My guts are star-spangled.

In fact, if you unfurled my small intestine to its full glory (22 feet), you’d see the colors for yourself. (Except that, after bubbling around in my innards, the colors take on a red, white and green hue — similar to the phenomenon experienced by Portland anarchists when they attempted a forced regurgitation of American flag colors in protest to a visit by George Bush the Elder).

So really, my guts bear the colors of the Italian flag.

_________________________________________

But WikiLeaks…

…I can’t make heads or tales of it. Espionage…Rape…Condoms…Honey trap?? Whiskey Tango Fuck???!

Others on the net seem to be drawing better conclusions.

In the aforeleaked post, the redoubtable Ricky Sprague examines the red-hott relationship between WikiLeaks’ Julian ASSange and Swedish sex laws:

In America, we respect women. That is part of our cultural heritage. When we say that something is “as American as apple pie,” who do you think baked that pie? Your mother. Who is your mother? She is a woman. Imagine if someone had sex with your mother, then she found out that that guy also had sex with another woman as well. Then imagine that he used a condom in one case, because she asked him to. Now imagine that the condom broke. Don’t you wish there was a law that said that he had to get an STD test, and if he didn’t he could face a fine of over $700 and two years in jail?

At Taki’s Magazine, Jim Goad sorts through the web of Swedish sex-crime semantics:

Somehow, what happened doesn’t quite sound like “rape” to me, at least as I’ve been led to understand the term in America.

Then again, I don’t live in Sweden. But after reading literally thousands of online forum comments about the case, many of them appearing to be from bona fide Swedes, I realize those blond bastards define rape as broadly as our fair galaxy. Everything is rape to them. Apparently there’s a running joke—“That’s rape in Sweden.” Did you spill your coffee? “That’s rape in Sweden.” Did you cough too loud during the board meeting? “That’s rape in Sweden.” What, you don’t understand the joke? “That’s rape in Sweden.”

Christopher Hitchens assesses Assange too:

…and, though I find it easy to picture Assange as a cult leader indulging himself with acolytes, the sex charges against him don’t appear to amount to rape and have a trumped-up feel to them. They also give him an excuse to recruit sympathy and stay out of sight instead of turning himself in.

Scott Adams breaks down the situation thusly:

I am always amused by the strange impact of unintended consequences. Julian Assange simply wanted to release some embarrassing information, have hot sex with a Swedish babe then have hot sex with an acquaintance of that same babe one day later. That’s just one example of why the Swedish language has 400 words that all mean “and your cute friend is next.”

But things didn’t turn out as Assange hoped. The unintended consequence of his actions is that he managed to make Sweden look like a country that’s governed by congenital idiots and populated with nothing but crazy sluts and lawyers. And don’t get me started about the quality of their condoms.

Greg Gutfeld has some pointed words for the Ass Angel:

Assange is guilty of being a creep, sure. But if being a dude who uses status to bed girls is against the law, then mankind should be under house arrest.

Mark my words: in two weeks, he’ll be doing tequila shots with Kate Moss in a helicopter made of cocaine.

Michael C. Moynihan writes:

…it seems likely that (Assange is) a victim of both an overzealous Swedish prosecutor and a culture that embraces an exceptionally broad definition of sexual assault. But this isn’t enough for the conspiracists and paranoiacs, who see Assange as the torchbearer for transparency, the world’s only hope for crippling American power. If American intelligence could dream up COINTELPRO, they could surely convince a pair of left-wing political activists to lure Assange into a “honey trap,” right?

Pravda, as expected, delivers some crimson nuggets. Writes Vadim Trukhachev:

Assange is an adventurous person, and he could be hiding sins of his own under the mask of a truth seeker. However, this is nothing more than a speculation.

In any case, an epic called “A Quest for Assange” has now become one of the most exciting events of political espionage. This man has done and promised too much.

And Vadim’s comrade, Sergey Balmasov, can barely contain his enthusiasm for America’s seemingly slipshod national security:

If Assange penetrated into the sanctuary of the US Department of Defense, it means that the Pentagon’s security system leaves much to be desired.

One may also assume that the it was the US administration that orchestrated the information leak to the media. It is not ruled out that the whole story is just a campaign to mislead the adversaries.

And finally, Radley Balko notes:

As senior Obama administration officials discuss prosecuting Julian Assange, and as Sen. Joe Lieberman suggests the New York Times should be investigated for espionage, the U.S. State Department puts out a press release celebrating World Press Freedom Day.

