1984

By The Surveillance Camera Players

The Surveillance Camera Players website

Tip from Penn and Teller's Bullshit! - Big Brother
Check it out if you've got a half hour to kill. Should be required viewing.

More Diesel

Rudolf Diesel

Diesel Engine
An engine that operates on diesel fuel and principally relies on compression-ignition for engine operation. The non-use of a throttle during normal operation is indicative of a diesel engine. - EPA


Here's an interesting take on the genre of Dieselpunk.

The term Dieselpunk was first coined by Children of the Sun game designers Lewis Pollak and Dan Ross. A subgenre of Steampunk, the Dieselpunk world is one with an industrial level of development and informed by Cyberpunk sensibilities. The term was probably born out of a necessity to label the Steampunk-like works of fiction set in an era that is usually considered post-Steampunk, e.a. from the end of the First World War up until the 1980s or so which typically is the domain of Cyberpunk, though fiction that takes place in the decades upon World War II may also be labelled “atomicpunk”. (More from OTTENSteam.)

Atom Tan

Now the corporations stopped! Stopped pushing fast food Been a multiple shooting Downtown at the bank Reluctantly the panic begins To catch fire But it did not affect The steady sale of junk The state office looked It looked like Hollywood With make-up bleeding all over the cracks Wo he blew his lines Facing the cameras He suffered the first All live heart attack Oh you've caught an even atom tan The motor-cyanide Cyanide suicide He finally found the brick wall in his life Shining up his engine He dressed right up for it At the top of the speedo He crumpled the bike There's plenty people runnin' runnin' for cover- Hoping at best to hold off all the rest Once last stand at the bunker fire Machine gun and pitchfork at breast Oh you've caught an even atom tan But it isn't so easy So easy for lovers Chained in love stained at the top of the tower The pink hearse is leaving at funeral speed Driving your heart Away with the flowers All night I waited I waited for a horseman His ever faithful His Indian friend I'm not the only one Of the caped crusader fan club watching the sky For mankind's prayers Oh you've caught an even atom tan Calamine

Gunman kills 21 on Virginia Tech campus By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 21 people and wounding another 21 before he was killed, police said. I actually trained at a Military Ops/ Urban Terrain (MOUT) site near there once. Added 4/16/07 I may be the only one who thought about this, but I want to make clear that I intended no connection between the shootings and MOUT training. It was just odd that of all the places I've traveled, the one place I can recall being in VA was near Blacksburg, of which I saw none of. I can't even remember the name of the post.

Dieselpunk

Ok...it seems that anything of a genre now has to have punk embedded in its description to maintain its edgy edge. In the literary sense, punk refers to speculative reality. On might say it is a fiction based on science and technology. A "science fiction" if you will. I guess it's required as the term Science Fiction has been so abused and broadened it means very little now. The fantasy of Star Wars, however good the story is, has very little science in it. You've got Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and now Dieselpunk also know as Atomicpunk. Fair enough. I'm glad I could find a term to group my aesthetics around. Funny thing is, the Wikipedia article actually hits on a lot of aesthetics that I appreciate under the banner of Dieselpunk. I was a punk in the third wave of it (loosely known as the "Hardcore" years, pre-Grunge).
So I'm into Dieselpunk. I favor the post-apocalyptic flavor, but I like to mix the aesthetics from Art Deco to Brutalism to Modernism.
Before anyone goes off on that "label's being confining" jag, I've been thinking about this. There is nothing completely new. Creativity is a conglomeration of prior experience. To express one's self means to attempt to communicate with others. If you speak a language only you understand, then you don't communicate. Expression is approximation.

Some Dieselpunk thematic inspiration:

• Mad Max
• Sin City
• Batman Begins
• V for Vendetta
• 1984
• Metropolis
• Brazil

Wikipedia link to Piecraft/Dieselpunk. While I was expecting a list of Electronica as being the musical representation of the genre, I was pleased to see that the "Music would mostly be defined by the fusion of the popular genres of the time, anthems, jazz and blues, classical and chamber music as well as early rock and experimental or musique concrete."

