Fan Mail for Hope

To: My Hero/Mr. Dare Michael......first and foremost let me say without reservation I LOVE YOU. Your post election Helenahandbasket special kept me from drowning in despair. 
Loucretia Taylor  Hey, Michael-- That's a really fine--and necessary - piece on hope. Thanks for articulating it. 
All best, 
Paul Krassner  Excellent article on Hope, Michael. There are despondent people out there who need to read that.
Regards, 
John Martin.  Wonderful. Your whole issue. Wonderful. 
Meria Heller  Thank you for this letter. I needed it so much. This morning all I did was cry. I felt like running to another country, any country, and then I thought no way in hell. I plan to stay and I plan to fight these bastards to the very end. This was balm to my burning soul. 
Thank you. 
Harriet  thanks man. great message. I know quite a few folks in our strange little human sphere who are pretty shattered today. as I related to one person over this, it is sometimes hard as hell to get up off the mat, but in the end, that's how most fights are won. gotta be willing. 
peace, 
s.a. griffin  i read your newsletter, and i feel my blood boil. i think you are performing a valuable international service, and i am grateful. as soon as i manage to find a way to cease being poor, without becoming some repulsive, life-force sucking monster as most corporate success stories are, i will send you money. seriously, i do not know how you find the time or backbone to continue this endeavor, but we are reading and learning. my 13 yo admires you almost as much as he admires mike moore. 
thank you, 
elizabeth merrilees, 
sydney  Thanks for such an eloquent statement that I agree with in most parts.....but that makes America.... I am a little bit older than you, didn't get out the votes against the war in Vietnam and regret it. I do appreciate your work 
Thank you! 
MarianTF  Wow, Michael. Great stuff. It's just a little too mature and responsible for this early in the morning.
Lynette  I'm with you, Michael. I'm with you. Keep the faith.
Bob Hunt  you do great work -- thanks!
hh - Unknown News  Hey Mike,
Nice piece. I see that you are to blame for the Republican victory this week, just like you were in '72. Do us all a favor and stay inactive in politics.
BTW, that is a prime example of Post Hoc, Ergo Proctor Hoc reasoning used so effectively by the Nazis.
iRv ô¿ô
Contest - How Do I Respond to This One? 

heyo derryo phatphuk probobly you thought you'd never get around to REALLY stinging yourself reallly bad burn daedalus melt 3rd degree-- but you were ALL wrong---you just drowning started--DED starting up bleed yourself in show really gonna with spades were toast warned you now are you all pleasure yours is they're academy love gonna you best all and places too scrap keep better you're book off sprang hell enjoy me self-undo 

Stop! We already have a winner! 
Thank you Angela Gillaspie for the following response... 

Mr. Self-Undo, Dear: 

Hell in my love academy, gonna spade you. Pleasure me with toast and Icarus flew best all and burned his phatphuk. Daedulus REALLY booked off sprang. Heigh ho the derryo, John-Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt. His name is my name too. 

Starting up bleed? Onliest when month that time is and PMS is 2 legit 2 quit. Hammertime! My academy spade you again in the 3rd degree places when Momma stung herself. 

Enjoy me, Site Traffic, Esq. 

Hi, 

I've been frequently entertained, occasionally outraged, but more recently (past several months to a year) merely dismayed by your column. I have known for a while now liberals and conservatives don't speak the same language, but there are times when what I'll classify as "liberal writing" feels particularly histrionic, for reasons which might ultimately escape me, but by Occam's Razor I surmise is merely a difficulty dealing with frustration or disappointment. 

Some thoughts, take them or leave them: 

If you couldn't find a conservative who is both against abortion and pro-choice (that is, feels abortions are bad, but doesn't want to see them outlawed since coathangers and back-room abortion 'doctors' are worse), then you haven't spoken to that significant majority (not an overwhelming majority, but a significant majority) of conservatives whose feelings are 'mixed' on the subject. These people are the real reason why abortion is legal, not the extremist abortion-at-a-whim liberals. And that's also why the question is still present, since the extreme cases (late-term abortions with an otherwise viable fetus: someone we could call a 'baby' if they were wanted) are where the debate has (with flawless logic) moved to.

