Maps of the Week

Help, I Can't Get an Election

     "The January 30 elections in Iraq have nothing to do with democracy. To claim a free election can take place in Iraq is no different to asserting that the French, Yugoslav or Greek people could have elected a representative government in 1942 while living under the jackboot of Nazi rule.
   "Over the past two years, Iraq has been subjected to invasion and a military occupation that has plunged the country into a social and political catastrophe. The Bush administration has brought the Iraqi people 50 to 70 percent unemployment, food and fuel shortages, a breakdown in essential services such as electricity, a collapse in basic law-and-order and dictatorial forms of rule little changed from those of the Baathist regime."
- James Cogan: The Iraq election: a travesty of democracy -

"For the only time in memory, electoral candidates are afraid to be seen in public and are forced to campaign from underground cells, with many afraid to even link their names to their faces in the media. There are no public rallies where voters might glean some information about candidates' positions. As one voter told CNN, he would prefer to vote for George Michael, since he knows more about the singer than about any of the candidates running for office. 
- Salim Lone: Iraq: This election is a sham -

"Iraqis danced and clapped with joy Sunday as they voted in their country's first free election in a half-century" (mysteriously changed to "civilians and policemen danced with joy outside one site" an hour later.)
- Mariam Fam: AP reporter quoted everywhere, making her the Underappreciated Hack of the Week -

"I say 'elections' because the Higher Commission for Elections announced that it won't be releasing the names of the candidates prior to the 'elections.' With 4 of Iraq's 18 governorates unable to participate in them, an estimated 90 percent of the Sunni population not voting, a sizable amount of the Shiites boycotting, and a very large percentage of Iraqis unwilling to vote because of the horrendous security situation, calling them elections seems a bit of a stretch."
- Dahr Jamail: Destroying Babylon - Forget the elections Iraq is falling apart -

    "'Yesterday a bicycle bomb killed someone near my house,' said 32-year-old Ahmed Mohammed. 'I never intended to vote in this illegitimate election anyway, but if I had wanted to I would never go out in these conditions.'
   "With draconian security measures in place, even some ambulances rushing to victims of bomb attacks were turned back at security checkpoints.
   "'Baghdad looks like it's having a war, not elections,' said Layla Abdul Rahman, a high school English teacher. 'Our streets are filled with tanks and soldiers and our bridges are closed. All we are hearing is bombings all around us, and for the last two nights there have been many clashes that last a long time. We shouldn't have had elections now because it's just not practical with this horrible security...'
- Dahr Jamail: Hollow Election Held on Bloody Day -

    "After a day which left 50 people dead in Iraq, both civilians and soldiers, the death toll was hailed as a figure that was lower than expected. Thus acceptable, by Bush Administration/corporate media standards. After all, only of them was an American, the rest were Iraqis civilians and British soldiers.
   "The gamble of using the polling day in Iraq to justify the ongoing failed occupation of Iraq has apparently paid off, if you watch only mainstream media.
   "Higher than expected turnout, US mainstream television media blared, some citing a figure of 72%, others 60%.
   "What they didn't tell you was that this figure was provided by Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI) before the polls had even closed.
   "When asked about the accuracy of the estimate of voter turnout during a press conference, Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying that a closer estimate was lower than his initial estimate and would be more like 60% of registered voters.    "The IECI spokesman said his previous figure of 72% was only guessing and was just an estimate, which was based on very rough, word-of mouth estimates gathered informally from the field. It will take some time for the IECI to issue accurate figures on turnout.
   "Referencing both figures, Ayar then added, Percentages and numbers come only after counting and will be announced when it's over ... It's too soon to say that those were the official numbers.
   "But this isn't the most important misrepresentation the mainstream media committed.
   "What they also didn't tell you was that of those who voted, whether they be 35% or even 60% of registered voters, were not voting in support of an ongoing US occupation of their country.
   "In fact, they were voting for precisely the opposite reason. Every Iraqi I have spoken with who voted explained that they believe the National Assembly which will be formed soon will signal an end to the occupation.
   "And they expect the call for a withdrawing of foreign forces in their country to come sooner rather than later. This causes one to view the footage of cheering, jubilant Iraqis in a different light now, doesn't it?"
- Dahr Jamail: What They're Not Telling You About the "Election" -

