The Light Entertainment at the End of the Tunnel. Ridin' that train... yes, that train...

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Michael Scheuer (formerly known as "Anonymous") new work on the Islamists on Asia Times

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

  His books were good, his articles are good. He's always worth reading. He discusses how the Iraq Attack allowed ultra-extremist Saudi-supported Salafist al-Queda-associated jihadis to spread thru Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and on into Palestine and Israel. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

McClatchy: Was 2008 the beginning of another Great Depression?

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Obama should give David Duke a Cabinet Position

The Raw Story | Frank get 'post-partisan depression' over Warren inauguration invite

Rep. Barney Frank, the only openly gay member of Congress, feels that president-elect Barack Obama has made a "serious mistake" in asking pastor Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.....

Rev. Rick Warren leads a southern California mega-church, and is author of the multi-million selling self-help book, "The Purpose Driven Life." Warren and his congregation were instrumental in supporting Proposition 8, a ballot measure passed in Nov. which banned gay marriage in the state.

Obama has maintained that his inclusion of Rev. Warren is part of his efforts to bring separate groups together around common causes.
"That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," said the President-elect.

  Obama's right. We should all embrace his new spirit of inclusiveness and diversity (except of course where gays and lesbians are concerned). And in order to show that he's not just the stereotypical gay-bashing black male and only appears to be a black male, he should invite David Duke to his inauguration, or maybe make him ambassador to Austria or something. I heard him interviewed by Michel Martin, who I really like, and I had to give them both high marks for the interview: they baited each other in a genteel sort of way but they kept it civil and interesting. Obama appears so determined to let the Neocons and Bible-Beaters and Wall Street Ponzi-schemers financiers we thought we defeated in the last election snatch victory from the jaws of defeat that he should probably give Duke a Cabinet position dealing with race relations or equal opportunity or something.

Monday, December 22, 2008

FW Engdahl: Federal Reserve sets Stage for Weimar-style Hyperinflation

Hyperinflation

In the period from August 1929 until he left office President Herbert Hoover oversaw a 43-month long contraction of the US economy of 33%. Barack Obama looks set to break that record, to preside over what historians could likely call the Very Great Depression of 2008-2014, unless he finds a new cast of financial advisers before Inauguration Day, January 20. Required are not recycled New York Fed presidents, Paul Volckers or Larry Summers types. Needed is a radically new strategy to put virtually the entire United States economy into some form of an emergency 'Chapter 11' bankruptcy reorganization where banks take write-offs of up to 90% on their toxic assets, that, in order to save the real economy for the American population and the rest of the world. Paper money can be shredded easily. Not human lives. In the process it might be time for Congress to consider retaking the Federal Reserve into the Federal Government as the Constitution originally specified, and make the entire process easier for all. If this sounds extreme, perhaps revisit this article in six months again. [emphasis added]
  Hr. Engdahl tends to be right. Just check his writing over the last year and compare it with the consensus view at the time of writing.

Karl Rove Rap-Sheet: Add Murder to Treason and Sedition

The Raw Story | GOP consultant killed in plane crash was warned of sabotage: report

Arnebeck said that he received confidential information that Republican operative Karl Rove threatened Connell and his wife if Connell told all that he knew.
  Since the plane crash is being investigated by the FAA, and Bush is still in the White House, any evidence will be destroyed, but maybe once Obama is in the coverup can be exposed. Not that I really expect Obama to do anything about any of this, so probably not. The Banana Republicans have already gotten away with massive treason and sedition; what does another murder or two matter? As for Rove, he'd already hang ten times over if he was ever brought to justice, so he has nothing to lose. Offing anyone who might testify against him is just good business.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Let the hangings begin

The Raw Story | Prominent neoconservative: 4,000 Americans 'had to die'

"My position is that it's regrettable that any Americans died. And it is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die," said Gaffney. "The threat we did know about is the chemical capability Saddam Hussein used against his own people.... The danger was that inaction could have resulted in the death of many more Americans than 4,000."
   Since Gaffney does not appear to have had a government position, perhaps he is just more of an Israeli spy or unregistered foreign agent and should be shot or deported. Cheney is without a doubt guilty of high treason. Bush is too retarded to hang, but his administration was rife with high treason, the penalty for which at least used to be hanging. If was good enough for the Nazis at Nuremburg, it's good enough for the Neocon traitors.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Feds to Old People and U$D to Reality: Get Lost!

