Bartcop Entertainment - Tuesday, 6 July, 2004

Petition of the Week

by Michael Dare

On June 28 at 10:28AM, I received the following e-mail from Mr. Curt D. Pangracs, an employee of Northrop Grumman...

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

What a total waste of 2 minutes. I will ensure that thousands of people know that your site is full of mistakes, out-of-context quotes, slanted and stilted reports, and is more than unpatriotic,...it is idiotic. It's so refreshing to know that there is a place for the uneducated, unloved, and underacheiving to go and feel welcome.

It wouldn't be so bad if you included things that truly mattered to the backbone of this country. Instead of reporting on the failing family unit, the lack of personal responsibility, and the secularization of a nation founded on basic HUMAN principles and supported by Christian beliefs, you are attempting and succeeding at being part of the problem instead of the solution.

It's so nice to have a well-written document (The Constitution) which allows you the right to say and do the things you say and do. It's also a slap in the face of America when you use those rights irresponsibly to tear-down and desecrate the very principles that give you that right.

I can only say that, if you don't like this country and the way it is running, you have a few options: Run for public office and strive to change what you think is wrong; Leave the US for another country which will support all of the personal freedoms you know enj...oh, wait,...not going to happen; Shut up and crawl back into your twisted world.

Of course, I too will be exercising my right and will not visit your site again, nor will a few thousand of my patriotic friends and family who strive to better our nation through bettering ourselves, our children, and our
communities, voting, and exposing frauds such as yourself.

Have a nice day, and remember, Michael Moore has enough ass for every ignorant left-wing extremist to kiss at the same time.

Curt Pangracs

American Born, American Raised, and Proud of It!

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

I replied...

One simple question,

If George W. Bush were a fascist dictator bent on taking over the world by ruthless force and handing it over to his rich cronies, how would he be behaving any differently?

MD

He replied...

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

One simple answer.

He's NOT a fascist dictator, he is operating under full legal authority granted by the Constitution and its amendments, as well as under the auspices of the US Congress. Ever hear of the system of checks and balances? You should wade through your own rhetoric, and you'll find that most of the Democrats now screaming are the same people, working off of the exact same intelligence as President Bush, who voted with the President.You should be upset at the framers of the Constitution, the Legislative Branch, or the members of Congress, not George Bush. However, your ignorance in these matters and others on your website is typical of the uninformed, and smack heavily of a disenfranchised youth filled with the pedantic rhetoric of his (or her) college professor or even High School history teacher.

It is uninformed people like you who will not rest until America fits your version of truth, no matter how many people it hurts. You should have a sense of responsibility to present both sides of every issue, otherwise what you are doing is irresponsible and immature.

May I suggest a one-way ticket for you and yours to France?

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

I replied...

You didn't answer the question. The question was IF he was a fascist dictator, how would he BEHAVE any different.

He replied...

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

Why don't you tell me? The real question SHOULD be "IF he was doing these things, WOULD he be considered a facsist dictator?"

Typical of a liberal dumbass. I shot down the whole premise behind your question, rendering it completely moot, and you still want an answer to a moot question.

I'm through with you, retard.

Curt Pangracs

I replied...

Of course you can't answer the question because the only possible answer is "If George W. Bush were a fascist dictator bent on taking over the world by force, he would behave absolutely no differently than he is behaving now."

Write a review of Fahrenheit 9/11 and I'll publish it.

MD

He replied...

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

Figures you would point to something so totally skewed and out-of-context as that Michael Moore Terrorism Propaganda film. It's obvious you don't check the sources for your website, how can you be expected to question the almighty Michael Moore, the rich fatcat who claims to fight for the "common man" He is almost full-of-shit enough to be a registered Democrat! Oh, wait, he IS a democrat, which is something he also lied about.

You know what, I'm not going to spend a dime to see that piece of trash. Why should I give this guy $10 I can send to Iraq to help children or use in some CONSTRUCTIVE fashion?

