The Only Daily That Comes Out Weekly

Issue #187
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The Simpsons Episode from Hell
The season finale of The Simpsons sucked.
Here's what it should have been...
 
The Simpsons
“Stolen Identities”
By Michael Dare
 
Homer gets off work to discover his car being towed away. He complains to the driver who shows him the pink slip proving Homer signed it away.
 
Homer gets a ride to Moe’s and gets soused. He tries to pay his bill with a credit card but it won’t work. “Sorry Homer, but they say I gotta do this,” says Moe as he cuts up the card.
 
Homer goes home to find another family living in his house. They tell him he apparently sold it to them last week. He moves his family into a hotel and goes to the police.
 
Wiggum says “It’s a clear case of stolen identity. We’re getting a lot of this.”
 
“What are you going to do about it?” says Homer.
 
“Everything we can,” says Wiggum, who goes back to doing a crossword puzzle. “What’s another word for moron?” he asks.
 
Bart gets lost on the way to the hotel after school. He discovers Homer’s car parked in someone’s backyard.
 
He tells Homer who goes to the house to investigate. He confronts Snake, who has a good business going stealing identities. The house is full of big screen TVs and laptop computers.
 
“I want my identity back,” says Homer.
 
“Problemo,” says Snake, “the money is already spent. You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”
 
“Turn you into what?” says Homer.
 
“Look, dude, here’s a big screen TV. Take whatever you want. You can start stealing identities too. Here’s a laptop computer. Just type in someone’s name and there’s a program that will hack into the government database and tell you their social security number. With that, you can become them.”
 
Homer takes home the computer and decides to try Snake’s program. He picks a random name out of the phone book, types it in, and wham, he’s got the social security number. Soon he’s got a dozen credit cards, all in the name of Dan Castellaneta.
 
Dan Castellaneta is just finishing up a hard day’s work in the recording studio doing the voice of Homer Simpson when he goes outside to see his car is being towed away. Julie Kavner gives him a ride to a bar where he tries to pay for a drink only to have his credit card cut up by the bartender. He goes home to find another family living in his house, which he apparently sold last week.
 
He goes to the police who tell him “It’s a clear case of stolen identity. It’s happening to everybody. Their headquarters seems to be Springfield.” Dan heads to Springfield.
 
Homer keeps working. Harry Shearer loses his yacht. Nancy Cartwright ends up a bum on the street.
 
Since Cartwright didn’t show up for a recording session, they grab somebody from the hallway to do his voice. Bart wakes up with the voice of Mr. T. “It happens when you get older,” says Homer. “My little boy is growing up,” says Marge.
 
Dan confronts Homer. “If I were you, I wouldn’t cop such a bad attitude,” says Homer. “You are me,” says Dan.
 
Dan tells Homer there’s only one way to straighten this out. Homer has got to go talk to the owner of Fox.
 
Homer packs the whole family into the car and they drive all the way to Fox, which is a large building at the end of a yellow brick road on Pico. They knock on the front door. A small window opens. Homer tells him they’re there to see the owner of Fox. The man (Smithers) says “Go away.”
 
“But Dan Castellaneta sent us,” says Homer.
 
“Come on in,” says the man. “That’s a horse of a different color.”
 
Scrub scrub here, scrub scrub there, the Simpsons are cleaned up before their big meeting with the owner of Fox.
 
They enter a room where the ghostly face of Rupert Murdoch is surrounded by giant flames. “Go away and come again tomorrow,” he says.
 
“Please sir, I just want my identity back,” says Homer.
 
“I want our home back,” says Marge.
 
“I want my real voice,” says Bart.
 
“I want our old TV. Digital sucks,” says Lisa.
 
Santa’s Little Helper runs towards some curtains on the side.
 
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” says Murdoch.
 
Santa has pulled the curtains to reveal a man at a microphone saying “I am the great and powerful owner of Fox.” It’s Matt Groening.
 
“You’re a very bad man,” says Marge.
 
“No, I’m a very good man,” says Groening. “I’m just a very bad cartoonist.”
 
“Enough with the self-deprecating humor,” says Lisa. “Can we just go home?”
 
“You could have gone home whenever you wanted,” says Groening. “All you have to do is click your heels three times and say ‘I’m not a cartoon.’”
 
The Simpsons all click their heels and repeat, “I’m not a cartoon, I’m not a cartoon.”
 
They disappear and reappear back at their sofa in their old house.
 
“So, it was all a dream,” says Homer.
 
“I knew we weren’t cartoons,” says Marge.
 
Bart turns on the TV. It shows them sitting on their sofa. The final credits run, showing “Special Guests: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Harry Shearer, etc.”
 





