Naming Dr. Paul

This is not a fanzine, I’m not a teenage girl. Enough about Ron Paul. Let me tell you what I hate about Ron Paul. If you call him by his last name, people automatically assume Paul McCartney. So you’re forced to call him Ron Paul, a vowel and a consonant from Rupaul. Other than that, I like everything about Ron Paul. His teeth need cleaning. That’s bad. Mouthwash and chewing gum can take care of that. On the other hand, it’s charming; dirty teeth reflect modesty. “Reflect” is the wrong... Read article

Ron Excluded Again!

Why is Iowa shutting out Ron Paul from a forum on tax reform among Republican candidates? As Dr. Paul would say, “That’s a good question.” Is it illogical to assume that one of the nation’s foremost scholars on the subject would be included in such an important debate? Who the hell wants to hear what Mitt Romney, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson and Tom Tancredo have to say about it? Besides their mothers. Ron sent me a letter yesterday, which I’ve included in full, below. Read it,... Read article

Bush comes to shove

Now that it’s George Bush against the entire world, you’d think he’d start losing confidence. Yet the man is only hitting his stride. Each passing week brings stranger news. Tap Scam. Last week, an outraged Congress discovered the Bush administration had actually tapped not just a few Americans but virtually every phone in the country, just as George Bush was announcing his choice to head the CIA: one of the principal architects of the tap scam which was the brainchild of the National Security Agency.... Read article

AT&T Hijacks Internet

Ma Bell’s moving back in — and she’s pissed. If you’re under the age of 35 you probably have no memory of “Ma Bell,” the popular name for AT&T, which once owned every foot of telephone wire from handset to phone to wall to post, and then from pole to pole across America. She even owned the phones in our homes; we could only rent. It was the classic definition of a monopoly, and all America knew it long before their Congress admitted they knew it too. But the hands of Congress were... Read article

Judas Iscariot Exonerated?

Judas, betrayer of Jesus, was set up. By Jesus! The ongoing saga of Jesus Christ took an irretrievable step into the surreal on The National Geographic Channel with the release of The Gospel of Judas, a project funded by the National Geographic Society. Get this: Jesus takes Judas aside and essentially says he needs a favor to speed things up. Go to the cops and show them where we’re camped. They’ll hate you for the rest of time, but you’ll be the greatest disciple in my book. Then he says go and claps... Read article

Comparing Apples and AARPs

Apple Records, the label founded by The Beatles, is suing Apple Computer for trademark infringement — and not a moment too soon. There’s no doubt that Apple Computer brought down the Beatles — Yoko had nothing to do with it — but timeliness must play int o the equation somewhere, because it all went down 20 years ago today Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. And here’s Billy Shears, singing out of tune and starting trouble. Lawsuits. Such a handwiping word. Yes, but names matter. To... Read article

Have you seen Mrs. Christ? book review: DaVinci Code & Holy Blood, Holy Grail

Dan Brown, author of the bestsellingest book ever, The Da Vinci Code, is on trial in Britain for stealing the ideas of another bestseller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail. I happened to read both books right before the suit was filed and was astonished when the court agreed to hear the case. I thought you couldn’t buy that kind of publicity. The central idea in both books — that Jesus was a family man who survived crucifixion and escaped with his wife Mary Magdalene to the south of France where their progeny survives... Read article

Leaving Earth

Like flies on a window, man is driven to escape: seeing a sea, he needs to sail it; a sky, he’s got to fly. His greatest drive is neither sex nor sustenance but curiosity — this insatiable need to know. The heavens taught him time, the stars navigation, the rest was divvied between science and religion, and in terribly short order man burst into outer space and began searching other planets, almost within a single tic mark on the scrolling timeline of species. Consider now the convergence of two unlikely events:... Read article

Wiretraps

Midway through a Newsweek article about the congressional hearings on NSA domestic wiretapping it suddenly hit me: it’s all crap. The White House got caught listening in our phone calls and seized on the issue. Yes! they said, it’s true! And we’ll do it again! Why the enthusiasm? Maybe because domestic wiretapping is the only domestic program Bush can push. Maybe they went on the attack because that’s what you do when you can’t retreat. Or maybe… they created the whole thing as a distraction... Read article

Alito goes a long way

Now that Judge Sam Alito has successfully wrapped up three days of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee he’ll be joining the Supreme Court and NPR will be getting back to more scintillating topics, such as explaining what the heck just happened here and is it our imagination or do we now have a 5-4 Swingless Court? What will this mean to the unborn, undead and inbetween, not just now but 30 years from now? The things we ask of NPR. After three days of hearing the hearings on the radio I’m as numb as... Read article

ErrAmerica

Before the year 2001 was reduced to a single morning in September it was a space odyssey. We were supposed to be commuting to the moon by then; those picturephones we were promised showed up three years late, and every single computer I’ve ever owned has blatantly betrayed me far worse than anything HAL could have cooked up. We’ve got no space station, no stews in velcro shoes: we’ve got airports — same old airports we used to have, often the same planes. The greatest threat to air safety is not... Read article

Rethinking the War on Terror

People always take things too far. It’s why empires fall: they grow until they topple. Our worst ideas are preserved because great thinkers and poor clutch their own opinions like clubs and turn our human race into a race to be God. But the race is long and littered with the fallen, and just beyond the finish line is the stairwell, ever writhing, alive with undead ideas spawning more. Flying jets into skyscrapers is a bad idea, rotten, and the same goes for wearing a bomb under your clothes and blowing yourself up... Read article

The Marks on Saddam H.

Battered and bruised, broken but unbowed, Saddam Hussein returned to court bearing a striking resemblance to Tony Orlando after a week off for the holidays and bad behavior. The mother of all trials is a mess, but it’s no circus as some have called it, but a series of sideshows on a turntable starring freaks behind curtains with alien voices that speak the unspeakable. Saddam and seven others are on trial for ordering the deaths of 148 people. Witnesses described how their victims were tortured and killed, some by... Read article

A Pauper’s Christmas

I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and I prefer poverty because it’s cheaper and the effect is about the same. A new car and an old car both get you there. The warmth of a coat is not affected by newness. Love, in poverty, is easier to detect: lacking tokens, it’s either there or it’s not; while love, in wealth, is easily buried in baubles, bribes, toys, taxes, hugs, kisses and the promise of more if you’re good. Christmas can be a difficult time for both the rich and the poor, but there’s... Read article

People I’m Sick Of

Bob Woodward Damn it, Bob, what’s wrong with you? You of all people, jumping into the story like Geraldo. Shame on you and your tumorous ego. News flash to news guys: stop jumping in. Jump out. Woodward says he was the first to hear that Valerie Plame was CIA and that it was really nothing, in context. Uh huh. Not helpful, Bob. Here’s why. Lots of people inside the beltway knew Valerie Plame was CIA. That’s because so many people inside the beltway are. You want to be first, Bob, is that it? Because it’s... Read article

Cosmology of the Shadow Presidency

If people were planets, and size measured gravity, who’d be the biggest? Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney is a very large planet indeed, for on his flipside is Halliburton, and ever near, his moon Chalabi, once “disgraced,” now ascendant in Iraqi politics. Imagine. Dead planet Scooter Libby will burn in descent. Planet Rumsfeld is willing himself to irrelevance but still orbiting, still hewing to the Shadow, still doing his dirty work, same as little Lynndie England, who served her country, her boyfriend, and now... Read article

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