JUST CALL ME SCHLEPROCK

Or whatever the name of that Flintstones character was who had a literal cloud following him around, usually raining, occasionally making with the odd gigavolt lightning strike--

Okay, I'm just moaning because I happen to live in a particular part of the Northwest where we suffer from "air stagnation alerts"--which means the fog rolls in, thick and fluffy, and those of us (and call us Legion, for we are many, as a demonically possessed man identified himself to Jesus one fine Biblical day) who burn wood for heat add to the problem by pumping smoke into the mix. The net effect is a sort of prehistoric smog, pinned to the valley by a temperature inversion. It's like being inside a box of smoldering cotton...hell, even the tops of the trees (and the trees are Ent fucking humungous here) are obscured.

The psychological effect of this particular brand of gloom cannot be understated. It simply fucks your head, first by vigorously pumping out all optimism and mirth, then slowly replacing it, like a Thermarest inflating at 12,000 feet, with woe, grief and despair--

So fuck. What can I say? I'm just copping to the filter that I'm working through now--to give you the state of mind I've been in to reflect upon the recent events in Washington. I cop to it because I sense the populace believes the "tide is turning" against the neocons (sic--they are neo-fascists) because the mainstream media is reporting a bit (and I emphasize bit, as in tiny, miniscule, itty, bitty iota of a scintilla) of reality, and because a handful of democrat governors were elected, and because Schwarzenegger lost all four (gasp, choke) of his nefarious ballot initiatives.

It's hard to attain a phrase profane enough to capture my true feelings here, but let me try this one, fraught with incest, blasphemy, and no small measure of political incorrectness:

Sweet Jesus Motherfuck, what are we wetting our collective panties about, hmmm? A couple of governorships for the dems, and Ahnuld dealt a minor setback, and some think this indicates the tide is turning?

Mark my words: you heard it here first. The neo-fascists who currently run this country (and that is the Bush folks, and the military/pharmaceutical/oil/banking people they have promoted and coddled above all else, including our Constitution, our soldiers, and our freaking children) will never lose another election that matters. While it is "good", in the absolute sense, to have those governorships, defeated der Gropenfuhrer's anti-working class ballot initiatives, and, as the cherry on top, tossed the inbred microcephelatic "intelli-design" fundies off a school board in Pennsylvania--these are tiny little battles the opposition is only too happy to concede.

Why do I say that?

Because California and other states continue to work furiously to certify the demonstrably untraceable and easily altered voting machines--which will be used in the next elections, the midterm elections, the one where Congress could change hands and expose Bush et al to impeachment and prosecution for war crimes (torture is a war crime, eh?)...which carries the Death Penalty.

I say it because this month in Ohio (where Kenneth Blackwell, who was somehow permitted to serve as both Secretary of State and W's campaign manager, presided over an election where exit polls showed Kerry winning handily, the suddenly Kerry lost...in a near syndicated repeat of Katherine Harris' role in 2000), polls showed a voting reform measure stripping the Secretary of State of that power winning by at least 60/40--

But when the ballots were "counted" by that same Kenneth Blackwell, strangely, the measure was defeated by that same ratio.

This is the second time (or third, if you count the '02 Georgia and Nebraska U.S. Senate elections) results defied the polls in a statistical anomally at least as rare as hitting the Powerball twice...on consecutive weeks. In other words, even in 2005, a piddly "off-year" election--the lowest tier, below even midterm elections--the real battles were lost. Untraceable electronic voting is alive and well, shepherded to this point by key corrupt officials like Blackwell, Harris, the Governator-- all of it still owned by private corporations dedicated to this administration.

Understand this clearly, in case I somehow didn't punch through: THE VOTE IS STILL RIGGED.

The stakes in '06 are huge. Because Bush et al have authorized torture, have used chemical weapons on civilians, have jeapordized U.S. security by outing a CIA operative specializing in counter-terrorism and weapons of mass destruction--our own federal laws (follow the link above) provide they should be executed. They can't take that risk. They won't take that risk. They will rig the vote to ensure a Congress that will not impeach. They will install a Supreme Court Justice who has guaranteed Cheney/Bush in private that everyone can be pardoned, even the President himself, even for treason. If any significant resistance threatens, the avian flu, a "terrorist" attack, or some convenient natural disaster will be used as an excuse to impose martial law, perhaps suspending elections altogether.

