Disastrology

Originally published December 12, 2004

Saturn is in Aquarius, Jupiter in Orion and the Moon is in the gutter; so that will bring you money, happiness and health for the new year. Don't forget to send me the check when my predictions come true. Well okay, I'm not really an astrologist, and I'm not exactly doing this by the book; I suppose the real astrologists are shitting bricks while reading this. But since you're here, I would like to take this opportunity to ask you a few questions.

One thing that always intrigued me: suppose I read my horoscope, and that it forecasts a "sum of money" coming my way, does that mean that 500 million people will get some money today? 6 billion people on earth, divided by 12 signs, that's 500 million aquarii, right? Will 500 million librae find true love, while 500 million scorpios enhance their career prospects? Even factoring in the ascendants, that's well over a hundred occurences of a "sum of money". That's a lot of lucky people in one day: if a chacharrero finds a Pepsi can in a Mexico dumpyard, does that count as a "sum of money"?

When the horoscope guy gives me professional advice, does he know that I have no job? And when I read something like «small attentions will rekindle the flame with your loved one», me being a bachelor, how am I supposed to take this? It may be a little pathetic, but the closest thing I have ressembling a loved one is my computer; maybe I should offer it a modding for Christmas? I sure can't start giving flowers to my buddies, they'll beat the living shit out of me.

As a matter of fact, how does astrology work, exactly? The energy emanating from the stars in order to influence my life, where does it come from? Does it travel faster than light? Otherwise, how do two, five or ten stars in the same constellation, that could be separated by 10, 150, 20 000 light-years apart respectively manage to synchronize their energy broadcasts to have it land straight on my head, and all at the same time?

And how powerful is that energy? The Earth barely receives a billionth off all the energy emited by the Sun which is only eight light-minutes away; given that the sum decreases according to the square of the distance, there's hardly anything left after 40 light-years. While you're at it, you might as well be making predictions on the influence of the light-bulb in my living-room lamp on my love life, cause at this moment it's sending me a hell of a lot more energy than Sirius. Even if you suppose that the constellations are just used as a reference point and that the energy is actually coming from the planets, the principle remains.

And all the recently discovered planets, the ones circling nearby stars, how do they fit in on my celestial chart?

Speaking of other planets... as the earth circles around the Sun, the latter gives the illusion of moving around through the constellations: we call this the ecliptic, and that's what we made the zodiac with. Now, suppose that in the future we have colonized Mars or Jupiter's moons: the children that will be born there, say in january the Sun is in Capricorn on earth but there, from their point of view it is in Libra, or Leo, or just about anywhere: what is their astrological sign?

While we're at it: some day people will leave aboard colony ships for the stars: when they arrive at their destination, how will they know what sign they are? 5 or 10 light-years away, the relative position of most stars will not have changed significantly, but what guarantee have they that their new solar system will spin in the same direction or on the same axis. Maybe their polar star will be Vega for example. Will they have to overhaul the entire system? «What's your sign? Pegasus ascending Ursa Major». Southern Cross, is it a water sign, or earth or what? Even better, the children that were born during the journey, what's the deal with them? There's no sun in interstellar space, so no ecliptic, no zodiac, no astrological sign at all.

Or will they just pretend they're still on Earth, and keep the old system? Is there on our planet some sort of cosmic relay system that will channel stellar energy, add to it the planetary conjunction influence, and then send it all back to its recipient?

I wouldn't know, I have no experience in this, that's why I'm asking all those questions, I just want to find out; I only hope that some expert will explain it all to me. However, one thing I know for sure, no need to be an astrologist to make predictions, to wit:

For 2005*, I predict hurricanes, floods and tornadoes. The Middle-East will be in turmoil this year. Sex scandals will make the headlines. There will be bombing attacks in Israel, followed by reprisals towards palestinians. At least one satirical news site will make a joke about the terrorist state of alertness and Santa's sleigh. Michèle Richard will make an ass of herself. And you can count on me to come up next year and bug the shit out of you with "I told you so".

*Actually, that's pretty much my predictions for 2012 as well.

INTERNATIONAL CAPS-LOCK DAY!

TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS-LOCK DAY!! THIS IS THE DAY WHEN WE CAN YELL, SCREAM, HOLLER IN ALL-CAPS ALL WE WANT. YEAHHH!!!!! TODAY WE FUCKING VENT OUR SPLEEN! GO AHEAD, WRITE EVERYTHING IN ALL-CAPS, YOUR BLOG POSTS, YOUR E-MAILS, YOUR HOMEWORK, YOUR FUCKING GROCERY LISTS GOD DAMMMIT!!! ANY OTHER DAY IN THE YEAR IT IS RUDE, IT'S A BLATANT DISREGARD OF GOOD MANNERS CONTRARY TO ALL ELEMENTARY RULES OF NETIQUETTE, BUT TODAY IT IS OKAY, GO AHEAD AND GET WILD!

AH, SHIT, WHY STOP THERE? I DECREE THIS DAY OCTOBER 22ND TO BE FROM NOW ON INTERNATIONAL BOLD TYPE DAY ON TOP OF CAPS-LOCK!!! AND FUCK THIS, ARE WE GONNA BLOW IT OFF OR WON'T WE!!!??! BOLD-FACE TYPE, ALL-CAPS, AND ON TOP OF ALL THIS INTERNATIONAL EXCLAMATION POINT DAY!!!111!!111!! AND WHAT THE HELL, I ALSO DECREE THIS DAY TO BE INTERNATIONAL UNDERLINE, RED, AND IN 36 FUCKING POINTS FONT-SIZE!!!1111!!!111111!!!! CUM ON FEEL THE NOIIIIIISSE, WE GET WIIIIIILD WIIIIILLLD WIIIILLD!!!!!11111!!11!!11111

I WANT YOU TO GET UP NOW, I WANT YOU ALL TO PRESS YOUR CAPS-LOCK KEY, I WANT THE LITTLE GREEN LIGHT ON YOUR KEYBOARD BLINDING EVERYONE IN THE ROOM!!111!! I WANT YOU TO TYPE ALL OF YOUR SENTENCES WITH A MINIMUM OF 5 EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!111?!??111! I WANT YOU TO GO TO THE WINDOW, OPEN IT, STICK YOUR HEAD OUT AND SCREAM AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M WRITING EVERYTHING IN CAPITAAAAAAAALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I WANT YOU TO I WANT YOU ER, I WANt you to... oh damn, too late, it's midnight, the day is over, now now, calm down. Try again next year.

And quit yelling like that, dude, what the hell is wrong with you, come on, where have you been raised?

Thanks, despite everything

My electoral program

Originally published March 3, 2007

It is with no small amount of pride and joy that I officially declare my candidacy for the upcoming canadian federal elections. And I'm proud as well to announce the formation of my new party, Your Party, of which I'm the only member so far but which I'm sure you will not hesitate to join in great numbers, as it is a party with novel ideas proposing concrete solutions for building a better Canada, and even a better world.

You are probably thinking "yeah, sure, a new party, but the same old promises yet again". Well yes, you will hear promises, but this time, there really is a new angle: these promises will be made by you. That's right, my fellow electors, this party is Your Party, and its promises will be your promises!

Your Party will make health one of its topmost priorities: you will therefore solennelly pledge to exercise more, to try not to eat so much junk food, and to quit smoking: together, you will contribute to alleviate the burden on our overcrowded emergency wards.

Education is another important preoccupation of Your Party. Your program will promote culture and reading, endorse the arts and will take an active part in our youth's education; you promise to once in a while watch something else than reality tv or soaps, and to make an effort to expand your musical tastes beyond the 800 or so available titles at Wal-Mart or Canadian Tire. You pledge to keep yourself informed on history as well as current news, for at Your Party you find it intolerable that a people who ignores the causes of World War I or fails to point Iraq on a map can consider itself fit to self-govern.

Your Party is also concerned about the environment: concrete measures will be adopted to improve air quality, such as the purchase of a less energy-consuming vehicle and changing your driving habits in favor of more responsible ones. Your Party will put everything in its power to end the reign of the automobilist-king, and from then on will quit looking to the car as a status symbol, a toy for overgrown brats or a compensation aimed at soothing some psychological complex of a sexual nature. The valuable contribution of pedestrians and cyclists towards a green society will finally be recognized for its full value, and you will from now on yield them priority no matter what the indications are. Never you will hold the "delinquent cyclist" type of rhetoric anymore.

