If elections are the litmus test of democracy, then there are no dictatorships!
In my researches into the fate of that poor world we know as the Third Galaxy, I have used that compendium of all that transpired just before and during the Terrible Times.
(I refer of course to that enormous volume called "The Absolute Truth, 21st Edition" whose pages are several kilometers from top to bottom.) It has gradually become clear to me that the Supreme Hole was probably a composite figure of all the assholes who ruled that unfortunate land as it mutated into a Unified State of Arrogance.
Indeed, the Supreme Hole was an institution more than a person -- in our own more fortunate, peaceful and most important sane world you could perhaps compare him to the "Imperator" of Rome (which means "Commander in Chief" in Latin!).
This perhaps explains why the title Ronald Rexona enjoyed most of all was "Codpiece in Chief". In any case, both he and those who followed were always referred to in Approved Media in terms that extolled their manly virtues, their smell of old leather, their broad shoulders, their ability to do whatever had to be done in the war against terra -- even if a few heads as well as laws had to be broken.
If the truth be told -- and it was eventually -- they were all a pack of wacko wolves with less than gangster morality. None of them ever did a lick of real, honest work. The only way any of them ever "Served their Country", the Lady of Liberty and Light, was to rip her off for everything they could get.
That is why it was not only disgusting but outright obscene when Ronald Rexona pranced about in one of his funny uniforms, saying things like, "The Holy Idaho gave Arrogance a 'Mission to Bring Democracy to the World!'" or, "It is the duty of all Arrogant citizens to 'Support the Troops!'".
At the moment I am trying to unravel the chronology of events up to and during the beginning of the Terrible Times. This is not only difficult, but confusing as well as time consuming as, besides the main text, I also have access to both the 2nd and 3rd level on-line footnotes!
The entity which first began transmitting to me information about the Third Galaxy these many years ago, the then unemployed angel, Manu el-Ishman, has proved to have been more reliable that I had first thought -- this became clear to me after it had received employment "somewhere at a secret location" and I was thereafter granted direct access to the Absolute Truth. However, it has slowly has become apparent to me that it often saw things in a more general manner and the images were often blended somewhat -- this could also have partly been my own fault, as I had no prior training or even experience in channeling.
That said, it is now clear that the most critical time in the Third Galaxy was during the final year of what was or at least should have been Ronald Rexona's second term as Prez. I have not yet been able to determine whether it was actually Rexona who declared the State of Emergency (when elections and civil liberties were suspended to Protect Freedom and Preserve the Constitution), or someone who followed him -- this is the sort of thing I was referring to when I wrote above that Ishman saw things in a more general manner and sometimes the images he transmitted to me were "blended".
Therefore, I will begin to give you some thumb nail sketches of the sort of people who aspired to be the Arrogant Prez. You will soon hear of such as Mad Kane, Randy Jelliyoni, Horni Fuginfly, Fred Dumbson and other charming people.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
When is a Dictatorship Announced?
From somewhere in the Third Galaxy:
It all happened so slowly, yet quickly -- in the open and behind closed doors.
When the deed was done, it was not even then called what it was: a tyranny such as that poor world had never seen:
Smiling faces on the glowing screens mouthing phrases of sugar and cream while, behind the scene, bodies floated softly down silent streams.
A dictatorship is never announced, neither in the intent or in the fulfillment of the dark intent of those who would scream of permanence and a thousand years of lasting peace from their thrones of rusty bricks and excrement as they slowly fry the world in bacon grease.
Thus it was that in Arrogance the people quickly -- o, so quickly! -- learned to watch their tongue and, like their leaders, never use words that said what they meant; for, as the Unknown Poet had writ so many years before:
The greatest enemy of democracy is bald faced hypocrisy.
In truth, a dictatorship is never called by its proper name until it has fallen and its statues and idols have been toppled and smashed in the streets.
It all happened so slowly, yet quickly -- in the open and behind closed doors.
When the deed was done, it was not even then called what it was: a tyranny such as that poor world had never seen:
Smiling faces on the glowing screens mouthing phrases of sugar and cream while, behind the scene, bodies floated softly down silent streams.
A dictatorship is never announced, neither in the intent or in the fulfillment of the dark intent of those who would scream of permanence and a thousand years of lasting peace from their thrones of rusty bricks and excrement as they slowly fry the world in bacon grease.
Thus it was that in Arrogance the people quickly -- o, so quickly! -- learned to watch their tongue and, like their leaders, never use words that said what they meant; for, as the Unknown Poet had writ so many years before:
The greatest enemy of democracy is bald faced hypocrisy.
In truth, a dictatorship is never called by its proper name until it has fallen and its statues and idols have been toppled and smashed in the streets.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
...With No Crib For His Bed
"Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean,
between the two of them they licked the platter clean."
Remember the kind of pictures they had to that nursery rhyme? Mr. Sprat was always this real thin guy and his wife this enormous mama like you'd expect to come out of a Ryan Steak House.
As a kid I always thought that was wrong. I figured that the reason that Lady Sprat had to eat the fat was that she a skinny boni macaroni would waste away if she ate the lean.
