perfidy

True story:

The next town over from me is widely considered an enclave of the wealthy. And it largely is. It's where alot of doctors, lawyers, and other well-paid professionals dwell, in addition to your business owners, small financiers, and assorted white collar folk. We're not talking, you know, robber baron wealth; there are no cottages- in the Newport sense of the word- anywhere near here. But the homes are modern, big, carefully landscaped, and seem to be raising a brood of young Audis or BMWs in their driveways.

And up until fairly recently, gray squirrels were seen regularly gamboling about the sweeping, manicured lawns in this town. Chittering and chattering, munching the occasional nut alertly, but without a sense of impending doom, clearly due to the absence of predatory creatures hereabouts. But I have noticed that they are being displaced. The numbers are not being depleted by cats, dogs, or commuters.

They are being displaced. By black squirrels.

Seriously.

Where the black squirrels go, the gray squirrels go away. We're not talking flying squirrels here, but squirrel flight. I can't help but wonder whether the black squirrels have moved on up to this fantastic, quaint town, but the grays feel the squirrely equivalent of "there goes the neighborhood".

A long time ago, I studied the monetary and cultural cost of certain aspects of the Imperial-era British penal system. I learned alot about how graft, social forces, governmental pressure, and random circumstance can shape not only the process of the justice system, but its punishment as well. And it didn't stop there. Oh, no. European legal thought and tradition are fundamental in many ways to our own, even as late as the development of our penitentiary system. And while I answered the questions I set out to adequately, I would have liked to take the work deeper. Perhaps, in the best tradition of scholars past, I ended my work feeling like I had posed still more questions, and opened doors on lines of inquiry I could pursue to make a lasting contribution to my wallet. Daah, my field. Lasting contribution to my field.

One topic that I wish I had thought of then but is on my mind lately is: what did cops do before there were drivers to ticket?

Seriously.

Because, over time, the police have become a guaranteed revenue stream into their city and state. An awful lot of them appear to be running radar; in certain regions of my domain, ensuring the safety of the larger commonweal one ticket at a time is the apparent raison detre of the State Police. Yes, they have other missions- they are the 911 for remote areas of the state; they have a kick-ass crime lab; they have really cool dogs- but really, they're primary mission seems to be to write tickets. I don't know the percentages of how many officers are out pulling people over, as opposed to the total number of officers on duty, but by casual observation it seems somewhere in the neighborhood of all of them.

So as a historically-minded cat, I have to ask myself how long that's been going on. Does the growth of the police force mirror the growth of the population, or more closely the growth of car ownership (if indeed the two are even distinguishable)? What was the pre-automobile analogue of police-generated revenue? Was pre-industrial society safer, since more police ought to have been available to fight crime? When did we decide it was ok for agents of the state to generate income for the government?

And no, I didn't recently get a ticket- I actually drive like an old lady. Well, an old lady who knows where she's going and how to drive. But in my daily travels I see folks bagged by the state cops hand over fist, and just have to ask whether that's really the best use of their time for the mission of maintaining peace and order for the citizenry, or the best use of their time for a rapacious state government?

Our US Navy and other Pacific forces have been on a tear lately.

That's "tear", like what our stuff does to our enemies' asses, and not "tear", which is what falls from hippies' eyes when we do it.

Following on the heels of recent Ministry coverage of exciting and dangerous Pacific developments here and here, not to mention massive training exercises covered here and here, comes news that the Navy is more determined than ever to show how deep a bench it brings to the game.

Sure the Navy already brings the great big warships and a muscular aviation branch. But it goes without saying that all those pilots and sailors are at least human. The Navy's so bad, it has other species working for it. Some might argue that the Navy already had another species working closely with it, the Marines. But for all their evident and obvious badassitude, Marines are mostly human. And while the Air Force sends in the big bombers and the nukes and the orbital death rays, those too are piloted or directed by people. (With the notable exception of previous experiments) .

Included in recent Pacific exercises were America's battle mammals, the Navy's Marine Mammal Program. Dolphins. Sea Lions. Perhaps, someday, even ambitious otters. They work in teams to find mines- dolphin locates the mine through its echolocation; sealion swims down to attach a marker or retrieval line. They are also trained at finding enemy swimmers, sitting on and drowning them, or stoving in their ribcages with their armored battlesnouts.

