Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Janet Jackson and Pat Robertson

I remember an incident on American TV last year when a certain black female popstar happened to expose her nipple for about a second or two. The result was national outrage. The whole of the media industry was up in arms, heavy fines were slapped on the broadcasters involved and an enquiry into how this could ever have happened was immediately announced. Serious action was taken to assure the US public that such a brazen act of dangerous and subversive pornography could never again threaten the innocence and sanctity of their family lives

Two weeks ago, an influential 'religious' celebrity publicly called for the assassination of a democratically elected leader of a foreign country. There was no official outrage. There was no enquiry to establish how this could ever have come on TV. There was no heavy fine imposed on the broadcasters.

Why not?

George, Katrina and the storm

Unfortunately, very few people in America know the real name of Hurricane Katrina because the coal and oil industries have spent millions of dollars to keep the public in doubt about the issue.

The reason is simple: To allow the climate to stabilize requires humanity to cut its use of coal and oil by 70 percent. That, of course, threatens the survival of one of the largest commercial enterprises in history.

In 1995, public utility hearings in Minnesota found that the coal industry had paid more than $1 million to four scientists who were public dissenters on global warming. And ExxonMobil has spent more than $13 million since 1998 on an anti-global warming public relations and lobbying campaign.

In 2000, big oil and big coal scored their biggest electoral victory yet when President George W. Bush was elected president -- and subsequently took suggestions from the industry for his climate and energy policies.


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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Humor: Bush and God

George W. Bush dies after a fatal walking accident.
He decides to try his luck and struts right up to God's office and knocks on the door.
God opens the door.

