Wednesday, April 30, 2003 :::
 
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15770

::: posted by Comic Tools at 6:42 PM



Monday, April 28, 2003 :::
 
This article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,933055,00.html) is kinda interesting. It's about Bush's attempts to stamp out science. The quote I'm leaving you is about his so called aids relief package that sounded so good in the state of the union speech, but which, as I cynically suspected, is a giveaway to christian anti-birth control groups. However, you should scroll down to see what Bush has been trying to make required in learning in america's "science" classrooms.

Or maybe you were an Aids activist, elated by the president's unexpected (and genuinely revolutionary) announcement in the State of the Union address of $15bn (£9.7bn) in funding for fighting the epidemic worldwide - and then surprised to find that only around 10% was destined for the Global Aids Fund, while the rest would be funnelled through US agencies, where it is more likely to be accessible to American abstinence-only groups campaigning against condoms.

So, is there anyone who'd like to debate my assertion that we're really just a tolerant theocracy who's getting less and less tolerant by the day, or does anyone really want to tell me we have a secular government? I think Bush thinks that secular means "Christian, and not one of those fake religions."

::: posted by Comic Tools at 4:24 PM


 
This amusing exchange occurred at the otherwise quite somber white house correspondents dinner:

Al Franken: "Clinton's military did pretty well in Iraq, huh?"
Paul Wolfowitz: "Fuck you."

Speaking of iraq, they're debating about whether the government should be secular or theocratic. I think it would be good to see them set up a secular government; it would be an example the perhaps even the US could follow. Think I'm overreacting? You haven't read this yet:

(From Atrios) "A few things about the Texas GOP.
First, there's a bit of their platform that we're all presumably aware of:


We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, recognition, or privileges including, but not limited to, marriage between persons of the same sex, custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values."

But there's a new bit, which while not requiring an oath of adherence, does require the following:


"Any person filing as a Republican candidate for a public or Party office shall be provided a current copy of the Party platform at the time of filing. The candidate shall be asked to read and initial each page of the platform and sign a statement affirming he/she has read the entire platform. The individual accepting the signed statement shall review the initialed platform and maintain a list of those who have complied with this request. This will become effective in the 2002 election. We strongly encourage Republican candidates, officeholders,and Party officials to support the Republican Party Platform and fellow Republican candidates and officeholders. We direct the Executive Campaign Committee to strongly consider candidates’ support of the Party platform when granting financial or other support."

I'm sure our crack press will, during the '04 campaign, ask Bush which parts he agreed and disagreed with (hahahahahahaha)."


Oh yeah? Well, the Texas GOP has the right to engage in acts including, but not limited to, kissing my ass, eating a dick, sucking on a lemon, fucking off, taking a long walk off a short pier, going and fucking themselves, eating shit and dying, and sticking their dicks in a blender.

Also on the subject of Iraq, some soldiers appartently stripped 3 iraqi men naked and paraded them through a park. If this is true, those soldiers are in deep shit for this, because such behavior violates the Geneva convention. I would probably doubt the veracity of this (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030426/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_naked_prisoners_2) report, except that the norwegian paper which reported the incident has pictures: http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2003/04/25/367175.html

Also, everyone should read this week's this modern world comic. If you don't want to click through Salon's ten second ad, wait till' tomorrow, when it gets posted for free viewing on working for change.

-Matt






::: posted by Comic Tools at 4:03 PM



Sunday, April 27, 2003 :::
 
I am going back to Maine in a couple days. I haven't been so excited about Maine in a long time. Is anyone else there?
-Jeff, happy weary traveler today.

::: posted by Jeff at 9:33 PM


 
The blog is working again. Who do I have to thank? I want to kiss them.

And Nick, you're in luck: Howard Dean has a blog. http://deancalltoaction.blogspot.com/

I like him too, incidentally.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:08 PM



Saturday, April 26, 2003 :::
 
They say Bush's tax cuts apply only to the wealthy, but that's a filthy lie- did you know that being laid off means you don't have to pay taxes AT ALL? That's right! And with the unemployment rate at ten percent and RISING, you can bet that soon no poor person will have to pay one cent of tax!

Oh, and you may have heard lately that we've not been finding any weapons of mass destruction. The administration si claiming now that they weren't LYING, just that they were exaggerating for "emphasis."

W A S H I N G T O N, April 25
— To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy.


Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans. "We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."
Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday, President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.

To rip off a joke from Atrios, "Hey, it's not like they were lying about something important, like blowjobs, right?

