Reflections.

Oh. Just now I realized - it's the old year's final rounds. Of course I knew it (I'm not as dumb as I don't look), it's just that I didn't realize it. One more day, and after that: Goodbye 2005! It wasn't such a bad year... I think it doesn't deserve to be polished off just like that! Really! What would you say if people would chase you out of town with firecrackers and pyrotechnic articles, and after being around always ready the whole year just tell you "You know what? The new one's one larger!" Ha! I thought so.

The Monochrome Set.

People say you look like Lou Reed. What do you say?
Jeremy: "I'm very sorry."
Bid: "No, he doesn't look like Lou Reed. Well, his trousers do."
Jeremy: "My trousers look like Lou Reed?"
Tony: "They've got his face!"
Bid: "You can talk. Your eyebrows look like Davy Jones."
Jeremy: "Yeah, you'll have to be careful about that."
So why do you wear Lou Reed's trousers?
Jeremy: "I don't, you know."

Spin Me Round Round...

Standing all alone, Fred the scarecrow hasn't got a clue how the wheat grows. Doesn't mind the rain, hates the cold though, specially when those icewinds blow snow...

Pe_rls B4 Swine.

Woo-hoo!

Forecast says we'll be having a freezing week, while tulips will blossom in Pennsylvania. That's alright with me. I wish the Alster would freeze over for a change - then I could walk the water and drink some Glühwein. And meet people I haven't seen for ages (as that seems to happen everytime the A.f.o.). Fun times ahead! Plus, in that case, a couple of thousand word's worth. And, by the way, I managed to complete mission 13 in GT4!!! Oh, what a lucky man he was.

Central Station? Yes We Have!

Flipmode.

Doo, Doo, Doo - Looking Out My Backdoor.

Season's Greetings!

Here's for the obligatory holiday thingie. Have fun, y'all.
And don't eat things I wouldn't eat.

Nachtrag: for a detailed definition, go see Steve, Don't Eat It! Hilarious!!! (It may be my sick humor, though).

Suicide By Cop.

Not a typo, people! Browsing the Net I came across a site called Pacific News Service. It's quite interesting to read, and you'll find stories "off the beaten track", meaning of no particular interest to the average dumb citizen. So I learned about Bolivia's new president. And about State Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement Agent Michael Walker, who shot an unarmed Rudy Cardenas in the back and found not guilty of voluntary manslaughter: At Court the Day the Walker Verdict Dropped. I was curious, and dug up this detailed story: "Justice Denied: A History of the Walker Trial" over at indybay.org. The story killed me as I read defense trying to turn it into a suicide - how crazy is that? Well, it worked. Ruth is stranger than Richard, without a doubt.

Buddy Lee. Way Cool, Too!

Hellow, possums! Look what I have stumbled across tonight - it's Buddy Lee, Guidance Counselor. There's something for everyone. Let Buddy show you... Mr. Lee, I meant. Sorry, no picture. There's plenty to see over there, so don't you waste your time on this sh!tty blog.









So. Still here? Shove off!

Way Coooool!

Here's the new Chemical Brothers' video clip The Boxer. Need I say more? A thousand words?

One Thousand Something.

If it's true that a picture says more than a thousand words, I wouldn't even have to bother writing anything here anymore. I'd just pick up a picture here and there, and pow! another thousand words. More even. But how do I know this is true? What if a picture says no more than, say, 526 words? Or less than 89? I'd be screwed. Less than 89 could be anything. In fact, mathematically, it could even drive my wordcount into negative figures! How's that for a change? But then - why should I even care?! It seems that only a marginal fraction of those who stumble across this... blog (?) actually reads what I write. As if it was some kind of disease. By now, it probably doesn't even matter what I write, because 98% of you have fallen asleep already, accidentally hitting the 'back' button as your head falls down on the keyboard... oh well, I'm not doing this for you anyway. Of course not, you silly lot! I'm doing this for myself, so that when I want to read an interesting blog, I already know where to find one. Clever, eh?

House Music All Night Long.

Do-re-mi-fa....faaaaaaaah!!

Evolution.

Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Neglected from the news media here in Germany (and probably not only here) it has come to my knowledge that Mumia Abu-Jamal - facing death sentence for a crime he didn't commit - has been granted "certificates of appealabilty" to challenge alleged race and judicial bias in the 1995 Post Conviction Relief Action proceedings overseen by Mumia's original 1982 trial court "hanging" judge, Albert Sabo, who went to extreme lengths to keep evidence of innocence out of the court record. Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas Judge Albert Sabo ("Death Row's King") has been called "a defendant's nightmare," "a prosecutor in robes," and "his own jurisdiction" by defense attorneys and prosecutors alike. But even more damning than his reputation amidst litigators is his record: Sabo has sentenced twice as many people to death (32 total) than any other judge in the country - all but two of these defendants being people of color.

