Hey Hollywood!

     Is the MOW about the saving of Jessica Lynch going to follow the fictional party line that it was an actual rescue, or is it going to deviate and show the real scene the day before when the Iraqis tried to return Jessica to the allied forces only to be fired upon and turned away? This is going to be a true litmus test of the degree to which the Department of Homeland Security has infiltrated the networks, subtly forcing them to err on the side of propaganda rather than the truth. Will the network risk getting laughed at by the intelligencia who will see it for what it is, a conspired piece of fiction produced by the government to reach the unwashed masses who may have missed the follow-up story that it was all a sham, convincing them the war was worthwhile due to the heroism we showed? Or will they risk the wrath of the IRS who will come down on them hard should they piss off the powers that be by telling the actual story of a government plot to manipulate the news? Guess that's why they pay those network heads the big bucks, to make decisions like that. I know what I'd do. Fuck 'em, tell the truth. That's why they don't pay ME the big bucks.

I Feel So Much Safer Now

   Iraqi soldiers who followed the instructions laid out in the leaflets dropped by allied aircraft before the war encouraging them not to fight on behalf of Hussein have now been fired and are no longer receiving pay. The angry soldiers said that their military service was primarily a job to help feed their families and that they ought to be treated the same as civil servants. Naturally, they're threatening to take up arms again, not on behalf of Hussein but on behalf of their families.
    "If they don't pay us we'll start problems. We have guns at home. If they don't pay us, if they make our children suffer, they'll hear from us."
 - Lt. Co. Ahmed Mohammed, a leader of the unpaid Iraqi soldiers -

Holiday of the Week

Barbara Bush has declared May 17, 2003 
to be our country's first annual Clitoridectomy Day

Insane E-Mail of the Week

Dear Fellow Republican,Because claims continue to grow that Vice President Cheney knew about and allowed the September 11, 2001 attacks for political and strategic gain, the Republican Party needs your moral and financial support more than ever. 

Liberals are spreading over a hundred accusations that our Vice President of the United States of America knew about and allowed the 9/11 attacks. 

Fellow Republicans, we recommend not directly addressing all the details spouted by liberals and their bleeding heart press. During a recent prayer meeting here at Patriotic Citizens for the Defense of American Values, deep inspiration and humility moved us to develop a special answer to the mounting liberal propaganda. We call our answer the "Daisy Cutter Moab Rebuttal." 

Here it is: "Even if Vice President Cheney allowed the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, he did so for the good of the nation. Franklin Roosevelt did this when he allowed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor so the United States could join the war against the axis of evil of that era."

Because liberals love Franklin Roosevelt so much, this answer shuts them up quickly. 

Only a true leader can make the toughest decisions in order to lead his nation to its destined greatness. Even if our President allowed the attacks of 9/11, this proves Bush is an even bigger hero for allowing Vice President Cheney to make such a tough, necessary decision. We elect our leaders to lead, not flirt and carry on with interns. It was President Bush's amazing post-9/11 leadership that unleashed the American people to free others around the world, including oppressed women in Afghanistan and Iraqi victims of Saddam Hussein. 

You can help. Our views will win over liberal propaganda regardless of their so-called evidence. 

Please donate to the Republican party to protect the truth from the snooping eyes of the unrighteous (liberals). 

Thank you,

Patriotic Citizens for the Defense of American Values

Letter from Barbara Boxer

Dear Friend: 

Congressman Christopher Cox and I in 2002 introduced companion legislation that would crack down on deadbeat parents who are delinquent in paying child support. I am pleased to tell you that the U.S. Senate recently adopted our legislation in the form of an amendment I offered to a larger bill. 

The provision penalizes the parent who has failed to pay at least 50 percent of court-ordered child support by treating the delinquent payments as taxable income to the deadbeat parent. In the year 2000, of the more than 2.3 million Californians who were owed child support, only 39 percent received those payments. Clearly it is time to treat delinquent child support the same way bad debt is treated in tax law. Our hope is that this legislation will encourage deadbeat parents to start fulfilling their responsibilities to their children. 

A conference committee of the House and Senate will determine if this provision remains in the bill when final action is taken. I look forward to working with Representative Cox to make sure this amendment remains in the bill. 

If you have questions or comments on this issue, I encourage you to contact me. You can send an email to me using the "Contact Us"  portion of my Senate website, found at http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm. 

