Bartcop Entertainment - Tuesday, 22 June, 2004

"This is what logicians call a tautology, or a 'useless repetition,' as the dictionary defines it, but it is also an indication of how the Bush administration is defending itself against a growing number of scandals and deceptions in which it finds itself enmeshed. Repetition and blaming the media, an old standby, of which Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld are particularly fond dating back to their service under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford 30 years ago, are back in vogue."

- Jim Lobe -

"Was this pre-9/11 'relationship' between Saddam and al Qaeda as strong as the pre-9/11 'relationship' between the US and the Taliban?"

- question no one asked -

"George Bush and John Kerry have a relationship: They are both candidates in the coming presidential election. Assuming that they participate in a debate or two, this will require some level of cooperation. Does this mean that Bush supports the Kerry campaign?"

- War in Context -

"You always promised yourself you weren't going to say it.

"You hated when it was said to you and you swore that when you had children, you'd never say it to them. Then comes a day when the little monsters have you encircled like the wagon train in an old western. Having been told they can't do whatever foolish or dangerous thing they had their hearts set on, they hit you with a whining litany: Why? Why? Why?

"And before you know it, you hear yourself explode. 'Why? Because I said so, that's why!'"

- Leonard Pitts: "Because I say so" isn't reason enough for war -

"It's true because Dubya believes it? The last time I heard that line was when a girl friend said 'The reason I don't love you any more is because I don't love you any more.' It's pathetic. You gotta give me something else to go on. Some statements are not self-evident. When my girl friend used that tactic, she knew damn well why she didn't love me any more, she was in love with someone else, but she didn't want me to go down that path of discovery so she cut off that channel of exploration. This was ostensibly to spare my feelings but she was actually just protecting her new one from her old one, my feelings be damned. I was soon to be out of her life so who cared how I felt.

"I have just created the world's greatest insult. I have compared my ex to Dubya, though the analogy is apt. Like my ex, Dubya is clearly hiding something. He can't possibly be dumb enough to actually think that that's that, that something IS because it IS. What the hell school did this boy go to? He must have learned something. If the only support any statement needed was a repeat of itself, then McDonalds is good for you because McDonalds is good for you and I'm the President because I'm the President, you're not because you're not, God is great because God is great. It's a linguistic roadblock. It doesn't offer any hope of contradiction. EVERY supports ITSELF but that doesn't make it true.

"After a serious in-depth analysis of Dubya's statement, I have figured out exactly why he believes there is a connection between Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and 9/11. Because there is one. Even the 9/11 commission agrees. It's him. Dubya is the connection between Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda, and 9/11. It's so simple. Thank you for pointing that out."

- me -

Song of the Week

The Ex-President Song

by Michael Dare

One ex-president wrote a book

One ex-president died

One ex-president told the truth

One ex-president lied

Two ex-presidents got impeached

Three ex-presidents wept

Four ex-presidents stayed awake

One ex-president slept

One plus two plus three ex-presidents

Rotten to the core

Four plus five plus six ex-presidents

Who could ask for more?

We could use one more ex-president

Just another Bush

One hard to ignore ex-president

Kick him in the tush

Blogrolling

"PBS's Frontline has a fascinating episode about an al-Qaida affiliated family that grew up with the Bin Ladens. Well, one of the family's sons, Abdurahman Khadr, apparently grew disgusted with the whole, oh killing innocents things, and appears to have become an informer after 9/11. (He was arrested in Afghanistan and eventually convinced his guards and the CIA that he had genuinely turned on AQ. His story is extraordinary, and I find it convincing. You can judge that for yourself.) What I find particularly interesting is what the kid found when he was sent to Gitmo, as a sort of undercover prisoner:

- Eric Umansky -

Thank you Eric for the...

Q&A of the Week

Q: What's your impression of Guantanamo? Do a lot of people belong there? What's your impression of the inmates?

They asked me always this question. I told them in 100 percent there is 80 percent of people that went to Afghanistan, like people that can't do anything. They've had enough. If you put them back in their countries they won't do anything. That's in 80 percent.

Among those 80 percent there is almost 60 in those 80, 60 that are people that haven't done anything. People that worked in a project in Pakistan, an old man that his son brought him, you know, just to sell him for $5,000. Drug dealers, people that didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda were put there for no reason but because someone brought them there or someone thought of getting thousands for them, whoever captured them that they were Al Qaeda.

