What is it with living man's attraction the undead? Countless cultures have myths surrounding the reanimated. Afro-Caribbean societites are given credit for unleashing the mindless masses into the mainstream, but many societies shop in the undead. And, of course, movie lovers are no exception.

Every since Night of the Living Dead, we've been salivating over tales of humans who have to face their lifeless, brain-eating peers. We could tally the dozens of movies with the word "zombie" in their title, but we suspect that you, dear reader, are well aware of the selling points.

Horror flicks peddle in fear of the unknown. That's just how they work. And zombies are reliable precisely because we think they could never be; but could we be wrong? There's no actual proof to, well, prove that zombies could never come into being. On the contrary...

Conspiracy lovers believe that the Russians reanimated a dog back in the 40s, when they were all communist and shit. Scoff all you want, but even capitalist scientists are looking into turning back the death clock.

The University of Pittsburg isn't the most revered institution in the land, but it hosts a place called the "Safar Center for Resuscitation Research," which examines all the ways in which science can trump nature and revive the living. They've been working on dogs, but could humans be far off?

A website called cracked offers some other scary research, like neurogenesis, which looks into ways to reanimate dead brain cells. Meanwhile, scientists are using stem cells to take components from dead embryos and create living tissue. Lots of people are scared of these scientific advancements. And perhaps they should be, but those debates eschew a larger, perhaps uncomfortably metaphysical question.

In the end, aren't our popular or scientific fascinations and pursuits with all things zombie motivated by an equally mythical thing: the soul? Even if you claim to be an atheist or, damnation, agnostic, isn't the real scare in zombie lore that someone — a person with friends and family — could return with no apparent loyalty? And couldn't that "loyalty" be called a soul?

We don't know — what do we look like, God? — but we do know that this long-held obsession points to a collective compulsion to overcoming nature's ultimate obstacle, death. And that's always entertaining.

Unorganized militia's played quite the role in America's revolution, and they've been experiencing a bit of a revival in the scary recent past. The anti-immigrant Minute Men are out in full force down Arizona way, while the once-defunct Michigan Militia seems to have revived itself: they just had a training exercise called Operation Pita Storm.

But those groups are small potatoes compared to a new, ultra-mysterious "security force" called the American Police Force, which just agreed to take over an indebted prison in Hardin, Montana. And sounds a lot like a militia, only far more organized, less forthcoming and, therefore, more frightening.

So let's get some facts, if such things exist anymore.

• The prison in question was built two years ago, but, sadly, never got off the ground. Earlier this year, desperate for funds, the prison put in a bid to take some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. That effort failed, apparently, because the city's economic group, Two Rivers Authority just called on the APF to takeover the prison's operations, although there's no official contract just yet...

  
  

• APF's website claims that the group "successfully provided assistance in training foreign military organizations in combating transnational terrorism" and boasts that it's "recognized as one of the top security and investigation forces in the world." Too bad no one's ever heard of them — not even the U.S. government, a group with which APF says it has worked.

  
  

• In addition to fighting terrorism overseas and defending democracy, the group's online digs say APF's renaissance agents work on "kidknapping [sic]" cases, investigate cheating spouses and offer convoy security in places like Pakistan. We love a well-rounded trooper.

  
  

• A group spokesperson who called himself "Captain Michael" told local news channel KULR 8 that APF's more interested in setting up a $17 million training camp than in operating the prison. This man would not specify how they plan to use the camp.

  
  

• Another fun fact: the group's press secretary is a woman named Becky Shays, who used to be a reporter for Montana's Billings Gazette and covered the Hardin Prison story. Now that she's in her new role, however, she's not so big on disclosure: she told her former colleagues that she will not name the APF's true leaders, the source of its funding or how it plans to take its future prisoners.

  
  

• APF's lawyer, Maziar Mafi, a malpractice expert who was hired a month ago, also offers few details, other than that the Force is a satellite of a larger security firm. And he seems to revel in the cloak-and-dagger atmosphere:

  It will gradually be more clear as things go along. The nature of this entity is private security and for security purposes, as well as for the interest of their clientele, that's why they prefer not to be upfront.

  Muckraker Kevin Flaherty, however, discovered that APF's website shares an IP address with Defense Product Solutions, which was founded in 2004, has contracts in the Middle East and works with a man named Edward Angelino, who in turn has worked with the militarily-inclined Allied Defense Systems, Inc. and Defense Consulting Group, Inc. A tangled web, indeed.

  
  

• The only other things people seem to know about APF is that it has a fleet of Mercedes SUVs that say "City of Hardin Police Department," they use a double-headed eagle emblem, have "virtual offices" in Washington DC and registered its website on May 15th, two weeks after Hardin made its Guantanamo request.

