Father of LSD is Dead



Albert Hofmann died yesterday at the age of 102.  

Blessings on your Journey Al!

Obit on WaPo.  

US troop deaths highest since September, 2007 in April

Remember what McCain, GW Bush, David Petraeus, Vlad Cheney, Bill Kristol, Rush Limpbaugh and a whole slough of Right Wing comedians keep telling us!

The Splurge Is Working!

It is working SO well, that so far in April, 47 more US Soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the most since September of 2007.

From AP:

The killings of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September.

One soldier died when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. The other died of wounds sustained when he was attacked by small-arms fire, the military said Wednesday. Both incidents occurred Tuesday in northwestern Baghdad.

A third soldier died in a roadside bombing Tuesday night in the east of the capital, the military said.

John McCain has wrapped this War for Oil around his neck so tightly that it’s about damned time the TradMedia starts to pull the noose tighter and cut off his airtime supply.

Not that it will happen of course.  

Barbeque ribs are of far more importance.

4,059 since 2003

In all, at least 4,059 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The latest fighting erupted at the end of March after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched a crackdown against Shiite militias in the southern port city of Basra. But it quickly spread to Baghdad’s Sadr City, a sprawling slum with about 2.5 million people that is a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The militiamen have used the district as a base to fire barrages of missiles and mortar rounds at the U.S.-protected Green Zone which houses much of the Iraqi government and Western diplomatic missions, including the U.S. and British embassies.

They also have fought running street battles in which hundreds have died. The U.S. military says those killed have been mainly gunmen. But police and medical authorities in Sadr City say innocent civilians have frequently gotten caught up in the fighting.

As per usual, it is not only American soldiers losing their lives in McCain’s favorite 100 Year War for Oil, but Iraqi civilians are continuing to die as well.

The Sadr City violence continued overnight with the destruction of a school in the district. AP Television News footage showed that parts of the two-floor Baghdad Girls’ School had pancaked as the result of an explosion. Desks were hanging down from the slanting classrooms where the outer walls were blown out by the blast.

Local officials said the school was the target of an airstrike on Tuesday evening.

An official at the local hospital, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to release the information, said two people were killed and 16 wounded overnight in Sadr City. He said this brought the death toll in the district since Tuesday to 31, with 107 wounded.

Time and again, we are force fed by the Republican propaganda wurlitzer that the Surge is Working™, We are Winning the War on Terrah™, and other assorted insane bumper sticker slogans.  

What is working is this criminal administration and their cronies are taking trillion’s of your dollars and putting them into their personal bank accounts.  

Who is winning is this criminal administration and their cronies by taking trillion’s of your dollars and putting them into their personal bank accounts.

Which is the whole point, isn’t it?

x-posted at eenrblog

Pony Party, Beltane

Blessings to all on May Day*, known in traditional Celtic cultures as Beltane

*due to the leap year, and the tradition of evenly spacing the sabbats across the calendar, “May Day” falls in April this year.

Traditions vary, but Beltane is generally known as the beginning of the summer season.  Bonfires are lit, and different cultures have different traditions of May-pole dancing, fire-jumping, fire-walking, and the like.  The focus of such practices is on purification and transformation….and, of course, fertility.  The rebirth of nature is reflected in Green Man rituals.  Winter’s chills are driven out by fire, and life in all of its forms is rejuvenated and celebrated.


Beltane Invocation:

This is the day of shining

Leaf and shoot and bud are new

In the goddess’s hands newly made

Are Air and Water, Earth and Fire

Here we tread the tread of spring

In our hearts may we be new

In our minds may there be light

In our spirits we rejoice

It is spring of every year

Of every day, of every hour

Of every minute is infinite

All time in spring is blessed

In every shoot the life increase

In every day the life grow strong

In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

So mote it and most blessed be!

God Damn Media Owes Reverend Wright an Apology





After his Friday interview with PBS journalist Bill Moyers and after the specially edited for the dual purposes of fearmongering and race baiting for political gain sound bytes were heard in their proper context the fake devil that is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright not only right but he is deserving of an apology by every lazy corporate media hack who have once again chosen that a regular paycheck earned by picking the low hanging fruit and not upsetting the plantation masters is far more desirable than such quaint antiquities as journalistic integrity. When looking at the ‘questionable’ sermons in their true context I must agree and also must say that I have heard similar sentiments espoused by some of those on the right although in slightly less bombastic terms (they dearly cling to their blood soaked rag and whimper stars and stripes forever), it’s called BLOWBACK (see Chalmers Johnson’s book of same title) and this country has a closet full of murderous skeletons when it comes to those of darker colored skins.

Personally Mr. Obama hurt himself with his dispicable throwing of the Reverend under the bus today rather than to take a principled stand against American fascism, I expected better of Obama but as many have tried to convince me he really is just an empty suit. It was a cowardly and disreputable act to just tow the fascist line and condemn Wright rather than to address the sins of the empire. You see what happened to Ron Paul when he brought it up too, there is nothing in Murka that is more dangerous than the truth but it is as kryptonite to the John Wayne Ubermensch that is the ultimate superhero for the television addled dopes and woefully ignorant suckers in this land of sorrowful decline where fantasy long ago replaced reality. I would strongly recommend all progressives, patriots and otherwise concerned Americans to circulate Reverend Wright’s sermons in their proper context and to compare them to dangerous anti-American Zionist tools like the lunatic Pastor John Hagee whose religious doctrine could have been written by the Likud Party.

Let’s see what the dreaded anti-American black devil said in unedited transcripts (from the Bill Moyers program) of those sermons that have been pimped so hard by the Establishment media to take down Barack Obama through the very McCarthyist tactic of guild by association:

From the “God Damn America” sermon:

Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I’m through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate – the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!

From the ‘Blame America for 9/11’ Sermon

The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the king, those soldiers who slaughtered his son and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned the towns, burned the temples, burned the towers, and moved from the hatred for armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents, the babies, the babies . “Blessed are they who dash your baby’s brains against a rock.” And that my beloved is a dangerous place to be. Yet, that is where the people of faith are in 551 BC and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don’t care who gets hurt in the process.

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out. You see him John? A white man he pointed out -an Ambassador!

He pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America’s chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism!

We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi’s home and killed his child. “Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against a rock!” We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians – not soldiers – people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America’s chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that y’all not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who’s trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised–

This is called blowback and our continued willful ignorance of the consequences of a misguided foreign policy based solely on imperialism and the installation of brutal dictators that are U.S. puppets and who torture and repress their own people under despotic regimes blessed by Washington and Wall Street will only continue to produce more hate and retaliation until such misguided policies are halted. The cowardly smear campaign being conducted by the pocket media and political operatives of both the Clintons and the fascist Republican party is an affront to American ideals, an assault on freedom of speech and association, an attack on the black churches and those who are actively complicit in this electronic assassination have blood on their hands for their role in failing to honestly examine our failed policies.

