Homer gets off work to discover his car being towed away. He complains to the driver who shows him the pink slip proving Homer signed it away.
Homer gets a ride to Moe's and gets soused. He tries to pay his bill with a credit card but it won't work. "Sorry Homer, but they say I gotta do this," says Moe as he cuts up the card.
Homer goes home to find another family living in his house. They tell him he apparently sold it to them last week. He moves his family into a hotel and goes to the police.
Wiggum says "It's a clear case of stolen identity. We're getting a lot of this."
"What are you going to do about it?" says Homer.
"Everything we can," says Wiggum, who goes back to doing a crossword puzzle. "What's another word for moron?" he asks.
Bart gets lost on the way to the hotel after school. He discovers Homer's car parked in someone's backyard.
He tells Homer who goes to the house to investigate. He confronts Snake, who has a good business going stealing identities. The house is full of big screen TVs and laptop computers.
"I want my identity back," says Homer.
"Problemo," says Snake, "the money is already spent. You're not going to turn me in, are you?"
"Turn you into what?" says Homer.
"Look, dude, here's a big screen TV. Take whatever you want. You can start stealing identities too. Here's a laptop computer. Just type in someone's name and there's a program that will hack into the government database and tell you their social security number. With that, you can become them."
Homer takes home the computer and decides to try Snake's program. He picks a random name out of the phone book, types it in, and wham, he's got the social security number. Soon he's got a dozen credit cards, all in the name of Dan Castellaneta.
Dan Castellaneta is just finishing up a hard day's work in the recording studio doing the voice of Homer Simpson when he goes outside to see his car is being towed away. Julie Kavner gives him a ride to a bar where he tries to pay for a drink only to have his credit card cut up by the bartender. He goes home to find another family living in his house, which he apparently sold last week.
He goes to the police who tell him "It's a clear case of stolen identity. It's happening to everybody. Their headquarters seems to be Springfield." Dan heads to Springfield.
Homer keeps working. Harry Shearer loses his yacht. Nancy Cartwright ends up a bum on the street.
Since Cartwright didn't show up for a recording session, Bart wakes up with a new voice. "It happens when you get older," says Homer. "My little boy is growing up," says Marge.
Dan confronts Homer. "If I were you, I wouldn't cop such a bad attitude," says Homer. "You are me," says Dan.
Dan tells Homer there's only one way to straighten this out. Homer has got to go talk to the owner of Fox.
Homer packs the whole family into the car and they drive all the way to Fox, which is a large building at the end of a yellow brick road on Pico. They knock on the front door. A small window opens. Homer tells him they're there to see the owner of Fox. The man (Smithers) says "Go away."
"But Dan Castellaneta sent us," says Homer.
"Come on in," says the man. "That's a horse of a different color."
Scrub scrub here, scrub scrub there, the Simpsons are cleaned up before their big meeting with the owner of Fox.
They enter a room where the ghostly face of Rupert Murdoch is surrounded by giant flames. "Go away and come again tomorrow," he says.
"Please sir, I just want my identity back," says Homer.
"I want our home back," says Marge.
"I want my real voice," says Bart.
"I want our old TV. Digital sucks," says Lisa.
Santa's Little Helper runs towards some curtains on the side.
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," says Murdoch.
Santa has pulled the curtains to reveal a man at a microphone saying "I am the great and powerful owner of Fox." It's Matt Groening.
"You're a very bad man," says Marge.
"No, I'm a good man," says Groening. "I'm just a very bad cartoonist."
"Enough with the self-deprecating humor," says Lisa. "Can we just go home?"
"You could have gone home whenever you wanted," says Groening. "All you have to do is click your heels three times and say 'I'm not a cartoon.'"
The Simpsons all click their heels and repeat, "I'm not a cartoon, I'm not a cartoon."
They disappear and reappear back at their sofa in their old house.
"So, it was all a dream," says Homer.
"I knew we weren't cartoons," says Marge.
Bart turns on the TV. It shows them sitting on their sofa. The final credits run, showing "Special Guests: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, etc."
Apology of the Week
Ice Cream Treat for Pedophiles by Paul Krassner
In the course of my career, I've had the honor of adding five words and phrases to the language of American slang:
"Yippie!" - which of course has been a shout of joy - forever, it seems - but my contribution became the nickname for the Youth International Party, which protested against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
"Jill off" - the female equivalent of jack off, in a fable I wrote in 1973, Tales of Tongue Fu, about a man with a 15-inch tongue who was very popular with the ladies.
"The Twinkie Defense" - coined in 1979 while I was covering the trial of Dan White, a former cop who murdered San Francisco's progressive mayor, George Moscone, who advocated the decriminalization of marijuana, and supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the United States.
"Disinfotainment" - I began using this term in the late 1980s to describe disinformation in the guise of entertainment.
"Soft-core pornography" - this became a regular feature in my countercultural magazine, The Realist, during the early 1960s, as a corollary of the Supreme Court's attempt to define hard-core pornography, and was always accompanied by a photograph, usually of an undoctored advertisement that deliberately relied on sexual titillation for its impact. Example: A few years ago, an ad in the Sunday supplements presented a young girl holding a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch and a carrot stick which she had obviously dipped in that salad dressing. The copy stated, "When Ranch Tastes The Way It's Supposed To, It Shows." And, as if to prove that claim, there was a white spurt on this pre-teen's smiling lips, blatantly resembling what would be a kiddie porn version of an adult facial.
