So now the Big Fear is that even though all the mosques and malls and mails and Mooslim tubes may be all bugged and buggered, true howling Evil shall still fire burn, cauldron bubble, in the dark dank recesses of the family home, where none of the many Dick Tracys may See, Hear, or Know.

"[I]t is increasingly a challenge for us to see the threat of somebody radicalizing, consuming poison in the privacy of their own home, because they may only show signs of radicalization to a very small group of people," FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday in a speech in New York.

The big worry is that none of the tools used to track and penetrate terror networks, including electronic surveillance and monitoring communications, can thwart plots hatched between individuals who are in regular physical contact.

"It's a very difficult issue," said one U.S. intelligence official who tracks terrorists, echoing Comey. "Penetrating a family unit is extremely difficult, particularly if they don't communicate outside the family."

Well hell. There's an easy fix for that.

Telescreens.

Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZICJ2ZPh63Y]

I know a guy who back in the early 1980s married his crack pipe. It was, in many ways, a mutually satisfying relationship. However, and as can sometimes occur when people, places, and/or things couple-up, they were known, on occasion, to reinforce each other's not most sterling qualities. Such as when they decided, together, that the Government was Looking and Listening from the cable box, there on top of the TV.

Many a cable box they disassembled, searching for the Government. This went on for some months, until finally the cable people said they would not send over any more boxes. Desperate, they hit upon the notion of operating the television at all times at top volume, so the Government would not be able to hear anything but TV-blare, and to drape over the cable-box several lead-lined pillowcases, so that neither could the government See.

Sometimes they would visit our various homes, and urge this solution on us, too. But none of us were in the marriage, and so we demurred.

Then, in the early years of this millennium, the fellow dropped by my place and urged me to go out and look in his car trunk. This I did. There, in the trunk, were many highly detailed drawings. These, he informed me, were basement floor-plans of a local evangelical church. Wherein, he revealed, were frequently conducted satanic ritual child sexual abuse anathemas. He was going into the pokey soon, see—he had been avoiding the place for decades, but now it was Time—and while he was in, he wanted someone out, to Know. That someone was me.

Now, it is well known that when one's consumption of cocaine and/or methamphetamine proceeds beyond the bounds of reason, behaviors and beliefs eventually manifested shall include: (1) determinedly marching out of the house at three o'clock in the morning to tinker in the innards of multiple automobiles; (2) filling glass jars with accumulated invisible spiders and mites plucked from one's pores, which shall be vigrously flourished before various friends, acquaintances, reporters, and medical personnel; (3) the firm conviction that day-care providers and Christian ministers are getting naked and calling on Satan so together they can diddle little children in the basements of the churches and in the day-care centers; and (4) the Knowledge that there, on the top of the television, somewhere in the cable box, They are Looking at you.

So, I just figured the guy was a drug victim.

Then, three years ago this month, I read that Comcast, Microsoft, Google, and Verizon had all submitted patent applications for televisons and/or DVRs designed to Look and Listen. Whether cocaine is bubbling up in your pipe, or drooling out your nostrils, methamphetamine is gibbering in your veins, or no.

For instance, Verizon's proposed Watch Box, bristling with cameras and microphones, and traveling under the terrifying rubric "Detection Facility 104," would indulge in the following:

—If the DVR hears you getting frisky on the couch, it will input terms like "romance, love, cuddle" into the system and play "a commercial for a romantic getaway vacation, a commercial for a contraceptive, a commercial for flowers, a commercial including a trailer for an upcoming romantic comedy movie."

—"Additionally or alternatively, if Detection Facility 104 detects that a couple is arguing/fighting with each other, Advertising Facility 106 may select an advertisement for associated marriage/relationship counseling."

—The DVR will be able to know what kind of beer you're drinking: "If Detection Facility 104 detects a particular object (e.g., a Budweiser can) within a user's surroundings, Advertising Facility 106 may select an advertisement associated with the detected object (e.g., a Budweiser commercial)."

—If you seem stressed, then, to be considerate, the DVR will show an ad for "aromatherapy candles."

I had meanwhile already become well-acquainted with the fact that a hideous and for a time unstoppable tulip-mania had swept through the American criminal-justice system, back primarily in the 1980s, when dozens of innocent people were sentenced to hundreds of years in prison for allegedly fondling children in satanic sex-cult rituals in day-care centers and church basements. Only years later was it determined that this was all shit made up, and all those people were released.

So, when I was confronted with the Reality of Detection Facility 104 and its brethren, I revised my opinion of my friend. He was, I decided, not a drug victim. Instead, he is a person unstuck in time. Like Billy Pilgrim, in the true-life non-fiction account Slaughterhouse-Five, by noted war historian Kurt Vonnegut.

