NEWS PAGE

February 2003

Congratulations to Jimmy Carter for his Nobel Peace Prize

Despite a presidency riddled with bad luck and problems which left the Democrats looking disorganized, Jimmy Carter continued with his lifetime mission of bringing people together and helping folks out. It's an unusual choice for a politician, to selflessly help promote peace and understanding. Who knows when that will happen again. Right on for Jimmy, he's a great man.

"The approach the United States has taken recently has been to devise a solution that suits its own purposes, recruit at least tacit support in whichever forum it can best influence, provide the dominant military force, present an ultimatum to recalcitrant parties and then take punitive action against the entire nation to force compliance."---- former President Jimmy Carter, commenting on the Clinton administration, 1999

"...some of the very attributes that made Carter a thoroughly annoying politician - the moral certitude, the belief that stating a pure objective should be sufficient to convince all to work toward it - are those attributes that have made him a statesman of historic stature. Note well that Carter is the last U.S. president to have brokered a breakthrough in the Mideast conflict. He said as a candidate that he would never lie to us, and he didn't. Carter is also the last president who appealed not to voters' self-interest, but to a selfless goodness he saw in the American people... [and] the last former president to devote his retirement to doing good and not raking in the dough."------ Marie Cocco, Long Island Newsday, Oct. 15 2002

President Bush's niece loves cocaine just like her uncle

That wacky family of power-starved neo-Nazis just can't get enough of the blow. Jeb Bush didn't even take a day out of his busy race for re-illegal-election as "governor" of Florida, to assist his dust-sniffing daughter Noelle when her court day arrived. I'm sure a stack of Ben Franklins might have helped that situation some.... not to say it DID, but certainly WOULD HAVE... and things seem stable enough for now!

A.I. Logic managed to get an exclusive interview with the President's Niece's cocaine dealer, part One of which is featured on our new Bullshit Page! Have a look at the 'gonzo editor's' in-depth account of the glue-sniffers and mainliners in Congress.

"While Noelle has been given every break in the book -- and then some -- her father has made it harder for others in her position to get the help they need by cutting the budgets of drug treatment and drug court programs in his state." ------ Arianna Huffington, arianna@ariannaonline.com

"Freedom means more than just free enterprise, in the NSS [National Security Strategy]. It means democracy, free elections, free speech, freedom of worship, and other positive values. But has anyone heard any talk of war lately against Burma or Turkey or Saudi Arabia? You donąt get preemptively attacked for denying basic human rights. That honor is reserved for those who dare challenge the U.S. mission of world domination -- even democracies like Chile in 1973 or Nicaragua in the 1980s." -------- Ira Chernus, Commondreams.org

"If Bush has his way, we are going to fight an unprovoked war with Iraq without the financial aid of any allies. The health-care system is falling apart in front of our eyes, school teachers should be paid at least twice what they make now, lack of low-income housing is making life hell for the working class and now the right wing wants to cut taxes for the rich yet again? That's class warfare." ----------- Molly Ivins, Chicago Tribune, August 15, 2002

www.chicagotribune.com

May 25, 2002

Tax Tip of the Day: Move overseas without leaving home

American businesses have been taking a hike to sunnier, less taxing environments at a rather frightening rate since President Robot was installed, and it looks like Bermuda and Barbados are two of the best places to go... and even better, you don't actually have to go, you just need to register an address there and you can legally launder your money through a tax-free economy. Of course they're not calling it money laundering, but what else is it when you send your money to another country to avoid paying taxes on it at home?

May 10, 2002

Here's a little message from the Ad-Minister, Al "Ill" Logic:

Sometimes it feels dead to be a person with no standard ethnic or religious identity.... but then we hear about people who are really fervent about religion, and it makes us understand precisely what IS good about the U.S. and our lack of cultural identity. I was recently sent several articles detailing the situation in the West Bank area these days, and I knew it was heavy but every day it gets more brutal.

Meanwhile, Colin Powell took his sweet time getting there for his so-called 'peace talks' with Ariel Sharon, stopping in every hash bar around the Mediterranean before giving Sharon a five-minute phone call from a brothel in Morocco while he shot heroin and received a body massage from five teenage prostitutes. Mr. Powell joined us in Raleigh Hills for the 4:20 celebration (a national holiday in Oregon), smoking himself into a cartoon netherland before we bid him farewell for a nine-week stint at the nice big rehab facility nearby. Good luck, Colon.

