An Offer They Better Refuse

"Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. 
But until that day, accept this justice as a gift..."
- Don Corleone: The Godfather -

   I don't know about you, but I don't want a jurist in the Supreme Court, I want a moralist. I don't want someone who will strictly abide by 200 year old rules, I want someone who knows the difference between right and wrong. The founding fathers didn't get everything right. All they had to do was include five extra words in the constitution, "with a verifiable paper trail," and we'd have a different president, but the future of electronic voting was beyond their wildest dreams.
   Bartcop calls it "The Bush Family Evil Empire," which is funnier but less exact than "The Bush Family Crime Syndicate." Evil is in the eye of the beholder but crime syndicates, hell, we've all seen The Godfather. We know how a crime syndicate works. When a position of importance opens up, not a moment's consideration is given to who's most qualified for the job. You advance someone in the syndicate. It's all payback; who deserves to fill the position as compensation for all they've done for the crime syndicate. That's how the Bush administration works. Who's the best person to sit on the Supreme Court? Obviously Bush's consiglieri, Harriet Miers, the female Tom Hagen, who protects "the family" at all cost. Loyalty trumps competence. Sometimes it's terrifying to discover a metaphor that works perfectly but I can't think of one single instance where Bush HASN'T acted like the head of a crime syndicate.
   Here's how Sidney Blumenthal describes the Bush administration in Drunk on power, the Republican oligarchs overreached. Now their entire project could be doomed...

    "The party runs the state. Politics drives economics. Important party officials are also economic operators. They thrive off their connections and rise in the party apparatus as a result of their self-enrichment. The past three chairmen of the Republican National Committee have all been Washington lobbyists.
   "An oligarchy atop the party allocates favors. Behind the ideological slogans about the 'free market' and 'liberty,' the oligarchy creates oligopolies. Businesses must pay to play. They must kick back contributions to the party, hire its key people and support its program. Only if they give do they receive tax breaks, loosening of regulations and helpful treatment from government professionals.
   "Those professionals in the agencies and departments who insist on adhering to standards other than those imposed by the party are fired, demoted and blackballed. The oligarchy wars against these professionals to bend government purely into an instrument of oligopolies.
   "Corporations pay fixed costs in the form of legal graft to the party in order to suppress the market, drastically limiting competitive pressure. Then they collude to control prices, create cartels and reduce planning primarily to the political game. The larger consequences are of no concern whatsoever to the corporate players so long as they maintain access to the political players.
   "The sums every industry, from financial services to computers, spends on lobbying are staggering. Broadcast media firms spent $35.88 million in 2004 alone on lobbyists in Washington, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Telephone companies spent $71.97 million; cable and satellite TV corporations, $20.22 million. The drug industry during the same period shelled out $123 million to pay 1,291 lobbyists, 52 percent of them former government officials. The results have been direct: The Food and Drug Administration has been reduced to a hollow shell, and Medicare can't negotiate lower drug costs with pharmaceutical companies. In the 2004 election cycle, the drug industry paid out $87 million in campaign contributions for federal officials, 69 percent of them flowing to Republicans."

    Precisely how a crime syndicate works. Pay off the bosses, let them wet their beaks, and get control of your own private marketplace, with their deadly protection. It's the exact opposite of a free market. The only solution to cronyism I can think of is a new law stating "give one single penny to a political candidate or lobbyist, go to jail." Of course the only way to pass such a law is if money gets behind it, so I'll keep dreaming. Meanwhile, all good things must come to an end, which means the Bush administration might go on forever.

"[J]udges...should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness,and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men."
- John Adams -

    "To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment...
   "[The President] would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."
- Alexander Hamilton: The Federalist Papers #76 -

