Running Man Walken

Christopher Walken is running for president. It's actually a hoax but I couldn't help myself. I have applied for the position of speech writer and written him the following speech...

Christopher Walken Campaign Speech

Those of you hoping that the current administration will resolve any world conflicts are sadly deluded. 

If you were in the air conditioning industry, you'd hope for hot weather, and if the air conditioning industry controlled the weather and was unscrupulous, we'd have record breaking heat to promote sales of air conditioners. If you were in the mosquito net industry, you'd hope for more mosquitoes, and if the mosquito net industry could do it and was unscrupulous, we'd have plagues of mosquitoes to promote sales of mosquito nets. And if you were in the arms industry, you'd hope for more wars. If the arms industry controlled the United States government, which they do, and they were unscrupulous, which they are, we'd have wars all over the world to promote sales of the instruments of war.

That's why we're in Iraq and Afghanistan, actions which have created MORE terrorists. That's why they're "staying the course." The current administration isn't in the conflict RESOLUTION industry, they're in the conflict CREATION industry. They're promoting sales of armaments. It's the oldest trick in the book, dating back to Roman times; creating the enemies you need. They are war profiteers. The warmongers have hijacked the country, and they're trying to hijack the world.

Let's get it back. My name is Christopher Walken and I'm running for president of the United States. I'm not a Democrat OR Republican because they're different sides of the same coin. They're all bought and sold and they've all got to go, every last one of them. I won't talk to someone who's obviously corrupt and I won't debate anyone whose opinions I have no respect for. I won't make a deal with ANYONE who voted for the USA Patriot Act. I won't make a deal with ANYONE who voted to give George W. Bush war powers. I won't even TALK to the bastards. They're all in the same racket and it's time to clean house. They're the scum of the earth and you, the people of the United States, have got the power to send them packing. Let's start at the top. 

I won't put those in defense out of a job, I'll just give them different jobs. They can build floating hospitals instead of aircraft carriers. We've already got enough aircraft carriers. I'm not anti-defense. Vote for me and I'll keep us strong in order to PREVENT wars, not to start more of them.

I leave you with some quotes from a few other people who had the job I'm asking you to give me. See if you can figure out who said this... "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." Nope, it wasn't Michael Moore, it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Sadly, he got that wrong. The "number is negligible" part, not the "stupid" part. 

And who said  "We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob." It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

How about "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." Eisenhower again.

"There exists a false aristocracy based on family name, property, and inherited wealth. But there likewise exists a true aristocracy based on intelligence, talent, and virtue." God bless Thomas Jefferson for saying that. 

Who said "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." It was Benjamin Franklin. Okay, that was a trick question. He was never president.

I bet you know who said "In the final analysis, our most common link is that we inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." It was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who also said "The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution," and "The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight." Too bad he never got that chance.

And finally, "We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." Yep, a four-star general who fought WWII, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He got THAT right, entirely.

I will not follow in the footsteps of my immediate predecessor. George W. Bush is a president for the history books. His greatest accomplishment is that he is the only president to serve two terms despite the fact he lost both elections. His other great accomplishments are..., wait a minute, I'm sure I can think of some. (PAUSE) Nope, my mind's a blank. The only accomplishments I can think of are that he killed a lot of innocent people in order to make his friends money. That's not great. That's embarrassing and despicable.

Vote for me and I guarantee you it won't happen again while I'm in charge.

Thank you.

Fall TV Schedule from Hell

Jeff Gannon, AKA James Guckert, has a new show on Fox called "The Queen of Kings," about a gay male escort who infiltrates the White house.

Musical News

Mick Jagger is denying that "Sweet Neo Con," a song on the Rolling Stones' new CD, is about George W. Bush. 

Similarly, Peter Gabriel denies that "Shock the Monkey" has anything to do with George W. Bush, Bob Dylan says "Idiot Wind" isn't about George W. Bush, Freddie Mercury came back from the dead to deny he was thinking of George W. Bush when he sang "I see a little silhouetto of a man," and Willie Nelson claims his new song "George W. Bush is a Moron" is about a completely different George W. Bush. Yoko Ono is extremely upset that people are misinterpreting her new song "Yaaarggghhh!" as a slam against George W. Bush, and oddly enough, there have been no complaints about Paul McCartney's new song, "Everybody's Got Something to Hide 'cept for the Entire Bush Administration."