'Dick Cheney and Haliburton sold'...While someone within the corporate entity Haliburton may have (something that remains to be proven: an accusation does NOT a proof make) ended up selling to Hussein (or indirectly to...), unless you can provide credible eye-witnesses, there is NO evidence Cheney had anything to do with it, and by the rules of Logic, is an Ad Hominim. Anyone who has ever worked for a non-trivial sized company knows how easy such things are to have happen at a low-level. If it did happen, and it happened on his watch, yes, he holds some responsibility, but the IF still remains. If there was a low-level cover-up, there's less individual responsibility there. 'Size' matters: not everybody is involved with everything all the time. Note that it's a little discredible on the face of it: while selling dual-use components might be lucrative, selling end-product to a dictator probably isn't, in either the short or long term. Most people looking for the worst here frequently forget to note the maxim 'circumstances alter cases'. Of course we assume Harrelson is wrong, partly 'innocent until...', but mostly Why the Hell should we Listen to Woody Harrelson? Get me someone credible to make an accusation against Cheney. An accountant. A Sales guy. A translator. Someone who isn't a dozen levels of hearsay removed from the facts. 

"Democracy is dead in America" - histrionic and extreme. Because the majority sees things different from (you must somewhat to yourself admit you have) an extreme liberal perspective, means, in fact, that Democracy works just fine. Anyway, we don't live in a true Democracy, we live in a Representative Republic, where the Representatives are Democratically elected. We don't have time for a true Democracy. Yet. Maybe some day. 

"Republicans own the media" - but Liberals control it (note the liberal bias in the predictions: they predicted a VERY different picture than we have today, because they wanted it to be so more than because of the data). "The Judges" - simply not true: there are merely a majority. "The Ballot Boxes" - palpably false. "The whole thing is fixed" - also, palpably false. Not every election in which democrats win is a Stunning Victory for Democracy (Remember Tammany Hall, or closer to your experience, Mayor Daley for egregious examples), not every election in which republicans win is "Fixed" or is a Travesty and Hails the end of Civilization. 

Finally, if you believe you can find anything 'within yourself' that wasn't, at some deep place you probably don't look at, 'given to you', by your Genes or by Society, or by your Experience, or by your Learning (all of which a Religious person would attribute, indirectly, to "God's Plan", i.e. "From God"), then you are missing a big, fairly important chunk of the (conservative, and fairly common) world-picture. 

- Jason Pascucci 

Jason, 

Good to hear from you. 

I don't think Woody has any more or less credibility than Charlton just because they're both "actors." In many ways I agree with them both. I have no desire to take Heston's guns away from him, whether his hands are cold and dead or not. I was, of course, more making a comment on how each side dealt with the problem of actors making comments than whether their comments were true or not. (That's why I didn't mention Streisand, the only person on earth who doesn't know that Shakespeare is in iambic pentameter.) 

Sorry, but there ain't no IFs about whether Haliburton sold to Hussein. Well documented all over the place. Please don't make me go back and look up the links. You're right that there's no proof Cheney was involved, or at least I haven't seen it. Personally, I don't believe Cheney when he says he didn't know what Haliburton was doing any more than I believe Lay when he says he didn't know what Enron was doing. But they're both experts at plausible deniability, so you're right, there will never be any "proof." It all depends on who you trust. In my case, no one. 

Still, it's nice to hear a defense of Cheney. Too bad nobody bothered when Woody made his statement. The pundits were too busy calling him a pothead. 

I wrote that piece for a very specific section of my readership who I knew were despondent. I wanted to give them hope, so I did my best by writing a piece called "hope." 

