Mini-Update: Alien life? You fucking bet!

News of the AWESOME from India: Indian "Red Rain" verified as extraterrestrial life.
http://sites.google.com/site/godfreylouis/files/spiepaper709712.pdf?attredirects=0 [PDF Download of the paper]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_rain_in_Kerala
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html [Older CNN article]

Well, this is pretty fucking awesome. Its a shame this so far is being met by the international press and American scientific community with much putting of fingers in ears and humming loudly.

Maybe because its life Jim, but not as we know it. "Weird Life" as NASA calls it, non-oxygen-breathing-carbon-

based-water-drinking life. Maybe because its any sort of life from space. Personally, I cannot think of a single valid reason not to be screaming this to the four winds night and day. Fuck the potential social or religious problems predicted to come with the revelation of life elsewhere in the universe. Most religions will adapt, they always do. If they can not, well that's life for you.

Look to the skies ladies and gentleman. Go out tonight and look at the stars with the same childlike wonder you had before adults told you there was no such thing as little green men. No UFO's, no life on other worlds, no green Orion slave girls to bang. Look up and smile.

We are not alone in the universe.

BONUS: The best UFO photographs ever taken.
http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestufopictures.html

Steve Fossett UPDATE: ...still dead.

"We don't really understand what causes events to happen. History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices." - Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson

Bush thinks the EPA guidelines relating to radioactive material levels in drinking water are a bit too tough, relaxes them for the freedom and liberty of big business. Hope you don't mind flipper babies.
http://current.com/items/89477491_bush_epa_plans_to_dramatically_relax_radiation_exposure_in_drinking_water
http://fe5.story.media.ac4.yahoo.com/news/us/story/nm/20081103/pl_nm/us_bush

Typically an outgoing Administratum does all kinds of things that they always wanted to do but could not before for one reason or another. Staying up late playing spirited games of "Out the deep cover CIA Agent", "Pin-the-Military on another country full of brown people and oil", or "Turn the paranoid eye of the intelligence community almost entirely on the American public illegally-A-Boo" are old hat for the White House's outgoing residents.

No no, not this time. Nothing as simple as that. These are the last days of executive privilege, of signing statements, of Presidential pardons. No concern for opinion polls or permanent Republican majorities. No consequences. This is where the real party begins.

So before the flurry of pre-emptive pardons for war crimes begin (true story, more later) lets look at other area's where the walls are coming down.

The EPA.

I feel bad for the EPA, I really do. There are only two reasons I can think of to pursue a career in the Enviromental Protection Agency. The first being you aspire to pay for your house and mistress's condo with money illegally placed in your offshore bank account by the military-industrial complex for looking the other way, the second because you actually want to protect the damn enviroment. The later seem to be outnumbered by three to one and fight an uphill battle against an oponent with unlimted money, lobbying power far above the agencies head, and their own corrupt beuracracy.

Then the President comes along and makes it harder.

Bush & Co. think that the EPA guidelines are hurting the free market by constraining big business with needless and excessively left-wing liberal communist environmental protections. What do those godless socialist anti-free market restrictions cover?

Radioactive material. Apparently we need more radioactive isotopes in our drinking water. Mmmm dergulation. I can practicly taste the cancer now .

The RAND corporation is actively lobbying the Pentagon and Congress to start a war with a major superpower (China or Russia) to stimulate the US ecconomy. That is what we like to call extreme measures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND
http://www.rand.org/
http://www.infowars.com/?p=5654
http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/10/30/chinese-news-exposes-the-rand-corporations-plans-to-start-world-war/
http://www.prisonplanet.com/what-will-obamas-international-crisis-be.html
http://www.infowars.net/articles/october2008/281008crisis.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/27/pentagon-panel-joe-biden_n_138192.html?page=5
http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/10/27/joe-bidens-international-crisis-gaffe-not-so-gaffey-after-all/

The problem with think-tanks is sometimes smart people don't look at all possible implications of an idea. They see numbers, they see effects of whatever system the seek to influence, they don't see numbers as people. They don't see the potential cost on a personal level.

Of course this is worse when the think tank involved is a CIA puppet/co-conspirator. At that point the obliviousness to human misery is replaced by criminal indifference to anything but the continued economic superiority of a handful of American business interests.. woo, deep breath.

The RAND Corporation is actively, though quietly, lobbying the Pentagon, Congress, and the Bush White House (Obama's as well I presume) on the merits of picking a fight with China or Russia in order to stimulate the ecconomy. Yes, that is right, another war. On a third front. Against the two nations who could actually stand against us (or U.S. depending on how you want to say it).