Finally, Your Party will grab the bull by the horns to restore the economy, and will spare no effort to reduce the public debt. You pledge to never again purchase any product or service you can not pay in cash, to get rid once and for all of everyone of your credit cards, and to stop placing your properties on mortgage. You at Your Party have fully understood that no state will ever be able to balance its budget as long as its population remains up to its neck in debt.

Your Party proposes new ideas, new solutions that call upon you: it rejects the old backwards ideas, and from now on refuse to listen to demagogues, those peddlers of easy solutions and cheap providers of ready-made scapegoats. Thanks to Your Party, you will at last be able to proclaim "We the State", for democracy means power of the people, and the people is Your Party. With your efforts and your leadership, Your Party will finally form the real providence state.

I wish you and Your Party the best of luck, but I'll be honest, I ain't gonna vote for you. I know you voters all too well, you never hold your promises.

December 24

Originally published September 11, 2010

If I say the name John Hinkley Jr, would you recognized it? Name rings a bell, but you're not sure? Now, how about Lee Harvey Oswald... yeah, much more famous, right? Naturally you've all identified the man who shot JFK, but on the other hand I suppose that those among you who recognized the name of the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan are not too many. What strikes me the most is the fact that both of them perpetrated the same deed and so should be enjoying a similar level of notoriety; the only real difference between them is that one of them succeeded where the other failed. And yet of the two only Oswald can be considered a household name.

It's true for the general public, and it seems to also be the case among conspiracy theorist circles: if it's about impossible to cross the street without tripping on a conspiracy thesis on the assassination of Kennedy, you have to dig to find one regarding Hinkley's shooting of president Reagan in 81. A Google search gives about 2 million results, but the links' relevance drops like a stone starting on page four. This is certainly not due to any lack of suspicious elements and strange coincidences, starting with the fact that Hinkley came from a family that was close to the Bushes: when you think that George H.W. Bush was vice-president at the time, and would have been slingshoted president in the event of Reagan's death, c'mon, I mean seriously, ain't just this stuff writing itself out? We ought to expect at least an Oliver Stone movie on that, and libraries filled to the brim with one best-seller after another all offering "shocking revelations" based on "previously undisclosed evidence" finally telling the "true story" behind this "historical tragedy". As it is, if 70% of americans continue today to declare in polls that they believe in a plot behind the Kennedy assassination, I'm positively sure that if we were to ask them the same question about the Reagan shooting, 70% of them would answer something along the lines of "No clue". And I strongly suspect that the few who do get interested in it are only doing so because it involves the Bush family; the Reagan conspiracy seems in fact to be nothing more than a footnote in the interminable 911 truthing saga.

It gets better: in 1994, four algerian extremists hijacked an Air France airliner with the intention of suicide-crashing it in Paris, presumably on the Eiffel Tower. The terrorists' plan failed, mainly because they made the mistake of making a stopover instead of flying straight towards their target. This is not a small thing: we are talking about a September 11 before the time, the WTC replaced by the Eiffel Tower, Ground Zero on the Champs-de-Mars. Imagine for a moment that they succeeded: imagine the shock, the trauma, think of the reactions (I can hear Bill Clinton solemny declaring "Today, we are all french"). Try to visualize Balladur, "the axis of good and evil", "you are either for us or against us", the attack being used as a justification for an invasion of Algeria – no wait, that doesn't make any sense, the terrorists were all algerian; let's say Morrocco. Or perhaps Belgium (No reason, it's just to make the french laugh. For some reason it always makes them laugh when someone mentions Belgium).

There's no doubt that we would have been witnesses to the major event of the decade, if not the entire second half of the 20th century, the kind that defines a generation, of which everyone say they remember where they were and what they were doing when it happened. In this parallel universe, you only have to pronounce the words "december 24" to get the emotion taps a-flowing.

And there's no doubt either that this would have spawned countless theories diverging from the official version, an entire subculture of conspiracy accusing everyone and his grandmother of having been part of the plot. However as things stand now, if anyone took upon him to slap together a plot theory accusing the french government to have pulled an inside job, he probably didn't put it online cause I haven't found anything.

Maybe we are beginning to glimpse a fundamental aspect of the peculiar psychology of conspiracy theorists. You would need to be naive to the point of idiocy to believe that there's no such thing as a conspiracy; it seems that the drive to plot against one's fellow person is firmly embedded in human nature. From co-workers gossiping behind their superior's back with the unavowed intent of stealing his position, to extremist groups plotting government overthrows, daily life as well as history is replete with plots and conspiracies either successful or not, and all have inspired numerous authors and scriptwriters. The disposition towards conspiring is written in undeletable letters in our collective unconsciousness.

But those mundane conspiracies are not enough for the conspirationnist; he has to raise the bar to impress his peers, he needs the Conspiracy of conspiracies, THE all-encompassing plot of ages, universal, penultimate, that controls everything. Freemasonry, Illuminati, Bildeberg, trilateral, cosmoplanetary order of the lizards of the Temple of Zurich, farmers wives club of, all this and more somehow all builds up towards some grand old Universal Plan.

After some thought, it's becoming obvious that it would be impossible for mere humans to organise such a monster: we are talking here of some super-organisation gathering everything that human society can muster in elite power-gifted individuals, and that managed all through the eons to control the world without getting noticed, and all the while succeed in avoiding the pitfalls of the Peter principle, the Snafu principle, the theorem of the five apes, that miserable exercice in meanness and mediocrity that we usually refer to as 'petty office politics', in short of all those organisational cancers that plague all agencies and hierarchies and turn them into those pathetic, bloated and ridiculous monsters burdened of all those incompetent, career-seeking and fundamentally useless buffoons swarming in all businesses and governments, and end up degenerating in those pachydermic bureaucracies that are the plague of our societies and that we know all too well.

Clearly we are dealing with individuals far above the norm, whether on intelligence, determination and especially an unconditionnal devotion to a common cause. The kind of people – or creature even – that would for instance choose not to have anything to do with four clueless dolts likely to commit such a gross tactical error as to land with an hijacked plane, thereby putting themselves at the mercy of law enforcers. The kind also who, endeavouring to scheme out the assassination of a president, would certainly manage to find better than some confused whacko armed with a .32 purchased in a pawn shop who fired six bullets at point blank and still managed to miss the target on all shots, only owing his single hit on the president to a lucky ricochet on the limousine's bumper.

There's little merit in umasking plots fomented by klutzes and fatally vowed for failure; search 'pope conspiracy' on Google and you will find more pages on the death of John-Paul the 1st than on the assassination attempt on John-Paul the 2nd; there's no doubt in my mind that this would be a far different case if Ali Ağca hadn't miss. For the conspirationist perpetually craving for personal self-esteem, it is much more gratifying to uncover plots from age old organisations formed of supra-geniuses, and better still to publish his findings on the web in all impunity, without fear of reprisals from the hyper-powerful: "they are the greatest minds of all time, and I am smarter than them".

All is left to do now for the conspirationists is to seize power themselves, if they're so smart: isn't this their secret fantasy anyway?

Pimp my blog

Originally published, like, two hours ago

Here's introducing the new and improved Toaster, now with 70% more bling! I just wanted to make the switch to Blogger's version 3, but when I found out I could create transparent backgrounds, I sort of got a little carried away. Not to mention rounding the corners; now my blog looks like a crossover between OS X and The Sports Network. In a nutshell it is full of awesome.

I spent three days on that; I loaded and reloaded the page so many times I went up about twenty ranks in the TLMB directory. If you ever wondered how comes absolutely crappy blogs manage to get in the top ten, well now you know their trick.

On that, have a merry christmas.

All ye Unfaithful

Originally published December 25th, 2008

Christmas: it is a christian holiday right? Are you certain? You sure about that? Let's have a look, shall we?

For starters there's the date. December 25th was the day of Sol Invictus (Unvanquished Sun), a roman holiday of the winter solstice representing a composite of sun deities from various cults. It was not before the 4th century that it was assimilated with the celebration of the birth of Jesus. In fact the days preceding and following the winter solstice have been the object of rites and celebrations among just about every culture through Antiquity, and have invariably been associated with the worship of the Sun.

Then there's the tree. Germanic tribes venerated Yggdrasill, a mythical tree that held the world. To pay it hommage, kings hung sacrificial animals to tree branches, while the poor hung fruits or other offerings.