Glad to hear you're outraged but saddened to hear you're dismayed. I'm out to outrage. I'm out to get you to question absolutely everything you believe. I don't put my name on most of what I do because I want to be able to say things that even I don't believe, just to get that little bit of outrage out of you. I want people to develop the ability to change their minds, and the only way to do it is to challenge their beliefs, whatever they may be. To get them to laugh at something that they didn't know was funny. I am always happy to hear people like you rise to the defense. If your beliefs are indefensible, get rid of them. If I get you to think about something, anything, I've done my job. The enemies aren't conservatives or liberals, Democrats or Republicans, the enemies are sheep. 

Do the Republicans control the judges? Okay, obviously not all of them, but the Supreme Court to be sure, and a lot more soon, appointed for life. 

Do the Republicans control the voting machines? Okay, obviously not all of them, but they do, in fact, build all the new voting machines. Well documented all over the place. Please don't make me go back and look up the links. Well, maybe two. Was this election fixed? Check out this and this. 

I've never, ever, heard a Republican say anything like "as reprehensible as I consider abortions to be, I still think they should be legal." You say it's a significant majority? I wish that were true. I hope it's true. I WANT it to be true. I think anti-abortion but pro-choice is the only rational position. Please show me one single conservative editorial and/or Republican platform that takes that position. Come to think of it, show me one single liberal editorial and/or Democratic platform that takes that position. Rationality is missing from BOTH parties. 

You can call me a liberal but I am equal parts anarchist and conservative. I'm just not this strange new definition of the word. To me, a conservative doesn't want to take chances. A conservative plays it safe. A conservative says "Hold your horses, let's check this out first." Liberals went out and bought Beta VCRs because they were the best. Conservatives waited to see which format would triumph before buying VHS. (And rich conservatives bought both just to be sure) 

The definitions of liberal and conservative have flip-flopped so much I genuinely don't know what they mean. To my mind, when you're running out of something, anything, the "conservative" thing to do is to hold back and use less. So please explain why "conservatives" are the ones using the most oil instead of the least. 

Let's say, for instance, that humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, whereas trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. Seems like a pretty good relationship to me. It would also follow logically that the less trees we have on earth, the less oxygen-rich our atmosphere would be. How can anyone possibly argue with that? Like the straw that breaks the camel's back, is there that one tree too many, the one we can't cut down without severely effecting mankind's ability to breathe? Could be. I don't know. You don't know. Since nobody knows for sure, wouldn't it be the "conservative" thing to do to curtail cutting down trees, just to be safe? Isn't our ability to breathe pretty goddam important? Wouldn't conservatives rather be safe than sorry? So why is it the liberals who want to save the forests while the conservatives want to chop them down? 

Same thing with the ozone layer. I'm not a scientist. I can't say anything for certain about global warming and its consequences except that most of the reliable scientific community seems to think it's real. Maybe they're wrong. Who knows? I don't. You don't. Since nobody knows for sure, wouldn't it be the "conservative" thing to do to sign the Kyoto Protocols, just to be safe? Wouldn't conservatives rather be safe than sorry? So why is it the liberals who want to save the atmosphere while the conservatives want to keep polluting? 

Let's say we're running out of oil. When will it be? 20 years? 50 years? Who knows? Since nobody knows for sure, wouldn't it be the "conservative" thing to do to cut back on using it and develop alternatives, just to be safe? Wouldn't conservatives rather be safe than sorry? So why is it the liberals fighting for alternative energy while the conservatives are fighting for more oil? Gee, could it be because the conservatives own the oil companies and are more concerned with benefiting their own pocketbooks than benefiting mankind? 

I'm messed up about this. I don't have many answers, but you can be sure I'll keep asking hard questions. 

For instance Where are the Republicans who voted for Bush but are still outraged at the way he stole the presidency? 

MD 
 

I'm going to suppose something. I don't know if it's true or not. Sometimes you've just got to suppose something and see how it goes. 

On this Veteran's Day we are supposed to give thanks for American soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom. Like those brave firefighters marching up the stairs in the World Trade Centers, American soldiers have a proud history of giving up their lives so we can live ours.

But suppose something else. Suppose there had been another tactic that would have brought the enemy to its knees without sacrificing those soldiers. Wouldn't that have been worth trying? Have we always exhausted all options?

