No one in the media has so far commented, or even seems to have noticed, but, at one point in the last Presidential debate, Bush attempted to blame the underestimates of troop numbers going into Iraq on his generals. Always dangerous for a CinC to blame failures on the generals. They tend to get pissed off and stage a coupe. I also recall that Hitler did much the same before he shot himself in the bunker. (Along with Eva and the dog Blondi.)

Attempts to characterize the recent Florida hurricane rampage as a meterological flook is kinda negated by the fact that the very same thing is happening in Japan with typhoon after typhoon slamming into Tokyo.

The debates in Photoshop (from fidicen)
http://www.youforgotpoland.com/

The secret word is Woof

CRYPTIQUE -- Sell the car to Little Richard.

Americans seem somewhat upset that the English have screwed up their flu vacine. Did I understand correctly that the problem was at a factory in Liverpool? Payback, at long last, for John Lennon, perhaps?

In the review below, I especially love the phrase "zany yet brutal".

When the workers aren’t paid enough also to be consumers, capitalism screws the pooch and the game is over.

EGO EGO EGO
While googling myself to prove I was really real, I came across the following very cool review of The Renquist Quartet by bookslut. I shamelessly pass it on because I am extremely fond of my vampires and would love for them to find a wider audience. They were a little – as they call it – underpublished.

From http://www.bookslut.com/
The final vampire series worth checking out is Mick Farren's Renquist Quartet (which includes The Time of Feasting, Darklost, More Than Mortal, and Underland). Farren, a former rock journalist known for psychedelic sci-fi novels, started the series off with a mostly mainstream horror story of a colony of New York vampires thrown into disarray by internal politics and external hunters. However, with the second book, the series took a turn for the bizarre that had only been hinted at previously, as Farren established vampires (and most other supernatural creatures) as being the result of long-ago alien experimentation on earth. Had he taken the theory too seriously, the books would have come across typical cheesy sci-fi (or a late-series X-Files episode). But since Farren pervades the series with a sense of fun (while never letting the characters themselves be utterly serious about the world in which they live), we end up with a zany yet brutal world in which alien vampires mingle with ancient wizards, in which a vampiric Kurt Cobain and Lovecraft's Cthulhu can be found, and in which Nazi Mole Men and UFOs square off against secret US government immortality projects. At the core, though, the novels are still about Renquist and his crew of vampires as they travel the globe and try to make sense of the insanity. Farren's quartet manages to be a hoot, without ever tripping too far into the "humorous" side of the humorous horror realm.

BITCH BITCH BITCH
And on the subject of reviews of vampire novels, Anne Rice has posted a unbelievably demented defense of herself and her vampires on Amazon, explaining at undignified length how she hasn’t jumped the shark, and apparently blaming a lot of it on her readers. (Unless it’s revealed as a cruel and unusual hoax.) Excerpts...

First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it.

You are projecting your own limitations on it. And this book is most certainly written -- every word of it -- by me. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it. And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art.

If this reaches one reader who is curious about my work and shocked by the ugly reviews here, I've served my goals. And Yo, you dude, the slang police! Lestat talks like I do. He always has and he always will. You really wouldn't much like being around either one of us. And you don't have to be. If any of you want to say anything about all this by all means Email me at Anneobrienrice@mac.com. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 1239 First Street, New Orleans, La, 70130. I'm not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more! Thank God!

For the whole tirade go to http://www.amazon.com/ , dial up her new(ish) book The Blood Canticle, and scroll down the reader reviews.

QUOTE TO THE DAY
I still love Maureen Dowd – even though one of Doc’s lady admirers has laughingly threatened to "scratch that redheaded bitch's eyes out!"
"Senator Kerry evoked the voice of Bush 41 to get under 43's thin skin. The more Mr. Kerry played the square, proper, moderate, internationalist war hero, the more the president was reduced to childish scowling and fidgeting, acting like a naughty little boy who refuses to sit in his seat and eat his spinach and do all the hard things a parent wants you to do."

LINKS
Our dazzling pal hipspinster has been out on the razzle...
http://hipspinster.blogspot.com/

And try this. It’s really worth the effort.
http://wearabledissent.com/101/floridaballot.html

CRYPTIQUE – He’s drunk!

The secret word is Ovoid

Last night during the VP Smackdown, Darth Cheney defended Haliburton by telling viewers to go to factcheck.com to read all about his former company’s philanthropic innocence. I recommend you try it, but actually type the URL into your browser or the hilarity will not ensue.

DESTROY ALL NEIGHBORS
I wrote the following book review for LA CityBeat, but since it was to small to make the website, I thought it’d share, now the issue is off the stands....
Ever had the urge to annihilate the individual next door who is loudly and ineptly learning an electric instrument or insists on playing bass-heavy post-Soviet disco at pain-threshold volume? Has anger reached the level were simple homicide will not suffice and you feel the need to level the entire building in which the culprit lives? Or did you just find those catapults in Return of The King just too cool? Either way, author William Gurstelle has the book for you. In The Art of The Catapult, he not only chronicles the plus two millennia history of catapult technology – along with notes on siege tactics, and the use of poisonous snakes and severed human heads as projectiles – but provides detailed DIY instructions to build your very own, environment-friendly, boulder hurling engine of death. Fancy a Macedonian ballista? A Roman onager? Or a reconstruction of the big English trebuchet nicknamed Ludgar the War Wolf? All are yours to command provided you can muster a minimal skill with sharp and heavy tools, protective eyewear, and all the other stuff beloved by Homer Simpson. Just observe the important swinging arm and flying object alerts in the diagrams and be the first on your block with artillery! Gurstelle’s plans are for scale models, but one can, of course, multiply.
Art of The Catapult by William Gurstelle (Chicago Review Press, $14.95)

MY TV TOLD ME
Seemingly London bookies are now giving odds on which Simpsons character will come out in the new year. Favorite at 5-2 is Waylon Smithers.

CRYPTIQUE – Which format do you prefer?

The secret word is Clamp

RODNEY DANGERFIELD RIP (Respect)

NOTES ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Yesterday another hospital emergency room closed in Los Angeles. Since the late eighties, Southern California had lost sixteen emergency or trauma facilities. Only eleven remain. The cited reason is that hospitals are mandated by state law to provide emergency treatment to all who seek it, regardless of whether they can pay or not. Thus the problem is deemed to be the fault of the poor, the indigent, the homeless, and the illegal. Whether LA, a clear target for potential terrorist action now has the needed medical facilities to cope with such an event, or a major earthquake, or another urban uprising is highly debatable. In the War on Terror, funds are available to create a police state, or contract for a Haliburton-imperial, top dollar war of conquests, but we must not mention healthcare. Such talk hints at socialism and endangers the profit margins of inequality.

RALPH
To ensure he doesn’t wipe out all trace of his highly creditable history, Ralph Nader really has to stand down right now with all dignity, or risk being chronicled as the looney spoiler of 2004, and maybe much worse.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." – President John F. Kennedy

War Is A Racket
http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
["if you've never read this masterwork, do yourself a favor" – People’s Daily Briefing]

And now take the Patriot Pledge
http://yesbushcan.com/pledge.shtml

CRYPTIQUE – No blindfold!

The secret word is Casualty

MONDAY AFTERNOON
Having slept, now I wander in a haze muttering to myself that I have so much to do, I have no idea where to start, and should maybe go back to bed because Mt. St. Helens will explode triggering massive earthquakes, death and apocalypse. (I can contrive really massive excuses to go back to bed.) But here, in the very act of writing this, I have broken the deadlock of creative sloth and the day begins.

Yesterday was the 40th birthday of Underdog. Tomorrow is the 102nd birthday of Larry Fein of The Three Stooges, or it would be if he wasn’t dead.

And take a listen to "Fortunate Son" by Creedence. The relevance is eerie.
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
Ooh, they point the cannon at you,
Lord, It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,

Yeah! Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.

Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one.

****************
JANET LEIGH RIP
****************

CRYPTIQUE – Just walking around to save funeral expenses.

The secret word is Duck

I thought I should make a brief post so you would not all think I had wandered off again. I have spent some of the last few days with the Felix Dennis, Glass Half Full Poetry Tour, and Felix can not only stage a reading, but put on a hell of an expansive lunch.

