With the blazing summer sun melting the keys on my wireless laptop, here are a couple of stocks that should really heat up, enough to pay for a new air conditioner:

If you're looking for a really fast buck, try Counterfitness Centers (FAKE-MNY), which is a counterfeiting ring disguised as a chain of health clubs. They'll get caught, but until they do they're making a lot of money.

While I usually steer clear of entertainment stocks, Triple X Films (XXX-FLMS) caught my eye. A low-budget producer of pornographic movies, they pay actors virtually nothing and don't file income taxes, making their profit margin the envy of Wall Street.

With a little luck we'll all be a whole lot cooler - or in the cooler - this summer!

(Mr. Money is paid by each of the companies mentioned.)

- Ironic Times -

The Amazing Life and Death of Chemical Ali

ABC News 
March 21, 2003 
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 21 — Three top Iraqi leaders — including Saddam Hussein's cousin, the infamous "Chemical Ali" — are believed to have been killed in what would be a major blow to the regime... 

CNN 
April 7, 2003
DOHA, Qatar (CNN) -- The notorious Iraqi general known as "Chemical Ali" -- Saddam Hussein's cousin who allegedly ordered a deadly chemical weapons attack against Kurds in 1988 -- was killed in a coalition airstrike on his home over the weekend, U.S.-led coalition officials said Monday.

The Guardian 
April 8, 2003
General Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", has died aged 64. He was killed commanding the southern Iraqi city of Basra by SAS-organised air and artillery attacks, said local British military sources. 

BBC 
June 6, 2003
Iraqi General Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein better known as "Chemical Ali", may be alive, according to US military officials.

MSNBC 
Aug. 21, 2003
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — Ali Hasan al-Majid, a feared cousin of former President Saddam Hussein who was nicknamed “Chemical Ali” for his use of poison gas in attacks, has been captured by U.S. forces in Iraq, U.S. Central Command said Thursday... 

Warmongers 'R' Us

Blaming corporations for fueling former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program, veterans of the first Gulf War filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for illnesses affecting more than 100,000 soldiers.

"American military scientists are developing a weapon which kills by delivering an enormous burst of high-energy gamma rays, it is claimed today. The bomb, which produces little fallout, blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, and experts have already warned it could spark a new arms race." 
- David Adam and Suzanne Goldenberg: US military pioneers death ray bomb -

Fake Headlines of the Week

Key Al-Qaeda figure nabbed in Southeast Asia; 
Producers of Gigli believed still at large in Los Angeles.
- National Lampoon -

White House Wants to Deregulate Dept. of Weights and Measures
Let consumers choose from competing weights, measurements.
- Ironic Times -

ANN COULTER SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUSTS
Pundit Keeps Talking While Fully Ablaze
- The Borowitz Report -

Bush Diagnosed With Attention-To-Deficit Disorder
WASHINGTON, DC
Pointing to massive war-time tax cuts, physicians from the Congressional Budget Office diagnosed President Bush with attention-to-deficit disorder Tuesday. "The president exhibits all the symptoms of ATDD: impulsiveness, restlessness, inability to focus on mounting U.S. debt likely to reach $400 billion by the year's end," Dr. Terrence Spellman said. "Failing to address his affliction could lead to serious long-term fiscal health problems for future generations of Americans." To treat the president's ATDD, Spellman prescribed Ritalin and an introductory course in high-school economics.
- The Onion -

Google Smackdown of the Week

vs.

and the winner is...

"find Saddam Hussein" by 249,000!

Shockwaves of the Week

An un-revised history of W's military service, Top Gun?

Hey kids, wartime action figures are here.

 I Feel So Much Safer Now

The Republican Party is raising campaign money in India.

Monologue of the Week

From Network
by Paddy Chayefsky

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! 

You think you have merely stopped a business deal - that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immune, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! 

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? (pause) 

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. 

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr.Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality - one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale. 

Howard: (humble whisper) Why me? 

Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week.

Cartoon of the Week

The Magic of Photoshop

You don't think those women in magazines really look like that, do you? Here are some before and after pictures from FHM.

Fun Destination of the Week

Cambodia is turning former Khmer Rouge mass murder sites into tourist traps.

History Lesson from Hell

In 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first man to walk on the moon, uttering the immortal phrase, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Or did he? Previously suppressed footage shows that Armstrong's reaction was a great deal more uninhibited than history suggests, and that a hasty editing job was needed to prepare the astronaut's moment of glory for broadcast. Here, for the first time, is the unedited NASA film from the Apollo 11 mission.

Internet Radio Show of the Week

Just in case you missed it, Harry Shearer's highlights from the first 20 years of Le Show is right here.

