Aside from the victims of the terrorist attack, in the past year, we have lost... 

* FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation. 

* FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests. 

* FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation. 

* RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes. 

* FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation. 

* RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial. 

* RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

"Better it is to live one day 
seeing the rise and fall of things 
than to live a hundred years 
without ever seeing the rise and fall of things."
- Dhammapada 113 -

Old paintings of George Washington often showed him standing behind a desk with an arm behind his back. Back then, before photography, prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were represented because, after all, limbs are hard to paint. Hence, the expression: "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."

Take the National Weirdness Test.

A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel attached to his crotch.

The bartender says, "You know you have a steering wheel attached to your crotch?" 

"Arrgh," says the pirate, "It's driving me nuts!"

The 572,000 citizens of the United States who live in Washington D.C. have no representation in Congress. Republicans in Congress, who live in Washington D.C and therefore have no one representing them in Congress, have consistently voted against allowing the citizens of Washington D.C. to have representation in Congress because the citizens of Washington D.C. would almost certainly vote Democratic. Which means all Republicans in Congress are actually FOR taxation without representation.

John Flansburgh of They Might be Giants has produced a rock opera called People are Wrong. You can download songs from it here.

Won't somebody please kill Michael Bay?

Dear Nations of the World, Great political leaders, and all persons of conscience;

    I am an American and want to plead with you to help us remove the dictator that has taken over our country by means of a bloodless coup. The overwhelming majority of Americans are not behind the Dictator known as George Bush Jr.  Despite what you have heard from our censored media, we as a majority are not behind the actions of Mr. Bush. Our country has been taken over and our Constitution and principles are in the process of being fully suspended. We the majority, just as in Hitler's time, are too afraid to speak and I am afraid that our voting process may no longer be relevant.
    Please take this seriously and realize that we are as much a victim as you are or will soon be. And we the majority of the people of America apologize for not being able to stop this tyranny. The true heart of America does not lie in its buildings and amount of human fodder that you can discard but rather through the financial institutions. We plead that you do not retaliate against us with bombs and terrorism but rather do it through economic and oil sanctions. By pulling your money out of American financial markets and choosing not to do business with American companies, you can help speed the ousting of the most powerful Dictator in history.
    We Americans have been rendered powerless towards dissent and need your help. It is either this or another World War with possible Nuclear consequences.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, 

One of the majority of Americans.

Written by liberal_guerilla

Number of days since 9/11 that Osama bin Laden has not been found - 358.
 

Dear Dr. Hollywood,

1) With all the brains, talent and money in New York and Hollywood, why do TV shows and movies suck 90% of the time?

Charles

Dear Charles,
Well, this is one case where you can't blame it on the brains, talent, or money. The Iron Giant, a great children's film, tanked, and Pokeman, a worthless pile of camel dung, made millions. Everything sucks because that's what the public wants, and people like us, of discretion and taste, are few and far between. Why the hell are those tasteless pieces of crap at McDonalds the biggest selling burgers on earth? Beats me, but you can't blame them for churning them out as long as people keep buying them.

2) It's a given that producers are snakes, agents are vermin and promoters/distributors are the spawn of Satan - and that nothing gets made without them. How do you suppose the industry got to be this way?

It's always been this way. Samuel Goldwyn was a shoe salesman. It's called an industry because that's what it is, just like the car industry, with factories that crank out product. Once upon a time, films were such an oddity, audiences were so fascinated with those dancing flashes of light on a screen, that it was virtually impossible to make a film that didn't make money. That's the only thing that's really changed. Audiences have become more sophisticated and there's a glut of product, so competition has gotten impossibly fierce.

Art and commerce have always been strange bedfellows. Art tells me to follow my heart and vision. Commerce tells me to find out what they like and give it to them. Artists are like the CEOs of their own companies, and agents and promoters are like stockbrokers. They don't actually create anything. Their only interest is in buying low and selling high. They're like politicians. A good one can push any worthless piece of pork through congress, and the good promoters can get kids in to see Pokeman. It's a miracle ANYTHING worthwhile gets passed through Congress, and we should get down on our knees and thank God every time something comes out of Hollywood that isn't aimed at the lowest possible denominator.

Send your questions to "Ask Dr. Hollywood" at disinfotainment@earthlink.net

 

WHO’S GOING TO HELL THIS WEEK?

by Helen A. Handbasket

You never know who’s going to trade their soul away or what they’re going to get for it unless you’re Helen A. Handbasket, ex-executive chief in charge of operations for the burning flames of hellfire. Who are her sources? Wouldn’t you like to know? Sorry, all communications are confidential and the property of Helen A. Handbasket, whose opinions do not necessarily reflect those of this or any other publication. 

September 9, 2002

UNDO THE COUP
Satan for President in 2004

CARTOON FROM HELL

 

WHY DID SATAN CROSS THE ROAD?

His dick was stuck in a chicken.

HISTORY LESSON FROM HELL

On March 23, 1933, about two months after terrorists committed an arson attack against the German Reichstag Building, the German Parliament passed a measure bearing the innocuous title Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich. "Its five brief paragraphs took the power of legislation, including control of the Reich budget, approval of treaties with foreign states and the initiating of constitutional amendments, away from Parliament and handed it over to the Reich cabinet for a period of four years," wrote historian William Shirer in his study The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. While the Enabling Act explicitly permitted the Reich cabinet to enact laws that "might deviate from the constitution," it also specified that the powers of Parliament would be protected.

QUIZ FROM HELL

Which world leader has a hideous growth attached to his ear?

SATAN DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

To crack Brazil nuts easily, just put them in boiling water for a few seconds.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ

Water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, polio -- largely eradicated prior to 1990 -- have become epidemic. A child with dysentery in 1989 had a one-in-600 chance of dying. By 1999 it was one in 50. Had the weapons inspectors (Unscom) in their search for biological weapons turned on any tap in Iraq, they would have found them.