GOD: Hello George, what are you doing here? Surely you must have taken a wrong turning when you left Earth.
GWB: Hell no, Lord! I've come to claim ma rightful place up here in heaven, right next to you an' that favourite philoph.. Phisoloph.. Philoloph.. Oh you know, that guy Jesus whose work I promoted during my time as president.
GOD: Promoted? Explain.
GWB: Well Ah said that he was my favourite phisoloph.. er Philol.. er thinker. Yeah. Someone once asked me who my favourite thinker was an' Ah said Jesus ‘cos he changed ma life.
GOD: That's all very fine and fruity George but you seem to have forgotten that up here in heaven, we don't look at the words you speak in your life, we look at your actions. So tell me, how did you apply my Son's philosophy to your life?
GWB: Well Ah wenna church every Sunday. I've even got the news reports on CNN and FOX News to prove it.
GOD: We don't get CNN here George. It seems all the AOL/TimeWarner reps who tried to sell us that channel spontaneously combusted whenever they entered my office. And FOX News was removed from our comedy channel years ago. Their spin was becoming too offensive. And anyway, going to church every Sunday won't guarantee you a place in heaven. I need results George. Show me some hard data on what you did for the human race during your life.
GWB: Well ah got rid a thousands of those evil no-good terr'ists who wanted to harm our way of life in Amerka.
GOD: which terrorists do you mean exactly?
GWB: Ya know, those terr'ists down in Eye-rack
GOD: George, you know very well that there were no terrorists in Iraq before you invaded it. I’ll be the first to admit that we had a little problem with the leader there, but I can assure you that there were no America-hating terrorists there at the time. The country I placed under your stewardship was under no threat from Iraq.
GWB: Holy shit Lord! Dick Donny and Karl assured me that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and was even planning more attacks!
GOD: Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. You even admitted that on TV don’t you remember? As for the real perpetrators, well, that’s another story altogether. I’ve heard through the grapevine that JFK here wants to talk to you about that. I’ll see if I can set up some kind of video conference with hell when you get there. Would sure love to see your face when you hear what we’ve been hearing about 9/11.
Oh and that reminds me, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. During your term as Governor of Texas, your fondness for the death penalty rather perturbed me. I noticed that during your 5 years as governor there you approved more executions than any other state at the time. What was it they called you? The Texecutioner? I had so hoped that you would review many of those convictions, many of which were shaky to say the least. I only know how many of those executed might have been innocent in the first place. Did you ever stop to think about that George?
GWB: Er, could you repeat that Lord? There were a few too many words there for me?
GOD: Very well. I’ll phrase it more simply for you: Why do you like killing so much, George?
GWB: Hey don’t look at me! I was simply upholding the constitution of the United States of Amerka and our beloved Texas State constitution. I faithfully executed the office of governor during my term in Texas.
GOD: And a good number of other less fortunate individuals too, it seems…
GWB: They were all criminals Lord. Rapists, armed robbers, murderers! They killed people! Just like that!
GOD: Quite.
GWB: So how about it Lord? You gotta let me in, here.
GOD: As I said Dubya, show me some results. Hard data about what you did for the human race.
Did you for example raise the general level of spirituality amongst your public? Did you increase the LOVE George? You know, Barry White and all that.
GWB: Barry White?
GOD: Yeah, he da man, Dude! Didn’t ya just love him?
GWB: What?
GOD: The Voice, George! The Voice!
GWB: Er, wasn’t that Sinatra?
GOD: No, no no. All he ever did was sing about doing it his own way. Never said anything about Mine. And anyway, we finally lost him to the mafia. No, Barry was definitely my Main Man.
GWB: I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
GOD: Funny, I remember Barry’s mom saying exactly the same thing the morning his voice broke!
GWB: Well I dunno Lord. I always went to church on Sundays and prayed for your guidance. Didn’t you hear me?
GOD: Of course I did, George. And I always answered your questions.
GWB: How come I never heard you then?
GOD: I guess you never took the time to listen. You see George, when you ask Me for guidance, you have to know how to listen for My answers. Don’t expect me to send them by post or email. You have to take time to hear My replies. They come in your quiet moments, when you’re free of all distractions.
GWB: You mean as voices in my head? Jeez, I had loads of those during my presidency! Was that you all the time?
GOD: No George, that was Karl speaking into your earpiece. So come on George, tell me what you did in your life.
GWB: Well I worked real hard during my time as president God.
GOD: Nonsense. Half-way through your second term you’d already beaten that B-movie actor Reagan’s record-breaking total of days off at home. At least he had an excuse. He was nearly 70 when he started his first term and Nancy was running the show anyway by the time he started his second! Oh yes, and how hard were you working when Andy Card told you your country was under attack, huh? I send you down there to take care of this great land of opportunity, someone starts attacking you big time and all you can do is just sit there like a bored schoolboy wondering if this was still part of the script they handed you that morning! Hard work indeed. Give me something else.
GWB: Er, well I was always telling it like it is Lord. They always said I spoke the truth.
