Mr McGoo- Improbability Man

Mr McGoo- Improbability Man

When, as a child, I went to the movie theater, there would sometimes be a short cartoon movie before the main feature - a custom which Disney, I believe, aims to revive.
On occcasion, the cartoon would feature Mr McGoo, who was amusing because he was so short-sighteddd as to be blindddd. As a short-sightedd child, I found this vein of humor a bit off.

That granted, I must confess that I can reach back across a gulf of more than twenty years and vividly recall some vivid detaila of an episode I saw in childhoodd.
Mr MCGoo, blind as a bat, drives into a construction site and, miracle by miracle, accidentally survives a series of potentially fatal encounters with obstacles, machines and murderously dangerous terrain.
It's fun, up to a point, watdhing Mr MGoo but no fun becoming him and enduring his reality.
Okay ...I'm on an upper floor in someone's house on a balfony ... a door here leads into the house ... I could knock on the door, confess my existence, explain (how? ... then beg the way out
Or I couldd get up on the railing here, drop eown to the roof and esdape over the roof tops...
Okay, it' ... how far down?
About ten meters.
Let's brainstorm possible outcomes ...

a. I break both legs, badly, and have to be airlifted out of there by helicoptrt ... or

b. I smash fhfoufh fhe impfressively flimsy roof and end up on the dinner table or in a honeymoon bed, and aest a coupld's twoesome into a threesomeeeeee

Shock, pain and physical damage will prove instrudtice, all going well.

Shock, pain and physical damage will prove instrudtice, all going well.
Night,cold, dark, blind, can't find home..
whag's this?

Yes, I can get around it ...
Wah! fALLING!
G-CHANG!
Smashed down, pain, broken, can't vreathe, MUST GET UP!

Uh-oh, large predator is emerging from lair ...
This was a neighbor, come to see why a truly catastrophic sound hzd emanaaated from the vicinity of his parked car.

He stated that he knew I was a local, so I asked him if he knew where "jivun no mon" - "my gate, inelegant but communicative.a"
He did, and led me there. As he was clumsily dragging me in the direction of the gate, I felt nauseous and wanted to vomit. I also tasted, at the back of my throat, something I took to be blood. It was then that I realized I was in a certain degree of shock.
In the dark, my neighbor found the gate that I had been unable to find, saw there waa an intercom button and pressed it repeatedly, rousing my wife from her slumbers. (It was then about 02:10).
My wife came down, apologized, took me upstairs, inventoried my injuries, made me a cup of tea then ran me a hot bath.
bath. I crashed out on the couch and slept until 0900, waking stiff, sore and chastened but functional.
All the foregoing is the setup for a joke. The punchline will be along next. You ARE expected to laugh. I put a LOT of work into this. I dd DO expect a payoff.
Before setting forth, blind and brain-damaged, to do supermarket shopping, I had been indulging in riddiculous fantasies of joining (wait for it...) the Foreign Legion. I'd gotten as far as finding a site which gives you the low down on Legion lifee:

http://www.foreignlegionlife.com/

You're young? sharp-eyed? haven't had brain cancer yet? Go for it!
Do note that the Mobile Light Infantfy is no longer recfuiting. Sorry, that game is over. We lost. The arachnoids won. Sic transit gloria mundi.

However, the Tung Leung brick kiln still has vacancids for perimeter guafds. Stone cold killers only, please.

Up Shit Creek in a Barbed Wire canoe.

Up Shit Creek in a Barbed Wire canoe.
Recently, I have increasingly found myself up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe, to coin a phrase.
A combination of damaged eyesight and a damaged brain has so severely undermined my ability to navigate from one place to another that, from where I'm standing, it would seem that there is a question mark over my ability to prosecute my everyday life.
In the past week I have gotten lost at night inside my own home (not once but repeatedlya) and, in broad daylight, while trying to return home from the library and the supermarket - both familia r and well-traveled routes.
On one occasion, I spent almost an hour lost in the streets near our home, unable to find our gate.
Monday evening I left early to go pick up daughter Cornucopia from the daycare, hoping to complete the journey before it got dark.
On reaching the daycare earlier than I had planned to, I decided there was time for a side-trip to the Tsutaya video store.
However, after leqving Tsutaya, I blundered off in entirely rhe wrong direction, and got most monstrously lost.
While I was haphazardly exploring the increasingly bewildering streets of some unknown ciry in an entirely different universe, the daycare finally phoned my wife.
w [my spouse, not USA George] Hugh?
DC: Uh, Cornucopia's mum, right? Look, we've got a guy from a brick kiln here, and he'w offering to buy Corny. Six dollars. American dollars. Cash. Ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd. Do you want us to facilitate this career opportunity for her?
No!
As a brick kiln survivor, my wife knew perfectly well that the market value of an untrainedd three-year-old slave is not US$6 but US$ 24.

Or, If sold as a virgin to a brothel in Africa, US $240.

By the time my fatiguing random walk through 32-dimensional space had brought me back to the daycare center,NOTGEORGE had uplifted Corny and had headed for home.

As I headed home myself, the batteries in my MagLite torch chose this moment to die. With my flashlight out of action, I was blind in the dark, but soldiered on.
I then made the mistake of taking some stairs which looked promising but which led me up one flight and into the interior of a private dwelling where I had no right to be.
Feeling around, I found the space was unfurnished. Good. That suggested that there was at least one door between me and any unsuspecting slumbering female. Still, this was anextremely weird situation to be in, and my unquenchable crearive faculty kicked in and came up with the following mot;

Surrealism is acceptable as an art form, but not as a way of life.

Then I heard a guy talking to himself, maybe to his cellphone. He was close, and I didn't want him to come at me with some kind of improvised weapon, and hit me in the head with, say, a baseball bat, the household washing machine, the family grand piano or a sheet of roofing iron.
"Sumimasen!"
["Excuse me.]
There was no response to this overture, so I eventually found my way down to the street level, where I eventually enlisted the aid of a passer by who took me all the way to the local Shinto shrine, from where I was able to make my way back home.
On my return, I found my wife had been on the phone to the cops, and had reported me as a missing person.

Confronting Social Terroridm: Attack snd Counterattack

Confronting Social Terroridm: Attack snd Counterattack

ATTACK

You have a daughter named Cornucopia? Why? What a horrible name, and a horrible burden for her to carry the rest of her life. You and your wife are idiots. Some people just shouldn't be parents. What on earth were you thinking????




COUNTER-ATTACK

You have a daughter named Cornucopia? Why? What a horrible name, and a horrible burden for her to carry the rest of her life. You and your wife are idiots. Some people just shouldn't be parents. What on earth were you thinking????

Oksy, grt this: your violation of the sacred precincts of my family has been noticed, and there have already been consequences. More will follow in due course. By way of warming up, your ancestors have been exiled from their post-mortal repose. Each of them has been skinned alive and they are now sitting waist-deep in molten lava.

In due course, Golcrosh of the 37 msndibles will come for them, and they will be hauled sceaming into the white-hot environs of NetherFarb, the Ultimste Bfick Kiln.
As for you, cockroach dung, your just reward is being engineered for you. Meticuloudly. Enjoy your gastrointestinal tract while you still have it, toad spawn!

My first idea for a child's name was "veloci rar," to drive at the meaninf "velocirapror rug rat." But my wife, unaccountably, nixed that.

The name Cornucopia was chosen because I planned for Her to be a major goddess in Neo Mythos, which, if this exceedingly smbitious project had come to pass, would have been nothing less than a rewriting of the West's stock of myths and legends.

PS: We are planning to hsve three more kids to use for body parts (for family use and for sale on the open market.)

My Solution Makes Things Worse.

My Solution Makes Things Worse.

Problem: Can't navigate in the dark. Get lost in my own bedroom.

Theory: If up in the night, switch on the lights, go for what you want without disturbing anyone - toilet, drink of water, cup of tea, bowl of ice cream. No problem!

Reality: The night is HUGE and the light switches are lost in the infinite folds of its immensity. Worse, the floor is cluttered with an infinite number of objects, these including an oil heater, my wife's sniper rifle, the surgical suite from daughter Cornucopia's dolls hospital, our cactus collection, a set of throwing knives, the needles of my extremely ancient army-issue sewing kit and an instructional manual called HOW TO BECOME AN EFFECTIVE SERIAL KILLER IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
Having gone through a truly nightmarish struggle to find two light switches, I decided the smart thing to do would be to leave them on, but, when I woke again, later in the night, the whole of the downstairs area was, unaccountably, an inscrutable mass of myriadddddddddddddddddddddsdddddd-option blackness.