Google
WWW Disinfotainment Today 

 
FREEDOM AND WEEP
Posted May 25, 2006

Apology of the Week
 
Ice Cream Treat for Pedophiles
by Paul Krassner

    In the course of my career, I’ve had the honor of adding five words and phrases to the language of American slang:
  1. “Yippie!” - which of course has been a shout of joy - forever, it seems - but my contribution became the nickname for the Youth International Party, which protested against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
  2. “Jill off” - the female equivalent of jack off, in a fable I wrote in 1973, Tales of Tongue Fu, about a man with a 15-inch tongue who was very popular with the ladies.
  3. “The Twinkie Defense” - coined in 1979 while I was covering the trial of Dan White, a former cop who murdered San Francisco’s progressive mayor, George Moscone, who advocated the decriminalization of marijuana, and supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the United States.
  4. “Disinfotainment” - I began using this term in the late 1980s to describe disinformation in the guise of entertainment.
  5. “Soft-core pornography” - this became a regular feature in my countercultural magazine, The Realist, during the early 1960s, as a corollary of the Supreme Court’s attempt to define hard-core pornography, and was always accompanied by a photograph, usually of an undoctored advertisement that deliberately relied on sexual titillation for its impact. Example: A few years ago, an ad in the Sunday supplements presented a young girl holding a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch and a carrot stick which she had obviously dipped in that salad dressing. The copy stated, “When Ranch Tastes The Way It’s Supposed To, It Shows.” And, as if to prove that claim, there was a white spurt on this pre-teen’s smiling lips, blatantly resembling what would be a kiddie porn version of an adult facial.
    6.
    Recently, the digitalized photo on this page made the rounds of the Internet. I forwarded it to Arianna Huffington’s blogfest with this headline: “Ice Cream For Pedophiles - or, Sometimes You Just Don’t Need Photoshop.” But then I read the box of text beneath the “Lickable” heading: “Luscious, smooth, sweet and fun. These are just a few of the words we used to describe our new Vanilla Orange Sherbert Creamsicle. These words also apply equally to America’s 2005 Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics Team and the beautiful young ladies that comprise it. In response, Breyers has created a flavor inspired by the sassy metallic orange leotards of our young feminine gymnasts who are eagerly busting their fresh asses to make every American proud. And of course, our RGT themed Creamsicle is as fun to eat as the girls are a pleasure to watch! So come join in on the action. All proceeds to sales from the Vanilla Orange Sherbert Swirls line go to help sponsor our young ladies in competition against other rhythmic gymnasts from around the world.”
    Well, I was wrong. You did need Photoshop. Although I myself am a long-time professional prankster, I must confess that I was totally fooled. It was successful counterfeit because, in the context of a culture based on commercial exploitation, it had balanced, if only temporarily, on the cusp of what’s possible and what’s probable. I immediately sent an e-mail apologizing for perpetuating this hoax, but it had already been posted, and the resulting comments underscored my point. Samples:
    “Somewhere out there is a group of guys in suits who signed off on this. Who looked at this and said to themselves, ‘That looks great! That’s exactly the ad we want for our company!’ And there has to be a marketing guy shaking his head, saying, ‘But...I was kidding.’”
    “You realize that the ‘porn’ is in the viewers’ imagination, don’t you? There is nothing in that picture that would titillate anyone except a very few bent people. We all understand the significance of a crotch shot, so should we ban kids from Olympic games? And how about Miss America, that great Christian burlesque show? Or, more to the point, the mini Miss America contests for six- to ten-year-olds that red-staters love so much?”
    “In a true democracy and free society, no one should feel afraid of information. This ad (phony for sure) is disturbing as it should be. But it can be a lesson for people to start noticing just how manipulating advertising has become as advertisers grow more desperate all the time to force people to see ads.”
    “Wow, I feel strangely compelled to run out and eat a gymnast! What effective advertising!”
    And so I leave you now, with a way to tell when a photo can be considered soft-core porn. It gives you a soft-on.
 
Paul Krassner is the editor of Pot Stories For the Soul, available from www.paulkrassner.com.
 
Anonymous Suggestion of the Week
 
Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border, take the dirt and raise the levies in New Orleans, and put the Florida alligators in the moat.
 
Sophistimicated Doowacky of the Week
Head yourself over to the Indian Name Generator
 
History Lesson from Hell
 
History and the Press 
By Denis Mueller 
 
    One of the problems, which has resulted in the debacle we now face in Iraq, is a press corps that seems to be more interested in cuddling up to the powers that be than giving the public information that it needs. It is a lack of historical context and an unwillingness to ask tough questions that has made our press dupes for those who wish to give us disinformation. Instead of asking tough questions; they sit idly by and allow the administration to broadcast their scenarios without serious analysis as to whether what they say is true or not.
    During the election of 2004, the right-wing press vilified John Kerry for his activates in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. They were especially incensed by his charges that American soldiers had committed barbarous acts such as cutting off ears, noses and other unspeakable acts. What was never brought up by the press was whether these actions were true. To find this out all they had to do was ask three reporters for the Toledo Blade whether it was true. The reporters had written a series about a unit that was created especially for terrorizing the Vietnamese countryside and how this was covered up by our government. The men who decided to bury a report from the army on the atrocities were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Sound familiar?
    Tiger Force was a special unit that was sent to do commando work but the pressure of the war and the casualties they had suffered caused them to do things that many would rather forget. This is historic fact but the press never asked these reporters, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their work, to appear on one of their shows and answer any questions about what Kerry had said. The truth, and the search for truth, seems to be low on the agenda for the Washington press corps.
 
 
MP3 of the Week
 
Afghan blogs, Montenegro blogs, Irani and Iraqi blogs, they're all at Global Voices Online. Get the news of the world from the people themselves, not the corrupt official news sources. All kinds of news here that nobody, absolutely nobody, is reporting in America. Even simply sites such as Hindus trading recipes put an interesting spin on your view of the world. Among other things, I found an MP3 of the song Baba Yetu (the lord's prayer in Swahili) sung by the Stanford University music group Talisman A Cappella. It'll show up on American radio when Osama bin Laden gets circumcised, and it is right up there with the opening of The Lion King.
 