  This group may not fit the criteria for a good old fashioned American militia, but their ominous takeover of a small town's police force sounds pretty fucking paramilitary. Welcome to the future!

Yea, so basically the WSJ has a very disheartening report saying guys are out buying beds and shit that cost tens of thousands of dollars so that they can have shit like wine coolers and TVs and safes built into the bed, cause who doesn't need that, right?

He delighted in showing her that the TV could be lowered into the footboard via remote, and he let her pick out the color and pattern of the mattress fabric. His wife declined to comment.

The silent treatment already. Oh dude you are going to be buying so much fancy shampoo forever to make up for that one. Real smooth, in your Batman bed. Awesome, yea right. Fancy beds, Jesus Christ.

It's become a political meme: AR-15s are the new campaign buttons. First it was William Kostric, the New Hampshire Ron Paul voter who waited for Obama to arrive at a New Hampshire event carrying a sign with Timothy McVeigh's favorite quote about killing tyrants. Today, the Arizona Republic reports, an African-American who would prefer not to give his name was walking around outside the Phoenix Convention Center, where Obama is giving a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, armed for an insurrection:

A man, who decided not to give his name, was walking around the pro-health care reform rally at 3rd and Washington streets, with a pistol on his hip, and an AR-15 (a semi-automatic assault rifle) on a strap over his shoulder.

"Because I can do it," he said when asked why he was armed. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms."

Two police officers were staying very close to the man.

"What he is doing is perfectly legal," Detective J. Oliver, of the Phoenix police department said. "We are here to keep the peace. If we need to intervene, we will intervene at that time."

Who knows? Maybe he's a pro-reform demonstrator looking to defend himself from the WIlliam Kostrics of the world. One thing is clear: This is going to keep happening in any state backward enough to let it happen until someone gets hurt.

Update: Turns out the unnamed guy we'll just call Crazy McShooty for now was of "about a dozen" with firearms in Phoenix today. Just calm people who would like to have a quiet, rational discussion about the direction this nation is headed.

[Via Talking Points Memo.]

How wacky are the aforementioned conspiracy theories taking root in America's heartland? One such theory claims that Mexico is plotting to invade the country to reclaim the American Southwest as its own territory. And then of course there's the usual one about how our black/Nazi/Muslim/Kenyan president wants to mobilize an army of gay "Obamacare" warriors to euthanize the elderly, the young and the infirm, after the aforementioned gay warriors have sodomized them, their pets and their children, of course, among other things.

The AP report cites an ATF official named Bart McEntire who says that he believes it's "only a matter of time" before we see another Timothy McVeigh-like act of domestic terrorism, something that doesn't seem all that far-fetched in light of recent events.

The report mentions how the Ohio Militia group recently posted a recruiting video on YouTube, which brings up an interesting point/thought — back in the early 90s, when these same sorts of groups were something to really be concerned about, they, the militia groups, were restricted in terms of their ability to recruit broadly, organize and communicate/share "intelligence" with each other. Of course, with the proliferation of the internet, all of that has changed. Just as a relatively unknown black man from Chicago was able to harness the internet's power to rise up and become President of the United States, small factions of the wingnuttery are able to grow exponentially quite rapidly through the dissemination of propaganda in emails, chatrooms and videos. Whereas they once were relegated to mailing wacky newsletters made with some sort of crude printing mechanism in someone's basement and distributed to just a handful of like-minded idiots, they can now spread their messages virally to a much larger audience in very little time. It's enough to really scare the shit out of you when you really stop and think about it.

For example...

The man is carrying a sign that says, "It Is Time to Water the Tree of Liberty." That's a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It was a favorite slogan of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was wearing a T-shirt when he was arrested with a picture of Lincoln on the front and a tree dripping with blood on the back.

Now, this guy is carrying a legal weapon, says NBC News' Ron Allen. The local chief of police has no objections. Open carriage of licensed handguns is legal in New Hampshire, and the man is standing on the private property of a nearby church (!) that has no problem with an armed man hanging around.

But let's be clear: anyone watching the mounting rage over, of all things, health care — perhaps one of the most boring and complex policy subjects — has to worry that these people are going to try to kill Barack Obama. That's not an extrapolation from unhinged rhetoric, or a partisan reading of the imagined intentions of our political enemies. It's a rational reading of the anticipated behavior of a man who brandishes a gun at the location where the president is expected to imminently arrive while holding a sign that openly advocates his assassination. And the astonishing, breathtaking, maddening fact that he hasn't been violently taken to the ground by large men wearing suits and earpieces is an open encouragement to anyone else so inclined to give it a shot.