Recently, the digitalized photo on this page made the rounds of the Internet. I forwarded it to Arianna Huffington's blogfest with this headline: "Ice Cream For Pedophiles - or, Sometimes You Just Don't Need Photoshop." But then I read the box of text beneath the "Lickable" heading: "Luscious, smooth, sweet and fun. These are just a few of the words we used to describe our new Vanilla Orange Sherbert Creamsicle. These words also apply equally to America's 2005 Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics Team and the beautiful young ladies that comprise it. In response, Breyers has created a flavor inspired by the sassy metallic orange leotards of our young feminine gymnasts who are eagerly busting their fresh asses to make every American proud. And of course, our RGT themed Creamsicle is as fun to eat as the girls are a pleasure to watch! So come join in on the action. All proceeds to sales from the Vanilla Orange Sherbert Swirls line go to help sponsor our young ladies in competition against other rhythmic gymnasts from around the world." Well, I was wrong. You did need Photoshop. Although I myself am a long-time professional prankster, I must confess that I was totally fooled. It was successful counterfeit because, in the context of a culture based on commercial exploitation, it had balanced, if only temporarily, on the cusp of what's possible and what's probable. I immediately sent an e-mail apologizing for perpetuating this hoax, but it had already been posted, and the resulting comments underscored my point. Samples: "Somewhere out there is a group of guys in suits who signed off on this. Who looked at this and said to themselves, 'That looks great! That's exactly the ad we want for our company!' And there has to be a marketing guy shaking his head, saying, 'But...I was kidding.'" "You realize that the 'porn' is in the viewers' imagination, don't you? There is nothing in that picture that would titillate anyone except a very few bent people. We all understand the significance of a crotch shot, so should we ban kids from Olympic games? And how about Miss America, that great Christian burlesque show? Or, more to the point, the mini Miss America contests for six- to ten-year-olds that red-staters love so much?" "In a true democracy and free society, no one should feel afraid of information. This ad (phony for sure) is disturbing as it should be. But it can be a lesson for people to start noticing just how manipulating advertising has become as advertisers grow more desperate all the time to force people to see ads." "Wow, I feel strangely compelled to run out and eat a gymnast! What effective advertising!"
And so I leave you now, with a way to tell when a photo can be considered soft-core porn. It gives you a soft-on.
One of the problems, which has resulted in the debacle we now face in Iraq, is a press corps that seems to be more interested in cuddling up to the powers that be than giving the public information that it needs. It is a lack of historical context and an unwillingness to ask tough questions that has made our press dupes for those who wish to give us disinformation. Instead of asking tough questions; they sit idly by and allow the administration to broadcast their scenarios without serious analysis as to whether what they say is true or not.
During the election of 2004, the right-wing press vilified John Kerry for his activates in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. They were especially incensed by his charges that American soldiers had committed barbarous acts such as cutting off ears, noses and other unspeakable acts. What was never brought up by the press was whether these actions were true. To find this out all they had to do was ask three reporters for the Toledo Blade whether it was true. The reporters had written a series about a unit that was created especially for terrorizing the Vietnamese countryside and how this was covered up by our government. The men who decided to bury a report from the army on the atrocities were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Sound familiar?
Tiger Force was a special unit that was sent to do commando work but the pressure of the war and the casualties they had suffered caused them to do things that many would rather forget. This is historic fact but the press never asked these reporters, who won a Pulitzer Prize for their work, to appear on one of their shows and answer any questions about what Kerry had said. The truth, and the search for truth, seems to be low on the agenda for the Washington press corps.
Afghan blogs, Montenegro blogs, Irani and Iraqi blogs, they're all at Global Voices Online. Get the news of the world from the people themselves, not the corrupt official news sources. All kinds of news here that nobody, absolutely nobody, is reporting in America. Even simply sites such as Hindus trading recipes put an interesting spin on your view of the world. Among other things, I found an MP3 of the song Baba Yetu (the lord's prayer sung in Swahili) sung by the Stanford University music group Talisman A Cappella. It'll show up on American radio when Osama bin Laden gets circumcised, and it is right up there with the opening of The Lion King.
Tony Peyser's Blue State Jukebox is a collection of music reviews that will turn you on to dozens of incredible CDs from people you've never heard of, fulfilling his promise of "sharing with readers musical artists who have real talent, singular perspectives on what's going on in the world and are currently flying under the pop music radar." No actual MP3s but hey, just look 'em up in Limewire (Not Morpheus!) and download away.
Answers to Last Issue's Stupid Questions
Question one: Linda Lightfoot's Swift-Boat e-mail contained a list of everyone she sent it to. Since she refused to correct her error, I asked if I should just forward the Snopes links to all of them.
The answer was overwhelmingly yes, with several hell yeses, and one Absofuckinlutely. Some comments...
MOST DEFINITELY send it to the whole list. That kind of bullshit needs to stop. It's one thing to get this crap from the "liberal media" all the time, who never seem to check THEIR facts either, but to get it from REAL people. How much more of a good dry reaming (sans reach around) can the average working class person take from these fucking power hungry assholes, before they wake up? I get emails which are very inflammatory towards the Moslems in general, and Bin Laden in particular. Aren't they all gonna be embarrassed when they find out it was George and his henchmen who brought down the twin towers?
- Ansel C. Gunn
Look at it this way: Let's say your email is 10K bytes in size, and you forward it to ten friends. That's an amplification of 10X per hop.
Hop | Number of Recipients | Bytes of Bandwidth Used
Notice that between the 8th and 9th hop you have sent the message to every single person on the Internet (about 200 million worldwide) and used up at least 2 terabytes of bandwidth, or the full capacity of over 5 million DSL accounts. All for one stupid joke or other inane message you probably wouldn't even bother to cut out of a newspaper and post on your fridge. - RGF
I have tried and tried to refer those people who send me this off the wall bullshit to the SNOPES site but to no avail. The people who send this stuff on are known as "FORWARDERS" and they never let their fingers come in contact with their keyboard except to forward this Bullshit. Forgive them dear lord because the stupid bastards cannot understand what they forwardith.