Tony Peyser's Blue State Jukebox is a collection of music reviews that will turn you on to dozens of incredible CDs from people you've never heard of, fulfilling his promise of "sharing with readers musical artists who have real talent, singular perspectives on what’s going on in the world and are currently flying under the pop music radar." No actual MP3s but hey, just look 'em up in Limewire (Not Morpheus!) and download away.
 
Answers to Last Issue's Stupid Questions
 
Question one: Linda Lightfoot's Swift-Boat e-mail contained a list of everyone she sent it to. Since she refused to correct her error, I asked if I should just forward the Snopes links to all of them.
 
The answer was overwhelmingly yes, with several hell yeses, and one Absofuckinlutely. Some comments...
 
MOST DEFINITELY send it to the whole list. That kind of bullshit needs to stop. It's one thing to get this crap from the "liberal media" all the time, who never seem to check THEIR facts either, but to get it from REAL people. How much more of a good dry reaming (sans reach around) can the average working class person take from these fucking power hungry assholes, before they wake up? I get emails which are very inflammatory towards the Moslems in general, and Bin Laden in particular. Aren't they all gonna be embarrassed when they find out it was George and his henchmen who brought down the twin towers?
- Ansel C. Gunn
 
    Look at it this way:
    Let's say your email is 10K bytes in size, and you forward it to ten
friends.  That's an amplification of 10X per hop.

Hop  |  Number of Recipients  |  Bytes of Bandwidth Used

1      10                              100,000
2      100                             1,000,000
3      1,000                          10,000,000
4      10,000                        100,000,000
5      100,000                      1,000,000,000
6      1,000,000                   10,000,000,000
7      10,000,000                 100,000,000,000
8      100,000,000               1,000,000,000,000
9      1,000,000,000            10,000,000,000,000

Notice that between the 8th and 9th hop you have sent the message to every single person on the Internet (about 200 million worldwide) and used up at least 2 terabytes of bandwidth, or the full capacity of over 5 million DSL accounts.  All for one stupid joke or other inane message you probably wouldn't even bother to cut out of a newspaper and post on your fridge.
- RGF
 
I have tried and tried to refer those people who send me this off the wall bullshit to the SNOPES site but to no avail. The people who send this stuff on are known as "FORWARDERS" and they never let their fingers come in contact with their keyboard except to forward this Bullshit. Forgive them dear lord because the stupid bastards cannot understand what they forwardith.
- Margie Kopins
 
Having received a similar outpouring of bile before the 2004 election when I tried to correct a slightly-conservative (slighty-whitey?) friend's notion that Bush wasn't *that* rich and only lived on his 'meager' presidential salary (practically born in a log cabin), while Kerry was a gazillionaire who snorted caviar off the rumps of $1,000-a-night hookers (may be true, but Bush is still a very rich man), a correction for which I was derided as a 'wacko pinko commie liberal puke,' I can sympathize with your case. Go ahead, send it on; Linda's friends sound like they are impervious to annoyance, seeing as how they correspond with Ms. Lighthead in the first
place, and either they'll appreciate the facts, or you'll have more entertaining hate mail to share with your readers.
- RS Janes
 
And so I sent it off. Turns out several others on her list had written her about her mistake, and she replied with the same aplomb, telling one of them "I sent you that bill and hillary email AS A JOKE, you humor-challenged asshole!" I offered to post Linda's reply to me. Here it is...
 
    I've left NetWits, Michael -- now leave me the fuck alone.  Do not ever email me again.  I do not need this kind of harrassment from someone of your ilk.
    I fucking apologize -- are you happy now?  Feel like you won?  Feeling good about yourself.
    Fuck you.
- St. James
 
And the best comment, of course, from W. Bruce Cameron,
 
For the record, I'm not reading any of these. And I think if you want to read a bunch of long winded, pointless drivel, you should all buy my book, How to Remodel a Man.
 
 
Question two: Why the fuck are the season finales of House, Boston Legal, and Scrubs all on at the same time?
 
so that i can ignore them all without spending too much of my valuable time in doing so.  who gives a fuck is a better question.  this one was stupid. [Thank you. It IS called the stupid question of the week.]
- chris from boca
 
Since I only watch Boston Legal, the Scrubs are not at my House and no good answer rises to the Surface -- I'm just Lost in The Twilight Zone. A bad answer might be because Everybody Loves Raymond's Desperate Housewives and his Will & Grace are weak, but it's All in the Family so I'll Leave It to Beaver, one of The Sopranos, to sing that tune. Happy Days and Good Times are surely ahead! Oh, get Real; Time waits for no American, Idol or not.
- RSJ

To boost DVD sales of course.
- Nick Kent

The fact that they are on at the same time should be of no consequence to you as House is the only one worth your valuable time. Your side note: House is not about the disease, IMHO, but about the ethical dilemmas that transpire in the search for the cure. That’s what makes it head and tales about the rest.- Ben Larson I'll tell you the reason why all the season finales are competing against each other.  The people at the networks are fucking bastards!  I only watch a few selected shows and for some reason these fucking network bastards keep putting them in the same time slots. I tape a lot of stuff.
- Poopsie

The doctors from House and Scrubs like to be on when Captain Kirk and Murphy Brown are otherwise occupied.  It cuts down on their chances of being sued for malpractice.
- Locke

Because TiVo's nefarious plot to be ubiquitous hasn't come to pass yet. I don't have it either. Remember, networks did this even before domestic VCR's were available. (Trivia note: Elvis bought the first one.) However, MY stupid question is, since both TiVo and VCR's are available, why is this an issue with you? Get three friends in a pool, each agreeing to tape one of the shows, and gather around the biggest TV and watch them.
Kind regards,
- Jimmy McConnell
Stupid Question of the Week

My whole neighborhood suffered a power blackout all day Monday, which means I not only missed the two-hour season finale of 24, of which I'd seen the entire previous 22 hours, but the SERIES finale of Alias, of which I'd seen the entire previous five years. Anybody got copies?