My Wife Pleads for Mercy as she is Trampled

My Wife Pleads for Mercy as she is Trampled

"Nemutai," says my wife. "Nemutai!
She is protesting in Japanese, saying that she wants to sleep. She is proresting because it is now about 0130 and a large animal of some descriprion is trampling on her. The large animal is me, her husband. I am blundering around in the dark, trying to find the toilet but totally lost, and I keep treading on soft squishy things, such as my wife and daughter.
If you step on a small child and squash all the air our of her, as a general rule no lasting harm is donee, because she will eventually reflate and rhen be as good as ever. This is what happened to my three-year-old daughter Cornucopia, so, in the morning, I took her to the daycare center as usual.
Once back home, I hauled the following things downstairs: a mattress, a futon, two sheets, a blanket, a duvet and a pillow. Using that stuff, I set up a bed for myself in the living room, in front of the TV, and I plan to sleep there from now on, in the wild lands south of human civilization, where my brain-damaged dinosaur misdeeds will cause nobody any harm.
This exile, I must make clear, is self-chosen, not something inflicted upon me by my long-suffering wife or protesting daughter.

Our Criminal Family Plans Major Heist

Our Criminal Family Plans Major Heist

Three-year-old daughter Cornucopia is the genius who thought this one up. We were coming home from the daycare center and she started free associating in a very creative manner. and, by the time we sat down for dinner, she had the whole thing figured out.

This is how it works:

I go outside and stand under the moonlit sky. Corny gets up on my back. My wife then climbs up and stands on Corny's shoulders. My wife then, with one convulsive heave, hurls herself into the heavens, grabs hold of Mr Moon and pulls him down. He is ours!

Looks good on paper, and I'm expecting we'll be able to pull it off. But where will we stash the kidnapped moon?

My first thought was our lock-up garage, but then I remembered it's crammed full of illegal refugees, all slaves who escaped from Chinese brick kilns.

My ife swears blind that she never gave anyone our address, but they keep turning up. They mistakenly think we are a station on some underground railway for escaped slaves, and will help them get back to their beloved North Korea.
They are wracked with nostalgia for grass soup, roast tree stump, placenta stew, bird dung omelettes.

If you want to buy all 27 for your organ bank, I'm open to any reasonable offers.

Paris Hilton Endures Taser Rorture

Paris Hilton Endures Taser Rorture

My apologies to all my manye-mail correspondents who have been eagerly awaiting the launch of my new site paris-hilton-endures-taser-torture.kiwihughjapan,jp, but launch of the site has been delayed because of a technical problem.

The very first time Paris was tazed, her indiosyncratic reaction was to catch fife. Oily skin, I think - poor zit control.

Paris has since undergone a covert lobotomy at Hush Medics, a very discrete organ transplant outfit basdd in Ciudad Tequila, down in sunny Mexico, the place where our fist child will be born (we got secretly married two months ago in the Confederate city ofLynchopolis, marriage celebrant being Fred Presldey, a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
Paris is currently schdedulded to finish up with reconstructive surgery about five years from now. Post-lobogomy, she tases beaufifully!

Occult Knoswledge: Opening Plastic Bags

Occult Knoswledge: Opening Plastic Bags

Some lifevital knowledge is deliberately kept occult, ie secret, so GOD can be amused by watching us thrash around in helpless frustration as we struggle to accomplish Very Very Simple Tasks. Such as opening plastic bags.

If this, for you, is effortless, then Congratulations! I award you the Pripiltzi, glitziest and most coveted of all the merit badges in the city of Gorbograd.

For lesser mortals, my mission today is a Promethean one: to reveal to Humanity the Truth of exactly how those wretched supermarker bags can be Forced To Open.

Back in New Zealand, in my BBC Days (my Before Brain Cancer Days), I could never figure this out, until the day when God, operating in His Japdester mode, fooled me with a False Revelation.

In the supermarket I was permitted to see a cashier place the top of a plastic bag between the flat palms of her two hands and riffle it this way and that until the static electricity which was clamping it shut gave up the Unholy Ghost and consented to answer.
That, I thought, was the Answer. But it was not. Rather, it was a Japester joke. Sometimes effective but usually not. this year, there are times when I have become so frustrated by an incalcitrant plastic bag that I have lost my onion and have physically ripped it apart.

Sometimes, oldsters of Alzheimer' Age will embarrass me by intervening and, seemingly effortlesssly,doing the necessary riffle.
Then, eaarlier this week, an alert cashier came all the way from her station to assist me. I watched closely so I could emulate, and saw her briefly dab each hand on something before doing the riffle.

Later, after she had departed, I found aa damp flannel on the packing table.

Experimenting at home, I found that if you spit on the palm of each hand then the palm will stick to the bag and the riffle succeeds.

Do NOT do fhis in your local supermarket because (aa) the locals may use it as an excuse for a pogrom afainst members of your ethnicity, and

(b) the cops may arrest you under the terms of the Avian Flu Pandemic Prevention Protocols.
Today, in the supermarket, I dabbed decorously at the damp blud flannel provided, riffled, then headed home feeling very pleased with myself.

Subsequently my ego took a knock when I got totally lost in broad daylight in streets very near our house, and blundered around for the better part of an hour before finally finding the gateway that is ours.

POEM FOR MY WIFE

I am ragged with depletion.
I am lost.
The night
Has a billion spaghetti junctions.
In the wraith worlds of my mind, my departed daughter,
A tattered ghost,
Who does not recofnize me.
In the bowels of my confusion
The cool grace of your slender hand
Meets me, calms me,
Comforts me ...
And leads me into the light,
My salvation.

Fascist British state hauls cute girl creative writer into court

An airport worker who wrote poems about beheadings is the first woman to be found guilty under new terror laws.

Samina Malik, who liked to call herself a "lyrical terrorist", called for attacks on the West and described "poisoned bullets" capable of killing an entire street in her poetry.

The 23-year-old Muslim wrote of her desire to become a martyr and listed her favourite videos as the "beheading ones".

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=492460&in_page_id=1770]

Paris Hilton interview: Jail Life, Drugs, Mystery Meat?

Paris Hilton interview: Jail Life, Drugs, Mystery Meat? Author Hugh Cook interviews jailbird Paris Hilton, the girl who likes to cuddle up with a bottle in a car.

HUGH: What did you like about jail?
PARIS: Like?
HUGH: Well, there must've been something.
PARIS: "You're kidding."
HUGH: Okay, a few things you didn't like. Off the top of your head ..."
PARIS: Uh ... Mystery meat. Coke cut with talc. Pre-loved toilet paper."
HUGH: "Uh ... exactly how mysterious is the mysery meat?
PARIS:
Sometimes not nearly mysterious enough. I mean, sometimes it's just like, bleh, yuk, what IS this? Tinned baby snot? Second-hand placentas from the maternity hospital just down the road.
"But other times, gugh, I've seen ants, flies, spiders, bits of roach, once a wasp, and then there was this wee little tail, kind of cute but sad, some poor little mouse ... then I'm pulling on this thing and WHOA! it's not little at all, it's fucking huge, and at the end ofit there's this huge chunk of grickly-grackle stuff with bones and furs and legs, two legs, it's a Fucking Rat, the, how do you call it? - the bugger port?
HUGH: Hindquarters?
PARIS: No, we're not talking quarters.It was at least half, half a rat sitting on my plate!
So S I complain to the kitchen, and Jane, this mouthy black bitch, she says to me, Piss off, ho!"
HUGH: Ho, huh?
PARIS: Yes, can you believe it ? I mean, she's a junky, a coke whore - say, can I call this big fat bitch from watermelon a nigger.
HUGH: Uh, I'd have to check our style book but, off the top of my head, no, I rather think the answer will turn out to be no. We will retranscript the interview to reflect the fact that Ms Hilton went to the food preparation area to remonstrate about some unrequested protein additives, and the servitor, who was a member of that group which the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People exists to serve, had the temerity to make a remark suggesting that the sacred Shrine of aLove ensconced between Ms Hilton's thighs was a slutty piece of Las Vegas. Okay, Paris, another question. Now you've had a taste of reality - I mean real reality - how does it stack up against reality TV?

PARIS: "REALITY? It's bad. I mean, I can't tell you how bad it is. It's gruesome. Finally you understand why drugs were invented."
HUGH: And have you been able to get drugs in prison?
PARIS: Not as such, But they have this weird Chinese toothpaste, and if you eat four or five tubes of it - they're really small suckers - you can go to some really strange places in your head.

Japanese Cannibal Death Cult Temple

Japanese Cannibal Death Cult Temple

Friday, my wife, daughter and I went to visit our local branch of TrioTheo, the Church of the Three-personed God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

It was founded about two thousand years ago by a guy called Judas Iscariot, who went with his buddies, got hold of the body of a dude named Jesus Christ ,who had been put to death by the Romans, took the body to the Garden of Gesthemene then consumed it in a riotous cannival feast washed down by enormous amounts of red wine.

