All the bombs...

[this disgusting piece of graffitti was found drawn on a subway wall somewhere in the Third Galaxy:]

[below, apparently the same insane madman scrawled in large block letters the following phrase:]

ALL THE BOMBS ARE IN THE HANDS OF TERRORISTS!

When Enlightenment and Freedom Mutates...

Before she mutated into the United State of Arrogance, she was something else, a bright and shining promise of freedom and democracy in the Third Galaxy. With honest pride she bore seven stars upon her brow. She was a beacon of freedom and her most famous symbol was that of Enlightenment and Liberty.

The name she had then can no longer be spoken aloud, only whispered in secret, “The Mother of all Freedom”. True, like all nations, her people ran this way and that and the high ideals of her youth were often compromised – but at the end of the day she stayed on course for more than two and a half centuries.

The source of her strength and renewal was not her flag, but the Ground Law given her at birth. “We the people…” never before in a world run by snotty kings and queens, cruel tyrants and silly pontiffs had such a thing been seen or heard!

The wonder of the Ground Law was that it was constructed in such a way so that, although the power came from the people, it hindered the tyranny of a simple majority over the minority. It was constructed in such a way so as to keep one branch of government from overpowering the others. The result was that although good things sometimes could not be realized, on the other hand evil things were prevented.

All this was true until the rise of the Supreme Hole – she then lost her innocence, her name in the metapsychic interstices became the “Great She Goat” and in the manifest reality the “Bitch of Babylon”.

Elmer Eggplant tried to describe these developments in his essay “The Word Wars”. However he neglected several important points. First of all, Mr. Eggplant has the habit of writing about “them”, what “they” have done. He seems to forget that in a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” the people are responsible for what is done in their name. If we deny that, then democracy ain’t worth the shit off a fly’s ass.

Her Ground Law was constructed with the understanding in mind that the heart beat of democracy is the people – well informed people. Ignorant people can no more make wise decisions no more than ignorant leaders can.

Therefore, two keystone elements of the Ground Law were freedom of speech and freedom of the people to assemble.

But there is more in freedom of speech than keeping the avenues of information open in order to maintain a well informed public body:

If you cannot speak your mind you cannot know your mind.

• If you do not know your own mind you cannot control it.
• If you cannot control your own mind others will only be too glad to do it for you.

The Mother of all Freedom is the Freedom of Speech!

But if the people choose to be ignorant, what can be done? If they favor illusion over reality, lies over truth, hypocrisy over honesty – what then?

What happened to establish the United State of Arrogance was not Ronald Rexona’s “fault” or the “fault” of the many lesser holes who helped facilitate his ascendancy. They shared the fault with the False Prophets and the Bankers of Illusion, the mighty mega-corps – yes, that and more!

But, the real fault lay with the many who embraced ignorance and despised intellect, who saw avarice as a virtue and compassion as something for wussies – all of which led to their incompetence as a body politic. Then, with the ascendancy of the Supreme Hole, all was lost and there was no turning back.

Of couse, nothing like could ever happen in our own world!

Castles of Children

I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit depo over all these things I've been posting lately and having to read it through before I post it.

Sooo, I dug into my poetry bag and found this lovely little thing, "Castles of Children". All I know for sure is that it was written before February, 1999, which is when I found it in one of my notebooks. I assume I wrote it, but, on the other hand it could have been an early channeling from that un-employed angel, Man-u El Ishman, in which case I should attribute it to that well- but un-known poet from the Third Galaxy:

The door opened slowly and into the room
Flew castles of children, all carrying brooms:

"Up in the attic, there's cobwebs and gloom!"
"Down in the cellar, it's crawling with doom!"
"Clean it all out -- and ever so soon!"
"Clean it up now with dust-pan and broom!"

These children flew around like a swarm of young bees,
So busy that they hardly noticed me
Standing there, amazed at their efficiency.

"Who are you, young children? Where do you come from?"

"Don't worry, old man, we were sent by Someone
To clean up the mess you've made of your life
& reunite you again with the love-of-your-life"

"But, children, it's already late afternoon!"

"Don't worry," they cried, "we're finished & soon
The sun will be shining into all of your rooms."

World War Willies

My researches have lead me to believe that there occurred a rip in the fabric of the metapsychic interstices which allowed influences from the Third Galaxy to seep into our own world.

Although there were signs of it earlier, it became apparent after the Neocons came to power in 2001. Their plan to conquer the world had already been outlined in the Project for the New American Century, published in 1998. By no odd coincidence there was a similar document in the Third Galaxy which went under the code name “Mein Kampf of Arrogance”.

Then came TT, Terrible Tuesday -- the chance they had been waiting for. The closing statements of the PNAC recognized that it would be difficult to get the American public to go along with the plan unless a “Pearl Harbor” class incident occurred. Objectively, TT was not a “Pearl Harbor”. What happened in 1941 was a surprise attack by a national state which destroyed our Pacific Fleet. TT had no military significance and as a human tragedy can be compared to many others which we and other people have recovered. However, because it was so visual and because there was no real leadership, the American public went into a state of psychosis from which much of it has not yet awakened. For whatever reason, probably profits on the bottom line, the Bankers of Illusion for years have pandered to this psychosis and failed to tell us about the delusions of the Neocons and their plan to conquer the world.

How did happen that they got their lucky chance and why was Mr. Codpiece allowed to act out his fantasies of power? Was it through incompetence – the kind of incompetence which oozes from a conflation of arrogance and avarice? Was it the fruit of some other insane plan like Operation Northwood? Or was it just plain bad luck? We’ll never know, no more than we’ll never know what really came down the tube when JFK was killed.

All we can know for sure is something of what has happened since.

America reacted to the tragedy as if the sky had fallen. What should have been a police action to bring mass murderers to justice became endless wars with no clear purpose, lives squandered to for no good reason and incredible amounts of money, enough to boggle even a multi-billionaire’s imagination, pissed away into a hole in the ground.

Oh yeah, here’s the money quote from Digby’s blog that set me off on this rant.

This is a very dangerous moment for the world. The US is showing over and over again that it is immoral and incompetent. That is the kind of thing that leads ambitious, crazy or stupid people to miscalculate and set disastrous events in motion. The neocons have destroyed America's carefully nurtured mystique by seeking to flex its muscles for the sake of flexing them. What a mistake. This country is much, much weaker today because of it and the world is paying the price. At some point I have to imagine that we are going to be paying it too. Big Time.

Blogathon Against Torture, 2006

There wil lbe a BLOGATHON against torture this weekend, starting 0600 Saturday morning California time according to the banner up above -- 1400 GMT.

A whole bunch of people will be blogging their hearts out for 24 hours and the Crazy Bird will also be among them, although not as much as he thought because he has company coming.

You can see what it looks like here.

I want to remind you that torture is bad and that state-sponsered torture is bad bad bad.

Thank you for listening

Harsh and Helmet Men

[Having talked so much about poetry yesterday, here is a piece my unemployed angel attributes to the unknown poet from the Third Galaxy. Otherwise one might think I had written in one afternoon back in 1980.

You’d have to be stark raving mad to think that it has anything to do with what is happening, or might happen in our world! Just for the sake of conjecture, if you did see that had some relation to what is happing in our world, such insight could quite easily drive you stark, raving mad. ]

Mathilda called this "Lime Helmet"

Come all you harsh and helmet men and listen while I sing.
My subject is the ugliness your sick delights can bring:
The chewing worms, the flame that burns in fear and groaning nights.
I sing these things with great disgust because I know they're right!

I know about the things I shout - I've seen them all before,
behind the panes of broken glass and the rot beneath the floor!
Once there was a people who did the things you do,
a “Nation-Under-God”, and a “Citadel-of Truth”!

