Where the Sun Don't Shine...

"I'll just put some rubber bands on them..."

That's what he said and, a bit off key because he had just pumped untellable amounts of air up my ass, I mumbled OK but mentioned that it didn't really matter to me if my cornhole was cute.

The doctor then took a machine which felt like it was the size of Mack truck and, to me felt like and sounded like a stapling machine and bang bang bang bang put, he said, rubber bands around the hemorrhoids I had lived peacefully with for years.

The only reason I had gone to this fugging specialist in the first place was that my general practitioner told me he couldn't tell if one of my hemorrhoids was maybe a "growth", a polyp. Well, the specialist told me right off that there were no baddies growing down there and then proceeded to make my asshole pretty.

I should have run away screaming. That's what I ended up doing anyway.

They told me I might feel some "pressure" and that there might be some bleeding when the rubber bands fell off -- jeeze, I have never invoked the name of the Almighty in so many variations, some of them obscene, if not blasphemic, in my life!

I have a cousin who once said that he hated the "invasive" examinations and his wife looked at him and said what do you mean, dear. All he answered was hmmnn. I understand him now.

The Truth is a Conspiracy Theory...

We now take a closer at how the Bankers of Illusion assisted Ronald Rexona as he slouched towards his ascendency as Supreme Hole of Arrogance and soon thereafter de-facto ruler of the Third Galaxy from his throne of excrement and rusty bricks.

First, we should go back to the beginning when he was selected as president of what was then a Land Most Fair, a Land of Liberty and Enlightenment -- a Bright City Upon the Hill...

True, ethnicity and what kind of spoon you were born with up your nose could circumscribe the amount of liberty you could actually hope to realize and enlightenment was sometimes taken care of with a 15 watt naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but, hey, any light is better than the darkness which was to come!

Six years after Terrible Tuesday when twenty tons of bullshit from hijacked hot-air balloons was dumped on the Truth Towers, a poll showed that 61% of the people believed that the Codpiece administration had "ignored warnings" about Terrible Tuesday...

There was nothing surprising about that statistic! This opinion was easy to defend with any number of provable facts from many independent sources: it had been administration policy from day one to downgrade the importance of the terra threat from Al Qube and Ahsawyah been-lately.

However, when that poll was made public, the media whores of the Bankers of Illusion hopped up and down like eye-popping, carpet-pissing Chihuahuas decrying the "belief of Arrogant citizens in conspiracy theories". It mattered little to them that holding on to a "theory" when the "facts" supporting it are provably false is the hallmark of a "conspiracy theorist" and not the other way around.

It is almost unbelievable that at that time in his career, when only 25% of the population thought that Rexona was doing a good job -- mainly because of the obvious failure of his adventures in Farawaystan and Wudda-Wreck -- that the Bankers of Illusion used their bobble-head puppets on television to proclaim that the invasion and occupation of Wudda-Wreck was now a success. This was done with "spin", "talking points" and non sequitur conclusions: except for the occasional car-bomb violence was down; fewer decapitated bodies tortured with electric drills were found floating in the rivers and people began to once again eat fish from the once so bloody waters. Therefore, obviously, the Will of the Decider had Prevailed and Victory Was Ours!

Meanwhile, back in what was soon to become the United State of Arrogance, firemen were learning on how to spy on citizens and look for potential terrarists in the form of speech and written material expressing "hatred of the Arrogant Way of Life" or anything else that looked suspicious.

There was of course no connection with these and other coincidental developments, such as the way that immigration agents "discovered" that they didn't need to have a warrant to bust down doors to a home if they "reason to believe" that some of the occupants were "illegal". It was all a due to serendipity and the odd chance or two that, when Monstrous Monday occurred, the Codpiece discovered that he had struck the trifecta and soon found that dictatorship actually was easier as long as one was an asshole.

When the detention camps were full of the sort of people who couldn't stop thinking that all this was due to "some sort of conspiracy", for a number of reasons, public disapproval of the Supreme Hole was no longer a problem.

Fainting Canaries and them what Pukes

A couple of days ago, for a few hours, you could buy one American dollar for less than five Danish Kroner.

