Can someone tell me if this is sincere or sarcastic? I can't tell anymore. Found it through various Home Star Runner anthropology. Interesting stops along the way: fhqwhgads, easter eggs, a high-school grad's blog, flag day in strongbadia. Man, the internet isn't quite like I remember. There was a time when you could sort of know everything important that was going on out here, or at least live under that illusion. It's becoming increasingly obvious that even a general comprehensive knowledge of the content available online is beyond individual human understanding. I think that's kind of exciting in a way.

Billmon: What a Tangled Web We Weave when first we practice to deceive, an eye-opening collection of quotes from Team Bush on the question of Iraqi WMD's. It kind of tells a story, starting with:

• "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." - George W. Bush, September 12, 2002
• "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." - George W. Bush, January 28, 2003

And going all the way through:

• "I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago." - Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne, May 13, 2003
• "They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer." - Donald Rumsfeld, May 27, 2003
• "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." - Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003

Here's my commentary:

Number of Weapons of Mass Destruction Found in Iraq: Zero

Explanations:

1. Gross Incompetence: Weapons were allowed to be moved to more terrorist-friendly nations. The destruction of the expected volumes of WMD would leave large and telltale traces, similar to a toxic waste dump cleanup.
2. Intentional Deception: The Bush Administration willfully misled the public about the size and nature of Iraq's WMD program in order to scare people into supporting the war.

Most Likely Truth:
A little bit of both. We know that nuclear and other weapons sites were looted in the aftermath of major conflict, along with museums, schools, hospitals, banks and just about everything else. However, taking into account the CIA's protests that its intelligence was ignored and that the Pentagon admits it was running it's own in-house intel operation that produced only friendly results, it seems clear that there was also some deception going on.

The Bottom Line: Bush Lied, People Died.

Both Sasha and my Sister had been telling me about some web toon called Home Star Runner. So tonight was the night I actually visited. F'ing brilliant! It's the first on-line sitcom. At first I thought it was bullshit and stupid-cute, just some jackass "story" about a king and his sheep. And then I hit the "commentary" section and met Stong Bad. To understand this will take you about 15 minutes: approxomately the same time as it would to get you into a situation comedy.

Consider the universe of programming out here. We've got ROMP.com our own (NC-17) version of 90210 -- or Girls Gone Wild, depending on what level of sarcasm you can deal with. And there's Broken Saints, the long-running flash-toon dark/sci-fi saga. Plus a million smaller, one-off or small-run gigs. For instance the delightful Strindburg and Helium, who will be at Cannes along with iconic Odd Todd. There's an ever growing world of content out here. Someday it could rival TV.

So there are maybe a few hours total of prime-time-ready content, great, but the most amazing thing is that it's almost all free-range shit. No well-known corporate players. No congolmorate-financed weekly-updated series for $2 a month. Enjoy it while it lasts, because there's money to be made out here. As usual, sex is first, but soon others will arrive. Commercials. Product placement. Interactive interweaving of content and advertising. Brave new world; could go either way at this point.

But good or evil, it's the new medium people. The new medium will accept what you know, but it demands flexibilty of form for success. Your art will evolve. Your culture will evolve. Your customs will evolve. Your business will evolve. Your politics will evolve. You will evolve or else you will fall behind those who do. Not to say that all this is dark or orwellian. We don't need to be crap-hungry consumerists living in ever growing metropolises. We can still go back to the trees. But if we do we're taking the internet -- and most importantly the idea of the internet -- with us.

I wrote in my little private paper journal a while back, writhing in a fit of angst and doubt about whether We will turn It around, "...and where's the Hunter S. Thomson of my generation? Probably off somewhere blogging..." I long ago fell under the sway of the Duke's particular brand of morality and truth-telling. He gets at the secret bloody crevaces of the human condition, sinking into the stinking realm of sweat and violence and fear. He's a dowager for the good kind of righteousness, a human divining rod for peace and honesty. He's an old man now, and probably too tired and burnt to take another tour on the front lines -- though God love him he's sure to try. Hence my intuative sense that these times demand a new incisive firebrand of Personal Truth and The Best Way Of Living, someone decidedly outside the fucking box and committed to driving forward like a scandalous addled cannonball. Sigh.

Hunter S. Thompson's latest, Kingdom of Fear, is a semi-auto-biography that blends little-known tales of the Gonzo Doctor's upbringing with current (circa summer 2002) observations and well-loved recollections from everywhere in between. There's something to be said about Hunter, something that's often lost in the lurid honesty about sex and drugs and power, and that's that the man can turn a phrase. His style is easily recognized, in truth even formulaic at times, but anyone who trots out the line that he's "become a parody" of himself if just player-hating. More than any of the excesses or eccentricities of his life, Thompson is a widely known and loved public figure because he has got game with words and ideas and the human spirit. If he were less of a Freak, he'd probably still be a best-selling novelist (or perhaps a successful politician). Instead he's what every lefty blogger wishes they were, someone who took the notion of first-person reportage to the limit and emerged with shining gems of quality and insight.

I take to heart Thompson's words about, "not endorsing my lifestyle for anyone else." I've seen many people who went after the HST tao of chemestry. It's not all that difficult. All you need are a few underworld connections and some ready cash; ask around at your local bar and someone will know someone who can hook you up. There's a phone number to be shared for whatever you're in the market for. What's far more rare are his mastery of language, heart-rending frankness and committment to personal ethics. These are his sources of value, not LSD or anything else.

It's common wisdom now that we're headed into another radical period, and in many ways the Establishment (The Man) is far more thuggish and well-equipped than last time around. Hew to the ethos.