Even Homeless, You Have to Be Connected

In the Wall Street Journal recently there was an article about homeless people who, despite being homeless, manage to still maintain internet access in order to remain a part of online communities. The story is here if you want to read it, but it basically describes, using the homeless as an example, how tied we, as a culture, are to our computers, and the Internet as a whole. I lived without the Internet for a month (April of 2009), and I was nearly driven insane. I couldn't check Facebook to see what my friends, who I don't care enough about to call or text them, were doing, I couldn't blog, I couldn't check my e-mail, and I didn't know what was going on in the world, since I couldn't get to the New York Times website, and I don't trust network television and CNN is just a collossal waste of money (they had f*cking holograms on Election Night! Not even real, Star Wars-esque holograms. It looked like they took a video of will.i.am and cut his image out and pasted it in front of Wolf Blitzer. The thing looked sh*tty as hell. And I bet it cost eighteen f*cking million dollars). They say they're unbiased and all that crap, but they're just burning money.

Anyway, before I get too off-topic, I wanted to mention how, even though someone may homeless, the person can't completely sever their ties with the Internet. According to the article, the privelege of computer use at one shelter became so desired and popular that the shelter was forced to limit it to thirty minute sessions.

Wow. I am speechless. I can't even comment on that. Really, besides searching for a job and keeping in touch with other homeless folks*, why are you using the computer for so long? I mean, what are you doing that would require the shelter where you get your Internet fix to limit session time, because I doubt that the homeless are going to http://www.miniclips.com/ to play games or something. They're probably not playing Runescape, because that's just sad. And I know that they're not popping in World of Warcraft and doing that for half an hour. I mean if you're living on the streets or in a shelter, what business at all do you have going to the shelter and hogging the computer playing online games?

Seriously. I think that no one has their priorities this screwed up. But, on the off chance that any homeless person actually does this, they should go to China. There's no problem with unnecessary Internet use over there.

But honestly, we as a country need to cut down on frivolous Internet usage. I have a presentation due for work tomorrow and I have spent five hours not doing it, instead writing this post, reading the Times and sporadically looking for images that I can use for it. My teammates are going to be so disappointed.

*By the way, according to John Grisham in The Street Lawyer, homeless people know everything that goes on.

Explorer Scouts Train to Fight Terrorism

I read this article on the New York Times website about how Explorer Scouts are being taught how to fight terrorism and crime. According to the Times, "one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters." However, teaching 14 to 18 year old kids to handle guns and rifles? Training them to be able to respond to border violence, terrorism and bus hijackings? Really. I mean, I understand if you want to teach thesekids how to resuscitate drowning victims, or treat burns, or deal with excessive blood loss, or whatever else is needed to help a person recover from an injury.

I may have been wrong, but my understanding of the Scouts program was that of teaching kids to "Be Prepared" for any eventuality, especially those that involve victims who need medical attention.Wasn't that the reason that Scouts were given all of that emergency medical training. However, it seems that in this post-9/11 world, the Scout's of "Be Prepared" was really "Be Prepared to Respond To Any Crisis By Knowing How To Maneuver As A Trained Strike Force."

I must have missed the fine print.

But I am beginning to digress. A Scout was supposed to be a sort of EMT, as I stated above. If they wanted to learn how to take down "disgruntled Iraq war vetran[s]", or deal with an "obstreperous lookout" on a marijuana field raid, they were to join the police force when they came of age. It's just too early. What happened to the concept of "childhood innocence?" Or did that die with the advent of the ninetys and nearly ubiquitous internet (not that either of these is to blame; I'm just saying that this era seems to mark the vanishing of true childhood, which may or may not be the subject of another post) to be replaced by omnipresent sarcasm, cynicism and a desire to find things out by oneself, immediately?

However, I again digress. The Scouts were, to me, a manifestation of the decline of innocence. Children were supposed to not be prepared. They were to learn this during their teenage years, sometime before adulthood. And now, with the Explorer Scout program teaching the scouts about "facing down terrorists and taking out 'active shooters,' (those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses)," one begins to worry about whether the notion of childhood can continue to survive, or if it will be snuffed out by these programs that force kids to live in the adult world before they are ready for it.

By the way, before the Scouts program sues me for defamation, I have emailed them, requesting an interview with a representative, so this may well become a miniseries of articles (assuming they respond to me, with my body of work totaling only forty-seven posts over a period of almost twenty months).

I Love The Internet

As you can see from the title of this post (unless you're a f*cking moron, which no one who reads this is [or illiterate, in which case, how are you reading a blog at all? I'm honored that in your random keyboard flailings you somehow managed to type http://www.flowofconscious.blogspot.com, then clicked the button that reads "Yes, I do wish to continue," but that is so improbable, I should give you an award just for beating the odds] or else I would just f*cking give up), I love the Internet (Man, that was a long f*cking convoluted parenthetical insert) because on the Internet, almost anyone can express their views for free (woo-hoo unemployment. I have so much free time now). And once these people have expressed their views, almost anyone can access it, though sometimes not for free.

But anyway, I just found this brilliant comic website, http://www.xkcd.com/, which would be my website if I could draw. I have a sample from the site here, which I find very funny, so without futher ado, here it is.

Greed is Good . . . if You Don't Overdo It, and Lust is Just Bad

A'ight (don't you hate it when people spell that word "iight," or "Aite?" It's a f*cking contraction of "all right," so there should be a f*cking apostrophe at f*cking least!), some of you Holmes-y types may have noticed that I have changed my favorite websites. I added Mr. David Griner's The Social Path blog after reading his post The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media, which I found after visiting Delicious' in order to add this blog to their stores so that more people could read it and improve my self-esteem. I decided to visit Delicious for this purpose after reading this article on the New York Times website about how to build traffic to your site, which suggested going to Delcious and other sites and registering my blog there.

