Rapper 50 Cent issued a stern warning to listeners in his latest album, The Massacre: “You should take time to check that bitch.”

50 issued his statement after presenting several pieces of key supporting evidence. “I have ya ho, eyeballin’ at the light,” he said, alluding to the way your girlfriend has shown interest in 50 and his “big white [Mercedes] Benz.”

Added 50: “damn pimpin.”

50 Cent is a wholly owned subsidiary of Universal Music Group, which is in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal S.A.

Expressing concern about the current situation with your girlfriend, 50 Cent declared that he’s “tired of tellin’ niggas over and over I won’t hesitate to pop or shank ya.”

“You don’t listen you gon’ get ya ass hit,” 50 concluded.

Intel, the world’s largest computer chipmaker, will be upgrading its brand next week, BBC has reported. The company will have a slightly modified logo and a new slogan: “Leap Ahead.”

Intel’s products will remain exactly the same.

Intel, the company, is worth $150 billion. But its brand, one of the most highly marketed in the world, is worth $35 billion on its own.¹

Marketing experts hailed the decision. According to one researcher, “With a stronger brand, Intel can charge consumers more money for the same products, increasing profits. It will also help manipulate consumers’ ideas about what Intel is. This is a great move for America.”

Time Magazine named Bill Gates “Person of the Year” last month, adding the convicted monolopolist to a long list of genocidal maniacs, torturers, and other role models.

Gates, who has done immeasurable harm to the technological progress by thwarting competitors and innovation at every turn, was a “fresh and interesting” choice, according to Time Managing Editor James Kelly¹

Other fresh choices have included

• Adolf Hitler (1938, murderer of six million Jews)
• Joseph Stalin (1939 and 1942, responsible for tens of millions of Soviet deaths)
• Ayatollah Khomeini (1979, Iranian dictator who extensively outlawed civil rights)
• George W. Bush (1990, 2000, and 2004, lied to U.S. to justify illegal invasion of Iraq)
• Faisal bin Abdelaziz Al Saud (1974, Fascist Monarch who increased Saudi Arabia’s military)

Time is already excited about the possibilities for the 2006 person of the year. Candidates include Osama bin Laden, “The Humble Terrorist,” The Grim Reaper, Satan, and Nuclear Weapons.

Large corporations everywhere have a question: “Are you ready?”

Referring to a technology unlikely to hit the mainstream for at least ten years, CNN asks: “Are you ready for a hydrogen car?”

Urging Americans not to forget their primary directive — to consume — Florida’s Sun-Herald wants to know if you’re ready “for the last-week rush of holiday shopping.”

Dan Mabbutt of About.com — owned by The New York Times — wants to know: “Are you ready for the Complete VB.NET Tutorial?” Just give them your name, email address, and zip code, and you can become ready!

And Lifetime, Television for Women^TM, wants to know: “Are you ready to be loved?” “Yes, it’s likely that your soul mate is out there.” But you’ll never find him, ladies, if you’re not ready to be loved. Take Lifetime’s quiz to discover whether you’re ready — or a misanthrope loser.

Billionaire New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg today referred to striking transit workers as “selfish.”

Among other disagreements, transit workers have refused to allow the MTA to significantly worsen their retirement benefits.

Bloomberg himself is the sole private possessor of many things:

• a mansion on Manhattan’s upper east side.
• private homes in London’s Cadogan Square; Vail, Colorado; Bermuda; Armonk
• a farm in North Salem where his daughter keeps her horses¹.
• an 80% share of Bloomberg, Inc., the media megacorp that bares his name.
• $5 billion

New York State Governor George Pataki, a millionaire who indirectly controls the MTA through leadership appointments, has joined Bloomberg in harshly condemning the strikers. Pataki has continually decreased funding for the MTA, and he has clearly forced this strike into existence.

Pataki’s probable motive: showing business elites he’s tough on workers and “corporate friendly” as he prepares for a 2008 presidential run.