The state's case against Mumia rested heavily on the testimony of eyewitnesses, many of whom changed their stories under police pressure. Sabo's rulings significantly aided the prosecution's case. For instance, he did not allow the defense to cross-examine prosecution witness Robert Chobert about inconsistencies in his account even though the first statement he gave to police effectively exonerated Mumia. Nor did the jury ever learn that Chobert was still on probation for a felony conviction. Meanwhile, Sabo struck from the record testimony from defense witness Veronica Jones that the police had offered favors in exchange for fabricated testimony.

In 2001, attorneys for death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking it to order Common Pleas Court Judge Pamela Dembe to hear the testimony of ex-mob hit man, Arnold Beverly. Mr Beverly had confessed to the killing of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 – the crime of which Mumia had been falsely convicted. He testified that the murder was committed on behalf of corrupt elements in the Philadelphia Police Department and organised crime, the motive being that the officer was an obstacle to the "protection racket" corrupt officers were running in the city. On November 21, 2001, Judge Pamela Dembe refused to review the case and see new evidence, because "... new evidence of innocence is no bar to execution." (referring to Herrera vs. Collins, US 360).

On October 8, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against Mumia Abu-Jamal's appeal. Citing the "untimeliness" of the evidence presented relating to Mumia's innocence, the court refused to consider the confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, murdered police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award-winning investigative journalist, turned 50 April 24 last year. He has been on Pennsylvania's death row for more than 23 years now, for a crime he did not commit. His struggle for freedom and justice is supported by the European Parliament, Amnesty International, the 1.8 million member California Labor Federation, the ILWU, Nelson Mandela, Ossie Davis, E.L. Doctorow, Alice Walker, Ed Asner, Jacques Chirac, the San Francisco and Detroit city councils and by millions of supporters of democratic rights worldwide. Even so, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed - amongst others - the testimony of Philadelphia court stenographer, Terri Maurer Carter who overheard Mumia's original trial judge, Albert Sabo, state in his antechamber in relation to Mumia's case, "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the nigger."

There are several possible outcomes, from the worst, but least expected scenario where Sabo's unconstitutional sentencing instructions are upheld and Mumia faces execution, to a decision of Third Circuit to either order a new trial or to remand the case to the Federal District Court to re-hear the issues where it had previously ruled without regard to Mumia's constitutional rights.
While Mumia has won yet another victory on the road toward his freedom, the powers that be are far from conceding any errors and remain intent on his execution. Mumia's freedom will be a product of both his legal efforts and a mass political movement exerting its will and making the price of his execution and continued incarceration too high to pay.

I will not comment on this, as I am lacking words. However, here are two more links for the interested among you:

Free Mumia
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Freedom Journal

Mitch.

I called the hotel operator and she said, "How can I direct your call?" I said, "Well, you could say 'Action!', and I'll begin to dial. And when I say 'Goodbye', then you can yell 'CUT!'"

A dog came to my door, so I gave him a bone, the dog took the bone into the back yard and buried it. I'm going to go plant a tree there, with bones on it, so then the dog will come back and say, "Shoot! It worked! I must distribute these bones equally for I have a green paw!"

This one guy said, "Look at that girl! She's got a nice butt." I said, "Yeah, I bet she can sit down excellently!"

This one commercial said, "Forget everything you know about slipcovers." So I did, and it was a load off of my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell slipcovers, but I didn't know what they were!

Imagine if you were a drummer, and you accidentally picked up two magic wands instead of sticks. There you are, keeping the beat, the next thing you know, bam! your bass player turns into a can of soup.

As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have to end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes. You're all happy at first, but then by the end, you're sick of 'em.

I saw a billboard for the lottery. It said, "Estimated lottery jackpot 55 million dollars." I did not know that was estimated. That would suck if you won and they said, "Oh, we were off by two zeroes. We estimate that you are angry."

A fly was very close to being called a land, because that's what it does half the time.

I had the cab driver drive me here backwards, and the dude owed me $27.50.

Kittens play with yarn, they bat it around. What they're really doing is saying, "I can't knit, get this away from me!"

Imagine if the headless horseman had a headless horse. That would be chaos. I would think that if you were the headless horseman's horse, you would be very confused. "I don't think this dude can see."

