Celebrities vs. the United States Government
 
 

Headline of the Week

 Self-appointed Baghdad "Mayor" arrested by self-appointed "liberation army."

Good News for Rapture Fans

Coral reefs are dying and ice caps are melting.

They Must Not Have Read the Patriot Act

Narco News is one of the only sites on the net telling the truth about the war on drugs, and the New York Supreme Court told them "Go ahead."

Practice Makes Perfect

For five days, beginning May 12, federal officials say they will hold the largest homeland security exercise in U.S. history. Dubbed TOPOFF 2 (for Top Officials), the exercise will cost an estimated $16 million and involve more than 100 federal, state and local agencies, the American Red Cross and Canadian government agencies and organizations.

Poster of the Week

Awww, Poor Baby

Blair Hornstine's latest report card had four A-plus grades in five courses. She scored a 1570 out of 1600 on the SAT and is deciding whether to attend Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton or Cornell -- all of which have accepted her. But despite her best-in-her-class grades, her school district wants to name her co-valedictorian with two other students. Hornstine, the 18-year-old daughter of a state Superior Court judge, has asked a federal judge to intervene, saying that being forced to share with students with lesser grades would detract from what she has accomplished. She has also filed a notice saying she plans to sue the school district in state court claiming the dispute has humiliated her. She said she would be asking for $200,000 in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages.

Most Ironic Statement Made with a Total Lack of Irony

"We also need to rid Iraq of foreign fighters, those from neighboring countries, for the most part, who are seeking to hijack your country for their own purposes. Please help remove the threat by approaching coalition forces with any information you may have about the activities and the whereabouts of any foreign fighters in your area."- Donald Rumsfeld to the people of Iraq -

Flashes of the Week

When thousands are out of work and losing their health care, have no fear, Tax Cut Man is Here!

Will the real Saddam Hussein please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

Education Reform from Hell

Finally, you can teach your kids the ABCs with tits.

Belated Christmas Gift

The Grand Dominator, 
one of the new generation of SUVS, 
makes the hummer look like a bug.

I Feel So Much Safer Now

An elementary school in southern Oregon has banned all conversation between boys and girls.

Whistleblowers are no longer protected.

The CIA's Phoenix Program believes that terror is an organizing principle of society.

Instead of killing a Palestinian, Israeli troops "mistakenly" killed a British cameraman making a film about Israeli troops killing Palestinians.

ExxonMobil, the world's biggest privately owned oil group, celebrated May Day by reporting the largest quarterly corporate profits in history. ($7.04 billion)

The U.S. government this week launched its Arabic language satellite TV news station for mostly Muslim Iraq. It is being produced in a studio, Grace Digital Media, controlled by fundamentalist Christians who are rabidly pro-Israel. That's grace as in "by the grace of God." 

The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein probably had no weapons of mass destruction.

Most Embarrassing Video of the Week

This Star Wars video is much better than Star Wars II (I know that's not saying much), basically because the Jedi is chubbier. Hint: If you make a video like this, DON'T let your friends get ahold of it and post it to the net. Even better with effects.

Lawsuit from Hell

In the UK, Government lawyers say burglars need legal protection from their victims.

Cards of the Week

One of Internet Weekly's GOP trading cards

 Play solitaire with Iraq's Most Wanted.

Calling All Human Shields

Zajel, a Palestinian youth organization, invites your children to c'mon over and spend some time with them.

Don't Take My Word For It

"Giving society cheap abundant energy . . . would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun."
- Dr. Paul Ehrlich -

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."
- Ayn Rand -

"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us,'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'"
- Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamasov -

"The implication or latent threat of terror was sufficient to insure that the people would comply."
- William Colby -

"Get over the Holocaust."
- Eric Alterman to William McGowan who told a Kinsey Hall audience, regarding improprieties in the Bush v. Gore 2000 presidential election, "Get over it." -

"I am convinced history will record that President Bush saved not only America's security but the world's prospects for progress by the courage with which he faced those challenges." 
- Henry Kissinger: fellow war criminal -

"Rumfeld's secret rationale: Hey, if you can't find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction then why not settle for destruction of the Iraqi masses?"
- Barry Crimmins -

"Where before, they feared Saddam Hussein, now they have to fear Sony Records will chop off their hands if they bootleg a Madonna album."
- Greg Palast on the RIAA's Hilary Rosen, who is helping draft copyright legislation for the New Iraq -

"Aggressors usually guise their aggression as self defense" 
- EV Tarle: The Diplomat's Dictionary, 1959 -

"Honey, can I get some Botox in my face so I don't look surprised when Bush blows up the world?"
- Mad TV 3/29/03 -

"Because of our nationwide ban on drinking before the age of 21, American teenagers tend to do their drinking secretly, in the worst possible places -- in a dark corner of the park, at the one house in the neighborhood where the adults have left for the weekend, or, most commonly, in the car."
- T.R. Reid: Let My Teenager Drink -

