#1 2007-10-25 04:27:34
'Morning everyone. I stayed up all night reading the hard cover version of this:
http://www.worldwithoutus.com/
We add one million sheeple to our number every four days.
Fuck it. I'm going to sleep.
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#3 2007-10-25 06:42:42
Make Darfur et al look like a good thing, eh?
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#4 2007-10-25 13:14:54
I caught a bit of the PBS interview with the author, and later discovered that it was part of a big PR blitz he's doing. He's already been on NPR. The illustrated "document of a future without mankind" is both disturbing and inspiring, as it's meant to be.
The book's multimedia site is fascinating (though an obvious tease), and for those of you who won't buy something in print without a Salon.com predigestion, here that is, too.
I don't think it's such a "staggering thought experiment" as it claims. It just makes sense, and is sort of a retroactive guide to tenanting the planet while we're still around to worry and complain. He's chosen his sources carefully, and his predictions are only 'dire' if you presumed anyone would be around to care what was happening in thirty-five thousand years--when the lead contaminants from our fossil fuel consumption will finally leach out of the soil. Plastic bags, bronze statuary, and some stone buildings may take a little longer.
The only other illustrated tour of the post-apocalypse I've ever enjoyed more was Dougal Dixon's After Man, and that's only because I grew up on all those picturesque Time-Life books about space, dinosaurs, and geology.
Last edited by pALEPHx (2007-10-25 13:15:31)
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#5 2007-10-25 13:31:28
XregnaR wrote:
Make Darfur et al look like a good thing, eh?
Wouldn't you rather start closer to home? I have my own selection of choice, ground zero disaster sites but I suspect they're the same as yours. Anyone else?
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#6 2007-10-25 13:58:00
Fuck. I'm going to the bookstore on the way home.
It's not like I've been getting any sleep lately anyhow.
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#7 2007-10-25 14:45:40
choad wrote:
Anyone else?
Just spare me any of that Left Behind crap. I visited the WTC pit three years ago, almost to the day. I'd been living in NYC up 'til the December prior to 9/11. Like Katrina or the CA wildfires, these things are 'locally apocalyptic,' but not harbingers of the end of humanity. I'm sure we'll figure out a way to kill ourselves, eventually.
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#8 2007-10-25 17:13:44
pALEPHx wrote:
choad wrote:
Anyone else?
Just spare me any of that Left Behind crap.
You missed the point, my little termite. Isn't there a single place you'd like to see reduced to a smoking hole in the ground? I can take or leave NYC, myself but there are more than a few other locations that earn precise telemetry in my better nightmares.
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#9 2007-10-25 17:34:13
choad wrote:
Wouldn't you rather start closer to home? I have my own selection of choice, ground zero disaster sites but I suspect they're the same as yours. Anyone else?
I have always thought Mount Rushmore was an aesthetic obscenity and an insult to America. 
The trick would be obliterating it without too much collateral damage. (Note: "collateral damage" refers to the surrounding natural beauty and does not include any people tasteless enough to be visiting this atrocity at the time of its destruction.)
I expect "every Starbuck's in the world" goes without saying.
Last edited by George Orr (2007-10-25 17:36:29)
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#10 2007-10-25 17:45:27
George Orr wrote:
I expect "every Starbuck's in the world" goes without saying.
Cthulhu, yes. And you know me well enough to know I don't invoke His name lightly.
Two excellent choices. Come on, anybody else? Surely there are enough shitholes to go around!
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#11 2007-10-25 17:48:16
.Bill.Whitehouse.2000-05-13-Sat-4-55-54am.-.Providence_RI.jpg)
Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs
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#12 2007-10-25 17:55:34
George Orr wrote:
I have always thought Mount Rushmore was an aesthetic obscenity and an insult to America.
I once got head at the Mt. Rushmore parking lot as dawn broke across the faces, it was beautiful.
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#13 2007-10-25 17:58:57
Des Moines, Iowa. EVERYBODY DIES!
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#14 2007-10-25 18:07:36
The Bronx, with no recognizable fragments of the Dominican Republic flag left in the crater.
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#15 2007-10-25 18:10:12
choad wrote:
XregnaR wrote:
Make Darfur et al look like a good thing, eh?
Wouldn't you rather start closer to home? I have my own selection of choice, ground zero disaster sites but I suspect they're the same as yours. Anyone else?
As someday it may happen.....
The Mikado
"I've Got a Little List"
KO-KO with chorus of men:
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list--I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs--
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs--
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with 'em flat--
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like *that*--
And all third persons who on spoiling tete-a-tetes insist--
They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed!
CHORUS. He's got 'em on the list--he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed-
they'll none of 'em be missed.
There's the nigger serenader, and the others of his race,
And the piano-organist--I've got him on the list!
And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,
They never would be missed--they never would be missed!
Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who "doesn't think she waltzes, but would rather like to try";
And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist--
I don't think she'd be missed--I'm sure she'd not he missed!
CHORUS. He's got her on the list--he's got her on the list;
And I don't think she'll be missed-
I'm sure she'll not be missed!
And that Nisi Prius nuisance, who just now is rather rife,
The Judicial humorist--I've got him on the list!
All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life--
They'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed.
And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as--What d'ye call him--Thing'em-bob, and
likewise--Never-mind,
And 'St--'st--'st--and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed!
CHORUS. You may put 'em on the list--you may put 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed-
they'll none of 'em be missed!
-- W. S. Gilbert
(...and. other. versions. ad. infiniteum.)
Last edited by whosasailorthen (2007-10-25 18:19:30)
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#16 2007-10-25 18:21:24
choad wrote:
You missed the point, my little termite.
That's earwig or crab louse to you, pal. OK, then...
Pale's TOP TEN
eminently nukeable locations
10. VATICAN CITY - On the theory that majority religions are the direct cause of death 'n' destruction, let's remove one.
9. MONTREAL - Birthplace of Cirque du Soleil. And located in Canada. 'Nuff said.
8. DARFUR REGION - Because you're tired of hearing about it on the news, and you know nothing will be done anyway.
7. BRITNEY SPEARS' MALIBU HOME - '24' missed with Valencia. Make sure she's not out driving drunk at the time.
6. ANYWHERE IN SOUTH AMERICA - Cuz nothing ever happens there. Ever.
5. MONTECORE'S KIDDIE POOL - Just, like, to prevent a mosquito problem, y'kno. Yeah.
4. GREENLAND - We need new footage of icebergs calving, goddammit.
3. NOGALES - Go ahead, cross that. We dare you.
2. UNDISCLOSED TREATMENT CENTER, MONTANA - Now that all the 'Promises' residents have been moved, why not kill four or five birds with one stone?
1. BANGKOK - Who'll miss it? Besides you.
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#18 2007-10-25 19:45:35
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#19 2007-10-25 22:01:37
Nuke Orlando. What a great news piece that would make. Ground zero could be the castle at Disney. Good bye all you screaming, crying, pushing and shoving cocksuckers.
KABOOOOM!!!
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