Parenthetically, let it be noted that the question of who it was that went and wasted JC is disputed, with some people blaming the Scientologists, with some saying the Mormons did it, and with one big-name Australian actor pointing the finger at the Jews.

The oldest and most traditional branch of Cult Cannibal is based in Rome,and is known, for that reason, as the Church of Rome. Currently, it is presided over by an arthritic old guy named Benedict, one of the last living survivors of Hitler's Germany.

In the most sacred rite of the Church of Rome, a priest does some miraculous mumbo-jumbo, lightning descends from Heaven, the Voice of God is heard to speak, and a great quantity of red wine is converted into blood.
Scientific tests have demonstrated that the alcholic content of this blood is 67% and the whole congregation gets roaring drunk on it.

In a matching miracle, ordinary bread is transformed ino raw and bleeding chunks of the sacred flesh of Jesus Christ, which the Congregation battens on and devours.
This cannibal ritual is now outlawed in Japan because of fears about BSE. If you read GodBook, the sacred tract of the Cult Cannibal, you find no evidence that Jesus, while alive, was ever tested for BSE, and the Japanese authorities rightly take the view that it is better to be safe than sorry.

Our local church is a Protestant Church. Back in the days of the Reformation, a guy named Martin Luther set out to break the monopoly that the Church of Rome had on boozing, and it is thanks to his success that the Western world now has bars on every street, places where you can have direct access to the bar without any interfering priest demanding to act as an intermediary.

Anyway, today we did not go to the death temple for a drunken cannibal feast but for a simple sing-song followed by the simplest of all imaginable sermons - a''"God is made happy by little kids who believe hin Him" - and by a distribution of gifts to little girls in honor of ssSchichi Go San, the Japanese festival for girls agedd three, five and seven. My daughter received a Santa Claus ballpoint pen which plays jolly Christmas music when you turn it on; unfortunately, there is Absolutely No Way Of Turning It Off.

Note that this Christmas we will all have the privilege of watching a movie about Santa's loser brother Fred (the severely dysfunctional Fred, the loser). Advance reviews would have us believe that this is the Worst Movie Of All Time, but I find it hard to believe that it could possibly be worse than the movie I found online recentrly and unwisely downloaded, SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS.s

Reality versus Dream

Reality versus Dream

I am now facing a problem that might be fun in fiction but which is no fun at all in real life: the boundaries between reality and the real world are not always clear.

Routinely, I get up in the night, leave my futon in the family bedroom on the third floor, head downstairs to use the toilet or get a drink of water from the kitchen, and end up getting lost in some huge and incomprehensible architectural space which is masquerading as part of our house.

Some days ago, for example, I found myself in a deserted movie theater. Was I dreaming? I put my hand down and explored, finding a broad wooden board which stretched away to a set of movie seats.
There was thick gritty dust on the board, totally real. This could not be a dream. Yet there was no place in our pristine Japanese house which had accumulations of filth.

In the morning, I compared the real house with my dream, and surmised that perhaps I had sleep-walked into my wife's personal room.

Then, last night, I ended up on the stairs going down. Uncertain of the footing, I shuffled my foot along the stair, questing for a suspected abyss. And felt grit.

Today I checked the stairs and, yes, there was thick gritty dust on a stair which, when I sat on it, was broad, and could have doubled for the broad board in my earlier movie house dream.

I recalled that my wife had optimistically chosen to divide the vacuum cleaning duties between the two of us, but I, sad to say, had taken the cleaner nowhere near the stairs. Today I at least cleaned up that grit, forensic evidence of God knows what kind of diabolical activity on the part of my imagination.

Given that I live in a dislocated reality, the last thing I need is a dislocated a logical fantasy, but that is what I have found online, ELEPHANTS DREAM, in which two weird hominids escape from somewhere and exit sanity into a disconcertingly weird world, the sensibility of which reminds me of ERASERHEAD.

If I can ever figure a way to describe what is going on, then I will write a review of this.

Private quiz show: Paris Hilton versus Eric Prince.

?Private quiz show: Paris Hilton versus Eric Prince.

Hugh: Okay, Eric, your starter for five poins: pleae read the word on the card with the correct foreign pronunciation.

[Disappointingly, the founder and CEO of Velociraptor Global does an effortless take-down of the challenge word: VERSACE. From this one deduces that he has been shopping with Paris at least once, and one wonders what pretty things she chose do dress him up in.]
Hugh: Okay, Paris, here is the globe the Material Girl recommdended you buy. A steal at a cool $750,000.
The globe, which used to belong to one A. Hitler, was found in the course of the recent excavations associated with the removal of Lenin'w body from Red Square.

Paris: (uncertainly) This is like, uh, thingy...? Planet Earth?
Hugh: Right, Mrs President, correct. It is indeed Thingy. Now, how can we get to Thingy from where we presently are?
There is a long and somewhat sullen silence until Paris, after bludging another hit of cocaine from Hugh - with this girl you definitely need to have your incentive scheme in place - finally surfaces an answer.
"It's a trick question, isn't it, you ratbag? We're on Thingy alredy, aren't we?
Hugh concedes that this is so, but refuses to let Paris have any more nose candy. He also reminds Paris of two things:

1. This time he brought hi s Taser along;
2. He does NOT like being called "ratbag."

In revenge for the ratbag comment, Hugh challenges Paris to find Africa on the globe.

After a LONG pause, something suddenly clicks, and Paris fingers, in rapid succession, Australia, Brazil, Alaska and Antarctica.
Hugh sighs, and reaches for two things. One is the pack of brand ID cards ... guess the logo from the small visible fragment ...and the other is a similar pack featuring foods which have too many calories to eat.

"Okay," he says, "let's continue."

If you can teach elementary school in Japan you can teach anything ... right?
The bad point about being junior life coach is that he gets paid less than a tenth of what Madonna is raking in. The good point is that he is not, as a rule,required to spend very much time one on one with Paris.
Hugh notes that Eric I still fooling with the Glock which he (perhaps unthinkingly) pulled out after Hugh made his (in rerospect, regrettablea) Taser remark.

This is going to be, Hugh thinks, yes, another of those long nights.

IntroducingPresidential candidate Pafis Hilton.

?IntroducingPresidential candidate Pafis Hilton.

It's early days yet, but things are firming up. The team will include Madonna (senior life coach), Eric Prince (vice president), Ron Wood (Eric's life coach) and horror writer Dean Koontz (philosopher).
Alan Greenspan will be "my money guy - do you know he doesn't even need to count on his fingers!?
Pafis was devastated to learn that John Lennon could not be appointed White House minstrel because he's dead. Ditto her second choice, much-lamented rapper Tupac Shakur.

ONCE PARIS is President, some adjustments will be made to reality.

The Statue of Liberty will be remodeled in Paris's image.

In one interesting legislative change, circumcision will be forbidden in the United States, as both Paris and Eric prefer their men uncu.
As Vice, Eric will be allowed to be Presdient on one day a year, always on his birhday, which is June 6. This will be a great annual payoff for him. Not only will he get to sleep in the Oval Office in the day, but, that night, he will be permitted to sleep in Paris's bed, and to do some of that anatomical variations stuff with her.
On his first presidential birthday, Eric will grant his wife a pardon for all the crimes of which she has been convicted. This will include, of course, inappropriate combinations of alcohol use and automobile use.
In addition, Erid will quietly pardon her for those little incidents which kind judges have, over the years, been persuaded to suppress.
That embarrassing shoplifting incident in Duluth, for example (two packets of Twinkies, one cheap pair of left-handed scissors and a pair of cheap nylon pantiess in a really strident purple.
Also that incident involving a very drunken NASA astronaut, a Catholic priest, a rinpoche (ie a monk high in the hierarchy of Tibetan Buddhism), Karl Rove's private smack dealer and two of Janet Jackson's bodyguards.
While President, Paris will retain her high profile role as the leader of Crusade, and will continue to work toward the goal of a global takedown of Islam by the combined forces of the West. (We have 3,786 mefatons ... you guys?
Locally, in the States, all adherents of Islam will be forced to convert to Pentecostal Christianity. Those who resist will be (a) be sterilized, (b) have their right hands cut off and © undergo a lobogomy.