There are always people who want to kill the president. Generally speaking, they are politically marginalized, insane, and/or too incompetent to come close to achieving their ends. But in the past six months, people who would be inclined to do violence to our political leaders have been affirmatively embraced by the Republican Party and its messaging operation. It's as if there had been a 24-hour cable news channel in 1981 devoted to coverage of Jodie Foster, and what it would take for someone to get her attention. Here's what you get when you have a partisan political establishment that openly trades in themes of violence, xenophobia, paranoia, illegitimacy, and revolution:

And here is a town hall this morning where Sen. Arlen Specter (R... I mean D-Pa.) faced a man threatening judgment from God:

Did extremists on the left adopt the same tone against Bush? Yes. And there is an element in this wingnuttery of the same sort of dispossessed rage and periodic venting that many liberals felt under the last administration. But it's different when that rage is being purposefully manipulated to (imagined) political advantage by the GOP. And it's different when there's actually a guy with a gun waiting for the president to show up.

Middle video compiled by Mike Ragan; bottom video by Mike Byhoff.

Let's let the PR blogger in question, Jennifer Jones, pick it up from there (she posted this last week but we just saw a note about it today on Adrants and it's worthwhile so hey):

Well...last night at 10:00 pm (yes, 10:00 pm), my phone rang. I didn't answer because I was busy watching Sigourney Weaver beat up some Aliens. Then, it rang again. I hit ignore. It rang a third time. Then, I got a text. It said:

"I just read your email blog this is totally a mistake about me and my work...please remove now...kb"

Not recognizing the number and unable to think of any friends with the initials KB, I asked what the person was talking about. Well, as it turns out, it was the "award-winning actor" the bad pitch was about. (I've since removed my phone number from my web site).

He called and text messaged her about this post of hers on her blog, a post that consisted of pointing out the flaws in a press release written by him. Not a savvy PR move, for a non-psycho! So Jennifer started text messaging back and forth with him, but he would not be dissuaded:

He said he'd issue a National Press Release (yep he capitalized it and everything!) about how I am out to ruin his career. Of course, I did think, "cool, nothing like a media feud to drive some SEO my way!" But, he was sounding increasingly unhinged, so I stopped trying to reason with him and ignored his texts.

Unfortunately, it got really ugly with the guy actually making physical threats against me and even calling me a racist.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Kevin Byrd, that is certainly no way for a man with a one-man show about the risk of prostate cancer to act! Particularly not a man who also "starred as the Cover Model for the Best Selling Paperback Novel "Things In Between" by Nathanial Portis distributed in book stores nationwide including Barnes and Nobles." It's just not right. We've emailed Kevin through his website and we'll let you know what we hear. Though you have to admit his original pitch did have a compelling lead:

On behalf of our client Award Winning Off Broadway Actor [Client Name]; we're requesting a featured front cover story about [Client Name] for Atlanta Journal Constitution Newspaper for June 2009

[SpeakMediaBlog]

His name is Ahmed Ghailani and he's the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to be shipped out to stand trial here in the US. They brought him to NYC, the only place where all the residents and their elected representatives are not scared to death to have a jail-withered foreigner locked in their maximum-security prison cell, where he might spark another terrorist plot amongst his cellmates, if he had any.

Ghailani is charged with helping to build one of the bombs that blew up the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and US officials say he was once Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard. Whether he's convicted or not, he should probably leave New York City as quickly as possible. He'll be okay if he can make it to a Red State, they're terrified of him there.
[Pic: AP]

First, Daniel James "Cape Man" Murray told a bank teller that he was "on a mission to kill" Barack Obama. Yes, and now there's a warrant out for this gun nut.

Meanwhile, here at home, a crazy person called 911 to warn them that he was going to blow up noted Mexican Buddhist Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

"I'm going to kill Judge Sotomayor by blowing her up. I'm going to blow her up. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it because my girlfriend is not going to federal prison."

This guy, John Zaubler, was previously arrested for calling some guy 25 times to say other crazy stuff, like:

There is a New York City police unit called the intelligence department and I have used them before to break into people's apartments. I had Daniel Patrick Moynihan arrange that for me; a Syrian agent will kill you unless you have your friend Jasmine apologize for insulting my Muslim friend."

And this was in 2005, two years after Moynihan died. So we have reason to doubt his story!

By late last week, Commercial Appeal executives were receiving as many as 600 e-mails a day, along with dozens of phone calls at home, at work and on their cell phones. Maps to their houses, with ominous warnings, had been posted online.

