"War against terror...captured the mastermind... September 11th...terror...attacks...threat... Saddam Hussein... terror... aggression... crimes...terror...terrorists... weapons of mass destruction...Saddam Hussein... threat... terrorists... dangerous dictator... murder... terror... terrorist... terrorists... terror... al Qaeda terrorists... weapons of mass destruction... nuclear arsenal... Saddam Hussein... September the 11th... protect... terror... threat...Saddam Hussein...al Qaeda... Saddam Hussein... threat...good for... wealthy... war... protect... Bible... attacks... force... nations...France and Germany... we'll deal with them... I... a master of deception... with... weapons of mass destruction...a threat... to the Iraqi people... we love... totalitarianism... Liberty is not America's gift to the world... deal with it... Iraq's got money... So there's a lot more at stake than just American security... I hope we... go to war... Oil-for-Food... in Iraq... United Nations Security Council...I'm not worried about that... Turkey... We have to deal with them all militarily...we have to use our troops... I pray... America... hates... freedom... And therefore...we're at war... we... want anybody in harm's way... the journalists... the inspectors...We hope we... go to war... pretty soon... blackmail free nations... we're working the issue hard... regime change... for... the world... it's more than America!"

- Thanks to R. S. Janes -

"If I'm such a dangerous enemy, why have you told me, and the entire world, precisely where your soldiers are camping in preparation for invasion?"

Kucinich.com, the only site on the net with the balls to call presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich a hypocrite because he ate meat most of his life and recently turned vegan. How dare he change his mind! The bastard!

SOFTWARE REVIEW
	Democracy 8.0 A major upgrade to the long-established American operating system, Democracy 8.0 adds exciting new features, including: Automatic Detention Without Trial (replaces Courts), Permanent Emergency Powers for Attorney General (replaces Constitution), and Instant War/Peace Power for President (replaces Congress). Free download for registered users of Democracy 7.0

"The Gulf Wars remind me of the scene in Jurassic Park where the daddy Tyrannosaurus Rex breaks the legs of a man so his baby can get some practice attacking humans. Now sonny boy gets to go to war, just like his daddy."
- Ira Gurgitate -

"The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
- Sigmund Freud -

"Fuck you!"
- Xarvon, Alien Investigator -

"That's the first step of a counter-attack, getting people angry."
- Penn Gillette -

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."
- Yogi Berra -

"War is capitalism with the gloves off."
- Tom Stoppard -

"You no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
- Jeannette Rankin -

"Bush is oil. His number one donor is the petroleum and energy industry. We didn't hold an election. We held an auction, and they put up the money."
- Greg Palast, interview with LiberalOasis, Feb. 25, 2003 -

"Bush and his administration steadfastly maintain that this incipient war on Iraq is not about oil. Sure, in the same way that Michael Jackson's pajama parties with young boys is not about pedophilia."
- Max Publico -

"Bush is said to be pursuing every last bit of diplomacy to try to reach a reasonable agreement between nations so that we can go about the civilized task of barbecuing humans."
- Barry Crimmins -

"One can always identify a weak government by its eagerness to resort to force."
- Benjamin Disraeli -

"The cynical view on this is that Mohammed is still the relatively small fish we were first told he was, but the news of his arrest is being hyped because the Bush administration needs a victory in the war on terrorism before going to war in Iraq."
- Debra Pickett, the Chicago Sun-Times -

"There was that Abu Zabadudah (sp?) and that Ramsi El-Shenobi dude (sp?) -- both whom were also declared as MASTERMINDS behind 9-11...wow, so many masterminds!"
- R. B. Ham -

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have." 
- Barry Goldwater -

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
- Thomas Jefferson -

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel."
- Patrick Henry  -

"We were talking about the love that's gone so cold and the people who gain the world and lose their soul. They don't know. They can't see. Are you one of them? When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find peace of mind is waiting there. And the time will come when you see we're all one and life flows on within you and without you."
- George Harrison -

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
- Groucho Marx -

"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."
- Henry Ward Beecher -

"I'm not saying that George W. Bush shouldn't be allowed to kill as many people as he wants.  After all he is the unelected leader of the most powerful country on earth, so if he can't do anything he likes, who can?  And, in the years to come, we can confidently look forward to a lot more killing all over the world - certainly a lot more than ever Saddam Hussein managed in his own country."
- Terry Jones -