Also, don't even presume for a moment that I would write anything for your P.O.S. website. How many of your frinds and family have lost their lives in Iraq? When have YOU ever put your life on the line for something greater than yourself? Never, because you are only worried about your own bottom line, just like everyone else. Don't try and pass-off your "cause" as something noble, it isn't.

As for our President being a dictator, can you still cross a border in the USA without specific papers allowing you to do so? Can you still run your crappy website without threat of being arrested or executed for it? Are you allowed to continually display your ignorance of the way the world works without government interruption?

If you answered yes to ANY of the above, then you are hardly in a position to call our President Fascist.

Oh, and BTW, it warmed my heart when I noticed how long your site has gone without an update of any real consequence. It means it is dying on the vine, much like the other crappy and worthless sites based on heresay, conjecture, and most often, outright lies and slander.

Those tickets to DeGaulle Airport should be ready about now, don't you think.

Do not contact me further, as will not get a response.

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

Could anybody turn down this blatant invitation to have the last word? I replied...

Disinfotainment Today is updated every Monday and gets more than 3,000 visitors a day.

Well, I think you'll agree I replied politely and succinctly, keeping my wits about me, staying in my adult, getting him to march into his parent mode, delivering a lecture, pontificating, repeating the party line, hypnotized by the march to war, justifying his very existence while steadfastly and repeatedly refusing to actually answer one single question, telling me it's the wrong question, rewriting it to suit his needs.

Maybe it's the way I put it. Okay, let's put it another way. Here's the question that fries their brain. They can't answer it. This isn't the first time somebody has cut off communication as soon as I asked this question because there is no answer. What can they say? Put it your own way but ask this: "If a fictitious person, somebody entirely made up, a lead character you were inventing for a novel or screenplay, were to take over the United States government in a coup d'etat, then use his position to install a fascist dictatorship with an agenda to literally take over the world through force, how would this fictitious character's actions differ in any way from the actions of George W. Bush?"

Pangracs thinks well, yeah, it's possible to look at things that way, but it's paranoid and delusional. Just because something LOOKS like a coup d'etat, just because a court of nothing but appointees appoints the son of someone who appointed some of them, over the rights of the states and the actual majority of the electorate, doesn't mean it actually IS a coup d'etat. Just because it LOOKS like the election was stolen, doesn't mean the election WAS stolen. Just because the definition of fascism is corporate interests ruling the government ("Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini) and George W. Bush has gotten more money from corporate interests than any president in history doesn't mean you can call his government fascist. And just because he's overturned decades of foreign policy by invading foreign countries on a mission of preemption, threatening and bullying every country on earth while ignoring all international treaties, doesn't mean he's trying to take over the world. Nah, if he were a megalomaniac trying to take over the world, he'd be behaving VERY differently.

Curt, I've never seen anyone so wrong, so thoroughly hypnotized. Watch the TV. You are getting sleepy. You will believe everything it says. You will refuse to investigate anything yourself. You will trust the government to make all your decisions. You will dismiss everything that contradicts your delusional vision of the world as quackery.. Give us all your money, and your children to boot. Don't forget 9/11. They're out to get you and only big brother can protect you. Build more battleships.

Hey Pangracs, I can see things from your point of view. I'm sure you say that a marine was recently beheaded because the Islamic militants are insane and must be destroyed. I say the marine was recently beheaded because he was there. Even you have got to agree that if he hadn't been there, it wouldn't have happened. If you stick your head in a lion's mouth, it's not the lion's fault if he chomps it off.

From your point of view, if Dubya wanted to take over the United States Government against the wishes of the electorate, he wouldn't have done what he did in Florida. If he wasn't a fascist, he wouldn't have accepted all those corporate donations while deregulating their industries and lowering their taxes. If he wasn't trying to take over the world, he wouldn't have invaded two countries and started redeveloping nuclear weapons. He certainly wouldn't have said "Bring 'em on."