I've been living in the Happy Little Kingdom for almost all my adult life and, to me, that was one of those factoids like the canary in the mine that lets the miners know something is wrong.

The canary gave a nervous tweet last week when the people in charge of National Heritage Sites in India like the Taj Mahal took down the $5 entrance fee signs -- tourists now must fork over 250 Rupees instead...

Before that canary, I read about what I might call a canary fart in the mine, that is something so disgusting as to make you want to puke and spit at the same time.

The name of the game is signing bonuses -- a person with the right kind of skills can get something like a $30,000 bonus for re-upping for new hitch with the military. Of course, it is expected that you complete your three years or whatever you have signed up for on the dotted line for -- if you get yourself thrown out for misbehavior or go AWOL (without the proper family connections -- but then you wouldn't need the damn bonus!), it does seem fair that you return some of the money.

However, if you get a leg blown off in the line of duty and can no longer serve, are you supposed to return the money? The military seems to think so.

Speaking of wounded, I can understand (somewhat) the focus on the number of fatalities instead of wounded in the military adventures of the Codpiece administration -- dead is dead, a pine box draped in an American flag. Wounded is something of sliding scale -- that also means it is a place with a place for a big, heavy thumb on the scales when making statistics and Power Point presentations.

But this is disgusting: people with brain injuries are being excluded from wounded statistics with such consequence that must be a policy from higher up the food chain. We're talking about a number like 20,000 -- and that's on top of the recognized wounded!

A third of the homeless men in the US are vets -- and don't even think about the suicides!

The Alien Veggies

Even with direct access to the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth, it has taken me a lot of time and energy to gather and piece together the little information about the Alien Veggies I present to you here.

As the reader knows, these enigmatic creatures appeared at a most crucial time in the skies of the Third Galaxy and saved that poor world from its imminent and complete destruction.

"Alien Veggies", which is what the people of the Third Galaxy called them, refers not to the beings themselves, but rather the shape and appearance of their strange space ships which resembled cucumbers, squashes, watermelons, eggplants, etc. Themselves, the Veggies looked pretty much like the humans of the Third Galaxy. The question though is whether or not this is their real form as some witnesses claim that there can be observed a sort of flicker in their appearance. The conjecture is that the Veggies are some sort of shape-changers.

The idea is not nearly as wild as it would seem since the Veggies do possess considerable meta-psychic abilities -- that is, telepathy, psycho-kinesis and things of that sort. As a matter of fact, this is probably what impelled them to intervene in the history of the Third Galaxy -- it was not simply altruism, but for their own well being. If that poor world had continued on its terrible path of self-destruction, the extinguishing of the planetary mind and conscious entity would have sent cascades of pain throughout the meta-psychical interstices and the Veggies would have long experienced the agony of despair as the light of awareness was snuffed.

Whatever the actual reason for their intervention, the manner in which the Alien Veggies imposed order and restored sanity to the affairs of the Third Galaxy was direct, to the point and most effective. They made no announcements, no declarations, no show of force -- except that their strange ships hung there in the skies, impervious to any weapons used against them.

The ships formed a pattern, activated a grid and energized a device which came to be known as the Primary Universal Rhetorical Regurgitator Resonator, or PURRR.

The function of PURRR was to cause both listener and speaker to visualize in a most vivid manner the rhetorical significance of what their leaders and media pundits were saying to them on television and other media. This was especially distressful for an asshole like Ronald Rexona. Accustomed to having his handpicked audiences applaud all the bullshit he was in the habit of speaking, he was mortified when audiences in the studio, all over Arrogance, in fact, he himself saw great gobs of slimy turds, green boogers and other excreta fall from his smirking lips and splatter on the floor.

In itself, PURRR was enough to disrupt most organized tyranny. The period of anarchy was brief and the natural leaders who appeared gained easy confidence simply because, when they spoke, shit did not dribble down their chins.

Of course, there were many problems, especially with the environment which had been so arrogantly ravaged, but, like a drunk who has awoken from his stupor, the people of the Third Galaxy with the help and technology of the Alien Veggies were able to turn back the clock on the impending catastrophes.

When the Seas Turned to Blood...

Through my researches in the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth, I have been able to show the reader something of how religion in the Third Galaxy contributed to what was known on that poor world as the "Terrible Times".