Not surprisingly, hippies had something to say to rain on everyone's parade:

"These animals are highly sensitive, deeply intelligent creatures, and to use them for warfare is to abuse them," said Wayne Johnson, who is on the board of Animal Rights Hawaii. "These animals need to swim free."

But they ARE swimming freely- they freely swim 100 fathoms into the briny deep to find mines, or freely swim as they patrol a harbor. And I'll tell you something else, just because a species is intelligent it doesn't follow that it then must be averse to war. Humans invented war, and prosecute it enthusiastically. And I'd love to know how he knows that our interspecies allies are "highly sensitive". Because I don't think he means sensitive by virtue of super-attenuated senses; I think he means in the sense of prefering Emily Dickinson to Too $hort. And that's just goofy, because he obviously has not spent much time with them.

All of the ministers have worked to some extent with our dolphin allies. Johno and Buckethead have written on cetacean history, and I was a minor functionary in the first Inter-Species Defense Council so many years ago. Between meetings and plenty of fresh mackerel, I found dolphins to have not only a compelling sense of duty, but a very grim sense of humor. Sure they seem to laugh and enjoy themselves at Sea World, but that's only because they know that a quick flip of their tail could break any human neck, or a short burst of speed can turn their whole body into a torpedo. They laugh at us, not with us, and think that drowning an enemy combat swimmer is really quite hilarious. As a matter of fact, dolphins are probably among the least sensitive of the swimming species, at least regarding the fate of homo sapiens. They assist us out of their own self interest.

Nevertheless, they still train with our forces as we continue to refine inter-species doctrine and planning.

I think a conversation between the national intelligence leadership and the President over this article might be fun to overhear.

I think it would boil down to something like:

"Mr. President, Pennsylvania officials have intercepted an attempt to smuggle graphite."

"Graphite? How do you smuggle graphite? I mean, wha...wha...you got your spray paint, you got your wall, you paint your name or whatever..."

"That's graffiti, Mr. President. g-r-a-f-f-i-t-i. This plot revolves around graphite, g-r-a-p-h-i-t-e. It's a material with broad uses in industry, including the atomic industry."

"Ah huh, atomic industry. G-r-a-p-h-i-t-e. I see...."

"Ahh, yes, sir...well. To get to the point, some in the intelligence community believe this plot involved smuggling graphite in order to further nuclear programs in developing cou...ahhh...in evil countries, sir."

"Ah huh, evil. Graphite. Nukular. I see..."

"Intelligence estimates are inconclusive at this time, Mr. President, but ..."

"Ah huh, but. Wait. But? But what?"

"Other national agencies sir are unwilling to commit, at this time, to my analysis. They, ah, are leaning toward another interpretation."

"Ah huh, terpuhtations."

"Yes sir, they feel that graphite, on its own, does not indicate imminent nuclear attack by a rogue madman."

"Ah huh..."

"They feel it could be...pencils."

"Pencils?"

"At this point, Mr President, the intelligence community is divided. Could indicate a desire to jumpstart a villainous nuclear program. Could indicate a desire to manufacture pencils. Tough to call at this point, sir."

Yeah...yeah, I get this alot. You don't even know how many total strangers stop me on the street and comment on how I remind them of a Mazda. I'm not sure where it got that I'm "sporty", as I loathe most sports. Of the non-blood variety, anyway.

I'm a Mazda RX-8!

You're sporty, yet practical, and you have a style of your own. You like to have fun, and you like to bring friends along for the ride, but when it comes time for everyday chores, you're willing to do your part.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

The Old World's last great raging conflagration is extinguished at last. After 100 years the deep mistrust, racism, and martial animosity are at an end.

The war is over.

Japan and Montenegro are finally at peace.

I don't have in depth, new insight into Zarqawi having been blown up last night.

I cannot bring fresh ideas to the GWoT, or upstage pointy headed policy people. (Not only do they have PhDs, and are therefore certified smart, there are also more analysts and policy wankers -whoops, policy wonks- in the media than zombies in a Romero flick.)

I can't end-run commentators and talking heads on the scene. Or at least within 100 miles of the scene, which is more often the case.

I will simply share my appreciation for the event: the media darling of Iraqi terrorism, with blood on his own hands, was brought down not in a hail of gunfire as he heroically stormed the barricades, or as he held the line against certian death while his loyal minions escaped.