Father Christmas: well aren't we in some kind of mess or what. If the original Saint-Nicholas was a christian (and greek), he changed quite a lot along the centuries: norse mythology, germanic folklore, Charles Dickens all added their contribution. A certain Samuel Moore gave him his reindeers and sledge in a poem, an illustrator from Harper's Weekly caparisoned him in his red costume, a Macy's dept. stores ad campaign added a ninth reindeer (Rudolph), and another ad campaign, from Coca-Cola this time, fixed the portrait for posterity.

The confusion is such that hollanders don't even know to which saint they should turn to anymore: half of them offer gifts on Saint-Nicholas day (their traditional Sinte Klaas), half of them on Christmas (Santa Claus) and half of them on both. It's an epic clusterfuck, so let us just cut the gordian knot and proceed straight to the inevitable conclusion: Frankensanta here has jackshit to do with Jesus, and his origin is about as biblical as that of Barney the dinosaur.

The giving of presents: perhaps you think that the custom of exchanging gifts commemorates the offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh by the three Magi to baby Jesus? Perhaps; but on the other hand, romans already held that custom during their saturnals.

Mistletoe? Sacred plants of the druids, it bears fruit during the winter solstice, and was used in their New Year rituals. The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe comes from Scandinavia, where it was held to be the plant of peace; ennemies who met under a branch of mistletoe laid down their weapons and observed a truce for a day. And to make a long story short, the Yule log also is from the Scandinavians, as well as the Yule stockings hung on the chimney. And the Yule garlands. And the habit of singing Yule carols from door to door. And the word Yule (are we through already? Beginning to grind my gears, those scandivanian they are).

Now for the Nativity scene, or creche. Okay, there's Mary, Joseph, Joseph jr sorry I mean Jesus, we're seeing some relevance at last. There's also the three Kings of the Magi, even if they aren't really kings in the Gospel, nor does it tell us how many they actually were or what were their names. There's no ox or ass; there are angels, but probably no star – it would have appeared to guide the magi, but doesn't seem visible from the site as it is in fact the angels that marshalled the neighbouring shepherds to the site.

As for baby Jesus, the fact of portraying him as a one-year-old might be passed off as artistic latitude (newborn infants are not exactly picture pretty), but the baby blues and golden curls send us back again straight to the cult of the Sun God, especially Apollo. Cause, y'know, Jesus was like all the other hebrews: he was a brown dude and his eyes were pitch black.

So next time someone starts busting your chops with this whole "christian heritage" that is Christmas Day routine, chortle quietly and tell them to just fuck away.

So much hate

Originally published November 9, 2007

One practical aspect about some hate jokes is that they are permutable; all is needed to do is to substitute the target group to the one which piss us off the most, and the joke becomes much funnier. So here's a collection of jokes I gleaned here and there off the net, after correcting the numerous spelling and grammar errors (I'm starting to really believe the connection between hate and ignorance). Simply replace all instances of "you-know-what" with people that you personnally dislike.

Oh, come now, no need to look at me this way, you have one too, don't deny it; ethnic, religious or sexual minority, political opinion, sports team affiliation, economic class, profession, we all have a "you-know-what" towards whom all our lofty principles and moral outrage don't apply. If hard pressed, just use "pedophile", you can't go wrong with them, pedophiles are about the last minority on which it is still politically correct to indiscriminately bash upon. Nazis on the other hand, it may be tempting, but you really have to be a bag of bricks not to see the irony, so the fun gets spoiled somewhat – but then again there are many who won't really think twice about that.

So without further ado, here are the jokes.


How do you call 1000 you-know-what at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start

Do you know why you-know-what coffins only have two handles?
You've ever seen a trash can with four handles?

What's the difference between a dead you-know-what in the street and a dead dog in the street?
There are skidmarks in front of the dog

What's the difference between a you-know-what and a rat?
One is a loathsome vermin carrying repulsive diseases who enjoys wallowing in carrion and filth, and the other is a rodent

How do you call a you-know-what buried in concrete to the neck?
A concrete shortage

Where can you find a good you-know-what?
The cemetary

What's the difference between a you-know-what and an onion?
We cry when we cut the onion

A guy walks into a bar holding a crocodile on a leash; he asks the bartender "you serve you-know-whats here?"
The bartender answers "Yes, of course"
And the guys goes "Great, that will be one beer for me and one you-know-what for my crocodile"

How do you call a you-know-what with half a brain?
Gifted

A you-know-what shows up at the Pearly Gates; St-Peter looks at him and says "Sorry, you-know-whats are not allowed in Heaven!"
- But I'm a good person! says the you know-what; once I gave 20 dollars to a beggar!
- That's it?
- Another time I gave 20 dollars to a foundation!
- Oh really?
- And then one time I found 20 dollars in a wallet, and I gave it back to its owner!
St-Peter is hardy impressed but he tells the you-know-what to wait and he goes inside to talk to God. After a couple of minutes he comes back and gives a wad of bills to the you know-what saying "Here's your sixty bucks! Now go to Hell!"

How do you get a you-know-what down a tree?"
You cut the rope

What do you-know-whats use as a contraceptive?
Their personnality

You are locked in a cage with a tiger, a rattlesnake and a you-know-what. You have a rifle but only two bullets: what should you do?
Shoot the you-know-what – twice

What's the difference between a you-know-what and a trampoline?
You take your boots off to jump on the trampoline

One time there's this guy driving a truck on the highway. He is the kind of guy who really enjoys running over you-know-whats with his truck, because like, he really hates them; every time he sees a you-know-what he just can't control himself, he has to squash him and scratch an X on his dashboard.
So one fine day he picks up this preacher who was hitchhiking. After a few kilometers he sees a you-know-what on the side of the highway; he's about to make a swerve to hit him but thinks the better of it and barely misses him; he casts a glance at the preacher and mumbles "I'm sorry rev. I don't know what got into me"; the preacher justs looks at him disapprovingly muttering "tut tut tut".
A little later he sees another you-know-what; again he makes for him only to change his mind at the last fraction of a second; again he looks sideways at the preacher and apologizes profusely; again the preacher shakes his head and goes "tut tut tut".
Some more kilometers later yet another you-know-what is standing on the shoulder lane. This time it's just too much, three you-know-whats in less than half an hour, it's a new record, he thinks, he just have to nail this one. So one more time he aligns his course to get him head-on, and one more time he changes his idea just before impact, but this time it's too late and he hears a boom while he sees in his rearview mirror bits and pieces of you-know-what flying all over the pavement. Mortified, he glances at the preacher who promptly starts admonishing him: "You're behavior is absolutely inappropriate my son!"
- I'm sorry reverend, please forgive me, mea culpa, I won't do it again!
- You ought to be ashamed of yourself! You almost hit two you-know-whats!
- Pardon me reverend!
- And if I haven't opened the door, you would have missed the last one as well!"


What's that? What is my you-know-what? Wait, you don't know? Why, it's you of course! No, not you, the other one behind. Yeah that's right, no use in hiding. Sorry to tell you that, I thought you knew.

Let them eat s... cake

Originally published on December 27, 2009

At the last reckoning, the world population was about 6,8 billion; divided by 1 million tons, that gives 0,294 pounds, or divided by 365, 0,3656 grams per day. So if 100 millions tons of a given good is produced annually in the world, the equal share of each inhabitant comes to 36,56 g.

I went and perused production statistics of various basic food products. Some numbers dated back to 2006, and their accuracy is not always rigorous, but as a whole they give a rather good picture.

Whenever possible I substracted whatever was destined to cattle feed, or the production of ethanol fuel. So there is what each person on earth should be expecting to find on his plate every day:

23 grams of beef
35 grams of pork
6 grams of mutton
31 grams of poultry
19 grams of egg (about 1/4 of one egg)
44 grams of fish
200 grams of milk, 31 grams of cheese and 22 grams of butter
322 grams of vegetables and 135 grams of fruit
33 grams of maize
153 grams of wheat
36 grams of soy
149 grams of rice
152 grams of vegetable oil

If you have a hard time believing those figures, you are not the only one: I checked three times and I'm still convinced I fucked up somewhere, and if someone could point it out me where I would be very grateful cause I find it quite surreal that there are people starving to death on a planet capable of delivering nearly a kilo and a half to each and every one of its inhabitant.

I didn't factor in the food destined to pets; ah ha, here it is, the cause of world hunger, our cats and dogs. We should kill them all and eat them (yeah, I know, it's not funny).

