VP Dick Cheney owns extensive snuff film collection, rumored to use them as a fluffer

A mid-level West Wing staffer told All This Is That yesterday that an extensive collection of "snuff films" has been discovered in Vice-President Dick Cheney's home office in the former Naval Observatory. "Holy s***t," our source said, "if it gets out I told you this. . .well, who knows?"

"Despite all this Valerie Plame nonsense, " our source said, "Cheney is in thick with the spooks. Like this [gestures]. I'm not sure I won't just disappear if you print this. But what am I going to do? The guy could be President tomorrow. I always knew he gave me the creeps. That's probably no secret to anyone who ever met the guy. But this. . .this. . .this is too much."


The source told us that a cache of snuff films and videos was discovered recently by staffers "auditing" the Vice President's papers and emails for possible evidence in the Scooter Libby investigation.

"One of the guys who saw the snuff film stash said it was extensive," he told us. "In fact, " he said, "it might even be definitive."
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Hurray for Bill Gates!

Microsoft announced after the financial markets closed today that Chairman Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role (as chief technologist) to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Following a two year transition, Bill will remain as the Chairman of the Board, although reading between the lines, it seems like he'll be pulling back sooner than that. . .at least unofficially.

Obviously in my "industry," that is software, he has been a monolithic influence. For all the potshots people have taken at him, he helped create much of the software that runs businesses from multinational giants to mom and pop shops, as well as most home computers. He did this while being a prominent target for all the whiners in the Apple, Unix, and Oracle camps, and while being the human pincushion for hundreds of lawsuits, as well as the central figure in any number of conspiracy delusions. . .

Somewhere in the middle of all this, he set up a fantastic foundation that is actually helping change the world. And now he wants to get more involved with that foundation's excellent work. Good for him. Good for the world.
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Photograph: LBJ howls like a dog

click image to enlarge
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Found photos!

I love this website. It's one of those sites I like to go back and check every week or so. . . You never know what you'll find.


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Prosecutor Fitzgerald Gives Rove A Pass

Karl Rove and friends

The special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has weaseled on charges against Karl Rove in the C.I.A. leak case after months of behind-the-scenes wrangling between the prosecutor and Mr. Rove's lawyer.

Prosecutor Fitzgerald

It has not been announced if any money exchanged hands. Click here to read the story in the New York Times.
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Another good LBJ photograph - circa 1960

Click the photograph to enlarge

Left to right - Lady Bird Johnson [mostly offscreen], Neva Eugene Smith, Leola May Smith Ballard, Lyndon Baines Johnson. . .I believe the Smiths are LBJ's cousins.
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Diogenes The Cynic Philosopher - My hero

When they asked Plato what sort of man Diogenes (404-323 B.C) was, he said "A Socrates gone mad." Diogenes was Gonzo. . .about 2300 years ahead of the curve.

He ignored the weather by living in a barrel (like the northwest native Americans ignored the weather by wearing bear grease and loincloths). It was just enough shelter. For eating he owned a single wooden bowl. He would later destroy the bowl when he saw a peasant boy drink using his hands. When asked how to avoid the temptations of the flesh, Diogenes began masturbating. When he was chastised for this, he answered "If only I could soothe my belly by rubbing it."

He often quibbled with Plato over philosophy. Plato defined a human as a biped and featherless animal. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it to the lecture-hall with the words, ‘Here is Plato’s human being.’ The definition of human was soon altered to include ‘having broad nails’” (Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 40). Diogenes regularly attacked Plato’s metaphysics and, in a way, transcended theoretical ethics.

He was called insane for reacting against convention, but Diogenes pointed out that it is convention itself that lacks reason: “Most people are so nearly mad that a finger makes all the difference. For if you go along with your middle finger stretched out, someone will think you mad, but, if it’s the little finger, he will not think so” (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 35).

Diogenes once said that "for the conduct of life we need reason or a halter.”

He avoided the pleasures of the flesh and the delusion of most human conduct. He used to stroll through the Agora (the marketplace...and the root of the word agoraphobia) with a torch during the daytime. "I am just looking for an honest man".

On a voyage, he was captured by pirates and sold as a slave to a Corinthian named Xeniades. As tutor to the two sons of Xeniades, he lived in Corinth for the rest of his life, devoted to preaching self-control. At the Isthmian Games he lectured to large audiences who turned to him from Antisthenes. At one of these festivals he met Alexander the Great. Alexander, who was thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was anything he might do for him. Diogenes replied, “Stand out of my sunlight.” Was Big Al pissed? No: "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."

One great (apocryphal?) Diogenes and Alexander story has the philosopher sorting through a pile of human bones. "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave."

Diogenes may have lived until ninety. Possible causes of death passed include death by holding his breath, an illness brought on by eating raw octopus, or death by dog bite.

On his death, the Corinthians erected a pillar on which rested a marble dog. So, there is some credence to the dog bite theory...but most scholars think he probably died of old age.

