Guest Critic Michael Jackson Reviews
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

   I don't get it. As the king of pop, I expected the "half-blood prince" to be at least half black like my son, "Prince" Michael, but no, there were no "bloods" in this book, not even with snow white skin like mine. False advertising and blatant plagiarism!    I had other problems with what is basically a doorstop masquerading as a book. This Lord Voldemort dude is a wuss compared to some prosecutors I've come across, and when Cornelius Fudge was sacked as Minister of Magic and sent packing, I was very disappointed that he was never described as a Fudge packer.
   Harry and Ron seemed pretty cute and ripe for sleep-overs as long as they left that nasty Hermione behind. Draco Malfoy is probably much better in bed. And what about the obvious racism of a school that teaches "Defense against the Dark Arts?" As a dark artist, I am outraged. And has anyone else noticed that Quidditch doesn't make any sense? Why do all the other players bother scoring goals when every single game is decided by who gets the sneetch?
   And the death eaters? Eeeeew. Dead people are for dancing, not eating. The end is particularly predictable. When things "come to a head" with Voldemort, nobody swallows. Harry's character is disappointingly mature. All the kissing made me want to barf. I was extremely distraught to find out that when Harry talked about his "magic wand," he was actually talking about a magic wand. I admit I skipped the middle 500 pages and recommend you do the same. Reading just the first and last hundred pages tells you all you need to know. In a nutshell: Not enough hot man on boy action. 

"This book fills a much-needed gap."
- Moses Hadas -

Billboard of the Week

An amazing example of innovative communication design, this billboard
by New Zealand's Clemenger BBDO won a Bronze Lion at this year's Cannes.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf
by Tim Ireland

   There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, "Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!"
   The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.
   "Don't cry 'wolf', shepherd boy," said the villagers, "when there's no wolf!"
   From here the story looked liked it would end quite badly for the shepherd boy, and he certainly would have come to a sticky end were it not for a sudden stroke of genius.
   He looked to his sheep, and then to the flock of villagers, who had come running so readily to his aid. He considered the crook in his hand, and the power he wielded with it. He then held that crook aloft and pointed his finger at the nearest villager.
   "Are you seriously questioning the existence of wolves?" he cried.
   "But there are no wolves h..." began the villager.
   "You see? You see? He said it himself! This man would have you think that wolves simply do not exist! Surely you all recall that wolves once attacked a nearby village!"
   Indeed they did. There was a sudden murmuring in the crowd.
   "Innocent blood was spilled that day. Such horrendous attacks by these... these *animals* must not happen again."
   The crowd murmured once more as they looked fearfully toward dark forest nearby. The shepherd boy took this as his cue.
   "In that forest, they plot and plan our demise and they will not be happy until we are all dead," and here, again, he cast an accusing finger at the nearest villager, and raised his voice to say, "and yet here you are denying that they exist at all! Perhaps you are in league with the wolves?"
   The crowd suddenly turned on the villager, who ran in fright.    "You see?!" cried the shepherd boy, "The enemy walks among us!"
   And from that moment on, the shepherd boy found himself in charge of a much larger flock. He found that he could cry 'wolf' as often as he liked, and the villagers would always come running. He also discovered that - when he lost the occasional sheep through his own negligence - he could cry 'wolf' again to divert attention away from the loss or even blame the loss on the wolves.Before too long, he had convinced the villagers that an even greater danger lay beyond the dark woods.
   Another village on the far side was run by a chief who ruled with an iron hand. He loved to terrorize his own people, and he wore the cloak of a wolf to instill fear in the hearts of his enemies.
   The shepherd boy spoke eloquently of the sheer evil required to do such a thing.
   Eventually he convinced his willing flock to attack that village. There was great bloodshed, but everyone agreed that it was a price worth paying to rid the world of the growing wolf threat, and the shepherd boy was awarded a great bounty.
   Now, it is common knowledge that wolves can sense weakness in their prey, and they soon set upon the second village and feasted upon the dead and dying.
   In time, they grew in number, and grew bolder in their approach.
   By the following summer, the wolves had come beyond the fields for the first time in living memory and attacked the shepherd boy's village. There was much crying and weeping and gnashing of teeth.
   But nobody blamed the shepherd boy. They all considered the attack on the village on the far side of the dark woods to be a grand and necessary venture. They were convinced that the attack had to proceed in order to defeat the wolves - and to withdraw their soldiers now would surely make the wolves even bolder.    Sadly, they were all too correct on that second point.
   The shepherd boy had created an even greater danger, and he knew it.
   He also knew that the only way he could escape the wrath of the villagers would be to continue as before. He cast his eyes on the horizon and wondered how long he should wait before crying 'wolf' yet again... and, indeed, if he would even have to bother crying 'wolf' at all.

Might I Point Out?

   As John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court heats up, with everything seeming to hinge on his attitude towards Roe v. Wade, it's important to remember that abortion is 100% legal for anyone, without restriction to reason, in Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, N. Korea, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia/Montenegro, Singapore, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Sweden, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. (from http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/journals/2405698.html)
   The efforts to restrict abortion in America will never effect rich women who want abortions. They always have been, and always will be, able to travel to a foreign country to get an abortion whenever they want, no matter what the laws are in the U.S.
   The whole issue boils down to a war against the poor who can least afford to have children.