I was on a bus once, it was in the middle of the night, and I had a box of crackers and a can of Easy Cheese. It was dark, and it was a surprise how much cheese I had applied on each cracker. That's why they should have a glow-in-the-dark version of Easy Cheese. It's not like the product has any integrity to begin with. If you buy a room-temperature cheese that you squeeze out of a can, you probably won't get mad because it glows in the dark too.

Why is Cloud 9 so amazing? What is wrong with Cloud 8? That joke came off the top of my head, and the top of my head ain't funny!

I wear a necklace now because I like to know when I'm upside down.

Mitch Hedberg.

Meeting Wayne.

So how's your squirrel going mate?
Not bad, not bad. And yours?
Ach, can't complain, can't complain...

R U

.DIZZY YET?

Ouch!

Webcams Update...

If you manage to go there at the right time of the day, you might see a nice sunset in Seminole / Texas (or is it sunrise??). Not as if you had never seen one, but... it's different. Though the camera needs some lens cleaning...

This looks like a bar in Munich. They seem to close early. Why? I don't know.

Watch the Bank of America in Midland, TX, if you ain't got something better to do.

Like watching over the Kyrkjbygd Aserål Kommune in Norway. Nice at night time!

Finally, here's something else: the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre. In Vancouver, BC. Although I do think animals shouldn't be fenced in, here you can watch and make up your own mind.

With A Little Help From...

A heartfelt Thank You! to my dear friends for being there. Without you, life wouldn't be the same.

Swarm Intelligence.

Eric Bonabeau, Ph.D, a keynote speaker at the upcoming Emerging Technology conference, is a leader in the field of swarm intelligence and has focused on applying these concepts to real world problems such as factory scheduling and telecommunications routing. The concept itself is borrowed from nature; in this interview, that's where the conversation begins, with ants and other social insects. Dr. Bonabeau takes us from his childhood nightmares of carnivorous wasps to applying the theories of swarm intelligence to solving real problems in the business world. (by Derrick Story, 21.02.2003)

Five o'Clock In The Morning.

It's 5 o'clock in the morning
you're lying in your bed
you wonder why it's not morning in your head.
The day is open for business
but still your eyes are closed,
you spread your dreams
like butter on your toast.
Open all the windows
and we're rolling up the blinds,
all across the world
are people wiping sleep from tired eyes.
The faces on the curtains
all the Jekylls and the Hydes are gone.

It's 6 o'clock in the morning
you're only half awake.
The other half is shaving
and the toothpaste like a snake
has slithered out the door of the bathroom,
and it's hissing in your ear:
Get up, get out, get out of here.
The sound of people being people
slowly fills the air,
and all the crazy things they do
to get from here to there.
And when the one you're holding
runs her fingers through your hair -
You're on.

Shifting through the gears
it's 8 o'clock in the morning.
It's been 8 o'clock for years,
the factory gates are opening
to let the night shift out
and the day shift in.

It's 9 o'clock in the morning,
you've been this way before,
but something seems to be different
and you can't quite put your finger on it at all...

Godley & Creme - Consequences.

Chinese Waters.

Georg Blume, correspondent of the German weekly journal "Die Zeit", has been arrested by the police during enquiries in a village at a heavily contaminated river in central China. Blume reported via telephone he was accused of illegal interviews. He was restrained in a hotel in the city of Shenqiu for five hours, during which he was questioned repeatedly. The journalist had investigated in one of twenty villages along the severely contaminated river Shaying. In these villages the number of people suffering from cancer has risen dramatically since the 90's. In Huangmengying, a village with 2400 residents, more than 120 people already died from cancer.
The environmental disaster in northern China, where a 100 km long section of the river Songhua was contaminated by chemical accident, triggered public notice of water pollution in China. In the metropolitan city of Harbin water supply had to be switched off for five days. The doom of the cancer villages even gets discussed in state controlled Chinese media. The mayor of Huangmengyin accuses a paper mill and other industrial firms of ruthlessly discharging uncleaned sewage into the river. Particularly people obtaining their drinking water from the river are suffering from bowel and gullet cancer. That is the downside of China's economy boom - chemical plants feeding poisonous wastewater into the rivers. And since that's business as usual, the chronically arid China impends to die from this fatal cloaca. Peking does know all that and has invested hundreds of millions US$, but the money mysteriously disappeared - an estimated two thirds of all implemented action only exists on paper, the money draining away in the greedy pockets of local politicians and contractors. However, experts aren't surprised by these disasters. Industry booms tremendously, pollution control is non-existant, as is precaution. About 70 per cent of chinas rivers are polluted. Acid rain is falling because the air is so poisoned. Seven of the world's ten most polluted cities are located in China, the International Energy Agency states.
The Harbin disaster was no surprise - 100 tons of benzene leaked into the river after a petrochemical plant exploded. Jorg Wuttke of BASF in China finds that unbelievable: "100 tons are usually never kept at one place. That's a huge amount! You'd reduce highly explosive substances to the bare minimum, you'd store them away from the actual production facilities and add them as you need them." Here the whole thing just blew up. However, the plant - being one of the wealthiest companies in China - was brand new. It had just started production. Wuttke is puzzled there wasn't any precaution, no security measures present. "It was built that if something happens, there would be maximum damage". The poisoned river heads towards Russia...