"In George Orwell's 1984 one of EngSoc's three 'truths' was 'Ignorance Is Strength.' Have you ever noticed how ignorant people have a great deal of strength in their convictions? Not being able to think is, at least subconsciously, terrifying. Unable to arrive at ideas and understandings on one's own, every idea must be held onto like a life preserver in the sea beside a sinking ship. Every idea is as important as every other idea because there is no mechanism to judge between them. 'Authority' (the Church-School-State Establishment) is strengthened by ignorance as well. The ignorant must rely on Authority for opinions. This keeps Authority on top. The 'conspiracy' has a vested interest in maintaining this druggie-like dependence on Authority. It is a very short 'hokey-pokey' little step from authoritarianism to totalitarianism."
- Jerry E. Smith -

"Free thought, necessarily involving freedom of speech & press, I may tersely define thus: no opinion a law - no opinion a crime."
- Alexander Berkman -

"Tired of killing Muslims, we are now trying to teach their survivors some democracy. There are a number of practical problems with this, among them being that the curriculum is in the hands of the most authoritarian, deceitful, anti-democratic, and constitution-wrecking administration we've ever had. But there's an even more disturbing matter: wander around your nation's capital and try to find something better. Leaving aside anomalies such as the ACLU and the Cato Institute, a few members of Congress, and a handful of anachronic journalists, this town shows virtually no interest in liberty, the Constitution, or democracy these days - except when prescribing them to those in far away lands. This is not hyperbole; it is simple, grim fact. And also essential, because what makes a democracy or constitutional republic function are not words written on paper, not oaths uttered, nor clichés reiterated in public addresses, but natural, visceral, organic love of the principles overtly avowed."
- Sam Smith: The Coalition of the Shilling - The Iraqis will have to learn democracy someplace else -

"I spilled spot remover on my dog. He's gone now."
- Steven Wright -

"In early March, my social studies teacher switched the class topic to Iraq. He said Saddam Hussein's time to disarm was up. We had to get rid of him -- he was a brutal dictator who gassed his own people. I raised my hand. I said that the U.S. gave Saddam Hussein chemical weapons, and the CIA helped him find the targets to use them on. My teacher snapped back, 'Actually, Charlotte, you're wrong.' Then he turned away and refused to call on me again."
- Charlotte Aldebron (a 13-year-old student in Augusta, Maine): Do We Really Have Free Speech? -

"At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens - that letting go - you let go because you can."
- Toni Morrison: Tar Baby -

"The government is not the surplus's money."
- George W. Bush -

"When the Americans want to humiliate a member of the former Iraqi regime, they really know how to make it hurt. Over the course of the day, news surfaced that Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq's former Information Minister, was trying to negotiate his surrender to US troops. But they hadn't accepted his terms. It turns out that slightly overstated the matter. One of his terms was that he be arrested. And that was one demand the Americans were simply not willing to accept. He's not in the deck and they don't want him. 'You're too lame to arrest' is the message coming from the US Army."
- Joshua Micah Marshall: Talking Points - 

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world -- no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
- President Woodrow Wilson (A few years after approving the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.) -

"The powers of financial capitalism had far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The APEX of the systems was to be the BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS in Basel, Switzerland, a PRIVATE BANK owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world." 
- Carrol Quigley: Tragedy and Hope: a History of The World in Our Time -

"The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission - founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller - and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens." 
- Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D., former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner, January 2003 -

"There is little realization in Washington that democracy [in Iraq and the Middle East] would make the region even more anti-American than it already is by giving free rein to Islamist fundamentalist extremists."
- Arnaud de Borchgrave -

"You do realize you could have just knocked on the door and we would have wheeled Jessica down to you, don't you?"
- Dr. Mudhafer Raazk on the "rescue" of Jessica Lynch -

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant."
-  Robert Louis Stevenson -

"The passage of Isaiah referenced by Jesus at Nazareth, and by Bush on the Abraham Lincoln, is part of a larger collection of verses known as the 'Servant Songs.' The specific verse used by Bush, out of Isaiah 61, is most important; it is widely accepted by both Christian and Jewish scholars as announcing the Messiah. For Christians, the Messiah is Jesus, and so this passage refers specifically to Him and His coming. The fact that Jesus Himself used this passage to announce His presence further confirms this. Bush's reading of this passage suggests the possibility that he believes this coming, for the second time, has arrived."
- William Rivers Pitt: George W. Christ -

"Whoever takes a stick
to beings desiring ease,
when he himself is looking for ease,
will meet with no ease after death.
Whoever doesn't take a stick
to beings desiring ease,
when he himself is looking for ease,
will meet with ease after death." 
- Buddha: Udana II, 3 -

"Life is a grindstone. Whether it wears you down or polishes you up depends on what you're made of."
- Jacob M Braude -

"Cuba was the first country to extend its solidarity to the people of the United States on September 11, 2001. It was also the first to warn of the neo-fascist nature of the policy that the extreme right in the United States, which fraudulently came to power in November of 2000, was planning to impose on the rest of the world. This policy did not emerge as a response to the atrocious terrorist attack perpetrated against the people of the United States by members of a fanatical organization that had served other U.S. administrations in the past. It was coldly and carefully conceived and developed, which explains the country's military build-up and enormous spending on weapons at a time when the Cold War was already over, and long before September 11, 2001. The fateful events of that day served as an ideal pretext for the implementation of such policy."
- Fidel Castro: Havana, May 1, 2003 -

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm patriotic enough. Yes, I want to kill people, but on both sides."
- Jack Handey -

Religious Freedom Comes to Iraq

For the first time in generations, 
Muslim nudists are free of persecution

Afghanistan War Rousing Success!

