INTERNET OR SPYNET?

Now we learn that if you go online with a hot conspiracy theory you’ll have the FBI – or the NSA or some other agency too black to even have initials – all over your ass, attempting to ram you full of "cognitive diversity." Or you will have if some of the Harvard control freaks in the White House have their way. Those crazy conspiracy theories are just too whacked. They cannot be permitted to run around loose. Opponents of the idea claim US secret police trolling the net will take us back to the 1960s, Hoover’s FBI, and black ops like COINTELPRO. They are almost certainly right. I’d also point out how, when the first rumors about COINTELPRO and CIA domestic games like CHAOS and MKULTRA began to circulate, they were dismissed and dissed as crazy conspiracy theories.

“A high-ranking official in the Obama administration has come under fire in the past few weeks for suggesting that it would be a good idea to deploy federal agents to "cognitively infiltrate" political groups that believe in conspiracy theories. "Cognitive infiltration" may just be a fancy way to describe what chat room trolls do every day, but it's downright Orwellian in its implications, summoning visions of disinformation campaigns, agents provocateurs, and J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO. The official is Cass Sunstein, the long-time University of Chicago law professor (he has since moved on to Harvard), who is currently serving as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein's proposal was not issued under the auspices of the government, but in an academic paper. Co-authored with Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule and published in The Journal of Political Philosophy in 2008, "Conspiracy Theory" surveys the existing scholarship on the origins and characteristics of conspiracy theories and contemplates whether or not governments should try to neutralize them. In general, it takes a social sciences approach, arguing that conspiracy theories are neither legitimate political ideas nor symptoms of a psychological disorder, but are rather the inevitable distortions of closed-off, self-reinforcing belief systems. Using government agents to inject "cognitive diversity" into those communities, it suggests, just might provide the body politic with an antidote to the thought contagions they inspire.
Glenn Greenwald ripped into Sunstein's "truly pernicious" article in Salon. "Note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple, controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly influence and shape our political debates," he wrote. "There is a very strong case to make that what Sunstein is advocating is itself illegal under long-standing statutes prohibiting government 'propaganda' within the U.S., aimed at American citizens." The far right World Net Daily was no less alarmist: "Top Obama czar: Infiltrate all 'conspiracy theorists,'" its headline read. "Presidential adviser wrote about crackdown on expressing opinions." Click here for the rest.

Click here for “I Spy For The FBI” by Jamo Thomas

The secret word is Policeman

MARILYN SEZ...

“Jack and I are already a conspiracy theory – in fact, multiple conspiracy theories.”

SPACE OPERA

GOLDEN OLDIES AND BLASTS FROM THE PAST

“Farren had my number years ago.”

Although La CityBeat went out of business months ago, I wondered last night, as I idled online, if the website was still up. And yes, it was. There was even a file of my old columns. Click here to check it out. This one about Dick Cheney from 2007 has certainly stood the test of time.

“The humorous suggestion has more than once been made that Dick Cheney is, in fact, something other than human. Most recently Maureen Dowd came close to calling the vice president an alien in her New York Times column: "I've always thought Cheney was way out there - the most Voldemort-like official I've run across. But ... I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet."
At the opposite extreme, conspiracy theorist David Icke seriously claims that Cheney is actually a shape-shifting reptilian from inside the Hollow Earth with an agenda of world conquest. But Icke, a former British soccer player whose theories cloak a virulent and calculated anti-Semitism, can hardly be considered a reliable source. He does, however, illustrate the odd frequency with which science fiction is used to denigrate the veep.
This seems a unique phenomenon in American political and cultural history. Certainly, every president and vice president has come in for his share of abuse: FDR and JFK were both called communists, Nixon was a crook, Gerald Ford was a stumbling doofus, Jimmy Carter was ineffectual, Reagan was a puppet, Dan Quayle was a moron, Bill Clinton couldn't keep his pants zipped, and LBJ picked up beagles by their ears. All offensive, but strictly terrestrial. Cheney, on the other hand, with approval ratings that dipped as low as 18 percent in mid-2006, may have alienated so many of us that we look for alien metaphors to express our loathing for the man.
An intensive Web search (during which my computer froze, I swear) revealed that the Cheney-as-alien concept runs deep. He was referred to as "Dark Lord of the Sith" more times than I care to count, and his face has been Photoshopped onto every unholy phase of Anakin Skywalker metamorphosing into Darth Vader. On June 27, a Cheney-is-an-alien joke appeared on the blog of an anonymous Washington lawyer (Lawyerworldland.blogspot.com). The author mock-quoted White House Press Secretary Tony Snow as saying Cheney had "complete immunity from everything" and "not only is he not part of the Executive Branch, but strictly speaking not even part of the human race."
Instead of Star Wars, a blogger called Defective Yeti used the Alien movie cycle for an elaborate parallel. "The xenomorph has a complex lifecycle," D. Yeti writes. "After hatching from an egg, the 'facehugger' implants an embryo deep within the body of the host organism. Sometime later the parasite violently emerges from its carrier, then rapidly grows to a near-perfect killing machine. This reminds me of nothing so much as Dick Cheney. He found a host organism easily enough. In 1999, Cheney headed up Bush's Vice-Presidential Search Committee, only to announce that he was the most qualified man for the job. After Bush was elected, Cheney gestated deep within the body politic. Now, his metamorphosis is complete, he ruptures forth ... and if the democracy that incubated him is killed in the process, so be it ... In January 2009 it will be fun to watch Hillary strap herself into a power-loader, and blow Cheney out of an airlock."
Of course, Cheney himself hardly confirms his humanity. The abnormal arrogance, the mysterious disappearances, the strange beliefs in the nature of his office the weird demand that Google Earth pixilate his official residence, and recent revelation on HuffPo that "Cheney runs to an undisclosed location because he, his doctors, and the Secret Service know that his pacemaker is not shielded from EMR [electronic medical records] or EMP [electromagnetic pulse]" all provide grist for speculations straight out of Invasion of Body Snatchers. The recent news of the Mosler, man-sized safe in Cheney's office, however, took one blog commentator straight in the direction of H. P. Lovecraft: "Be warned that it's not really a safe," goes the posting. "When you open the door to that safe, it actually leads straight to hell."