Graffiti on the Israel/Palestine Wall

Brand New Definition of the Word "Offensive"

Warning to all fans of South Park: before you watch Cartman's version of the Aristocrats joke, clear the room of all children, anyone who's easily offended, and anyone who's NOT easily offended, because if you're not offended by this joke, something's wrong with you.

The WGA is currently fighting to get rid of the "possessory credit," in which director's who didn't write the film get an automatic credit saying "A Film by..." Why?

Nobody's got a problem with credits like "A film by Woody Allen" or "A film by Quentin Tarantino" because they both write and direct their films. But directors who are just directors get to say it's a film by them when it's just their performance of a script by someone else. Question for Ridley Scott: If you were to conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, would the publicity read "A Symphony by Ridley Scott?" I think we'd all be on Beethoven's side if he objected. As soon as directors lose that automatic possessory credit, people will take the writer more seriously, and that's a good thing. 

Here's a film someone should shoot that would make the point...

Writer's Promo Film

INT. COURTROOM: DAY 
The room is packed. The judge addresses the jury.

         JUDGE
    Has the jury reached a verdict?

         JURY FOREMAN
    We have, your honor. 

The clerk walks up to the Jury Foreman, takes the verdict from him, and hands it to the judge, who looks at it. 

TITLE: "It's not up to the judge"

         JUDGE
    You may read the verdict. 

TITLE: "It's not up to the jury"

         JURY FOREMAN
    On the count of first degree murder... 

CLOSE-UP: THE DEFENDANT who is sweating profusely.

         JURY FOREMAN
    We find the defendant... 

The defense attorney and the prosecutor look at each other. 

TITLE: "It's not up to the attorneys" 

CLOSE-UP: The Jury Foreman shrugs. 

CLOSE-UP: Me at my typewriter as I type "Guilty!"

         JURY FOREMAN
    Guilty! 

TITLE: "It's up to the writer." 

THE END

I Feel So Much Safer Now

"Today's arrest of Mark (sic) Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement."
- D.E.A. administrator Karen Tandy admitting that the arrest of Canadian marijuana activist Marc Emery was a quasi-legal, politically motivated hit-job -

Stupid Answers of the Week

Last week's question...

What is the stupidest religious belief?

     That would be Scientology. Running away. From Wikipedia, here are their core beliefs:
     75 million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as Teegeeack. The planets were overpopulated, each having on average 178 billion people. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with people "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.
     Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of "renegades", he defeated the populace and the "Loyal Officers", a force for good that was opposed to Xenu. Then, with the assistance of psychiatrists, he summoned billions of people to paralyze them with injections of alcohol and glycol, under the pretense that they were being called for "income tax inspections". The kidnapped populace was loaded into space planes for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth). The space planes were exact copies of Douglas DC-8s, "except the DC-8 had fans, propellers on it and the space plane didn't." (DC-8s have jet engines, not propellers, although Hubbard may have meant the turbine fans.)
     When the space planes had reached Teegeeack, the paralyzed people were unloaded and stacked around the bases of volcanoes across the planet. Hydrogen bombs were lowered into the volcanoes, and all were detonated simultaneously. Only a few people's physical bodies survived.
    The now-disembodied victims' souls, which Hubbard called thetans, were blown into the air by the blast. They were captured by Xenu's forces using an "electronic ribbon" ("which also was a type of standing wave") and sucked into "vacuum zones" around the world. The hundreds of billions of captured thetans were taken to a type of cinema, where they were forced to watch a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for 36 days. This implanted what Hubbard termed "various misleading data" (collectively termed the R6 implant) into the memories of the hapless thetans, "which has to do with God, the Devil, space opera, etcetera". This included all world religions, with Hubbard specifically attributing Roman Catholicism and the image of the Crucifixion to the influence of Xenu. The interior decoration of "all modern theaters" is also said by Hubbard to be due to an unconscious recollection of Xenu's implants. The two "implant stations" cited by Hubbard were said to have been located on Hawaii and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.
     In addition to implanting new beliefs in the thetans, the images deprived them of their sense of identity. When the thetans left the projection areas, they started to cluster together in groups of a few thousand, having lost the ability to differentiate between each other. Each cluster of thetans gathered into one of the few remaining bodies that survived the explosion. These became what are known as body thetans, which are said to be still clinging to and adversely affecting everyone except those Scientologists who have performed the necessary steps to remove them.
    The Loyal Officers finally overthrew Xenu and locked him away in a mountain, where he was imprisoned forever by a force field powered by an eternal battery. Teegeeack/Earth was subsequently abandoned by the Galactic Confederacy and remains a pariah "prison planet" to this day, although it has suffered repeatedly from incursions by alien "Invader Forces" since then.
    Cheers, 
- Charles Watkins