Sincerely, 

Barbara Boxer 
United States Senator 

Letter to Barbara Boxer

Ms. Boxer, 

I'm afraid this is a VERY bad knee-jerk reaction to a very complicated problem. Your solution assumes that most court ordered child support arrangements are fair. The exact opposite is true. Yes, there are worst-case-scenarios of dads with a lot of money who are deliberately withholding payments to children they don't care about who are living in poverty, and your solution does something about that, but the vast majority of cases are not like that. 

When a couple lives together and the father loses his job or gets a reduction in salary, the whole family cuts back together. But when the father in a SEPARATED couple with a child support arrangement loses his job or gets a reduction in salary, the father cuts back but the child support arrangement usually remains the same. The mother doesn't have to cut back at all, and if the father is justifiably late in his payments, he is often rewarded with less time with the children he loves as much as the mother. Trust me, that's what's happening in the VAST MAJORITY of child support cases, and your solution makes it worse, not better. Most fathers love their children and deserve custody as much as the mother, but 90% of the time custody is awarded to the mother, while the father is seen as nothing more than a penis with a paycheck. Most child custody arrangements are painful and humiliating for the father. 

Your solution doesn't help FAMILIES, it helps moms and penalizes dads by giving them LESS money and inevitably LESS time with their children. It HURTS families, doing much more harm than good. It doesn't address the real problem, which is how custody is arrived at in the first place. 

There is a completely fair way to deal with child custody. It's called joint custody. Nobody pays anyone anything. All child-rearing duties are shared equally between both parents, making your bill totally unnecessary. Look into it. 

MD

If They've Got Oil (or at least trans-fatty acids) Let's Help Them

Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous Peoples Forum that during the four-year civil war his people had been hunted down and eaten.

Fat Chance

Rep. Rush Holt is introducing legislation to require all voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper trail. 

Shhhh, Don't Tell Bush He Could Do This If He Wants

A Moroccan journalist was jailed for four years for insulting King Mohammed VI and undermining the country's national integrity. 

Radio tags the size of a grain of sand could be embedded in all money by the Japanese electronics maker Hitachi.

Attempt to Change the English Language of the Week
or
Best Excuse to Eviscerate Carrot Top

"Use C-A-L-L-A-T-T, it's free for you and cheap for them," says Carrot Top or one of the Arquettes in a TV ad replayed over and over in dozens of ludicrous situations, deliberately never mentioning a specific price, just drumming home the idea that you're actually doing your friends a favor by calling collect. I was recently away from home, needing to call home without enough coin, so that jingle flashed through my head and I found myself using C-A-L-L-A-T-T to talk to my son. Just got the charge on my very own phone bill. "$6.18" for a one minute call. This is a brand new definition of the word "cheap." Do your friends a favor. Carry some change.

Positive Proof America is not Hindu

"However prosperous it may seem, all wealth gained By loss of rightness must be relinquished that very day."
- Tirukkural 113 -

Positive Proof America Might be Buddhist

"The person who tells a lie,
who transgresses in this one thing,
transcending concern for the world beyond:
there's no evil
he might not do."
- Dhammapada, 176, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu -

Oh Joy Unbounded

There's a computer program that can determine the sex of an author simply by examining the text.

"The Congressional Budget Office is predicting this year's deficit to exceed $300 billion, which would mark an all-time high. The CBO's estimate doesn't take into account a fresh round of tax cuts being worked on by Congress and advocated by President Bush."
- MSN: U.S. deficit running at triple '02 pace -

Cartoon of the Week

Rock Opera of the Week

DISMAL LEADER 
(Sung to the tune of "Pinball Wizard" by The Who) 

Man on the street: 

Ever since I was a young boy, 
I must have seen them all. 
From Nixon down to Reagan 
They nailed us to the wall. 
But I ain't seen nothing like him 
In any used bathroom stall... 
That rich, dumb, and brash dude 
Sure is a mean sleaze ball! 
- From Mr. Annoyed's magnificent Shrubby, a complete political rock opera parody of Tommy -

Bribe of the Week

"What could it be that is driving the FCC to press forward with the June 2 vote? The answer may be found in a blockbuster report just released by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, which details how industry groups the FCC is supposed to be regulating have over the past eight years paid for more than 2,500 junkets taken by key FCC officials. The examination of FCC travel records by analysts with the Center for Public Integrity reveals that FCC commissioners and top staffers have been flown to hundreds of conferences, conventions and broadcast-industry events in Las Vegas (330 trips), New Orleans (173 trips), New York (102 trips), London (98 trips), as well as San Francisco, Miami, Anchorage, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, Beijing and Paris. Often, according to the study, the FCC aides merely attend events as observers - but they do so in style, spending the night in elite accommodations such as the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and at the resorts of Amelia Island, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina. This sort of high-flying junketeering costs a lot of money. But money, it seems, is no object when media conglomerates and their lobbying arms are wining and dining the people who regulate the scope - and potential profitability -- of their empires."
- John Nichols: FCC Travels on Industry's Dime -

Making Fun of the Dead Department

Go to Miserable Melodies and listen to an isolated track of Linda McCartney singing back-up on Hey Jude.