We can just blame the inevitable next terrorist attack (given our monstrous destruction and murder in the Middle East which is creating terrorists by the hour) on Reverend Wright can’t we? That would be the easiest thing to do and once again provide cover for the lemmings snuggled warmly inside their cocoons of denial.

Why They Hate Us!

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his home after a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad’s Sadr City.  The 2-year-old died at a hospital.

U.S. Role Deepens in Sadr City

Fierce Battle Against Shiite Militiamen Echoes First Years of War

By Amit R. Paley

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, April 30, 2008; A01


BAGHDAD, April 29 — A four-hour battle Tuesday between U.S. soldiers and Shiite militiamen left at least 28 Iraqis dead in the capital’s Sadr City neighborhood, making it one of the bloodiest days in a month of sustained street fighting.

The clashes underscored how deeply U.S. forces have been drawn into heavy combat in the huge Shiite district since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unexpectedly launched an offensive in southern Iraq last month against Shiite militias, primarily the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The photo above screams off of the front page of today’s Washington Post, and the quote above contains the first two grafs of the story.

Here’s the link to the front page of today’s WP:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Here’s the link to the entire WP article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

If there is a hell, may the entire Bush/Cheney Administration burn in it!

The Morning News

The Morning News is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Concentration camp doctor heads list of top 10 wanted Nazis

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer

53 minutes ago

BADEN-BADEN, Germany – Karl Lotter, a prisoner who worked in the hospital at Mauthausen concentration camp, had no trouble remembering the first time he watched SS doctor Aribert Heim kill a man.

It was 1941, and an 18-year-old Jew had been sent to the clinic with a foot inflammation. Heim asked him about himself and why he was he so fit. The young man said he had been a soccer player and swimmer.

Then, instead of treating the prisoner’s foot, Heim anesthetized him, cut him open, castrated him, took apart one kidney and removed the second, Lotter said. The victim’s head was removed and the flesh boiled off so that Heim could keep it on display.

2 Bush says no magic wand to lower fuel prices

By Jeremy Pelofsky and Chris Baltimore, Reuters

Tue Apr 29, 3:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush said on Tuesday there was no “magic wand” to bring down record-high fuel prices but would consider a proposal to suspend federal gasoline taxes this summer — an idea that has divided the 2008 presidential candidates.

Trying to calm anxious Americans facing $3.60 a gallon gasoline and soaring grocery bills, Bush again prodded Congress to open an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling and allow construction of more nuclear and coal plants.

“I firmly believe that, you know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I’d be waving it, of course,” he said during a news conference. “I’ve repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems, yet time after time Congress chose to block them.”

3 Cost issues and war sap U.S. military readiness: lawmaker

By Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters

8 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Democratic lawmaker on Tuesday called for urgent improvement of the U.S. military’s readiness, saying the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and cost overruns in weapons programs had sapped its ability to respond quickly to a crisis elsewhere.

Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat who heads the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said military officials had finally begun to acknowledge these problems after years of questioning by Congress.

“Should a major unexpected contingency occur today, it could not be answered in a timely fashion and this worries me to death,” Skelton told a group of defense writers.

4 UN chief orders task force to tackle food crisis

by William French, AFP

Tue Apr 29, 12:36 PM ET

BERN (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday ordered a top level task force to take on the global crisis caused by rising food prices and urged key producer nations to end export bans.

The UN chief said the immediate priority must be to “feed the hungry” and called for urgent funding for the World Food Programme.

Ban said after a meeting of the heads of 27 key international agencies that the new task force would be led by the UN’s top humanitarian official, deputy under-secretary John Holmes.

5 Heparin contamination appears deliberate: Baxter CEO

by Jean-Louis Santini, AFP

Tue Apr 29, 5:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US drug-maker Baxter International said Tuesday its blood thinner heparin, which is produced in China and has been linked to dozens of deaths, appears to have been deliberately contaminated.

“We’re alarmed that one of our products was used in what appears to have been a deliberate scheme to adulterate a life-saving medication, and that people have suffered as a result,” Baxter chief executive Robert Parkinson told a US Congress panel.

“We deeply regret that this has happened, and I feel a strong sense of personal responsibility for these circumstances,” he told a subpanel of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee.

6 A Kurdish idealist returns to Iraq to ‘change attitudes’

By Sam Dagher, The Christian Science Monitor

Tue Apr 29, 4:00 AM ET

Choman, Iraq – Nestled amid Iraq’s highest mountains between the Iranian and Turkish borders, lies a town of farmers and traders, smugglers and truckers.

Choman is a place of dramatic beauty with snowcapped peaks and lush valleys. But even though Baghdad seems like a world away, the residents here, and in many other towns in Kurdish Iraq, still struggle to overcome the impact of war.

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein destroyed these areas to attack Kurdish rebels. Today, Iran and Turkey target separatists hiding in the mountains.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Recommended

7 Food scientists say stop biofuels to fight world hunger

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

Tue Apr 29, 5:27 PM ET

WASHINGTON – Some top international food scientists Tuesday recommended halting the use of food-based biofuels, such as ethanol, saying it would cut corn prices by 20 percent during a world food crisis.

But even as the scientists were calling for a moratorium, President Bush urged the opposite. He declared the United States should increase ethanol use because of national energy security and high gas prices.

The conflicting messages Tuesday highlighted the ongoing debate over food and fuel needs.

8 Sudden energy crunch forces Juneau to conserve electricity

By ANNE SUTTON, Associated Press Writer

Tue Apr 29, 2:16 PM ET

JUNEAU, Alaska – First, there was a run on energy-efficient light bulbs. When those ran out, people began asking for lamp oil. But when they started demanding clothespins in this land of mist and rain, it was clear Alaska’s capital city was caught in a serious energy crunch.

“We sold all our clothespins the first day,” said Doug White, general manager at Don Abel Building Supplies. “I don’t think kids even knew what they were for, but they’re learning now.”

Avalanches earlier this month knocked down transmission lines and cut off Juneau’s source of low-cost hydroelectric power. Threatened with a fivefold increase in utility bills, Juneau quickly powered down.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Viewed

9 Army widens probe after finding bad conditions at Fort Bragg

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

1 hour, 14 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Army officials said Tuesday they are inspecting every barracks building worldwide to see whether plumbing and other problems revealed at Fort Bragg, N.C., last week are widespread.

Brig. Gen. Dennis Rogers, who is responsible for maintaining barracks throughout the Army, told reporters at the Pentagon that most inspections were done last weekend but he had not seen final results.