World War II is often held up as the one righteous war, the one where might was absolutely necessary and we whooped their ass. Watch those movies of millions of stormtroopers saluting Adolf and you know it's going to take an army to stop them. 

Watching the opening of Saving Private Ryan causes most Americans to think: "Gee, this is terrible. Soldiers are giving up their lives. How brave they were. I must be a good person to deserve their sacrifice in my behalf."

But watching the opening of Saving Private Ryan causes ME to think: "Gee, this is terrible. Soldiers are giving up their lives. Isn't there any way this could have been avoided? I must be a good person and do everything in my power to prevent anything like this from ever happening again."

How necessary was our involvement in WWII? Pretty necessary. I'm not anti-war, I'm anti-bad tactics. Were there other tactics we could have used? Absolutely. Instead of D-Day, how about a commando squad of Marines striking right at the Reichstag, blowing it up, and taking out the entire Nazi leadership? Come on, you can picture it now, starring Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Gary Cooper.

Okay, all you military strategists out there can argue the logistics till you're blue in the face, but you've got to admit it's potentially a viable strategy. Maybe there would have been a slim chance of success, but couldn't we have tried it first, potentially sacrificing a hundred marines before sacrificing thousands of soldiers? It might have worked but we didn't even try. (To the best of my knowledge. If you're monitoring this column from the Pentagon, it would be nice if you'd find out for me.}

And the Japanese? Nobody had ever seen an atomic blast before. Instead of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, how about if we had dropped it off-shore in Tokyo Harbor, giving all the Japanese a close-up view of this terrible new weapon we had, and threatening to use it again ON TOKYO if the Japanese didn't surrender immediately. Might have worked. Yeah, I know, all the innocent lives that would have been saved would have been Japanese instead of American, so we wouldn't have gotten that final rush of vengeance for Pearl Harbor, but I still think it would have been worth trying. After all, if you can't mourn for the dead Japanese who suffered for our tactics, you haven't got a chance of mourning the dead Arabs suffering for our tactics.

Could we have done something else in Afghanistan? How about that same commando force, only this time with Bruce, Arnold, Clint, and Jackie Chan, a SEAL/NINJA raid in the middle of the night taking out the entire Taliban before their soldiers woke up in the morning. Sounds better than carpet bombing to me. Might have worked. Yeah, I know all the innocent lives that would have been saved would have been Afghani, so we wouldn't have gotten that final rush of vengeance for being attacked by the Saudis, but one dead Arab is apparently as good as another.

Is there something else we could be doing about Iraq? Absolutely. We could stop being their enemy. We could leave them alone. Currently, ALL IRAQI WEAPONS ARE DEFENSIVE. They're preparing to defend themselves AGAINST US. What tactics will Hussein use against us? He hasn't seemed suicidal so far. Hussein isn't planning to take over the mid-east, like Hitler planned to take over the world. All he's doing is getting ready to protect his own ass with any means at his disposal. That means making friends with those who can help him. Gee, who do you think he might turn to? If he wasn't working with them then, he's certainly working with them now. We're driving him into the hands of al Queda, and we know about their tactics.

Al Queda has shown that its primary tactic is "Kill yourself while taking out as many of enemy as you can." Our tactic is the exact opposite: "Save yourself while taking out as many of the enemy as you can." We like our killing long distance, using drones. They like their's close up, piloting the planes themselves. We can live with our pain. They don't have to. They take themselves out in the process and never feel anything again. 

So do our soldiers, but death isn't their goal. Our soldiers want to survive their encounters with the enemy, and I'm not anti-American enough not to applaud their efforts. 

But fuck the tactics that caused their sacrifice in the first place. There are no such things as countries. There are only ruthless leaders claiming power over groups of innocent people who happen to live in the same location. On this Veterans Day, I say thanks to all the soldiers, bless all the innocents, and fuck the leaders.

Global military expenditures currently exceed $800 BILLION.