And click here for Bob singing Masters Of War which has also stood the test of time.

The secret word is Paranormal

SOMEBODY CALL QUALITY CONTROL

I mean, it is Black History Month.

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 70

(Image lifted from Brusquelles)

CLICK! (Your dossier grows)

A TREAT FOR SUNDAY – COLORED DINOSAURS

Wow! This makes my old monochrome plastic models from the National History Museum so redundant.
“Pigments have been found in fossil dinosaurs for the first time, a new study says. The discovery may prove once and for all that dinosaurs' hairlike filaments—sometimes called dino fuzz—are related to bird feathers, paleontologists announced today. The finding may also open up a new world of prehistoric color, illuminating the role of color in dinosaur behavior and allowing the first accurately colored dinosaur re-creations, according to the study team, led by Fucheng Zhang of China's Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology. The team identified fossilized melanosomes—pigment-bearing organelles—in the feathers and filament-like "protofeathers" of fossil birds and dinosaurs from northeastern China. Found in the feathers of living birds, the nano-size packets of pigment—a hundred melanosomes can fit across a human hair—were first reported in fossil bird feathers in 2008.” (Click here for more.)

The secret word is Festive

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Lydia could not get a single Frozdick to accept her call.

AMAZING WHAT YOU USED TO BE ABLE TO GET FOR ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENCE

Image supplied by Valerie

HOW TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD JUNK TV SHOW IN JUST THREE EPISODES

Longtime readers of Doc40 will doubtless remember that, after some initial misgivings, I became quite a fan of the remake of Battlestar Galactica, and was particularly taken by Dr. Gaius Baltar and the blonde humanoid Cylons whose spines glowed neon red at the moment of robot orgasm. Although the final season rather fell apart at the end, the show had been a regular feature of Friday nights when I had nothing better to do and before the DVR came to stay. On the strength of this previous connection, I set the controls for the new show Caprica, the supposed prequel to Galactica, hoping to derive a similar space opera enjoyment. Unfortunately not. Instead of intergalactic intrigue, space warfare, hot cyborgs, and a bit of religious ambiguity (with Bob Dylan), I found to my dismay that Caprica is all about some cute teenager who is killed in a terrorist attack so her grieving dad builds her avatar (that’s right) into what will be the first Cylon. Not a Viper, hyper-space jump, or glowing spine in sight. The only conclusion I can draw is that some executive idiot decided it would a cool move to screw the fans of the previous show and go after the Twilight market. Not cool. Asinine. If teenage girls weren’t lured by the kick-ass, hard-drinking, female fighter pilots on Galactica, they aren’t going to go for this saccharine Caprica crap. The toilet level ratings confirm this. Caprica jumped the shark in the pilot. What we have here is yet another example of abandoning the base that put you where you are for some nebulous grass-is-greener demographic. It seems a primary delusion in this modern world, adopted by both presidents and bad TV shows.

The secret word is Epsilon

Click here for the Pink Floyd playing Interstellar Overdrive

THE LEVITATING CAT

If I ever catch Finn doing this, I shall walk straight out of the apartment and never go back. (Click here for the animated version.)

BEWARE OF CHILDREN WHO OWN TANKS #2

NEW AMERICAN GOTHIC

Fear is our motivation. Abject fear is all we have left. We will give it up when it’s pried from our cold dead fingers. We fear the black helicopters of the New World Order that will come to take us the special trains that will, in turn, take us to the FEMA concentration camps. We fear the Islamo-fascist terrorists who are moving in to kill us. We fear the foreigners who are taking our land. We fear a president who calls himself Barack. We fear the homosexuals and their abominable agenda. We fear the Elders of Zion and their abominable protocols. We fear unions and are glad they are gone. Since our jobs were outsourced, we survive on unemployment, but we hate and fear socialism. We believe every word that Glenn Beck tells us which inflates the fear. We believe every word in the Bible and hate and fear anyone who doesn’t. We know that climate change is a dirty lie. We live on animal fat and corn syrup and we have no healthcare. We have a chainsaw and no future. We will see our nation reduced to a Third World wasteland. We must torture our enemies. We pray the Rapture comes soon to stop the voices in our head. Thank God for crystal meth and Jesus.

Click here for Johnny Cash singing “Hurt.”

The secret words are Pain and Threshold

HELLO CHAINSAW!

THE WOLVES STILL NEED OUR HELP

The follow came from the NRDC...