The rest, the 20 percent from the whole 100 percent, there's 10 percent of them that should be kept there and 10 percent of them if they go out and they catch up with Al Qaeda again they might go back to being Al Qaeda. But there's only like 10 percent of the people that are really dangerous, that should be there and the rest are people that don't have anything to do with it, don't even, don't even understand what they're doing here.

Q: Just explain the bounty hunting, how people ended up there. That they paid a bounty.

At the very beginning, after Americans took over Afghanistan, they needed to show the American public that you know, we have got people. So there was normal Afghans would catch normal Arabs, normal small Arabs and go to the American base and tell them, you know what, we have a big commander. The American would say yes okay and they would just buy him.

Q: If the Americans were paying large bounties, a large amount of money they would have ended up with a lot of innocent people there, don't you think?

Yes, a lot of innocent people. I told you the one story, I remember two, actually. One is the father that was brought by his own son. The son gave him a gun and took him up to an American base up there and took $5,000 for him. That's one story.

The second story is a drug user, a person that was sitting next to me, not worried about being in jail, not worried about what's going to happen to his family, not worried about what he's going to get. All he's worried about every time he asks the MPs to come around, asking them for a smoke, asking them for some hashish for you know, for marijuana, something like that, you know. Not even, he doesn't even know what he's doing here. Truly a drug addict, not Al Qaeda at all.

- Interview with Abdurahman Khadr (there's a link here to watch the whole episode of Frontline) -

Excellent Arts and Crafts Project of the Week

Using a mirror and a window, you can turn your ceiling into a damn fine sundial. As the spot of reflected light moves across the ceiling, you can explain to your children that it's not the light that's moving but the whole house.

History Lesson from Hell

"These men, and even a handful of women in the early days of the war, were killed in action, taken prisoner or, in many cases, left to float in frigid waters for hours and even days or weeks after their ships were blown out from under them as they ferried troops overseas and delivered beans, bandages and bullets to the Allied forces. They were subject to the military code of conduct, earned awards and could be court-marshaled. They suffered the highest casualty rate of any service in World War II.

"'When final victory is ours,' said Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 'there is no organization that shared its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine.'

"Despite his words, and despite even more glowing praise from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, men of the Merchant Marine returned home from the war only to be told they weren't veterans."

- Johnna A. Pro: Unsung Heroes of World War II: Seamen of the Merchant Marine still struggle for recognition -

There's a bill before Congress to make things right and actually give veteran's benefits to members of the Merchant Marine. It's been sitting in the Committee on Veterans' Benefits for six months without movement. Our government admit a mistake? Nah.

History Lesson from Hell II:

Communist Rules for Revolution - 1919

A. Corrupt the young; get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial; destroy their ruggedness.

B. Get control of all means of publicity, thereby:

1. Get people's minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books, plays and other trivialities.

2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance.

3. Destroy the people's faith in their natural leaders by holding them up to contempt, ridicule and disgrace.

4. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible.

5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit, produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent.

6. Incite unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders and foster a lenient and soft attitude on the part of government toward such disorders.

7. By specious argument, cause the breakdown of the old moral virtues - honesty, sobriety, self-restraint, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness.

C. Cause the registration of ALL firearms on some pretext with a view to confiscate them and leave the population helpless.

- prisonplanet -

Dueling Quotes

"Take it to the bank, there was no Iraqi involvement in 9/11. Let's put that to bed. That's what our commission found.... Were there contacts over time between Iraq and al-Qaeda? Yes, there were EFFORTS made to communicate. We found no evidence of collaboration in ANY effort to mount ANY kind of operation against the United States' interests."

- Richard Ben-Veniste: 9/11 Commission member, on Meet the Press -

"The assertion that Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to last years liberation has been rendered absurd by United Nations weapons inspectors.

"Demetrius Perricos, acting chairman of UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), recently disclosed that his inspectors have been busily tracking shipments of illicit Iraqi WMD components around the world.

"The Associated Press announced that UNMOVIC inspectors have found dozens of engines from banned al-Samoud 2 (SA2) missiles, which were shipped out of Iraq as scrap metal. Most recently, UNMOVIC agents found 20 SA-2 engines in Jordan, along with a great deal of other WMD materials. Officials discovered an identical engine in a Rotterdam port in the Netherlands and believe as many as a dozen extra SA-2 missile engines alone have been transported out of Iraq and remain unaccounted for. Inspectors believe at least some of these engines have also reached Turkey and hope to search Turkish ports in the near future.