No More Funds For Hamas?!

Food for thought, as delivered by George W. Bush, President of the United States of America: "I urge the leaders in Europe and around the world to take swift, decisive action against terror groups such as Hamas, to cut off their funding, and to support - cut funding and support, as the United States has done." - Washington, D.C., June 25, 2003

Er, I... we... and so... that's... that.

"The public education system in America is one of the most important foundations of our democracy. After all, it is where children from all over America learn to be responsible citizens, and learn to have the skills necessary to take advantage of our fantastic opportunistic society." —Santa Clara, Calif., May 1, 2002

"I want to thank the dozens of welfare to work stories, the actual examples of people who made the firm and solemn commitment to work hard to embetter themselves." —Washington, D.C., April 18, 2002

"I'm not exactly aware of how fast or how not fast they're moving". —In response to a question about whether the Catholic Church has moved swiftly enough in response to recent cases of pedophelia by priests, Washington, DC, March 13, 2002

"Love your neighbor just like you'd like to like to be loved, yourself." —Speech, as reported in the Washington Post, April 10, 2002

"Love somebody just like they'd like to be loved themselves" —Speech, as reported in the Washington Post, April 10, 2002

"Make sure our neighbors are loved just like they'd like to be loved themselves" —Speech, as reported in the Washington Post, April 10, 2002

"And so, in my State of the - my State of the Union - or state - my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation - I asked Americans to give 4,000 years - 4,000 hours over the next - the rest of your life - of service to America. That's what I asked - 4,000 hours." —Bridgeport, Conn., April 9, 2002

"It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber."—Washington, D.C., April 10, 2002

"Sometimes when I sleep at night I think of 'Hop on Pop.'" —in a speech about childhood education, Washington, D.C., April 2, 2002

"We've tripled the amount of money - I believe it's from $50 million up to $195 million available." —Lima, Peru, March 23, 2002

"We've got pockets of persistent poverty in our society, which I refuse to declare defeat—I mean, I refuse to allow them to continue on. And so one of the things that we're trying to do is to encourage a faith-based initiative to spread its wings all across America, to be able to capture this great compassionate spirit." —O'Fallon, MO., Mar. 18, 2002

"The reason one has a nuclear arsenal is to serve as a deterrence. Secondly, ours is an administration that's committed to reducing the amount of warheads. And we're in consultations now with the Russians on such a - on this matter. We both agreed to reduce our warheads down to 22 -- 1,700 to 2,200. I talked with Sergei Ivanov yesterday, the minister of defense from Russia on this very subject. I think it's the right policy for America, and I know we can continue to do so and still keep a deterrence." —Washington, DC, March 13, 2002

"We're a peaceful nation, and you know we're moving along just right and kind of having a, you know, time, and all of a sudden we get attacked. And now we're at war, but we're at war to keep the peace". —Press Conference, Washington, DC, March 13, 2002

At Ford's Theatre Presidential Gala: When Stevie Wonder sat down at the keyboard center stage, President Bush in the front row got very excited. He smiled and started waving at Wonder, who understandably did not respond. After a moment Bush realized his mistake and slowly dropped the errant hand back to his lap. "I know I shouldn't have," a witness told us yesterday, "but I started laughing". —As reported by Lloyd Grove in the Washington Post, March 6, 2002

During a tour, [U.S. Lt. Col. William] Miller told Bush that axes used by North Korean soldiers to kill two US servicemen in 1976 were in a "peace museum" just across the border. Shaking his head in disgust, Bush said: "No wonder I think they're evil." —Reported by Ron Fournier, Associated Press, Panmunjom, Korea, Feb. 20, 2002

"My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific." —George W. Bush, who apparently forgot about a little something called World War II. Tokyo, Feb. 18, 2002

Not enough? More Shrubbish here...