Whatayuh gonna tell me, that just because it LOOKS like a coup d'etat for a fascist dictatorship to take over the world by force doesn't mean it actually IS a coup d'etat for a fascist dictatorship to take over the world by force? How long are you going to keep lying to yourself? When are you going to wake up? Here's a caveat for you. You are the one who is uninformed. You are the one who believes what he is told. You are the one who is naive and gullible and totally in denial. You're the sheep. I'm the one who doesn't believe ANYTHING until I check it out first.

It doesn't take much imagination. One way to protect yourself from enemies is to get as strong as you possibly can. Another way to protect yourself from enemies is to have less enemies. You see how the formula works? The less enemies you have, the less you have to worry about defending yourself.

A world without Enemies! you shout. Impossible. A dream. True, but a world where you're strong enough to defeat any enemy is a dream too. I give both impossible dreams equal value, but you can't even consider the possibility of a world without enemies. Both sides of the equation are equally unattainable. Giving them equal status, you've got to put just as much effort into making less enemies as you put into preparing to defend yourself. Making less enemies is certainly more cost efficient and we're giving it exactly zero effort.

What if we declared war on cruelty instead of terrorism? What would warriors against cruelty look like? They'd be strong but kind. They'd be helpful. They'd listen more than they'd talk and genuinely try to solve individual problems on an individual basis, willing to throw out the template and improvise. They'd investigate instances of cruelty by examining the human heart and trying to turn every one to the good. They wouldn't punish, they'd inform. They wouldn't fight cruelty with more cruelty any more than they'd fight famine with more famine. They would spend their lives displaying the opposite of cruelty, every second of every day, an endless parade of kindness. They would be benevolent and harmless. They would have no enemies, nobody running around saying "Fuck those assholes who are kind all the time."

If we stopped building battleships, wouldn't 120,000 people at Northrop Grumman be out of work? Nope, they'll be busy changing the battleships into something other than targets, something that doesn't inspire fear but inspiration, something other countries would actually be glad to see when it appears on the horizon.

You'll notice no planes crashed into John Hopkins Medical Center. Even terrorists occasionally need a liver transplant. Nobody's going around blowing up hospitals. I can't remember the last time there was a bombing at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. One of the final acts of the world coming to peace would be the transfer of every aircraft carrier to peacetime use. Let them shuffle refugees around, just like Exodus. Let the planes that use their decks be loaded with cargo to provide emergency relief to anyone in the world at a moments notice. Start with one, just one aircraft carrier. Surely national security wouldn't suffer if it was changed from a target into a floating hospital, flying relief to the stricken of the world, whether by famine or pestilence or natural disaster, offering food and medical supplies, helping the sick and the homeless, building shelters, giving aid to whoever needs it. Let these floating hospitals become such an overpowering force for good on earth that no terrorist would even consider stopping them. Let them symbolize man's humanity instead of his passion to dominate and enemies will evaporate.

Turn a battleship into an international relief ship and it will become a living symbol of our solemn vow to help "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free," a plaque at the ENTRANCE TO OUR COUNTRY, the very first thing my grandparents saw when they arrived from Russia, a gift from the French, the very people you care to insult by suggesting I move there. Why not just ask them to take back the Statue of Liberty? The tired can lay down somewhere else, the poor can just deal with it, and the huddled masses yearning to breath free can go fuck themselves.

Anybody who actually thinks that the "system of checks and balances" is actually working in this country needs to have his head examined. A "Supreme" court that appoints a president against the wishes of the population and a congress that rubber stamps everything coming out of the oval office without even reading it? Zero checks. Zero balances. Pay attention. And speaking of the constitution, might I point out "The Right to Petition Our Government for a Redress of Grievances?" And three guesses what document says "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." You're the minority, pal, the rich and the pampered. I'm "the governed" and you sure as hell don't have my consent.

I offer as proof of your derangement the question "When have YOU ever put your life on the line for something greater than yourself?" Need I point out that the only current candidate for president who actually put his life on the line for something greater than himself is the one you're apparently voting against?

