Scumbags of the Week

    The RIAA is planning to sue 57 million people who share music files online. Oh yeah? 

Dear RIAA,

    Listen here, assholes. You're selling buggy whips and your way of trying to revitalize your industry is to crack down on people buying cars? Fuck you. 
    VCRs and tape recorders are recording devices that allow consumers to make legal non-commercial copies of music. You know computers are recording devices. I know computers are recording devices. The only way you were able to continue in your insane campaign to turn back technological history was to convince the most corrupt Supreme Court in United States history to make a monumentally moronic decision by declaring that computers are NOT recording devices, therefore not regulated by the same copyright laws as tape recorders. They're either idiots or liars, or idiots AND liars. They're only concerned with profits instead of individual freedom, and so are you. Like I said. Fuck you.
    Gee, an advance in technology is going to cut into your bottom line? TOUGH SHIT! I don't care what you and the Supreme Court say, file sharing is THE EXACT SAME THING as making someone a tape of a CD. If you're not charging for it, it's legal. Sharing music with the world isn't what you had in mind? TOUGH SHIT! File sharing is taking place now, it's going to take place forever, and there isn't a goddam thing you can do about it but moan and groan like the fucking crybabies you are. 
    When Kodak saw their celluloid film profits go down the crapper as people switched to digital cameras, they didn't whine to the Supreme Court and try to have digital photography declared illegal. They didn't insult their customers by trying to turn back the hands of time. THEY STARTED MAKING DIGITAL CAMERAS! Here's an idea. Get your heads out of your asses and accept the fact that manufactured CDs of music are becoming obsolete, just like LPs have become obsolete. Join the world and downsize, you fucking morons. You're alienating your customers around the globe and I'm one of them. 
    From now until the end of time, when a musician releases new music, I, and all music fans, have the choice of paying for it or getting it for free. If I'm flush, I may buy it. If not, I may get a copy from a friend. If I have no friends, I may get a copy from a total stranger in another part of the world through the Internet. Short of confiscating every recording device on earth, THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Threatening to sue us isn't going to stop us, it's just going to piss us off. Piss me off and I will do the exact opposite of what you want me to do because I want you to go fuck yourself, which is precisely how I feel right now. Screw you and the entire industry you represent. I heard that new Annie Lennox CD is pretty good. I'm going to download it right now. Sue me, dickwads. (Annie, you deserve compensation, but if I bought your CD used, which is all I can afford, you wouldn't get compensation anyway. Can I wash your dishes?)

At Least Nikes are Cheap

This month, in a scarcely noticed move, China's Civil Affairs Ministry ordered the dissolution of 63 private groups, most of them devoted to hobbies, intellectual pursuits and the arts. Many were national in scope and had held meetings, exhibits or other events for years. Now, however, the government has decided that the "China Fisherman's Association," the "Golden Lotus Study Group" (devoted to appreciation of a classic Ming dynasty novel), painters reckless enough to form the "Cool and Breezy Painting Society," and 61 other organizations must dissolve or face "serious punishment."

Video You'll Never See on TV

Just what the world needs, a disco version of Star Wars.

Good Idea of the Week

    Since a free and democratic Iraq is also our only hope for an Iraq without a US military presence (and the attendant slow bleed of US casualties), it is well past time for the Iraqi people to start hashing out what kind of society they want to live in. The first step of this process inevitably involves the creation of a document that forms the basis for their new government. The sooner we get on with the process of having the Iraqis come up with that document, the sooner we can transition power to them and get our kids home. 
    I would suggest that, with the firm encouragement of the American military if necessary, the Iraqi people would more or less be forced to start picking representatives for a Constitutional Convention. Once those representatives are selected, put them in a room, guarded by US troops if necessary, and let them form a government. The emerging Iraqi press should be allowed cover the entire process, and we should broadcast the whole event over Iraqi television and radio. I can envision no single spectacle that would better serve to put the final stake through the heart of the old regime than a full public display of this process. I can also envision no single spectacle that would better serve to engender gratitude for our military presence in Iraq to the Iraqi people.  The fact that it is not happening is Bush's fault, not the Iraqis.
- The Daily Brew -

Awww, Poor Baby

Vladimir Putin is pissed off that Britain and the United States have squeezed out Russian firms from the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. ("Lower the price of caviar and vodka why don't you?" - Yoda -)

Creepy Picture Gallery of the Week

Whoever does Human Descent is a master of Photoshop who creates creatures that would make Dr. Moreau proud.

Good News

Kate and Spencer are back together again.

Congressional Acts of the Week

Congressional bill HR 52 amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the luxury tax on beer. 