"American democracy has the same relationship to democracy as American cheese has to cheese. You may consider yourself lucky if the product has as much as 2% actual democracy."
- Xarvon: alien investigator -

Heartwarming Tale of Democracy in Action

"[A]n Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and took the hand of an elderly blind woman, guiding her to the polls." 
- Mariam Fam: still the Hack of the Week -

Today in History

Today is the day in 1933 that Adolph Hitler caused an uproar by showing up at a costume party dressed like King Edward V of England. The Berlin Times described his actions as "in extremely bad taste," and the Nazi party issued a "full and public apology," claiming "it was an unfortunate choice. He was just trying to be funny."

Quiz of the Week

This little girl is...

a) Iraq
b) Iran
c) not allowed to vote
d) about to get run over by a tank

More Journalists Reportedly On White House Payroll

All employees of Fox News, The Washington Times, The New York Post, eighty-nine other newspapers and magazines, plus seventy-seven op-ed columnists, fifty-four political cartoonists, and three hundred and twenty-six radio personalities were paid a total of $13.2 billion to promote Bush agenda.
- Ironic Times -

Important Political Action of the Week

If not you, who?
If not now, when?
Won't you help stop clown porn now?

I Feel So Much Safer Now

     "People are to be tortured in laboratories at Oxford University in a US-funded experiment to determine if belief in God is effective in relieving pain.
    "Top neurologists, pharmacologists, anatomists, ethicists and theologians are to examine the scientific basis of religious belief and whether it is anything more than a placebo. 
    "Oxford's new Centre for the Science of the Mind is to use imaging systems to find out how religious, spiritual and other belief systems, such as an illogical belief in the innate superiority of men, influence consciousness.
    "Researchers believe the study will provide insights into the war on terrorism.
    "A central aspect of the two-year study, which has $US2 million ($2.65 million) funding from the US philanthropic group the John Templeton Foundation, will involve dozens of people being subjected to painful experiments in laboratory conditions."
- Ruth Gledhill: Research at Oxford is torture -

"The military is placing homophobia well ahead of national security. It's rather appalling that in the weeks leading up to 9/11, messages were coming in, waiting to be translated ... and at the same time they were firing people who could've done that job."
- Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Service members Legal Defense Network, quoted in Military has discharged 26 gay linguists -

"The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get 'government approval' of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion."
- Greg Toppo: U.S. students say press freedoms go too far -

    "The head of the Mossad intelligence service, Meir Dagan, warned Monday that there are signs that several Middle East states other than Iran - including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria - are at varying stages of development of nuclear programs.
   "Dagan, reviewing the security situation for the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, also warned that the atomic threat posed by Iran will soon reach the point of no return in a nuclear arms race."
- Gideon Alon: Dagan: Egypt, Syria have nuclear programs, as well as Iran -

"Johnson testified that she was told by Previte to round up children to increase the detention center's population on Oct. 15, which is known as National Count Day. The number of students in schools or detention centers on that date is used to determine funding for those institutions for the next year... All of them were released from detention on Oct.16."
- Geoff Mulvihill: Judge Releases First Details Center Lockup -

Peace Martyrs of the Week

Tom Hurndall, 21, from Manchester England was fatally shot by Israeli forces when he attempted to protect Palestinian children from Israeli gunfire.

Rachel Corrie, 23, was killed when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer. Rachel was trying to stop the bulldozer from demolishing the home of a Palestinian doctor in the Gaza Strip.
 

