The Most Un-Fucking-Believable Statement of the Week

"We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he [Saddam Hussein] wouldn't let them in."
 - Dubya in a tribute to George Orwell -

Might I point out that Hussein, in fact, let in the inspectors? Was I just hallucinating, or was it Dubya who threw them out so he could kill some children and steal some oil? How much pot is that moron smoking to cause such a major example of short term memory loss?

"There's no plausible explanation, unless the president suddenly flashed back to his Yale sophomore philosophy seminar, grappling with the argument that everything we perceive is mere illusion. For the moment, however, let's just assume reality does exist. What possessed the president to make an assertion that everyone on the planet knows to be untrue?"
- Joe Conason -

Hey Joe, there's a word for people who ignore reality. Insane. Totally fucking insane. He'll say anything. Impeachment is too good for him. He should be locked in a stockade in downtown Baghdad and forced to listen to Noam Chomsky tapes 24/7.

Everyone Who Believes This, Raise Your Hand

David Kelley, the British Defense Ministry weapons expert who was the source for the story on doctored Iraqi intelligence files, committed suicide.

Everyone Who Believes This, Leave Your Hand Where It Is

Studies have shown that masturbation prevents prostate cancer.

Calling All Roadrunners

Now there's no need to carry that cumbersome book around with you, The Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products is finally online.

Vietnam Redux

The last time I checked the ticker at Cost of War in Iraq, it was at $69,445,573,778.

Picture Gallery of the Week

Surely you've got something better to do than check out The Worst Surreal Photoshops of All Time.

Why It's a Bad Thing to Sign the California Recall Petition

The recall of Democratic Governor Gray Davis is funded by Republicans trying to shift the blame.

Why It's a Good Thing to Sign the California Recall Petition

If Davis decides to resign instead of suffering the ignominy of a recall, Cruz Bustamante will become Governor.

Fan Mail I Haven't Bothered to Answer
(Presumably in response to this)

"I bet u get this alot but hows wazz flea and anthony when they were kids???? Plz im in lvoe with them i really want to know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Fake Headlines of the Week

The aircraft carrier USS Reagan enters into servicePromptly wanders off to sea
 - National Lampoon -

New Chip Can Be Implanted in Humans
Would keep track of those who initially refused the implant
 - Ironic Times -

VOICE PURPORTING TO BE BIN LADEN DISPUTES AUTHENTICITY OF VOICE PURPORTING TO BE SADDAM 
 But New Saddam Tape Calls Osama Tape into Question
 - The Borowitz Report -

Kobe Bryant Signs $10 Million Deal to Represent Viagra
- Disinfotainment Today -

Voldemort's Plans in Washington Move Ahead
"Muggle Enslavement On Schedule," says Dark Lord
- Democracy Means You -

Israelis, Palestinians Agree To Share Headline
- The Onion -

Glass Eater Hospitalized by Burger ShardsA professional glass eater has spent the night in hospital after accidentally ingesting hamburger meat
 - The Specious Report -

Mixed Messages

After the attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden said that his primary problem was the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia.

Bush said we don't bargain with terrorists.

Earlier this year, America removed all its troops from Saudi Arabia.

Google Smackdown of the Week

vs.

and the winner is...

"Bush should be impeached" by 1,416

Shockwave of the Week

 this is me by georg bush.

 I Feel So Much Safer Now

Mongolia is sending 200 soldiers to Iraq for peacekeeping duties.

An 83-year-old wheelchair-bound grandma beat the snot out of six airport security guards.

Gosh, you'd think the EPA, which actually contains the words "environmental" and "protection" in its title, would be doing something to "protect" us from breathing mercury and drinking rocket fuel. Nope. Damn if it doesn't look like they're ENCOURAGING it. Oh well, as long as someone's making money.

The French government has banned use of the word "e-mail."

Warmongers 'R' Us

The Bush administration is planning to pledge some of Iraq's future oil and gas revenue to secure long-term reconstruction loans before a new Iraqi government is in place to sign off on the proposal, mortgaging their most important resource, and preventing future Iraqi leaders from deciding how to spend their own oil money. 

The continued detention of leading Iraqi scientists and other officials by US forces is swiftly turning into a major human rights problem.

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

To keep lettuce fresh, wrap it in a couple paper towels and put it in a plastic bag that contains no moisture, then refrigerate.