- Margie Kopins
Having received a similar outpouring of bile before the 2004 election when I tried to correct a slightly-conservative (slighty-whitey?) friend's notion that Bush wasn't *that* rich and only lived on his 'meager' presidential salary (practically born in a log cabin), while Kerry was a gazillionaire who snorted caviar off the rumps of $1,000-a-night hookers (may be true, but Bush is still a very rich man), a correction for which I was derided as a 'wacko pinko commie liberal puke,' I can sympathize with your case. Go ahead, send it on; Linda's friends sound like they are impervious to annoyance, seeing as how they correspond with Ms. Lighthead in the first place, and either they'll appreciate the facts, or you'll have more entertaining hate mail to share with your readers.
- RS Janes
And so I sent it off. Turns out several others on her list had written her about her mistake, and she replied with the same aplomb, telling one of them "I sent you that bill and hillary email AS A JOKE, you humor-challenged asshole!" I offered to post Linda's reply to me. Here it is...
I've left NetWits, Michael -- now leave me the fuck alone. Do not ever email me again. I do not need this kind of harrassment from someone of your ilk.
I fucking apologize -- are you happy now? Feel like you won? Feeling good about yourself.
Fuck you.
- St. James
And the best comment, of course, from W. Bruce Cameron,
For the record, I'm not reading any of these. And I think if you want to read a bunch of long winded, pointless drivel, you should all buy my book, How to Remodel a Man.
Question two: Why the fuck are the season finales of House, Boston Legal, and Scrubs all on at the same time?
so that i can ignore them all without spending too much of my valuable time in doing so. who gives a fuck is a better question. this one was stupid. [Thank you. It IS called the stupid question of the week.]
- chris from boca
Since I only watch Boston Legal, the Scrubs are not at my House and no good answer rises to the Surface -- I'm just Lost in The Twilight Zone. A bad answer might be because Everybody Loves Raymond's Desperate Housewives and his Will & Grace are weak, but it's All in the Family so I'll Leave It to Beaver, one of The Sopranos, to sing that tune. Happy Days and Good Times are surely ahead! Oh, get Real; Time waits for no American, Idol or not. - RSJ
The fact that they are on at the same time should be of no consequence to you as House is the only one worth your valuable time. Your side note: House is not about the disease, IMHO, but about the ethical dilemmas that transpire in the search for the cure. That’s what makes it head and tales about the rest.
- Ben Larson
I'll tell you the reason why all the season finales are competing against each other. The people at the networks are fucking bastards! I only watch a few selected shows and for some reason these fucking network bastards keep putting them in the same time slots. I tape a lot of stuff. - Poopsie
The doctors from House and Scrubs like to be on when Captain Kirk and Murphy Brown are otherwise occupied. It cuts down on their chances of being sued for malpractice.
- Locke
Because TiVo's nefarious plot to be ubiquitous hasn't come to pass yet. I don't have it either. Remember, networks did this even before domestic VCR's were available. (Trivia note: Elvis bought the first one.) However, MY stupid question is, since both TiVo and VCR's are available, why is this an issue with you? Get three friends in a pool, each agreeing to tape one of the shows, and gather around the biggest TV and watch them. Kind regards, - Jimmy McConnell
Stupid Question of the Week
My whole neighborhood suffered a power blackout all day Monday, which means I not only missed the two-hour season finale of 24, of which I'd seen the entire previous 22 hours, but the SERIES finale of Alias, of which I'd seen the entire previous five years. Anybody got copies?
Meanwhile, please tell me what didn't happen. No spoilers, please, just concise descriptions of how 24 and Alias DIDN'T end. For 24, please include a scene where Jack Bauer punches the President of the United States in the face, and for Alias, please include a scene where Rachel Nichols takes her clothes off. (If you want to tell me how Will and Grace didn't end, that's okay too.)
Galleries of the Week
Rob Gonsalves is the spiritual descendent of M.C. Escher.
The most common side effects of the nicotine patch are skin rash, sweating, stomach pain, anxiety, dizziness, trouble sleeping, nausea, sore throat and fast heartbeat.
Don't Take My Word for It
"The Persian Gulf sits on top of the greatest pool of oil reserves in the world. Over the past few decades, it has been the site of two major wars, an Islamic revolution, and political and economic developments that have affected every country in the world. It is also the home of more than 118 million people, whose cultures extend back to the origins of recorded history.
"Nevertheless, for most non-specialists the Gulf remains a mysterious and even forbidding part of the world. This site hopes to remove some of the mystery. With a few clicks of your mouse, you can visit any of these countries, read their local newspapers, check the latest news from the region, and find information about every aspect of their history, geography, politics, economics, military forces and much more.
"We have identified what we believe are the most informative and reliable sources of information about the Persian Gulf. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of every item of information that you may find in the many sources collected here, but we have made it as easy as possible to cross-check facts between data collections located throughout the world."
"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three."
- Alice Kahn -
"As I occasionally survey the pack of sycophantic shih tzus in the Washington press corps, wriggling on their bellies to kiss the feet of those in power, I feel plumb discouraged about the future of journalism.
"It's like a cross between Versailles under Louis XIV and high school: obsequious courtiers flattering their way to favor, plus the silly cliques of the 'in crowd' and 'out crowd.' On the other hand, I am greatly cheered by the young journalists in the blogosphere who have now whelped a perfect litter of books worth paying attention to.
"The extent to which corporate power has taken over the country and is running the table cannot be exaggerated and must not be ignored. Sirota has not only collected much new and useful information, he has put it into a package that provides handy weapons to fight back."
"Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis."
- John Dewey -
"I smell mendacity! The sticky-sweet Atlanta drawl of the PR flack for America's private KGB was dancing in rhetorical circles with Randi Rhodes, Air American, broadcast yesterday.. Unfortunately for the Bush-friendly Spies-R-Us contractor, Randi also has a keen nose for the telltale scent of pure bullshit. "By 'private KGB,' I mean ChoicePoint, Inc., the Atlanta company that keeps over 16 billion records on Americans which it sells to the FBI, Homeland Security and, through a bit of a slip-up, identity thieves. "They are watching you because George and Dick don't have time to track everyone in America (and that would be illegal, to boot), ChoicePoint does it. Then turns over the electronic you - cross-matched profiles of voting registration, your DNA info and who knows what else - for a price...