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Dollar Falls Most Against Euro Since 1999 Debut on Fed’s Rate

By Jamie McGee and Michael J. Moore


Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar declined the most against the euro since the 15-nation currency’s 1999 debut and sank to a 13-year low versus the yen as near-zero interest rates and rising budget deficits led traders to abandon the greenback.

The greenback extended its drop against a gauge of currencies of six U.S. trading partners, falling 11 percent from a 2 1/2-year high reached Nov. 21. Investors including hedge funds reversed bets that the dollar will appreciate to minimize losses as the end of the year approached, traders said.

“This move is historic,” said Russell LaScala, New York- based head of North American foreign exchange at Deutsche Bank AG, the world’s biggest currency trader. “It’s just going to keep going until the last bit of pain stops. I would not be shocked to see $1.50.

  Surprise, surprise! Dollar already going down the tubes. Who knew?

The Feds have decided to destroy the value of the dollar to protect the market capitalisation of their friends at GS, CITI, BAC etcetc Save the World! Old people on fixed incomes will just have to eat cheaper pet-food. Lucky for them, soon Chinese pet-food will be unaffordable, so they might not get poisoned. And all those low-wage workers for whom deflation would be their first real pay-raise in decades can get lost too. Old people, poor people, U$D debt-holders: Get Lost!

  Wonder what will happen to the value of the dollar when the rest of the world figures out that not only are we deliberately hyper-inflating our currency as an alternative to default, but we also consume more than anyone else, have more debt than anyone else, and produce less per capita of anything of value (meaning forget financial services, Hollywood crap, etc.) than anyone else except maybe places like Somalia?

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Clusterstock: Time For A Gas Tax

Time For A Gas Tax

   I've been saying this for months. Henry Blodget wants a price target of $4 and not to start it until 2011. I would set a nearer-term target of $3 and start drifting the price up to that target immediately, then start raising the target to $4 and beyond. Gas below $2/gallon is just plain stupid. Let's get it back up to at least $2.50 by the summer before people start thinking of anything over $2 as being high.

  The target should work as a price-band, using tax cuts and even short-term subsidies to smooth out price-swings. Economic actors can't be expected to act rationally and efficiently when the price of oil can be anywhere between $25 and $250/barrel.

  Measures, up to and including public flogging, would have to be taken to ensure oil companies didn't simply push their profit-margin up to reach the target price.

  The money raised by this tax could be used for things like bailing out the automakers while turning them more into mass-transit makers, upgrading rail roadbed and building more, including urban light rail, and so forth. This could fit nicely into Obama's infrastructure plan while actually adding a funding source other than the Chinese and other creditor-nations.


Monday, December 08, 2008

F William Engdahl: NATO scuttles US plan to encircle Russia

 As any student of WWII history knows, the war against Germany mostly took place in Russia, Western Europe being a sideshow and US participation a laudable afterthought. If not for General Winter and the T-34, Germany and Japan would have divided Eurasia and Africa and here in the US only the ocean might have saved us. Whether one likes Russia or not and whatever their government happens to be, they are right up there with Vietnamese as people one should absolutely not start trouble with. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain stupid, like for example George W. Bush and the horse he rode in on. The French, Chinese and US can tell you what happens if you mess with Vietnam, and the French and Germans can tell you all you need to know about messing with Russia. Much better to have them as friends than enemies.

  Me, I'm hoping the pirates in Somalia and the Strait of Malacca mess with the Russians. They won't fuck around with hand-wringing and whine about human rights and so forth. They'll zorch them, their familes, their friends, their homes and their whole fucking countries until it stops, and despite all the clucking and tut-tutting, the world will be a better, happier place. We have enough problems without stinking pirates from non-nations. Historically, human rights have never applied to pirates. String 'em up from the yard-arm; it's just that simple. Or mine their ports and cluster-bomb their cities. Whatever does the job.

  Same goes for the Pakis that hit Mumbai. Give Pakistan a reasonable chance to deal with it, then toss a little nuke into their 'tribal area' if they need some motivation,something small but very dirty, render a valley uninhabitable forever. Enough already of these Stone-Age savages in this 'tribal area'. It might make a suitable worldwide nuclear waste repository and toxic-waste dump. Fuck'em.