But as it’s still Sunday, because I haven’t gone to bed yet, here’s a segment of a story from The New Republic – WHY BUSH DOESN’T GO TO CHURCH by Amy Sullivan

But, even if Bush had the time for church services, supporters protest, the security precautions necessary for a presidential visit would drive congregants away. This is the exact same argument the Reagan White House trotted out to explain why the patron saint of the religious right hardly ever attended church from 1981 to 1989. Bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, and security personnel, so the theory goes, would pose an onerous burden for the average church. "The president wants to avoid the sort of major weekly disruption that would be caused if he went to church," says David Aikman, author of A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush." As it happens, I attended Foundry United Methodist Church for several years during the late '90s when the Clintons were members there. The only imposition was the extra ten seconds it took to walk through a metal detector. Parishioners did not leave the church in droves; on the contrary, many were pleasantly surprised to find that the Clintons played an active role in church life, particularly while Chelsea was involved in the choir and youth group.
Full story – http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=vKO1twmWG2Uvnyi2qoWQfW%3D%3D

The secret word is Effluvia

DEE BATE

I watched the Bush/Kerry debate -- twice in fact, once as it happened, and again when I got back from Felix’s wine and poetry fest at the Knitting Factory. Thus I saw it one time sober and one time a little drunk, and laughed my ass off each time as Bush fumbled, stumbled, pouted, took on that now almost trademark deer-in-the-headlights expression, and repeatedly whined (nine times?) that it was hard work? Which seemed kinda rich coming from the man who has taken more vacations than any US president in history.
Yeah, if we have to score the thing like a prizefight, I figure Kerry smote Bush and the only real question is to whether it was a mighty smiting or just a regular smiting. The bout certainly seemed to define the choice for President is between a patrician college professor and an ankle-bitting Bluto.

JACK
But on to the more important stuff, because the inquiring Doc wants to know why Jack Daniels is reducing the alcohol content in Old #7 from 86 proof to a mere 80 proof?

GENE
Gene Vincent was a great lover of Jack Daniels, and, indeed, pretty much anything with an alcohol with, just possibly, the exception of anti-freeze, and if you want to read an except from my fabulous new book about him – http://www.thedonotpress.com/extracts/geneex.html

And on the subject of books and booze, a new book (not mine) on absinth is about to hit the stores (intelligence from fidicen) – http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/3747.htm

FUNDAMENTALIST FOLLIES
How many of you are up to speed on Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). Brownback, even by my expansive standards, is verily weird. He lives rent free in a Christian commune in Washington with the rent paid by some obscure cult, and is the avowed foe of indecency, abortion, Howard Stern, and probably me, if he knew about me. Read an account of Brownback in Neanderthal on the subject of stem cell research. – http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65144,00.html


RICHARD AVEDON RIP


CRYPTIQUE – The dog has met the frog. (This is one for the decoder ring.)

The secret word is Sluggo

THE DRAFT
I have a piece this week in LA CityBeat on the rumors that George Bush is planning to reinstitute the draft. (But an edit killed a neat fantasy – seeing that women will be drafted – of an Elvis-style media event when Paris Hilton arrives at Parris Island for induction.)
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1270&IssueNum=69

TWO QUOTES FROM GEORGE SOROS
I realize that what I am saying is bound to be unpopular. We are in the grip of a collective misconception induced by the trauma of 9/11, and fostered by the Bush administration. No politician could say it and hope to get elected. That is why I feel obliged to speak out. There is a widespread belief that President Bush is making us safe. The opposite is true. President Bush failed to finish off bin Laden when he was cornered in Afghanistan because he was gearing up to attack Iraq. And the invasion of Iraq bred more people willing to risk their lives against Americans than we are able to kill - generating the vicious circle I am talking about.

The Bush campaign is trying to put a favorable spin on it, but the situation in Iraq is dire. Much of the Western part of the country has been ceded to the insurgents. Even the so-called Green Zone (a small enclave in the center of Baghdad where Americans live and work) is subject to mortar attacks. The prospects of holding free and fair elections in January are fast receding and civil war looms. President Bush received a somber intelligence evaluation in July but he has kept it under wraps and failed to level with the electorate.
For the whole story... http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0928-16.htm

AND FROM WILLIAM SHIRER (author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers.

Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were.

LINKS...
Got Milk or got tequila?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0929043limeade1.html

And God’s back. Creationists in pseudo-scientific drag
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

THE SQUID
The squid may be as smart as me
Enough to never leave the sea

THEM WACKY SPEEDFREAKS
Doc40 congratulates Steven K. Konopatzke who attempted to board a commercial airliner with the components of his meth lab in a carry-on bag. On the other hand, we might not buy his speed.

CRYPTIQUE – Verily I say unto you.

Verily I say unto you, let's all start using the word verily.

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS (oh, say it isn’t so)
My informants inform me that, in addition to the discovery of a further twelve hours of sex tapes featuring Paris Hilton and various partners (dare we hope for domestic animals?) Ms. Hilton is also attempting to make the phrase "that’s hot" her legal copyright after which the rest of us English speaking mortals will have to pay her a royalty for the use of these two words. Although it’s not the greatest of the my fury-provoking preoccupations, I must confess I’m not only becoming burned out of the seemingly endless antics of this woman, but also this trend to stake out ownership on bits of the language, which strikes me as the linguistic equivalent of a wild west land grab. Maybe I should copyright the phrase "Fuck off and die"?

XMAS ZEP
And if I did the above, would I make enough on the deal to buy the 12-seater personal Zeppelin feature in the 2004 Neiman Marcus Christmas Book with a pricetag of $10 million? Now that's hot. Right, Paris?

NUTSHELL ON GWB
To be both megalomaniac and feeble minded is infinitely possible.

TWO QUOTES FROM TED KENNEDY
"The President's handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology."
"I thank God that President Bush was not our President at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis."

For the full speech – http://kennedy.senate.gov/GWspeech.txt

CRYPTIQUE – Fuck ‘em if they can’t cast a vote.

WHILE FLORIDA TURNS BIBLICAL AND DESPITE WHAT JEB BUSH MIGHT SAY...
(From a British diplomatic website)
Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism", the British government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King said the US had failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and without immediate action flooding, drought, hunger and debilitating diseases such as malaria would hit millions of people around the world. US President George Bush says more research is needed before he introduces punitive carbon taxes on industry. But Sir David criticised the Bush administration for relying too exclusively on market-based incentives and voluntary actions. "Climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today."

The icecaps are melting
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65067,00.html

"You could hear things going by like missiles. I got a little scared when the tractor-trailer was blown across the parking lot." – Diana Corbett, on Hurricane Jeanne (from NY Times)

LINK
The privatized war – long, but a real eye-opener.
http://harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

A THOUGHT OCCURRED TO ME
Remember when Oprah gave away all those free cars to her audience, and then they discovered they all had to pay the IRS about seven grand before they could take the cars home? I started to wonder if, when celebs show up at corporately sponsored parties, and are given $20,000-worth of gift bag for their trouble, do they have to pay tax on those goodies. I somehow doubt it, but why the fuck not?

QUOTE OF THE DAY FROM EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO
"A year from now I'd be surprised if there's not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." – Richard Perle

CRYPTIQUE – Three and a half minutes without air and your brain starts to die.

THE MORE IT CHANGES, THE MORE IT STAYS THE SAME
What’s the French for the above and did Marcel Proust say it? Damned if I know. Thirty nine or whatever years ago this was a lousy song at the commercial ass-end of protest folk rock. Funny how it resonates here in the Era of the Dumb. (Lyrics courtesy of Mr MR)

Eve Of Destruction
by Barry McGuire

The eastern world, it is explodin'.
Violence flarin', bullets loadin'
You're old enough to kill, but not for votin'
You don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin'
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say
Can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away
There'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boyIt's bound to scare you boy
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction.

Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'
I'm sitting here just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don't pass legislation
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve
Of destruction.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it's the same old place
The poundin' of the drum, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace
And tell me
Over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don't believe
We're on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction.

MONDAY, MONDAY

Almost October, and in the teeth of another week, when Felix Dennis reads his poetry in LA, on the same night as the Bush/Kerry debate, and aliens will again neglect to abduct me, I think I'll go to bed. (I believe I just heard gunfire, over in Plummer Park.)

CRYPTIQUE -- Web humor for Luddites. (nedludd.com)

CRYPTIQUE -- Even after all this time, we still don't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

ANOTHER FOUND OBJECT


You're Brigitte Bardot!


What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
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DAMN!
I adore the way Maureen Dowd tilts her head to one side...

WITHOUT COMMENT...
A press releases that the Texas Air National Guard sent to Houston newspapers in 1970 about young Bush, then a second lieutenant and new pilot. "George Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed," the news release said. "Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics." (Thanks to Mr. MR for this and Tom Joad, – see below.)

HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED
Politics used to be fun. Especially in Texas where zany, God-fearing politicians really knew how to "get down." That was back when you could destory an opponent without really hurting him -- tell lies so unbelievable and outlandish that giggling voters flock to the polls to vote for you just because you're so dadgumed creative. In his heyday, nobody was better at gettin' down politically than Lone Star Lyndon. In 1948, after 11 years in the House of Representatives where he proved to be a formidable, power-hungry campaigner, LBJ hit fellow Democrat and popular former Texas governor Coke Stevenson with everything he had as they squared off for a run at the Senate. Legend has it Johnson told one of his aides -- "Go out there and tell 'em Coke was caught having sex with a farm animal."
"But, Lyndon," the aide protested, "you know that's not true!"
"Of course it's not true!" Johnson responded impatiently. "That's not the point. Tell it anyway -- and make him deny it..." – Sheila Samples, Information Clearing House

QUOTE OF THE DAY -- "I'm so pleased with my gender. We're not that bright." – Ann Coulter

("It’s a stupid country." – Johnny Depp)

CRYPTIQUE – I talk to people in bars.

LINKS
Morphine occurs naturally in the human brain.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65053,00.html

Sim-sex update
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65064,00.html

GOP admit mailing campaign literature saying liberals will ban the Bible
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=17969&mode=nested&order=0

The Man Who Shot Che Guevara
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2004-09-23/metro.html

WITHOUT COMMENT...
Ma: Then what, Tom?
Tom Joad: I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be there in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be there in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they built - I'll be there, too.
Ma: I don't understand it, Tom.
Tom Joad: Me, neither, Ma, but - just somethin' I been thinkin' about.

DAMN!
Most of you cuties are mercifully too young the remember the last idiot war in detail, but, trust an old timer, in the last 48 hours, fucking Bush has started to sound just like fucking Lyndon Johnson.

CRYPTIQUE -- You can feel Carville is back.

SF4
During last weekend’s energizing reading, one piece received extremely well was Diabolo’s Cadillac. So, with stunning egotism, I’ve reproduced it below. (An orchestrated version appears on the Deviants’ CD Dr. Crow that will be re-released in super deluxe form by Captain Trip Records in Tokyo.)

DIABOLO'S CADILLAC
Room 101
A ratcage on my face
The pain is close indescribable
The horror, the horror
Last night I took a ride
In Diabolo's Cadillac

Morning is beyond the drapes
And demons wrench at my eyelids
With steel pliers
Blessed Virgin just show me mercy
Or give me a Valium
Last night I took a ride
In Diabolo's Cadillac

My brain is as dry and shriveled
As a motherless sponge
And I dread the ultimate re-entry
Of the blood
When the torture of the damned
Will resemble a bright day at the beach
Last night I took a ride
In Diabolo's Cadillac

Jesus, god, give me a break here will you?
It's only a chemical analogue
For those two old dogs
Pleasure and Retribution
I've heard that twelve steps
Can lead to salvation
But I also recall that one more
Will take you to the gallows
I don't need a stinking program
Just a remission from guilt
And some show about Hitler
On the History Channel
While I collect my scattered senses
Last night I took a ride
In Diabolo's Cadillac


===================OO=====
RUSS MEYER RIP (see comments)
===================OO=====

CRYPTIQUE – Ducks are waddling, in search of a row.

QUOTE OF THE DAY – Thank goodness I’m wearing a crotch rope. – Trinity

MY TV TOLD ME, TWO
I really wasn’t paying attention. As many of you are well aware, when I’m working – writing, that is – a TV is usually burbling somewhere close at hand, and news items enter by osmosis, and are most times, quickly dismissed as half-digested media clutter. I almost dismissed the tale of the mom who mail-ordered her kids Ritalin from Canada and received a whole bunch of Methadone by mistake and the poor little fucker could have died if mother had been so vigilant – but then a worm in my brain turned. "Hold on a minute," the worm snarled, "this is surely bullshit most mendacious. Who orders Methadone from Canada? Methadone needs a triplicate script. A canuck mail-order house would not be handing it. What?" This item surely has to be an under-the-radar, fear-story planted by some black-bag PR for a US pharmaceutical industry running scared from the threat of cheap and government regulated, north-of-the-border drugs to their monstrously obscene profits. The factoid is now in place, and will doubtless be rote-repeated by bought-and-paid-for politicians, and also Debs Norville, or some other talking hairdo. It’s now urban disinformation that will be cited as proof that Canadian drugs can’t be trusted. Which is crap. But that’s how the game is currently played. Another case of blog this, aye? (See yesterday)

CRYPTIQUE – I can get you a deal on some cheap moral fabric.

DON’T FORGET
There’s a bunch of good stuff on Funtopia News (over on the right there.)

The email address is – byron4d@msn.com

QUOTE OF THE DAY
From Nicholas von Hoffman
"The crappiest supermarket bread costs two bucks a loaf. A gallon of milk costs four bucks, and heating oil is already 20 cents a gallon higher than it was last year. The cost of housing is through the roof. Medical services are so famously high it doesn’t bear mentioning. The price of everything is going up, but every month the Bush people say that inflation is "contained," "tamed" and barely moving if you look at the "core" numbers—that is, the inflation number after throwing out the cost of food, fuel, shelter and unessential services such as medical care and education. This is the situation before the election. You can imagine what next year is going to be like after the election, when the Bush people have nothing to worry about and nothing to do for the next four years but grab everything in sight."
Full story – http://www.observer.com/pages/observer.asp

LINK
Ashcroft continues to seek new powers
http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=16491&c=24
[notice how they haven't shown ashfeld, minute rice, rumscroft or any of the other failure czars all year?]

(Many of these links, especially the political ones, come courtesy of – and with comments by – People’s Daily Briefing)

DAMN!

Twinkies went bankrupt.

DAMN!

The nation is safe from Cat Stevens, and am I fucking relieved.

FOUND OBJECT


You're Bettie Page!


What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
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SF 1
Damn, but I love the Bay Area. Coming from all too frequently mindless LA, it feels so good to be back in a place where life exists right out on the street, and to be unorthodox -- and not consumer rich -- does not appear to be the heinous crime that it is a few hundred miles to the south. The wind blows, clouds scud across the sky, rain falls, cabs ply for hire, and I start to feel a sense of unaccustomed normality.

SF2
And speaking of normality, while driving out to Berkeley with the redoubtable Jude from Borderlands, we waited in traffic in the Castro for a parade to go past. It appeared to be Leather Boys for Democracy, showing their black and blue striped bondage flag with the blood red circular spot. I never did find out the reason for the march, but it appeared highly serious with only strapping men in vests and cut-off chaps; no drag queens, sissies, or lesbians among their number.

SF3
The great fear for the performer is, of course, that no one will show up, and, needless to say, I went into the usual, well concealed, private funk for the hour or so before the event at Borderlands, but managed to cover it well be allowing myself to be taken to taken to a very unusual Irish pub where I drank beer and ate black pudding and boxty (and if you need that explained, you probably don’t want to hear the explanation) and then went on to read, sign, discuss, and debate topics that ranged from global warming the movie Abbott and Costello Go To Mars for a happily full house. And also ran into Jess Cox who I hadn’t seen in a million years.

WELL, BLOG HER
Deborah Norville – along with other dopey and dubious TV newspersons – has discovered the blogosphere and wonders how we seem to know shit before she does. The answer is that we ignore Karl Rove, use out brains, can add 2 + 2, and generally reach some approximation of 4. Debs is also worried that we are "unaccountable" and concerned that maybe something should be done about us. Tough shit, Debs; unaccountable, and unpaid, and mad as hell, and without 200 grams of makeup to aide our plausibility. We don’t need no stinking accountability.

GRIM FROM KAYMO
On 15 July 2004 William S. Lind suggested that "an American-Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Such an attack may very well be on the agenda as the "October Surprise," the distraction President George W. Bush desperately needs if the debacle in Iraq is not to lead to his defeat in November." (Global Security. Org)

CRYPTIQUE – What’s keeping the giant killer robots?

SAN FRANCISCO
Back from a truly fine weekend in the Bay Area which I will report on later when I have all the awaiting work and other bits and pieces squared away, but, suffice for the moment, to say that Borderland Books were very, very good to me.