Meanwhile, please tell me what didn't happen. No spoilers, please, just concise descriptions of how 24 and Alias DIDN'T end. For 24, please include a scene where Jack Bauer punches the President of the United States in the face, and for Alias, please include a scene where Rachel Nichols takes her clothes off. (If you want to tell me how Will and Grace didn't end, that's okay too.)
 
Galleries of the Week
Rob Gonsalves is the spiritual descendent of M.C. Escher.
Don't miss Seamless Pictures.
 
Scott Kim is the spiritual descendent of M.C. Escher too.
Don't miss Inversions
 
Satan Doesn't Want You to Know
 
The most common side effects of the nicotine patch are skin rash, sweating, stomach pain, anxiety, dizziness, trouble sleeping, nausea, sore throat and fast heartbeat.
 
Don't Take My Word for It
 
    "The Persian Gulf sits on top of the greatest pool of oil reserves in the world. Over the past few decades, it has been the site of two major wars, an Islamic revolution, and political and economic developments that have affected every country in the world. It is also the home of more than 118 million people, whose cultures extend back to the origins of recorded history. 
    "Nevertheless, for most non-specialists the Gulf remains a mysterious and even forbidding part of the world. This site hopes to remove some of the mystery. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can visit any of these countries, read their local newspapers, check the latest news from the region, and find information about every aspect of their history, geography, politics, economics, military forces and much more. 
    "We have identified what we believe are the most informative and reliable sources of information about the Persian Gulf. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of every item of information that you may find in the many sources collected here, but we have made it as easy as possible to cross-check facts between data collections located throughout the world."
 
"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."
- Alice Kahn -
 
    "As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic shih tzus in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.
    "It's like a cross between Versailles under Louis XIV and high school: obsequious courtiers flattering their way to favor, plus the silly cliques of the 'in crowd' and 'out crowd.' On the other hand, I am greatly cheered by the young journalists in the blogosphere who have now whelped a perfect litter of books worth paying attention to.
    "For my marbles and chalk, the pick is David Sirota's Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government -- and How We Take It Back. Sirota is a new-generation populist who instinctively understands that the only real questions are 'Who's getting screwed' and 'Who's doing the screwing?'
    "The extent to which corporate power has taken over the country and is running the table cannot be exaggerated and must not be ignored. Sirota has not only collected much new and useful information, he has put it into a package that provides handy weapons to fight back."
- Molly Ivins: Rolling Over for Bush -
 
"Who is hospitable, and friendly,
Liberal and unselfish,
A guide, an instructor, a leader,
Such a one to honour may attain."
- Buddha: Digha Nikaya 31 -
 
"Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis."
- John Dewey -
 
    "I smell mendacity! The sticky-sweet Atlanta drawl of the PR flack for America's private KGB was dancing in rhetorical circles with Randi Rhodes, Air American, broadcast yesterday. Unfortunately for the Bush-friendly Spies-R-Us contractor, Randi also has a keen nose for the telltale scent of pure bullshit.
    "By 'private KGB,' I mean ChoicePoint, Inc., the Atlanta company that keeps over 16 billion records on Americans which it sells to the FBI, Homeland Security and, through a bit of a slip-up, identity thieves.
    "They are watching you because George and Dick don't have time to track everyone in America (and that would be illegal, to boot), ChoicePoint does it. Then turns over the electronic you - cross-matched profiles of voting registration, your DNA info and who knows what else - for a price...
    "The company's name came up because of the Bush regime's getting caught with their hands in the data jar: spying on Americans, sucking our phone records into data bases where George and Dick can peruse them at leisure, without warrants.
    "ChoicePoint's the big banana in the data game, with fat no-bid contracts with Big Brother Bush's agency and the Department of Fatherland Security. (Homeland? Deutschland? Whatever.) Other governments, including Mexico, threatened ChoicePoint operatives with arrest for their use and misuse of data, but Dick and George like'm just fine. That's because ChoicePoint provides just the data that suits their needs -- not necessarily accurate, but accurate is not what is needed.
    "For example, ChoicePoint is the company that gave Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush the list of Florida voters, most of them Black, which were removed as 'felons' before the 2000 election. The list was ridiculously inaccurate -- these were innocent citizens - but those African-Americans lost their voting rights anyway and Jeb's brother thereby took the White House.
    "That's not nice, what Jeb and Katherine did - but ChoicePoint kept silent. In return, they received a high, and highly suspect, fee for their 'work.' 
    "And that's dangerous. Because, after ChoicePoint selected our president for us, our president selected them for no-bid jobs to save us from terrorists - which they do by keeping track of us. (Odd, I thought Americans were the VICTIMS of terror - they've made us the SUSPECTS.)"
    "Right now there is a fierce Capitol Hill war being waged over whether the Internet will continue to belong to the citizens of America or will start to move down the path that cable television went: only the big players will survive as fully accessible content providers, as the Telecom broadband providers start to set up toll gates on the Net. 
    "To make this account simple: advocates of democracy on the Internet with virtually no barriers for content entry are known as proponents of "net neutrality." The Telecom companies who want to start charging tolls for content, among other nefarious plans, are the bad guys. 
    "Right now, many of the leading progressive blogs on the net are running ads by the bad guys. Not only are these ads promoting the corporate takeover of Internet content, they are totally misleading, along the lines of the nuke industry running ads on 'How Nuclear Leaks Make Your Community Healthier.'"
 
