perfidy

It's hard to overstate how much, as a pimply and earnest teenager from Ohio with a serious jones for escapism, heavy-duty philosphizing, and wailing guitars, Jane's Addiction meant to me. By 1991, I'd gotten pretty far on my own, crawling past Warrant, Poison and Def Leppard to artier stuff like Zep and Tull, and finally discovering Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. By that time, the creepy din of Trent Reznor and Al Jourgenson had my adolescent mind primed and ready for the decadent racket of Jane's.

I remember the winter of 1991-1992, driving around in cars with my friends. Shawn had the treacherous old Chevette with no floorboards he'd gotten for $35, and Tom had the tiny Toyota truck and then the boat-sized woodpaneled station wagon. We'd be tooling around the barren back roads of Northeastern Ohio, tuning the radio obsessively, searching for another dose of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

No fooling, when Alternative Rock hit, it was like the dawn breaking through a permanent midnight. Sure, we already had what we in my area called "progressive music," our Information Society, Depeche Mode, Cure, Violent Femmes, and so on. But as good as that stuff was (and is), the incurable Britishness of most of these bands failed to really connect with something primal inside me. As a red-blooded briarhopper (that's 'flatland hillbilly') my need for rock (the same primal urge that fuels my enduring love for NASCAR, demolition derby, and NFL football in the rain and mud) just can't be satisfied for long with synthesizers and doggerel about blisters in the sun.

Rising out of the same trashy, glammy El Lay scene that gave us Motley Crue, Black Flag, X, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and even The Eagles, Jane's Addiction combined parts that just should never have worked together into one messy machine. Stephen Perkins was a clattery, sticky drummer who played like he'd be as much at home in some tweeked-up bebop band, Eric Avery's bass was just a little too metal to be funky, Dave Navarro was a metal guitarist with an amazing head for dissonant rhythm parts and bluesy leads, and Perry Farrell was... well, what he hell was he? An androgynous little walking id with a thin whine of a voice who keened and snarled and bled lyrics that in anybody else's hands would have been painfully earnest, high-school jottings somehow given dignity through sheer force of will and questionable sanity. They were like Guns 'n' Roses' arty little brothers, hanging out smoking pot in the high school art room while their big bro lurked behind the school beating up nerds.

Together they made two absolutely classic albums, 1988's Nothing's Shocking and 1991's Ritual de lo Habitual that threw together art-school pretension, metal, a few nods to prog-rock, and a heavy dose of Mexican mysticism.

And then they were gone. That was the end of the road for them. Three albums (counting their rarely-heard debut) and gone. Perry Farrell threw his energy into the diminishing returns of the Lollapalooza festivals, and into his next musical project Porno for Pyros. He seemed to be trying to throw his arms around the world and give everyone a big patchouli-scented Los Angeles hug. Dave Navarro retreated into a sleazy demimonde of drugs and prostitutes, eventually shacking up with Baywatch babe Carmen Electra and engaging in some legendary feats of debauchery while cutting himself off from the world. Just like in Jane's Addiction, his darkness and rock energy pulling in the opposite direction of Farrell's utopian guttery poetry. Avery and Perkins launched projects that few people seemed to want to hear. But between their music and Farrell's brilliant idea for Lollapalooza, Jane's Addiction did as much as anyone to usher in the sea-change that overtook popular music in the early 1990s, the decade or so where rock was young again.

Frankly, I can't think of a single band in the world more deserving of a best-of compilation than Jane's Addiction, and I'm shocked that it took until 2006 for one to show up. I'm also shocked that it's goddamn fantastic. The good people at Rhino, who must surely rise every morning amazed that they can do the work they do while drawing pay from their resolutely mainstream masters at Warner Brothers, have put together Up From The Catacombs: The Best of Jane's Addiction, a seventeen-song retrospective of the band's history that actually manages to do justice to their legacy.

I can't believe it: everything works.

The song choices are practically bulletproof, with the highlights of both the big albums present, plus a couple choice tracks each from their debut and 2003's "comeback" album, Strays. Wisely skipped is the fairly awful and decidedly inessential Kettle Whistle, a 1997 stopgap (Janes' own The Spaghetti Incident?) that did more to tarnish the band's legacy than could ever have happened if Perry Farrell, say, had suddenly turned up in Vegas doing lounge versions of "Jane Says" and "Had a Dad."

The sequencing is inspired too. The first three songs progressively raise the ante, skipping from the clattering "Stop!" (the lead track on Ritual) to the huge drama of "Ocean Size" (the lead track on Nothing's Shocking) to the metal attack of a live version of "Whores" (an early favorite). We then detour to the bad hangover of "Ted, Just Admit It...," a disjointed and, I suppose, arty offering off Nothing's Shocking that ably showcases that side of the band's identity. After a couple more heavy rockers (including the unjustly ignored "Just Because" from Strays), the compilation veers into the contemplative almost for good. Here is where we find the eight-minute epic of "Three Days," the pastoral lurch of "Summertime Rolls" and the quiet devotion of "Classic Girl." The comp ends (naturally) with the snarling "Pig's In Zen" (which closed out Ritual) and an absolutely fantastic live version of the band's signature "Jane Says."

Absolutely anyone who doesn't have any Jane's Addiction already in their collection should run right out and pick up Up From The Catacombs. Actually, anyone who doesn't already own them should pick up both Nothing's Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual, but since I can't tell you how to spend your money, I suppose all I can do is tell you that ownership of either the best-of or the two great albums is more than just highly recommended; it is required. I'll be checking.

I don't expect to be given the choice, but if I am, I hope the list of options is at least a bit more varied than this:

• Hacked to death
• Brain aneurysm
• Old age

For the record, those are listed in increasing order of both preference and age of demise. Coincidence? You decide.

[wik] Preference? "Peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and hollering like all the passengers on his bus"

Tomorrow I will be using the ticket that's been hanging on the front of my refridgetator for months... the black slip of poster board that will grant me access to the Return of the Belgian Beer Festival in Boston.

Here's the list of beers available for the Saturday sessions.

I feel like Saruman standing on top of the massive obsidian plinth of Isengard, holding out his arms in the classic DRAMA pose, intoning in a stentorian voice, WE HAVE WORK TO DO. Let's get it on!!!

And this might be one of those times. Or not. Minister Buckethead's call, completely. From the "What do you think?" feature in today's Onion email, "Door Open for NJ Gay Marriage", answer #1:

Inventory Control Specialist
“This will go a long way toward expanding the variety of punch lines about New Jersey.”

To be honest, I think Buckethead had the matter preemptively covered, with his last two items in the post linked above, but I'm pointing it out, just in case.

Soul legend Solomon Burke's latest album, a set of country songs redone in his inimitable style called Nashville, was released on September 26. I interviewed him by email on October 10.

What music are you listening to these days?

I'm listening to india.arie, Christina Aguilera, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. For the guys, I love Usher, Bruce Springsteen's latest cd, Alan Jackson, Eric Clapton. I also am enjoying the Foo Fighters, the Raconteurs, the Wreckers and anything by Merle Haggard.

Who selected the songs for "Nashville"?

The songs were selected by [album producer] Buddy Miller, [executive producer] Shawn Amos and me. We all listened to a ton of amazing songs - together, probably over 200 songs. There were certain songwriters whose points of view were important to interpret, in our minds, so that helped us narrow down the list and focus… and then just trying to see what shape the various combinations of songs took that would be a respectable body of work. It was really tough to let go of certain songs that I loved, but that's a part of the process.

You do Springsteen's "Ain't Got You" in a nearly bluegrass style, there's some nods to Billy Shirell-style strings on "Atta Way To Go," and the rest of the album covers all the territory from honky-tonk to country blues to soul to gospel. (Yes, there's a question in here somewhere.) The arrangements are definitely a departure from what you've been doing recently, and (in the good way) definitely not what I would have expected. Who was in the driver's seat when deciding on arrangements?

Buddy Miller was very much the driver when it came to the arrangements. But the beauty of how Buddy works is that his arrangements left me a lot of room, and he brought together such amazing musicians that when I "turned left" on a song, the entire band turned left with me. It was a great feeling.

On the last album you covered a Hank Williams song, and this time around you cover a George Jones song. Between them, they're two of the most iconic singers of the last 50 years; how do you go about singing a song that belongs completely to someone else, and make sure it's not a mere tribute? How do you take the George out and put the Solomon in?

