Archive Listing
February 24, 2007 - February 17, 2007

Thursday, March 16, 2006

WHAT'S THE BUZZ? The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is soon to go on trial in France for having dared to write critically about muslims and the religion of Islam. For those who don't know of her, she is the maverick foreign correspondent and cultural critic Christiane Amanpour has been self-consciously imitating throughout her CNN career. Except that Fallaci is smart, original, and far too independent to be a politically correct whore for the Palestinians. Her present lonely situation is described in the current issue of L.A. Weekly, along with this compelling assessment of the self-appointed thought leaders of western culture:


Her latest book on the subject is The Force of Reason. We should all read it. Drawing on history and her own observations and experience, Fallaci:

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

MECCA. With a week or so for reflection, we've figured out that the big story of the 2006 Oscars wasn't Crash's upset of Brokeback Mountain. It was the unleashing of Best Supporting Actor winner George Clooney upon the world. Who would have thought that an acting award would be tantamount to the anointing of a new messiah of the artistic and political intelligentsia? He started demarking his new territory with his acceptance speech, in which he explained the commanding role played by Hollywood in leading America out of the darkness of past error into the light of transformational liberalism. As even Peggy Noonan had to acknowledge [Caution: Dowdian elisions below]:


Only a day or two later, he reinforced his mandate as a cultural savior by writing an open letter to the youth of America, in which he threw down the gauntlet for youngsters who are as committed to rescuing the world from Republicans as he is:


Still not content with the amount of limelight his newly elevated persona was receiving or emanating, he delivered unto the masses a revolutionary blog entry in the Huffington Post, in which he condensed his accumulated political wisdom into terms even the dumb reactionaries at the New York Post could understand:


Now, the XOFF News Team has learned that his commitment to strike while the iron is hot has proceeded to the inevitable next step -- announcing a groundbreaking new motion picture written, produced, and directed by George Clooney:


While the picture has yet to be filmed, critics are already raving about the production's brilliance and courage. "Daring, gorgeous, hilarious, and bitingly satirical," declares a preliminary review by Shaun Proulx in the Toronto Globe and Mail. "An overwhelming triumph," explains David Edelstein in Slate. "If Mel Brooks had directed Dr. Strangelove, or if Stanley Kubrick had produced [the remake of] The Producers, the result would surely resemble this -- a screechingly funny black comedy possessing the film-noir originality of Clooney's own [remake of] Fail-Safe, the meticulous historical verisimilitude of Good Night and Good Luck, the political genius of Syriana, and more than a soupcon of the devil-may-care sexiness of [the remake of] Oceans 11."

Wow. We can't wait. Industry insiders report that the film is a kind of screwball comedy set in the infamous Eagle's Nest (Berchtesgaden), where the election-stealing German leader planned World War II with his chief accomplices Herman Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Rudolph Hess in 1938. The madcap plot alternates between the social and erotic hijinks of the dim-witted principals and their search for an appropriate lie to tell the German people about why they're going to invade defenseless Poland. According to the draft press release, "An inspired choice of supporting cast manages to make the political satire ring eerily true while simultaneously leveraging the current vogue for gender-bending sexual byplay. The audience will respond delightedly to the hopelessly unresolved identity conflicts of both Goebbels and von Ribbentrop, and they'll hoot with glee at the aburdly violent hunting mishaps of Hitler's number two man, Hess, although it's not too early to speculate that the laugh-riot portrayal of the notorious cross-dresser Goering may grab a Best-Supporting Actor Oscar for surprise co-star Michael Moore."


It goes without saying that the real star of Weekend at Berchtesgaden will be writer-producer-director-actor George Clooney, known to his intimates in the film merely as "H." Even insiders are secretive about George's take on the role of a lifetime, so we have to content ourselves with a few tantalizing hints. We're told that "H" isn't exactly the genius described in the history books, and "he's been known to mangle a 'liebensrump' or two."

We'll be first in line at the box office. You can count on that. Unless you can't.