Communication?

Communication. Sometimes I wish I was living back in the old days. The weeeeealy old days. Where you wouldn't talk to each other because women hadn't invented speech yet. Just grunting and noises, and you would make some noises and grunt in the general direction of one of those fur covered beauties, and that would mean something like "Hey, I think we're about to become extinct! Let's do something about it!" and they wouldn't give you silly looks or fake headaches. And there wouldn't be any cars, so that Shell and BP couldn't sell their gasoline - they had to close all their gas stations and turn them into Neanderthal-Wo/Men-Recreation-Centers or Mace Repair Shops. No fashion boutiques either. No Dooglass, no McDumbo, no Kelvin Gross. No email... hm, that would be a problem. How should I send you messages? I would have to build a monster drum and be drumming it to you. If I wasn't involved in fighting the neighbours from the other side of the woods because they always plunder our refrigerator at this time of the year and kidnap our dwellarinas because their own all have grown beards due to their shaman mixing the wrong brew and they'd been told that was butch. Of course they wouldn't know what that means (no language yet) but it was some unwritten law back then (and somehow still is) that if you don't know what something means then you better kick the other cave man first - precautionary - because it could mean something bad. Or weeeeeeal bad even - in this case you'd kick him weeeeally hard, right in his darwinistic backcountry. Ooooomph. In case you mixed up the parcels, hmm, you had to talk to the cave man's chancellor and ask him to keep it confidential, but since speech still isn't invented, you can't just do that so you have to kick him too, precautionary, and that's where things usually get interesting. Eat or be eaten. People later called this natural selection, after speech finally was invented and cave men where rejected by cave women because of their bad breath. That led to the invention of the first toothbrush, even before the wheel, because what would be the use of a fancy car if you couldn't pick up a hot cave woman for a ride? The rest is history - after multiple toothbrushes became standard in every cave, the electric toothbrush was invented. And flopped - no electricity yet. Bill Caves (the originator of ET, the electrical toothbrush) was furious and wouldn't rest until he had struck oil to make electricity with a generator. Unfortunately, the oil wouldn't seize to sputter and so he was forced to invent cars and gas stations to get rid of all the oil. You know what happened - the Mace Repair Shops where converted back into gas stations, and all of a sudden the cave dwellers had no working maces they could use to defend themselves against other cave dwellers whose maces were in full effect. Over time, the number of cave people decreased, either by means of maces that weren't broken or because they crossed some street at night and were run over by speeding cave cars, which had no headlights because they weren't invented yet. So they finally died out just as predicted in the ancient books they never were taught to read. And that's the end of the story. What does it teach us?
a) You can't be taught to read when you don't have a language.
b) If you can't read, you eventually die out.
c) No spitting on the bus.
d) Living happily ever after has become a tough job sometimes...

-> inspired by Egglesmith Greegers.

NASA Faked Lunar Landing!

You won't believe your eyes - final evidence that the lunar landing back in 1969 was indeed a giant fake financed by you, the tax payer. Click on the the picture and witness the hair-raising evidence proving the mission to Luna actually took place in Hollywood...

Give Chance A Piece...

Peter Sellers in "Being There" - a must see. In 1971, Jerzy Kosinski published the novel Being There. Soon afterwards he received a telegram from its lead character, Chance the Gardener: "Available in my garden or outside of it." A telephone number followed and when Kosinski dialed it Peter Sellers answered. It took eight years to get the project going and finally release the movie in 1979.

"Being There" is a difficult movie for reviewers to review. Some mistake it as a simple comedy and wonder why there aren't more "jokes" or some think it is a "message movie" trying to deliver a sermon. Ebert called it "counfoundingly provocative". What they fail to understand is that this is not a movie about what could happen, it's about what is happening - things like the blind acceptance of celebrity, a general disinterest in the truth and the wild lengths people will go to in order to justify themselves.

The makers are not trying to "say" anything. They are reporters relaying what they see. This is what gives the movie its inner strength, or "weird conceit" as Ebert fathoms it. This film is a towering achievement of insight - and that is what makes it so provocative.

Read more about it here.

Twenty-Five Years...

Thanks a bunch, John!

Style.

The Internet Debacle.

- An Alternative View by Janis Ian.