MY TV TELLS ME...
Poker Bots...my TV tells me that unbeatable poker robots are playing in those online poker games, meaning that if you're playing on one of those sites, you're screwed far beyond the combined imaginings of Isaac Asimov and Doc Holliday. (Never play cards with a guy named HAL)

QUOTE OF THE DAY
And best of all, the genie cannot be pushed back into the bottle. No neo-liberal charade, no "progressive internationalist" bullshit can convince the world that they have not seen what they have seen. Big brother may indeed have pushed his luck, and the freedom to say that 2+2=4 may yet emerge. No matter who wins, the death rattle of US empire may be sounding. – Daniel Patrick Welch (for full story...
http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/dpwelch17.htm

LINKS
A long, serious, but real scarey report on the coming of Soylent Green for real...
An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security
http://www.heuersdorf.de/Wrldclmt.html

Inside bush's torture chambers: One woman's story
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1308346,00.html
(And on the same subject, no one seems to have noticed, or admitted that the systematic torturing of prisoners, aside from being morally repugnant, is also a sure sign that all other intelligence gathering systems have broken down.)

E.L. Doctorow on The Unfeeling President
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0920-13.htm

QUOTE OF THE DAY (courtesy some girl)

In the London Guardian, retired General William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, characterized the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi as worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."

SAN FRANCISCO!!!!!!
Sunday, September 19th at 4 PM. Mick Farren reading and signing KINDLING at Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street (at 19th.) 888 893 4008 (see Tuesday’s post)

QUOTES OF THE DAY, BOTH FROM THE LOVELY MAUREEN DOWD (sigh)
The Democratic paranoia is a measure of the intimidation the West Wing is wielding in a race where John Kerry can't seem to take advantage of any of the Bush administration's increasingly calamitous blunders. The administration has been so dazzling in misleading the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit. Iraq is a vision of hell, and the Republicans act as if it's a model kitchen. The president and vice president brag about liberating Iraqis and reassure us that they are stopping terrorist violence at its source and inspiring democracy in the region by bringing it to blood-drenched Iraq.

Unlike the president, the young men and women trying to stay alive in the unraveling chaos of Iraq can't count on their daddies to get them out of the line of fire.

SOUND OF OWN HORN BLOWING
Exceeding fab review of Kindling in the Journal of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society.
http://www.netaxs.com/~hlazar/sf.htm

MO’ LINKS, AYE?
Fightin’ radical librarians
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,64945,00.html

George Bush's United States is clearly in a proto-fascist condition. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=17771&mode=nested&order=0
The Al Qaeda franchise
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6884.htm

Hurricane Ivan
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64952,00.html
Zippy the Pinhead
www.zippythepinhead.com

THIS JUST IN
The state of California has outlawed necrophilia, which I guess puts a new spin on the phrase "drop dead gorgeous."

SQUIRMING LIKE A TOAD
Today my TV seems burdened down by Bush spokesclones telling me that the only thing wrong with the war in Iraq is the negative reporting of a irresponsible free press. Seems like I heard the same shit in 1969, except Nixon’s VPSpiro Agnew had a neater line in alliteration – "nattering nabobs of negativism" – and, of course, The Doors were playing in the background. Think I’ll go and put on Strange Days.

CRYPTIQUE – Nothing giant killer robots wouldn’t cure.

GABAGABAGABAGABAGABAGABAGABAGABA
Johnny Ramone RIP
GABAGABAGABAGABAGABAGABAGABAGABA

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

SAN FRANCISCO

Sunday, September 19th at 4 PM. Mick Farren reading and signing KINDLING at Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street in San Francisco (at 19th.) 888 893 4008
(see below)

FOUND OBJECT


Jezebel


Which bad girl of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

OUR GLORIOUS LEADER CONTINUES TO SCREW THE POOCH
Key U.S. general criticizes Fallujah attack – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5983400/

Also a few folks have questioned the Caligula ref in a recent post about Oprah’s car giveaway. I was thinking of how, during the classic "bread and circuses" phase of Rome's decline, it was common to hurl free stuff to the mob to keep them quiet.

Q -- If Bush made his horse a senator would anyone notice?

I HEARD THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY...
So Martha Stewart wants to serve her time right now so she can be out before the spring crocuses bloom, and do the bit in Danbury, Conn so she can be close to home. Like the Fonz used to say, "whoa!"

CRYPTIQUE – From the perspective of the rats and albino alligators, the road we travel is only the roof of a sewer.

SAN FRANCISCO!!!!!!

Sunday, September 19th at 4 PM. Mick Farren reading and signing KINDLING at Borderlands Books, 866 Valencia Street (at 19th.) 888 893 4008

"In his long and interesting career, Mick Farren has been a journalist, poet, author (23 novels and 11 works of non-fiction -- including four on Elvis!), and a founding member of the band The Deviants. His works include the cult sci-fi classic DNA COWBOYS TRILOGY, and the vampire saga THE RENQUIST QUARTET. Mick's latest novel, KINDLING, is an alternate history set in a world in which the Crusades never happened, changing the spread of religion, scientific progress, and the birth of America. Don't miss this chance to meet Mick Farren! Following the reading, Mick will discuss KINDLING with the Classic Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club. Please contact Jude at jfeldman@borderlands-books.com for more information."

(I may also have some free time Saturday night, so if anyone in the Bay Area wants to grab a beer, email me – byron4d@msn.com)

OF COURSE, ALL OF THIS WOULDN’T BE HAPPENING IF I DIDN’T HAVE DSL.

HCB has been sending me stuff about the singularity movement in science fiction. Seems like it’s the hottest new flavor since cyber-punk, aye?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/view.html?pg=4?tw=wn_tophead_8

I’m not a big Garrison Keillor fan, but this has a ring to it...
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/979

As does this piece on legalizing prostitution from The Economist
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3151258

Email = byron4d@msn.com

And meanwhile Oprah gives away a free car to every single member of her studio audience. I mean, it’s some new piece o’shit GM promotion, but isn’t this all getting a trifle Caligula?

CRYPTIQUE – We can track you down.

What is this?

Am I the only one who’s noticed that Iraq has been literally falling apart for the last few days, not mention the North Koreans blowing up mountains, while the President is looking for his spare copy of My Pet Goat?

I want a bloody cigarette!!!

On the new theory of fast and loose wit’ I will just slap it down crucial new snippets without any production. Like when the weekly hurricane slams into Florida and no one mentions that maybe all is not right with the world...

QUOTE – "In 2003, The UN's World Meteorological Organization reported unprecedented levels of extreme weather and climate occurrences all over the world. The report emphasized an alarming increase in global warming and pointed to the impact of human activity. The significance of this particular report is that the highly respected UN organization is known for its normally conservative predictions and statements."

I have to thank everyone who emailed me while I went missing, asking if I was both well and sane. I was neither for a little while, but seem to be improving in both areas. I am also in the process of giving up cigarettes.

The Japanese have a word...karoshi, or "death from overwork."

Then again, it’s always possible I have been hosed down with microwaves in the 450mhz range by NSA/FEMA and am a completely different person.

As Fast Eddie Felson once remarked...
I'M BACK

The first explanation of why I’ve been out of circulation so long is that it all started to get a little much for me. I became less and less clear exactly what I was doing. It was rather as though I’d embarked on my own little daily magazine and it was taking too much time, too much energy, and I was starting to worry about it in the most unhealthy way. I clearly had to step back and take stock.

Having stepped back, I found it very hard to step back in.

I finally realized that a blog is not a magazine at all. It is not even a web site. Much more informal. I should come to the process for shorter and more casual – but maybe more frequent visits. More free, more spontaneous, and less to worry about.

Also I had this new book to commence, and had to go through the literary equivalent of kneeling naked in some freezing chapel, praying over my armor on the eve of battle. That is all history now, however. The book is called Conflagration, it is the sequel to Kindling, (out now) I am some seventy pages in, and Cordelia finds herself attracted to the idea of torturing prisoners.

In the meantime, here's a flourish on heavy metal from LA CityBeat...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1225&IssueNum=66

Well...the Doc is back (he said tentatively). It has been a long time, and all -- or at least some -- will be explained in due course.

THE DOC’S DILEMMA

In LA it’s hot as a motherfucker – 90 degrees and unnaturally humid, and I’m wondering what the hell I’m doing here. Maybe Doc40 should have made like a New York Italian bakery and just closed up shop until September. Not that I’m exactly on vacation, quite the reverse, in fact. The truth is – to quote the good Captain Willard who I’ve quoted many times before – the shit is piling up so fast that I need wings to stay above it. Not that the shit is bad. My no means. It’s just that it keeps coming at me and I find myself slipping back, leaving mail unanswered, and all the other things that people complain about, plus the technological overhaul that I’ve been promising myself for months only advances in fits and starts and is still in phase where it continues to prove an inconvenience and I have yet to reap many labor-saving benefits.

At the root of the dilemma are books.  (Although yesterday I taped a segment for a TV show about Motorhead.)

