Coming Soon! 
The 9/11 Commission Report Part II 
with Answers to the Following Questions
(sorry they weren't in Part I but there wasn't time)

Who provided the nearly half a million dollars it cost to carry out the attacks? 

How could the man who is alleged to have recruited several of the hijack pilots have done this while under investigation by at least three intelligence services those of the United States, Germany and Morocco? 

Who, if anyone, assisted the hijackers during their time in the United States?

Why did Mohamed Atta and another hijacker drive from Boston to Portland, Me., the day before the attacks, then fly back to Boston the next morning, almost missing the flight they intended to hijack?

How did it happen that a single family of Pakistani expatriates in Kuwait, by most accounts an ordinary, pious family devoted to good works, produce five men - the plot mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and four of his nephews who played roles in the attacks?

What were the relationships, if any, of the hijackers to other Al Qaeda cells in the United States?

What was the role, if any, of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman originally accused in U.S. courts of being the so-called 20th hijacker?

When did the Germany-based pilots first go to Afghanistan?

Did Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden really choose them for their roles in the attack based on a single meeting when the plot was already in motion in late 1999, as the 9/11 commission report maintains?

How did Marwan Al-Shehhi, one of the Germany-based pilots, meet the others?

Why did Al-Shehhi fly to Morocco in January 2001, and to Egypt in April?

Were Binalshibh and hijacker Khalid Almihdhar involved in the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Yemen?

Why do officials of the United Arab Emirates continue to insist that they questioned hijacker Ziad Samir Jarrah at U.S. request in January 2001, when he was en route from Pakistan to Germany immediately after meeting with Bin Laden?

What were the roles of Essabar and fellow Hamburg resident Said Bahaji, both of whom fled Hamburg to Afghanistan in the days prior to Sept. 11 and are presumed alive and at large?

Why on the morning of Sept. 11 did the State Department watch list have 61,000 names on it and the Federal Aviation Administration's no-fly list have 12 names?

What did National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice tell President Bush about al Qaeda threats against the United States in a still-secret briefing on Aug. 6, 2001?

Why did Attorney General John Ashcroft and some Pentagon officials cancel commercial-airline trips before Sept. 11?

Did either Ashcroft or the Pentagon have advance information about a 9/11-style attack and, if so, why wasn't this shared with the American public?

Who made a small fortune "shorting" airline and insurance stocks before Sept. 11?

Are all 19 people identified by the government as participants in the Sept. 11 attacks really the hijackers?

Did any of the hijackers smuggle guns on board as reported in calls from both Flight 11 and Flight 93?

Why did the NORAD air defense network fail to intercept the four hijacked jets?

Why did the North American Aerospace Defense Command seem unaware of literally dozens of warnings that hijacked jetliners could be used as weapons?

Why does NORAD claim it did not learn that Flight 11 - the first jet to strike the World Trade Center about 8:45 a.m. - had been hijacked until 8:40 a.m., some 25 minutes after the transponder was shut off and an astounding 15 minutes after flight controllers heard a hijacker say, "We have some planes...?"

Why didn't the fighters that were finally scrambled at Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts and Langley Air Force Base in Virginia fly at top, supersonic speeds? Why didn't fighters immediately take off from Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, D.C.?

Why was nothing done to intercept American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon, when officials knew it had been had been hijacked some 47 minutes earlier?

Why has no one been disciplined for the worst breakdown in national defense since Pearl Harbor?

Why did President Bush continue reading a story to Florida grade-schoolers for seven minutes during the worst attack on America in its history?

How did Flight 93 crash in western Pennsylvania?

Was Zacarias Moussaoui really "the 20th hijacker?"

Where are the planes' "black boxes?"

Why were Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials so quick to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks?

Why did 7 World Trade Center collapse?

Why did the Bush administration lie about dangerously high levels of toxins and hazardous particles after the WTC collapse?

Where is Dick Cheney's undisclosed location?

What happened to the more than $1 billion that Americans donated after the attack?

What was the role of Pakistan's spy agency in the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl?

Who killed five Americans with anthrax?

What happened to the probe into C-4 explosives found in a Philadelphia bus terminal in fall 2001?