They thought they had a cause of sorts before they started out.
Their heads were full of the shining words that leaders bleed to shout.
But when they see the shattered brains and the juicy, steaming eyes,
they know, somehow, that what they've done was just another crime!

True, most of them were angry when they heard the orders come:
They stood and swore they nevermore would ever carry guns.
But time and chance and circumstance fell upon them all
and off they went, a march of men, as lemmings to the fall.

Perhaps it serves no real use to name the wicked curse
Of a will that chills and thrills to kill and fill an empty purse
with gobs and weeds and crooked sleeves and put it in a hearse.
But if I bite my tongue, I think I only make it worse!

Life is hard to live and you must see what people do:
the way they murder, scream and flout in awful public view
the murders of the urchin waifs and the drownings in the blue
of their fleeing kin and Rin-Tin-Tin as he chews on your neighbor’s foot...

The camera lens now pans and zooms upon the Sacred Woods,
reveals the Naked Mysteries of strangulated roots...
And as I bend to twist again that dislocated switch,
I wonder if I really am responsible for some of this:

[voice over: well modulated voices of tee-vee speakers are now heard]

“Rich men, pigs, and poverties are dining hungrily!...”
“The table groans as dogs chew bones and fried atrocities
are served to the sound of smacking lips, while on the glowing screen
a naked dancer is slowly stripped...” O, MY GOD, COMFORT ME!!!

A robber and a thief is just exactly what I am!
The deeds I've done have left me in this dirty garbage can!
But when I see eternity, I open up my hands!
I bleed for help! Eternally I am a lonely man!”

Some will pray to Jesus and some to nameless gods!
Some will say to the thunder storm, “Please, strike our lightning-rods!”
I don't have so much to say just one, simple plea!
If you get out of here alive, please remember me!”

(if you get out of here alive, please remember me...)

The Emperor's New Clothes

One of the delights of being able to read write and speak Danish fluently is that it gave me the opportunity and pleasure of reading H. C. Andersen’s stories in the original – and here I mean the original original. Old Hans had a way with words and wrote and spelled them in ways he felt fitted exactly the story he wanted to tell. Above all, he was a storyteller, and a storyteller knows that it’s the words you choose and how you say them which spin the illusion any story is.

In Denmark, H.C. Andersen is known as a “poet” (“digter” pr. “dick-ter”) and his most famous work as his “poetry” (digtning, pr. “dickt-ning”). Obviously, the meaning of poet, in Danish is a bit broader than we commonly understand the term.

Poetry is more than lines on page that rhyme and there is no fine line between prose and poetry. The best prose has an element of poetry. Really poor poetry, is prose with a bit of pancake and lipstick in the form of lines that start with capital letters and end in some form of (forced) rhyming pattern.

Poetry says several things at once and has an element of music.

The charm of the story about the Emperor’s Clothes is the naiveté that a little boy exclaiming, “...the Emperor has no clothes!” could change everything. I’m sure that Hans knew darn well that such a turn of events are highly unlikely in the real world.

In the real world, what happens is that the Emperor’s goons – sorry, the Emperor’s Dedicated Security Personnel grab the kid and beat the shit out of him.

That is, that’s what would happen in the bad old days. In these times of Arrogance, they start off with ignoring the kid. Since everyone goes around with a brain implant telling them to pay attention only to what they hear on Approved Media, this usually works and the kid shuts up because nobody’s paying any attention to him.

If that doesn’t work, a band of pundits and talking heads are unleashed and pretty soon they’re all screeching, “Goddam Terrorist Sympathizer, Librul Spawn of Satan!” y’ know, stuff like that.

But if the kid keeps mouthing off and somebody gives him a megaphone, well, it might, it might just happen that everybody sees that not only is the Emperor not wearing any clothes, he’s not carrying all that much baggage between his ears either.

By the way, dear hearts, did you know the word “Emperor” comes from the Latin “Imperator”? It was the title of choice which Julius Cesar took when he became Supreme Hole of Rome.

“Imperator” is a military title and translates pretty closely in English to “Commander in Chief”.

Have a good day!

Ask not for Whom the Birth Pangs Pang...

Things are so much easier to understand when seen from the viewpoint of the Third Galaxy!


When Ronald Rexona refers to the Great Potato and talks about paving the way for the Return of His Son, the Holy Idaho, everybody knows what he is talking about.

True, nobody can be sure that Ronald Rexona himself knows what he’s talking about, but that really doesn’t matter all that much. He is the Decider and knowing too much can make it hard to make the kind of decisions a Decider needs to make – that is, firm decisions, decisions one sticks to no matter how harshly reality butts with uncomfortable footnotes.

A real Decider “stays-the-course” and never, never “cuts and runs”. All a real Decider needs is gut-feeling and knowing that he is doing the Will of the Great Potato.

Sooo, when I rambled yesterday about “Birth Pangs”, poking fun at Ms. Condi and her boss, Mr. Codpiece, I was a bit in doubt as to whether my dear reader(s) would understand the significance of “End Times” and “Rapture” babble in this context.

It would be of little significance if it was just a question of another Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate cult of a couple dozen or even a thousand poor souls whacked out on yet another alternative reality cooked up by a kook in a funny suit.

Like you, I’ve opened up for the news in the morning and heard how they all died drinking the kool-aid and it always hurts to learn that life has been once again tossed away like an empty beer can. It hurts even more to think of the ones who loved them.

But, in the bigger picture it’s a small thing, a ripple in the metapsychic interstices. It’s not something that could rip a hole in the very fabric of existence, which is exactly why this strong illusion about “End Times”, “Rapture” and “Second Coming” is so dangerous when people who want to push for a World War III are ready to tap into such madness – they’re tickling the dragon’s tail! (I wish I was making this up, but the echo machine has been on this ever since the first “made in the USA” laser guided bombs started falling, here’s something of a tally of the pundit choir collected by Bill Berkowitz)

A very large majority of Americans are walking around with this idea that we are living in the End Times and a large part of them more or less believe that, before the End, there will be a Rapture.

What is “Rapture”? It all depends on which of the many false prophets you’ve been taken in by, but the general idea is that before the End, all those who have a real cool relationship to the Holy Idaho, will be transported up to Heaven where they get to sit in comfy sofas with Jeeezus and munch pop-corn while watching the birth pangs pang.

In order to sell WWIII to the American people you need to convince them that Forces of Evil are aligned against God’s Holy People. Of course you don’t want to put it that bluntly, but if you get your code words right you can win an election.

After that you can do whatever it is you think the Great Potato wants you to do.

My unemployed angel from the Third Galaxy urges me to deliver this warning which supposedly got straight from the Spud of the Great Potato:

You who do things in word or deed with the intention of bringing to fruition these false prophecies commit deep and terrible sins against your common humanity.

The role and reward you will receive in these proceedings is not the one you desire or expect and it will certainly not be one you will appreciate or covet, for it is the role and reward of Judas Iscariot.

Birth Pangs in the Middle East

[with apologies to Johnny Nash for the rip off]

I can see clearly now, the [birth] pangs are gone
There is nothing more to stand in our way
Gone are the bad guys we had to fight
It’s gonna be a bright, bright, brand New Middle East
It’s gonna be a bright, bright, brand New Middle East

I almost fell out of my rocking chair Friday morning day hearing her cuddly voice explaining that the shit raining down from the skies in the Levant these past two weeks is BIRTH PANGS which will give rise to a new Middle East.

For what is worth, here is her money quote:


“What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one.” -- Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, 21 July 2006

(Here's a photo of Ms. Rice showing how far the Middle East has dialated...")

If you google “birth pangs” and middle east, you’ll find over half of the hits refer to the “End Times”, the “Rapture” and the “Second Coming” and crapola of that order.

