In an event being described as “civil,” Democrat U.S. Senator Hilary Clinton and The Dark Lord Satan debated the subtleties of the Iraq war yesterday, on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

Satan began by expressing his unrelenting support for the war. “We must continue to fight the War On Terror. Freedom is on the march. The enemy is in retreat. But there are new challenges, and we must be ever vigilant.”

Satan added that he also “strongly supports” all other wars, “until a nuclear holocaust causes the Final Apocalypse for the human species, and the Endless Night of the Dark Lord will Descend Upon the Earth.”

In her rebuttal, Hilary Clinton expressed general agreement with Satan, but disagreed over the current strategy used by the Bush Administration.

“The War On Terror is a Glorious War,” she stated. “But for highly subtle reasons I won’t get into, we need a new administration running it — a Clinton administration, to be specific. But until it’s politically savvy, I’m going to refrain from discussing the war altogether, instead calling for small-scale domestic reform.”

Satan thanked Clinton for her candor, but insisted that the Bush administration was “perfect” for the job of creating “Lakes of Hell-Fire” throughout the Middle East.

“Your argument is sound,” Clinton responded directly to Satan, “but it’s slightly off with the specifics. We’ve killed tens or hundreds of thousands of terrorists — that is, Iraqi men, women, and children — so far, and that’s an important step towards reducing violence. But we simply need to be more subtle about it.”

Neither side seemed swayed by the end of the debate, at which point the two shook hands, and Satan disappeared into a ball of red fire.

Media analysts are divided on who won the debate. Some claim Clinton’s use of nuance was too much for Satan, while others say The Dark Lord’s “purist” approach gave Him the upper hand.

In a public battle revolving around the inherent obscenity of women’s breasts, Google today was ordered to give a list of 50,000 web sites to the Bush administration.

Google recently made headlines for refusing to give the U.S. government a random sampling of 1 million Internet addresses accessible through its search engine and a random sampling of 1 million search queries submitted over a one-week period. Google simultaneously created a censored version of Google for all Chinese viewers.¹

Media pundits were up in arms, confused about whether Google was a privacy rights hero or a capitulator to totalitarian repression. But the underlying issue wasn’t about privacy or free speech — it was, of course, about women’s breasts.

Bush’s demand relates to the so-called Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which requires restricted access (i.e. a login ID and password) for commercial sites not meeting “‘contemporary community standards’ … and that showed sexual acts or nudity (including female breasts).”² By getting a random sampling of Google’s search queries and sites, the administration wanted to demonstrate that the web was saturated with vile breasts, and that people under 18 — say, 17.5 — are seeing them.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The dispute drew considerable attention from … legal scholars, who alternatively praised Google for defending Internet privacy and accused it of protecting smut peddlers” — such as those who show breasts on their site. But along with misusing the word “alternatively,” the Chronicle offers no evidence of an even balance of opinion among so-called “scholars.”

It appears both the Bush Administration and Google have lost this battle. The judge drastically reduced what Google had to provide, but Google still may be seen as giving in on important privacy issues.

Ironically, even if COPA becomes permanent, it may still have a negligible effect on internet breast availability. The ruling will only apply to web sites hosted in the U.S.

The Child Online Protection Act is part of a long Bush administration tradition of Orwellian naming, including, notably, the Patriot Act, Healthy Forests Initiative, No Child Left Behind Act, and the Clear Skies Initiative.

In a recent interview with the Jarusalem Post, Israeli Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that “Whoever is involved personally and directly in terror is a [military] target.” His comments were directed towards Ismael Haniya, leader of the recently elected Hamas party in Palestine.

“Moreover,” Olmert continued, “you may be aware that I recently ordered an airstrike that killed two Palestinian children. For that reason, the Israeli military must also be prepared to take action against me, for national security reasons.

“We must ensure that I am a target if I continue my violence towards civilians,” Olmert added.

But Middle-Eastern affairs experts were skeptical that Olmert would actually launch a strike against himself. “It’s absurd, really,” said one Harvard professor. “Olmert’s got a nuclear armed military protecting him from attack. If Olmert tries to attack him [Olmert], he’ll be in for a big surprise.”

But U.S. President George Bush expressed support for the statement. “Olmert cannot be a partner in peace with perpetrators of terror, i.e., himself.”

A U.S. Spokesperson has called the publication of newly obtained Abu Ghraib torture photos “irresponsible and unnecessarily provocative,” CNN is Reporting.

