Search the Internet for “greatest novel ever” and you get a ton of lists compiled by the likes of Time and Modern Library and Wikipedia. What you don’t get is the truth.

For I know that the greatest novel of all time is not on these lists; the greatest novel of all time is rotting at the bottom of a drawer in my bedroom. This priceless manuscript has collected dust the past few years, unseen through many dark and stormy nights while Netflix spewed from the TV in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of College Gameday Football while Facebook rattled along the screen of my laptop. Nevertheless…

Like many great works, this novel was rejected by a slew of unreceptive literary agents. Why? Because it didn’t fit their mold of maximum profit—a mold designed to churn out vanilla fiction for consumers with IQs of 100 and appetites for munching bottom sand in the holes where they dug and placed their heads.

These vapid readers inhabiting the wide middle of the consumer bell curve prefer trudging slop like Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, or To Kill a Mockingbird.

Meh. Those novels are fine, but do they have…
Badass secret agents?
False flag ops?
C4 explosives?
Aliens?
Gorgeous A-list celebrities on the lam?
Genetically-modified super viruses?
Intra-CIA civil wars for the spoils of the world?
Presidents who can’t bowl worth a crap?

No? Well, then I guess you’d have to say Ulysses COULD have been a great novel, but Terminal Departure, by yours truly, KICKS. ITS. EVERLOVING. BUTT. ;-)

So, while I’m polishing the greatest novel of all time for Kindle and Nook format, I give you the first chapter at the link below. I’ll try to clean up and post a new chapter each Monday.

Read Terminal Departure

UPDATE: Terminal Departure: A Cleo Matts Novel is now available at the following links!
Kindle edition.
Nook edition.

Frank Jacobs knows maps, and on his Strange Maps blog he’s posted more than a few good spins on the atlas.

His posts range from from a serious investigation into The Shotgun Tracts of the Lower Mississippi to enlightening twists such as his popular US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs.

And the Europe as Seen by Americans map displayed above–that’s his too (click on the map to enlarge).

That map is from a recent post where Jacobs takes several more worthwhile and hillarious looks at Europe:

In the kaleidoscope of cultures that is Europe, no matter from where you look at it, you’re always surrounded by ‘the Other’. It takes but a few small steps thence to paranoia, xenophobia, and worse. I remember speaking to a European about the neighbouring ethnicity, literally living up the road. “Oh yes, but they’re all racists,” she said, apparently undefeated by her own logic.

Just finished reading Ken Follett’s World Without End (after putting it off until I’d blown through the prequel, Pillars of the Earth, first).

Ken Follett doesn’t wow me with words like Henry James, or ideas like Vonnegut, and the dialogue is pretty average (Elmore Leonard has nothing to fear…), but Follett knows how to set up character conflict and weave plot strands, and he plants a legitimate (please, PLEASE take note of “legitimate,” Dan Brown) twist every couple of pages–and with the book weighing in at 1024 pages, the twists kept me up past midnight a few times reading one more page to see what happens.

The everyday life of people in the 14th century during the plague was interesting too, and depressing seeing as how it’s six centuries later and the same sorts of battles are still going on between rich and poor, church and science, rulers and peasants.

Thumbs up from me.

You can give the first chapter a try here: Chapter 1 - World Without End.

Also, Follett has posted a video of his History of the Thriller lecture on his website, which I found pretty interesting: The Art of Suspense.

The Pentagon has admitted buying up and destroying 10,000 copies of Operation Dark Heart, the new book by Bronze Star recipient and former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer.

The only reasoning for this move that I can think of is to promote and bring attention to the “insiders let it happen on purpose” (LIHOP) theory of the 9/11 attacks. (To see a nice logical summary of the ten main theories, click here: WHAT IS YOUR “HOP” LEVEL?.)

Before going down the rabbit hole, I’m going to make one big assumption: the folks at the Pentagon aren’t dummies.

Assuming that, one can make the following deductions:

1. The Pentagon knows how much attention any story involving “book burning” will generate after the recent media firestorm surrounding Florida pastor Terry Jones’ plan to burn copies of the Qur’an on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

2. The Pentagon knows burning copies of a book during the digital age doesn’t erase the book (anyone can prove this: just download a thousand copies of the Qur’an or The Bible, print them out, and burn them. See? Didn’t stop anybody from reading them, did it?) And besides, the Pentagon did not destroy dozens of copies sent to editors before the book was published; Wikileaks, anyone?

3. The Pentagon must be well aware of the Streisand Effect:

The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of causing the information to be publicized widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no censorship had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.

Shoving 9/11 in our face

What’s more, the Pentagon wants us to be sure why they’re drawing attention to Operation Dark Heart: given that Lt. Col Anthony Shaffer’s book is more generally about the Afghan War, the Pentagon points to information about 9/11 foreknowledge being the cause of censorship:

Specifically, the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book’s author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed. In that meeting, which took place in Afghanistan, Shaffer alleges the commission was told about “Able Danger” and the identification of Atta before the attacks. No mention of this was made in the final 9/11 report.

Lt. Col Shaffer and Able Danger

Just to refresh your memory, remember that during the original investigation of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Lt. Col Shaffer asserted that a classified intelligence program codenamed Able Danger had uncovered two of the three 9/11 terrorist cells a year before the attacks, and had identified four of the hijackers. Shaffer alerted the FBI in September of 2000, but the meetings he tried to set up with bureau officials were repeatedly blocked by military lawyers. Four credible witnesses came forward to verify Shaffer’s claims.

Investigation with no witnesses

Not surprisingly, if the LIHOP theory is to be believed, Lt. Col Shaffer and the other four members of Able Danger who could back him up were ordered not to testify by the Depart of Defense when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter held a hearing on September 21, 2005, to look into the facts.

In addition, Former Army Major Erik Kleinsmith, former head of the Pentagon’s Land Warfare Analysis Department, testified at the hearing that he had been instructed to destroy data and documents related to Able Danger in May and June 2000. When asked whether the information could have prevented the attack on September 11 of 2001, he answered that he would not speculate to that, but that the information might have been useful.

The whitewash

Subsequently, the entire matter was whitewashed in the report of a September 2006 investigation by the Defense Department Inspector General’s office, filled with irregularities, which concluded that “the evidence did not support assertions that Able Danger identified the September 11, 2001, terrorists nearly a year before the attack, that Able Danger team members were prohibited from sharing information with law enforcement authorities, or that DoD officials reprised against LTC Shaffer for his disclosures regarding Able Danger.”

Conclusion

So, why does the Pentagon want to draw attention to 9/11 foreknowledge? Why now?

If my original assumption is correct, not only are these guys smart, but they’re a lot smarter than me. The question may not be why are they drawing attention to Able Danger, but what are they using this episode to distract us from? Happy nightmares, folks ;-)

After hearing that there was a lone GOP headliner who opposes ditching the 14th amendment (unmentioned reason: to prevent a ground swell of Latino voters in about 18 years), I had to google for more info on Mike Huckabee’s thoughts on illegal immigrants, and I found this quote:

When people say, “They’re taking our jobs”—I used to hear that as Governor—and I started asking this question, “Can you name me any person, give me their name, who can’t get a job plucking a chicken or picking a tomato or tarring a roof that would like to do that work?”… And I’d hear “Well, it’s a lot of people,” and I said, “No, no, don’t tell me it’s a lot of people… Tell me their names. Take a few hours. Go get them. Give me their names.” I never, ever, had a person who could come up with the name of a person… so much of it was more about emotion than it was about the reality.

Ok, so there…I quoted a Republican with admiration. Hell freezes over. ;-)