While not providing specifics about problems discovered during the weekend inspections, Rogers indicated some deficiencies were corrected. In cases where extensive repairs are deemed necessary, the soldiers in that housing would be moved elsewhere until the fixes are completed, he added.

From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Emailed

10 Absinthe’s Mind-Altering Mystery Solved

Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience

Tue Apr 29, 1:40 PM ET

An analysis of century-old bottles of absinthe – the kind once quaffed by the likes of van Gogh and Picasso to enhance their creativity – may end the controversy over what ingredient caused the green liqueur’s supposed mind-altering effects .

The culprit seems plain and simple: The century-old absinthe contained about 70 percent alcohol, giving it a 140-proof kick. In comparison, most gins, vodkas and whiskeys are just 80- to 100-proof.

In recent years, the psychedelic nature of absinthe has been hotly debated. Absinthe was notorious among 19th-century and early 20th-century bohemian artists as “the Green Fairy” that expanded the mind. After it became infamous for madness and toxic side effects among drinkers, it was widely banned.

From Yahoo News World

11 Militiamen ambush drives back US patrol in Sadr City

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

18 minutes ago

BAGHDAD – Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat.

U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. military said 28 militiamen were killed as the U.S. patrol pulled back. Local hospital officials said dozens of civilians were killed or wounded.

12 Nearly 200 Zimbabwe opposition supporters released

By ANGUS SHAW, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 32 minutes ago

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Police on Tuesday released nearly 200 people who were arrested last week in a raid at opposition headquarters, while President Bush called on Zimbabwe’s neighbors to step up the pressure on longtime leader Robert Mugabe.

Many of the 215 people arrested on Friday had fled to Harare to escape mounting violence and intimidation in rural areas that used to be ruling party strongholds but turned against Mugabe in the March 29 elections.

Twenty-nine people, mainly women and children, were released almost immediately. The rest were freed from various police stations in the capital Tuesday in accordance with a High Court order issued Monday, opposition defense lawyer Alec Muchadehama said.

13 China marks 100 days until start of Beijing Olympics

By STEPHEN WADE, AP Sports Writer

Tue Apr 29, 12:26 PM ET

BEIJING – Shimmering stadiums and billions of dollars spent to remake Beijing into a modern city have been overshadowed by pro-Tibet protests, chaos on the Olympic torch relay, and an anti-Western backlash by angry Chinese who sense their coming-out party is being spoiled.

With 100 days to go, the battle has been lost to keep politics out of the Beijing Olympics.

A year ago, former International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch predicted Beijing would be the “best in Olympics history.” A few weeks ago, his successor, Jacques Rogge, said the games were “in crisis.”

The shine is off, and the question is this: Can China and the IOC restore some luster by returning sports and goodwill to the games?

14 Is an Iranian general pulling the strings in Iraq?

By Hannah Allam, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers

Mon Apr 28, 3:52 PM ET

BAGHDAD – One of the most powerful men in Iraq isn’t an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat,

He’s an Iranian general, and at times he’s more influential than all of them.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani commands the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, an elite paramilitary and espionage organization whose mission is to expand Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

As Tehran’s point man on Iraq , he funnels military and financial support to various Iraqi factions, frustrating U.S. attempts to build a pro-Western democracy on the rubble of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.

15 Have Mugabe’s Foes Turned the Tide?

By MEGAN LINDOW, Time Magazine

Tue Apr 29, 6:10 AM ET

Could the tide be turning once again in Zimbabwe’s post-election crisis? When the authorities declared their intention to recount the ballots in 23 of 210 seats in the election staged more than four weeks ago, opposition activists and foreign observers assumed the intention was to rig the results and maintain the power of President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party. But the revised result announced on Sunday upheld the historic victory of the Movement for Democratic Change in the parliamentary election, meaning Mugabe’s party has lost control of the legislature for the first time in Zimbabwe’s 28-year history. Although the results of the balloting for the presidency continue to be withheld, the opposition is clearly feeling the wind at its back: After several weeks of bloody suppression at the hands of security forces and militias associated with the ruling party, the MDC announced Monday that it had overcome a split in its ranks that had resulted in rival slates of candidates, thus adding strength to its parliamentary gains.
From Yahoo News U.S. News

16 Dallas man freed by DNA testing after 27 years in prison

By SCHUYLER DIXON, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 50 minutes ago

DALLAS – A Dallas man who spent more than 27 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit was freed Tuesday, after being incarcerated longer than any other wrongfully convicted U.S. inmate cleared by DNA testing.

James Lee Woodard stepped out of the courtroom and raised his arms to a throng of photographers. Supporters and other people gathered outside the court erupted in applause.

“No words can express what a tragic story yours is,” state District Judge Mark Stoltz told Woodard at a brief hearing before his release.

17 Wal-Mart to cash tax rebate checks for free

By Nicole Maestri, Reuters

2 hours, 51 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc unveiled plans on Tuesday to entice U.S. shoppers to spend their tax rebates in its discount stores, offering to cash the checks for free as it announced price cuts on staple goods such as cereal and lunch meat.

While other retailers are requiring consumers to spend some or all of their rebate checks in their stores to be eligible to receive special deals or discounts, Wal-Mart said no purchase was necessary to cash the checks at its stores.

“If you want to cash the check at Wal-Mart and go spend it at a competitor, that’s fine with us,” said Eduardo Castro-Wright, head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations, speaking at a Lehman Bros retail conference broadcast over the Internet.

18 Jeremiah Wright Goes to War

By AMY SULLIVAN/WASHINGTON, Time Magazine

Tue Apr 29, 10:30 AM ET

Could he explain the context behind the sermon he gave after September 11, 2001? “Have you heard the whole sermon? No? That nullifies that question.” How does he respond to critics who charge that he is unpatriotic? “How many years did Cheney serve?” Does the fact that Obama says he never heard Wright’s most controversial sermons mean he’s not much of a churchgoer? “He goes to church as much as you do. What did your pastor preach on last week?”

The Truth?  You can’t handle The Truth!

19 The Coolest D.C. Party Is Still Lame

By MICHAEL SCHERER/WASHINGTON, Time Magazine

Mon Apr 28, 3:15 PM ET

… It’s no wonder that in middle age, so many of our successful men end up wearing work socks to bed with costly prostitutes.

These truths are self-evident, but we still try to keep up appearances. It’s bad for business to admit you are a pinhead, even if the polls clearly show that the American people have not been fooled. So each year, nearly three thousand Beltway tribe members and their guests gather at the Washington Hilton, the place where Ronald Reagan got shot, to dine with the current President of the United States and pretend for a night that we actually belong to a cool crowd, a hip scene, an exclusive network of movers and shakers that everyone wants to join.

