New Quaker Notebook

In a telephone call with Raw Story today and in an article in Salon, foreign-policy strategist Steve Clemons says that President Bush is not going to bomb Iran—unless there should happen to be an "accidental" incident. That would be "accidental" as in pretext, as in the Gulf of Tonkin, the USS Maine, the Lusitania ....

Immediately Dick Cheney made plans to stand in the bushes at the border with Iran and glare at Ahmadinejad:

Cheney's hand removed for Bush colonoscopy

WASHINGTON (DC) - President Bush will have a colonoscopy today at his Camp David mountaintop retreat and temporarily hand presidential powers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House said.

A White House spokesman told reporters Friday that Bush will have the procedure to remove Cheney's hand so that doctors may look for signs of cancer.

Because the president will be under the effects of anesthesia, Bush has elected to implement Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, making Cheney acting president until Bush is prepared to resume his authority.

In 2002, Bush transferred presidential powers to the vice president for more than two hours when a procedure to remove Cheney's hand was performed for a scheduled colorectal-cancer check.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in Seattle Times, July 21, 2007.

US concerns over Iraq weapons in Iraq

WASHINGTON (DC) - The US has raised concerns with the Iraq government about the discovery of Iraqi-made weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Richard Lawless, departing senior Pentagon official for Asia, on Friday said Washington had flagged the issue with Baghdad. In recent months, the US has become increasingly alarmed that Iraqi armour-piercing ammunition has been used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and insurgents in Iraq.

A senior US official recently told the FT that Iran appeared to be providing the Iraqi-made weapons. He said Washington had no evidence that Baghdad was complicit, but stressed that the US would like Iraq to "do a better job of policing these sales." Mr Lawless said the question of origin was less important than who was facilitating the transfer.

The concerns about Iraqi weapons follow months of allegations from US officials that Iran is helping attack US troops in Iraq, and more recently Afghanistan, by providing technology for bombs that can destroy Humvees and other heavily armoured US vehicles.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in The Financial Times, July 6, 2007.

Dick Cheney denied entry to Australia

SIDNEY, Australia - Dick Cheney has been barred from Australia because he is not "the sort of bloke we want in this country", the immigration minister said Thursday.

Controversial US Vice President Dick Cheney has been denied entry to Australia because of his ever-growing list of criminal convictions. The 66-year-old neoconservative icon had been due to attend a meeting with Australian MPs this weekend.

But Cheney failed the character test required to enter Australia and his visa was cancelled, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said.

"The character test in relation to this can also include a person's associations, their past and present criminal conduct, and their general conduct."

"He has a whole string of convictions and just two weeks ago he expressed his conviction that there was a definite link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime," Andrews said.

"He doesn't seem the sort of bloke we want in this country."

Andrews said Cheney's reputed ties to the Bush gang were also taken into consideration.

The vice president has 28 days to respond to the cancellation of his visa.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in News Limited, April 26, 2007.

Released British Sailors Tell of 'Torture'

BBC - Royal Navy personnel seized by Iran were made to sit all alone, arms to their sides, in rooms with the lights dimmed during their 13 days in captivity, the crew have said. They were lined up while weapons were cocked, making them "fear the worst", one of the 15 freed sailors revealed.

The crew were told that if they did not admit they were in Iranian waters when captured that they faced seven years in prison, a press conference heard.

Opposing their captors was "not an option," they said.

And after the 15 marines and sailors were seized they were subjected to random interrogation and rough handling, and faced constant psychological pressure, they said. "We were very frightened," said one. "They would not allow us to have our tea time."

The navy has already begun a review of the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in BBC News, Friday, April 6, 2007.

Artist's Chocolate Jesus Gets Cadbury Makeover

A New York art gallery has decided to cancel an exhibit of a chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ after protests by a US Christian group. The six-foot (1.8m) sculpture, entitled "My Sweet Lord," depicts a naked Jesus Christ with his arms outspread.

The sculpture, by Canadian-born artist Cosimo Cavallaro, was to have been displayed beginning Monday at Manhattan's Lab Gallery. He is known for using food ingredients in his art, on one occasion painting a hotel room in mozzarella cheese.

The Roger Smith Hotel housing the Lab gallery decided to cancel the exhibition after the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called for a boycott. The hotel and the gallery were overrun Thursday with angry phone calls, e-mails, and death threats regarding the exhibit, said the gallery's artistic director.

Mr Cavallaro expressed disappointment with the decision to close his exhibit, but used the opportunity to announce his agreement to have his chocolate Jesus remolded into a special-edition Cadbury Creme Egg^®.