Likewise, Mr. Sprat: he was as fat as Mr. Creosote and would simply explode if he ate anything but the leanest meanest lean.
Now, what about the picture we have to the "Away in a manger..."?
I think it's a bunch of crap about the poor little baby Jesus having to sleep in the hay with no crib for his bed because the mean old innkeeper wouldn't give his poor dad and mom a room for the night and sneeringly told them to take their ass over to the barn and sleep with it there.
First of all, the manger was probably not all that bad place at all for the baby to be born -- the inn was full of noise and carrying on and people stumbling drunkenly off to their rooms for the night, going in the wrong door and all that sort of thing.
The manger was quiet, the light was dim, it was warm with body heat of the animals and the soft smell of cow farts. A perfect ambiance in which to birth a perfect baby.
Finally, the baby's father was not a poor man -- he was a skilled and respected artisan -- by the way, the word for "carpenter" in the tongue of his people also means "magician" -- because the master carpenter could do wonders with wood?
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Away in a Manger...
"In the bad old days, when the Mob ruled the world, the capo de capo, who then was Ceasar Augustus, let it be known that all the world should be made to pay protection money..."
Things went on from there until, today, shortly after the darkest day of the year -- at least in the Northern Hemisphere -- we celebrate Christmas and the birth -- the Gift -- of light into the world...
I remember one Christmas, I heard that the Pope had mentioned in his sermon that we really do not know exactly when Jesus was born. From an historical viewpoint, sometime in April would be a better guess, as it was the custom of the Roman rulers to levy taxes and have census done in the late spring.
According to the teevee, some of the faithful were supposedly shocked...
Knowing that the media creature has a desperate need to say things so people won't change the channel and that they sometimes come up with things like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, there's no way to know if anybody let alone any of the faithful was really shocked.
It is common knowledge that the December date for Christmas was chosen because most earlier cultures had a festival at that time of year.
For the Nordic tribes, it was "Jul". Of course, the date for Christmas was settled long before the Danes, the Swedes and the Norsemen ever heard of the "White Christ" or decided he was stronger than Thor.
The "Suffering Christ" has never had the appeal here in the North as it has in the Mediterranean. The Northmen prefer the vision of "Christ-Triumphant". Also, the North was baptized in blood as much as in water. Perhaps that might shock some people?
My Norwegian forebears have a saint, St. Olav, known as "Olav the Holy". They might as well have called him "Olav the Bloody".
When he was 17, Olav went "viking" and tried to capture London. Of course London was no where near the size it is today, but still he was a precocious fellow. Before he got religion, he was known as what I might translate as "Olav Squarepants". He was what is called "big-boned" and could throw two spears at once, a skill which impressed those who went "viking" with him.
Getting religion didn't change his behavior patterns significantly. People he didn't like (= those who refused to be baptized) were treated -- unkindly.
He ordered one chieftain, along with his sons, to be bound with their hands tied behind them and placed on a rock in the water -- at low tide. When the tide came in they drowned. He ordered others to have kettles with glowing coals placed on their tummies, or that they be thrown into pits full of poisonous snakes.
Um, and these are the tales told by those who are trying to praise him!
However, my intention was to speak of Christmas, the Birth of Christ and in that mood I want to speak of facts.
Not historical facts -- historical facts are almost trivial in this context. I'm not talking about facts like the price of a pound of butter.
Here is a real fact:
There is a light which shines in the heart of every human being. This is not true because it is writ in John chapter one, verse blah-blah. This is a truth which is true only if you yourself have seen and understood something of it.
At the risk of being too specific, we could say that it is the light of our conscious awareness.
That we have physical eyes, ears, tongue, nose and the feelings of the skin are, in my opinion, a consequence of or, so to speak, a reflection of that light, that is, there is an observable, innate tendency of the universe as-we-see-it towards life and conscious awareness..
Is this light is in us, or does the human heart or essence somehow focus the light so that it can be revealed in the physical reality? I don't know and leave any answering to the experts.
In any case, without this light, without this tendency or drift towards conscious awareness -- would we be human?
In sum, there is a light which shines in the heart of every human being and here, at the darkest time of the year, we celebrate that that light is born into this world of struggle.
Merry Christmas!
You know the story:
We give gifts at Christmas. Why? Ask the folklorists!
However, we can say that, just as Christ is the symbol of the Gift-of-Love made visible unto the world, likewise give we gifts to make visible our love in the world.
Giving can get to be a rat race, as if the amount of money spent should seem to be a measure of the love we bear. As in life, we tear open tinseled packages, looking for something we missed, something as simple as a hand on the wrist...
Christ-mas is not the sole property of "christianity" -- Christmas is the revelation of our common humanity.
When the tinsel is gone and the tree is bare -- remember, Christmas is clever, Christmas is forever.
Things went on from there until, today, shortly after the darkest day of the year -- at least in the Northern Hemisphere -- we celebrate Christmas and the birth -- the Gift -- of light into the world...
I remember one Christmas, I heard that the Pope had mentioned in his sermon that we really do not know exactly when Jesus was born. From an historical viewpoint, sometime in April would be a better guess, as it was the custom of the Roman rulers to levy taxes and have census done in the late spring.