Well, first off, I love Hank Williams and George Jones and I love their bodies of work. For me, there are a lot of songs that I would never ever try to sing, for that exact reason. But if I can feel the song inside of me, then what I sing is a tribute to the original artist as well as the writer, but mostly it's a tribute to the listener. I think we all try to reach out to people and if a George Jones song, sung by Solomon Burke and Emmylou Harris is going to be the way to get a message to one person who would have otherwise missed the message, then we are all successful and the story of the song is richer for it. Along these lines, I just want to mention that I have never experienced such graciousness from songwriters and artists as I have on this project. Their generosity in allowing me to sing their songs freely was overwhelming and in my career, historic!

There's a few great duets on the record, with Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch, and Patty Loveless, among others.

Thank you!

This is, if I'm told correctly, is the first time in your career when you've done duets. How much collaboration was there between you and your duet partners? Did you have the opportunity to sing face-to-face, to vibe off each other and work out your arrangements together?

Actually, I did a duet with Zucchero ("The Devil in Me") and with Junkie XL ("Catch Up To My Step Up") in the last few years. Let's go ahead and mention each lady who sang with me: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Patty Loveless and Gillian Welch… I am a lucky, lucky man! Each duet on this cd was as unique as the artists with whom I sang… Buddy did all of the arrangements and really had it set up so I could come in and sing without worrying. He accommodated every artist that came through his door as a friend coming to his home, and that was the vibe of the entire session. My experience with the duets was so personal, I treasure each day, each session, each recording experience of this project. I received so much love and support from the ladies who "duetted" with me, as well as from the songwriters and musicians. What I received from this project was far more that what I was able to give, and the lessons that I learned in Nashville are lessons I carry in my heart.

Do you have any plans for future collaborations? I've read that you'd love to work with Willie Nelson, and that you'd even be willing to work with KISS...?

Heck, I'm 66 years old. I'm just happy to get a gig these days! I'm still reeling from working with Buddy Miller and his wife Julie. But once I start looking toward the future, I would love to work with Willie Nelson… Would love to work with Vince Gill and Kid Rock. I met Jerry Lee Lewis on stage for the first time in our lives, and it felt so good… I would love to do more with the Killer. I don't think it's a question of my being willing to work with KISS… It's a question of them being willing to work with me. I love those guys - I'm a huge fan. My dream is to perform with Aretha Franklin. We sang together briefly in Cleveland last year and I still get chills thinking about that night.

What made you decide to do a country album? Considering that when you started out, there wasn't much of a difference between a country song, a soul song, and a gospel song (and didn't you chart on the country charts a few times?), it certainly makes sense. Have you always listened to country? If so, who are your all time favorites?

My first song at Atlantic was "Just Out of Reach of My Open Arms" which was a country song. I have always loved country music and it has always been my desire to record country. It took me a while but I think this was meant to be at this time in my life. When I was a little boy, it was Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Still is - my alarm clock wakes me up to "I'm Back in the Saddle Again" every morning. Later on, it was Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, Loretta Lynn, then Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette… and the list goes on.

You've made a number of gospel records over the course of your career, and preaching has been an important part of your live since you were young. Now that your career seems to have entered a new phase and you are reaching an audience who doesn't necessarily know anything about gospel music, do you have any plans to make a gospel album in the same vein as the last three records? How about a duet with Mavis Staples?

Wow, you know, this whole thing about country music and soul music and gospel music just wears me out. The truth is that for me, these are all separating categories that do a disservice to music. Because if you go back and listen to my work through the years, you will see that regardless of the category, it all comes down to a message of love which is the most Godly thing there is. I would love to sing with Mavis. It would be an honor. But regardless of who I sing with, the most important thing is to find a new way of reaching out to people, so if they maybe missed the message in one song, they're going to get it in the next one. I'm going to keep on singing and working towards that message "'til I get it right."

I hear you used to be famous for making fried chicken for your touring partners, or at least that's what Peter Guralnick claims in his biography of Sam Cooke. Can we have your recipe for fried chicken?

No, but you're invited over to try it out for yourself!

In Dream Boogie, Peter Guralnick's fantastic biography of soul music innovator Sam Cooke, very few people come off completely well. Cooke, for all his genius and generosity was an avid womanizer with a boundless ego. Sometime tour-mate Johnny "Guitar" Watson often slagged off touring because pimping paid better. Little Richard, well, the less said of his freaky-deaky exploits the better for us all. Better to think of him as the king of "R&B uptempo! R&B uptempo! WOOOOOOOO!" than as a tortured soul with poor impulse control and a Bible whose margins he filled with scrawled records of his sins.

One of the only figures in the entire book who seems like someone you'd trust with your house keys is soul-gospel-blues singer, "The King of Rock & Soul," Solomon Burke. A religious man (he was preaching from the age of twelve) he (according to Guralnick) was more famous for cooking up fried chicken for his tourmates than for any epic feats of sin and dissipation.

Burke was one of the yeomen of the early soul period. He racked up a number of hits and a great deal of respect among his peers in the late 1950s and 1960s as a performer and singer of gospel-country-soul-blues raveups and confessions, but he never quite cracked the upper reaches of the pop charts. Although his career never reached the critical mass of a James Brown or a Ray Charles, he continued releasing albums throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s, and also returned to his roots as a minister. And although his popularity waned over time, his albums remained, if not inspired or inspiring, refreshingly free of self-parody or outright desperation.

A few years ago, Burke signed with the good people at Fat Possum Records, one of the keepers of the true flame of the deep blues, and released what turned out to be a comeback album, 2002's Don't Give Up On Me. For that project, Burke was paired with young indie rock producer Joe Henry, who (yes, just like Rick Rubin did with Johnny Cash) sat Burke down in a comfortable chair with a batch of songs by top-notch writers, and made sure that Burke's own church organist was sitting in on the sessions to boot. The result was a landmark career revival, as good as any of Johnny Cash's comeback records, Loretta Lynn's comeback record, or that of any other formerly neglected rootsy legend you might care to name.

Burke's latest album is Nashville, a collection of country songs, reintepreted in his own style.

But I need to interrupt these proceedings to talk a little about what that means, "country." What is "country?" One answer is, "it's what's on the country charts," but I don't mostly like that answer. What's on the charts is crap. Another answer is "anything that Hank wrote." That's a pretty good answer, but limiting. Another answer, according to Solomon Burke himself in an interview I did with him recently is, "[T]his whole thing about country music and soul music and gospel music just wears me out. The truth is that for me, these are all separating categories that do a disservice to music. Because if you go back and listen to my work through the years, you will see that regardless of the category, it all comes down to a message of love."

That works for me.
Solomon Burke has some seriously high-profile fans. Don't Give Up On Me featured songs by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Nick Lowe, and Van Morrison, and Nashville is just as studded with talent, including songs by Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch, George Jones, Bruce Springsteen(!), Patty Griffin, Don Willams, and more. Moreover, many of his female song contributors (Parton, Welch, Griffin, Patty Loveless and Emmylou Harris) actually appear as duet partners on the album.

From the first notes of the opening "That's How I Got To Memphis," a country standard written by Tom T. Hall, Burke infuses each song with truckloads of expression and emotion, bending his voice into a whine, a howl, a barely veiled sob, wrenching every bit of meaning out of the words he's singing. The result is probably the best album I've heard in 2006, an amazing set of performances by an artist who's old enough not to give a damn anymore about how much he's going to sell, but deeply concerned with making music that hits the spot.

Highlights (from an album full of highlights) include "Valley of Tears," which is a plaintive and ragged duet with Gillian Welch, the aforementioned saga of misplaced devotion, "That's How I Got To Memphis," the love-gone-bad lament of "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger, " written by producer Buddy Miller and his wife Julie, the quiet devotion of "Up On The Mountain," with a deeply affecting, nearly wordless duet contribution from songwiter Patty Griffin, and a stunning performance of "Atta Way To Go," a Don Williams song that Miller produces in the ornamented style of George Jones' hits with Billy Sherrill, and which Burke takes from an intimate chat to an over-the-top cry of anguish without apparent strain to his considerable vocal gifts.

And what a gift! Burke's voice has burnished with time, and at 66 he is in total command of his instrument. He can growl, whisper, moan, plead, cry, laugh, even give an evil cackle without breaking the musicality of his singing, and he has a flair for the dramatic and the theatrical that doesn't ever descend into mere melodrama. His performances on Nashville are thrilling, and his ability to adapt himself to the style of his duet partners is a welcome treat.