Dear Mick,
The war on wolves is getting uglier by the day. It's tragic enough that a record 402 wolves were killed last year in Idaho and Montana after their removal from the endangered species list -- an astronomical level that amounts to one-third of the entire wolf population in those two states. But what saddens me almost as much are the barbaric tactics that wolf-haters have been employing lately. For example, on Christmas Eve, Idaho wolf supporter Lynne Stone received a threatening email from a wolf hater there. The email only said "Merry Cristmas" (spelled without the 'h') and included a morbid photo of a bloodied dead wolf in the back of a pickup truck. This disturbing photo and sinister email remind us of what wolves and their supporters are up against -- and why we need you to speak out now against the savage slaughter of wolves. Even if you've recently signed other wolf petitions, please sign our new message to Interior Secretary Salazar because it's only getting worse for wolves. Here are a few shocking examples of how ugly the situation has become: Just a few weeks ago, a Wolf/Coyote/Predator Killing Derby was held in Idaho, where prizes were given away for shooting the most animals. Participants were told in advance they'd be able to use "wolf distress calls" to attract nearby wolves to the rifle range. Outraged by this blatant example of animal cruelty? Take action now and sign our new Citizen's Petition. And as we showed you a while back, a sickening sign outside an Idaho restaurant proclaimed, "Tag a Wolf. Get a Free Pizza and Pitcher of Beer." Angry that wolf-killing is being promoted in such a cavalier way? Fire off a wolf-saving email petition now to demand federal protections for wolves. Many wolf packs have been decimated. A majority of Idaho's Basin Butte pack, a favorite of wolf-watchers, was wiped out, seven of them by government agents firing from a helicopter or airplane. The remaining members of Montana's Sage Creek pack were also killed by aerial gunners. Four of the 10 wolves in Yellowstone Park's much-studied Cottonwood Creek pack were killed when they ventured out of the park's boundaries. And government agents have recently been authorized to destroy several packs in Montana. This disastrous open season on wolves has reversed so much of our hard-won progress over the past several years. Tell Interior Secretary Salazar to put wolves back on the endangered species list where they belong. Over the next critical months, NRDC will be facing off in federal court against Interior Secretary Salazar over the fate of the wolf. But legal action is just one important tactic. Public action is another. That's why we're urging you to show the Interior Secretary that you care about wolves. Powerful government agencies and a vocal minority of hunters and ranchers have lined up against the wolves of the Northern Rockies. But the wolves have you. It's urgent that you stand with us now.
Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke, President Natural Resources Defense Council

Click here to help

And click here for a friend of Doc40 who should be in our thoughts.

ANOTHER WEIRD COMICBOOK

OBAMA ESCALATES THE DRUG WAR

Just as public opinion seems more accepting of drug legalization, the Obama administration escalates funding for the drug war. The story comes from the Marijuana Policy Project.

WASHINGTON - February 4 - According to 2011 funding "highlights" released this week by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Obama administration is expanding the war on drugs and focusing its funds toward law enforcement over treatment. The budget puts America's drug war spending at $15.5 billion for fiscal year 2011; an increase of 3.5 percent over 2010 and an increase of 5.2 percent in overall enforcement funding ($9.7 billion in FY 2010 to $9.9 billion in FY 2011). Addiction treatment and preventative measures are budgeted to increase from $5.2 billion to $5.6 billion. Furthermore, President Obama chose to continue funding the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which is run by the drug czar's office and has for years emptied its coffers on absurd anti-marijuana ads that veer far from the truth. One such ad released in 2006 insinuates that marijuana use can lead to rape, a particularly dishonest claim considering that alcohol, a legal drug, is a factor in a huge majority of sexual assaults. "This budget reflects the same Bush-era priorities that led to the total failure of American drug policy during the last decade," said Aaron Houston, MPP director of government relations. "One of the worst examples is $66 million requested for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign when every independent study has called it a failure."

Click here for the “date rape” commercial.

The secret word is Shame

BUT THE DRUG WAR IS HIGHLY SELECTIVE...

SPACE OPERA

ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM – A QUICK HISTORY LESSON

Yesterday Daily Kos/Research 2000 came out with a poll that indicated 39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached, 36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, 31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a "Racist who hates White people" – a description used by Glenn Beck. As if that wasn’t enough, the poll also showed 53 percent believed Sarah Palin more qualified to be president than Obama, and 23 percent believed their state should secede from the Union. For our purpose here, the important number is the whopping 63 percent who think Obama is a socialist. Shall we get real? Anyone who thinks Barack Obama is a socialist does not have even a hazy inkling of the true nature of socialism. And what the hell would they do if confronted by the term anarcho-syndicalism?
As it happens anarcho-syndicalism has come up a Jungian number of times in conversation recently and I thought it might be time to be reacquainted with the theory. I’m also thinking a great deal about the potential for anarchism to combine with cyber-technology and online communications where, it seems, money is already on the way to being abolished. I have yet to form even a partial conclusion, however.

"Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labor as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance. Even in those countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination, and the like have long existed, governments are constantly trying to restrict those rights or to reinterpret them by juridical hair-splitting. Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace . Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution." – Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory & Practice, 1947

Click here for the sensible Wikipedia entry

Click here for the Python version

The secret word is Change

LULLABY OF BROADWAY

And while I was looking at the anarcho-syndicalism in the 1930s another piece of synchronicity came into play as I happened across a clip of the extended Busby Berkeley production number “Lullaby of Broadway” from the movie Gold Diggers of 1935. I have always marveled at this amazing piece of cinema. It seems so much more than just a dance segment in a Hollywood musical. For a start, the principal character falls to her death at the end, and on an inspired day, I am able to see it as a metaphor for the rise of fascism. If you think I’m crazy, click here and check it out.

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Anastasia Wharton-Frozdick trained her group to have little patience for debate.

BEWARE OF CHILDREN WHO OWN TANKS

Click! (Posterity is yours.)