The editors of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal really, sincerely want all of you heavily armed wingnuts to know: we agree with you! On everything! Really!

— Wrong idea No. 1: The newspaper is against the Second Amendment that gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms...

This newspaper isn't soft on crime. We know that crime is the No. 1 issue that needs to be addressed in Memphis. We urge public officials to get tough on crime. We back Republican-led efforts to take a hard line on gun crimes and repeat offenders...

The newspaper isn't anti-gun.

See, intimidation free speech works! [Commercial Appeal]

... as an expert on nonverbal communication, of course! This black man even touched Senator Joe Biden recently. What is he trying to say?

“[Obama] was castigating him. There’s no other way to put it,” says Joe Navarro, a former FBI special agent specializing in nonverbal communication. “Biden got it immediately,” he adds. “It looked like a little, subtle touch, but you could immediately see that Vice President Biden was contrite after that.”

Politico also gets some anonymous quotes from members of the press who have been personally touched by Obama. Dude, it was like, he was trying to say, hey, I feel what you're saying, but I don't dig what you're saying, you know?

The contact, he said, “seemed to have a twofold purpose — to express his annoyance and also to convince you that you were wrong.”

Fascinating, fascinating stuff. [Politico]

Soon after his post went up, Mr. Stern received a call from one of Condé Nast's lawyers, Eric Gisolfi of Sabin, Bermant & Gould. Mr. Gisolfi requested that Mr. Stern turn over the domain names belonging to New Yorker editor David Remnick, Vogue publisher Tom Florio, Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman, Lucky's Kim France, and Glamour's Cindi Leive.

So Cityfile chief Remy Stern decided to give Conde back its precious web addresses, god, okay fine. At least Conde is putting them to good use. [NYO]

In a grippingly dramatic report headlined "Ambulance Not Called to Brad Pitt's House," a rep for the actor confirmed that not only are he and his family healthy, but that an emergency vehicle arriving in Pitt's neighborhood on Thursday was actually summoned by a neighbor. The paramedics took away an unconscious 100-year-old man, and Brad, as TMZ takes pains to note, only celebrated his
45th birthday yesterday.

There is an uncanny Benjamin Button analogue in here somewhere, but just to recap, preferably with newsy Morse Code sound effects underneath: Brad Pitt did not call an ambulance, did not leave his house in an ambulance, and is not 100 years old. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

• Ambulance Not Called to Brad Pitt's House [TMZ]

Of course, the reporter who first published New York State Senator Diaz's "they're going to see exactly what we can do" rant is Liz Benjamin of the Daily News, not the Post's octogenarian gossip doyenne Liz Smith. (Benjamin, in addition to being 100 years younger than Smith, is a brunette.)

FYI, here were Diaz's remarks:

"The gays are calling my office. They're jamming my phones. They're going to see what we can do. They've going to see exactly what we can do. Ed Koch is going to see what we can do. They're just going to see. That is what I'm telling you."

And here is his clarification:

For the Record

I need to state exactly what I told Liz Benjamin from the NY Daily News this past Tuesday evening because some of the important facts that I told her were not reported:

I told Liz Smith that the gay community has been jamming my office phone line and making threats to me and my staff. I told her that I am very angry that my office has received phone calls threatening my life and calling the women on my staff “whores” and “bitches”. I told her that to add to those names, Ed Koch called us rats.

I told Liz that the only rat is Ed Koch. I told her that when he was Mayor and was rejected in my community, the only person who stood by him was this rat, and that now this rat is good no more. I told her that I am so angry that because of their calls and editorial boards and because of the insulting Koch statement, there is nothing else that they can do to us or say to us, and that they will see what we can do.

That, my friends, was the basis of my anger, not because the gay community is jamming my phone lines. I am an elected official and I am an old man, and they can do this any time. It was the content of their calls that made me angry. I welcome people to call my office - but with respect to me and to my staff.

When I told Liz that they will see what we can do, this was not at all meant to be a physical threat. As far as what we can do, we have many options, which include: going to the Republican Party, staying neutral to create an impasse, or going to the Democratic Party.

So that is the whole story, and I hope it will set the record straight, for good or for bad.

Yes, sure. That clarifies everything! He was furious because Malcolm Smith and the Albany Senate Democrats refused to cave on their principled support for gay marriage and let him be the majority leader, so he told the gays, and Ed Koch, that "they'll see what we can do" as an explanation that he and his colleagues have many options open to them, not as an open threat to fuck over the gay community. Also, he is very old, so you shouldn't be mean to him.

