Saddam: I'm Not Dead Yet!
Actress Katherine Hepburn is dead. Actor Gregory Peck is dead. Former Sen. Strom Thurmond is dead. TV newsman David Brinkley is dead. Author Leon Uris is dead. Actor Hume Cronyn is dead. Actor and star of "Blacula" William Marshall is dead. Last week, Saddam Hussein was dead. This week, he's not (subtle clues include the fact that the war isn't over, despite previous claims to the contrary). Next week, I hear David Brinkley is making a comeback.
Concept: Going gentle into that good night
Severity: Rage, rage
Strom And Drang
OK, this is the part where I'm supposed to go all soft and say something vaguely redemptive and forgiving about Strom Thurmond, who finally kicked the bucket last night at age 100. Well, fuck that. Thurmond was a racist, right-wing, flag-waving, homphobic, Red-baiting, war-mongering, gun-toting horndog who spent decades fucking this country over. All that said, I'll grant you that at age 100 he probably wasn't going to be able do a lot more damage, so I suppose it's too bad he died.
Concept: I was never good at euologizing
Severity: The evil men that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones
A Smoking Gun, Encased In Amber
The CIA has uncovered conclusive proof that Iraq had a program to develop weapons of mass destruction... 12 years ago! Yes, all us liberals have egg on our faces as we must now admit that the U.S. was fully justified in invading Iraq... 12 years ago. So much-deserved kudos to George Bush... Senior! As for Junior, well, maybe he can invade Germany. I hear they've got a V-2 rocket we should be concerned about...
Concept: Timing is everything
Severity: If they can fake the moon landing, you'd think they could come up with some Iraqi WOMD
Jesus Ate My Homework
The Bush-Ashcroft Administration has decreed that first-graders should be coerced into spreading the Jesus Bug throughout the land, arguing in court that schools should be forced to send literature for evangelical Bible-study classes home with elementary students. The argument goes like this: Kids are sent home with information about the Boy Scouts, so it's only fair that they also be sent home with propaganda for Ashcroft's crazy apocalyptic religious beliefs. Of course, the Boy Scouts are a homophobic, mini-Masonic, Christian-prosletysing prey-farm for pederasts, so it's not like we're talking about a quantum leap in content. Needless to say, if I tried to send home literature for a Chaos Magick study group or an Aleister Crowley book club, this exalted principle of equal access would evaporate as quickly as the "disappearing ink" with which the Constitution was apparently written...
Concept: Jesus loves me, this I know, for my teacher tells me so
Severity: Join my new club, Satanism For Six-Year-Olds!
Thanks to reader Neil S. for this link...
I Want My Homeland Security Deposit Back
Congress, in its infinite wisdom, is planning to clear $30 billion to run the Department of Homeland "Security" for the next year. $30 billion? I don't feel $30 billion more secure than I did last year at this time. Maybe they could save money by cutting "Green" and "Blue" alert levels from Tom Ridge's color-coded terror barometer. After all, I'll lay you good odds we never EVER see either Green or Blue... So what's the point of having them? By cutting 40% of the terror alert colors, they could save $12 billion!
Concept: Money well spent
Severity: $30 billion would pay for a lot of extended unemployment
Freedom From Freedom Itself
Under the Bush administration thus far, we've lost freedom to travel, the right to an open trial, freedom of association, freedom of religion, the right to privacy, the right to know, due process, the right to peaceful protest, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to an attorney and freedom of the press. What's left? Civil libertarian Rep. Ric Keller of Florida reminds the whiners: "In a nation like the U.S., where freedom of choice is cherished, nobody is forced to supersize their fast-food meals."
Concept: And don't forget: You're free to choose which petroleum products to burn!
Severity: Nothin' left to lose
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Reader Bryan (ergotrye at yahoo dot com) sends in the following quote which serves as a nice superscript on the item below: "This is not a new world; it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advancements, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete." That's courtesy of The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, a prince among men...
U.S. Constitution Dead At Age 227
Just in case you had any doubts, accountability is dead and we are now officially living in a fascist dictatorship. Overblown rhetoric you say? If the government can arrest anyone it desires, for any reason (or no reason at all) and indefinitely detained without any sort of public documentation, then freedom is gone. Anyone can disappear at any time, and the government can do whatever it wants to them. R.I.P., the American Experiement, 1776-2003.
Concept: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Severity: The evil that men (and nations) do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.