He ended under a pile of dusty rubble, sold out by someone close to him.

I like that.

Those adjectives frame Ruth Elkins’ picture of the Germanoman.

In her article in Der Spiegel, Ms. Elkins discusses the 7 types of Germanic maleness. Aside from a couple who may, with proper tutelage, approach something like an assertive American man, most are satisfied to roll with the punches- and they’ll get plenty, with that attitude- and never strive to dominate their environment.

And that almost squares with my impression of Germans. Loyal readers know that I lived amongst the Bavarians for 2 years as a drone in the USAREUR hive. Yes I spent most of the time in the field, but I did get to witness some fundamental differences between Them and Us. One glaring difference was how the German men fought, vs how GIs fought.

When soldiers fought, it brought broken bottles, broken furniture, broken hands, broken wrists, ears bitten off; back-to-the-wall fights for survival yielding destruction on bodies and barrooms hugely disproportionate to the issue that started the fight in the first place, which was, 100% of the time, trivial.

Once I saw German guys fight, and it was, to be honest, kinda funny. They circled each other about 12 ft apart. One guy ran up and sort of slapped the other, then ran away, then the second man did something similar. It was a sort of sissy fight, or perhaps ritualistic in some way. They just never really got down into it and got it done.

OK, sure it’s not a fair comparison; I saw A LOT of Joes scrap and only that one time saw the ‘Rads go at it, in their way. Oh, and one time in Munich I saw a guy wandering the city by himself at oh-dark-thirty, drunk as a Stinktiere, with a bloody nose and having trouble fathoming why anyone would have done such a thing to him. But interactions with regular German men at all sorts of non-combat activities: restaurants, Volksmarches, music shops, taxis stands, even just walking the streets, pretty definitively caused me to rule that they were nearly exclusively a live-and-let-live bunch. Even if they were getting punched in the face.

The exception that proves the rule of course were the Polizei.
The Polizei had a reputation for…shall we say, enthusiastically…breaking up brawling soldiers. It was ingrained early on in my initial country training not to trifle with the Polizei. My first night downrange old timers made sure I understood not to trifle with the Polizei- if something happened, they said, stay out of it as best you can and, if the law got into it, try to surrender to the MPs if at all possible as they won’t likely bust your head open. One night, seconds after I walked past a bus stop, uniformed and plainclothes police agents swooped in from everywhere and took down some grubby looking dude who was waiting for a bus. Quite energetically. Which reinforced the message- don’t trifle with the Polizei. And I never saw or worked with GSG-9 but no one can say they’re sissies, either.

So Ms. Elkins might have overlooked an 8th type of Germanoman:

Professional Authoritarian German Male

He’s dangerous looking, with his thick truncheon and tailored uniform. He walks stiffly with his leather belt and boots. No, he’s not a character in some sick German BDSM flick-not to my mind, anyway- but an actual German man who, through his strength of character and will, backed by the power of the State, sees to it that none trod grass where it is clearly marked “verboten”.

Distinguishing marks: The shoulder patch that says “Polizei”. It may read “ieziloP”, due to you being on the ground looking up at it through rapidly swelling eyes and the stream of blood coming off your head.

Habitat: Everywhere GIs need to be curtailed, tickets need to be written, order needs to be maintained, or jaywalkers need to be yelled at. Or ticketed.

Favorite Activities: Maintaining order. Secretly wishing there was more disorder so he might have more order to maintain.

The Pros: Courteous and professional to a fault. Spiffy uniforms. Appreciates superior German weaponry...

The Catch: ...and clubbing you with it. Awfully effective with a truncheon.

Murdoc, whose omnipresence and coverage of matters martial forces my corporeal energies to choose between crying with joy or popping a boner, brings this story on a protest at a recruiting office. As Murdoc points out, the argument seems to go: protest-->no recruits-->no recruiters-->no soldiers-->no one to fight war-->end of war-->world peace. Which might be nice, if so many people weren't trying so desperately to kill us. Except that they ARE trying desperately to kill us, so this sort of activity is basically stupid.

This line of his though made me snort: with no soldiers, "just think of all the extra people available to grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves".

