I'm not a terrorist because nobody is. That's right, terrorists don't exist. There isn't one, not one, anywhere. Nobody's a terrorist because terror isn't a cause. Philanthropists are devoted to philanthropy and want to advance the cause. Communists are devoted to communism and want to advance the cause. Realists are devoted to reality and want to advance the cause. It stands to reason that a terrorist must be devoted to terror but there's obviously no such thing. Do you actually think there are people out there who are trying to advance the cause of TERROR (other than John Carpenter and Boy George)? If terrorists are trying to win us over, they are asking us to join their "cause" and become terrorists with them. That's ridiculous. Unlike Christians who can't help but dream of a world full of Christians, or racists who like to picture a world full of Anglo-Saxon DNA, even a terrorist isn't hoping for a world full of terrorists. That would suck any way you look at it.
    We call suicide bombers "terrorists" but they're not advocating a world of terror in which people randomly blow themselves up. They don't want that any more than the next guy. I'm quite sure that every one of the people we've labeled "terrorist" has got something other than terror on their mind. Could be Allah, could be the olive fields, could be their lack of a life, could be a love affair gone wrong, could be bad schooling, bad family, bad religion, bad luck, or the only available means to express themselves.
    Terror is more a tactic than a cause. Like the Nazi blitzkrieg, it serves a purpose in wartime, annihilating the enemy, but it isn't the purpose itself. Nazi soldiers didn't die in honor of the "blitzkrieg" any more than Palestinians are dying in honor of "terrorism."
   The first lady came to visit a local library this week. Nice target, but I didn't go there to blow myself up for all kinds of reasons and the fact that I'm not a terrorist is the least of them. Lack of transportation would be my biggest problem, but even that's not why I didn't do it. I've got something to live for. Ending it now would be stupid. I've read every Shakespeare play, seen every Kubrick movie, heard every Sondheim song, smelled a million flowers, touched the Atlantic and Pacific, and experienced the full range of human emotions, from total bliss to abject despair, but I've never been to Paris. How could I possibly blow myself up with the first lady when I've never been to Paris?
    Yep, I've still got hope. You don't want to see the list of things I've never done but still hope to do. It'll just depress you but not me. It's what keeps me alive.
    How do we get them, whoever THEY are, from blowing themselves up or crashing into our buildings? Treat them like we treat all potential suicides. Bombing just happens to be the means they're using to achieve that goal. They want to go with a splash. People who quietly take their own lives by other means rarely make the paper. Taking as many others with you is the fastest way to celebrityhood on the terror express, albeit post mortem.
   Do what suicide hotlines do. Preach that life is worth living. MAKE life worth living. Read them Shakespeare or Monty Python or anything that isn't a sacred text and tell them there's lots more. Show them The Seven Samurai and Lord of the Rings and Finding Nemo and The Man Who Would be King and tell them there's lots more. Play them Beethoven symphonies and tell them there are also 17 string quartets that are even better. Feed them deep dish Chicago pizza and Bass Ale. Take them to Disneyland. How can anyone blow themselves up when there's Finding Nemo II to look forward to? Making lives worth living is a hell of a lot cheaper than bombs and walls. Once their lives are worth living, the war on terror is won.

"Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself."
- Louis Mann: In Quest of the Bluebird -

Bill Wyatt won 10% of the vote in the Republican primary in Oklahoma. Because Oklahoma is NOT winner-take-all, he should get at least four delegates, but the Republican Party isn't giving them to him. The Republican Convention is locked. No delegates allowed if they're not pledged to Bush.

"Of course the GOP has decided that there would be no challenge, like a private company or religious group might decide such a thing, and they have taken away the opportunity for the Republican constituents to have a right to vote. If we let this type of thing happen we may never get the chance to choose a President again. The only thing unusual about this year is that they are getting away with it and the media is helping them do it."
- Bill Wyatt: Republican candidate for president -

     "It hasn't gotten made yet," complained a Vatican spokesman. "It is the Pope's policy not to comment on development deals."
   "That's no excuse," said Buddhist Richard Gere. "The Dalai Lama's story is just as compelling as that of Jesus Christ. It shouldn't matter that I haven't made it yet. The very fact that I'm thinking about it is NEWS, dammit, NEWS."
   "What the fuck?" replied the Vatican spokesman. "I didn't know you were going to make such a big deal out of it. Okay... here, here it is, the Pope's review of Richard Gere's hypothetical film about the Dalai Lama...