What is in the 28 blacked-out pages of the congressional Sept. 11 report?

Instead of blaming everything on incompetence, isn't it just, if not more likely, that somebody in the chain of command was guilty of treason by collaborating with the enemy?

Where is Osama bin Laden?

When was the Bin Laden Home Video found?

Who found the video if Northern Alliance and US troops had not yet arrived in Kandahar or Jahalabad? 

Why does the timestamp on the Bin Laden video indicate that it was found two weeks after it was produced? 

Why, according to MONITOR magazine, were the most controversial statements translated incorrectly? 

Why was the video released? 

Who gave the final decision to release it?

Why did Bin Laden state in Umman Magazine in Sept. 2001, that he was not involved in the WTC? 

Is Bin Laden still on the payroll of the CIA or ISI? 

Did the Bin Laden Group Inc. help build Tora Bora with the CIA? 

When was the last time the Taliban met any representatives of the U.S. Government? 

What was the purpose of these meetings? 

Do they know which U.S. Representative said in February 2001: "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs"? 

When did Tommy Franks learn that he would use Thermobarics in Tora Bora? 

Does he know if it had been tested on December 12 in Nevada? 

Who told Franks that Bin Laden might hide in Tora Bora? 

Is the main purpose of Thermobarics to destroy buried bio and chemical stocks? 

Was Thermobarics developed for the purpose to use one day in Iraq? 

When was the first time Franks used Thermobarics? 

When did the U.S. decide to use B61-11, the "nuclear version" of its "conventional" BLU-113 counterpart? 

Why has the NSA destroyed data collected on Americans or U.S. companies since the Sept. 11 attacks?

Who hired Richard Reid to threaten a passenger plane in Paris? 

Who did he send an email to in Pakistan? 

Has he ever been in touch with the ISI or CIA? 

Did he know the difference between an explosive and a detonator?

How many ounces did he have in his shoes? 

What size are his shoes? 

Who build or prepared his shoes? 

Has John Walker Lindh ever been in touch with the CIA? 

Did he ever work for the CIA? 

Who arrested him in 2001? 

Why didn't he escape in the tumult to nearby Masar-e-Sharif? 

Who hired his lawyer, Richard Brohanan? Who paid his lawyer? 

Why didn't he go to Guantanamo Bay? Where is he now?

When did Cheney stop working for Halliburton? 

Is he still in possession of any Halliburton stock? 

Is he still in contact with Halliburton? 

Was Halliburton invited to an oil conference in May 2002? 

Does Cheney know when that meeting was planned? 

Did Cheney have influence concerning Halliburton contracts with the Pentagon? 

Who called the White House on September 11 at 9:30 PM about a possible threat? 

Why was no air security at the White House or the Pentagon at 9:30 PM? 

When and who gave the approval to evacuate the White House at 9:45 PM? 

When was the last time Cheney spoke with anyone from ENRON?

Who decided to give $43 million in aid to the Taliban regime in May 2001

Has there been an accounting of where that money actually went?

Did Cheney know that production of opium in Afghanistan fell from 3276 tons in 2000 to 185 in 2001? 

What was the purpose of his decision to treat the Taliban prisoners as War Prisoners? 

Is this decision in any way related to media reports 2 days earlier that Powell may have been involved in negotiations with Indian Power Plants? 

When was the last time George H.W. Bush traveled to South Arabia on behalf of the Carlyle Group? 

What was the purpose of that meeting? 

When did he resign from Carlyle Group? 

Is he still in touch with any of their representatives? 

Did Delmart Vreeland warn Canadian Intelligence in May 2001 about possible terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon? 

Did he place the warning in an envelope while in prison in Toronto, Canada? 

Where did he get his information? 

Whom did he give the envelope to? 

Why was he placed in jail?

Did Stephen Lander, director of MI5. monitor a phone conversation between Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid in Dec. 2000? 

What did Lander tell representatives of the CIA about Zacarias Moussaoui? 

Why did he stop monitoring Djamel Beghal, member of Takfir-wal-Hijra (financed by Osama bin Laden) in August 2001? 

Did Bin Laden in July 2001 enter an American hospital in Dubai? 

