SemiConscious Dot Org

Apologies and mea culpas for the recent silence on the blog; new girlfriend, overloaded at work, fighting a cold, yadda yadda yadda. I don’t, unfortunately, have the time to give this news the vicious, fire-breathing tirade it deserves, but I felt the need to point it out nonetheless:

Could someone explain to me why my former employer is giving money to a conservative think tank that promotes the teaching of ‘Intelligent Design’ theory in schools?

Why the hell would a software mogul want to help our schools churn out dunces who mistake religious dogma for science? Hello, Bill! The continued success of your industry and this nation as a whole depend on a steady supply of people who can think critically and thus supply scientific innovation. Telling this future generation of prospective scientists that the contrast between what we want to believe and what the available objective evidence supports can be ignored is insane. We might as well teach Pastafarianism in schools. Hell, it has exactly as much supporting evidence as Intelligent Design.

I would expect this kind of bullshit from the Falwells and Robertsons of the world. But I expected better from a man whose entire fortune is a testament to what the spirit of scientific enquiry and technological innovation can achieve.

(Props to The General for the link.)

His life ended in February, but the saga comes to a close this weekend:

Hunter Thompson’s Remains To Be Shot Out Of Cannon

Thompson’s only son, Juan Thompson, stresses the respectful tone he wants to strike, but acknowledges that his father’s funeral wishes were unusual. Based on Hunter Thompson’s comments in a 1978 BBC documentary, fireworks launchers will arc his ashes from a 153-foot structure capped by a double-thumbed, red Fiberglas fist.

The ashes wrapped in brown craft paper – similar to a supermarket bag but smoother – are set to fly at sunset, according to Marcy Zambelli, spokeswoman for the prominent fireworks company that bears her family name and will handle the display.

Zambelli said the fireworks will explode 300 feet in the air with a white flourish before Thompson’s ashes fall to rest on the rustic property he called a “psychic anchor.”

Farewell, Herr Doktor. You were a true American Original, and we won’t see your like again. You waged a desperate, non-stop, 40 year guerilla war to save the Constitution and the American Dream from the Nixons, Reagans, Bushes, and other worthless scumsuckers who’ve tried to steal it from the rest of us. In the end, you failed and the weasels won, but not for lack of trying. DubYa and Cheney doubtlessly laughed like hyenas long into the night upon hearing of your death, but every time a kid reads Fear and Loathing for the first time, those bastards pick up one more Enemy For Life.

I would say “Vaya Con Dios,” but you didn’t believe in Dios and neither do I. So why not end it with your own words, which are at least as eloquent as anything you’ll ever find in the Bible:

I hung up and strolled out to the car. Well, I thought. This is how the world works. All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him. – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas : A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

And…..he’s back. It’s been weeks since I’ve posted anything. In my own defense, I can only plead that I had the best of reasons for neglecting to post: vacations, long visits to friends, weddings to attend, buttloads of work at the ol’ liberry, etc. But in truth, for the past two+ weeks, something very specific has been occupying all of my time. (Ok, not a something so much as a someone.) More on that later. Or probably not.

So in lieu of intimate details from my personal life, which I’m sure will bore everyone to tears, I’m going to talk about something far more interesting: music. Specifically, the reemergence of a musical genre which I often enjoy, but always assumed would be the absolute last to suddenly become hip again. Yes, we are, of course, talking about Prog Rock, that 70’s genre notable for its 20 minute opuses, flute solos, sci-fi stage sets, lyrics about space travel and Ayn Rand novels, and general overall pomposity. (Yes, I do realize that putting “Ayn Rand” and “pomposity” in the same sentence is redundant.) While I will admit (usually late at night and after many, many beers) to a certain affinity for some purveyors of this genre, I never expected to see anyone attempt to tackle it again.

My first inkling that a revival might be underway was last year, when Pitchfork, the Self-Appointed Arbiter of All That is Hip, favorably reviewed a bunch of reissued albums by hoary prog dinosaurs Yes. Perhaps it was the cover afforded by Pitchfork’s implied blessing of a genre it had always scorned, but the kids have suddenly started churning out the proggy goodness in droves.

The first volley was fired in March, with the release of Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta. A sprawling album consisting of 5 songs stretched out over 77 minutes and divided into no fewer than 15 separate movements, Frances is a worthy successor to the Yes/Rush/King Crimson school of prog: wild shifts in melody and tempo, long ambient passages, jazzbo freakouts, obscure, tongue-twisting lyrics; and shrieking vocals and guitar. Pitchfork savagely (and stupidly) panned the album, but thankfully, other reviewers got on the band’s wavelength and were able to judge the album on its actual merits, rather than their own indie rock-fueled prejudices.

