He's Married to a Kennedy, You Know

"Vote for me and I'll let you sniff my finger," 
declared California Gubernatorial 
candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Warmongers 'R' Us

"Massive air power is the key to being able both to destroy Yongbyon and to protect South Korea from attack by missile or artillery. There is a significant number of hardened air bases available in South Korea and the South Koreans have an excellent air force of approximately 550 modern tactical aircraft. The U.S. should begin planning immediately to deploy the Patriot tactical ballistic missile defense system plus Aegis ships to South Korea and Japan, and also to reinforce our tactical air forces by moving in several air wings and aircraft carrier battle groups, together with the all-important surveillance aircraft and drones."
- R. James Woolsey & Thomas G. McInerney: The Next Korean War - Using the military is an option. Here's how it can be done. -

Internet Joke of the Week

     A young woman brings home her fiancée to meet her parents. After dinner, her mother tells her father to find out about the young man. The father invites the fiancée to his study for a drink. "So what are your plans?" asks the father.
    "I'm studying to be a minister," replies the young man.
    "Hmm," says the father, "admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in as she's accustomed to?"
    "I will study," the young man replies, "and God will provide for us."
    "And how will you buy her a beautiful engagement ring such as she deserves?" asks the father.
    "I will concentrate on my studies," answers the young man, "and God will provide for us."
    "And children?" asks the father. "How will you support children?"
    "Don't worry, sir," answers the fiancée again. "God will provide."
    The conversation proceeds like this, and each time the father asks a question, the young idealist insists that God will provide.
    Later that evening, the mother asks her husband, "How did it go, honey?"
    The father answers, "The bad news is he has no job and no plans. The good news is he thinks I'm God."
- Noah ben Shea -

Saddam Hussein Now Looks Like...

a

b

Fake Headlines of the Week

NAACP still seeking meeting with Bush
"I'll meet with them when I'm ready to order," says President, holding a menu
- National Lampoon -

Pentagon Cancels Plan to Put Foreign Leaders on Racehorses, Then Bet on Them
It was just too complicated, says source
- Ironic Times -

BUSH: SADDAM HAD URANIUM ON AMAZON.COM WISH LIST
Sought Banned Weapons, Free Shipping
- The Borowitz Report -

Gigli Focus Groups Demand New Ending In Which Both Affleck And Lopez Die 
- The Onion -

Google Smackdown of the Week

vs.

and the winner is...

A tie!

Calling All Palestinians

Yes, that's right, do it yourself.
And the next time you're at one of those pesky Israeli checkpoints,
just drop your drawers and prove you're a Jew!

Rejected James Bond Titles

DR. NOPE
YOU ONLY LIVE THRICE
THUNDERBALLS
BUTTERFINGER
ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET JAMES BOND
CASINO ROYAL FLUSH
DIAMONDS ARE FOR A REALLY LONG TIME 
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN RULE
OCTOBREAST
FOR YOUR THIGHS ONLY 
A VIEW TO A KILT
DIE ANOTHER BLEEDIN' DAY 
THE HALLE BERRY BIKINI PROJECT
TOMORROW NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME

- The Rose Review -

 I Feel So Much Safer Now

If the nation escalates to "red alert," which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside of your home.
- Sid Caspersen: New Jersey's director of the office of counter-terrorism -

The Taliban have been running a campaign of attacks against Muslim clerics who support the Afghan government.

AIDS diagnoses have increased for the first time in 10 years.

Stalin was planning to kill John Wayne.

I Feel So Much Smarter Now

The Lawrence, Mass. superintendent of schools, who recently put two dozen teachers on unpaid leave for failing a basic English proficiency test, has himself flunked a required literacy test three times.

Satan Doesn't Want You to Know

Adding cottage cheese to pancakes makes them tangy and delicious.

Calling the Usual Gang of Idiots

Mad Magazine is looking for writers.

Poster of the Week

Bob Hope is in hell.

Quiz from Hell

Can you tell the difference between a computer programming language inventor and a serial killer? Think so, huh? Prove it.