Earlier, with material supplied me by an unemployed angel* I was able to describe something of how the Bankers of Illusion and the Mega Corps both supported and enabled Ronald Rexona as he slouched towards ascendency as Supreme Hole of Arrogance.

But I have yet to describe the changes in the environment and the biosphere of the Third Galaxy which, together with the pressures of economic crunch caused by dwindling resources would result in armed conflicts and -- with the appearance of the Supreme Hole -- Total Endless War.

It is a difficult matter to approach. People in our world, where sanity is not looked upon with askance, have trouble understanding why the inhabitants of the Third Galaxy did not respond to the looming catastrophe early on. There are two things to keep in mind here. First of all, most of the changes were slow and, in the beginning, almost unnoticeable -- therefore easy to ignore or adjust to. Secondly, that which was causing the changes was of great profit to the Mega Corps and of great pleasure to the citizens of Arrogance and other powerful nations. Rexona's message was that control over the resources would enable preservation of the Arrogant Way of Life, i.e., living high off the hog.

However, pumping more and more doodads, thingamajigs and whutzits out of the factories and sweat shops, although it enabled continued and ever growing consumption and, more important, profits -- had a side effect: pollution on such a scale that changes in the environment and biosphere ensued -- changes which became obvious.

The first warning sign was degradation of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, caused by fluorocarbons. The fix -- substituting fluorocarbons with other coolants -- met with surprisingly little resistance. There were profits to be made!

But countering the effects of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere met with stronger resistance. The producers of fossil based energy were all major Mega Corps incapable of looking further into the future than the expected profit margins for the next five quarters.

The expected effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide was first called "global warming". This was unfortunate on at least three points.
First, the problem was more climate changes than warming as such.

Second, as the changes got into gear, in the end, carbon emission was more a trigger for the emission of greenhouse gasses of much greater effect, such as methane trapped in the permafrost of the vast northern tundras.

Third, the worst effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide was that it was absorbed by the oceans, which rendered them acidic instead of basic. The effect of this was that plankton, shell fish and corals lacked the calcium they needed. The effect of that was to knock big links out of the food chain as well as destroy a major habitat for sea life -- the coral reefs.

Hermaphrodite polar bears and melting glaciers and ice caps did not bother Arrogance; neither did the occasional flood.

However, when the seas turned to "blood", that is enormous blooms of algae several hundred miles in length, appeared on the coasts, stinking with the rot of dead fish and other organic matter, people got excited.

By then, there was little to do and the little that was done was like a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound.

________________
* "unemployed angel" refers to Man-u-El Ishman who was later employed by Higher Power and sent on a secret mission to an undisclosed location -- after which I was granted access to the Absolute Truth, including second and third level footnotes.

More About Single-Tater Religions in the Third Galaxy

I have attempted earlier to give you some idea of how the single-tater* religions in the Third Galaxy were in many ways shamefully complicit in the tragic developments known on that poor world as the "Terrible Times".

It would be exceedingly remiss of me if I did not clearly tell the reader that this shameful record could was said by many to be a perversion of their original religions. Although something can be said for this viewpoint, it was also a cop out, absolving religion for the ugly things done in its name without actually addressing the evil, which, with a few most notable exceptions, is what most religious leaders of that time did.

In that context I should mention that the Supreme Poobah of the Heehaw Mashers in Uran, the Ahtolduall Whomademe, issued a firm "Fatlaw" or edict that it was against Masherism to acquire or develop nuclear weapons of mass immolation. As far as I can tell from my researches in the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth, Ahtolduall Whomademe was the only major religious leader to make such a firm condemnation death weapons. Religious leaders in Arrogance, on the other hand, tried to figure when it was morally right not to have Weapons of Mass Immolation but when the Great Potato would approve of their use!

As could be expected, Whomademe's Fatlaw was seldom mentioned in Approved Arrogant Media -- and then only as a footnote with out comment, or with ridiculing sarcasm. The reason for that, of course, otherwise it would not have been feasible to bomb Uran in order to prevent them from acquiring Weapons of Mass Immolation...