The powers of the Federal Government are "enumerated" -- that is, they are listed in the Constitution. All legal Federal powers must appear there. Anything that isn't listed in the Constitution as a lawful function of the Federal government is beyond the power of the Federal government. Most of the time, however, our federal government goes outside the bounds of their constitutional authority. At least one Congressman wants to change that. Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) has introduced HR 384, the "Enumerated Powers Act," which would do one simple thing: it would require that every new law cite exactly what part of the Constitution authorizes it.

Fake Headlines of the Week

Small Children May be Traumatized by Ann Coulter, Psychologist Says
- The Borowitz Report -

AMA Seeks Stronger Tobacco Warning, Suggests, "Smoking Will Kill You, You Dumb, Fucking Sonuvabitch."
- Ironic Times -

Ronald Reagan Remembered - A report from the Reagan Library indicated that former President Ronald Reagan remembered something earlier in the morning
- The Fake News -

Bush Sweetens Road Map Deal With Coupons
- The Daily Bull -

Lewinsky Ghost Writer Fellates Clinton Ghost Writer
- Broken Newz -

FBI Issues Final Report on Tragic Matt Lauer Haircut
- The Specious Report -

98% of Americans Against WMD's Lies If President Found To Have Been Fellated By Intern
- The Schmews -

Google Smackdown of the Week

vs.

and the winner is...

Bush by 363,000.

I Feel So Much Safer Now

A British scientist has put the odds for apocalypse at 50-50.

Only 14 percent of Senate members and 37 percent of House members include their voting records on their Web sites.

In Scotland, children as young as 10 will be electronically tagged under government plans to crack down on the nationwide epidemic of youth crime. 

Since its inception, the Department of Homeland Security, the civilian agency with a $29.4 billion budget, hasn't produced a single idea of where terrorists might strike next. 

Meanwhile, the Joint Terrorism Task Force has invaded the small town of Rachel, Nevada, just outside Area 51, because Chuck Clark is giving tours.

It took 80 policemen, teams of dogs and a helicopter to apprehend Jose Bove, the leader of France's anti-globalisation movement, a man whose main weapons were his tractor and chunks of Roquefort cheese.

The Freedom of Information Act is basically dead.

Calling All Homophobes

Conservative Christians are asking Is Bush a Homo?

"And we'll prevail, because we're a faaabulous nation, and we're a faaabulous nation because we're a nation full of faaabulous people."
- George W. Bush: Atlanta, GA, January 31, 2002 -

Internet Doohickey of the Week

This interactive map shows The World According to Halliburton.

20/20 Hindsight

Network news is playing catch-up, finally going with a story that everyone on the Internet has known about for more than a year, the Israeli spies detained on 9/11.

U.S. News and World Report just figured out that the Saudis were complicit with the 9/11 hijackers.

Don't Take My Word For It

"The acts of the leader are the acts of the nation. If the leader is just, the nation is just; if he is unjust, the nation too is unjust and is punished for the sins of the leader."
- Zohar: ii, 47a -

"Every two days, Wal-Mart opens another superstore. It has more people in uniform than the U.S. Army. Last year, it banked about $7 billion in profits. In a study done by the San Diego County Taxpayers Association (SDCTA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, it found that an influx of big-box stores into San Diego would result in an annual decline in wages and benefits between $105 million and $221 million, and an increase of $9 million in public health costs. SDCTA also estimated that the region would lose pensions and retirement benefits valued between $89 million and $170 million per year and that even increased sales and property tax revenues would not cover the extra costs of necessary public services."
- Ruth Rosen: Wal-Mart Wars -

"Is it me or does it seem that every time Bush drops in the polls we are hit with another round of stories about how unbeatable he is because he has raised so much money? Coughing up fat-cat furballs after nights out romancing the over-privileged doesn't exactly endear the court-appointed prez to millions of working Americans. The Dems need to explain to voters that the millions Bush has raised for his bid to be re-appointed are nothing more than a nominal licensing fee for the fat-cats to steal billions from honest Americans."
- Barry Crimmins -

"George W. Bush is well on his way to compiling the worst environmental record in the history of our nation."
- Deb Callahan: League of Conservation Voters -

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
- Aristotle -

"God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."
- George W. "Moses" Bush -

"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."
- George Orwell -

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
- William H. Borah -

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
- Abraham Lincoln -

"Bush is a coward. I am the one who took his place in Vietnam, so I should know." (Two medical doctor friends have warned me that President Bush might send a hit man after me because of my recent "Bush is a Coward" column. I have never had so many responses to anything I've written, although I expected I would get hate mail from right wingers. Am I ever surprised! In about a thousand responses (they are still flowing in) not one has been negative!!!}
- Jack Balkwill, U.S. Army, Viet Nam, USARV, Ret. -