THEY WILL EAT THEIR OWN

It’s usually the left that schisms, fragments, and starts fighting with its own. The Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party focuses its spite and loathing on the Revolutionary Workers Socialist party and who could forget the Anarchists shooting it out with the Stalinists in Barcelona in 1937. But now, if we hang in there, we are likely to see the right snarling at each other’s throats. As the Republican primaries approach and the extremist of the Tea Party movement start purging heretics, the whole thing could turn really ugly and the grifters, the crooks, the megalomaniacs, and the-just-plain crazy form factions and turn their poisonous and frequently fabricated vitriol on each other rather than the Obama administration. James O'Keefe and his ludicrous crew are most probably ratting each other out right, and heaven help Glenn Beck if he picks the wrong side as the right goes for the jugular. Not even Sarah Palin – already under fire for possible money laundering via her book – seems above the coming fray as this weekend’s Tea Party Convention degenerates into bickering chaos and she remains the last speaker standing. Oh man, would I love to see Palin and Michelle Bachmann going at it. I would even spring for Pay For View.

The secret word is Glee

OMAR – THE KITTY OF DEATH

This somewhat unnerving story was supplied by our pal Elf Hellion…

“Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death. The cat, now five and generally unsociable, was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island, which specialises in caring for people with severe dementia. Dr Dosa first publicised Oscar's gift in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Since then, the cat has gone on to double the number of imminent deaths it has sensed and convinced the geriatrician that it is no fluke. The tortoiseshell and white cat spends its days pacing from room to room, rarely spending any time with patients except those with just hours to live. If kept outside the room of a dying patient, Oscar will scratch on the door trying to get in. When nurses once placed the cat on the bed of a patient they thought close to death, Oscar "charged out" and went to sit beside someone in another room. The cat's judgement was better than that of the nurses: the second patient died that evening, while the first lived for two more days.” (Click here for more.)

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LICK YOUR OWN ELBOW

SPACE OPERA

THE WAGES OF POT

“An Oakland, Calif., based group is trying to gather the 434,000 signatures necessary to put the question of marijuana legalization before state voters on the 2010 ballot.
Under the Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010, adults over age 21 would be allowed to legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and could grow the drug for personal use on plots of land up to 25 square feet. The proposed ballot measure was filed with the state Attorney General's office this week. Legalization advocates point to past successes with medical marijuana in California and a Field Poll that found that 56 percent of state voters support the legalization and taxation of marijuana. "It's one more pretty amazing element in the momentum toward ending statewide prohibition," said Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance. If it makes the ballot and is approved by voters, the measure would repeal all state and local marijuana laws and clear marijuana offenses from the records of all past offenders.”

While being well aware that this is a major step towards the eventual goal of wholly legal marijuana, that eventual goal has to be kept firmly in mind, and public relations should not be confused with reality. Already, in Los Angeles, we have medical marijuana emerging as essentially a neat legal loophole for the affluence middle classic dope smoker – the yuppie pothead, if you like – who can kick back a hundred bucks to a doctor for a cannabis card and then pay $120 bucks for a quarter of purple kush or Skywalker OG. The almost 200 hundred dope stores that have sprung up in LA County are a clear testimony to the profits levels in the business. And of course the profits are amazing because quasi-legal dope is being sold at outlaw prices even though the risk factor – the reason we paid the big bucks during prohibition – has been eliminated. Also eliminated – or at least seriously threatened – is the community benefit of illegal dope in that distribution and sale previously supported literally hundreds of people. Medical marijuana stores would appear to be making a fortune for a lucky few, but hardly spreading the wealth. We also have the nebulous, beam-me-up-Scotty, anomaly of dope that is illegal during its mass cultivation, harvesting, and distribution, but magically becomes legal once it is safely inside the pot store.
The Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010 perpetuates and extends the same nonsensical legal anomaly. The ounce that you’re holding will be legal, but the kilo it came in remains outside the law. Ounce good/kilo evil simply cannot stand. If marijuana is to be legal, it has to be legal across the board, taxed, regulated, and subject to a considerable reduction in consumer prices because no one has to duck the narcs any more and no ones goes to jail. Half measures have to be recognized as merely temporary or else we go back to an outlaw pot economy in which everyone’s ass was up for grabs.

The secret word is Bud

THIS IS THE HOUSE

THIS IS THE BATHROOM

THIS IS THE POODLE

I think I could live without the poodle.

IT’S NOT THE MOST COMFORTING THOUGHT FOR SUNDAY

Those darn scientists keep coming up with more stuff to worry about...

“According to researchers at Australian National University, the end of the universe will happen earlier than anyone previously thought. The mother of all deadlines is coming up!
Dr. Charley Lineweaver and Ph.D. student Chas Egan at ANU, who recently tried to tally and account for all the entropy in the universe, ended up finding about thirty time more than they expected to. (Entropy is a measure of how much energy a system has used up; one way to think of it is that the more entropy is present in a system, the more run-down that system is.) Lineweaver and Egan think the excess entropy quotient comes from supermassive black holes, and they've concluded that the whole of existence is nearer its stopping point anyone believed.” (Click here for more)

And just for retro-fun, click here for REM playing "It's The End Of The World As We Know it.

The secret word is Chill

MARILYN SEZ…

“If we don’t go one way, we go another.”

WHAT IS IT WITH GIRLS AND DALEKS?

DAVROS SEZ…

“Maybe we’re just so damned irresistible.”

WHALE SONG WAVELETS

I’ve always liked to hear the whales sing and now Valerie clues us in on how there’s a visual representation…

“Whales and dolphins are accomplished vocalists, emitting complex patterns of clicks and whistles that vary in pitch, volume and length. To visualise their songs, and therefore identify species, marine biologists usually produce a spectrogram, a graph of how the frequency of their vocalisations varies over time. Spectrograms are created using a mathematical process called the Fourier transform (FT), which can convert raw sound into a set of sinusoidal waves. However, because these waves are periodic and infinite, they are better suited to describing repetitive, continuous noises, such as the whirr of a propeller, rather than the staccato clicks and whistles of cetaceans. Now Mark Fischer, an expert in marine acoustics, has come up with another way to illustrate whale song. He uses a more obscure method, known as the wavelet transform, which represents the sound in terms of components known as wavelets: short, discrete waves that are better at capturing cetacean song.” (Click here for more.)

