A Debate is a Debate is not a Debate

Here in the Happy Little Kingdom, it started. live at 3 AM and the only reason I saw anything was because, being 67, I had to get up to pee at about a half hour into the debate.  True, it can hardly be called a debate -- a debate is what Lincoln and Douglas did.  

They talked a half hour at a time, people listened and the next day people all over the country actually read what they had said in the newspapers.  Furthermore, the two actually talked about what they meant about the issues they were discussing.  Lincoln lost the election to the Senate, but the recognition he recieved nationally led to his becoming president a couple of years later.

Today, the necessary first thing to being (s)elected Senator, is at least $6 million and one or two million for a House member.  Debates are carried on by advertisements and 15-30 second slots on TV.  What is called a "debate" today between presidential candidates is little more than a session where two fighting cocks bash and slash each other with sound bites...

Anyway, I had made myself a cup of hot milk to drink so that I could better go back to sleep.  As I was drinking it, I turned on the TV and the first thing I saw was Bulimo promoting what would amount to preemptive military strikes in Pakistan.  It is enough to make a fellow barf seeing him apparently embrace the  basic tenet of the "Bush Doctrine"  which (are you listening Sarah?) means we, in our arrogance, have the right to commit whatever shit we want anywhere because we are God's Own Chosen People and the Last Best Hope of Mankind...  

But then Bulimo said something closer to what one might call intelligent.  He said that we had supported a dictator in Pakistan, Musharraf, for years and given him billions of tax payer dollars. 

MadCain, without looking at his opponent, responded in a manner consistent with the macho prick that he is -- cold, condescending and arrogant he then stated that Bulimo apparently had not understood (how could a freshman senator understand anything!) that "Pakistan was failed state then" -- the understanding being that "failed states" need a good dictator, if they can get one, especially if he happens to be our dictator.  Figuring that barfing in the middle of the night would not help me go back to sleep, I turned of the TV and went back to bed...

The fact is, dear hearts, that Pakistan was not a failed state when Mushareff took power -- that is complete bullshit!

Even now it is not a failed state.  True, we may help to kick it over the edge in the not too distant future -- if that happens, then you will really see fun and games.  The point is, though, that MadCain not only does not grasp the facts, he really doesn't care.  Neither does he care about the troops or the Arrogant people -- all that he cares about is his driving ambition to become prez of the United State of Arrogance.

Regarding Paulson's Heroic Vision

A book I read in high school, had one dodgey character, a surgeon, who is cutting on this patient and he happens to cut the wrong thing and massive bleeding ensues. So, he throws in some tampons and sews him up real quick and has him hustled him out of  the operating theatre on a gurney.  The patient dies 30 minutes later in his bed -- but not on the operating table -- a clear cut case of the operation was a success but the patient died.

I figure that is what this "bailout" is really about -- to fend off a crisis for at three months so that it won't be the dodgey surgeon's "fault".

IF, there is then no meltdown, which is what many economists seem to think, but "just" a real bad and deep recession and people lose their jobs, homes and cars -- well, that will be, sigh, the new administration's fault. However,  it was the Heroic Vision of Paulson and the Repugnants which saved the country from total collapse. "Sorry, folks," the Repugnants will then say, "but that's what you get for electing a bunch of Dumrats and an off-color prez!!!"

Humpty Dumpty

The root problem of the present financial crisis is the (nearly) unregulated trading and speculation in the debts of others -- which has been demanded and supported by the present administration, the Repugnants in general, Sen. MadCain in particular and, I'm sorry to say, large elements of the Dumrats..  

As the paper pyramid has grown to a virtual value a hundred times more than the debts on which it is based, money -- real, hard cash has been siphoned off in enormous amounts.

That is why the bubble pops, why the camel's back breaks, why Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall and why all the king's horses and all the king's men won't be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again.  

But that is not what the Repugnants are after.  All they want is to paste him together some until after the (s)election so the vampires have time for one last fix and then, after the Inauguration, blame it all on the Dumrats when Humpty turns into a puddle of piss.

Sixty Trillion Dollars Boggles the Mind...

There are any number of disgusting things one could point out in this unfolding financial crisis.

Repugnant people are now trying to wipe the shit off on blacks and hispanics -- the meme is that the kind hearted loan sharks in response to the pleas of librul bleeding hearts gave loans to them there dark-skinned and swarthy people who, irresponsible dolts that they are (but they can sing and dance!), just hand jive until they are evicted...

Fact is, though, the quarter trillion in loans is just the bottom of the pyramid -- and neither is there any statistic to show that dark-skinned and swarthy people are defaulting more than working whites (i.e., real Americans) whose jobs have been sent overseas -- no, the real burden is the number of speculative monetary instruments like what is called Credit Debit Swaps.

The vampires built a house of cards based on selling and trading in the "value" of loans and skimming the cream off in real money -- the "value" of credit debit swaps in Monopoly money is -- hold your breath -- more than 60 trillion dollars! That is more than 5 times the GDP of the US ans 6 times the present national debt!