"He had a moral obligation to put that plane in the water in an emergency landing. He violated the primary rule for a captain of a multi-crew aircraft: The pilot never leaves the airplane with anybody in it."
- Robert Flood, a former B-17 bombardier on former President George Bush's "heroic" parachute jump during WWII -

"Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower: Military-Industrial Complex Speech, 1961 -

"Raise fewer dahlias and more hell."
- Mother Jones -

"I am so happy, but I am a bit sad, also. When I applied, I was a young man of 33 and had dreams about owning my own telephone. Now all those dreams are gone. My children will use the phone now." 
- 60-year-old Mohammad Ismail who waited 27 years for the state-run monopoly Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board to connect his home to a phone line -

"By doing evil, one defiles oneself;
by avoiding evil, one purifies oneself.
Purity and impurity depend upon oneself:
no one can purify another."
- Buddha: Dhammapada 165 -

"This is how it is in the United States these days, massive tax cuts for the very wealthy at the same time that the poor and working classes are being clobbered by reduced services and myriad tax increases of one kind or another. For the students at CUNY, who have traditionally come from poorer backgrounds, a tuition hike  in this case $800 a year  is the equivalent of a tax increase. And it can be devastating... So it's too bad, kids, but this is the new American reality. You'd be getting a windfall if you were one of the high rollers at Bechtel or Halliburton. The game is rigged in their favor. But all you want to do is get a decent education so you can make something of yourself. We can't help you with that."
- Bob Herbert: Tax Cut Casualties -

"War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."
- Thomas Carlyle -

"We could legalize them gradually, beginning with the softer drugs like marijuana and later cocaine until we get to others. I am in favor of the legalization of drugs on a universal scale, not only in Brazil. If all the countries legalize drugs, they will save all the money that they spend on repression without success. They will reduce the corruption that narco-trafficking promotes. The police, the courts, the political and penitentiary systems, all of them are corrupted by narco-trafficking. With  legalization, the fights between them, the burning of archives, the  corruption of the State apparatus and the violence everywhere, will diminish. And a tax could also be collected on the production of drugs, which would be invested in treatment for chemical dependents and educational campaigns, although I don't believe in them...." 
- Brazilian Senator Jefferson Péres: Narconews -

"People we don't know do matter. Each of us is less for losing any of us. Perhaps we are each important. Perhaps we should remember that."
- Noah ben Shea -

    "Our world's greatest peril is Huxleyan mind control by means belonging to a few corporations in the North Atlantic. The upshot is that - in the absence of a Soviet foil - if you live near Israel and you have oil, you had better toe the US line. What the US has created, then, is a precedence for toppling all dissenting states. What the US has launched, however, is a process towards a world government in which all parts of the world exist only to feed the ever hungry maws of America's corporate queen bee. And, in that service, the US media - which make the greatest noise about correct information freely flowing in all directions - have willingly assumed the role of reducing all of us to a Brave New World. If weapons of mass destruction were the problem, then the US would itself be its personification and we would have seen it try to invade Russia, Britain, France, Turkey and Israel. 
    "No. Weapons of mass destruction are dangerous only if you oppose strategic US interests in your region."
- Philip Ochieng: Nairobi, Mind control to feed the queen bee -

"We are a village at the end of the world and we don't have Saddam Hussein here. We haven't seen him and we are not harboring him."
- Hamid Muhammad Abul Fahad, whose village on the Iraq-Syria border was attacked by American troops -

"Never in modern times have we beheld a Congress so easily manipulated by the executive branch. Last week, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee caved in and dropped their opposition to closed hearings on whether Congress was lied to. How can they not be open to the public, which is expected under our system to hold the president and Congress accountable?"
- Robert Scheer: The Fact That Hussein's Gone Doesn't Make Lying Right -

"Under Saddam Hussein, Christians like Mr. Ghazali, 41, were allowed to sell alcohol and were protected from Muslim extremists. But lately extremists have been threatening to kill anyone selling alcohol. One day last month, two men walked over to Mr. Ghazali as he was unlocking his shop door and shot him in the head - the second liquor store owner they had killed that morning."
- Nicholas D. Kristof: Cover Your Hair -

"When shall it be said in any country of the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance or distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes not oppressive; the rational world is my friend because I am friend of its happiness; when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government."
- Thomas Paine -

"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty."
- Sacha Guitry -

Lawsuit from Hell

Only an imbecile wouldn't be able to figure out that Faux News is a SATIRE of Fox News. I guess Fox News knows its audience because they're suing Faux News for copyright infringement. Imagine being accused of "incredibly poor taste" and being "highly offensive" by a representative of the network responsible for such benchmarks of good taste such as "Temptation Island 3," "Joe Millionaire," and "Stupid Behavior Caught On Tape." Unbelievable. They can't afford to fight it because we've got a system in which money wins, so the site will go down unless you're an attorney willing to represent them.

