License to Kill IV

by | Oct 2, 2023 | Fiction | 107 comments

A Glibertarians Exclusive: License to Kill, Part IV

It’s almost time.

The rustling in the brush-filled notch in the ridge grew louder.  A shape emerged, big, broad-shouldered – one of the muscle-heads.  And in his hands…  Paul’s jaw dropped.

Oh, shit.  How the hell did they get a tommy gun into Hawaii?  He considered what to do.  What the hell – might make what we are going to try more convincing.

It couldn’t be allowed to change their plan.  The others would have seen it, too.  Paul watched as the other big guy came into the open, a revolver in his meaty right fist.  Behind him, the smaller man emerged, also bearing a revolver.

Paul aimed his Springfield.  The goon in front turned somewhat, to talk to the two behind him.  They were only about seventy yards away; Paul and Henry had paced off the range the day before.

Perfect.

Paul knew he was the best shot in the group, and they had planned accordingly.  Now he had the perfect opportunity.  He aimed carefully at the big drum magazine of the submachinegun.

***

Honolulu, June 1946

Wednesday night at Mahalo, and while the group of old friends was ostensibly playing poker again, to keep up the appearance of their normal routine, they were in fact engaged in a sotto voce planning session.  Maggie, Apikala and Betty Kendall had pulled chairs up close by to join in.

“Too bad we can’t just shoot them,” Henry Houlihan opined to Paul. “Got a pretty good idea they’re here to shoot you and Maggie. Or at least you.”

“I doubt they want to take me back. Be a hard thing to pull an unwilling woman from Hawaii to Iowa, and besides, whatever deal they made with the Chicago group must be long gone now.  No, I’m guessing whoever is in charge of the Gilliard family back in Waterloo is looking to get some payback, and to send a message.”

Henry looked at Maggie.  “Seems like a lot of damn work for that, after all this time.”

“You never met my grandfather,” Maggie replied.  “He was the most determined son of a bitch ever hatched.  Could hold a grudge for decades.  I don’t know if he’s still alive – he’d be pretty old now – but whoever he turns the family over to would have to be the same way, or he wouldn’t have picked them.  They won’t be looking to scare us.  They’ll be looking to end us.”

“So what do we do?” Paul looked over his cards at the group of veterans around the table.  “I can’t imagine they’d try to hit us at the apartment.  Too many people around.  It’s a built-up area, lots of foot traffic that near Waikiki.”

“They came by our place,” Henry offered.  “Bet you anything they know about you visiting most Sundays.”

Sam Kendall tossed two cards aside.  “I’ll take two.  Think they know about the shooting range?  I’d think really hard about trying a hit on anyone who has their own shooting range in his back yard.”

“I wasn’t doing any shooting when they came past.  Kind of hard to even see it from the road, much less tell what it is.  Not like I leave any targets up or anything.”

“Figure they’ll only have pistols.  Henry, you have, what, three of those Springfields?”

“That, two carbines, a handful of .45s.”

“Damn,” Dugan Jefferson said. “Enough for a squad.  That oughtta do us.”

“What do you mean, us?” Paul asked. “You’re still on active duty.  You can’t get mixed up in anything like this.  You could get cashiered.  What would you do then?”

“What I was doing before the war.  On my old man’s farm, walking behind the north end of a southbound mule.  Don’t you try to leave me out of this, Paul.  We’re Marines.  Semper fi, you know what that means, right?”

“Means if you fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us,” Henry chuckled.

“Damn right.”

Paul frowned.  He laid his cards down.  “Call.  Still, that brings us right back to the problem.  We can’t just shoot them.  I’m not too hot on the idea of letting them shoot at us first.  And even out at Henry’s place, there are still neighbors; not too close, but not all that far away, either.  Don’t much care for the idea of bullets flying around up there.”

“Me either,” Henry added.

“There’s got to be a better way to handle this.  We’ve pretty much turned over every stone, but there’s got to be a better way to handle this.”

Dugan Jefferson tossed his cards in.  “I got nothin’.  But as for those assholes; Maybe we could draw them off.  Up a little farther into the mountains.  Take care of things up there, where the woods are really thick.  These guys are from Iowa, right?  Stands to reason they don’t know much about jungles.”  He frowned.  “I sure as hell do.  Lots more than I want to.”

“So we draw them back in the jungle.  And then what?”

Apikala spoke up.  “I could call my uncle.  He’s a kahuna.  They know things, things about the island.  Things that could help us.”

“What sort of things?”