Was it merely a slip of phrase, a coincidence? Maybe, but then again maybe not. We know that her boss, Mr. Codpiece, at least pretends the Great Potato has chosen him as the Man of Destiny whose job it is to pave the way for the Second Return of the Holy Idaho.

Maybe it’s just an act to drum up the base now that we have elections coming on. The problem is that for a lot of people this is a part of their perceived reality. What starts as a ploy can take on a life of its own.

On the other hand, Condi and her boss are right about something. Iran and Syria are just going to have to learn the new house rules. They have to stop supplying the Hezbollah with all these modern, high-tech weapons, those F-16s, laser-guided precision bombs, tanks and 155mm howitzers – offensive weapons such as these can do damage like this:

[photo from as-Safir]

The Hezbollah won’t admit it officially, but everybody knows that they have a stockpile of between 100 and 150 atomic bombs. What is going to happen if they decide to use them?

The Imbuggeration of Ronald Rexona

[…we turn now to page 2317 of the 19th. Edition of the Absolute Truth and skim down a couple of kilometers from the top – we see that it was at this precise moment in official history that Ronald Rexona was anointed king dick and Supreme Hole of Arrogance. Please note, the scenes described here are as they are seen from a metapsychic viewpoint and are not to be understood as what actually happened in the Third Galaxy. It should be understood as a sort of terrible parable of how Ronald Rexona screwed the Mother of Freedom and transformed her into the Bitch of Babylon… ]

On that actual and dreadful day, the sun burnt like magnesium in a violet sky above the great square where the Imbugeration of the Supreme Hole was about to take place.

The square is filled with thousands upon thousands of those invited to participate in the event. Each and every one there has been invited because of some personal contribution in helping bring about the ascendancy of the Supreme Hole to power. Or, to put it another way, every Arrogant hole of any significant political and/or economic power is either here today, or has sent a trusted deputy.

A man on the stage below the dais is speaking into a microphone and as his words echo across the great square, he requests them to raise their right hands in salute. He then leads them in the Pledge to the Supreme Hole: “Because I believe in Arrogance...” the crowd repeats the phrase with a deep rumble. The litany continues: “Because I believe in Freedom...because I believe in Liberty and Democracy...because I believe in The Great Potato!”

As they repeat the empty phrases, the rumble of the crowd of holes increases thunderously, concluding with bone-rattling roars as the final phrases explode, spraying spittle from contorted mouths:

“I therefore solemnly swear support for Ronald Rexona and pledge to do anything in my power to ensure that he becomes and continues to be the Supreme Hole of Arrogance!!!”


Then, as up-tempo music blares from the loud speakers, the attention of the crowd is now drawn to the large raised dais in the middle of the stage. Appearing suddenly among clouds of multicolored smoke shot through with rock-show laser beams, Ronald Rexona appears dramatically, in fact symbolically, as he ascends, from below, through a cleverly arranged system of elevator and hidden trapdoor. His appearance is as if by magic. It was almost as if he had risen directly from the mysterious Chambers of Secrecy – which may very well have been the case!

A roar of approval from his fellow holes greets him as he strides across the stage, smiling his famous, smirking smile...

“Friends, I greet you one and all! Today is the day we have been looking forward to! The world has become our pearl, our fridge full of goodies, our trash can of desire!”

Coming down from the dais and moving closer to the edge of the stage, where the Great She Goat is tethered with enormous chains, he continues:

“As we all know, there are only two things you need to know in order to get ahead in this world: you need to know which ass to lick – and which ass to kick!”

A fainting odor of mercaptan hangs in the air as Ronald Rexona with grim, yet excited concentration approaches the Goat. Having already performed the first part of the Unspeakable Ceremony, with slow, ritual determination he then withdraws the frightful Roasting Rocket Rod of Power from the Great She Goat.

The Great Goat, struggling to free itself from its torment, bellows in terrible, animal pain. Dozens of men holding restraining ropes are trampled to death under darkly-stained hooves as the murderous beast lunges against its bonds.

The Rocket Rod is covered with gobs of a darkly strange substance. The air, already full of a horrible stench, becomes nearly opaque with the almost overpowering smell.

After a few disorderly moments, as bodies are quietly removed, the square is filled with the kind of hushed, yet electric silence which only a large, tense and expectant crowd can give. The silence becomes excruciating, breaths are bated as Ronald Rexona slowly raises the Rod of Power and holds it above his head with both of his hands. Gobs of the dark substance fall and splatter at his feet. He runs his forefinger down a few inches of the length of the Rod and gathers some of it, the consistency of freshly baked liver paste, into his mouth...

Licking his lips, he once again smiles his famous, smirking smile and says in a voice strangely modulated, “It is good – it is very good!”

A roar rips from the mobbed throat of the crowd like the thunder of metal sheets being pounded with dry bones...

After a pause, he smiles once again and with his famous ape-like pout he shouts “It is very, very good, and there is enough for everybody who wants to play my game!”

The crowd screams with sheer ecstasy and pure delight as Ronald Rexona once again grabs the Rocket Rod of Power with both hands, raises it above his head and swings it around and around, slinging the dark substance to the four winds.

The multitudes of holes, gaping darkly red, devour the obscene manna, if possible, even before it hits the ground:

“Snuffle! Grunt! Snork! Snarl!”

After the Immolation Ceremony, the Supreme Hole and his lesser Wizards of War descend through the cleverly concealed trapdoor and hidden elevator down, down, down to the delicate comforts and Cthulhuic ambiance of the Chambers of Secrecy. There, far below clicking relays, subterranean trains and underground parking lots, where no one can hear or interrupt the bone rattling screams of pain and giggles of delight – the Supreme Hole and his Wizards cast ever wilder and obscene spells so that the National Security of Arrogance might grow – grow in splendor, excellence and luxury...

It's Time to Talk of Many Things...

Now’s the time to talk of many things, of bees and frogs and lemmings, of whether the sea is turning into goopy soup and whether people can think…

A bumblebee can’t fly, but the bumblebee can’t read books, so it never learned that it can’t fly and so it flies anyway…

Not true! A fellow in the 1930’s did some math showing that an airplane with wings the size of a bumblebee’s in proportion to its fuselage can’t fly. However, a bumblebee is not an airplane. Its wings move rapidly in a complicated pattern. According to this logic a helicopter can’t fly either. As a matter of fact, the newest death planes (jet fighter-bombers) can’t fly either – not with out a computer constantly making adjustments. Needless to say, it might be a safer if not necessarily better world if all those demon machines turned into bunks of rust right now!

If you put a frog in a pot of water and heat it up by slow degrees, the frog will eventually get cooked, because it’s so dumb it never figures out that it’s getting cooked…

Not true! At some point something in the little frog’s brain will say, “Sheet! It’s getting hotter and hotter here, this me not much like! Legs, JUMP!”

On the other hand, it’s not all that bad an analogy to apply to people. People are quite capable of remaining in a worsening situation until there ain’t no turning back. That’s not theory, dear hearts! We’ve done it again and again. True, never on a world-wide scale, but, hey, for something that big you gotta practice, dontja?

Lemmings in Norway in fits of mass psychosis follow one another and commit mass suicide by jumping off of cliffs or drowning themselves in the ocean.

Not true! Lemmings are little rodents, usually solitary except for mating and they have a very high reproductive rate. In years when there is a lot of food, their population can increase exponentially. This forces the population to migrate in search of food. They are good swimmers, so they naturally expect to be able to ford rivers and even lakes – but, because of exhaustion from a long march, they can drown. Also, they might not have a choice. There can be so many lemmings that the mass of little bodies behind them can push them into the water and, if it is a precipice instead of a lake shore they can be pushed over the edge. It is not mass psychosis or suicide. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about humans.