The "SNL" veteran who has come back to play the Republican Vice Presidential candidate (and whose own show, "30 Rock," is still nowhere to be seen), said, "We're gonna take it week by week. If she wins, I'm done. I can't do that for four years. And by 'I'm done,' I mean I'm leaving Earth."

Fey also said it's a busy but exciting time for "SNL."

"Election time is always good for [SNL] and this is a bonkers election," she said. "And that lady is a media star. She is a fascinating person, she's very likeable. She's fun to play, and the two bits with Amy [Poehler], that was super fun," Fey says.

Is Fey merely one-upping her costar Alec Baldwin's notorious rumored claim that he would leave the country if George W. Bush was elected, or should 30 Rock begin looking for contingency plans that offer it some new, interstellar tax credits? Sure, Tracy Morgan already has experience in outer space, but we fear the move would slash the sitcom's impressive guest star list considerably. Heads up, Tina: Oprah does not do the rings of Saturn, OK?

• Tina Fey On Sarah Palin: "If She Wins...I'm Leaving Earth" [HuffPo]

"What needs fixing isn't the African-Americans; it's the white guy running the agency"...

"We know the industry has had various diversity efforts over the years. However, these efforts are going to continue to fall short until they understand they're operating under a false premise — that the problem is the supply of African-American talent — when the real problem is the lack of leadership at the top and their exclusionary policies and practices."

[Ad Age]

Follow the jump for the official e-mail making the rounds, and stay tuned for updates here as events warrant... Developing...

——- Forwarded Message
From: xxxx
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 11:40:48 -0700
To: xxxx
Conversation: MGM Tower Threat
Subject: MGM Tower Threat

This morning a call was received on the main MGM switchboard indicating that Anthrax would be put into the ventilation system of the MGM Tower, starting on the 20th floor.

Calls were immediately placed by MGM to Building Management as well as LAPD.

Building Management dispatched Engineers to examine the air conditioning systems and found no indication of tampering. These areas are secured and not accessible to tenants or guests of the building. The LAPD are conducting inspections within the building to look for evidence of tampering.

As a precautionary measure, Building Management has disabled the outside air intake for the Tower. Additionally, Security escorts will be required for any contractors working in the Tower and access to mechanical and electrical rooms will be restricted.

While we are not ordering an evacuation of the premises at this time, if you feel uncomfortable remaining at the Tower you may leave upon notification to your Supervisor.

###

In the summer of 2004, a newly single professional in his early forties wanted to sleep with as many women as possible. Sex being above all other considerations — time, money, shame — he took on the persona “Dimitri the Lover” and drafted a general sexual proposition for any “attractive, intelligent woman” who happened to read it. He printed a few thousand posters and hired a postering company. Together they placed them all over the city, from family-oriented neighbourhoods like the Beaches (where mothers’ groups ripped them down en masse) to York University campus (which alerted the police).

“I got dozens of responses. Dozens. And fucked maybe 20 women, something like that. Not a lot,” Dimitri tells me. Of course, most people who saw the poster thought it was a joke. I did, until Dimitri hit on me in Starbucks two years later. I was taken aback, mostly because of the way he looked: tall and broad-shouldered, with dark, gelled-back hair. A stranger on the street might nickname him “Dimitri the Lover” as a joke.

Yes, and then he became a bonafied pickup artist! And now Dimitri is an internet sensation! Where did this come from? It's posted a couple places with various questionable "friend of a friend" descriptions, but maybe this clip is just the PUA equivalent of Viral Marketing?

Jezebel has the transcript of the voicemails, in case you are squeamish or without speakers.

The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the Greater Los Angeles region...

The most prominent transplant recipient, Tadamasa Goto, had been barred from entering the U.S. because of his criminal history, several current and former law enforcement officials said. Goto leads a gang called the Goto-gumi, which experts describe as vindictive and at times brutal.

The FBI helped Goto obtain a visa to enter the United States in 2001 in exchange for leads on potentially illegal activity in this country by Japanese criminal gangs, said Jim Stern, retired chief of the FBI's Asian criminal enterprise unit in Washington.

Goto got his liver, Stern said, but provided the bureau with little useful information on Japanese gangs.

In other words, Goto scammed his way into the US, promising information; got his precious liver, while dozens of others died waiting; then gave no good information! Coincidentally, the gangster's trip here for the transplant is the exact story that Adelstein had that got him targeted in the first place.

It's a thorny ethical issue: on one hand, there's the UCLA transplant surgeon, who said "it's not my role to pass moral judgment on the patients who seek my care." On the other hand, there's a very persuasive argument to be made that patients like Goto should be shot with a gun so that bullets pass through them. Jake Adelstein must be so morally conflicted!

[LAT]