“All kind of things. About the winds, the weather, about the gods and goddesses.  The spirits of the forest and mountains.  Those things.”

Paul frowned. “Not sure how that will help us, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to talk to him.  What’s his name?”

“Sam.  Sam Pualani.  My father’s older brother.”

Paul looked at Henry.  Henry shrugged.  “Hell, why not?  Let’s go see him.”

The next day, Paul and Maggie met Henry and Apikala at a small house, about ten miles up the road from Henry and Apikala’s home.  The small clapboard house was little more than a shack, but it was clean and neatly tended.  An old man sat on the small porch, in a bench seat that looked to have been taken off an old school bus.

Apikala climbed out of Paul’s old Hudson and went to the old man, who stood up to embrace her.  “Aloha, ʻAnakala Sam,” she said.

The old man smiled.  “Aloha mai e ke kaikamahine, aloha,” he replied.  He looked at the others.  “Henry,” he said, switching effortlessly to English.  “And this is Paul and Maggie, do I remember right?”

“You do.  Good to see you, Sam.”  Paul shook the old man’s hand.

“Uncle, Paul and Maggie have something to ask you.”

Sam Pualani looked expectantly at Paul.  Paul quickly summed up the situation.

“So, were thinking of getting them back into the jungle, away from anyone who might catch a stray round or see something they shouldn’t.  These are bad people, Sam.  Nobody else needs to be involved.”

“Except me.  My family is involved,” he looked at Apikala, “so I am involved.  I am the elder.  But don’t worry, Paul, you already know what you need to do.  We will do just as you say.  We will act as through we are running away, and draw them back, into a certain big valley on the other side of that big ridge near Henry and Apikala’s home.  That is a special valley.  The kahunas have known this for a long time.  If we can lure them there, we need have no more worries about them.  They will run away, and they will never come back.”

“What?  Why would they run?  What in that valley is going to scare them?  What are we going to do to them?”

“We will let the ʻuhane nahele have them.”

“The Ooh-hane Naheelee?  Who are they?”

“They live in the deep jungle.  They are spirits, and if you pass through peacefully, they will leave you alone.  But one does not enter their jungle with bad intent.  Bad things happen then.”

Oh, great, Paul thought.  We’re going to bet all this on a ghost story.

“Paul,” Apikala said.  “This isn’t a joke.  They are real.  The valley is real.  My family has known about it for generations, long before you haoles came.”  She smiled.

Henry walked up and placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder.  “Old buddy,” he said, “have you got any better ideas?  Worst thing that could happen is we shoot it out back there in the woods, away from everyone, and if they want to shoot it out with Marines, good luck to ‘em.”

“All right,” Paul conceded.  “Let’s get to figuring out how to make this happen.”

***

Ya may be a noisemaker, spirit maker,

Heartbreaker, backbreaker,

Leave no stone unturned.

May be an actor in a plot,

That might be all that you got,

’Til your error you clearly learn.

About The Author

Animal

Animal

Semi-notorious local political gadfly and general pain in the ass. I’m firmly convinced that the Earth and all its inhabitants were placed here for my personal amusement and entertainment, and I comport myself accordingly. Vote Animal/STEVE SMITH 2024!

107 Comments

  1. Sean

    Shoot em and dump them in the ocean. This ain’t complicated.

    • SDF-7

      I assumed “They’re Marines — they aren’t going to ask sailors for jack over squat”.

    • Tundra

      Volcano. Style points

    • WTF

      Exactly. Don’t leave them alive to maybe take another crack at you in the future.

      • Mojeaux

        In my genre, we call some heroines TSTL, “too stupid to live” because they make terrible decisions. In my books, I determined my characters would not be TSTK “too stupid to kill” for some morality they may or may not have, to keep from having to deal with the problem again.

      • SDF-7

        So you read The Mirror of her Dreams too?

      • kinnath

        Yes.

      • Mojeaux

        No. Is the heroine TSTL or does she kill to keep the clutter down?

      • Mojeaux

        nm I read the reviews.

      • kinnath

        It’s been a very long time since I read the book. But she does not kill people as I recall.

  2. SDF-7

    Well… that’s an angle I didn’t see coming. One third of the way through I thought they’d dispose of them with a toss into the ol’ volcano or “surfing incident at shark infested beach”… but this works too.

    Always a pleasure, Animal.

  3. Ghostpatzer

    Well, That was a spirited chapter, and Halloween is right around the corner.

    • juris imprudent

      Eyes rattle back and forth between comment and moniker/avatar – fall out of head and roll down the hallway.