While true during WW2 that nothing gets the country going like a good war, that paradigm is no longer applicable. When we were a manufacturing giant, sure. However times are tough for the fly-over states and the old US of A does not produce nearly as much anymore. What are we going to do? Try to keep buying gear from China while waging war on them? Have our soldiers go into combat in jeans and worn out NASCAR shirts?

Well, we could solve that problem by going to war with Russia, right? Wrong! China and Russia have something called a mutual defense pact. A treaty that says if we attack one of them, we attack both. So we would be fighting on four fronts I suppose.

Maybe Mike "Brownie" Brown got hired by RAND after his tenure with FEMA came to an abrupt end.

For the Fatherland Homeland: More illegal home front active duty troop deployment news.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10683
http://www.northcom.mil/news/2008/091508.html
http://www.northcom.mil/
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/37274prs20081021.html
http://coloradoindependent.com/13321/elite-combat-brigade-for-homeland-security-missions-raises-ire-of-aclu

The ACLU is now requesting all sorts of information about NORTHCOM's deployment of active duty troops on U.S. soil (which happened back on October 1st, and continues...). It seems that NORTHCOM is laughing at their puny little Freedom of Information Act request.

The incoming administration so far has no comment about the homeland deployment, and its upcoming enlargement.

We said "bring home the troops", they said "OK, we'll bring home the troops"... Protestors need to be more specific I suppose.

*sigh*

+ + +

Real life has been occupying my attention of late. Not so much that I don't sit around worrying about this sort of thing, just enough that I never seem to have the time to write. I suppose thats the game though. If you spend all your time trying to survive, you don't have the chance to think about your situation.

/End Transmission.

The Gnomes of Argentina, Missing Playboy Adventurers, Homeland Fascism: Things are back to normal.

Steve Fossett Watch UPDATE: Perhaps Steve reached the 8th Dimension in spirit, or, Why you should never trust people from parallel universes.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/03/fossett.bones/index.html

So Steve Fossett did depart our dimension after all, only in a depressingly conventional way. While it seems he did survive an impossible crash, he did not survive his injuries, or exposure, or wild animals.

Rest in peace, Steve. May your adventuring spirit inspire others to not just live life on the edge, but shoot past it as fast as possible. Also, may your example prove to people once and for all that aliens regardless of their origin are probably not benevolent.

Argentina vs. The Little People
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/weird/article1817406.ece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0fPoH2gWzc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EQO0VfBpt4
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336750,00.html
http://guanabee.com/2008/03/gnome-frightens-teens-in-argen-1.php

A strange creature is stalking remote areas in Argentina's urban sprawl. The residents are frightened, the authorities are concerned, and there is even alleged video tape of them. What has everyone so worried? Gnomes.

It might all be a case of mass hysteria. Then again, film footage of hallucinations is in short supply.

Hoax? Probably, but a weird one. Gnomes? Of all the things to fake in Argentina for attention.

The witnesses who shot the footage in both cases are apparently refusing to leave their homes, for fear of the creatures. In each case the camera gets dropped after a scream is heard off camera. If the videos were not faked by the same people then its an odd coincidence.

It could be a midget, running around the slums at night with a pointy hat and a hand gun. That would make you scream like a girl.

100 Miles from the border and you are still not in America. Welcome to the "Constitution Free Zone" that includes more than 190 Million Americans, or 2/3rds of the population.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/aclu-assails-10.html
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/37320res20081022.html
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/37293res20081022.html
http://www.aclu.org/privacy/spying/areyoulivinginaconstitutionfreezone.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202843.html
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_highlights_ConstitutionFree_Zone_100_miles_1022.html
http://www.infowars.com/?p=5491
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004364797_ferrypatrol22m.html
http://smargus.com/2008/10/customs-and-border-patrol-operating-constitution-free-zone-checkpoints/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPOuj-WzAoA
http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubSectionID=55&ArticleID=22021&TM=3252.315
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/378333_borderpatrol09.html?source=rss

These days The Ministry of Homeland Security has a lot on its plate. Between getting in on drug busts (Narco-Terrorism), nabbing hackers (Cyber-Terrorism), and hanging out in airports stealing peoples laptops (Business Commuter-Terrorism) they have a great many fingers in America's pies. Whats next for this well funded and poorly chartered agency? Border security!

Well, they already do that to. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is their shiny new border patrol arm, which handles most of their anti-drug efforts. That sounds fair, right? Drug dealers are like terrorists I guess. I mean, they had all those ads that showed kids buying weed were actually funding Osama's efforts to rule the world or something. So thats good, right?

Well it might be, if not for the fact that the border they are defending is one hundred miles deep. See? I got to the point eventually.

One hundred miles. Sort of like saying the Pittsburgh city cops have jurisdiction from downtown Pittsburgh to Fairmont, West Virginia. Homeland Security is claiming this tiny stretch of area from the borders, including the coastlines as its "Constitution-Free Zone" as traditionally border guards could get away with more-or-less what they wanted in searching your vehicle and person for contraband. The borders are kind of a gray area where your rights too privacy, search-n-seizure, and such are concerned.