In 1892, super-rich Henry Frick cut impoverished steelworkers’ wages, so they went on strike. Frick hired armed mercenaries who protected strikebreakers and attacked the striking employees. The state government responded to this situation by bringing in the militia to protect strikebreakers — and then wrongfully charging union leaders with murder. If it were 1892 today, where would Bloomberg and Pataki stand?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are locked in a fierce competition to see who can be the most completely ridiculous Middle-East leader.

Although corporate media outlets have been careful to give a “fair and balanced” accounting of the engagement, it’s clear that both are pulling no punches in their quest to be the most totally fucking nuts.

Both leaders have a history of madness. Speaking about Palestinian territory brutally occupied by Israel, Netanyahu argued that “we cannot allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in our country” — even though the rest of the world, including the U.S. (Israel’s staunch ally), did not consider Gaza and the West Bank to be part of Israel.¹

For his part, Ahmadinejad implemented separate elevators for men and women while mayor of Tehran.²

Now both men are turning up the heat.

Ahmadinejad, who recently called the holocaust a “myth,” has now banned Western music in Iran.

And Netanyahu — poised to once again head Israel’s neoconservative Likud party — has placed himself to the political right of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a former Defense Minister convicted for his primary role in the massacre of thousands of Palestinian civilians.³

A panel of crazy judges recently selected Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad over runners-up Sharon and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. A final winner is to be determined shortly.

Racists everywhere are scrambling to find new outlets for their unbridled hate, thanks to the recent identification of a skin color gene.

Scientists at Penn State recently published their findings in the prestigious journal Science. According to Scientific American, while searching zebrafish for cancer causing genes, the scientists ended up isolating the gene that makes European skin white.”¹

Faced with the overwhelming meaninglessness of skin color, racists are now hard-pressed to justify their malice. According to one racist, “Geneticist Kieth Chang and his team have shown that African-Americans are really just like me. I’m now faced with the formidable task of exploiting and dehumanizing a different subset of the population. Are Muslims still fair game?”

Other racists were even more affected.

“The entire fabric of this great nation is built on the profitable abuse of blacks, yellows, reds, and browns — domestically and internationally,” said one Republican state Governor. “With scientific support for our blind malevolence no longer a possibility, who will staff sweatshops, clean my house, work in poultry factories, or provide critical prison labor? Our whole economy will collapse!”

In an analytic discovery that scholars are calling “a breakthrough by any standard,” the New York Times has concluded on its front page that “the [Bush] administration has relied on an unusually expansive interpretation of the president’s authority.”

Since 2000, the Bush administration has launched globally unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bulldozed radical legislation through congress, and spied on thousands of U.S. residents without congressional or judicial knowledge.

But despite efforts, none have known what to make of this information — until now.

“This clarifies the actions of the Bush administration in remarkable ways,” remarked one political scholar, “opening up breathtaking new opportunities for study.”

A logician affiliated with Stanford University agrees: “That the Times could take so much information and piece it together so clearly is — and I don’t say this lightly — a marvel that shakes the very foundations of mathematics.”

When thousandaire blue-collar transit workers want raises that match inflation, a humane retirement plan — and an end to draconian disciplinary actions — insiders know there’s only one man who can restore order: billionaire New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.¹

As most local residents know, the NYC Transit Union began a partial strike today. The union threatens to call a general strike on Tuesday, bringing public transportation to a halt, unless the Metropolitan Transit Authority agrees to its demands.

The MTA had a $1 billion surplus this past year.

The average NYC transit worker earns $55,000 a year — which millionaire and billionaire experts agree is more than a fair share of the profits. Bloomberg issued a press release stating that a strike “would be more than just illegal and inconvenient; it will threaten public safety and severely disrupt our City and its economy.”

Analysts note that Bloomberg — whose $5 billion net worth exceeds the sum of all 33,000 transit workers’ 2005 incomes — “is the perfect man to stop the greedy workers from stealing hard-earned MTA money meant for millionaire executives.”

At Bloomberg’s side is New York State Governor George Pataki, with a net worth $2.35 million. He noted that strikers seeking better compensation will face “very, very severe consequences.”²

The world’s suit-wearing population — which includes government leaders and bureaucrats, corporate executives, religious leaders, and conservatives — requested today that people trust them.

“Look at my suit,” said a banking CEO at a press conference for the announcement. “It’s worth thousands. I’m clearly a man whose words should be strictly adhered to.”