As a closer, if each of the 6,8 billion earthling had a Toyota Prius, there would be enough gasoline at this moment to let each one of them drive 4,400 kilometers each year.

http://www.21food.com/news/detail10748.html
http://www.beef.org/uDocs/IssuesUpdate/Insight%20Jan-Feb%202009.pdf
http://www.pig-international.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=27106
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/918/food-outlook-global-market-analysis-poultry-meat
http://www.mydigitalfc.com/commodities/global-wheat-production-be-a-record-2008-09-report-261
http://nue.okstate.edu/crop_information/world_wheat_production.htm
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Supply-Chain/Record-world-wheat-production-forecast-in-2008-09
http://www.mydigitalfc.com/commodities/global-wheat-production-be-a-record-2008-09-report-261
http://www.rice-trade.com/world-wide-rice-production.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2148362/
http://www.greenfacts.org/en/fisheries/l-2/01-fisheries-production.htm#0
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3779/is_n48/ai_11907856/
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai466e/ai466e09.htm
http://www.internationalegg.com/corporate/eggindustry/details.asp?id=18
http://www.dairyco.net/datum/milk-supply/milk-production/world-milk-production.aspx
http://www.rabobank.com/.../The%20world%20of%20vegetables_intro_tcm43-34783.pdf
www.fas.usda.gov/.../World%20Fresh%20Fruit%20Market%20(08-04).pdf
(and numerous others...)

Toaster meth

Originally published November 15 2005

I went on a lark and searched the web for those infamous recipes for methamphetamine, a.k.a. crystal meth. Didn't take me long: first site I've found gave me about half a dozen recipes, and none of them were alike. They had one thing in common though: all of them had a list of ingredients postal enough to discourage anyone with an IQ over fifty to stay the hell away from this shit. I mean, no kidding, muriatic acid? Aluminum dissolved in sulfuric acid? Prying open lithium batteries? Scratch away the sulfur on match cartons??? ...And you smoke that?!?

I have the conviction there must be a plot conspired by some tenebrous power to wipe the fucktards from our society. Or unless it's merely a manifestation of the collective unconscious. Whatever the case may be, those recuring fads of toxic drugs, extreme sports, road rage and jackass-inspired behavior seem to be the end result of the sudden realisation on the part of certain individuals that they represent a regression for the genetic pool of the species and that they should try to terminate themselves before they have the opportunity to procreate and so to perpetuate their defective genes. Well while you're about it why dick around? Crystal meth, fah, that's for sissies: I cooked you up a little special blend of my own, you let me know what you think. Come to think of it, I don't believe you'll be able to let anyone whatsoever know what you think or anything else. So without further ado, here's my recipe for "toaster meth".

You will need

30 grams of cyanide
300 ml of curare
1 kilo of Cyclon B
20 grams of cobra venom
50 grams of strychnine
A couple of grains of enriched plutonium (optional: that's just for the bling)
3 doses of ecstasy

Take the ecstasy, and wait for the effect to kick in. When you feel full of energy and boldness, invincible, capable of anything, in a word thoroughly and utterly shitheaded, mix the cyanide, curare, venom and strychnine, add the other ingredients and let seep for a couple of minutes. Gulp down the plutonium rinsing it down with the mix, and in your throes of agony open the box of Cyclon B and good ridd... well, okay, maybe not. Let's just say happy trails, you're gonna go far kid, you're gonna fly so fucking high. Dude, I'm like totally tripping to the extreeeeme, I'm in your faaaaace!!!!

For those who worry that I may encourage youth suicide, I mean sriously, do they really need any encouragement at this point? Be honest, it was just a matter of time. And this way, they won't spent the next ten years trying to steal your credit card or cart away your TV set to the pawn shop.

Quiz: Are you stupid?

Originally published August 4, 2005

Directions: one, you answer questions. Two, you see results bottom page. Then, you send questionnaire to friend so friend fill too. We clear? You reading okay?

How would you describe the state of your general culture?
1) On hold
2) Disconnected
3) Vegetative
4) Blonde
5) You are my favorite blogger, I own all of your albums.

Do you struggle with orthograph? i.e. do you make many spelling errors?
1) Hey, you made a eror on "speling"!
2) You also made a eror on "eror"! Like, you should talk.
3) Only when I write
4) 2 mistakes per word, is that considered a lot?
5) Oh yes, I would like to have your orthograph

What is your philosophy in life?
1) I may not be pretty, but I ain't smart either
2) I think, so... err, therefore... I... think... errr
3) 36 C
4) Anything that looks good on a car bumper
5) Can you repeat the question?

Are you subject to cognitive dissonances relatively to sensorial stimuli from your psycho-affective environment, and how does it influence your level of awareness towards the upsurge of the new socio-cultural paradigms?
1) Er ...?
2) The what in what now...?
3) ......
4) ....eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.....
5) Hi, I'm a first time caller, long time listener

Choose the sentence that best describes your intellectual capacities.
1) The light is on, but nobody's home
2) The wheel is turning, but the hamster's dead
3) I catch quickly, but I need to be explained for quite a while
4) The switch is turned on but the bulb is burnt out
5) Congratulations for your show

Here are six x-rays taken from various brains; choose the one that ressemble yours the most.


Answer true or false to the following questions:
I need an hour and a half to watch 60 minutes (True) (False)
I can't count to twenty without taking my shoes off (True) (False)
My intellectual quotient is a three digit figure, provided you include the decimals. (True) (False)
My ECG indicates "The number you are trying to reach is out of service" (True) (False)

Lastly, tell us who will sent this questionnaire to and why
1) To laugh together at the morons as a means of complicity
2) Because he (she) is a moron
3) I say 1) but mean 2)


RESULTS: If you answer any one of the preceding questions, you officially classify in the stupid category. Seriously.

43 presidents

Originally published February 17, 2005; update accordingly

The fact that the american presidents come from a variety of social classes and professions is no small pride to americans, who enjoy repeating the «anyone can become president» mantra. But if it's true that there has been about six or seven presidents who originated from modest or impoverished backgrounds, at least a dozen come from rich families if not outright aristocracy; in fact, 11 of them had another president somewhere in their family tree.

There are acquaintances that certainly don't harm: 15 had been card-carrying members of the Order of Freemasons, and 6 others are considered supporters. 2 were anti-masons (John Adams senior and junior), but that was almost two centuries ago.

And some prerequisites are mandatory: amongst the 43 presidents that the United States have had during its history, there had been

43 men

43 heterosexuals; no rumors of closet exists as far as I know.

43 whites, but there could have been some skeletons in the closet: according to some historians, 5 presidents had some black ancestry.

43 christians (42 protestants and 1 catholic)

0 atheists, or at least none have admitted so; but again, there could be some closet cases.


As for the governors, from a total of 1051, including colonies and territories:

29 women

4 asians, 3 blacks, 9 latinos, 0 native, 5 others/unknown

1051 christians, including 114 catholics; 0 self-declared atheists; in five states, it is still forbidden by law for an atheist to hold office.

And as you guess, 0 homosexuals.

3 out of 1051. Considering that african-americans account for 12% of the population, we come way short of representivity; as for catholics, they constitutes 23%. Christians total 86% of the population.

Fiction goes farther than reality, but timidly: of all the fictive presidents that Hollywood ever invented, only one to my knowledge has been portrayed by a black actor (Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact)*


And what about here in Canada? From 21 prime ministers, 15 were anglophones and 6 francophones.

In Quebec, 31 prime ministers: 2 anglophones and 29 francophones.

French speakers represent 20% of the canadian population, and 80% of the Quebec population. There is not a lot of countries where an oppressed minority has been so well represented in politics.