    "A particular egg and sperm, each destined to contribute one-half the Genome of a future human being, is produced via complex processes of oogenesis and spermatogenesis, respectively. (Is that moment now?) The fated sperm cell migrates through a layer of follicle cells before reaching the egg's 'extracellular matrix,' known as the zona pellucida. The latter consists of three different glycoproteins, one of which acts as a sperm receptor and binds to its complement on the sperm's head. (Maybe now?)
    "This induces a vesicle at the tip of the sperm, the acrosome, to spill its contents of enzymes, which enable the sperm to penetrate the zona and bump up snugly against the egg's plasma membrane. (Or now?) A protein in the sperm's membrane then binds to and fuses with the egg membrane. (Now?) This in turn triggers depolarization of the latter, which prevents other sperm from entering. (Now?)
    "Shortly thereafter, granules in the egg's cortex release enzymes that catalyze additional, long-lasting changes in the zona, achieving a more long-lasting block to other sperm. (Now?) Pseudopod-like extensions of the egg's interior proceed to transport the sperm into the egg. (Now?)
    "If you've been waiting all this time for the genetic fusing of sperm and egg, note that it doesn't happen immediately, at least not in mammals such as ourselves.
    "Rather, the nuclear envelopes around sperm and egg remain fundamentally distinct through the 'fertilized' egg's first mitotic division. Only at this point, with two 'daughter' cells already in existence, do the parental chromosomes unite, forming two nuclei. But even at this point, the parental genes remain identifiable and distinct, as either paternally or maternally derived. Paternal and maternal genes thus remain separate for at least 24 hours after sperm successfully breaches those follicle cells, and it takes an additional day or so before their combined influence directs cell function.
    "There is, to repeat, no cymbal-crashing 'moment' of fertilization."
- David Barash: When are the souls handed out? -

I Feel So Much Safer Now

   "An elaborate tunnel crossing the U.S.-Canada border 90 miles north of here was shut down, and three suspected drug-runners were arrested this week after a months-long investigation by authorities in both countries.
    "The tunnel, about 100 yards long and equipped with electricity and a ventilation system, began under a Quonset hut on the Canadian side and led to an abandoned home just across the border near Lynden. Police said the suspects planned to use the passageway to smuggle marijuana and other drugs [medicine for cancer patients] into the United States. 

The Pentagon has blocked release of the rest of the Darby photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib.

"On very good authority I have been told in the last year from someone who knows but obviously must remain unidentified) that the United States Air Force currently has in its hanger(s) (an) aircraft which (is) (are) capable of Mach 50. That's 50 times the speed of sound. If we regard the speed of sound as somewhere around 770 mph, then Mach 50 becomes 38,500 mph. That's three times around the world in two hours. As far as I know, this is an intra-atmospheric aircraft that takes off from a large base in the Far West."
- Doug Parrish -

King County sheriff's detectives are investigating the owners of an Enumclaw-area farm after a Seattle man died from injuries sustained while having sex with a horse boarded on the property.

The Origin of the Solar System

 Michael, for the first time I can recall I am disappointed in you - because of the article on the origin of the solar system. First off, the idea we don't know something is true unless someone has actually seen it is absurd on so many levels I will not even get into it. Nobody ever saw a dinosaur, did they?

Hey, you're talking to a guy who argued that France doesn't exist because he hasn't actually seen it.

But the main thing is the notion that there must be some immediate, practical application for knowledge before it is worth seeking. It is precisely the ineffable 'big picture' concepts that give meaning to our existence. They determine how we view the world and therefore our place in it. They allow us to see ourselves in a greater context. They help us understand what it is to be a human being. And that matters much more than how something can make our lives more convenient.

As to the solar system, aren't you interested to know whether there might be others like ours or whether ours is one of a kind? In short, whether life as we know it is a local phenomenon or whether there may be other minds beyond ours. On a more practical level, aren't you interested in whether a comet or asteroid is likely to smack into us sometime soon? The more we know about what's out there, the better equipped we are to decide when and how to visit other worlds, or whether we must sit here forever in our squalor. 

I hope you will rethink this.

Cheers, 
Charles Watkins

No way I'm anti-science, I've just got different priorities. Reverse engineering an intergalactic anti-gravity propulsion system from colliding galaxies 25,000 light years away sounds like a great idea. Throw $333 million at THAT and we could end up with fuel free propulsion systems that would let us fly around in Jetson cars. More interesting to me, at the moment, than the inside of a comet.

Religious Writing Tip of the Week

   "The Koran is the holy book about whose compositional process we know most. There were at least two mediations between the whole and the book: Mohammed listened to the words of Allah and dictated, in his turn, to his scribes. Once, the biographers of the Prophet tell us - while dictating to the scribe Abdullah, Mohammed left a sentence half finished. The scribe, instinctively, suggested the conclusion. Absently, the Prophet accepted as the divine word what Abdullah had said. This scandalized the scribe, who abandoned the Prophet and lost his faith.
   "He was wrong. The organization of the sentence, finally, was a responsibility that lay with him; he was the one who had to deal with the internal coherence of the written language, with grammar and syntax, to channel into it the fluidity of a thought that expands outside all language before it becomes word, and of a word, particularly fluid like that of a prophet. The scribe's collaboration was necessary to Allah once he had decided to express himself in a written text. Mohammed knew this and allowed the scribe the privilege of concluding sentences; but Abdullah was unaware of the powers vested in him. He lost his faith in Allah because he lacked faith in writing, and in himself as an agent of writing.
   "If an infidel were allowed to excogitate variants on the legends of the Prophet, I would venture this one: Abdullah loses his faith because in writing under dictation he makes a mistake and Mohammed, though he notices it, decides not to correct it, finding the mistaken form preferable. In this case, too, Abdullah would be wrong to be scandalized. It is on the page, not before, that the word, even that of the propheic raptus, becomes definitive, that is to say, becomes writing. It is only through the confining act of writing that the immensity of the nonwritten becomes legible, that is, through the uncertainties of spelling, the occasional lapses, oversights, unchecked leaps of the word and the pen. Otherwise what is outside of us should not insist on communication through the word, spoken or written; let it send its messages through other paths."
- Italo Calvino: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler -

    "A curious story is told about Abd-Allah ibn-Abi-Sarh. While Mohammed was dictating to him the passage beginning (with Sura) 23:12, he was carried away by wonder at this description of the creation of man; and, when Mohammed paused after the words 'another creature', exclaimed 'blessed be God, the best of creators'. Mohammed accepted this as the continuation of the revelation, and told him to write it down. This aroused doubt, however, in ibn-Abi-Sarh, and later he gave up Islam and returned to Mecca; at the conquest of Mecca he was one of those proscribed, but was pardoned on the intercession of Uthman."
- Richard Bell: Introduction to the Qur'an, quoting from al-Baidawi's and Zamakshari's commentaries -

"The Islamic canonical traditionists report that Sura 4:95 was dictated by the prophet to his amanuensis Zayd thus: 'Those believers who sit at home are not equal to those who fight in the way of God with their goods and their persons.' A blind man was present and heard the words. He immediately interjected that were he as other men he would certainly fight; whereupon the prophet interposed the words 'except those who suffer from a grave impediment' which stand in the text today."
- A. Guillaume: Islam -

"As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, and beat them."
- The Koran: Surat Al-Nisa 4:34 -

"It was subtle of God to learn Greek when he wished to become an author - and not learn it better."
- Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil -

Stupid Answers of the Week

Last week's question... 

Maybe I'm wrong, but according to these pictures by Barry Chamish, it looks to me like the U.S. is building an enormous concentration camp in Israel. Gee, what do you think they're going to use it for? 

I'm betting they've got those adorable Keebler elves baking up a mess o' those wonderful cookies.
- Caliban

Designer circumcisions.
- Mikey Norman, OK

Mike mate
   It's for
   a) All those Americans that aren't real patriots, especially those with especially good resumes.
   b) All those Hollywood liberals
   c) Left wing bloggers who ridicule his Chimpness
   d) Anyone else who thinks that killing people for a few bucks to massage your ego is truly stupid.
   Oh, and Mike, congratulations on today's blog, its another unique achievement; a blog that becomes funnier, more insightful and intellectually provocative each week.
- Waldo

Look at the etymology...... concentration camp: a camp for people who like to concentrate... sheeeeesh... sometimes I just wonder...
- XM

A warehouse for making cheap Wal-Mart items and expensive Pentagon parts (often the same thing) using Filipino women who think they are going to live in America and meet a rich Yankee-dog to marry, when actually they are being sent to Israel to work as slave labor, now that the Marianas have come under too much public scrutiny. It's called the DeLay Home Depot, I believe, or, maybe, Abramoff's Bed, Bath and Beyond, the 'Beyond' being chained to your work station 16 hours a day. On the upside, they have free abortions and your kids get to work right alongside you, something Americans will have to adjust to as Bush's New World Economy reaches our shores.
- RSJ

I suppose one might think they appear to be a concentration camp, but the lack of guard towers & perimeter fencing disabuses one of that notion. To me they appear more to be warehouses for pre-positioned stocks of war material. (In anticipation of Armageddon: The Final Conflict™ no doubt, if one is of that bent.)
- Herr Bookmonger

Liberals, Gays, Catholics, Illegal Immigrants, Legal immigrants that vote Democratic, real reporters that dare to print anything the Bushies don't like (aka non-government approved truth), Abortionists, Leftists, 'Commie-Pinko-Fag-Junkies' (Thanks to George Carlin for that one!), George Carlin, Al Franken, the entire Democratic party, Centrist Republicans, The entire population of all the Blue States, anyone Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart doesn't like, SpongeBob Squarepants, The Teletubbies, France, anyone that speaks French or likes French cuisine or wine, the ACLU, Scientists that don't toe the propaganda line of the far-Right churches, teachers that dare to teach evolution, Hmm... have I left anyone out? I don't think Israel will be big enough. Maybe we'll need Gitmo and Iraq for the overflow. Think they have enough Gulfstream G-V's for the "rendition" of all of us?
- Surak of Vulcan

Prove that "never again" in this case means about six decades. Jews, concentration camps, it's NEVER been a good mix, no matter how you combine the two.
- Jimmy McConnell

It looks like its going to be the first liberal humanoid zoo to me
- johnny iguanna

Oh, there you go with the negativity already! What about the hundreds of jobs we're creating?You think concentration camps run themselves? 
- MM

Stupid Question of the Week

My current situation: Two months ago my maximum five years of government assistance was up and my monthly check was cut back $150. This month my son turns 18 and it will be cut back another $150. Last month my rent was raised $100. In June, I paid my bills with my monthly government check and gave the landlord a check that was covered by overdraft protection. 

On July first, my one and only monthly check was directly deposited into my account where it covered the overdraft and nothing more. I literally have $0 to cover July's rent and utilities, much less toilet paper. 

Then, in no particular order, internet will go, then phone, then electricity, then three-day-notice, then eviction. We'd be moving into our car if we had one. 