Internet Movie of the Week

Yeah, I know, it's a big download in Windows Media Player or Real Video format, but if you're waiting for Greg Palast's BBC video about the Bush Administration to be shown on American television, you've got a long wait.

Don't Take My Word For It

"In 2001, Peabody energy, the world's largest coal company, proposed construction of the biggest coal-fired power plant in America in decades. But Peabody wanted to situate the plant just 50 miles from Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park, which already has a worst air of any national park in the land. After the Fish and Wildlife Service questioned the plan, Peabody met with Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service. Around the same time, Peabody and one of its subsidiaries forwarded $300,000 in soft money to the Republican Party and, lo and behold, the process to approve the state permit was put into high gear. Peabody then made a $50,000 donation. Two weeks after the permit was granted, Peabody gave an additional $100,000. So the Republican Party got $450,000 and Peabody got its plant. The chain of events, from the meeting with Mainella to the approval of the plant, took less than three months, though Peabody claims the money was pledged earlier and was not related to the plant. And you think the wheels of government move slowly."
- Graydon Carter: Vanity Fair -

"No. 1, what was discussed at the May 11, 2001, meeting with Ken Lay? And why did Schwarzenegger attend such a meeting since at the moment California was enduring a third round of unnecessary rolling blackouts? No. 2., why, if he wants to be the people's governor, has he appointed Pete Wilson, the grand old man of deregulation, directly linked to the current budget crisis, to chair his committee? Three, why did he pick, as a senior adviser, Marty Wilson who during the energy crisis was a spokesman and P.R. consultant for Reliant Energy, one of the companies federal regulators found had manipulated the California energy market. If you want to clean house in Sacramento, do you put Martin Wilson, a Reliant spokesman, on your team? Incidentally, Reliant was a major contributor to the Bush election process, and even offered private jets to fly the Bush team to Florida when they were busy stealing the election."
- Arianna Huffington -

"Forget the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and our excellent adventure in Liberia. Forget about Kobe, Arnold, Arriana, Scott and Laci. The biggest news of the entire week is that on August 8, 2003, the IRS was unable to convince a jury in Memphis, Tennessee that the Federal Tax Code requires the citizens to pay individual income taxes."
- Carl F. Worden: IRS vs. KUGLIN -

     "The President has been busy during his vacation. He's traveled to several fund-raising events, for example, and played a lot of golf. However, he has yet to attend a single funeral or speak to even one widow or orphan or mother of our dead soldiers. As I write, on August 22, President Bush is in the northwest. He's making a couple of speeches in Burbank, WA, and attending a private fundraising luncheon at the Seattle home of cell phone magnate Craig McCaw.
    "While in Washington, Bush might have made time to contact the family of Army Specialist Justin Hebert, 20, of Arlington, WA. A rocket-propelled grenade killed Spc. Hebert, serving in Iraq, on August 1 as President Bush traveled to Crawford to begin his vacation.
    "In today's speeches, he might have mentioned the name of Private First Class Duane Longstreth, 19, of Tacoma, WA. Pfc. Longstreth and his mother, Specialist Jennifer West, both joined the Army after September 11 to fight terrorism. On August 8, Spc. West was serving with an Army communications unit in Germany when she was told her son was dead.
    "On August 8, President Bush spoke to reporters outside his ranch home about deaths in Iraq. 'We suffer when we lose life,' the president said. This President suffers very privately, however. He does not attend funerals; he does not speak to bereaved families on the phone."
- A Buzzflash Reader Commentary -

"If, in Country X, the power is out, the water's out, the oil pipeline is burning, unemployment tops 60 percent, murder and rape are daily occurrences, the treasury is looted, the museums are looted, official history is a tool for propaganda, and U.N. headquarters are bombed, then the ruler of Country X should be held accountable, right? Well, Iraq is Country X. Bush is its ruler."
- Don Williams: War Foes Were Right -

"If current trends continue, it means that a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. For a Hispanic male, it's 1 in 6; for a white male, 1 in 17... More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world."
- The Christian Science Monitor -

"We are not all men in leather thongs with feather boas dancing on top of Gay Pride Parade floats. (Gotta love 'em.) We're not all male, all white, all rich or all anything else." 
- Jennifer Holladay: A Queer Girl's Top 10 Gay Myths -

"When we don't see eye to eye, it's time for a heart to heart."
- Noah ben Shea -

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
- Patrick Henry: March 23, 1775 -

"What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war, not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave, I am talking about genuine peace - the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living - and the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children - not merely peace of Americans, but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace in all time."
- John F. Kennedy: June 10, 1963 -

"You don't eat crackers in the bed of your future."
- The Tick -

"It's that kind of talk that keeps you from getting a spinoff."
- Duckman to Cornfed -