Don't Take My Word For It

"Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you - he really is an idiot."
- Groucho Marx: Duck Soup -

"The UN is finally going to end its sanctions on Iraq. Considering the callous junta currently ruling the country, the move seems premature."
- Barry Crimmins -

"Jayson Blair is today's scapegoat not because he was dishonest, but, rather, because he did not follow the institutionalized instructions on precisely how to be dishonest, and, above all, because he got caught."
- Al Giordano: Narconews -

"Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person we become."
- Jim Rohn -

"The C.I.A. is snooping around itself and other spy agencies to see if pre-war reports of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda were exaggerated. The suspense is killing me."
- Maureen Dowd -

"Once again, statistics highlight the staggering scale of the Western betrayal. In Bosnia there was one peacekeeper for every 113 people, in East Timor every 66, in Kosovo every 48. There is one Isaf soldier for every 5,380 Afghans. Without an international security presence the Afghan countryside has fallen back into the hands of the warlords and their militias, conservatively estimated at some 200,000 strong. The international presence is feebly trying to counter-balance the power of the warlords by building up the central government security framework. So far those attempts have been at worst disastrous and at best meaningless."
- Peter Oborne: On the roads of ruin -

    "So, first they give weapons of mass destruction to Saddam, knowing that he will employ them against his enemies, including the Iranian people.
    "Then they enforce their cruel and brutal sanctions against Iraq with the goal of squeezing the Iraqi people into violently ousting Saddam Hussein from power.
    "Then they encourage the Iraqi people to rise up by force of arms against their own government under a false and deceptive promise of help from the president of the United States, knowing full well what Saddam will do to the rebels if their rebellion fails.
    "Then they stand aside and watch in shock and awe as Saddam's forces massacre the rebels and place their bodies in mass graves.
    "And years later, when the primary justification for invading Iraq (disarming Saddam) fizzles out, U.S. officials use those mass graves as an ex post facto justification for their invasion  an invasion that resulted in the deaths and injuries of thousands of more Iraqis."
- Jacob G. Hornberger: Moral Responsiblity for Iraqi Graves -

"A tyrant declares war to deny his subjects leisure and to impose on them the constant need for a leader."
- Aristotle -

"Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as the pen."
- William Cobbett -

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
- Goethe -

"Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves." 
- Joseph Warren: Boston Massacre Oration, 1775 -

"Reagan was an actor who played cowboys in movies and became a politician. Bush is a politician who pretends to be a cowboy in order to remind us of Reagan when he was president. Reagan represented Hollywood. Bush represents an imitation of Hollywood, the TV spin-off of the hit movie."
- James Wolcott: Round Up the Cattle, Vanity Fair 6/03 -

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."
- H. L. Mencken -

"We have three months at best to get this right. It is absolutely crucial the people of Baghdad can be persuaded we are there to help them. Otherwise, the whole point of the operation could totally collapse and we could have a new war on our hands against the Iraqi people we came to liberate. The American troops in Baghdad are not doing what is necessary. They are tired, they want to go home and they do not have the training for the job that needs to be done. After 30 years of being in Northern Ireland, as well as the Balkans, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, we know we have those skills and have offered our help."
- Senior member of the British defence on its way to Baghdad -

"You'd think that Congress and President Bush would run from imitating Florida's disastrous system. Astonishingly, Congress adopted the absurdly named 'Help America Vote Act,' which requires every state to replicate Florida's system of centralized, computerized voter files before the 2004 election."
- Martin Luther King III and Greg Palast: Jim Crow Revived in Cyberspace -

"Why would anybody want to invent a weapon?"
- Barbarella -

"If I owned both Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell."
- General William Tecumseh Sherman -

"What has happened to us? We have suffered a technological calamity. Television is now our form of government."
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. -

"There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past."
- Noam Chomsky -

