Musical News

SOUND OF A TELETYPE: dit dit dit dit dit dit

Announcer: Musical News - dateline, Ft. Hood, Texas. A Judge declared a mistrial in the case of Pfc. Lynndie England today, vacating her guilty verdict. Here's what Ms. England had to say about it...

I Am Not Guilty
by Michael Dare
(picture, oh, I don't know, Alanis Morrissette)

I may be guilty of being a soldier 
and doing what I am told
I may be guilty of posing for pictures
and acting a little cold
I stuck up my thumbs and I smiled for the camera
and looked like a really hot babe
But I am not guilty of torturing prisoners
in Baghdad at Abu Ghraib

   Isn't it ironic
   how I can act so cocky
   and drink a gin and tonic
   beside a nude Iraqi

I am not guilty of following orders
I wasn't supposed to follow
I am not guilty of telling white lies
that everyone has to swallow
I am not guilty of shooting a president
nearly as honest as Abe
And I am not guilty of torturing prisoners
in Baghdad at Abu Ghraib

   Isn't it ironic
   how I can act so cocky
   and smoke a lot of chronic
   beside a nude Iraqi

MUSICAL STING: "All the news that's fit to sing."

Dating Service from Hell

Don't Bother Me, I'm Peaking

I wrote a letter to Mark Robinowitz of Oil Empire, an amazingly lucid site about stolen elections, 9/11, fascism, World War IV, media, and yes, peak oil. I asked a question that's been bugging me...

Mark,
According to this article, in Russia, they're getting oil without fossils from deposits miles beneath the fossil layer, which means oil isn't a fossil fuel at all but simply picks up traces of fossils as it works its way up from the center of the earth. If oil is no longer finite but a constant organic process, then the story you're telling is wrong, and the entire concept of "peak oil" is a fraud perpetrated by those selling us oil. What do you make of this?

    "There is an alternative theory about the formation of oil and gas deposits that could change estimates of potential future oil reserves. According to this theory, oil is not a fossil fuel at all, but was formed deep in the Earth's crust from inorganic materials. The theory was first proposed in the 1950s by Russian and Ukrainian scientists. Based on the theory, successful exploratory drilling has been undertaken in the Caspian Sea region, Western Siberia, and the Dneiper-Donets Basin.
    "The prevailing explanation for the formation of oil and gas deposits is that they are the remains of plant and animal life that died millions of years ago and were compressed by heat and pressure over millions of years. Russian and Ukrainian geologists argue that formation of oil deposits requires the high pressures only found in the deep mantle and that the hydrocarbon contents in sediments do not exhibit sufficient organic material to supply the enormous amounts of petroleum found in supergiant oil fields."
- The Environmental Literacy Council: Abiotic Theory of Oil Formation -

MD

Michael,

Even if this were true it still doesn't address the issues of limitations in how fast it can be pulled up from the Earth. It's not that oil is all going to be gone, it's that our greed and over-consumption will no longer be possible.

"Abiotic" oil is a theory that predates the theory of plate tectonics, and is masterfully debunked by a number of articles posted at http://www.oilempire.us/abiotic.html

I recommend Kenneth Deffeyes's book "Hubbert's Peak" for a great introduction to the science of petroleum geology.

The fraud is not the concept of Peak Oil, which is painfully real, but rather that the discussion about how to cope with it is dominated by the neo-cons (steal the oil) and polluters (drill more, nukes, coal, etc.). Those who have a more ecological, peaceful approach are not part of the discussion -- in other words -- what should we use the rest of the cheap oil for: re-localizing production and renewable energy equipment, or a World War IV to control the oil supplies.

The Peak Oil is a fraud is classic reaction to encountering unpleasant truths - denial. This approach is a snooze button for lulling people back to sleep so that the neo-cons can control the agenda of how civilization responds to declining resources (which are not merely oil issues).

It doesn't address natural gas, which has peaked in North America.

Mineral ore depletion.

Fisheries that have been depleted.

Deforestation (less than 5% of the original US forest is left).

Climate change.

Desertification.

Drought.

Peak food (yes, we've reached peak food PER CAPITA). 

Soil degradation.

Toxic and nuclear waste.

Exponential growth on a finite planet.

The "Environmental Literacy Council" is a corporate polluter funded group, not a scientific entity.

I recommend learning to grow a garden in your lawn, if you have a lawn, or pressuring where you live to ensure that there are lots of community gardens for people who don't have lawns (apartment dwellers).

Buy local, eat low on the food chain, be conscious of your use of energy.