The point of my ramblings here is an acknowledgement what my alien friend said back in one of my first posts on this blog – that there is little or no sign of intelligent life on our planet…

In fact, I am rapidly becoming even more pessimistic than he/she/it. There is a distinct possibility that, as a species, bees, frogs and lemmings, not to mention elephants and dolphins got more smarts than human beings. I’ve come to this rather depressing conclusion because as you have seen the stories we tell about the animals almost always apply more to people.

Intelligence is not always measured by what you do but often by what you don’t do!

Did you know that we are the immediate cause of a mass extinction on this planet which is rapidly beginning to look as if it will match the last one, sixty-five million years ago, when the dinosaurs went off to dreamland and left this precious world to our tender care?

If we go that way and I can’t see any see any good reason that we won’t, unless of course the Alien Veggies really do land, the chances of which are much, much less than the chance of winning a quarter million on a Power Ball ticket – if we go that way and cause once again Mother Earth to not only abort, but die in childbed – well, what do you think that would prove?

It would prove that the sum total of human intelligence amounts to that of a ten-mile thick hunk of rock! That is namely about the size of the asteroid that whacked the earth somewhere off the shore of what is now known as the Yucatan Peninsula.

IF we are as a species are that goddamn dumb and stoopid, do you really think that Jesus is going to come and wipe our bum and kiss our thumb and make it all happiness and green fields forever?

I think NOT!

I’d rather bet on the Alien Veggies!

State of Emergency

[Having been established as Supreme Hole and put in charge of the Automated Army and its Synchronized Soldiers with the implant of a chip in his back-brain, Ronald Rexona needed to take one final step to permanently cement his grip on absolute power – he had to declare a State of Emergency that would last until the Clear and present Danger to the Arrogant State was over. This Danger would last forever and therefore the State of Emergency also.

This last point was not mentioned of course but actually mattered very little. The average Arrogant citizen was by now so afraid of Consie, Terraist, and Masher threats, fair and well-balanced reports of which for years had been spewing from all approved media, that is, that 95% of the media controlled by the Bankers of Illusion that they were willing to accept any solution, however draconian, as long as it eliminated these threats. – Man-u-El Ishman]

…Ronald Rexona sits in a chair as makeup personnel flutter about, preparing him for the waiting television cameras, he pinches one of the cosmetic assistants on the bottom, gives her a salacious wink and offers to give her a “special” massage later.

Assistants remove the apron which had covered him while they primped and trimmed, polished and dusted, revealing the hand sewn suit, the perfectly tied and perfectly matching tie, the elegant handmade shoes and, of course, the wireless prompting device strapped, most discretely, to his back.

Ronald needs little prompting now, though. He sits, knocking his knees together in almost erotic excitement, bubbling over like a little boy who knows he’s “going to the Zoo today!”

“Boy! O, boy!” he exclaims, smacking a fist into the palm of the other hand, “This is it! Boy! O, boy! It feels good! Gawddam, I’m hot and ready to go!”

As the final tones of the National Song of Arrogance fades, the cue from the cameraman comes and he gets up from the chair. Chest puffed out like a barnyard rooster, he struts across the television stage

The screen behind the podium shows a projection of our Beloved Flag rippling potently in the wind...

Ronald Rexona steps up to the podium:

Ladies and gentlemen, members of Congress and all you Arrogant citizens: Our Great Country is faced with a Crisis unlike any other which has ever faced our Great Land!

As you all know, we are faced with the threat of Innernashnal Terraism!

Evil people throughout the world are conspiring to deny us our Arrogant right to suck the world dry of resources. Bad people are preparing to demonstrate and misuse our sacred right to Free Speech to steal our Holy Elections and deny us our Democratic Rights! They want to install a consie dictatorship in our fair land! They want to deny us the right to use and consume and throw things away! Why, you ask, do these consies and terraists want to do this? Why do they want to deny us access to the things we need to maintain our Arrogant Way of Life?
The answer is simple – they hate our Democracy and our Freedom!

As we all know – those who haven’t been misled by false prophets and money hungry charlatans – it is the will of the Great Potato, who put us here on this Blessed Earth that we are here to rule the earth! That means: if what we want to do is turn the Earth into a reusable asswipe, well, the GP has already said that’s just okay!

The earth and everything in it is ours! Them resources were placed there by the Great Potato for our pleasure and enjoyment and no consie freaks and tree-huggin terraists are going to deny us what the Great Potato has given us as our nachural burthright!

These mad Terraists will tell you, we must spare these resources, that we must go slowly! How can they say such things? Whether they believe it or not, the fact is: Great Potato is Coming! When the resources are gone, when the oil is sucked dry, when the coal and iron deposits are gone, when the ice caps the glaciers melt and the sea levels rise – so what! It will not matter to our Arrogance! The Great Potato is coming and he will sort the spuds from the carrots and onions (who will be cast into the Outer Darkness, where they will gnash their roots in the eternal agony of their damnation!)

This conspiracy of the Terraists to remove my administration from power must not bear fruit – it was the will of the Great Potato that I became your leader, and it is the certain will of the Great Potato that this administration of ‘tater-fearing people must continue to rule in Arrogance.

Therefore, I find myself forced, much against my will, to do something which no one holding my office has ever had to do:

I, Ronald Rexona declare, because of Clear and Present Dangers to the National Interests and Security of our Arrogant Nation, a State of Emergency which will last until this crisis is over, whenever that is.
This means that, as honest citizens, you will go about your business as usual. You will go to work, shop for groceries and stuff. When you go home from your jobs and occupations and shopping for groceries and stuff, you will turn on your televisions so that you can be properly (and responsibly) informed.

Public gatherings of more than three people anywhere is forbidden. Exceptions are made for family gatherings or prayer meetings announced by an approved faith-based organization.
So, fellow citizens, I ask that you bow your heads and humbly pray with me to the Great Potato that this hour of Dark Trial of our Great Nation will soon be over.

The Miracle Merkel Massage...

I’m so sorry to have to say this, but the Psychotic Patriot seems to have lost it, I mean in the sense that his trolley has gone off the tracks!

He posted this series of pictures, claiming it shows Our Leader and Prime Decider giving Angela Merkel, the German chancellor an impromptu massage for which she showed her delight by throwing up her arms is disgust and revulsion almost as if she felt low-key sexual advances were being made.

OBVIOUSLY, this picture has nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Bush!

It must be yet another leak over from the Third Galaxy! I’ve noticed this before and it really disturbs me! If our reality gets mixed up with theirs, really strange things could happen!

We might see America invading foreign countries and thousands of young Americans getting killed for whatever reason looks good today, up to and including “staying the course” even though nobody knows what the course is!

Jeeze, people with those kinds of screwed up priorities might even start a world war just to keep from losing the elections in November

I sense that you don’t believe me, dear reader, I fear you think I am putting you on is some way – that is not the case, I am dead right on serious! Look at the eyes of the man in the picture. Note the soul-empty, vacuous, hung-over expression, the feeling that, after the lady’s repulsion of his advances, he’s sidling off to look for that damn cheeseburger he ordered. YES, it is Ronald Rexona*!

You don’t believe me? See the pictures here in higher resolution.

It’s worse than I thought, Bilmon and James Wolcott have been taken in and James Cole was “shaken” and “trembling” because Mr. Bush supposedly said to Mr. Blair, “…get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.". Jeeze, we all know Mr. Bush wouldn’t say “shit” if he was buried in deep doo-doo – so, it’s got to be Ronald Rexona!


___________________________
* Rexona is the brand name of a deodorant soap in Denmark, the point I think is that, no matter what kind of shit Mr. Rexona pulled off, the media in the Third Galaxy always acted as if they never smelled anything.