On the immigration front, Puerto Rico will become a state, and all illegal immigrants will be forced to live there. They will be microchipped and tattoed with a scarlet "I" on the forehead, so they will be caught easily if they escape.
Escapees will be sent to the North Dakota death camps, such as Takedown (unique sales point: target ranges with live humans as targets), Primal (your chance to hunt the most dangerous game of alla), Rejuvenate (yes, do, with whatever it is you need by way of spare parts - kidneys, liver, lungs, hearr, intestines, bone, skin - we have it on the hoof and ready for the cutting.
Oh, and for minority tastes, the camps Anal Virfins, Grievous Bodily Harm and De Sadean Recreations. In each case, the names say it all.
Regarding the homeless, "bread and circuses" will be Paris's policy. Every wandering street person will be given a loaf of bread, a hotel voucher good for a three-night stay and a referral to a lab which does drug tests on human beings.
Anyone who doesn't cooperate will end up dying in prime time on the reality show Gladius Redux. (Unique selling point: everything you see is real. Lions, tigers, swords, knobkerries, razor blades - say goodbye to SFX and say hello to the world of the real.

George W. Bush Constitution speech: full text (November 2007)

George W. Bush Constitution speech: full text (November 2007)

President Bush came to the steps of the Capitol yesterday (wED 7 Nov 2007) for a Second Inaugural do-over. Here is the text of his revised speech:

ON this day, when we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution, we must remember: Constitutions don’t work for everyone. It’s not a one-size-fits-all type deal.

We are led, by recent events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the repression of liberty in other lands.

Once I thought my daddy was a wimp for cuddlin’ up real close with dictators, tradin’ stability for freedom. But now I gotta admit, that’s a darn fair trade. As I told Mushy last night on that cool, high-tech videophone I got in the Sit Room, the best hope for expanding peace is expanding dictators.

In America’s ideal of freedom, we are ennobled by a heart for the weak. But we must also have a heart for the strongmen.

Sometimes when the soul of a nation speaks, we must listen. But if that soul is housed in a bunch of trial lawyers wearing identical dark suits and calling my man Mushy a “dog,” I say, bring on the batons. Police tear-gassing lawyers is really just a foreign version of tort reform, which I support.

Those lawyers should be in jail. Mushy told me they were reckonin’ to represent Osama when General-General catches him. Which will be any day now. He’s a man of his word.

I don’t blame Mushy for dissolving that disloyal Supreme Court. When I needed to subvert the democratic process during the 2000 recount, my Supreme Court was totally supportive.

House arrest for that fired chief justice sounds very relaxin’, especially if he’s got a feather pillow.

I think Mushy should put Benazir Bhutto under house arrest in Karachi. They call her “a kleptocrat in an Hermès scarf.” I call her a chaos magnet.

She’s slippery. One minute she’s overlooking Mushy’s flaws, the next she’s appalled by them. I’m not even sure what nickname to use. Her friends called her Pinky at Harvard and Bibi later. I think I like Pinky. From the day of our foundin’, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

But I looked into Mushy’s eyes and saw a master, a man committed to helping us fight terror. And sometimes we must fight terror with tyranny. He promised me he’d be a more low-key autocrat, stop wearing that scary uniform — at least when he’s playing tennis.

From now on, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of tyrannical movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending democracy in our world so liberty can thrive.

We will persistently clarify the moral choice before every ruler and nation: Choose oppression, which can work, as we see with our Arab allies, or freedom, which — O.K., I admit it this once — we can’t make work in Iraq.

America’s influence is not unlimited. And unfortunately for the oppressed, Mushy’s open defiance is helping to further undermine America’s influence. But we will use what influence we have left to pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains and that human beings aspire to live at the mercy of bullies.

I’m gonna have to sweet-talk Laura on coming around on Burma. I might even have to kiss her hand, like Sarko.

Condi was very worried about Mushy suspending the Constitution, but Vice says Constitutions are for sissies. He doesn’t see anything wrong with Mushy’s press blackout. He thinks we can learn a few lessons from him.

Vice says if we had someone decisive like Mushy in Iraq instead of those floppy Iranian puppets we put in power, we’d be a lot better off.

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will ignore your oppression and excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will not stand with you.

The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to mistrust them. Stop your journey of progress and justice, and America will not only walk at your side, we’ll give you billions of dollars and lots of big-ticket stuff, like F-16s — no strings attached. And we’ll take you at your word that you have no intention of using them against India.

In the long run, there is justice without freedom, and there can be human rights once the human rights activists have been thrown in the pokey.

Three years ago, I believed that the most important question history would ask us was: Did our generation advance the cause of freedom?

But now I am older and wiser. I know that the most important question history will ask us is: What’s a little martial law between friends?
Next Article in Opinion (6 of 20) »

Tips
To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.

Past Coverage
* U.S. Is Likely to Continue Aid to Pakistan (November 5, 2007)
* U.S. Is Likely to Continue Aid to Pakistan (November 5, 2007)
* Pakistan Rounds Up Musharrafs Political Foes (November 5, 2007)
* Pakistani Sets Emergency Rule, Defying the U.S. (November 4, 2007)

Related Searches
* Musharraf, Pervez
* Pakistan
* Bhutto, Benazir
* Martial Law
Next Article in Opinion (6 of 20) »

MOST POPULAR
* E-Mailed
* Blogged
* Searched
1. Curing Insomnia Without the Pills
2. Causes of Death Are Linked to a Persons Weight
3. M.I.T. Sues Frank Gehry, Citing Flaws in Center He Designed
4. Maureen Dowd: Mushy: Handsome in Uniform
5. Thomas L. Friedman: The Dawn of E2K in India
6. M.I.T. Sues Architect Frank Gehry
7. Food 2.0: Chefs as Chemists
8. America's Music: Plugging In to Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord
9. Gay Muslims Find Freedom, of a Sort, in the U.S.
10. Suffering, Evil and the Existence of God
Go to Complete List »
1. Cable Channel Nods to Ratings and Leans Left
2. Conservative Authors Sue Publisher
3. A Vote for Justice
4. Different Rules When a Rival Is a Woman?
5. Rosie O'Donnell in Talks to Join MSNBC
6. Police Battle Lawyers in Pakistan
7. Google Makes Its Entry Into the Wireless World
8. Uncle Sam on the Line
9. Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too.
10. Ousted Justice in Pakistan Urges Defiance
Go to Complete List »
1. bush
2. election
3. immigration
4. china
5. iraq
6. global warming
7. india
8. education
9. health care
10. marathon
Go to Complete List »

nytimes.com/travel

Seaside hotels for under $100 a night

Also in Travel:
* Where Jimmy Buffet was inspired
* Where European windsurfers go
* Where whale watchers go


Inside NYTimes.com

Dining & Wine »

Music »

Opinion »

U.S. »

Business »

Opinion »

Outrageous? He’s Heard That Before

America’s Music: Worship Rock

Gay Muslims Find Some Freedom in the U.S.

Special Section: Business of Green

Video: Animating ‘Yours,’ a 1945 Film and Song
Home
* World
* U.S.
* N.Y. / Region
* Business
* Technology
* Science
* Health
* Sports
* Opinion
* Arts
* Style
* Travel
* Jobs
* Real Estate
* Automobiles
* Back to Top
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

George W. Bush says America's gameplan is to support tyranny and suppress freedom.

George W. Bush says America's gameplan is to support tyranny and suppress freedom.

No kidding.

The text of his recent speech on the Constitution says, in part:

[From now on, it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of tyrannical movements and institution s in every nation and culture, with the "ultimate goal of ending democracy in our world so that liberty can thrive."
The New York Times briefly had the full text of the speech online here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/opinion/07dowd.htmlhp

Some quoted material:

[We are led, by recent events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the repression of liberty in other lands.]

[Condi was very worried about Mushy suspending the Constitution, but Vice says Constitutions are for sissies. He doesn’t see anything wrong with Mushy’s press blackout. He thinks we can learn a few lessons from him.

Vice says if we had someone decisive like Mushy in Iraq instead of those floppy Iranian puppets we put in power, we’d be a lot better off.]

W. has obviously opened his big mouth a lot further than he should have done, so, if I were Vice, I'd seriously think about taking w. for a spot of quail shooting. Or placing him in bondage down in the White House dungeon so I could stick a red-hot poker up his bum.

Anyway, here is w, laying the bottom line on the line:

[All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will ignore your oppression and excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will not stand with you.]

After I became an adult (he magic moment was, I believe, 1507 on 27 October 1998) my adult self was embarrassed to think back to the adolescent excesses of my teenage years, particularly the immaturity of the unthinking enthusiasm with which I bought into the anti-American line.

But now, reflecting on what W has just gone and said, my feeling now is that when I, as a teenager, bought into the anti-American line, I was not sold a bill of goods.

Camelot Couple

Camelot Couple

KFK is dead and Jackie O is no more, but, looking at the royal couple, rapturously in love and soon to be married, we know that Camelot will come again, and in our lifetime.