Half a dozen gigs have fallen through. The best selling author who didn't actually write their book who promised me a gig writing their next one this summer? Gone in an alcoholic haze. The agents who love my books? Won't rep them or demand copies I can't supply because I don't have any paper. The local press literally won't even accept submissions from me. Musical News, which a major company has agreed to distribute, a major potential source of income. Don't have the means to produce it. The founder/editor/publisher of the original LA Free Press is such a fan of Disinfotainment Today that he's coming out of retirement to bring back the Free Press as a national paper with me as an editor. He's trying to raise funds as we speak, but so far nothing but promises. The producers who want me to rewrite a script or develop a new treatment? Where's my WGA minimum? Beats me. All I know is nothing came through. Nothing, not even the smallest option on any of my books or screenplays or treatments that would get us through another month. 

Yeah, I know, desperation is never the right way to go, and it pains me to lay this on you. I try to imagine an employer who hires the person who's most desperate, and I try to find the humor in the situation but jokes escape me. The facts are that unless things change within a month, no more publishing, no more contact with the outside world. It gets worse. No desk chair and my back is killing me. Using an abandoned lounge chair with broken elastic I found in the desert. No backup system. If my site goes down, it's lost forever. No transportation. Miles from civilization. 110 degree heat. One son on crutches (long story). Buster turning 18 on July 26th and literally getting nothing but a free razor from Gillette and a letter from the Selective Service asking him to register. Putting all my stuff in a nearby abandoned house and hoping it'll be safe. Looking for any place to stay. One adult, two teenage boys, one Siamese cat, one ball python, and a desert tortoise.

I'd put my son Max on a bus to go stay with relatives if a) I had any way to get to a bus station, b) I had any money for a ticket, c) we had any luggage, or d) we had any relatives.

Suggestions: 

If you just won the lottery, add to your art collection by making me an offer on one of my Polaroids.

A charity in Joshua Tree has agreed to give me any car that someone donates to them, so you can get a tax write-off for that old jeep in the garage AND give me a car.

Looking at the donations I've received over the years, I realize most of my readers aren't in much better shape than me, but there's still something you can do. If Erin Brockovich was in trouble, Julia Roberts would ride to her rescue. If Muhammed Ali needed help, Will Smith would give it. But Scott Bakula, who played me in The Bachelor's Baby hasn't replied to me at all. Write him at Scott Bakula, Bakula Productions Inc., 5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038, and say "what's up with that?"

Any other suggestions? Send your answers here. 

on the other hand...

"Don't sacrifice your own welfare
for that of another,
no matter how great.
Realizing your own true welfare,
be intent on just that."
- Buddha: Dhammapada 166 -

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

A large-scale Japan Public Health Center-based prospective study of 250 men and 84 women newly diagnosed with a type of liver cancer were analyzed according to their coffee intake. Researchers discovered that men and women who drank coffee on a daily or almost daily basis were much less likely to develop liver cancer than those who never drank coffee. The likelihood of liver cancer declined according to the amount of coffee consumed, from those who drank none at highest risk to drinkers of five-plus cups daily at lowest risk.

Don't Take My Word For It

"It hardly seems worthwhile to write if you can't offend someone."
- Joyce Carol Oates -

    "[O]ne of my sources in Baquba just told me today...
    "'Near the city of Buhrez, 5 kilometers south of Baquba, two Humvees of American soldiers were destroyed recently. American and Iraqi soldiers came to the city afterwards and cut all the phones, cut the water, cut medicine from arriving in the city and told them that until the people of the city bring the terrorists to them, the embargo will continue.'
   "The embargo has been in place now for one week, and he continued:
    "'The Americans still won't let any medicines and supplies into Buhrez, nor will they allow any people in or out. Even the Al-Sadr followers who organized some help for the people in the city (water, food, medicine) are not being allowed into the city. Even journalists cannot enter to publish the news, and the situation there is so bad. The Americans keep asking for the people in the city to bring them the persons who were in charge of destroying the two Humvees on the other side of the city, but of course the people in the city don't know who carried out the attack.'"
- Dahr Jamail: Censorship -

"In a major medical breakthrough that could have implications for corporate and political leaders alike, a team of scientists has announced that it has identified the genetic mutation that causes fraud, white collar crime and ethics violations. Scientists say that individuals who have the genetic disorder are more likely to embezzle funds, engage in questionable accounting practices and fall prey to high-profile ethical lapses."
- Scientists Say They've Found the Gene that Causes Fraud, Ethics Violations -

"Listen... we witnessed crimes in the west area of the country of what the bastards did in Haditha and Al-Qaim. It was a crime, a really big crime we have witnessed and filmed in those places and recently also in Fallujah. We need big help in the western area of the country. Our doctors need urgent help there. Please, this is an URGENT humanitarian request from the hospitals in the west of the country. We have big proof on how the American troops destroyed one of our hospitals, how they burned the whole store of medication of the west area of Iraq and how they killed a patient in the ward... how they prevented us from helping the people in al-Qaim. This is an URGENT Humanitarian request. The hospitals in the west of Iraq ask for urgent help... we are in a big humanitarian medical disaster."
- Iraqi doctor -

"Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had 'lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq.' (6-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American 'free press' is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we've seen with the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn't embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using 'universally reviled' weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people."
- Mike Whitney: Covering up Napalm in Iraq -