However, the single weak spot on the album is in Emmylou Harris' wan and marginal vocal contribution. Though he tries mightily, Burke can do nothing delicately enough to keep her from practically disappearing from sight. This might be a simple matter of song choice, as Burke and Harris are paired on the George Jones-Tammy Wynette classic "We're Gonna Hold On," and Harris is a far, far lighter singer than Wynette ever was. But regardless of why, in an album full of inspired performances from all parties, Emmylou Harris is, surprisingly, the only weak patch.

In keeping with Burke's stated disdain for genre titles, the styles represented on Nashville run the gamut from bluegrass (on Springsteen's "I Ain't Got You") to countrypolitan to country blues to gospel and beyond. "Country" is a concept as hard to pin down as "soul," or what the Spanish call "duende." To play flamenco music you have to have duende - you either have it, or you don't, and you can only tell it's there when you hear it, but without it flamenco music is just some fool playing the guitar really, really fast. Same with soul and country. You know soul when you hear it, and you know country music when you hear it (in everything from Travis Tritt to Tom Waits, from Kitty Wells to Neko Case), and what Burke's got on this album is the Platonic idea, the eidos of both of those things in spades.

At age 66, Solomon Burke is at the top of his game and deserves a fuller dose of the belated success that has come to him in recent years. Nashville is a spectacular album, and he can be proud of what he's done. People spend so much time talking about the ridiculous exploits of artists, searching for evidence of genius in dickish behavior, that it's easy to believe that a man who's good at making chicken, whose day job is looking after souls, couldn't possibly possess that same secret flame. Well, crap to that. Solomon Burke is the real deal, and Nashville is God's honest proof.

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?

"You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little anti-social, and may want to start gaining new social skills by making prank phone calls." Quiz here.

Social networking sites have been quite popular in the last several years, few more so than MySpace.

It turns out that, as in many other ventures, it's possible to get too much of a supposedly good thing. In Thursday's WSJ, there was an article entitled "MySpace, ByeSpace", exploring a trend away from MySpace and Facebook. In it, they report that a lady with several tons of "friends" on the site decided they might not be true friends:

After Ms. Thompson created a MySpace page two years ago, she found herself sifting through dozens of requests daily from would-be acquaintances seeking to link to her page. By early this year, she'd amassed 4,000 such "friends," most of them strangers. Many flooded her page with remarks like "omg" -- shorthand for "oh my god" -- "you're so beautiful." By June, Ms. Thompson, who resides in New London, Conn., was sick of the comments and posted a farewell ode before deleting her page...

No shock, really - sites that facilitate the social equivalent of pretend popularity whoring may provide entertainment, but they're surely not building social networks worthy of the name.

Social networking "spam", both from people trying to build their imaginary networks and from advertisers has become a real problem, we're told. And I don't doubt it for an instant. I was about to abandon the article as "dog bites man" news, until I came across the portion of the story dealing with James Kalyn, "a 30-year-old technical writer in Regina, Saskatchewan".

He kept receiving friend requests from half-naked female strangers through his MySpace page. Clicking on a request usually led to a profile that turned out to be an ad for a pornography site. At first, Mr. Kalyn was excited that "these hot girls allegedly wanted to be my friend." But after looking at a few profiles, he realized: "
If it's a picture of someone fairly attractive, they're probably not my friend in real life."

He's officially disqualified from being my friend in real life, solely for admitting to having thought random, half-naked women wanted "to be his friend". However, based on the sole criterion I could glean from his quote, I'm otherwise qualified to be one of his friends in real life. Which is a bit of a shame, both for me and for all his actual friends in real life.

My stepmom sent me this, in what I hope was not some sort of comment on my activities here:

There are many for whom this cartoon represents an uncomfortable truth. But not us. No, not us.
 

This edition of Forgotten Punchline Thursday was made possible by a grant from Cthulhu's Own line of astral travel accessories.

For uncounted ages, He who lies dead but dreaming indeed dreamt of a line of suitcases, hardcases, and garment bags as tough as His hide. Only Cthulhu's Own could perceive the unimaginable evil of inter-plane customs, the otherworldy abuse that baggage handlers can inflict on your dread unmentionables, and the risk of losing your essence in transit. Leave the safety and security of the physical manifestation of your luggage to Cthulhu's Own.

Forthwith, this week's forgotten punchline:

"Nothing".

What quest, I see you asking yourself?

The one designed to make sure that nobody ever takes a Libertarian candidate seriously, thanks for asking. In an article entitled "Loretta Nall campaigning on her cleavage", we're informed that:

Loretta Nall, the Libertarian Party’s write-in candidate for governor of Alabama, is campaigning on her cleavage and hoping that voters will eventually focus on her platform.

“It started out as a joke, but it blew up into something huge,” said Nall, a 32-year-old with dyed blond hair.

Sorry, dear - hate to burst your bubble, but it's still a joke.

I'm sympathetic to many of the ideas espoused by Libertarian candidates, insofar as I can separate the seemingly copious stupidity of some of the party's adherents from the ideas themselves. No fascist, I tend to think that people should be allowed to do many of the things that the laws of the various states presently prohibit. Many of those laws have only passing basis in maintaining an orderly society, and the Libertarians broadly support getting rid of such regulations.

However...

Here (from the linked article) are the things Nall stands for:

• Withdrawal of the Alabama National Guard from Iraq
• Tax credits for sending children to private school and home schooling
• Opting out of the No Child Left Behind Act
• Legalizing marijuana
• Not complying with the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act.

Well, all that, plus tits.

And of the items on her list, I only see one that's actually within the purview of a state governor, from Alabama or anywhere else in the US, to control.

So, loosely viewed, she's either pissing up a rope, or she thinks everyone's stupid enough to fall for her moronic platform. To my complete lack of surprise, I find that:

The Libertarian Party could not collect the 40,000 voter signatures needed to get her name on the ballot, and she has not reached the $25,000 threshold in contributions that would require her to file a campaign finance report.

She puts her cleavage behind her deeply held beliefs, however:

Early in her campaign, she talked about how her misdemeanor arrest for marijuana possession in 2002 led her to start the U.S. Marijuana Party.

So there's that - she's a woman of her (misdemeanor) convictions. And she's an entertainer, it seems:

Then she entertained readers of her campaign Web site with lots of information about her personal life, including a discussion of why she doesn’t wear panties.

All due respect to the Libertarian Party, but next time somebody tells me, incorrectly, that my vote, two weeks hence, for Kinky Friedman as governor of Texas is wasted, I'll point them toward the story of Loretta Nall, and they'll know what a truly wasted vote would look like.

The ubiquitous "dogtag" is getting a makeover.

Matter of fact, several thousand improved identity tags are already downrange. The new tags are more than just a visual display of name, ssn, blood type, and religious preference stamped on a flimsy splinter of aluminum. Oh no. These babies will be all electronical and whatnot, and record every med you're taking, all your allergies, all your ow-ies, every injury and sickness you were ever treated for, and could probably archive every time you beat off too, 'cept that where soldiers are concerned no device yet conceived has the memory capacity to store that much data.

But the real clever bit is that field medics will have electronic readers, somewhere between PDAs and medical tricorders, that can read the data on e-tags just by proximity. Medics will not have to dig around a wounded servicemember to plug the new tags into their reader, and gone will be the days where that medic or corpsman had to find the old tags before he could see bloodtype or that he's allergic to such-such med. Taking it a step further, those med readers will tie into your permanent health records, maintained at your post or base of origin, the hospital where you were (or are about to be) treated, or presumably your civilian health system or the VA after you get out.

I think there's alot that can be weird and kludgy with such a system, particularly with all the vagaries of wireless data transmission that have to occur without fail. I might also be unsure about power use/supply/resupply to those readers, particularly with forward units or SOF far away from reliable energy supply or logistics trains.

But I'm not skeptical of the overall program concept, and I think it's a tremendous advantage.

We here at the Ministry are always alert to the danger of Giant Fighting Robots. We realize, as few do, the threat that these inhuman machines pose to our species. However, until this very moment, we were unaware of the extent, depth and mind-destroying horror of that threat. Thanks to watchful ministry crony MapGirl for raising the hue and cry.