Those who prefer the more trippy, druggy end of 60’s-70’s music would do well to check out the eponymous debut from Black Mountain. This one features liberal doses of Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, and a bit of Sabbath thrown in for good measure. Ironic since, judging by the band photo on the inside cover, not one person involved with the creation of this music was alive when Dark Side of the Moon was released, much less White Light/White Heat or Paranoid (not that I was alive for all of them, either.)

But so far, my favorite neo-prog album this year (discovered via uber-music fan KB ) is Dungen’s Ta Det Lugnt. Some (including myself on occasion) might argue that this isn’t really prog, but more psychedelic or acid rock. These guys are fully plugged into 1968; the music instantly evokes shades of Cream, Traffic, and especially White Album-era Beatles. The only drawback is that, since I don’t speak Swedish, I have no clue what the hell they’re singing about. They could be talking about eating babies for all I know, but with melodies this gorgeous, I could care less.

So, to sum up: Buy all these albums. Immediately. If listening to young musicians reverently echo and build upon sounds of the past is your thing, toss all that Strokes/Killers/Franz Ferdinand/Interpol crap in the garbage where it belongs, and listen to some folks revive music that actually deserves to be revived.

And while you’re at it, pick up In the Court of the Crimson King or Meddle or Close to the Edge or Low Spark, and get a taste of the original masters in all their pre-mammalian glory.

It started innocently enough, when we came across a link to a series of articles at Reverend Dobson’s website, offering helpful tips on spotting latent homosexuality in your preteen and heading off the insidious affliction before it can take root. Imagine, then, our horror when we looked at the list of homosexual “warning signs” and saw such items as

1. A strong feeling that they are “different” from other boys.

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

4. A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes.

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them “queer,” “fag” and “gay.”

Feeling different, disliking sports, and being bullied as a child make one gay? Good Lord! Everyone we know must be queer!

This terrifying revelation upset us so much that not even the soothing words of Saint O’Reilly or the latest wacky escapades of Umbert, the Talking Cartoon Fetus could cheer us up.

Luckily, however, like a Beacon in the Darkness, we stumbled across a site that promised to ease our confusion. The Biblical Worldview Test offers the Godly an assessment of their worthiness for Heaven, based upon their answers to a series of questions about politics, religion, and current events. At last! we thought in eager anticipation. A way to reassert our Christliness and ease our troubled mind.

Imagine, then, our shock and dismay upon taking the test and receiving our results:

Your classification is: Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Secular Humanist Worldview Thinker

Your score is: -49 points of 170 possible, -28%

Horror upon horror! In a test where 170 points equals a Guaranteed Express Ticket to Jeebusville, we scored negative forty nine!!! Hellbound! Why, if this test were true, we would be no better than those Godless Commie Liberals who viciously mock and slander mega-churches out of a mistaken assumption that football stadium-sized crowds and billions of dollars in income have nothing to do with Jesus.

However, we solved this apparent conundrum the way a good Conservative Christian always deals with issues that may contradict some tenet of their previously held faith: We decided, upon further reflection, that this test could not be what it purported to be, but must instead be a Trick of Satan, deliberately placed on the Internets to test our Faith.

Problem solved! Praise Nixon!

Alas, the Dog Days of Summer are upon us in full force once again. The weather has turned hot, and a huge rabble army of America-haters has surrounded Dear Leader’s Fortress of Solimitudery, demanding that he take a break from his hard-earned five week vacation to answer questions that are by nature ephemeral, ethereal, knowable only to the Mind of God. Questions like “What the fuck?”

Luckily, however, the Force of Righteousness, have, as always, rallied to Dear Leader’s defense, descending upon this Ungodly Maoist Fifth Columnist with all the vicious, spiteful defensiveness of people with absolutely nothing to hide or answer for. Oh, sure, the objectively pro-Saddam harlot has thrown back some barbs; apparently this trollop thinks the tired old “I Think I Know My Son A Little Better Than Michelle Malkin Does” argument holds any water with the ‘Murrican public! Obviously, she hasn’t gotten the memo that Saints Malkin, Drudge, O’Reilly, being filled with the Righteousness of Jeebus, are endowed with the power to read the minds of the dead! Glory!

Thankfully, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders have already trained their righteous guns upon this America-hating harlot. It will give them a constructive outlet for their Divine Bile, rather than wasting it fending off scurrilous, irresponsible attacks on their manhood. There is no more precious fluid in the universe than Divine Bile, you know.

Well, maybe one.

