This Is A Joke. . . Right?

Please Tell Me It Is A Joke. . .
compiled by The Old Hippie Because The Real Is Becoming The Surreal

"The guests at Saudi Arabia's first international conference on terrorism at the weekend, in the birthplace of al-Qa'eda, were as bemused by their lavish reception as they were by the chaos of its organization."  [Quote from Michael Moore's Must Reads]


The Following items all have this implied question; "Is this a joke?"  Sadly, none are a joke.  All are dangerously true.  The REAL question is. . .  "What have you done, and what are you going to do, about any of it?"

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Religious Right Fights Science For The Heart Of America
by Suzanne Goldenberg in Kansas City, The Guardian, Feb. 7, 2005

"Creationists take their challenge to evolution theory into the classroom."

Full Link To This Article

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Mired in Denial, Lost in the Present
by Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, Feb. 7, 2005

"Our media, of course, adores Xtreme weather events.  Dan Rather's CBS prime-time news show, for instance, never saw an El Nino effect, a hurricane, a major flood, or an onslaught of snow that it didn't rush right to the top of the news; while those once Weather-Channel-restricted scenes of reporters, their bodies oddly angled, shouting into mics and staring into water-smeared lenses in the pelting rain of an onrushing storm are now commonplaces of the national news; and yet you can search the television news and our mainstream press almost in vain for anyone even willing to speculate that the increase in Xtreme weather events which has brought us multiple massive hurricanes in Florida, a prolonged drought in the southwest, Europe's burning summers, Brazil's first South Atlantic hurricane ever, the storm of the century on Canada's east coast, and Japan's worst season of typhoons in memory might have anything to do with global warming."

Full Link To This Article

[ On The Same Topic. . . ]

Apocalypse Now:
by Geoffrey Lean, The Independent (UK), Feb. 6, 2005

"...how mankind is sleepwalking to the end of the Earth Floods, storms and droughts.  Melting Arctic ice, shrinking glaciers, oceans turning to acid.  The world's top scientists warned last week that dangerous climate change is taking place today, not the day after tomorrow.  You don't believe it?  Then, says Geoffrey Lean, read this..."

"Future historians, looking back from a much hotter and less hospitable world, are likely to play special attention to the first few weeks of 2005.  As they puzzle over how a whole generation could have sleepwalked into disaster - destroying the climate that has allowed human civilisation to flourish over the past 11,000 years - they may well identify the past weeks as the time when the last alarms sounded."

Full Link To This Article

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From Cursor.org Today
by Varied Authors, via Cursor.org, Feb. 8, 2005

"Although Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani backed another top cleric's "surprise" demand
that Islam be the sole source of law in the new Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney said that
he "doesn't see" an Iraqi theocracy developing.

"The Republican Party spin machine was bouncing around the airwaves like an overloaded washing machine on Sunday," writes Juan Cole, "attempting to obscure from the American
public that they had by their actions managed to install a Shiite religious ruling class in Iraq."
Plus: Cole vs. Jonah Goldberg, rounds one and two."

Full Link To Cursor.org Website

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New Bush Budget Slashes All But Military
by Mike Allen & Peter Baker, Washington Post via Truthout.org, Feb. 7, 2005

"President Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget today eliminating dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, environmental protection and business development, while proposing significant increases for the military and international spending, according to White House documents."

Full Link To This Article

[ That link also includes the article "Bush's Budget Axe to Fall on Poor" by Julian Borger at
  The Guardian U.K. - "President Bush is proposing to reduce spending on public health and
  social welfare in the US to help pay for tax cuts and the war in Iraq, according to early re-
  ports of today's White House budget." ]

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Take a moment here - to reflect on the deadly/dangerous fact - that almost all of the above is reported by Not-Our-Media, but rather mostly from the British press.  I could not find any of the above as "articles-of-honest-reportage" any-
where in "our" American media.  And as you continue to read. . .

[ See what I mean when I say; "Because The Real Is Becoming The Surreal." ]

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CIA Renditions of Terror Suspects Are 'Out of Control:'
by Agence France-Presse via Truthout.org, Feb. 6, 2005

"The Central Intelligence Agency's 'rendition' of suspected terrorists has spiralled 'out of control'
according to a former FBI agent, cited in a report which examined how CIA detainees are spir-
ited to states suspected of using torture."

Full Link To This Article

[ Link includes the article "Stories from the Inside" by Bob Herbert at The New York Times.
  "The horror stories from the scandalous interrogation camp that the United States is operating
  at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are coming to light with increased frequency.  At some point the
  whole shameful tale of this exercise in extreme human degradation will be told.  For the time
  being we have to piece together what we can from a variety of accounts that have escaped
  the government's obsessively reinforced barriers of secrecy." ]

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Quote of the day  (via Working For Change website)
by Dick Cheney on Fox, Feb. 6, 2005

"We're going to borrow $758 [b]illion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement accounts.  We think that's a manageable amount...  Trillions more after that."

Link To Joshua Micah Marshall's "Talking Points Memo" On This Subject