According to the teevee, some of the faithful were supposedly shocked...
Knowing that the media creature has a desperate need to say things so people won't change the channel and that they sometimes come up with things like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, there's no way to know if anybody let alone any of the faithful was really shocked.
It is common knowledge that the December date for Christmas was chosen because most earlier cultures had a festival at that time of year.
For the Nordic tribes, it was "Jul". Of course, the date for Christmas was settled long before the Danes, the Swedes and the Norsemen ever heard of the "White Christ" or decided he was stronger than Thor.
The "Suffering Christ" has never had the appeal here in the North as it has in the Mediterranean. The Northmen prefer the vision of "Christ-Triumphant". Also, the North was baptized in blood as much as in water. Perhaps that might shock some people?
My Norwegian forebears have a saint, St. Olav, known as "Olav the Holy". They might as well have called him "Olav the Bloody".
When he was 17, Olav went "viking" and tried to capture London. Of course London was no where near the size it is today, but still he was a precocious fellow. Before he got religion, he was known as what I might translate as "Olav Squarepants". He was what is called "big-boned" and could throw two spears at once, a skill which impressed those who went "viking" with him.
Getting religion didn't change his behavior patterns significantly. People he didn't like (= those who refused to be baptized) were treated -- unkindly.
He ordered one chieftain, along with his sons, to be bound with their hands tied behind them and placed on a rock in the water -- at low tide. When the tide came in they drowned. He ordered others to have kettles with glowing coals placed on their tummies, or that they be thrown into pits full of poisonous snakes.
Um, and these are the tales told by those who are trying to praise him!
However, my intention was to speak of Christmas, the Birth of Christ and in that mood I want to speak of facts.
Not historical facts -- historical facts are almost trivial in this context. I'm not talking about facts like the price of a pound of butter.
Here is a real fact:
There is a light which shines in the heart of every human being. This is not true because it is writ in John chapter one, verse blah-blah. This is a truth which is true only if you yourself have seen and understood something of it.
At the risk of being too specific, we could say that it is the light of our conscious awareness.
That we have physical eyes, ears, tongue, nose and the feelings of the skin are, in my opinion, a consequence of or, so to speak, a reflection of that light, that is, there is an observable, innate tendency of the universe as-we-see-it towards life and conscious awareness..
Is this light is in us, or does the human heart or essence somehow focus the light so that it can be revealed in the physical reality? I don't know and leave any answering to the experts.
In any case, without this light, without this tendency or drift towards conscious awareness -- would we be human?
In sum, there is a light which shines in the heart of every human being and here, at the darkest time of the year, we celebrate that that light is born into this world of struggle.
Merry Christmas!
You know the story:
We give gifts at Christmas. Why? Ask the folklorists!
However, we can say that, just as Christ is the symbol of the Gift-of-Love made visible unto the world, likewise give we gifts to make visible our love in the world.
Giving can get to be a rat race, as if the amount of money spent should seem to be a measure of the love we bear. As in life, we tear open tinseled packages, looking for something we missed, something as simple as a hand on the wrist...
Christ-mas is not the sole property of "christianity" -- Christmas is the revelation of our common humanity.
When the tinsel is gone and the tree is bare -- remember, Christmas is clever, Christmas is forever.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
What a Torturous Web We Weave...
I remember seeing in a news clip, Nixon's secretary turning herself into a halfway decent contortionist in a pathetic attempt to show how she could have "accidentally" erased important parts of the Nixon tapes.
Apparently, the only real success of the Codpiece administration has been to outdo Icky Dicky. This time, evidence requested by a judge has been deliberately destroyed. We're not talking about a few minutes of a half drunk Icky Dicky babbling about "getting his enemies" -- this is hundreds of hours of video recordings shredded. What was on the tapes was Coercive Interrogation in the rough, so to speak.
The discerning mind does not need to be told that the Codpiece-in-chief has heard and seen these tapes, enjoyed them and had a boner or two. In fact, he has edited versions -- that is, the juicy parts with screams and vomit -- on DVDs.
The question least likely to be answered is: where did the orders come from to destroy the tapes? Far up the food chain to be sure, but how close to the top?
The question least likely to be asked, let alone answered, is: why were they destroyed -- probably not the screams or the techniques eliciting them -- rather it was the words, the names and, most of all, the unreliable information gained, for example, from that crazy schizo, Zoobiyah.
Of course, the public mind will be fluffed with a lot of spin and flimflam about national security and secrets and oversight and jim bauer 24 crap steaming out of the glowing screens about torture and when and what is torture and when torture is not only illegal but "justifiable" Because Our Cause Is Good.
Therefore, boys and girls of the more or less human variety: It's time to talk about torture once again.
Torture is the deliberate abuse of someone under your total control, someone who has no way to escape your abuse or recourse to defend themselves, legal or otherwise.
All other definitions of torture is bullshit on a waffle. College fraternity hazing, the training special forces endure -- this is not torture because the victims not only know their ordeal will have an end but also a purpose to which they have voluntarily acquiesced.
The main purpose of torture is terror: This applies to both government sponsored torture and the torture of your more run-of-the-mill freelancing sadist. In both cases, the terror is aimed not only at the victim -- but the surrounding population.