Hasty bananas, Al "Ill" Logic

Excerpts from reports in the Independent News, London:

"For nine days, Jenin camp became a slaughterhouse. Fifteen thousand Palestinians lived in a square kilometre in the camp, a packed warren of narrow lanes. Thousands of terrified civilians, women and children, cowered inside their homes while the Israeli helicopters rained down rockets on them and tanks fired shells into the camp. The wounded were left to die. The Israeli army refused to allow ambulances in to treat them, which is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. The Red Cross has publicly said people have died because Israel blocked the ambulances. Slobodan Milosevic is on trial in the Hague for breaking the Geneva Conventions, while Ariel Sharon shakes Colin Powell's hand for the television cameras." -- Justin Huggler, The Independent News Service, London

"The Israeli army is still keeping the Red Cross and journalists from seeing the evidence of the mass killings that have taken place there. "Hundreds" -- on Israel's own admission -- have died, including civilians. Why, for God's sake, can't Mr Powell do the decent thing and demand an explanation for the extraordinary, sinister events that have taken place in Jenin?" --- Robert Fisk, The Independent

"The propaganda war between the Israelis and Palestinians has always been a dirty business, but now it has sunk to new depths. Israel's media centre issued a statement boasting of "countless examples" of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. This will be staggering news to the Red Cross and Red Crescent, who have been barred from entry, shot at and repeatedly humiliated, all in violation of the Geneva Convention." -- Phil Reeves, The Independent

April 24, 2002------- Bush's nocturnal emissions prove challenging for lawmakers

The George Bush Corporation on Tuesday night announced their latest frankenstein---- a piece of self-contradictory legislation heralded by its financiers as a step toward environmental balance. Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, a former Republican who couldn't stand to be humiliated by his party any longer, put it in rather straightforward terms: “The president’s plan does not address carbon dioxide or include adequate reductions in emissions. Without these, the forecast for his Clear Skies proposal is hazy at best. We all love to have good photo ops, but I’d rather the administration engage with us to work out a ... solution.”

November 5, 2001---- George Bush calls Taliban a bunch of camel jockeys

exerpt from Newsweek, Sept 24 2001, article by Howard Fineman: "A president finds his true voice"

"They all got more than they bargained for. The meeting didn’t last minutes, but half an hour. The president, relaxed and in control, drew Sen. Hillary Clinton into a warm, familial exchange. He treated Sen. Charles Schumer like a long-lost fraternity brother. As for their aid request, “I’m with ya,” the president said eagerly-and it was approved by Congress the next day. The Virginians got promises of aid, too, and the warlike words all four senators yearned for. “When I take action,” he said, “I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.”

"Winston Churchill might not have used those words, but he’d have loved the sentiment-and admired the maturation of the man who uttered them."

Click here to see what we really think of this conservative toilet paper which condones and promotes racist epithets when the "president" is using them.

September 21, 2001

Excerpt from an essay by Robert Fisk, on the WTC attack: "If the Americans are even contemplating a ground force, it can enter only from Pakistan, the most dangerous main supply route it would be possible to find, and up the Kabul Gorge from Jalalabad. But the Russians seeded the perimeters of Jalalabad, Kandahar, Khost and Herat with anti-armour mines. There are, in Afghanistan today, more than 10 million mines. They lie in fields, on mountainsides, beside roads, around the big cities, along irrigation ditches. On average, between 20 and 25 Afghan men, women and children are blown up by mines every day; even if we take the lower figure, this indicates 73,000 civilian casualties from these mines in the past 10 years alone." [Robert Fisk, Independent News]

here's something which puts a very interesting spin on recent events--- an article from the L.A. Times, May 2001---- "Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war.

That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God.

As the Drug Enforcement Administration's Steven Casteel admitted, "The bad side of the ban is that it's bringing their country--or certain regions of their country--to economic ruin." Nor did he hold out much hope for Afghan farmers growing other crops such as wheat, which require a vast infrastructure to supply water and fertilizer that no longer exists in that devastated country. There's little doubt that the Taliban will turn once again to the easily taxed cash crop of opium in order to stay in power. Our long sad history of signing up dictators in the war on drugs demonstrates the futility of building a foreign policy on a domestic obsession. " [Robert Scheer, LA Times, May 22 2001]

In Bolivia, farmers and native people are becoming destitute to the brink of starvation due to a coca ban placed in 1997 at the urging of the U.S. government. Since the Bolivian government agreed to the ban, 90% of the country's known coca plants have been destroyed, while the world market for cocaine has seen little shortage of product since Colombia is taking up the slack. 40 peasants have died since April at the hands of the military, and many more are prepared to do so, as chewing coca leaves has been part of their society for 500 years and attempting to eradicate it not only takes away an old tradition but a huge part of the economy as well. [source: The Guardian Unlimited/ Observer International News]

To view the Editorial Page, click on the picture of J.J. "Bob" Dracula.