  4. DEG

    “Except me. My family is involved,” he looked at Apikala, “so I am involved. I am the elder. But don’t worry, Paul, you already know what you need to do. We will do just as you say. We will act as through we are running away, and draw them back, into a certain big valley on the other side of that big ridge near Henry and Apikala’s home. That is a special valley. The kahunas have known this for a long time. If we can lure them there, we need have no more worries about them. They will run away, and they will never come back.”

    Tricksy.

  5. Not Adahn

    A 70 yard shot with an open bolt .45 would be a matter of pure luck.

    • slumbrew

      settles in for gun-nerd fight

      • Tundra

        What are the most entertaining fights: gun nerds, knife nerds, fitness nerds, beer nerds or gaming nerds?

      • slumbrew

        We surely have some Glibs in the center of that Venn diagram.

      • slumbrew

        Ah, you’ll get some warning if your browser insists on a https connection.

      • kinnath

        Company gateway says no can do.

      • kinnath

        I find myself deeper in the geeky hierarchy than I would like to admit.

      • Robonerfherder

        Get rid of the furry suit kinnath

      • kinnath

        If I ditch the sexy furry suit, what would I wear at Halloween?

      • slumbrew

        We have Mojeaux, Animal and Unciv (at least) at the top of the hierarchy to help balance things out.

      • MikeS

        Kinnath: you should dress up like the bumblebee girl in the Smashing Pumpkins video and hand out mead samples.

      • slumbrew

        *Blind Melon

      • MikeS

        Her, too!

      • Mojeaux

        We have Mojeaux, Animal and Unciv (at least) at the top of the hierarchy to help balance things out.

        Don’t forget Ozy.

      • slumbrew

        Has Ozy done SF/Fantasy?

      • Mojeaux

        No, but neither have I.

      • slumbrew

        Ah, I thought you had a paranormal romance one (were you looking into that? I’m a totally misremembering?)

      • Mojeaux

        Oh. Yeah. Deb the Demon Hunter. I did that. I forgot. Yes, I’m dabbling in paranormal. A fairy godmother, Krampus/Santa, a mortal mage, and a middle-aged housefrau vampire. Yes, those. I forget.

      • Tundra

        Ozy did Spark. Hopefully it was fantasy.

      • juris imprudent

        That gives real meaning to being a bottom on that chart.

      • slumbrew

        I think you’ve posted that before – it’s a great routine.

      • kinnath

        I have. I find it delightful.

    • juris imprudent

      Yeah, that was my thought – a Thompson against the range of 3 Springfields? Yeah, I’ll take those odds. Now, carbines, you back that off a little.

    • EvilSheldon

      Back in my larval gun nut days, a friend in the Purdue Rifle and Pistol Club had a father, and the father had a transferable full-auto 1928A1 Thompson. I got to shoot it two or three times. Hitting 10” steel plates out to 100 yards was honestly pretty easy.

      I’d still give the advantage to the three guys with ‘03a3s in ambush.

      • Suthenboy

        Same here. Also with an UZI

      • EvilSheldon

        The full-size Uzi is remarkably nice to shoot, although I’ve only ever handled one at a 3-gun match.

      • Not Adahn

        One of my dog park friends is an ex-Israeli armed forces conscript. He had nothing nice to say about the uzi.

      • Suthenboy

        I was shooting at a 30gal water heater at about 50 yards. Water heaters dont shoot back so I cannot speak to that guys experience.

      • Not Adahn

        Guns in active military service seem to have worse reputations than ones owned by someone who loves them.

      • Suthenboy

        Now that you put it like that NA….you are right.

        Some of the bolt guns are top notch. The self feeders….not so much.

  6. Derpetologist

    The literal meaning of “kahuna” is “secret-keeper”, and it can be translated many ways. It’s equivalent to the term “medicine man”. In many Native American languages, the word for medicine could also mean magic, knowledge, and other things, sort of like the way the Hawaiian word “mana” has multiple meanings.

    In Swahili, “dawa” can mean drug, chemical, or medicine, depending on the context. Mchawi used to be translated as witch-doctor, though sorcerer or wizard is a better equivalent. Uchawi means magic or sorcery.

    In contrast, the word fundi means someone with technical knowledge, like a mechanic. It’s related to the word kufundisha, which means to teach.

    On an unrelated note:

    ***
    The Southeast Alaska red and blue king crab fisheries will remain closed for commercial harvests in the 2023-24 season following dismal population surveys again this year. Stock assessment models determined the biomass across the U.S. state at 188,899 pounds, which fell below the threshold limit of 200,000 pounds that would warrant conducting the fisheries.
    ***

    Oh, fiddlesticks.