--------

Recall at the outset I warned I've been wallowing for several days in a smoky, foggy valley, without even the frigid rain to wash the air clean. So I suppose I could fairly be accused of being jaded, unreasonably reluctant to claim momentum for "our side"--because there are indeed other signs of life in the gangrenous, syphilitic corpse that was U.S. democracy:

Patrick Fitzgerald has reignited (reinstated seems a bit mild, eh?) the grand jury to probe the treason committed by the White House; Rep. Murtha from Ohio threw down the gauntlet and demanded, as a decorated, seasoned war veteran, that U.S. troops be returned home--immediately and wholly, from their utterly failed and now impossible mission in Iraq; Randy Cunningham plead guilty to bribery and resigned from the house; Bush fled to the only country that likes him--Mongolia--after Central and South America essentially rolled CAFTA up into a fat papyrus cylinder and told W to go fuck himself--preferably sheathing it first in a wire-bristle punishment condom--

Sure. that's all great, lovely stuff. And I mean that from the bottom of my prematurely curmudgeonly heart.

But let's see the troops home, let's see medical and psychological care for them and all Americans, let's see affordable housing and healthy food for everyone; let's see schools that do not indoctrinate the young for a life of wage-slavery and obeidience, let's close the torture gulags, then let's see Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, etc., and their corporate cronies at Enron, Halliburton, Kellog, Brown and Root, Baker & McKenzie, Conoco, Exxon, Eli Lilly--ALL of them, just let me indulge in a bit of just-desserts fantasy here--tossed into Gitmo with stoned serial sodomist cannibals that have the munchies--and no food, no lube-- and definitely no utensils.

When all of that happens (except maybe the sodomy, but only for Karl Rove, because I think he would enjoy it) then you can squawk at me about turning tides, because right now, right the fuck now, as I type and as you read, PEOPLE ARE BEING IMPRISONED, RAPED , TORTURED AND KILLED IN OUR NAMES.

From here, deep within the fog and smoke (and let's face it, steeped in the harsh green liquor of my own bile) I predict that in '06 we will still be at war in Iraq--and Iran and Syria. We will have a fascist Supreme Court, Congress will be unchanged, Libby will remain untried, Bush will not be impeached, Schwarzenegger will be re-elected--

And the torture gulags will remain in operation, funded by our tax dollars.

It will take buckets of blood, metaphorically, for certain--and most likely, literally--to make it right again.

So don't go to sleep, goddamnit. Pay attention. We are in more danger than ever, now that we have flashed a feeble light on the Beast. When the flu strikes, or a "terrorist attack" or some other crisis occurs at a convenient moment to distract us and/or promote the granting of ever-more executive power, you have to sit down and ask yourself:

Why is this happening?

More importantly, Why in Sweet Jesus Motherfuck does it keep happening?

Peace out,

GB

Feel free to comment, or if you want more private correspondence: blanstonshrieks@yahoo.com

The First Step

In yesterday's post, I pointed out that the First Step to realizing those in power can now fuck us with impunity and remain in power, is to know AND UNDERTSTAND that elections in this country are now wholly fictitious.

I acknowledged that this First Step is a doozy.

I challenge you to read this and this, for starters. If you still think, as some of my dearest friends do, that election fraud isn't occurring or hasn't affected recent elections, then I'm more terrified than ever.

GB

Occam's Razor and Why I May Slit My Own Throat With It

As W's approval ratings hover near lows matched only by Nixon;

--as he vacationed on his faux ranch and ignored Cindy Sheehan and rode bikes with Lance (at an arthritic sub-8 m.p.h.; the news reports simply told you "17-mile trail" and "just over two hours);

--as he says he "must get on with his life", then ignores the worst natural disaster in memory to give a speech ludicrously comparing post-WW II Japan to 2005 Iraq,, then grudgingly perused the post-Katrina devestation from a couch on Air Force One;

As Veep Cheney scowls away vacation in Wyoming and Condi Rice drops a few grand on fancy shoes in Manhattan and a Broadway comedy despite clear catastrophe at hand...

one has to wonder--what dipshit political adviser is letting this happen?

Of course, W. doesn't have to worry about re-election...setting aside for the moment the fact he was never justly elected in the first place.

But I'm not talking about the conventional, lame-duck presidency wisdom--that is, I don't think for a nanosecond that W. is permitted to act like an idiot because of the constitutional two-term limit.

No, I'm afraid it's much more sinister than that.

Only a fool could believe that Karl Rove and the rest of the real brains behind W. would allow him to act this way if it was not Part of The Plan, or at least if they thought The Plan would be negatively impacted.

