Apology

   It was one of those stupid emails with a stupid news item that probably wasn't true, but I read it and said to myself Oh my God, that's not just worthy of a stupid item in Disinfotainment Today, that's worthy of a novel. So being a novelist, I started writing a novel called The Wrong Bus, which may clue you in to the subject if you got the same stupid email I did. You may even be one of the many who sent it to me, in which case thanks a lot.
   Which is why Disinfotainment Today has been erratic lately. One sure way NOT to write a novel is to focus on other writing when you sit at your computer. For several months now, I've been following Stephen King's simple yet profound novel writing advice, which is simply to crank out a minimum of 500 words a day till you're done. I've been cranking out at least 1,000 words a day, I did 2,000 this morning, and I'm up to chapter 24. Now there's barely enough time to put this issue together.
    I've considered various options:

1. Stopping Disinfotainment Today altogether till I'm done with The Wrong Bus. 
2. Pulling a Dickens and replacing Disinfotainment today with The Wrong Bus published a chapter at a time. 
3. Since I instinctively put together Disinfotainment Today while going through my email, put them out irregularly while still focusing on The Wrong Bus. 

One would piss people off, two is pointless since nobody reads novels online, so I've decided upon three with an addendum.
Disinfotainment Today will continue erratically until the book is done, and I guarantee it will be as entertaining and enlightening or repugnant and offensive as anything I've ever done.

So for the moment, I won't be doing much writing, just cutting and pasting from my ridiculous email.

MD

Money Makes the World Go Round

   "Since printing paper money is nothing short of counterfeiting, the issuer of the international currency must always be the country with the military might to guarantee control over the system. This magnificent scheme seems the perfect system for obtaining perpetual wealth for the country that issues the de facto world currency...
   "The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement solidified the dollar as the preeminent world reserve currency, replacing the British pound. Due to our political and military muscle, and because we had a huge amount of physical gold, the world readily accepted our dollar (defined as 1/35th of an ounce of gold) as the world's reserve currency. The dollar was said to be 'as good as gold,' and convertible to all foreign central banks at that rate. For American citizens, however, it remained illegal to own. This was a gold-exchange standard that from inception was doomed to fail.
   "The U.S. did exactly what many predicted she would do. She printed more dollars for which there was no gold backing. But the world was content to accept those dollars for more than 25 years with little question - until the French and others in the late 1960s demanded we fulfill our promise to pay one ounce of gold for each $35 they delivered to the U.S. Treasury. This resulted in a huge gold drain that brought an end to a very poorly devised pseudo-gold standard.
   "It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.
   "Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it - not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread.
   "Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence 'backed' the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished...
   "It sounds like a great deal for everyone, except the time will come when our dollars - due to their depreciation - will be received less enthusiastically or even be rejected by foreign countries. That could create a whole new ballgame and force us to pay a price for living beyond our means and our production. The shift in sentiment regarding the dollar has already started, but the worst is yet to come.
    "The agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in dollars has provided tremendous artificial strength to the dollar as the preeminent reserve currency. This has created a universal demand for the dollar, and soaks up the huge number of new dollars generated each year. Last year alone M3 increased over $700 billion.
    "The artificial demand for our dollar, along with our military might, places us in the unique position to 'rule' the world without productive work or savings, and without limits on consumer spending or deficits. The problem is, it can't last...
   "In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. His arrogance was a threat to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat. At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, the major topic was how we would get rid of Saddam Hussein - though there was no evidence whatsoever he posed a threat to us. This deep concern for Saddam Hussein surprised and shocked O'Neill.
    "It now is common knowledge that the immediate reaction of the administration after 9/11 revolved around how they could connect Saddam Hussein to the attacks, to justify an invasion and overthrow of his government. Even with no evidence of any connection to 9/11, or evidence of weapons of mass destruction, public and congressional support was generated through distortions and flat out misrepresentation of the facts to justify overthrowing Saddam Hussein...
   "In 2001, Venezuela's ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA...
   "Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the 'axis of evil,' has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars...
   "Once again Congress has bought into the war propaganda against Iran, just as it did against Iraq. Arguments are now made for attacking Iran economically, and militarily if necessary. These arguments are all based on the same false reasons given for the ill-fated and costly occupation of Iraq."
- Hon. Ron Paul of Texas, before the U.S. House of Representatives, February 15, 2006: The End of Dollar Hegemony (and the start of the war against Iran) -