Don't Take My Word For It

     "How does a nation lose its mind? Ask the ancient Romans. Ask the Nazis. Ask the Khmer Rouge, who executed people for wearing eyeglasses, reasoning that they must be bourgeois intellectuals for wanting to see. Ask Robert Mugabe. Ask George W. Bush, or the millions who voted for his gangster government. Or Condoleezza, that oily Olive Oyl from the Bizarro world, yet another dubious doctor of something-or-other. Ask Rumsfeld or the soon-to-be-confirmed Attorney-General, surely the most insane Cabinet choice in the history of the US.
    "In nominating Gonzalez, the president might just well be saying 'F*** you America, F*** you, world-see what I can do if I want to?' Alberto Gonzalez is not qualitatively different than Uday Hussein or his dad in that he is willing to utilize and justify torture to achieve his dubious ends. To call it anything else is simply legalese sleaze. To have accepted such immoral and outrageous counsel will forever remain a blight on the presidency of the USA. It can never recover, no matter how much God talks to George W or the next incumbent, should there be one. (One can imaging the 22nd Amendment being repealed so that W can work his presidential magic for life.) A few years ago it would have seemed unimaginable that the United States, for all its faults, would engage in torture, or indefinite detention without charge or trial. Now any depravity not only seems possible, but likely. I sometimes warn critical outspoken American writers to be careful-times have changed, anything is possible. America is crazy. And mean. Watch out!"
- John S. Hatch: Americana Mindless -

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."
- C.S. Lewis -

    "International law requires that every criminal court be competent, independent and impartial. The Iraqi Special Tribunal lacks all of these essential qualities. It was illegitimate in its conception - the creation of an illegal occupying power that demonized Saddam Hussein and destroyed the government it now intends to condemn by law.     "The United States has already destroyed any hope of legitimacy, fairness or even decency by its treatment and isolation of the former president and its creation of the Iraqi Special Tribunal to try him.
   "Among the earliest photographs it released is one showing Hussein sitting submissively on the floor of an empty room with Ahmad Chalabi, the principal U.S. surrogate at that moment, looming over him and a picture of Bush looking down from an otherwise bare wall.
   "The intention of the United States to convict the former leader in an unfair trial was made starkly clear by the appointment of Chalabi's nephew to organize and lead the court. He had just returned to Iraq to open a law office with a former law partner of Defense Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith, who had urged the U.S. overthrow of the Iraqi government and was a principal architect of U.S. postwar planning.
   "The concept, personnel, funding and functions of the court were chosen and are still controlled by the United States, dependent on its will and partial to its wishes. Reform is impossible. Proceedings before the Iraqi Special Tribunal would corrupt justice both in fact and in appearance and create more hatred and rage in Iraq against the American occupation. Only another court one that is actually competent, independent and impartial can lawfully sit in judgment."
- Former Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark: Why I'm Willing to Defend Hussein -

"They wanted me to be in the shower, point to the detainees' genitals and laugh."
- Megan Ambuhl: a former soldier who was dismissed from the US Army last year after pleading guilty in the prisoner abuse scandal -

"I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean."
- G. K. Chesterton -

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
- Aldous Huxley -

   "Last Thursday, at a luncheon sponsored by the New America Foundation, which is aligned with the right wing of the Democratic Party and The New Republic magazine, two former national security advisers, Republican Brent Scowcroft and Democrat Zbigniew Brzezinski, made dire warnings about the prospects for Iraq and the overall recklessness of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
   "Scowcroft told his audience of prominent journalists and foreign policy experts, drawn from various Washington think tanks, that the Bush administration's unilateralism and arrogance were alienating former allies in Europe and the Middle East. US foreign policy was failing to address the implications of the globalization of the world economy, he said, which made it impossible for a single power, even one like the United States with unchallenged military superiority, to simply dictate to the world."
- Patrick Martin: Growing anxiety in US ruling circles over Iraq debacle -