A BARACK COMEBACK?

Okay, so we’ve hammered President Obama for multiple reasons multiple times of late, but yesterday’s q&a with the Republicans was pretty damned impressive. So impressive, in fact, that Fox News started phasing it out well before the end. It’s like Doug the Bass emailed us – “Hey, guess who showed up today. The guy we elected last year.” If you didn’t see it, it’s well worth a glance. Click here.

The secret word is Pragmatism

SPACE OPERA

GREAT BIG PLANET-SIZED UFOS

When our pal Joly sent this over, I was fascinated. Okay so maybe they’re just a data glitch or maybe they’re really coming for us. Either way it makes for an interesting Friday morning…

“NASA’s Stereo spacecraft monitoring the Sun began registering huge spherical UFO’s in the vicinity of the Sun around January 18, 2010. According to one observer, the UFOs “appear to be moving as they are in different positions on many [of the NASA Stereo] photos, and are huge possibly at least the size of Earth. If the UFOs were planets or some type of huge asteroid comets, they would already have been pulled into the Sun by the strong gravity the Sun produces as in the case of the recent comet." Dr. Joe Gurman, NASA Stereo Project scientist states the giant solar UFOs are compression artifacts. Moreover, he states, the "’central data recorder’ at DSN, that stores all the playback data from all the missions DSN supports, failed' on January 18, 2010, the date the solar UFO wave began, thus accounting for the images of giant UFOs (see full statement in the article below). In a quantum physics solution to the mystery of the giant solar UFOs, physicist Nassim Haramein states in a video-taped analysis (below) that Earth-sized UFOs are in fact giant extraterrestrial or interdimensional spacecraft, which are accessing our solar system, using the Sun as a black-hole singularity, or star gate. Mr. Haramein contends that NASA Stereo data of giant solar UFOs prove that extraterrestrial civilizations access our solar system via a star gate on the Sun when using large (Earth-size) vehicle spacecraft.” (Click here for the whole story)

The secret word is Mothership

A HANDY CHART OF COMPARATIVE RELIGION

Image lifted from Siblingshot

BUT WHATEVER HAPPENS, I’M NOT WEARING THESE

AND MIND HOW YOU GO, COMRADES…

PETA WANTS TO REPLACE PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL WITH A ROBOT

I’m all for the ethical treatment of animals, but some animals are more ethical than others…

“PETA wants to take Punxsutawney Phil away from Gobbler's Knob and give the little guy a dignified retirement at an animal sanctuary. In his place, you guessed it: A robot groundhog. Gemma Vaughan, PETA's animals in entertainment specialist, fired off a letter to groundhog club president William Deeley this week, asking for his promise that the group will forgo the use of real rodents in future Groundhog Day celebrations. Little Phil, Vaughan wrote, is a pretty unhappy fellow, "forced to be on display year round at the local library and is denied the ability to prepare for and enter yearly hibernation." Groundhogs are typically shy creatures, Vaughan goes on to explain, and they can become easily upset when confronted by throngs of people, loud noises and camera flashes.” (Click here for more.)

The secret word is Rodent

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Maximilian Frozdick’s plans for world domination were elaborate…very elaborate.

Image supplied by Valerie

BE WORRIED, BE VERY WORRIED

Howard Zinn – RIP
J.D. Salinger – RIP

AMERICAN WOMANHOOD

I’ve hung out with Lemmy and watched hundreds of hours of The History Channel, so I am under no illusion that an imperative to the panoply of Nazism lurks just below the surface of our political culture, both in the US and Europe. In some cases, it’s nothing more than a matter of dress-up. First-generation punks and, before them, the Hells Angels flaunted Nazi regalia to scare the squares. But then the skinhead faction took on the political philosophy of violence and race-hate with jackbooted glee, and swastikas were no longer a joke. They became symptoms of chaos, as their wearers pissed on any semblance of human civilization, and made themselves posturing, Wagner-lite media fodder. Swastikas are hardly a joke today as the extreme fringes of the Republican right pussyfoot around a new crop of master-racers who seem to have re-invoked their parades and costume parties as bigot commentary on the first black president of the United States, and a play by the deeply ignorant and loathsome to cast themselves as the saviors of white America in these desperate days. The idea is, of course, completely nonsensical. I’ve never met a neo-Nazi who could explain National Socialist economic policies beyond predicable anti-Semitism, and, in the long term they go away. Their membership dwindles or the hardcore attempts some dumb scam involving guns and dynamite and falls foul of the FBI. Uniformed, uninformed brown shirts, despite their furious display, hardly stand a chance in a society where true fascism wears a blue suit with a flag pin in the lapel and treats the poor as sub-humanity. What does worry me, however, is what unholy alliances, infections, and cross-fertilizations might occur during flirtations in the twilight zone between goose-step Nazi flag-wavers and the dangerously lumpen, outer-limited, far-right supporters of Palin and her ilk. That needs watching. They should not be allowed to breed.

And click here for a gratuitous clip of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me."

The secret word is Heil

ZONES OF CHAOS

A clip of the reading from my book Zones of Chaos that Andy Colquhoun and I did last Saturday at La Luz de Jesus Gallery is already up on YouTube. Click here and enjoy. The piece is called “Song of The Hired Guns”, and here are the words for ease of understanding…

We have taken it to the edge of gravity's defile
We have shot out rainbows with our cannon
We have walked with spurs and hard nails
Over the curvature of planets
And made our mark on iron mountains
So tell us quickly great hero
And Man With No Name
What the fuck are we supposed to do now?

