From The Onion

[Tom Storer]

From this week's Onion:

*******
U.S. Forms Own U.N.

WASHINGTON, DC — Frustrated with the United Nations' "consistent, blatant regard for the will of its 188 member nations," the U.S. announced Monday the formation of its own international governing body, the U.S.U.N.

"The U.N. has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to act decisively in carrying out actions the U.S. government deems necessary," U.S.U.N. Secretary General Colin Powell said. "Every time we tried to get something accomplished, it inevitably got bogged down in procedural policies, bureaucratic formalities, and Security Council votes."

"I predict the U.S.U.N. will be extremely influential in world politics in the coming decades," Powell continued. "In fact, you can count on it."

The new organization will be based in Houston, where a $400 million U.S.U.N. Building is currently under construction. The U.S.U.N. Charter, ratified unanimously by delegates in a four-minute vote Monday, sets forth the mission of the organization as "the proliferation of peace and international economic, social, and humanitarian progress through deference to the U.S."

"The U.S.U.N. resembles the original in almost every way, right down to all the flags outside our headquarters," said Condoleezza Rice, a U.S. delegate to the U.S.U.N. "This organization will carry out peacekeeping missions all over the world, but, unlike the U.N., these missions will not be compromised by the threat of opposition by lesser nations."

In its first act, the U.S.U.N. Security Council unanimously backed a resolution to liberate Iraq's people and natural resources from the rule of Saddam Hussein.

"We gave the old U.N. a go for I don't know how many years, but it just wasn't working," said Dick Cheney, a U.S. delegate to the U.S.U.N. "Really, I have no idea what we were doing sacrificing all that power and autonomy in exchange for a couple of lousy troops from New Zealand."

Added Cheney: "I can't tell you how much easier it is to achieve consensus when you don't have to worry about dissent."

Cheney, along with Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge, and George W. Bush, make up the five permanent members of the 15-person U.S.U.N. Security Council.

"The five Security Council members have veto power to block U.S.U.N. resolutions for military action," Rumsfeld said. "Not that anyone would, but it's nice to have, nonetheless."

According to Powell, in spite of the fact that delegates hail from every corner of the U.S., General Assembly meetings have been refreshingly free of rancor.

"We've got Bill Frist from Tennessee, Tom DeLay from Texas, and Dennis Hastert from way up in Illinois," U.S.U.N. delegate Rick Santorum said. "Despite the diverse backgrounds of the delegates, cooperation has not been a problem—unlike at some outmoded, gridlocked international peacekeeping bodies I could name."

The official U.S.U.N. language is English. The official religion is Christianity.

[Tanager]

Satire? I thought this was real.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Is Nothing Sacred? : )

[Monte Smith]

I love the Point-Counterpoint:

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No It Won't

[RBS]

It already has.

[al j]

No it hasn't

[Dr Dave]

I'm waiting for Rumsfeld to decide that a spiffy paramilitary uniform is just the thing he needs to reinforce his image of unquestioned authority.

PS: Did anyone notice that Richard Perle has resigned from the *chairmanship* of the famous Influential Defense Advisory Committee, but has not actually resigned from the committee? Guy has brass balls, I'll say that for him.

[Tanager]

And a brass heart to match.

[Tom Storer]

From The Onion:

Report: Poor People Pretty Much Fucked

WASHINGTON—According to the results of an intensive two-year study, Americans living below the poverty line are "pretty much fucked," Center for Social and Economic Research executive director Jameson Park announced Monday.

"Although poor people have never had it particularly sweet, America has long been considered the land of opportunity, where upward class mobility is hard work's reward," Park said. "However, our study shows that limited access to quality education and a shortage of employment opportunities in depressed areas all but ensure that, once fucked, an individual tends to stay fucked."

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, 34.6 million Americans were living below the poverty line in 2002.

"Not only are the down-and-out fucked, but the number of down-and-out fucks is growing," Park said. "Conditions of disadvantage are often passed from one generation to the next, making it especially difficult for young people to emerge from the cycle of poverty."

"Man, my heart goes out to those poor fuckers," Park added.

America's increasingly rigid class system worsens the situation for the poor.

"After analyzing the economic performance of U.S. households over the past several decades, we concluded that class mobility, while steady in the '70s and '80s, declined in the '90s," Park said. "About 40 percent of families ended the decade in the same economic strata in which they began it. That's up from about 35 percent in the '80s. That's good news for those sittin' pretty, but it spells 'fuck you' to the poor."

As a result, Park said, there are more poor people, and those poor people are much more screwed than poor people were a decade or two ago.

"As the split between the upper and lower classes grows, and the middle class continues to shrink, we're moving closer and closer to what can only be called a 'no way out, dude. Sorry, you're fucked'-type situation," Park said. "Not only are the poor fucked at the moment, but any chance they once had of changing their miserable lives is pretty much gone, too. Essentially, they're fucked for all time."

The CSER study identified four major poverty groups within the U.S. The first two groups—one composed of disenfranchised blue-collar workers, the other made up of members of poor rural populations—have been adversely affected by the nation's gradual shift to a technology-based, global economy. Researchers have dubbed disenfranchised blue-collar workers the Factory Fucked, while members of poor rural populations are called the Farm Fucked. Park characterized the individuals in these two groups as "fucked from the get-go."

The other two rapidly expanding groups of poor fucks are the suburban poor, whose members can't afford the rising cost of such basic necessities as healthcare, and the urban underclass, whose members are found in the nation's troubled inner cities. Researchers termed these groups the Recently Fucked and the Utterly Fucked, respectively.

Economist Harold Knoep said there's little reason for sympathy.