"Back when Hussein was using chemical weapons on his own people there wasn't a great deal of outrage from the Reagan-Bush White House."
- Ted Koppel, ABC's Nightline Town Meeting, March 4, 2003 -

"George W. Bush is taking this country in ALL the wrong directions."
- Dick Gephardt, of all people, on The Daily Show -

"The Bush press conference to me was like a mini-Alamo for American journalism, a final announcement that the press no longer performs anything akin to a real function. Particularly revolting was the spectacle of the cream of the national press corps submitting politely to the indignity of obviously pre-approved questions, with Bush not even bothering to conceal that the affair was scripted. Abandoning the time-honored pretense of spontaneity, Bush chose the order of questioners not by scanning the room and picking out raised hands, but by looking down and reading from a predetermined list. Reporters, nonetheless, raised their hands in between  questions as though hoping to suddenly catch the president's attention. In other words, not only were reporters going out of their way to make sure their softballs were pre-approved, but they even went so far as to act on Bush's behalf, raising their hands and jockeying in their seats in order to better give the appearance of a spontaneous news conference."
- Nick Berozzi: Cleaning the Pool - The White House Press Corps politely grabs its ankles -

"Wit is educated insolence."
- Aristotle -

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
- Mark Twain -

"The emperor has no clothes."
- Brother's Grimm -

"I wasn't naked, I was completely covered by a blue spotlight."
- Gypsy Rose Lee -

Poets against the war vs. poets for the war. (So far, no soldiers against poetry.)

Play Land the Flying Nun on the Mountain

Don't just eat your vegetables, listen to them.

Bush and Blair declare their Endless Love.

The amazing adventures of Hercubush.

Israeli Arabs are visiting Auschwitz for research.

The Associated Press has finally admitted that the FBI buried the link between Oklahoma bomber Terry Nichols and terrorists in the Philippines.

A school has banned children from reading the story of the Three Little Pigs in case it offends Muslims.

The Planet Zork has joined the American coalition against Iraq.

Benetton, Gillette, and other manufacturers, are starting to put trackable chips, itty bitty radio transmitters, into their products that will remain intact throughout the life of the item.

Simon Pegg from the UK comedy show Spaced is putting together a Zombie film and is looking for extras to play Zombies.

The Voynich Manuscript is considered to be "The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World." This medieval artifact resists all efforts at translation. It is either an ingenious hoax or an unbreakable cipher. Disinfotainment Today invites you to submit your interpretation.

I am actively seeking wheelbarrows full of cash. The next time you rob a bank in the neighborhood, won't you drop some by?
 

 

The planet is twinkling with connections
by
Jim Channon

There are some paradigm shifting events occurring today that are going unreported if unnoticed. It seems that's how it is when we begin our move from one paradigm to the next. For example, at the turn of the last century, when they began to build steel bridges for the first time, they molded the steel in the form of wooden planks and then even accented the old nail heads to make all things seem normal.  The old view was still in mind although the new world was already physically in being. We are there again now!  This time the mental shift required is much bigger in scale and importance. Here it is: 

We have a "whole" planet on our hands for the first time in history ... and its not going away.  It doesn't quite have its full deep and resonant voice recognized as such just yet, but if you snoop around in the right places you can hear it very clearly.  It has dimension, it has range, and it is in out-of-the-way places. This planet and its respective players everywhere are flashing ideas, food, medicines, tools, transport, music, spiritual ideas, and movie stars about with gusto. I believe this exchange and interdependence can be heard as a GLOBAL VOICE and seen as millions of strings of light and understood in the following ways: 

1. RESPONSIVENESS 

Millions have gathered in the name of peace this year. People in major capitols everywhere created massed events with just a week's notice. How did they organize so quickly? The connectivity was clearly in place. The call went out from one point and the response was relayed mostly on-line like sprinkler systems all over the globe. People and organizations responded within days with a precision of parades and events that arguably take a normal city a year to create. Can you feel the global synapses firing? Zip Zap with billions of words per minute set loose. 

Also of note, this kind of response for peace, not war, is the beginning of a classic type of behavior we can recognize in our personal lives. Isn't it true when we enter a new period of discovery in our lives we must first express our displeasure with the old situation? During this interim period we are really clear about what we don't want any longer, but also quite unsure of what we do want. So, we focus on stopping things. That is the prevalent conversation. 

Enough already! We paint the signs with the word PEACE because it is the opposite of what we dislike most ...WAR. We are actually really displeased with dozens of other old world practices but for the moment PEACE is what we say. Stop this madness! Then what we do want next has to be discovered with more deliberation. That takes more time. It takes another period of thinking and visioning. For now, concerns are expressed. 