First problem is that I’ve once again started writing one. And not just any book, part two of the whole big-ass alternate-history fantasy epic called Conflagration, that is the sequel to Kindling (see Funtopia) and Kindling is just about published in the USA (Tor Books). Thus a large portion of what brain I have left is taken up with breaking the creative inertia and getting that monster underway. I even reached the point of having to stop scaring the shit out of myself that the reelection of George Bush will mean hideous apocalypse. Of course, I still believe that, but I had to cool the obsession, and, anyway, Michael Moore is holding down the fort pretty damn well.

If you had all read Kindling, the blog prospect would be much easier to handle. I could write sidebar blogs all about plot points and the creative process, and you’d all know what i was talking about, but since most of you haven’t, you won’t and I can’t. And such insight is lost to world. Ah well. Do I now make myself completely clear?

And Kindling isn’t the only book being published. The UK, sometime about now, the Do Not Press are publishing a small format monogram o’mine called Gene Vincent – There’s One in Every Town. And I feel I have to spend a whole lot of time worrying about the response to these two items, and whether I’ll have a career or die in Van Gogh-style poverty.

So what do I do?

If Doc40 merely suspends operations for a while you’ll all hate me worse than you do now and never come back. If we had a proper bulletin board you could probably fight among yourselves until well into the fall, but we don’t, so again we’re screwed.

My best shot, neighbors, let me leave you with a check list.

Buy a copy of Kindling.

Buy a copy of Gene Vincent.

Keep on visiting Doc40, because the shit will be there, but maybe not everyday. But if their ain't nothing new, puruse the achives or read Slide On The Run on Funtopia. 

Keep those letters and cards coming.

Keep beating on Bush until the bastard goes away.

Give the Anarchist a valium.

But, meanwhile, the current LA, I have some comments on John Kerry...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1061&IssueNum=58

And here's a funny/scary Jon Stewart breakdown of the Way It Works that comes via some girl

THE PROCESS
 
Thursday, July 15, 2004 - Jon Stewart - The Daily Show - Comedy Central

Talking Points: Keeping up with current events

Jon Stewart: "It's not easy keeping up with current events. As soon as you catch up, more happens. That's where conventional wisdom fits in. Conventional wisdom is the agreed upon understanding of an event or person. John Kerry is a flip flopper. George Bush has sincere heartland values and is stupid. What matters is not that the designation be true just that it be agreed upon by the media so that no further thought has to be put into it. So how is conventional wisdom arrived at? For instance, let's take the example of the addition of John Edwards to the Democratic ticket. I don't know how to feel about that. I don't know what it means. Here's how I will."

CNN: "This is 28 pages from the Republican National Committee. It says, "Who is Edwards? It starts off by saying a disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal." We also saw from the Bush-Cheney camp they released talking points to their supporters."

Jon Stewart: "Talking points. That's how we learn things. But how will I absorb a talking point like "Edwards and Kerry are out of the mainstream" unless I get it jack hammered into my skull? That's where television lends a hand."

Fox News: "He stands way out of the main stream."

CNN - Terry Holt, Spokesman for Bush Camp: "way out of the main stream."

CNN - Communication Director, Bush-Cheney: "He stands so far out of the main stream."

CNN - Lynn Cheney: "He's so out of the main stream."

CNN - Terry Holt: "They're out of the main stream."

CNN - Frank Donatelli, GOP Strategist: "well out of the main stream.

Jon Stewart: I'm getting a feeling. I think, I think they're out of the main stream. But, what if I wonder why?

CNN - Frank Donatelli: "two of the foremost liberal senators of the US Senate."

CNN - Crossfire: "two of the four most liberal senators of the US Senate."

MSNBC - Ed Gillespie: "the most liberal rated senator in the US Senate."

Hardball - Lynn Cheney: "the most liberal senator of the Senate."

Fox News: "who was rated as the number 1 liberal in the US Senate."

Fox News - Elizabeth Dole: "the number 1 most liberal senator in the US Senate."

Jon Stewart: Wow! Those guys are liberals!! In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd say they're the first and fourth most liberal in the whole Senate. Wow! And while we don't have any idea what that means and where those rankings come from and how they were arrived at or whether it's even true, I don't like the sounds of it. And it's certainly not something for the media to question. As a matter of fact, I would imagine people like that, liberal and out of the main stream, hang out in some pretty extreme places.

ABC - This Week - Lindsey Graham: "talking about the hatefest."

CNN: "Hollywood hatefest."

Fox News: "last Thursday night's hatefest."

Pat Boone: "Radio City Music Hall hatefest"

Jon Stewart: "Yeah. See, out of the main stream, liberals, and hatefest. Keeping up with current events is easier than you thing. Talking points – they're true because they're said a lot."

CRYPTIQUE – It should be, but it ain’t.

STRAIGHT, NO CHASER

The following came straight off the wire from kaymo. If it’s true, it so serious, it scarcely bears thinking about. This I’m posting it just as it came by email...

Off the Beeb (BBC) this morning..

.US 'may delay vote if attacked'

The Bush administration is reported to be investigating the possibility
of postponing the presidential election in the event of a terror attack.

US counter-terrorism officials are examining what steps would be needed
to permit a delay, Newsweek reports.

Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge last week warned al-Qaeda was planning
to attack the US to disrupt the poll but conceded he had no precise
information.

A senior Democrat in Congress has said talk of postponement is
"excessive".

Doomsday scenarios

In its latest edition, Newsweek reports that Mr Ridge has asked the
Justice Department to examine what legal steps would be needed to permit
the postponement of the 2 November election.

This follows a letter from the chairman of the new Election Assistance
Commission, DeForest Soaries, who urged Mr Ridge to seek emergency
legislation from Congress that would allow his agency to reschedule the
vote in the event of an attack.

If they do this, boy, my God, they're extremely desperate
Ciro Rodriguez Democrat Congressman Mr Soaries noted that while New York's board of elections suspended primary elections on 11 September 2001, "the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election."

Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told Newsweek,
"We are reviewing the issue to determine what steps need to be taken to
secure the election."
Republican Representative Christopher Cox, who chairs the House Homeland
Security Committee, told CNN that it was prudent to prepare for a
postponement.

"These are doomsday scenarios. We don't have any intelligence to suggest
that it is going to happen, but we're preparing for all of these
contingencies now."

Old information

But Jane Harman, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives
Intelligence Committee, said proposing a postponement would be
"excessive based on what we know".

She also criticised Mr Ridge's suggestion that al-Qaeda was planning to
disrupt the election, saying the warning was based on old information.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says the Democrats' unspoken fear is
that the White House will play on the nerves of Americans as the
election nears, hoping to gain support from a nation fearful of any
change in course.

It is a difficult strategy for the Democrats to counter.

If they appeared complacent and terrorists did strike, they would be
politically destroyed, he says.

CRYPTIQUE -- Bad? As opposed to what?

WELL, I GUESS THAT DIDN'T WORK...

My cybergenerated superhero name was The Hungry Exhorter, which I quite like but Blogger seemed to balk at posting at. Ah well, so much for childish frivolity.

CRYPTIQUE -- Get my cape and mask out of the cleaners.

I'LL TRY TO EXPLAIN LATER

This would seem to be my cybergenerated superhero name.

Villains fear me. Heroes envy me. mick farren is... The Hungry Exhorter

CRYPTIQUE -- To infinity and beyond!

I’M EXCEEDINGLY TIRED OF CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Save me dear lord from those who pimp opinions to the rich and stupid. I am growing exceedingly bored with the mindlessly over-inflated prose and faux-alcoholism of the writer Christopher Hitchens. The man has to be called if only on his substandard drunk pose, the ease of which I know all too well. I guess it was inevitable that, with the Coulter genre mercifully sinking under the weight of its own implausibility, some former radical should figure to slime their way into becoming the up market Bill O’Reilly. Last week Hitchens excelled himself with a blast of absurdist pomposity against Michael Moore...

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental... Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

Yeah right.

There’s an adapted saying round the old guard. “If you can remember Hitchens in the 1960s, you probably weren’t there.” I thus I only kinda recall seeing the fool as through an hallucination darkly, at parties at Jonathon Green’s house, busy being some kind of upper class Trot, accompanied by thick-ear Stalinist malchicks who probably wanted to hang me from a lamppost. I suppose I could go on at length, but, yet again, why the fuck bother? Go on picking up those cheques from Vanity Fair, boyo. But let’s not pretend any philosophy is being molded, except to flatter the demands of the market. Like just another dog act, son. And also consider that the tide may be turning. Michael Moore has a hit. Folks are responding. Nothing succeeds like success, and the transaction may be entering a new cycle. In times of transition, the flight from sell-out to has-been can be a short hop with no beverage service.

