• The parents of Jerry Yang and the parents of the late Tammy Faye Messner, for their strictness that went awry. Jerry, who won $8.25 million at the World Series of Poker, was forbidden to gamble as a child, and Tammy Faye, known for her trademark false eyelashes and overbearing facial cosmetics, grew up in a rigid home where she was forbidden to wear makeup.
• National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, for defending newly approved CIA torture boundaries - "If I announce what the specific [permissible] measures are," he said, "it would aid those who want to resist those measures" - and an anonymous administration official, who parroted the party line that, if such tactics were not kept secret, it would "only enable Al Qaeda to train against those [methods] they know are on or off." Sample training moment: "All right, gentlemen, when you are given the water-boarding treatment, keep saying to yourself, I'm not drowning, I'm not drowning..."
• Dick Cheney, for pretending that it was a sudden change for him to be in charge of the White House only during the 2-1/2 hours that the so-called president was under sedation for a colonoscopy. Also, E-bay has confirmed that Cheney attempted to auction off the five polyps which were removed from Bush's colon and diagnosed as benign despite their malignant host.
• Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Daniel K. Inouye (both Democrats) for respectively sponsoring and fast-tracking a bill directing the FCC to maintain a policy that a single word or image can be enough to trigger indecency fines. Bush reacted, "This shit has got to stop," and Cheney said, "Go fuck yourself."
• NBC producers for bribing police across the country, and those same police for accepting the bribes, to let Dateline film confrontations with suspects who were lured to homes with hidden cameras, including a suspected predator who was arrested and filmed at his own home after failing to show up at a rigged house 35 miles away, and killed himself as the cameras closed in on him. A spokesperson for NBC had no comment except to announce the networks upcoming new series, Entrapped.
• Dr. David Matlock, a pioneer in "boutique cosmetic gynecologic laser surgery,"" for marketing the procedure - costing $6,000-$8,000 - as enhancing a woman's sexual experience. What's next: iPhone-2 will include a vibrating dildo.
• Purdue Pharmacy and three of its executives, for claiming to doctors that the prescription painkiller OxyContin was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other such medications, while the drug has resulted in hundreds of deaths each year. True, their pain disappeared in the process. However, prosecutors have dropped the charge that physicians were urged to suggest that patients pop the perilous pills with a Pez dispenser.
• The DEA, for sending threatening letters to landlords who rent space to medical marijuana dispensaries, causing many unnecessary and illegal evictions. Although the 5,000-year-old weed has not caused any deaths, there have been fears that users would raid their neighbors refrigerators.
• The Chinese government, for not making use of its oil-buying leverage with Sudan to end the strife in Darfur. Activists have threatened to brand the Olympic games in Beijing as the "Genocide Olympics" if China does not apply pressure on Sudan to stop the conflict. Meanwhile, China insists that it is becoming more humane every day, and now allows slave laborers to listen to pirated CDs while they work.
• Former Hollywood madam Jody "Babydoll" Gibson, for planning to testify in the Phil Spector trial that Lana Clarkson worked for her as a prostitute, even though Gibson's "trick book," which was seized as evidence in her own trial, had been doctored to include a fake Clarkson entry. Concomitantly, People magazine has selected Spector as "the sexiest man alive."
• Anti-Asshole of the Week: Rev. Reggie Longcrier, who YouTubed this question to John Edwards in the course of the, er um, debate on CNN: "Politicians have used religion to justify slavery, segregation and men-only voting. So why is it still acceptable to use religion to deny gay Americans their full and equal rights?" Edwards justified his own religious beliefs to explain his opposition to gay marriage, and Ann Coulter commented, "Okay, maybe he isn't a faggot then."

Don't Take My Word For It

 

"The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist."

- Novalis -

 

"Osama's plan was to get Bush to overreact and overreach. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell  slap-bang into that trap. Our latest National Intelligence Estimate suggests that Al Qaeda in Iraq is now among our most significant threats. As far as the eye can see, the likely consequences of Iraq range from the bad to the catastrophic. I cannot recall a more avoidable man-made disaster."

- Timothy Garton Ash: Iraq hasn't even begun - Consequences from the disaster we could have avoided will plague the world long into the future. -

 

"[D]isease is a general condition of one's internal environment. It is not the symptoms we see, nor is it an entity that attacks us from somewhere else. If germs are involved, they arise as a primary symptom of that general condition. Though germs don't cause disease, secondary symptoms (commonly called the disease) are produced in response to their activity... Disease is a general underlying condition, not the symptoms we diagnose or the bugs involved."

- Robert O. Young, PhD., D.Sc. with Shelly Redford Young, L.M.T.: Sick and Tired? Reclaim Your Inner Terrain -

 

"That's a bold statement."

- John Travolta: Pulp Fiction -

 

    "All compounded things are impermanent.

    "All emotions are pain.

    "All things have no inherent existence.

    "Nirvana is beyond concepts."

- Buddha: The Four Seals -

 

    "The message of the four seals is meant to be understood literally, not metaphorically or mystically - and meant to be taken seriously. But the seals are not edicts or commandments. With a little contemplation one sees that there is nothing moralistic or ritualistic about them. There is no mention of good or bad behavior. They are secular truths based on wisdom, and wisdom is the primary concern of a Buddhist. Morals and ethics are secondary...

    "For the sake of communication we can say that these four views are the spine of Buddhism. We call them 'truths' because they're simply facts. They are not manufactured; they are not a mystical revelation of the Buddha. They did not become valid only after the Buddha began to teach. Living by these principles is not a ritual or technique. They don't qualify as morals or ethics, and they can't be trademarked or owned. There is no such thing as an 'infidel' or a 'blasphemer' in Buddhism because there is no one to be faithful to, to insult, or to doubt. However, those who are not aware of or do not believe in these four facts are considered by Buddhists to be ignorant. Such ignorance is not cause for moral judgment. If someone doesn't believe that humans have landed on the moon, or thinks that the world is flat, a scientist wouldn't call him a blasphemer, just ignorant. Likewise, if he doesn't believe in these four seals, he is not a infidel. In fact if someone were to produce proof that the logic of the four seals is false, that clinging to the self is actually not pain, or that some element defies impermanence, then Buddhists should willingly follow that path instead. Because what we seek is enlightenment and enlightenment means realization of the truth. So far, though, in all these centuries no proof has arisen to invalidate the four seals.

    If you think the entire West is somehow Satanic or immoral, it will be impossible to conquer and rehabilitate it, but if you have tolerance within yourself, this is equal to conquering. You can't smooth out the entire earth to make it easier to walk on with your bare feet, but by wearing shoes you protect yourself from rough unpleasant surfaces."

- Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse: What Makes You a Buddhist (Shambala Sun, Jan 2007) -

 

"Well, it's nothing special. Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations. And finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy which it seems is the only way these days to get the jaded video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment bollocks! What they want is filth, people doing things to each other with chainsaws during Tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats - where's the fun in pictures? Oh well, there we are - here's the theme music. Goodnight."

- Monty Python's The Meaning of Life -

 

Satan Doesn't Want You To Know

 

All compounded things are impermanent, all emotions are pain, all things have no inherent existence, and nirvana is beyond concepts.