"The company's name came up because of the Bush regime's getting caught with their hands in the data jar: spying on Americans, sucking our phone records into data bases where George and Dick can peruse them at leisure, without warrants. "ChoicePoint's the big banana in the data game, with fat no-bid contracts with Big Brother Bush's agency and the Department of Fatherland Security. (Homeland? Deutschland? Whatever.) Other governments, including Mexico, threatened ChoicePoint operatives with arrest for their use and misuse of data, but Dick and George like'm just fine. That's because ChoicePoint provides just the data that suits their needs -- not necessarily accurate, but accurate is not what is needed. "For example, ChoicePoint is the company that gave Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush the list of Florida voters, most of them Black, which were removed as 'felons' before the 2000 election. The list was ridiculously inaccurate -- these were innocent citizens - but those African-Americans lost their voting rights anyway and Jeb's brother thereby took the White House. "That's not nice, what Jeb and Katherine did - but ChoicePoint kept silent. In return, they received a high, and highly suspect, fee for their 'work.' "And that's dangerous. Because, after ChoicePoint selected our president for us, our president selected them for no-bid jobs to save us from terrorists - which they do by keeping track of us. (Odd, I thought Americans were the VICTIMS of terror - they've made us the SUSPECTS.)"
"Right now there is a fierce Capitol Hill war being waged over whether the Internet will continue to belong to the citizens of America or will start to move down the path that cable television went: only the big players will survive as fully accessible content providers, as the Telecom broadband providers start to set up toll gates on the Net.
"To make this account simple: advocates of democracy on the Internet with virtually no barriers for content entry are known as proponents of "net neutrality." The Telecom companies who want to start charging tolls for content, among other nefarious plans, are the bad guys.
"Right now, many of the leading progressive blogs on the net are running ads by the bad guys. Not only are these ads promoting the corporate takeover of Internet content, they are totally misleading, along the lines of the nuke industry running ads on 'How Nuclear Leaks Make Your Community Healthier.'"
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."
- John Adams -
"Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute a front group funded by ExxonMobil and other big oil companies launched two advertisements in response to Al Gore's new movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
"The first ad portrays global warming science as a vicious smear campaign against carbon dioxide. The ad, which despite appearances is not an SNL parody, helpfully reminds us that carbon dioxide is 'essential to life' because we 'breath it out.'
"Its comforting to know that this is the best global warming rejectionists can come up with. There are plenty of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities but harmful in extremely large quantities. (For example, drinking a few glasses of water is beneficial. Drinking 10 gallons of water can kill you.) We need some carbon dioxide, but too much causes global warming."
"At last count Halliburton had 58 offshore subsidiaries in Caribbean tax havens. With Cheney at the helm Halliburton's tax payments to the U.S. went from $302 million in 1998 to zero in 1999, when they also received a refund of $85 million from the Internal Revenue Service.
"During Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000, Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. The Halliburton subsidiary does approximately $40 million a year worth of oil field service work for the Iranian government. 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl visited the subsidiary in the Cayman Islands and found that it had no office and no employees. The mailing address was a local bank with which the subsidiary is registered. Stahl was met there by the banks manager who informed her that all mail to the subsidiary is forwarded to Halliburton headquarters in Houston. Halliburton had created the subsidiary to allow itself to do illegal business with a rogue state and to skip out on its taxes in the process.
"With Iran's president vowing to destroy Israel and being accused by the Bush administration of harboring and aiding al-Qaeda operatives, Cheney's company is doing business with Iran through a subsidiary and dodging its tax obligations to the U.S."
"I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster."
- Franklin Roosevelt did during World War II -
"Last week, the Secret Service turned over its records of Jack Abramoff's White House visits to Judicial Watch. The records indicated a paltry two visits - an unbelievably low tally.
"Everybody knew that Judicial Watch had gotten the shaft. It just wasn't clear how.
"Well, here's how: the Secret Service doesn't have the records - the White House does. That's because the Secret Service transfers their more comprehensive visitor logs, called WAVES (Workers Appointments and Visitors Entry System) records, to the White House every 60 days. If Judicial Watch, or anyone else, wants to find out how often Jack Abramoff visited the White House, they'll have to FOIA (and then probably sue) the Executive Office of the President. All they'll get from the Secret Service are Access Control Records, which, as we found out last Wednesday, don't tell you very much...
"So the Secret Service only has WAVES dating back to October 2004. That's long after Abramoff would have been welcome at the White House - The Washington Post kicked off the Abramoff scandal in February of that year. And that's why the search turned up nothing from the WAVES."
"If you listen to the Bush version of reality, the president is all powerful. In that version, we are fighting a war against terrorism, which is a war that will never end. And as long as we are at war (forever), there is no limit to the war-fighting powers the president can claim as commander in chief.
"So we've kidnapped people and sent them off to be tortured in the extraordinary rendition program; and we've incarcerated people at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere without trial or even the right to know the charges against them; and we're allowing the C.I.A. to operate super-secret prisons where God-knows-what-all is going on; and we're listening in on the phone calls and reading the e-mail of innocent Americans without warrants; and on and on and on.
"The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.
"Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.
"There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George W. Bush has done to his country."
"Self-important, obstinate, swept away by the pride of wealth, they ostentatiously perform sacrifices without any regard for their purpose. Egotistical, violent, arrogant, lustful, angry, envious of everyone, they abuse my presence within their own bodies and in the bodies of others."
- Bhagavad Gita: 16:17-18 -
"A sodomite got very excited looking at a zoology text. Does this make it pornography?"