"UNMOVIC estimates as much as 1,000 tons of scrap metal a day are leaving Iraq bound for foreign shores."

- Ben Johnson: Exporting Saddam's WMDs -

"The removal of these materials [scrap metal] from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks associated with dual-use material and equipment being transferred to unknown destinations, thereby also rendering the task of the disarmament of Iraq and its eventual confirmation, more difficult. The only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap."

- Demetrius Perricos: acting chief UN inspector -

Freedom Fighting Allies from Hell

"Senators and Representatives are supposed to be the servants OF THE PEOPLE. Ultimate political power in a Republican form of government lies with THE PEOPLE! They send individuals to represent them - NOT SELL OUT THE COUNTRY TO ONE-WORLD-GOVERNMENT PROPONENTS!"

- major league bible thumping wackos -

Gallery of the Week

What, you thought Mongolian contortionists DIDN'T have a website?

Tourist Trap of the Week

Looking for an interesting vacation getaway? Why not try Fucking? Of course it seems the people of Fucking have got a problem with people stealing their Fucking signs, so while you're there, please keep your fucking hands to yourself.

Letter of the Week

Happy Father's Day ....

... to all of you he-men who managed to cum inside a fertile woman rather than pulling out and finishing off on her backside like in so many generic porno films.

Congratulations on having sperm not too damaged by your alcoholism, on selecting a mate willing to maintain her health long enough to bring another mouth-to-feed into this world of shrinking resources.

You're a real man, yes sirree: went through all that selfless work of knocking another bitch up ... so this message is for you:

Happy Father's Day!

-- Ken

Peter Paranoia Says...

Nine out of the 10 post-World War II U.S. recessions have been preceded by sharp rises in oil prices.

"Difficult times call for great leaders - men of vision, strength and courage. Men like George W. Bush and the shambling, reanimated corpse of Ronald Reagan."

- Bush/Zombie Reagan in '04 -

"Griffith, the general counsel for Brigham Young University since August 2000, had previously failed to renew his law license in Washington for three years while he was a lawyer based in the District. It was a mistake he attributed to an oversight by his law firm's staff. But that lapse in his D.C. license, reported earlier this month by The Washington Post, subsequently prevented Griffith from receiving a law license in Utah when he moved there.

"Under Utah law, Griffith's only option for obtaining the state license was to take and pass the state bar exam, an arduous test that lawyers try to take only once. He applied to sit for the exam, but never took it, Utah bar officials confirm."

- Carol D. Leonnig: Bush Judicial Nominee Practiced Law Without License in Utah -

"Just back with footage they shot in Iraq, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C., filmmakers Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy are racing against time. They're editing 15 hours a day in their North Hollywood home to get their documentary The Oil Factor Behind the War on Terror finished and into theaters before the presidential election.

"Nearly a dozen other films are in that race too. In the shadow of Michael Moore and his high-profile Fahrenheit 9/11, a band of less flamboyant documentarians is rushing ahead with similarly charged political films. Taking advantage of inexpensive digital video technology and Internet marketing strategies, these filmmakers likely will reach wider audiences, faster, than political documentarians ever have."

- Lynn Smith: Docu derby Renewed interest in political documentaries has filmmakers hurrying to get their works seen before election day -

"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error."

- John Kenneth Galbraith -

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life...."
- William Faulkner, interview with Paris Review, 1956 -

"The United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centers worldwide and about half of these operate in total secrecy, said a human rights report released on Thursday. Human Rights First, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in a report that secrecy surrounding these facilities made 'inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable.'"

- Sue Pleming: Report says U.S. has "secret" detention centers -

"[I]f politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I'm a filmmaker. First and foremost the art has to come before the politics."

- Michael Moore -

"One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -

"The real question is whether we can make a leap of love, not a leap of faith. To make a leap of love means to love God whether or not He (or She, or it) exists. It is in loving God, rather than in only talking God, that we move from metaphor to meaning."

- Leonard Fein: Moments of the Spirit -

"The latest attempt at 10th Amendment eradication comes in the form of H.R. 4204, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and referred to the subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, this unconstitutional piece of legislation now touts 175 co-sponsors collectively stomping upon a domain that, by the very specific words contained within the 10th Amendment, ought by law to be left to the devises of separate state and local jurisdictions.