• 1975, J.P. Donleavy: “Isolation is a necessity, also an acute loneliness and a sense of slight rejection.”
• A crazy world of crotchet
• Build a robotic xylophone
• David Lynch discusses music projects
• “God and Germs Are Everywhere“
• Eight great Antarctic explorers
• Factory farms infographic
• “Fuck Yeah Marxism-Leninism“…?…?
• Helen Thomas still hates the Jews
• Houdini Fly inflates head and breaks walls
• Marvel Comics’ long history of embarrassing itself on stage in New York
• Mercury poisoning makes boy birds gay
• Mutilated corpse falls from the heavens
• Portland coyotes are everywhere
• Prisoner fashion timeline
• Richard Dawkins: “Christopher Hitchens, my hero of 2010.”
• “Processions, Night and Fire“
• Snake fang evolution
• Simply Red vocalist issues apology to the all ho’s he banged
• Submit your finest lesbian romance stories here
• Superman vs. Muhammad Ali
• The 50 states, depicted as food
• The eternal question: Why did kamikazes wear helmets?
• The Insanity Virus
• The site Real-Life Superheroes supplies a handy list of Taser and stun gun laws
• When women are most fertile, they avoid contact with their dads

The strangeness has manifested itself in many good and many bad ways. Happily, this past week, the strangeness has been a very good, very fun thing.

Not all of the strangeness is fit for disclosure in blog-form.

Some of it is, though.

From Texas, the great Daniel Kalder sent signed copies of his excellent books Lost Cosmonaut and Strange Telescopes. He also sent the Polish-language version of Lost Cosmonaut, which looks really cool, although I can’t read a word of it:

D.K. was also kind enough to send several amazing photographs from his personal collection (© Daniel Kalder). Please don’t redistribute in any fashion.

Here’s a few from Kalmykia, the strangest of estranged Russian lands, IMHO.

__________________

Fuck All You Motherfuckers

Another nice bit of mail showed up in the form of this book:

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Brian Clark, the author, mentions yours truly in the “thank you” section, along with a diverse group of talented folks:

Thanks:

Skiba, Boyd, Emily, Vadge, Trace, Stephanie, Ruth, Iced Borscht and Lisa

Beautiful this strange world of ours, nyet?

Thanks to Daniel and Brian for adding to the past week’s excellence quotient.

• ‘A’ is For Assumed Incumbency
• Adolph Eichmann Builds the Future
• Alex Jones’ Trout Farm
• Benito Steals the Bacon
• Big Sis & the Illuminati Prom
• Capture the Flag With the Trilateral Commission
• Chris the Neo-Confederate Clown
• Christmas With Burl Ives & the Elders of Zion
• Commodification Snack Cakes
• Curious George and Gilles de Rais
• Curious George and the Holocaust Denial
• Curious George and the Hostile Takeover
• Curious George and and Jungian Archetypes
• Curious George and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
• Curious George and and the Shroud of Turin
• Curious George and and the Sunk-Cost Fallacy
• Curious George and and the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
• Curious George and the Zionist Occupied Government
• Curious George Meets Marshall Applewhite
• Darrell the Eminent Domain Duck
• Dianetics and FUN
• Diddle Diddle Dumpling & the Doomsday Device
• Enlightened Absolutism For Kids
• Father-of-All-Bombs Four Square
• Finger Painting With Lyndon LaRouche
• Fun With Leaflet Bombs
• GoodTime Fun and the Deviancy Amplification Spiral
• GoodTime Fun With Bailout Bisquick
• Honey, I Shrunk the U.N.
• Hopscotch, Expropriations and House Arrest
• Indentured Servant Prayer Book and Funvelope
• Jack Abramoff: What Do You Do with the Mad that You Feel?
• John Jacob Jingleheimer’s Gender Theory Blues
• Jumping Jacks and Renal Failure
• Jumping Rope With Andrea Dworkin
• Keep-the-Bastards-Honest Kick Ball
• Knock, Knock Gendercide
• Let’s Go Nation Building! by Nicky the Magic Knackwurst
• Mama’s Miranda Rights
• Moral Hazard Hopscotch
• Mr. Zinn Puts On His Fun Face
• ‘No Motherland Without You’ Workbook
• Pass-the-Parcel Petrodollars
• Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, Political Prisoner
• Pete’s Panopticon House
• Pop-Up Pirate with the Eternal President
• Pork Barrel Activity Book
• Repressed Memory Therapy and Other Stories
• Rock (Against Bush), Paper, Scissors
• Simon Says: Let’s Go to the Emergency Government Headquarters!
• Spend the Day With Bobby Fischer & Other Chess Theoreticians!
• The John Birch Sing-along Book of Truths
• The ‘Any Means Necessary’ Illustrated Songbook
• The Carceral State and Any Questions You May Have
• The God of Justice Truffle
• The Tactical Turducken Thanksgiving Day Feast
• The ‘We’re Here-We’re Queer’ Egg and Spoon Race
• Tomas de Torquemada’s Toolbox of Excitement
• Uncle Noam’s Foreign Policy Pop-Up Book
• Why Does Daddy Call Mommy ‘the Plaintiff’?