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec -
"I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
- Harry S Truman -
"There are many in the mainstream media who promote a conspiratorial origin of the Drug War. Their claim is that the Congress, CIA, DEA, etc. (all groups noted for their altruism and concern for the common man) are engaged in a massive conspiracy to promote public health by raising the cost of certain drugs. Like most conspiracy theories, it is somewhat non-disprovable as to its claims for the motivations of the political classes. However, we can disprove the notion that raising the cost of drugs to users is good for them.
"There have been many controlled experiments in this field. Take the previously mentioned case of US alcohol Prohibition. Deaths from adulterated alcohol soared during Prohibition, then went back down after repeal. Murder rates also went up, as did the economic cost of providing alcohol. Alcoholism rates were not affected. Then to add insult to injury, large well-controlled medical studies proved that moderate alcohol consumption, especially of red wine, is an important component of cardiac health. So it's a good thing that Prohibition failed so completely, or millions would have suffered early heart attacks.
"Another controlled experiment was Canada's attempt to put a $5 tax on cigarettes. Mass smuggling began immediately through the Mohawk Nation, with the usual murders and mayhem. Did Canadians quit smoking because their nicotine cost more? Did anyone expect them to? Of course not. New York has tried the same thing many times, with similar consequences.
"The same story is repeated with opiates and cocaine. Before the Harrison Act, Americans used cocaine and opiates. Just like Rush Limbaugh, most of them used their drugs to overcome the various pains of life, while continuing to hold down their jobs and live their lives. Cheap heroin and cocaine didn't cause financial havoc for the users. And of course, most people weren't affected - because they didn't touch the stuff. Abstinence was somewhat promoted by the fact that drugstore sellers of legal drugs didn't come into the junior high schools and push their wares.
Death rates from illegal drugs are less than precise. Still, it is clear that hundreds of thousands of people die from tobacco use yearly, while deaths from all illegal drugs are estimated to be in the neighborhood of 5,000. Deaths from alcoholism and alcohol/drug interactions are in the tens of thousands; overdose deaths from marijuana (a drug with some substitution potential for alcohol) are zero.
"The final nail in the benevolent-conspiracy theory is this: it is forbidden to sell safer alternative recreational drugs. The pharmaceutical companies are quite capable of providing drugs that mimic alcohol, nicotine, or whatever you want with fewer side effects. In fact, there is an alcohol mimic that has a 'sober-up pill' to go with it; anyone concerned about the safety of children on the highways would have to see this as a positive social good. But there is no FDA category for 'recreational drug.' Anyone who tries to save the cirrhotic liver of the alcoholic will be locked up. This shows that whatever the motivation of the Drug War, it isn't concern for health...
"Cost #3: Loss of labor. About 1.5 million people were arrested for drug possession and/or sale in 2003. The overall US prison and jail population is over 2 million. Let's say roughly half that number is related to the drug war. When each drug user is criminalized, they turn from a worker making an average of $40,000 to an inmate costing around $30,000; that would be another $70 billion or so annually.
"The obvious solution for the productive classes is to abolish all price supports, whether for milk, cocaine, or sugar. Abolition of Drug Prohibition in the US would effectively end it worldwide. This would return trillions of dollars and millions of people to productive work, and divert their support from the parasitic classes around the world.
"The obvious solution for the political class is the opposite; their solution is to try to make nicotine, caffeine, and phenylethylamine illegal too. If you like your green tea or dark chocolate, better oppose cocaine price supports on principle."
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
- Jeannette Rankin -
"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."
- Jules Renard -
"I just read where Mexico's Cantarell oil field is the second-largest oil field IN THE WORLD. Wow! So why is that country so poor? And, if Mexico has all that oil, why are poverty-stricken illegal immigrants invading our home? Maybe they are just following the trail of booty stolen from their own looted homes."
"The US government continues an unwinnable war in Iraq while building massive permanent bases and the largest embassy compound ever built. Not only does the US have no intention of leaving Iraq, it has committed - whether under Republican or Democratic leadership - to staying forever - whatever that means. The Empire's position is clear, not as a result of what it says, but as a result of what it has done. America's primary plan to deal with Peak Oil is to fight or intimidate for energy supplies wherever it deems necessary. That, of course, has forced the rest of the world - with a few notable exceptions like Norway and Brazil - to dance to the same sheet music. As a result, I would estimate that of every ten units of energy (or money) expended preparing for Peak Oil today, nine are spent preparing for war while only one is spent building lifeboats and teaching people how to survive. This is sheer insanity.
"On January 12, Britain's Independent announced that Norway had begun preparations for a global environmental and economic collapse. The story reported that Norway has revealed a plan to build a 'doomsday vault' hewn out of an Arctic mountain to store two million crop seeds in the event of a global disaster. The store is designed to hold all the seeds representing the world's crops and is being built to safeguard future food supplies in the event of widespread environmental collapse.
"When one is preoccupied with survival, anything beyond survival becomes an imponderable luxury. And to mistakenly label a luxury a necessity makes it impossible to survive.
"Let us not forget that in order to get to the Post-carbon world that is inevitable we must first survive the collapse and the die off that is inevitable. The challenges of the transition period will be completely different from the challenges of living in a world without cheap energy.
"If the spiritual or religious paradigm that you live under influences your thinking in either direction, then that paradigm is your enemy and my enemy. What is it that you think about before you think? Find it, identify it, and discard anything that is not a survival necessity.
"The only thing that the universe is offering the human species now is the opportunity to change - to evolve or to perish.
"Perhaps there is a new understanding of God awaiting those who survive. I have long held the personal belief that religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell and that true spirituality is for those who have already been there.
"What I do know, because I have faced many survival challenges in my life, is that the less baggage one takes into any survival situation, the more likely one is to survive."