* Yes, I know now, there's also Dennis Haysbert in 24

Heptune: presidents list
National Governor Association
Premier ministre du Québec, site officiel
Teaching and learning about Canada
Adherents.com

Top 10 reasons why I hate top ten lists

Originally published April 17, 2007

• 10 – Every one is doing it; it's a cliche as old as time itself, it's getting tired.
• 9 – It has no scientific value or no objectiveness whatsoever; people put whatever they feel like in their toplists in an unapologetically arbitrary fashion.
• 8 – It's too easy; any moron and his grandma can rig a toplist; all you need is a topic and ten platitudes to say on it.
• 7 – It's been done to death: from the top ten nose-picking techniques to the top ten reasons why the weather is nice, there isn't any theme left that hasn't already been the subject of a top ten list. The well has run dry.
• 6 – Too many people haven't really understood the concept and put two or three items in a single entry, so that their top ten becomes a top 11 or 12. Also, too many people wrongly assume that peddling self-derision will make their list less lame.
• 5 – The vast majority of toplists deal with topics nobody even gives a flying fuck about.
• 4 – U mai hav a toplist on ur skyblog but u wil b still a moron and u ll rite as bad lol
• 3 – It's obvious padding. From inept talk-shows to blogs desperately groping for a meme, toplists have become a crutch compensating for the lack of content. It is especially symptomatic of a blogger that ran fresh out of ideas and hasn't posted in like, about a month and a half.
• 2 – Toplists are more often than not made by pompous asses who figure that because they have a blog they can write whatever they want in it.

And the number 1 reason why I hate toplists:

• 1 – Because it's my blog and I can write whatever I want in it

Next time, the top ten reasons why my blog is falling apart at the seams

Think about it

Originally published July 7, 2007

You're still there? What do you want from me, a blog post? I'm busy, go to sleep. C'mon, hurry up, beddie bye. Allright, allright, quit looking at me with those sad puppy eyes. Here are some random observations on various subjects

If Coke Zero really has all the taste of regular Coke but without any calories, why do they still make regular Coke?

I heard somewhere that woman have a less developed spatial perception. But I don't agree: to manage to fully block a 10 feet wide supermarket alley with a cart that's barely 3 foot long by 1 feet wide, you need a hell of a spatial perception I'm telling you.

Woman allegedly put on make-up to please men; if that is true, why are we never seeing any guy in cosmetic ads, but there's always a mirror visible?

Is the host entirely assimilated by the digestive system, or is there some leftover? I mean, when a christian sits down on the commode on monday morning to take a shit, is there a little bit of the body of Christ getting out of his ass?

While we're on the subject, if God created man in his image, does that mean that God has an asshole?

The World Trade Center in Shanghai, which will be the highest skyscraper in the world, is gonna have a circular aperture near its summit. Did the architects thought about all the breakneck daredevil who will get in their head to go through that hole with their plane, their hangglider or God knows what?

The extra-terrestrials that conspired with the americans to supply them stealth technology, have they ever thought of using it themselves?

Athletes who are juiced are supposedly a minority. Is this minority more likely to be found in the middle of the pack, at the end of it or in the lead?

According to the principle of wishful thinking, if the players of a hockey team start to pray, they will win the Stanley Cup. So, if all the players from all 30 NHL teams start to pray, will they all win the Stanley Cup? The same year?

You're never bored when you're paranoid- the truth behind 9/11, part 4

Originally published September 18, 2008

This is the fourth part of a four-part series: for the other parts, click here: 1st part, 2nd part, 3rd part

Those amongst who courageaously put up with me all along – and presumably that's not saying a lot – must be getting a splitting headache trying to figure out who did what where to whom and who got paid. To be perfectly honest, you are not alone. So I will attempt to resume the whole deal with a detailed timeline of the September 11 conspiracy.