You, Kurt D. Pangracs, are self-centered, meglomaniacal, and in need of psychiatric help, possibly some form of anger management. You're justifying your existence by imagining a world so full of hatred that we actually need the fruits of your labor. You choose to ignore the fact that if there were no enemies, somebody would have to invent them just to justify your existence, and you refuse to even consider the possibility that that's exactly what's happening. So you back a man who dodged the war, who can't relate to the horror, a man who has no problem killing and creating enemies. He's the very best. Everybody hates us and you get to keep your job. It's sickening. You're seriously deranged and much more than inhuman. You're actually anti-human.

I was also born in America. If you're doing it for me, I say no thank you. Build something else. I'm not trying to put everyone at Northrop Grumman out of a job. Keep working. Keep getting paid by the government. Just build something that actually contributes to society. How about a kindergarten? How about a day care center? How about a fleet of traveling libraries with a Print on Demand publishing system that can instantly print out any book in the database in any language for pennies and sending them to neighborhoods all over the globe that don't have libraries? How about spreading literacy around the world instead of death and destruction? How about contributing to society instead of defending it, just for the heck of it?

I bet you can tell me who said "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Whoever it was could just as easily have said "Damned are the violent: for they shall obtain violence."

You actually prefer people trembling in fear before your mighty might over a look of love and a hearty thank you. You want them to leave you alone because you'll kill them if they don't instead of wanting them to leave you alone because they've got nothing against you, after all, you're not poisoning the water and air, you're cleaning it up. You're not gluttonous and self righteous, you share and don't gloat about it. You don't create misery, you nourish and heal. Imagine the enemies you'd create with that attitude.

You don't teach others not to smoke by smoking yourself and you don't teach others to stop killing people by killing people yourself. Every parent on earth knows that you teach by example. Every parent who isn't a politician, that is. If you were my kid I'd say "Put that down. Play nice."

In many ways I'm JUST like George W. Bush. I did everything I could to get out of going to Vietnam too, and if my daddy had been able to help, so much the better. Hell, I'm jealous of the ease with which he avoided active service. I don't understand why you're mad at me but not at him.

Way back then, I thought gung-ho guys like Kerry who actually went out of their way to put themselves on the front line were out of their fucking minds and I still do. (I also thought those firemen marching into the buildings were out of their fucking minds, so sometimes we can thank God for people who are out of their fucking minds.)

Anyway, George knew he had better things to do than getting himself killed in combat and so did I. The ultimate hypocrisy is inflicting upon the world what you avoid in your personal life. At home, Dubya keeps the peace. At work, he keeps the war. The only difference between us is that I try to keep the peace everywhere. My only goal in life is to make everything you've devoted your life to unnecessary. Wouldn't that be nice? You could relax and the world could live in peace.

Stop believing in it. Right now. Quit your job. I don't even know what your job is but you should quit, right now, just get up and leave.

You've got to justify what you do, I understand that. You work for the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. Since your business is war, if there were no war, you boys would be out of business, so you see those of us against the war as a threat to your livelihood.

So I'm begging you to quit. Quit whatever you are doing for Northrop Grumman and spend the rest of your life atoning for the damage you've done to humanity. Add to nothing more than the good. Stop spreading misery and contributing to the death of babies in foreign lands. Mankind doesn't get any lower. You think God speaks to George W. Bush? Well he's speaking to me right now and he's telling me to tell you to devote the rest of your existence to helping babies live, and not just American babies, not just babies related to you, but to babies of every color and location. Your only goal is to keep them out of harm's way, and that's the way to get to heaven. This is God speaking. What you're doing is terrible. Quit your job. When you and I get to St. Peter, he's going to ask us how many innocent deaths we contributed to. Guess which one of us is going to hell.

I've started an Urge Curt D. Pangracs to quit his job petition. If he won't listen to me, maybe he'll listen to you. Please forward this petition. Northrop Grumman has 120,000 employees building weapons of mass destruction for the United States of America. If we're going to put them out of business, one employee at a time, we've got a long way to go.

And as for the trip to Paris, you're on Mr. Pangracs. I'm waiting for the tickets.

And make the next yo-yos we send to Iraq toys instead of Generals.