Cue Positively Fourth Street

MONKEY BUSINESS

I maybe bored with Hitchens, but some worthy primates are vexed and more than a little put out by being constantly compared to G.W. Bush. (Hit the link, it’s worth it for the smile.)

http://www.bushisnotachimp.org/

CRYPTIQUE – Seeing you makes me grateful I’m me.

LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN (What’ve you got?)

So seemingly Marlon Brando couldn’t take another July 4 weekend. But his passing was sobering. For me, Brando was the first. Before James Dean and Elvis, before I’d heard of Allen Ginsberg, or Kerouac, Marlon cut the shape. He was, in every sense, the Godfather of 20th century hipster bohemia in the characters of Stanley Kowalski, Terry Moloy, Johnny the Wild One, and later Vito Corleone, Jor El, and Kurtz at the Heart of Darkness. All the others have gone before, and now Marlon is dead, it’s starting to feel lonely in the upper age bracket.

The tabloids are already rehashing his mess of a private life while smart-ass broadsheets harp on how, at the end, he became totally bored with the process of acting. My only indirect contact with the man was when we made the TV documentary Black Leather Jacket, and Marlon caused us no trouble whatsoever over the use of the image. That’s my only story.

FOOTNOTE

Maybe Marlon is well out of world where the CIA has banned Furbies – the stuffed toys that can repeat phrases – from the headquarters in Langley. Seemingly they pose too much of a security threat.

CRYPTIQUE – Grapes explode in the microwave.

COMPUTER D’ETAT

The joy of watching Bush and his boys scuttle the fuck out of Iraq, leaving the poor bloody grunts to sort the mess out for Haliburton is kinda diminished because I keep worrying about those computer voting machines. Yet another exposure provided by the excellent Molly Ivins (sent by fidicen) follows below, but a bad press never deterred those sons of bitches in the White House, and I wonder just what the hell we do when the polls roll around and whole areas still have the things. Does America protest, riot, spring into instant civil disobedience, or counter-hack? Or do we merely bleat in compliant complaint. Political corruption has a recreational sport in the USA since Boss Tweed and Tammany, (I mean, they learned it off the English) but this bullshit is beyond all bounds. When corruption was simply a matter of cash, intimidation, sex, violence, racism, and alcohol, it could at least be fought in kind, but this shit is the Matrix; nothing more than coup d’etat by computer, ushering in a cyber-Orwellian perma-state, where the populace pushes the unattached button believing it to be democracy, and spreads wide for dictatorship. The more I think about it, the more I come to fear that, if Bush is elected (note: I didn’t say re-elected) it will be the Last Election and the only option will become out and out revolution. Which is where I think I came in.

The magnificent Rumor provides some excellent computer voting graphics at...
http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm

AND HERE’S MOLLY

AUSTIN, Texas -- Heads up, team, the voting machine situation requires sustained attention, but not panic or paranoia. There is time to act, but act we must.

Yes, it is high time to "view with alarm" (an editorial page cliché rivaled only by "point with pride"), and with bipartisan alarm at that. It's in everyone's interest to have the cleanest, fairest elections possible -- that's one of those things you can watch even the most partisan politicians serving on legislative elections committees figure out in no time. The only way to make sure nobody's ox gets gored is to keep it clean. If you don't think there are just as many bright, 14-year-old hackers who would rig a vote in favor of Democrats as there are who would rig it for Republicans, you've been neglecting the 14-year-old hacker set.

I suppose I've been calmer about the possibility/probability that electronic voting machines can be rigged than some others who are now looking at the bad news because it's an old story to me. Ronnie Dugger, a veteran Texas journalist (despite the fact that he's taken to living in, of all places, Cambridge, Mass.), has been on this case for years. I suppose I mentally assigned it to some "Ronnie's taking care of that" category.

But as Dugger's questions and predictions keep turning out to be more and more eerily prescient, it's clear this is something about which the general public needs be aroused and even plenty upset. The problems with electronic voting machines are numerous and grave, starting with the fact that the software which runs them is considered "proprietary information" by the companies that make them. In other words, they won't tell anyone what it is, how it works or anything else about the systems, meaning we have no way of knowing if they're clean, reliable or even functional.

That uncomfortable situation was rather dramatically underlined when Walden (Wally) O'Dell, chairman and CEO of Diebold Election Systems and a Bush campaign "Pioneer" (meaning he raised at least $100,000), wrote in a 2003 fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." At the time, Diebold was trying to get on Ohio's "favored vendor" list and is now on it. Elections Systems and Software, the country's largest maker of the machines, also has a Republican pedigree.

It's a shame Diebold isn't a big Democratic fund-raiser who said he was committed to delivering Ohio for Kerry, so the Republicans could see how they like that. But I'm sure there are enough Republican conspiracy theorists to contemplate the happy proposition that, while chairmen and CEOs may lean Republican, there are any number of partisan Democrats lurking in engineering departments and liberal moles in software-writing offices.

Last July, a team of computer scientists from Johns Hopkins and Rice universities studied the Diebold machines and concluded they are "a threat to democracy." Bev Harris, author of "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century," reports electronic voting machines are "designed for fraud." Apparently, you can rig these things so that Osama bin Ladin can win an election. One experiment in how long it took to open one up and swipe its software produced a record of 10 seconds.

Making the software for voting machines both bug-less and hacker-proof simply may not be possible, but as many have observed, the things as they stand are an open invitation to voter fraud. As The New York Times pointed out, slot machines in Las Vegas are held to far higher standards of transparency and inspection.

The simplest way to make sure the machines aren't miscounting is to require a paper trail on each ballot. In California, the Voting Systems and Procedures Panel recommended the machines be shelved, and then Secretary of State Kevin Shelley revoked certification of Diebold's paperless electronic voting machines.

Eight other states now require a paper trail, something that is not difficult to design or install, despite Diebold's initial protests that it is oh-so-hard. Florida, scene of so many painful voting memories in 2000, had a single race election in January in Palm Beach where the victory margin was 12, but the machines registered more than 130 blank ballots. You think 130 people came to the polls to not vote? There was no recount because the machines had no paper records.

There are bills in both the U.S. Senate and House to require paper trails in time for the 2004 election, but they're stuck in committee. Take pen in hand and write (or email, or petition) your elected representative, ASAP. Then bask in the benign glow of civic rectitude that follows. Well done.

Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Molly Ivins Can't Say That Can She?

© 2004 Working Assets.
Reprinted from Working For Change:

CRYPTIQUE – Make the world go away.

CRYPTIQUE 2 -- When's the fun begin?

SLIDE IS BACK

Yesterday was the 90th anniversary of Anton Princip shooting Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and starting the whole mess that was WW1. Bearing that in mind, and working on the principle that you can’t be too careful, instead of ranting or pontificating, I would direct everyone’s attention over to Funtopia, where Rich has posted episode 12 of the online serial Slide On The Run after a totally conscionable delay on my part. (Find it by going to Funtopia News once you've hit the site.) Yeah, I sat down and I thought I could write an episode every two to three weeks, but then all the other dozens of things I think I can do intervened, and...but here it is now, so enjoy.

WE’RE HISTORY
Seems like there’s some dispute about history going up on the now totally surreal comments board. Should I sort it out? Maybe, but not today. I need to get some sleep.

CRYPTIQUE – The charge of the light machines?

DID YOU MISS ME? II

Eight straight days and not a word? What the fuck was going on? Well, quite a lot and most of it got in the way of the weblog, but everyone seems to have been having a real good time will I was away, but, like Fast Eddie Felson says at the end of The Color of Money. “I’m back.”

So what happened? Well, the old Doc kinda ran into the wall and was as sick as a dog for a couple if days, and at the same time was inundated by all manner of stuff, some exciting, and some just too tediously depressing to mention. Much email has gone unanswered and there are folks who are probably mad at me. As far as bashing Bush is concerned, Michael Moore seems to be holding the fort. And since I doubt any of you want to hear about my health, inefficiency, or depression, let’s just leave it that I took a few days off, without prior notice, from doing battle with the corporate agents of chaos.

All the good stuff? Well, that may have to wait a few days until all the ducks and details are in a row. (Tease.) But count on it that it’ll be good. For me at least. The Doc40 service may take a little while to rebuild itself bigger and better, but if I should go missing again over the next few days, this time it will be because I’m finally making the switch from dialup to DSL, and not because of any dashingly romantic disaster.

And, oh yeah, just a note that I never wore loon pants, even in 1971, and rarely carry a gun while I’m drinking, or drink when I’m packing. I long ago discovered that, unlike in the movies, whisky and firearms don’t mix. Any questions?