Levant Rant, Revisited

[Dear Hearts, it is the unwritten rule that one doesn't delete posts or edit them after posting, I guess you might call it the "Jack Kerouac Rule".

Well, I do make minor edits, correct spelling and typos. However, to redo an entire post I won't. Thing is I was going through my stuff and updated, by mistake an essay I already published here. Soo, I redo it here, hoping that it is more tightly written then the first.

I also hope, and you should also, that I am completely out to lunch on this topic, 'cause I'm talking WWIII here...]

The escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon, not to mention Gaza will end, where? Hopefully soon, but holding your breath is not a life positive choice.

There is so much hypocrisy and lowdown meanness involved on all sides, it hardly seems worth the effort to portion it out – there is more than enough to cover everyone in shame.

Are Iran and Syria, one or the other – or both – the black hands behind Hezbollah’s provocations? Is the Israeli response measured against Hezbollah or are there other cookies in the oven? It’s hard to know and even less easy to speak about what is going on here. It could also be the crank up to long awaited action(s) against Syria and Iran.

Whatever, all sides are upping the ante...

I really don’t know. All I know this is the most dangerous situation in a long time, one which could lead to a world wide conflation of people who have a scores to settle and way too many weapons to do it with.

One man killed, almost by chance, in Sarajevo, set off the chain of events which led to the “Guns of August” and a generation of European youth thrown into the meat grinder. Oddly enough, or perhaps not all that odd, this was a talking point in the right-wing echo machine from the very start.

Should the present situation in the Gaza and Levant spiral into a larger conflict allowing that hulking and slavering Thing in the stage wings make its entrance, its cue will not have been the capture of first one, then two Israeli soldiers. In my book (the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth) the long fuse to WWIII was lit with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. I may have missed some important footnotes, but it sure looks to me like it’s all gone downhill since then.

Something I never had understood is the fear-mongering that terrorists will get hold of a suitcase nuke or some other infernal device. Don’t people understand that all the bombs are in the hands of terrorists? Perhaps they do, but dare not say it for fear of being thought crazy. Well, I am crazy, so I got no problem here:

All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!

Not only that, but it is plain common sense that those who have the most bombs who are the most likely to use them.

[Lest anyone doubt my patriotic feelings, let me add that, with the leaders we are presently burdened with, America will only go to war if we are forced to and even then only after all other options and avenues have been tried and exhausted, or at the very least paid a minimum of lip service..]

Synchronized Soldier, Conclusion

[…yesterday, Capt. Schatzenbooger finished telling the students of Poosah City High School about the ever increasing success of modern armies in getting soldiers to kill in an orderly way, that is to say, when ordered. Having reached the apex of efficiency in the Synchronized Soldier, who is a blend of cutting-edge high-tech and foot soldier, he now concludes his lecture…]

Inside, there is a man or woman of flesh and blood, a fully trained soldier of great physical and mental stamina. With muscle power more than quintupled by the hydraulic circuits of their armor – the SS’er is a not only a dedicated, but an exceedingly efficient defender of Democracy and Freedom.

I’m sure you all know that the inside of the big bug-eyed visor of the Synchronized Soldier’s head armor is actually a high-tech display screen! What a Synchronized Soldier sees and hears is called an “Augmented View of Reality”.

Day and night and outward appearance mean nothing to the SS. Where you might see an innocent civilian washing a car, or a foreign peasant feeding his donkey, the Synchronized Soldier sees a slant-eyed, yellow geek; a shifty-eyed jew; an uppity negro or even a pasty-face, fat-ass, white honky – it all depends on the individual soldier’s ethnic background...

With visor engaged and “Synched” into Augmented Reality, when our Synchronized Soldier sees a figure labeled “enemy” or “undesirable element” their Unit goes immediately into action, without any need or desire to think about their personal safety.

The specific action depends, of course, upon the logo accompanying the positive ID.

“Fixate and capture”, “temporarily immobilize”, “eliminate”, “eradicate”, “extraordinarily render”... There are more than a hundred and fifty logos, so our modern SS troopers need to be real smart, well, with a good memory anyway...
When in Immediate Action Mode, our soldiers respond without delay to the integrated instructions of the MERDE computers.

The MERDE is continually being updated in real-time with information data-mined from thousands – millions – of sources. Telephone calls; video and audio surveillance in shopping malls; library loaning records; credit card transactions; supermarket check-out counters – there are even sensors integrated with many public bathrooms!

All these many terabytes of information gathered throughout the Arrogant States and the rest of the world are constantly updated and integrated into the Virtual Assessment of Security & Terror, sometimes called the VAST Panorama or simply:

The Big Picture.

None of this in any way intrudes upon the privacy of any honest Arrogant citizen or even some worthless slob elsewhere in the world. It is done solely to localize, evaluate, pinpoint and eliminate immediate risks to the national security of Arrogance.

In short:

We stop threats to our security before they happen!

You can be 100% sure that, when an SS squad goes into Unit-Mode, there can be no question as to any possible miscarriage of justice. The Synchronized Soldier is incapable of committing murder, mayhem or atrocities in random fashion or without good cause. This is why it was so unjust that some foolish people compare our proud Corps to the Ku Klux Klan. True, they wore white sheets and we white armor – but any reasonable comparison ends there! The fact is, whatever good the KKK may have done, their lynchings were random and based on unreliable parameters like “race” and “ethnicity”. There is nothing random in what we do and there is no room for error...

Everything we do is checked and double checked. As I told you before, I have served twenty years and in all that time there has yet to be one documented instance where our actions have not been shown to have been justified, sooner or later...

You may see someone who, to you, may look like an innocent civilian, screaming in pain while being “fixated for later interrogation”, but you can rest assured, they are scum – why else would we be “fixating” them? You can rest easy and assured, knowing that they are getting no more – and no less – than they deserve.

O, I know, some may ask, what about the unfortunate incident at Guanocow? First of all, that was back in the early days, before the dedicated people working the MERDE were aware that Ronald Rexona, the Great Potato bless him, sometimes had a craving for jalapeño peppers on his bedtime pizza...

What critics fail to tell you is that it was later shown that nearly all the people put down in Guanocow would have been targeted sooner or later for something at least as serious as “recidivist degeneracy” – or worse...

Perhaps you want to join our proud Corps, but it’s a long time before graduation? So, you naturally ask yourself: What can I do now, so that I’m prepared to join the Automated Army later? Well, there is a there is a lot you can do!

First of all, keep yourself fit, get lots of exercise, play team sports, work out, say no to drugs of course and abstain from all perverted sex practice and lifestyles.

But here is a real good tip!

Play all the most violent and realistic action computer games you can get your joy stick in! Fact is, the experience of a soldier in “synch” is much like what you see and do in the best, high-powered, action-filled computer games. The only difference is that the Soldier’s experience is ever so much more virtually real.

Sometimes it is so real that we have difficulty differentiating fact from fiction – and that is why it is always a comfort to know that we are guided in all we do by MERDE.

If what you see in a computer game doesn’t give you the queasies, then you will be okay as a soldier! No matter how bloody serious the action may get in a War Zone, when patrol is over and you return to base, your armor is always spooled down before you raise your visor and disengage. In fact, when a soldier raises the visor, as far as he or she knows it all could have been just a computer game in virtual reality!

No body parts or hair stick to the armor. No blood or excrement is smeared across the shining surface. The golden double thunderbolt gleams on the trooper’s chest. The Synchronized Soldier is a clean machine! As far as he or she knows, the people they had just seen themselves stomping on or kicking the bejeezus out of may never have actually existed!