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Phil Sheridan had this to say about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, after he threw three interceptions in yesterday's loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

"You know it's a bad day when you vomit on national television, and it isn't your worst toss of the afternoon."

Maybe not second best, but probably in the top ten, just for fluid continuation of a theme, from the same article:

Eagles fans would hurl if they knew their team had been wounded, maybe mortally, by a 5-foot-9 guy who looks more like an extra from Lord of the Rings than a professional football player.

It is perhaps overstating the obvious to say that advancing technology will bring new dangers. What is less obvious, is that advancing technology will require advances in the state of the art of warning signs. Before there were lasers, there was no need for the "Do not look into laser with remaining eye" signs. A hundred years ago, there was no need for the radiation trefoil, the biohazard sign, and so on. When we finally get around to inventing self-replicating nanosystems, devices to modulate spacetime, artificial intelligences and, to be sure, giant fighting robots - well, the humble warning sign will need some upgrades as well.

But fear not! Someone has done the work for us. And that someone is Anders Sandberg.

Mr. Sandberg has thoughtfully and carefully designed a panoply of warning signs for the singularity. Here are some of my favorites: (You can see all of them here.)

The black light bulb for ideas that aren't just bad, but contagiously bad, is effing genius. Likewise, this image just screams that something ominous and desirous of personally introducing you to a naked physical singularity, and not some nerdly rapturous technological singularity.

This sign is fantastic, Sandberg really captures the ominous potentiality of something that isn't merely self-replicating, but remorselessly self-improving. Think hordes of nanoscale Tony Robbinses, getting leaner, meaner, more numerous and more garsh-darn positive every second.

We are already verging very close to needing this sign, especially in areas of downtown London, and soon in Chicago.

And of course, the all-encompassing:

That sort of sums it up, doesn't it?

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Mr. Sandberg for instantiating our fears in handy, easy to print warning signs. But he didn't stop there. No, indeedy do. He came up with a further classification scheme to indicate just how dangerous a particular danger is.

A level 0 threat threatens all humanity - imminent danger of species extinction. The number of individuals descends on a log scale to level nine, where only a few people might be endangered, and then down to level 10, "no humans threatened, but other values (such as unchanged biosphere, aesthetics or economy) threatened." He speculates that the colors of the warning signs above might be altered, but that might affect recognition. Instead, you might have the two signs, the warning type sign, and under it a color coded threat level with perhaps some explanatory text. His example is amusing:

SELF-REPLICATING DEVICE. LEVEL 0 THREAT: GLOBAL DANGER. DO NOT MESS WITH

It seems to me that these warning labels pretty much cover most of the likely dangers - excepting of course Cthulhoid elder creatures, homicidal extraterrestrials, and giant fighting robots. Of course, none of these would typically allow anyone to affix a warning label to them, nor would that warning label be of any possible help to anyone confronted by these dangers.

[wik] Found this on the Blogundershlock, as Sandberg's post references an early Schlock Mercenary webstrip, by way of Bruce Schneier's blog.

Somewhere in the rainbow of tacky products, sandwiched between commemorative coins for events of only passing interest, and "collector's editions" fast food beverage cups, lies the novelty chess set.

In modern tymes, the game of kings is so widely accessible that it has become just another victim of mass tackiness. Long reserved for the wealthy and noble who didn't have to work for a living and had time for trivial pursuits, chess can now be no less attractive than your plastic dinnerware that celebrates "Fifty Years of the Dragster".

I don't play chess. That is, I can, I'm just not very good at it, and have nothing personally invested in keeping at least marginally attractive chess pieces around. But just out of a sense of respect for a game of such rich and dignified history, I just can't accept things like The Animal Chess Set:

Baboon to Zebra 7...oh hell with it...

Or the Farmland Set:

Is it the pig that moves like an L, or is that the dairy cow...?

Or the Basketball Set:

Maneuvering your big balls onto the opposing cheerleader- a classic chess strategem.

But it doesn't stop there. You got about a dozen variants of cats vs. dogs. You got evil vs. good. You got skeletons vs, I believe, other skeletons. Taking it forward, the Ministry recommends these new chess sets for future development:

Bloods vs. Crips
Sunni vs. Shiite
Godzilla vs. Megalon
John Birch Society vs. COMINTERN
Boy Scouts vs. Girls Scouts
Aryan Brotherhood vs. MS13
Ford vs. Chevy
Bananas vs. Plantains
Typhoid vs. Penicillin
8 ½ x 11 vs. Legal
Coke vs. Pepsi
Paperclips vs. Staples
Tequila vs. Stomach Lining
Sutures vs. Scissors
Hawking vs. Newton
Guggenheim vs. Metropolitan
Turds vs. Daisies

Don't let your trailer's walls limit your imagination the way you let it limit your hygiene, nutrition, and job prospects. With a bit of imagination, the tacky possibilities for embarrassing chess sets are endless!

[wik] I forgot to add that I know what I'm getting Minister Buckethead for Chrsitmas this year: the Endangered Species set, complete with pandas as pawns. Extinction with every move!

Who knew? In an opinion piece from today's WSJ, Kimberley Strassel writes:

In the Ohio governor's race, Ken Blackwell is trailing his Democratic competitor, Ted Strickland, by double digits. Save a last-minute miracle, Mr. Blackwell will lose the governor's mansion, and so end 16 years of GOP dominance.

In the Florida governor's race, Charlie Crist is leading his Democratic competitor, Jim Davis, by double digits. Save a last-minute misstep, Mr. Crist is set to give the state GOP a third term in the governor's mansion, overseeing a strong Republican legislative majority.

Their respective failure and success is not ideological: Messrs. Blackwell and Crist are both running on the same agenda of tax cuts, fiscal responsibility and broad government reform. This, instead, is a story of the state parties behind them. In Florida, Republicans have spent the past eight years keeping their promises to voters; in Ohio the GOP forgot what "promise" meant somewhere in the '90s. The tale of these two GOPs offers broader lessons for congressional Republicans, who are facing a rout this fall.

As my fellow Minister Ross pointed out just yesterday, it's important to hold politicians to their promises (after, of course, you've convinced yourself they're not morally lower than whale shit, and then voted for them). He spoke in terms of how the left side of the blogosphere should "declare its independence from the political order", and while I think he was being far too specific to one portion of this medium, it was, after all, his post, and thus his opinion. But his overall point was quite valid, even before I filtered it through my own worldview.

I am not intimate with Florida politics, though a proto-communist friend of mine claims that the state's a mess, with crumbling infrastructure and enough other woes that I'm curious why, oh why, he relocated to Tampa, having commuted to the area for quite some time (ironically, from Ohio) before deciding to move house. But if, as Ms. Strassel says, the Republicans are cruising to a victory there, I guess that some large proportion, a majority even, of the state's voters think things are fine.

And on the other side of the ledger, we have Ohio. I'm somewhat more current on my knowledge of that state's, uh, state. Ken Blackwell, aside from periodic flashes of near-zealotry that have no place in politics, has long seemed like a guy I could support if I were still an Ohio resident. Says Ms. Strassel:

"There hasn't been a bigger critic of the Taft administration than Ken Blackwell," says Ken Blackwell . . . again and again. Voters can't find it in themselves to make the distinction.

All true - Mr. Blackwell has been, rightly and deservedly, a complete pain in Bob Taft's ass. (And mine, now that I think about it, referring to himself in the third person. Who does he think he is, Bob Dole?) I can, however, understand the desire of the state's residents to "throw the bums out", as the stench of corruption, devil-may-care tax policy, and flat incompetence has gotten bad enough that I can almost smell it from South Texas.

More than once over the past several years, I've been reminded that Ohio was a good place to be from, and if a majority of the residents think the same, well I can't say as I blame them. I don't remember Ted Strickland as a scary guy at all, and he could hardly do worse for the state than the execrable Mr. Taft, who, along with the lachrymose George Voinovich, presided over tax increases of more than 70% since I left the state last century.

And there's the problem, as I think I intimated in a comment to Minister Ross' post - it sucks to have to wait so long to flush the toilet. And that goes quadruple at the Federal level, where our elected spastics can do some damage worthy of the moniker.

Some day, if this entire "Internet" thing ever takes off, there might be a way to coherently, and in an adult manner, express an opinion between elections that someone will listen to.

At least that's my hope.