DHS liked this idea so much, they wanted to share it with everyone who lives within 100 miles of a border or coastline. Which means about 190 million people. The US population is about 300 million. Nice, eh? Already agents have been testing the waters of their new jurisdiction with alarming regularity and success. The best example so far is a bathroom tile salesman who had his car interior torn out by DHS while he sat in handcuffs next to the road. His crime? They wanted to search his car, since he was at "the border" and he would not consent. The "border" was on the interstate a mile south of San Diego.

The ACLU has a handy map showing the new border area's where you can be subject to whatever DHS feels like. I am still trying to get over the name they are calling it... Constitution-Free Zone. I am sure that will change soon, I can't imagine that will prove to be a popular name.

Iranian cargo ship full of harmless building supplies and minerals (weapons grade refined uranium from China) UPDATE! The UN asks US to clean up the mess.
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2880.htm#002

So that Iranian ship carrying radioactive material from China back to Iran that was hijacked by Somali pirates that nobody wants to talk about? Yeah it seems the United Nations is asking the US Navy (strictly on the down low) to quietly dispose of it, as most of the pirates are now dead from radiation poisoning and the ship is hotter that my wife in a black mini skirt.

Yeah, I can see how nobody is talking about this. Nothing newsworthy really. Nothing at all. Pirates. Illegal shipments of uranium for nuclear weapons from China to Iran. China, our good buddies whom we owe so much money to, shipping nuke supplies to Iran, our new enemy of the week in the Middle East.

The Chinese are giving the Iranians enough rope to hang themselves with. How long do you think they will sit on nukes before they get antsy enough to use them? Or dumb enough to sell them to someone? Then we go to war again. War costs money. We have no money. Where do we get money? China.

Man, do they have a good racket going or what?

Nothing to see here people, move along.

+ + +

Back to normal.

/End Transmission.

In the Grim Future of Blogging, There is Only Dr. Wife

It is that time again, Ladies and Non-Ladies. Not since the 2006 Congressional Elections have I been compelled to crawl (red-eyed and ill-smelling) from my coffin before noon to cast a vote, then monitor the newsfeeds. But I've got a pot of coffee on and some whiskey to spike it with, so I give you...

Dr. Wife's Live 2008 Election Night Extravaganza!

3:12 PM: This blog's usual Commandant and I just returned from our local polling place. It only took us 25 minutes to find it, as it actually seemed to be attempting to obscure itself from the eyes of prying voters.

Despite what I'd been promised by the AP Newswire, there were no lines at all, really. A few helpful old women aided us in casting our ballots on those wretched machines. I spent at least 30-45 seconds attempting to glare it into submission before actually voting. It wasn't Diebold, but that doesn't mean much as far as I can tell. I haven't taken my mediation yet today, so the lack of a paper trail is still worrying me.

3:29 PM: BBC News has constructed an extremely useful article concerning both the changing political landscape of the United States and also the Electoral College. They are also listing early (very, very early) predictions from various sources as to which way those Electors will vote. Those predictions are as follows:

CQ POLITICS: Obama 311/ McCain 157
REAL CLEAR POLITICS: Obama 291/ McCain 132
POLLSTER.COM: Obama 311/ McCain 142
NEW YORK TIMES: Obama 291/ McCain 163

Granted, these predictions are coming early enough so as to be almost useless, but it's been a bleak 8 years, so I'll take my comfort wherever I can get it. Onward!

5:15 PM: Some exit polls have just been released, and DrudgeReport is calling 7 new seats in Congress for democrats, bringing them up to 58. This is a simple majority, of course, but still 2 seats short of the three-fifths majority required to invoke cloture.

6:15 PM: MSNBC is reporting fairly sweeping voting machine malfunction in Virginia and Pennsylvania--both swing states, of course. HOWEVER, DrudgeReport is reporting a 15 point lead for Obama in PA regardless, although, as always, they site no sources. Sigh.

7:35 PM: RESULTS ARE ROLLING IN! CNN has called Kentucky for McCain and Vermont for Obama, making the score thus far:

OBAMA 3 / McCAIN 8

The 8 o'clock hour is a big one, with polls closing in: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, so everyone take a sedative, and hunker down for the wait...

8:00 PM: Curse you CNN! They are calling South Carolina for McCain, despite the fact that a) Obama is winning 55% to 45%, and, b) only 1% of precincts are reporting. How the crap does that work?

Still haven't heard anything about California's Proposition 8 success or failure, but polls in CA don't close until 11PM Eastern Standard.