Mark

Worst Reason to Move to Seattle

"The White racial nationalist movement has completely wasted the past fifty years. It therefore is now no longer possible for the Aryan race to recapture the North American continent in its entirety. The only remaining option to secure the existence of our people and a future for White children is for the remnant of the racially conscious population of North America to relocate to the Pacific Northwest and establish our own sovereign nation."
- The Butler Plan -

Belated Christmas Gift from Hell

ALUMINUM 1 MAN CONTAINMENT CELL, 8X8X8, INCLUDES STAINLESS STEEL TOILET AND TOILET PANEL, COLLAPSEABLE, TRANSPORTABLE, APPX 1500LBS.

Gallery of the Week

Coffin Calendar Girls

Stupid Answers of the Week

Last week's question...

I've never understood why "I can't see me lovin' nobody but YOU for all my life" is supposed to be a compliment. And don't get me started on "Someone like YOU makes it hard to live without SOMEBODY ELSE." Name some other lines in rock songs that don't make a shred of sense.

Okay, we're all in agreement that "Goo goo G'joob" and "Do wah diddy" and "A wop bopalooba" don't make sense but they're not supposed to so they don't count. Nic points out that Isn't it ironic? by Alanis Morrissette doesn't have a single line that makes a lick of sense, and Jim Cudney can't get "Every day a little sadder, A little madder, Someone get me a ladder" from Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Still You Turn Me On" out of his head.

And Red Hot Chili Peppers? Pay attention to Nick Kent...

Are we fire flies
Flashing in the night
Big thunder rumble fish
Did you get it right?

1. No. Lay off the drugs.
2. If you are, then you should be locked up.
3. WTF?
4. The thundering and the rumbling, you mean? Can you get that? Why are you questioning a fish on its correctness?

Baron Dave cringes at the thought that Neil Diamond sang "I am I said to no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair," so remember, don't talk around your chair. In the same letter, Dave also points out that in the Super Bowl half-time, Sir Paul McCartney deigned to mention that "in this ever changing world in which we live in," it's okay to use the word "in" three times in one sentence (or in this case, eight times). But Dave loses points for gleefully pointing out that "you didn't actually ask a question, stupid or otherwise. You made a statement and solicited responses."

From the McFarland Clan...

a buddhist terrorist will outwait you
he will be overcome with joy before you and render your thought deeper
causing you to accept everything that had terrorized you
some way that will be

Which answers a stupid question I didn't ask. How very Zen.

Stupid Question of the Week

The Bilderbergs met this weekend in Munich at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel Überfahrt. George W. Bush just happened to be loitering around central Europe about then. Kissinger was there. Rockefeller too. Did Georgy Boy visit the Überfahrt?

Send your answers to stupidquestion@disinfotainmenttoday.com.

Cover-Up of the Week

Enhanced NASA photographs of Mars showing proof of civilization

Improvement Over Last Week's Chart of the Week

Pamela Anderson is nothing like Adolf Hitler

Action                                                        Hitler               Anderson 

Blew Tommy Lee                                       No                  Yes
Annexed the Sudatenland                         Yes                 No

to which Herr Bookmonger adds...

Spokesmodel for Canadian Beer             No                 Yes
Fomented the Beerhall Putsch                  Yes                 No
Worshipped by Skinheads WorldWide    Yes                 Yes

Bloody Hell, So Much For That Theory

Helen, the Early Years

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

Next time you are too drunk to drive, walk to the nearest pizza shop, place an order, and when they go to deliver it, catch a ride home with them.

Don't Take My Word For It

"I think that every true reformer, every real friend of liberty, will agree with me in saying that if we must erect safeguards, they should be rather for the security of the individual than of the mass, and that our chiefest care must be to train the majority to respect the rights of the minority, to prevent the claims of the few from being trampled under foot by the caprice or passion of the many."
- Richard Cartwright in the Legislative Assembly, Canada, March 9, 1865 -

"The press is the hired agent of a moneyed system, set up for no other reason than to tell us lies where their interests are concerned."
- Henry Adams -

"Ron Howard and Imagine can make a big difference for people with albinism by continuing the trend away from a hack device if they adjust the Silas character to not be an evil albino. Over the years the stereotyping and misinformation foisted on the albinism community by filmmakers who don't take the time to learn the facts about albinism does real harm to real people."
- Mike McGowan, president of The National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation: "Evil Albino" missing from 2004 movies. Will The Da Vinci Code revive the cliché? -

"We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong."
- Sir Arthur Eddington -

"Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world."
- Samuel Butler -

"It's actually cheaper for the taxpayers to buy Amtrak passengers airplane tickets and give them to them, and give them free limo rides on each end, then it is to pay them to keep these trains running."
- Joseph Vranich: End of the Line -

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

"If God wanted us to fly, he would have given us tickets."
- Mel Brooks -

"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."
- Stephen Jay Gould -

"The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature - were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -

"The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it."
- Voltaire -

"The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends."
- Friedrich Nietzsche: Ecce Homo -