The War Against Toads

     Last month, Paul Krassner published an anthology, Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs: From Toad Slime to Ecstasy (Available at paulkrassner.com). Todd McCormick, currently serving 5 years in federal prison for growing medical marijuana, contributed two stories about his experiences with psilocybin and ketamine. Krassner sent him a copy of the book, but it was rejected by the warden "because on pages 259-261, it describes the process of squeezing toads to obtain illicit substances which could be detrimental to the security, good order, and discipline of the institution," neglecting to mention precisely how an inmate in a Federal penitentiary could get ahold of an amphibian (a cane toad, to be precise, the only one that produces bufotenine) found mainly in South America and Australia. 
     "I wonder how much we pay the guy/girl who actually sits and reads every book that comes in for offending passages?" asked McCormick.

Allies from Hell

Did you know that Saudi Arabia is harboring Idi Amin, the insane former dictator of Uganda who tortured and killed more than 200,000 people, not to mention eating a few of them? They've got him on a respirator in the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah. Gosh, I hope he's okay.

Calling All Screenwriters

Stop submitting your scripts to assholes. Just go here, buy some used equipment, and make your movie yourself.

Stereo Instructions from Hell

"Well, from when has the shape of the human ear been lengthwise long and is still so now? Since then in the following 20 years, various knowhow has been piled and it might have been an age of grope for an ideal earspeaker (headphone). If earspeakers (headphones) concerned to listen music, more natural shape to the human ear that may transmit the sound matching the shape of the human ear, as it is with some sound unit should have been designed. Isn't it? Like all the creatures are, headphones also are developed. This can be a proof."
 - Stax product brochure for an electrostatic headphone -

Quiz from Hell

We went to war because we were in immediate danger from WMDs from Iraq which turn out to be non-existent. So I guess we REALLY went to war to remove a dangerous tyrant from power, but it turns out that Hussein is much more dangerous now than he was before the war. What three letter word is the only thing left on the list of why we went to war?

a) oil
b) ego

Don't Take My Word For It

"We agree it was rather high for the time of year. It's possible Mr. Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house." 
 - Spokesman for NorthWest commenting on a complaint from a Mr. Arthur Purdey about a large gas bill -

"Good fences make good neighbors."
 - Robert Frost -

"You get cast in a show; you rehearse for five weeks; you get really close to your fellow company members; you open the show; and then wham! Sixteen years later the producer decides to close it."
 - Actor Nick Wyman on the end of Broadway's Les Miz -

"The trick to getting what you want in life, my dear, is not wanting it until after you get it."
 - Katherine Hepburn -

"What didn't the president know -- and why didn't he know it? And why does he know less and less every day? After all, it's becoming clearer by the day that just about everyone else involved knew that the president was using a bogus charge to alarm the nation about Saddam's nuclear threat. Whatever the opposite of 'top secret' is, this was it." 
 - Arianna Huffington -

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
 - Bertrand Russell -

"It's easy to have a complicated idea. It's very, very hard to have a simple idea."
 - Carver Mead -

"Only when the writer relinquishes the text, does the text come into existence. At that point, the existence of the text is a silent existence, silent until the moment in which a reader reads it. Only when the able eye makes contact with the markings on the tablet, does the text come to active life. All writing depends on the generosity of the reader."
 - Alberto Manguel, novelist, anthologist, editor, and translator -

"One day, this Iraq War will be thought of as the Intellectuals' War. That is, it was a war conceived of by people who possessed more books than common sense, let alone actual military experience. Disregarding prudence, precedent and honesty, they went off - or, more precisely, sent others off - tilting at windmills in Iraq, chasing after illusions of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and false hope about Iraqi enthusiasm for Americanism, and hoping that reality would somehow catch up with their theory. The problem, of course, is that wars are more about bloodletting than book learning."
 - James B. Pinkerton: The Iraq War or America Betrayed -

"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I had lost exactly two weeks."
 - Joe E. Lewis -

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
 - White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card explaining why the administration waited until after Labor Day to start promoting its war on Iraq to the general public -

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice went on Sunday TV talk shows to argue that Bush's statements about uranium were technically accurate because he simply repeated what the British government had said publicly about an Iraqi build-up two decades ago. Oh, please. This is like Bill Clinton's question about the definition of 'is' during Monicagate -- except this brewing scandal isn't about some White House affair with an intern. Indeed, the Bush administration's assertions leading up to the war carry the blood, sweat and tears of U.S. military men and women."
 - Myriam Marquez: Come clean, Mr. President -

"Only two things are certain; the universe and man's stupidity; and I'm not so sure of the universe."
 - Albert Einstein -