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."
- John Adams -
 
    "Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute a front group funded by ExxonMobil and other big oil companies launched two advertisements in response to Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Truth. 
    "The first ad portrays global warming science as a vicious smear campaign against carbon dioxide. The ad, which despite appearances is not an SNL parody, helpfully reminds us that carbon dioxide is 'essential to life' because we 'breath it out.'
    "Its comforting to know that this is the best global warming rejectionists can come up with. There are plenty of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities but harmful in extremely large quantities. (For example, drinking a few glasses of water is beneficial. Drinking 10 gallons of water can kill you.) We need some carbon dioxide, but too much causes global warming."
 
    "At last count Halliburton had 58 offshore subsidiaries in Caribbean tax havens. With Cheney at the helm Halliburton's tax payments to the U.S. went from $302 million in 1998 to zero in 1999, when they also received a refund of $85 million from the Internal Revenue Service. 
    "During Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000, Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. The Halliburton subsidiary does approximately $40 million a year worth of oil field service work for the Iranian government. 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl visited the subsidiary in the Cayman Islands and found that it had no office and no employees. The mailing address was a local bank with which the subsidiary is registered. Stahl was met there by the banks manager who informed her that all mail to the subsidiary is forwarded to Halliburton headquarters in Houston. Halliburton had created the subsidiary to allow itself to do illegal business with a rogue state and to skip out on its taxes in the process. 
    "With Iran's president vowing to destroy Israel and being accused by the Bush administration of harboring and aiding al-Qaeda operatives, Cheney's company is doing business with Iran through a subsidiary and dodging its tax obligations to the U.S."
- Tom Turnipseed: Dick Cheney: War Profiteer -
 
"I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster."
- Franklin Roosevelt did during World War II -
 
    "Last week, the Secret Service turned over its records of Jack Abramoff's White House visits to Judicial Watch. The records indicated a paltry two visits - an unbelievably low tally.
    "Everybody knew that Judicial Watch had gotten the shaft. It just wasn't clear how.
    "Well, here's how: the Secret Service doesn't have the records - the White House does. That's because the Secret Service transfers their more comprehensive visitor logs, called WAVES (Workers Appointments and Visitors Entry System) records, to the White House every 60 days. If Judicial Watch, or anyone else, wants to find out how often Jack Abramoff visited the White House, they'll have to FOIA (and then probably sue) the Executive Office of the President. All they'll get from the Secret Service are Access Control Records, which, as we found out last Wednesday, don't tell you very much...
    "So the Secret Service only has WAVES dating back to October 2004. That's long after Abramoff would have been welcome at the White House - The Washington Post kicked off the Abramoff scandal in February of that year. And that's why the search turned up nothing from the WAVES."
 
    "If you listen to the Bush version of reality, the president is all powerful. In that version, we are fighting a war against terrorism, which is a war that will never end. And as long as we are at war (forever), there is no limit to the war-fighting powers the president can claim as commander in chief.
    "So we’ve kidnapped people and sent them off to be tortured in the extraordinary rendition program; and we’ve incarcerated people at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere without trial or even the right to know the charges against them; and we’re allowing the C.I.A. to operate super-secret prisons where God-knows-what-all is going on; and we’re listening in on the phone calls and reading the e-mail of innocent Americans without warrants; and on and on and on.
    "The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.
    "Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.
    "There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George W. Bush has done to his country."
- Bob Herbert: America the Fearful -
 
"Self-important, obstinate, swept away by the pride of wealth, they ostentatiously perform sacrifices without any regard for their purpose. Egotistical, violent, arrogant, lustful, angry, envious of everyone, they abuse my presence within their own bodies and in the bodies of others."
- Bhagavad Gita: 16:17-18 -
 
"A sodomite got very excited looking at a zoology text. Does this make it pornography?"
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec -
 