• ? – four Boeings painted with the colors of the two airline companies take off from a strip of which the exact whereabouts are still unknown; they will be the duplicates of four of the to-be-hijacked planes; three of them are fitted with missiles; a fifth plane, an A-10 Thunderbolt specially modified for air-to-air combat and repainted in white to simulate a private corporate jet, also takes off; it will become the duplicate of flight 93
• 07:00 to 07:45 – At Logan airport in Boston, three of the five pirates from flight 11 are selected for a security check-up; at Newark airport in New Jersey, one of the pirate from flight 93 is selected; at Dulles airport in Washington, two of the pirates from flight 77 are selected after setting the metal detector's alarm off.
• 07:59 – American Airlines flight 11 take off from Boston
• 08:14 – beginning of the hijacking of flight 11
• 08:14 – United Airlines flight 175 take off from Boston
• 08:19 to 08:44 – the conspirators call American Airline impersonating Betty Ong, a flight attendant aboard flight 11
• 08:20 – American Airlines flight 77 take off from Washington
• 08:20 to 08:44 – the conspirators call American Airlines' flight services impersonating Amy Sweeney, an attendant aboard flight 11
• 08:24 – Flight 11 changes course and heads towards New York; the conspirators send two radio messages pretending to be Mohammad Atta, one of the "hijackers"
• 08:26 – American Airlines flight manager Michael Woodward identifies three of the hijackers on flight 11 with the help of the seat numbers provided by the false Amy Sweeney
• 08:30 – flight 11 and its double meet and exchange their radar signatures
• 08:34 – the conspirators send a third message pretending to be Atta
• 08:37 – the conspirators contact an air controller pretending to be the crew of flight 175 and "confirm" visual contact
• 08:37 – NORAD scrambles fighters to intercept flight 11
• 08:42 – flight 93 takes off from Newark
• 08:42 – beginning of the hijacking of flight 175
• 08:44 – the pilot of US Airlines flight 853 receives a brief signal from an emergency locating transmitter (ELT), possibly from either flight 175 or flight 11
• 08:46 – flight 77 and its double meet and exchange their radar signatures
• 08:46 – flight 11's double crashes in the World Trade Center's north tower a fraction of a second after firing its missile
• 08:48 – CNN interrupt their broadcasting and begin live coverage
• 08:51 appr. – beginning of the hijacking of flight 77
• 08:52 appr. – the conspirators leave the practically intact passport of Satam al Suqami, one of the flight 11 "hijackers", on a sidewalk in the WTC vicinity
• 08:52 – two F-15 scramble from Otis base to intercept the phoney flight 11 unawares that it already crashed
• 08:52 – the conspirators call the United Airlines maintenance center in San Francisco impersonating a flight attendant aboard flight 175 of an uncertain identity, possibly Robert Fangman
• 08:52 – the conspirators call the father of one of the passengers of flight 175, Robert Hanson, impersonating him
• 08:53 – flight 11 lands in Harrisburgh
• 08:53 – flight 175 and its double meet and exchange their radar signatures
• 08:54 – flight 77's double changes course and heads towards Washington
• 08:55 – Delta Airlines flight 2315 narrowly avoids a collision with flight 175; another collision is avoided with flight 542 from US Airways
• 08:56 – air controllers lose track of flight 77's double's signal
• 08:57 to 09:32 – the Global Hawk catches up with flight 77 and starts following it
• 08:58 – flight 175's double changes course and heads towards New York
• 08:58 – the conspirators call the wife of a flight 175 passenger, Brian Sweeney, impersonating him; they also call his mother a couple of minutes later
• 09:00 approx. – three F-16 cut short an ongoing exercise and return to Andrews air base
• 09:00 – the conspirators call Peter Hanson's father a second time
• 09:00 and thereafter – Shafig bin Laden, Ossama's brother, attends a conference held by the Carlyle Group at the Washington Ritz Carlton
• 09:00 and thereafter – Mike Ballinger, a United Airlines dispatcher, proceeds to send a warning one by one to all the company's planes
• 09:01 – United Airlines flight 23 cancels its departure from John F. Kennedy airport in New York; the pirates on board start to protest loudly but eventually cancel their plans and flee; flight 23's double goes get lost God knows where
• 09:02 – flight 175 lands in Harrisburgh
• 09:02 – flight 93 and its double meet and exchange their radar signatures
• 09:03 – flight 175's double crashes in the World's Trade Center' south tower a fraction of a second after launching its missile
• 09:03 – NYPD chief Joseph Esposito puts the city of New-York on maximum alert status
• 09:04 – the FAA cancels departures from all airports in New York state and all the states of New England
• 09:06 – President Bush is informed of the crash of flight 175
• 09:07 – flight 93 lands in Harrisburgh, and the passengers of flights 175 and 11 are transferred aboard
• 09:08 – the FAA extends its flight prohibition to the entire US east coast
• 09:08 to 09:13 – the two F-15 from Otis base take an holding flight path east of Long Island
• 09:09 – flight 77 lands in Harrisburgh; the passengers are transferred aboard flight 93
• 09:09 and hereafter – the conspirators flood the airwaves with bogus hijacking reports to confuse air control
• 09:12 to 09:15 – the conspirators call the parents of Renee May, flight attendant aboard fight 77 and impersonate her; they intoxicate them with numerous contradictory informations
• 09:15 to 10:28 – two employees stuck on the 8th floor of WTC7 hear several explosions
• 09:20 – the conspirators call the husband of a passenger aboard flight 77, Barbara Olson and impersonate her; the husband is Theodore Olson, the Dept. of Justice general sollicitor
• 09:21 – the New York Port Authority closes all bridges and tunnels in the city
• 09:24 – the crew of flight 93 receives Mike Ballinger's warning
• 09:24 – Langley air base scrambles their jets
• 09:25 – the two F-15 from Otis air base finally arrive over Manhattan and commence air patrol
• 09:26 – the FAA grounds all departures across the nation, and orders all planes (commercial, private and even military) already in the air to land at the first reasonnable opportunity
• 09:26 – US Air Force raises its alert level to Delta
• 09:28 – beginning of the fake hijacking of flight 93; the pirates' entry in the cockpit is heard by Cleveland air controllers
• 09:29 – President Bush emits his first televised comments
• 09:30 to 09:45 – the conspirators call three times the wife of Tom Burnett, passenger aboard flight 93 and impersonate him
• 09:30 – United Airlines orders all of its airliners to land immediately; American Airlines will follow suit at 09:35
• 09:30 – three F-16 scrambles from Langley base and heads east towards the Atlantic ocean
• 09:31 to 10:06 – a private flight, ExecuJet 956, spots flight 93 and confirms both visual and radio contact, and even has to maneuver to avoid a collision; it will follow it until it crashes
• 09:32 – the controllers at Dulles airport find flight 77's signal back, unawares that both its double and the Global Hawk are flying right in its wake
• 09:32 – the conspirators send a radio message pretending to be the hijackers of flight 93
• 09:34 to 11:45 – the conspirators jam the radio signal emitted by Air Force One, interfering with President Bush's attempts to contact the White House
• 09:35 – flight 93's double changes course and heads towards Washington
• 09:35 – recordings recovered from flight 93's black box begin now
• 09:35 to 09:41 – the conspirators call United Airlines' maintenance center in San Francisco impersonating a flight attendant aboard flight 93, Sandy Bradshaw
• 09:36 – a E-4B from the US Strategic Command take off from an unspecified base in the vicinity of Washington and fly over the Pentagon to guide to Global Hawk's trajectory
• 09:36 – a C-130 who just took off from Langley air base approaches flight 77 to provide a false confirmation of its presence; it provides a visual distraction as well; after the crash, it will head for Shanksville
• 09:37 – The Global crashes in the western wall of the Pentagon while flight 77's double continues on its course over the complex and towards Ronald Reagan airport a kilometer further ahead
• 09:37 to 10:03 – the conspirators call several friends and relatives of passengers aboard flight 93 and impersonate them all, most notably Todd Beamer, Jeremy Glick and Mark Bingham
• 09:38 – the conspirators knock over a couple of streetlights on Washington Blvd
• 09:38 – a fire squad from Ronald Reagan airport who was helping on the scene of an auto accident near the airport is redirected to the Pentagon
• 09:38 and hereafter – FBI agents seize the recordings from the security camera in commercial buildings nearby the Pentagon
• 09:38 or 09:45 – anti-terrorist agency director Richard Clarke ask for air patrols over all major cities in the United States; however it's not certain if that order was transmitted to everyone
• 09:39 approx. – flight 77's double discreetly lands on Ronald Reagan airport, where it is hacked to pieces
• 09:39 – the conspirators transmit a radio message impersonating Ziad Jarrah, one of the "pirates" of flight 93
• 09:41 –unit 105 from Arlington County Fire Department arrives at the Pentagon
• 09:42 approx. – the E-4B comes back over the Pentagon and circles it a couple of times
• 09:45 – flight 93 takes off from Harrisburgh
• 09:45 – the american airspace is shut off; all incoming international flights are diverted
• 09:47 – the conspirators initiates the controlled demolition of the south tower by causing the collapse of some floors around the 90th
• 09:47 – the conspirators impersonating Jeremy Glick announce to his wife that the passengers are voting to decide whether to revolt
• 09:49 approx. – after a lengthy detour over the Atlantic, the F-16 from Langley air base finally reach Washington
• 09:50 to 10:15 approx. – the conspirators scatter parts of flight 77's double all over the crash scene at the Pentagon; they cross the security perimeter and sneak between "B" and "C" rings to deposit pieces of the Boeing's nose cone and landing gear; they leave some charred bodies still attached to their seat inside the building; they also attempt to make all traces of the Global hawk disappear
• 09:52 – two firemen reach the 78th floor on the south tower and only report two minor fires by radio
• 09:55 – President Bush takes off from Sarasota aboard Air Force One without any precise destination; he circles around Florida
• 09:58 – the conspirators impersonating Todd Beamer announce the beginning of the passenger "revolt" aboard flight 93 to a GTE consumer service supervisor ("let's roll")
• 09:58 – flight 93 is shot down by its double, who continues its course to God knows where
• 09:58 to 10:06 – the conspirators simulates the struggle between the hijackers and the passengers on the controllers radio as well as on the phones of several relatives and acquaintances of the passengers, using a adroitly orchestrated scenario
• 09:59 – the conspirators set off a bomb on the ground floor of the WTC south tower; the 82nd floor falls down, triggering the collapse of the tower
• 10:03 – flight 93 crashes in an abandonned open-quarry mine
  in Pennsylvania
• 10:05 and herafter – the conspirators collect the remains of the passengers from flight 77, 11 and 175 on the site of flight 93's crash and bring them back to the Pentagon and the WTC
• 10:06 approx. – CIA director George Tenet finally receives the passenger manifests after numerous bureaucratic delays
• 10:08 – the C-130 from the Pentagon arrives at the flight 93 crash site to confound again any eyewitness
• 10:10 approx. – Vice-President Cheney authorizes the shooting of flight 93, apparently unawares that it already crashed
• 10:10 – The military level of alert is raised to Defcon 3
• 10:15 – the front wall of the Pentagon's damaged section collapses
• 10:20 – aboard Air Force One, President Bush tells Vice-President Cheney that he has greenlighted the shooting down of any suspect plane if necessary
• 10:28 – the conspirators cause a local earthquake at the base of the WTC north tower, and then set off a bomb on the ground floor; the 98th floor falls down, causing the collapse of the tower
• 10:31 – the FAA authorizes back military and police flights
• 10:35 – Air Force One finally decides on a destination and sets course to Barksdale base
• 10:38 – Andrews air base's F-16 are redeployed after their return from their exercise
• 10:42 – two F-16 take off from Hancock air base
• 10:45 – Major Gibney, who is in fact a lieutenant-colonel take off from Fargo, N.D. heading for Bozman, Mont., to be used as a patsy for the shooting down of flight 93
• 11:45 – Air Force One land on Barksdale base in Louisiana
• 10:50 – a local farmer flies over flight 93's crash site in a Cessna
• 12:00 approx. and herafter – Senator John McCain (R) multiplies tv interviews; he invariably states the necessity of retaliating not only in Afghanistan, but also in Irak, Iran and Syria as well; he will declare during an interview on CNN a couple of days later: «it is evident that Irak is on top on the list»
• 12:15 approx. – the entire american air space is at last empty of all commercial or private traffic
• 17:20 – collapse of World Trade Center 7
• 20:00 and hereafter – flights 175 and 11 take off from Harrisburgh by remote control and are sent towards the Atlantic Ocean to be sunk

Well, this is not working, it's even more fucked up as it is. This is worse than the Gordian knot.

Anyways, that doesn't change anything. Of course, it's all highly speculative, and there are a lot of details that could be different: we could very well for example switch the Global Hawk with an AGM-86D in our scenario, which would have the merit of being more consistent with the size of the hole as a Global Hawk is about as wide as a Boeing. Or we could imagine that the passengers and crews of the planes have in fact never even existed, that their identities were made up out of the blue and that amateur actors have been hired to play the role of the grieving families.

But regardless of all the variations, the working principle remains the same: never in the history of mankind a group of conspirators have spent so much energy and ressources, involved, bought off or duped so many people, conceived a plan so hairbrained and so complex in its conception as well as in its execution. The number of official agencies that they had to let in the plot, the staggering amount of money that they had to invest (you have any idea how much a Boeing jumbo jet costs?), the thousands, even the millions of man-hours of preparation (picture yourself filing away all the serial numbers on the two million parts that make up a Boeing), the sheer Mount Everest of governmental paperwork that they had to glean and get rid off, not to mention all of the authorizations, clearances and permits that they had to obtain to access them.... never a plot will have necessitate so much to in the end amount to so little.