That Heaven is a place anyone really wants to go. Hell exists as a concept to make the alternative look less uninviting. 
- MoonBat52 

That one can be convinced that that which created everything has revealed to me (or you) a special knowledge (revelation) above and beyond the knowledge of everyone or everything else in the universe. Those who believe that they have received special, unique knowledge are the most delusional and dangerous people alive.
- Bill Moses

     Michael, 
    You asked, "What is the stupidest religious belief?"
    My answer is "Yes." 
- Roy Adams Tyler, TX 
P.S. Earlier you mentioned the classic tale of the tortoise and the hare and opined that as it is just a parable comparable to the entire book of Job, no one worships the tortoise. Know ye not any graduates of the University of Maryland? And how do I explain this dead turtle I have nailed to a cross hanging over my mantle? 

The Modern Hari Krishnas - the pop-up ads who ask for money when all you want to do is buy airplane tickets online. 
- Locke Milholland 

whatever religion our resident boosh thinks that he is the high priest or holy roller gawd of 
- johnny iguanna (the revolution is on NOW)

That we are conscious beings with free will. Anyone who's ever made a mistake should be able to work that one out (hint: you can't make mistakes on purpose) 
- Nick Kent

     All of them.
    Oh, okay, I'll pick a few. How about that we cannot make it on our own without a deity. I mean when was the last time God paid your rent? Or bought you groceries? Or how about that the only way one learns to be a moral person is to have a religious upbringing? I think there are a lot of immoral people out there hiding behind their religion. How about that God cares more about the sex lives of consenting adults than war, poverty, or anything else on a long list of miseries. 
- Michelle (Endeavor to learn something new everyday, and one day we all may be wise.)

The belief that religion is synonymous with spirituality.
- Jimmy McConnell

     Hi Michael,
     How about the belief that syphilis can be cured by having sex with a virgin - according to a high school principal I met in Barbados. Most likely comes from Obia, a form of Voodoo, which is practiced in some Caribbean islands. Since the nearest virgin is a twelve-year-old daughter or granddaughter the end result of this particular cure is a high incidence of teen syphilis.
    Perhaps this is more a superstition than a religious belief, but then I'm not always sure where to draw the line. 
   I knew this born-gain Christian woman once who mentally protected her car against theft by covering it with the blood of Christ every time she left it in a car park. 
- Ulla de Mora 
PS. Talking of beliefs: Hope I'm not too late with this as an answer for your survival question...  a) Ask yourself WHO PROFITS? Which part of your complex personality gains the most from a continuing belief in a no-win scenario. b) Despite all the evidence to the contrary believe that life is a WIN-WIN game. c) Then start a new religion based on this, and have me be your treasurer.

Superiority of any religion over another has caused more death and destruction than terrorism ever will.
- Julie

     That non-believers are doomed.
    All major religions feel that if you don't drink their cool-aid you're doomed. Thus, this belief, the foundation of them, is actually a bet. A bet on your guy to be the right voice. If your guy is Jesus, Jehovah, Muhammad, or a large Turtle with a really big head, you're really just rolling the dice hoping that you picked right.
    Cause if you bet wrong, and it turns out to the be the turtle, then you're doomed.
- Matt