Midterm elections are coming soon, and the smart money of conventional wisdom is betting that any Congressperson who brayed the pro-war line too early or too often (or too long, by braying "stay the course" today)--and those who by association and simpering sycophancy Look as Bad As Bush--may well have hopped the conveyer to the kill line of election 2006--and the Republican stranglehold on the legislature will finally be broken. Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead, and all of that.

Yes, that's the smart, conventional money. However, a mountain of evidence, as putrid as a post-Katrina sewage plant, suggests these are hardly conventional times.


Face it...W's actions and those of Halliburton and KB&R ad infinitum, ad nauseum,, with the blessing of way too many members of Congress, are so massive and reprehensible and clearly illegal we are forced to the conclusion that they believe they can do anything while in power, AND STAY IN POWER.

Occam's Razor dictates the simplest explanation is best--and I grant you I strive mightily to not leap up to exclaim bygod that's simple, they behave like idiots, because, well, they ARE idiots.

Except they aren't idiots at all. That W. is a post-coke, dry-drunk refugee who was none too bright to begin with belies the fact of the towering evil geniuses around him, like Cheney, Rove, Rice, George H.W., the new Saudi King, The Carlyle Group,to name a few--

The Bush Admisnistration and its corporate and political cronies are, to me, acting like they know they will get away with it. They know the game is rigged, because the private corporations who somehow now control proprietary (that is NOT PUBLIC, nor accountable to anyone but the, um, private company) voting software Right Here in America are owned by--you guessed it, powerful Republicans.

And sure as shit, elections are now nearly complete fictions. Anyone who denies that the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections suffered from widespread abuse at various levels, including tampering with electronic vote totals and ensuring many liberal voting districts were understaffed, under-supplied with functioning machines, and full of GOP operatives to "challenge" potential voters, not to mention the soul-sucking chutzpah of Katherine Harris in 2000 or her counterpart Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio 2004...is simply denying reality--

And of course, now that Rehnquist has died, his soul oozing slowly to Hell, the Judiciary won't be able to help us, either--

That still isn't what scares me. OK, it scares me, it scares me shitless, because absolute control of the process has already been used to enthrone Bush et al and stack Congress and the Courts. What true American (or any reasonable folks who twigged freedom) wouldn't be terrified of this scenario?

Yeah. That first step, as they say, is a doozy. But the second step, well--

Beyond the gut-wrenching, terrifying realization that elections are wholly fictitious lies a deeper, even more sinister reality, dictated by Occam's Razor. This reality makes me go, like the rabbits of Watership Down, tharn.

As strange as it may sound at first, absolute control of the elections is not enough. It was enough to get "them" (the neocons) into power, jus' like the ol' unsmilin'goose-steppin' swastika-and-limburgher-lovin' Germans after the Reichstag. The Nazis had already assumed power through "legitimate", existing channels--then used the Reichstag fire and the Commie boogeyman to justify dismantling the very system which had empowered Hitler, to establish dictatorial control.

The U.S. elections of '00, 02, and '04 went largely unchallenged because far and away the critical mass of the population was willing to go along, willing to heal, to look forward and unite behind the leader, assuming that if the election gave us a president we didn't like we could toss him out.

That's what they always told us, eh? Heck, we tossed GHWB out like a tub of rancid milk--

Nobody wants to think their government seized power illegally, then used that power to declare perpetual war and remove all obstacles to maintaining power.

But now Katrina comes, the Morley's chain of petroleum drags hard on the U.S. economy, and the direct relationship between Iraq and the awesome, awful degradation of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens, is outlined in red neon for all to see.

The critical mass is finally calling bullshit on BushCo's tax cuts for the rich, deficits for the war, eliminating civil rights (how's that for unalienable?) cutting/denying funding for flood control in New Orleans, (not to mention the attempt to raid Social Security and the secret arrest and incarceration of U.S. citizens)...and the gloriously encapsulating, callous and indifferent Air Force One flyover--nothing has ever been more clearly stated:

We Don't Care About You, the People.

We Don't Even Care If You Realize It.

What I'm driving at here, albeit a bit circuitously, is that the display of Total Indifference, Ignorance and Even Contempt would ordinarily have consequences at the ballot box. Occam's Razor tells me first that Bushco's behavior indicates that they intend to stay in power, no matter what it takes, even if it means fixing elections-- or declaring martial law. All it will take is another "terrorist attack," like I predicted before the London bombings, but this time Stateside, where martial law will be imposed.