We have matched pocheen
And double shots of railroad gin
With Nazgul of the Ninth International
And taken abuse
To the upper echelons of naked art
We have been and seen
And spurned the design
Abandoned the plan
And rejected the plea bargain
So do not leave us hanging
Here in the discolored darkness, Don Vito
For are we not your chosen men?
What the fuck are we supposed to do now?

From sewer and cesspool
Trailer park and half crown knocking shop
Feral and fastidious
With only a bottle of pills between us
Sharp swords and a fistful of dynamite
Songs of victory and execution
We have done the bidding of all
And the will of none
We have sacked and pillaged
In the cities of the ravaged night
But never except idly and temporarily profited
And it's the time to clue us in
Divine Marquis
For we need to know
What the fuck are we supposed to do now?

(And copies of Zones of Chaos can still be obtained for the super-low price of ten bucks. Just shove a ten spot in an envelope and mail it to Doc40 with your address. Email byron4d@msn.com for where to send it. (And if the ten gets lost we’ll make it good.)

I SHOULD NEVER HAVE FOLLOWED THAT DAMNED RABBIT

(Image lifted from Brusquelles)

THE DREAM IS REALLY OVER

If, as promised, Barack Obama announces a spending freeze in his State of the Union speech tomorrow, it will be my cue to mutter “what the fuck does he think he’s doing?” and make plans to slink away. What is it in the Presidential mind that moves him to take the classically wrong course of action for an economy in recession? (Unless of course it’s all a fiendish political trap into which the Republicans will haplessly fall.) Where are the massive public works projects? What happened to job creation by cutting edge tech? What happened to the single-payer US health service? Where’s the new green WPA? In every direction, all I see is madness. As Obama starts to act like Herbert Hoover, Wall Street and its zombie bankers continue to evaluate profits as some abstract numerology without even a token relationship to serving a social function or producing a product. It's that same Gekko-thinking that wrecked ENRON and everything else since. As the workers are progressively screwed and far too many are condemned to dangerous unemployment, no one seems able to recall that the worker is also the consumer, and when the consumer base collapses – as it is clearly in the process of doing – the country collapses right along with it. I would like to pretend that all the bad shit might still be turned around, but I fear my optimism will no longer stretch that far, as I become convinced that the US may be entering a decade of hard time that is a combination of former Soviet dysfunction and Japan’s ten year recession. And doubtless with eruptions of mindless and desperate fury as the right gratuitously messes with primal forces. It is not a pleasant prospect, and survival may now be the hot topic as we remember we stand a better chance united, and try to rediscover the knack of creating our own solutions.

And click here for Patti Smith doing “Changing of the Guards.”

The secret word is Solidarity

BLIND WOMAN CATCHES HUMUNGOUS FISH

Doc40 isn’t really in the habit of running fishing stories, but when the amazing HCB sent this over, we made an exception.

"A grandmother has entered the record books after catching the biggest ever freshwater fish by a British woman - a 15st 4lb catfish. Sheila Penfold, who stands at just 5ft 3in and is registered blind, was nearly dragged into the river when the monster catfish took her bait during a holiday in Spain. The 56-year-old had to be directed by husband Alan and son Arthur as she fought for 30 minutes to land the prized 214lb catch." Click here for the rest

DOC'S PAPERBACK CLASSIC'S # 69

SEX, DRUGS, AND STRAWBERRIES

When our pal Peromyscus sent me a link to this piece posted by Amanda Marcotte, it caught my eye because it referenced an ancient essay by our good friend Ellen Willis. But then I went on reading this well reasoned argument that everything from marijuana prohibition and the drug war to virulent and never ending resistance to legal abortion are all part of the same class war.

“So the other night, I was reading a book of essay by Ellen Willis called No More Nice Girls, and I bookmarked a page because the sentence on it really jumped out at me as the most succinct description of why the social conservatives merge so seamlessly with “economic” conservatives (who I would call class warriors, as that explanation predicts their behavior better than self-flattered ideological explanations about “small government"). The essay was a 1989 one about the drug war, and the way that it wasn’t about stopping the crack epidemic or slowing down crime or any of the other, more liberal explanations, but how it was strictly about authoritarian control, which explains why relatively harmless drugs like marijuana and psychedelics were being grouped in with harder drugs like speed and heroin. But this part touched on the much larger issue at hand.” (Click here for more.)

The secret word is Fruit

ELECTRIC ANT

Marvel Comics' adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Electric Ant (sample panel above) has finally been scheduled for release this April, which causes me to once again to wonder how Phil Dick must feel. He’s been dead since 1982, after spending his life as a cult author subject to the disappointments and outrageous fortune that goes with the territory, but now he’s a topflight famous author with his work being made into movies comic books and with – who knows – action figures yet to come. To become big-time famous after you’re dead must surely put a crimp in any afterlife you might be enjoying. I can only appeal to the media moguls to discover me now while I still have life and breath shamelessly to enjoy all the capitalist perks of fame. The media moguls would also have the advantage that I would still be around to advise them on how the stories should be translated to film and other media. Or maybe that’s what they fear.

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Dante Gabriel Frozdick’s single claim to fame was that Elvis Presley had once written on his head.

GRATUITOUS BARDOT

THIS BLOG IS STILL PROTECTED BY...

SUNDAY MORNING

“So your reading went well last night?”
“Yes, it did. Extremely well. Andy rocked and I was pretty lively, even if I say so myself.”
“And now you’d like black pudding, scrambled egg, fried tomatoes, buttered toast, marmalade, and Coca Cola for breakfast?”
“The idea did cross my mind.”
“Even if it totally clogs your heart?”
“It was only an idea.”
“And you fancy a day off from contemplating the ills of this crumbling planet?”
“How do you know all this?”
“I read your mind.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a morning illusion.”
“You’re not real?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Smoke this joint and you’ll feel better.”