    Actually I can think of several:
    1. That by confessing your sins to a man in a little room and mumbling a few prayers as penance, you are "absolved" of them and therefore can go to heaven. Even if you commit the same "sins" time after time, as long as you tell the man in the room about them and say you're sorry, everything is hunky-dory.
    2. That by stating that you believe that "The Lord Jesus Christ is my personal savior", you will go to heaven no matter what else you might do. You could be the worst serial killer that ever lived but as long as you believed that "The Lord Jesus Christ is my personal savior", you would go to heaven. AND what is even stupider is that if one (or more) of your victims didn't believe that "The Lord Jesus Christ was their personal savior", that they would end up in hell.
    3. That all the answers to life are in the bible. Problems with your wife, read the bible. Need to lose weight, stop smoking, whatever, read the bible. Behind on your credit cards, read the bible. Yep, all the answers are right there in the bible. Even the parts that contradict  themselves.
    4. That a baby has to be baptized in order to get to heaven, even if it only lived a few hours and couldn't possibly have committed any "sins." And if it wasn't baptized, it would end up in a place called "Limbo," where it would have to suffer for a while before it was allowed into heaven.
    5. That people in heaven are always "looking down" on us, all the time, 24/7, so we better shape up so Aunt Bertha doesn't catch us wanking or whatever and narcs us out to God. And why do we never hear about the loved ones who are looking up at us from hell? Because no one wants to think that Grandma or whoever ended up in hell even though they were married 5 times, possibly killed one or more of their spouses, had a drinking problem, and beat their kids for breathing funny. Maybe Grandma believed that "The Lord Jesus Christ was her personal savior" so that made all her bad behavior okay. 
- Poopsie 

That I can sell my soul to someone that already had it at birth (per the Xian belief system I was inflicted with as a small child). 
- James and Katherine Allard 

The stupidest religious belief is that your imaginary skydaddy gives a shit where I put my cock. Of ALL the things to worry about......yet the skydaddy prohibition on men sucking cock leads otherwise highly intelligent people like MD to writhe in disgust at the very thought. Stupidstupidstupid and wasteful... 
- Tim (cocksucker) Omachi

     That there is One Great Being who doesn't live on Earth and yet dictates rules for how we live here. The classic "Do as I say, not as I do" syndrome.
    Sheesh.
    Love your column, by the way.
    Cheers,
- Deborah Gallagher

     That a benevolent God wouldn't provide proof of himself, through firsthand experience, and that those remaining unconvinced should alter their conduct despite an absence of first hand evidence. A good God wouldn't expect anyone to have faith just because some other human being insists on it. One either believes in God or one does not. A just God wouldn't demand belief based on events that happened thousands of years ago; he'd provide you all the proof you need right now in your own life and time. He wouldn't expect anyone to believe based on the say-so of a few authors that lived so long ago. What is the point in a sane God insisting on blind faith? Why would a well-adjusted deity act this way? If it is because this God is jealous, then we are assuming a flaw in what is by definition more perfect. This is illogical, inconsistent thinking. Proselytizing is for idiots, because without first-hand proof, everyone is lying when they tell you they are doing anything except hedging their bets.
    The flip side of this insanity is the questioning of the beliefs of one who is convinced that God exists. This reverse proselytizing is equally as nuts. Certainty is a purely subjective experience, but requires no affirmation from others, by definition. A certainty that requires the affirmation of others assumes doubt and is by definition uncertain, a logical absurdity. I feel no need to explain myself further. That's the way certainty is, my friend, and hopefully your own proof is coming sooner rather than later. Regardless, I have no question in my mind that it is coming around again.
- Palantir 
Peace, and good health.

     It was in the '70's; I was a young RnR musician living in Dallas, Texas. One morning, printed in the Dallas Morning News, was a headline - "Southern  Baptists - 'God does not hear the prayers of Jews.'"
    Hell, I thought, I can hardly play more than three or four chords in a song, but even I know that they're all praying to a Rabbi. What, all their prayers/messages stop at Jesus?
    "Yeah, we know he's a Jew, but since we think he's the Son of God and has the salvation of the entire Universe in his hands...we'll let it pass."
    Funky-assed hypocrites. 
   Love
- Kit Kincannon