"We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm's way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees."
- Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe, and Tamar Yaron: A Warning from Israel - What May Come After the Evacuation of Jewish Settlers from the Gaza Strip -

"Here's the deal, OK? Big difference. Michael Jackson likes children; Willy Wonka can't stand them. To me that's a huge difference in the whole persona thing."
- Tim Burton -

"Florida Governor Jeb Bush has asked a state prosecutor to investigate possible links between Hurricane Dennis and Michael Schiavo. Governor Bush said that he connected Mr. Schiavo with the category 3 storm after realizing that Dennis spelled backwards is actually 'sinned.'"
- Deanna Swift: Jeb Bush: Hurricane Dennis Could Be Fault of Michael Schiavo -

    "Finally, the world is safe from Judith Miller. With her locked up in the same maximum-security prison as would-be Sept. 11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, we no longer have to worry that a 57-year-old New York Times reporter is out there blatantly interviewing people.

"At one level, the affair about who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, former diplomat's wife and CIA undercover operative, is utterly baffling. A special prosecutor has been on the case for almost two years, but no one has been indicted; indeed it is not even clear any crime has been committed. The journalist who published the agent's name goes about his business seemingly without a care in the world, but another reporter who never wrote a word about Ms. Plame languishes in a suburban Washington jail for refusing to divulge her source for the same information. For once in a city where everyone claims to have the inside track, no one is sure what is going on."
- Rupert Cornwell: Rovegate Scandal Lays Bare Cynicism Behind Iraq War -

"Miller's source was Chalabi. That's who she's protecting. I have no inside information, but think about it. It makes sense. If Chalabi was her source on this (as he was on everything else she was writing at the time), it would bring down the entire administration. That's why she's in jail - for her own protection. That's also why Matt Cooper pretended he wasn't going to talk until the very morning that he actually talked."
- Jeff Crook -

"True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess."
- Louis Nizer -

"A New York woman claims that she was forced from her teaching post by an elementary school principal who objected to her Republican activism and last year ordered the removal of a portrait of President George W. Bush from the educator's Long Island classroom. In a federal discrimination lawsuit, Jillian Caruso, 26, claims that she was improperly forced to resign her job by Birch Lane Elementary School principal Joyce Becker-Seddio, the wife of state Assemblyman Frank Seddio, a Brooklyn Democrat. In her U.S. District Court complaint, Caruso contends that she was retaliated against by Becker-Seddio because of her political work, which has included volunteering at last year's GOP convention and membership in the Republican National Committee. Caruso, who taught first and third graders at Birch Lane, also claims that when the principal spotted the Bush portrait late last yearn - it was hanging among photos of other U.S. presidents - she 'became outraged and insisted that the picture be removed.'"
- Grand Old Party Pooper? -

"I confess it: when I was in my teens I sought after the mysteries of life, in my twenties I was forced to have those little mysteries eradicated via a veritable regimen of penicillin injections. In my thirties to mid-forties I set my mystery chasing aside, took life by the throat and set out to change the world. Now, as I lumber down the road towards fifty, I am rapidly surrendering to the all-too sad theorem that our world is woefully unchangeable - and that life itself is just one long Yoko Ono album. No rhyme, no reason, just a lot of incoherent shrieks and then its over."
- D W. Steep: The Confessions and Lamentations of a Man Approaching Fifty -

"If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost."
- Lloyd Douglas -

"The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. Because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain."
- Richard Milhous Nixon -

"Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary -

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
- Herman Melville -

"To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man."
- Alan Paton -

"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."
- Pat Paulsen -

"Never eat more than you can lift."
- Miss Piggy -

"In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from."
- Peter Drucker -

"Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners."
- E. Joseph Crossman -

"We are continuously faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."
- Lee Iacocca -

"There's practically no question that foreign leaders see Condi as a sort of diplomatic Paris Hilton - they're awfully nice to her, but take her about as seriously as drama critics take Pauly Shore."
- Scott Johnson: What I Saw On the Way to the Frogmarch - 

    "This is a story about disappearing terrorists, nonexistent bags, and botched investigations, but most of all, this is a story about magic bombs.
    "It's Crime Scene Investigation 101. It's the basic law of physics. It's so elementary, my dear Watson, that even a dancer who was dazed from the shock of being seated directly over the spot where one of the bombs was planted in the London tube carriage two weeks ago could figure it out.
    "In a seemingly innocuous article in the British newspaper Cambridge Evening News, 32 year-old dance instructor Bruce Lait, in an interview from his hospital bed, said that 'The policeman said "mind that hole, that's where the bomb was". The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag.'"
    "Read that last part again, very slowly, and let it sink in. 'The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train.' 'They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag.'
    "And the British authorities on the crime scene missed that, and just assumed that it was a carry-on bomb? C'mon, how many times have you seen that bad TV show where the eccentric detective figures out that the crime was an "inside job" because the glass was outside the broken window, not inside where it should have been. I repeat: Crime Scene Investigation 101. Basic physics."
- Mark Faulk: The "Magic Bomb" Theory -

"Modern Politics: The art of changing people's attitudes from fearlessly facing the future to facelessly fearing the future."
- Dare's dictionary -

"Think about it. Why does it take over 1,000 pages to define free trade?"
- Kent Snyder, executive director of The Liberty Committee, quoted in CAFTA threatens sovereignty by Cathy Roemer -

"Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy."
- Aristotle -

    "When a conspiracy is unraveling, and it's every liar and his lawyer for themselves, the story takes on a momentum of its own. When the conspiracy is, at its heart, about the White House's twisting of the intelligence used to sell the American people a war - and its desperate efforts to cover up that flimflam once the W.M.D. cupboard proved bare and the war went south - the story will not end until the war really is in its 'last throes...'
    "As White House counsel, he [Alberto Gonzales] was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18-minute tape gap. 'Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence,' said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months."
- Frank Rich: Eight Days in July -

    "Be it hereby declared that the citizenry of the United States is at war with its elected officials over free access to dietary supplements without interference by federal health agencies that now distribute misinformation regarding these products.
    "The threat is posed by HR 3156: Dietary Supplement Access & Awareness Act.
   "Elected representatives Susan A. Davis (CALIF), John D. Dingell (MICH) and Henry A. Waxman (CALIF) have introduced legislation, now in committee, that would virtually destroy the dietary supplement industry...
   "For many years running the American Association of Poison Control Centers has reported the mortality and morbidity associated with dietary supplements to be relatively low, with no mortality associated with multivitamins for a period of more than 8 years running. Even though dietary supplements are safer than food (food borne infection strikes millions annually), safer than table salt, and safer than many over-the-counter remedies such as aspirin, these representatives have chosen to draft legislation that would mandate onerous reporting requirements that are unjustified.     "Mandates scare tactics: HR 3156 would require that millions of dollars of public money be spent to educate the public to report alleged side effects to their physicians. HR 3156 will likely result in labeling that will say 'Report any serious adverse reactions to your physician.' Or imagine listening to the radio and a government sponsored ad says: "If you or a loved one experience a serious side effect such as a stroke, heart attack, or even death) that you believe may be related to a dietary supplement, please notify your physician." Such efforts to label products or educate the public in this manner only serves to create doubt in the public's mind over the relative safety of these products and assumes serious adverse reactions are a major but unreported problem."
- Bill Sardi: Declaration Of War To Oppose HR 3156 -

    "[I]n all aspects of scientific practice, actual history has shown that there is a method of generating and validating a scientific discovery of new universal principles. Whenever a situation arises, as in the singularly anomalous circumstances represented by the brutishness of the Bush-Cheney regime, we must go behind the principles and circumstances from which our Constitution was derived, to craft a principle which coheres with that historical root in principle, from which, again, the original Constitution was derived.
    "So, on the one hand, the immediacy of the present existential threat to planetary civilization would put impeachment or kindred action on the agenda for remedial action now. Yet, regard for the kind of action which must occur to such effect, shows us that we are not yet prepared, at least not most of our relevant representatives, to define how and when the needed remedial action should actually occur, and to what intended effect. We must think of taking such action, even very soon, but we must be careful, nonetheless, to ensure that we save the life of the patient, our constitutional system, rather than risk killing it in a panicked resort to hasty surgery. We must think carefully about the unprecedented quality of immediate anomalies in an onrushing breakdown-crisis of the world's present monetary-financial system, the context within which the presently threatening condition of our Presidency is situated.
    "The organ, the Presidency, is presently diseased by what may be described as the Bush-Cheney regime, but the disease lies not merely in either of those admittedly extremely defective individuals, nor in the combination of Bush and Cheney as individual office-holders, but in the systemic features of the world's current, existential quality of crisis-situation which has brought such an inappropriate pair as that into those offices. The cases of Bush and Cheney, taken both as separate and combined, are a product of a special set of historically specific conditions; it is those conditions, which produced them as they are today, which must be cured. Our primary objective must be curing that condition which brought that ill-chosen pair into playing their current, pathological role, rather than treating them merely as scapegoats for the condition which brought that pair into its present, perverted role in office."
- Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.: HOW THE LAW SHOULD JUDGE BUSH'S MIND, MEMO ON 'THE PERICLES SYNDROME', The Case of A Vice-President's Mass Insanity -

"A recent poll reveals that most Americans aren't paying attention to 'Rove-gate' because the story is boring and hard to follow, and say that they would be more interested in the CIA leak probe if it involved celebrities."
- Poll: Karl Rove Leak Story 'Boring,' 'Hard to Follow' -

"The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might."
- Mark Twain -

    "There are only two implements in the imperial tool-chest; fear and deception. So, we can forget about diplomacy, negotiation or, heaven help us, compromise. These are not part of the Bush-Blair repertoire so they can be dismissed as irrelevant. Any serious investigation of the London bombings must keep this in mind; fear and deception; the lone forces that animate the administration and move policy.
    "We must also address the issue of 'motive'; who benefits (cui bono) from the bombing of innocent people in a London subway. For Bush, of course, 9-11 proved to be the catalyst for overturning long-held constitutional precedents, enacting regressive legislation (Patriot Act) and initiating a global resource war. In fact, there has been no downside to the Sept. 11 attacks for Bush and Co. It almost seems like the entire tragedy was simply staged to meet the stated objectives of Bush's neocon base.
    "For Blair the political situation is strikingly similar to that of Bush before 9-11. He's presented a raft of regressive bills to Parliament; including more repressive anti-terror legislation and a fabulously unpopular National ID card bill analogous to those used in dictatorships. The bombings have strengthened Blair's hand considerably; allowing him to traipse about affecting Churchillian poses and helping him pull his career out of the political ash-heap.
    "So, have the London attacks helped Blair reassert his role as leader and move forward the agenda of his paymasters?"
- Mike Whitney: The "Bloody Footprints" at 10 Downing Street -