Did he arrive on July 4, 2001 on a flight from Qetta, Pakistan to American Hospital? 

Was he at the hospital July 4-11, 2001? 

Did Bernard Koval, CEO of American Hospital, ever speak with Doctor Terry Callaway about that visit? 

Why was President Bush scheduled to visit a school in Florida?

Who scheduled the time of the visit? 

When exactly did Bush learn about the first crash into the WTC?

How could he have seen that on TV? 

Why didn't he interrupt his school meeting as soon as he learned of the first plane crash? 

Did Bush ever wonder how Bin Laden was able to hear the first plane crash live on the radio? 

Which radio station he was listening to? 

Why did Bush postpone the release of Ronald Reagan's records? 

Why did Bush say that he initially thought it was an accident involving a small plane? 

When did Vladimir Putin warn the CIA about a possible terrorist attack and what was their reaction? 

What was the purpose of the meeting between Christina Rocca, director of Asian affairs at the State Department, and the Taliban ambassador Mollah Abdul Salam Zaeef in Islamabad in August 2001? 

Why did she oversee the delivery of Stinger missiles in the 80s to Afghan mujaheddin? 

Why did Dr. Jeffrey Starr, U.S. department of defense, visit Tajikistan in Jan 2001? 

When did Jean-Claude Cousseran, Director of DGSE (French Secret Service) inform the CIA about terrorist attacks on America? What was their reaction? 

What does Bush know about the monitoring of Djamel Beghal, member of Takfir-wal-Hijra (financed by Osama bin Laden) and Kamel Daoudi? Did he ever inform the CIA about that? And when? 

When did Italian Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini inform the CIA about a possible attack on the American president "with the use of an airplane"? What was their reaction? 

When did President Mubarak, Egypt, inform the CIA about a possible attack on America with an "airplane stuffed with explosives"? What was their reaction?

When did Efraim Halevy , Director of Mossad since 1998 (unconfirmed) inform the CIA about a possible attack with "200 terrorists" on America? What was their reaction? 

Is it true he warned Ariel Sharon not to travel to New York on September 11 to speak at a festival? 

Why didn't Dr. James G. Roche, Secretary of the Air Force try to reach the airplanes in NYC (7 minutes time for McGuire AFB in New Jersey) and at the Pentagon (10 minutes time)? 

Did Roche ever try to shutdown the plane in Pennsylvania? 

Can Roche explain why magazines of that plane were found 20 miles away from the crash? Andrews AFB is 13 miles away. He had one hour and fifteen minutes to respond to the plane that hit the Pentagon. What happened during that time? 

Can he explain why many ear and eye witnesses, including workers of the road construction company New Enterprise, saw or heard F-16 jets? Why did President Bush say only one week later that he tried to shutdown that plane? 

Why did Cheney say that everyone in the White House started taking Cipro on September 12 when the first anthrax letter wasn't postmarked until September 18?

Why did Bush dissolve the Bin Laden Task Force? What would have happened had this focused and knowledgeable group been in place 9 months before 911? 

Why was metallic debris found 8 miles from the crash site of the plane that went down in Penn? They said it went straight down and left a small hole in the ground. If they found metallic debris from the plane 8 miles away, doesn't that mean it was either shot down or a bomb exploded in the plane?

Why did they not let the media or any reporters take video or photos of the crash site? 

- Thank you Terry McDermott: Questions Persist Despite 9/11 Investigations, William Bunch: Why Don't We Have Answers to These 9/11 Questions?, the American Patriotic Friends Network, and the usual gang of idiots. Got more questions that need to be listed here? Send them to me. -

Quote of the Week

"[T]he American people shared the blame for 9-11 for underestimating the terrorist threat."
- The final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States -

Oh yeah? Well a hearty fuck you, 9/11 commission. As one of the "American people" you mention, please allow me to point out that I didn't receive an FBI or CIA top secret memo regarding a possible terrorist strike or hijacking, Pakistan didn't warn me about anything, and on August 6, 2001 I somehow failed to receive a Presidential Daily Brief titled, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." You wanna blame ME for this mess? Suck my dick.