It is, to say the least, a hard sell. First, we call the whole horror show the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, as if all those big words mattered. Then we import lots of foreign ingredients: crates and crates of free alcohol, racks and racks of low-cut dresses, a couple red carpets, and dozens of dazed celebrity guests, who mingle with people like Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell with looks on their faces that suggest they can’t wait to get back to California to fire their agents.

From Yahoo News Politics

20 McCain seeks tax credit to help buy health insurance

By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer

Tue Apr 29, 3:26 PM ET

TAMPA, Fla. – Republican John McCain wants to change how people get their health insurance, shifting away from job-based coverage to an open market where people can choose from competing policies.

McCain said Tuesday he would offer families a $5,000 tax credit to help buy insurance policies. Everyone would get the credit, whether he or she keeps a policy through an employer or shops for a new one.

Advisers called the speech a major policy address though McCain has talked about the same ideas for several months.

Still missing: The total cost of the plan and an estimate of how many people it would help. There are more than 40 million people in the United States who don’t have health insurance. An adviser said that specifics will come later.

21 Congress push to stop SPR shipments gains steam

By Chris Baltimore, Reuters

Tue Apr 29, 6:14 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A plan to require the U.S. government to stop filling the nation’s emergency crude oil stockpile until prices drop has enough votes in the U.S. Senate to overcome a likely presidential veto, a Democratic lawmaker said on Tuesday.

Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said he has lined up the support of 68 senators — enough to override a presidential veto — for his plan to delay filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until the end of 2008 or oil prices fall below $75 a barrel, versus current levels near $120 a barrel.

That’s after 16 Republicans on Tuesday broke ranks with President George W. Bush to back a temporary halt to filling the U.S. emergency crude oil stockpile, adding to the 51 Democrats who support the move.

22 Bush sees ‘slow’ economy, sidesteps recession talk

AFP

Tue Apr 29, 12:36 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President George W. Bush said Tuesday he sees “a very slow economy” but sidestepped questions about whether he believes a recession is at hand.

At a White House news conference, Bush cautioned of “very difficult economic times,” while arguing for the need to extend tax cuts to help stimulate activity.

The president also rejected the notion of stopping purchases or tapping the US strategic oil reserve, saying the action would not affect prices.

Bush said he had not been briefed on the initial estimate for first quarter gross domestic product (GDP) due to be released Wednesday.

23 Pentagon cuts funding for Iraq under pressure from Congress

AFP

2 hours, 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has withdrawn a 171-million-dollar funding request to build police stations in Iraq after demands from Congress to have Baghdad take on a greater share of reconstruction costs, according to a letter released Tuesday.

Writing to Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said he had “decided to not proceed with reallocation of the 171 million identified for police station construction,” as part of a larger 590-million-dollar budget for reconstruction funds.

“As an alternative, we will seek funding from the government of Iraq for this purpose,” he wrote to the influential Democratic lawmaker.

From Yahoo News Business

24 Stocks mixed with investors wary before Fed’s rate decision

By JOE BEL BRUNO, AP Business Writer

Tue Apr 29, 5:45 PM ET

NEW YORK – Wall Street turned in a mixed performance Tuesday as investors traded cautiously ahead of the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday decision on interest rates.

The Fed, facing a faltering economy but also rising inflation, is expected to cut interest rates by another quarter point after its two-day meeting concludes Wednesday. Many investor believe policy makers will then signal that they are planning to hold rates steady for a while.

Consumers have been worried about inflation because it means energy and grocery bills are harder to pay. Wall Street is also concerned, because inflation tends to curtail consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

25 Consumer confidence drops in April on inflation, job worries

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer

Tue Apr 29, 4:34 PM ET

NEW YORK – From soaring gas prices to weaker job prospects, Americans are gloomier about the economy than just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They’re so anxious that fewer people say they are planning to take a vacation than in 30 years.

And those are worrying signs for the already deteriorating economy, since eroding consumer confidence foreshadows weaker spending.

A widely watched measure of sentiment dropped to a five-year low in April, the fourth straight month of declines. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 62.3 in April, down from a revised 65.9 last month and 76.4 in February.

26 Countrywide loses $893 million in 1Q on rising loss reserve

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

Tue Apr 29, 5:16 PM ET

LOS ANGELES – Countrywide Financial Corp. said Tuesday it lost $893 million in the first quarter, as rising loan defaults amid a deepening housing downturn forced the nation’s largest mortgage lender and servicer to sharply increase its provision for loan losses and book other credit-related charges.

The latest results marked the third consecutive quarterly loss for Countrywide, which reaped a windfall during the housing boom but has been struggling since last summer, despite predictions last fall by CEO Angelo Mozilo that his company would turn a profit in 2008.

The Calabasas, Calif.-based company, which agreed in January to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for about $4 billion in stock, did not conduct an earnings conference call with analysts, citing the proposed sale.

27 Cholesterol-drug rejection rips new gash in Merck

By Ransdell Pierson, Reuters

Tue Apr 29, 4:39 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Confidence in Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) earnings prospects withered on Tuesday, along with its stock price, after U.S. regulators surprisingly rejected the drugmaker’s treatment to raise levels of “good” HDL cholesterol.

Shares of Merck, already battered by this year’s failed trial of its blockbuster Vytorin cholesterol drug, were swept as much as 10.8 percent lower in Tuesday trading. They are down 36 percent for the year.

Merck for years has touted the drug, which it had planned to call Cordaptive, as one of its most important experimental medicines and a major new weapon to prevent heart attacks and stroke. But the Food and Drug Administration late on Monday slapped the product down with a so-called not-approvable letter.

28 Market wavers as drugs weigh; Citi down late

By Jennifer Coogan, Reuters

Tue Apr 29, 5:43 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks ended little changed on Tuesday as setbacks for two drugs weighed down the pharmaceutical sector, offsetting the relief from a retreat in record high crude oil prices.

Trading volume was scant as investors turned cautious with the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting under way. Policy makers are expected to trim interest rates and signal an end to a series of deep cuts started in September.

The prospect of steady rates helped support the dollar and contributed to a 2.5 percent drop in oil prices from a record high. Crude’s decline sparked a rally in airlines, but dragged on energy-related shares.

29 Confidence slumps as home prices post record fall

By Burton Frierson, Reuters

Tue Apr 29, 1:09 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer confidence fell to a five-year low this month as Americans confronted the grimmest jobs outlook since late 2004, while data also showed a record drop in home prices in February.

Contributing to their slumping confidence in April, consumers expected that inflation would accelerate to a pace last seen in the early 1980s. The news cemented the prevailing view that the Federal Reserve, which is to open a two-day policy meeting later on Tuesday, would signal an end to its aggressive campaign of lowering interest rates.

