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There's no knowing the single moment when you're supposed to panic, but it might include going outside to feel a hot wind in your face and looking west at the source of the wind only to see a wall of smoke 20 miles wide approaching from the north and west, flames occasionally peeking through, dozens of planes and helicopters dropping fire retardant, the sun blood red through the enormous cloud. That red star is me, half a mile up a dirt road without a sign, the second house on the left. Mandatory evacuations past the county line, at the top of the map, the "Sawtooth" fire coming down from Morongo. As you can see, I'm the first house this side of the county line.
 
Maybe it'll make it to Mexico this fire, but right now my main concern is to the left of the map. The "Millard" fire is working its way down the west side of Whitewater Canyon. Should it make its way across the water to the east side, there's a giant rock cliff. If it somehow makes it to the top of the cliff and continues heading east, there's nothing between me and the fire but miles of dried out desert, not even a single road. There'll be fire fighting to the east of me but not to the west.
 
Current situation: Me and Max. Buster's away at a summer job in the high Sierras. Two of us. Nowhere to go and no way to get there.
 
Buster took the luggage. All we've got are a few backpacks. I've said goodbye to everything, the record and book and video collection, but not...
 
2,000 Polaroids and photos, years of irreplaceable art and journalism, 50 years of collecting stuff, I would say at least 20 milk crates full, plus a computer and backup disks, a Siamese cat, a desert tortoise, and Max's pet python, not to mention, strangely enough, an entire month's worth of food. I'm going to stack them in the middle of my driveway, cover them in blankets and towels, and soak them with water. They are the last things I'll say goodbye to unless someone comes to get them.
 
You've seen it on TV. It's coming at me. Who've I got to turn to but you? (Fully aware that you may be in the line of fire too.)
 
July 13, 2006
Whitewater, CA
 
MD + MD
 

All that's between us and the fire

FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE

It was REALLY scary when I wrote that yesterday since the winds were blowing hard directly at me from the fire, but this morning everything has died down and there's just this haze covering everything. Hard to say how bad things will turn today. Sun just rising and 115 degrees on the way. Fire still coming in this direction, just slowly. I'm making a big pile outside but so far no idea who will get it or where it'll go. And, of course, what makes this feel so weird is that it might not be necessary but who knows. Exploring the difference between safe and sorry. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE

Saturday, July 15, 5PM

I have no camera, but this, cut from here, pretty much captures the view

 

 

Still not burnt, still haven't left, still in the house, still not out of the woods. Still haven't come down from the aggravating high, the worst could still happen, the two fires have joined and it's not spread by the flames but the embers, and the wind could still change direction. One ember in the wrong place and we're toast. How am I finding time to write when I should be walking around grabbing things? Every sentence is another knickknack that'll turn to cinders because I typed instead of packed. Running to the front door between paragraphs, 120 degrees out, little plumes everywhere around the house, no helicopter or firetruck in the vicinity, obviously working on another front because this fucker's huge and spreading in every direction, so no, I don't feel safe, only safer, playing the odds that another paragraph won't mean I'll never see all those Moebius comic books again. Maybe I'll do something optimistic like writing. Writing means I don't have to panic. From now on, I only panic when I don't have time to write and only write when I don't have time to panic. 

 

Walking around the house, nerves on edge, contemplating the absolute acceptance that soon I'm going to be one of those pathetic people on TV who lost everything. It's the best excuse for not doing the dishes I've ever experienced. The high was so great that I still haven't done them.

 

Marty offered a ride to Long Beach and a living room, Karen Tracy showed up with a van, and Paul Krassner offered a garage so there's a plan in place. Like Dante says, the gates of hell are much more pleasant with transportation and somewhere to go. But what to take? An endless parade of mammoth decisions. Putting things in milk crates and boxes and stacking them outside. The Desert Sun said The Internet Saved My Life which won't strictly be true if the fire doesn't reach me, so in the interests of credibility in journalism, let's hope it does.

 

Pictures first. Uh-oh. Fifteen boxes. Room for ten more.

 

The internal categorizing is endless, needs vs. wants vs. irreplaceables, can't stop walking around, opening drawers, looking through boxes, saving total shit that's irreplaceable instead of fabulous stuff I could find again, discovering the Kennedy papers, I was only 12 but had the foresight to save every single Los Angeles newspaper on November 22, 1963, including an early morning edition of the Times with the headline "Kennedy Tours Texas" showing him at the start of the motorcade without a mention of the assassination. I'm sure it's in an archive somewhere, but it wouldn't be the one I've saved for 43 years. Let's see, do I take the box of Kennedy papers or the box of hundreds of art rubber stamps? No room for both. Do I save the Goons and Python and Firesign Theater scripts? The Kubrick? The Hal Ashby? The press kits, years of press kits, b&w glossies of everybody.

