Chapter Twelve: Angry Gods The Spaniards now devoted themselves to building Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. On a plain half a league from Quiahuitztlan (qwee-ah-weets-tlan), a fort was erected with high wooden walls and watchtowers, followed by a church, market place, arsenals, barracks, and officers’ quarters. Cortez himself was the first to work, digging trenches and hauling foundation stones. Cajoling his officers to join him, they all set to work, as did all the soldiers at whatever task they could do ? making bricks, nails, and lumber, working the lime kilns ? while over a thousand Totonacs labored with them. Within less than three weeks it was habitable enough for the colony to be formally founded (1). A few days after "Villa Rica" had been established, a delegation of Mesheeka nobles arrived, led by a military commander named Motelchiuh (mo-tell’-chee-you), and including two of Montezuma’s nephews. Motelchiuh grandly presented Cortez with the gilded helmet requested by Tendile at the sand encampment of San Juan de Ulua. It was now filled with gold dust ? as Cortez had requested.

Symantec Corporation said recently that it found itself forced to start dealing with spyware and adware simply because users of Symantec antivirus programs really couldn't tell the difference between a system infected with malware (virus, Trojan, worm, and so forth) and a system infested with adware or spyware. For the past 3 months, nearly one out of every five calls for help to Symantec ended up involving spyware or adware rather than what they call malware. To The Point readers know that I’ve been using the opposite terminology. Viruses, trojans and worms were in one category, and spyware and adware I called malware. These days, virus experts recognize that certain threats should rightly be called blended, in that they combine virus, worm, and sometimes even trojan characteristics within a single executable.

My old friend, the late James Jesus Angleton (once upon a time the head of CIA's counterintelligence forces) was in a somewhat milder mood than the last few times we'd "talked," thanks to my unreliable ouija board and the relentless static that seems to accompany my efforts to communicate with spirits in The Beyond.ML: It seems the al-Reuters Agency and others in the deadwood media are painting a fairly depressing picture of your old organization. "CIA Director Porter Goss...faces a shortage of experienced spies created by a post-September 11 stampede to the private sector, current and former intelligence officials say..."JJA: Haha. Very droll. The usual divertissement from the Reuters crowd.ML: But still, don't you think it's legitimate to worry about hundreds or thousands of people leaving the clandestine service? JJA: More like a blessing.

Shortly after Bernal resumed his post as look-out over the sandy dunes of the camp, he spotted five native men walking on the beach. With smiles and bows they approached, and their gestures made it clear they wanted to be taken into the camp. Bernal sent a messenger to bring Do񡠍arina and Aguilar to the tent of Captain Cortez, while Bernal took the five men to the Captain himself. Bernal had never seen such men. While they cut their hair and wore their loincloths differently than the Mesheeka, it was their lip plugs that distinguished them. They all had a large hole in their lower lips, filled with heavy stone disks of turquoise or covered with thin sheets of gold ? so heavy that they pulled the lip down over the chin exposing the teeth and lower gums. Their ears lobes were also pierced with large holes also filled with turquoise or gold-covered stone disks ? but it was the hideous lip plugs that repelled Bernal. "Lope Luzio, Lope Luzio!" they cried out as they bowed deeply to Cortez while rubbing dirt on their foreheads as a sign of supplication and respect.

OK, now that I’ve gotten the outrageousness of the Miers nomination off my chest, let me tell you a story about a wonderful guy named Howard Papush. In 1980, Howard had one of the all-time coolest jobs in Hollywood. As the “talent coordinator” for the Tonight Show, Howard was a primary gatekeeper deciding who got to be a guest and sit in that chair talking to Johnny Carson on national television. Let me tell you how Howard reminds me of Harriet Miers.

Harriet Miers tears it for me with George Bush. It’s the last straw. John Roberts was no straw at all. Clearly a conservative constitutionalist, overwhelmingly brilliant and qualified, he was an inspired choice. Objections to him by certain conservatives were paranoid. But we are going from the sublime to the ridiculous with Miss Miers. This ludicrous nomination is the bottom of Bush’s barrel. It is as ludicrous for Bush to claim that she is more qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice than J. Harvie Wilkinson, Janice Rogers Brown, or any of a score of distinguished conservative candidates, as it is unbelievable for him to claim that he “knows her heart” but has never discussed abortion with her. Yet there is good to come of it: in the form of a conservative Congressional rebellion. The good that is coming out of Bush’s inept Katrina performance is an end to profligate spending, and deep (hopefully real deep) cuts in both discretionary and mandated programs.In his press conference today (the 4th), Bush predicted Miers will do well in her Senate hearings. She may never get to them. The outcry from Republicans on Capitol Hill may get so loud so quick that Bush may be forced to withdraw her nomination. That will provide the chance to rebuild the Bush Presidency.