"Because what H.R. 4204 creates is a police state, with the U.S. Justice Department and attorney general making the bulk of law enforcement and prosecution decisions for the entire nation.

"This Hate Crimes bill gives the attorney general authority to provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial or other assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution of any crime that constitutes a crime of violence under federal law or a felony under state or Indian tribal law, and is motivated by prejudice based on the race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the hate crime laws of the state or tribe.

"By that definition, a case can be made to place pretty much every crime of violence under jurisdiction of the attorney general."

- Cheryl Chumley: States' Rights Suffer Under Hate Crime Bill -

"The 9/11 panel, which includes Democrats and Republicans, portrays Osama bin Laden as the main architect of the Sept. 11 plot. Not a single e-mail, cell phone call or even a fruit basket was found to have passed personally from bin Laden to Hussein, either before or after the attack.

"Cheney, however, hasn't eased up. Never one to let facts clutter a good speech, the vice president is pitching the same line today that he did in advance of the war."

- Carl Hiaasen: Why we went to war awaits honest answer -

"The folks at 1600 Pennsylvania didn't have Osama's address. They couldn't go after Iran or North Korea because those countries could defend themselves and retaliate, maybe with nukes. They couldn't invade Pakistan or Saudi Arabia because they're our 'allies.' But the Bush team knew that it wouldn't be hard to get rid of the second-rate dictator and romance novelist who posed no real threat."

- Maureen Dowd: Because they could -

"The basis for the hoo-ha was not a judgment of the panel of commissioners appointed to investigate the 9/11 attacks. As reporters noted below the headlines, it was an interim report of the commission's runaway staff, headed by the ex-N.S.C. aide Philip Zelikow. After Vice President Dick Cheney's outraged objection, the staff's sweeping conclusion was soon disavowed by both commission chairman Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton."

- William Safire: The Zelikow Report -

"Viewed from Baghdad since April 2003, the occupation has evolved from an optimistic partnership between Americans and Iraqis into a relationship driven by frustration and resentment. U.S. reconstruction specialists commonly complain of ungrateful Iraqis. Residents of a tough Baghdad neighborhood who welcomed U.S. forces with cold cans of orange soda last spring now jeer as military vehicles roll past."

- Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Mistakes Loom Large as Handover Nears, Missed Opportunities Turned High Ideals to Harsh Realities -

"The U.S. Supreme Court failed the nation when it ducked the issue of whether the words 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance violate the Constitution in public schools. Some may applaud the court's cleverness in avoiding a highly controversial political issue. But in doing so, the court made bad law concerning the rights of non-custodial parents to sue on behalf of their children and, even worse, abdicated its fundamental role in the U.S. system of government."

- Erwin Chemerinsky: Tiptoeing Around 'Under God' - The Supreme Court can't dodge the phrase forever -

"Last week the Supreme Court ruled in effect that once parents are involved in family court proceedings, their federal rights are at risk. This decision sets a dangerous precedent that violates the rights of citizens to have the federal judiciary address their claims.

"The case, which I brought, presented the court with an important question: is a classroom recital of the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional? The pledge with its claim that ours is 'one nation, under God' is recited daily in the public school attended by my daughter. Because I am an atheist, she is, in essence, told every school morning that her father's religious views are wrong.

"This is an injury to me personally, which should give me 'standing': the right to have the court adjudicate my claim. Nonetheless, the merits of the case were never addressed. Instead, the court ruled that since I do not have legal custody of my daughter, I do not have the right to pursue the matter in the federal courts."

- Michael Newdow: Pledging Allegiance to My Daughter -

"On a typical evening, one can see U.S. soldiers smoking from 4-foot-tall hookahs and security contractors guffawing over beer, their machine guns by their sides. The CPA's would-be strategists can sometimes be seen in their ubiquitous military desert boots and dress shirts and slacks, playing Risk, the board game of global domination."

- Jim Krane: Raucous bar scene emerges in Baghdad's green zone -

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

- Calvin Coolidge -

"It's not easy playing God."

- Bennett Raley: Bush's water czar -

"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship."

- General Omar Bradley -

"Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or corrupt."

- Mahatma Gandhi -

"The Bush administration's last remaining justification for the invasion of Iraq has been demolished by a private poll revealing that only 2 per cent of Iraqis regard the occupying forces as liberators."