And I stress "so little". You may think that I'm coming apart at the seams by referencing to 2700 dead and a dozen destroyed buildings as "so little", but I'd like to remind you that three farmers, operating under a five figure budget, managed to kill 168 people and razed a 10-story building in Oklahoma City in 1995; if Tim McVeigh could have afforded the retail price of a single 757 Boeing airliner, there's no doubt in my mind that he would have succeeded in leveling the entire city.

As for the Reichstag conspiracy... yeah right, you want to talk about the Reichstag, by all means, let us: a handful of nazi conspirators led by Hermann Goering come in contact with a communist political activist fallen on hard times, pretend to befriend him and eventually end up putting up in his somewhat confused mind that you know what it would be a swell idea to set fire to the Parliament; they open the doors for him and while he runs around the Commons they spill gasoline in the basement. And that's about it. Total cost of the operation... well, how much was worth a jerrycan full of gasoline in 1933?

Six days later, the Nazi Party won the election, and thanks to the dismantling of the Communist Party got hold of the majority. The next month, Hitler assumed absolute power by suspending the constitution. If the original intent of the september 11 conspirators was to establish a fascist state, the least we can say is that the nazis could teach them a thing or two: in a totalitarian regime the Democrat Party would have been dissolved a long time ago and all its leaders arrested as well as the entire staff of the Washington Times, not to mention all those smart-alecky wiseguys a la Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert who would have been sent hammering rocks in a concentration camp ages ago.

I won't budge on this one: the intention of the conspirators, their modus operandi have conformed to the letter to the motto why make it simple when you can make it complicated. It is obvious that the whole ordeal had never constituted a means, but in fact an end in itself. No force on earth will ever convince me that an underground organization who had enough leverage to be able to embezzle 1.3 trillion (that's right, 1 300 billions) dollars from the most powerful organization on the planet could have even for one second thought that they needed to blow it all in such a boondogled plan to take a power that in the end they in effect already possessed.

Only Rube Goldberg and his disciples conform to the psychological make-up that would satisfactorily explain the behavior and actions of the conspirators. As far as I'm concerned the final conclusion is inevitable: the 9/11 conspiracy was a Rube Goldberg device.

P.S.: I've just been told that Rube Goldberg died in 1970, or 31 years before the events. Well, well, how convenient, an ironclad alibi! When I said they thought of everything... if you thought you would get me with that one, think again, in your face: as far as I'm concerned, it only strenghtens my convictions. Besides, how do you know he's not alive somewhere on a deserted island? Heads you lose, tails I win: welcome to the wonderful world of conspiracy theorism.

You're never bored when you're paranoid- the truth behind 9/11, part 3

Originally published September 13, 2008

This is the third part of a four-part series: for the other parts, click here: 1st part, 2nd part, 4th part

A favorite theme of Rube Goldberg in his drawings of combobulated machines was the introduction of an animal's action in tyhe mechanism, for example a parrot jerking up upon receiving a kick in the butt, or a hamster starting to gallop in his wheel after a stimulation of some sort. The idea was of course to take the complexity and uncertainty factor up a notch. Needless to say, people who build rube goldberg devices as a hobby or for contests hardly ever use animals in their machines, if at all.

Well, not only the 9/11 conspirators introduced the animal factor in their plan, but they went all out and selected the most unpredictable, the most random of them all: the human, namely the passengers of flight 93.

The plan was at first put in motion once again with the hijacking of an airliner, this one from United Airlines. But this time, and contrary to the three other flights, this one was hijacked by genuine kamikazis, actually determined to crash on the Capitol (or the White House, nobody's certain). We could see in this a concession to simplicity, but as you no doubt understand by now that suicide crash didn't represent the real intent of the conspirators; at best it constituted a contingency plan.

The central element in this plan was the strict instructions given the pirates to hold their attack until absolutely sure that the other targets had already been hit; if those orders haven't been followed to the letter, they nevertheless successfully accomplished their purpose. By the time they started setting things in motion, their plane was flying almost over Cleveland, and would need a minimum of thirty minutes to make the way back to Washington.

This delay then allowed the passengers to learn about the attacks on the WTC from phonecalls lodged to their relatives, to understand the situation and so hence to form plans for a revolt. We know the rest: the heroic epic of average american joe against the forces of evil and the famous "let's roll" still to this day co-opted to death by untold numbers of heroe wannabes and venal demagogues. In this baroque machinery, the passengers were the hamsters, the plane the wheel and the hijacking the prod poked in the hamster's ass.

All there remained to do was to sent flight 93 crashing somewhere in a field in Pennsylvania. The conspirators dispatched a US Air Force fighter plane which had been sneaked away beforehand and (did you notice that I use the word "beforehand" quite a lot? Like I said, they thought of everything), and sent it to simply shoot down the Boeing, while sending a private jet to fly around the scene to confound any eyewitness. The fighter then casually returned to its base.

You certainly imagine that all those preparations left traces: minutes from secret meetings, blueprints, recordings... they had to get rid of it all. Obviously if you followed carefully so far and got the general idea well, you probably already figured that simply gathering all this stuff and burn it away in a discreet area certainly wasn't part of their plan. Far from it, they still needed a money shot, the cherry on the top, the grand finale that would conclude the whole affair in an apotheosis of extreme intricateness (I'm really running out of synonyms here).

For their secret planning sessions, the conspirators had... that's right, beforehand elected to rent offices in nothing less than the 7 World Trade Center, which is to say right across the street from the Twin Towers. You remember the controlled demolitions of those towers? Well, hang on to your lugnuts, those explosions were carefully and expertly calculated to make the towers damage WTC7 on their way down so as to cause it to collapse as well, a couple of well placed charges completing the process with a third controlled demolition. The entire scheme then resulted in the disappearing of any and all evidence of the plot. A domino chain!

What would be a good rube goldberg without its domino chain? Our conspirators understood that well and went to the point of using whole skyscrapers in lieu of dominoes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, why make it simple when you can make it complicated?

Tomorrow, the conclusion

You're never bored when you're paranoid- the truth behind 9/11, part 2

Originally published September 12, 2008

This is the second part of a four-part series: for the other parts, click here: 1st part, 3rd part, 4th part

That was for the World Trade Center (actually there's more but I'll get back to it later); we'd think that our conspirators would be satisfied with it and leave it at that, but that's misunderstanding the philosophy of Rube Goldberg's disciples: when they want to indulge in the convoluted they mean business. For the Pentagon they would elevate elaborateness to a whole new level.

The original idea was of course to send another plane, but once again, why not flesh it out some? Hijacking an airliner and crashing it on the Pentagon may be more sophisticated than just planting bombs, but there's still room for improvement. So instead of an airplane, the conspirators decided to send a missile. They sneaked out that missile right under the nose of the Dept. of Defense – either a AGM-86D, or a Global Hawk spy plane which had beforehand been fitted with a charge specially designed with "BROACH" technology – camouflaged it with American Airlines colors, and discreetly brought it on a strip on Ronald Reagan Airport from where they fired it on the Pentagon. Meanwhile, flight 77 was hijacked and then just like flights 175 and 11 it proceeded towards the rendez-vous point with the missile, where they exchanged their radar signals by crossing paths so as to once again counfound air controllers.

Meanwhile, a C-130 was following the Boeing, in order firstly to guide by radio the UAV-converted-to-Cruise-missile, and secondly to provide a visual distraction to the hundreds of eyewitnesses to keep them from realising that a 757 Boeing jumbo jet looks like a Cruise missile the way a fluffy rhubarb and quark clafoutis looks like an ass – which nevertheless wasn't enough to keep them from confusing one with the other.

Even as the missile/spy plane was en route to the Pentagon, flight 77 was landing on an out-of-way strip and the scenario just repeated itself: slaughtering of the passengers, chopping off of the plane and returning to the crash site to place the pieces just in time for investigator Allyn Kilsheimer to find pieces of the tail, fuselage debris, flight recorder, shreds of uniforms and even body parts. Truely, they thought of every detail, down to the macabre.