 

Bye bye books and magazines, Gravity's Rainbow and every single issue of the National Lampoon and Heavy Metal. You were nice but now there's the internet. Bye bye videos, you're available on DVD. And records? It's pathetic I still have records, though those 12 Lost Lennon Tapes that were only sent to radio stations might be hard to find again in any format.

 

Yesterday county firemen showed up and checked out every house, a half dozen trucks ready to fight the flames, telling me if it comes down to it, they'll be back to take me somewhere. A very reassuring and safe feeling for five hours while they patrolled the road before sunset. I went inside.

 

An hour later the house started shaking, a loud whoop whoop whoop, we ran outside and saw a sudden flare-up in the north, a plume of dark brown smoke just past "the ridge that must not be crossed." I watched a scene out of Apocalypse Now, six helicopters in a row, filling up at a holding facility in the middle of the desert to the south, directly over my house, following the spotter planes, leaving a trail of drips from the red bags hanging from wires below, just past the ridge and sploosh, the bags emptied, then back over my house to fill up again, more than a dozen flybys, the sun setting quickly, they're grounded after sunset, one last incredible effort to prevent the monster from consuming another inch of territory. I watched while slowly moving the boxes and crates from my front door to the inside of the van. I'm actually ready to go.

 

And the aerial circus worked. There's no limit to my admiration for this combined effort of God knows how many agencies. They not only saved dozens of homes but were damn entertaining.

 

It's Saturday and it's not over. Still a haze over everything, ashes falling, constant smell of smoke, and one plume just past the hills to the northwest, maybe 5 miles away, can't see the flames, but I'll be nervous till it's taken care of. Stuff still in the van. Still walking around putting my belongings in order, grabbing the birth certificates, the stamp collection, the autograph book, the paper plate that Dan Castellaneta signed for my son at Severn Darden's wake, two autographs, one of Dan, and one perfectly drawn Homer Simpson with Homer's shaky signature, plus the admonishment "HEY BUSTER, DON'T EAT OFF THIS!" and "Franklin Mint" written on the edge.

 

To the rest of the Coachella valley, it's just a mammoth fog of smoke, but to me in the tinderbox with a view of everything it's a fog fed by dozens of individual plumes, all from 5 - 15 miles away, each capable of moving in any direction depending upon the whims of wind which invariably pick up around sunset when I'll be too nervous to write.

 

What a unique opportunity to bid farewell to the past. A watershed moment. Who needs the past anyway. Dying is the only other time where you get to say goodbye to everything, but I've got the perk that I get to take some of it with me in case I need to brush my teeth in the high school auditorium I'm sure to take residency in. It's not over but I've been through it, brushed up as close to the inferno as I dare to go to experience absolute freedom. The horrifying truth is I feel a strange sense of disappointment. Part of me was looking forward to starting over. At least it would be different. 

 

And now it's time to walk around some more and stare at the sky and my kid and the van and my stuff and feel the terror and the gratitude, the world came through for me, enjoying it all a second at a time, continuing to contemplate what to do right with what I've got left.

 

MD

 

 

Picture from just over the hill

  

UPDATE

 

Wednesday, July 19

 

 

That the fire turned into 79 lighting strikes, changing the fear of immolation into fear of sudden flooding due to lack of groundcover burnt away by the fire is just too impossible to ignore, changing our world from a comforting Apocalypse Now to the opening of War of the Worlds.

 

And now we're back to normal, the fire miles away, but everything is still packed, dozens of invitations from you kind folk to go somewhere, and nothing but high gas prices, low mileage, and no impending doom to send me on my way. Relaxing. Eating a Klondike bar and watching old episodes of Six Feet Under. Coming down from panic mode. Leaving the house for the first time in weeks knowing it'll be there when we get back. I remain humbled by your caring thoughts. Send me your address and I'll send you a check for a million dollars as long as you promise not to cash it till I'm a billionaire.