QUOTES FROM HELL

"I don't live in an evil world. And so I assumed that the world was not evil. And so I confused my world with the world."
- Noah benShea -

"What do you call someone in possession of all the facts? Paranoid."
- William Burroughs -

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

"Yeah, I had the same operation as Dick Cheney did, but the doctor left my heart in me."
- Drew Carey on his recent heart surgery -

"To offer an honorable solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to self-determination: that is the solution of the problem of terrorism."
- Yehoshaphat Harkabi -

"You can see another's ass, but not your own."
- Japanese proverb -

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." 
- Benito Mussolini -

"There are two different kinds of people in this world: those who finish what they start..."
- Brad Ramsey -

"Osama bin Laden is believed to be back in charge of al-Qaeda. I guess this means their leader got back from vacation before our leader got back from vacation."
- David Letterman -
 

"The State Department has put together a list of gifts that President George W. Bush has received since taking office. The first gift - the election I believe."
- Jay Leno -

"The [Bush] administration's blanket secrecy has less to do with the legitimate good of protecting our security than with the political goal of burying its own failures."
-- Frank Rich in The New York Times, Aug. 31, 2002 -

"Persuasion works best when it's invisible. The most effective marketing worms its way into our consciousness, leaving intact the perception that we have reached our opinion and made our choices independently."
- George Monbiot in The Guardian, May 14, 2002 -

"By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell - and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed."
- Adolph Hitler from Mein Kampf - 

"We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was legal."
- Martin Luther King, Jr. -

"Clinton made a point of surrounding himself with people who might be 90% as intelligent as himself, but never his equal. Bush is smart enough to know that he couldn't possibly do the same, or the country would be run by morons." 
- Norman Mailer -

"Mr. Bush went to Pennsylvania to meet with the nine coal miners rescued earlier this summer to congratulate them. He also cut the budget for the Mine Safety and Health Administration by $4.7 million out of $118 million total: Enforcement was cut, as were mine inspections for coal dust, which causes black lung disease."
- Molly Ivans -

"You're not Superman, you're a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes."
- alien to Woody Allen in Stardust Memories -

"As America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."
- Zbignew Brzezinski, 1998 -

"Under Clinton, spending on counterterrorism more than doubled; the 1993 WTC bombers  were caught; and the largest counterterrorism operation in U.S. history thwarted the planned millennium attacks. After the 1998 attack on our embassies in Africa, Clinton authorized Tomahawk missile strikes against Bin Laden. It is also worth noting reports that the current Bush Administration backed away from some of the more aggressive measures for dealing with Al Qaeda which Clinton had passed on." 
- William Danvers, a Clinton adviser on national security, in The New Yorker, May 13, 2002 -

"Do I look fat?"
- George W. Bush to Mitt Romney at the Olympic opening ceremony -

SITES FROM HELL

Mandatory reading: "We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as a terrorist regime. In recent years, the US has taken or backed actions in Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few, that meet official US definitions of 'terrorism' - that is, when Americans apply the term to enemies." - From Noam Chomsky's Drain the swamp and there will be no more mosquitoes.

R.B. Ham reminds us precisely what it is that we should never forget.

Aren't you proud we've got a president who blew off a phone call from Nelson Mandella?

Aren't you proud we've got a president who reinvents the English language?

Aren't you proud we've got a president who knows how to read?

Aren't you proud we've got a vice-president who sold Saddam Hussein all his equipment?

Aren't you proud we've got a president who praises Rosa Parks for breaking an unjust law while arresting Margaret Sanger for breaking an unjust law?

Aren't you proud you've got a president whose priorities are vengeance, blood, and oil?

Aren't you proud there's overwhelming evidence that the Bush administration not only knew it was coming but was actually involved?

Even the Taliban tried to warn us.

If none of the names of the supposed hijackers named by the government appear on any of the airline's passenger lists, wouldn't you think that would be a pretty goddam big story. I guess not, but here it is, with links to everything. 

Here's the argument that the planes didn't do all the damage, there must have been bombs.

All the ways the Bush administration has stifled investigations into 9/11.

Why is August 30, 1964 an important day in history? It's the day Bob Dylan passed the Beatles a joint.

Here's a big surprise. The war on terror is unfinished because the targets have moved.

Before there was e-mail, people still forwarded jokes through history.

Not that anybody's arguing, but in case you harbor any doubt, Gore won Florida.

Who's the number 1 Top 10 Conservative Idiot this week? Hint: she's blonde.

Bojinka is a Yugoslav term for loud bang. The destruction of the WTCs was part of Al Qaeda's Project Bojinka, which everybody seems to know about except the American public.

It's not just the weapons of mass distraction, it's not just Iraq and Afghanistan, it's our solemn mission to take over the world.

There is a list of bodies, a roster of the dead, who might have been called witnesses had they not met their untimely ends. Some of the names on this list will give you pause. Some are rumor. Some you may find incredible, and some frightening. Check out the Bush Body Count.

A group of military and civilian US pilots, under the chairmanship of Colonel Donn de Grand, after deliberating non-stop for 72 hours, has concluded that the flight crews of the four passenger airliners, involved in the September 11th tragedy, had no control over their aircraft.

There's a mammoth list of unanswered questions.

I know there are a lot of them, but here's one of the best 9/11 timelines.

Bush to world: Who cares what you think?

Bush to Americans: I don't want to hear it.

Bush to Saddam: Happy Halloween!

Americans to Bush: Go ahead, we don't care.

Iraq is intensifying its quest for nuclear arms. If you were about to fight the United States, wouldn't you?