"There's none deceived, but he that trusts."
- Ben Franklin -

Conversation of the Week

"Larry, let's point out that the administration, and one can like it or not like it, they just about convinced the wire services and others only to carry the killed in actual combat rather than the total number of casualties killed in the country."

- Dan Rather on Larry King -

"The United States is planning a massive show of force in the Pacific Ocean near China to register a point with Beijing. In an exercise codenamed Operation Summer Pulse 04, it is expected to arrange for an unprecedented seven aircraft carrier strike groups (CSGs) to rendezvous in waters a safe distance away from the Chinese coastline - but still within striking distance - after mid-July...

"Sources in Beijing say China's reading is that Summer Pulse is being mounted with it as the target audience, a suspicion reinforced by reports that Taiwanese forces are slated to join in the drill.

"Clearly, given Beijing's repeated warning that it will use force, as a last resort and whatever the cost, to stop Taiwanese independence, the US feels it needs to send Beijing a message...

"The implications for China [and Walmart] are grave."

- Ching Cheong: US plans huge show of force in Pacific, Seven aircraft carriers to move within striking distance of China; Taiwan forces slated to join in drill -

"The FBI's prompt arrival was peculiar. As Christopher Bollyn of American Free Press reported (www.rumormillnews.net, Oct. 29, 2002), 'According to Rick Wahlberg, then St. Louis County sheriff, a team of FBI agents was quickly on the crash site about noon, less than an hour after (assistant manager Gary) Ulman and the (fire) chief had first located the site and found a way to access the wreck. This FBI team had come from the distant Twin Cities in record time!'

"When Bollyn asked Ulman if he had notified the FBI about the accident, Ulman said he had not spoken with the bureau at any time. Asked how the FBI got to the site so quickly, Ulman said that he assumed they had come from Duluth. AFP contacted the Duluth office of the FBI and was told that the team of 'recovery' agents had not come from Duluth but had traveled from the FBI office in Minneapolis.

"I calculate that this team would have had to have left the Twin Cities at about the same time the Wellstone plane was taking off."

- Jim Fetzer: Evidence Mounts that Paul Wellstone was Murdered! Did Dick Cheney Give the Order? -

"I didn't know Kabul was the capital of Afghanistan until we started bombing it. And I thought to myself what a great fact. If we hadn't gone to war there, I certainly wouldn't have known that. And I think, for the kids today, it's important for them to learn geography. And I think in as violent a way as possible."

- Jon Stewart on Larry King -

"Federalism is the idea that states had a right to be different. This meant they had to compete with each other to attract citizens and that the federal government existed for the benefit of the states. But that got turned on its head. Today states are measly fiefdoms of the national government. Federalism was sacrificed during the Civil War to end the evil of slavery. And the remaining vestiges of federalism were ripped away from us nearly a century later to combat another evil - government-imposed segregation.

"In 1913 the 'pursuit of happiness' was purloined for the good of 'progress.' 1913 was a really bad year for the United States. In that year Republicanism was destroyed to bring about Democracy with the passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments. The 16th Amendment allowed for the direct taxation of your income and 17th provided for the direct election of Senators (previously they had been selected by their state legislatures). We gave up our Republic and became a Democracy."

- Jim Babka: Remembering America on Her Birthday -

"Hitchens is being intellectually dishonest here on a grand scale. He's pulling the right wing move that we've seen time and again where you manipulate words and scenarios to suit your own needs, and anyone who sees Moore's movie will see, front and center, that this is the case.

"And they really will. I mean, good grief, a woman who sat next to me during this film, a respected newspaper writer in this town, cried at what she saw on screen. She cried. Not quietly, not a single tear quickly sucked back in - she cried LOUDLY.

"Is this woman merely someone so weak of mind that she could be snowed by some clever editing and emotional background music? Of course not. What she saw were images we're not allowed to see as a matter of course in American life any more. She saw babies covered in burns, missing limbs, being thrown on trucks. She saw US soldiers singing 'the roof is on fire' as Baghdad buildings burned behind them. She saw soldiers standing in the desert wondering what the hell they got themselves into, and why.