 

MD

 

Still the same view from the window behind my computer

FREEDOM AND WEEP Posted 7/10/06   An Independence Day Carol by Michael Dare   After a long day of oppressing the masses, George W. Bush is visited by the ghost of Ken Lay on the 4th of July. Lay's leg is chained to bags of pennies equal to the amount of money he stole in his lifetime. Lay tells Bush that his chain is even longer, pointing outside to thousands of ghosts of dead crooks flying by, moaning and groaning while firmly attached to endless chains of their booty. Bush notices the ghost of Richard Nixon chained to the tombstones of every soldier killed in Vietnam during his term, and an iPod strapped to his head playing his 18,000 hours of White House tapes over and over. Bush asks Lay if there's any way he can avoid this fate, and Lay tells him to dismantle his taping system, and late that night, he will be visited by three spirits.   After destroying all the recording devices he can find, Bush falls asleep at his desk in the oval office. He's rudely awoken by the rattling chains of the Ghost of Independence Days Past, who gives him a brief history of the founding fathers and their battle against the tyranny of King George, reading to him the declaration of independence and making him understand the significance of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Tiny Tim hobbles along on his crutches. Bush awakens to find himself alone. He falls back asleep.   He's then startled awake by the Ghost of Independence Days Present, who shows him the current spirit of the declaration of independence in the world, the struggling poor vs. the ruthless masters. He sees the poverty and suffering of the oppressed and the direct link to his policies gone awry. Tiny Tim is about to die. Bush wakens again to find himself alone in the Oval Office.   Finally, he's visited by the Ghost of Independence Days Future, where gangs of fiery rebels fight off the clones and robots of the massive armies of the New World Order in a devastated post-apocalyptic world where everything is radioactive, there is no God, and any adherents to any religious faith, whether Christian, Muslim, or Jew, are hunted down and slaughtered for causing all this mess. Tiny Tim is dead at the feet of a mammoth statue of Bush, pushed over and beheaded.   The next morning, Bush wakes up with a smile on his face and a vow to do better. He is a changed man. He buys Tiny Tim a brand new motorized wheelchair and massively funds stem cell research. He pardons all prisoners of political or victimless crimes, withdraws all American troops from everywhere, reinstitutes taxes on the rich, doubles the death tax, disbands the DEA and CIA, gives all American car manufacturers one year to switch from the internal combustion engine to one that works on water, recalls all voting machines and goes back to paper ballots, backs a bill making all campaign contributions of any size illegal, signs the Kyoto Protocols and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, cancels the Patriot Act, cuts all funding to Israel until they adopt a mandatory "Adopt a Palestinian" Day, cuts the defense budget in half, spends the difference on universal health and car insurance for all Americans, and marries Dick Cheney in the world's biggest gay wedding watched by 99% of all TV viewers around the world.   After leaving office, he devotes the rest of his life to Greenpeace, the ACLU, and the dismantling of all nukes, aircraft carriers, and tanks. In his later years, he and Dick are often seen walking hand in hand daintily removing all remaining land mines on earth with Tiny Tim's discarded crutch. Bush had no further intercourse with Spirits. He sidetracked a massive portion of defense spending into the creation of bigger and better fireworks displayed across America on the 4th of July, letting the people see their taxes go up in smoke right in front of their eyes instead of in a foreign land. It was always said of him that he knew how to keep Independence Day well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One! Now get out of my way!   The End     An Inconvenient Lie   All the victims of Bothal have been completely compensated by Dow Chemical.   The Top 20 Logical Fallacies     What is a logical fallacy?     All arguments have the same basic structure: A therefore B. They begin with one or more premises (A), which is a fact or assumption upon which the argument is based. They then apply a logical principle (therefore) to arrive at a conclusion (B). An example of a logical principle is that of equivalence. For example, if you begin with the premises that A=B and B=C, you can apply the logical principle of equivalence to conclude that A=C. A logical fallacy is a false or incorrect logical principle. An argument that is based upon a logical fallacy is therefore not valid. It is important to note that if the logic of an argument is valid then the conclusion must also be valid, which means that if the premises are all true then the conclusion must also be true. Valid logic applied to one or more false premises, however, leads to an invalid argument. Also, if an argument is not valid, the conclusion may, by chance, still be true. Top 20 Logical Fallacies (in alphabetical order) Ad hominem: An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter another's claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself. True believers will often commit this fallacy by countering the arguments of skeptics by stating that skeptics are closed minded. Skeptics, on the other hand, may fall into the trap of dismissing the claims of UFO believers, for example, by stating that people who believe in UFO's are crazy or stupid. Ad ignorantum: The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about the human brain. UFO proponents will often argue that an object sighted in the sky is unknown, and therefore it is an alien spacecraft. Argument from authority: Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. It is reasonable to give more credence to the claims of those with the proper background, education, and credentials, or to be suspicious of the claims of someone making authoritative statements in an area for which they cannot demonstrate expertise. But