Torture as a means of gathering reliable intelligence is not cost effective. The French in Algiers found the exception which proves the rule -- they tortured large numbers of people more or less randomly rounded up in dragnets. By comparing the information they squeezed out of people with electrodes, water boards, dogs and anal rapes, they compiled information they could actually use against the resistance against them.
However, the bottom line is that they ended having to leave Algeria, so the net gain was a loss, a lot of useless agony, pain and broken bodies.
Apparently, the only real success of the Codpiece administration has been to outdo Icky Dicky. This time, evidence requested by a judge has been deliberately destroyed. We're not talking about a few minutes of a half drunk Icky Dicky babbling about "getting his enemies" -- this is hundreds of hours of video recordings shredded. What was on the tapes was Coercive Interrogation in the rough, so to speak.
The discerning mind does not need to be told that the Codpiece-in-chief has heard and seen these tapes, enjoyed them and had a boner or two. In fact, he has edited versions -- that is, the juicy parts with screams and vomit -- on DVDs.
The question least likely to be answered is: where did the orders come from to destroy the tapes? Far up the food chain to be sure, but how close to the top?
The question least likely to be asked, let alone answered, is: why were they destroyed -- probably not the screams or the techniques eliciting them -- rather it was the words, the names and, most of all, the unreliable information gained, for example, from that crazy schizo, Zoobiyah.
Of course, the public mind will be fluffed with a lot of spin and flimflam about national security and secrets and oversight and jim bauer 24 crap steaming out of the glowing screens about torture and when and what is torture and when torture is not only illegal but "justifiable" Because Our Cause Is Good.
Therefore, boys and girls of the more or less human variety: It's time to talk about torture once again.
Torture is the deliberate abuse of someone under your total control, someone who has no way to escape your abuse or recourse to defend themselves, legal or otherwise.
All other definitions of torture is bullshit on a waffle. College fraternity hazing, the training special forces endure -- this is not torture because the victims not only know their ordeal will have an end but also a purpose to which they have voluntarily acquiesced.
The main purpose of torture is terror: This applies to both government sponsored torture and the torture of your more run-of-the-mill freelancing sadist. In both cases, the terror is aimed not only at the victim -- but the surrounding population.
Torture as a means of gathering reliable intelligence is not cost effective. The French in Algiers found the exception which proves the rule -- they tortured large numbers of people more or less randomly rounded up in dragnets. By comparing the information they squeezed out of people with electrodes, water boards, dogs and anal rapes, they compiled information they could actually use against the resistance against them.
However, the bottom line is that they ended having to leave Algeria, so the net gain was a loss, a lot of useless agony, pain and broken bodies.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
The Sweet Smell of Success
After a trillion dollars poured into MegaCorp coffers, thousands of dead Arrogant soldiers laid in wooden coffins, tens of thousands wounded and maimed in body, mind and soul left to aimlessly and homeless wander the streets, not to mention -- especially not to mention -- between a half and a whole million dead civilians in Wudda-Wrek: success was achieved!
How was this done? By winning, withdrawal, by treaty, concessus?
No, none of these -- the Bankers of Illusion simply forgot about it.
Mysteriously, Wudda-Wrek and Farawaystan slid off the front-pages and was no longer seen in the mud lines above and below the bobble-heads on television as they blathered and bloviated about the candidates for Prez of Arrogance -- they philosophized and fulminated about haircuts, the manly smell of cigar and old leather, how much cleavage was appropriate to show and whether that candidate was, in reality, a Masher!
It Had Been Decided by the Pundit Class, that Wudda-Wrek and Farawaystan no longer mattered to Arrogant Citizens. Congress, in subservient silence passed appropriations to the military presence in the Muddled East, and debated other things.
Meanwhile, in the north of Wudda-Wrek, where the Qurds lived, in gratitude for the Arrogant sacrifice of buckets of blood and billions of dollars, the regional government there outlawed the freedom of the press, making it a terror crime punishable by draconian prison sentences and even death to criticize the government, it's leaders and their policies.
Now that is a quality of success very few would have ever imagined!!!
How was this done? By winning, withdrawal, by treaty, concessus?
No, none of these -- the Bankers of Illusion simply forgot about it.
Mysteriously, Wudda-Wrek and Farawaystan slid off the front-pages and was no longer seen in the mud lines above and below the bobble-heads on television as they blathered and bloviated about the candidates for Prez of Arrogance -- they philosophized and fulminated about haircuts, the manly smell of cigar and old leather, how much cleavage was appropriate to show and whether that candidate was, in reality, a Masher!
It Had Been Decided by the Pundit Class, that Wudda-Wrek and Farawaystan no longer mattered to Arrogant Citizens. Congress, in subservient silence passed appropriations to the military presence in the Muddled East, and debated other things.
Meanwhile, in the north of Wudda-Wrek, where the Qurds lived, in gratitude for the Arrogant sacrifice of buckets of blood and billions of dollars, the regional government there outlawed the freedom of the press, making it a terror crime punishable by draconian prison sentences and even death to criticize the government, it's leaders and their policies.