This is perhaps in contrast to actually committing torture, which is, according to top U.S. officials, just fine. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote that anti-torture laws are “obsolete,”¹ and worked to provide a legal framework for its use by U.S. forces.

Concern by the U.S. about the new photos results from the recent Muslim anger related to anti-Mohammed cartoons. Officials, at least publicly, don’t want to fan the flames. However, if that were really the case, perhaps they wouldn’t have sanctioned the torture in the first place.

The New York Times, the most powerful media outlet in the world, is declining to show several new photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib.

A Times article featured two of the least disturbing pictures¹, but was then updated by an article with no pictures at all.² In Britain, the U.S.’s staunch ally in the war on Iraq, the BBC stated plainly: “Some of the new images are too gruesome to be shown.”³

Too gruesome for whom?

For you, apparently. The New York Times (and the BBC) don’t want you to see these images.

It’s probably not that The Times doesn’t think you can handle seeing the gruesome acts being committed in your name (if you’re from the U.S.). But if you get upset enough to act against the war on Iraq, that might upset The Times’ Big Corporate sponsors, many of which have a Big Corporate stake in the war. The U.S. government has also spoken out against publishing the photos, calling it “irresponsible,”⁴ and The Times is usually happy to fall in line.⁵

Neoconservative U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been one-upped by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

Speaking in the newspaper Pravda, formerly a powerful Communist Party organ in the U.S.S.R., Zhirinovsky said that Rice “loses her reason because of her late single status.”

“Such women are very rough,” he continued. “They can be happy only when they are talked and written about everywhere…. Even if she had a whole selection of men to choose from she would stay single because her soul and heart have hardened.”

A U.S. State Department spokesman said Rice would not “dignify the article with a response.”¹ “Besides,” he stated, “Ms. Rice is busy defending the practice of torture. And don’t forget that patronizing, sexist remarks are an important component of Conservative Family Values.”

“Appalled” by the “grotesque sight of naked bodies touching,” U.S. Regulators have demanded that all sex scenes in movies, TV shows, and video games be replaced with “perverse, blood-chilling violence.”

“It is well established that the human form is among the most shameful in the cosmos,” explained Los Angeles city attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who recently filed suit against Take-Two for its sexually explicit video game, Grand Theft Auto. “I thought GTA was about carjacking and random violence — so naturally, I was elated. Then I heard about the hidden ‘hot coffee’ sex mini-game. I hope Take-Two burns in hell.”

At the press conference, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin expressed similar ideas. “My favorite TV show is C.S.I. I particularly love when they show the mutilated bodies of the murder victims. My least favorite? Without question, the Janet Jackson nipple-slip incident. The loathsome sight of a woman’s bare breast made me projectile vomit straight onto my TV screen. Clean-up was a doozy.”

“Sex? Ewwwwwwww,” explained Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with my wife to watch ‘Kill Bill’. I just love when Uma Thurman’s sword slices off the top of Lucy Liu’s skull, revealing her brain.”

Almost 400 articles today (according to Google News) are reporting on ABC’s censorhip of the Rolling Stones’ Super Bowl concert. However, almost none will state the censored words.

Articles in the New York Times, the Scotsman, MSNBC, CNN, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and BBC News reported the censorship without explicitly stating what was censored. (Reuters appears to be an exception.)

The offending words? “Cocks” and “come.”

Disney executives defended the decision in a press conference. (Disney owns ABC.) “Can you imagine if the masses had heard the words ‘cocks’ and ‘come’?” asked CEO Robert Iger. “They would all get so horny! Women would become unchaste. Men, like lechers.”

Added Iger, pounding his fist on the podium: “Free love would spread like a wave of terror across the land! It would be chaos, I tell you! Dirty chaos!”

What otherwise might appear to be a completely biased article has retained absolute objectivity, thanks to ample use of quotation marks.

The article in question is entitled “Justice O’Connor, a ’sensible’ jurist,” and appears in today’s CNN.com. Because “sensible” is in quotes, CNN has not expressed any opinion of its own.

Sub-headers of the article include “The ’swing’ justice” and “‘A great role model’.” In both cases, CNN is simply reporting viewpoints — its own voice remains completely neutral.

According to the article, “‘Sensible solutions’ may best describe how the jurist approached thorny legal questions.”

