Fellowship of Punditry

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Cul Heath

Mick Arran

Jeffrey Barbose

Inspector Lohmann

Eric M. Fink

Michael Lane

Rep. Mark B. Cohen

The Fellowship is accepting new members. Inquire within.

The Sages

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  • Into the Blogosphere
  • George Orwell

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    Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

    In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

    But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

    Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

    Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

    In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

    All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

    At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

    Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

    John Stuart Mill

    Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

    The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

    The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

    Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

    A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

    Mark Twain

    Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

    All generalizations are false, including this one.

    A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

    Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

    Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

    The Public is merely a multiplied "me."

    Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."

    Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

    Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

    Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

    Winston Churchill

    The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

    I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

    Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.

    Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

    Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

    However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

    In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

    Otto Von Bismarck

    When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

    I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

    Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

    Be polite; write diplomatically ;even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

    Voltaire

    A witty saying proves nothing.

    If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

    When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

    I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

    To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

    Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

    It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

    The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

    Karl Marx

    Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.

    All I know is I'm not a Marxist.

    The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

    Sunday, June 27, 2004

    Regarding the five brave souls who will be decapitated within 72 hours.

    By Nick

    Excerpts from NYTimes:Iraq Group Issues Threat to Behead a Missing Marine

    Iraq, June 27 - A militant Iraqi group threatened Sunday night to behead an American marine it said it had abducted from a military base unless the United States released all Iraqi prisoners, according to a video broadcast on the Qatar-based television network Al Jazeera.

    The video shows a man identified as Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun sitting on the ground in desert-patterned camouflage fatigues, with a thick blindfold over his eyes and a long, curved sword held over his head.

    Marine officials said Sunday night that Corporal Hassoun, who is of Lebanese descent, had been missing since June 21.

    The kidnappers belong to a little-known group called the Islamic Reaction, which referred to itself as the security wing of the 20th Revolution Regiment. They did not give a deadline for taking action but said Corporal Hassoun would be killed if their demands were not met.

    Now five men - three Turks and a Pakistani as well as the American - face grisly execution if their countries do not bow to their captors' demands.

    Earlier on Sunday, another Arab television network broadcast a video of masked men holding a Pakistani contractor hostage. The masked men, apparently not from the same group as the one holding Corporal Hassoun, said they would cut off their hostage's head within 72 hours unless Pakistan closed its embassy in Baghdad and recalled all of its workers. The Pakistani government has not issued a response.

    Meanwhile, three Turkish men remain in captivity, also facing a threat of beheading. Neither Turkey nor Pakistan has troops in Iraq though the two countries, both Muslim, supply many workers. Turkey said Sunday that it would not give in to the kidnappers' demands that it quit doing business with American forces in Iraq.

    Sadiq Hashim was driving with his family to an ice cream parlor when the explosion ripped next to his car. His wife and two sons burned to death inside the car.

    On Sunday, Mr. Hashim, a civil engineer, curled up in a hospital bed, his face and chest a mess of burn salve and gauze.

    "The street was like a piece of fire," Mr. Hashim said. "It all happened before my eyes, and I was unable to help my kids, who were burning."

    His 4-year-old daughter, Nergis, survived, but Mr. Hashim said the skin on her face now looked as though it had melted.

    "I've been through a lot in my life, and I went through several wars,'' Mr. Hashim said. ``But never have I seen something so horrible."

    "I just want to ask one question to those who call themselves freedom fighters,'' said Ali Kadum al-Hamdani, the provincial human rights chief in Hilla. ``What did Nergis do to them?"
    ------------------------------------------------------------------
    No, I won't post any pictures of these five men awaiting their violent deaths. Niether a picture, nor a 1000 words could describe terror that they are feeling at this very moment. For that brief snapshot, captures a micro-second. Yes, the terrorists posted their pictures, but they will still be waiting there... blindfolded for 72 hours... knowing that they will not be at peace until the knives of these self-promoting murders sever their spinal cord. No, we don't need to see it again; we've aready seen it too many times. Instead, I would like to say a few words to those filthy murders:

    Not a single one of you even deserve the mythologized label of "terrorist". No, you aren't so significant, so I will call you what you are: Three bands of power-hungry cowards and murderers. I'm niether addressing you as an American, nor am I addressing as a Christian. I represent a force more powerful than the even the Hydrogen bomb: If I were secular, I'd refer to it as Truth, Justice, and Freedom. If I were Muslim, I'd refer to it as Allah. If I were a Christian I'd call it God. We are not who you think we are, we are much more powerful: we are the world, and we are watching you, and ever bit of pain you inflict upon those prisoners, we will be reciplicate upon you ten-fold; may you suffer as long as possible, may you feel a sort of pain that no human in history has ever felt. May your death- which will be soon -be more painful than anything you inflicted upon victims who's hands were tied- you fucking cowards: A child could kill a man who was unable to fight back- you've proved nothing, other than your own insecurity and utter impedence. I pray that your afterlife will be filled with eteranl torture, damnation, and shame. If no afterlife exists... our memories of you will -you miserable swine- and they will last forever and ever. Your entire family will be forever shamed for you actions. Perhaps you should have realized that other people exist, besides yourselves and your own juvenile motives. Rot in hell, you pig-like cowards. Judgement awaits you, and may it be painful, eternal, and as just as god himself.




    posted by Nick at 6/27/2004 09:05:00 PM |

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