The Peelers considered their religion to be a renewal and purification of the religion of the Strugs. The Masher, in turn, claimed that he had been Selected by the Great Potato to reform and purify the message given earlier to the Strugs and the Peelers by Foundling and Holy Idaho. The Strugs, of course, denied that they have ever strayed from the True Path.

In order to prove the truth of their views, they all ethic cleansed, genocided, tortured and put to death in exquisitely painful ways fellow human beings. At the same time they have all failed to take real responsibility for the atrocities done in the name of their religions. Generally, they would say that what they did was the Will of the Great Potato.

But the crux of the matter?

Perhaps we should turn to the witness of a fellow who actually lived in the Third Galaxy up to and during most of the Terrible Times, Ichabod Rain:

"The truth is that one can find many wonderful, deep, in fact valid spiritual insights in our religions. But that said, a person of an open and inquiring mind must ask how it is they have been continuously sidetracked, hijacked by hustlers, power freaks and scoundrels of less than modest spiritual development -- and that is not mentioning the perverts and outright sadists who have had the temerity to dispense grace in the name of the almighty eternal..."

"One would think that the single-tater religions would have a leg up on the many-tater religions but that is far from the case. There is absolutely no honest way to claim that followers of our single-tater religions have comported themselves more decently, morally, nobly or even just as simple human beings than the followers of other religions -- that is, except in their own eyes!"

"If we ask ourselves with an inquiring and open mind why this is so, the answer is surprisingly simple: all the single-tater religions think of the Great Potato as Other, a SomeOne Outside the manifest universe. Once we have been fooled by that illusion, only Special People can tell us about the Great Potato. These Special People are Selected in "some way" by the Potato Himself and thus it is that we have, Lawmakers, Saviors and Prophets..."

"Oddly enough, these Special People lived hundreds, even thousands of years ago. The Message is contained in sacred texts and traditions and -- surprise! surprise! -- in order to understand how the True Meaning we need intermediaries.

These intermediaries have fine names and titles, live in big houses and drive in fat cars. But you poke them in the tummy they reveal themselves to be a flock of people who don't care to do a day's lick of work and have found out that explaining the Will of the Great Potato to the sheeple is a ticket to EASY STREET!"

"The fact is that the Great Potato speaks to us all, both great and small. The Spud is neither within nor without, above nor below, in front of, beside nor behind the reality of what-is. The best, in fact the only really useful thing any teacher or guide in spiritual matters can do is encourage people to listen in their secret heart for that voice of silence which continually asks the question..."

Irritatingly, this is how Ichabod Rain's small homilies usually end and he never explains what he means by "the question". The closest I have been able to find is this:

"The answer and the question are found within each breath -- even in peaceful times can be dangerous to speak too openly of such things.

_______________
* A "single-tater" religion is one which maintains that there is only One Great Potato. The single-tater religious, mainly the Peelers, Mashers and Strugs. tend look down on the many-tater religions such as Hudooism as well as Buddyism which the others regard as a no-tater religion.

Religion in the Third Galaxy and the Terrible Times

The more I do research into the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth and what transpired in the Third Galaxy up to the time up just before the fortuitous intervention by the Alien Veggies, the more it strikes me that one of truly tragic developments on that poor world was how religion was abused in ways which helped bring about the Terrible Times.

Although no religion, except perhaps Buddyism, can be said to have been free of such taint, in is especially true of the three "single-tater" religions, the Peelers, the Mashers and of course the Strugs.

With the Peelers and Mashers, one could almost suspect that they had been in competition with each other to show who could be most cruel and bloodthirsty in torture, murder and massacre of each other as well as members of their own faith who stressed the creed in a slightly different way.

As you know, the Strugs were persecuted by the Mashers and the Peelers -- mostly they felt the anger of the Peelers who held the Strugs responsible for the Peeling of the Holy Idaho.

However, after the War to Make the World Safe For Whatever, helped by a fluke of history and the bad conscience of the Peelers, the Strugs formed a new nation. Unfortunately, their new country was smack dab in the middle of Holy California. For some reason, the people who had been living there for nearly two thousand years felt that they had a right to live there and were somewhat disgruntled having to flee to refugee camps. That most of these people were Mashers did not make matters better.