"In a healthy capitalist economy, some people are going to be out-competed," Knoep said. "I'm sorry, but some of those fuck-ups have fucked themselves. I am not condoning an anarchic 'fuck or be fucked' ethos, but I can hardly get behind a welfare state that punishes the unfucked by fucking all equally."

While he expressed concern for the nation's poor, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said increased funding for social programs isn't the answer.

"Nobody's saying poor people aren't fucked," Hastert said. "But what about all the people in this great nation who are not fucked? If the financial resources of the economically stable are diverted—through some well-intentioned but fiscally irresponsible social-service program—to the people who are fucked, where does that leave those who were sailin' along fine? Fucked."

Ed Cranston, an under-employed, Detroit-area machinist who made $14,000 last year, said he was not surprised by the report.

"They say I'm fucked?" Cranston asked. "Shit, man, tell me something I don't know."

[frankiepop]

BILL OF RIGHTS PARED DOWN
TO A MANAGEABLE SIX


WASHINGTON, DC—Flanked by key members of Congress and his administration, President Bush approved Monday a streamlined version of the Bill of Rights that pares its 10 original amendments down to a "tight, no-nonsense" six.

supporters look on, Bush signs the Bill Of Rights Reduction And Consolidation Act.

A Republican initiative that went unopposed by congressional Democrats, the revised Bill of Rights provides citizens with a "more manageable" set of privacy and due-process rights by eliminating four amendments and condensing and/or restructuring five others. The Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, was the only article left unchanged.
Calling the historic reduction "a victory for America," Bush promised that the new document would do away with "bureaucratic impediments to the flourishing of democracy at home and abroad."
"It is high time we reaffirmed our commitment to this enduring symbol of American ideals," Bush said. "By making the Bill of Rights a tool for progress instead of a hindrance to freedom, we honor the true spirit of our nation's forefathers."
The Fourth Amendment, which long protected citizens' homes against unreasonable search and seizure, was among the eliminated amendments. Also stricken was the Ninth Amendment, which stated that the enumeration of certain Constitutional rights does not result in the abrogation of rights not mentioned.
"Quite honestly, I could never get my head around what the Ninth Amendment meant anyway," said outgoing House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), one of the leading advocates of the revised Bill of Rights. "So goodbye to that one."
Amendments V through VII, which guaranteed the right to legal counsel in criminal cases, and guarded against double jeopardy, testifying against oneself, biased juries, and drawn-out trials, have been condensed into Super-Amendment V: The One About Trials.
Attorney General John Ashcroft hailed the slimmed-down Bill of Rights as "a positive step."
"Go up to the average citizen and ask them what's in the Bill of Rights," Ashcroft said. "Chances are, they'll have only a vague notion. They just know it's a set of rules put in place to protect their individual freedoms from government intrusion, and they assume that's a good thing."

Above: Bush works on revisions to the Bill of Rights.
Ashcroft responded sharply to critics who charge that the Bill of Rights no longer safeguards certain basic, inalienable rights.
"We're not taking away personal rights; we're increasing personal security," Ashcroft said. "By allowing for greater government control over the particulars of individual liberties, the Bill of Rights will now offer expanded personal freedoms whenever they are deemed appropriate and unobtrusive to the activities necessary to effective operation of the federal government."
Ashcroft added that, thanks to several key additions, the Bill of Rights now offers protections that were previously lacking, including the right to be protected by soldiers quartered in one's home (Amendment III), the guarantee that activities not specifically delegated to the states and people will be carried out by the federal government (Amendment VI), and freedom of Judeo-Christianity and non-combative speech (Amendment I).
According to U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), the original Bill of Rights, though well-intentioned, was "seriously outdated."
"The United States is a different place than it was back in 1791," Craig said. "As visionary as they were, the framers of the Constitution never could have foreseen, for example, that our government would one day need to jail someone indefinitely without judicial review. There was no such thing as suspicious Middle Eastern immigrants back then."
Ashcroft noted that recent FBI efforts to conduct investigations into "unusual activities" were severely hampered by the old Fourth Amendment.
"The Bill of Rights was written more than 200 years ago, long before anyone could even fathom the existence of wiretapping technology or surveillance cameras," Ashcroft said. "Yet through a bizarre fluke, it was still somehow worded in such a way as to restrict use of these devices. Clearly, it had to go before it could do more serious damage in the future."
The president agreed.
"Any machine, no matter how well-built, periodically needs a tune-up to keep it in good working order," Bush said. "Now that we have the bugs worked out of the ol' Constitution, she'll be purring like a kitten when Congress reconvenes in January—just in time to work on a new round of counterterrorism legislation."
"Ten was just too much of a handful," Bush added. "Six civil liberties are more than enough."

[frankiepop]

Olewenik Pans AMPLIFY 2002

Various artists
AMPLIFY 2002: balance box set (Fogetaboutit)
(Erstwhile Records)

If there is a significance to the number 7, then AMPLIFY 2002 is that and only that. AMPLIFY is a box set of 7 cds and one dvd that was slyly intended to be Erstwhile’s first major work for the Christmas gift season. Keith Rowe balked at the box set hushed homage to pretty Japanese pop on cd 7. In something like a fit of pique, British Lord Keith Rowe and 7 guitarists ally with him and lash out at Rock N Roll on cut 2 as a way of showing himself capable of whipping up music as grittily tuneful as the buzz bands of the moment, while mastering the all too covered Treatise composition by Cardew on the 1st cut.

It’s all downhill from there though, when Muller and Nakamura on the 2nd cd, Mint, simply connect an electrode set to Steve (thelil)’s head and discovered little more than an annoying brainwave activity of the mentally deranged that is eschewed through electronic 'music?' amplifiers and a no input mixing board…



...and as far as the dvd goes, Abbey attempts something akin to the 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky film entitled Solaris. However, the end result is little more than porn. —Brian Olewenik