Buck Turgidson would surely have been horrified to learn that the NORAD command center, the spiffy "war room" made famous in movies and popular culture, is going away.

Not literally going away- why, not even commie hydrogen munitions could've removed the mountain range. But the facility will no longer be fully staffed, in a cost-cutting measure. It's another Cold War apparatus that's outlived it's usefulness. Mmmmostly....seems they're going to leave stuff plugged in and dust free, just in case.

Henceforward, command will be consolidated and exercised from a nearby USAF facility.

It struck me a few days ago that now is the time for the blogosphere to declare its independence from the political order. In particular this is the time for the left wing blogosphere to send a strong signal to the politicians they're trying to get elected: We are watching you. We've been watching the right for a while now, and believe me when I say that we're going to be watching you the second you're elected. The GOP hoodwinked a lot of real conservatives and turned into garden variety crooks in astonishingly short order.

Let's try hard not to let that happen again. Let's tell them we're going to be watching. Positions on the issues don't matter if you're a crook and your ethics are in question. The starting point is honesty in opinion, self-reflection, and ethical discourse. These are dangerous times, and dangerous times require realism. Elected representatives need to engage in realism for the country as a whole; not for one part of it, or for themselves.

Finally someone puts all that nifty information visualization stuff to a use we can all understand. Even if maybe we really didn't want to. Check out the spiffy graph of "who did who". The sheer number of stories amazes me. It's a red pixel/blue pixel soap opera, complete with tragedy (slept with one hot guy and never recovered), opportunistic men, settlers, searchers, and bona-fide hoochie-mommas. Ah, the human condition.

At least not in the "classic" sense, as if there even were such a thing as a "classic" blogging ethos. It's just a test of the Onion's "blog this" function, on a story I found funny, and I wanted to see if its cut-and-paste had as much of a diarrhea-like effect on the blog as those fucking Quizilla snippets do.

[wik] Nope, it doesn't. 

[alsø wik] But yet it also does, two decades and several migrations through various CMS platforms later. I believe I'll just leave this as it is. [-buckethead, writing on 22 Oct 2025]

One of the biggest failures of this administration, and indeed the last several administrations going back to the time of my birth, has been an unforgivably lax approach to the problem of our southern border. And now, a candidate for the House of Representatives and former contestant on the reality show The Apprentice has pointed out in a, well, colorful way just how lax it is.

Long understood as an enemy by uptight people everywhere, pot is now recognized as a bona-fide obstacle on the battlefield.

Canadian soldiers are having a tough time trying to fight in Afghanistan's forests (forests!) of 10' tall pot plants. In addition to all the marvelous, world-changing properties that hippies say weed has, unwashed peaceniks will be happy to know that it also dissipates heat and stores moisture in amazing quantities. The net tactical result is that it is not so very difficult to thwart the Canucks' thermal imagers. Pot can bring peace, after a fashion, by making it hard to find people to kill. Not surprisingly, the immediate remedy of removing the interfering ganja was to try and burn it.

These are professional soldiers people, and I absolutely trust their judgement on this issue: burning the weed was the best military solution.

Well, it turns out that they store so much water it's damned near impossible to burn the stuff. Except for a few stands that were already dead or d(r)ying, which went up quite nicely but did cause- ahem- "ill effects" on a unit downwind of the burn. I'm assuming they meant "ill" as in nausea, not as in "License To".

No lasting effects were reported, although the entire stockpile of pre-positioned NATO tactical cookies in theater seems to have vanished.

Like Ash from the Evil Dead trilogy, you are the hero. Congratulations. As the chainsaw toting king of witty one-liners, you certainly know how to handle any of those undead nasties heading your way, don't you?

From today's "What's News" column teaser-page (on-line; item didn't appear in today's Texas print edition):

The U.S. scrambled fighters over several cities after a small plane hit a 50-story residential building in New York, but it proved to be an accident. Two on board died, one of them Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, who is a pilot.

Ahem. "...who was a pilot." Or "...a former pilot, now taking a nap of indeterminate length."

[wik] Alternate possibility: "...a former pilot, who has now assumed ambient temperature."

[alsø wik] No, I have no idea why I'm in such a disrespectful mood today, but thanks for asking.

Well, the feces is hitting the fan-blades with even more alacrity at Gallaudet, the Harvard for the Deaf. Relative to deaf colleges, they bring to my mind Michael's view of "Jimmy", in The Ringer (sixth quote down).

According to today's Washington Post, "Student Rebellion Boils Over At Gallaudet". "Campus Shut Down; Arrests Threatened", &c.

They don't like the University's latest pick for president, the woman who's been provost for the past six years:

As faculty pressure tightened on incoming president Jane K. Fernandes to resign before she takes office in January, she repeated her refusal to do so. Students angrily confronted longtime President I. King Jordan, alumni flocked to the campus and a counter-protest movement grew during a day of upheaval.

This has been going on since May, and has periodically flared up in the news cycle.

Now, the football team, apparently irked that classes have been disrupted, has blockaded the gates to the campus. Complaints about Ms. Fernandes appear to circle around the fact that graduation rates have hovered around 40% during her tenure.

Asked for comment on that complaint, I'd hope she responded with something like "Well, graduation rates would be higher, but these students seem never to listen".

Complaints about university leadership coming from faculty impress me not-at-all, as I assume Gallaudet's faculty is statistically similar to many faculty members elsewhere, implying that they're functional morons with tunnel vision. I could be wrong on that, of course - maybe they're all geniuses, but I don't care enough to go try to disprove my hypothesis. At a minimum, I think we can agree, they're all employees of the university, and nobody offered them a vote. Rightly so, I'd add.

The protesting students, on the other hand, require no such quibble - college students tend to overblow their importance in the scheme of things. I know I did, and I'll assert that these are as well. Like the faculty, they, too, are absent from the table at the presidential selection process.

As such things go, it seems likely that the university will cave, putting expediency over principle. This will be a shame. On the bright side, it's probably been a fairly quiet protest, eh?

[wik] Update: In the Oct 13 WaPo, a story about Fernandes' meeting with the protesters:

...Fernandes said she would not step down -- even as the university's alumni association urged her to resign and declared that there is overwhelming support for her removal.

"She is not willing to come halfway," said protest leader Delia Lozana-Martinez, saying Fernandes wanted to talk to the students only about opening campus. "It disappoints and disgusts me. I don't think it was productive at all."

"She is not willing to come halfway"? Actually, her resignation would seem to be "all the way", and Ms. Lozana-Martinez is less right to be disappointed and disgusted than to be embarrassed for how inanely she thinks, speaks, or both. Turns out the protesters aren't just deaf, they appear to be dumb, too.

The attentive reader may have noticed a slight rearrangement of the sidebars, and the addition of a new item, namely, a small chunk of text advertisement. This is not entirely without precedent here at the Ministry, as for some time there has languished at the bottom of the right sidebar a small, tentative foray into the world of advertisement. This effort proved fruitless, and was summarily cancelled. Our new effort was undertaken after careful thought and considerable research, namely, Minister Patton said, "Hey, what about AdBrite?" and Minister Buckethead said, "What the hell? Why Not?"

Our new arrangement with AdBrite is already paying off, a tribute to the foresight and business acumen of those ministers. So far, we have been assigned ads that are euphemistically referred to as "Network Ads." We have come to understand that this really means cheeseball ads for ringtones and hair replacement therapy. Nevertheless, we are in the loop, adwise, and soon some hapless sap thoughtful and broadminded advertiser will see our site among the listings, and think to himself, (we are sure) ""Jesus H. Particular Christ! That's where I need to be peddling my shit!" And, then, brothers, we will be into the long green. In only a little under two days, we have already - already! - accumulated $.39. At this rate, we will get our first ten dollar check sometime before Christmas. We may even be able to afford Christmas bonuses for the Code Whittling Gnomes and the underage Laotian who labor in the HTML mines. And if some patron chooses us as the vehicle to drive to his own personal monetary and fiduciary goals, we could make as much as fifteen times that amount. Think of the celebrations we could have with that sort of cash!

We are even now pursuing other, possibly more lucrative venues for advertising dollars. What fo you, the readers, think of this move? Are you disappointed that the Ministry, long a bastion of selfless, ascetic devotion to blogging has sold out? Or are you surprised that such puissant thinkers and planners as the Ministers have taken this long to hold out a bucket when it's raining soup? We welcome your input - though be advised that money is a more powerful lure than the respect of others.