The top military spenders are:

United States $343.2 Billion
Russia $60
China $42
Japan $40.4
United Kingdom $34
Saudi Arabia $27.2
France $25.3
Germany $21
Brazil $17.9
India $15.6
Italy $15.5
South Korea $11.8

*Based on 2000 funding (most recent year available)

Global Priorities

For approximately 30% of Annual World Military Expenditures (~$810 billion), all of the following could be accomplished:

Eliminate Starvation and Malnutrition $19 billion
Provide Shelter $21 billion
Remove Landmines $4 billion
Build Democracy $3 billion
Eliminate Nuclear Weapons $7 billion
Refugee Relief $5 billion
Eliminate Illiteracy $5 billion
Provide Clean, Safe Water $10 billion
Provide Health Care and AIDS Control $21 billion
Stop Deforestation $7 billion
Prevent Global Warming $8 billion
Stabilize Population $10.5 billion
Prevent Acid Rain $8 billion
Provide Clean, Safe Energy: Energy Efficiency $33 billion,
Renewable Energy $17 billion
Stop Ozone Depletion $5 billion
Prevent Soil Erosion $24 billion
Retire Developing Nations Debt $30 billion

For more information, please visit: worldgame.org

Sources: Center for Defense Information, Council for a Livable World,
International Institute for Strategic Studies, US State Department, US
Central Intelligence Agency

According to the Riverside County Registrar of voters, many Democrats who thought they were registered showed up at polling places on election day only to find they were not registered. It turned out they all registered by filling out forms from workers in front of K-Marts. Turns out the workers worked for the Republican Party and were paid $5 for each Republican registration. They simply didn't hand in registrations from people who checked off Democratic under party affiliation.

The Leonid meteor showers are this week and are expected to be the last big storm for three decades, so reserve your seats now. What were they like last year? Read this.

Winona isn't the only actor caught committing a crime while preparing for a role. Check out all the other celebrities using The Winona Defense.

Pravda's got a new humor page called Russia Makes it Funny.

"Pitt Seeks Probe of Himself"
cbsmarketwatch.com

New Hampshire is considering naming a mountain after Ronald Reagan, and a town in California is thinking of changing its name to "Got Milk?" 

Hey, hey, baby, we're all targets now.

Harry Potter is a fraud, and the cult that has risen around him is based on a lie. Potter's claim to fame, his central accomplishment in life, is surviving a curse placed on him as an infant by the evil wizard Voldemort. As a result, the wizarding world celebrates the young Harry as "The Boy Who Lived." It's a curiously passive accomplishment, akin to "The Boy Who Showed Up," or "The Boy Who Never Took a Sick Day."

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services. 

He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."

There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

Back on the phone, the hunter says, "Ok, now what?" 

A new book by John C. Lilly and Tom Robbins? Too good to be true? Nope, check out The Quiet Center: Isolation and Spirit.

A mysterious Muslim religious sectarian, holed up in a far valley in distant Afghanistan, sends teams of suicide terrorists halfway around the world to destroy the nerve center of world trade.

...who thinks that The Agency is the best political show on television, infinitely superior to The West Wing?

...who thinks that Steven Seagal shouldn't play any more heroes, and that the best thing he could do for his career is play the bad guy in the next James Bond?

...who thinks that Mad TV is the funniest show on television, infinitely superior to Saturday Night Live, and that the recent show where the cast and crew of The Osbournes ran into the cast and crew of The Anna Nicole Smith Show and were busted by Cops was one of satire's finest hours?

...who thinks that the whole cast of Friends should get herpes?

...who thought of Treasure Planet 25 years ago on mescaline?

...who noticed that Burger King won the award for a burger in that category because McDonalds and Wendys and Carl's Jr. don't have burgers in that category?

...who thinks that kid playing Harry Potter is barely competent, and that the films would be infinitely better if Harry Potter had been played by Haley Joel Osment like Steven Spielberg wanted?

...who hates movies where guys have to choose between two gorgeous women? (the ultimate, My Best Friend's Wedding, where some guy has to choose between Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz. Awww, poor baby.)

...who wants George W. Bush to get a blowjob?