The new confection, inaugurating the UK candy company's 2007 "How do you like your Jesus" marketing campaign, will feature miniature versions of "My Sweet Lord" on a bed of green plastic grass and includes the characteristic white and yellow fondant filling.

The American Christian Coalition for an All-Candy Easter applauded the decision.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in BBC News, Saturday, March 31, 2007. See also the AP news article and news video.

German Imprisoned for Denying Iraq-9/11 Connection

MANNHEIM, GERMANY (DW) - A German court sentenced Germar Rudolf to 30 months in prison for inciting racial hatred in publications and web sites which systematically called into question the connection between Iraq and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

The court in Mannheim in southern Germany on Thursday found that Rudolf, 42, had contested the link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda on the Internet and in various publications.

At the start of his trial in November, Rudolf had called the connection between Saddam Hussein, Iraq, and al-Qaeda "a gigantic fraud." He was last year expelled from the United States to Germany, which charged him with incitement to racial hatred. It is a crime in Germany to deny the link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.

Rudolf, a trained chemist who once worked at the renowned Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, also outraged the court during his trial when he described the Holocaust as a fabrication.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in Deutsche Welle, Friday, March 16, 2007.

The President Gets to Go on a Retreat with the Democrats

CHENEY: Hey, George, it's me. What are you doing now?

BUSH:      Aw, gee, nothing much, Dick. Just eating pretzels and petting Barney.

CHENEY: We have something we want you to do. Are you up to it?

BUSH:      Oh, hey, yeah, sure. What's up?

CHENEY: The Democrats are having a retreat this week. We we want you to go there and do your good ol' boy thing. Make up to them. Get real chummy. Tell them some jokes and maybe rub Nancy's neck like you did when you got physical with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.

BUSH:      I can do that. Remember last month when I said in my State of the—my State of the Union—or state—my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation—I referred to the Democrat majority? Well, how about I say something like, Now look, my diction isn't all that good and I have been accused of occasionally mangling the English language, and so I appreciate you inviting the head of the Republic Party. That's funny, right?

CHENEY: That's good. I'll send Rove and a speech writer over and we'll see if we can't get some more one-liners in there for you. And while you're at it, make sure you give those sad eyes and talk about how you empathize with their anguish over the war. Say something like it's "sapping our soul" or something like that.

BUSH:      I can do that. Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is. I talk to families who die.

CHENEY: And make sure you stress bipartisanship and moving forward. Make them really like you.

BUSH:      If people want to get to know me better, they've got to know my parents and the values my parents instilled in me, and the fact that I was raised in West Texas, in the middle of the desert, a long way away from anywhere, hardly. There's a certain set of values you learn in that experience.

CHENEY: Good, you keep that up. You keep distracting them, and we'll just keep on running the government.

BUSH:      And I strongly believe what we're doing in Iraq is the right thing. If I didn't believe it—I'm going to repeat what I said before—I'd pull the troops out, nor if I believed we could win, I would pull the troops out.

CHENEY: You're doing just fine, George. Keep it up.

BUSH:      I always jest to people, the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed by the atmosphere. And they say "man, you're looking pretty."

CHENEY: You're the best, George. That's why we call you the Decider. Keep it up.

BUSH:      I will, Dick. Thanks. Being president is hard work.

Humor using some not-made-up quotations, including a few Bushisms from "The Complete Bushisms," in Slate Magazine online.

US Army urges zombies to re-enlist

WASHINGTON (BBC) - The US Army has announced that it will apologize to the families of officers killed or wounded in action who were sent letters encouraging them to re-enlist.

The letters were sent in a December mailing to more than 5,100 Army officers listed as recently having left the military, but included about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 others wounded in action.

"Army personnel officials are contacting those officers' families now to personally apologize for erroneously sending the letters," the army said in a statement.

Among those receiving an apology was Major Zig Anderson, who was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart after his death in a firefight in Baghdad in 2004. "I gave everything I could to this conflict in Iraq, including the so-called 'ultimate sacrifice,'" said Maj Anderson, now a zombie in Milford, NY. "Besides, being dead is the only thing that keeps me out of the backdoor draft."

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in BBC News, Saturday, January 6, 2007.

Blaine in giant 'meat grinder' stunt

NEW YORK (BBC) - David Blaine has begun his latest stunt, being slowly turned inside a giant sausage grinder above the streets of New York. Blaine will emerge from the meat grinder near Times Square in a 3-day process before attempting to escape from some shackles.

"This is more difficult than anything I've ever done," Blaine said before he was loaded into the contraption, which was then hoisted up 50ft (15m).