"The mission of Post Carbon Institute is to assist in the effort to relocalize communities and adapt to an energy constrained world. Post Carbon Institute is a think, action and education tank offering research, project tools, education and information to implement proactive strategies to adapt to an energy constrained world.
"The development of Post Carbon Institute came out of concern for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on cheap energy. Our main response to these concerns is the strategy of Relocalization, which aims to rebuild societies based on the local production of food and energy, and the Relocalization of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of Relocalization are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity.
"We, the descendants of the drunken, violent Irishmen, Jewish gangsters, Italians (!), etc., accuse Mexicans of causing crime. Well, when you make it illegal for people to work, then by definition they cause crime by supporting themselves with honest labor. Amazingly, the vast majority of them manage to do so in spite of every obstacle that government puts in their way. Of course people living with insecure property rights cannot be as stable as those whose natural rights are (somewhat) respected by the laws. Making immigration legal would instantly raise the stability, incentives, and productivity of all the currently illegal workers. Legal status would make it more profitable for the workers to invest in their own homes, education, retirement funds, etc. The high crime rate in the US comes from two things that are not part of our traditional Irish-German-Italian-African-Japanese-etc. culture (and therefore did not exist during the previous immigration waves): a permanent welfare class, and Drug Prohibition. Illegal immigrants did not cause either of these problems...
"Really Want to Reduce Immigration?
"The truth is that most people don't come here because they are desperate to leave their family to live in the land of Eminem and Britney Spears. They come because the American taxpayer funds an oligarchy or dictatorship that makes it very difficult for them to make a living in their home country.
"Governments everywhere in the world are dependent on US taxpayer money. This money is what allows them to exist independent of economic reality. The 'Mexican' government is purely a creation of the US taxpayer, funded by periodic $50 billion bailouts. If you want Mexicans to be able to stay in Mexico , quit letting your politicians spend your money to support the parasitic Mexican political kleptocracy."
dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is free and may be reproduced in any form, preferably parchment. It consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and recycled randomly. It is sent all over the place, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice. If you see a joke, graphic, or news item that came from or through you, thanks, send more, and please accept the fact that much of dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is unacknowledgeable, and if I sought permission from everyone whose bastardized material showed up here, I'd never get anything else done. Please note that I don't even put my own name on it. If you're still pissed off, hey, it's either satire or fair use.
Michelle Goldberg: Saving Secular Society (inthesetimes.com)
Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends, they always ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current.
An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore has traveled the world delivering a presentation on the global climate change, proving that humankind must confront global warming now or face devastating consequences--this film captures his journey as a worldwide environmental champion.
Purples Gene's review of listening to Howard Stern on Sirius Satellite radio while pumping gas with the door open so he could hear:
Warning:
Don't turn your Satellite radio up loud so you can listen to the Howard Stern's show while you're pumping gas with soccer moms and their small kids within earshot…….
I'm really not a prude at all and I love to shock people but I had an odd experience yesterday…………..
You see, my lovely wife Sharon knew that I sometimes in the morning tuned in to the Howard Stern Show when it was on terrestrial radio….then he signed a ˝ billion dollar deal and went to satellite radio…partly to escape the restrictions and the lawsuits by the FCC …but also to continue his wild and crazy brand of sick and sexy humor. So for Xmas, Sharon got me hooked up with Sirius Satellite and the new Howard Stern show.
OK…..he's got the same Whack Pack of crazy characters including High Pitch Eric, John the Farter, Beetlejuice, Wendy the Retard, Crackhead Bob, Stuttering John, Sal the Stockbroker, Erik the Midget (with the teeny peenie) and his MC pals Robin, Artie and Babba Booie……and of course a constant stream of Hookers, Porn stars and crack whores………..
Today he has a naked Paris throwing up on Jeff the Drunk and Richard is going suck smoke out of Jennifer Steele's Ass Bong….and now he is playing an excerpt of Ronnie the Limo Driver's raunchy roast……
Cut back to me filling my gas tank up at the local station with an unsuspecting audience of moms and kids……at full blast Howard plays a piece from Ronnie the Limo Driver drunk off his ass at a tittie bar yelling at the top of his voice "Let's fuck the shit out of these bitches……" over and over again…….
Everyone looked away from me as I ran back to my console and turned it down….way down…how about OFF!
I think I'm over Howard and his nutty nasty naked seedy sick sarcastic show…I actually understand now why Sharon asks me to turn off Howard when she's in the car with me…..I also realized how much she must love me to give me such a gift….. but…
Goodbye Howard…you lost me yesterday…could it be that I no longer find any "socially redeemable value" in your show????????
Purple Gene gives the Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio 1 pitiful and flaccid uncircumcised penis out of 10 for not taking his creativity to another level!
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'NUMB3RS', followed by a RERUN'CSI: The Original One', then a RERUN'Without A Trace'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Halle Berry and Jesse James.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Brooks and Dunn and Pauley Perrette.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'My Name Is Earl', followed by a RERUN'The Office', then another RERUN'My Name Is Earl', followed by another RERUN'The Office', then a RERUN'ER' (starts 1 minute before the top of the hour).
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Dane Cook, Taylor Hicks, and the Flaming Lips.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Jennifer Aniston and Victor Varnado.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Ginnifer Goodwin and Hoobastank.
ABC starts the night with the movie 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle', followed by 'Primetime'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel are Teri Hatcher, Umphrey's McGee and Huey Lewis.
The WB offers a RERUN'Smallville', followed by a RERUN'Supernatural'.
Faux has the SEASON PREMIERE'So You Think You Can Dance'.
UPN has a RERUN'Everybody Hates Chris', followed by a RERUN'Love, Inc.', then a RERUN'Eve', followed by a RERUN'Cuts'.
A&E has 'Cold Case Files', 'The First 48', then the FRESH'Combat Diary: The Marines Of Lime Company'.
AMC offers the movie 'Insomnia', followed by the movie 'Ronin', then the movie 'Colors'.