You know, in the wake of 9-11, I thought, if nothing else, the America-hating hippie military-bashing filth would finally have to face that there are people on this Earth who want to kill us all- Christian, Jew, hippie, stud, etc- ALL of us, and that we can at least work together from that starting point. Whatever our fundamental differences politically and culturally, right, left, up, down, Federalist and Communist can move forward providing for the common defense. Within about a week I was disgusted by my own naivete.

Well, what military-haters don't comprehend is that recruiters are professionals. Anything that grabastic, screechy children do, say, or attempt matters pretty close to zero on their Important Shit-o-Meter. You don't matter to them in any meaningful way. I like that.

Nevertheless, I have felt that some gesture ought to be made to counter the drum-circle set. No, professionals don't need such gestures, but I do. One thing I've done is to buy lunch for the local recruiters. It's a little thing, I know, but it's just some way to show that not everyone in the community is against them. Nothing fancy; send over some good takeout or something.

Try it.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I thought I'd let everyone know that there is a turkey hen (or whatever lady turkeys are called) living in my area. She used to have some gal-pals; lately I've only seen a single one. Like yesterday, when she was slowly walking past my truck in the cold morning drizzle, slurping up worms or ticks or CHUDS or whateverfuck bubbles to the surface in heavy rain.

Didn't pay me any mind, which was good, because the only weapon close at hand to defend against a turkoconic onslaught was my bright yellow metal thermos and the hot Earl Grey therein.

Last evening I was inside but saw motion off the back deck, out of the corner of my eye. It was the weird light of slacking rain and dusk; for a second I thought it was the turkey. But nope-it was venison steaks and a buckskin jacket waiting to happen; a young buck in the yard. I had heard from a neighbor that we get them fairly regularly, but I hadn't seen any myself til last night.

Well, in my backyard anyway. I see alot of deer in my travels, and enough turkeys where I'm not surprised if I spy any in the woodline. And of course all the basic town varmints: possums, raccoons. Bats. Which freak out the wife, and my calling them "just flying mice" doesn't help. I hear an owl every so often. Billions and billions of geese.

Oh, and perhaps a chupacabra. Something got into my trash the other night. The can was full, mebbe 50 lbs, and the heavy bag was on the very bottom. Well, something was strong enough, clever enough, or lucky enough to have pulled the can over, popped the locking lid, and had a buffet with a bunch of gross shit I was trying to throw away. And the something had pointy teefers, judging by the torn bags.

My first thought was racoon, but that was a pretty heavy can. Prolly could've gotten the lid off, but pulled it over...? I kinda doubt it; ditto an ambitious stray cat. Then I thought big dog, but we don't have any strays in the area and I was confident the locking lid technology would thwart the cleverest canine (not particularly challenging I know, just saying). Black bear is not entirely implausible, but would be an extreme stretch.

Which pretty much leaves me with chupacabra.

Come to find out that the guy who made this:

Absolutely did not knowingly lend his name to this:

Different cat entirely.

Characteristic of national media (and "local" outlets of national media- Boston Globe, z.b), recent coverage of inclement weather ignores the balance of Massachusetts that lies beyond the Boston suburbs. The AP may be interested to know that in addition to the Hub, it's raining in the 130-odd miles between there and New York state too. Since last Tuesday.

We're ok though- thanks for checking.

[wik]Lest anyone doubt how Beacon Hill views the plebes, proles, and peons who populate the state west of say, Cambridge, consider the recent episode where Ted Kennedy's jet was struck by lightning. He spoke in North Adams, was flying to Cape Cod to spend the night, only to come back out to Springfield to speak the next day. The guy can't even bear to spend a night among his non-monied constituents.

As if tailor-made for our ongoing non-discussion of the sloppiness and inadequacies of human-based journalism, Reuters has a story about the need for the Big Apple to prepare to bite the Big Weenie: a huge hurricane.

Yeah ok fine- slow news day I guess, so Reuters goes with a news story about something that hasn't happened to fill space. I get that. But at least they could've made some effort to work in other stuff for New Yawkahs to prepare for and be afraid of, stuff that might be at least as plausible as a tremendous hurricane.