"The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship. Usually, corrupt governments allow their citizens lots of wonderful rights on paper, while carrying out their jackbooted oppression covertly. From snatch and grab operations to warrantless searches, Patriot Act 2 is an Adolf Hitler wish list."
 - Alex Jones:  A Brief Analysis of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003 -

"This budget defies common sense. Veterans' pensions and disability compensation are parts of the costs of defending freedom. Our nation cannot, in good conscience, commit men and women to battle, and reduce the meager, yet well-deserved, compensation for those who are wounded. Of all the citizens who benefit from mandatory federal funding, none are worthier than those who are disabled today because they risked all of their tomorrows fighting for freedom."
 - American Legion National Commander Ronald F. Conley in response to the House Budget Committee's plan to slash more than $470 billion from veterans benefits (Canada's not much better, where mentally disabled veterans have lost their pension plan) -

"In the first appendix to this book [The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn], Ravitch has compiled an exhaustive list of the words, usages, stereotypes, and topics that have been banned by textbook publishers. Forbidden words? Forefathers. Victim. Snowman. Warrior. Stereotypes to shun? 'Boys expressing anger.' 'Caucasians living in affluent suburbs.' Topics for exclusion? Junk bonds. Junk food. Rap music. Yachting. The best way to summarize this appendix is to say that it includes most of the contents of the real world, which children experience every day in their own lives and in the media."
 - Verlyn Klinkenborg: Teach No Evil -

"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our fathers used in the great struggle for Independence"
 - Charles A. Bear -

"Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him."
 - Article 10: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights -

"The ultimate weapon of mass destruction for any society is ignorance."
 - James DePreist: conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, in the commencement address for the graduating class of Portland State University -

"Some people are always grumbling that roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses."
 - Alphonse Karr -

"Lawdy! Lawdy! I don't know nothing 'bout finding no uraniams!"
 - Condi Rice: The Twisted Road to the Iraqi War -
 
 

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

     When a scientist wants to find out something, he uses a very specific methodology. He asks a question, gathers information, then comes to a conclusion based upon all the information gathered. If some of the information contradicts other information, it isn't thrown out. The conclusion must encompass and explain the contradiction.
     That's why "creation science" isn't science. Creation science starts with the conclusion, that God created everything, then works backwards, gathering information and conveniently throwing out all evidence that contradicts the foregone conclusion.
     And that's precisely how George W. Bush went to war. It was "Political Creation Science." He didn't gather information and come to a conclusion based upon the evidence. He started with a conclusion, that he was going to attack Iraq, then worked backwards, gathering information and conveniently throwing out all the evidence that contradicted his foregone conclusion, presenting all the rest as justification for what he was going to do anyway. Does anyone actually believe that there was ANY information that would have prevented Bush from going to war? Rip me another one. Once he got the taste of blood in Afghanistan, he resolutely refused to allow any facts to stand in the way of his march to war in Iraq.
     War profiteers have stolen our country. There isn't a single problem on earth that they don't see war as the answer to. They actually like it. They don't see it as a last resort, something to be avoided at all cost. They WANT war. They're puffed up with testosterone and itching for a fight.
     This focus on the "16 words" that Bush spoke is nonsense that had nothing whatsoever with why he attacked Iraq. He went to war because he could.

Comedy Clip of the Week

 In this hilarious clip from Japanese television, a couple guys play ping-pong while going through all the moves from The Matrix only without any expensive special effects.

Mandatory Listening

 If Meria Heller is the Rush Limbaugh of the left, Harry Shearer is the Groucho Marx. Sure, he's a lot of voices on The Simpsons, but that's just his day job. Listen to his show while reading this great new interview with him.

The War Against Ourselves

 Did senior Bush officials deliberately blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security - and break the law - in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others? It sure looks that way...

Belated Christmas Gift from Hell

Everything Else

Want to avoid cons and rip-offs? Learn how they work at this evil guide to everything from ATM cons to on-line pharmaceuticals.

Carolyn Kuhl has been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Bad idea, but only for those who breathe.

Know what's going on in Afghanistan? Of course not. The American media has the attention span of a gnat. Want to keep track of what's going on in Iraq as the American media moves towards totally ignoring it? Check out Iraq Occupation Watch, which currently has an excellent Guide to Baghdad Graffiti.

Through photographs and stories, Palestine Today shows the daily life of people living in the Occupied Territories of West Bank and Gaza. The site is a joint effort of Al-Watan Center in Al-Kalil and Nonviolence International to share information about Palestinians and Israelis working for peace in the region.

Here are all the maps and charts of Iraqi oilfields direct from Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force.