With that, I've been loosely kicking around ideas for the ride lately. My car is one of my "art" pieces. It's an ongoing creation process to appeal to my aesthetic yet have function at the same time. In it, I'm trying to incorporate a retro muscle rat-rod meets post-apocalyptic/mad max meets WWII armor.
As it is the car was a 1963 Fairlane 500, until I installed a built automatic transmission, disc brake conversion, and a 335hp 351w that came from a wrecked Highway Patrol car. I spent a winter modifying and rebuilding the engine. It moves. I'm also looking to maybe drop a Diesel motor in and see if I can't hot rod a grease car. If you don't know, grease cars are able to burn used cooking oil once they're brought up to temperature.
Lastly, I have to take up welding. It's a vital skill that I haven't managed to acquire yet. I'll be posting more technical discussions regarding the machine as I go.

Some inspirational pics for the ride:

The Call Up

To the Right Face!
Hup 2 3 4 Hup 2 3 4 Hup 2 3 4
Hup 2 3 4

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
'N' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up?
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up?

It's up to you not to heed the call-up
I don't wanna die!
It's up to you not to hear the call-up
I don't wanna kill!

For he who will die
Is he who will kill

Maybe I wanna see the wheatfields
Over Kiev and down to the sea

All the young people down the ages
They gladly marched off to die
Proud city fathers used to watch them
Tears in their eyes

There is a rose that I want to live for
Although, God knows, I may not have met her
There is a dance an' I should be with her
There is a town - unlike any other

It's up to you not to hear the call-up
'N' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who give you work an' why should you do it?
At fifty five minutes past eleven
There is a rose...
Yeah!

Paper Dragons

Over the coming years the China/Taiwan issue will cease to exist. The Chin will neither liberalize nor remain totalitarian. As a people, the "Cultural Revolution" could never have lasted there. It's not that they can't be egalitarian, but culturally they are a patient people not given to whiles and whims of modern politics.
Now a middle class grows in China as America's shrinks and U.S. companies (among others) are finding ways to profit of off a dying superpower. Corporations are not interested as to where their profit comes from, as long as it comes.
As I've always said, if you want to stabilize a nation/region, don't bomb it into submission...encourage a large middle class. People are less likely to die for something if they have something to live for.

Incoming!

Another salvo against Americans.

Spy Chief Seeks More Surveillance Power
National Intelligence Director Is Pushing To Expand Government's Eavesdropping Authority
WASHINGTON, April 11, 2007

The changes McConnell is seeking mostly affect a cloak-and-dagger category of warrants used to investigate suspected spies, terrorists and other national security threats. The court-approved surveillance could include planting listening devices and hidden cameras, searching luggage and breaking into homes to make copies of computer hard drives.

The argument has been presented that lacking these authorities, they can't go after the bad guys. I say if you've got such good evidence that you would like to completely fuck the 4th Amendment, then as an investigator you should have the balls to do it illegally and if you're right and you save the fucking world...I'm sure all will be forgiven.
I would also like to see a legal definition of terrorist and "other national security threats" before I give any more authorization.

Low Flying Aircraft

“I gotta visit this place, the Salton Sea. Absolutely Ballardian. I'm picturing Low Flying Aircraft.

Coming in May is what looks to be a neat documentary, Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, narrated by John Waters.

Salton Sea
Accidentally” created by an engineering error in 1905, reworked in the 50’s as a world class vacation destination for the rich and famous, suddenly abandoned after a series of hurricanes, floods, and fish die-offs, and finally almost saved by Congressman Sonny Bono, the Salton Sea has a bittersweet past.

Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea trailer

Rights and wrongs of Asia's 'war on terror'

It's about feeding a massive and growing military industrial complex...

Rights and wrongs of Asia's 'war on terror'
By Michael Vatikiotis

SINGAPORE - If there is one lesson to be learned from the "war against terror" as it has been waged in Southeast Asia, it is that good intelligence and careful police work rather than brute military force are the best counter-terrorism strategy. And some of the best police work has been conducted in Indonesia, where many so-called terror experts once believed the government would be least effective in countering the terrorist threat.

My favorite part...

Careful intelligence
In Indonesia, meanwhile, careful intelligence has helped pinpoint bomb-making centers in remote corners of Java and uncovered explosives and equipment that could have been used in terrorist attacks. Many of those groomed by JI's alleged al-Qaeda-trained operatives to carry out these attacks have been flushed out and captured or killed. Importantly, Indonesia has tried wherever possible to use legal methods of interdiction, bringing suspects into custody with the intention of putting them on trial, and using lethal force only if unavoidable. (More...)

Robert Anton Wilson in Prometheus Rising cited the work of an anthropologist (who's name escapes me at the moment) who had noticed civilization's westward trend in knowledge and power, from China to Rome to Britain to the U.S..