Monday, March 13, 2006

HOT NEWS. What's more fun than mindless fear of gargantuan cataclysms? Nothing, unless it's being able to help spread dismay and panic to every little niche of the mass media universe. This week, thanks to a more boring than usual news cycle, we can actually take our pick of impending apocalyptic events to worry ourselves sick about.

On the other hand, some of us would probably prefer to worry about this. It's got tremendous potential, but you can still manage to swallow your dinner without heartburn.

But, as they say, to each his own.

PC TRANSPORT. Pictured above is the new Bugatti Veryon Hybrid, whose two-powerplant design reduces the need for reliance on wasteful fossil-fueled internal combustion technology. We have commented previously on the drab styling and performance of current hybrid vehicles, and that's why we're so excited that Bugatti is offering genuine exoticar looks and handling in a truly environment-friendly package. The Veryon's electric motor runs on five "D" batteries and produces 6.5 Volts, 8000mAh. You can get a fuller technical description here.


In operation, when the driver desires to diminish the load on the internal combustion engine, he can engage the electric engine with the flick of a switch on the dashboard. This initiates the alternative drive mechanism, thus:

The only significant drawback we can think of is that the Bugatti Veryon will cost approximately $2 million. Of course, all hybrids are somewhat pricey because of the experimental technology involved. The mitigating circumstance here is that the traditional technology employed is perhaps slightly more powerful and robust than its competitors in this market niche.

Acquiring hybrid technology alway involves tradeoffs. When you go shopping for your next "green" auto, though, we suggest you check out the Veryon. You just might like it.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

PSAYINGS.5Q.52. It shouldn't matter. A new belief system is being born at at a site called Serpo.org. It's a present-day phenomenon. Retired members of the Defense Intelligence Agency are incrementally releasing details of the most secret program ever run by the U.S. Government -- a 10-year visit by 12 highly trained U.S. military and scientific personnel to a planet in the Zeta Reticuli star system. The most recent posting was only a few weeks ago, and there are heavy promises of photographs to come. The website has been constructed by literate people who know when not to use an apostrophe in conjunction with the word 'it,' who have amassed confirming documentation from some of the more reputable (i.e., reputedly scientific, military, and intelligence-agency-connected) UFO researchers, and who have already acquired a radio and internet audience via persuasive performances on Art Bell's Coast-to-Coast radio show.

We've been known to listen to Art Bell. It's entertaining stuff. We learned there of the possibility of the death by laboratory-induced supernova of the entire universe, the certainty of a solar "killshot" that would extinguish life on earth by the year 2000, and the existence of a hole in the ground in the southwest where the screams of the damned in hell could be recorded on a cellphone.

Who cares, right? Crazy people like crazy stories, especially when they involve crazy conspiracies that paper over any perceived absence of the meaning of life. Only, we've had occasion to learn that crazy conspiracy theories have the power to wreck the lives of intelligent, curious, and estimable but gulliible people. There was once a site called Zetatalk, which purported to explain everything that had ever happened, including Atlantis and Christ, in terms of the arrival of a tenth planet which would destroy physical life on earth while catalyzing the transition to a fourth-dimensional state of being for those who were in "service to others" as opposed to "service to self." The site was amusing because it offered matter-of-fact explanations for EVERYTHING, including the lowdown on the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations, the fate of Noah's Ark, the truth of the Shroud of Turin, and the final judgment about the relative greatness of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics versus the 1927 New York Yankees. (Athletics greater, of course.) The most interesting fact was that Jesus Christ was an alien from Zeta Reticuli who ultimately agreed to be put into a state of suspended animation from which he would answer the prayers of all earthlings in perpetuity.

It turns out that Zetatalk convinced lots of people to leave their homes and relatives forever in order to be ready for the arrival of Planet X, home of the aliens who were going to destroy earth and life as we know it -- except for the fact that Planet X doesn't exist, according to every reputable astronomer. Only the leader of Zetatalk, one Nancy Lieder, dared to challenge the pitiless logic of the astronomers, but a great many people followed her nonetheless and were personally annihilated when Planet X failed to show up on the predicted date a few years ago. You can read the unexpectedly moving story of her disciples here. Many of them lost homes, careers, and all their money because of Nancy Lieder's monomania, which still hasn't ended, because Zetatalk is still on the web.