"By now, it's a media ritual. Whenever the U.S. government raises the alert level for terrorism - as when officials announced the orange code for 'high risk' on May 20 - local, regional and national news stories assess the dangers and report on what's being done to protect us. We're kept well-informed about how worried to be at any particular time. But all that media churning includes remarkably little that has any practical utility. Presumably, the agencies that are supposed to help safeguard the public don't need to get their directives via network news or the morning paper. As for the rest of us, the publicity is very close to useless - unless we're supposed to believe that feeling anxious makes us safer or looking sideways at strangers will enhance our security."
- Norman Solomon: Decoding The Media Fixation On Terrorism -

"Colin Powell didn't know where any weapons of mass destruction were. Bush didn't know either, despite what he said...It was all a lie. Now, this week we find out perhaps invading Iraq wasn't about chemical, nuclear or biological weapons. Perhaps it wasn't about getting rid of Saddam, because today we don't even know where he is. Perhaps its about the $7 billion contract Kellogg Brown & Root is getting not only to put out oil fires, but also to operate oil fields and distribute the oil. Perhaps there is nothing to the fact that Halliburton owns Kellogg Brown & Root. And perhaps there's nothing to the fact that the contract was non-competitive. But perhaps, what we are seeing is that the war is about oil after all, despite the administration's current protestations. At least, it seems, there's more evidence to support that theory than the one that states the war is about weapons of mass destruction. And I know whom I'm not going to believe."
- Ralph E. Wirtz -

"Be suspicious of foreign policy based on 'worst case' thinking. During the Cold War, the United States made fearful assessments of Soviet capabilities and intentions that turned out to be entirely false - assessments that shaped policy. Low-level intelligence estimates regularly reported mere possibilities of hostile threat, which, reported up the chain of command, were transformed into certain facts. Thus, Soviet troop strength was wildly overestimated in the beginning of the era; Soviet missile strength was overestimated in the middle; Soviet political strength was overestimated at the end. The result was a US-driven nuclear arms race, the effects of which still threaten the world."
- James Carroll: A Nation Lost -

"My father served 13 years in the Army Air Corps and the Air Force. My son is a Marine EOD and I am quite proud of him. I support the US Armed Forces and believe that they are necessary to PROTECT America. I do not think they are at arms to further the interests of megalomaniacs, corporations and chickenhawks. This War is being waged for the ego of George Bush and his cronies and their plans to subjugate the world for their own profit. It is not about protecting America and it is against everything my Dad and my Son served for. I am sick with fear for the future of America when war is viewed as entertainment and when our fellow citizens do not see that war is going to destroy innocent people and maim even more. How can America be seen as any different than WW II Germany when it declares war based on the propaganda spewed by its self serving leaders?"
- Nick Roberts, son of WWII vet and father of Gulf War vet: Veterans Against the Iraq War -

"The price of gasoline has gotten so high that women who want to run over their husbands have to car-pool now."
- Molly Ivins -

"How low will Jeb Bush go? Florida newspapers reported recently on the sad story of a 22-year-old mentally disabled woman who was raped and impregnated. As the woman is too disabled to speak she can't help the police find the rapist, and since she has no family the state has appointed her a guardian. But obviously sensing a political opportunity, Jeb Bush stepped in last week and ordered state lawyers to also appoint a guardian for the woman's 6-month-old fetus. He overruled child welfare officials who said that since a fetus isn't a person, to appoint a guardian would be illegal. And so that's how low Jeb Bush will go, folks - he'll cynically use a mentally disabled rape victim to push his pro-life agenda. What a guy."
- Jeb Bush: The #9 Conservative Idiot of the Week -

"Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually. But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have believed -- right on this Senate Floor."
- US Senator Robert Byrd: Senate Floor Remarks, May 21, 2003 -

"The myth that osteoporosis is caused by calcium deficiency was created to sell dairy products and calcium supplements. There's no truth to it. American women are among the biggest consumers of calcium in the world, and they still have one of the highest levels of osteoporosis in the world. And eating even more dairy products and calcium supplements is not going to change that fact."
- Dr. John McDougall: The McDougall Program for Women -

"It is a great blessing to meet struggle and opposition with whatever fire there is in us that is kindled by these. Life does not mean merely following the softest road, the path of least resistance; it is doing something vital. Hardships and difficulties bring out the best in us and make us strong."
- Swami Paramananda -

"Politicians need to be more honest about lying." 
- Glen Newey: Science Confirms: Politicians Lie -