    To our venerable brothers in America, apostolic blessing. Gladly and willingly do we desire to carry out our work as shepherd of the entire flock of the Lord, so that everyone in the world may experience the saving dispensation of the Church and the People of God may suitably enjoy the assistance of religion.
   I woke up this morning and for one sweet glorious moment I forgot I was the Pope and it was heaven but then they propped me up and wheeled me into the screening room that's usually showing gay porn and told me that I should just imagine I was seeing a film about the Dalai Lama, and would it be any good or not, and could I give Richard Gere a quote?
    "Of course it would be good," I said, "you don't have to show me anything. I'm going to make up a movie I DON'T like? What would be the point? That's why I'm the Pope and you're whoever you are, because I know things, that's why, I know things. Things you would only know if you were the Pope, got it? Things you don't know. Who turned up the morphine drip?

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the twentieth day of the month of February, in the year of the Lord Two thousand and four, the twenty-sixth of our Pontificate. 

John Paul II Angelo Lanzoni, Protonotary Apostolic, film critic

     "If a soldier is completely dismembered by a bomb, then he is dead. Likewise, if a soldier is hit by a full burst of machine-gun fire, then he also is dead. The problems start when the medic [on the ground] is not quite sure whether the injured soldier is dead or not. We all like to save life if possible, so if the medic believes there is the faintest glimmer of hope, the injured soldier is sent immediately to the nearest [medical] aid station.
   "The split-second that soldier is removed from contact [wherever the incident took place], he is officially listed as 'wounded', regardless of whether he then dies 3 seconds or minutes or hours or days or months later, as a direct result of injuries sustained in the contact. Deaths in transit to the U.S., or after soldiers return home are also excluded completely, or become 'accidental deaths'. This is how Wolfowitz and his people massage the figures, and how the American public is misled."

- 1,188 (not 528) Americans Killed in Iraq -

I HAVE A DREAM

SOME OF MY DREAMS:

• We achieve a level playing field. 
• The glory of the Lord becomes visible. 

STRATEGY FOR REALIZING DREAMS:

• Must rely on faith. 
• Must stick together. 
• Need to pray a lot. 
• May have to go to jail. 
• Must use catch phrase, "Let Freedom Ring." 

EXPECTATIONS:

• Freedom rings in a broad range of places. 
• Will speed day of racial and religious harmony. 
• Day will include a sing-a-long. 
• Singers: Black men, white men, Jews, Gentiles, Protestants, Catholics. 
• Song of choice: old Negro spiritual. 
• Song's inspirational tagline: 
• "Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

'Twas Gimli and the slimy orcs
Did battle and grumble in the way
All flimsy were the Hornburg doors
And in the end, they gave.
- Lord of the Rings as written by Lewis Carroll -

GANDALF: 

I do not want your bread and jam. 
I'm busy being mad at Sam. 
He likes to sneak. He likes to spy. 
Ill grind him up for hobbit pie! 

FRODO: 
Oh, do not grind him up for pie! 
He is a pretty handy guy. 
He mows my grass. He paints my gate. 
He is my friend. We both are straight.

- Lord of the Rings as written by Dr. Seuss -

     For most of the second half of the 20th century, a cold war raged between the world's two superpowers. While battles were never fought on either country's land, long before Ronald Reagan OR George Lucas ever uttered the words "Star Wars," plans were made to take the cold war into outer space. Deepcold tells the secrets of the cold war in space between the Russians and Americans from 1959-1969, an international hardware war that never made it past development.
   The Dyna-Soar [pictured above] was America's first manned spacecraft which actually reached the hardware stage. Conceived in 1957 as a logical next step after the X-15 rocket plane, the Dyna-Soar (originally designated X-20) was based on Eugen Sanger's WWII-era "Silver Bird" concept of a bomber which could skip around the globe on the upper atmosphere.

     This is The Official 9/11 Commission Website where they say they are an "independent, bipartisan commission" and that they are "chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks." You can download transcriptions and everything, while it happens.
   At the bottom of the page is the contact address, info@9-11Commission.gov. Send them websites like Mark Elsis' brilliant and thorough http://www.911timeline.net/. Anyone with a shred of investigating instinct, hell, anyone in their right mind would start there. Are they reading it? You might not agree with the conclusions at http://www.whatreallyhappened.com, but you have to admit it's not a joke. There's serious stuff in there, thousands of points that, at the very least, need to be investigated. If you were OFFICIALLY STUDYING the events of 9/11, you'd have to consider it.
    Send them "those sneaky bastards dot org" and "don't let them get away with it dot net" and all the shit you know they're not even going to look at because why do research when you're writing fiction? The idea isn't to get some factual material into the report but to have proof they knew before the report came out. Keep the sent letter as proof that the commission was in possession of the information sent. You'll need it some day. Construct your own chain of evidence that they knew everything, before the study was released, because you told them.

Oh, and by the way. Congratulations, you may be one of the 80 million Americans already implanted with microchips.