Better prepare for Bird Flu; SARS; SARS Flu; Bird-Fu; atmospheric nuclear detonations and EMPs; comets; asteroids; reinforced tungsten rods; black triangles; black helicopters; black shadow people; anything that comes through a stargate; possessive demons (never to be confused with progressive demons, who just want you to sign petitions and buy their crappy band's demo); sunspots; invaders from outer space, the hollow Earth, or extradimensional universes; hums, vibrations, harmonics and other resonances of a non-corporeal nature; the Second Coming (unless you're Jewish); the First Coming (if you are); terrorists; zombies; skeletons; ninjas; bikers; tsunamis; earthquakes; dust storms; sand storms; gravel storms; Grape Nuts storms; hail (of all hyphenated-ball sized) storms; the BBC/BBW nexus; any and all federal agencies, task forces, or commissions; the Bilderburgers, Brandenburgs, Habsburgs, hamburger, and the Hamburglar; all appliances, equipment, or accessories that glow in the dark; Ethan Frome; LCDs; LEDs; IEDs; LSDs; LSTs; DVDs and IUDs; and everyone on the subway, or pretty much everyone, period.

So make sure you store potable water and stuff and you’ll be fine.

Every Friday, weather permitting, I walk with the Li'lest Lethal. Lady Lethal takes him every day, pretty much, but Fridays I have him to myself. We have a pretty good time, I like to think, and getting out of the house a little is good for both of us.

Oftentimes we go one town over, which is alot nicer than the town we actually live in. Not that we live particularly shabbily, but THAT town has longer and nicer sidewalks, many of which wrap around its stately olde towne common. The historic homes overlooking the olde towne common advertise their historicity with placards declaring how old the place is and who built it: Elihu Jehosephatt, 1713. Fitzhugh Broadwinnings, 1805. Jeremiah Broadwinnings, 1842. They're interesting in their details and pleasing to the eye. But in the back of my mind I think what a drag it is to own such a house, needing the local historical committee's permission to drive a friggin nail.

The war memorial sits in the center of the common, an arc of dry-stacked stone and aging words facing a single simple flagpole. The memorial includes the names of the town's men who fell in battle as far back as pre-Revolution campaigns against the native tribes. Some of the names on the cold, weathered bronze tablets are the same as on the houses we just walked past.

The only business near the common is the cosmetic surgeon and day spa, but even they are set up in small, restrained structures that fit the neighborhood. It's almost as if they were always there, where George Washington got his DaVinci veneers, and Paul Revere had a little nip and tuck after one too many Boston winters.

It's a nice place to walk, overall, on a cool spring day.

'Cept for the gay-bashers.

Last Friday a friend from my part time job, whose name is Storm (really), came over before work to hang out. Instead of lunch we got some beverages and walked on the common. We were just gabbing about this and that, work, that sort of thing. Storm was digging all the eye-candy in the area at that time of day, between a local college, random passers-by, and a heavy MILF concentration. At one point I said something along the lines of, "You know Storm, we probably look like a coupla homos with our adopted baby, between the big baby stroller and the Starbucks cups." Which, don't get me wrong, was fine- just that Storm is always on the lookout for female companionship, and with me looking a little bear-ish and he looking a little femme (he can't help it), well...well, it didn't happen for him that day.

But it turns out we weren't the only ones who thought we looked like a gay couple.

Not a half hour after making that observation, two peckerwoods cruising down the street in a car with crappy music blaring from crappy speeakers shouted something to us at the top of their lungs. I think I know what they said, but you know what, I won't even repeat it. It certainly wasn't welcoming, and absolutely wasn't an invitation to discuss evolving paradigms of modern life and marriage.

So we're in the middle of Idyllic Suburb USA, broad daylight, middle of the day- and get hassled for being gay.

Now, here are a couple of things that those two punks completely missed, in the same order that they occurred to me at that moment:

-My baby son was in his stroller, at arm's reach. When I heard the shouting and the language, surprising me and coming from behind- which could only be construed as threatening- I kicked into ultra defense mode. It was like, threat-baby-defend-adrenaline spike-defend-destroy. It's the kind of feeling that causes people to go from calm to rage in a straight-for-the-windpipe sort of way, which I did not fully appreciate until I was a parent, and for which I would have been in a heap of trouble had those two clowns been close enough to throttle. Dunno if that's a new daddy thing I'll grow out of, or what, but there it is and I don't have alot of control over adrenaline.

-On Fridays it seems I'm walking alone, but usually I'm not. Sure at the time Storm was with me, and of course the baby's always there. But I keep a close friend nearby; ideally you won't see him.