Now that is a quality of success very few would have ever imagined!!!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
A Cornflake and Hallibut Incident
Yet once again, the scene is a plush office in the Dream Zone which is located in Bodybag, the capital of Wudda-Wrek. This is the only place in the country where an free, Arrogant citizen can walk freely about and, for example, enjoy a McBarf burger without fear of a bullet or a piece of shrapnel flying through the lightly salted freedom-fries.
An aide rushes in...
"O no," groans the bald, fat man behind the desk, "it's not Brackwater again?"
"No sir!"
"Well, good news for once?"
"Not really sir, it's Cornflake and Hallibut!"
"O, jeeze, what have they done this time?"
"Rape."
The fat man yawns, "You know the going rate -- the girl's family gets a thousand dollars."
"Gang rape, sir..."
"How many?"
"Five."
"Five thousand, then."
"Sir?"
"Yes?"
"She's an Arrogant citizen, sir -- and an employee of Cornflake and Hallibut..."
"Holy shit," groans the fat man, "as in when it hits the fan!"
"Indeed, sir -- they slipped her a 'roofie' and she woke up the next morning in her bunk, naked, bruised, beaten and scraped, bleeding between the legs.
"Shit!"
"Her breast implants were all crooked because her pectoral muscles were torn"
"Doctors have seen to her then?"
"Not right away, sir."
"How's that?"
"When she was going to report the attack, they locked her in a shipping container for a day -- but then one of guys guarding her lent her his cell phone and she called her father back in Arrogance..."
The fat groans once again and lights a cigarette, "Go on."
"Her father called his congressman and the congressman called State and State called the Army -- the Army sent a unit to get her out of the container and had her taken to a medical exam and that's were are our problem is."
The fat man takes a puff, "Problem?"
"Yessir, the rape kit confirms everything, there was even still traces of the rape drug."
"Those are the facts, where is the problem?"
"The problem is that who do we give the rape-kit to? Everybody seems to want it!"
"You said she was a Cornflake and Hallibut employee?"
"Yessir!"
"Well, then it's a no brainer -- give it to Cornflake and Hallibut."
"But sir, don't you think...?"
"No, I don't think -- I don't even want to think about 'think'!", growled the fat man, "You do know that Cornflake and Hallibut has a no-bid reconstruction contract here in Wudda-Wrek?"
"Yessir."
"Then you also know that companies that get to feed on no-bid contracts all have connections to 'Big Dick' Snarly?" The fat man leered, "Anyway, with a face like that and breast implants, the little mink was kind of asking for 'action', don't you think?"
"Well, sir, I really don't know."
"Whatever, give the rape kit to C & H and things will go smoothly."
And so, the rape kit was given to Cornflake and Hallibut. "Somehow", the rape kit was "misplaced" and later declared "lost". This was unfortunate for State, the Army and the female employee as there was no longer hard evidence on which to build a case, legal, criminal or civil. On the other hand, Cornflake and Hallibut only had to fire one employee instead of five, true, the five won't get a Christmas bonus this year -- but, hey, every thing counts on the bottom line, right?
Also, on the bright side is that the girl's pectoral muscles healed and her breast implants could be shoved back in place. She will be able to engage in sexual activity of her choosing -- once she gets over the psychic traumas of her ordeal. Also, she can take a crap now without too much discomfort.
Also, in other ways she was probably fortunate, she was 20 years old and a citizen of Arragance, not a 15 year old Wudda-Wrek female.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Tapes! What tapes?
Less than a year after Terrible Tuesday, when the mad minions of Ahsawyah been-Lately dropped twenty tons of bullshit from hijacked hot air balloons, thereby killing thousands of innocent civilians who asphyxiated in the terrible stench of male bovine excrement, Zoobiyah, a minor member of Ahsawyah's evil web of shadows, was captured.
The Codpiece was elated to hear the news and clapped his hands in joyful anticipation, "Has he given you any real good information yet?"
"Well no sir, he's a bit groggy from the medication -- he got a compound fracture of his leg and some other bumps and scrapes when our people detained him in Farawaystan..."
"Good, good, your boys tackled him good like they should, that ought to have put him in the mood to talk, you know these Mashers don't understand anything better than a good kick in the ass -- but what's this crap about 'medication'?"
"Painkillers, sir, with out them he starts screaming..."
"Well, if he don't talk he can try screaming for a while -- you understand my meaning?
"I think so, sir, the gloves come off -- that sort of thing?"
"Good, if you understand, you know what to do..."
And so, that was that was how they got Zoobiyah to spill the beans. True he was a small cog in the Al Qube machinery and something of a nut job as well, but nobody figured it was much use in saying anything to the Codpiece about that! In fact, it worked to their advantage that Zoobiyah was schizoid -- all three of his personalities broke down and confessed, giving their tormentors the kind of information they figured they wanted.
That the information's connection to reality was tenuous mattered little -- what mattered was hat they had information which could tie in Wudda-Wreck's Evil Dictator, Sadly Poosane not only to Weapons of Mass Immolation but also Terrible Tuesday, the price of gasoline and the rise of the incidence of acne among Arrogant teenagers!