Click here for the inevitable Velvet Underground

The secret word is Mindless

Jean Simmons -- RIP

MARILYN SEZ…

“I used to have all these weird adventures, but now I just stand around like I was in an Ingmar Berman movie.”

New visitors or anyone one who wants to revisit the Adventures of Marilyn should click here.

SPACE OPERA

CLICK! (You are now in the database.)

IT JUST GETS WORSE

We have all seen the glee with which law enforcement and those in authority crush citizen protest against their global corporate masters, but, now the US Supreme Court has turned democracy over to the complete control of obscene corporate wealth, the only free discourse may well be citizen protest, with citizens getting their heads broken for having an opinion at odds with the dictates of Monsanto. Our pal Aeswiren has sent this story by Greg Palast from Alternet that suggest things may be even worse that we suspected.

“In today's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President. The ruling, which junks federal laws that now bar corporations from stuffing campaign coffers, will not, as progressives fear, cause an avalanche of corporate cash into politics. Sadly, that's already happened: we have been snowed under by tens of millions of dollars given through corporate PACs and "bundling" of individual contributions from corporate pay-rollers. The Court's decision is far, far more dangerous to U.S. democracy. Think: Manchurian candidates. I'm losing sleep over the millions - or billions - of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit; or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation. Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA. But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias. Candidate Barack Obama was one sharp speaker, but he would not have been heard, and certainly would not have won, without the astonishing outpouring of donations from two million Americans. It was an unprecedented uprising-by-PayPal, overwhelming the old fat-cat sources of funding. Well, kiss that small-donor revolution goodbye. Under the Court's new rules, progressive list serves won't stand a chance against the resources of new "citizens" such as CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Maybe UBS (United Bank of Switzerland), which faces U.S. criminal prosecution and a billion-dollar fine for fraud, might be tempted to invest in a few Senate seats. As would XYZ Corporation, whose owners remain hidden by "street names." George Bush's former Solicitor General Ted Olson argued the case to the court on behalf of Citizens United, a corporate front that funded an attack on Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary. Olson's wife died on September 11, 2001 on the hijacked airliner that hit the Pentagon. Maybe it was a bit crude of me, but I contacted Olson's office to ask how much "Al Qaeda, Inc." should be allowed to donate to support the election of his local congressman. Olson has not responded. The danger of foreign loot loading into U.S. campaigns, not much noted in the media chat about the Citizens case, was the first concern raised by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who asked about opening the door to "mega-corporations" owned by foreign governments. Olson offered Ginsburg a fudge, that Congress might be able to prohibit foreign corporations from making donations, though Olson made clear he thought any such restriction a bad idea. Tara Malloy, attorney with the Campaign Legal Center of Washington D.C. says corporations will now have more rights than people. Only United States citizens may donate or influence campaigns, but a foreign government can, veiled behind a corporate treasury, dump money into ballot battles. Malloy also noted that under the law today, human-people, as opposed to corporate-people, may only give $2,300 to a presidential campaign. But hedge fund billionaires, for example, who typically operate through dozens of corporate vessels, may now give unlimited sums through each of these "unnatural" creatures. And once the Taliban incorporates in Delaware, they could ante up for the best democracy money can buy. In July, the Chinese government, in preparation for President Obama's visit, held diplomatic discussions in which they skirted issues of human rights and Tibet. Notably, the Chinese, who hold a $2 trillion mortgage on our Treasury, raised concerns about the cost of Obama's health care reform bill. Would our nervous Chinese landlords have an interest in buying the White House for an opponent of government spending such as Gov. Palin? Ya betcha! The potential for foreign infiltration of what remains of our democracy is an adjunct of the fact that the source and control money from corporate treasuries (unlike registered PACs), is necessarily hidden. Who the heck are the real stockholders? Or as Butch asked Sundance, "Who are these guys?" We'll never know. Hidden money funding, whether foreign or domestic, is the new venom that the Court has injected into the system by its expansive decision in Citizens United. We've been there. The 1994 election brought Newt Gingrich to power in a GOP takeover of the Congress funded by a very strange source. Congressional investigators found that in crucial swing races, Democrats had fallen victim to a flood of last-minute attack ads funded by a group called, "Coalition for Our Children's Future." The $25 million that paid for those ads came, not from concerned parents, but from a corporation called "Triad Inc." Evidence suggests Triad Inc. was the front for the ultra-right-wing billionaire Koch Brothers and their private petroleum company, Koch Industries. Had the corporate connection been proven, the Kochs and their corporation could have faced indictment under federal election law. As of today, such money-poisoned politicking has become legit. So it's not just un-Americans we need to fear but the Polluter-Americans, Pharma-mericans, Bank-Americans and Hedge-Americans that could manipulate campaigns while hidden behind corporate veils. And if so, our future elections, while nominally a contest between Republicans and Democrats, may in fact come down to a three-way battle between China, Saudi Arabia and Goldman Sachs.”

The secret word is No!

TETRIS?

Click here

THE FROZDICK FAMILY

Even among the Frozdicks, Ameleia’s wedding to a pair of anonymous men in gasmasks raised some eyebrows.

SEVEN DAYS IN 2016

As a lifelong connoisseur of worst-case paranoid agendas, I am especially fond of military coupe scenarios in which the Pentagon usurps the White House and the generals seize ultimate power in the USA. The classic fictional coupe-concept is, of course, Seven Days In May – John Frankenheimer's 1964 follow-up to The Manchurian Candidate, but the one laid out by William Astore on TomDispatch.com last week is one of the best I’ve seen in a while. I like it, but I can’t say I agree with it. After yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that corporations can spend all the money they like to corrupt the political system, no one is going to need the military to impose capitalist totalitarianism on this wholly obtuse nation. The fucking SCOTUS just sold the last shreds of democracy out from under us.