    "'Cuz you know, there you are, eyes bloodshot and fingers sore and synapses raw and butt prematurely widening, cranking along on your 117th hour of the insanely popular GTASA [Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas], and you're bustin' heads and makin' drug deals and swipin' cars and gang-bangin' and stuff is blowin' up all around.
   "And there's tons of guns and bazookas and knives and disposable slutty chicks and viciously corrupt cops and piles of blatant racism and drive-by shootings and pipe beatings and low-rider cars with massive silly chrome rims, and you can veritably feel the imminent heroin overdoses and taste the toxic prison food these thug characters will soon enjoy, and it's just all manner of bitchin' badass video-game glory of sufficient quality to numb your teenage soul to the point where you become so callous and lost and malicious you're ready to join the Young Republicans when WHOA, what the hell is this?
   "Suddenly that downloadable patch you installed last night kicks in and there's, like, a lame and badly animated sex scene, right there, right between the graphic bloody part where you bazooka'd the police helicopter and the part where the gang-banger gets his lame ass beaten with a large handgun, and suddenly you're like, what the hell? Who stuck this lame badly animated sex in here? Where'd my soul-numbing ultraviolent racism go? I am outraged...
   "After all, up to this point, you've only seen about 17 thousand porn ads on the Internet and spent 167 hours riffing through your stepdad's stash of Hustlers and watched your friend's DVD copy of Weapons of Ass Destruction IV like, 20 times. You're still a baby! Why, you still don't even get most of the jokes in Wedding Crashers! You're not even old enough to be sent off to die for no reason in Iraq!
   "Shouldn't someone be outraged over the fact that 17-year-old virgin geeks who play endless hours of ultraviolent video games might somehow be tainted to their very cores by two minutes of badly animated sex, despite how you are, as a typical American teen, so regularly co-opted, so viciously pummeled by crass product placement and violence on the news and wicked misinformation about everything from marijuana to abstinence to cafeteria food, well, it pretty much makes the tepid and completely unarousing sex on GTASA look like outtakes from Shrek III: Now We're Just Whoring It? You're darned right there should!"
- Mark Morford: There's Sex In My Violence! What's this lame soft-core porn doing in my ultraviolent "Grand Theft Auto"? I am outraged! -

"The most disturbing fact about the London bombings is that the perpetrators were British citizens, apparently assisted by foreign jihadi experts who sneaked in and out of the country. How is subduing the Iraqi insurgency relevant to countering that kind of threat? Killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a firefight will do little to discourage homegrown extremists from carrying high explosives onto trains and buses."
- Joe Conason: An honorable withdrawal - The London bombings remove any doubt about the damage the Iraq war has done to Western interests. Now, we must figure out the wisest way to extricate ourselves. -

    "In the orgy of summit coverage something has been overlooked: the two men at the heart of it, telling us how the world should be run, are the men responsible for Fallujah and Abu Ghraib.
   "Over the past two weeks, the contrast between two related 'global' events has been salutary. The first was the World Tribunal on Iraq, held in Istanbul; the second the G8 meeting in Scotland and the Make Poverty History campaign. Reading the papers and watching television in Britain, you would know nothing about the Istanbul meetings, which produced the most searing evidence to date of the greatest political scandal of modern times: the attack on a defenceless Iraq by America and Britain.
   "The tribunal is a serious international public inquiry into the invasion and occupation, the kind governments dare not hold. 'We are here,' said the author Arundhati Roy in Istanbul, 'to examine a vast spectrum of evidence [about the war] that has been deliberately marginalised and suppressed - its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation; the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted-uranium munitions, napalm and cluster bombs, the use and legitimization of torture . . . This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record: to document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily vanquished.'
   "'Temporarily vanquished' implies that, even faced with such rampant power, the Iraqi people will recover. You certainly need this sense of hope when reading the eyewitness testimonies, which demonstrate, as Roy pointed out, 'that even those of us who have tried to follow the war closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq'".
- John Pilger: Paymasters Of Carnage -

    "The razing of the homes, public buildings, factories and greenhouses is indeed a serious mistake - a mistake that must be avoided. Scenes of Israeli bulldozers turning blossoming communities into piles of rubble, with the Palestinians looking on, will play into the hands of Israel's critics. Could there be a worse picture than this from the point of view of Israeli interests? Even if the private homes on the settlements do not suit the private housing requirements in Gaza, surely there are numerous and suitable public needs for which the settlements' structures can serve in the future, for the good of the Strip's population.
   "The demolition of houses in the Jewish settlements - after years of occupation in Gaza during which Israel razed thousands of Palestinian housing units - would be an inhumane and immoral act. One should not, therefore, make much of the inconsistent positions of the two sides on the matter. Both the Israeli government and the Palestinians are speaking in two tongues - sometimes in favor of demolition and sometimes against, for various reasons. But it is in Israel's interests to leave the homes standing, and hand them over to the other side in a civilized manner that will signal the turning over of a new leaf in the complex relations between them and us."
- Stop the bulldozers -