GOD: Oh puh-lease George, I know you only ever read the words they gave you parrot fashion without ever knowing what they were saying, but didn’t you ever take the time to ask what it was you were actually talking about? You know it sure would have helped you at those press conferences every time your earpiece signal got jammed. No George, you actually lied most of the time I’m sorry to tell you. I know it might come as a shock but you were going to have to find out sooner or later and now is certainly as good a time as ever.
GWB: Well Clinton lied too, God!
GOD: Yes but he managed to worm his way out of it in real style. He went so far as to argue about the meaning of the word ‘is’! To be! Being! The most fundamental aspect of this whole universe I made! The act of being! And Bill comes right along and brings the whole thing into doubt! Unbelievable! Man, if only he knew what he’s caused up here since he said that. The philosophers don’t know what’s hit them. They’ve been at each others throats ever since! And Descartes has been working non-stop on a new theory.
GWB: Who?
GOD: Descartes. You know, "I think therefore I am", George. (pause) ...On second thoughts, no, forget it. But Descartes has been busy I can tell you. And he’s now come out with the complete opposite of his original theory! What is it now? 'I think therefore I am NOT!' You should have seen it when he gave Socrates his theory to check it for errors. I should have seen it coming actually but hey, there’s a first time for everything. Socrates was reading it through. He reaches the last section and suddenly vanishes in a cloud of reverse logic. Plato was a bit miffed I can tell you. Descartes really let the shit hit the fan with that one. Mind you, when you see what his new theory implies for those who ARE and you look at the current state of Earth, I have to admit he might be onto something.
GWB: How do you mean?
GOD: Never mind. Now, I believe you wanted to tell me how you’ve earned your place here.
GWB: Well, I enacted tons of laws to protect our environment. I mean, we’ve now got the Clear Skies initiative, and I enacted laws to reduce green house gas intensity around the world.
GOD: Come on George, that was a deal that you thrashed out with the big energy corporations. And you know how concerned they are about the environment. What happened to the Kyoto agreement?
GWB: You know I couldn’t have signed that agreement Lord. That would have led to measures that would throw millions of my citizens out of work. And you wouldn’t want my people poor and destitute now would you God?
GOD: Yes George, but what’s the point of keeping all your people employed if they ultimately have no earth on which to live? Think about it. You seem to have got your priorities wrong. Take care of Mother Earth first. Then I can make sure that your people are taken care of on a global scale, including those of your country!
GWB: Hell, I never thought about it that way God.
GOD: No that’s right. But I’m still waiting George. I need to know what you accomplished during your lifetime on Earth. Especially in this period. There’s enough hate going round the world at the moment my son. I’m specifically looking for people who tried to reverse this trend during their lifetime. It’s really very simple. There’s only one question to ask yourself at the end of your life. Did your actions spread love or did they spread hate? The net effect of all your accumulated actions. Come on, don’t be shy. You can tell me everything. What did YOU do to help? Did you get your subjects to show more respect and kindness towards each other? Did you try to fight hate with love? Did you give the hate no chance to spread?
GWB: Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down Lord, please. Too many questions!
GOD: OK. I understand. I’ll put it simply: How did you spread the love George?
GWB: Er, the what?
GOD: The LOVE! Did you make love your main thing?
GWB: Oh, you mean sex Lord?
GOD: Unlikely George, but I suppose that is one way.
GWB: Oh no, I’m not supposed to tell anyone about that Lord.
GOD: George, you can tell me everything.
GWB: Well, I do remember Condi getting all physical with me in the oval office one evening. Man, she could really make a man beg for it! Does that count in spreading the love God?
GOD: Unfortunately not. Condi’s amorous advances towards you were actually nothing more than a sneaky plan put into place by your friend Karl.
GWB: What?
GOD: Yes George. Karl knew that Condi would do anything to become Secretary of State. So, in true Rove fashion, he told her the only way she could get the job would be by agreeing to have sex with you and letting him watch through a one-way mirror. He’s like that you know. Always spying on everyone from the shadows.
GWB: Shit! You mean Karl pimped my Rice?!?!
GOD: I suppose that’s one way of putting it, yes.
GWB: Shit! But how… Oh no! That means he must have got to Laura too, then!
GOD: No George, Laura was your wife.
GWB: Oh yeah.
GOD: So, George, I think we’ve more or less wrapped this up don’t you think?
GWB: Yeah, Lord. You’re gonna let me in right? I mean, I tried my best at being a good president. I really did.
GOD: Well I don’t know. Although… I have to admit, in some respects you really did increase the amount of joy in the world.
GWB: I did?
GOD: Yes George. The world of comedy and humour has been enormously enriched by your time on Earth. And I can tell you, in this day and age, humour is not something to be taken lightly.
GWB: Uh, yeah! Exactly Lord! That’s it! I did good after all. Come on, please! I promise I’ll do anything you want. Please Oh please God! I’ll be good. I’ll be real good!
GOD: Oh, alright George. Congratulations then. You made it. Come inside and we can get started on the paperwork.
GWB: So I get to come in God? Ya really mean it? Oh thank you God! You won’t regret this. I promise.
GOD: Oh I know George. I know.