And your statement that "....many building occupants in the World Trade Center did not take preparedness seriously," is the most insensitive thing I've ever heard. If I had a relative who died in the WTCs, I'd be hiring the nearest Tony Soprano to blow your brains out. How DARE you, in any way, blame people who did nothing more than go to work in the morning for their own deaths? What were they supposed to do? Have duct tape in their desks? Here's a daily brief. "Michael Dare Determined to Shove a Hot Poker Up Your Ass."

Satirical Empirical Redux

Sir, I hate people who point out grammatical errors only slightly less than I hate people who misuse the word loose. "Are you loosing your ability to distinguish between media and reality?" Your grip on reality may be loosening, but you're losing your ability. Losing. Thanks for your indulgence.I only point this out because your site is so fabulous. 

Thanks for it.

-John 

Hey John,

Your absolutely right. Thats what its supposed to be.

Dear Michael, 

I dare to take umbrage with your definitions and examples of so-called empirical experiences. Your contention is that if you do not experience it yourself, you cannot trust its validity. That is totally incorrect. I have never had hydrochloric acid thrown in my face and yet I can be reasonably sure that it is, at the very least, unpleasant experience. No one has ever seen an atom and yet we have been able to split them and destroy two Japanese cities and worry constantly about what they might do in the wrong hands. In science, empirical evidence usually means that a result is repeatable when the experiment is done over by someone else. 

Repeatability being the key here. Observable results need not be direct, or else there would be no molecular science. You site love and shame as "empirical events" because you experienced them. However, they are nothing of the kind. They are emotions and they are experienced differently by different people. There are different kinds of love. There is the love one has for one's spouse or significant other. Then there is the love one has for one's children, hopefully, not the same, unless of course, you are Michael Jackson. Then there is the love of books and money. You can't have sex with these items though you could vicariously with the former and purchase some fine sex with the latter. One person's love is another's friendship. These are not universally the same and repeatable. Even one person does not experience love the same way twice. One may love one's second wife in a whole different way than one's first wife. 

Even your example of cruelty is ego centric. What you consider people being cruel to you may well be in their minds, kindness. Like putting you out of your misery might be an example. Now, I have some background in these matters as I trained in grad school on experimental psych, which gave me the courage to stand up to someone like you. LOL. 

I do not have to be hit by a bullet to know that they are harmful to me when propelled by a firearm or actually have been at the Holocaust to know that taking a shower in Germany may not be a good thing for a nice Jewish boy like me. I watched my wife's body ravaged and mutilated by the effects of uncontrolled diabetes until death gave her peace. I do not need to have a leg amputated to know that I must control my diabetes or face similar consequences. 

I also know enough about con jobs not to send anything to you, or anyone else for that matter, at Pay Pal. Of course, the last time I did that, was for a two year subscription to the Net Wits magazine and having been burned once, I am now twice shy. 

Seriously though, while I find your premise interesting, I do feel it is flawed and limits a person's view of the world to only those things they have experienced. You say knowledge only can be trusted if it is first hand. Well sir, I was born after the American Revolution and World War II, so there is no way I could ever experience these things first hand, but yet, I can trust that they did indeed happen because I can check out the accounts of people who did experience them. If you fail to study history, you have no choice but to repeat it. Perhaps, since you crave first hand experiences, that might not be a bad thing for you, but I for one, do not need an atom bomb dropped on my head to know what it would do to me.  iRv ô¿ôThe Long Island Sleuth

Irv,

Your absolutely write. Thats what I meant. Thank you.

I'd also like to sincerely thank the people who wrote me to confirm the existence of France. Satirically Empirically speaking, I acknowledge the existence of your confirmation, but I still refuse to accept the fact that France exists until someone sends me a ticket. 

The key to world peace is tolerance. When everyone is tolerant, there is no rage, and without rage, violence is impossible. So whatever it is you're intolerant of, reduce it to 90%. You don't have to like it. You just have to tolerate it. Whatever it is you don't like, whether gays or Christians or commies, don't let it get you excited that 10% of them are fudge-packing masochists who want to share. Remember that the other 90% are Just Normal People Trying to Get On With Their Lives with a Minimum of Interference. Do what you have to do but don't get angry about it. Reduce your intolerance to 90%, right before anger becomes rage. All decisions made in a rage are wrong, which makes 10% of the human race wrong 100% of the time, which is intolerable. World peace is the only revolution that has to start from the inside.