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:54 PM



Friday, April 25, 2003 :::
 
I'm not sure.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 10:38 PM


 
Jesus FUCKING Christ...

I hadn't read Senator Rick Santorum's full comments until just now. Here they are, in all their bigoted splendor:

AP: I mean, should we outlaw homosexuality?

SANTORUM: I have no problem with homosexuality. I have a problem with homosexual acts. As I would with acts of other, what I would consider to be, acts outside of traditional heterosexual relationships. And that includes a variety of different acts, not just homosexual. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So it's not the person, it's the person's actions. And you have to separate the person from their actions.

AP: OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?

SANTORUM: We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you -- this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality _

AP: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

SANTORUM: And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society.

AP: Sorry, I just never expected to talk about that when I came over here to interview you. Would a President Santorum eliminate a right to privacy -- you don't agree with it?

SANTORUM: I've been very clear about that. The right to privacy is a right that was created in a law that set forth a (ban on) rights to limit individual passions. And I don't agree with that. So I would make the argument that with President, or Senator or Congressman or whoever Santorum, I would put it back to where it is, the democratic process. If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in.

Say it with me now- How the FUCK did this guy make it into office? Someone go gag him with a dick, please.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 10:00 AM



Wednesday, April 23, 2003 :::
 
I think it's a reflected version of the doppler effect. Rather than an object's sound waves being compressed or elongated because of it making sound while moving, your car is making sounds, and your movement into them has the same effect of them moving at you. You are the sound source and the source of movement. Make sense?

::: posted by Comic Tools at 12:48 PM



Thursday, April 17, 2003 :::
 
I drove for 12 hours today. I am in the middle of a road trip, and it's really hot (I'm in Vero Beach, Florida). Y'all are giving me ideas. Oh, and I became sketchy in Connecticut apparently so I should be careful, although I did get out of my car today during a traffic jam and get a shirt out of the trunk and change into it standing on I-95. And another guy got out of his car and asked me for weed. Why do people always ask me for weed? I don't have it. I either look like a stoner, or I look really generous. hmmm...

::: posted by Jeff at 9:42 PM


 
I've driven naked before. It's less fun than it sounds, not to mention less comfortable than you'd expect. The seatbelt doean't feel good on a bare chest. Go for it though, if you want.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 6:16 PM



Wednesday, April 16, 2003 :::
 
Matt, naked just cause'.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 9:48 AM



Sunday, April 13, 2003 :::
 
See, the thing is, only Carter and Molly have administrative acess, so one of them has to do it.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:21 PM


 
On second thought, we are probably the only people who read this, and we all have access.

::: posted by Jeff at 12:40 AM



Saturday, April 12, 2003 :::
 
This blog is completely broken. It would be good if someone in charge would either fix it, or figure ot how to make someone else in charge of it so they can care for it. Just a thought.

::: posted by Jeff at 1:10 AM



Thursday, April 10, 2003 :::
 
Has anyone here ever drank bottled Nestle Quick chocolate drink? It tastes as if they had heard of milk, maybe tasted it a couple of times, but didn't have any on hand to make the drink with, so they tried as best they could to come up with a replacement with whatever they had lying around under the kitchen sink. With chocolate in it. It is, to put this mildly, vomitously fake-tasting. Listening to Mr. King is like drinking bottled Nestle Quick. He's so artificial, and, more to the point, so POORLY artificial, that it makes you want to throw up into his lungs.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 6:18 PM


 
Sounds fine with me. I hope they loot the shit out of his palaces- the fucking light fixtures could feed a family for a year.

I would also like to say that as an artist, I feel that an aesthetic victory has been won in Bhagdad. No one with good taste could live in a city with statues of Saddam everywhere.

And it seems that Bush has finally surpassed his daddy. His father took forty days in the Gulf war and he forgot to get rid of Saddam. Bush took thirteen days and got rid of him. (Or at least his government, same thing.) Mind you, this is a vcarious victory, as it's actually the soldiers who did it, but for some reason presidents get to take credit for the military's victories.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 11:31 AM



Tuesday, April 08, 2003 :::
 
I was gonna post a link to the picture, but no one really needs to see this. Suffice it to say that a twelve year old in Bahgdad wants to know if the doctors can give him new arms, because if they can't, he wants to commit suicide. He also has massive burns and lost both his parents in the attack, which happeed while he was alseep. If you really need to see him, go to This Modern World, they have the link.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 7:03 PM


 
Ever see a rubber bullet wound?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0407-06.htm

::: posted by Comic Tools at 7:00 PM



Monday, April 07, 2003 :::
 
oh. i thought posting here went out of style last week. But I guess I was wrong, and in fact blogger actually working went out of style. Now I can't even see it. Still wondering what's up with the archives links? I wanna read old shit!!! I'm in North Carolina so this feels like a post card. I'll sign it. Love,Jeff

::: posted by Jeff at 12:05 AM



Sunday, April 06, 2003 :::
 
Fuck me...