the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it. Argument from final Consequences: Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that it serves. For example: God must exist, because otherwise life would have no meaning. Argument from Personal Incredulity: I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that does not mean life did not evolve. Confusing association with causation: This is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply cause they are correlated, although the relationship here is not strictly that of one variable following the other in time. This fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal interpretation. For example, during the 1990s both religious attendance and illegal drug use have been on the rise. It would be a fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in societal unrest. It is also possible that both variables are independent of one another, and it is mere coincidence that they are both increasing at the same time. A corollary to this is the invocation of this logical fallacy to argue that an association does not represent causation, rather it is more accurate to say that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but it can. Also, multiple independent correlations can point reliably to a causation, and is a reasonable line of argument. Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable: Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the "God of the Gaps" strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god. False Continuum: The idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful: There is a fuzzy line between cults and religion, therefore they are really the same thing. False Dichotomy: Arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two. For example, evolution is not possible, therefore we must have been created (assumes these are the only two possibilities). This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudo-science are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other. Inconsistency: Applying criteria or rules to one belief, claim, argument, or position but not to others. For example, some consumer advocates argue that we need stronger regulation of prescription drugs to ensure their safety and effectiveness, but at the same time argue that medicinal herbs should be sold with no regulation for either safety or effectiveness. The Moving Goalpost: A method of denial arbitrarily moving the criteria for "proof" or acceptance out of range of whatever evidence currently exists. Non-Sequitur: In Latin this term translates to "doesn't follow." This refers to an argument in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. In other words, a logical connection is implied where none exists. Post-hoc ergo propter hoc: This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the Latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this"). Reductio ad absurdum: These arguments assume that if an argument is valid, it necessarily means that the most extreme example of that argument must also be valid. A UFO enthusiast once argued that if I am skeptical about the existence of alien visitors, I must also be skeptical of the existence of the Great Wall of China, since I have not personally seen either. He therefore tried to take my skepticism to an absurd extreme in order to invalidate any skepticism. Slippery Slope: This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme. Straw Man: Arguing against a position which you create specifically to be easy to argue against, rather than the position actually held by those who oppose your point of view. Special pleading, or ad-hoc reasoning: This is a subtle fallacy which is often difficult to recognize. In essence, it is the arbitrary introduction of new elements into an argument in order to fix them so that they appear valid. A good example of this is the ad-hoc dismissal of negative test results. For example, one might point out that ESP has never been demonstrated under adequate test conditions, therefore ESP is not a genuine phenomenon. Defenders of ESP have attempted to counter this argument by introducing the arbitrary premise that ESP does not work in the presence of skeptics. This fallacy is often taken to ridiculous extremes, and more and more bizarre ad hoc elements are added to explain experimental failures or logical inconsistencies. Tautology: A tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such. For example, saying that therapeutic touch works because it manipulates the life force is a tautology because the definition of therapeutic touch is the alleged manipulation (without touching) of the life force. Tu quoque: Literally, you too. This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it. "My evidence may be invalid, but so is yours." Unstated Major Premise: This fallacy occurs when one makes an argument which assumes a premise which is not explicitly stated. For example, arguing that we should label food products with their cholesterol content because Americans have high cholesterol assumes that: 1) cholesterol in food causes high serum cholesterol; 2) labeling will reduce consumption of cholesterol; and 3) that having a high serum cholesterol is unhealthy. This fallacy is also sometimes called begging the question. - The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe -   Gallery of the Week Cats that Look Like Hitler   An Inconvenient Lie   Time/Warner is sponsoring a 16 part miniseries based upon Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States of America."   Quiz of the Week   Think you can tell the difference between quotes from Ann Coulter and Adolf Hitler? Take this surprisingly difficult quiz.   An Inconvenient Lie   Cindy Sheehan's "Camp Democracy" has been fully sponsored by Exxon.   Funny, It Did the Opposite for Me   The James Blunt song You're Beautiful brought a five-year-old girl out of a coma.   An Inconvenient Lie   Jesus came back and told everybody to lay down their arms.   Answer to Last Week's Obviously Stupid Question   What were Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's last words?   "Tell Laura I love her." - RSJ   As any redneck knows and, since al-Qaida is the Arab equivalent of a redneck, I believe his last words were " c'mere look at this". - Owen Heckathorn   What's that sound?... DOWN WITH BUSH ! - waldo   Rosebud! - Palantir   Why, is my CIA payoff short again? - Robert Howell   Please forgive my approach if this message comes to you as puprise and may offend your personality for requesting for your assistance in a business transaction without your prior consent. - Mr Mohammed Bin Zayed   I could have been driving a fucking Ferrari on the autobahn, but no, I'm the big shot dead leader of these fucking Arab morons. - Watermn   That blast came from the Death Star! That thing's operational! (Return of the Jedi) Or I have to save my ass. (Shrek) Or "I hope Ahmed got that Swiss bank account # right. I don't want my "reward" money going into one of Bin Ladin's accounts. It'll take years for his stupid tax accountant to discover the mistake and then he'll charge a finders fee and deduct it right off the top. How in the hell am I going to vacation in Bolivia without that reward money? Hey I wonder what Hugo Chavez is doing? I bet Venezuela is beautiful this time of year." One would have to be a blithering idiot to actually believe the Bush crime family is telling the truth. They wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up and bit them all on the ass. But I'll bet you they can quote this message word for word. - Jet   "At least I didn't get captured in a hole." - Dwight Burke   "I want extra cheese and hold the anchovies." - JD   Look out virgins here I come. - johnny iguanna   I was just kidding... - Steve B   "My followers - that bullshit about the seventy-two virgins? Why do you think I never sent MYSELF on a suicide bombing?" or "I hope when they post their trophy pictures of me that my bloated corpse doesn't make my face look fat." or "I hope Allah has a Starbuck's in Paradise. It's been ages and I would KILL for a mochaccino right now." - Jimmy McConnell   FUCK!!!!!!!!!! - Truth E. Ness   "give me my money" says a plump red haired and freckled, al-Zarqawi. "Please, do not hurt me" says a frail and weak framed, united states citizens, while handing him their gas money. - Derral Gerken   Don't let anyone take a picture of my dead face and post it all over America...And no autopsy... - Kristy Cardamone   "When 500 pound bomb bombs you, look as good you will not." - Locke   Thank you Lynette Sheffield for this list of answers from radio station KTWS, which includes...   That Surround Sound is getting more realistic all the time.   Just let me finish this level in Tetris.   Well, this is embarrassing. And me with a big zit on my nose.   Well, this just ruins the feng shui of the place.   Next time our people decide to fight over land, make it somewhere in The Bahamas.   Fine. Just fine. First Sopranos has a crappy ending and now this.   Oh, great. NOW the Viagra kicks in.   Can you hear me now? Stupid Question of the Week More logical fallacies and inconvenient lies please. Was that a question? Keep this in mind.   If there's no such thing as a logical fallacy, logical fallacies don't exist. If everything that doesn't exist is exactly like everything else that doesn't exist, then logical fallacies are just like everything else.   "There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it." - Denis Diderot -   Satan Doesn't Want You to Know   The seven stranded castaways on the TV show Gilligan's Island were patterned after the seven deadly sins. The Professor was pride, Mr. Howell (the millionaire) was greed, Ginger (the movie star) was lust, Mary Ann envy, Mrs. Lovey Howell gluttony, The Skipper anger, and Gilligan sloth.   Don't Take My Word for It   “[My wife] liked to collect old encyclopedias from second-hand bookstores, and at one point we had eight of them. When I wrote my first historical novel - back in 1980, before I was online - I used them often as a research tool. For instance, I learned that the Bastille was either 90 feet high or 100 feet or 120 feet. This led me to formulate Wilson's 22nd Law: ‘Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only look in one encyclopedia.’" - Robert Anton Wilson interviewed by Paul Krassner -   "One thing I can tell you is that we don't know what the actual relationship between consciousness and the physical world is. There are good reasons to be skeptical of the naive conception of a soul. We know that almost everything we take ourselves to be subjectively - all of our cognitive powers, our ability to understand language, our ability to acknowledge anything in our physical environment through our senses - this is mediated by the brain. So the idea that a brain can die and a soul that still speaks English and recognizes Granny is going to float away into the afterlife, that seems to be profoundly implausible. And yet we do not know what the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity ultimately is. For instance, we could be living in a universe where consciousness goes all the way down to the bedrock so that there is some interior subjective dimension to an electron. So I'm actually quite skeptical of our ever being able to resolve that question - what the real relationship between consciousness and matter ultimately is." - Sam Harris: The Disbeliever -   "It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures." - Vincent Van Gogh -   "The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory." - Paul Fix -   "We will develop love, we will practice it, we will make it both a way and a basis, take our stand upon it, store it up, and thoroughly set it going." - Samyutta Nikaya -   "I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave." - H. L. Mencken: Why Liberty? -       "Thank goodness for the Swiss. Alone in Europe, their government has dared to condemn what the Israelis are doing to Gaza. It is collective punishment, they say. It violates the principle of proportionality. Israel has not taken the precautions required by international law to protect civilians.     "Inevitably, the bloggers are pouring out the usual irrelevancies about the role of Swiss banks during the Nazi period. But as the depository of the Geneva conventions, one of the key legal advances to emerge from the ravages of the 20th century, Switzerland has a duty to speak out.     "Its statement stands in contrast to the European Union's shamefully muted voice. The Palestinians kill two soldiers and take one prisoner and, in response, power stations are blown up, sewage and water systems grind to a halt, bridges are destroyed, sonic booms terrify children day and night, and all this is inflicted on a hungry people who are under siege in what is effectively a huge open prison. The EU's response? Vague expressions of 'concern' and calls for 'restraint'". - Jonathan Steele: Europe's response to the siege of Gaza is shameful -       "In an extraordinary letter of protest, representatives for 10,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists are asking Congress to stop the Bush administration from closing the agency's network of technical research libraries. The EPA scientists, representing more than half of the total agency workforce, contend thousands of scientific studies are being put out of reach, hindering emergency preparedness, anti-pollution enforcement and long-term research, according to the letter released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).     "In his proposed budget for FY 2007, President Bush deleted $2 million of support for EPAs libraries, amounting to 80% of the agency's total budget for libraries. Without waiting for Congress to act, EPA has begun shuttering libraries, closing access to collections and reassigning staff. The letter notes that EPA library services are [now] greatly reduced or no longer available to the general public in agency regional offices serving 19 states." - Carol Goldberg: 10,000 EPA Scientists Protest Library Closures - Loss of Access to Collections Will Hamper Emergency Response and Research -   "I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially ... the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material." - US Senator Ted Stevens (Alaska), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee or listen to the mp3 of one of the stupidest speeches you'll ever hear -   "On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed." - Howard Zinn: Put Away the Flags -       "Conservative pundits, right-wing talk show hosts and other forms of life who are just below plankton on the evolutionary scale (excuse me, intelligent design scale) got their red and blue tights in a bunch last week because the famous line in Superman Returns was changed from 'truth, justice and the American way' to 'truth, justice.and all of that stuff.' Proponents of the new line, including screenwriter Dan Harris, said the change was needed because 'the American way' holds a different connotation than it did in 1945. But opponents believe the line implies that Superman isn't American and, therefore, unpatriotic.     "That's right. Superman's shorts ain't the only thing about him that's 'red.'     "Is this really what political experts from both sides of the aisle should be discussing at a time of war: the un-American activities of a superhero? Will the CIA put a tap on Underdog's phone to see if his alter ego, Shoe Shine Boy, has been polishing any of Al-Qaida's sandals?" - Danny Gallagher: American Nightmare OR Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Commie! It's a Socialist! No, It's Superman! -   "When reason succumbs to passion, we act against our better judgment." - Benedictus de Spinoza -       "Under federal criminal law, anyone who 'commits a war crime … shall be fined … or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.' And a war crime is defined as 'any conduct … which constitutes a violation of Common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva.' In other words, with the Hamdan decision, U.S. officials found to be responsible for subjecting war on terror detainees to torture, cruel treatment or other 'outrages upon personal dignity' could face prison or even the death penalty.     "Don't expect that to happen anytime soon, of course. For prosecutions to occur, some federal prosecutor would have to issue an indictment. And in the Justice Department of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales — who famously called the Geneva Convention 'quaint' — a genuine investigation into administration violations of the War Crimes Act just ain't gonna happen." - Rosa Brooks: Did Bush commit war crimes? Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld could expose officials to prosecution. -   "CORRECTION: We reported recently that Congress had raised the minimum wage while declining to raise their own salaries. In fact, they raised their own salaries while declining to raise the minimum wage. We apologize for any confusion caused by our mistake." - Ironic Times -   "As I see it, there's one Arab terrorist with a sense of humor, known in his cell as Khalid the Droll, and he said 'I bet I could get them all to take their shoes off at airports.' Some people disagree with me, but if the next one is called, because of his MO, the Underwear Bomber, you'll know I'm onto something."   " -- Calvin Trillin on The Daily Show -       "Gore v. Bush. Kerry v. Bush. Obrador v. Calderon.     "As in Florida in 2000, as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate, but the race is 'officially' too close to call.     "But they will call it - after they steal it. Reuters News agency reports that, as of 8pm Eastern time, as voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls show Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the 'left-wing' Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading in exit polls over Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN).     "We've told you again and again: Exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can't tell pollsters if their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science - and Calderon's ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.     "Calderon's election is openly supported by the Bush Administration.     "On the ground in Mexico City, our news team reports accusations from inside the Obrador campaign that operatives of the PAN had access to voter files which are supposed to be the sole property of the nation's electoral commission.     "We are not surprised." - Matt Pascarella and Greg Palast: Dispatch from Mexico City:STEALING IT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES -       "What a nasty week. The southern provinces turned into a desert Vietnam. Kabul had a kidnapping warning then a multi-bomb scare. My neighborhood store slapped a 30 percent price hike on peanut butter. And the ugliness was only warming up.     "From the Gulf Times: 'Nearly 15,000 bottles of alcoholic drinks and 1.5 tons of drugs went up in smoke near Afghanistan’s capital yesterday as officials torched illegal substances confiscated….'     "The day before this insanity, I barged into the office of the Minister of Interior pleading - 'begging' might be more accurate - for a more civilized approach to the problem. My economic argument went like this: I could take the evil product off their hands for free, allowing the government to focus its resources on feeding its starving citizens. But economics is never enough when outside the window there is a raging war and the threats are flying and peanut butter has skyrocketed, so I added a moral element: the evil juice and sinful substance are loathsome, repugnant, satanic forces doing the devil’s work in Afghanistan, no doubt about that. But for Americans they are moral necessities.     "This was a time, then, for Afghanistan to shine, a time to help their struggling American friends. After all, in today's world it is not easy for an American to keep his head.     "I knew my humanitarian effort to transfer the 15,000 bottles of booze and 1.5 tons of heavy drugs to my possession for the good of America was a long shot, but I don’t live for odds. Still, I didn’t expect to be laughed at and then manhandled off the Ministry compound." - Stewart Nusbaumer: An American Bombed in Afghanistan -       "The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.' The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Pétain was a true patriot, The Soviet Press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary bourgeois, equality..."     "I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.     "Here it is in modern English: Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account...     "A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you--even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent-and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.     "What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about. one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases: Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous. - George Orwell: Politics and the English Language -   "Accept my words only when you have examined them for yourselves; do not accept them simply because of the reverence you have for me. Those who only have faith in me and affection for me will not find the final freedom. But those who have faith in the truth and are determined on the path, they will find awakening." - Majjhima Nikaya -       "Bush's invasion of Iraq may have eliminated the remote possibility that Saddam would someday develop a nuclear bomb and share it with al-Qaeda. (Some intelligence analysts put that scenario at less than one percent, although Bush called it a gathering danger.) But the U.S. military invasion of Iraq had the unintended consequence of bolstering the conviction in North Korea and Iran that having the bomb may be the only way to fend off the United States.     "The unending scenes of bloodshed in Iraq also have inflamed anti-American passions in the Middle East, including Pakistan which already has nukes and is governed by fragile pro-U.S. dictator Pervez Musharraf.     "So, while eradicating one unlikely nightmare scenario - Hussein's mushroom cloud in the hands of Osama - Bush has increased the chances that the other two points on Bush's axis of evil, North Korea and Iran, will push for nuclear weapons and that Pakistan's Islamic fundamentalists, already closely allied with Osama, will oust Musharraf and gain control of existing nuclear weapons." - Robert Parry: One Percent Madness -   "'My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" - G.K. Chesterton -       "The law of karma, in the first place, is not a law. That word gives it an aroma as if it is something scientific, like the law of gravitation. It is merely a hope, not a law at all. It has been hoped for centuries that if you do good you will attain to good results. It is a human hope in existence which is absolutely neutral.     "If you look at nature, there are laws - the whole of science is nothing but discovery of those laws - but science has not come even close to detecting anything like the law of karma. Yes, it is certain that any action is going to bring certain reactions, but the law of karma is hoping for much more. If you simply say any action is bound to produce some reactions, it is possible to have scientific support for it. But man is hoping for much more. He is asking that a good action inevitably brings a good consequence with it, and the same with a bad action.     "Now, there are many things implied in this. First, What is good? Each society defines good according to itself. What is good to a Jew is not good to a Jaina; what is good to a Christian is not good to a Confucian. Not only that, what is good in one culture is bad in another culture. A law has to be universal. For example, if you heat water to one hundred degrees centigrade, it will evaporate -- in Tibet, in Russia, in America, even in Oregon. Certainly the law of karma is neither a scientific law nor part of any legal system.     "Then what kind of law is it? It is a hope. A man wandering in immense darkness, groping his way, clings to anything that gives a little hope, a little light - because what you observe in life itself is something totally different from the law of karma. A man who is a well-known criminal may succeed and become the president, the prime minister; or vice versa: he was not a criminal before, but when he becomes the president or prime minister of a country he becomes a criminal... So in life this strange situation happens: bad people reach good positions, become respectable or honored, not only in their time but throughout history...     "So the one thing to be remembered is: in my vision of life, yes, every action is bound to have some consequences, but they will not be somewhere else, you will have them here and now. Most probably you will get them almost simultaneously. When you are kind to someone, don't you feel a certain joy? A certain peace? A certain meaningfulness? Don't you feel that you are contented with what you have done? There is a kind of deep satisfaction. Have you ever felt that contentment when you are angry, when you are boiling with anger, when you hurt somebody, when you are mad with rage? Have you ever felt a peace, a silence descending in you? No, it is impossible. You will certainly feel something, but it will be a sadness that you again acted like a fool, that again you have done the same stupid thing that you decided again and again not to do. You will feel a tremendous unworthiness in yourself. You will feel that you are not a man but a machine, because you don't respond, you react. A man may have done something, and you reacted. That man had the key in his hands, and you just danced according to his desire; he had power over you. When somebody abuses you and you start fighting, what does it mean? It means that you don't have any capacity not to react." - Osho: Law of Karma -       "The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.     "The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.     "'The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. 'This undermines that assertion.'" - Andrew Harris: Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say -       "Oil and electricity consumption across the world could easily be cut by half, with major benefits for the environment, if clean energy technologies that are currently available were applied, an international watchdog said here Thursday.     "'A sustainable energy future is possible, but only if we act urgently and decisively to promote, develop and deploy a full mix of energy technologies... We have the means, now we need the will,' said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA)." - Rory Mulholland: World Energy Consumption Could Be Cut By Half With Clean Technology -       "Here's what happened in '04 - and what's in store for '08.     "In the 2004 election, over THREE MILLION voters were challenged at the polls. No one had seen anything like it since the era of Jim Crow and burning crosses. In 2004, voters were told their registrations had been purged or that their addresses were 'suspect.'      "Denied the right to the regular voting booths, these challenged voters were given "provisional" ballots. Over a million of these provisional ballots (1,090,729 of them) were tossed in the electoral dumpster uncounted.     "Funny thing about those ballots. About 88% were cast by minority voters.     "This isn't a number dropped on me from a black helicopter. They come from the raw data of the US Election Assistance Commission in Washington, DC.     "At the heart of the GOP's mass challenge of voters were what the party's top brass called, 'caging lists' - secret files of hundreds of thousands of voters, almost every one from a Black-majority voting precinct.     "When our investigations team, working for BBC TV, got our hands on these confidential files in October 2004, the Republicans told us the voters listed were their potential 'donors.' Really? The sheets included pages of men from homeless shelters in Florida.     "Donor lists, my ass. Every expert told us, these were 'challenge lists,' meant to stop these Black voters from casting ballots.     "When these 'caged' voters arrived at the polls in November 2004, they found their registrations missing, their right to vote blocked or their absentee ballots rejected because their addresses were supposedly 'fraudulent.'     "Why didn't the GOP honchos 'fess up to challenging these allegedly illegal voters? Because targeting voters of color is AGAINST THE LAW. The law in question is the Voting Rights Act of 1965.     "The Act says you can't go after groups of voters if you choose your targets based on race. Given that almost all the voters on the GOP hit list are Black, the illegal racial profiling is beyond even Karl Rove's ability to come up with an alibi.     "The Republicans target Black folk not because they don't like the color of their skin.  They don't like the color of their vote: Democrat. For that reason, the GOP included on its hit list Jewish retirement homes in Florida. Apparently, the GOP was also gunning for the Elderly of Zion.     "These so-called 'fraudulent' voters, in fact, were not fraudulent at all.  Page after page, as we've previously reported, are Black soldiers sent overseas.  The Bush campaign used their absence from their US homes to accuse them of voting from false addresses.     "Now that the GOP has been caught breaking the Voting Rights law, they have found a way to keep using their expensively obtained 'caging' lists:  let the law expire next year. If the Voting Rights Act dies in 2007, the 2008 race will be open season on dark-skinned voters. Only the renewal of the Voting Rights Act can prevent the planned racial wrecking of democracy." - Greg Palast: VOTING RIGHTS ACT NAILED TO BURNING CROSS - Behind the “Delay” in Renewing Law is Scheme for Theft of ‘08 -   "The freedom that really differentiates Americans from much of the rest of the world is codified in the Bill of Rights, including a free press, the right to assemble freely, and the right of the accused to habeas corpus, that ultimate right seized from kings, to 'have the body' instead of leaving it rot without trial in, say, a Gitmo cell." - Nina Burleigh: Progressive Patriotism -   "In this business you either sink or swim or you don't." - David Smith -   "We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything." - Thomas A. Edison -   "Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd." - Allan Goldfein -   "If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything." - Bill Lyon -   "An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person." - Joseph Addison -   "I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way." - Carl Sandburg: Incidentals -   "Have courage and a little willingness to venture and be defeated." - Robert Frost -   "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" - Walt Whitman: Song of Myself -

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