"Give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws. The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class."
- Baron M.A. Rothschild -

"The bold efforts that the present bank has made to control the government and the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American People should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it... If the People only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning!"
- President Andrew Jackson (1828) upon vetoing the Second Bank of the United States Charter -

"When it shall be said in any country in the world: 'My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; My jails are empty of prisoners; My streets of beggars; The aged are not in want; The taxes not oppressive; The rational world is my friend because I am a friend of its happiness.' When these things can be said, then may that country boast of its Constitution and of its Government."
- Thomas Jefferson -

"Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.... But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy. Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them."
- President George Washington in a letter to J. Bowen, Rhode Island, Jan. 9, 1787 -

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate."
-  President James A. Garfield within weeks of his assassination -

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance."
- President James Madison -

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe."
- President Abraham Lincoln -

"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world - no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government of conviction, and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress, of small groups of dominant men."
- President Woodrow Wilson -

"[T]he real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over City, State, and nation... It seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive officers, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection... To depart from mere generalisations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interest and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international Bankers. The little coterie of powerful international Bankers virtually run the United State s government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organisations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business... These international Bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and magazines in this country."
- John Hylan: Mayor of New York in 1922 -

"When, through the process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men who are now engaged in forming imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance."
- 1924 edition of the American Banker's Association Digest -

"The real truth of the matter is, and you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president."
- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, November 23, 1933, in a letter to Colonel Edward Mandell House -

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
- President Harry Truman -

Award of the Week

A great big Oscar statuette crammed up the rectum of whatever Academy producer decided to keep innocuous music running underneath all the acceptance speeches.

Factoid of the Week

In 2003, President George W. Bush changed the name of the "President's Committee on Mental Retardation" to the "President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities."

Verbatim Dialogue from Hell

 WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: "I don't really understand. How is the new plan going to fix the problem?"

BUSH: "Because the - all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be - or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the - like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate - the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those - if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."
- Bush Explains Medicare Drug Bill -

Gallery of the Week

Who's got more time on their hands than you do? Marvel at the Lego Roller Coaster.

Calling All Writers

ROBERT BENCHLEY SOCIETY 2006 HUMOR WRITING COMPETITION OFFICIAL RULES AND DEADLINES:

Entries may be submitted by mail, postmarked on or before APRIL 15, 2006, to:

The Robert Benchley Society
c/o David Trumbull
130 Bowdoin St., #1110 
Boston, Massachusetts  02108.

or by E-mail on or before APRIL 15, 2006 as attached MS Word document with "Benchley Writing Competition in subject line of E-mail to david@robertbenchley.org

Entries must be:
    1)  Original;
    2)  Benchleyesque (in the sense of reflecting the Benchley style and humor);
    3)  Not more than 500 words in length (times height times width);
    4)  In the English language, such as it is these days;
    5)  All of the above;
    6)  Accompanied by a large number of small unmarked bills (optional).
 
 

All judging will be done in accordance with WBC rules:
    1)  There is no standing 8 count and no 3 knockdown rule;
    2)  Fighter can be saved by the bell in the last round only;
    3)  A 10 point must system is in effect;
    4)  Accidental head butt goes to the scorecard after the fourth round.
    5)  None of the above;
    6)  Officers and family members of officers of the National RBS, and judges are excluded;
 

PLEASE NOTE, The first page of the entry shall include ONLY the name, address, and other contact information for the entrant; the essay shall appear on the following page(s) with NO NAME OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION.