     That's a tough one. 99.99999 percent of religion is unbearably stupid.
     I'd go with the rapture because it is DANGEROUSLY stupid when practiced by the absolute evil cretins in the white house now. Who are sucking up to the moron fundies. 
- Paul

     MD,
    What is the stupidest religious belief? Gosh, that's a tough one. There are so many. It's a subject I've been thinking about lately, and so my answer will probably be as broad as the question.
    The stupidest religious belief has to be that religion exists to worship and serve a supreme being, force or consciousness.
    The simple truth is that five or more people placed together within a single environment are incapable of getting along without some larger driving force holding them together or preventing them from killing each other. Sooner or later, two or more of them will come to blows or split away, unless there is something there to stop them. That "something" in most cases is religion, though it can also be a form of government (most of which are based on some kind of religion), or an especially charismatic leader. And since charismatic leaders don't grow on trees, human society depends on religion/government to function.
    I used to think religion was nothing but a huge scam for taking people's money, and although it does serve this function, that is only a side-effect of the fear that religion uses to keep people working hard and looking down. I have come to realize that religion serves a larger need. 
    In our hunter-gatherer days, when human populations generally remained small, the need for religion was small. A leader might use simple religious beliefs to maintain his position as head of the tribe - such things happen even today, even within a single family unit. 
    As society grew, so did its need for greater control of the population. Fear of immediate physical retribution will keep the majority in line, but there are always a strong-minded/strong-bodied few who don't fear physical retribution or whose physical prowess prevents it. Religion, with its ownership of the keys to heaven (or whatever your metaphor of choice) not only attempts to bring the strong few into line either through fear of eternal damnation or redirection (inclusion) of their strength to religious purposes, it also binds the people together in order to make them strong enough to resist the temptation or attacks of those who stand outside the system and refuse to believe or be redirected.
    Religion and government are essentially the same thing. Ever notice how we revere, in quasi-religious terms, the Constitution and the "Founding Fathers"? Religion provides for the continuation of human society by centering it around a god, whether spirit, form, or idea. Religion uses the trappings of mysticism, of knowledge of the unknowable, of the all-powerful being bestowing eternal damnation or eternal reward, but these things are merely tools for generating the proper amount of obedience-inducing fear. H.P Lovecraft said that the oldest and strongest human emotion is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown.
    The stupidest religious belief, therefore, is the belief that religion is anything but government through fear of the unknown (whether real or created). I believe that human society will not advance significantly until it is able to throw off this fundamental need of a divinely-ordered society and simply accept the need for an ordered society, minus the bugbears and mumbo-jumbo. I also believe that until it does, it will always be prone to charismatic leaders who are able to manipulate the fears of society to his or her own ends. 
- Jeff Crook 

Stupid Question of the Week

Like I said, Mick Jagger is denying that "Sweet Neo Con" is about George W. Bush.

What other songs aren't about George W. Bush?

Send your answers here. 

More Graffiti on the Israel/Palestine Wall

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

Xylitol, the artificial sweetener in sugarless chewing gums, mints, and some household baking products, is potentially fatal to dogs.

Quiz of the Week

Love is...

a) a second-hand emotion
b) a second handy motion

Don't Take My Word For It

   "I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things - because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy. Every now and then, something happens that's funny. And that's refreshing. But then you move back into the real world, which is not funny. You only have to pick up the newspaper in the morning and read about the real world and you see that it's rotten, just bad...
    "There is nothing really redeeming about tragedy. Tragedy is tragic, and it's so painful that people try to twist it and say 'it's terribly hard, but look we've achieved something, we've learned something.' This is a weak attempt to find some kind of meaning in tragedy. But there is no meaning. There is no up-side. And suffering does not redeem anything; there is no positive message to learn from it...
   "I don't find political subjects or topical world events profound enough to get interested in them myself as an artist. As a filmmaker, I'm not interested in 9/11. Because, if you look at the big picture, the long view of things, it's too small, history overwhelms it. The history of the world is like: he kills me, I kill him. Only with different cosmetics and different castings: so in 2001 some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other. Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again."
- Woody Allen -