    "Far from ruining the country, here are some of the good things the Chavez government has accomplished:
    "A land reform program designed to assist small farmers and the landless poor has been instituted this past March a large landed estate owned by a British beef company was occupied by agrarian workers for farming purposes.
    "Education is now free (right through to university level), causing a dramatic increase in grade school enrollment.
    "The government has set up a marine conservation program and is taking steps to protect the land and fishing rights of indigenous peoples.
    "Special banks now assist small enterprises, worker cooperatives, and farmers.
    "Attempts to further privatize the state-run oil industry - 80 percent of which is still publicly owned - have been halted and limits have been placed on foreign capital penetration.
    "Chavez kicked out U.S. military advisors and prohibited overflights by U.S. military aircraft engaged in counterinsurgency in Colombia.
    "Bolivian Circles have been organized throughout the nation, neighborhood committees designed to activate citizens at the community level to assist in literacy, education, vaccination campaigns, and other public services.
    "The government hires unemployed men, on a temporary basis, to repair streets and neglected drainage and water systems in poor neighborhoods.
- Michael Parenti: Good Things Happening in Venezuela -

    "Over the past two years, I have collected the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004. This research is conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources - Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others - so that we can gather information not only from newspapers but also from products from the terrorist community. The terrorists are often quite proud of what they do in their local communities, and they produce albums and all kinds of other information that can be very helpful to understand suicide-terrorist attacks.
   "This wealth of information creates a new picture about what is motivating suicide terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with suicide terrorism as many people think. The world leader in suicide terrorism is a group that you may not be familiar with: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.    "This is a Marxist group, a completely secular group that draws from the Hindu families of the Tamil regions of the country. They invented the famous suicide vest for their suicide assassination of Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians got the idea of the suicide vest from the Tamil Tigers...
   "The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign - over 95 percent of all the incidents - has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw."
- Robert Pape quoted in The Logic of Suicide Terrorism: It's the occupation, not the fundamentalism by Scott McConnell -

"Executive Order 12958 governs how federal employees are awarded security clearances in order to obtain access to classified information. It was last updated by President George W. Bush on March 25, 2003, although it has existed in some form since the Truman era. The executive order applies to any entity within the executive branch that comes into possession of classified information, including the White House. It requires employees to undergo a criminal background check, obtain training on how to protect classified information, and sign a 'Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement,' also known as a SF-312, promising not to reveal classified information. The nondisclosure agreement signed by White House officials such as Mr. Rove states: 'I will never divulge classified information to anyone' who is not authorized to receive it."
- KARL ROVE'S NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT -

    "This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is 'a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops.' Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in Psycho.
    "This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.
    "So put aside Mr. Wilson's February 2002 trip to Africa. The plot that matters starts a month later, in March, and its omniscient author is Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Cheney (on CNN) who planted the idea that Saddam was 'actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time.' The vice president went on to repeat this charge in May on Meet the Press, in three speeches in August and on Meet the Press yet again in September. Along the way the frightening word 'uranium' was thrown into the mix."
- Frank Rich: Follow the Uranium -

"Matthew Nagle, a paralyzed young Boston man, last summer became the first human to send an e-mail with his thoughts. A computer device implanted into his brain by a company called Cyberkinetics can read his neurons as they fire."
- Joel Garreau: You're not good enough! Human evolution is now being engineered. Choose to enhance yourself or face inferiority. - "He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it. Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?"
- Sanjay Dutt, 22, of Leeds, England, a friend of one of the suicide bombers who struck London on July 7 -

    "A controversial law that could ban hundreds of vitamin and mineral supplements from being sold in Britain was upheld by the European Court of Justice earlier this week...
   "Z is for Zinc, which is required for many of the body's functions. Zinc is crucial for proper growth. It promotes cell reproduction and tissue growth and repair. This is needed for wound healing. Zinc also is key to the proper working of the immune system. Zinc picolinate, which provides zinc in an easily absorbed form, is not on the Approved List."
- Alastair Jamieson: Vitamins: too bitter a pill for us to swallow? -

    "Stark statistics reveal for the first time the true tragedy of the Iraq war. They come in the most authoritative report yet into the horrific toll, made public by the independent Oxford Research Group of academics and peace activists.
    "It reveals a total of 24,865 civilians were killed and 42,500 injured between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005.
    "Researchers spent months compiling the dossier with the help of the independent Iraq Body Count Project. They spoke to hundreds of witnesses to unearth graphic details of the bloodshed."
- Brian Roberts: IRAQ: THE HUMAN TRAGEDY - Report reveals horrific civilian toll in war -

"Do not reveal to friends all the secrets you possess; they may one day become enemies. Do not inflict on enemies every injury in your power; they may one day become friends."
- Sadi: Gulistan -

"Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes."
- Voltaire -

"He is dear to me who runs not after the pleasant or away from the painful, grieves not, lusts not, but lets things come and go as they happen."
- Bhagavad Gita 12:17 -

"There's no heavier burden than a great potential." 
- Charles M. Schulz -

"A name is imposed on what is thought to be a thing or a state and this divides it from other things and other states. But when you pursue what lies behind the name, you find a greater and greater subtlety that has no divisions. Atoms of dust are not really atoms of dust but are merely called that. In the same way, a world is not a world but is merely called that."
- Buddhaghosa: Visuddhimagga -

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis."
- Margaret Bonnano -

"I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career."
- Gloria Steinem -

"He who seeks for applause only from without has all his happiness in another's keeping."
- Oliver Goldsmith -

"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent."
- Sophia Loren -

"Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car."
- Evan Davis -

"Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals - that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government - that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens' protection against the government."
- Ayn Rand -

"Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist but the ability to start over."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald -

"Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

Everything Else

Wanna save yourself some time? Don't want to wait for the film? Here's how the new Harry Potter book ends.

An excellent guide to converting audio files and burning CDs.

Mark Fiore's animation, Rockstar, with Bush trying to be Bono, is particularly good.