For he was right about the electronics Looking and Listening. He just though that was happening in the early 1980s, rather than when it actually is. Which is pretty much right now. And he, as others, got swept up in the ritual sexual abuse tulip mania. But he commenced the dance of St. Vitus around 2008 or so, when the people were already all out of the jail. Instead of in the 1980s, when the mania was in full flower with everybody else. It's not like he's wrong or weird. He's just not wholly in sync.

The last time I saw the guy, he was leaving the courthouse. He had been pulled over some weeks before by a law jockey, who, after looking and listening to him, concluded he had to be controlled by something illegal. So he was arrested. But when all the tests came back, there was nothing there. So all charges were dismissed. That is just the way that he is, now. "Normally."

He told me that he and the missus—the crack pipe—had parted amicably. And then he was on about his new thing, which involves Mars. However, I found I had already got there before him. But we will get to that, here, some other year.

We interrupt this program for this special word from space:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX9smb9VGiU]

Yes, soon it will be New Year's Eve, traditionally a time when the white people stay up late, wear silly hats, blow horns, and then go out and get arrested for drunk driving. Once they sober up, they stagger home, and there lay on the couch and watch TV football all day.

Thus it has been so, and for millennia.

It did not surprise me, however, when I stumbled upon a tube called Muslim Matters, and there learned that Muslims are supposed to get a prune-face about New Year's.

This made sense to me. Islam, after all, was founded by a man who liked to ride his horse very fast across the desert, looking for heads that needed to be cut off. Then he would retire to the tent, where he would rotate his penis among various wives and concubines. Meanwhile refining the religion he had invented, featuring himself as its bestest and lastest prophet. Clearly, there was simply no place in this man's life, for liquor, blat-horns, or pigskin.

Muhammad Wajid Akhter records in Muslim Matters four Islamic gripes about New Year’s.

First, "it is technically inaccurate and pagan." Well, shit. Them pagans—fucking everywhere, and seemingly impossible to get rid of.

"As Muslims," Wajid intones, "we have our own calendar that has been in constant use for 1400 years. Even though we may end up using the Gregorian calendar due to circumstances beyond our control, we know for a fact that Allah has ordained the use of the lunar calendar for us in our worship—and therefore, by extension, our daily lives."

But New Year's, "its origin—like so many Western holidays—lies in the pagan Roman festivals associated with Janus—the two headed deity who symbolised change." Janus is actually a pretty cool dude, but we don't have time for that now. For Wajid is now on about how "the Gregorian calendar (so called because it was developed by Pope Gregory) decided on the 1st of January as the New Year to celebrate the circumcision of Jesus."

Wait . . . what?

But—get this—turns out this is true. Seems that all this time, there on New Year's, the white people, rather than drinking and eating Doritos, should have been out filleting foreskins, in honor of the Skinning of their Lord.

As for that Pope Gregory goober, I wrote about that ass and his calendar, of which Wajid complains, here.

Wajid's next bitch about New Year's goes like this:

"What," grouses Wajid, there in Muslim Matters, "is there to celebrate?"

New Year's, bespeaks Wajid, "is a celebration that is completely cut off from the reality of the rest of the Ummah. The starvation in Somalia, the murder in Syria, the imprisonment of Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of Burma—celebrating the New Year is pretty much exactly the opposite of the 'fever and wakefulness' that the Prophet spoke about when he said we were like one body."

Okay, this is the "shit is bad and so we're bad too if at any time we have anything like a good time" argument.

Boooorrrrring.

Next up, New Year's "usually involves un-Islamic practices." Like, "when you picture New Year's Eve celebration, you don't picture people sitting in an Islamic environment encouraging each other towards good as the clock strikes midnight. Instead, they are mixed gender events where people wear fashionable clothes, dance and sing songs, etc. It is necessarily an Islam free zone[.]"

Oh my god. Women and men dancing and singing together. Surely the earth shall quake in the greatest of pain, and the very stars of the sky shall wink out in shame. AND WHAT IF THERE'S NAKEDNESS? The very prophet, yea verily, might have to shriek and poke his eyes out.

Finally, decrees Wajid, New Year's is "against the spirit of Islam."

Apparently there was some massive Muslim confab on this question:

This issue occupied the minds of greater people than us—Uthman, Ali and many other of the greatest Sahaaba. When the great assemblage of the companions of the Prophet had discussed this issue at length, the matter was brought to a close by the wise words of Caliph Umar that are as relevant today as they were then. He said:

"The Hijrah has separated truth from falsehood, therefore, let it become the epoch of the era."