    • juris imprudent

      Stock assessment models

      According to my model, I always catch fish.

      • Lackadaisical

        After meeting with some permitting folks in the field, I would believe you if you told me that their model doesn’t have the ability to output above 200000 lbs.

      • juris imprudent

        I imagine the model samples are about like climate change raw data – very sparse for the conclusions drawn therefrom.

      • Suthenboy

        *finds a broken tooth. Dates at 5M years. Scratches head.*
        “His name was Og. 5’10” and 170 lbs with brown hair. He loved blonds and drum music, the faster beats. He preferred rare steak and reading philosophy. He was near inventing the wheel when he died. Such a shame. ”

        A model other than something that can be described mathematically with a minimum of variables is shit. The whole AGW scam is just that….NOT SCIENCE and a SCAM. I have been screaming that for 30 years. It has all of the earmarks of a scam for a reason. Hell, Margaret Mead openly, on film, admitted they were inventing a scam and trying to get the scientific community on board with it.
        I never dreamed back then it would get so much traction. It will have to be destroyed root and branch. That might take at least a generation.

    • Suthenboy

      Wizard, witch, wise, wisdom, wish, want, warrant, warlock…..I am sure I am missing some.
      I think every culture has a cluster of words like that dealing with the same subject.

      • R.J.

        Politician

      • Suthenboy

        As I typed that I was imagining that wizards, whose primary job was telling time for seasons, planting, harvesting, animal migrations etc. probably had everyone buffaloed into believing that only they could conjure up the seasons. So yeah, politicians….grifters.

  7. Tundra

    The good old days.

    The Great One really was. Proper hair as well.

    • The Other Kevin

      It is taboo. Bad luck come to those who touch.

    • creech

      JUNGLE SMITH?

      • Aloysious

        Does he do the Tarzan yell before, during, or after the rapin’?

    • slumbrew

      I appreciate the bold, novel approach.

    • slumbrew

      Although, like starfish, that may end up doing more harm than good.

    • Suthenboy

      Do they have a fund we can donate to for Samurai swords and chainsaws?

  8. R.J.

    Someday, bullets will fly
    And someone might die
    If it’s Danny, nobody will cry…

    • Ted S.

      So excellent they asked it twice!

  9. Ownbestenemy

    I despise people that try to make you seem dumb for having knowledge and know how and down play that ‘you don’t get paid to do that’. Surprise surprise he is our…..drum roll…..union cheerleader

    • Derpetologist

      Whenever I get called a know-it-all, my response is: the correct term is “polymath”.

      • Suthenboy

        One of Mrs. Suthenboy’s friends once asked me a question about some obscure subject. I thought for a moment and answered ” I dont know”
        Somewhat startled she said “I thought you know everything!”

        “I do, just not all at the same time.”

      • Fourscore

        I know a lot about some things

        I don’t know much about most things.

      • Suthenboy

        There is an old saw in every language that amounts to “The wisest thing i have learned is how much I dont know.”

        In fact, I recently snarked to my rheumatologist “There are vast volumes yet to be written about things we are yet to know.”
        He had been bragging about medical advances, and he is right, but that quip made him slam on the brakes and think about things a bit.

      • Mojeaux

        I first ran up against this when I was training for medical transcription. “Look up everything, because you don’t know what you don’t know.” Here I am, 20 years later, still looking things up.

      • UnCivilServant

        “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t have to remember.”

      • Suthenboy

        Oh, hey Derp. Someone was asking me what is the practical use for your proof. I was looking at it in various ways to figure it out.
        Can. you show us how. you derived it?

      • Derpetologist

        time to pimp my blog again: https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/09/a-proof-of-conjecture-about-prime.html

        The short answer is it’s a primality test (way to tell if a number is prime or not without trial division) and a way of generating primes.

        Based on the whiz’s proof of my conjecture, it can be further proved that the square of any prime 5 or greater can be written in the form of

        p^2 = 5^2 + n*24

        In that equation, p is a prime 5 or greater and n is an integer. If we evaluated 5^2 + n*24 for any value of n and took the square root, the whole number results would be candidate primes.

        Large prime numbers are useful for cryptography because no one has found an efficient way of factorizing large semiprimes. A semiprime is a number with only 2 prime factors, like 77 (7*11). The CIA will pay you $10k if you can find a 100-digit prime number they don’t know about yet because large prime numbers can be used for encryption.