Examples of O’Connor’s “sensibility” include her rulings in favor of public funding for private religious schools, against affirmative action, and supporting the right for boy scouts to ban homosexuals. According to The Nation, “On criminal justice, her rulings in the 1980s and into the ’90s helped erect rigid sentencing regimes that now haunt governors and judges alike.”¹ Most “sensibly,” she voted to appoint George W. Bush to the presidency in Bush v. Gore.

O’Connor served mainly under the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whom CNN described, objectively, as a “‘Unifying figure’ on court.”²

Fox News and CNN, the two most powerful news networks in the U.S., both mention the phrase “liberal media” extensively on their web sites.¹ In fact, the phrase “Liberal Media” returns 432 current news articles in Google News. (In contrast, the term “Conservative Media” returns 95 articles.)

“Clearly,” said one media analyst, “editors of major media outlets think that they, themselves, are liberal — and this makes them very angry. At themselves.”

But one media executive begged to differ: “Those liberal media nutjobs’ll tell you anything to turn this country into a liberal nuthouse! And by ‘those liberal media nutjobs,’ I mean ‘me and my editorial staff.’ After all, we do have a 20% share of the prime-time TV news market.”

“God do I hate those bleeding-heart liberals,” he concluded, before jumping out his penthouse window, overwhelmed by the paradox of being simultaneously liberal and conservative.

And according to Fox News, the highest Nielsen rated News Network, Saddam Hussein may “have the liberal media in his hip pocket.”

(One liberal media outlet is Eric Alterman’s web site. Znet is a left media outlet.)

BBC has thoroughly covered Toyota’s perspective on a recent auto worker strike in India. At one point, the BBC quotes Toyota’s general manager at the striking plant, saying: “We would like to restore normalcy as soon as possible, but at the same time we would not like to compromise on discipline.”

The perspective of the factory’s workers is not mentioned.

Quoting extensively from the Toyota manager, the BBC drew a comparison with a recent Honda strike — one that cost Honda millions of dollars. The BBC does not mention why the Honda workers were on strike.

(For more information, visit Indian Express)

An exclusive organ analysis has revealed that TV psychologist Dr. Phil knows everything. Advising the public on matters from personal finance to “affair-proofing” marriages, Dr. Phil always knows the perfect solution.

Dr. Phil got a B.S, M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from North Texas State University. Experts suspect it was during this time that he discovered “a complete knowledge of the universe.”

Sometimes an absolute understanding of all things can be isolating, but in Dr. Phil’s case it led to frequent appearances on the Oprah Winfrey show. It was there that he first helped millions of viewers “get real about their own behavior.”¹

Sadly, a new class action suit claims Dr. Phil’s dieting products are fraudulent. Recently obtained emails written by Dr. Phil himself say that he had “no expertise” in the subject. This seems to contradict his own advice: “Don’t embarrass yourself or put yourself in a situation where you’ll look back and feel humiliated.”² But such apparent contradictions can be written off as the mystery of profound genius.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Cindy Sheehan, that anti-war lady in Crawford, Texas, had a protest that was smaller than a protest in August. This according to articles in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The London Guardian, and several hundred other media outlets. An estimated 200 attended the rally.

Meanwhile, pro-Bush counter-demonstrators had their own equally significant rally. Reporters on the scene of the pro-Bush rally counted at least ten people in attendance. Experts might say that, based on these high numbers, the pro-Bush movement is gaining steam. One pro-Bush protester gave a nuanced argument for the continued deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq: “Real America won’t wimp out.”¹

One thing cannot be doubted: the competing pro-Bush and anti-war rallies reveal an America split to the core. But with the pro-Cindy crowd losing steam and the pro-Bush crowd clearly building momentum, only the American Public can decide which direction America should take.

USA Today’s analysis derives from a rigorous scientific survey the newspaper conducted outside multiplexes in three cities. One 11-year-old survey respondent screamed that Ralph Fiennes “did a really good job at making Voldemort evil.” Similarly, after watching the movie, six-year-old Chris from LA shouted uncontrollably: “I liked the dragons because they’re spikey.” The third fan in the study, 45-year-old songwriter Riley Dowling, delightedly yelled at the top of his lungs that the film has “a good moral” for young people. Piecing together the evidence, USA Today correctly concluded that Harry Potter fans are screaming with delight.

Other recent USA Today studies that have broken scientific ground include: Goblet of Fire keeps wizard tales hot and ‘Potter’ series casts a spell over entire genre.