Calling All Nerds

Look up any program in your STARTUP file and find out whether you actually need it or not, then delete the ones you don't need and make your computer work faster.

Reward yourself for a job well done by checking out these preview shots of Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith.

The Stupid Question of the Week

Hello, and welcome to "The Stupid Question of the Week." Every week I'm going to ask a stupid question. Every week I will publish the best answers to last week's question. It's that simple. Get out your pens. Ever notice that whenever the armed forces of the United States show up in a foreign country, the only people in the country who go "Hooray, the United States of America is Here!" are the ones who've been oppressed by a local government of our creation?

Today's Stupid Question of the Week is "Does the United States of America actively foment trouble in foreign countries it wants to invade, and if not, why?"

Send your answers to stupidquestion@disinfotainmenttoday.com.

More Normal News

There is no more normal news.

Gallery of the Week

Before there were emoticons, there were Van Gogh's Letters

"...the unbearable hallucinations have ceased, and are now getting reduced to a simple nightmare..."
- letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh -

E-mail Joke From Hell

President Bush visits a primary school classroom. They are in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asks the President if he would like to lead the discussion of the word "tragedy." So the illustrious leader asks the class for an example of a tragedy. One little boy stands up and offers: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs him over and kills him, that would be a 'tragedy'."

"No," says Bush, "that would be an 'accident.'

A little girl raises her hand: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a 'tragedy.'"

"I'm afraid not," explains the President. "That's what we would call a 'great loss.'"

The room goes silent. No other children volunteered. Bush searches the room."Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a 'tragedy'?"

Finally at the back of the room a small boy raises his hand. In a quiet voice he says: "If Air Force One, carrying you, Mr. President, were struck by a 'friendly fire' missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a 'tragedy.'"

"Fantastic!" exclaims Bush. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a 'tragedy'?"

"Well," says the boy, "because it certainly wouldn't be a 'great loss' and it probably wouldn't be an 'accident' either."

Headline of the Week

Federal Law Banning Assault Weapons Unlikely to Be Renewed
Coalition of Republican Party, NRA, Crips, Bloods, Taliban, Mafia working hard for its defeat.
- Ironic Times -

Sophistimicated Doowacky of the Week

Build your own online kaleidoscope.

Open Letter to Certain Spammers

I'm sure you've gotten these spams from do-gooders. You are welcome to use this as a generic reply...I mean no disrespect but if you've got a virus protector that automatically sends a response to whoever sent you a virus, will you please shut the fucking thing off or die? Viruses are usually sent from "spoofed" addresses, which means the address it LOOKS LIKE it came from isn't the address it ACTUALLY came from. You're complaining to the wrong person. Millions of innocent schmucks like me get hundreds of e-mails telling us we just sent someone a virus when in fact we did no such thing. Every time you reply to a virus from a spoofed address, YOU'RE the one wasting time and space as if there were an endless supply. You're the spammer. I know you're just trying to help. Fuck off.

Hallucination of the Week

The U.N.'s highest judicial authority decided that the 425-mile-long barrier Israel is building in the West Bank in response to Palestinian suicide bombings violates international law and must be dismantled.

"Okay," said Israel. "No problem. We'll just hire some Mexicans to tear it down."

Don't Take My Word For It

"I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window."
- Congressional Travel...I have been a Travel Agent for thirty Years. This is why we're in trouble! -

"Wisdom is to be crazy when circumstances warrant it."
- Jean Cocteau -

"I'm a poet, and the difference between a politician and a poet is politicians use words to conceal and poets use words to reveal."
- some poet on Free Speech TV -

"From the liberal wieners..."
- John Kerry -

"...to the right-wing nutjobs,"
- George W. Bush -

"this land was made for you and me."
- John Kerry and George W. Bush together in harmony, with apologies to Woody Guthrie, singing a duet in ThisLand, certainly the SHOCKWAVE of the month (And as positive proof that doing something cool on the Internet can help your career, Gregg & Evan Spiridellis, the creators of This Land, are on Leno, tonight, July 26, so if you don't have access to the Internet, you can see This Land on TV.) -