We are unquestionably stunned by the number of worldwide conversations had by the citizens of the planet. We are waiting for the dialogue to shift from the more distractive and oppressive blathering about whether Saddam did this or did that and get to the meat of our new worldgame together. We have some thoughtful homework to do, otherwise we will go back to sleep until another blatant and oppressive strategy is unleashed by old world thinking. It can happen like that. 

2.  GLOBAL DIALOGUE 

Notice that the twinkling global latticework of communication is alive with concerned voices.  These voices cross boundaries instantly; almost without an in-breath. These voices begin to organize creative global counter moves and call forth the discussions of balance. 

Send the Pope to Baghdad! People have never before meddled so quickly in the way large governments did their business. These voices are organizing communities of interest that cross every kind of borderline. Those communities of interest are actually joining together in mid-stream. This dialogue is the beginning of the real new world order and it's not another institution somewhere. These borderless but lightning connections are proof that something major has changed. 

The real news here is that we are having a community discussion as a planet. Yes ... a real live conscious thoughtful connected and opinionated body of people matched with the round solid orb we live upon. It may be the most important moment ever in ten thousand years of human history and we mostly don't know that it has happened. We are so busy blabbering at the level of gossip that we don't know we have demonstrated a fundamental act of being a "whole" planet for the first time ever. A serious celebration is in order. 

3.  GLOBAL SHORT TERM NEWS PROBLAPHOBIA 

We also have tolerated a news system that relentlessly VOICES the illusive problems facing us daily. We have a paranoid global consciousness by design and consent. What do you think of people you know who whine constantly? Without noticing the progress of humanity with any serious perspective, till a history book is written decades later, we have all seriously handicapped our GLOBAL AWARENESS. In neuro-linguistic programming they call that "sorting for the problem."      I call it black spot disease. We need some new global lenses. We could also stand up a little higher on the hill. 

The news is also speaking for national interests and not global interests. The planetary commons is untended. Nations are obsolete. Look at their track record in the last century. They killed one hundred and sixty million people while tending their borders and their ideology. Nations may have been the logical next step-up in size after provinces and states but they are not an example of an institutional entity to be repeated at the next level. They still are locked into personalities, ideologies, and history that is irrelevant and dangerous for the next phase of our civilization. 

We need to connect our GLOBAL VOICE to some wisdom, not some polling data that is twenty-four hours old. We need independent communities of interest and circles of elders that span the globe to speak for needs and purposes beyond borders and beyond the term of the elected leaders. We need an entirely new look at how we report to ourselves about what is really going on. It needs way more depth, more elevation, more scope and more seasoning than is present now. 

We can have global opinion created in dozens of new ways with the phenomenal functionality of our new Internet tools. Let's also have a little "pronoia" (going overboard for the positive) to balance the paranoia please. And I am not talking about advertising because it just sells things and dulls our capacity to believe anything. 

4.  PENETRATION 

In the very smallest of villages the GLOBAL VOICE is being heard by people walking down country roads with a symphony ringing out in both ears. They listen on a Walkman on headphones with a fidelity as good as front row seats at the theater. This is a musical transmission of intelligence that is not confined to words alone. A hundred and twenty people in a symphony orchestra with twenty plus years of practice each are available together anywhere now. Music designed on more than a dozen tracks of sound can be way more intelligent than a similar time block of data or a scientific proof. It wakes up a significantly larger portion of the brain.  Too often we imagine that the only medium for transmitting intelligence is words. Just look at the sale of games, movies with special effects, Internet 3D worlds, concept graphics, dance improv, and the new world of a million colors. This is also news folks!, but people stuck in words don't think so. We can change that. The linear verbal construct is a barely passable intelligence when compared to many other more robust combinations. It also takes people out of the flow state intelligence that allows them to participate in the world on many dimensions simultaneously. 

5.  INSTANT GLOBAL CONTACT 

Have you had the experience of meeting someone on-line and essentially hammering out real compatibility before having a look at their face? Have you made a phone call half-way around the world and had a stranger answer you on a cell phone in a restaurant where they were having a business meeting that coincided with your interest in the call? These are the synapses of the GLOBAL VOICE and create a global brain in action. 