He is the romantic swashbuckling hero Eric Prince, CEO of the mercenary outfit Velociraptor Global (formerly Blackwater.) Right now his victorious forces, having crushed islamic radicals in the city of Fatwa-Purdah, are pursuing fugitives into the high mountains of Kashmir, aided by the battle lasers in the company's orbital forts.
She is Paris Hilton, the svelte and glamorous presidential contender, the ideal candidate.
She is a genuine hero, the bold and audacious Marine Corps commander who led United States forces to victory in the battle of Baghdad. She is a genuine saint, having devoted thirty year of her life to selflessly working with lepers in the horror lands of Rwanda. She is the glamorous film star, costarring with Eric in the DVD ANATOMICAL VARIATIONS, sales of which are soaring. (Though it must be admitted that some people's comfort levels have been exceeded by the central Abu Ghraib segment, with its human sex pyramids amd its raucous packs of Extremely Large and Erectile Dogs.
Of the couple, she is the heavyweight, the President for Life of Crusade. It was her idea, her brilliant concept: one last Crusade by the united strength of the West.
Last time round, some Muslim men were neglectfully left unkilled, some Muslim women inexplicably left unraped, some shops not looted, some graves undesecrated, some mosques not razed to the ground.
This time round, though, No More Mister Nice Guy!
Actual war has not yet been joined, but the Crusade concentration camps are up and running on North Korean soil, currently perpetrating the Robert Mugabe Memorial Genocide.
Meantime, Crusade's dearh squads are stepping up their increasigly efficient slaughter of illegal immigrants.

The wedding is now just one month off, and the Government of the Republic of India has graciously granted permission for the Blessed Pair to hold their nuptials at the Taj Mahal, in Agra. While Paris is in town, Agra's drink drive regulations will conveniently be suspended.
The Pope has respectfully declined an invitation, but King Charles and Queen Camilla will be on hand. As will distinguished Supreme Court judge Clarance Thomas, whose recent withdrawal from the presidential race has made Paris's victory almost certain.

Here in Baghdad, the temperature is a balmy 50 degrees Centigrade, significantly less than Fahrenheit 451. The Baghdad Hilton, a blimp-based luxury hotel, serenely floats five hundred meters overhead.
"A dream come true," says Eric.
"My darling," says Paris, and they kiss.
Paris Hilton, the all-round Renaissance girl: fashion model, author, product endorser and a brand in her own right. And, very soon, our President.

ब्लैक Water

#black-water.txt

When I first showed up at Firebase Gung Ho, all those years ago, what really disconcerted me was not the incoming sniper fire - not even the round that wounded me - but the jet black water which came gushing out when you turned on a faucet.
Our BioWar guy assured me it was perfectly safe to drink, and mixed me up a medicinal dose of vodka (Finlandia, his favorite brand) and this liquid coal stuff which came guttering out of the tap.
More as a rite of passage than anything else, I drank it down, and woke up the next morning in a sleeping bag in the clinic. Woke naked as I' d lost everything, including my socks, my underpants and my boots, by playing Fatwa, a kind of poker we used to have back then, back in the days of the War on Terror.
The Good Old Days, let me tell you. The best was when we took down Sammy the Sniper, who had been harassing the firebas e for a solid seven years.
The Colonel told me that since I was on the books as the official counter sniper, it was my job to take out Slippery Sam.
Which I did.
I arranged for Ms platagenet, our dumb blonde medical officer, to covertly be given a massive dose of a disinhibiting rape drug. Once you have that drug running in your veins, you can say goodbye to caution.
I knew, approximately, which bombed-out bunker S the S was hiding out in, so I got a rifle with a big telescopic site and one single large-caliber round. I was going to be shooting at a range of over a thousand meters but, hey, I was the counter-sniper, right?
I arranged for a three-year-old kid to escape into the killing zone and for Ms Plantagenet to be on hand and to be enouraged to go to the rescue.
Which, drugged up to the eyeballs, she did.
In contravention of orders, the stuck-up bitch was wearing her captain'a crowns, which S the S would have identified through his own scope.

All he had was an AK47. aON balance, the best infantry rifle in human history, no doubt, but only really spot-on accurate out to 300 meters, so not exactly the optimal sniper rifle.
Still, she was an officer out in the open, so Sammy did his valorous best. I took my own sweet time lining up my shot, which smashed his shoulder, and that evening, after the Colonel left the communal bar and went to bed early, the guys gave me a small package which, when unwrapped, turned out to contain a knife (very small but very, very sharp), a knitting needle and a teaspoon.
"Careful," said one, "the edges are razor sharp."
Then they told me that Sammy was down in the generator room, and that someonewould drop by to wake me in time for my morning shift.
When I switched on the lights in the generator room, Sammy took just one look at me and, picking up on his situation, promptly started screaming.
He screamed a lot more before I was through with him, let me tell you.
I worked on him for a solid eighteen days until Father O'hare came in with a .44 and shot my poppet in the head so the Colonel could take a look and certify that the prisoner had died of an accdental gunshot wound.
I'm happy to say that the three-year old kid I'd used for my Sammy stunt survived, and that Ms Plantagenet adapted so well to her two artificial legs that she was ultimately able to swim (albeit only on the beginners slopes.)

Those were the good old days, believe you me. But they all came to an end after the fuss over the Abu Graib Reunion Conference, you know, when all those guys had those really big fish hooks shoved down their throats by special hand-crafted applicators, and were then dragged across cactus-infested minefield desert on thin wire ropes.
That was just after the election of Abraham Provo, if you remember. And, once Mr Mormon was in the White House, that was it.

He was the guy who instituted the Cheops Program, so every prisoner was welded into an individual cast iron pyramid and kept there indefinitely on a daily ration of one pannikin of vitamin-reinforced racoon's urine and two quarts of Lima Beans.
And the black watera? Oh, that was a kind of joke. By the time I joined, the outfit was alreay the FSF, the Federal Supplementary Force. But our roots were in a private corporation called Blackwater, run by the guy with the poncy name, you know, Royance Rajah, that was it ... in it? Pardon? Oh, the black water? Some kind of macrobiotic vitamin supplement that Paris was trying to get everyone to indulge in. That was the year before she made the mistake of banning hamburgers, and go assassinated by the nuke which took out her convoy on the road to Dallas.

Me? No, I never had the pleasure. Anyway, I don't begin to believe those rumors.

Mr Rajah? Is that a serious question? He's now the National Supervisor of North Korea.

You know, to tell the truth, when Paris won, I thought we were doomed. But nuking PyongYang, that made the whole North Korean weapons of mass destruction problem go away.

And nationalizing the North's organ donor resource, that was simply brilliant.

And then the simple way in which Bubble Girl wrapped up the whole ball of wax - have Rajah kidnap the entire Islamic leadership and Cheops the whole lot north of the Yalu River in Camp Macarthur, that was peerless.

What? No, I don't regret that and I never will. That baby was a bit too much on the bony side, if you want my honest opinion.S

I am Paris

I am Paris.
My profession?
Rich girl.
I am a woman.
Obscenity Control has detected
EXACTLY what is playing in your filthy mind.
Get your perverted imagination off
My immaculate glands.
I am not like that at all.
I am a lipstick
Seven Empire State Buildings tall,
A tracer round that God intends
To smear across the universe.
My Taj Mahal is open.
I am flat on my back.
Take your nasty masturbatory hand off your doodling stick
And ATTEND TO ME!
How DARE you touch me there?
You presumptuous prick!
Take yourself off to the zoo
And go fuck a giraffe.
My problem?
My Nobel Prize for Peace
Went severely under-reported
How's that for starters?
A photo? Okay, then, pass it over, let me see.
LET ME SEE!!
Yes, that was me, the bad girl,
But that was then, and thiS is now.
When I finally get to Rwanda, then,
Then you will see what I can do!
I need an arena.
Milan, Darfur,
The porning eye of the video camera,
These are NOT my Colloseum.
Pardon? How does that relate to anything?
I have to tell you that Focus Control reports
That YOUR ATTENTION IS SLIPPING.
A question? Oh, okay ... if you really must.
No, thank you, I have no significant nostalgia for jail,
None at all.

Things Paris Hilton Might Like to buy in Tokyo

Things Paris Hilton Might Like to buy in Tokyo:


My wife asked me about Paris Hilton and her sister, and what they were doing in Tokyo. I didn't even know that Paris has a sister, but it turns out that she does - Nicky, pictured. The two have been in Town so Paris can judge a beauty competition. And, of course, go shopping.

You'll be pleased to hear that Paris just LOVES Tokyo shopping. (So do I - especially the great range of international chocolate bars at Seijo Ishi.

So what kind of things might Paris buy in Tokyo ... some ideas follow ...

- tampons
- sanitary pads
- supplementary brain cells
- bigger tits
- five rounds of machinegun ammunition (tracer)
- authentic XP-compatible CD of MRI of someone's brain
- exotic Asian toothpaste (Chinese-made)
- exotic Asian children's toys (wooden, very brightly painted, Chinese-made)
- second-hand-brick kiln slave (as is, where is ... some reconsructive surgery yet to do.)