We are seeing the beginnings of it in the martial law imposed in Louisiana. Don't believe me? Why then is our own military, sent in to New Orleans because the Louisiana National Guard is deployed to Iraq, calling the victims of Katrina "the insurgency?" What would you call a shoot-to-kill order against looters, who loot only because the government that now shoots at them, failed them in the first place?




--------------------------

Clarification

Didn't mean to dis the sisters out there in the post below. The reference to "Oh my brothers and only friends" is a line repeated by Alex, the antihero of A Clockwork Orange, as he descends into complete economic, physical, and ultimately mental control by the government--

So forgive the line, those of you who bristled. 'Twas merely intended to call up the spectre of too much gov't power. And the "motherfuckers" referenced at the end, those who might need to look up metaphor, well, that was aimed at NSA/DHS types.

Heck.

Sorry.

The Real War

I've come off the so-called "lost-coast" of northern Humboldt County, oozing poison oak from every pore, to find out we just invaded Canada.

The significance of the United States' raid on Marc Emery and the British Columbia Marijuana Party Headquarters in Vancouver cannot be undertstated.

As noted before,
the "Vansterdam" enclave on Hastings street has had its share of problems, arson just the penultimate in a long line of setbacks.

This time, it's different. The U.S. has basically gone nuclear in its War on Drugs. But that "war"--well, it is not the Real War, either.

Sad as it is, arresting the quintessentially peaceful "Prince of Pot" whose sole goal in life is to legalize the stuff once and for fucking all (and perhaps not coincidentally, make a boatload o' cash in the process) is merely a symptom, an operational definition of The Real War.

The Real War, oh my brothers and only friends, is on each one of us.

Since 9-11, George Bush and his administration have responded to an alleged radical Islamic group that "hates our freedoms" by, paradoxically, taking those freedoms away. I've already waxed hysterical on this topic, so there's no need to belabor the obvious.

The nut is this--the terrorists, whoever they are, have won.

They've WON, goddammit. We torture innocent people and rape children. We have probably tortured some guilty folks too, but we TORTURE. We have an Attorney General who sanctions torture. We have the grandson of one of Hitler's primary financial backers in the white house.

[Sure we do. Never mind the fact that scads of Nazi officers--particularly those well-versed in anti-Soviet espionage--were given the choice to defect to Stalin, who'd just wasted 13 million of his own fucking people fighting that war and could reasonably be expected to show somewhat less mercy to his, um, prisoners--

Or, hey, the U.S. said, come with us, and we'll protect you from Stalin, so long as you have some information we can use against him.

That's correct--the precursor to the CIA was started by Prescott Bush, using former Nazi intelligence ofiiers....]

But I seriously digress, eh? Best head down that plank on another post.

The point is, even if the allegedly paranoid rants of connections of Bush to the Nazi party, the deaths of JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X...supposing it may be easily, laughably dismissed to the tinfoil trash bin of the loonier corners of the internet.

Even so, the bloody--literally bloody--point remains.

We torture.

We rape children.

Whatever differences that may exist between that and the precise definition of Nazism are, I suspect, academic.

And, like the Germans of the day, we are oblivious.

It is time to follow Jefferson's instructions. If you don't know what those instructions are, perhaps you should refer to this. He put it right in the second paragraph...

So I'll head back out to the Lost Coast to leech the poison out of my system, to suck up the fog and mist, avoid bears and elk, and sharpen the blades of my weapons*

Be back soon.

* It's a metaphor, motherfuckers. Look it up if you need to.

HolyfuckingpurplejesusSHIT

If the rumors be true, tomorrow Chief Justice Rehnquist will throw in the towel, and limp off to the woods to die--whereupon he will likeky Go To Directly to Hell, without passing GO, and definitely without collecting $200.

There are many well-known and infinitely discussed reasons why W's appointment of two Supreme Court justices have long-reaching consequences, primarily stemming from the life-long nature of Federal judgeships. They stay on the court as long as they want--or until the other judges or justices can no longer tolerate their encroaching senility or frailty--and kick them out by consensus.

Indeed.

Becker has related that despite the maddening lesser-of-two-evils choices presented by Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton and Kerry (especially Kerry, who would have escalated the war in Iraq and done LBJ proud) in the last several presidential elections, he was compelled to hold his nose and mouth to preclude puking and vote for them all--for the simple reason that they would have the power to appoint judges who affect our lives for multiple generations. Reagan and the Bush father/son team have now appointed over 75% of the curent fed judges. Despite what the hopelessly corrupt mainstream media would have you believe, a whole heckuva lot of Clinton's proposed appointments were filibustered by the Senate.