SERIOUS READIN’

And maybe to demonstrate that I am more than an unpredictable drunk as seems to be widely assumed I have a column in the new LA CityBeat about Bill Clinton.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1020&IssueNum=55

Since I wrote the piece, I’ve seen Bill talking with everyone from Oprah to Charlie Rose, and I seem to be liking the guy all over again, even if his position on the War on Drugs was indefensible. With Charlie Rose (by far the most sensible interview) he very seriously warned never to underestimate George Bush by dismissing him as a cartoon clown.

STOP PRESS

I also see a new coordinated uprising has broken out in Iraq this morning. The mire deepens.

CRYPTIQUE – He who waits usually just waits.

BURN OUT OR BURN?

With some four and a half months remaining until we see if America can come to its senses and remove George Bush from the White House, and his constant intrusions on my TV set, I still feel that I’m morally obliged and honor bound to keep pounding away at the sinister sons of bitches with the few and modest communications tools, but the dawn-dark moments do occur when I start to fear that not only is the deck too stacked, but that I’m losing sight what even might be possible in best of all worlds. Then, a light-ray reminder like the following quote from Ken Kesey, arrives from fidecen, and I start thinking again.

As I've often told Ginsberg, you can't blame the President for the state of the country, it's always the poets' fault. You can't expect politicians to come up with a vision, they don't have it in them. Poets have to come up with the vision and they have to turn it on so it sparks and catches hold.
--Ken Kesey

WORDPOWER

Caligynephobia is a fear of beautiful women

CRYPTIQUE – The bullshit piles up so fast you need wings to stay above it.

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Remember there’s a new email address – byron4d@msn.com

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FROM THE E MAIL

THE POLICE STATE OF THE ABSURD

Finding myself in kinda of a holding pattern this Monday after, I turn over the show to Jett for a laudably Doc40-style report of the G8 summit...

I thought you might get a kick out of hearing about the last five days of my life spent down at President Bush's Giant Stoke-a-Thon (aka: the G8 Summit). I didn't really get all that close to the summit itself, just close enough to marvel at the INSANE amount of security present. It was like a 'friendly' occupation of a small Georgia island; despite all of the automatic weapons and high tech killing gear, the assembled security forces still smiled, waved and tipped their hats.

We-that is the missus and I and our 7-month-old son-spent a few days down on St. Simons Island, GA to care for the wife's mother-who is mobility impaired-while her regular caregivers took a brief vacation. The G8 Summit was on Sea Island, a small chunk of land off the other end of St. Simons with a giant, ultra-swank resort/conference center and a few acres of multi-million dollar homes for the very, very rich. The only way, other than by chopper, to reach Sea Island is over the causeway to St. Simons and then another, smaller, causeway across to Sea Island.

I guess the Powers That Be were expecting the same sort of protests and rioting that Seattle saw a few years back when they hosted this jamboree. The level of paranoia was un-fucking-believable. I have never seen so many cops or heavily-armed military in my entire life. Just getting to the mother-in-law's house we had to go through three police checkpoints. At the first checkpoint on the causeway leading to St. Simons we were stopped and asked a barrage of dumb ass questions from a cop who was flanked by three Army (or Marine, or National Guard)... guards in jungle fatigues and body armor with M-16s at the ready. My ass cheeks were clenched tight in terrified anticipation of a possible body cavity search. We had to tell them what business we had on the island, who we were going to see, their street address, our names, where we were from, etc. I was surprised and relived the cop didn't ask the baby any questions; to the right ears his favorite saying "goo gooli gaha ummm" could possibly sound like Arabic or Farsi. They looked in the windows of our minivan and shined flashlights at our collection of overnight bags and baby stuff. I was really surprised they didn't ask to dig through our stuff...the baby's bright plastic walker with it's flashing lights and music could easily have disguised a bomb.

I had joked before we left Charleston that I was going to wear a turban and a fake beard just to fuck with 'the man'. I'm glad I wisely chose not to engage in that sort of tomfoolery. I have no doubt the assembled cops and soldier-types would have beaten me to a bloody pulp and asked questions later. My alternate joke disguise of a tie-dye Grateful Dead t-shirt and a general purpose cardboard protest sign would doubtless have provoked a similar ass-whuppin'.

Once we got ON the island, there were cops everywhere and still more military. Every available public parking area was filled with cop cars from all over the state of Georgia, state trooper cars, state park ranger vehicles and military HumVees. A large anti-aircraft gun placement and tons of military hardware were on the green space near the tarmac in the wee little St. Simons Island Airport (small Cessnas and other prop planes only; not enough landing strip for even the tiniest of jets). There were military and police foot patrols roaming all over the place, even back into the residential areas. I spotted several flights of three or four military choppers buzzing around in the sky over the island at regular intervals.

We drove down to the beach, noticing cops and soldiers set up in tents at every intersection, to see if our state and federal authorities were protecting us from an ocean-based attack as well. There were easily a dozen small military gunboats cruising around as well as patrol boats from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (affectionately referred to as 'Fletsey' by the locals) over on the mainland in Brunswick. A gentleman with binoculars mentioned that an aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy, and it's battlegroup were anchored off the coast, just beyond the horizon. There's a tale that was circulating, most likely just a new urban myth, about a man on the public fishing pier accidentally dropping his camera into the water. As the assembled tourists watched the camera sink down to Davy Jones' locker, a Navy Seal in a full wetsuit surfaced with with it in hand and tossed it back to the guy. True? Maybe.

At one point we stopped for a red light and I rolled down the window, leaned out and pointed my camera at a group of soldiers sitting in canvas chairs on the sidewalk. One of 'em shook his head and waggled his index finger in an unmistakable 'no-no' gesture. The camera went back into the case and any of the shots I took later in the week were done quickly through the van's windows.

Few things look more surreal than seeing an white-haired, old retired couple wearing their bright, colorful islandwear pedaling their bicycles past a group of three heavily-armed, camoflauge-clad military guys. The old couple waved as they passed the soldiers, and the soldiers, to their credit, waved back and smiled. Nice, well-mannered kids, but still fucking weird.

We went down to Neptune Park, where rumor had it that a huge number of protesters had gotten a permit to march. We were diappointed when, instead of hundreds of angry young anarchists full of sound and righteous fury, we saw about ten dejected-looking hippie wannabes. Only about half of 'em even had signs. For each individual protester there had to have been at least a dozen cops and soldiers. We found out later that most of the protesters had been forced to stay on the mainland. There were only about 50-60 of them, anyway.

On the last day of the summit, Friday, the group of protesters decided to march across the causeway and make their grievances known to Dubya and the assembled world leaders. I'm still not sure exactly what their grievances were; the few I saw interviewed on TV railed against everything from globalization to eating animals to the environment to exploitation of third-world labor. Huh? The protesters formed a line, linked arms and proceeded to march. You have to give 'em credit for having a sizable amount of collective balls; it was over 90 degrees and Sea Island is an easy 6-8 miles away. The police, holding plexiglass riot shields, formed a line facing them and would take a step back each time the protesters would take a step forward. At one point one of the cops stumbled and fell backward, bruising his ass and causing a huge wound to his dignity. That was the only real injury. Once the protesters made it to the road that lead to the Sea Island Causeway from St. Simons, they were stopped. Sea Island is private property and the police arrested 14-or so of the 'angry militants' for misdemeanor charges of obstructing traffic or some such; the rest were all loaded on a bus and taken back to the mainland.

By Saturday evening the whole thing was over. All the police and military pulled out and the island was back to normal. It was the closest I've ever been to a military occupation or seeing martial law declared.

That's about for now. Vaya Con Tequila,

Jett

CRYPTIQUE – Bambi was German

MORE RUBBER TIRED HEARSES

You might have thought that the lurid canonization of Ronald Wilson Reagan in the Simi Valley sunset with Margaret Thatcher and Bo Derrick among the mourners was enough big media death for one week, but death don’t have no mercy in this land, (as the Grateful Dead once remarked.) Ray Charles liver burned out of seventy three years of intense usage, and guitarist Bob Quine gave up the fight. Ray will eulogized elsewhere, but Doc40 seemed the kind of place to make note of Quine’s passing. The obituary comes from the Artrocker online newsletter...