-My close friend has 8 little buddies he never leaves the house without.

-If you just shout stuff at people out of your moving car, you're not cool or even funny. You're just a douche.

-Oh, and I'M NOT GAY.

Fucking imbeciles.

Schizophrenic helicopter pilot Murdoc and I share alot of things: our love for fresh-cut tulips; a respect for raw, naked force; appreciation for the smell of diesel fuel; and the friendly staff of a certain Bangkok "spa". All good stuff, and well worth sharing.

One bad thing we share though is the ignorance of journalists regarding military matters. And like Murdoc, it's usually enough to set my teeth on edge and maybe bitch for a minute, but that's about it. It doesn't help when reporters are actually in the field with operational units and they still get it wrong, mixing up unit designations or vehicle models, but it rarely detracts from the overall point.

That's where the Zarqawi tape comes in, and Jamie McIntyre's effort to make excuses for the guy's poor weapons handling.

Murdoc, Confederate Yankee, and Counter Column all take McIntyre to task for appearing not only an apologist, but stupid too. Their tripartite Fisking covers all the pioints well, and any leftovers are sopped up by their commenters.

I will only add this bit of advice for Mr. McIntyre: the military has an idea of what a "heavy" weapon is. It's probably different from your idea; best not to assume it's the same. Given the man already knew it was a SAW he was looking at, there's just no reason for him to be so wrong about it, let alone cut Iraqi terrorist #1 some slack over it.

A final exercise for other Google-impaired journalists:

You may be afraid of it, but Google is your friend. Try it. Do a search for "heavy machine gun". Go ahead. And what's the first hit?

Browning M2. If you read the accompanying article, you'll find that the thing weighs about 80 lbs, sans tripod. Yeah, that's heavy. It also fires a big round, .50, which is also heavy. Altogether, it's NOT a SAW.

Now try "medium machine gun". What do you get? Why, M240. It weighs in at around 24-odd lbs, depending on trim package and options. Not so very heavy, but it throws a beefy round. It's also not a SAW. Although it IS manufactured by fat bastard Belgians, as is the SAW, it is NOT, again, a SAW.

Just for the fun of it, let's try "light machine gun". Guess what you get about five hits down? Why it's an M249 SAW. Gosh all, and a "light" machine gun...how about that? It only weighs about 25lbs, even with 200 rounds hanging underneath it. Oh, and it fires a varmint cartridge, little different from what you plink moles out of your garden with. See, light.

That takes about 30 seconds. No deadline is that tight.

Reuters covers the impending public display of 1/10th of Mexicans demanding to be Americans here.

On the one hand, that sounds like a fine thing: all those millions, that vast multitude willing to risk so much to be one of us. On the other hand, giving ultimatums and listing among your intentions that, "America's major cities will grind to a halt and its economy will stagger" are not the way to engender sympathy for your cause. Just wanted to throw that out there, you know, in case it wasn't blatantly obvious to anyone.

Reuters calls them "pro-immigration activists"; that's who will be taking to the streets on 1 May. "Pro-immigration activists".

That's funny, because every time Lady Lethal and I had to go wrestle with the INS over some bit of her paperwork- which always cost alot of $$, not to mention lost work time and travelling expenses, and disregarding the psychic toll of dealing with cold bureaucrats- I don't recall ever seeing a "pro-immigration" activist. Not anywhere near the JFK Building, the Government Center plaza, the Red Line, or the Green Line.

That's because all the pro-immigration people were inside the building, waiting in line.

Their deep commitment to rocking your intellect as thoroughly and enthusiastically as your hole.

Dig:

There are 23 generally accepted canonical works, mostly studio but some live records too. If you take the first letter of every word in the album title and string them out, you get this, the Motorhead Power Word:

MOBAoSNStHIFAPDNMORnRNSAA1916MoDBSOSSBLELTEEWAMTBoMHLaBAI

If you record yourself saying the canonical Power Word, then play the recording backwards at 1/3 speed, you should hear, "LEMMY ROCKS YOUR HEAD AND HOLE LEMMY ROCKS YOUR HEAD AND HOLE" in a forgotten dialect of Aramaic indigenous only to a small band of Levantine pirates who, in the early 1st century, used a smallish slab of Lemmy-shaped coral as their sea lair.

But that's not the half of it.