8:05 PM: Results are pouring in from the states in which polls closed at 7PM and 7:30PM. Obama is projected to take New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut, whilst McCain takes South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, bringing our Electoral College votes to:

OBAMA 77 / McCAIN 34

It takes 270 to win.

8:19 PM: MSNBC is calling Pennsylvania for Obama, bringing the total to:

OBAMA 103 / McCAIN 34

8:37 PM: The American south's results are pouring in. McCain predictably takes Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. New score:

OBAMA 103 / McCAIN 49

9:24 PM Damn near everyone (including FOX news TV) is calling Ohio for Obama, with 91% of precincts reporting in! Hot holy damn! The last man to win the Presidency without taking Ohio was, of course, JFK in 1960.

OBAMA 123/ McCAIN 49

9:55 PM Dr. Wife is too drunk right now to post, so it is I your regular narrator back at the wheel. The BBC (Aunty Beeb) is saying the count sits at...

OBAMA 200/ McCAIN 130

It is looking more and more like a Regan-Style blowout that some have cautiously predicted for Sen. Obama. Of course its still an open game. Anything can happen. Fortunately the Wild Turkey supply is holding out.

More than anything its nice to see voter turnout of epic magnitude. An estimated 130 Million voters will cast their ballots in this election. Holy shit. Really. Something like 85% of the eligible and registered voters in this nation. That is an amazing thing in and of itself. So many people giving a shit about the direction of their nation, of their government, and their own damn lives. Electoral college or not, people care, at least for tonight.

10:11 PM ...and?

OBAMA 207/ McCAIN 135

I do hope that of all the pre-mature coverage I hope The Onion is the least accurate.

HOLY SHIT, BATMAN! PM

OBAMA VICTORY!

McCain is giving a concession speech as I (an inebriated Dr. Wife) type this. It's actually quite heartfelt and I'm a little teary (but being drunk helps).

Well, that's it, I suppose. I wish I could think of some profound statement to end what was an exciting but exhausting night. All that I can say is this: we wake up tomorrow to a new country. Optimism is in short supply, but I can feel a glimmer of it deep within my crusty black soul.

+Not Dr. Wife+

This is a hell of a thing really. The cries of "Boo" and other less appealing things from the McCain crowd was a bit disheartening. It was however nice to see and hear John McCain sounding more like he did before the end of his 2000 run for the Republican nomination. He transformed himself into a candidate that every Republican could vote for, and in doing so became someone only half the country could vote for. In the end, it did not even give him that. A career of speaking his mind, no matter how unpopular his opinion or how crazy his view and the integrity that came with it was traded away for votes from the Moral Majority and support from Big Business.

I hope the coming four years will see McCain go back to his old sometimes incomprehensible but authentic ways. I also hope to see in Obama a President that offers hope and change for the better to the American people. Not just "Hope (tm)" and "Change (tm)" the branded campaign slogans, not just the marketed commodities but actual advancement for the nation in a positive direction.

This is still a very paranoid house, that will never change, but it's nice to look to the future and see the possibility of leaving a little of our hard-bitten cynicism at the door.

+ + +

A regular post of links and weirdness will be in the post tomorrow most likely. Now that the political season is over its time to crawl back into the bunker, furiously clean my guns, and run at the sight of unmarked black UN helicopters.

It was nice to do another joint effort with the wife. With any luck Dr. Wife will be able to stretch her writing muscles again and join in on this station in the future. Maybe with her promised article on the West Memphis Three, or maybe some other well-researched paranoid delusion.

/End Transmission.

Election 2008: Preamble

"We are living in dangerously weird times now. Smart people just shrug and admit they're dazed and confused. The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic." - Hunter S. Thompson in 2000

Election day tomorrow. Tonight and tomorrow night will make up for a lack of Halloween post. I promise.

I have been asked to vote for either big ticket candidate so many times over the last 3 days. Very few actual people on the other end, mostly computers. Of what interest is the election to the machines?

John McCain had one real person on the line, and dozens of robots. Barack Obama had two real people, and a few less robots than McCain. Either way its fairly annoying. By this point I know for whom I cast my meaningless ballot. I know which front social issues I will be voting for. I am not a single issue voter by any means, but I do know that the same overarching agendas will be advanced either way. Major change will not come from an election in this country, not anymore.

I vote to sooth my conscience, I vote tomorrow in the hope that I am just paranoid and cynical and maybe mentally ill. Maybe the candidates are not in the pocket of the same corporate interests they have been since Marine Major General Smedley Butler was asked to help overthrow President Roosevelt and institute a fascist corporate state ruled by the rich and powerful of the day. Maybe its all just a weird coincidence. Maybe my vote counts.

Be careful at the polls kids. NORTHCOM is on high alert and every police force in the country seems to be expecting "Civil Unrest".

More later.