Popular Mechanics has a short interview with Burt Rutan, the man who will build our space armada when the Giant Fighting Robots come. In the meantime, he is working on a commercial follow-on to the X-Prize-winning and cumbersomely-monikered SpaceShipOne, which he has graced with the inventive name, SpaceShipTwo. Branson will be buying a boatload of these for his Virgin Galactic spacelines in the near future, so go and check out what the future will hold for us in regard to the spaceships, and other neat stuff.

Harvard researcher Robert Putnam, a respected political scientist, natch, has released a study indicating that diversity sucks. Of course, distinguished researchers do not summarize the results of their study with phrases like, "Diversity sucks." Nevertheless:

His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.

The core message of the research was that, "in the presence of diversity, we hunker down", he said. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us."

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history", but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where "diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians' picnic".

When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. "They don't trust the local mayor, they don't trust the local paper, they don't trust other people and they don't trust institutions," said Prof Putnam. "The only thing there's more of is protest marches and TV watching."

Well, then. We have been informed by the most august of personages and institutions for some time that diversity is something to be encouraged, celebrated, nay, wallowed in. And now, we find that human persons when confronted with outsiders make like monkeys and throw post modern feces across the stream. Perhaps after all there is a human nature.

It would be without precedent for a Harvard researcher to present findings such as these without a prescription for the remolding of soceity to overcome such trifles as human nature and people's innate distrust of those they don't know. And, lo, Putnam delivers:

Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the "importing" and "exporting" societies, and that trends "have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed".

In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: "What we shouldn't do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us."

Right! We'll get right on that, and we should have a new us ready by next Tuesday. Meanwhile, I need to load my shotgun. There's some immigrants lurking in my neighborhood, and I can't trust my damn fool herring eating Norwegian Mayor to do anything about it.

After a spate of thinkful posts on policy and world events, the tone has drifted a little away from our standard fair of dick jokes, zombies and giant fighting robots. To rectify that, a selection of "Yo Mama" jokes:

• Yo momma so ugly she made an onion cry.
• Yo momma so ugly, she was a guard for Castle Greyskull.
• Yo momma so ugly, she looks like she got hit with a bag of "What the fuck?!?!"
• Yo momma so ugly, she looks like she's been in a dryer filled with rocks.
• Yo momma so ugly when she joined an ugly contest, they said "Sorry, no professionals."
• Yo momma so ugly they push her face into dough to make monster cookies.
• Yo momma so ugly your grandma had to be drunk to breast feed her
• Yo momma so ugly they pay her to put her clothes on in strip joints.
• Yo momma so ugly she tried to take a bath the water jumped out!
• Yo momma so ugly, when two guys broke into her apartment, she yelled "rape" and they yelled "NO!"
• Yo momma so ugly even Rice Krispies won't talk to her!
• Yo momma so ugly The NHL banned her for life
• Yo momma so ugly that when she sits in the sand on the beach, cats try to bury her.
• Yo momma so ugly, her birth certificate was an apology letter from the condom factory.
• Yo momma so ugly, it looks like she's been bobbing for french fries.
• Yo momma so ugly, even the elephant man paid to see her.
• Yo momma so ugly, people at the circus pay money not to see her.
• Yo momma so ugly, she hurt my feelings.
• Yo momma so ugly, her pillow cries at night.
• Yo momma so ugly, they rub tree branches on her face to make ugly sticks.
• Yo momma so ugly, she tied a pork chop around her neck and the dog still wouldn't play with her.
• Yo momma so ugly, she makes blind children cry.
• Yo momma so ugly, she can look up a camel's butt and scare the hump off of it.
• Yo momma so ugly, it looks like she ran the 100 yard dash in a 90 yard gym.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she cries, tears run down the back of her neck.
• Yo momma so ugly, she could scare Cujo off a meat truck.
• Yo momma so ugly, it looks like she got hit with a hot sack of nickels.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she masturbates she gets arrested for cruelty to animals.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she was born, they named her "Damn!"
• Yo momma so ugly, the last time she heard a whistle was when she got hit by a train.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she passes by a bathroom, the toilet flushes.
• Yo momma so ugly, she has to creep up on water to get a drink.
• Yo momma so ugly, if she was a scarecrow, the corn would run away.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she walks in the kitchen, the rats jump on the table and start screaming.
• Yo momma so ugly, when she was born she was put in an incubator with tinted windows.
• Yo momma so ugly, when I last saw a mouth like hers, it had a hook in it.

... would have been Janet Reno.

Just watched, somewhat belatedly, the Zucker political ad. Have to say, it's funny. It's a shame more political ads aren't like this. People go on about negative campaigning, but this isn't it. Negative campaigning is calling your opponent's wife a whore, or claiming (absent any chat records or the like) that your opponent is gay, or a criminal, or the like. Making fun of actual policies and actions isn't what I call negative campaigning. I mean, what's the voter going to go by, except the record of an incumbant? Pointing at that record and saying, "This sucks" is entirely reasonable. Especially if it's funny. Now there is an entirely different argument to be made on aesthetic grounds - whether something is tasteless, or such. But this ad wasn't really that.

The beauty of the internets is that Zucker gets his ad viewed - it's on Drudge now - without having to go through the wusses in the political parties or through the filter of the major media. It's a new world, baby.

[wik] It is also the nature of this new world to be ruthlessly fact checked into the boards. My confrere Patton notes that the correct spelling of our illustrious ex-Sec'y State is Albright, not Albrecht. In my defense, I offer only that five years of German sometimes causes bizarre transliteration errors. I still think, though, that Janet Reno is scarier than any foot smeller, and indeed scarier than just about anything.

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change has a interesing post on the continuing unraveling of EADS/Airbus, following BAE's divestiture of its 20% stake in the Pan-European aerospace firm. This is just part of the problem with Europe, as many have noted. It seems to me that there might be, in the relatively near future, a convergence of catastrophe for Europe. There's the looming demographic collapse, and its corollary the growth of unassimilated Islamic minorities, stultified economies, military impotence, and so on. Let us keep in mind what the traditional European response to these sorts of trouble is, and hope that they come to their senses before it gets really bad somewhere around 2020.

Senator John McCain is by most standards a major political figure. Seriously in the running for the oval office, respected by the essential middle of the electorate, a reliable source for the money quote and well liked by the media.

And now, a blogger, thanks to a guest post at the Captains Quarters.

McCain has some interesting things to say about the North Korean nuclear test - or fizzle – depending on who you talk to. Worth reading, and I recommend that you do. But what interests me at this moment is the fact of his appearance on a blog. The political world has been edging towards the blog world for some time now, though it has been a sideways crabbing motion rather than a full frontal embrace of the medium.

Blogs have certainly had their impact on politics – one need only think back to the fall from grace of Majority Leader Trent Lott, the swift boats and the blogosphere’s moment of glory, folding memogate til it was all sharp corners and inviting Dan Rather to sit on it. And politicians have made use of blogs, as well. Dean’s staff, during his presidential campaign, made notable effect of a blog both to disseminate the governor’s message and for fund raising. Hilary Clinton’s campaign in waiting has hired a blog outreach director.

But here, here we have an actual political personage making an appearance on a blog, rather than being sandbagged by one, or having staffers manage one. This is a first, and it is a significant milestone in the growth of the political blogosphere as a force that does not merely discuss politics, but changes and directs events. In the recent past, the blogs, collectively, have been the kids exiled to the kitchen table while the adults ate the sumptious Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room.

By making yelling loud enough, the kids could on occasion prod the adults into action. Their cries were viewed with the same disdain as parents often feel when judging the concerns of the young – there’s probably nothing going on here, and if we find that you’ve been fibbing, well, there’ll be trouble. For the blogs to make a case, it was uphill all the way – first to overcome the natural disdain of the elder media, and only second the facts of whatever issue they pushed.

We can look at this as either a promotion to the adult’s table. Which, really, is still a bit of a stretch. But at least one of the adults has come into the kitchen and sat down with us and treated us, for a moment at least, as one of the adults. A precedent has been set, though. McCain, and his handlers must have had a discussion about what was the proper venue for the dissemination of this message – and not some random policywonkish statement on, say, the advisability of instituting ethanol quality standards or something equally banal but a national security issue of the greatest importance – and they decided that the best place for McCain to make this statement was on a blog, as a guest poster.