        Secure internet traffic is encrypted using an algorithm called RSA which is named after the initials of the 3 mathematicians who invented it. Here’s a simplified version of how it works.

        A public key visible to everyone is created by multiplying to large prime numbers together. We’ll write that as p*q. Since there is no efficient way to factorize p*q, p and q are only known to a handful of trustworthy people. An internet user (client) sends the public key and a request for info to a webpage server (host) and the server encrypts that info with the public key and sends it back to the user. The user uses a private key in the form of (p-1)*(q-1) and some weird math to decrypt the info. Since there are many large prime numbers, there are effectively an unlimited number of public and private keys.

        If there was a way to efficiently factorize large semiprimes or a formula/algorithm for the next largest prime, whoever had it could decrypt everything sent over the internet. The effect would be similar to having the usernames and passwords for every online account, or the way the Allies were able to use code-breaking computers to decrypt Enigma messages faster than the Germans could.

        So now you see why certain government agencies are very interested in this sort of thing. Good crypto is hard, and whoever has the best mathematicians will win. So far, NSA is the Harlem Globetrotters of cryptography. They’re also the #1 employer of mathematicians.

      • Suthenboy

        I understood the math after reading over it I just did not know what it’s practical use could be. Now I see. Thank you.
        Sadly I am not a polymath but I can kinda fake my way through the tougher stuff.
        I was thinking in terms of crystalline structures formed by various molecules. I have a sense that there is something there but I cant quite see it….a figure in the mist so to speak.
        I thought perhaps seeing how. you derived that equation from scratch I might have an “Aha!” moment. It is still misty. Maybe I am *chokes up a bit* wrong. It turns out I am not 100% right 100% of the time. If you tell anyone I said that I will call you a liar.

      • Derpetologist

        Kepler once wondered why snowflakes always had six spokes and concluded that the most basic shape at the center of a snowflake was a very small hexagon. He wrote a paper on it. Later, he would apply that knowledge to finding the most compact way of stacking cannonballs on warships. This method is still being used to stack oranges at supermarkets.

        When water freezes, at the molecular level, six water molecules bunch together to form a hexagon. As those little hexagons start clumping, a snowflake forms.

      • Derpetologist

        On a related note, the best codes today use either large prime numbers or random numbers. Large prime numbers can be re-used but are hard to find, whereas random numbers are easier to generate but can only be used once. If they get used more than once, it leads to incidents like the Venona Papers.

        ***
        The U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, the precursor to the National Security Agency, began a secret program in February 1943 later codenamed VENONA

        The mission of this small program was to examine and exploit Soviet diplomatic communications but after the program began, the message traffic included espionage efforts as well.

        Although it took almost two years before American cryptologists were able to break the KGB encryption, the information gained through these transactions provided U.S. leadership insight into Soviet intentions and treasonous activities of government employees until the program was canceled in 1980.

        The VENONA files are most famous for exposing Julius (code named LIBERAL) and Ethel Rosenberg and help give indisputable evidence of their involvement with the Soviet spy ring.

        The first of six public releases of translated VENONA messages was made in July 1995 and included 49 messages about the Soviets’ efforts to gain information on the U.S. atomic bomb research and the Manhattan Project. Over the course of five more releases, all of the approximately 3,000 VENONA translations were made public.
        ***

        NSA – they keep that stuff close to the vest for a long time.

        The project was founded by a mathematician named Gene Grabeel. She became a code breaker after she got tired of teaching high school.

        Another key player is a personal hero of mine, Meredith Gardner.

        ***
        Gardner was a linguist and professor of German at the University of Akron when the United States Army’s Signals Intelligence Service recruited him to work on breaking German codes. Soon after, he started working on the Japanese codes instead, mastering the Japanese language in only a few months.[a]

        In 1946, Gardner began work on a highly secret project (later codenamed Venona) to break the Soviet cryptosystems. The Soviet encryption system involved the use of one-time pads, and thus was thought to be unbreakable. However, the Soviets made the mistake of reusing certain pages of their pads.

        Later that same year, Gardner made the first breakthrough on Venona by identifying the ciphers used for spelling English words.

        Gardner was rather a sad figure by the late 1960s. He felt very keenly that the cryptanalytical break he had made possible was a thing of mathematical beauty, and he was depressed at the use to which it had been put.” Wright revealed that Gardner was upset that his research had resulted in McCarthyism and the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
        ***

        Gardner ended up retiring early after a minor drunk-driving accident.