Right. I especially like the "truth" of how Muhammad took off from the Temple Mount on a flying horse that winged him up for a tour around the various heavens, where he met some prophets and also his god. Said magical sojourn thereby conveniently enabling Muslims to supplant the site of Solomon's Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, with their very own al-Aqsa Mosque, to mark the spot where Muhammad went a-heaven-flying on a Very Special Horse.

Just as the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris sits atop, quite deliberately, what was once a druid sacred grove.

Animals duel over dirt, with their piss, to mark their territory.

Humans, in their own way, do the same.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9H8eVcL58s]

That rock-'em sock-'em three-fisted tough-guy "war correspondent" Bill O'Reilly, always on about the US "secular progressives" declaring "War On Christmas," he ought to eject his anus from that comfy New York chair, and take his loofa mitt to somewhere where Christmas actually is ODed. Like Somalia. And Brunei.

Somalia has banned Christmas celebrations, joining Brunei, citing reasons of faith and security. The Muslim majority nation, which officially adopted Sharia in 2009, says that Christmas celebrations and festivities "have nothing to do with Islam" and fear that it could attract Islamist attacks.

Abdifatah Halane, spokesman for the mayor of Mogadishu, told Reuters, "Christmas will not be celebrated in Somalia for two reasons; all Somalis are Muslims and there is no Christian community here. The other reason is for security. Christmas is for Christians. Not for Muslims."

The move follows the Sultan of Brunei's decision to jail Muslims who celebrate the festivities. Hassanal Bolkiah told residents of his country that if they plan to celebrate on December 25, they could face up to five years in jail. The government warned last year that Muslims would be committing an offence if they so much as wore "hats or clothes that resemble Santa Claus." Businesses have been warned to take decorations down, and authorities have stepped up spot checks across the capital.

Begone your buttocks from NYC; get your mitts over there, Bill. Save Christmas!

But no. Bill would no doubt prefer to just go cower out there in the Bronx, hiding in Jesus' house, which is currently for sale.

A 14,000 square foot estate built for Jesus Christ in Riverdale, New York is going on the market for $10 million dollars because the Son of God has still not returned to Earth to claim it, reports the New York Post.

Known variously as Chapel Farm, Fair Hill or Chapel Hill, the castle-like building was built in 1928 by Genevieve Ludlow Griscom, the wife of Clement Acton Griscom Jr.—a wealthy ship heater magnate.

Genevieve Griscom was a member of a religious order known as the Outer Court of the Order of the Living Christ, who believed that Christ would return to Earth and would rule his heavenly kingdom from the 17-room dwelling—now with a carport and attached garage.

Members reportedly dusted regularly, and the floors were kept polished, in anticipation of Jesus’ return. Genevieve would enter for an hour or so every day and play a large pipe organ.

But the woman died in 1958, and the house was sold to a developer. Eventually it was handed over, free, to the Archdiocese of New York, which showed no respect at all for Jesus by selling his freaking house, to some college that was going to rip it down and put up dorms. But nothing happened. Until it was bought by some eccentric who fondled tropical fish and crooned "Duke of Earl." At that time, "[t]he house was a shell of its former self. Its front door was boarded up, the windows had been shattered and a group of raccoons was living in the attic."

Fools! Among those raccoons was Jesus! For where did it ever say the guy would come back, again, as a human? But no. The fish-man, and indeed all the people, they did not Know, nor did they Recognize him. And so, again, he was Forsaken. And now, it is too late. The raccoons, they are gone. And so, the planet, it continues, an annex of Hell.

Let's hear a little song about Jesus' step-father, Joseph, who doesn't get a lot of press. From Dan Bern. Of Dan Bern & the International Jewish Banking Conspiracy.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsaicC8E9PU]

In other Jews, Sarah Silverman went to her twit machine December 25 and inscribed therein a sweet little holiday message, reading: "MERRY CHRISTMAS! Jesus was gender fluid!"

Immediately, hooting ignorant humorless knuckledragging ur-humans began pounding their twit machines till their fingers bled, in spleening, screaming horror, denying a truth well-known to all Jesuits—including that pope guy over there eating the pizza—which is that Jesus "knew all of what it was to be a man" (with "man" meant here as "human").

The guy was constantly shifting shit around: water into wine, loaves into fishes, demons into swine, corpses into breathers—of course "he" was trying out any and all genders. And having sex in 'em all too. And the sex, it was Good.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlk6eEaVjzg]

A few days earlier, for the solstice, Silverman put on her twit machine, the truth.

There's no beforelife & there's no afterlife. So be brave & love each other & make it count, Babies, 'cause this is it