The top four finalist entries will be ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th by finalist judge, Dave Barry, who has agreed to provide his comments regarding the top four entries. 

Winners will be announced in June of 2006, by the Robert Benchley Society.

Unsolved Murder of the Week

   "Only a couple of hours into the rescue, Sgt. Terrence Yeakey became painfully aware of something disturbing. Did he somehow figure out that the building had been blown from the inside and that the news reports were baloney? Did he overhear a strange conversation from some of the many ATF agents who were on the scene sooner than they should have been? Whatever it was, Terry was upset. He called his wife that morning crying... and saying repeatedly, 'It's not true. It's not what they are saying. It didn't happen that way.' Terry Yeakey may have been the first to discover the sham.
   "He ran back and forth into that concrete mess of bricks and mortar all day long and continued beyond exhaustion, far into the night. He scraped and crawled and dug until his fingers bled and then kept digging some more. In a cadre of heroes that day, Terry's performance was outstanding. On May 11th of the following year, he was scheduled to receive the Medal of Valor from the Oklahoma City Police Department. He never got it. He was murdered on May 8, 1996, in the country - two and a half miles west of the El Reno Penitentiary.
   "The official report said 'Suicide,' and anyone who believes an ANFO bomb destroyed Murrah and the other surrounding buildings will believe this. According to the report, Terry slashed himself eleven times on both forearms before cutting his own throat twice near the jugular vein. Then, apparently seeking even a more private place to die, he crawled another mile of rough terrain away from his car and climbed a fence, before shooting himself in the head with a small caliber revolver. What appeared to be rope burns on his neck, handcuff bruises to his wrists, and muddy grass imbedded in his slash wounds strongly indicated that he had some help in traversing this final distance."
- Pat Shannon: Who Killed Terry Yeakey? -

Quiz of the Week

Q: What Do All These People Have In Common?

Geraldo Rivera, Michelle Malkin, Larry the Cable Guy, Martha Stewart, Bruce Chapman, Robert Novak, George Lucas, Rush Limbaugh, Nancy Grace, Charles Krauthammer, Tom Cruise, Dr. David Hager, Mr. Blackwell, Donovan McNabb, John Rendon, Michael Brown, Scooter Libby, Johnny Damon, Kenneth Tomlinson, Rita Cosby, Hillary Clinton, Terri Schiavo, Joe Lieberman, Ann Coulter, Spammers, Paris Hilton, Jim Guckert, Jennifer Wilbanks, Jesse Jackson, Bill Frist, Oprah Winfrey, James Sensenbrenner, Tommy Hilfiger, William A. Donohue, R Kelly, Karl Rove, Elisabeth Bumiller, God, Barbara Bush, Samuel Alito, Bill O’Reilly, BTK Killer, Judith Miller, Thomas Friedman, Michael Jackson, Tom Delay, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Pat Robertson.

A: They're the 50 Most Loathsome people of 2005.

Stupid Question of the Week

Nobody thanked Jesus for winning their Oscar. How will he wreak his revenge?

Answer to Last Week's Stupid Question

"15,000 atheists in London have rioted after a blank sheet of paper was found on a cartoonist's desk."
- Steven Alan Green -

"If you think Bush is spying on you, just use big words."
- Randi Rhodes -

"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants."
- A. Whitney Brown -

"I was at a party the other night and it was all these hard-core Republicans and these guys are like, 'Why do you hate your country?' I said, 'I love my country.' They said, 'Why, at a time of war, would you criticize it then?' And I said, 'My country right or wrong means women don't vote, black people sit in the back of buses and we're still in Vietnam. My country right or wrong means we don't have the New Deal.' I mean, what, are you crazy? My country, right or wrong? It's not your right; it's your duty. And then I said, 'Where was I wrong, schmuck?' In 2003 I was saying, where are the ties [between Iraq] and al-Qaida? Where are the ties to 9/11? I knew it; where the fuck were these Democrats who said, 'We were misled'? That's the kind of thing that drives me crazy: 'We were misled.' Fuck you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic."
- George Clooney -