"[Abu Musab] Zarqawi's the best evidence of a connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda."
- Dubya: 6/15/04 -

"    "
- In the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States there is absolutely no mention of Abu Musab Zarqawi -

"Every work of imagination widens the frontiers of reality."
- S. Fowler Wright: The Throne of Saturn -

"Forget all the spending caps and loopholes and assorted gobbledygook - here's how it works. We make a law that says, 'No member of Congress can take or solicit anything of value from any person.' It's that simple. Nothing of value. Not a lunch. Not a flight. Not an American flag lapel pin. They can't even solicit money for the March of Dimes. Good causes, bad causes, Sisters of Mercy, Nazi Youth - it doesn't matter. As soon as you're chosen by the people to be a member of Congress, you're out of the money business. You don't go near it, you don't ask for it, you don't raise it. You just do your job. Think how nice it would be if, instead of spending hours a day raising money, our elected officials spent a little more time studying legislation or seeing those families of theirs they claim to want to spend more time with. You could look at what politicians were doing and how they were voting, and you could say they were doing something because they wanted to get re-elected. Okay. Or that they're doing it because they're egomaniacs. Okay. Or that they're doing it because they lack courage. Fine. But the one thing you could finally say is that they didn't do it for a campaign contribution. I don't think that's asking too much."
- James Carville: Had Enough? -

"Christ told us that if an enemy strikes us, we are required to forgive them and turn the other cheek. This is why savvy Christian nations work around Jesus' girly-man approach by preemptively attacking first."
- Betty Bowers -

    "[T]he word has gotten around old and new Europe that America is no longer the land of the free. In the practical sense, Bush and his accomplices achieved what Al Qaeda's terrorists, Osama bin Laden, and yes, even that overblown bogeyman, Saddam Hussein, could never have dreamt of: sucking the freedom out of America. Bush has accomplished this by spreading fear and passing one law after another restricting personal freedom in the false promise of increasing the security of Americas homeland.
    "For example, one week before I left Budapest to visit Rome, two Hungarian college-aged youths told me they'd be afraid to visit America. In the 1970s, their parents had jumped at the chance to leave from behind the Iron Curtain to visit America. But things have changed. The youths didn't like the idea of having to be fingerprinted, photographed and documented like criminals by the U.S. State Department. Bush's U.S. has come to be regarded as a police state."
- Frederick Sweet: Protecting America from Foreign Writers - Prominent foreign writers were stopped at U.S. borders, even imprisoned, and then deported because of the Homeland Security and Patriot Acts -

"By 1900 more than a dozen manufacturers began producing both battery-powered vibrators and models that operated from line electricity. In the newly electrified home, women were avid consumers of electrical appliances. First electrified was the sewing machine; the fan, the tea kettle, the toaster, and the vibrator came next."
- Antique Vibrator Museum -

"There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages." 
- Mark Twain -

"Traces of female contraceptive pills in sewage discharge are changing the gender of more than a third of male fish in English rivers, according to a United Kingdom Environment Agency survey issued last week... More than a third of 1,500 male fish samples in 42 English rivers showed female characteristics, according to the 20-year survey." 
- Healthy News -

"This year my people, we scaled the Everest of stupidity and we stand upon its peak."
- Lewis Black: Bush wins big at Stupidity Awards -

"Eventually Mankind will be forced to migrate to a new home on Mars before Earth grows to the size of Neptune."
- Lawrence S. Myers: Our Planet is Expanding by External Accreation and Internal Core Expansion -

"I came to the conclusion that we had reached a point in human history when there probably was no longer a possibility of waging a just war, because the overwhelming technology of modern warfare inevitably involves the killing of large numbers of people. The means overwhelmed any end you could come up with, however important it looked at the moment. Overthrowing a tyrant, preventing aggression, whatever end you could come up with was offset by the horror of the means."
- Howard Zinn: Terrorism and War -

"Just hours after the commission on 9/11 published its official report, President Bush proposed that a new commission be impaneled to read the 567-page document 'immediately.'"
- Andy Borowitz: BUSH PROPOSES COMMISSION TO READ 9/11 REPORT, Panel Would Prepare Cliffs Notes Version -

"Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago were inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon."
- Arizona Daily Star -

"I felt so bad for George W. Bush about that. You know, he could have conclusively proved to everybody's satisfaction that he had finished out his time in the Air National Guard without any question at all. And darn if the records haven't been destroyed. I know he's upset."
- Molly Ivins on Democracy Now -

    "In the current White House, attendance at daily Christian Evangelical prayer meetings is mandatory."     "Vice President Cheney is the de facto President of the United States. When he arrives at the White House for one of his 'briefings' of the President, all employees are cleared from the West Wing and especially from the Presidential office suites. Cheney arrives in an escorted armored limousine surrounded by his own personal, heavily armed bodyguard and is always shown directly into the President's office. It is reliably reported by [redacted] that Bush has a thick pad of lined, yellow note paper on his desk, placed there by [redacted] just before the Vice President arrives.
   "After Cheney's departure, the notes taken by the President are transcribed by [redacted] and prepared as talking points for the President..." 
- TBRNews -

"As he entered the room within which so many a wild night of their sweltering love affair had been spent, the White Rabbit regarded her with benevolent eyes, her posture such that he suspected something was wrong, but before he could speak Alice unburied her face from her trembling hands and between her intense sobs he made out the words, 'I'm late . . . I'm late.'"
- Cory Gano: Dishonorable Mention - 2004 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest -

"I never know how much of what I say is true."
- Bette Midler -

"First become a blessing to yourself that you may be a blessing to others."
- Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: Moments of the Spirit -

"People don't understand this: Ideas are important, but they're not essential. What's essential and important is the execution of the idea. Everyone has had the experience of seeing a movie and saying, 'Hey! That was my idea!' Well, it doesn't mean anything that you had that idea. There's no such thing as an original concept. What's original is the way you re-use ancient concepts.
- John Landis -

"It's a problem only if a lot of people see it."
- Joe Gaylord in reference to Fahrenheit 9/11 -

"It's a problem only if a lot of people see it."
- Joseph Goebbels in reference to Auschwitz -

"[T]he Commission confirms that it has found no evidence that the government of Saudi Arabia funded Al-Qaeda. The Commission also confirmed accounts of Saudi Arabia's attempts to capture Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11 and efforts to foil Al-Qaeda terror attacks inside the Kingdom as early as 1998."
- Saudi Embassy press release -

"Since the seed does not contain anything other than the seed, even the flowers and the fruits are of the same nature as the seed: the substance of the seed is the substance of subsequent effects, too. Even so, the homogenous mass of cosmic consciousness does not give rise to anything other than what it is in essence. When this truth is realized, duality ceases."
- Yoga Vasishtha from Teachings of the Hindu Mystics by Andrew Harvey -

"How pissed off can you get? I can top you. You wanna see anger? I'm your man. Michael Savage? Rush Limbaugh? I'll see you and raise you. Forget about anger management. Forget about the well-bred manners I learned as a sorority girl. Where's my tire iron? I wanna punch a hole in the wall. Forget the tire iron. Bare hands will do! The difference between me and the Dittoheads, however, is this: I'M ANGRY AT THE RIGHT PEOPLE!"
- Jane Stillwater -

"Man was made mortal, because the Holy One foresaw that some...would proclaim themselves gods."
- Hama b. Hanina: Genesis Rabbah from A Treasury of Jewish Quotations -

   "The Air Force has spent $2.6 billion to buy 50 planes which do not meet the military's requirements and cannot be flown in combat zones, Pentagon investigators reported Friday.
    "The Air Force has continued to order more C-130J planes despite the fact that contractor Lockheed Martin hasn't delivered one that met requirements in the eight years since the program began, the report said.     "Problems with the propeller-driven cargo planes include faulty computer and diagnostic systems and inadequate defense measures, the Pentagons Office of Inspector General concluded. So far, none of the planes has been cleared for some of their primary missions: Dropping troops and cargo into war zones and flying in conditions requiring the crew to wear night-vision goggles.
    "The inspector general's report concluded that Air Force and Defense Department officials mismanaged the program, requiring millions of dollars in upgrades and thousands of hours of work to make the planes capable of performing as well as the aging models they're supposed to replace.
    "The Air Force strongly denied the report's conclusions."
- AP: Air Force spent $2.6 billion on planes not fit for combat, Contractor hasn't delivered a usable plane in 8 years -