When mission is done, it’s just a matter of getting out of your armor, maybe having a beer or two with the gang and then take a ‘chopper home to the family and kids.

It’s great to be a Synchronized Soldier and if I still had the full use of both of my legs, I’d be in “synch” today. But, I find continued pride and fulfillment as a recruiting officer for the SS.

Do you have any questions?

____________________________________________
As is well-known, the 20th Edition of the Absolute Truth was never published. It was still in the final stages of redaction when the spaceships of the Horticulture Crew appeared in the skies of the Third Galaxy and War Zones were outlawed by the Alien Veggies.

Transcripts of lectures such as the one above by Capt. Schatzenbooger were submitted as corroborating evidence, at the war crimes courts set up by the Alien Veggies. These and other documents will be included in the 21st Edition of the A.T., which is nearly ready for publication. We wish to thank the editors of the A.T. for having allowed us to use this transcript here.

Synchronized Soldiers, Part II

[In yesterday’s post we met Captain Arnold Schatzenbooger, who because of a partial disability is no longer an active Synchronized Soldier. Instead he travels the country giving this lecture to young people. Today he is addressing the students of Poosah City High School. He has just finished telling then that, in essence, the SS is the toughest meanest kick-ass elite unit the world has ever seen…]

You may not know it, but one of the great difficulties faced by mass armies of the first democracies is that the common soldier could not be depended upon to act immediately with the use of deadly of force when ordered to shoot to kill. This was ridiculous!

How can you have decent war when soldiers won’t even try to kill each other?

In the “Great War”, the “War-to-End-War”, nearly eighty percent of the soldiers would not shoot to kill. Of course: when bullets flew past their ears; shells landed in their foxholes and body parts started falling around them – and, last but not least, after a few cowards were lined up and shot – they at least would point their guns in the general direction of their enemy and pull the trigger...

It is our national leaders and their generals and officers we have to thank for that all went well in the end! Without their élan, commitment and determination, it would not have been possible to fill up all those graves with millions and millions of bodies!

In the “War-to-Make-the-World-Safe-for...Whatever...” there was much progress. After a few months of intense training, nearly fifty percent of the soldiers would shoot to kill the first time they got the order – maybe they couldn’t hit the side of barn, but their hearts were in the right place, bless them!

[Arnold smiles, flashing white teeth]

In the War-to-Save-the-Dominoes, the percentage was almost eighty percent! Some say that was, at least in part, due to the fact that we were fighting yellow geeks who didn’t fight fair. Whether true or not, that observation has been incorporated in both our training and work as modern SS men...

If you know your military history, another reason for improvement in the “ready to kill when ordered” rates was due, not so much to the training – although that cannot be disregarded – but more to advances in military technology.

Killing becomes less real when done at a distance!

The flowering explosions far below as bombs are dropped from on high – who can deny their beauty?

When you cover villages or fill bunkers with burning jelly at a distance of a half mile or more, it’s almost a sensual pleasure to see the roil of flame and smoke – and you don’t hear the screams or the crackle of burning flesh.

Today, after cessation of hostilities, we can quickly bulldoze scenes of military carnage under tons of sand no one has to smell the “perfume of the battlefield*”

But technology has even left all that behind. There is no longer any military force in the world which can even pretend to contend directly with the armed forces of the Arrogant State. The battlefields of today are in the mega cities, the barrios and the slums.

It has always been an axiom that technological advance cannot replace the need for the foot-slogger, the grunt-on-the-ground. That was true until the advent of the Synchronized Soldier, when the question became moot, or should we say: MOUT** .

With the Synchronized Soldier, technology came to the foot-slogger so to speak, melding military with police and crowd control functions.

Nearly impervious in his air-conditioned Kevlar reinforced armor, the Synchronized Soldier is a grunt who can literally “whistle while he works” in the slums, the barrios, and other unruly areas of the mega cities where we find our modern War Zones!

Electronically networked with the MERDE computers and with the dark visor of the Synchronized Soldier’s shining white armor lowered, the soldier may look like a bug-eyed monster from hell outfitted with high-powered weaponry – but no! – appearances can be deceiving!
___________________________________

* The “perfume of battle” is the stink of shit and piss interlaced with the reek of rotting flesh and just a tang of vomit.

**MOUT = Military Operations on Urban Terrain – using a combination of absolute air superiority combined with ground troops outfitted with hi-tech armor, communication and highly versatile and potent weapons the Automated Army can literally chew its way through urban areas with sustainable losses to its own forces.

[to be continued…]

Levant Rant...

Gee, I know, promised the Sych Soldiers in three parts, and they will continue tomorrow, but I got a hair up my ass or something, so, this Levant Rant...

The escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon, not to mention Gaza will end, where? Hopefully soon, but holding your breath is not a life positive choice.

There is so much hypocrisy and lowdown meanness involved on all sides, it hardly seems worth the effort to portion it out – there is more than enough to cover everyone in shame.

Are Iran and Syria, one or the other – or both – black hands behind Hisbolla’s provocations? Is the Israeli response measured against Hesbollah or are there other cookies in the oven? It’s hard to know and even less easy to speak about what is going on here. It could also be the crank up to long awaited action(s) against Syria and Iran.

Whatever, both sides are upping the ante...

I really don’t know. All I know this is the most dangerous situation in a long time, one which could lead to a world wide conflation of people who have a scores to settle and way too many weapons to do it with.

There was a minor scuffle over at Raven’s Place the other day because somebody thought not enough bloggers were commenting on the Mumbai bombings and instead concentrated on a “minor” sequence of rape, mutilation and murder in Mahmudiyah.

My two bits in that exchange was that it’s not the number of people in itself which determines the significance of an event, even in a larger, historical perspective. For example. one man killed, almost by chance, in Sarajevo, set off the chain of events which led to the “Guns of August” and a generation of European youth thrown into the meat grinder.

Should the present situation in the Gaza and Levant spiral into a larger conflict allowing that hulking and slavering Thing in the stage wings make its entrance, its cue will have been the capture of first one, then two Israeli soldiers. Actually that’s not quite true, the long fuse to WWIII (or IV, depends who’s counting…) was lit with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. It’s all gone downhill since then.

Something I never had understood is the fear-mongering that terrorists will get hold of a suitcase nuke or some other infernal device. Why can’t people see that all the bombs are in the hands of terrorists? Perhaps people do, but dare not say it for fear of being thought crazy. Well, I am crazy, so I got no problem:

All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!

Not only that, but it is plain common sense that those who have the most bombs who are the most likely to use them...

Synchronized Soldiers, Part I

We met Arnold Schatzenbooger earlier when he led the squad which detained Jamal Palooka in Guanocow. He was Sgt. Schatzenbooger then. Now, partially disabled and a Captain, he travels around the country recruiting young people to elist as Synchronized Soldiers, the elite unit of the Automated Army of Arrogance. What follows is his standard recruiting speech. It’s a bit long, so you will get it in three installments. We start just after the school principal, Mr. Fiddlesticks has just introduced Capt. Schatzenbooger to the assembled students of Poosah City High School…

He is tall, with the sloping shoulders of the man Hemmingway told us to beware of in a bar brawl. His broad chest angles down to a narrow waist while a small but noticeable paunch pushes lightly at his white shirt. Although well past middle age, he is an imposing figure as he strides up to the stage.

Because of the prosthetic replacing his lower left leg, he wobbles slightly and his perfectly tied tie pendulates phallicly as he walks.

He places both of his brown and gnarled hands upon the podium and settles his steady gaze out over the students of Poosah City High School.

[He clears his throat.]

I’m glad to see you could all come here today, as you know, my name is Arnold Schatzenbooger. As Mr. Fiddlesticks, your high school principle, told you in his fine introduction, for which I wish to thank him, I am a Captain in the Automated Army of Arrogance and I am proud to say that I have served for more than twenty years. Most of that time I have been attached to the corps of Synchronized Soldiers.