"I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
- Harry S Truman -
 
    "There are many in the mainstream media who promote a conspiratorial origin of the Drug War. Their claim is that the Congress, CIA, DEA, etc. (all groups noted for their altruism and concern for the common man) are engaged in a massive conspiracy to promote public health by raising the cost of certain drugs. Like most conspiracy theories, it is somewhat non-disprovable as to its claims for the motivations of the political classes. However, we can disprove the notion that raising the cost of drugs to users is good for them.
    "There have been many controlled experiments in this field. Take the previously mentioned case of US alcohol Prohibition. Deaths from adulterated alcohol soared during Prohibition, then went back down after repeal. Murder rates also went up, as did the economic cost of providing alcohol. Alcoholism rates were not affected. Then to add insult to injury, large well-controlled medical studies proved that moderate alcohol consumption, especially of red wine, is an important component of cardiac health. So it’s a good thing that Prohibition failed so completely, or millions would have suffered early heart attacks.
    "Another controlled experiment was Canada’s attempt to put a $5 tax on cigarettes. Mass smuggling began immediately through the Mohawk Nation, with the usual murders and mayhem. Did Canadians quit smoking because their nicotine cost more? Did anyone expect them to? Of course not. New York has tried the same thing many times, with similar consequences.
    "The same story is repeated with opiates and cocaine. Before the Harrison Act, Americans used cocaine and opiates. Just like Rush Limbaugh, most of them used their drugs to overcome the various pains of life, while continuing to hold down their jobs and live their lives. Cheap heroin and cocaine didn’t cause financial havoc for the users. And of course, most people weren’t affected… because they didn’t touch the stuff. Abstinence was somewhat promoted by the fact that drugstore sellers of legal drugs didn’t come into the junior high schools and push their wares.
Death rates from illegal drugs are less than precise. Still, it is clear that hundreds of thousands of people die from tobacco use yearly, while deaths from all illegal drugs are estimated to be in the neighborhood of 5,000. Deaths from alcoholism and alcohol/drug interactions are in the tens of thousands; overdose deaths from marijuana (a drug with some substitution potential for alcohol) are zero.
    "The final nail in the benevolent-conspiracy theory is this: it is forbidden to sell safer alternative recreational drugs. The pharmaceutical companies are quite capable of providing drugs that mimic alcohol, nicotine, or whatever you want with fewer side effects. In fact, there is an alcohol mimic that has a 'sober-up pill' to go with it; anyone concerned about the safety of children on the highways would have to see this as a positive social good. But there is no FDA category for 'recreational drug.' Anyone who tries to save the cirrhotic liver of the alcoholic will be locked up. This shows that whatever the motivation of the Drug War, it isn’t concern for health...
    "Cost #3: Loss of labor. About 1.5 million people were arrested for drug possession and/or sale in 2003. The overall US prison and jail population is over 2 million. Let’s say roughly half that number is related to the drug war. When each drug user is criminalized, they turn from a worker making an average of $40,000 to an inmate costing around $30,000; that would be another $70 billion or so annually.
    "The obvious solution for the productive classes is to abolish all price supports, whether for milk, cocaine, or sugar. Abolition of Drug Prohibition in the US would effectively end it worldwide. This would return trillions of dollars and millions of people to productive work, and divert their support from the parasitic classes around the world.
    "The obvious solution for the political class is the opposite; their solution is to try to make nicotine, caffeine, and phenylethylamine illegal too. If you like your green tea or dark chocolate, better oppose cocaine price supports on principle."
 
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
- Jeannette Rankin -
 
"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."
- Jules Renard -
 
"I just read where Mexico's Cantarell oil field is the second-largest oil field IN THE WORLD. Wow! So why is that country so poor? And, if Mexico has all that oil, why are poverty-stricken illegal immigrants invading our home? Maybe they are just following the trail of booty stolen from their own looted homes."
 
    "The US government continues an unwinnable war in Iraq while building massive permanent bases and the largest embassy compound ever built. Not only does the US have no intention of leaving Iraq, it has committed — whether under Republican or Democratic leadership — to staying forever —whatever that means. The Empire’s position is clear, not as a result of what it says, but as a result of what it has done. America ’s primary plan to deal with Peak Oil is to fight or intimidate for energy supplies wherever it deems necessary. That, of course, has forced the rest of the world — with a few notable exceptions like Norway and Brazil — to dance to the same sheet music. As a result, I would estimate that of every ten units of energy (or money) expended preparing for Peak Oil today, nine are spent preparing for war while only one is spent building lifeboats and teaching people how to survive.  This is sheer insanity.
    "On January 12, Britain’s Independent announced that Norway had begun preparations for a global environmental and economic collapse. The story reported that Norway has revealed a plan to build a 'doomsday vault' hewn out of an Arctic mountain to store two million crop seeds in the event of a global disaster. The store is designed to hold all the seeds representing the world's crops and is being built to safeguard future food supplies in the event of widespread environmental collapse.
    "When one is preoccupied with survival, anything beyond survival becomes an imponderable luxury. And to mistakenly label a luxury a necessity makes it impossible to survive. 
    "Let us not forget that in order to get to the Post-carbon world that is inevitable we must first survive the collapse and the die off that is inevitable. The challenges of the transition period will be completely different from the challenges of living in a world without cheap energy.
    "If the spiritual or religious paradigm that you live under influences your thinking in either direction, then that paradigm is your enemy and my enemy. What is it that you think about before you think? Find it, identify it, and discard anything that is not a survival necessity.
    "The only thing that the universe is offering the human species now is the opportunity to change — to evolve or to perish.
    "Perhaps there is a new understanding of God awaiting those who survive. I have long held the personal belief that religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell and that true spirituality is for those who have already been there.
    "What I do know, because I have faced many survival challenges in my life, is that the less baggage one takes into any survival situation, the more likely one is to survive."
- Michael C. Ruppert: THE PARADIGM IS THE ENEMY: The State of the Peak Oil Movement at the Cusp of Collapse -
 
    "The mission of Post Carbon Institute is to assist in the effort to relocalize communities and adapt to an energy constrained world. Post Carbon Institute is a think, action and education tank offering research, project tools, education and information to implement proactive strategies to adapt to an energy constrained world.
    "The development of Post Carbon Institute came out of concern for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on cheap energy. Our main response to these concerns is the strategy of Relocalization, which aims to rebuild societies based on the local production of food and energy, and the Relocalization of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of Relocalization are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity.
 