There still remained dozens of little details to take care of: knock down a couple of streetlights while everyone's back was turned to make it look like a Boeing went throught them; widen the impact crater on the wall to prevent any observer to wonder how a drone the width of a Boeing 757 would be able to leave a hole barely 25 meter wide; knock over an outside generator to create the illusion it was hit by an engine, get rid of all incriminating evidence left on surveillance video records where a missile would be visible... Regarding the hole, I'll concede they botched the job some, but hey, nobody's perfect. In falling dominoes competitions, sometimes it happens so that a piece refuses to tip over and necessitates a little nudge to keep the chain going. Let us deduct them 1 point and move on.

One more important detail: they still had to make all traces from the missile disappear, on the crash site as well as in the army's inventory, who you no doubt imagine would certainly wonder how come they're missing a hundred million dollar drone, especially a modified prototype specially equipped with a technology that was still experimental back then – in other words, classified. Observe the remarkable efficiency with which they managed to cut through the DoD's legendary red tape, where as legend has it 7 forms and four weeks are required just to change a light bulb. The swiftness they showed in corralling all concerned personnel and ammassing all the relevant paperwork without leaving a trace is absolutely amazing, even supposing they had inside help.

Okay, Shanksville's is still up; to be continued tomorrow.

By the way here's a link that isn't particularly relevant, but is certainly ironic given the circumstances (look at the date)

You're never bored when you're paranoid- the truth behind 9/11

Originally published September 11, 2008

This is the first part of a four-part series: for the other parts, click here: 2nd part, 3rd part, 4th part

I found out who perpetrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or more precisely who was behind it: Rube Goldberg. If you dont know who that is, you can always check WikiPedia, but to make it short, Rube Goldberg is a cartoonist famous for having invented in his drawings an astounding array of hairbrained contraptions each more ludicrous than the preceding, so famous that his name is now used to designate the genre: if you played Mousetrap when you were a kid, you've seen a classic example of a "rube goldberg machine".

So what has any of this to do with September 11? Well, nothing, if you believe the official story, namely the one that says that Osama Bin Laden, at the head of an international terrorist ring, has selected amongst a seemingly unending source of brainwashed loonies 19 of the best (including a half-dozen who have some experience as airplane pilots), and sent them on a suicide raid against three landmarks representing the three pillars of America's power (government, banks, army). Simple, straightforward, efficient, badabing badaboom, no useless complications, no horsing around. Even if the operation hasn't turned out to be a complete success, the beauty in the plan lays in its simplicity, by implicating about thirty people at most. Keep it simple, stupid.

But as you may havew figured out, the real story is far more complicated. The Twin Towers to begin with: you'd think crashing two Boeing at full speed would be enough to draw some attention, but the towers were built to withstand this sort of event, meaning the buildings' collapse wasn't guaranteed. To make sure they fall down, it was then necessary to plant bombs in them. It sort of make the planes somewhat redundant, if not a show of outright overkill, but why keep it simple when you can make it complicated.

While we're at it, instead of sending jumbo jets, why not flesh it out some and use military planes? So the conspirators have painted military cargo planes with American Airlines and United Airlines liveries, then hid a missile in each of them, in specially prepared bulges fitted under the fuselage. The two planes then crashed in the towers while each firing its missile a fraction of a second before impact, like a kamikaze barreling down on a house with a semi but still taking care of shooting a .45 bullet from a magnum that he took the precaution of hiding behing the fender. We really have to tip our hat to our conspirators' commitment to the cause of useless complexity.

But they certainly didn't stop there: au contraire. They could have happily planted their bombs in a haphazard way, but once again why make it simple when you can make it complicated. So they carefully placed the charges in such a way as to provoke a controlled demolition. Instead of crashing down more or less chaotically, both towers collapsed in a predictable fashion, each floor falling squarely on the lower one in a graceful manner that was almost elegant in its eeriness. You have to admit you don't get to see that every day, terrorists who take the time and pain to methodically deconstruct their target instead of just blowing shit up as they're usually wont, all the more so considering the fact that they successfully managed to trick the National Institute of Standards and Technology who to this day still holds that fire was the only cause of the towers' collapse.

Now there remained the tricky matter of the passengers. Just creating fictive identities wouldn't have sufficed, because there still was the problem of two commercial airliners who would normally show as missing in their respective companies' inventories. So they hijacked the two flights in question towards New-York, and there made them crossed paths with the two disguised military planes at a pre-determined point. They then shut down all transmitters, activated some sort of radar scrambling device that has been previously installed in secrecy, and then casually went their merry way undetected while taking the precaution of seizing all cellular phones from the passengers, while all this time air controllers who being none the wiser kept following the fake airliners on their radar screens.

Finally, they discreetly landed on an out-of-way strip, where they killed all the passengers and staff in cold blood, then hacked both planes to bits and brought pieces back to the WTC surroundings, including the flight recordings, and up to – man, those guys are good! – a piece of fuselage that they carried all the way to the top of WTC5 right under the nose of all bystanders, including NYPD officers who had cordoned off the entire area. And all this while they could just been happy with loading four or five trucks full of explosives, pulled over in the parking lot under the towers and just stroll out whistling innocently. I said it and will say it again, why make it simple when you can make it complicated.

And when I say complicated, I'm really understating. If you thought it was over, think again, the fun has just begun. But this is beginning to get tiresome, so I'll take a break. To be continued tomorrow.

We didn't start the fire

Originally published January 10, 2009

A major hit in 1989 was "We didn't start the fire" from Billy Joel. The concept was to resume 40 years of events in one song, from the end of WW2 up to 89. So I thought to myself, why not remake it and turn up an updated version, from 1989 to today?

One damn good reason why not is that is was one of those things that I figured would be done in an afternoon and would wind up taking me a month and a half, but as usual I had no clue and by the time I realised it it was too late to stop. It was worth it though: it has been a great opportunity to take a stroll through the past; sure is a lot that happened last twenty years.

You can find the original lyrics on Billy Joel's official site; Teacher Oz's site also has them, with relevant links to various sites.

I tried as much as I could to keep the original meter to facilitate the transition, while respecting the concept of staying in chronological order. That was anything but a walk in the park, but I suppose I had it easy compared to the original: if Billy had twice as much years to work with, he didn't have access to Wikipedia. I think he must have spent weeks perusing old newspapers in the local libray; in any case I tip my hat to him.

"We didn't start the fire", Billy Joel; revisited by moi.

Exxon Valdez, Botha falls, Field of Dreams, Berlin wall
Salman Rushdie, Bush and cocaine, riots in Tiananmen

Lech Walesa, Noriega, Trafalgar Square, free Mandela
East Germany, West Germany, Leonard Bernstein

Rodney King, Ötzi, Desert Storm, Mercury
Hussein, Terminator, and the Silence of the Lambs

EuroDisney, Clinton, Europe's got a union
Randy Weaver, LA riots, Soviet Union goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Stephen Hawking, Escobar, NAFTA and Bosnian war
don't ask don't tell, David Korech, Jurassic Park

Rwanda, Kurt Cobain, Ayrton Senna, sarin
baseball on strike, Woodstock 94

Listyev, Sampoong, O.J. Simpson's on the run
Unabomber, Carl Sagan, Kevin Mitnick, Cal Ripken

Deep Blue, Tim Leary, Colalympics, Dolly
Larry Flynt, JonBenét, Oklahoma City

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Lady Di, Applewhite, cartoon seizures, Phoenix lights
Gingrich, oil-for-food, gunfight in North Hollywood

Lewinsky, Stephen Glass, Aryan Nations' anthrax
McLibel, Ken McDuff, US versus Microsoft

dot-com bubble, Kenya, Columbine, Viagra
Kosovo, Matrix, Y2K is all fixed

Euro, Melissa, Dubya in Florida
Milosevic, Putin, Rage Against The Machine

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Pakistan, Chavez, Elian Gonzalez
Napster, Potter, AOL Time Warner

spy plane stuck in China, talibans and Al-Qaeda
iPod, Google, monolith in Seattle

Enron, Barry Bonds, Roy Moore and the Commandments
Twin Towers blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Daniel Pearl, Tama-chan, Saddam Hussein back again
Hans Blix, Idol, East Timor, Jintao

Powell, Limbaugh, Abu Ghraib, shock and awe in Baghdad
Michael Jackson's Neverland, Chechen terror in Beslan

global warming, Kim Jong-Il, Al Jazeera, human shields
Lance Armstrong, Superdome, SARS, meth, Colbert bump

ethanol and food riots, banks are pleading for bailout
Barackobamania, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on and on and on...

You try this in your next karaoke party.