"If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people."
- Joe Conason: Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth -

"If Joseph Goebbels had run his own cable channel, it would have been indistinguishable from Fox News."
- Hal Crowther: Weapons of Mass Stupidity -

"Listen to everyone, believe nothing, unless you can prove it through your own research." 
- William Cooper -

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt -

"If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that God has left for you to complete. But if you only see what is wrong and how ugly it is, then it is yourself that needs repair."
- Rabbi Tzvi Freeman: Moments of the Spirit -

"My Apache helicopter killed your Iraqi honor student."
- Protest sign at anti-Bush rally in Portland -

"Find out where the people want to go, then hustle yourself around in front of them."
- James Kilpatrick -

"Happiness for the average person may be said to flow largely from common sense - adapting one-self to circumstances - and a sense of humor." 
- Beatrice Lillie -

"How tragic that in our own time the very state established by Jews in the aftermath of this evil has become a place where racialism, religious discrimination, militarism and injustice prevail..."
- Edward C. Corrigan: Jewish Criticism of Zionism -

"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
- John Kenneth Galbraith -

"It can never be said too often that questions of chronological priority in ancient history - who got there first - are simply irrelevant to deciding the rights and wrongs of any present-day political situation."
- Noel Malcolm: Kosovo: A Short History -

"With good will for the entire cosmos,
cultivate a limitless heart:
Above, below, & all around,
unobstructed, without hostility or hate."
- Buddha: Sutta Nipata I, 8 -

"The very idea of self-government depends upon honest and open debate as the preferred method for pursuing the truth -- and a shared respect for the Rule of Reason as the best way to establish the truth. The Bush Administration routinely shows disrespect for that whole basic process, and I think it's partly because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren't very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it."
- Al Gore -

"In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life. ...Through a difficult period, you can learn, you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem. Who gives you this chance? Your enemy."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama -

"If you return kindness for injuries received and forget both,Those who harmed you will be punished by their own shame."
- Tirukkural 314 -

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it."
- Lou Holtz -

"The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused a man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man or angels come into danger by it."
- Francis Bacon -

"Rid yourself of all purpose. And be happy."
- Ashtavakra Gita 15:15 -

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."
- Lena Horne -

"Do not reveal to friends all the secrets you possess; they may one day become enemies. Do not inflict on enemies every injury in your power; they may one day become friends."
- Sadi: Gulistan -

"Love is selflessness. Self is lovelessness."
- Sai Baba -

"To be loved, be lovable."
- Ovid -

"Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip."
- Will Rogers -

"It was a message to the Israelis. You stop, we stop. You keep going, we keep going."
- Mr. Yousef Qteishat on why his son Islam Yousef, 17, blew himself up at an Israeli grocery store -

"When other beings, especially those who hold a grudge against you, abuse and harm you out of envy, you should not abandon them, but hold them as objects of your greatest compassion and take care of them."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama -

"In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves."
- Walter Williams -

"If there was no imminent threat, then Dr. Blix could have been given the time he required. He may well have succeeded in ending all Iraq's WMD programmes - just as he succeeded in dismantling 60-plus ballistic missiles. Then sanctions could have been lifted and a concentrated effort made to help the people of Iraq end the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein - just as we did with Milosevic in Serbia."
- Clare Short: It's official - Saddam was not an imminent threat -

"If nude scenes are essential to movie plots, why isn't their absence from old classics felt as a shortcoming? And if 'realism' demands nudity, why do we only see beautiful young women in the raw? Why don't we see more fat old men naked?"
- Joseph Sobran -

"There are four types of men: 
One who says, Mine is mine, and yours is yours - this is the commonplace type...
Mine is yours and yours is mine - the ignorant person.
Mine is yours and yours is yours - the saint.
Mine is mine and yours is mine - the wicked."
- Ethics of the Fathers: chapter 5, paragraph 13 -

"When the rich make war, it's the poor who die."
- Jean-Paul Sartre -

Everything Else

Mandatory reading: From The New Yorker, THE SEARCH FOR OSAMA: Did the government let bin Laden's trail go cold? by Jane Mayer.

And, of course, according to this article, we know EXACTLY where he is.

Cynthia McKinney gave a damn good speech to the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, NY.

Gillette razors contain tracking devices, which is as good a reason as any to boycott Gillette and let your beard grow.

Fox might not own the phrase "fair and balanced," but Ambercrombie and Fitch still claim to own the number 22.

Oh, by the way, I just caught the much-maligned Ishtar on late-night satellite. Might I mention that if this exact same movie came out today starring Jack Black and Paul Giamatti instead of Warren and Dustin, it would be hailed as a comic masterpiece?