Being only human, the Strugs did exactly what had been done to them over the centuries and millennia -- they persecuted the Mashers, grabbed their land, took the water rights and herded them into crowded ghettos. Many of them felt that it was only proper because, according to the Book of the Great Potato, the Spud had given Holy California to Broken Wingh and furthermore had told Foundling to lead the Strugs to this Promised Land and make sure that they ethnic cleansed it.

Unfortunately, the Book of the Great Potato also told that the people who believed in the Masher and his Reading of the Eternal Book were also descendants of Broken Wingh -- therefore, one could very well have different opinions as to whom the Book of the Great Potato provided a land deed to Holy California. Not only did they have different opinions they carried out their discussions with wars, bombs and terror from all sides.

The Peelers, on the other hand, were now rooting for the Strugs. This was partly because of their bad conscience at having tried with such great success to exterminate the Strugs. More pertinent was their strange belief of the Peelers that, before the Holy Idaho could return to earth and establish his Kingdom in the Great Colander in the Sky, the Strugs would have to reclaim all the land which had been promised them by the Great Potato. Then, there would be a great series of wars and all the Strugs would be killed except for a few hundred thousand who had accepted the Holy Idaho as their personal Spud and Savior.

When you consider that the Mashers as well had similar ideas where it was they who would come out on top when the Masher returned, you can well understand how it was that some very heavy shit was bound to come down the tube. Even if Rexona had not become Supreme Hole of Arrogance things would have surely gone from bad to worse.

Off With Their Heads!!!

"Off with their heads!", cried the Red Queen.

That captures, perhaps, the essence of the argument for capital punishment -- put them down and justice is served, retribution is made. The problem is that justice is not confined to victim and perpertrator. There is a larger circle, loved ones, families and the larger society.

Desmond Tutu makes an argument here against capital punishment that is both cogent and emotional -- in my opinion, combined with his personal history and experience, that makes his argument all the more compelling.

On the other hand, I have always been uncomfortable with the concept that capital punishment must never be used.

My reasoning is maybe a bit fuzzy, so please bear with this old fart while he tells you a story:

In 1851, my great grand uncle Nathan Whitney Watson went on a journey from Chicago to Utah City. It was a trip with both business and personal background. During the trip he kept a diary. A little over halfway to their goal a brutal murder was committed by one of the trail hands on the wagon train.

In the early morning the wagon boss was having an argument with one of his trail hands when a brother to the man he was arguing with walked up behind the wagon boss, grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head back and slit his throat with one swipe of his bowie knife. The wagon master bled to death in front of his wife. The killer then went to a wagon, grabbed supplies and, with a rifle over his shoulder, took off on foot, saying that he would "...shoot the first man who tried to follow him".

Not one man, but twelve followed him.

They encircled him and with rifles raised and aimed, closed in on the perpetrator who surrendered and was then taken in custody back to the wagon train. A jury, judge, prosecutor and defender were appointed. The facts were laid out and documented before the jury which gave the verdict "guilty".

The killer was hung that same night and, by his own request, buried on the trail beside the man he had murdered that very morning. My uncle mentions that it was a clear night and that there was a full moon.

My question is: what else could they have done? The wagon train was in the middle of nowhere with ten days in front and behind them to the nearest fort.

My argument is that a small fragile society such as that wagon train had little choice but to hang the killer on the spot. To let him escape would rip the fabric of their vulnerable society. Should they use their few resources to keep the killer prisoner under dangerous and unstable conditions?

And that, dear hearts, is my argument: the death penalty is an option which a weak society must sometimes needs take. On the other hand it is one of the tools used by totalitarian governments to enforce their will upon a public whose support it does not have or is not sure of .

Think about it...

The Kitty Hawk and the Chinese Song

Here's something from the all too real world for you to chew on:

The USS Kitty Hawk was out on exercises in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Japan and Taiwan with an escort of a dozen other warships.

Although the Kitty Hawk is an old vessel launched in 1961, she is still a super-carrier, 300 yards long, 4500 crew and enough fire power to blow the shit out of almost any place in the world. Especially in a multinational exercise, we'd expect her to be protected by the most advanced electronic, radar and sonar techniques of her escorts as well as things we probably don't even know the names of...