"And she saw a pattern of deception, hubris and elitist maneuvering that saw the western world descend into war for NO REASON other than the profit of a small number of people. She saw lives destroyed so that Halliburton could see their stock rise. She saw parents grieving, caskets returning, and innocent Iraqi civilians calling for our deaths because, heck, after you've flattened someone's home with their family inside, they tend to get a little pissy."

- Chris Parry: Defending Truth: Slate's Chris Hitchens does a hatchet job on Michael Moore (mandatory reading for anyone who was taken in by Hitchens) -

"While many learned professors have abandoned hope of ever discovering the truth behind my dick, I for one feel that it is still a worthy cause for examination. There are many factors which influenced the development of my dick. While much has been written on its influence on contemporary living, its influence on western cinema has not been given proper recognition. Inevitably feelings run deep amongst so called 'babies', who form the last great hope for our civilization. Hold onto your hats as we begin a journey into my dick."

- The Essay Generator -

"Machine guns. Aren't they just the cutest things?

"And isn't it just so sweet and fall-down uproarious how the NRA and all its knuckle-draggin' right-wing pals in the U.S. Senate are all cheering right this minute, as the much-loathed 10-year-old ban on assault weapons, the one outlawing Uzis and TEC-9 semiautomatics and AK-47s and all other way-cool manly guns that have no other purpose in this world than to annihilate crap at 200 rounds per minute, is about to expire?

"Because, get this: The ban will not be renewed. It's true. Even if that commie liberal Feinstein somehow gets it passed in the Senate, the NRA lobby has promised to keep it from ever coming up for a vote in the House, and the law will just expire and they will all cheer and slather each other in gun-barrel polish and go off and shoot stuff, because that's the only thing that seems to give life any meaning.

"Isn't that great? To hell with logic and to hell with your kids' safety and to hell with even trying to prevent moron gangbangers and terrorist wanna-bes and imbecilic white supremacists from easily getting their hands on a nice AK-47 that can mow down a schoolyard full of tots in 10 seconds flat. Instead: Down with liberal scum who would take away our God-given right to bear nasty ultraviolent weaponry that no one anywhere can justify the existence of. Go, NRA!...."

- Mark Morford: An Uzi Up Your Liberal Nose. Who cares if the assault-weapons ban is about to expire? The gun lobby can't wait to blow stuff away -

"Have you heard about this controversial new movie Fahrenheit 9/11? I hope Bush isn't too angry about this film. No one wants to see Michael Moore in a naked pyramid."

- Craig Kilborn: The Late Late Show -

"In every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

- The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy -

"Women, as they grow older, rely more and more on cosmetics. Men...rely more and more on a sense of humor."

- George Jean Nathan -

"If you'd put the Iraqi War on ABC, it would've been over in 13 weeks."

- Richard Sherman -

"A U.N. agency has just approved the first new Morse code signal since WW II, . - - . - . for @."

- Phil's Phunny Phacts -

"Very angry.. Loves the Americans. Very big. Wants us to have bigger cars. Wants us to have bigger cars and, as a little goof on us, has only made a finite supply of oil. It's very -- he's very funny. He's a trickster. Here's another little joke he did. He promised three different religions they were the chosen ones, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and then, funny, follow me, he put their holiest sites all in the same place. And then he backed away and he just wants to see who wants it more. That's what this is about. This is God going, hey, show me something, people."

- Jon Stewart on Larry King -

"I am seriously considering our involvement in this mess! Why are
we still there? Every day there are news reports about more deaths. Every night on TV there are photos of death and destruction. Why are we still there? We occupied this land, which we had to take by force, but it causes us nothing but trouble. Many of our children go there and never come back. Their government is unstable, and they have loopy leadership. Why are we still there? Many of their people are uncivilized. The place is subject to natural disasters, which we are supposed to bail them out of. Why are we still there? There are more than 1000 religious sects, which we do not understand. Their folkways, foods and fads are unfathomable to ordinary Americans. We can't even secure the borders. Why are we still there? They are billions of dollars in debt and it will cost billions more to
rebuild, which we can't afford. It is becoming clear... WE MUST PULL OUT OF CALIFORNIA ~ NOW!"