Editorialists and pundits widely supported the request, although a fierce debate has erupted over whether blue ties or red ties are more trustworthy.

However, some political extremists and terrorists have criticized the announcement. According to one freedom-hater, “suit-wearing can be a good indicator of corruption, elitism, lack of substance, or the peddling of propaganda designed to internalize classism or intolerant dogma.”

“That’s a ridiculous notion,” countered a highly respectable suit-wearer as he stepped out of his limousine. “Why? Because the jean-toting people who make those dangerous statements are probably too filled with hate to own even one suit. Feel this suit. It’s silk. If I can afford to feel this good, you should probably trust my opinion.”

In a major speech yesterday, President Bush compared the struggle for democracy in Iraq to that of the 18th century United States.

Like Iraq’s new leaders, “Our founders faced many difficult challenges, they made mistakes, they learned from their experiences and they adjusted their approach.” said Bush.

Referring to U.S. history, Bush noted: “There were uprisings, with mobs attacking courthouses and government buildings. There was a planned military coup that was defused only by the personal intervention of George Washington.¹

“Also, like today’s Iraq, the United States was occupied by a foreign, nuclear-powered imperialist government bent on controlling America’s rich oil resources.”

Bush used these similarities to appeal to U.S. residents, most of whom no longer support the war on Iraq:

“In 1783, Congress was chased from [Philadelphia] by angry veterans demanding back pay, and they stayed on the run for six months. Then in 1784, a foreign military superpower killed tens of thousands of U.S. civilians while trying to secure oil fields and install a puppet U.S. government under a facade of democracy. They initially invaded us under the pretext of eliminating so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ but as that lie began to crumple, they shamelessly fished for new justifications. Only the strength of the American People let our democracy flourish under such conditions.

“It is important to keep this history in mind as we look at the progress of freedom and democracy in Iraq.”

Bush concluded by remarking that any pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq would lead to civil war: “If only Britain hadn’t cut and run from the Revolutionary War, we’d never have had our own Civil War here at home.”

A false and defamatory entry on Wikipedia, a publicly edited encyclopedia, has ignited a media frenzy over the site’s accuracy. According to the Seattle Times — a privately edited web site — the event has “touched off a debate about the reliability of information on Wikipedia.”¹

Expert private sources have discovered that because anyone can edit Wikipedia, the encyclopedia may not be completely accurate. These imperfections may have left Wikipedia “out of control.”

Wikipedia has roughly eight times more articles (715,000) than Encyclopedia Britannica (85,000).

“Anyone, but anyone, can insert an entry,” bemoaned the Times Online, owned by neoconservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.² Murdoch prefers that information be disseminated from his company, which “is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values.”³

Analysts with the Seattle Times have made even greater leaps, noting that if Wikipedia has some inaccuracy, the entire internet may contain inaccuracies as well.⁴ However, that study is still under review.

What do Sony, Bacardi, Playstation, and Telus have in common? “A properly structured and truly protected global trademark.” But a recent analysis by marketing expert Naseem Javed revealed that just one percent of corporations worldwide have proper unique global names with a matching dotcom.

This is “very disturbing,” alerts Javed. The fact that it is “so easy to create and build a proper global name” just adds insult to injury.

“To find a proper name identity,” he explains, “first you need a Five-Star Standard of Naming, this is a process designed to ensure the uniqueness of a candidate name with direct relativity to the business it represents while securing a position for a global trade marking with a matching dotcom.”

Added Javed: “Anything less will fail.”

What could be easier than that? Corporate marketing experts worldwide agree that unless major changes occur quickly, most corporations will continue to fail to “strike gold” by finding that “super shine” in their name identity.

Alexander Vershbow, the new US ambassador to South Korea, has concluded that North Korea is a “criminal regime.” The United States, in contrast, is not.

As evidence of North Korea’s criminality, Vershbrow listed several activities in which the U.S. also heavily participates: “the export of dangerous military technologies, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, … and many other illicit activities.”¹

The difference, U.S. State Department experts explained, is that North Korea is part of certain type of axis — specifically, an axis of evil. “When you are drenched in evilness, as North Korea is, criminality clings to you like a leech … an evil, criminal leech. But when you receive your agenda directly from The Lord Jesus Christ — as the U.S. does — exporting dangerous military technologies is like spreading little golden nuggets of peace throughout the globe.”