Suddenly, in the middle of all this imperial firepower, a submarine surfaces without warning near the Kitty Hawk. Unfortunately it was not one of the American, Japanese or Australian ships taking part in the exercise which began October 17. It was a Chinese Song class submarine, a modern diesel electric vessel 50 yards in length. which, had it been armed with torpedoes, and/or missiles, could have taken the carrier out.

By the way, last year, another one of these Song class subs got within 5 miles of the Kitty Hawk before it was detected -- that's not as close as this year, when the Chinese revealed their presence by coming to the surface of their own free will near to the carrier. [the link just above is from where I sponged the pic of a Song]

In fact, what the Chinese accomplished was what Native Americans on the Great Plains called "counting a coup" -- getting close enough to strike your foe was a sign of cunning and brave daring. Whatever the Chinese crew call it, you can be sure they were giving each other the Chinese equivalent of high-fives.

But don't you worry! America is safe!

Because, back in the United Sate of Texas, the Codpiece in Chief, visited recuperating vets at a military rehab center. While he was there he, along with some vets who still had arms, went to virtual Baghdad via a computer game and shot up a whole bunch of "bad guys"!

It is wonderful to know that the Decider-in-Chief is the kind of guy you could drink a beer with, it is even more wonderful to know that he is ready to go to war in a computer game.

But the most wonderfulest of all is that in 14 months this klutz will be out of a job!

In the Petrified Forest

I apologize, dear hearts, this weekend the house was full guests as we held our annual Pumpikin Pie Party, so I will beg off with this depressing trifle which, if my note book is to be trusted, was composed some ten years ago while standing in the shade of the moon...

In the petrified forest of broken dreams,
I thought I heard a lizard scream...

The sound of falling leaves...
Tattered strips of memory...
Are they all that's left of eternity?

There was a time when all was well,
There were no visions of hell...
The promise was given, the vow was taken,
My love stood before me completely naked...

"O yes!" I cried, "you are mine and I am yours!"
"You're sure you'll never leave me?" she quietly demured.
"O yes! We are one. We are the Moon and the Sun!"

But now I'm alone and out of breath.
I walk the valley, in the shadows of death...

In a petrified forest of broken dreams,
I thought I heard a lizard scream...

Camp Freedom

Just who the inmate of Camp Freedom was who gave this witness to the Absolute Truth is not certain.

Unlike many of the other "camps" built by the Hallibutt Company (on a no-bid contract of almost a half-billion dollars) Camp Freedom was intended mainly for people who had abused their rights guaranteed in the Groundlaw to protest in peaceful assembly. This explains the reference to veterans from the Wudda-Wreck War Zone -- it was very important to the Rexona regime that such veterans exercise their freedom in a responsible manner, that is, not critical of Arrogance.

I was surprised that the camp was so clean, but then maybe that was because it was so new. Camp Freedom was built but a year before Rexona clapped his hands and declared the State of Imminent Danger and Lasting National Emergency -- which gave him the dictatorial powers he needed as Decider to defend the Groundlaw of Arrogance in a most truly patriotic fashion from all enemies both foreign and domestic -- in particular the domestic.

The camp was clean, but the food was basically what we used to call edible garbage in the army. Indeed, I was surprised at the number of other vets from the War Zone in Wudda-Wreck in the camp. It seems that not all who had experienced what went on in the War Zone could be trusted.

Otherwise, Camp Authority pretty much left us to our own devices, they appointed what they called "honchos" to sort of run things for them -- the rest of us were known as "peons" and basically what we did was work in the fields around the camp, weeding, hoeing, tending and harvesting the crops and vegetables. This did not improve our diet as much as you might think because the bulk and certainly the best fruits of our labors were shipped out and sold in a War-Mart mega store somewhere in the area.

I could have wished that Camp Authority had picked people of better character to act as "honchos" -- most of them were hardened criminals, perverts and an occasional sadist. It was puzzling that Camp Authority didn't seem to care or at least understand that the honchos treated us peons rather poorly.

Other wise, though, it was a pretty cool place, Camp Freedom was nicely landscaped and there was a big sign over the main gate spelling out in black letters two feet high:

"CAMP FREEDOM IS A FREE-SPEECH ZONE!"