Now, the idiot-child president gets to appoint two, and a hamstrung, emasculated, ineffective set of Senate Democratic weenies have effectively bartered away the filibuster, by essentially agreeing not to use it.

This alone is bad enough. Bush's choices will be unspeakably bad, whether they include torture-lovin'-but-hey-I'm-Hispanic-so-it's-ok-amigo Alberto Gonzales or not.

Yeah, Bush's nominees will undoubtedly fuck us long and hard, sans lubrication, for decades.

But another, more immediate problem looms.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Gonzales, Rice, and Feith, among others, have certainly committed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment, removal from office, and prosecution under the U.S.'s own War Crimes Act. The drumbeat has been growing for months--

But now, like the Bombs in London, the battle over the appointments will draw the nation's attention, and we will let those fuckers walk away, heinously wealthy--and we'll still be stuck with a fascist majority on the court.

Of course, I hope I'm wrong, but every previously paranoid notion I had about these criminals has come true.

Please, please let me be wrong.

Peace out.

Clarification

Jesus, sometimes I'm an idiot.

The below-referenced Downing Street Memo proves that Bush/Blair had agreed to invade Iraq while diplomatic efforts were still underway, including weapons inspections.

Not that they were so planning "before 9-11" as I indicated below.

Sheesh.

Check the Cost of Freedom

I've long said (ok, specifically, since 1984) that Orwell's nightmare of the surveilled and programmed masses was a reality.

In 1984, recall, there were no cell phones, GPS, microchip cameras, or anything remotely approaching the two-way "telescreen" which enabled Big Brother's legions to maintain control.

No, we had nothing like that. But I argued at the time that it didn't matter, because a critical mass of people was plunked in front of a television. Programming was irrelevant to the larger goal of our acquiescence to television as the primary arbiter of reality.

Of course, there have been glitches. Television fucked Nixon in his first run for President, allowing JFK to whip him like "a rabid dog with mange" as Hunter Thompson once wrote, fucked him again when televised shots of GI coffins shipped back from Vietnam had a predictably negative effect on support for that war, and fucked him yet again when John Mitchell and others rolled over like whores in a gangbang to testify before Congress about Watergate, the Enemies List and so on--

However, a thrice-fucked Nixon provides cold comfort in today's Fading Light That Was America. The Bush/Cheney lies about WMD and faulty intelligence have been laid bare for all to see, The Downing Street Memo proves Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq long before 9-11, and today it was revealed that 5 months before it presented the case for invasion to Congress, we had already started the massive aerial bombing of Iraq.

To quote PJ O'Rourke: What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck?

The case for impeaching a president has never been clearer. Hell, Blanston submits that the case for impeaching and prosecuting the entire current administration and Colin Powell for war crimes would be assistant-DA simple.

I predict that if the case for impeachment actually gains ground, we will see another terrorist attack on U.S. soil,--or somewhere where the fear siren can be cranked up loudly enough to drown out rational thought.

But I lie here, waiting, like a spitting cobra on a sun-warm desert rock, fangs sharp and dripping poison.

Waiting to see the whites of their eyes--

The Trail Beckons

Last night I cowered in the dark
I smelt the weasels closing in
I've no use for sun or parks
When I've not had my medicine
I summon demons, fiends and snarks
And send them off again
Last night I cowered in the dark
I smelt the weasels closing in.

What does one do when cash is low, credit is nil and employment prospects limited to jury duty, or, more entertainingly, shaking down corrupt cops with the help of a remote camera and a 18.1 Ghz link to the hard drives? Nothing produces cash from the corrupt like filmed evidence of their corruption...can't kill the golden goose and all of that.

But I digress yet again. Or maybe not.

Solid arguments may certainly be made for fleeing now, while I'm still the shaker rather than the shakee, as it were. Wiser men than I have pointed out there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal--or a corrupt pig you're leaning on.

So I figure I make with one more discreet DVD drop-off with instructions on how to buy the original, then get the hell out of here.

Vancouver, BC is sure nice in summer. I suspect I'll head there, though the Urban Shaman, the BC Marijuana Party HQ and Marc Emery's over-the-counter seed sales have apparently never resumed business after an arson on Hastings Street last year. The arsonist(s) were never caught, and one wonders if the RMCP or the Canadian mob saw fit to dispense with the epicenter of the Great White pot revolution--

We'll likely never know, but I suspect I'll be reporting back on whatever I find.

Astute readers will note that I was talikn' smack about walking the 362-mile Oregon Coast Trail, and indeed, I still intend to. Why not take two months and hike all the way to Canada? I mean, who gets to do this stuff anymore?