George W. ("I'm a war president") Bush has been nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

"IMAGINE what would happen to your WEBSITE TRAFFIC if your gay marriage website would APPEAR on the FIRST TWO PAGES OF YAHOO AND GOOGLE on following most popular typed in keywords or search terms that users are ACTIVELY looking for gay marriage related products and services?"
- spam -

It's illegal to advertise cigarettes on television but that hasn't stopped Philip Morris from advertising their website on television. And what does their website advertise? Duh.

     "Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war. Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years. Threat to the world is greater than terrorism.
   "Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world."
-  Mark Townsend and Paul Harris: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us -

Some bastards are thinking of tearing down the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to build a high school. They claim the site is "historically insignificant," as though the Coconut Grove (where I once saw Mel Tormé) and the assassination of Robert Kennedy (which I heard about somewhere) didn't mean anything. Not to mention it's just fucking beautiful. Stop them.

People You Don't Normally Think About

"The white guy who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' so high, nobody could reach it."
- Tony Kushner: Angels in America -

"It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character."
- Dale E. Turner -

"My ambition consists entirely of being able to do it well enough that they let me do it again - and to avoid public disgrace."
- Herb Gardner -

"If the bill collector calls, I will inform him that I have a checkbook which is evidence of 'possible intent to develop bill-paying programs.' That should satisfy him."
- Don Dougherty: Correspondents' Corner -

"For the GOP convention: I want to have a 'deficit bake sale,' mebbe with the Code Pink ladies? Picture my 'No Funded Fudge' with a price tag of $1.6 million for say education... and next to it is sign with non-republican prices: 'pay what you can' and/or $.10 for Dems."
- Mary La -

"Lieutenant, a man with your I.Q. should have a low voice, too."
- Jack Paar to a loud-mouthed officer in the audience -

    "Bush administration officials ignored expert assessments from three national laboratories in concluding Iraq was seeking to acquire aluminum tubes to make nuclear weapons, a group of scientists charged Wednesday. The administration also has dropped highly qualified, independent scientists from scientific advisory committees on issues such as child lead poisoning, environmental health and drug abuse, replacing them with figures tied to regulated industries, the Union of Concerned Scientists said Wednesday.
    "Sixty scientists signed the statement, including 20 Nobel laureates, accusing the administration of suppressing, distorting and undermining the integrity of scientific analyses in policymaking. The group, organized by the scientific watchdog group, laid out its allegations in a 37-page report."
- Emily Johns: Dubya Ignored Experts Who Told Truth -

"One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast... a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards."
- Edward Abbey: Desert Solitaire -

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
- John Muir -

"Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing... Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
- E.L. Doctorow -

"Carefully consider other dieting options before starting a thermonuclear war or ending a thermonuclear peace. Remember, violence is not an alternative. Violence is not an answer. Unless the question is What is an eight-letter word for something painful that is neither an alternative nor an answer?"
- The Instructions to Everything -

"A child on a farm sees a plane fly by overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home."
- Carl Burns -

"Sad songs don't sell beer."
- Noah benShea -

"Bush says he is eating beef and isn't vaguely concerned about the possibility of mad cow disease. Of course he isn't -- the disease attacks the brain."
- Barry Crimmins -

"[S]anctions and containment were working and everybody pretty much knew it. Many companies around the world were preparing to do business with Iraq in anticipation of a lifting of sanctions. But the U.S. and the U.K. had been bombing northern and southern Iraq since 1991. So it was very unlikely that we would be in any kind of position to gain significant contracts in any post-sanctions Iraq. And those sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit."
- Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski: Soldier for the Truth -

"Bruce Springsteen is to BORN TO RUN as Max Weinberg is to BORN TO RUN AND GET BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S COFFEE."
- Conan O'Brian -

"When only attorneys can understand the codes, statutes, and regulations (so-called laws), then only attorneys should be required to obey them."
- Jack Slevkoff -

    "There are surely drawers full of documents in Washington right now -- the Pentagon Papers of Iraq -- that, if leaked in bulk, would drastically alter the public discourse on whether we should have sent our children to kill and to die in Iraq, and more urgently, whether we should continue to do so.
   "I urge patriotic and conscientious Americans who have access to these documents, and who know it is wrong for their bosses to lie to the public about why we are in this war, to consider doing what I wish I had done in 1964 or early 1965, years earlier than I did: Go to Congress and the press; tell the truth, with documents. The personal risks are real, but a war's worth of lives are at stake."