"The global war on terrorism lumps all terrorists together, lumps all Islamic terrorists together and pits them as enemies against us. Strategy is not about uniting your enemies and dividing your friends. It's the opposite."
- Zbigniew Brzezinski -

    "Police arrested an estimated 755,187 persons for marijuana violations in 2003, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total is the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprised 45 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.
   "'These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders,' said Keith Stroup, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), who noted that at current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every 42 seconds in America. 'This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources, costing American taxpayers approximately $7.6 billion dollars annually. These dollars would be better served combating serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism.'
   "Of those charged with marijuana violations, 88 percent - some 662,886 Americans - were charged with possession only."
- Marijuana Arrests For Year 2003 Hit Record High, FBI Report Reveals -

    "The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse. There also have been some art-related insights - I don't know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate. For example, I have spent some time high looking at the work of the Belgian surrealist Yves Tanguey. Some years later, I emerged from a long swim in the Caribbean and sank exhausted onto a beach formed from the erosion of a nearby coral reef. In idly examining the arcuate pastel-colored coral fragments which made up the beach, I saw before me a vast Tanguey painting. Perhaps Tanguey visited such a beach in his childhood.
   "A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I'm down. The enjoyment of food is amplified; tastes and aromas emerge that for some reason we ordinarily seem to be too busy to notice. I am able to give my full attention to the sensation. A potato will have a texture, a body, and taste like that of other potatoes, but much more so. Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of sex - on the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes. The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking."
- Carl Sagan: Mr. X -

"The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was really never given, however a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Morets naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of the Gulf War Syndrome has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military. This malady [from uranium munitions], that thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed."
- Arthur N. Bernklau, Executive Director of the Veterans For Constitutional Law Center in New York, quoted in Heads Roll At The Veterans Administration: Mushrooming Depleted Uranium (DU) Scandal Blamed By Bob Nichols -

"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."
- Don Marquis -

"If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it."
- Pierre Gallois -

"I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail."
- Woodrow Wilson -

"Not long ago one sniper in a Falluja building pinned down 150 Marines for a day. The Marines called in two air strikes, 35 rounds of 155mm artillery and pumped hundreds of rockets and 30,000 rounds of automatic fire from helicopters and ground troops into the small building. A short time later the sniper killed another Marine. They think they may have gotten that guy, now we only have a billion more to go."
- Rack Jite -

"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
- Adolph Hitler: February 1, 1933 -

"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?" 
- Albert Brooks as Aaron Altman in Broadcast News -

"In 1971 Richard Nixon wanted to crush the peace movement in America. His aid Charles Colson brought to his attention a young anti-war upstart by the name of John Kerry. Colson told Nixon he this guy was the most credible voice in the movement and had to be compromised. The two hand picked a recent Vietnam Veteran named John O'Neil to confront the young war hero on the Dick Cavett show. Nixon picked someone even more unfavorable to television cameras than he was. Mr. O'Neil came off as an obtuse skinny little Nixon Wonk who spent most of the hour fumbling through his notes, stammering, whining and being made a complete fool of. He never forgot. Last year he organized and funded the Swiftboat Vets in the most ubiquitous and dishonest character assassination in American election history. This pussbag went so far over the line that as election day closed in he ran ads of grey haired old widows looking into the camera telling point blank lies and blaming Senator Kerry for their husbands deaths. Like Arkansas lawyer Cliff Jackson who spent his life trying to destroy Bill Clinton resulting in an impeachment, O'Neil's life long vendetta may have been the straw that broke Kerry's back. He also made millions on a book rushed out by Right-wing publisher Regnery Publishing."
- Shithead of 2004 - Winner: John O'Neil: The American Shithead Awards -

"For getting a full grasp, for perceiving real significance when significance is at hand, we shall need minds at work from all sorts of brains outside the fields of science, most of all the brains of poets, of course, but also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in general."
- Lewis Thomas -