   "George W. Bush hauled stakes for Texas and a vacation a few days ago. Cindy Sheehan followed. She got off a bus Saturday afternoon and started walking to the Crawford ranch. She wanted some answers and was going to get them.
    "Sheehan had met Mr. Bush once before. On April 4, 2004, just shy of a year after Bush stood on an aircraft carrier beneath a banner that read 'Mission Accomplished,' Cindy Sheehan's son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in Iraq when his unit was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. He was 24 years old...
   "Casey Sheehan was every mother's son. Cindy Sheehan is every son's mother. She loved him with every cell in her body and every breath in her soul, and mourns his absence in every second of every day, and will have some answers for her pain and loss, or will know the reason why. She is down in Crawford, right now, waiting for George W. Bush to stop sending lackeys to placate her. She wants to speak to the man who sent her son to die. She is waiting."
- William Rivers Pitt: Every Mother's Son - Why Cindy Sheehan won't leave Crawford until she gets some answers from George W. Bush - the man who sent her son needlessly to die in Iraq. -

   "They have threatened to arrest her on Thursday, at which time she will be regarded as a 'national security risk.' Why? Because Thursday, der shrubenfueher will attend a GOP fund-raiser.
    "The 'national security risk'? Can't have the media paying attention to the grieving mother left in a ditch on a dusty, lonely country road as Chimpus Maximus' motorcade of limousines whizzes by. That might interfere with the 'fund-raiser' - the only thing anyone in the GOP regards as having any value at all. Human life means nothing to them."
- Marblex - 

 "A California man dubbed a 'Satanist' on an online message board has posted photos of himself dancing on President Ronald Reagan's grave, raising the ire of the former chief executive's admirers."
- Ron Strom: 'Satanist' dances  on Reagan's grave. Posts photos on Net, presidential library mum about incident -

"While President Bush fights to make his own tax cuts permanent, he is working just as hard to get rid of the estate tax. In the face of an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, the estate tax stands as a powerful check against the growth of an American aristocracy and getting rid of it would constitute the most regressive tax cut ever. It would violate core American values including fairness and a belief in a meritocracy while simultaneously denying core American priorities, such as the Social Security solvency gap. Additionally, a repeal of the estate tax weakens our nation’s fiscal health - adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt - at a time when Congress has already started cutting Medicaid and other programs for those most in need. But, instead of the facts, President Bush is trying to appeal to the sympathy of small businesses and farmers, claiming that Congress needs to repeal the tax 'for the sake of family farmers.' In actuality, the estate tax affects a miniscule number of farmers. Its repeal would not benefit farmers but rather place an even heavier tax burden on the backs of the middle class, all for the benefit of the heirs of a handful of multi-millionaires."
- The Progress Report: Trying to Kill the Estate Tax -

"Why do the wicked live on 
To a flourishing old age? 
Their family is established around them, 
Yes, their children, before their eyes. 
In peaceful homes they dwell, free from fear; 
The rod that God wields is not for them."
- Book of Job -

"On the speaker you hear human voices, you hear every kind of musical instrument, honking of horns, the sounds of traffic, the explosions of guns, and yet all that tremendous variety of sounds are the vibrations of one diaphragm, but it never says so. The announcer doesn't come on first thing in the morning and say 'Ladies and gentlemen, all the sounds that you will hear subsequently during the day will be the vibration of this diaphragm; don't take them for real.' And the radio never mentions its own construction, you see? And in exactly the same way, you are never able, really, to examine, to make an object of your own mind, just as you can't look directly into your own eyes or bite your own teeth, because you ARE that, and if you try to find it, and make it something to possess, why that's a great lack of confidence. That shows that you don't really know your 'it'. And if you're 'it,' you don't need to make anything of it. There's nothing to look for."
- Alan Watts -

"Fascists are occasionally good at making wars, but Blair is anything but a military genius. So far he has managed to fail in every possible front. Blair was very quick to surrender to terror. His endorsement of the 'we' and 'they' philosophy, is exactly where his enemies want him to go. The Muslim fundamentalists want to challenge our so-called Western liberal ideology. Evidently, Bush and Blair were very quick to lacerate the notion of liberty and civil rights. Furthermore, militant Islamic fundamentalists may aim to prevent Muslims from assimilating within their host Western nations. The terrorists want British Muslims to feel rejected, humiliated and segregated. Blair provides the fundamentalists with the goods. His newly proposed legal measures alienate the British Muslim communities. I better say it loudly, with Tony Blair in No 10 Downing Street, the British people do not need an enemy from beyond."
- Gilad Atzmon: The Tyranny of Pronouns on the Road to Fascism -