The spinning steel teeth inside the grinder can tear Blaine into smooth chunks of sausage-style bits. He will come out into a large pork-skin sheath. The shackles will be added to Blaine on Thursday, giving him 16 hours to free himself.

The illusionist said his biggest concerns, besides not eating or drinking, were the freezing weather, dizziness, and putting himself back together after being chopped to bits in the giant meat grinder.

Satire using a shortened, loosely re-written news article published in BBC News, Tuesday, November 21, 2006.

Cheney says he referred to witch's water ordeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney was not talking about simulated drowning when he agreed this week that a "dunk in water" for terrorism suspects might be useful, the White House said on Friday.

On Tuesday the vice president was asked on Tuesday by a conservative radio host from Fargo, ND: "Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?"

"Well, it's a no-brainer for me," replied Cheney as part of a campaign by Republicans to keep national security on the minds of voters ahead of November 7 congressional elections.

His comment prompted complaints from human rights advocates that he was endorsing a technique called "waterboarding" that simulates drowning and is considered torture by some critics.

White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted that US officials do not talk publicly about interrogation techniques because they are classified.

"The vice president didn't make any comments about waterboarding," Snow said at a contentious morning briefing on the topic.

He shrugged off Cheney's answer to what he dismissed as a "loosely worded question" and said the United States does not practice or condone torture.

Returning from a day trip to Missouri and South Carolina on Friday, Cheney told reporters on board his plane no one used the term "water boarding" in the radio interview and he had not been discussing that specific technique.

"What I was talking about was actually the water ordeal," said Cheney. The "water ordeal" was a technique used by interrogators during the witch trials in Colonial America. The alleged witch was tied up and thrown in deep waters; if the detainee sank, usually drowning in the process, that was considered proof of innocence.

President Bush defended Cheney's comments to the radio station after human rights groups criticized him as approving "water boarding," a technique the groups consider torture.

"This country doesn't torture. We're not going to torture. We will interrogate people we pick up off the battlefield to determine whether or not they've got information that will be helpful to protect the country," Bush told reporters.

"We use the water ordeal because it quickly establishes innocence or guilt. If they drown in the process, then they're innocent, and we want to know this."

Milosevic dies before trial verdict, Bush is next on docket

THE HAGUE - Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, labeled the "Butcher of the Balkans" for his role in the 1995 genocidal massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, was found dead in his cell on Saturday, a few months before a verdict was due in his UN war crimes trial. A tribunal spokeswoman said there was no indication the 64-year-old Milosevic, who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure, had committed suicide.

Milosevic was charged with 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in indictments covering conflicts in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo.

"The death of Slobodan Milosevic, a few weeks before the completion of his trial, will prevent justice to be done in his case," said the tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

But now there is room on the docket at the International Criminal Tribunal for George W. Bush and members his inner circle, said a spokesperson for the court. "We are prepared to present evidence of their complicity not only in planning and waging a war of aggression against sovereign Iraq, but also in the murder of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, in addition to the torture and humiliation of several thousand detainees, many of whom are still being held in violation of Geneva Conventions."

Bush vows to safeguard US transits by rounding up the world's terrorists

BALTIMORE - President Bush today pledged to increase protection of US transit systems against attacks in the aftermath of the London bombings and urged Congress to renew provisions of a post-September 11 anti-terrorism law.

"The best way to protect the homeland is to go on the offense, is to find these people in foreign lands and bring them to justice before they come here to hurt us," Bush said during a visit to the Port of Baltimore. He also announced his formation of a new Office of Posse within the Department of Homeland Security.

"You heard me say 'Bring 'em on,'" said Bush. "Well, now I say 'Round 'em up.'" The aim of the new Office of Posse will be to search out and capture every terrorist in the world and bring them to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for permanent detention, he explained. "We're working with people around the world. We're on the hunt and we will stay on the hunt," he said. "My posse will git 'er done!"

He also urged renewal of the USA Patriot Act. About a dozen provisions in the act, which was enacted in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks, are set to expire at the end of this year unless renewed by Congress. Bush repeated his call to renew them, saying they strengthen efforts to fight terrorism.

"The Patriot Act closed dangerous gaps in America's law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, gaps the terrorists exploited when they attacked us on September the 11th," Bush said. "This will allow us to spy on evil organizations in our midst, like the ACLU, Greenpeace, Code Pink, and especially the American Friends Service Committee—those Quakers have got to be stopped."

Satire using a re-written, slightly altered news article published in Reuters, Wednesday, July 20, 2005.

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