North Korea has repeatedly made global headlines for its evil nuclear weapons development program. In contrast, the U.S. continues to develop its nuclear weapons program for lawful and wholesome purposes, expanding upon the 12,070 such weapons in its current arsenal.²

The Bush Administration, along with a broad cross-section of Democrat and Republican congresspersons, is standing up in defense of Microsoft.

Microsoft Corporation, currently worth $295.2 billion,¹ has been fined by South Korea for violating its antitrust laws. According to experts, the $32 million fine — equal to 1/9218 of Microsoft’s value — is too much for the software giant to bear.

Microsoft has previously been deemed a monopoly by judicial bodies in the US and, more recently, the EU. According to ZDNet, “European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti ruled that Microsoft had failed to provide to rivals information that they needed to compete fairly in the market for server software and that the company has been offering Windows on the condition that it come bundled with Windows Media Player, stifling competition.”²

But Deputy Assistant Attorney General J. Bruce McDonald explained that “regulators should avoid substituting their judgment for the market’s.”³

by Bertrand Russell

Click here for Russell’s complete essay.

Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.

Hebrew University professor Martin van Creveld, considered by some to be Israel’s most respected military historian, has presented his opinion on the Iraq war in this week’s issue of Forward. Calling the Bush administration’s war “the most foolish” war since 9 B.C., van Creveld declared that the “thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal.”

Van Creveld’s “classic withdrawal” entails a “continued [U.S.] military presence, made up of air, sea and a moderate number of ground forces.”

True, this sort of withdrawal is highly similar to what others might call “non-withdrawal.” But real withdrawal is simply not an option, he argues, because “the region, with its vast oil reserves, is simply too important for that.”

Only 12.6 percent — or one in eight — black men in their late 20s currently provide wealthy white folks with mandatory prison labor, lamented super-rich white people nationwide today.

This is down significantly from the height of the slavery movement in 1850. At that time, roughly 87 percent of black men were slaves in southern plantations.¹

“Dammit!” cried Lehman Brothers, Inc. CEO Richard S. Fuld Jr at a recent shareholders meeting. Lehman Brothers has made millions in private prison industry financing.² “Those were simpler times. An average exorbitantly wealthy white man like myself could count on forced labor from most every male negro. Now seven out of eight of them are free to choose their own vocation. Granted, we still pay the free ones extremely little, but give me a break: wage slave and authentic slave are two entirely different animals.”

Added Fuld: “And it’s even worse with the negresses!”

Still, most super-rich white people were happy to be in the U.S. According to one anonymous prison industry executive, matters are “much worse” in every other industrialized nation. “In Japan, less than a tenth of a percent performs forced labor while stripped of basic human rights. How’s a billionaire to function under those primitive conditions?!”

With over 45 million Americans lacking any form of health care, one topic has recently taken center stage among major media outlets and the U.S. Supreme Court: the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. According to several anti-choice activists, “stopping the senseless murder of fetuses is the most important issue of the day — excluding saving marriage from those dreadful gays, of course.”

One anti-abortionist continued, “We must stop the wanton murder of fetuses. Also, let’s increase capital punishment, because frankly, if you try to murder a fetus, you deserve the death penalty. How else can we foster a culture of life?”

Many anti-choice activists also strongly support the Iraq war, which recently claimed its 2,000th U.S. victim. The war has also caused the murder of tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children, while costing U.S. taxpayers over $200 billion — enough to provide universal health care several times over.

“There is no confusion here,” explained one anti-abortionist. “If poor people would get jobs and stop spending all their money on abortions, we wouldn’t need to spend money on healthcare. And because of terrorism, if we don’t kill Iraqis, people will die. So you see, we’re killing people in a foreign country to save lives. I’m talking about a culture of life, here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got bacon and eggs waiting for me at home. I love eating eggs.”

For more information about abortion rights, see Planned Parenthood’s talking points.