To be on the safe side, the CIA interrogators took videos of Zoobiyah's interrogation. The Codpiece was pleased and asked for an edited version on DVD with what he called the "cool" parts, that is the segments with screaming.
Unfortunately, Arrogance was hardly what would call a hard core dictatorship at that time and judicial investigations led to a call for showing these recordings to the courts. Suddenly, it happened that the tapes were destroyed, by accident, sort of.
As they say, shit happens, but it doesn't have to hit the fan as long as the right people know when to retire and, more important keep their mouths shut.
The Codpiece was elated to hear the news and clapped his hands in joyful anticipation, "Has he given you any real good information yet?"
"Well no sir, he's a bit groggy from the medication -- he got a compound fracture of his leg and some other bumps and scrapes when our people detained him in Farawaystan..."
"Good, good, your boys tackled him good like they should, that ought to have put him in the mood to talk, you know these Mashers don't understand anything better than a good kick in the ass -- but what's this crap about 'medication'?"
"Painkillers, sir, with out them he starts screaming..."
"Well, if he don't talk he can try screaming for a while -- you understand my meaning?
"I think so, sir, the gloves come off -- that sort of thing?"
"Good, if you understand, you know what to do..."
And so, that was that was how they got Zoobiyah to spill the beans. True he was a small cog in the Al Qube machinery and something of a nut job as well, but nobody figured it was much use in saying anything to the Codpiece about that! In fact, it worked to their advantage that Zoobiyah was schizoid -- all three of his personalities broke down and confessed, giving their tormentors the kind of information they figured they wanted.
That the information's connection to reality was tenuous mattered little -- what mattered was hat they had information which could tie in Wudda-Wreck's Evil Dictator, Sadly Poosane not only to Weapons of Mass Immolation but also Terrible Tuesday, the price of gasoline and the rise of the incidence of acne among Arrogant teenagers!
To be on the safe side, the CIA interrogators took videos of Zoobiyah's interrogation. The Codpiece was pleased and asked for an edited version on DVD with what he called the "cool" parts, that is the segments with screaming.
Unfortunately, Arrogance was hardly what would call a hard core dictatorship at that time and judicial investigations led to a call for showing these recordings to the courts. Suddenly, it happened that the tapes were destroyed, by accident, sort of.
As they say, shit happens, but it doesn't have to hit the fan as long as the right people know when to retire and, more important keep their mouths shut.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
The Bomb in the Mind
I read an interview of Jonathan Schell over at Tomdispatch which sent my mind, once again, around the bend and when it returned to me all worn out, dirty and tore up by brambles, this rant was the result:
It's kind of strange, my generation was the first to be born with the consciousness that the world could actually end -- not with "God" poking a stick in the anthill or sending one of the head angels to, figuratively speaking, blow a big whistle and shout, "Everybody out of the pool!"
On my fourth birthday, the first true Weapon of Mass Immolation lit up the skies of Hiroshima and left a bit more than a tenth of a megadeath in its hideous wake.
Everyone in my generation grew up with this knowledge more or less niggling at the back of our mind -- that we could actually snuff the planet Earth, Our Blue Mother, and we, Her Only Begotten Son.
If you (dare) think about it, it was inevitable the moment we began to think. Eventually, we would develop the scientific method, the mathematics, the chemistry and the physics and idea of the "Bomb" would, sooner or later occur.
The only questions were, would we make it and, having made it, would we use it. In our case, the answers were "yes!" and "yes, of course!".
As a matter of history, it was Leo Szillard to whom the idea first occurred -- it was on a street in London in the year 1933. But, it was inevitable.
It was also inevitable, considering the world situation at that time -- and that we had such a situation was perhaps also inevitable -- it was inevitable that someone would bring the idea into reality and rip the fabric of time and space.
The Americans, mistakenly, thought that Hitler's Germany was trying to make the "Bomb" and the Manhattan Project was the consequence.
Having the "Bomb", although Germany was defeated and Japan essentially so, the Americans had to use the device. Perhaps America was the only country which might have resisted the temptation -- but the fact is, two bombs, the one using highly enriched uranium (HEU) and the other plutonium were used to incinerate, in seconds, the populations of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After that, the jinni was out of the bottle and there was no putting it back. The Americans, narcissistically, thought that it was "their bomb" -- this was ridiculous! That it could be made was an idea inherent in our scientific understanding. Once it had been made and used there was no way to hide the knowledge of how to do it. True, spies hastened the process, but there was no way to hide the knowledge that a certain amount of certain heavy metals, when assembled in a critical mass, would detonate in devastation -- the rest was details, a matter of research, time money and the will to death.
My children's' generation is the first to mature with the knowledge, not only of the "Bomb" but also of other, alternative, ways to ensure our common demise. Bacteriological and chemical death made in thousands of liters and prepared for warheads; the appearance of mutating viruses, one of which could make a bid to outdo the Black Death; and, of course, the slow strangulation of the biosphere through was is so neatly called, "Global Climate Change".
Just as the attempts to put away the "Bomb" have not only been half hearted but, in fact, counter productive, the efforts to address the other doomsday options have been insufficient.
Is there anything which could awaken the drunkard from his slumber?