Forget It, Jake, It's Just Palestine
George W. Bush, architect of peace, shares a word or two of wisdom: "It is clear that the free world, those who love freedom and peace, must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers. And that's just the way it is in the Middle East." Well, I'm sure no one will see THAT as throwing fuel on the fire. Regardless of the principles involved, does it REALLY seem wise to make statements blatantly encouraging further warfare in Israel? Of course, this statement was, at least, comprehensible. Just moments earlier, the man with his finger on the nuclear button shared this terrifying rendition of his interior monologue: "Wait for us to succeed peace. Wait for us to have two states, side by side -- is for everybody coming together to deny the killers the opportunity to destroy." Redrum! Redrum!
Concept: Syntax of mass destruction
Severity: Wait for us to defeat elect
Spike Who? Oh, That Guy, Right...
In a mind-boggling bit of jurisprudence, a court issued a temporary injunction against The National Network, barring it from changing its name to "Spike TV" after a lawsuit from former wunderkind filmmaker Spike Lee. You see, Lee claims the cable channel is trying to "capitalize on his image and prestige" by changing its name to be the same as his. TNN says it's rebranding as a cable channel for "men's interests" (meaning wrestling, guns and fake boobs). Where do I begin with this one? First off, Spike Lee isn't exactly at the peak of his career these days. Remember "Clockers"? No? Neither does anyone else. Second, when he WAS at the height of his fame, he wasn't exactly a major celebrity,and certainly not any sort of icon for machismo, except possibly in his own mind. Third, TNN's programming lineup clearly has a LOT more to do with Spike Dudley than with Spike Lee. Will Dudley have to change his name as well? Fourth, Spike Jones was named Spike before Spike Lee was. Can Jones' estate sue Lee for infringement? Fifth, what about Spike in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"? Sixth... Oh, fuck it, I think you can take it from here...
Concept: It's not like "Spike TV" is a particularly brilliant name or concept to begin with
Severity: Just to add insult to injury, the injunction comes just three days before the company was to launch the rebranding, which is has been promoting for weeks
Another One Bites The Dust
Reason No. 13,354 that we invaded Iraq: Saddam Hussein's regime was closely tied to al Qaeda. Lie No. 13,354 about why we invaded Iraq: Saddam Hussein's regime was closely tied to al Qaeda. What's funny about this one (as opposed to the WOMD fiction) is that no reasonable person ever believed it in the first place, even before the war. The new report is based on the interrogation of prisoners captured before the war began.
Concept: The truth, vis a vis it being out there
Severity: Bring on 13,355!
More Self-Analysis Needed
Top five funniest things actually said by President Dubya at yesterday's press conference:
5. Obviously I'm not going to betray confidences, but it was a very interesting and positive conversation is the best way to say it. I didn't need, for example, to be Mr. Chatty. You know, kind of, hey, fellows.
4. I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.
3. I had a bilateral with the Crown Prince at the hotel after the sauna bath.
2. I'm the master of low expectations.
1. I try to tell the truth.
Concept: I'm laughing on the outside only
Severity: How can this be happening to our country?
Those Wacky Brits!
I will never understand those foreigners. The weirdest thing happened today — the British parliament launched an investigation into those mysteriously missing Weapons of Mass Destruction. Apparently, this has something to do with a bizarre European concept called "accountability," whatever the hell that is. Thank God we live in America!
Concept: My brain hurts!
Severity: It'll have to come out!
U.S. Media Successfully Shocked And Awed
U.S. journalism is dead. If you need evidence, just look at the foreign press. As European newspapers lead their front pages with headlines about the outright lies used by the Anglo-American-Estonian coalition to justify its invasion of Iraq, the U.S. media meekly fills its headlines with pathetic justifications by master deceivers Bush and Blair. A German newspaper observed "the charge of deception is inescapable," while France's Le Monde said the claims about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" was "the greatest lie told by statesmen in recent years." The British press is crucifying Blair, with demands for explanations and accusations of fabricated evidence, while CNN (et al) continue to give Bush a slide, with poofy aphoristic euphoria focusing on nothing, such as an extensive piece desperately trying (and failing) to justify the Bush administration's decision to reclassify a "killed in action" U.S. pilot in the first Gulf War as a POW in 2002, as part of the desperate Web of lies used to provide a flimsy pretext for a plunder-driven war.
Concept: The Fourth Estate
Severity: Looking more like a Fifth Column
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