The private Conference Board’s index of consumer sentiment fell to 62.3 in April, the lowest reading since March 2003, when the Iraq war was launched, from an upwardly revised 65.9 in March.

30 Fed seen cutting rates as consumer hopes swoon

Reuters

Tue Apr 29, 2:08 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve began a two-day meeting on Tuesday that was expected to end with a small interest rate cut that could be the last in a string of reductions dating to mid-September.

The U.S. central bank opened its policy-setting meeting at 2 p.m. EDT, a Fed official said. A decision on rates is expected to be announced about 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday.

Financial markets widely expect the Fed to lower benchmark overnight rates by a quarter-percentage point to 2 percent, which would the lowest since December 2004, and offer a hint the rate cutting may be at an end. Interest rate futures prices implied a small probability the Fed could leave rates unchanged.

31 IMF faces glut of staff seeking buyouts as reform advances

by Veronica Smith, AFP

Tue Apr 29, 4:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday it has a glut of employees seeking buyout packages as its member nations overwhelmingly approved major voting and quota reforms.

The IMF said it had received requests from 591 of the 2,900 eligible employees for redundancy packages that were offered in a cost-cutting restructuring aimed at shoring up its shaky finances.

That represented roughly one in five employees, about half more than targeted.

32 Internal Siemens probe uncovers widespread corruption: company

AFP

Tue Apr 29, 3:33 PM ET

FRANKFURT (AFP) – An internal probe at German industrial group Siemens has found that almost all its sectors of activity were subject to active corruption, a company statement said Tuesday.

The international law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton “has found evidence in each of the examined groups and in various countries indicating that domestic as well as foreign compliance regulations have been violated,” it said.

“The violations in question reflect not only outright incidents of corruption, but, in many cases, violations of regulations pertaining to internal controls,” the enquiry found.

From Yahoo News Science

33 New Zealand scientists thaw 1,000-pound squid corpse

By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer

Tue Apr 29, 4:15 PM ET

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Marine scientists in New Zealand on Tuesday were thawing the corpse of the largest squid ever caught to try to unlock the secrets of one of the ocean’s most mysterious beasts.

No one has ever seen a living, grown colossal squid in its natural deep ocean habitat, and scientists hope their examination of the 1,089-pound, 26-foot long colossal squid, set to begin Wednesday, will help determine how the creatures live. The thawing and examination are being broadcast live on the Internet.

The squid, which was caught accidentally by fishermen last year, was removed from its freezer Monday and put into a tank filled with saline solution. Ice was added to the tank Tuesday to slow the thawing process so the outer flesh wouldn’t rot, said Carol Diebel, director of natural environment at New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa.

34 Biologists say dozens of grizzlies reside in Anchorage

Associated Press

Tue Apr 29, 4:02 PM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A study by state biologists has found parts of Anchorage are much more popular among grizzly bears than they previously thought.

At least three dozen grizzlies have been seen over the past three summers along Campbell Creek, which courses through industrial and residential areas and is home to a science center that is popular among families on warm summer days.

While biologists with the Department of Fish and Game knew the area was popular with bears, they were surprised to find out just how many were hanging out along the stream. It appears the bears are coming from several valleys in the Chugach Mountains above Anchorage.

35 Judge orders federal government to decide polar bear listing

By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer

Tue Apr 29, 4:15 PM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with conservation groups that the department missed a Jan. 9 deadline for a decision. She rejected a government request for a further delay and ordered it to act by May 15.

“Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days,” the judge, based in Oakland, Calif., wrote in a decision issued late Monday. “Other than the general complexity of finalizing the rule, Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the delay, much less further delay.”

36 Legless lizard found in Brazil may be new species

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

Tue Apr 29, 12:17 PM ET

OSLO (Reuters) – Scientists have discovered a legless lizard, a toad and a dwarf woodpecker among 14 species believed to be new to science in central Brazil, a wildlife conservation group said on Tuesday.

A four-week expedition to the Cerrado region, a wooded savannah under threat from the expansion of farming, found eight apparently unknown types of fish, three reptiles, one amphibian, a mammal and a bird, Conservation International said.

“The lizard, of the Bachia genus, resembles a snake due to its lack of legs and pointed snout, which help it move across the predominantly sandy soil,” U.S.-based Conservation International, a non-profit group, said in a statement.

37 Biggest squid ever caught may be a minnow: scientists

by David Brooks, AFP

Tue Apr 29, 4:01 AM ET

WELLINGTON (AFP) – The biggest squid ever caught, at up to 10 metres long and boasting a fearsome beak and razor-sharp hooks, may be small compared to others still lurking in the depths, scientists said Tuesday.

The colossal squid has begun a two-day thaw at The Museum of New Zealand in Wellington before it is examined in more detail Wednesday by an international team of scientists.

It weighs 495 kilograms (1,090 pounds), has eyes the size of dinner plates and is estimated at up to 10 metres (33 feet) long.

But that may be relatively small, scientists say after initial examination, suggesting other colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) under the chilly Antarctic waters might grow much larger.

38 Marching Sand Dunes Create Mars Mystery

Andrea Thompson, Senior Staff Writer, SPACE.com

Tue Apr 29, 7:02 AM ET

Sand grains stirred up by the winds of Mars are tossed higher and farther than those kicked up by winds on Earth, a new study finds. The results could help explain how dunes migrate across the Martian surface as well as what whips up dust storms that blow across the red planet.

Scientists first noticed dunes on the Martian surface in pictures taken by NASA’s Mariner missions in the 1970s and have seen dust storms of all sizes spread across the planet – one major storm in 2005 was even visible through a simple backyard telescope. But these features have puzzled astronomers because Mars has almost no atmosphere and very weak winds that seem unlikely to be able to sculpt dunes or whip up storms.

To help solve this conundrum, a team of scientists recently conducted wind tunnel simulations of windblown sand grains under the conditions found on both Earth and Mars to figure out how the particles would behave on these planets with vastly different atmospheres. Their results are detailed in the April 28 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

39 Young Galaxies Surprisingly Packed with Stars

SPACE.com Staff

Tue Apr 29, 9:31 AM ET

Several newfound galaxies seen as they existed when the universe was young are packed with improbable numbers of stars.

Astronomers don’t know what’s going on.

The nine galaxies are 11 billion light-years away, which means the light astronomers are looking at left the galaxies 11 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 3 billion years old.

Each of the newly studied galaxies weighs about 200 billion times the mass of the sun yet is a mere 5,000 light-years across. Our Milky Way Galaxy is a fraction of that heft at roughly 3 million times the sun’s mass, and yet it stretches across 100,000 light-years of space.

The compact galaxies have been furiously forming stars; each contains as many stars as a typical large galaxy of today, the new observations reveal.