 D   I   S   I   N   F   O   T   A   I   N   M   E   N   T   T   O   D   A   Y
 4   9  19   9  14   6  15  20   1   9  14  13   5  14  20  20  15   4   1  25  - as numbers
 4   9   1   9   5   6   6   2   1   9   5   4   5   5   2   2   6   4   1   7  - digits added
\_________________/ \_________________/ \_________________/ \_________________/
   1                   6                   3                   2                - digits added
 

Thus, "Disinfotainment Today" is 1632.
Turn the number backwards, divide by 3 - the symbol of fulfillment. The number is now 787. 

Subtract 17, the symbol of domination. The result will be 770. 

Add 96 to it - this is the year of the destruction of Jerusalem, written backwards - you will get 866. 

Turn the number backwards, and add 1912 - the year Titanic went for its first and last voyage. The number is now 2580.

Turn the number backwards, subtract 18 - the symbol of bondage. The number is now 834. 

This number, when read backwards, gives 438. This, written in octal, gives 666 - the number of the Beast. 

Enough said - QED. 

from evilfinder.

Thanks to Dan Wright
 

Dear Dr. Hollywood,
 

I am a business major in an adult bachelor's degree program called Advance at a small private college, Mt. Mercy, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Currently I am in a marketing class where our group project is to originate a product and, of course, tell how we are going to market it. My group has come up with the idea of marketing a new cartoon. We have in mind to have four animals such as a dog, cat, squirrel, rabbit (courageous critters) that are a combination of crime fighting/McGyver type characters. Some questions I have are: 

1. How would one go about trying to get their cartoon published in cartoon booklets, newspapers, etc. What is the approx. cost to do this. (I assume there'd be cost to have a cartoonist draw the initial story. What would a cartoonist charge to draw/create an initial story/illustration? Does the idea then get sold to a publisher and they pay the cost for it to be illustrated in comic books and for distribution or is this something the originator of the cartoon would pay for?) 

2. Next question: To have the cartoon run on a cartoon network like the WB or Nickelodeon, does the originator of the cartoon idea take their idea to a videographer to somehow format it from paper to video/film and then try to sell it to the network. Do you have an idea of a approx. cost for this to be put together?) 

Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated. 

Jane Molony 

Dear Jane,

Thank you for braving time and space to contact me.

1) First of all, I can't help you at all concerning publishing costs. I'm a writer, not a publisher. In the real world, cartoons are written by the artists who draw them. Charles Schulz, Jules Feiffer, Garry Trudeau, artists and writers all. I can't think of a single currently running cartoon where the writer and artist are two different people. What you're talking about is the cartoon equivalent of creating a boy band. Yuk. If you can't draw, what the hell are you doing trying to create cartoons? Sure, go ahead, hire an artist to draw your ideas. There are thousands of artists for hire. Just go to Google and type in "cartoonist." Good luck with it. 

You can't submit directly to newspapers. There are only a few reputable cartoon syndicates, like King, who newspapers buy from. King will want to see the equivalent of 10 weeks of material before they will even consider you for syndication. If you're a daily, that's 70 cartoons. They get a hundred submissions a week. The pick maybe 10 new cartoons a year to syndicate. Good luck with it. 

The only exception to this are the comic book factories like Marvel and DC and Warner Brothers, with staffs of writers and artists. They're not hiring. Trust me on this. Just because they're producing "comic" books, doesn't mean they're any less competitive than all the rest of publishing. If anything, the world of comics is HARDER to get into than the world of novels. Don't even think of applying there unless you've got decades of experience and a fabulous portfolio. 

Forget going to publishers with your idea. They're not interested. Your only course of action is to publish yourself. Go to Staples. Buy a printer. Open the file. Hit PRINT.

Or you're staring and the answer right now. Publish yourself on the Internet. If you can get a readership here, you've got a chance at getting readership in publishing. 