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

If you wanted to gather giant lists of people opposed to the views of the administration, wouldn't you create a site where people could create anti-administration petitions to be signed by thousands of people who think they're doing the right thing? Is Homeland Security that devious? Probably not. They've probably got your best interests at heart. What the hell. Go to The Petition Site and sign the petition to reject the nomination of Bush and Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize. Don't sign the petition to bring back Family Ties or I'll have to kill you.

    Elimination of the California Arts Council (CAC) will devastate California's arts and culture programs, weaken arts education in California's public schools, threaten thousands of jobs, and undermine the economies of cities and towns across California. CAC's budget is only 200th of 1% of California's entire state expenditures. Cutting arts funding is turning a blind eye to creativity, the economic engine that is a cornerstone of California's economy. While the minuscule amount saved is NOT going to make a dent in the deficit, taking away that money will completely eradicate programs that serve over 800,000 school children, destroy many arts programs that provide rehabilitation to underserved youth and destroy the infrastructure of a parent organization that over 1600 organizations count on. 
    Will signing a petition do any good? Yep. The government appreciates lists of people opposed to them. Besides, all art is dead except pornography.

Tell the Bush Administration you DEMAND a cot in a relocation camp by urging the World Heritage Committee not to grant their request to remove Yellowstone from its World Heritage Sites "In Danger" list.

Was Brian Downing Quig killed by black ops? Could be.

The War on Plants

National park rangers in camouflage gear and bulletproof vests, toting M-16 assault rifles, waste their time combing the Sequoia hillsides in search of marijuana instead of helping tourists running from bears. Hint for morons: legalize it and growers won't have to use national parks.

History Lesson from Hell

The history of humankind has been marked by patterns of growth and decline. Some declines have been gradual, occurring over centuries. Others have been rapid, occurring over the course of a few years. War, drought, natural disaster, disease, overpopulation, economic disruption: any of these can bring about the collapse of a civilization. Internal causes (such as political struggles or overfarming) can combine with external causes (such as war or natural disaster) to bring about a collapse. What does this mean for modern civilizations? What can we learn from the past? Check out Why Do Civilizations Fall?

Encouraging Poll of the Week

Will You Vote For The Bush/Cheney 2004 Presidential Ticket? 

20.8% Definitely (217 responses) 

75.4% Absolutely Not (786 responses) 

3.8% Undecided (40 responses) 

- Newsday -

Terminator 4

Do you wear a wrist watch? You're already part cyborg.

Songs You'll Never Hear on the Radio

Blue Canyon Productions has dozens of satirical songs, from "Mouse Limburger, the World's Greatest Talk Show Host" to "Bosses of the World, Unite! (The CEO Fight Song)," but I suppose my favorite is "Remember September 12th."

The War Against Ourselves

Allied troops are coming home with uranium sickness.

Calling All Gullible Idiots

Bush now says the Iraqi weapons sites were looted just like the museum.

Calling All Terrorists

This site teaches you how to turn an ordinary microwave oven into a directed energy weapon.

Ooops

TV3 in New Zealand has apologized for telling the truth.

Everything Else

Mandatory reading: Israeli hawks are still caught in the siege mentality, says Matthew Brubacher in A Berlin Wall in West Bank.

Don't miss Ironic Times' Museum of Past Banner Ads.

If you're a fan of the films of Kevin Smith (You're not?), you've definitely got to check out the View Askewniverse.

The faces of every U.S. soldier who died in Iraq.

Please help performance artist Lizzie complete her collection of dicks in dresses.

A pill which could help people live to the ripe old age of 120 is to be tested in Scotland. 

For a music critic who hates everything, go to I despise you and your so-called taste and type in the name of your favorite musician.

The Hacktivist is dedicated to examining the theory and practice of hacktivism and electronic civil disobedience while contributing to the evolution of hacktivism by promoting constructive debate, effective direct action, and creative solutions to complex problems in order to facilitate positive change.

eBay has turned into an arm of the law.

Google Watch takes a look at how Google's monopoly, algorithms, and privacy policies are undermining the Web.

A gigantic picture gallery of protest signs.

One thousand reasons to dump Bush. (Only a thousand?)