    "Here are a few choice comments from the woman many previously thought could make a good Stepford Wife candidate:
    "'George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw. Which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.'
   "Speaking about Cheney, Laura said, 'It's always very interesting to see how the ranch air invigorates people when they come down from Washington. When Vice President Cheney was down, he got up early one morning, he put on his hiking boots, and he went on a brisk, 20- to  30-foot walk.'
   "She complained about spending weekends with the family at their retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. 'All the Bushes love Kennebunkport, which is like Crawford, but without the nightlife,' she said. 'People ask me what it's like to be up there with the whole Bush clan. Lemme put it this way: First prize - three-day vacation with the Bush family. Second prize - 10 days.
   "Interesting. I think she really meant a lot of that and is a little sick of W and the Bushes. Somewhere beyond the mask of jokes lies the truth."
- Jackson Thoreau: Laura Bush comes alive - is she really sick of W? -

"Research has shown that intellectual content accounts for only 7% of all verbal communication. Our brains can process 500 spoken words per minute, but most speakers deliver only 150. That means our brains are free to allow us to use our intuition to understand what is really being said by scrutinizing facial expressions, body language, hairstyle, clothes and jewelry."
- Veronique Vienne: Practicing the Fine Art of Relaxation -

"Jane Fonda is a true heroine, a model for the rest of us, morons, and I wish her a long and happy life, after which she will go to Paradise, wherever that is, along with all the victims of US Imperialism, while at the same time the millions of American patriot murderers will go and fill to capacity all the hottest ovens of Hell, attended by George Satan himself."
- Jacques Hardy -

"Maybe Richard Clarke lied in the July 2002 testimony. Maybe he's an al Qaida mole. Maybe instead of being 98% water like the rest of us he's 98% wax."
- Joshua Micah Marshall -

    "The President has the power to seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, call reserve forces amounting to 2 1/2 million men to duty, institute martial law, seize and control all means of transportation, regulate all private enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all Americans...
   "Most [of these laws] remain a potential source of virtually unlimited power for a President should he choose to activate them. It is possible that some future President could exercise this vast authority in an attempt to place the United States under authoritarian rule.
    "While the danger of a dictatorship arising through legal means may seem remote to us today, recent history records Hitler seizing control through the use of the emergency powers provisions contained in the laws of the Weimar Republic."
- Sens. Frank Church (D-ID) and Charles McMathias (R-MD), September 30, 1973 -

    "Each 418-gram ain't-for-babies sandwich (The new Carl's Jr. Spicy Six-Dollar Burger) contains 1,030 calories 550 of these from fat and provides the user with 135 mg of cholesterol and over 2 grams of sodium. In a February 23 press release, Brad Haley, executive vice president of marketing at CKE Restaurants Inc., defends his company's new offering. 'Most fast-food chains wouldn't dare to offer something with this much punch, preferring instead to water down taste in their quest to appeal to the masses,' he says. 'But Carl's Jr. customers have come to expect more from us and the Spicy BBQ Six-Dollar Burger won't disappoint them.'
    "It certainly hasn't disappointed one slightly buzzed fetus seated on a cigar humidor in the Loew's lobby or poolside at the Four Seasons. The fetusburger commercial, as it's come to be known, has been playing hard, round the clock, during sporting events and other television shows geared toward the 18-to-34 male demographic - you can watch it online courtesy of AdAge.com at http://adage.com/news.cms?newsId=44682 and has made young Rick Fantello the hottest fetus in America. This fall, he'll start production on his first feature film, a remake of Polanski's Rosemary's Baby."
- Dave Shulman: Unborn To Act -

"We believe the evidence shows that Coca-Cola and its corporate network are rife with immorality, corruption and complicity in murder."
- Ray Rogers: Director of Campaign to Stop Killer Coke -

"I see [the governorship] as an opportunity to make that Lone Star shine again. I also believe the cowboy handshake is the law of the land, and a politician when asked a question is already thinking, 'insert lie here.' That's the difference between a cowboy and a politician."
- Kinky Friedman: Citizen Kinky -

"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."
- Dresden James -

    "If the nation escalates to 'red alert,' which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home, the state's anti-terror czar says.
    "'This state is on top of it,' said Sid Caspersen, New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism.
    "Caspersen, a former FBI agent, was briefing reporters, alongside Gov. James E. McGreevey, on Thursday, when for the first time he disclosed the realities of how a red alert would shut the state down.
    "A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.
    "'Red means all non-critical functions cease,' Caspersen said. 'Non-critical would be almost all businesses, except health-related.' A red alert means there is a severe risk of terrorist attack, according to federal guidelines from the Department of Homeland Security.
    "'The state will restrict transportation and access to critical locations,' says the state's new brochure on dealing with terrorism. 'You must adhere to the restrictions announced by authorities and prepare to evacuate, if instructed. Stay alert for emergency messages.'
    Caspersen went further than the brochure. 'The government agencies would run at a very low threshold,' he said. 'The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways. 'You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out. No different than if you had a state of emergency with a snowstorm.'"
- Tom Baldwin: Red alert? Stay home, await word -