- Anne Penketh: Poll reveals hostility to US and support for rebel cleric -

"A poll conducted by the University of Maryland in April found that 57% of Americans believe Iraq was substantially supporting al-Qaeda before the 11 September 2001 attacks or was involved in the attacks themselves. And that number was hardly changed from a similar poll a year earlier."

- Jon Leyne: Bush political fallout limited -

"Today a group of former senior diplomatic officials and retired military commanders--several of whom are the kind who 'have never spoken out before' on such matters--issued a bracing statement arguing that George W. Bush has damaged the country's national security and calling on Americans to defeat him in November. It's too early to tell if the statement will have an impact on this fall's campaign. But Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, as the group is called, reveals (again) how dangerously isolated the Bush Administration is not just around the world but even from America's own bipartisan foreign policy and military establishments.

"Jack Matlock, who served as Reagan and Bush 41's ambassador to the Soviet Union, has signed the statement, as has Ret. Adm. William Crowe, who served as Reagan's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.. Retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar has added his name to the list, and he commanded US forces in the Middle East under Bush Sr. Phyllis Oakley, who served as a State Department spokesperson under Reagan, is another signatory. The vast majority of the signatories are, in fact, either conservative Republicans who served under Reagan and Bush 41 or they are bipartisan, consensus-driven ex-diplomats who served their country from Africa to Asia because they believed in America's leadership role around the world."

- Katrina vanden Heuvel: Bush (41) and Reagan Officials Say Bush (43) Must Go -

"I'm not a happy camper."

- Camper Colin Powell on Meet the Press -

"Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing; either you have it or you don't."

- Peter Scotese -

"View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate."

- Bhante Henepola Gunaratana: Mindfulness in Plain English -

"It is not those who lack energy or refrain from action, but those who work without expectation of reward who attain the goal of meditation. Theirs is true renunciation."

- Bhagavad Gita 6:1 -

"You bestow sovereignty to whom You will, and You withdraw sovereignty from whom You will. You exalt whom You will, and You abase whom You will. In Your hand lies all that is worthy. You have power over all things."

- Qur'an, Al-Imran, Surah 3:26 talking about Dubya or Allah -

"Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson apparently in favor of Napster and open source computing -

"It's never the end of the world. It's already tomorrow in Australia."

- Charles M. Schultz -

"It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are."

- e.e. cummings -

"It has taken me all my life to understand it is not necessary to understand everything."

- Rene Coty -

"Among high school students, current use -- defined as use within the last 30 days -- is now higher for marijuana than for cigarettes. According to the CDC, 21.9 percent of teens reported smoking cigarettes within the last month, while 22.4 percent smoked marijuana.

"There is a lesson here, but one that policymakers won't want to hear: If the idea is to stop teen substance use, the approach we've used with tobacco works better than the approach we've taken with marijuana. That means regulation of adult use, rather than prohibition."

- Steve Fox: Why More Kids Smoke Marijuana Than Cigarettes -

"Blood has no power to cleanse, but the giving up of harmful actions will make the heart whole. Better than worshipping gods is following the ways of goodness."

- Buddha -

"Money is the poor man's credit card."

- Marshall McLuhan -

"The slave is a freeman if content with his lot, the freeman is a slave if he seeks more than that."

- Judah Al-Harizi: Sefer Tahkemoni -

"You've got this little boy named Dick, and in the book's opening scene, the first words are, 'Oh, God, please take care of old Dick.' This is his mother's final words on her deathbed. Little Dick is sitting next to his mom as she dies. Dick's dad meanwhile is lying on the floor passed out drunk from Demon rum. What's interesting about this is Reagan's father, if not an alcoholic, had an alcohol problem."

- Paul Kengor: Ronald Reagan's Faith, Not Just Policies, Ended Communism -

"Federal sentencing guidelines: Under this new method of sentencing, which went into effect in 1987, prison time is determined mostly by the weight of the drugs involved in the offense. Parole was abolished and prisoners must serve 85 percent of their sentence. Except in rare situations, judges can no longer factor in the character of the defendant, the effect of incarceration on his or her dependents, and in large part, the nature and circumstances of the crime. The only way to receive a more lenient sentence is to act as an informant against others and hope that the prosecutor is willing to deal."

- Jeralyn Merritt: Reagan's Drug War Legacy -

"We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana's use as a medicant."