    "We, the descendants of the drunken, violent Irishmen, Jewish gangsters, Italians (!), etc., accuse Mexicans of causing crime. Well, when you make it illegal for people to work, then by definition they cause crime by supporting themselves with honest labor. Amazingly, the vast majority of them manage to do so in spite of every obstacle that government puts in their way. Of course people living with insecure property rights cannot be as stable as those whose natural rights are (somewhat) respected by the laws. Making immigration legal would instantly raise the stability, incentives, and productivity of all the currently illegal workers. Legal status would make it more profitable for the workers to invest in their own homes, education, retirement funds, etc. The high crime rate in the US comes from two things that are not part of our traditional Irish-German-Italian-African-Japanese-etc. culture (and therefore did not exist during the previous immigration waves): a permanent welfare class, and Drug Prohibition. Illegal immigrants did not cause either of these problems...
    "Really Want to Reduce Immigration?
    "The truth is that most people don't come here because they are desperate to leave their family to live in the land of Eminem and Britney Spears. They come because the American taxpayer funds an oligarchy or dictatorship that makes it very difficult for them to make a living in their home country.
    "Governments everywhere in the world are dependent on US taxpayer money. This money is what allows them to exist independent of economic reality. The 'Mexican' government is purely a creation of the US taxpayer, funded by periodic $50 billion bailouts. If you want Mexicans to be able to stay in Mexico , quit letting your politicians spend your money to support the parasitic Mexican political kleptocracy."
 
"Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still."
- Dale Carnegie -
 
"There are more fools in the world than there are people."
- Heinrich Heine -
 
"We've got them now."
- George Armstrong Custer's last words -

 

 
You are cordially invited to
The Best of Disinfotainment Today - 2005
A Year of Journalism with the Crap Removed

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Last Disinfotainment Today, Issue #186, was much better than this one,
and so is Issue #666.


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    The Best of Disinfotainment Today