40 Long-Lived Lightning Storm Rages on Saturn

Tariq Malik, Senior Editor, SPACE.com

Tue Apr 29, 4:45 PM ET

A monster storm spawning bolts of lightning 10,000 times more powerful than any seen on Earth is raging on the ringed planet Saturn.

The powerful electrical storm cropped up in Saturn’s southern hemisphere five months ago, when it was first spotted by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and has persevered to become the planet’s longest continuously recorded tempest to date.

“We saw similar storms in 2004 and 2006 that each lasted for nearly a month, but this storm is longer-lived by far,” said Georg Fischer, an associate with Cassini’s radio and plasma wave science team at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, in a statement. “And it appeared after nearly two years during which we did not detect any electrical storm activity from Saturn.”

41 Huge Black Hole Catapulted Through Space

Andrea Thompson, Senior Staff Writer, SPACE.com

Tue Apr 29, 4:45 PM ET

A colossal black hole has been spotted exiting its home galaxy, kicked out after a huge cosmic merger took place.

The event, seen for the first time, was announced today.

When two colliding galaxies finally merge, it is thought that the black holes at their cores may fuse together too. Astronomers have theorized that the resulting energy release could propel the new black hole from its parent galaxy out into space, but no one has found such an event.

“We have observed the pre-merger stages of black holes,” said Stefanie Komossa of the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics, part of the team that made the new discovery. “But we haven’t seen the actual merger event.”

Komossa and her team have now detected the consequences of such a merger: a black hole in the process of leaving its home galaxy.

Muse in the Morning


Evaporation

Inattentive

I spent much of my life

speaking in paragraphs

to people who had difficulty

waiting

for the end of a sentence

before breaking in

to change the subject

to talk about them

their thoughts

not mine

which lay unfinished

by the side

of the conversation

with my ideas

drifting away

somewhere

probably forgotten

if not evaporating

into nothingness

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–February 6. 2008

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

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Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

I know you have talent.  What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent.  I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook.  🙂  

Let your talent bloom.  You can share it here.  Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.

Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making?  And be excellent to one another!

The Weapon of Young Gods #21: Backwards Fear

I had just agreed to join my brother’s band for their first gig when Peter came back, looking sloppier than he should so early on a Friday. “Roy, what the fuck have you been doing all this time?” he shouted. “Tell your little brother that he’s holding you up from watching your friends demolish a perfectly good bottle of vodka, okay?” My roommate grabbed at the phone, yelling into it with glee. “R.J., you little bitch! The next time you’re up here, I’m gonna make you pay for this! You won’t know what hit you, and you’ll wake up in bed with a strange man!” He motioned for me to get moving, doubling over in drunk guffaws.

Previous Episode

Soundtrack (mp3): ‘Backwards Fear’ by Low Tide

“Okay, Pete, okay dude,” I said, and he hurried away. I turned back to the receiver. “Listen, man,” I began, but R.J. was laughing too. “Go have fun,” he managed to squeeze out. “Get your mind off everything, but take it easy on the sauce this weekend, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, will do. Thanks again, R.J.”

“Of course. Oh, and tell that macho queen that when I do visit you guys, no illicit item in his stash will be safe from my sticky little fingers.”

We hung up and I started off down the hall, taking a pen and scratch paper. I figured I should write some lyrics if I was gonna pull my weight as a Blue Monkeynut. “Narcoleptic Blues” sounded like a good title. Maybe I’d run with that. Once I got to Alex’s room, though, I knew I wouldn’t get much work done. His roommate Dan was gone for the weekend, and had carelessly left a bottle of Smirnoff behind, so Alex took full advantage of this by engineering a situation where he could really lay it on thick for Frankie’s neighbor Ana. Peter had long since liberated the vodka by the time I arrived, but for my sake he’d brought along a silly little toy-like bong. Frankie had showed up too, so once again Peter soon found himself a fifth wheel while both of us couples became predictably uninhibited, and less and less interested in the endless variety of drinking games he could conjure up with fifty-two cards.

Alex’s fiendishly lecherous plan worked much faster than he expected. Within an hour Ana was hanging her little brown arms all over him, and he threw me some looks that blatantly telegraphed his smug satisfaction. Peter took it all happily in stride, eventually calling attention to the fact that he’d only just noticed the extent to which the vodka had been destroyed. “And so,” my roommate proclaimed, “when our unfortunate friend Daniel returns, I should not like to have any hints dropped as to the likely cause of this liquid’s absence. If asked, I will deny everything, and blame the women.”

“Pinche maricón,” slurred Ana. “How ’bout you get the fuck out, then, so you can have pauseable, um, defensibility?” She realized her drunk mistake a split-second too late, and froze- as did we all- but Peter simply ignored it, and cut off Ana’s fumbling apology before she could verbalize it. “‘Plausible deniability,’ baby,” he corrected, lucid as ever despite degree of alcohol intake or frequency of homophobic slurs. He then turned to me. “Roy, when you return to our room, if you do, please have the courtesy to not be completely naked, won’t you?”

The tension broke in a rush of backwards fear as Alex and Ana collapsed with laughter, but Frankie casually flipped them all off. “Don’t worry, Pete,” she said, loud and proud, “your roomie will still have all his precious bits and pieces intact.” She ran a hand through her boy-short blond hair and giggled. Ever since the night I’d walked her home from I.V.B.C., she’d toyed with my libido this way, in public, but had then slipped back into her talkatively platonic self once there seemed to be any chance of me literally getting in her room.

I tried to play it as cool as I could through the now-familiar half-shut, bloodshot fog of proto-hallucination, but it didn’t matter. As Peter left the room with a melodramatic flourish, Frankie got to her feet and offered me a hand up. We were barely out the door when it slammed shut, and she giggled again as she let me down the hall to her room. She swayed a little, saying hello into every open door we passed, and waving happily at two dour-looking brunettes walking by the other way.

I didn’t recognize them, but Frankie whispered a sprightly “Bitches,” as they disappeared around the corner. “Karen and Karen,” she explained, pausing for me to laugh at the pun, then continued, “They’re these, like, really uptight Christian chicks from Fresno that room a few doors down from me. Everyone in the wing sort of avoids them because they’re always, you know, sermonizing at us and stuff about our decadent, whorish lifestyles.”

“Really?” I asked. “How enchanting. Is there, um, any basis for these nasty accusations?” She looked at me sideways and smiled sweetly. “Why? Are you going to tell the ‘Carin’ Karens’ on me, Roy?”

“What will happen if I do?” I shot back, flirting like an amateur again. “Probably nothing,” she allowed. “They already think I’m a lost cause because I really had it out with them one night,” she said, unlocking her door and unceremoniously leading me in without a second look.

“About your, uh, ‘whorish lifestyle?'” I asked, getting a brief glimpse of the cluttered chaos in her room before she snapped around behind me to shut the light off. I stopped on the spot.