Frankly, no one else that I know, save a few trustafarian types. Don't get me wrong, these folks are invaluable allies on the trail. But a trustfunder or retiree has the luxury of not having to be out there on the trail. For them, the choice is not between wage-slavery and the road, rather, the road becomes another in a prized collection of idle-rich experiences--and blokes like myself simply provide color to the story they'll tell afterwards--

And they become part of mine.

I'll post when I can, and tell all, changing names to protect myself and incriminate others.

In the meantime, some older bits, including one entitled Burning Man is Dead, lie here awaiting their final edit. I'll try to have them up soon.

Peace out.

The Bleeding Edge

I suspect that humans as a species currently tread heavily on the razor, and we're probably On The Way Out.

And Blanston's financial situation continues to deteriorate. For the first time in his life, he's about to be jobless AND homeless.

But consider:

The Oregon coast has a continuous, 362-mile long trail which begins on the south jetty of the Columbia River and ends in Brookings, about 20 miles from the California border. There are many more miles of trails, thousands of them, that run into the Cascade and Coast mountain Ranges, as well as the Sierra Nevadas, and the Ho Chi Minh-like Pacific Crest Trail, which ultimately takes you to South America, the Hard Way--

I've always been a man who lives by his impulses, and the wisdom of this approach to life can certainly be debated. Its hold on me, however, cannot. Sometimes you just have to take a hard look at the bones on the ground. The shaman clicks and gibbers at me nonsensically, but his message is clear: Get Out. Now.

It literally almost never rains after June 1 along the west coast. Camping requires only a pad and a bag--no tent needed at all. Fresh water, showers, laundry--all are available along the trail.

I paid a lot of money at the turn of the century to fuck about in SE Asia. I can do the same thing here in my own back yard, for almost no $ at all--

Methinks the signs are clear. More on this later.

Hunter S. Thompson is Alive

Yeah, I know. He's alive in his writings, even without his well-known works and Johnny Depp's uncannily accurate portrayal--

No. That's all true. HST lives on, as any author does after death, so long as we read him.

But I'm here to tell you, if any man ever had motive, means and opportunity to fake his own death, Thompson is that man.

Thompson had many reasons to want to disappear, but a simple return to pre-Hells' Angels anonymity looms large and most likely. It is rumoured that his latest book was a debunking of the official report on 911, including proof that the WTC towers and building seven were brought down by controlled demolition, not fire and structural failure.

This makes you a target in the current version of the USA. When powerful individuals like Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan (and a host of other moderate-to-liberal Democrats) take one-way plane trips into the ground with disturbing regularity, what quarter can a self-admitted dope-fiend expect?

In one of his latest interviews, he stressed, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, it is his great shame, a badge of dishonor that he and his fellow journalists never found out who killed JFK. While Hunter has long walked his talk, knowing the bead was drawn on him, he may simply have decided it was time to go underground. In "death" he can complete the 911 expose. If his allegations are sufficiently documented, he could well pull the rug out from the fascists running the game. Without detailing why [another post on that later p'raps] Thompson likely believes that the assasination of the Kennendys marked the beginning of a fascist takeover of his country. Toppling those fascists would surely slake his burning soul.

While the motive I posit is clearly wishful thinking and speculation on my part, Thompson most certainly had the means and opportunity. It is well-known that the local sheriff is his longtime friend. Indeed, Blanston recalls one misty late 90s May night in a tavern in Aspen, where the Pitkin County sheriff mingled with a crowd of NORML (National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws) lawyers openly smoking glass hookas filled with skunky Big Bud or California Indica--

Later that night, Blanston shared a joint and discussed a bit of politics with Hunter himself. Again, a topic for another post.

The point is, Pitkin County Sheriff and Coroner would have jurisdiction over the body, the investigation, and the official reports--which includes media appearances by Johhny Depp stating that Thompson's body would be cremated, then shot out of a cannon. Depp, who lived with Thompson for several months while prepping for the role of Duke, became his friend. That night in Aspen when I met Hunter, he arrived at the party in a red Boxster--given to him by Depp after the filming of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Point is, Hunter had all the help he needed--official, media and otherwise-- and the cash--to disappear.

Here's one bloke who prays--to the extent I pray at all--for Hunter to come roaring back, ripping the flesh from our foes.

If he really did check out, we are left to wonder, as noted by the Rude Pundit: If Hunter Thompson can't take it anymore, what hope is there for the rest of us?