Here.

Hammermaster?

I'm so far ahead of the curve on this one, it's laughable. LAUGHABLE.

Let me walk you though it.

[links to be added]

EXHIBIT ONE: CHALABI FUNDS CUT OFF, HQ RAIDED

EXHIBIT TWO: CHALABI HATES THE CIA; THINKS CIA BEHIND ANTI-CHALABI ACTIVITY

EXHIBIT THREE: CHALABI REPORTEDLY HAS THE DIRT ON PROMINENT AMERICAN OFFICIALS

Presumption: This is true.

Corollary: Chalabi is more likely to gather incriminating dirt on those he perceives to be his enemies (CIA, State) than others.

EXHIBIT FOUR: TENET, HEAD OF CIA, SUDDENLY AND DRAMATICALLY RESIGNS, MERE WEEKS AFTER BUSH EXPRESSES SUPPORT FOR HIM

CONCLUSION: CHALABI'S DIRT CAUSED TENET TO RESIGN.

Discuss.

I've actually been downloading episodes of this:

OTTAWA — Veterans of the '80s cult classic TV show You Can't Do That On Television filed a $1 billion class-action lawsuit against Nickelodeon Monday, alleging that the network exposed them to a bevy of toxins which led to a chronic affliction called Green Slime Syndrome.

"The producers assured us the slime was safe, and that getting drenched with it for five or more takes wouldn't cause any lasting damage," cast member Alasdair Gillis said. "I was only 12. I didn't ask questions; I just did what the director said. Now I live with constant pain."

Gillis then pulled up his sleeves to reveal the suppurating pustules that cover his forearms and wrists.

Right after the press reports that Nixon was too plastered to talk to whoever on the phone that night, there's this:

According to American officials, the Iranian official in Baghdad, possibly not believing Mr. Chalabi's account, sent a cable to Tehran detailing his conversation with Mr. Chalabi, using the broken code. That encrypted cable, intercepted and read by the United States, tipped off American officials to the fact that Mr. Chalabi had betrayed the code-breaking operation, the American officials said.

American officials reported that in the cable to Tehran, the Iranian official recounted how Mr. Chalabi had said that one of "them" — a reference to an American — had revealed the code-breaking operation, the officials said. The Iranian reported that Mr. Chalabi said the American was drunk.

WTF?

This is too f'ed-up to be real.

...then go read Josh Marshall on this.

...and Kevin Drum reporting on a Michael Ledeen article from the National Review.

[NB: More non-political stuff on its way!]

Permissive Action Links, or PALs, are on our nuclear missiles to ensure that no one can, um, shoot 'em just fer fun.

Comes now Monster, in wonkish mode, with a link to a really scary story.

Here's an excerpt:

Last month I asked Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, what he believed back in the 1960s was the status of technical locks on the Minuteman intercontinental missiles. These long-range nuclear-tipped missiles first came on line during the Cuban missile crisis and grew to a force of 1,000 during the McNamara years — the backbone of the U.S. strategic deterrent through the late 1960s. McNamara replied, in his trade-mark, assertively confident manner that he personally saw to it that these special locks (known to wonks as “Permissive Action Links”) were installed on the Minuteman force, and that he regarded them as essential to strict central control and preventing unauthorized launch.

When the history of the nuclear cold war is finally comprehensively written, this McNamara vignette will be one of a long litany of items pointing to the ignorance of presidents and defense secretaries and other nuclear security officials about the true state of nuclear affairs during their time in the saddle. What I then told McNamara about his vitally important locks elicited this response: “I am shocked, absolutely shocked and outraged. Who the hell authorized that?” What he had just learned from me was that the locks had been installed, but everyone knew the combination.

The Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha quietly decided to set the “locks” to all zeros in order to circumvent this safeguard. During the early to mid-1970s, during my stint as a Minuteman launch officer, they still had not been changed. Our launch checklist in fact instructed us, the firing crew, to double-check the locking panel in our underground launch bunker to ensure that no digits other than zero had been inadvertently dialed into the panel. SAC remained far less concerned about unauthorized launches than about the potential of these safeguards to interfere with the implementation of wartime launch orders. And so the “secret unlock code” during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War remained constant at OOOOOOOO.