Hugh Seeks Public Archive of British World War One Service Records

Hugh Seeks Public Archive of British World War One Service Records

Dear Uncle Camelot,

Recently my father sent me a great collection of annotated photographs of some people in the family tree, and he asked me how I would feel about going online to use the Internet to track down details of the wartime exploits of a couple of my ancestors.

I was all for it, but have hit a brick wall, and am writing to ask if you have any idea of what organisation might have such records available.

Let me tell you who I am looking for an what I have found so far.

Ancestor #1 is my paternal grandfather, Gilbert John Cook, born 1893.

I found a page of links to national archives. The page was on a site run by the Imperial War Museum, London, and this led me to a repository of details on cemeteries.

Following the link, I was able to access and search the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

I used the search box on this page:

http://www.cwgc.org/

That search was a failure, so I looked for Ancestor #2, Walter Butler. Killed in the First World War, I believe.

I got the following details for him:

[His rank is private, his service number is 8208, his date of death is 28/12/1914 (28th day of the 12th month rather than 12th day of the 28th month, meaning that he died just after Christmas - bummer!), dead at age 37, Royal Irish Regiment, United Kingdom. The grave/memorial reference is Panel 1 and the cemetery/memorial name is PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL.]

Google told me:

[The Ploegsteert Memorial stands in Berks Cemetery Extension, which is located 12.5 kilometres south of Ieper town centre,]

I took "Ieper" to be "Ypers," which I understand the soldiers of the First World War were in the habit of referring to as "Wipers."

What I know of Gilbert John Cook is that he was born in 1891, was wounded in the First World War but, fortunately, recovered in time to parcicipate in the battle of the Somme.

During the First World War he was in the Grenadier Guards and I believe he was in the artillery.

I found a site for the Grenadier Guards but it didn't give me what I was looking for.

I thought I'd send you this e-mail just in case you could think, off the top of your head, of a very obvious data repository which might not occur to me. Meantime, I will go on looking ...

* * *

Okay, the message has been sent, and has gone to my Uncle Excalibur, who lives in the British Isles and who has connections by way of blood and marriage to both the British military and the American military.

He's a cancer survivor, a part-time journalist and a late adoptor of the Internet, someone who got his first computer and his first e-mail address just this year.

Meantime, I will push on ahead with a search for service records world war one ... over 35,000,000 hits for that search, including this:

[British Army World War 1
www.ancestry.co.uk Start searching the British Army World War One Pension Records now]

http://landing.ancestry.co.uk/ukmilitary/collections.aspx?o_xid=30125&o_lid=30125&offerid=0%3a7935%3a0

The page above has an interesting set of links to other data repositories, including the 1901 census.

Site provides free facilities for building your family tree online, if you want to. There is a SEARCH button...

Okay, here we go ...

Gilbert John Cook, born 1893.

Gilbert John Cook, born 1893.

To look at records, you have to sign up. There's a free trial period if you want, but it's one of these things where you have to enter your credit card details ... so I decided to skip it.

This looks promising:

[Resources for study of the First World War: Tracing Service Personnel
Information regarding records for Service personnel who died in the First World War is available on ... The National Archives: World War One Medal Cards. ...
www.greatwar.co.uk/westfront/resources/trace.htm - 15k - Cached - Similar pages]

Goes to the National Archives, here:

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/westfront/resources/trace.htm

This site has books you can buy which will teach you how to search military records ... if you are seriously that interested.

With all respect to the honored ancestors, at this stage I think I'm going to head for bed.

Reply from my Uncle says, in part:

[There is a TV programme running on BBC at the moment where "celebreties" trace their ancestors and its amazing what archives are available if you only know where to look ... so I shall enquire and let you know.
Fond love Team Camelot
(Excalibur and Guineveve)

Hugh Seeks Public Archive of British World War One Service Records

Hugh Seeks Public Archive of British World War One Service Records

Dear Uncle Camelot,

Recently my father sent me a great collection of annotated photographs of some people in the family tree, and he asked me how I would feel about going online to use the Internet to track down details of the wartime exploits of a couple of my ancestors.

I was all for it, but have hit a brick wall, and am writing to ask if you have any idea of what organisation might have such records available.

Let me tell you who I am looking for an what I have found so far.

Ancestor #1 is my paternal grandfather, Gilbert John Cook, born 1893.

I found a page of links to national archives. The page was on a site run by the Imperial War Museum, London, and this led me to a repository of details on cemeteries.

Following the link, I was able to access and search the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

I used the search box on this page:

http://www.cwgc.org/

That search was a failure, so I looked for Ancestor #2, Walter Butler. Killed in the First World War, I believe.

I got the following details for him:

[His rank is private, his service number is 8208, his date of death is 28/12/1914 (28th day of the 12th month rather than 12th day of the 28th month, meaning that he died just after Christmas - bummer!), dead at age 37, Royal Irish Regiment, United Kingdom. The grave/memorial reference is Panel 1 and the cemetery/memorial name is PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL.]

Google told me:

[The Ploegsteert Memorial stands in Berks Cemetery Extension, which is located 12.5 kilometres south of Ieper town centre,]

I took "Ieper" to be "Ypers," which I understand the soldiers of the First World War were in the habit of referring to as "Wipers."

What I know of Gilbert John Cook is that he was born in 1891, was wounded in the First World War but, fortunately, recovered in time to parcicipate in the battle of the Somme.

During the First World War he was in the Grenadier Guards and I believe he was in the artillery.

I found a site for the Grenadier Guards but it didn't give me what I was looking for.

I thought I'd send you this e-mail just in case you could think, off the top of your head, of a very obvious data repository which might not occur to me. Meantime, I will go on looking ...

* * *

Okay, the message has been sent, and has gone to my Uncle Excalibur, who lives in the British Isles and who has connections by way of blood and marriage to both the British military and the American military.

He's a cancer survivor, a part-time journalist and a late adoptor of the Internet, someone who got his first computer and his first e-mail address just this year.

Meantime, I will push on ahead with a search for service records world war one ... over 35,000,000 hits for that search, including this:

[British Army World War 1
www.ancestry.co.uk Start searching the British Army World War One Pension Records now]

http://landing.ancestry.co.uk/ukmilitary/collections.aspx?o_xid=30125&o_lid=30125&offerid=0%3a7935%3a0

The page above has an interesting set of links to other data repositories, including the 1901 census.

Site provides free facilities for building your family tree online, if you want to. There is a SEARCH button...

Okay, here we go ...

Gilbert John Cook, born 1893.

Gilbert John Cook, born 1893.

To look at records, you have to sign up. There's a free trial period if you want, but it's one of these things where you have to enter your credit card details ... so I decided to skip it.

This looks promising:

[Resources for study of the First World War: Tracing Service Personnel
Information regarding records for Service personnel who died in the First World War is available on ... The National Archives: World War One Medal Cards. ...
www.greatwar.co.uk/westfront/resources/trace.htm - 15k - Cached - Similar pages]

Goes to the National Archives, here:

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/westfront/resources/trace.htm

This site has books you can buy which will teach you how to search military records ... if you are seriously that interested.

With all respect to the honored ancestors, at this stage I think I'm going to head for bed.

Five Rounds of Machinegun Ammunition

Five Rounds of Machinegun Ammunition

Here in Japan, you cannot, as a rule, find machinegun ammunition in the shops. In fact, the only place in the whole world where I've seen machinegun ammunition on sale is on Crete, when I visited that island back in the 1980s.

By then, the Second World War had been over for decades, but they still had surplus ordnance on sale, including machinegun rounds. Very large, incredibly rusty and as dangerous as all hell. If you're visiting Crete and are attracted by the nifty bang-bang toys they have on sale in the market stalls, put the Devil behind you and Just Say No. Stuff that was designed to go bang will still be able to go bang, even if it's half a century old. And, when it does go bang, you, or someone in your neighborhood, will end up maimed or dead.

The only other place I've seen old ammunition which you could take home as souvenirs was in the Solomon Islands. I was there with a peace time medical mission which was bent on eradicating the skin disease yaws from one particular place (easily done: everyone gets a single shot of benzathine penicillin, and your mission has been accomplished).

We camped by an airstrip built by the Japanese and later used by the Americans, and the whole place was one big junkyard arsenal.

Before we got on the plane to go home, the Regimental Sergeant Major lined us all up and gave us the No Bang Bangs lecture. He was going to be on the same plane, and he didn't want it exploding in midair.

Some time later, I learnt that some guys from my unit had, at considerable risk to their lives, gathered up rotten old Japanese ammunition and had opened it up, had scraped out the explosive, and had put the shell casings in their baggage to take home.