And that was pretty much true, you could say almost anything you felt like to anybody you felt like telling it to -- well, at least while you were out hoeing in the fields and there weren't any honchos in earshot. Otherwise, you might get a good solid whack up the side of the head -- if they were in a good mood.

The Game of Holy Poker

Yet another poem composed by that unknown poet in the Third Galaxy, apparently from the brief period of seeming quiet before the beginning of the Terrible Times.

In any case, I know from the footnotes to the Absolute Truth that the reference to "Aces" is to how many actors on the stage of that poor world were in possesion of atomic weapons and prepared to use them.

In smoke filled rooms full of dirty old men
who play, with obscene delight,
the only game left in town;
the game of "might makes right":

"I'll call your bluff and raise the bet
with ten armored divisions!"
"I'll cover that with bunker buster bombs!"
-- and thus unfolds the dark vision...

When their game of holy poker begins,
and the players are all in their places,
won't they be surprised, when the chips are down,
how many were holding "Aces"!

When all is said and done, and every
thing has gone to dust,
what will there be -- if anything --
left for you to trust?

The questions that we need to ask,
are hid between the lines
of ancient texts, and between each breath,
and the answers are not all quite divine.

The Great Cull...

If the truth be known and when the publication of the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth becomes available to the general public the truth will be known, the real, nitty-gritty, bare bones reasons for Ronald Rexona and his Evil Companion to bring on the Terrible Times otherwise known as Ultimate Endless War, were not so much to establish world hegemony and control over the dwindling resources in the Third Galaxy. These were mere pretexts to engage the interest and ensure the loyalty of the multitude of lesser holes who made the ascension of the Supreme Hole possible.

When you cut away the shining words about Freedom, Democracy and the War on Terra; if you ignore the dark, neo-cunz vision codified in PNAC, or Project for the New Arrogant Century, what is left is the obvious: that the true and terribly real goal was the Great Cull -- that is reducing the population of the Third Galaxy to a level both commensurate to the dwindling resources and easier to control.

The plan was that the citizens of Arrogance should, as far as economically prudent, be spared the consequences of the Cull. The reason for that was not so much the love of Arrogance, but the easily demonstrable fact that Arrogant citizens -- exactly because of their arrogance -- were easier to control than any other population in the Third Galaxy!

However, although no where explicitly expressed, it was implied in all contingency planning that the safety of the Supreme Hole, his Evil Companion and a select group of lesser holes was of prime importance.

The intention was that, if the Cull got a bit out of control, the Leaders of Freedom and Democracy would be safely ensconced in shelters deep underground with convenient access to movie theaters, swimming pools, comic books, defilibrators and even a golf course or two.

It is true that the Great Cull cannot be directly documented as a formulated plan, even in the 2nd and 3rd level footnotes of the Absolute Truth (the deepest levels to which I have direct access) -- however it is easily deduced from the record of what was said and done that they were ready to turn the world to shit as long as they came out smelling like roses.

That is the Absolute Truth.

Lemmings Marching to the Fall...

I found yet another poem by the famous "unknown poet" of the Third Galaxy, buried in third level footnotes of the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth to an article on the developments up to just before the bombing of Uran and the start of what were later known as the Terrible Times.

I used to think we had a chance, but that was long ago,
before I learned of how our world can end in ways both quick and slow;
in the blazing flash of bombs or the grind of global climate change;
in poisons which bring sudden death or slowly melt our brains...

Indeed, it seems the human race has nearly run its course;
in the distance I see a pale rider mounting his dark horse;
I hear the nightmare screech as soul is slowly sucked from bone;
as insects crawl upon the lines and we are all alone...

While some will screech of "Jesus" and others pray to nameless gods;
some will say to the thunderstorms, "Please, strike our lightning rods!"
Did it really have to come to this? Was there never another way?
Were we really doomed in our mother's womb to blow ourselves away?

I used to think we had a chance and maybe we really do!
But we'll never find it in comic books or scrawled on bathroom walls!
It is only in our secret heart we can find what is really true;
which can keep us from this lemming march, from marching to the fall...