Luftwaffe scuffles with Allgemeine-SS

By the end of WWII, there was a growing distinction and animosity between the military of the nation and the politically inspired "special" combatants of NAZI Germany. (See Waffen-SS: The army and the Waffen-SS) Leadership of the Luftwaffe and Wehremacht where ripped from their Edwardian wars of nobility fantasies and thrust into 2nd/3rd Generation/Industrial war and forced to play second fiddle to a group of opportunists and psychopaths.
So it is with historical interest that I come across this:

Even though they won't face a court-martial, two Air Force officers involved in a road-rage incident with a Blackwater USA contractor in Afghanistan have been slapped with administrative sanctions.

The discipline was meted out by the same general who dismissed criminal charges against Lt. Cols. Gary Brown and Christopher Hall.

Brown's civilian attorney has fired back with an angry letter, calling the sanctions a "laugh-out-loud joke" and suggesting that the general bowed to pressure from Blackwater, a private military company based in Moyock, N.C.

It's the latest turn of events in an escalating clash between uniformed military personnel and private contractors on the battlefield.

In a letter of reprimand, Lt. Gen. Gary North, commander of the 9th Air Force, wrote that Brown acted with "unreasonable force and intimidation" in a confrontation with the Blackwater contractor after their vehicles collided on a busy Kabul road Sept. 19.

"Specifically," North wrote, "while in uniform you shoved, kicked, pointed your loaded M-4 rifle at, and threatened the life of Mr. Jimmy Bergeron, a U.S. civilian contractor employee who did not pose a reasonable threat to you or others.... I find your conduct reckless, undisciplined and a discredit to the armed forces." (More...)

Tip from Danger Room - Officers, Mercs Brawl

Singing in the Rain

Unprovoked beatings of homeless soaring

By TODD LEWAN, AP National Writer Sun Apr 8, 7:20 PM ET

ORLANDO, Fla. - It was a balmy night, the sort that brings the homeless out from the shelters, when the police were summoned to America Street. On the driveway of a condo, just a few paces from the gutter, lay a man. A dying man.

He looked to be 50-ish, and a resident of Orlando's streets, judging by the moldy jacket. And he'd been bludgeoned — so badly bludgeoned that he could hardly move.

Before being rushed to the hospital, where he died of his head injuries, the man, August Felix, described his attackers. Young fellows did it, he whispered to the officers who got to him first. Kids. (More...)

The practice seems endemic

...stereotyped victims, offenders who act on latent prejudices, offenders who seek thrills or feel superior to their victims, and a mob mentality that sweeps away caution.

Electronics Tutorial

Here's a basic, no nonsense, and easy to understand tutorial/guide for the electronics beginner. I haven't gone all the way through it, but it looks as if it focuses on low voltage circuits rather than wiring the home (higher voltage AC). We should all master tech before it masters us.

• Electronics Tutorial by Alex Pounds

More scary shit

And number 2
You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Dont mind a little
Investigation...
Humiliation...
And if you cross your fingers...
Rehabilitation!

Know your rights
These are your rights

-Know Your Rights
The Clash

From the Boston Globe

Taunton schools this spring could become the first in Massachusetts to have students pay for lunch by scanning their fingerprints, a plan that is triggering an uproar among parents and ACLU officials worried about privacy and possible identity theft.

No shit (or know shit), it's causing an uproar. But it's only a matter of time when some jerk-off thinks this is a good idea before it's implemented. And once your data's in the system , then it's easily accessible by other government agencies.
THEY've ID'd you before you even get a chance to run.

Malvern, Pa.-based identiMetrics, a leading vendor, said hundreds of schools nationwide use its system, including nearly a third of the school districts in West Virginia and a private enrichment center for children in Wellesley. (More...)

And Wellesley...that fucking fru-fru, uppity, ineffectual...Ah!...don't get me started. They've even banned out-of-towners from picking through their dump. What the fuck is a private enrichment center. That's one spooky sounding program It reminds me of Pangbourne Village in Ballard's Running Wild.

Why not photo ID cards, with unique ID numbers?

OK...back to my meditations.

Hiatus

Apologies to those that have taken the time to check in and see if I have anything interesting to say, if ever.
Several personal matters have kept me preoccupied as of late and will require a couple more weeks before I'm back in form.
Thanks...