The Taliban has pledged another Jihad.

Frank Zappa - The New Nostrodamus

The Brain Police are coming!

Belated Christmas Gift #2

Yes, it's the world's most expensive dildo

History Lessons from Hell

Both the Charter of the United Nations and the Constitution of the United States of America are founded on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Great Law of Peace. We, the carriers of the Haudenosaunee traditions consider it our duty to remind the world of the basic principles and spirit of the Great Law for bringing peace and harmony to human relations.

WHAT IT'S LIKE HAVING BECHTEL REBUILDING YOU

Within a few months of Bechtel taking over [in Bolivia], water rates skyrocketed up to 60% or more. Poor families were forced to choose between paying exorbitant water bills or their rent. Jim Schultz, who runs an orphanage in Cochabamba, talks about a mother of five, an employee of a knitting factory, whose bill for drinking water amounted to the equivalent of her family's food budget for a week and a half. If citizens could no longer afford running water, they had to pay to stop the flow. "Families earning a minimum wage of less than $100 per month were told to fork over $20 and more or have the tap shut off," Schultz reports. Acknowledging that water rates did rise, Bechtel sought to blame the Bolivians for using too much water. Here's the company's formal response: "Unfortunately, water bills sometimes went up a lot more than rates. That's because [we] improved service, increasing the hours of water service and the pressure at which it was delivered, [and] people used a lot more water."

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

If the UN inspections had gone on forever, Iraq would have kept its weapons hidden forever, and we wouldn't have had to invade.

Did you know there's an 800-page secret report prepared by a joint congressional inquiry detailing the intelligence and law-enforcement failures that preceded the attacks of 9/11? And if Bush has his way, you won't.

Did the Communist Chinese military create the SARS virus as a bio-weapon - only to see a horrific accident unleash this killer on innocent citizens worldwide? Hey, why not?

You know those documents that "prove" the connection between Hussein and bin Laden? Think again.

Totally Wacko, New World Order, Religiously Insane Site of the Week

Truthseekers think a lot of the right things but for all the wrong reasons.

Quiz from Hell

"Far from being psychotic, malignant narcissists are adept at charming and manipulating those around them. Political leaders with this personality are able to take control because their inordinate narcissism is expressed in grandiosity, a confidence in themselves and the assurance that they know what the world needs."

Quote from Dr. Kernberg in a New York Times article about...

a) Saddam Hussein
b) Osama bin Laden
c) George W. Bush

Funny but Creepy Idea of the Week

Okay, get this. Somebody put a webcam at a public phone booth and posted the cam and the number on the web. Just call the number and see who answers the phone. (It's in England, so prepare for long distance charges)

Calling all Cunning Linguists

Everything Else

Mandatory reading: What really goes on in those secret prayer meetings in the White House and other places? Read Jesus Plus Nothing - Undercover Among America's Secret Theocrats, by Jeffrey Sharlet. And the story continues here.

Confused by all the different DVD formats? This chart will help.

We know the war is bankrupting the US, but it's also costing the Arab world one trillion dollars.

Scrawl whatever you want on the blograffitiwall.

Want to join the world community in their boycott of American products? Probably not. That bakery at the corner makes pretty good bagels. How about just boycotting the products of American Companies who are the largest donors to the Republican Party?

Then join the Global Campaign to Rebuild Palestinian Homes.

Though it mistakenly equates the past with the present, as though Martin Sheen should be helping invade Iraq just because Charles Durning helped invade Normandy, this tribute to Hollywood heroes of WWII is actually pretty nice.

Killing the Buddha is a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not. If the religious have come to own religious discourse it is because they alone have had places where religious language could be spoken and understood. Now there is a forum for the supposedly non-religious to think and talk about what religion is, is not and might be. 

With the revelation of one single link between Hussein and bin Laden, there is now only 100 times more evidence of a link between Bush and bin Laden.

The US has signed a cease-fire agreement with the People's Mujahideen, a group nurtured by deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to fight the Iranian government and which the US had branded as a terrorist organization.

There is a movement for New York City to secede from New York State. Maybe your city should secede from your state. Find out why urban statehood is a good idea. 

If you're for this war, you're coming to your conclusions based upon false premises. Check out America's history of faking evidence.

Recently, a mid-level executive of one of the three major American television networks sent over 1500 pages of memos from the corporate offices of his network in New York to the head of their television news division. These memos contain a multitude of instructions concerning the presentation of national and international news for the networks viewers.

Was the L.A. Times right in firing a photographer for altering an image of the war? Check out this page, which shows the original photographs and the final altered photograph and decide for yourself.