I never even thought of doing such a thing. Not even for a moment.

These memories were stirred when a parcel arrived this morning. Inside were some fragments of bricks; a plate of bone which, at a guess, was from a human skull; and five rounds of ammunition which I took to be for a belt-fed machinegun. To my eye, the caliber looked to be 7.2 millimeters or thereabouts.

The bullets had pretty pink tips which made them look not like rounds of ammunition but lipsticks, so I presumed they were rounds of tracer. When I was training in the Waiouru military base many years ago, I saw machineguns firing tracer at night. Very, very pretty. The machinegun blurts out its message, and the bullets reach out into the night, death's finger stroking for a target, and you see the tracer, caught by the wind, swaying off to one side, yielding to the wind.

Okay. Five rounds. How to get rid of them? Can't put them out with the trash. All our garbage ends up in an incinerator, and if you put unexploded ammunition into an incinerator then it will cook off, and suddenly you're taking incoming fire.

When I was a kid, we spent two years on Ocean Island, one of the Pacific Islands which was overrun by the Japanese during the Great Pacific War. (Ocean Island has these days reverted to its former name, which is Barnaba, and is a part of the free and independent nation of Kiribati (say KIRI-BASS), and is one of those places which are doomed to sink as the oceans rise with Global Warming.)

Just before our family arrived on Barnaba, someone living on the island had been shot dead by a round of old Japanese ammunition which cooked off in a barbecue fire at a beach. So, at the age of six, I got my first (and, in retrospect, my most important) Unexploded Ordenance Is A No-No message.

After some reflection, I wrapped the machinegun rounds in the same Chinese newspapers, put them into an envelope, sealed the envelope, addressed it to AFRICAN UNION FORCES, BAHAI, CHAD, AFRICA, then dropped it into a post office box, without bothering about postage.

Bahai, as I discovered while reading up about Darfur, is a locality in Chad, not far from the border with Darfur.

Okay. Mission accomplished!

Which reminds me that I still have one military mission as yet undone: to hunt down the service records for two of my military ancestors. I have been remiss, and days have ticked by while I have been allowing myself to be distracted by things which are irrelevant to my mission, such as Paris Hilton's curves, the Mobile Light Infantry's recruiting propaganda, and my wife's increasingly hair-raising tales of life as an enslaved brick kiln laborer in Darkest China.

Well. Not tonight, I think. But soon. I will take another shot at it. And see how far I get.

Paris Hilton's Body Disappoints

Paris Hilton's Body Disappoints

I somehow got the idea that Paris Hilton had at one time made a porn movie, so I took a shot at finding a torrent for it, and ended up successfully downloading this:

Mu +-+ ParisHilton torrent .avi.torrent

Though my bittorrent P2P software seems to be a bit hit and miss, th mystical Mu downloaded okay, so, with a trembling sense of boyish expectation, I played it ... and was stunningly disappointed.

The wretched thing is some kind of girlish food-themed song track with video of Paris (I presume that's her) chastely strutting her stuff and quacking something like "Shake a my body, move a my body ... oh HEY! Time out,
And a question: would you like to look at my ?
Yes, I would, but it's not there to be seen.
What is there to be seen is occasional shots of Paris seemingly eating or drinking. Okay, so we're in the food zone. Does this stuff count as soft porn for the anorexia bulemia mob?
I went to Wikipedea to see if I could find out anything more about the somewhere-asserted-to-exist Parisian porn movie ...

I tried the search "Paris Hilton Porn Movie" and ended up at a page for a movie called THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. The page says, in part:

[# During the scene in the strip club when Emile Hirsch is trying to figure out how to smoke the cigar, it falling out of his mouth is an accident. The director liked it so much, he left it in.
# Paris Hilton parodies this movie in her music video for "Nothing in This World" (2006), in which Elisha Cuthbert has a cameo.]
I then did a search for "Nothing in the World," which turns out to be a single by Atomic Kitten from the album LADIES NIGHT.
I then did an Internet search for "ParisHilton porn movie"

Over five million pages, the Google snippet for the first being this:

[Paris Hilton xxx video - porn movie
Paris Hilton famous porn video! So you heard the news about xxx tape with Paris Hilton on it? She doesn pretty hardcore stuff in this home made movie :) ...
www.celebsdb.com/Paris-Hilton-xxx-video-porn-movie/ - 7k - Cached - Similar pages]

From that page you can click to this page:

http://www.celebsunzipped.net/

... which gives you a montage of Paris in various clothed poses. One photo is an obscure piece of what might conceivably be food porn. Sh's biting some kind of biggish fruit, but I can't tell what it is. A choko?

Another snippet:

[News results for paris hilton porn video

Okay, we have innocent video of Paris in the shower here:

http://www.totallynsfw.com/videos/videos_paris_hilton_exposed_in_the_bath/


E Canada Now Hilton Threatens to Sue Porn Shop - 21 hours ago
Paris Hilton threatened to sue the manager of an adult video store in Toronto ... footage online documenting the socialite's October visit to the porn shop,]

[In the heated exchange, she can be heard asking for the manager, before saying, "I really want those taken down, because you guys can't use my image in a porn store, so you've got to take those down. I'm gonna call my lawyer now to sue the [bleep] out of this place."]

I think that's all the time I want to spend on this, though I wouldn't mind seeing authentic erotic video some time of Paris Hilton. (Or ditto of Madonna, George W. Bush, New Zealand's Helen Clerk or Queen Elizabeth the Second.

However, if you yourself wish to pursue the Hilton Truth, you might try this URL:

http://www.smutgremlins.com/parish-hilton-sex-scandal.html

The page says, in part:

[mutGremlins knows just how hard it is to find Paris Hilton nude pictures and Sex Movies online, So Smut Gremlins has put together some links to Paris Hilton - your favorite celeb. Our goal at SmutGremlins.com is to bring you some of the hottest naked celeb images, Including the scandulous Paris Hilton and Rick Solomon sex tape. In addition there are other nude celeb links here.]

You could also go straight to this page:

http://galleries.hotelheiress.com/a/095/index.php?id=11483

This has photos of (1) Paris Hilton, (2) her open mouth, (3) something I hope she is not going to be vicious enough to bite off.

If I somewhere find some torrid video of the Queen and George W. then I will tell you about it. However, in the interim, let me recommend a blow job video. This is free, innocent, witty, amusing and guaranteed not to gross anyone out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX9p3OZsiDA&eurl=http://www.vz5.net/index.pl?tag=childsex

THISISNOTAPEAR

Nova is dead: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Nova is dead: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Recently, while I was home alone in Yokohama, Japan, and my wife was away in the glitzy supercity of Shanghai, in the south of the People's Republic of China, I wondered what she might be getting up to in her comfortable hotel room, with no male family member to supervise her. Later, she confessed, so I found out.

Unleashed, she had chosen to dabble in the exotic, and had spent her evenings watching NHK Japanese-language TV sourced from the Land of the Rising Sun. On NHK she had seen news that Nova, the English Language Conversation School That Tried To Eat The Universe, had gone bust.

I was stunned. Could this possibly be true? After all those brave plans? I mean, the daring strategy of opening up branches in the systems of Alpha Proxima and Betelguese, and then pressing on to the Andromeda Galaxy. Had those meticulously wargamed plans somehow come unstuck?

My wife having returned, we assumed our own exotic homelife, spending long hours chasing the dragon (ie smoking heroin) and decrypting mysterious letters from the heartland of China.

(The most recent missive in the series was one that arrived today, a bill demanding payment for the abduction of a certain number of North Korean slave brick kiln workers, the expenditure of quite a large quantity of machinegun ammunition, and the wanton destruction of some very expensive high-tech landmines.)

Thus occupied, it was a while before I could go to Google News to check out the "death of Nova" story. But, when I did check, I found, to my horror and consternation, that it is true. Nova is no more.

[Japanese Lesson: How Do You Say, 'Taken for a Ride'? Wall Street Journal]

[Nova staff 'fed by students' The Age
Students feed foreign teachers as Japan school fails Reuters.uk]

[Union reveals plan for feeding unpaid starving NOVA teachers ...
Mainichi Daily News, Japan - ]

[Union representatives of the scandal-plagued NOVA Corp.' foreign employees met the foreign press in Tokyo on Thursday, to unveil their relief plans for their fellow instructors who struggle to survive while their wages remain unpaid.]

[The announcement at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo's Chiyoda-ku came a week after NOVA, Japan's largest English conversation school chain and the nation's largest employer of foreigners, applied for court protection from its creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law.]