“No,” she said casually, “I’d just gotten really sick of being Bible-bashed, so one night in the bathroom I just unloaded ten years of Sunday-school righteousness on their asses- quoted them chapter and verse and shit, and get this, Roy, they looked totally shocked, like I’d just told them about stuff in there they’d never read before. Fucking idiots.”

“Oh my,” I said, a little too stiffly, watching her silhouette glide over to close the curtains and blot out the moonlight. “Um, Frankie, don’t you have a roommate?”

“I used to, but not anymore,” she said, ignoring any possibility of tactlessness. I could hear her opening and closing dresser drawers, and her voice emanated from different corners as she moved around the darkened room. “Yeah, she had to bail at the end of last quarter- her grades sucked and she didn’t want to try anymore, so I got my very own room for the first time in my life.” She paused indulgently. “It’s been a real treat to only answer to my slobby self for three months.”

“Cool,” I said, leaning back against the shut door with a soft thud. “Must be nice.” I closed my eyes for a second to try and adjust them to the darkness, and to relax a bit too. I’d almost done it when she suddenly spoke very close to me; she must have sneaked back over in the dark when I wasn’t paying attention.

“Sometimes,” she whispered, “and sometimes it’s not so nice.” She hooked her fingers around the back of my neck, and I could see her pupils glint in the sliver of moonlight left in the room. “Sometimes it’s unbearable, actually,” she continued, “and I’ve been wondering when you were going to help me out with that, mister.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to sound flattened by the bombshell’s bombshell. “Well, when you put it that way, I know I’ve already failed, Frankie.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said softly. “You’re a beautifully courteous person, Roy, but I think I’m sort of over that kind of bogus chivalry.”

She unlocked her hands, cupped my face in them, and kissed me, deluging my dry mouth with her tongue. I slid my hands out of my pockets to hang them around her lower back. She was naked to the waist.

“Besides,” she said, pulling me away from the door. “I don’t like it when catty little Christian virgins get on my case for no good reason, so I decided to find a good reason, and here you are.”

“Anything you say, Francesca,” I said, managing to trill the “r” as I followed her lead. It hadn’t been that long since we’d both been thrown over the side, and a double rebound surely demanded double the enthusiasm. “I love how you say my name,” she whispered.

That was good to hear, sure, but the resulting Roy-and-Frankie-Stoned-Love-Special didn’t really end up being an earth-moving experience for either of us- it didn’t last that long, for one thing- but considering the three-month layoff, I avoided embarrassing myself too much, and she had no complaints. The Smirnoff had gone straight to her head though, so she passed out cold within ten minutes, and I watched her sleep for as long as I could, but in what seemed like no time at all I was soon unconscious myself.

When I opened my eyes I was up on the trembling, dusty cliff again, yanked backwards into the same fearful nightmare, staring down the same three crusty old skeletons framed in a blazing inferno. It didn’t take them as long this time to decide I was a problem, and without uttering a word, all three slowly raised their cocked pistols and pointed them at me. I knew a second of absolute terror as all three weapons discharged with a terrible crack, and I woke up shivering, but slathered in sweat. I tried to calm down and focus on Francesca’s uncovered curves next to me, but I lay there for what seemed like hours without being able to get back to sleep. I got up as quietly as I could, dressed, and blearily staggered back to my room, where I didn’t sleep until the sun came up.

My Spiritual Mentor, The Chink

(8:15PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

I sneezed 13 times in rapid succession this morning. Not just your little golf sneezes into closed hands mind you, but body wracking man-sneezes that sprayed spit and sputum hither, thither and even yon. Tears not only ran down my face, tears broad-jumped from my spasmodic chin onto my chest and flowed south, eventually pooling in my navel. It was the triathlon of tears.

I contemplated this and concluded that this sneezing was indeed very mysterious, and since we are taught God works in mysterious ways, it must be divine.

Blinded by the tsunami of tears that now formed a salt-water sea in my bellybutton where millions of my DNA molecules frolicked ecstatically like Spring Breakers high on PNA (Peptide Nucleic Acid), I reached for my handy-dandy Bible.

With closed eyes, I opened the book to a random page and with my finger, blindly selected a passage for spiritual guidance. As I waited for my eyes to clear, I wondered if this is how God selects where a lightning bolt will strike during a thunderstorm, or if he intends that an occasional church steeple gets zapped along with a few unfortunate parishioners.

As my eyes cleared, I struggled to read these words…

I believe in everything; nothing is sacred, I believe in nothing; everything is sacred,

…Ha Ha Ho Ho Hee Hee

I’ll be damned; I had grabbed the wrong book. I flipped the book over and ignoring the little hibbity-jibbity, translucent, spinning, exploding bubbles that were dancing on my eyeballs, saw that I was mistakenly reading from The Gospel According to Tom Robbins, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Part IV).”

The words were from The Chink, spoken from  a cave on the top of a mountain. Occasionally noises emit from the bowels of the mountain.


              The Chink leads Sissy into the cave where we see his

              clockworks. It is made of garbage can lids and old saucepans

              and lard tins and car fenders all wired together with baling

              wire. A bat flies into it making a bong noise and the

              contraption moves a little.

Bonk! sounds the cave, and then it chimes poing!

              The Chink smiles at the noise coming from his clockworks.

                                    SISSY

                        What was that?

                                    CHINK

                        Clockworks.

                                    SISSY

                        Clockworks?

              The Chink pauses to decide whether he should talk any further,

              then proceeds.

                                    CHINK

                        The Clockworks is one reason that I

                        am here on Siwash Ridge. I accepted

                        the invitation to be initiated as a

                        shaman by an aged Siwash chief who

                        was the principle outside confederate

                        of the Clock People.


                                    CHINK

                        The pivotal function of the Clock

                        People is the keeping and observing

                        of the clockworks. It is a real thing,

                        and is kept at the center, at the

                        soul, of the Great Burrow. Insofar

                        as it is possible, all Clock People

                        deaths and births occur in the

                        presence of the clockworks. Aside

                        from birthing or dying, the reason

                        for the daily visits to the clockworks

                        is to check the time.


                                    CHINK

                        These people have no other ritual

                        than this one. Likewise, they have

                        but one legend or cultural myth:

                        that of a continuum they call the

                        Eternity of Joy. It is into the

                        Eternity of Joy that they believe

                        all men will pass once the clockworks

                        is destroyed. The destruction must

                        come from the outside, must come by

                        natural means, must come at the will

                        of this gesticulating planet whose

                        more acute stirrings thoughtless

                        people call “earthquakes.”


                                   CHINK

                        The Earth is alive. She burns inside

                        with the heat of cosmic longing. She

                        longs to be with her husband again.