"The terror level had to go to orange today because Democrats in the Senate are opposing language in the military appropriations bill that would remove the ban on developing and testing nuclear weapons. With the new orange threat level, paranoid Republican hawks can cite the 'dangers' of the world we live in as a reason that we MUST develop more nuclear weapons - and while we're at it, consider them as part of our regular arsenal."
- anonymous posting -

"The defining trait of the fanatic - be it a Marxist, a fascist, or, gulp, a Wolfowitz - is the utter refusal to allow anything as piddling as evidence to get in the way of an unshakable belief. Bush and his fellow fanatics are the political equivalent of those yogis who can hold their breath and go without air for hours. Such is their mental control, they can go without truth for, well, years.  Because, in their minds, they're always right. Oopso facto."
- Arianna Huffington -

"What we are seeing is more economic warfare based on disease---just like SARS. In this case, the US government had already promised to retaliate for the recent announcement, in Canada, that marijuana would be decriminalized for the small user. And then there is the lingering bitterness in the White House over the fact that Canada opted out of supporting the war in Iraq. So this beef ban is a shot fired across the bow of the Canadian economy."
- Jon Rapapport: No More Fake News -

"The classic definition of chutzpa is an anecdote in which a man murders both his parents and then, at his trial, pleads for leniency on the grounds that he's an orphan. A good topical variation would be the one about the President who contrives to lead America to war and then stigmatizes anyone who would challenge a President's leadership while American troops are in harm's way. Talk about human shields." 
- The Cassandra Notes: Rallying Round the Mechanism -

"We all live in fairly dangerous times in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.  A lot of the songwriters that I've admired and learned from... are people who spoke in matters of conscience as well as matters of the heart. I think that it's essential that we defend that right."
- Elvis Costello -

"Screenwriting is not an artform, It is a punishment from God."
- Fran Lebowitz -

"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."
- Somerset Maugham -

In Order to Save Them We Must Kill Them Department

For the last three months, the Thai government has been engaged in a war on drugs, with the goal of ridding the country of methamphetamines. The result has been 2,275 deaths and the sacrifice of human rights, freedom of the press and Thailand's reputation as a democratic country.

Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country.

The Kurds and the Shiites just keep fighting. What is the US doing to stop the slaughter? Letting the Kurds keep all their weapons while disarming the Shiites. Yeah, that'll work.

Flash of the Week

The amazing saga of Cows with Guns.

Poster of the Week

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

Do your part to Stop the FCC by signing a petition that might get you a future reservation in a civil internment camp, all by volunteering your name and location on a list of potential subversives the government will have access to since you're SUBMITTING it to them on a silver platter.

Calling All Filmmakers

This interview with Marcus van Bavel is an excellent guide to making digital films. Hint: currently, the best digital camera is the Panasonic DVX100.

Belated Christmas Gift of the Week

Yee haa, git yerself a 
War Profiteer Card Deck

Everything Else

Mandatory reading: Okay, there's no need to jump on my ass about all the innocent Israelis killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. They make the news every time it happens and we all agree it's bad. But in the interests of understanding why these things happen, here's a thorough guide to Israeli massacres which are equally bad. Remember, Jewish religious fanatics (Not all Jews!) believe in the Torah, in which God almighty says to them "Destroy all of the land; beat down their pillars and break their statues and waste all of their high places, cleansing the land and dwelling in it, for I have given it to you for a possession." (Numbers 33:52,53). This is dangerous material that is being used by OTHER fanatics to denigrate an entire race. In France, idiots are burning down synagogues. And because of THAT, using the US philosophy of pre-emption as a role model, Israel has decided it now has the authority to assassinate anyone it deems necessary, anywhere in the world, with US approval.

This guide to modern Copenhagen might convince you it's the best city on earth.

The good news: The Experience Festival (August 2-8 2003) is an odyssey in spiritual wisdom teachings with the roots in ancient cultures, lectures in related sciences, experiential workshops and whatever inspires the body, mind and spirit. The bad news: It's in Varadyapalyam outside Chennai, India, so start walking. (Calling all editors with a budget. Send me there to cover it.)

To some Iraqis, the Americans are worse than Saddam.

Uncle Ernie's Issues and Alibis is home to the world's best liberal thought and humor, or so says Uncle Ernie.

Planning a war? Don't try it without The War Planner.

Can't think of a name for your military operation? You need the American Military Operation Name Generating Device.

Lose your last argument? You haven't read The Woolly-Thinker's Guide to Rhetoric.

Here's a lovely guide to answering your children's questions about foreign policy.

This guy says SARS is from space. Go ahead, prove 'em wrong.