      • Suthenboy

        The Rosenberg executions were warranted.
        It might be time for another round of zapping commies. The problem is most of them are American pols.

  10. Not Adahn

    I’ve been reassigned to the shitshow stage at Nats. Or rather two stages. In the past they’ve crammed two stages into one bay, and it’s never worked well. But they’ve always had one crew for each of the stages. This time one crew is running both, AND there are three movers to reset. This is going to suuuuuck.

    I’m going to pretend that they deliberately put me there as a sign of NROI’s faith in my abilities. Even though I know they just do things at random when someone else whines about their assignment.

      • Suthenboy

        Huh. I see Lena Miculek there. I met Jerry once, super nice guy. Back then Lena was just a sprout . When I saw her darting around looking for mischief I remarked to Jerry “Y’know, I taught my son to shoot when he was 4 yo just like my father taught me at that same age. Heavy on gun safety and secondly on shooting. By the time he was 10 he could outshoot 3/4 of the guys on our sheriff’s pistol team.”
        Jerry, with a twinkle in his eye, looked at Lena and said “Oh, dont you worry”
        He was right. Of course Lena had a better teacher than my son did.

      • Grummun

        NA, I had planned on coming up to Marengo again, but I’m completely jammed up this week, through Saturday. I could maybe do Sunday. When do things close up for the day on Sunday?

      • Not Adahn

        According to the schedule, 18:00.

    • UnCivilServant

      You can do it, I have faith in you.

      PS, don’t get shot, I would be very disappointed.

      • Not Adahn

        There is something really hinky going on. They must have lost some people. The other double bay has two crews, and the stage that I was pulled from replaced me with two people.

        This could all be Troy not knowing how to fill out a spreadsheet.

      • EvilSheldon

        Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

      • Not Adahn

        Well, except that it was probably Jake not Troy. And while Troy gets all the hate, Jake sets off all of my chicanery-detectors.

      • Lackadaisical

        ‘the stage that I was pulled from replaced me with two people.’

        You’re just that good.

  11. Brochettaward

    I know a thing or two about a thing or a First.

  12. Trigger Hippie

    *Somewhere within the kinda, sorta, near future…a brief series of Glibs articles in the works…at some point…Honest Injun…subject being..Fuck[Insert Name of Revered Person] and Here’s Why.

    First two names that sprang to mind: Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi.

    I’ll add far more secular and Western names in the near future. The list is so vast that a bit of whittling is in order before choosing the obvious.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Maybe just to be a dick I’ll tie the whole India theme together with Winston Churchill…heh…

    • Fatty Bolger

      FDR please.

      • slumbrew

        I mentioned that I”m still grinding through The Forgotten Man (not that it’s bad, I’m just short on reading-time);

        Fuck FDR, indeed. Fuck him right in the ear.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Of course right around the time that book came out, we did similar stupid stuff to extend the “Great Recession” and the Obama doldrums that followed for nearly a decade.

    • Derpetologist

      Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! did that in the episode called Holier Than Thou.

      FDR definitely deserves to be taken off his pedestal, like FB says below. Same goes for Freud, Lenin, Marx, and Che. Che is definitely the worst person who is revered.

      Edison was a jackass at times, so maybe him too.

    • Derpetologist

      Suthen inadvertantly suggests Margaret Mead above. Thanks, man. I learned something new today.

      ***
      Mead began organizing for her conference, “The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering,” shortly after she had attended the United Nations Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania, in August 1974. She had already bullied American scientists with her malthusian view that people were imperiling the environment. She wrote in a 1974 Science magazine editorial that the Population Conference had settled this question:

      At Bucharest it was affirmed that continuing, unrestricted worldwide population growth can negate any socioeconomic gains and fatally imperil the environment…. The earlier extreme views that social and economic justice alone can somehow offset population increase and that the mere provision of contraception can sufficiently reduce population—were defeated.[2]
      The North Carolina conference, which took place Oct. 26-29, 1975, was co-sponsored by two agencies of the U.S. National Institutes of Health: the John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (Mead had been a Scholar in Residence at the Fogarty Center in 1973.)
      ***

      Rachel Carson and Erin Brokovich could also be featured in the series.

      • Suthenboy

        Dont forget Ehrlich. That shitbird and Mead’s other malthusian pals. They were all in on it. Mind you the dust was still settling on auschwitz and the bodies barely cooled off when they started with their evil shit. While we are at it let’s put Margaret Sanger on the list.

    • Suthenboy

      Are y ou going to include Ghana’s pedophelia and Theresa’s lavish lifestyle?