What did he believe? Up front, this fantastic cat believed that virtue was the avoidance of physical pleasure; pain and hunger were helpful in the pursuit of goodness; and all the artificiality of society was incompatible with goodness.

Later, the Stoics would later say he was a perfect man. In his words, "Man has complicated every simple gift of the gods." He has been the subject of a lot of painting, sculpture, and poetry. Ed Sanders the American poet (and founder of The Fugs) has praised him often in his poems and fiction .

Diogenes is the first person known to have actually believed "I am a citizen of the whole world (cosmos)," rather than of any city or state (polis). He invented cosmopolitanism.
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My 47 Favorite Movies

A list of my favorite movies. I know I forgot some. None of these were directed by women (a fact I feel a little guilty about). Three are by Robert Altman; three by Quentin Tarantino (not Pulp Fiction); three by Coppola; four by Kubrick; and two each by Welles, Charles Chaplain, Scorsese, and Beatty. There are five or six non-American films. So, beat up on me if you want...

Reds - Warren Beatty
Nashville - Robert Altman
Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie - Luis Bunuel
Rashômon - Akira Kurosawa
The Last Picture Show - Peter Bogdanovich
Citizen Kane - Orson Welles



The Killing - Stanley Kubrick
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Milos Forman
The Maltese Falcon - John Huston
The Great Dictator - Charles Chaplain
The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola
Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock
The Godfather, Part Two - Francis Ford Coppola
Raging Bull - Martin Scorsese
The Fellowship of the Ring - Peter Jackson
The Two Towers - Peter Jackson
The Return of the King - Peter Jackson



Day For Night - Francois Truffaut
À nous la liberté - René Clair
A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick
The Shining - Stanley Kubrick
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Steven Spielberg
Dog Day Afternoon - Sidney Lumet



O Brother Where Art Thou - Cohn Brothers
Sweet Smell of Success - Alexander Mackendrick
Viridiana - Luis Buñuel
Bulworth - Warren Beatty
A Night At The Opera - Sam Wood
Clerks - Kevin Smith



This Is Spinal Tap - Rob Reiner
Woodstock - Michael Wadleigh
McCabe And Mrs. Miller - Robert Altman
The Day the Earth Stood Still - Robert Wise
Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - Stanley Kubrick
Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola
A Hard Day's Night - Richard Lester
King Kong (the first one!) - Merian C. Cooper Ernest B. Schoedsack




Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock
City Lights - Charles Chaplain
Duck Soup - Leo McCarey
Reservoir Dogs - Quentin Tarrantino
A Touch of Evil - Orson Welles
Patton - Franklin J. Schaffner
Kill Bill - Quentin Tarantino
Kill Bill 2 - Quentin Tarantino
Goodfellas - Martin Scorsese
M*A*S*H - Robert Altman
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Painting: Booya the cat

click painting to enlarge

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Another good photograph of LBJ

click to enlarge. . .

Marshall Nirenberg at The White House with Robert Q. Marston, Perola Nirenberg, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Wilber Cohen
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Vince Welnick dead at 51. . .or 55. . .no one seems to be sure

Vince Welnick, the Grateful Dead's last keyboard player and a veteran of other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, has died, the Grateful Dead's longtime publicist said Saturday.

You can find the Mercury News story here.

A lot of us--e.g., Deadheads--never quite accepted Vince after the death of Brent Mydland...another guy who never felt like he fit in. We wanted Bruce Hornsby in that slot. Alas, after a year or so playing side by side with Vince (Bruce on the grand piano and accordian, Vince on everything else) and seeing Jerry's backslidin', Bruce opted out. I think he clicked all right with the band, but never quite did with the fans. The post-Jerry Dead did not seem to embrace him either, although I've been reading all sorts of nice things about him and his music from the Dead members...since he died.

He obviously struggled with that lack of acceptance, and depression. And he appears to have taken his own life.

I probably saw Vince with the Grateful dead eight times. The time I remember best is the last time I saw him. A lot of people say that run, and the show on 5/26/95 in Seattle was a 90's high point. It was for me. A transcendant show, really, and with Jerry finally totally embracing midi in a way he never had before, good singing, not too many flubbed lyrics or Jerry pulling back from the mike when he forgot the words. . .they were great and even Vince went off on some insanely great vocal tangents. I remember standing there with my friend Dave that fantastic warm afternoon in Memorial stadium. Tingling. Waiting for the show. The beast was unleashed. And Dave and I were inexorably in her arms. And it was good. Fire on the mountain was a complete and total mind-f*er. It was insane, it was great. They sang and played like kings! Neighbors did love neighbors at a show, and we all took care of each other a little bit. We would never again really be together as a community after that day. I would never see Jerry or Vince again. Jerry died a month after that show

The traditional Dead prayer for the missing: "May the four winds blow you safely home."