"An influential congressional committee has dropped a political bombshell by suggesting that a tax originally created to pay for the Spanish American War could be extended to all Internet and data connections this year."
- Declan McCullagh: Congress proposes tax on all Net, data connections -

"Overweight individuals sit around more than those who are lean."
- duh! -

"There are no exact directions. There are probably no directions at all. The only things that I am able to recommend at this moment are a sense of humour; an ability to see the ridiculous and the absurd dimensions of things; an ability to laugh about others as well as about ourselves; a sense of irony and of everything that invites parody in this world. In other words, rising above things, or looking at them from a distance; sensibility to the hidden presence of all the more dangerous types of conceit in others, as well as in ourselves; good cheer; an unostentatious certainty of the meaning of things; gratitude for the gift of life and courage to assume responsibility for it; and a vigilant mind."
- Vaclav Havel upon receiving the 1999 Open Society Prize -

"Sadly though, in striking down Terri's Law, the United States Supreme Court has doomed this noble vegetable, this Terri Schiavo, stripping her of her Bush-given right to serve as a right-wing ideological zombie pawn by indefinitely wallowing in her own filth. But more troubling still, it has created unacceptable confusion around the entire issue of killing retards and vegetables and that I cannot abide."
- President's statement lamenting the Supreme Court's inability to make up it's connon-picking mind about whether it's okay to kill retards and vegetables -

"Writers don't have fans. We just have people who want our job."
- Devin Grayson -

"I wept not, so to stone within I grew."
- Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy -

"It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away."
- Charles Dickens -

"He who, for the sake of learning, lowers himself by exposing his ignorance, will ultimately be elevated."
- Ben Azzai, Talmud: Berakot, 63b -

"If Bush takes the oath of office with his hand on a Bible  and is not struck by lightning, that's proof there is no God."
- Maha -

"Killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
- Albert Einstein -

"Let us be thankful in the coming year, that we Republicans now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, along with the Supreme Court. However, we must not be satisfied. We must find new ways to blame the Democrats for decisions we have made. We must spin harder, and use our tight grip on the cods of the media to squeeze until they completely submit to our will! It's time that the Real Patriots, those who love America, took control! That my friends, is a recipe for a Happy New Year!"
- Raymond P. Clodstill: Republican Resolutions For A New Year -

"So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? The more women achieve, the less desirable they are? Women want to be in a relationship with guys they can seriously talk to - unfortunately, a lot of those guys want to be in relationships with women they don't have to talk to."
- Maureen Dowd: The facts of life: men just want Mommy -

"I haven't dated in 12 million years. I gave up on dating powerful men because they wanted to date women in the service professions. So I decided to date guys in the service professions. But then I found out that kings want to be treated like kings, and consorts want to be treated like kings, too."
- Carrie Fisher -

"Quagmire is the new sexy."
- Pundits for a Buck -

    "45. John McCain:
    "Crimes: Survived years of torture in Vietnam only to become a bend over buddy for a sheltered rich dunce. McCain could have bolstered his largely unearned air of credibility this year had he stood against Bush, but instead chose to show us all that no principle is too fundamental to humanity to be overlooked in the name of party loyalty. We can only hope that they've got something on him, something big.
    "Smoking Gun: Returned to criticizing Bush as soon as it didn't matter anymore.
    "Punishment: Vice President under Rumsfeld."
- The Beast: 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004 -

"Every time you think, you weaken the nation."
- Moe to Curly in Half Shot Shooters -

Everything Else

If you're a whistleblower, perhaps you could use some legal assistance.

Can't figure out whether that question mark should be inside or outside the quotation marks? You need to check out common english errors. 

This site has news about Isratine, which is an interesting solution to the Israel/Palestine problem.

They're all dead, they're all scientists, and the strange circumstances of their deaths add up to the fact that Dead Scientists DO Tell Tales.

Planning on following in Joseph and Mary's footsteps? Here's the border crossing to get into Bethlehem.