But first, on March 16th, across the country in Boston, the mother of the group's human beatbox Radioactive received a visit from two plainclothes Army officers.
"She'd spoken in an interview about her daughter who has been deployed in the Gulf, and her son who is in this band Spearhead," says Spearhead frontman Michael Franti. "They showed her a picture of her son wearing a t-shirt that said 'Unfuck the world' on the front, and 'Dethrone the Bushes' on the back. They told her that was an un-American statement. She said, 'That's free speech,' and they said, 'Well, things are changing these days.'"
The men who visited the frightened woman told her that her daughter's CDs had been confiscated, and that her son had recently taken two flights to Japan. "Why would he do that?" they asked her, according to Franti.
The men then showed her a list of names of people who worked in Franti's management office in San Francisco and a photograph of her son performing with Spearhead at the peace rally one day prior. "It kind of put a scare into all of us," says Franti. "The fact that people would be paying this close attention to what we're doing as musicians is a bit freaky. We're human rights workers -- we don't believe that people should be killed. We're not about wanting to overthrow the government, but we want to speak out. It's made us deepen our belief in what we do and work that much harder."


And if that didn't quite get the contents of your stomach all the way out of your mouth, here's more about the upcoming invasions of Syria and Iran.

WASHINGTON, April 5 — Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.

Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.
...
Yet this week, as images of American forces closing in on Baghdad played on television screens, some of Mr. Bush's top aides insisted they were seeing evidence that leaders in North Korea and Iran, but not Syria, might be getting their point.
"Iraq is not just about Iraq," a senior administration official who played a crucial role in putting the strategy together said in an interview last week. It was "a unique case," the official said. But in Mr. Bush's mind, the official added, "It is of a type."

MARK SHIELDS: One cynical former military person said to me, you know, you've been around enough city police departments, they always find the cigarette in the suspect's raincoat or the illicit substance. No, I mean, I think Jim, probably the most disturbing report I got all week is that the Pentagon now is working on a contingency plan for the invasion of Syria and that the argument is that the weapons of mass destruction, one of the rationalizations is that the weapons of mass destruction have been transported to... across the border.
JIM LEHRER: Have you heard that, David?
DAVID BROOKS: I've heard talk of that but I really not get too alarmed about that. There has been talk for months that somehow these wild guys in the Pentagon are going to attack one country after another there. Is anger at Syria. There's no question about that. Syria is playing both sides of the fence here. On the one hand they've restrained Hezbollah from bombing northern Israel. On the other hand, they really have done some things to help the Iraqi regime. But I really do not think there is any... I have not heard from people in the administration any hunger to do another country.


Did you catch that? The justification for an attack on Syria would be that WMDs were shipped over the border to them. I bet five bucks right here and now that when we go into Syria, the president will cite that as the reason in his speech. Who wants to get in on this one?

Seriously folks, you wanna make money? Make bets with your friends that Iraq is only the beginning, not the end. Just like the administration, you too can grow rich as soldiers die in pointless wars.



::: posted by Comic Tools at 2:45 PM



Saturday, April 05, 2003 :::
 
I DO have a lightsaber, actually. Although it's a bit bent from when I took it to Dance Party once.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 1:52 PM



Thursday, April 03, 2003 :::
 
The template needs to be reloaded again. Molly no longer reads this, so I'll e-mail her about it.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 6:52 PM



Wednesday, April 02, 2003 :::
 
thebenway sounds like a highly inconvienent and convoluted convienence store. "Where is the cereal?" Taped to the cieling" How do I get it down?" "Hold this bag. I'll fire at the box and the cereal will come out. This is also how we kill rats in the cieling."

And don't even ask where the Benway keeps the pickles. Okay, fine, be a wiseass and ask. They're in a barrel, and you have to fight a monkey to the death to get the pickle. And the pickle will give you rabies.

::: posted by Comic Tools at 5:34 PM

ARCHIVES :::

Ben, Nick, Molly, Matt, Carter, Maria, Christy, Jason, Greg, Eric, and UNCLE JEFF!! We are truly honored to have someone among us who is over 20 and claims to have some sort of responsibility. It won't last long.