Breathe deeply. And again. It'll be okay. I hope.

Here.

His bizarro word rhythm and gleeful disregard for punctuation makes even his most banal utterances sound dramatic. At the grocery store, he stared at a plump tomato and then put it back. ''I DON'T. Buy the tomatoes with. The stems. On them. They don't. Degrade. They go. Down the sink. And into the WATER. Then. They get lodged in the throats of little. OTTERS.''

Awesome.

Last night at the Fillmore, during the Yo La Tengo show, I sent the same text message to (nearly) every cell phone in my address book:

tell me why.
seriously.

I'm not a big texter, first of all, and I haven't talked to many of these people in a while, so this message almost certainly didn't continue some previous conversation. I have, however, on more than a few occasions, sent other random messages. I can't seem to resist.

Without any context, would anyone take the message seriously, or would my past behavior tip them off that this was the same old bullshit? Would two lines of text out of the blue cause them to dig up and reanalyze a forgotten bone of contention between us? Or prompt some level of self-questioning based on an old conversation?

The first message went out at 10:55pm. Here are the responses I received.

---

ALLY at 10:55pm:

You dont get to know

This is meaningless. Ally is my roommate; she sniffed out my attempt at contextless communication and replied perfectly in kind. Bah! A gold star for her.

Extra points for being really, really quick to respond.

---

DOM at 10:56pm:

Please resend message with area code. Your message to [omitted] could not be delivered.

I get these sometimes. It seems to be the response my phone gives me for a couple of different transgressions, including, but not limited to, sending text messages to 415 area-code cell numbers without the 415 prefix. Sigh. This took Dom out of the game, as well as Maria and Susan.

---

MARA calls at 11:00pm.

I obviously have no transcript of what was said, but it was something like this:

E: [plugging opposite ear at show to enable phone conversation] Hi.
M: Tell you what?!
E: I'll call you back. It was a meaningless message.
M: OK.

---

MICAH at 11:12pm:

oddly enough, i'm in d.c., it's 1am, and the message ringer just scared the crap out of the four of us sleeping. :D talk to you some (cont.)

MICAH at 11:12pm:

other time. -m

Well. Micah, an old friend of mine, just totally ignored the question posed in the message, gave a friendly status update (he's apparently taken to "group sleeping"), and dismisses me. Why do you ignore the pointed question I messaged you, Micah? Is it because you can't take the heat? Is it because of your sinful, sinful ways? Or is it because you were in apparently in a state of blissful, sweaty post-group-coital slumber?

Shit, I gotta remember to do this earlier for the midwesterners and east-coast peeps.

---

JEN at 11:30pm:

Just because baby

Jen gives a flippant, Ally-esque answer, even though I tried to grab her once (unsuccessfully) in a bar. There is therefore ample opportunity for her to interpret my text message in a serious way, yet she totally refuses to be drawn in. A gold star for her.

---

MATT K at 11:32pm:

what do you mean? Seriously...

Simply flipping the question around isn't completely elegant, but the critical message is conveyed: I know that you are totally full of shit, and though I am mocking your pathetic attempt to incite me, I'm also willing to aid this bullshit endeavor. Two gold stars -- the extra one is for inviting a response.

---

MATT B at 11:55pm:

Probably because u r gay

This cocksure bitchslap earns highest marks.

---

MICHELLE at 12:40am:

Nothing better 2 do. Grad school would strangle me

We've got a winner! Michelle thinks that the message is really saying "For the love of fuck, why are you going to law school?" But Michelle and I haven't discussed the law school thing in a while; thus the contextless message reveals the crux of the matter! Behold!

By the way, Michelle: don't go to law school.

---

ANDREA at 4:43am:

are u up

Sister Andrea texts, ominously, at 4:43am -- in a time zone two hours later than PST -- asking if I'm conscious. Yow, Andrea, what were you doing? Don't answer that.