I also want to thank Mr. Fiddlesticks for giving me the privilege of talking to all of you fine, young people assembled here today. You will all be leaving these halls of learning, if not this year, then in a year or so. If you haven’t already, you should be thinking of what you will do when you take your place as grownups and citizens in Arrogant society.

I’m here today to talk to about the Automated Army and its Synchronized Soldier Corps. This won’t be just pep talk to get you to join the Synchronized Soldiers – I’m not here to advertise for anything! My goal is only to make sure you have an honest idea of what the Corps really is and the vital function it plays in the defense of Freedom and Democracy in general and the security of Arrogance and the Arrogant Way of Life in particular.
Let me start by putting this simple question to all you fine, young people:
“Synchronized Soldier – a career for you?”

My purpose is to make sure that you have all the information you need to answer that kind of question in an informed and intelligent manner.

Before I go any further: if any of you, with absolute certainty have made up your minds that serving in the Automated Army is not a part of your future, there is no need for you to sit here, bored, listening to me. I’ll pause a moment and anybody who wants to, can and should leave – you should feel absolutely free to leave the auditorium right now...

[feet shuffle nervously]

* * * * * * *

Well, it’s good to see that nobody left, I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the fact that Mr. Fiddlesticks is standing over there in the corner [low, mordant chuckle]. It’s also good to see that all of you, even at your age, understand the real meaning of “being absolutely free” to do what you want.

[Arnold clears his throat]

First of all, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what it’s like to serve in the Automated Army and what it means to be a Synchronized Soldier.

Were not perverts, we don’t get our kicks whacking enemies and undesirable elements – we only do what has to be done to keep the Arrogant State safe, a place where Arrogant citizens can live their lives in peace and harmony, safe from threats of terror and social degeneracy.

Most Synchronized Soldiers are married, have families, a fulfilling and normal sex life with a person of the opposite gender, are intelligent and well educated with at least a high-school diploma, or equivalent.

I have served as a Synchronized Soldier and would still be “in synch” if I still had the full use of both of my legs. But I don’t. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. Instead, I do the next best. I travel around our Arrogant State and talk to young men and women like yourselves. My purpose is to help those who may be thinking of serving our great country in the best of all good ways – as a Synchronized Soldier in the Automated Army of Arrogance – to help them to make the decision which is best for them as citizens and best for our country.

However, the Corps is not for everyone!

The training is hard, sometimes harsh. What else could one expect for those from whom so much is expected? But if you want to serve with the best, in a corps of deeply dedicated men and women – well, all I can say is: the rewards are real and long-lasting. As we say: “Once a Synchronized Soldier, always a Synchronized Soldier!”

As a Synchronized Soldier, you will honorably defend the security of Arrogance, in the War Zones, either at home or abroad.

As a Synchronized Soldier, you will be a member of something truly elite, a corps of brothers and sisters, united in a way no military unit has ever been unified in military history!

The famous Roman phalanx was a disoriented mob and the Light Brigade with their “...not ours to reason why, ‘tis ours but to do and die” was a group of wishy-washy, conscientious objectors compared to a Synchronized Unit in “synch”!

The training is hard because one must have the physical stamina to endure long patrols in the hostile environment of the War Zones and the psychic courage to be able to submerge into your Unit on a moment’s notice without a thought as to what lies ahead.

In a sense, this has always been true of military training!

[to be continued…]

Happy Birthday, Trinity!

Trinity is an odd child born 61 years ago, July 16, 1945 in the Alamogordo dessert of New Mexico at a place called in Spanish, “Jornada del Muerto”, which means, “Journey of Death”.

A device called the “Gadget” had been hoisted 20 meters up to hang in a metal tower. The “Gadget” was roughly spherical in shape and consisted of about five thousand pounds of shaped charges of high explosives encasing a small sphere of plutonium, a name which means, “metal of death”.

At 5:30 AM the count down ended, a switch was thrown. The high explosives detonated in the way they were designed – that is, simultaneously, and the plutonium in the core was compressed. In the instant the plutonium was compressed, it exceeded its critical mass and the chain reaction the scientists from Los Alamos had calculated would happen in fact took place.

Here is the first known picture of the new-born, already several times bigger than a football field, Trinity is only twenty-five milliseconds old.

The explosion was later determined to have been the equivalent of more than 20 thousand tons of TNT.

That the code name for the test was “Trinity”, always struck me as something of an odd blasphemy even when I was a child.

Just why the name was chosen is unclear. Apparently Robert Oppenheimer picked the name because of some of the poetry of John Donne who is best known for the line, “…any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

With the birth of Trinity, another countdown began and bells began to ring in the metapsychical interstices. The countdown will end with either the extinction of our species or the general realization of the significance of our common humanity.

Whether the bells toll a dirge for our Mother Earth’s death in labor or the birth of her child still hangs in the balance

Every one of us in our daily lives are determining which way it will go.

The only thing I know for sure is that Alien Veggies will not suddenly appear in the skies kiss our thumb and wipe our bum and make it all better.

Either we learn to solve our little disputes without constantly resorting to violence or eventually our violence will resolve all our problems.

The question is not non-violence as opposed to violence, the question is non-violence as opposed to non-existence. That’s what Martin Luther King, Jr. ways saying the days before he was silenced.
__________________________
More information about Trinity, a lot actually, can be found here.

The Automated Army of Arrogance

Some my readers want to know what the deal is with the Synchronized Soldiers of the Automated Army, a squadron of which Detained Jamal Palooka. The simplest way to explain is with this excerpt from the 19th Edition of the Absolute Truth, transmitted to me of course by my unemployed angel from the Third Galaxy. The text begins on page 6986, approximately twelve kilometers from the top and four from the left margin…

...there were considerable and sometimes heated discussions on television, in the newspapers and other approved media of what was now becoming the United Arrogant State concerning the proposed implementation of the Automated Army and the its use of Synchronized Soldiers to protect the National Security of Arrogance.

Approved commentators and pundits were in complete consensus that something had to be done. Serious threats had arisen to the First World Peace in the form of the monster, Ahsawyah Been Lately and terraists such as Boo-Boo Wankerman. To protect the First World Peace, it would be necessary to establish official War Zones – and to properly regulate such Zones, something like the Automated Army and in particular the SS was sorely needed if the National Security of Arrogance was to be secure and free to grow both strong and green.

Although a few serious, responsible critics were heard to ask, “Is this not too much power to put into the hands of even such a man of consummate character as Ronald Rexona?” the public debate was not tarnished with the views of extremists and crackpots of various shades and their tinfoil hat opinions.

We need not concern ourselves here, or elsewhere with their strange ideas and incoherent protests with which they attempted to pollute and confuse the public mind. As space is somewhat limited in this Edition of the Absolute Truth, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of concerning ourselves with things of no lasting, real or positive influence on the magnificent flow of Arrogant History.

Such interludes are best forgotten or, at the very least, subjected to intense non-remembrance...

In a topical teevee commentary program seen by over sixty-nine million viewers, nationwide, it was made crystal clear that honest opposition to the Automated Army stemmed from a serious misunderstanding of the real nature of the power soon to be invested in the Ronald Rexona, making him the Supreme Hole of Arrogance. That is of course assuming the plan gained Final Approval in the Democratic Process.

The speaker tried to explain the system so that it would seem at least reasonable if not comprehensible to the ordinary Arrogant citizen. As the ordinary citizen had an attention span of less than thirty seconds, this was not as difficult as one might think.

...the movements of the Synchronized Soldiers of the Automated Army will be controlled by “Remotely Integrated Reflexic Action Circuits” – otherwise known as RIRAC.