From the inauspicious beginnings file: In 1975 Quine got a job at Cinemabilia, a movie poster and book shop in New York City, where he worked with Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell. So, no surprise that they end up forming a band with Quine on guitar in the form of Richard Hell and the Voidoids(the seminal "Blank Generation" from '77 and "Destiny Street" in '82). Watch out for those clerk types behind the counter or the bar - you could be seeing members of the next great band before your eyes.
Quine wasn't someone who evidently came to rock and roll by slacker default. He went to law school and passed the bar (to stay outta Vietnam), although he eventually gave this up for a life of rock and roll. And of course we can't forget to thank him for the "Velvet Underground Bootleg Series: The Quine Tapes" from San Fran in 1969 - an ardent fan's labor of love that allows those of use not able to be there at the time experience it as if we were (Quine: "They had shows on some weeknights with two or three people in the club. I was one of the people").
So it must have been a dream come true for other Lou Reed philes when a fan of The Man joined his band. Quine played on "The Blue Mask" in '82 ("There was no rehearsing, no overdubs, no punch-in's for mistakes. The exact opposite of the Voidoids"), "Legendary Hearts" in '83 (On tour "[Lou] had to teach 'Sister Ray' and 'Heroin' to the other members of the band ... but I knew it already"), and "New Sensations" in '84.
He's also played with Brian Eno, Tom Waits ("Rain Dogs"), Marianne Faithfull, and others. Playing with the greats, however, didn't always come easy ("From '69 til '76, I never played in public. I would play by myself at home"). Around early 2002 Quine was still at it, even if the rest of the world wouldn't pay as much attention as when he was dead ("Recording session work has slowed down considerably, to say the least. There's not much to report. But I almost always get in at least three to four hours a day practicing, and I think I'm still improving").
Reading old interviews with him one picks up the musicians musician sensibility (In answer to the question "Are your solos usually improvised, or do you compose your solos in advance? Quine answered "98% improvised.
Once in a while with Richard Hell, I'd hear a cassette of a good solo I'd improvised live (e.g.: 'The Plan') and copy it. But it's never as good as the first time around"). This was a guy who was around when it all started, tho' he complained that it was hard to get a good guitar lesson in 1958 in the early years of rock and roll. We're probably all better off that he had to figure it out on his own - throwing out the template = original style. On the flip side how many people can count seeing Buddy Holly in concert as a rock and roll influence? And Coltrane.
Hopefully we can expect to see posthumous reissues and unreleased material coming out soon. Word has it that Quine recorded with Judah Bauer of John Spencer a year or two before his death, so we'll have to keep an eye open for that one.
So it was, the New York Times reported that Quine, 61, "had been despondent over the recent death of his wife," and "died of a heroin overdose."

Robert Quine, R.I.P.

CRYPTIQUE – There’s one kind favor I’ll ask of you...

SPECIAL CRYPTIQUE -- Ronald Reagan sleeps among the goldfish.

I LOVE A COUP D’ETAT

As fantasies go, nothing can compare. Tanks in the streets, delicious tension, rich folks fleeing town, the usual suspects waiting to be rounded up, the President and his cabinet seeking asylum in Albania, mysterious white horses galloping through the riderless night. But that can’t happen in America, right? Well, yes, at least according to Michael C. Ruppert writing on fromthewilderness.com. He seems to think that it’s about to happen, and the CIA will shortly take down the GWB White House.

Way cool.

The piece seems plausible and well researched, and its on another new-to-me Bush-hater attack site forwarded by fidicen. I watch with interest, and, of course, I would be delighted to see it happen. It would be the first CIA sponsored coupe d’etat I ever rooted for. The story starts...

JUNE 8, 2004 1600 PDT (FTW) - Why did DCI George Tenet suddenly resign on June 3rd, only to be followed a day later by James Pavitt, the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations (DDO)?
The real reasons, contrary to the saturation spin being put out by major news outlets, have nothing to do with Tenet's role as taking the fall for alleged 9/11 and Iraqi intelligence "failures" before the upcoming presidential election. Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d'etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.

And the rest is on...
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html

MEANWHILE ON THE CITYBEAT

My riff on Reagan is out in LA CityBeat. I was really pleased with it 48 hours ago, and felt good to have written it, but now I’m fucking Reaganed out after today’s relentless whorship.
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=974&IssueNum=53

But I also have a fine TV column on the state of cable news...
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=983&IssueNum=53

CRYPTIQUE – Rubber tired hearses?

REAGAN STILL DEAD

Yeah, I know it’s an old Saturday Night Live joke from the 1970s Belushi era, but what the hell, it’s vintage. I never really expected all this. Like I said in the last post (funereal pun?) CityBeat are running my best take on the Reagan mortality circus on Thursday, but here in the meantime is a handy antidote to all the sentimentality oozing from the TV by Charles Idelson. It seems to have been circling the internet, but it was forwarded by some girl...

25 REASONS TO NOT MOURN REAGAN (in no particular order, add your own)

1- Nicaraguan contras. Reagan called them the "moral equivalent of our founding fathers." U.S. created terror army in Nicaragua murdered tens of thousands of people and destroyed a social revolution; today majority of Nicaraguans live in poverty in the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti.

2- PATCO. 11,000 union air traffic controllers fired by Reagan, opened and encouraged a new era of union busting by employers and anti-union policies.

3- Reganomics, as Papa Bush called it "voodoo economics," how to carry out the biggest tax cut for the rich and biggest military buildup in decades while maintaining a balanced budget. It didn't work.

4- Afghanistan. CIA created, trained, funded, and armed "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden, to fight the Soviets.

5- "Trees Cause Pollution". Said Reagan, removing thousands of acres of public land to hand them over to timber, oil and mining corporations.

6- Star Wars, MX "peacekeeper" missile, B-1 bomber. And other destabilizing weapons systems intended to foster a new arms race with the Soviets and create a new U.S.-first strike capability.

7- Bitburg. Reagan's pays homage to Hitler's most elite military group while visiting an SS cemetery, calls the SS victims of Nazism "just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps."

8- Antonin Scalia. Appointed by Reagan to the Supreme Court.

9- Angola. CIA funds and arms a terror guerilla army that kills millions in a two-decade war, with an ongoing legacy of the world's most land mines.

10- Civil Rights. Justice Department slashes funding for civil rights enforcement.

11- "Aristocratic Movement". As one historian put it. Ron and Nancy become patrons of aristocratic culture in fashion, communications, etc. "Dynasty" and "Lives of the Rich and Famous" become major TV shows.

12- Iran Contra Affair. Secret White House cabal sells arms to Iran to fund contras, subverting the Constitution and avoiding Congressional oversight.

13- Guatemala. Rightwing, evangelist dictatorship funded and armed, with frequent massacres of the indigenous population, and 1/8 of population displaced. Dictator Rios Montt says on national TV he had "declared a state of siege so we could kill legally." Regan says Rios Montt had a "bum rap" on human rights abuses.

14- "Ketchup is a vegetable." Dept. of Agriculture says ketchup can be counted as a vegetable for calculating nutritional value in school lunches to facilitate major cuts in public school lunch funding.

15- William Rehnquist. Appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Reagan.

16- Savings and Loan Scandal. Created by banking industry deregulation, costs U.S. taxpayers billions to bail out failed S&Ls.

17- Homelessness. Grows by the millions as "Reaganville" homeless camps are created across U.S. Regan says many are "homeless by choice."

18- Conspicuous consumption. "Yachting," "Gourmet," "Architectural Digest," and "Wine Spectator" are the fastest growing U.S. magazines, with the aid of the biggest tax cut for the rich in U.S. history.

19- Industrial wastelands. Mass shift of high-wage industrial jobs overseas, creating ghost lands in the industrial heartland.

20- South Africa. U.S. opposes divestiture and continues to back white rule in Pretoria defying growing worldwide anti-apartheid movement.

21- CIA drug running. CIA supports drug empires in Latin America, including Manuel Noriega in Panama and drug kingpins in Colombia to support U.S. policies in region, fostering growth of crack and drug crisis in U.S.

22- Ferdinand Marcos. VP George Bush salutes Marcos' "commitment to democracy" as U.S. continues to prop up his dictatorship in the Philippines.

23- James Watt, Earl Butz, Ed Meese. Reagan cabinet members.

24- El Salvador. U.S. funded and trained death-squads and their government sponsors kill tens of thousands of Salvadorans, plus an archbishop and U.S. nuns.

25- Income gap. Richest 10% hold 73% of country's net worth following the Reagan years. Ratio of executive pay to factory worker pay goes from 42:1 in 1980 to 419:1.

MEANWHILE, NOAM SAYS,

Fidicen forwards an analysis by Noam Chomsky on Z Mag. It’s real long, there’s some encouraging stuff at the end that makes clear that world opinion, particularly when demonstrated en masse can put a partial brake even on the likes of George Bush.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=5660

CRYPTIQUE – Still trapped in the devil’s bargain.