTS DANCE

Both Aeswiren and Valerie flagged this story of avian hepcats…

"People aren't the only ones who've got rhythm. Two reports published online on April 30th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveal that birds – and parrots in particular – can also bob their heads, tap their feet, and sway their bodies along to a musical beat. The findings show that a very basic aspect of the human response to music is shared with other species, according to the researchers. "We've discovered a cockatoo [named Snowball] that dances to the beat of human music," said Aniruddh Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, lead author of one of the studies. "Using a controlled experiment, we've shown that if the music speeds up or slows down across a wide range, he adjusts the tempo of his dancing to stay synchronized to the beat." One of Snowball's favorite dancing tunes is none other than the Backstreet Boys' "Everybody." (Click here for more and click here for more plus videos)

The secret word is Cracker

SPACE OPERA

“In space no one can hear you squeal.”

And if the above is too sexist for ya, click here for an ancient episode of Space Patrol sent by Wendy..

BIG BROTHER IN CYBERSPACE

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

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

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

Tom McGrath – RIP

FACECRIME

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

A BAG OF WEED

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

MAYDAY

YESTERDAY...

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

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

The secret word is Lost

The message is 5768656e20746865206d75736963e2809973206f
7665722c207475726e206f757420746865206c69
6768742e

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG

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

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

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

MORE TALES OF ARLEN SPECTER (but Elvis?)

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

The secret word is Flummoxed

The secret message is 4e6f206f6e6520686572652067657473206f7574
20616c697665

OUR WHACKY UNCLE BILL

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

SPECTER’S MAGIC BULLET

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

The secret word is Labyrinth

The secret message 506172616e6f696120737472696b657320646565
702e20

HELP ME! I’M THREATENED!

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

Dear Mick,

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

Sincerely,Frances Beinecke

President Natural Resources Defense Council

Click here to send your protest