    "Iran to the US: 'Go ahead, make our day.'
    "That was the message yesterday from Iran's ambassador to the UN when asked if his country was worried that the Europeans and US would push for UN sanctions against Iran. He just smiled and said Iran had the right to pursue it's nuclear ambitions and that the west would be wise to just let it. But, he added darkly, should western nations pursue sanctions, Iran would retaliate.
    "And just how would little Iran retaliate against the combined power of western nations? Easy. They'd just cut us off, that's how. Of course I am talking oil here, not area rugs. And, as the world's second largest oil exporter, that threat carries weight.
    "Our position here reminds me of a conversation in the HBO Series, Sex and The City, when the girls were talking about the pros and cons of oral sex. One felt it was demeaning to women. But one the other gals, let's call her 'Iran,' had a completely different take on it.
    "'Sure you might be on your knees, but you've got him by the balls.' To which the Mullah's in Iran say, 'Amen sister...'
    "If Iran pulls its 4 million barrels of oil a day off the market, even if only for just a matter of weeks, the oil-dependent West - particularly the SUV capital of the world, America - chaos would reign. I am old enough to remember the last time people in the Middle East decided to put the squeeze to our energy-balls. That was back in the 1970s. Cars lined up for gas and states imposed rationing in the form of 'odd/even' license number days. We are many times more dependent today on that oil than we were forty years ago and we won't get off that easy this time around. Imagine jetliners lined up for fuel this time, and not getting it because it's not there.
   "With crude oil prices at historic highs, OPEC nations like Iran are awash in petrodollars. They have more money than they know what to do with. So, cutting us off for a few months wouldn't cause them to break a sweat. And there's not a thing we could do about it. If this were a chess game it would be, 'Check,' advantage, Iran.     "Iran, you see, knew that Iraq was a brier patch built atop a tar pit. They lost a million men making the same mistake Bush made. Which is why Iran just pulled its key chess pieces out of harm's way and let the US charge into the Iraq trap. Now that the US is stuck in Iraq, as Iran knew it would be, they have moved its pawns into action to make sure we stay stuck there. But it's oil that remains Iran's most power chess piece, and yesterday they moved it into play. Check."
- Stephen Pizzo -

"Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'."
- Michael McClary -

    "My friend Earle just e-mailed me. 'Bush will never leave Iraq,' he said. 'He and his cronies are making too much money there to ever give it up.' And he's right. Why would Bush Republicans ever want to end this bitter and terrible war - when it is pouring something like a billion dollars a week into their coffers? Why would they want THAT to stop? Because they respect honesty? For love of their fellow-man? To save the economy? To save the planet? To save democracy? To save our 'non-negotiable' lifestyle that is now fast-disappearing into their pockets? To save Christianity? To save their immortal souls? Or just to keep innocent women and children from being nuked and napalmed and American cities safe?
    "Bush Republicans are NOT INTERESTED in that kind of stuff. The Iraq war is their cash cow. Period. End of story. The Circus of Greed is in town.
    "And exactly what is the product that the pseudo-GOP circus is selling us? Is it entertainment? No no no. It is FEAR. And this product is selling like hot-cakes! Why should they stop selling it just because it might be hazardous to our health? It is making them money hand over fist! Why stop selling a good thing? These people are being rewarded BIG-TIME for turning America into a nation of cowards - terrified out of their minds by a bunch of avaricious clowns."
- Jane Stillwater -

"Only when the last tree has died, the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money."
- Cree Proverb -