BBC -
[2pm] 'As Time Goes By' - Episode 6;
[2:40pm] 'Are You Being Served' - Up Captain Peacock;
[3:20pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 2;
[4pm] 'My Hero' - Episode 5;
[4:40pm] 'My Family' - Driving Miss Crazy;
[5:20pm] 'My Family' - I Second That Emulsion;
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Episode 2;
[7pm] 'The Benny Hill Show' - Episode 26;
[8pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 8;
[8:30pm] 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' - Episode 2;
[9pm] 'Waking the Dead' - Episode 2;
[11pm] 'Ed vs Spencer' - Ep 3 Who Can Make Themselves The Sickest?;
[11:30pm] 'Bromwell High' - Ep 10 Perfect;
[12am] 'Green Wing' - Episode 4;
[1am] 'Waking the Dead' - Episode 2;
[3am] 'This Life' - Unusual Suspect;
[4am] 'This Life' - He's Leaving Home;
[5am] 'This Life' - Room With a Queue;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Outrageous Live TV 3', 'Jake Effect', another 'Jake Effect', still another 'Jake Effect', yet another 'Jake Effect', even yet another 'Jake Effect', and one more 'Jake Effect'.
Comedy Central has 'Reno 911!', another 'Reno 911!', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', 'Show Biz Show With David Spade', and another 'South Park'.
On a RERUNJon Stewart (from 5/11/06) is Francis Fukuyama.
On a RERUNColbert Report (from 5/11/06) is Madeleine Albright.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Decoding The Past', another 'Decoding The Past', and 'Ben Franklin Tech'.
IFC -
[6AM] Wendigo;
[7:45AM] The Secret Agent;
[9:30AM] Spring Forward;
[11:30AM] Joe Gould's Secret;
[1:30PM] The Secret Agent;
[3:10PM] Secrets & Lies;
[5:30PM] Spring Forward;
[6:35PM] The Sheltering Sky;
[7:25PM] Wendigo;
[9PM] The Dreamlife Of Angels;
[11PM] The Henry Rollins Show #8;
[11:30PM] Samurai 7 Episode #8: The Guardians;
[12:05AM] Scream 2;
[2:05AM] The Henry Rollins Show #8;
[2:30AM] Samurai 7 Episode #8: The Guardians;
[3AM] Scream 2;
[5AM] Murder By Numbers. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has the movie 'The Man-Thing', followed by the movie 'The Hulk'.
Sundance -
[6:15AM] Greendale;
[7:45AM] Playing for Change;
[9AM] The Corporation;
[11:30AM] Reconstruction;
[1PM] In Short: In Short: Israel 3;
[1:35PM] The Magic of Fellini;
[2:35PM] The Border;
[4:30PM] A Letter to True;
[6PM] The Firefly Man;
[6:15PM] The Object Of Beauty;
[8PM] Carrington;
[10PM] Reconstruction;
[11:30PM] Monkey Dust: Episode 5;
[12AM] Puberty Blues;
[1:30AM] Porn Shutdown;
[2:30AM] His Secret Life;
[4:15AM] Stan the Flasher;
[5:30AM] A Letter to True. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Multi-Grammy Awards winner Quincy Jones answers a question beside a Beijing Olympics logo during a news conference in Beijing May 24, 2006. Famed American impresario Quincy Jones has offered to write a theme tune for the 2008 Beijing Olympics after being turned into an enthusiastic Sinophile by his first trip to China. The 73-year-old musician, composer, conductor and producer had his offer gratefully accepted by the organisers of the Games, although they said they would continue with their official song competition for the Olympics. 'I would be very proud to write and orchestrate the theme to the 2008 Olympic Games,' Jones said.
Photo by Claro Cortes IV
Folk singer Joan Baez and tree-sitter Julia "Butterfly" Hill have taken up residence in a tree to raise awareness about a 14-acre urban farm threatened with demolition.
Hundreds of farmers could face evictions after The Trust for Public Land came up $10 million short in its bid to buy the site. The nonprofit group was not able to raise the $16.35 million required by the time the purchase option expired Monday.
The trust signed a contract in April with landowner Ralph Horowitz to buy 10 of the 14 acres in south Los Angeles where about 350 families, most of them working-class immigrants from Central America, tend small plots of fruits and vegetables.
Kenny Chesney won the top prize at the Academy of Country Music Awards for the second consecutive year on Tuesday, while the Dixie Chicks received a crowd-pleasing verbal smack from the show's host.
The show's host, country veteran Reba McEntire, drew the loudest applause when she "joked" about the Dixie Chicks "putting their foot in their mouth." The country trio has been on the outs with a large swathe of Nashville since singer Natalie Maines said in 2003 that she was ashamed to come from the same state as fellow carpetbagger Texan resident George W. Bush.
The Dixie Chicks are expected to open at the No. 1 on the U.S. pop album charts when data are released on Wednesday with their first release since then, "Taking the Long Way." The defiant first single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," bombed was blacklisted at country radio, evidently reopening old wounds.
Singer/songwriter James Taylor waves before throwing the ceremonial first pitch prior to the baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees at Fenway Park in Boston Wednesday, May 24, 2006.
Photo by Elise Amendola
The United States has an "obsession" with power and is making mistakes in the way it pressures other countries to cooperate in its "war on terror", a leading Mexican director said at the Cannes film festival.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu made the jabs during the presentation of his film, "Babel", which itself provides subtle criticism of the US.
"There is an obsession in the United States today... about, you know, showing the power but at the same time having the fear of the other," he said.
"The border, what is happening, is terrible," he said. "The way they try to pretend that everybody is a terrorist."
The federal agency that regulates telecommunications has declined to look into allegations that phone companies broke laws by sharing customer records with the government's biggest spy agency.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said in a letter that the agency doesn't have the power to review classified information, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said Tuesday.