"The basic problem is in misplaced respect for the Constitution, that evil document that repudiated the whole revolutionary war effort and the Declaration of Independence. Under the Articles of Confederation the justices were appointed by the uni-cameral Congress for ONE YEAR terms with no right of self-succession, just as were our first ten US Presidents. The Constitution created an imperial Presidency over the formerly sovereign states, and a Roman Senate (our house of Lords) with life-tenured Supreme court justices to enforce the edicts of the Lords. There is no way now to reverse what was done. Only collapse of what is and intelligence to replace it with something much better can undo the damage of the 1787 Con-Con."
- Bob Taft -

    "Last Thursday morning, in one of the smaller function rooms at the National Press Club, in Washington, an ad-hoc bunch of amateurs, once-weres, might-bes, and goo-goos floated an initiative that, with a little luck, could enable our ramshackle republic to take a long, and long overdue, step toward a more perfect union. The idea behind their initiative is this: that the President of the United States should be elected by the people of the United States.
   "This idea is neither new nor outlandish, but for most of the past couple of centuries it has been dismissed as unachievable. The Electoral College is enshrined in the Constitution itself, so getting rid of it would require the concurrence of two-thirds of both houses of Congress plus three-quarters of the state legislatures. That's not going to happen.
    "But maybe it doesn't have to. The promoters of the Campaign for a National Popular Vote, as they're calling themselves, have come up with an elegant finesse. Instead of trying to change the Constitution, they propose to apply it, one bit in particular: Article II, Section 1, which instructs each state to appoint its Presidential electors in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct. Here's how the plan would work. One by one, legislature by legislature, state law by state law, individual states would pledge themselves to an interstate compact under which they would agree to award their electoral votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote. The compact would take effect only when enough states had joined it to elect a President that is, enough to cast a majority of the five hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes. (Theoretically, as few as eleven states could do the trick.) And then, presto! All of a sudden, the people of all fifty states plus the District of Columbia are empowered to elect their President the same way they elect their governors, mayors, senators, and congressmen. We still have the Electoral College, with its colorful eighteenth-century rituals, but it can no longer do any damage. It becomes a tourist attraction, like the British monarchy."
- Hendrik Hertzberg: Count 'em -

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
- Douglas Adams -

"Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing."
- Randy K. Milholland -

"Art is not truth; art is the lie which makes us see the truth."
- Pablo Picasso -

"Apart from consciousness, no absolute truths exist. False reasoning declares one view to be true and another view wrong. It is delight in their dearly held opinions that makes them assert that anyone who disagrees is bound to come to a bad end. But no true seeker becomes embroiled in all this. Pass by peacefully and go a stainless way, free from theories, lusts and dogmas."
- Buddha: Majjhima Nikaya -

"God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday."
- Sir William Bragg -

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
- J.R.R. Tolkien: The Fellowship of the Ring -

"There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality."
- Pablo Picasso -

"'I got this today,' they say; 'Tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity.' This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed, and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell."
- Bhagavad Gita: 16:13-16 -

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
- Pierre Teilhard De Chardin -

"Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing."
- Robert Benchley -

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."
- Dorothy Parker -

"I write to discover what I think."
- Daniel J. Boorstin -

"Does the average man get enough sleep? What is enough sleep? What is the average man? What is does?"
- Robert Benchley: Do We Sleep Enough? -

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
- Oscar Wilde -

"What if you trained Seeing Eye dogs to be bomb-sniffing dogs, so that they'd be Sniffing Eye Seeing Bomb Dogs? That way, blind people could get paid for being led around, and could be contributing members of our society, and we'll all be safer, too."
- Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close -

"Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim."
- George Santayana -