History Lesson from Hell

History Lesson from Heller

Meria Heller's current show is always available for free listening, while you've got to subscribe to have access to her archives. But for the two weeks, until August 18th, all of 2003's archived shows are available for free. Hear interviews with Greg Palast, Mark Elsis, Catherine Fitts, Mark Crispin Miller, Rynn Berry, Thom Hartmann, Norman Livergood, Jerry Smith, Dave McGowan, David Jenkins, Mark Fiore, David Icke, Victor Thorn, Norman Solomon, Robert McChesney and many more.

Don't Take My Word For It

"The wages of sin are death. But the hours are good." 
- Earthworm Jim -

"One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you."
- Larry Gelbart -

"The man who loves his country can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off."
- Thomas Jefferson -

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands of those who feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you. May posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams -

"If those doofuses had even just half a brain, they'd forget about trying to violently expel the Americans. Instead, they would concentrate on reconciliation with the Kurds and Shi'ites. After all, in time, we will leave. But we'll be taking neither the Kurds nor the Shi'ites with us. They shall both be left there as a combined overwhelming majority with boxcar loads of grievance, stemming from decades of torture and murder and outright humiliation. People in that part of the world are not noted for having a forgiving nature. Moreover, the oil is located where the Kurds and Shi'ites live."
- A. Alexander Stella: "Bring'em on," Said the Doofus Bombastically -

"Marines in Fox Company, drawn mainly from Utah and Nevada, learned they would not have armored vehicles equipped with powerful weapons. Instead, they would ride into combat in soft-sided trucks with few heavy arms... In the days of fighting their way to Baghdad, Davis' and Lee's battalion, honored by the Reserve Officers' Association as the nation's finest Reserve infantry unit, found they were short on ammunition, hand grenades, signal devices, chemical weapon detectors and heavy guns."
- Dawn House: War on the cheap -

     "So, 200 troops from the 101st Airborne, one of the best armed and trained military divisions on the planet, supported by missile-firing helicopters, managed to take out four people, one a 14 year old teenager, protected by the walls of an adobe house, in a mere six hours. Nice...
    "We are a disgrace because we pick on small defenseless nations. We are a disgrace because we pick on small defenseless people economically. We are a disgrace because we murder willfully under the guise of liberation. We are a disgrace because we allowed this to happen by being too complacent and not voting. We took Al Gore and Bill Clinton's economic miracle and diplomatic genius for granted. We have only ourselves to blame."
- W. O. Coach: This Has To Be Said -

"Dubya is the dumbest rock in a bag full of first-round picks at the professional dumb rock draft."
- bartcop -

"The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise their power from behind the scenes."
- Justice Felix Frankfurter: U.S. Supreme Court -

"The report of the joint congressional inquiry into the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001... reveals U.S. intelligence had no evidence that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, or that it had supported al-Qaida."
- Shaun Waterman: 9/11 Report: No Iraq Link to al-Qaida -

"Sharon is keeping secret all the executive plans for the dividing wall, even from some of his Cabinet ministers. Instead he presents the drawings for each section as needed, for fear that details of the walls intrusion into Palestinian land would be leaked  which would make the EU rise against him and rouse Washington's ire. Sharon's realization of the danger of his action and what could result from it has made him demand the wall be built quickly, despite the initial understanding that it would be built slowly owing to the huge expense of construction, some 1.2 billion euro."
- Hassan Tahsin: Sharon Places Road Block on the Road Map -

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
- George Bernard Shaw -

"The world expects something more of an American president than to prance around on a flight deck dressed up like [a] pilot. He's expected to be a leader. That's my fundamental issue with it. It doesn't reflect the gravitas of the office. Furthermore, it's a little phony."
- General Wesley Clark -

"Jessica Lynch... America's first soldier to be awarded a bronze star for getting injured in a motor vehicle accident." 
- Barry Crimmins -