2) Networks will not look at your idea under any circumstances. They only deal with production companies they already deal with. Production companies will not look at your idea under any circumstances. They are only interested in looking at the work of "animators," artists who write and draw their own cartoons, and they will only look at completed storyboards, or completed animated segments, submitted by agents they regularly work with. Agents will not look at your work under any circumstances unless you are related to them or are recommended by one of their successful clients. Good luck with it. 

Welcome to the real world.

MD

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. 

November 11, 2002

UNDO THE COUP
Satan for President in 2004

CARTOON FROM HELL

HISTORY LESSON FROM HELL

Just one month after the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, then-President George Bush sent two American envoys to Peking to meet with the Chinese government to reaffirm US business ties to China in secret, Brent Scowcroft, then the National Security Advisor, and Lawrence Eagleberger, the US Deputy Secretary of State. Both of these men had worked for Dr. Henry Kissinger's consulting firm, Kissinger Associates. Neither man would make public his business associates at their confirmation hearings before Congress, but they were confirmed anyway. Kissinger wrote Richard Nixon's China initiatives back in the early 1970s, and Bush's brother Prescott worked for a large consulting firm involved in big business deals with the Chinese government at that time. 
(full story)

The Bush Administration threatened to withdraw support for the 1994 United Nations accord on population control, which was largely written by the United States and has been ratified by 179 nations, because it contains the terms "reproductive services" and "reproductive health care," which, the Administration says, imply abortion. "This document was agreed to by everybody in the world, including the Vatican," said former senator Tim Wirth. "The document affirms that where abortion is legal, it ought to be safe."

SATAN DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

All you need to take off warts is duct tape.

QUOTES FROM HELL

One of these statements is entirely false.

"Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe."
- Frank Zappa -

"The people of Baghdad feel for the people of Washington. They know what it's like to live in the looming fear of what a violent lunatic might next do."
- Barry Crimmins -

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime." 
- Ernest Hemingway -

"America is on the wrong side of history. We are a threat to the world. Our allies fear us - as they well should. The America we have known is over. From this time forward we face war and the destruction of freedom and liberty." 
- Marc Perkel -

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right." 
- H. L. Mencken -

"But the most wretched election spectacle of all took place on my home turf in California where we were given the option of voting for the remarkably unpalatable incumbent governor, Gray Davis, who never met a special interest he didn't want to hit up for a donation, or his stupefyingly incompetent challenger Bill Simon, who shot himself in the foot so many times it's a wonder he can still walk. It was like being asked to choose which kind of bag we preferred to suffocate ourselves with, paper or plastic."
- Arianna Huffington -

"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom. And the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too."
- Somerset Maugham -

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
- Gen. George S. Patton -

"Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over." 
- Shakespeare (Aaron, Titus Andronicus Act IV, Scene 2) -

"Sometimes our pain is one of the few long-term relationships we know."
- Noah benShea -

"Everywhere, by all means imaginable, people are striving to improve their lives. Yet strangely, my impression is that those living in materially developed countries, for all their industry, are in some ways less satisfied, are less happy, and to some extent suffer more than those in the least developed countries. Indeed, if we compare the rich with the poor, it often seems that those with nothing are, in fact, the least anxious, although they are plagued with physical pain and suffering. [The rich] are so caught up in the idea of acquiring still more that they make no room for anything else in their lives [so] they actually lose the dream of happiness."
- The Dalai Lama -

"Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do."
- Bhagavad Gita 2:49 -

"I hold that to need nothing is divine, and the less a man needs the nearer does he approach divinity."
- Socrates -

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
- Aldo Leopold -

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
- Martin Luther King -

"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room."
- Blaise Pascal -

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."
- Plato -

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."
- Gandhi -

"From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax, to be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, and enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on Earth."
- Thich Nhat Hanh -

"What's the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"
- Henry David Thoreau -

"The policies of the American government, designed by politicians and bureaucrats, are not always synonymous with American ideals. The country is not the same as the government. The spirit of America is hardly something for which government holds a monopoly on defining."
- Ron Paul -

"Easy to do are things 
that are bad and harmful to oneself. 
But exceedingly difficult to do 
are things that are good and beneficial."
- Buddha -

"Your loins will burn with passion and I will become your god!"
- Madonna in Swept Away -

"In the long run, we're all dead."
-  John Maynard Keynes -

"Nobody ever lends money to a man with a sense of humor."
- Peter Tork in Head -

SITES FROM HELL

Mandatory reading: From absolutely, without a doubt, the best website from an anarchist Professor Emeritus at the Physics Dept. of the University of Massachusetts, don't miss Call to stop the U.S. government's drive for global domination.