“Disillusioned veterans are unable to find decent jobs in a crumbling economy. Scarred by the physical and psychological violence of war, fed up with the happy talk of duplicitous politicians who only speak of shared sacrifices, they begin to organize. Their motto: take America back. Meanwhile, a lame duck presidency, choking on foreign policy failures, finds itself attacked even for its putative successes. Health-care reform is now seen to have combined the inefficiency and inconsistency of government with the naked greed and exploitative talents of corporations. Medical rationing is a fact of life confronting anyone on the high side of 50. Presidential rhetoric that offered hope and change has lost all resonance. Mainstream media outlets are discredited and disintegrating, resulting in new levels of information anarchy.
Protest, whether electronic or in the streets, has become more common -- and the protestors in those streets increasingly carry guns, though as yet armed violence is minimal. A panicked administration responds with overlapping executive orders and legislation that is widely perceived as an attack on basic freedoms.
Tapping the frustration of protesters -- including a renascent and mainstreamed "tea bag" movement -- the former captains and sergeants, the ex-CIA operatives and out-of-work private mercenaries of the War on Terror take action. Conflict and confrontation they seek; laws and orders they increasingly ignore. As riot police are deployed in the streets, they face a grim choice: where to point their guns? Not at veterans, they decide, not at America's erstwhile heroes. A dwindling middle-class, still waving the flag and determined to keep its sliver-sized portion of the American dream, throws its support to the agitators. Wages shrinking, savings exhausted, bills rising, the sober middle can no longer hold. It vents its fear and rage by calling for a decisive leader and the overthrow of a can't-do Congress.
Savvy members of traditional Washington elites are only too happy to oblige. They too crave order and can-do decisiveness -- on their terms. Where better to find that than in the ranks of America's most respected institution: the military? A retired senior officer who led America's heroes in central Asia is anointed. His creed: end public disorder, fight the War on Terror to a victorious finish, put America back on top. The United States, he says, is the land of winners, and winners accept no substitute for victory. Nominated on September 11, 2016, Patriot Day, he marches to an overwhelming victory that November, embraced in the streets by an American version of the post-World War 1 German Freikorps and the police who refuse to suppress them. A concerned minority is left to wonder (and tremble) at the de facto military coup that occurred so quickly, and yet so silently, in their midst.” Click here for more.

The secret word is Stadium

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY

Click here to watch the trailer.

HELP FOR A FUG

Tuli Kupferberg, one of the founding Fugs, has had a couple of strokes in the last year and requires medical attention not covered by Medicare. (In the USA a respected artist needs charity to survive.) Fortunately a benefit will be held tonight at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY, produced by Hal Willner. Celebrating Tuli will be Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Peter Stampfel (of the Holy Modal Rounders and an original Fug), Philip Glass, Sonic Youth, Richard Belzer, and, of course, his brother Fugs. Click here for details.

A QUESTION I FREQUENTLY ASK MYSELF

YOU’RE NOT SPARTACUS!

(The bright side of life?)

Starz are busily promoting their new cable series Spartacus: Blood and Sand. It seems heavy on sweaty Roman sex orgies and gladiator violence. Promo releases read as follows…

“Betrayed by the Romans. Forced into slavery. Reborn as a Gladiator. The classic tale of the Republic’s most infamous rebel comes alive in the graphic and visceral new series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Torn from his homeland and the woman he loves, Spartacus is condemned to the brutal world of the arena where blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands. Treachery, corruption, and the allure of sensual pleasures will constantly test Spartacus. To survive, he must become more than a man. More than a gladiator. He must become a legend.”

Nowhere, however, in all of the fevered swashbuckling hype that’s posted on the net and pouring from my TV, is there any mention of the slave revolt that Spartacus supposedly inspired and no character that resembles the Spartacus described in this Wikipedia entry…

“Spartacus (c. 109–71 BCE) was the most notable leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable. Spartacus's struggle, often seen as the fight of an oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning aristocracy, has found new meaning for modern writers since the 19th century. The rebellion of Spartacus has proven inspirational to many modern literary and political writers, making Spartacus a folk hero among cultures both ancient and modern.”

According to the Starz version, the uprising never happened, or the hideous retribution (above) and Spartacus just wanted to get home to his wife. If this is indeed the case, I suggest we boycott the shit out of this pernicious program, and demonstrate to corporate media that it can’t mess with the icons of the left and get away with it totally unscathed.

The secret word is Liberty

YES, NEIGHBOURS, THESE OLD BOYS ARE DOING IT AGAIN

I’ll be doing a reading and book signing this weekend for my book Zones of Chaos accompanied by master guitarist Andy Colquhoun. That’s on Saturday, January 23, 2009,6 pm – 9 pm, LA LUZ DE JESUS GALLERY (in the Whacko/Soap Plant Building), 4633 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027, 323-666-7667 Fax: 323-663-0243. All are welcome.

ONLY IN HOLLYWEIRD

The following appeared on our local Craig’s List. I can only hope these idiots get their blood drained. Victor Renquist would never do reality TV.

“Reality TV producers seek authentic vampire for new reality series. Must be a real sanguine vampire. Please send a picture and a brief history of when and how you realized you were a real vampire and details about how you live your life as a vampire.”

And in a not totally unrelated story, a friend of a friend called to say that coyotes had been spotted walking around large as life on Sunset Strip near the Roxy.

DOPPLEGANGER ETIQUETTE