- Phil Proctor -

"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."

- Woodrow Wilson: The New Freedom (1913) -

"Tom Freeman, the Riverside County Sheriffs Department executive officer, said the sheriff's department was involved in the update of President Fords funeral plan which occurred within the last year. The department would provide support to the Secret Service and the Ford family in areas like motorcade escorts, traffic control and blocking intersections. Freeman said it would be a valley-wide law enforcement effort because the motorcade would pass through multiple jurisdictions. Other agencies likely to be involved include the California Highway Patrol, Palm Springs Police Department and federal security at the Palm Springs International Airport. Rondeau said he expects Ford's funeral to be as elaborate and detailed as was Reagan's.

- Xochitl Peña: He's alive and well, but Ford's funeral is planned, Former presidents sometimes begin work on services after taking office -

"There is nothing that causes more reaction than talking about politics. That is why today's edition has absolutely nothing to do with personal feelings or opinions and everything to do with empirical evidence. Just for the record, we are maintaining an impartial stance on who should be the next President of this great country in order to present a fair view. The data unequivocally shows that the successful reelection of President Bush (we'll call him W) is good for the stock market. This in turn leads to a healthier portfolio with more green than red."

- Why Pres. Bush Is Good For Your Portfolio -

"[Marie] DeYoung audited accounts for Halliburton's subsidiary KBR. She claims there was no effort to hold down costs because all costs were passed on directly to taxpayers. She repeatedly complained to superiors of waste and fraud. The company's response, according to deYoung was: 'We can be as dumb and stupid as we want in the first year of a war, nobody's going to care.'

"DeYoung produced documents detailing alleged waste even on routine services: $50,000 a month for soda, at $45 a case; $1 million a month to clean clothes or $100 for each 15-pound bag of laundry.

"'That money could have been used to take care of soldiers,' she said.

"DeYoung also claims people were paid to do nothing. Mike West says he was one of them. Paid $82,000 a year to be a labor foreman in Iraq, West claims he never had any laborers to supervise. 'They said just log 12 hours a day and walk around and look busy,' he said. 'OK, so we did.'"

- Lisa Myers: New Halliburton waste alleged, Former company auditor: It's just a gravy train -

"A Christian charity has accused the coalition authority in Iraq of failing to account for up to $20 billion of oil revenues which should have been spent on relief and reconstruction projects. At the same time, the Liberal Democrats are demanding an investigation into the way the US-led administration in Baghdad has handled Iraq's oil revenues. The coalition is obliged to pay all oil revenues into the Development Fund for Iraq, but according to Liberal Democrat figures, the fund could be short by as much as $3.7 billion."

- Stephen Bates and Richard Norton-Taylor: Billions of revenue from oil 'missing' -

"In April, Julee Lacey, 33, a Fort Worth, TX, mother of two, went to her local CVS drugstore for a last-minute Pill refill. She had been getting her prescription filled there for a year, so she was astonished when the pharmacist told her, 'I personally don't believe in birth control and therefore I'm not going to fill your prescription.'"

- Caroline Bollinger: Access Denied, Find out why growing numbers of doctors and pharmacists across the US are refusing to prescribe or dispense birth control pills -

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity."

- Thomas Henry Huxley -

"Comparisons between Roman Society and Medieval Society give a clear picture of the importance of Disinfotainment Today to developments in social conduct. I will not insult the readers intelligence by explaining this obvious comparison any further. The immortal and indispensable phrase 'honesty is the best policy' [1] could have been making a reference to Disinfotainment Today, but probably not. While the western world uses a knife and fork, the Chinese use chopsticks. Of course Disinfotainment Today irons out misconceptions from our consciousness."

- The Essay Generator -

"One of the few good things about modern times -- if you die horribly on TV, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."

- Kurt Vonnegut -

"Perhaps if you know you are insane, then you are not insane."

- Philip K. Dick -

"I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt."

- Marshall McLuhan -