It's not just when they blow each other up. Read The violence of curfew by Sam Bahour.

Only Bush would think of sending a representative to an important trade meeting in Quito, Ecuador, who doesn't speak Spanish.

Aw fuck it, go ahead and apply for Canadian citizenship.

Or just retire in an offshore resort.

Sally and Johnny have lots of black friends who think they're really cool, so they've made a site called Black People Love Us.

Finally a doctor who says don't eat your vegetables and drink coffee instead of water.

Winona Ryder has vowed to find the real shoplifters. "I cannot and will not rest until the real perpetrators of this crime are found. Despite the potentially damning video tape and the fact that I was arrested with the items on my person, I will find the people who framed me," said Ryder.

According to Ronald Noble, the Secretary General of Interpol, our entire war against Al Queda has done absolutely no good so far, and they're prepared to strike again.

25 writers, 2 storylines, A Tale of Two Summers...

This is the first time in modern American history that there has been a vocal anti-war movement before the war even started.  Why? Because our administration is making riskier, more volatile moves to begin an All or Nothing gamble for Iraqi oilfields.

Read the astonishing story of Congressman George Hansen, who was jailed and tortured in an American federal prison for a crime he didn't commit. From the article: "The last half of this century has seen our government repeatedly and increasingly engage in acts of violence and abuse against its own citizens and then lie, manipulate and cover-up to avoid detection and responsibility." - the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee -

Some people in Russia suspect the US was behind the Moscow hostage crisis. What the hell, who needs evidence. We didn't have any.

A massive list of every scandal since Bush stole the presidency.

In the interest of fair play, here's the site that blames 9/11 entirely on Bill Clinton.

The NYT's Stephen Labaton, otherwise known as the Pitt-killer, has the best piece on the downfall, going through each of Pitt's missteps since he was appointed to the SEC just a few weeks before 9/11. 

If you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention. That's the motto at Unknown News.

The co-pilot who died in the plane crash with Sen. Paul Wellstone played a strange role in the story involving Zacarias Moussaoui, the accused Sept. 11 conspirator who briefly attended an Eagan flight school.

A cumulative roster of all National Guard and Reserve who are currently on active duty can be found here.

Screw the danger from Iraq, why don't we do something about the 200 nukes that are missing from the Ukraine?

The entire Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Sample definition: ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.

Sign the world's shortest petition: Terry, you're fired.(to Terry McAuliffe, DNC Chairman)

What's the difference between now and a hundred years ago? Not much. The Robber Baron Era is Back.

The anti-drug war movement has a new hero. Leading the charge against unjust marijuana laws, former Dallas Cowboy Mark Stepnoski.

A defective computer chip in the Scurry county's optical scanner misread ballots Tuesday night and incorrectly tallied a landslide victory for Republicans. Democrats actually won by wide margins. 

Have you read all those studies on the long-term safety of vaccines? Of course you haven't. There are almost no studies on the long-term safety of vaccines.

Check out Who Owns You?, a complete guide to media consolidation.

Why is one story in a newspaper and not on TV, or vice versa, or not in the news at all? Use this handy guide to determine the corporate influence within the Board of Directors of America's television and print news. Did you know the Washington Post Company owns Coca-Cola, Gillette, Heinz, Lexmark, McDonalds, Polaroid, Ticketmaster, and Union Pacific?

You will do precisely what I say. You will not, I repeat, not, under any circumstances, read the mind control glossary.

Disinfotainment Today features prominently at Magatopia. Thanks, guys.

Oh, by the way. It ain't just the oil. Check out The Mineral Wars.