However, after reading The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media, I realized that I was embodying the first, third and sixth sins, (which are Lust, Greed and Envy, respectively) and that commiting these sins was not getting me more readers, richer, or making me the most popular blogger to ever live.

Now, to you my problem and how I realized that I have a problem, I suppose that at this point, I am to figure out how to overcome my problem, or pose some sort of philosophical query to you, which no one will much care about, until my next post in about two or three days, or a month or two. However, I still want to be widely read and recognized, ridiculously rich (who doesn't?), and the most well known purveyor of the written word ever (an honor that probably belongs to either J.K. Rowling or the assortment of people who recorded the events of the Bible).

So then, what have I learned? What is the point of this rambling, rather bland post about nothing? Can it be said that there is even a point, and that the point matters to anyone at all?

I just read that last sentence and it makes no f*cking sense at all.

But anyway, why write this post, since right now, I just seem to be going on and on and on about some random sh*t until I can think of a good way to get Arlen Specter into this post.

Damn. That was cheap. I can't even put him in this post in good faith anymore. Forget I mentioned him.

So now what? I think I'll just end it here, and note that today is coincidentally the 101st anniversary of Mother's Day in the United States.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

W: A Movie About Our 43rd President

On Saturday, I went to see the movie W. by Oliver Stone. Som2e people probably think that it's way too soon to make a movie about the possibly most, for lack of a better word, disliked man in modern times, but I think that it came out at the perfet time, with the elections coming up on Tuesday. (Does anybody else feel like just yesterday it was just Super Tuesday?) So, anyway, the movie was really good. It depicted Bush as a guy who was just trying to enjoy himself and live up to the expectations of his father. I mean, it really made you pity him. (And I pitied the bastard already, because during his administration, the world pretty much went to sh*t through no fault of his own. Then it got f*cked even harder because he made sh*tty decisions.)

So, anyway, all of you should go and see the movie. If you hate the *sshole, then go see it, because hate ain't good. If you love him, then go see it, because you were probably going to see it anyway. And if you care neither one way nor the other, then go see that sh*t right f*cking now. It gives you some insight into why the world is sh*t and why the issues that Obama and McCain are arguing over are important. And on Tuesday, the next four years will be decided, so you should give a damn about what's going on. See the movie. It can't hurt. And if it does, it's not my fault.

Badadadadah, I'm playin' it!

OK, I was surfing the internet one day and on a whim, I typed in "mcdonalds game." I clicked on this link and found this game. In it you play some sort of McDonald's demigod (Alert: If you see the words "game" and "god" in the same sentence, it does not mean that you will be able to throw random people around and end their lives). So I began to play it and it is really freaking HARD! I have not lasted 10 years on it yet. And I am now hopelessly addicted to it. Play at your own risk.

101 Books I Think Everybody Should Read! Cut off at 32

This is a list I've been working on, of all the books I think everyone should read. My goal is to reach 100 books, and possibly make the list into a book, at which point, I will add the title of the book to the list, ostensibly making it 101 books I think everyone should read. If there is a book you think should go on here that isn't here, comment with the title and author, or send me an e-mail. Books will not be put on the list if they have no underlying message or theme (such as Moby Dick, whose theme is obsession.) Also, please don't just send titles of books just because you like them. If that was all that was needed for inclusion, then I'd have a list of 1001 books I really, really love.

But that's enough of my idiosyncratic jabber. Without further ado, I give you: 100 (& 1) Books I Think Everyone Should Read! (cut off at 32).

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
5. The Bible by God
6. The Torah by Yahweh
7. The Koran by Allah
8. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
9. As You Like It by William Shakespeare
10. All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare
11. The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, Brian Bolland and John Higgins
12. Infinite Crisis by Geoff Johns and Phil Jimenez
13. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
14. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
15. The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo
16. Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
17. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
18. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
19. Webster’s Dictionary
20. Roget’s Thesaurus
21. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
22. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
23. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
24. War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
25. The Last Safe Place on Earth
26. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
27. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. Dante’s Inferno by Dante
29. Your Computer Manual by Your Computer Company
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
31. White Fang by Jack London
32. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The Funniest List I Have Ever Read. (Ever).

OK, I was surfing the internet and I found a list of what villains should never, EVER do. Here it is:

This Evil Overlord List is Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.

Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I've read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I've noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. With that in mind, allow me to present...
The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.
If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.
I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.
If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.
All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."
I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
After I captures the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.
If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

Props to Mr. Anspach for this list, which can be found on http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

You, Puppet

Today I read Sylvia Browne's book, Secret Societies. And it started me thinking. Her book says that there are some secret societies out there, like SCAN, the Illuminati and Skull and Bones that are trying to control the world and make a f*cking New World Order. Now I wikied Browne and I'm not sure how much of her book I believe, but I have a friend who went to Syms, bought a tie, paid in cash, gave them absolutely NO information, and the next day, he's getting calls about discounts and all this other bullsh*t. We were talking about it and I think they took a picture of his face and got him that way. And by the way, you can't even go to the f*cking bathroom anymore without maybe having pictures taken of you, thanks to the Patriot Act. Come on! All you're going to do in there is take a sh*t. So, maybe Browne has something there with this whole NWO thing. Think about it.