The blog world is poised in the archway between the kitchen and the dining room.

Political figures will now be taking even more interest in the blogosphere. They will be making more efforts to communicate to, and through, the blogworld. Some of these efforts will be hamfisted, clumsy or even desperate, since knowledge of the blog world is vanishingly rare outside our community. There will be those that get it, or know someone who does, and their success in this medium will add to their efforts in others, and in close races, or in hotly argued debates, having this additional means of communication and rallying support will make a difference.

[wik] Linked to OTB's Linkfest.

Pettiness is not always fatal. But not always is by no means the same as never.

There has been of late a continual trickle of developments in the field of nanotechnology. Some we have covered here at Perfidy - such as the liquid armor developed at the University of Delaware. For a long time, nanotech was pipe dream, or at best the limited product of extreme efforts at the edge of laboratory experimentation. We seem to be reaching a turning point, though, where the techniques of manipulating matter at its smallest, along with ever increasing computer power is leaving the labs and becoming well, not industrialized, but certainly within the reach of more than few dozen scientists. The latest is the invention of a new material that can clot blood almost instantaneously. This substance

Their work exploits the way certain peptide sequences can be made to self-assemble into mesh-like sheets of "nanofibres" when immersed in salt solutions.

In the course of that research they discovered one material's dramatic ability to stop bleeding in the brain and began testing it on a variety of other organs and tissues. When applied to a wound, the peptides form a gel that seals over the wound, without causing harm to any nearby cells.

Rather miraculous. A magical fluid that when applied to a wound, instantly seals it.

And that is the thing about nanotechnology. It seems magical in its effects, though we know that very practical and sober minded scientists have used logic and research at every stage in the development, and that it obeys all known natural laws. We will, I think be confronted by this effect more and more, and much sooner than we think. These things that we are seeing now - potions of healing and +5 magical armor - are just scratching the surface of the potential of nanotechnology. These materials, while wonderful and amazing in their innate capabilities, are nevertheless still ordinary matter - just very cleverly arranged ordinary matter. When we get to the point where we can truly begin to add intelligence to matter - nanotech computers embedded in materials that can respond to commands issued by those computers - we will have smart materials that will dwarf the seemingly magical abilities we've seen so far.

I hope, though, that we don't see a trend of naming new nanotechnological wonders after D&D magic items. Even though I do want a vorpal sword.

In another development in the emerging science of hooking brains up to machinery, scientists at the Washington University of St. Louis have wired a spas up to Space Invaders. While this experiment is of little practical value, researchers soon expect to be able to hook paraplegics up to Asteroids, and - if all goes well, they hope that one day normal people may be able to play Tempest with nothing more than a twitch of grey matter.

Naturally, fantasists and dreamers hailed this development as a prelude to the imminent arrival of bionic limbs, and the revival of the Six Million Dollar Man on the big screen. One may hope that this will be the outcome, though of course the Ministry fears that these scientists are skirting along the precipice of species treason. Today, sure, it's a human. But what happens when it's disembodied rat brains hooked up to something like, say, this:

Well, as you're running for cover in the smoking ruins of your town, well then you won't think those researchers were all that cool after all.

[wik] The article, strangely, did not list the kid's score.

[alsø wik] Even more strangely, the author of the article felt that it was necessary to describe how the game Space Invaders works. Isn't Space Invaders more or less part of the collective cultural Weltanschauung, and thus not in need of explication?

Apparently, there is a company that specializes in creating or...preparing...animal bits for musuem and classroom use.

Skulls Unlimited has a spiffy online catalog with photos and prices of all their wares, from aardvark to wombat; chimpan-A to chimpanzee. It's alot more interesting than you think, and not nearly as creepy as you, also, probably think. Well, unless you personally need a creature processed, and we then get into their tremendously detailed and helpful directions for Fedex-ing a head:

1. Raw heads need to be drained of excess moisture.
2. Freeze heads prior to shipping.
3. Wrap heads in newspapers to absorb excess moisture.
4. Tie heads in multiple plastic bags to prevent excess moisture seeping out and ruining shipping box.

Did we mention the excess moisture? Did you infer that that's bad? OK then. Just so you know. No excess moisture though, OK?

The site includes an online store for t-shirts, most of which I found surprisingly lame for such an astonishingly weird and cool line of business. Being the thrifty sort, I made a beeline for the slightly damaged wares, the factory seconds, if you will, of the boiled and dissolved-in-acid taxidermy world. I found pirhannas with broken fins and pigs with missing teeth at quite reasonable prices. Also saw a pig skull with a hole in its forehead; probably don't need CSI to solve that puzzle.

I was more interested though in the creatures with horns, as they make the most striking display. They have your steer, your ram, your wildebeest, and about a dozen other horned beasts I've never even heard of but that have just great skulls. For some reason I found the critter heads interesting, too- raccoons, cats and the like.

It's also a terrific place to shop for the upcoming holiday season, for the man who has everything. Buckethead's fantasy present below the fold:

Florida manatee skull. Note the outsized molars for crushing the bones of humans engaged in aquafrolic.

Ministry Crony and knitter Mapgirl has been interviewed. Go, and listen as Mapgirl opines on the war on terror, re-gifting, the little nubbly things that appear on sweaters, spiders, and the plight of the nearly extinct tawny-beaked mudnesting terflickewee bird.

Is up here. This week's theme is easy and great weeknight dinners for the colder months. Check it out!!

Razorbacks Spoil Auburn's Dreams of Perfect Season

Then-unranked Arkansas smoked then-#2 Auburn this past weekend.

As happens so often in life, the Onion provides a clue as to the reason.

If I wasn't a Big Ten follower and actually cared what happened in the SEC, this would have been comforting.

It is said that there will always be an England. In the grand geological sense, that's as true as it gets. Britain is situated on the far trailing edge of the Eurasian Plate as it slowly crashes into the Pacific Place, meaning that barring calamity, asteroid collision, or devastating attack by giant space robots, Britain is the closest thing the world has to a permanent feature. As long as there is a world and humans to live on it, there will be will always be an England, full of old gaffers in tweed caps, shaven-headed football hooligans and their pasty girlfriends, Sikh cabdrivers, old sheep villages full of amusingly skewed Tudor homes, cul-de-sacs full of quiet little old ladies with razor tongues, milky tea, Bovril, and people leaping behind the couch at the first sight of Daleks.

And if the English and the cockroaches do ever manage to prevail as the only remaining multicellular species to walk the blasted and parched face of the Earth, I guaran-damn-tee you they will still hail every tousled and precious power-pop band to come down the pike as the saviors of all humanity.

The latest in this long and occasionally distinguished line of rakish English popsters are the Kooks. And like their forebears the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, The Dave Clark Five, Badfinger, The Small Faces, The Monkees (yes, The Monkees), Suede, XTC, Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, all the way up to this year's heavily promoted Arctic Monkeys, they make raffish and occasionally gorgeous pop music with a distinctly British form and flavor that crosses echoes of the Victorian music hall with crunchy rock, symphonic flourishes, and a typically boozy and distracted demeanor.

The Kooks are young. The Kooks need shaves and probably a bath. The Kooks have floppy hair that hides their eyes and surely moistens panties from Norwich to Newcastle. The Kooks slouch endearingly in promo shots, grinning diffidently or striking halfhearted rawk poses that they are clearly a generation too young to take seriously. The Kooks could have been put together in a laboratory or- better yet- a focus group.

The Kooks have sold out four tours on their own in the UK. The Kooks have opened for the Stones. The Kooks have charted five singles and sold over a million copies of their debut album, Inside In/Inside Out in the UK, an area that is home to only 60 million. The Kooks have been hailed, as were Blur, Oasis, Supergrass and The Arctic Monkeys, as champions by MOJO and the NME.

So are the Kooks are a thrilling story. But are they any good?

Sure, I guess. Why not?

Inside In/Inside Out begins with a bit of Ray Davies-ish rococo songwriting called "Seaside" that lines up the hooks one after the other, bang-bang-bang, as lead singer Luke Pritchard croons about vacations at the shore. For thirteen more songs (only five of which last more than three minutes), the Kooks deliver winsome pop that at times recalls every one of the bands mentioned above, plus a few others. The songwriting is definitely competent, the playing is good, and production flourishes like the reggae touches on "Time Awaits" keep things from smearing together into an undifferentiated mass of goo.