"The Internet, and downloading, are here to stay... Anyone who thinks otherwise should prepare themselves to end up on the slagheap of history." (Janis Ian during a live European radio interview, 9-1-98)

I vaguely remember the name - Janis Ian, an artist / musician herself, has some interesting points on the "Internet Debacle". If you like music, know what a download is and heard the music industry complain, add this one to your knowledge base.

Measures.

airtoons.com

Crude Designs.

New Report Charges Big Oil "Rip-Off" of Iraq:

The British group PLATFORM has just released a report: "Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth." Among the group's findings:

•"Current Iraqi oil policy will allocate the development of at least 64 percent of Iraq's reserves to foreign oil companies."
•"The estimated cost to Iraq over the life of the new oil contracts is $74 to $194 billion, compared with leaving oil development in public hands."
•"The contracts would guarantee massive profits to foreign companies, with rates of return of 42 to 162 percent. The kinds of contracts that will provide these returns are known as production sharing agreements (PSAs). PSAs have been heavily promoted by the U.S. government and oil majors and have the backing of senior figures in the Iraqi Oil Ministry. However PSAs last for 25-40 years, are usually secret and prevent governments from later altering the terms of the contract."

"Crude Designs" author and lead researcher, Greg Muttitt, said today: "The form of contracts being promoted is the most expensive and undemocratic option available. Iraq's oil should be for the benefit of the Iraqi people, not foreign oil companies."
He continued: "The new Iraqi constitution opened the way for much greater foreign involvement in Iraq's oilfields. Negotiations with oil companies are already underway, ahead of elections in December and prior to the passing of a new Petroleum Law. This report calls for full and open debate in Iraq about the way oil resources are to be developed, not 30-year deals negotiated behind closed doors."
Muttitt added: "Experience in other countries shows that oil companies generally get the upper hand in PSA negotiations with governments. The companies will inevitably use Iraq's current instability to push for highly advantageous terms and lock Iraq to those terms for decades."

What grain of salt, Paul?

Ford's Dissembly Line.

Perhaps trying to follow in the footsteps of its bigoted founder, Henry Ford, the Ford Motor Company has pulled its ads from all gay publications after a boycott threat from the American Family Association. Hmm... a bit more here. Or here. (When will The White House open a Guantanamo for fags? Does it exist already but just went unnoticed?)

Think Big, Henry!

Nixon: "I still think we ought to take the dikes out…. Will that drown people?"

Kissinger: "About 200,000 people."

Nixon: "No, no, no…. I'd rather use the nuclear bomb…. I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ's sake!"

(from the Nixon tapes, in which the president, who publicly expressed concern about the Indochina carnage, is caught on the White House recording system discussing with Henry A. Kissinger an extension of the bombing to new targets in North Vietnam)

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death is a book by Norman Solomon, which Russ Baker reviews in the L.A. Times on June 29, 2005:
"Does the unspooling Iraq saga fill you with a disquieting sense of déjà vu? Feel like you've been there, done that, been lied to and spun in this manner somewhere else, at some other point in time? Well, that's because you have.
Norman Solomon, a longtime media critic, lays out the elaborate hustle in his new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." It's all there — Vietnam, the invasions of Panama and Grenada, the first Gulf War and more. (Including a first chapter about the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, an unfortunately labored and obscure choice to lead off an otherwise compelling read.)
The villains are the government and the media: the government because time and again it remorselessly falsifies the reality of war, and the media because major press and broadcast outlets can't seem to wriggle free from self-interest long enough to speak truth to power.
Solomon offers 16 brutally persuasive chapters, each centered on a perennial falsehood, such as "If This War Is Wrong, Congress Will Stop It," "This Is About Human Rights" and "This Is Not at All About Oil or Corporate Profits"."
Have your grains of salt ready and hop over to war made easy . com to at least see another point of view on the other side of reality.

Related links:
• Institute for Public Accuracy
• Russ Baker
• Coldtype Net

Note: I added a permanent link to AlterNet to the links section to the right.

The Big Nipple.

Nipple Enlargements: Now More Common

"NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) - Breast implants are one thing, but some folks are so unsatisfied with the size of their nipples that they're having them surgically enhanced. It sounds like "nip-picking," but according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 501 women and 40 men had "breast nipple enlargement" surgery last year.
New York-based plastic surgeon Bruce Nadler performs the procedure on half a dozen people a year and says most do it because they want the "teasing look" of an erect nipple at all times. Still others - mostly men - are nipple fetishists who want their nipples to be the biggest, most desirable nipples possible."

What about brain enlargement, people???

Airtoons.

The Window Shaker.

Klick on the picture and see what Jack in the Box is doing with... ah, find out yourself!