George walks into God’s office and sits down.

Meanwhile, God seems to be going through a sudden and unexpected metamorphosis. All of a sudden, a trident appears in his left hand, his feet turn into hooves, a pointed tail grows from under his robes and 2 horns emerge on either side of his forehead. A smirk slowly spreads across his face:
"There’s only one thing I like more than admitting new souls into hell, and that’s making them beg for it! Mwa ha ha ha ha…."

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The Paranoid Shift

Why is it so hard to believe serious people who have repeatedly warned us that powerful ruling elites are out to dominate "the masses?" Did we think Dwight Eisenhower was exaggerating when he warned of the extreme "danger" to democracy of "the military industrial complex?" Was Barry Goldwater just being a quaint old-fashioned John Bircher when he said that the Trilateral Commission was "David Rockefeller's latest scheme to take over the world, by taking over the government of the United States?" Were Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt or Joseph Kennedy just being class traitors when they talked about a small group of wealthy elites who operate as a hidden government behind the government? Especially after he died so mysteriously, why shouldn't we believe the late CIA Director William Colby, who bragged about how the CIA "owns everyone of any major significance in the major media?"


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Monday, August 15, 2005

9/11 Conspiracy finally reaching mainstream media in the UK

The Daily Mail newspaper in the UK has finally seen reason and decided to go ahead with the publication of an article that exposes the inconsistencies and downright deceptions in the official version of what happened on 9/11. The article stops short of offering us an explanation of what they think could have happened. That kind of theorizing is always left up to the reader. But it is clear from the article that what the Bush administration has been trying to make us believe about 9/11 just doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. There are too many gaping holes in the official version of events for us to be able to take it seriously.

The article appeared in the August 6th 2005 edition of the Daily Mail. Unfortunately, it wasn't published on their online site. However, you can read the entire article here.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Blair even snubs Cook for his funeral!

Robin Cook dies and Tony Blair can't be bothered to attend his funeral. Nice one Tony! Excellent PR!

Blair calls Robin Cook an outstanding extraordinary talent but can't even be bothered to attend his FUNERAL! They used to be colleagues at the highest echelons of power in the UK. And he can't be bothered to take time off to pay his last repects to one of the few men of principle in British parliament.

The kind of behaviour you'd also have expected from some notorious leaders of the 20th century. What was it I read today? If Thatcher could be bothered to go to Ted Heath's funeral, the least Bliar can do is go to Cook's.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Ohio, the election, and America's servile press

Even so, the evidence that something went extremely wrong last fall is copious, and not hard to find. Much of it was noted at the time, albeit by local papers and haphazardly. Concerning the decisive contest in Ohio, the evidence is lucidly compiled in a single congressional report, released by Representative John Conyers of Michigan, which, for the last half-year, has been available to anyone inclined to read it. It is a veritable arsenal of “smoking guns”—and yet its findings may be less extraordinary than the fact that no one in this country seems to care about them.


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Thursday, August 04, 2005

Oil Shock

I've been saying it for a few years already but nobody seems to want to believe me. The fact of the matter is oil is drying up. Everyone knows that as we all know that oil is a finite resource. But what few people want to admit to themselves is that oil is going to dry up a lot quicker than we would like. In other words, the consequences of a steadily diminishing supply of oil are going to be felt a lot sooner than we had originally planned for. That means in OUR generation folks. Not in that of our children or grand-children. That is why Iraq was invaded in the first place. The neo-fascists in washington had to act now rather than later.

It's as if we're finally heading toward the end of the oil era. And the transition -- as we've seen at the pump recently -- may be a brutal one. The oil gauge is slowly moving toward empty...and the world's largest suppliers say they won't be able to fill us up again

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The Daily Show

Congratulations to Jon Stewart and his team at The Daily Show.They are now also getting international recognition.

Last night on dutch TV they appeared in an article on Nova, the dutch equivalent of 60 Minutes. Not sure what the gist of the article was as I missed the beginning but the fact that they are getting mentioned on major european news programmes is significant.

Already many TV viewers here in the States claim that they get a better perspective on world news by watching The Daily Show than by watching the news programmes that are fed to us by the 5 large media conglomerates.

Check this out for example:
Polling conducted between July 15 and Sept. 19 among 19,013 adults showed that on a six-item political knowledge test people who did not watch any late-night comedy programs in the past week answered 2.62 items correctly, while viewers of Late Night with David Letterman on CBS answered 2.91, viewers of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno answered 2.95, and viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart answered 3.59 items correctly. That meant there was a difference of 16 percentage points between Daily Show viewers and people who did not watch any late-night programming.

Welcome to the USSA

Oh I hate having to write about this again and again. It's so depressing and I often ask myself if it's morally justifiable to intentionally confront people with the terrifying reality of their own fascist political system when clearly most people would rather believe that their government is kind, benevolent, compassionate and wise.
But it's just that this whole period of Bush's 2 illegal presidential terms is so important for people to fully understand. We need to fully comprehend what has happened to the executive branch of the government and the players filling its roles since Bush was selected by the Supreme Court in 2000.
That's why there will always be bloggers out there who tirelessly publish information that is readily available to those who search it out (i.e. not in the mainstream media) in order to educate others about the nature of the cabal currently calling the shots in Washington.

Here's another article worth reading if you want to know how the country is slowly progressing towards a modern-day version of 1984.

What Primakov finds funny are what he calls these "right wing flag wavers" that were so anti-communist and now they're supporting a state policy of internal passports.

The irony is deafening.


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