Nobody Knows

   Romans, Greeks, and Hindus used to think a little red dot in the sky called Mars was the God of War. Babylonians use to think it was the God of death and pestilence. Now we know it's just a planet. The history of knowledge is the history of Gods that turned out to be no such thing, just ordinary events and objects that were inexplicable at the time, but which later came to have perfectly rational explanations that needed no voodoo. Nobody needs Thor the God of Thunder when we have a perfectly lucid explanation for why lightning makes noise. When anyone's God starts getting explained away by scientific evidence, they can desperately cling to outmoded beliefs and try to dispute the evidence or just find another God, one that can't be explained away by scientific evidence.
    Science and God are always at loggerheads, with science painting God into a corner it'll never get out of without leaving footprints all over the place. It's a march into the future that always goes in one direction. Science constantly explains things we didn't understand before, whittling away at portions of reality for which we used to have to give God sole credit.
    When the Red Sea parted for Moses, was it God or just an extremely low tide brought about by an unusual configuration of the moon and the sun that could only be explained after Newton discovered the laws of planetary gravity? When Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, was it divine or some primitive form of CPR that postponed the inheritances of Lazarus's children? If there's a rational explanation for some miracle, it takes a lot of moxie to keep clinging to the primitive notion that God had anything to do with it. God's too busy to do things just to impress you.
   Here's a list of 100 things nobody knows (thanks to Howard Anshell). Oh sure, Isaac Newton came up with a formula showing HOW gravitational forces work, but WHAT are gravitational forces, WHERE do they come from, and WHY do they work that way? Nobody knows. We can move around freely in three of four dimensions, but time only goes in one direction. Why? Nobody knows. Nobody knows the structure of water, why there are ice ages, how organs know when to stop growing, what triggers puberty, or if there's other life in the solar system. You can't ask a scientist. You can't ask a priest. The answer's not in the bible or the Encyclopedia Britannica. Why? Nobody knows, and maybe no one will ever know. Does that prove there IS a God or there ISN'T a God? Nobody knows. Not me, and anyone who claims they do is lying.

"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true."
- Bertrand Russell -

"Whatsoever you believe, you project. Belief is a projection. It is just like a projector in a movie film-house: you see something on the screen which is not there. The projector is hidden behind, but you never look at the projector, you look at the screen. The projector is at the back, and the whole game is going on there, but you look at the screen. The whole game is going on in your mind, and a mind filled with belief always goes on projecting things in the world, it sees things which are not there."
- OSHO -

Project Censored's Top 25 News Stories that Didn't Make the News

#1 Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government
#2 Media Coverage Fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Deathtoll
#3 Another Year of Distorted Election Coverage
#4 Surveillance Society Quietly Moves In
#5 U.S. Uses Tsunami to Military Advantage in Southeast Asia
#6 The Real Oil for Food Scam
#7 Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood
#8 Iraqi Farmers Threatened By Bremer’s Mandates
#9 Iran’s New Oil Trade System Challenges U.S. Currency
#10 Mountaintop Removal Threatens Ecosystem and Economy
#11 Universal Mental Screening Program Usurps Parental Rights
#12 Military in Iraq Contracts Human Rights Violators
#13 Rich Countries Fail to Live up to Global Pledges
#14 Corporations Win Big on Tort Reform, Justice Suffers
#15 Conservative Plan to Override Academic Freedom in the Classroom
#16 U.S. Plans for Hemispheric Integration Include Canada
#17 U.S. Uses South American Military Bases to Expand Control of the Region
#18 Little Known Stock Fraud Could Weaken U.S. Economy
#19 Child Wards of the State Used in AIDS Experiments
#20 American Indians Sue for Resources; Compensation Provided to Others
#21 New Immigration Plan Favors Business Over People
#22 Nanotechnology Offers Exciting Possibilities But Health Effects Need Scrutiny
#23 Plight of Palestinian Child Detainees Highlights Global Problem
#24 Ethiopian Indigenous Victims of Corporate and Government Resource Aspirations
#25 Homeland Security Was Designed to Fail
 

Optical Illusion of the Week

Joke Going Around

   Einstein dies and goes to heaven. At the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter tells him, "You look like Einstein, but you have NO idea what some people will do to sneak into Heaven. Can you prove who you really are?"
   Einstein ponders for a few seconds and asks, "Could I have a blackboard and some chalk?"
   Saint Peter snaps his fingers and a blackboard and chalk instantly appear. Einstein proceeds to describe with arcane mathematics and symbols, his theory of relativity.
   Saint Peter is suitably impressed. "You really ARE Einstein!" he says."Welcome to heaven!"
   The next to arrive is Picasso. Once again, Saint Peter asks for credentials.
   Picasso asks, "Mind if I use that blackboard and chalk?"
   Saint Peter says, "Go ahead."
   Picasso erases Einstein's equations and sketches a truly stunning mural with just a few strokes of chalk.
   Saint Peter claps. "Surely you are the great artist you claim to be!" he says. "Come on in!"
   Then Saint Peter looks up and sees George W. Bush. Saint Peter scratches his head and says, "Einstein and Picasso both managed to prove their identity. How can you prove yours?"
   George W. looks bewildered and says, "Who are Einstein and Picasso?"
   Saint Peter sighs and says, "Come on in, George."