Asia Times Online :: Central Asian News and current affairs, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan
..... Translated into real political language, Washington has undergone a stunning setback in its agenda of encircling Russia with NATO. Despite the fact that president-elect Obama retained Bush Administration Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and named a person to be Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who has strongly supported bringing Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, key European NATO members, led by Germany and France, blocked what must be a unanimous membership decision. .....

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Dream on, White Trash. Go back to your Fuhrer-bunkers and drink your Kool-Aid: you're done

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/02/2008 | Palin shows she's still got star power in Georgia

  Hey Bible-Beaters: You're done. When the Latino vote went for Obama, it was over for you. I'd suggest you leave the country and move to some fascist redoubt for your last stand, but ever since Apartheid fell, the Bible Belt was about it. Alaska, maybe? Anyways the Latino percentage of the electorate is only going to get bigger, and they are basically decent people, meaning they will always vote against your candidates. You're done; it's over; you lose.

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Posted on Tue, Dec. 02, 2008

Palin shows she's still got star power in Georgia

Liz Fabian | Macon Telegraph

last updated: December 01, 2008 04:09:03 PM

Sarah Theus blew her perfect attendance record at Porter Elementary to go Monday to see Sarah Palin in Perry.

The 11-year-old from Macon wore a hot pink "Sarah" headband that caught Palin's eye as she took the stage at a rally for Senator Saxby Chambliss on the eve of the run-off.

"Our candidate did not win the election but she won our hearts," said Sally Theus, Sarah's mother, who gave in to her daughter's begging to attend the rally.

Theus drove down to Perry with her sister-in-law Tammy Hawkins and 9-year-old niece Hailey Hawkins, who missed a day at Covenant Academy.

They were the first to arrive at the Miller-Murphy-Howard building of the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter in Perry about four and a half hours before the Alaska governor was expected to speak.

"We wanted the girls to see a fine, upstanding, Christian woman with five kids and a good career," Tammy Hawkins said. "We just wanted them to see you can succeed."

The men seemed to have slightly outnumbered the women in the crowd as chants of "Saxby, Saxby, Saxby" filled the room and got Palin's attention.

"Saxby," she echoed while nodding her head. "You betcha," she said to a roar of cheers. While comics have stereotyped Palin's phrases and dialect, the Republican vice presidential candidate's voice and message ring true for conservatives.

Korean War veteran Chuck Griggers of Macon said he came down to see what he called the "conservative side of the so-called Republican party."

"I saw the what-you-call the middle of the road in McCain," Griggers said. "But this gal, she has the moral standard to breathe new life into the Republican party."

Neal Cowan of Warner Robins said he doesn't stand up for more than an hour waiting for just anybody.

"Now she's something," Cowan said of Palin. "Just a fresh face. I think she will hang in there and do what she says she'll do."

Pam Sena drove her 7-year-old granddaughter from Locust Grove to see the young girl's role model. Morgan Sena took it hard when McCain-Palin lost the election, Pam Sena said. Her granddaughter thought Palin should have been at the top of the ticket.

When asked why the youngster thought Palin should be president, Morgan turned her eyes to the ceiling as she considered her response. Her shoes wobbled as she perched on the metal railing of the barrier behind the press platform while she thought.

"She's good," Morgan said softly and then added, "Cause she's pretty."

Others in the audience found Palin's principles just as attractive. Palin's smiling face adorned a campaign button on Mary Kimberly's red sweatshirt with "America" emblazoned across the chest.

"We like Palin because she's pro-life," said Kimberly, of Macon.

"I think she's the average American," Pam Sena added. "She's your Josephine the plumber or Sarah the fisherman."

Red, white and blue painted signs on the stage drew applause with their printed punchlines: "Read my lipstick - vote for Sax", "Keep your Change" and "Palin-Chambliss 2012".

After Palin left the room, Sarah Theus and her cousin Hailey Hawkins were giddy with excitement. They carried Palin's autographs as they left the room in their over-sized pink sweatshirts.

"She touched this," Sarah said with a fresh signature on her pink fleece "Sarah" headband.

"She touched my finger. She touched my finger," Hailey said while jumping up and down.

The 9-year-old hunter hadn't been this excited since she killed her third wild hog over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Now Hailey's mother hopes Palin's appearance will help her daughter continue to aim for success in the future.