It's kind of strange, my generation was the first to be born with the consciousness that the world could actually end -- not with "God" poking a stick in the anthill or sending one of the head angels to, figuratively speaking, blow a big whistle and shout, "Everybody out of the pool!"
On my fourth birthday, the first true Weapon of Mass Immolation lit up the skies of Hiroshima and left a bit more than a tenth of a megadeath in its hideous wake.
Everyone in my generation grew up with this knowledge more or less niggling at the back of our mind -- that we could actually snuff the planet Earth, Our Blue Mother, and we, Her Only Begotten Son.
If you (dare) think about it, it was inevitable the moment we began to think. Eventually, we would develop the scientific method, the mathematics, the chemistry and the physics and idea of the "Bomb" would, sooner or later occur.
The only questions were, would we make it and, having made it, would we use it. In our case, the answers were "yes!" and "yes, of course!".
As a matter of history, it was Leo Szillard to whom the idea first occurred -- it was on a street in London in the year 1933. But, it was inevitable.
It was also inevitable, considering the world situation at that time -- and that we had such a situation was perhaps also inevitable -- it was inevitable that someone would bring the idea into reality and rip the fabric of time and space.
The Americans, mistakenly, thought that Hitler's Germany was trying to make the "Bomb" and the Manhattan Project was the consequence.
Having the "Bomb", although Germany was defeated and Japan essentially so, the Americans had to use the device. Perhaps America was the only country which might have resisted the temptation -- but the fact is, two bombs, the one using highly enriched uranium (HEU) and the other plutonium were used to incinerate, in seconds, the populations of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After that, the jinni was out of the bottle and there was no putting it back. The Americans, narcissistically, thought that it was "their bomb" -- this was ridiculous! That it could be made was an idea inherent in our scientific understanding. Once it had been made and used there was no way to hide the knowledge of how to do it. True, spies hastened the process, but there was no way to hide the knowledge that a certain amount of certain heavy metals, when assembled in a critical mass, would detonate in devastation -- the rest was details, a matter of research, time money and the will to death.
My children's' generation is the first to mature with the knowledge, not only of the "Bomb" but also of other, alternative, ways to ensure our common demise. Bacteriological and chemical death made in thousands of liters and prepared for warheads; the appearance of mutating viruses, one of which could make a bid to outdo the Black Death; and, of course, the slow strangulation of the biosphere through was is so neatly called, "Global Climate Change".
Just as the attempts to put away the "Bomb" have not only been half hearted but, in fact, counter productive, the efforts to address the other doomsday options have been insufficient.
Is there anything which could awaken the drunkard from his slumber?
Friday, December 07, 2007
What a Monkey Can Do!
"The hypothesis -- which has yet to be disproven -- is that it is impossible to imagine a limit or cap on the level of goodness or wickedness, of evil or blessing, of beauty or ugly which human beings can reveal through their interactions with their fellow beings and the world which brought them forth out of primal ooze.
As a matter of fact, and to be more precise, it is incorrect to call ourselves "human". We are the intermediate form, neither bird nor fish, blindly seeking to unfold a vision into reality.
To put it a different way: through our actions, or lack of same we define our common humanity. This has been going on for some decades of millennia. But now we rapidly approach a cusp where we will win the prize -- or not... "
[That was Ichabod Rain's comment to his song "What a Monkey Can Do!", the final verse of which is given below. Even with my access to the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth, it is is hard to understand how he was able to avoid incarceration, or worse]
As a matter of fact, and to be more precise, it is incorrect to call ourselves "human". We are the intermediate form, neither bird nor fish, blindly seeking to unfold a vision into reality.
To put it a different way: through our actions, or lack of same we define our common humanity. This has been going on for some decades of millennia. But now we rapidly approach a cusp where we will win the prize -- or not... "
[That was Ichabod Rain's comment to his song "What a Monkey Can Do!", the final verse of which is given below. Even with my access to the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth, it is is hard to understand how he was able to avoid incarceration, or worse]
A monkey with fleas will scratch where it itch!
The Prince of this World is a son of a bitch,
Who's taking this Earth and destroying it!
All verses will rhyme when he's thrown in the ditch!
Walking down the avenue, two by two,
If you think of me, I'll be thinking of you!
But Lord only knows what a monkey can do!
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Spinning the Truth into Lies
The news flapping in the Third Galaxy from the rooftops of the Bankers of Illusion was that Uran, a major spoke in the Axis of Evil, had stopped trying to produce Highly Enriched Uranium which could be used to make a Weapon of Mass Immolation -- already in 2003!
Did I say "news"? Well, what's news depends on how long the newspaper spoon is you use or whether you suck your news through a straw...
First of all the NIE report in 2003 maintained that Uran was not only trying to make HEU but trying to figure out the trick of making it go "bang!". In 2005 and 2006 material from a "stolen" laptop was used in slide show presentations to "prove" that the Uranians were trying to make a bomb. Valuable intelligence of this sort was used to convince the Uropeon countries to take part in the billion dollar boondoggle of a missile defense system against atomic warhead tipped missiles from "rogue" states -- like Uran...
However, all this contradicts the fact that the IAEA has never maintained that Uran was going after a bomb or that they were having any success in making the highly enriched material, to make a nuclear reactor you need 3-5% enrichment, to make a bomb, you need HEU -- 90-95%.