                        She moans. She turns softly in her

                        sleep. In the Eternity of Joy,

                        pluralized, deurbanized man, at ease

                        with his gentle technologies, will

                        smile and sigh when the Earth begins

                        to shake.

                        I loved those loony

                        redskins, but I couldn’t be a party

                        to their utopian dreaming. After a

                        while it occurred to me that the

                        Clock People waiting for the Eternity

                        of Joy was virtually identical to

                        the Christians waiting for the Second

                        Coming…

                        All the same.

                       

Just more suckers betting their share of the

present on the future, banking every

misery on a happy ending to history.

Well, history is ending every second –

happily for some of us, unhappily

for others, happily one second,

unhappily the next. History is always

ending and always not ending

… ha ha ho ho and hee hee.


                                   SISSY

                  What do you believe in then?

And here is where my finger landed.

I believe in everything; nothing is sacred, I believe in nothing; everything is sacred, …Ha Ha Ho Ho Hee Hee

Science explains that sneezing is a reflex action that I have no control over. So maybe this volley of machine gun like sneezes was just my internal “Clockworks” signaling a poing/bonk from deep in my soul.

However, come to think of it, a sneeze is not unlike an orgasm. Both are difficult to stop once they have started. Both involve an involuntary closing of the eyes. Both are physically intense followed by a feeling of deep satisfaction. Both involve the uttering of the word “God”, as in “Oh, God” and “God bless you”.

Maybe my nose was jealous of that other fleshy protuberance that lives on the other side of the tracks anatomically speaking.

Of course, it could be that I just had something inside my nose

ha ha ho ho and hee hee.

Shooting Draft Screenplay Script

a view from the cheap seats

(10 am – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He’s a liberation theologian. He was Barack Obama’s pastor in Chicago. And now, Rev. Wright has been placed in the spot light, where he’s made some outrageous statements. Like the government of the United States is responsible for terrorist attacks. Rev. Wright said our gov’t invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.

I sit here and wonder, why does anybody think these statements are outrageous. How, in the spectrum of bullshit that has been perpetrated in the years since Richard Nixon, can anyone seriously get worked up over what this man has said???

Our government has lied us into war, supported brutal regimes to protect global corporate interests and, along the way, has exposed its own citizens to radiation and used citizens as lab rats to track the course, over decades, of syphilis. It appears that our country has a history of experimenting on its citizens.

If we believe, as almost 100% of the leftosphere does, that our government lied to get us into Iraq, then how is it so far fetched to think they had a hand in the 9/11 attacks? Add it all up. Take a look at every outrageous thing that George Bush et al have done in this country and then come here, to my face, and tell me Rev. Wright is outrageous.

Barack Obama. You’re a coward man. This country and the world is being eaten alive by vampires. And you want to get up in front of me and tell me you’re distancing yourself from Rev. Wright?

Are you kidding me, Sen. Obama? Why haven’t you stood up and distanced yourself from George Bush, Gates, Pretraeus, Mukasey, Cheney, and all the the blood suckers feeding off of us?????

Why? That’s all I want to know. Why? At least Rev. Wright has reasons to be mad, to say crazy things. He’s seen blacks in this country marginalized and left to drug dealers, the prison industry, underfed, and growing up on mean streets.

But you, in my estimation, stand with George Bush. And all the parlor game crowd. Fall into line. Go ahead. Another step back for all of us, sir. All of us.

 

Iglesia………………………………………Episode 52

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

Pommel horse, vaulting horse, parallel bars, basketball hoops, climbing ropes, dumbbells, a rack of Indian clubs on the wall, a medicine ball, padded mats on a portion of the floor….but mostly…space, scads of empty space with a very high ceiling, with old fashioned hanging light fixtures.

Abe and Iglesia were following Rogers into the gym, Abe was trying to estimate the height of the ceiling when Rogers whipped around and kicked him very hard,  squarely in the testicles. Pinning them to Abe’s pelvic floor with the top of his foot and crushing them. Abe dropped to the floor and curled into a ball from the literally crushing blow. So hard that even Iglesia had flinched and clenched as she stood there in shock for a split second, before she launched into  a vicious full body sweep of Rogers’ legs….which of course passed right through the very foot that Rogers had just used to try to emasculate Abe.

She shrugged as she gathered herself and sprung to her feet, hey, she had never tried a sweep on him, and you never knew til you tried. She looked down at Abe, who wore a very strange and almost comical expression of completely mixed emotion on his face. Iglesia analyzed it as part shock, part surprise, part pain….and a huge amount of….relief. Then Abe was unexpectedly rising to his feet. Unexpectedly because the last time she had kicked a guy there, that hard, (about two weeks ago) he still hadn’t uncurled from the fetal ball even when they were loading him into the ambulance. Which she had been in no hurry to call. But then again, her elbow striking the nerve ganglia at the back of the perps neck right afterward, as he was doubling over, might have influeced his decision as well.

Not only was Abe getting up…he was smiling! And now he was laughing as he swung his foot up in the same smooth motion that Rogers had used towards…and into….just as hard….Rogers testicles. Rogers did NOT go ‘transparent,’ but instead took the blow full on in the balls….and just winked.

“How did you do that?” Abe giggled, “why didn’t it hurt? When you slapped me back in the corridor, I remember it hurting, hurting more than it should have, come to think of it!”

“I cheated,” smirked Rogers.

“Snort,” from Iglesia, of course.

“You two have had occasion to observe enough of me,” Abe and Iglesia shot glances at each other, both with a raised right eyebrow, as the scene of the two Roger’s… forgotten in the intensity of their meeting…. leapt back in to their respective minds, raising multiple questions…. “and my, shall we say, skills, to comprehend that the rules of the phenomenal world function differently in this place….”

“You have some interesting, um… tricks, for sure,” Abe interrupted, “But…”

Rogers raised his voice to continue, “As I thought…you have perceived what you have observed as something unique to me. But I quite earnestly wish to assure you…as Iglesia discovered earlier while er, getting dressed, that you two share those very same abilities, here in this place, that I possess. In point of fact, they are essential to your mission. In point of fact, that is precisely why we have traveled in such a circuitous and elusive fashion to this very location. To give you both time to develop and train those skills in as secure an environment as possible, before you must make use of them. Your continued existence will most certainly depend on your mastery of them. You see…”

Iglesia whipped her leg forward and up as fast as she could, not holding anything back, aiming to connect with Rogers groin. A full commitment kick, containing all her frustrated fury at him. She didn’t care if it hurt him or not, she just wanted contact, finally. Such was the ferocity and emotional commitment of her kick, that when it passed right through him….yet again, the unanticipated follow through lifted her off of her feet and landed her on her ass.

“Bastard!”

Asking for help