   "At the end of June, Ashraf Khalil and Patrick J. McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times reported that, with just over 10,000 prisoners held in American-run jails across Iraq (only a few hundred of them foreigners) and another '1,630 detainees awaiting processing in different Army divisional and brigade headquarters,' the Pentagon had spotted a growth industry and was acting accordingly. 'Business is booming,' commented Maj. Gen. William Brandenburg, who oversees U.S.-run prisons in that country. So the military began expanding the two Army-run prisons, Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib; as Army spokesman Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill put it, 'pushing our surge capacity' - and not to be caught short of facilities, they were actually adding a new prison, Fort Suse ('a former Russian-built barracks near Sulaymaniya.') 'Part of it used to be a prison, so it should be easy to renovate,' Brandenburg added. So convenient, just like that old Saddam Hussein war horse Abu Ghraib. Better yet, all of this was being done at a bargain basement cost of $50 million. A mere dribble in the Iraqi bucket and a sharp riposte to critics who claim that the Bush administration isn't engaged in serious reconstruction efforts in that country.
   "I think that we can all revel in the knowledge that this was money at least as well spent as the $150,000 our CIA agents plugged into 5-star hotels back in 2003 while engaged in a 'rendition operation' in Italy; or the million bucks in taxpayer money that the Halliburton-owned KBR's Tiger Team of in-house auditors put into decent digs at the five-star Kuwait Kempinski Hotel while researching KBR overcharges to the military. (By comparison, according to Ed Harriman in the London Review of Books, American troops in the region were sleeping in tents at a cost of $1.39 a day, tents the KBR people refused to move into when asked by the Army.) Or what about those American dollars plowed into a 'Truth Tour' of Iraq for a group of conservative radio-talk show hosts aimed at finding the hidden 'good news' in that country, an expenses-paid voyage that, columnist Bill Berkowitz tells us, was partially sponsored (for who knows how much) by the Office of Media Outreach, a taxpayer-funded publicity arm of the Department of Defense; or how about that nifty $100,000 the Air Force plowed into an experimental program in Hollywood meant to turn scientists into screenwriters (including that national-security essential three-hour session on 'agents and managers')?"
- Tom Engelhardt: Chaos Under Heaven. The Bush Administration's Not-So-Silly Season -

"It has been rumored that the firing of the four star general has nothing to do with marital infidelity; that he has been fired because he was about to stage a coup against the upcoming plan to conduct a 'nuclear incident'.  This would have served as a justification for going to war in Iran, result in suspension of civil rights and allow Martial law to be used to quell opposition.  Is this a crazy scenario?  No, not if you follow closely what has already happened; it is consistent with the aims and character of this administration and that's what has government watchers so concerned...."
- Les Aaron -

"I prefer Hostess fruit pies to pop-up toaster tarts because they don't require as much cooking."
- Carrie Snow -

"If it is the only survivor of a dead race, to kill it would be a crime against science." 
- Spock: The Devil in the Dark, stardate 3196.1 -

"There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."
- Josh Billings -

"I ascribe to a philosophy of Gentle Anarchy. I believe people are inherently GOOD, and left to their own devices with the free exchange of ideas and information a joyful lightness would spread across the face of our world. I am aware there are many people who do not feel this way. This is why I figured out a way to make everyone happy, while also furthering the idea of Freedom. Here it is: for those people who think smoking, drugs, abortion, and prostitution should be legal and available - make them legal and available. And for those people who think smoking, drugs, abortion, and prostitution should NOT be legal and available they're not, they never were, don't worry, were cracking down. There. That way, the world would remain exactly as it is now, only without the onus of guilt, shame, and legality. Does this mean I am suggesting people smoke, take drugs, get abortions, or go to prostitutes? No. I recommend you do what you want to do, which is what you're going to do anyway. I am merely suggesting we accept life on life's terms instead of drowning in a quagmire of niggling SHOULDs and SHOULDN'Ts which have done NOTHING to free our spirits from the cloud of guilt and shame that shrouds this planet. Again forgiveness rather than condemnation, compassion rather than judgment, and love rather than fear. And keep in mind, this radical philosophy is coming from me, an avowed misanthrope. If I can feel this way, surely there is hope for us all. Have we learned anything from all this? I have. The next time I tour the UK, I'm not going to tell the audience I quit smoking. I'm going to tell them I quit fucking, just to see what they throw at me then. I look forward to seeing you."
- Bill Hicks: My Philosophy -

"I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality."
- James Joyce -

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