The intelligent listener, like your self, may well ask: Now, what does that mean, controlled by “Reflexic Action”? It means: in a manner similar to your breathing, sneezing, or even the peristaltic action of your intestines, you know, that funny stuff in your tummy that ends up with you wanting to make poop come out...

Ronald Rexona’s command of the Automated Army will never – I repeat – never be a simple extension of his conscious will. If you pause a moment to consider the immense complexity of the systems required just to maintain and stabilize even the simplest biofeedback functions of the MERDE* cryogenic computers, you will, of course, conclude that the seemingly absolute control of the Supreme Hole over the Synchronized Soldiers, although complete and absolute, is quite superficial...

The combined efforts of large teams of highly-trained and skilled experts are needed to make the many day-to-day decisions and delicate adjustments of both hard- and software. Needless to say, the dedicated men and women involved with this work have been carefully selected!
There is and can be no question whatsoever as to their loyalty and morality as well as deep and enduring belief in, and dedication to, the Arrogant Dream, Freedom, Democracy and the Arrogant Way of Life...

By chance – and then again, perhaps not – the moment when the Automated Army first went “on-line” coincided, somehow, with a time when Arrogant society was obsessively concerned with the maintenance of Law and Odor.

Therefore, parameters for the Sensitivity Factors of Olfactory Unity were possibly set a notch or so higher than perhaps called for by actual conditions. Of course, as soon as our experts determined that the population had come to be more or less on the same level as the number of “bathtubs”, they took immediate steps to adjust these and other parameters to more lenient level.

And none too soon, we might add!

For it was quickly becoming the perception of the ordinary Arrogant citizen that it was a common sight to see squads of Synchronized Soldiers execute in vacant lots groups of “stinkers”, that is, ex-citizens, no longer “registered” in the Central Data Base.
The problem here, of course, is not that citizens were appalled (why should they be?), but that this perception is not only historically incorrect but impugns the reputation and honor of the SS Corps itself.

First of all, most of these vacant lots that is those which not since been replaced by high-rise office buildings or apartment complexes and condominiums, are now covered with weeds. This in itself should be proof enough (as if any decent citizen requires “proof”!) that vacant lots were never used for such purpose, at least not on the scale some irresponsible people claim.

The educated reader is of course aware that in Arrogant History, most words in public discourse and political debate are “code words” for something else. In this case, the word “bathtub” is code for “bankbook”, that is to say, what they stank of, those who were executed in the parking lots (if there actually were any executions!), was insolvency. That is to say the bastards were friggin vagrants and homeless human trash.

Any SS’er will tell you, it wasn’t really necessary to “smell” them. You could tell by their clothes that they had negligible, if any access at all, to real cash-flow in the Arrogant Economy. It is certain that no one was ever executed who had the time to document that they had a firm connection to the Money Machine – despite how they may have been dressed. As the saying goes, “Clothes don’t make the man, it’s his bankbook!”

It is true, there were some, perhaps even numerous, but in any case undocumented reports that otherwise more or less decent citizens spent long agonies in the so-called Mobile Torture Wagons. Even if there is some truth to these allegations, such incidents must have been exceedingly few and always due to some unfortunate and, of course, regrettable misunderstanding, quickly corrected (in most cases) before the individual suffered permanent physical or psychological damage.

It goes without saying that all responsible investigators have shown beyond a shadow of doubt that no actions undertaken by our Synchronized Soldiers have ever or could ever have had any connection whatsoever with the political affiliations (however extreme) of any normal, decent citizen of Arrogance. That is, of course, as long as such affiliations were with organizations deemed legal and not a threat to Freedom, Decency and Democracy, the Arrogant Dream and the Arrogant Way of Life.

One must never lose sight of the irrefutable fact that Arrogance is a Free Society based upon the highest ideals of Peace and Brotherhood. That is to say, honest differences of opinion are not only allowed but are respected and even expected – as long as they stay well within the bounds of decency.

If the Automated Army accomplished anything – it has made Arrogance a freer and safer place in which to live...
____________________________
* MERDE = Massively Extended and Redundant Data Environment, a complex array of real-time computers arranged in what might be called a “neural network”. The location of the physical equipment is of course Top Cross-Your-Heart-and-Stick-out-Your-Eyes Secret, but it is certainly buried deep, somewhere, at several “undisclosed locations”...

Abeer -- crushed like an empty can

Take a good look at the picture to the right, her name is Abeer Qasim Hamza al Janabi.

Look into her eyes, eyes which never saw her sixteenth birthday.

Some things do not lend themselves well to satire, only to rage.

This is one of them.

Stalked for a week by American soldiers who grabbed her and stripped her, they emptied Abeer of her innocence as casually as they might chug-a-lug a beer. Finished with her nakedness, they crushed the can, poured kerosene on her belly and desecrated innocence and threw a careless match.

Iraq is not Vietnam – Vietnam was quagmire.

Iraq is quicksand and Haditha was not Iraq’s “My Lai”.

If by the comparison one means the turning point, the place where the last illusion of morality falls away like a filthy scab -- it was in that farmhouse in Mahmudiyah, where Abeer was born – and snuffed.

If the atrocity dies the media death one can almost predict, our national conscience, as we continue to struggle in the quicksand, will sink deeper along with my pride in being an American and with what moral authority we still had as a democratic republic.

The last thing we will see will be an outstretched forefinger and then the lights will go out.

I apologize to James Raven for snatching the picture from his post and what was probably the best line in his Mother of All Rants.

By all means please go read Riverbend’s essay. Riverbend is a young Iraqi woman who has been posting from Baghdad since before Mr. Codpiece set sail on the good ship, Insanity.

I close this post with the closing lines from my previous post on this subject:

Burn in hell Mr. Green!

Burn in hell Mr. Codpiece!

It's Tea time...

Give me an MMMMMMMM!

Give me a PEACH!

Give me a MINT!

What does it say?

MMMMMMM...PEACH MINT!

I can't HEAR you!

MMMMMMM...PEACH MINT!

Cool, that's better -- don't you think is time for tea like say just about any time after November 7?

Until then, impeachment tea can be purchased here

I picked it up at Main and Central and Digby

Hearts of Glory

I don’t about you, but I’m starting to get just a little depressed with all these posts about the devolution of the Third Galaxy into a black hole of tyranny. Some of my readers have even implied that I am trying to say that our world is headed in that direction – nothing could be further from the truth!

Here is a song-poem of hope and yearning for the fulfillment of the ancient dream of our common humanity. This is supposed to be from the harp of the legendary Ichabod Rain. Who was he (or she)? Nobody knows for sure. Some say that he was a field agent for the Alien Veggies, but I find that unlikely. This may be true of the always pedantic Elmer Eggplant, but Ichabod was too much of the independent iconoclast and free radical to be an agent for anyone, including himself.

Whatever the truth of the matter (and we can never be sure just what the truth is in any of these matters) the song can stand on its own, whether composed by Ichabod Rain, Joe Blow – or even by me:

I dreamt a dream of ancient times
when hearts were filled with glory;
And everyone was living in
sweet simplicity.
I pray it’s not a fable,
I pray that the day will come:
When, to live like this, in Eden’s bliss,
will be reality.

I dreamt I saw an open door
within each human heart,
And I saw the bonds that keep us close
although we are apart.
I pray it’s not a fable,
I pray that the day will come:
When the love that lives for everyone
shines through -- bright morning star!

I dreamt I heard tin silver bells
proudly pealing and ringing,
And these songs I heard, without any words,
were only angels singing.
I pray it’s not a fable,
I pray that the day will come:
When every girl and boy will know the joy
that lives in everything.