Imagine in your mind a global map of all these inter-connections. That is the real state of the planet now! Don't look at a map of the world with nations pasted on it and imagine that is what is going on. Not a chance. See the world decorated like a Christmas tree and sense that we are that dazzling collective connectivity. 

6. GLOBAL REACH 

You can enter a living room capsule that flies (transcontinental jet aircraft) and be on the absolute other side of the planet in just a day's time. During that trip you are connected to food that originates in a dozen countries. You are connected to music that originates in more than a dozen countries. You are connected to an Internet library that can give you data on any documented idea in less than a second. You are connected to a selection of bi-lingual movies.  You can shop the world and have a near intimate conversation with a stranger next to you from somewhere you never heard of. The GLOBAL VOICE is with you and then shazaam you are with that other someone special fourteen thousand miles from home. Notice how close you both really are!  It's an intimate distance and non-threatening. 

Isn't it time to think about how that connectivity can replace the institutions we used to depend upon to consolidate information and then make our decisions for us?  We don't need consolidators at the end of a buggy ride the way we did when our constitution was created in America. We can decide daily together and in the appropriate communities of interest. Governments are slow and very opinionated filters that could be useful as the maintenance department and not much more.  Thank you very much we have a "life" to attend to.  And.... 

We have GLOBAL VOICE now!
 

Go planet!
 

Courtesy World Business Academy

Calling All Filmmakers

 

Beware!

The paradigm is shifting.

Here is a leaked memo from a reader at Miramax...

Ignore it at your peril,

or go ahead,

maintain your artistic integrity and see where it gets you.

 

 

"During recent studies of audience interest, it was determined that most members are anxious for the 'setup' phase of the product to be completed so that the 'actual' movie can be seen. What this means to those of you who are reading for Miramax is that we think you should be focusing on shorter Act Ones. 
 

"This doesn't suggest, however, that Act One does not need to contain all the proper elements as previous Act Ones paradigms. What it does mean is the Act Ones that are most audience-friendly will have the information necessary imparted as quickly as possible. (For example, if it takes five scenes to impart Character Traits, Emotional State, Backstory, and Conflict Introduction, it would be best to have that pared down to three scenes or less. Ideally, we would like to be able to impart all necessary information of Act One to an audience in the initial scene." 

So that's the latest---at least, as far as Miramax is going. I can't vouch for the other studios, but I'm pretty sure they've got access to whatever report Miramax does. 

There's going to be a whole new slew of screenwriting tutors out there adjusting the model of screenplay writing now." 

Send your questions, or whistleblowing memos, 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. 

March 17, 2003

UNDO THE COUP
Satan for President in 2004

QUIZ FROM HELL

Which is the most important to George W. Bush?

a) Outright control of the world's second-largest oil reserve.
b) Removal of his hated personal rival, a US Frankenstein gone bad.
c) A pivotal military base in the heart of the Middle East.
d) Hugely lucrative contracts for both the destroyers and the rebuilders of Iraq.
e) The ability to test a new generation of ultra high-tech weaponry.
f) The chance to display the awesome killing power of that weaponry.
g) The chance to demonstrate a willingness to use that power.
h) The fulfillment of Biblical prophesy as seen through the eyes of religious fanatics.
i) All of the above

- Thank you Harvey Wasserman -

CELEBRITY PRANK PHONE CALLS FROM HELL

At eBaum's World, the calls are not actually from the celebrities themselves, nor are they from people impersonating the celebrities. They are in fact made by collecting voice recordings from TV and then playing them over the phone to people who haven't a clue.

BUMPERSTICKER FROM HELL

"There are many kinds of people in the world. Are you one of them?"

CARTOON FROM HELL

SATAN DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

You can keep your refrigerator fresh smelling by putting 2-3 tablespoons of fresh coffee grounds in a small open container and set it in the back of your fridge. It will remove the odors, not leave any odor behind, and it lasts longer than baking soda.

SITES FROM HELL

Mandatory reading: The best free computer tutorial, The Secret Guide to Computers.

Don't miss the Bush Family Values Photo Album.

This Complete Chronology of U.S. Imperialism probably won't ACTUALLY be complete till next week.

Cody Wayne is not only Sick and Tired of U.S. Bullshit, but he has a cool picture of a cat on a record player.

Robert Birnbaum has a superb interview with author Will Self on the state of England today. (Yep, Bobbies now carry firearms)

Crimethinc has lots of news items and superb anti-war graphics, posters, and pamphlets, free for the downloading.

Oh, by the way, your fly is open.

 

All of Helen's old columns are here.