[# NOVA plans to decide on firm to bail out business by next week
# Company-funded luxury office of ex-NOVA boss unveiled
# Ex-NOVA boss Sahashi suspected of profiting unfairly from video phone equipment]

[OSAKA -- Collapsed English-teaching company NOVA Corp. has unveiled the luxury office used by its former boss Nozomu Sahashi to the public, showing a bathroom overlooking the night scenery and expensive champagne and scotch whisky lined up at a bar counter.

The 330-square-meter office, which has its own sauna and tea room, is located on the top floor of a 20-story building in Osaka's Naniwa-ku. The 70 million yen makeover of the apartment and the monthly rent of 2.7 million yen was picked up by NOVA, but hardly any NOVA employees have been there.

"I had heard rumors about it, but I never imagined it was as luxurious as this," one surprised company employee who saw the office said.

A lawyer serving as a protective administrator for NOVA, which has sought court protection following its collapse, said the office was a symbol of how Sahashi had used the company's profits to his advantage.

"We decided to unveil it as a symbol of Sahashi's misappropriation from the company," the lawyer said.]

Meantime, in other news, Japan has abandoned its Indian Ocean mission. It has been supporting America's war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan by bravely refueling American warships at sea, but now the Japanese military is signing off, pleading terminal boredom, and citing the following statistics:

Japanese military personnel dead or injured as a result of Japan's valorous participation in the War on Terror: zero.

Naval battles at sea: zero.

Japanese fighters downed: zero. (But two of the latest and greatest crashed and burnt this week while test pilots were trying to land them at an airport in Japan.)

Medals for Valor awarded in the Long Campaign: zero.

Number of Japanese nationals kidnapped from Japanese soil by North Korean agents during the War on Terror: Unknown, but believed to be non-zero.

Number of Innocent Japanese Tourists kidnapped in the People's Republic of China and forced into brick kiln slavery: Unknown, therefore anything is possible. For all we know, could be in the tens of thousands.

[Japan ends 'war on terror' mission
AFP - 20 hours ago
TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Thursday ordered home ships engaged on a refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean, halting the close US ally's main role in the "war on ...]

While no Japanese nationals have died recently as a result of either the Nova meltdown or Japan's participation in the War on Terror, one enterprising Japanese video journalist made headlines here recently by getting himself killed in Myanmar.

[Hundreds bid farewell to Japanese journalist killed in Myanmar ...
International Herald Tribune, France - Oct 7, 2007
AP TOKYO: Hundreds of Myanmar expatriates in Japan joined family and friends at the funeral Monday of a Japanese journalist killed last month during the ...]

"Kenji Nagai, 50, was among at least 10 people killed in the Sept. 26-27 crackdown when soldiers fired automatic weapons into a crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators."

Meantime, back home in New Zealand:

[Naplam link to terror traning camps
TVNZ, New Zealand - Oct 15, 2007
A napalm bomb at an alleged weapons training camp in the Bay of Plenty prompted police anti-terrorism raids on Monday. A huge police operation saw raids ...]

Image of a pear appeared in the New Zealand Herald with the following rubric:

"Here's something to refer to next time someone complains of being described as pear-shaped, says Anna Curnow of her fruity find at Warkworth New World. "Funnily enough it was……"

Sidebar: if you Google "napalm recipe" you get "about" 740 pages.

Here's one snippet, the degenerate culture of the West evidently in full swing just before being taken down by the fanatical teetotalers of the Caliphate:

[Fuzzy Napalm recipe
A delicious recipe for Fuzzy Napalm, with grain alcohol, peach schnapps and orange juice. Also lists similar drink recipes.
www.drinksmixer.com/drink11613.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages]

Mysteriously, "starving Nova teacher" DID NOT MATCH ANY DOCUMENTS.

Report to the Sanctuary Council on Darfur

Report to the Sanctuary Council on Darfur

With humility and in a spirit of trembling awe, I bow my worthless head and petition the Council to accept my wretched report.

True to the vow that I took on my Day of Ordeal, I must cleave to the truth, though the truth is so shocking that my bowels turn to water as I approach it.

The truth, the bald and unvarnished truth, the hideous and unpardonable truth, is that the shocking rumors which have been filtering out from this planet are true.

The last of the ice has indeed retreated, and now the mammoths of Darfur are no more. The Holy Animal is gone from the Holiest Place, sanctified forever by the role it played in the Ascension of Vezaletta Hilton, the One Pure Virgin.

Where the Sacred Lords once roamed, now there is nothing but a slightly radioactive wasteland infested by hominid apes. On consulting with Survey's Evolutionary Potential report, these homids would seem to have evolved from a creature which the report choses to designate as "baboons," which are rated as being intrinsically smart, murderous, cruel, curious, destructive and barbaric.

In light of the hominid ape behavior which has been observed by my own humble eyes (see the appendix marked ATROCITY EXHIBITION and its companion piece, BODY COUNT DYNAMIC) these truly disgusting ape things have fulfilled all the worst that was latent in their baboon ancestors.

At the risk of causing offence, and conscious that I am breaching protocol by trying my hand at something which it is not legal for me to do, I hereby venture to put forth a suggestion.

The insult to the sacred sanctum of Darfur must be avenged. The blood of all our ancestors for the last ten billion years thirsts for the blood of appeasement.

I, humbly conscious of my status as living excrement, tentatively submit, therefore, that these unspeakably vile hominid apes be extirpated forthwith. A suitable method, I suggest, would be to crack their planet into rubble then add the waste rock to the asteroid belt which is, as I am sure you will all be aware, one of the leading features of the system of this unitary sun.

May the spirit of God be with you and with the mercy of Zad the Impaler, blessed be His name, be forever with your shadow.

[signed]
Hozola Rabista, Director, Deathspan Consultants Transgalactica.

A Great Way to get Arrested, Put on Trial, Fined and Jailed

A Great Way to get Arrested, Put on Trial, Fined and Jailed

If you want to get your hands on intellectual property, one elegant solution is to buy it. Or rent it.

When I wanted to watch the movie LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA I found an illegal copy floating around on the Internet. But, rather than committing a serious crime by making my own equally illegal copy of that pirated counterfeit, I went to Tsutaya, the local video store, and paid 400 yen to rent an authentic DVD copy for a week. (At current rates, 400 Japanese yen is roughly four New Zealand dollars, ie significantly less than US $4.)

The reasons why I hired a DVD instead of pirating one were two in number. First, Paris Hilton has already gotten out of jail, so what's the point of heading in that direction? Second (and more critically) the only software I have to get the illegal copy is frustrating and doesn't seem to work consistently.

The software in question is bittorrent 6.0, available as a free download from bittorrent.com.

This software works with torrents. A torrent is a file which points you in the direction of a data repository somewhere online, for example a video or an album in mp3 form. The torrent allows you computer to use a bittorrent program to download the bits and pieces and to put them together in a coherent fashion.

Many people (millions of them, at a guess) have been putting illegal videos and music CDs online, and have posted the torrents that you need to get at these stolen goods.

To find such torrents, you can do the following search on your favorite search engine:

[bittorrent "stealthis" free download avi English]

where "stealthis" is the name of the movie or album you want to steal.

The words "avi English" are advisable for two reasons. First, some files, particularly movie files, are in cryptic file formats which make no sense, so you can't figure out what software might be able to play them. By contrast, an avi file can be played by Microsoft's Media Player.

The word "English" is advisable because, unless you are a keen student of the Russian language, a Russian-language version of Shrek Three will be useless to you, particularly if you are in a shrekless position. (As I am, having never seen either Shrek One or Shrek Two.)

Having found the torrent for what you want, you then download the torrent itself, which is very small, and, when you click on it, the target file itself (the movie or the music CD) starts to download. All going well.

But, when I try this, a lot of the time nothing happens. My own copy of Bittorrent 6.0 seems to work on a "sometimes I will, sometimes I won't" basis, with "won't" the dominant player.

Presumably I'm doing something wrong and should find an online manual and read it, but I am oppossed to reading manuals on principle.

The standard reading of the Holy Bible is that we are all sinners because we have inherited the guilt of Adam and Even, who ate of the forbidden fruit, the fruit of the tree of knowledge, when they were in the Garden of Eden.

Well, if that's true, then, surely, as a payoff for being victims of the sinner label, we are entitled to having knowledge granted gratis, without going and reading any stinking manual.

That principle (plus a reading of the said stinking manual) will take you, given time, to Computer Enlightenment. Meantime, however, where torrents are concerned I am struggling in a decidedly Unenlightened state.

Which is not my fault. The Bible is quite clear: Adam and Eve went and did what they did off their own bat, and they are the ones who should carry the can.

After quite some trying to get at Clint Eastwood's latest project, I succeeded in downloading a trailer for LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, but, in the end, after many failures I gave up on stealing the whole thing, and went to Tsutaya to hire the DVD.