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  1. Deluded Idiot of the Week: Linda Lightfoot - The E-Mail Forwarder
  2. Deluded Idiot of the Week: The Anonymous Anti-Immigration Shopper
  3. Boston Legal to the Rescue
  4. Cheney Bags his Limit
  5. The Corner of Irate and Insane or Have a little Danish with your hummus
  6. How I Would Re-Write the Constitution
  7. The Impossibles
  8. Meet an FBI Porn Squad Agent by Paul Krassner
  9. History Lesson from Hell - Frank Cavestani's Operation Last Patrol
  10. Create Your Own Pandemic and Media Scare! by Dana Ullman
  11. My New Years Resolution
  12. Fear and Laughing in Las Vegas by Paul Krassner
  13. Heavenly Times
  14. Professional Journalism, and not just a cheap attempt to get free Eagles tickets
  15. Personal Problems
  16. The Three Most Inappropriate Uses of the Presidential Seal
  17. 20 Articles I Never Finished Writing
  18. Lost In Translation: Iraqi CIA page translated into English
  19. Imagine There's No Jesus: Review of The God Who Wasn't There
  20. Harriet Miers: An Offer They Better Refuse
  21. There Goes the Son
  22. I Can't Believe I Hate the Whole Thing
  23. The Battle of New Orleans
  24. Bottom of the Birdcage Award for the Worst Newspaper in America
  25. Message from Art Kunkin about the new LA Free Press
  26. Christopher Walken Campaign Speech
  27. The Book of Job is a Crock
  28. Recognizing Rick
  29. The Boy Who Cried Wolf by Tim Ireland
  30. Guest Critic Michael Jackson reviews Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  31. Ten Theories of Who Did the London Bombings by Mr. Conspiracy
  32. Confidential PBS Report by R.S. Janes
  33. Open Letters to the Kansas School Board
  34. Greed Glitch in Human DNA Discovered
  35. What We Can Learn from Penguins by Michael Dare
  36. Al Franken for President by Paul Krassner
  37. Mobile Media Memory Dump by Michael Dare
  38. The Speech I Wasn't Allowed to Give by Michael Dare
  39. Going, Going, Gonzo by Michael Dare
  40. Pride and Paranoia by Paul Krassner
  41. Happy April 15
  42. Pope John Paul on Satan for a Day
  43. Johnny Cochran Meets Dr. Hip by Paul Krassner
  44. Terri Schiavo on Satan for a Day
  45. The End of Journalism by Paul Krassner
  46. My First Crisis of Conscience
  47. Spoiler Alert: Million Dollar Baby or Won't Get Food Again
  48. Gonzo Journalist of the Year Award
  49. Fear and Loathing at the Funeral Parlor by Michael Dare
  50. Blowing Deadlines by Paul Krassner
  51. Meaningless Rant and the subsequent discussion of gay marriage
  52. Fever Dream I and III by Michael Dare
  53. Rumpleforeskin Awards for 2004 by Paul Krassner
  54. Happy New Year, Planet Earth by Jim Channon
  55. Double Agent by Paul Krassner
  56. I Confess, I'm breaking two new laws by Michael Dare
  57. The Brain Monologues by Michael Dare
  58. Chilling Effects by Paul Krassner
  59. Memorial to David Jove
  60. The Rapture President by Paul Krassner
  61. A Government Fable
  62. Russ Meyer and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
  63. Mr. Metaphor on Stagecoaches
  64. A Kinder, Gentler Paper by Paul Krassner
  65. Little Guantanamo and the Republican Convention by Erin Starr
  66. Howl for Girlie Men by Paul Krassner
  67. The New Olympics
  68. The REAL My Pet Goat
  69. Republican Campaign Song by Michael Dare
  70. Defying Convention by Paul Krassner
  71. Zen Bastard: When Arnold Met Martha by Paul Krassner
  72. DVD of the Week: 911 In Plane Site
  73. "Urge Curt D. Pangracs to Quit His Job" Petition
  74. Meet the Norms by Michael Dare
  75. Zen Bastard: I Forgot What This Article is Called by Paul Krassner
  76. The Simpsons and the South Park Kids visit Abu Ghraib
  77. DVD of the Week: Orwell Rolls in His Grave
  78. Why I Won't Watch the Nick Berg Video
  79. The Destroyed Tapes of the Air Traffic Controllers on 9/11
  80. Zen Bastard: Deep Throats - Was Monica Lewinsky the 20th Hijacker? by Paul Krassner
  81. Letter to Mary Beckerman
  82. Four Zen Bastards by Paul Krassner
  83. Letter from Jack Cohen-Joppa of the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu.
  84. Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" Speech
  85. Free Bumperstickers
  86. Nothing Bad About Rabbits
  87. Studio Script Notes on The Passion by Steve Martin
  88. In the Eyes of the Law, I'm a Criminal by Montel Williams and Lawrence Grobel
  89. Why I'm Not a Terrorist
  90. My Candidate: John Buchanan: Bush's GOP Challenger Detained by US Secret Service
  91. Republican Zen Bastard: Meet the Republican who will Challenge Bush by Paul Krassner
  92. Zen Bastard: Predictions for 2004 by Paul Krassner
  93. Making the Yoke Obsolete
  94. Good News/Bad News about Saddam's Capture
  95. Zen Bastard: Blowjobs, Ballet, Baggies - the parts left out of the Reagan movie by Paul Krassner
  96. Tips on Junk Calls by Ken Rubin
  97. The Worst Commercial on Television
  98. Marketing Ploys from Hell
  99. Zen Bastard: Threats Against the President by Paul Krassner
  100. The Bush/Nazi Connection: Journalist John Buchanan gets targeted
  101. Why Schwarzenegger Gropes
  102. Issue #1 of the Hollywood Free Press
  103. Me and Monty Python
  104. Special 9/11 "Don't Take My Word for It"
  105. Zen Bastard: Who's Need to Know? by Paul Krassner
  106. Equal Time with Bob Boudelang, Angry American Patriot (An Other Triumph For George W. And You Cannot Prove Those Are My Baboon Noses So Stop Saying That!!)
  107. Mordechai Vanunu: The Prisoner of Zion by Mary La Rosa
  108. Equal Time with Bob Boudelang, Angry American Patriot (I Am Not Fair and Balanced and I Am Not A Sissy For Having A George W. Bush Doll So Stop Saying That!!)
  109. Bob Hope's Last Monologue from Heaven by Lynette Sheffield
  110. Inside/Outside #1: The Riddicks vs. Judge Burrell by Billy Hayes
  111. The California Choice
  112. Creation Science Fair Proves God Exists by Tom Norris
  113. What Would Jesus Do About Cramps? by Nancy Cain
  114. Summer Reading or Harry Potter vs. What's-His-Face
  115. Scumbags of the Week - Letter to the RIAA
  116. Hello Mullah, Hello Fatwah
  117. The Israeli Wall
  118. Dream Job or How Disinfotainment Today Almost Came Out in Print
  119. Celebrities vs. the United States Government
  120. Test of the National Homeland Reconciliation and Healing System
  121. The Still Missing Artifacts
  122. Why Bush is Nothing Like Hitler
  123. Tim Robbins' Speech to theNational Press Club
  124. Randy Newman's "Follow the Flag"
  125. How I would Re-Write the Bill of Rights by Satan
  126. I Didn't See the News Today, Oh Boy
  127. Global Voice by Jim Channon
  128. Daniel Ellsberg's Review of the Made-for-TV Movie The Pentagon Papers
  129. The Lemon Pledge of Allegiance
  130. U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
  131. Message from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  132. Obfuscation of the Week: Who grows the most opium? We do.
  133. Urgent Plea for Assistance from George W. Bush
  134. How I Got the Rights to Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction
  135. Please Help the FBI Find These People
  136. The Adventures of Xarvon: Alien Investigator
  137. The Under-Reported Story of the Year - Margie Schoedinger vs. George W. Bush
  138. Why I'm Optimistic About the Future by Paul Krassner
  139. Booze (A movie I'd like to see)
  140. Hope (after the election)
  141. The Empty Boat by Chuang Tzu
  142. Special Halloween/Election Issue
  143. What's Wrong with Leonard Maltin?
  144. Forwarded E-mail from Satan
  145. A Letter from Tom Robbins
  146. Good Thing/Bad Thing - American Foreign Policy
  147. The Ultimate Politically Correct Flag and Pledge of Allegiance
  148. A Letter from Paul Krassner
  149. The History of Denials


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