While Nancy Lieder was leading her sheep to ruin, another star was rising. Laura Knight-Jadczyk discovered much the same alien threat, including the impending "fourth dimensional" transformation, by way of a Ouija Board that alerted her to the impending end of our existence and the beginning of her romantic relationship with a Polish physicist named Arkadiusz. Unfortunately, the more Laura learned about human history from the Ouija Board, the more she discovered that multiple alien races in command of time travel technology had destroyed the meaning of human history and existence. Moreover, her expertise at interpreting the Ouija Board, which eventually culminated in her receiving its channelled wisdom without actually consulting the board at all anymore, had made her a target for nefarious alien assassination plans that have to be defended against continuously. It's to Laura's considerable credit that she's been able to rewrite all of human history and culture in terms of her alien experience on the run -- on CDs and videotapes containing hundreds of thousands of words -- without charging more than a nominal fee to the followers of Cassiopaea.com.

Which makes it all the sadder that some of her followers came to regard her as something of another Nancy Lieder, although her siituation was never ever similar to Nancy's because Ark possessed more knowledge about the physics of the universe in his left thumb than Nancy ever dreamed of in her twice-mortgaged trailer. And that's a fact.

Too bad there was that terrible scandal about Laura and Ark absconding with funds from such devoted followers.

All right. Now you know why we're concerned. These alien fantasies bother us for several other reasons too. Seriously. We'd like to list them.


Did we forget to mention that the revelations about the Serpo Project are being threatened by black ops disinformation specialists? Well, they are. If you can wade through the compelling narration and the quibbles of brilliant scientific minds who can't quite keep up with Zeta Reticuli physics, you will eventually arrive at the page where the most sinister current events are being documented. Here is the terrifying threat that may prevent us all from learning the Truth:





Yeah. We know. It's all too stupid to believe. Too stupid for anyone to believe. But there are people out there who do believe it. People a lot like you, who loved Star Trek and the X-Files and the DaVinci Code and the war-for-oil conspiracies elaborated at Moveon.org. But it's worth asking, what is our individual and collective responsibility regarding the conspiracy con men of the internet? Is it okay that they suck up the money and lives of countless gullible people? Or is it appropriate now and then for us to take note of their cold-blooded sociopathic schemes to defraud the credulous among us?

We apologize if we've wasted your time. But we'll leave you with the following images. These are people to be avoided, even if you don't have the stomach for participating in their capture and imprisonment.

Friday, March 10, 2006

S.O.P. Neal Boortz and Michelle Malkin seem cross about a recent Reuters photo of Vice President Dick Cheney. Honestly, we don't know what they're talking about. He looks like his usual self to us. Maybe more so.

If you know, please explain it to us.

UPDATE. Oh, now we get it. The original backdrop for the pic was about setting money aside for old age, not mid-east foreign policy:


Reuters must have some pretty clever computer graphics editors.

UPDATE 2. We still think everyone should relax. It's not like this hasn't happened before. To Cheney. You'll see. There will be just as simple an explanation for this little mistake as there was last time.

LA MEME CHOSE. The self-congratulating conservative prig and the self-indulgent adolescent pig. It's not really the mystery that it seems. Of course, Hannity's most devoted fans are nonplussed to hear him defend and promote Stern after years of  (ugh) self-inflating bombast about his own goody-two-shoes morality. The truth is, Hannity and Stern have more in common than not. The cord that binds them is radio, which is what they both live for in their arrested state of development. One has a demonic schtick, the other a holier-than-thou schtick, but there's no one too low on their personal moral scales for either of them to talk to on the air. Stern at least is honest about his pandering, while Hannity is annoyingly disingenuous. If his moral compass were truly oriented the way he claims it is, there'd be no need -- or even excuse -- for him to continue interviewing Al Sharpton, Charlie Rangel, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and a dozen other corrupt lefties he regularly invites onto his show. Limbaugh doesn't interview politicians except on very rare occasions, largely because he doesn't need to, but also because he despises their song-and-dance routine of lies, misrepresentations, and scripted talking points. Hannity sails in fresh every time, endlessly repeating his own mantra of set phrases (evil empire, etc) while denouncing his guests for theirs. It's political vaudeville. Or is it burlesque? Hmmm.