"This whole damn thing was about oil, wasn't it?"
- Condor (Robert Redford) to the CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Mideast Division, in the movie Three Days of the Condor (1975) -

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels - men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower -

"In the current context you can't outgun the authorities. They've always got bigger guns. It's about knowledge and information now. So if you want to protect your constitutional right to defend yourself, the way to do it is through having enough information that you can make sound choices, and through demonstrations of the sort we've seen against the World Trade Organization and the Iraq War. An armed response to government oppression is not effective other than as an attention getter. The thing that scares them most is people knowing the truth; otherwise they wouldn't go to such lengths to keep it from us."
- Bruce Cockburn -

    "It seemed, at first, like nothing more than a novelty item in the news briefs, the kind of odd, meaningless side-fact thrown off by most major stories: 'New Pope, President's Brother Had Link in Swiss Group.' But a look beneath the surface of this innocuous connection reveals a vast web of sinister alliances - and moral corruption on a world-shaking scale.
   "The network links a bewildering line-up of players - the Bushes, the Vatican, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and China's Communist overlords, among others - in a staggering array of crime and turpitude: prostitution, pedophilia, mass death and war profiteering. Yet this is not some grand 'conspiracy theory,' a serpent's egg hatched in Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove. It's simply the way the Bush boys do business, trawling the globe for sweetheart deals and gushers of blood money from the war and terror they foment."
- Chris Floyd: Buried Treasure -

"I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."
- Laura Bush -

"Hey, what about me? I want a handjob from the president."
- Mr. Ed -

    "The memo reports on a U.S. visit by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service. The visit took place while the Bush administration was declaring to Americans that no decision had been made to go to war, Knight Ridder observed today.
   "The MI-6 chief's account of his U.S. visit was paraphrased this way: 'There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. ... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.'
   "Strobel and Wolcott noted that the White House has repeatedly denied accusations by top foreign officials that intelligence estimates were manipulated.
   "But they report that a former senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called it 'an absolutely accurate description of what transpired' during Dearlove's visit to Washington."
- Yahoonews: A New Memo-gate? Knight Ridder Covers Leaked British Document That Disputes Bush Claims on Iraq -

"If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank."
- Woody Allen -

"Playwright and producer Sean Cook, who teaches English and creative writing at Coquitlams Centennial secondary school, garnered national media attention last year when he drew a link between a multimillion dollar deal that Coca-Cola signed with the University of British Columbia and the removal or disabling of 44 percent of the drinking fountains on the UBC campus."
- Colin Thomas: Et Tu, Coca-Cola? -

"SUVs consume an additional 280,000 barrels of oil in this country every day. That is 15 percent of what OPEC cut in production in March 1999, according to news reports - the event that nearly doubled the price of gas. Half the new cars sold are now SUVs. It is neither difficult nor onerous to improve their mileage. It would cost about $700 additional per vehicle, but with a fuel saving of about $2,500 over the life of the behemoth."
- Molly Ivins: Who Let the Dogs In? -

"I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge."
- Edward Chilton -

    "Recent polling data shows that most Americans think their press is the freest in the world - indeed, some believe it is too free. But according to a new report by Freedom House, a highly respected civil liberties advocacy group, the US is among countries that have experienced 'notable setbacks' in press freedom.
   "Freedom of the Press 2005: A Global Survey of Media Independence, revealed that the US was tied with Barbados, Canada, Dominica, Estonia, and Latvia at 24th place out of 194 countries covered in the survey."
- William Fisher: How Free Is the US Press? -

"I guess if you keep making the same mistake long enough, it becomes your style."
- John Prine -

    "The butcher's bill to date: 1,594 American soldiers dead, times ten grievously wounded; over 100,000 Iraqi citizens dead, uncounted more wounded, with a recent upsurge of violence claiming more than 200 lives in the last week alone; a nine-figure pricetag that spirals ever-upwards by the day, mortgaging our children's future for the profits of the few; no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq.
   "We need two exit strategies: one to get our forces out of that country as soon as humanly possible, and the other to get George W. Bush out of the White House and into a cellblock in The Hague. Save a bunk for Mr. Blair, too. Criminals belong in prison."
- William Rivers Pitt: Criminals Belong in Prison -

"It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."
- The Silence of the Lambs -

Everything Else

Harry Shearer tells us What is a Journalist? 

Add your caption to Buck Fush's photo of the week.

I can't believe you don't know I once jammed with The Red Hot Chili Peppers.