I listened to Inside In/Inside Out cold, without reading any of the band's press releases, without looking up any of the fevered praise they've garnered from the UK press, and without even bothering to find out which songs were the singles. Over the years, I have fallen madly in love with plenty of bands, crushed on them like crazy for a week or so, and then suddenly realized that everything they had was in one pretty good song and a bunch of repetitive fluff. Since then, I've learned to play albums by wannabe popsters until I'm good and sick of them, because only then do you figure out what's what.

After all this, I am happy to report that Inside Out/Inside In contains exactly no songs that verifiably suck, and at least seven songs that could be mistaken for lead singles. On the other hand, none of those seven possible singles are particularly distinguished or memorable - the minute the album ends I find I can't recall any hook or melody - and the same diffidence that makes the band so very cute in promo shots robs the music of any enduring qualities.

Their biggest singles, like "Eddie's Gun" compare favorably to golden-age-of-powerpop British hits like "Starry Eyes" by the Records or "School Days" by the Starjets. However, Oasis, the Arctic Monkeys, and especially Supergrass have already done this revival to death. At this point, it's not enough to write winsome pop songs you can sing along to; I now find myself asking Britain's musicians, en masse, "but what have you done for me lately?" In the USA, It's easy to see the Kooks becoming a college hit and selling a bunch of records, which is good for them and their label. But it's also easy to see the album ending up in a couple months on the shelf next to Bush's Sixteen Stone and (just to prove it's not Britain's problem alone) the Strokes' first album as a mildly interesting reminder of that one band, who had that song, that I could probably sing if I could just remember how it starts.

The Kooks are trashy and huggable. The Kooks write incredibly cute pop songs with competence and just enough attitude to make them seem more dangerous than the boys from 'N Sync. But unfortunately, the Kooks are a little boring, too. Inside In/Inside Out is just fine, but 'just fine' doesn't get me hard anymore. If your personal kink is for young and attractive British sensations, or if you're new to the cycle of hype-and-bust, then by all means check this out; it's as okay a place to start familiarizing yourself with Britpop in the '00s as any. But if not, you're probably better off picking up The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society and the Supergrass album of your choice.

The Smoking Gun has the tour rider from the latest Iggy Pop tour.

I daresay, without reservation or levity, that it is the finest piece of literary writing I have read in the last twelve months. The roadie responsible has seen it all, dealt with it, and mastered every sort of fuckery from shitty tom toms to the worst dressing rooms in the world.

I'm not kidding; a tour rider that contains references to Pepys, Santiago de Compostela, midgets, the Insane Clown Posse, and more discursions and asides than Pynchon, Sterne, and Emo Phillips put together. Go and read, and try not to laugh out loud. Frigging sweet.

From an item in today's inbox, repeat after me:

Quote Of The Day:

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth."

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Well, about damned time, I'm thinking.

Oct. 5, 2006
Tribune Co. said Los Angeles Times Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson has resigned, amid disagreements over the future of the paper. Johnson had defied the company's demands for what he considered potentially damaging staff cuts.

All due respect to what I'm sure were good and strongly-held intentions on the part of Mr. Johnson, but when your boss tells you to do something, you can either do it or quit. Johnson's been taking the imaginary middle ground, to date, and invoking the Nancy Reagan Defense.

He may even be right in claiming that requested cuts at the LA Times would hurt the paper's viablity, and who am I to contradict him? Nobody, that's who. I'm not contradicting him, I'm just saying that he should have been fired the minute he refused a direct order. That's the way life works, and even though he's now "resigned", let's not kid ourselves - he was fired, rightly so.

Based on the shirt-rending hue and cry of the past month in Los Angeles on this matter, the cries of indignation seem likely be broad and loud. If so, they'll all be sadly misplaced. Local groups in and around the metropolis have made noise about buying the Times from Tribune, but haven't made meaningful headway yet. Over the past month, it's sounded, in fact, as though they were trying to insist that the Tribune Co. sell them the paper, but on their terms.

Here's another tip as to how things work: You can insist that, for the good of the community, the paper be sold to local ownership, and you can insist on your own set of terms for that sale. But in America, you can't do both.

And thus, the LA Times, for now, remains the property of the Tribune Co., and with that ownership, they can take whatever management & personnel actions they feel are required. If those actions turn out to be ill-advised, the LA Times, Tribune Co., and their stockholders will suffer, also rightly so.

That, too, is how things work in America.

Ministry Crony EDog insists that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the best cereal in the universe. He is wrong. It is Cocoa Crispies.

Robert Anton Wilson (no introduction needed, I'm sure) is dying, and is facing eviction from his apartment. Boingboing has the details.

I don't know about you lot, but even though I read the Illuminatus! trilogy while drifting in and out of a flu coma, and even though I didn't "get" half of what the hell was going on (thanks, again, to the fever-pain), in the ten years since I read it, things keep bubbling up that could only have originated in the wild mind of Robert Anton Wilson. At least half of what I come up with for this very website is deeply influenced by his madness, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I wouldn't be the same dude without him.

The Boingboing link has information on where to send checks or paypal payments. According to friends, Wilson as of a couple days ago only has enough money to cover one month's rent, after which he spends his dying days homeless. Not cool.

All the best to RAW, and here's hoping things go his way for a change.

[wik] [Update] There is a later post, also on Boing Boing, that tells us that the donations were coming in, so much so that

Anyway, this morning Bob's daughter showed up at his house in tears because she had checked his PayPal account and found money for next month's rent plus more. Bob called me to say that he couldn't believe people would care so much about him and as we talked (which isn't easy for him at this point) he was overcome with emotion more than once. He is so touched and RELIEVED at the possibility of staying in his home. He kept repeating to me his deep felt appreciation and disbelief that people would care so much about him. What a humble and sweet man.

Which is all to the good. I am sure that continuing medical expenses and everyday bills will quickly deplete that, so continued giving is indicated. For those who can't stomach giving without receiving, there is this, a place where you can buy a nifty tshirt, and for each one, $10 will go to RAW. [- buckethead]

[alsø wik] I just noted that the tshirt link above is to, of all things, Giant Robot Printing. Everyone must buy a tshirt to help RAW. I am frankly stunned, though, that they have no tshirts featuring giant robots.

In a development that will have thousands nationwide tearing their garments and gnashing their teeth in despair, the Yakima (WA) Herald Republic reports that fully 4% of the US hop harvest this year went up in smoke when the warehouse they were being stored in burned to the ground.

There's just one thing for it, of course; drink more vodka until the shortage is alleviated. Stiff upper lip, all that.

I'm sure you've heard the old saw about not starting fights with people who buy ink by the barrel?

Addendum: Don't ever piss off Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers' Tom Perkins.

Quick chronology (sans copious and specific links, since anyone who cares already knows, anyone who doesn't know probably doesn't care, and really, this is all about the juvenile punch line):

• HP's board was considering changing leadership
• Not all members were on board with doing so
• The board got leaky with the press
• George Keyworth was fingered & drummed out as a board member
• Tom Perkins didn't like seeing his friend pilloried (even though his friend {ahem} was the source of the leaks)
• Perkins pitched a bitch, raised holy-hell, and got a Congressional hearing scheduled
• Now Patricia Dunn, the former chairman of HP's board, stands a chance, however slight, of a career change into the "license plate stamping industry"

Coincidence? You decide. I guess it could be.

But, dig this little-known fact - he also caused her to lose some of her good looks and most of her hair, as evidenced by this pictorial chronology:

Coincidence? I'd like you to believe I think that's stretching it.

[wik] Speaking of "stretching it", I mashed all those pictures so they'd fit. The last one is distorted such that it's worse looking than the one in the WaPo story, and that's unintentional. So I added a link to the pop-up, full size picture, which is unfortunately, like the mashed version, less than flattering. Also unintentional - she was quite the looker at one time, anti-glamour shots notwithstanding, and Congressional hearings are surely a complete pain in the ass. I blame Tom Perkins.

I could go on and on about the political and electoral ramifications of the small tactical nuclear explosion that is the decline and fall of Representative Foley (R-Fla). But I won't. Instead, let me make a simple comment on the transcript of one of his IMs, the which can be read here. Just creepy. Creepy.

I know that I will sleep soundly at night if the French were overseeing the Iranian nuclear enrichment program. I mean, seriously, what are the chances that the French would allow anything bad to happen?