Hannity and Stern are radio whores. They're very good at it, and they have millions of loyal and affectionate listeners. But nobody should take either of them too seriously or become personally fond of them. It doesn't compute. No matter what they claim to value, today's radio show will always come first. Stern has been through his share of personal scandals, and Hannity has still to experience his. But the clock is ticking. In the studio. Where he lives.

No hard feelings. Long may they wave.
 

Thursday, March 09, 2006

A MATTER OF TRUST. This isn't about giving up. It's about being realistic. Republicans in Congress and the electorate are turning their backs on the President in droves for what seem to them very good reasons. They're mad about the Dubai Ports deal, either because they're frightened of the Arabs or disgusted by the administration's incompetent PR performance. They're sick of all the excessive spending and the President's very belated and lame request for a bandaid called the line-item veto. They're mad about illegal immigration, which continues in an unabated flood because of the administration's refusal to stop pandering to the Hispanic vote.  They're weary of the war and what appears to be the declining resolve of the Bush administration to answer opportunistic critics or to take the bold new steps needed to defuse the powder keg of Iran. They're embarrassed by all the corruption in Congress, and, yes, the Dems are corrupt too, but so are the Republicans.

All this negative emotion is building to the usual self-destructive behaviors by conservatives. Of all times, now is not the time to pull abortion to center stage and polarize the electorate with a premature assault on Roe v. Wade. So, of course, that's exactly what the social conservatives are in the process of doing. Now is not the time for mainstream conservatives to suddenly start paying attention to the tired old isolationist rhetoric of paleo-conservatives like Buchanan and Buckley. They have nothing new to say, so, of course, bewildered Republicans of all stripes will be finding their antique restatements of the Monroe doctrine incredibly compelling. Now is not the time for Republicans across the country to sit on their hands while the Democrats whale away at the President in order to regain control of the House in the 2006 elections, so, of course, that's what they will do.

Fine. All these are time-honored behaviors and Democrats are much more practiced at putting up with ideological compromises within their own ranks for the sake of being in power. Many Republicans, on the other hand, prefer the convenient ideal of simply being right, win or lose, and especially lose. That's their call.

The only point I'm going to make is that if Republicans do sit on their hands in the upcoming election campaign, the Democrats will win a majority in the House of Representatives. And if they win the House, there is no question whatsoever that they will impeach the President of the United States and paralyze American foreign policy for at least two years. The Iraq war effort and the War on Terror will fall apart. Iran will bluster its way past Europe and the U.N. to realize its nuclear ambitions. And no nation in the middle east or in the broader muslim world will believe the United States has the will to back up its diplomacy with anything but more words.

Is that okay with you? We will survive it all -- the humiliations, the foreign and domestic defeats, the Islamist advances and takeovers, the hideous vindictiveness of a controlling party consumed by hatred rather than ennui. We may eventually undo the decades of damage such a two years will wreak upon us. We'll muddle through it, the way we always do. All I'm asking is whether you're ready yet, or not. It's a lot of fun being mad at George W., and by all means continue, but make sure you're comfortable with the image of him being thrown out of office and possibly into prison as well. When the hate juggernaut gets truly up and running, it has considerable momentum and isn't easy to stop. And most of them won't want to stop until the devastation is complete.

If you're not quite ready yet, here's a little instructional program that will help you. Focus on each little step, and pretty soon you'll quit worrying about everything else. It's really simple and easy when you get the hang of it.

Have fun.

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