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Bring Your Gamma Ray Umbrella

Using their radical matter "cannonball" model, physicists in Switzerland and Israel have apparently come up with an accurate method for predicting when a star is going explode into a supernova.
But, no, they still can't tell you if it's going to goddam rain this weekend.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/supernova_warning_030417.html

Posted by Kadrey at 06:16 PM | Comments (0) April 17, 2003

Hello (Dis-Information) Dolly

If war makes strange bedfellows, it makes for even more weird jokes. Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Saddam’s minister of information, is the fruit bat who, until the fall of Baghdad, gave daily press briefings denying that enemy troops were near capitol, even when you could practically see Blackhawk helicopters hovering above Saddam's palace in the background. Now that Baghdad is being converted by Bechtel into a suburb of LA, al-Sahhaf has wisely taken a powder, but he lives on in our minds and hearts (In the last few days before Baghdad fell, he had a great smile during his press conferences; he knew no one believed a word he said, yet he had to complete the verbal ritual, not unlike Jay Leno or Letterman when their monologues aren't working; that little smile betrayed that he was in on the joke, too).

Not only does al-Sahhaf have his own cult site:

www.Welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com

But he's also getting his own talking doll. Herobuilders.com, the favorite toy company of jingoistic right-wing socio-paths, is bringing out a $25 doll in the Information Minster's likeness. The doll will spew now infamous propaganda lines such as, "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" and "Our initial assessment is that they will all die."

It's not a terrible idea, really. Why not make a joke out of a guy who was so clearly in on what a joke he had become. Still, I'd rather have one of those hacked Barbie dolls with the GI Joe voice box. Once you've heard Barbie bark, "Lock and load!" in her pink and white cheerleader outfit, all other talking dolls fall short.

Posted by Kadrey at 08:14 PM | Comments (0) April 09, 2003

The Paranoid-Critical Patriot

I was tempted, being a good and concerned citizen of the modern world, to blog about the endless stream of info and links about our current thrash with Iraq ("Thrash" because it can't be a war. Only Congress has the right to declare war and if it’s happened, I missed it.). But on the day when Saddam's statues are being yanked off their pedestals and dragged through the streets, I find myself exhausted with the whole stupid, bloody tragedy of it all. A ruthless Stalin-wannabe cut off at the knees by a faux-president with daddy issues. Who do we root for? Venal leaders lead us against other venal leaders. We're living a third-rate Tom Clancy novel. All that's left to hope for is less blood in the next few weeks, but that's not likely in the current circumstances.

For some reason, the world right now keeps sending me back to the Surrealists. They didn't just embrace the contradiction and the illogic of the world, they rode it like crank-fed surf rats. They wanted nothing more than to "… place the visible at the service of the invisible." And to change the world. They failed, just as our mini-Crusade into ancient Mesopotamia will fail to stablize the world. But the Surrealists failed with style.

In an effort to distract you just a little from the Baghdad edition of Real World, I present you with the First Surrealist Manifesto, dated 1924.

http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/F98/SurrealistManifesto.htm

Posted by Kadrey at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)