But hey, the IAEA was right about Wudda-Wreck and its evil dictator, Sadly Poosane's, possession of Weapons of Ultimate Destruction, so what could they possibly know?
Second, anyone who has made an active effort to be informed knows that Uran has had great difficulty in getting the centrifuges on-line in sufficient number to begin producing even lightly enriched material in more than insignificant amounts.
Third, we know that in 2005 the Grand Poobah of Uran issued a fatwa or religious decree that it was not permissible for a Masher to attempt to acquire let alone use atomic weapons. Jeeze, if we hadn't lost our collective minds we wouldn't need a Grand Poobah, Pope or Holy Piss Ant -- we would know from our own moral compass that we're talking about the kind of crime against our common humanity that used to be called the "sin against the holy spirit, for which there is no forgiveness..."
However, what does our Great and Wise Decider, the Codpiece-in-Chief say? He says, see, I was right all along, Uran was a threat then, they are a threat now and they will continue to be a threat -- if they should ever acquire a nuclear bomb. (Exactly why they should be more of a threat than other nuclear players in the Third Galaxy remains a mystery!)
To be frank (and somewhat incensed) this line of pseudo-thought was taken from the same pile of bullshit as: I see you stopped beating your wife, which is very good. But I figure your wife wants a divorce anyway and, if I suspect your you're going to start again, I reserve the right to shoot you, without warning to remove your threat to planetary peace...
Still, the bottom line is that, for a number of reasons, the long imminent attack on Uran will, probably, not take place as planned -- and that is a good piece of news!
On the other hand, just because a few players are showing some resemblance of sanity, should not lead us to conclude that the Third Galaxy won't go to hell in a hand basket...
Did I say "news"? Well, what's news depends on how long the newspaper spoon is you use or whether you suck your news through a straw...
First of all the NIE report in 2003 maintained that Uran was not only trying to make HEU but trying to figure out the trick of making it go "bang!". In 2005 and 2006 material from a "stolen" laptop was used in slide show presentations to "prove" that the Uranians were trying to make a bomb. Valuable intelligence of this sort was used to convince the Uropeon countries to take part in the billion dollar boondoggle of a missile defense system against atomic warhead tipped missiles from "rogue" states -- like Uran...
However, all this contradicts the fact that the IAEA has never maintained that Uran was going after a bomb or that they were having any success in making the highly enriched material, to make a nuclear reactor you need 3-5% enrichment, to make a bomb, you need HEU -- 90-95%.
But hey, the IAEA was right about Wudda-Wreck and its evil dictator, Sadly Poosane's, possession of Weapons of Ultimate Destruction, so what could they possibly know?
Second, anyone who has made an active effort to be informed knows that Uran has had great difficulty in getting the centrifuges on-line in sufficient number to begin producing even lightly enriched material in more than insignificant amounts.
Third, we know that in 2005 the Grand Poobah of Uran issued a fatwa or religious decree that it was not permissible for a Masher to attempt to acquire let alone use atomic weapons. Jeeze, if we hadn't lost our collective minds we wouldn't need a Grand Poobah, Pope or Holy Piss Ant -- we would know from our own moral compass that we're talking about the kind of crime against our common humanity that used to be called the "sin against the holy spirit, for which there is no forgiveness..."
However, what does our Great and Wise Decider, the Codpiece-in-Chief say? He says, see, I was right all along, Uran was a threat then, they are a threat now and they will continue to be a threat -- if they should ever acquire a nuclear bomb. (Exactly why they should be more of a threat than other nuclear players in the Third Galaxy remains a mystery!)
To be frank (and somewhat incensed) this line of pseudo-thought was taken from the same pile of bullshit as: I see you stopped beating your wife, which is very good. But I figure your wife wants a divorce anyway and, if I suspect your you're going to start again, I reserve the right to shoot you, without warning to remove your threat to planetary peace...
Still, the bottom line is that, for a number of reasons, the long imminent attack on Uran will, probably, not take place as planned -- and that is a good piece of news!
On the other hand, just because a few players are showing some resemblance of sanity, should not lead us to conclude that the Third Galaxy won't go to hell in a hand basket...
Monday, December 03, 2007
What an Act!
The opening line of the "Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 is:
I've been hearing about this strange and somewhat troubling piece of legislation since late this summer when it was passed by the House of Representatives -- it has yet to be passed by the Senate.
The difficult thing with this bill is the vagueness -- it's wording could be used to criminalize acts such as political agitation, demonstrations and the right of free assembly.
Even today, we have seen "free-speech zones" and people being put on "watch lists" for activities which the courts call misdemeanors.
"AN ACT to prevent homegrown terrorism and other purposes..."
I've been hearing about this strange and somewhat troubling piece of legislation since late this summer when it was passed by the House of Representatives -- it has yet to be passed by the Senate.
The difficult thing with this bill is the vagueness -- it's wording could be used to criminalize acts such as political agitation, demonstrations and the right of free assembly.
Even today, we have seen "free-speech zones" and people being put on "watch lists" for activities which the courts call misdemeanors.
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