It is done. After three days of Moose Drool-fueled carousing, the Cardinal and his lovely bride are officially wed. The 1,000 mile round trip to the wilds of western Montana was a bit hairy, punctuated as it was by several lengthy detours along stretches of I-90 that had been closed due to forest fires. We sensed something malign and supernatural in the fires, as if Evil Elder Gods were attempting to thwart fate in some way. Thankfully, those insidious forces were turned back, and the wedding proceeded without a hitch.

Here is a picture of the Cardinal and his Groomsmen.

The General points us to a recently-released study stating that men whose masculinity are challenged are far more likely to support war, display homophobic attitudes, and buy SUVs. Our first issue with this “study” is the implication that any of the aforementioned activities are bad. Value judgements aside, the “study” is obviously false. Why? Because if such a thing were true, the implications would be monstrous. It would suggest that the 101st Fighting Kryboarders, that fearless, intrepid group of pundits and bloggers whose service to a war effort they loudly support and refuse to fight in consists of branding the war’s opponents as traitors to America, may not have the pure motivations we have all heretofore been ascribing to them. It would seem to suggest that they are, in fact, a bunch of chickenshit, Cheeto-stained, basement-living cowards and losers, wracked with massive, well-deserved insecurity about their own sexuality, masculinity, and worth as human beings, and compensating in classic primate fashion by lashing out with all the ferocity of a chimpanzee throwing its own feces.

We know for a fact that these heroic warbloggers and pundits could not possibly be as miserably pathetic as the results of this “study” would seem to suggest; hence, our conclusion that it must all be rank, America-hating propaganda, and probably funded by the French.

The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died. – Revelation 16:3

For many years now, it has been our firm conviction that the vessel which will deliver Jeebus’ Divine Vengeance upon the human race will not be War, or Terrorism, or Nuclear Weapons, or even Gay Marriage. Nope, it will be Disease; some horrific plague for which we have no immunity, or for which the proper vaccine cannot be made (or for which the vaccine can be made, but isn’t because the pharmaceutical industry decides there isn’t enough of a profit margin.)

Some early contenders for Human Slate Wiper were obviously non-starters. AIDS? Come on, that takes years to kill you. Ebola? Just the opposite problem; it kills you so fast you don’t have time to infect a lot of people. And, most importantly, neither of them is airborne.

No, the Big Answer came to us – as Big Answers usually do – when reading a horror novel. It’s all spelled out right there, kids: influenza. The good ol’ flu has killed more people than any disease in history, including halitosis. Particularly virulent strains can wipe out millions in a few months, most spectacularly in the 1918 Pandemic, when 40 million people died worldwide. Flu pandemics tend to occur once every 30 years or so, and scientists have been warning that we’re well overdue for the next one.

Well, gentlemen, we finally have a contender for “Flu of the Century”: say hello to H5N1, otherwise known as the Bird Flu. So far, this industrious little critter has crossed from birds to humans in 110 cases in Asia… and killed 55 of those people. That, folks, is a 50% fatality rate, or ten times that of the 1918 flu. That’s approaching Ebola-like levels of efficiency. Good job, little feller!

Needless to say, the scientists are scared shitless. They point out that, if the virus mutates into a form that can spread from person to person (which flu viruses do all the time) we would be facing

...a 20 percent mortality rate, with as many as 16 million deaths in the U.S. alone; billions lost in commerce as borders close, disrupting trade and travel; global insecurity due to the reduced strength of armed forces and police. In other words, global “viral carnage.”

But it gets better! There is at least some evidence that human-to-human spread may have already started! Officials in China, where the disease was first noticed, have been noticeably unhelpful in providing information on the outbreaks. (If anyone out there doesn’t think China would intentionally withhold information about a deadly disease outbreak in order to cover their own asses, we have one word for you: SARS. )

What we do know for sure is that H5N1 has hopped the Chinese border and begun to infect chickens in Siberia, which has prompted the Russkies to order mass killings of poultry. We also know that the disease has passed into ducks, which do not seem to get sick, thus enabling them to function nicely as carriers. (Hint: ducks are migratory birds.)

Oh, and did we mention that it would take a minimum of six months to begin producing vaccines in anything like the numbers we would need? Oh, yeah, and vaccines are normally grown in chicken eggs. Kind of inconvenient when the disease we’re trying to combat is killing those same chickens, eh? One British company claims to have invented a DNA-based method of producing vaccine, which would eliminate the need for eggs; however, this is still in the testing phase, and at least a year away.

Of course, even if an effective vaccine were available right now, do you think the US government, state governments, or pharmaceutical companies are going to foot the bill for the estimated 90 million doses it would take to treat the US in the case of a full-blown pandemic? For free? When no one knows for sure if it will even happen?

Nah, we don’t think so, either.