"The classified nature of the NSA's activities makes us unable to investigate the alleged violations discussed in your letter," Martin, a Republican, wrote in a letter dated Monday.
Lawyers on both sides of the CBS Corp. and Howard Stern breach of contract lawsuit said Wednesday they have settled.
A clerk in the courtroom of Judicial Hearing Officer Ira Gammerman said lawyers for the parties called around 3:15 p.m. to announce that they had an agreement. The clerk said that as far as she knew they did not divulge details.
A woman in the office of Stern's lawyer, Peter Parcher, confirmed that the sides had agreed to a settlement, but she said the agreement had not been signed yet. She said Parcher was not available to comment.
Hasbro Inc. shelved plans Wednesday to release a line of dolls based on the Pussycat Dolls, an all-female music group known for risque lyrics and skimpy outfits.
Hasbro, the nation's second biggest toy maker, said it decided the dolls were "inappropriate" for the company to market and that the pop group catered to a more mature audience.
The move comes amid criticism from a national advocacy group, Dads & Daughters, that had campaigned against the doll line.
The company had reached a deal with Interscope Records, the group's label, to release dolls modeled after the popular sextet - whose songs include the hit single, "Don't Cha." But it released a statement Wednesday saying it had abandoned plans for the doll line.
In this photo provided by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, Giles Martin, left, and Sir George Martin reflect on the music of The Beatles at a media sneak preview of The Beatles 'LOVE' presented by Cirque du Soleil at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Wednesday, May 24, 2006.
Photo by Darrin Bush
A handwritten letter by Beatles legend John Lennon, in which he defended the band's early covers, fetched 12,000 pounds (17,600 euros, 22,400 dollars) at a London auction.
It was sent to a journalist at the New York Times newspaper in 1971 -- a year after the group officially disbanded -- to dispute claims that the band imitated and exploited African-American artists during their early years.
The outspoken musician was apparently enraged and fired off a retaliation, written on American Airlines notepaper.
Singer Elton John accepted libel damages of 100,000 pounds ($188,000) on Wednesday from a newspaper that reported he behaved like "tinpot dictator" by ordering guests at his annual charity ball not to approach him.
In a brief hearing at London's High Court, the singer's solicitor, Nigel Tait, told the judge the claims made in the Daily Mail in June 2005 had "caused Sir Elton considerable embarrassment and distress."
It was the second time John had won damages from a newspaper over the same allegation. In February, he accepted an undisclosed sum from the Sunday Times.
American director Francis Ford Coppola, left, and his wife Eleonor arrive for the screening of the film 'Marie-Antoinette,' at the 59th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Wednesday, May 24, 2006.
Photo by Francois Mori
They're driving a stake through the heart of "Lestat."
The $10 million Elton John-Bernie Taupin musical inspired by Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles" will close Sunday after a disappointing run of 39 performances.
The show opened April 25 to negative reviews and has seen its box-office grosses steadily sink since then. Last week, for example, the expensive show, which stars Hugh Panaro as the neck-chomping vampire, grossed $448,525, playing to only 53 percent capacity at the Palace Theatre.
U.S. actress Faye Dunaway arrives for a screening of U.S. director Sofia Coppola's in competition film 'Marie Antoinette' at the 59th Cannes Film Festival May 24, 2006.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
Thieves stole a valuable graphic print by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch from a private property outside the town of Hoerby, southern Sweden, Swedish police said.
With the help of Oslo's Munch Museum, police identified the stolen piece as a woodcut entitled "Towards the Forest II", from 1915.
The work is believed to be worth in excess of one million Swedish kronor (138,000 dollars 107,000 euros), police said.
Guests hold hukka pipes at the Dubai International Film Festival party during the 59th Cannes Film Festival in France May 23, 2006. The upcoming Dubai film festival begins December 10.
Photo by Mario Anzuoni
A U.S. study concludes there is no link between smoking marijuana and increased risk of lung cancer -- even among heavy, long-term users.
The California researchers also found that smoking marijuana does not appear to increase the risk of head and neck cancers, such as cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat or esophagus.
All the study participants were under age 60. They were asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, other drug use, diet, occupation, family history of cancer, and socioeconomic status. The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 marijuana cigarettes, while moderately heavy users had smoked between 11,000 to 22,000 joints.
The researchers said they were surprised by the findings.
Ian Copeland, a pioneering booking agent and music promoter credited with helping launch the "new wave" alternative rock movement of the 1970s and '80s with such bands as the Police, the B-52's and R.E.M, has died at age 57, relatives said on Wednesday.
Copeland succumbed to melanoma on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles where he was surrounded by family members, including younger brother Stewart Copeland, a founder and drummer of the Police, his publicist said.
With the help of older brother Miles, Copeland began his career in show business as a booking agent in London, where he discovered the Scottish funk outfit Average White Band, who made their debut in 1973 opening for Eric Clapton.
Copeland moved in the mid-1970s to Macon, Georgia, to work for the Paragon Agency, which booked tours for popular southern rock acts like Charlie Daniels, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band.
After the demise of Paragon, Copeland moved to New York and started his own booking agency, Frontier Booking International (F.B.I.), which represented such acts as Adam Ant, the Bangles, R.E.M., nine inch nails, the Go-Go's, UB40, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Oingo Boingo, the Dead Kennedys and the Cure.
The son of a jazz musician turned U.S. intelligence officer, Copeland was born in Damascus, Syria, in the midst of a military coup. As a young man he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the height of the Vietnam War and served in the infantry, earning numerous decorations.
He is survived by his two daughters, brothers Stewart and Miles and a sister, Lorraine, a writer and producer. Memorial plans were pending.
Baby Bactrian camel is pictured in her enclosure at Hellabrunn zoo in Munich April 28, 2006. The female baby camel is yet to be named, and was born on April 17, 2006.
Photo by Michaela Rehle
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