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

"Take a chance and you may lose. Take not a chance and you have lost already."
- Soren Kierkegaard -

"In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known."
- Thomas Pickering -

    "There's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the environmental community since Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) pushed his overhaul of the Endangered Species Act through the House of Representatives last week. All eyes are now on the Senate to see whether Pombo's bill - described as 'so toxic it's radioactive' by Jamie Rappaport Clark, who oversaw implementation of the ESA during the Clinton administration - will make it through that august body and onto the desk of President Bush, who's indicated his support.
    "Despite assumptions that the Senate - the more deliberative, and generally more eco-friendly, chamber of Congress - would block an initiative so controversial, enviros worry that Pombo is harrowingly close to getting his way. 'I can't remember a time when any major environmental statute was under greater threat,' said John Kostyack, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation.
    "Pombo, a former rancher who once famously (and fraudulently) claimed that his family farm was hobbled financially because it was designated as critical habitat for the endangered kit fox, has been trying to dismantle the ESA for more than 12 years. His bill is designed to wipe out the critical-habitat protections esteemed by many conservationists, thereby making it impossible for the government to prohibit harmful projects on lands deemed necessary to the recovery of imperiled species.
    "In a big coup for property-rights activists, the legislation would also require the feds to pay landowners for lost profits if the presence of an endangered species limits their development options. Because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lacks funding to make such payments, this could effectively eliminate regulatory restrictions on commercial developers, according to critics...
   "The measure could actually encourage more development plans for sensitive habitat, according to Erich Zimmermann, senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense. 'Pombo's bill creates a perverse incentive for landowners to come up with a plan to develop on the most biologically sensitive areas of their property, simply so that they can cash in on a government rebate.' The bill is so rife with loopholes, said Zimmermann, that 'there's nothing in it that would stop landowners from collecting multiple times on proposals for species-threatening projects on the same piece of property.'"
- Amanda Griscom: Speak Now, or Forever Hold Your Species -

"If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything."
- Bill Lyon -

"Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them."
- Hermann Hesse -

"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
- P. J. O'Rourke -

"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory."
- Rita Mae Brown -

"Because it lacks consciousness, I must admit that a word cannot praise me. Undoubtedly, the cause of my delight is that another is delighted with me. But what does it matter to me whether another's delight is in me or someone else? His alone is the pleasure of that delight. Not even a trifling part of it is mine."
- Santideva: Bodhicaryavatara -

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."
- Mohammad Ali -

"I am breathing in and liberating my mind. I am breathing out and liberating my mind."
- The Sutra on Full Awareness of Breathing, translated by Thich Nhat Hanh -

"The freedom to create is somehow linked with facility of access to those obscure regions below the conscious mind."
- Loren Eiseley -

"Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at."
- Carlos A. Urbizo -

"I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me."
- John Cleese -

"Unhappy the land where heroes are needed."
- Bertolt Brecht -

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
- Charles Mackay -

"We are terrible animals. Our planet's immune system is trying to get rid of us and should."
- Kurt Vonnegut: The Daily Show, 9/13/05 -

"If as if often said, the world is ordered to some plan (whether one formed prior to its creation or one derived from the inexorable logic of order and growth makes no difference) then in all things there must be both the miniature representation of higher glories and the enhanced depiction of smaller matters."
- Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor -

"If you're out there murdering people, on some level you must want to be Christian."
- Betty White to serial killer she's trying to convert: Boston Legal -

"If you keep thinking 'That man has abused me,' holding it as a much-cherished grievance, your anger will never be allayed. If you can put down that fury-inducing thought, your anger will lessen. Fury will never end fury, it will just ricochet on and on. Only putting it down will end such an abysmal state."
- Sunnata Vagga -

"I'm not trying to counsel any of you to do anything really special, except to dare to think, and to dare to go with the truth, and to dare to really love completely."
- Buckminster Fuller -

Everything Else

Doing a good job of copying the style of Mark Fiore, the National Lampoon enters the head of our VP with Dick Cheney's Energy Policy.

Short issue this week because, hey, I've got work to do.