- Daniel Ellsberg: Where Are Iraq's Pentagon Papers? -

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams -

"The Administration's arguments border on the ludicrous. Does anyone outside the Administration and the junk food industry truly doubt that the consumption and marketing of high-calorie junk food plays a role in obesity and other chronic diseases?"
- Gary Ruskin: Secret Document Shows Bush Administration Effort to Stop Global Anti-Obesity Initiative -

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
- Ayn Rand: The Nature of Government -

"It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous... The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge."
- H.L. Mencken -

"At Shards O' Glass, our goal is to be the most responsible, effective and respected developer of glass shard consumer products intended for adults. Our Shards O' Glass Freeze Pops are the nation's top-selling frozen treats containing glass shards."
- Shards O' Glass -

"The last thing we Martians are about to do is let you barbaric, ill-educated, technologically infantile beings mess up our home. That is why we temporarily bypassed your transmissions and sent your rovers to an unpopulated area so you could spend time examining a trench, rather than our attractive cities and landscapes."
- Brad Schreiber: The Mars You Haven't Seen -

"If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing."
- Kingsley Amis -

"There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know."
- Harry Truman -

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
- TS Eliot -

"Tomorrow is our permanent address."- Marshall McCluhan -

"Everything looks bad when you remember it."
- Homer Simpson -

It's almost the 20th anniversary of Andy Kaufman's death, so it's appropriate to visit the maniac who thinks he's still alive. (I was one of the last people to work with him. The story is here.)

Those pictures from the Mars rover suck. The pictures from the Hubble Telescope make you glad to be alive, and are therefore useful in the war on terror. So guess which one we're abandoning?

Write a letter to Mary Cheney, Dick's gay daughter, and tell her to grow some balls. Family members are rarely "suicided."

Drowning in reality? You need some Unreliable Facts.

It's in your frozen food section. You've considered eating it. Don't.

Today, February 23rd, is the last day to file for the reality show American Candidate. 

This chart, though a wee bit religiously fanatic, explains the difference between the way the US was set up and the way it actually works.

Don't go anywhere without a complete list of all the members of Skull and Bones.

Hey Ralphie boy, thanks for running again.
 

• My Candidate: John Buchanan: Bush's GOP Challenger Detained by US Secret Service
• Republican Zen Bastard: Meet the Republican who will Challenge Bush by Paul Krassner
• Zen Bastard: Predictions for 2004 by Paul Krassner
• Making the Yoke Obsolete
• Good News/Bad News about Saddam's Capture
• Zen Bastard: Blowjobs, Ballet, Baggies - the parts left out of the Reagan movie by Paul Krassner
• Tips on Junk Calls by Ken Rubin
• The Worst Commercial on Television
• Marketing Ploys from Hell
• Zen Bastard: Threats Against the President by Paul Krassner
• The Bush/Nazi Connection: Journalist John Buchanan gets targeted
• Why Schwarzenegger Gropes
• Issue #1 of the Hollywood Free Press
• Me and Monty Python
• Special 9/11 "Don't Take My Word for It"
• Zen Bastard: Who's Need to Know? by Paul Krassner
• 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!!)
• Mordechai Vanunu: The Prisoner of Zion by Mary La Rosa
• 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!!)
• Bob Hope's Last Monologue from Heaven by Lynette Sheffield
• Inside/Outside #1: The Riddicks vs. Judge Burrell by Billy Hayes
• The California Choice
• Why I'm Against Gay Marriage
• Creation Science Fair Proves God Exists by Tom Norris
• What Would Jesus Do About Cramps? by Nancy Cain
• Summer Reading or Harry Potter vs. What's-His-Face
• Scumbags of the Week - Letter to the RIAA
• Hello Mullah, Hello Fatwah
• The Israeli Wall
• Dream Job or How Disinfotainment Today Almost Came Out in Print
• Celebrities vs. the United States Government
• Test of the National Homeland Reconciliation and Healing System
• The Still Missing Artifacts
• Why Bush is Nothing Like Hitler
• Tim Robbins' Speech to theNational Press Club
• Randy Newman's "Follow the Flag"
• How I would Re-Write the Bill of Rights by Satan
• I Didn't See the News Today, Oh Boy
• Global Voice by Jim Channon
• Daniel Ellsberg's Review of the Made-for-TV Movie The Pentagon Papers
• The Lemon Pledge of Allegiance
• U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
• Message from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
• Obfuscation of the Week: Who grows the most opium? We do.
• Urgent Plea for Assistance from George W. Bush
• How I Got the Rights to Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction
• Please Help the FBI Find These People
• The Adventures of Xarvon: Alien Investigator
• The Under-Reported Story of the Year - Margie Schoedinger vs. George W. Bush
• Why I'm Optimistic About the Future by Paul Krassner
• Booze (A movie I'd like to see)
• Hope (after the election)
• The Empty Boat by Chuang Tzu
• Special Halloween/Election Issue
• What's Wrong with Leonard Maltin?
• Forwarded E-mail from Satan
• A Letter from Tom Robbins
• Good Thing/Bad Thing - American Foreign Policy
• The Ultimate Politically Correct Flag and Pledge of Allegiance
• A Letter from Paul Krassner
• The History of Denials

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