"I also have not delivered one single C-130J plane that meets the Air Force's requirements. Where's my $2.6 billion?"
- Jessica Simpson -

    "On June 24, a federal court roundly rejected the FCC's controversial media ownership rules (details) rules favoring Big Media and written with almost no public input. But the rules aren't dead they've been sent back to the FCC for revision. Let's make sure they listen to the people before they rewrite them.
   "Sign this petition demanding a public hearing in your state. If we get 500,000 signatures, the FCC and Chairman Powell will have no choice but to hear our message: media should serve the public interest not Big Media's bottom line."
-Free Press -

"Fear is a state of darkness in which the soul wanders, bewildered, seeking help, and then comes hope as a ray of light, and grace prevails."
- Al-Sarraj: Rabi'a the Mystic -

"To be intelligent is to be open-minded, active-memoried, and persistently experimental."
- Leo Stein: Journey into the Self -

    "Pull off U.S. Interstate Highway 55 near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and into the drive-through lane of a McDonald's next to the highway and you'll get fast, friendly service, even though the person taking your order is not in the restaurant - or even in Missouri.
   "The order taker is in a call center in Colorado Springs, more than 900 miles, or 1,450 kilometers, away, connected to the customer and to the workers preparing the food by high-speed data lines. Even some restaurant jobs, it seems, are not immune to outsourcing."
- Michael Fitzgerald: Want fries with outsourcing? -

"Presumably da American troops be stationed on these bases will remain under da control of da Pentagon 'n beyond da legal reach of any 'sovereign' Iraqi state, know what I'm sayin'? Who will sign da SOFA on da Iraqi siiiiide? What are its terms? Will that shiznit be binding on da new government yo' ass hope da Iraqis will elect early next year?, know what I'm sayin'?"
- Chalmers Johnson shizzolated -

"God revealed Himself in a bush, to teach us that the loftiest may be found in the lowliest."
- Eleazar b. Arak: Mekilta de Simeon b. Yohai -

"We probably wouldn't worry about what people think of us if we could know how seldom they do."
- Olin Miller -

"All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual."
- Albert Einstein -

    "The dictator walked into the prison courtyard, his entourage of government officials and foreign bodyguards scurrying around him. A crowd of policemen had gathered there to hear the Leader speak. Under the blinding fury of the desert sun, he ordered them to strike without mercy at the enemies of the state -- and to fear no retribution should their zealotry devour the innocent with the guilty. He would shield them from the law, he said.
   "Then the entourage came upon seven prisoners, bound and blindfolded, lined up against a wall. These are terrorists, the interior minister declared. 'They should be killed on the spot!' The Leader nodded, his great jowled face set in a grim mask. 'They deserve worse than death,' he said, before pulling the pistol from his belt. He shot each man in the head, moving down the line quickly, efficiently, with the practiced motions of an old assassin. In a moment, six lay dead on the burning dust; the seventh, who'd struggled against his bonds in the tumult, fell mortally wounded beside them.
   "'God be praised!' cried the interior minister, as the Leader's bodyguards tossed the dead men into the back of a pickup truck. Within hours, the story had spread through the capital: A hard man was now in charge; the iron hand had come again. The bodies were buried in the desert wastes near the torture center of Abu Ghraib."
- Chris Floyd: Global Eye - Hard Reign -

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
- William Shedd -

"As a Buddhist monk my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama: Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Oslo, December 1989 -

"Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit."
- R.E. Shay -

"By love they will quench the fire of hate,
by wisdom the fire of delusion.
Those supreme ones extinguish delusion
with wisdom that breaks through to truth."
- Buddha: Itivuttaka 93 -

"To look at something as though we had never seen it before requires great courage."
- Henri Matisse -

"The marksman hitteth the mark partly by pulling, partly by letting go."
- Egyptian proverb -

Everything Else

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