Consider the mystical number 23. Add that to the 57 characters of the Power Word and what do you get? 80.

Next consider the album title 1916. Pretty odd that it's the only numerically-titled release, no? And why that number? Well think it through:

1+9+1+6=17.

Now add that to 80 and you get 97. 97.

Ninety-seven is Lemmy's height in inches, or a hair under 8'1.

I mean, it's stuff like that, the number games, the language games, the historical awareness...the deep and broad intellectualism that is at the core of Motorhead's music and message is what makes them unique, and allows them to kick your ass in all kinds of subtle, eye-opening ways.

All I can say is, thanks.

Very interesting. I can think of a dozen people off the top of my head who might agree that I could use a nice tall glass of shut up, but would probably stop short of plotting to kill me. For my part, gentle reader, fret not. The suicide clause in my life insurance policy absolutely precludes auto-darwinating in any form. I'm just gonna have to stick around and suck it like everyone else. Hat tip to Lysander, latest in this chain of quizzery.

You scored as Poison. Your death will be by poison, probably because you are a glutton and are around so many people that it would be easy to get away with it. Several important people in history share your fate.

Er, Monopoly. New adventures in Monopoly.

It's America's favorite socially acceptable expression of raw capitalism, made manifest in cardboard and psychedelic currency. No other single gaming product better teaches the lesson that it is good to be a have, and that, by definition, the have-nots are losers.

Everyone has a copy somewhere, and most of you probably know where it is- closet, basement, attic- maybe even still set up from the night before on the big spool table in your living room. Maybe you still have the bits from your old set pressed into new missions: board to cover broken window; plain ol' "dice" turned into 2D6 and working for a Gary Gygax product; desperately gripping the racecar token- your final tangible asset since you sold off your last duplicative organ for real money- and used the last of the game money to kindle your hobo cooking fire and reflect on how you lost at life just as you lost every game of Monopoly you ever played...

Sssooooo.... yeah.

Hasbro is soliciting votes here for new spaces on an updated gameboard. And let's face it, we're due. However boring the gameplay is going to be, having Depression-era landmarks and cultural cues have not helped keep it fresh and interesting. And shit I've never even BEEN to Atlantic City. Matter of fact, the last time I went that far down the Garden State Parkway I wound up at the no-diamond-rated, non-luxury accomodations of the Department of Defense, a guest at Fort Dix' training barracks and the 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry. Not in a hurry to get back, thanks.

So. Among some of the changes are updated Chance and Community Chest cards to make them more relevant to our place and time. Maybe they replace "won $10 in a beauty contest" with "finalist on American Idol" or something. Gone are the railroads, in favor of airports like O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson.

What I don't get though are whether the sites that Hasbro is asking participants to vote on are the ones that will be bought and sold. I mean, you can't very well build a house on Hoover Dam, or sell Beacon Hill. I doubt there's enough raw currency in circulation on the planet to buy Beacon Hill, anyway. So if that's the plan, I don't like it. I respect efforts to modernize the look and feel of the game, but can't get behind the landmarks thing.

I think it would be better for each purchasable property on the board to represent an entire, actual city. So instead of just Atlantic Ave on the classic board, on the new board you'd buy Atlantic City. Keep it going: the purple spaces would be, say, Newark and Detroit; Hartford and DC would fit right about where Connecticut Ave is now, maybe closer to Baltic. Er, Detroit. Updated utilities might include Comcast or other high speed cable/ISP. Boston...hmmm...I'd say somewhere in the high yellow, into green properties. Maybe L.A. for Park Place, NYC for Boardwalk? Jail could still be jail, I guess; maybe zazz it up by making it Pelican Bay. Well, except then you'd probably never get out. Maybe instead of jail, it might be "debt", so that as long as you're "in debt" you pay the bank 27.99999999% interest on all your holdings? Then again, I don't want to work that hard computing interest to play a game.

Come to think of it, I've already worked too hard thinking about this game which I'm never going to play anyway.

If you care, go vote. If you don't care, you're a well-adjusted adult who outgrew Monopoly decades ago and I don't blame you. Or you're a communist, and hate the game anyway on principle.

Because of this totally badass logo:

I don't know what it is, but it's totally sick. It's like a malevolent boar or something. Plus it has "England", which kicks ass. You know it rocks your hole.