It's
so
quiet
you
hear
dust
motes
six
feet
up
bump
in
shafts
of
sunlight.

(from "the absence of footprints," (c) 2004, All This Is That).
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Uncle Romey

His calloused, nicotine-stained fingers engulfed my hand. He worked at my fingers, trying to get them into the right position. I didn't know this game. I knew other hand games like pattycake, the church and the steeple, and milking betsy.

"Naw, not like that," he said, "like this. Pull this finger down and use your tumb to hold this one down. Then you do this. Try it."

I tried, and I got it. Almost. "You perd near got it Jackie."

"Can I go?," I asked my uncle.

"Hold your horses. Remember just do it to surprise your parents some night. Show 'em that and say 'here's to you."

Romey quietly chuckled. And that night around the dinner table with the extended family, I turned to my grandma, said "here's to you," and gave her the finger.

It's one of my first memories, which means I had to be around four or five. I can also remember Eisenhower a little bit, and going to the circus, where a clown put his head in a grinder, and came out headless. I remember a flood creeping across the Kent Valley floor, edging toward our house, and stopping a block away. I remember my father telling me the drunk cop on tire-chalking duty was named Wyatt Earp. But every memory of Romey stands out because he was bigger, cruder, louder, and more obnoxious than anyone else in my life.
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Stand clear!

Part 3: My Rods - And even more cars I have owned over the years

Continuing the story of the Packard and the Pontiac, 1954 Ford Wagon and the Bug, my car saga continues.

Following the demise, and eventual resurrection of the Bug, I stumbled on a pickup for $200. It was a 1942 Dodge, with fresh paint, a clattering engine, and a four on the floor with a compound low gear. Unlike the others in this series, this is a photo of the actual vehicle.

This truck didn't last long either. . .a few months at best. I do remember owning it in the summer and driving it to the Valley Drive In several times, where we would stretch out in the bed of the truck and watch Russ Meyers movies, and movies like The Wife Swappers, Joe, Wild In The Streets, Where's Poppa, and Putney Swope. When the pickup gave up the ghost, I stumbled onto a guy who wanted a pickup truck. . .he was willing to take the Dodge in trade for his 1950 Panel truck, if I threw in another $100. And I became the proud owner of a panel truck.



The panel truck lasted a few months and I abandoned it in the low-income apartment complex where I lived with Roger Padvorac (my share of the rent was $13, one third of the $39 a month). Eventually a tow truck operator was going to take it away, but needed a title. I surrendered the title for the usual junker payment of $15.



A friend--Paul Kushner--took pity on me and gave me a pink 1959 Rambler he had parked in his yard for a year. I remember driving it back and forth to visit my college pals in Bellingham. It had a strange pushbutton gear system a/k/a "typewriter tranny." I loved the color of the car, and the fact that it was a gift made it even sweeter. It lasted a few months, and when it finally konked out, Paul came and towed it back to his place.

In September, 1973, after two years working as a barely-paid volunteer, I was moving away to college and could not afford a car. I owned no cars at all, for the next ten years, relying on buses, mooching rides, walking, hitchhiking, and from 1977 to 1982, the NYC subway system. ---o0o---

Part 2 of the rod saga -- More cars I've owned over the years

Following up yesterday's story about the Packard, here are a few other cars I've owned over the years...



My next rod ($50) was a 1956 Pontiac Chieftan convertible. I drove it for about two weeks when I was 16, until the differential locked up. I sold it to someone for $50.



In 1970 I bought a 1954 Ford Station Wagon from Moochie Dehnert for $200. It was a flat grey, the color of a battleship, and sported mags and a pair of threadbare pair of slicks on the back. I earned money working after school at the Westland Hatchery, where I was known as "the boy" or just "boy." I painted houses that summer, with my old Junior High speech teacher, Don Kinberg. I actually drove this for four or five months until it was struck by some expensive meltdown. I don't even remember. I got $15 for it when the junkyard guys hauled it away.



When I was 18, in 1971, I bought a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle for $500, paying $50 a month. It was pale green and detailed to a fine gloss. I had a stipend of $125 a month as a volunteer at a crisis center, which just barely covered the nut of my life. It was a sweet car other than the heating and defrost system. It ran for a year or so, when I lunched it in an accident. My friend Maureen's stepfather Gerry bought it from me for, I think $50. I don't know. I would have taken $10. . .so maybe he gave me the standard junker payment of $15. He restored it top to bottom.

When Mo finally got the car back it was totally pimped out, every ding and nick vanished, a frenched out new interior, totally new running gear and a breathtakingly gorgeous metallic Lapis-colored paintjob. Even more galling than seeing my Bug elevated to hip street rod status was Maureen refusing to let me take it for a spin! I can only assume that was at the behest of Gerry, who had seen firsthand the results of my malignant neglect of what another friend's father called "Hitler's Revenge."

I bought another rod for $200. Part III tomorrow.
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