    "I recently had a talk with an editor of mine when I had to make a tough call about whether or not to include a particular piece of information in an article. Journalism has all sorts of established rules for when you really have a story nailed and when you don't -- this or that number of sources, statements on the record or off the record, and so forth. But a lot of the toughest calls just come down to judgment, your gut feeling. During that conversation I told him how I usually make these decisions.
    "When I find myself in these situations the reasoning I use with myself goes something like this: 'Let's say I run with this story. And let's say it goes bad. And then I have to explain my reasoning to my editor. How is that conversation going to go? Am I going to have a good story to tell? Or am I going to have a why-was-I-such-a-friggin-idiot story to tell?'
    "It's a very clarifying mental exercise."
- Josh Marshall -

"I want to remind you, he actually used his weapons program on his own people at one point in time, which was pretty tangible evidence."
- Dubya last week -

"Hey idiot. That's evidence that Iraq had weapons. EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH HAS WEAPONS! The question is did he have weapons capable of reaching the US. Doesn't look like it. Did he kill his own citizens? SO HAVE YOU! Did he giggle and make jokes about it like you did?"
- Xarvon, alien investigator -

"Brilliance is typically the act of an individual, but incredible stupidity can usually be traced to an organization."
- Jon Bentley -

"This is no more about Marijuana than the Boston Tea Party was about Tea."
- Steve Kubby: Pro-marijuana activist -

"I think its just irresponsible and indefensible."
- Sen. Mark Dayton on the White House decision to release a report tracing American intelligence operations up to 9/11 with 28-pages blackened -

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.  The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
- Winston Churchill -

"We are not a cult, we are members of a majority. Let's act and talk like it. The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when?" 
- Ronald Reagan -

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."
- P.J. O'Rourke -

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
- Pericles (430 B.C.) -

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
- Will Rogers -

"I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time."
- Charles Schulz -

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

Don't go to any rallies, don't sign any petitions, don't join the Green Party, and for God sake don't pledge your support for Dean or Kucinich. The next election is already sewn up. Ashcroft will be watching you for the next five years, and he's into vengeance. Our government thinks nothing of removing pages from official reports that it doesn't like, it will think nothing of removing YOU. Besides, chemtrails are going to kill us all anyway.

The War Against Plants

In spite of the recent discoveries of cocaine hydrochloride laboratories in National Parks and other eastern Bolivian regions near the Brazilian border, the Bolivian government - guided by Washington - is turning a blind eye to the real narco-traffickers and instead sending 1,500 troops into the Chapare region - coincidentally, the home of the "political opposition" - to attempt to eradicate the traditional growth and use of the coca leaf.
- Luis Gómez: Stupid, Ineffective, and Contradictory -

Everything Else

Mandatory reading: Tom Hayden on the inevitable assassination of Saddam Hussein.

Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force Lieutenant colonel, worked from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans (USDP/NESA and SP) in the Pentagon. She observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made. She was appalled. Don't miss Career officer does eye-opening stint inside Pentagon.

BRING THEM HOME NOW! is a coordinating committee of military families, veterans, active duty personnel, reservists and others opposed to the ongoing war in Iraq and galvanized to action by George W. Bush's inane and reckless challenge to armed Iraqis resisting occupation to "Bring 'em on."

Arianna Huffington may be running for governor of California.

More proof that Dr. David Kelley, who blew the whistle on Blair, was murdered.

As we approach the 2nd anniversary of the Anthrax attacks, let's take a look at the case against Steven Hatfill.

If put on public trial, Saddam Hussein would have a field day revealing the embarrassing alliance between his brutal regime and Washington, including: The CIA's role in bringing the Ba'ath Party to power in a 1958 coup, opening the way for Saddam to take control, U.S., Israeli, and Iranian destabilization of Iraq during the 1970s by fueling Kurdish rebellion, Washington's egging on the aggressive shah of Iran in the Shatt al-Arab waterway dispute, a primary cause of the Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. secretly urging Iraq to invade Iran in 1980 to overthrow that nation's revolutionary Islamic government, the covert supply of Saddam's war machine by the U.S. and Britain during the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict, plus the murky role played by Washington just before Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait when the U.S. ambassador told Saddam "The U.S. takes no position in Arab border disputes." Was this a trap to lure Saddam to invade Kuwait, then crush his army, or simple diplomatic bungling? Saddam could supply the awkward answers, which is why the U.S. wants Saddam, but dead - not alive.