Thank the Great Potato that there is at least one congressperson ready to say that not only is the emperor not wearing any clothes but he has shit on his face

Seven Hundred Billion...

Bernhard at Moon of Alabama has interesting details here, here and here

All I can do is write what the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy calls a sonnete...

No matter how you look at it, it can't be good
that a monster in the kitchen is eating all our food!

Whatever your politics may be, I'm sure you can see
that seven hundred billion is not a cure,
not by throwing our dough out the window, that is!

It's like shooing cats away with a pot of piss!

Saying the "Market will collapse" is a bunch of crap,
it can't collapse because it already has!

So what's the real reason for all the rush?

It's as if they'd seen the LORD in a Burning Bush
who told them to sacrifice the Golden Calf
in order to cut His anger's fire in half!

The fact is that the people we're dealing with
don't have what normal people call a conscience!

A Few Words on Repugnance

I just discovered an "unofficial" archive of the Great Bilmon and ran across this post there which shows just how repugnant the Repugnant Party can be out in the open -- the Great Potato only knows how repugnant they can be behind closed doors.

Well actually, I think we do have a pretty good idea. The reason for the FISA act being so important to the Codpiece administration and give retroactive immunity to the communication industry is that what the gov't had them doing was so illegal that their own people in the Department of Justice threatened to resign en masse in the runup to the (s)election in 2004 -- so, the Codpiece backed down a notch or two.

Now that the communication industry has immunity, we will never know just what was going on. But one does not have to be much of a cynic to guess that political blackmail was the nicer stuff. Heck one telecom executive is facing time in the slammer because he refused to go along with what he knew was (theen) illegal and didn't get the gov't contracts he thought he had locked in on -- they convicted him of insider trading....

What Kind of World?

What kind of world are we living in?

Well, it's the only world we have, so maybe it's a bit stoopid to ask.

Also, it depends on what kind of creature you ask.

The house fly says that it's fine and the cockroach too.

Rats are living high on, well not the hog actually, but their tails are fat from what they are getting by on.

The folks running things, the fat cats, the wise guys (of whatever stripe), the fuggin oligarchs -- yeah, they all think it's a fine world.

I used to brew beer as a hobby and it's a fun thing to do, you cook a great big pot of water, malt and hops. If you don't mind criticism from purists, you also put apples, potatoes -- anything to add some sugar...and then you add the yeast. The yeast cells go crazy -- they awaken to Heaven, that is food, food, food! So, the yeast cells eat, multiply geometrically and do the other things that cells do -- they excrete. In the case of yeast, their excrement includes a large portion of alcohol.

Kind of weird, isn't it? All of life is trying to something to do something to get ahead and yeast hit upon shitting (pissing?) alcohol which just happens to be an addictive substance for the (at present) dominant species on this poor planet -- which gives the yeasts which can eat sugars and shit/piss the purest alcohol a leg up on other microorganisms.

That just goes to show you that evolution works in often inscrutable ways -- which is pretty much what we used to say about Yee God.

What I am trying to say is that, although it looks pretty much like we have screwed the pooch as far as our planet is concerned, perhaps the Earth is just an apple and we are making a quality calvados for some divine dilletante...

On the other hand, I figure we could do better than that!

From Tic-Tac-Toe to Chess

When I sit on the crapper I have what is maybe an odd habit -- I solve chess puzzles on my cell phone, "Find check for White in two moves" is what I am doing now...

Today, while wiping my ass I suddenly thought of a chess puzzle with all the pieces in their starting position -- "Find check for White in x moves..."

Is that possible? Is there one or more opening moves where White can always beat Black? Is there a "solution" to chess?

Or, is chess like tic-tac-toe? In tic-tac-toe, once both players understand the game, neither can win. Or, is there in chess at least one opening move that will always win?

Is it possible to prove it one way or the other?

That's kind of a silly thing to think of I suppose, with all the problems, in fact challenges to our very existence we face on this little blue puff ball hanging in space.

I suspect that, although our leaders think they are playing a Great Game like chess for the world's resources, our situation is actually like tic-tac-toe, that is none of the players can win this fighting over a hill of beans in which we are engaged.

In fact, if we don't stop these silly games, all players will lose.

When News that is News is Not-News...

I'm sure you have heard about the behavior of the Organs of Public Safety in St. Paul during the Repugnant National Convention -- o, you haven't heard about it?

You didn't hear about the preemptive arrests of people planning to demonstrate, the arrests of two score journalists, [click through a splash screen for a day pass to Salon] the dozen stun grenades lobbed at a small group of demonstrators?

Why is it that news which is news is not news?

More important, why did the police feel they could act with such impunity?

The Repugnant host committee set up a $10 million insurance policy to defray expenses the city might run into because of litigation after the convention. City officials asked for this coverage and were proud of it -- see, that's also news which is not news...

I Didn't Do It...

I didn't do it!

It really, really cost me, but I didn't do it!

I didn't talk, blog, write, snide or snark about The Day That Changed Everything -- heck, I didn't even observe a moment of silent prayer for the "almost three thousand who died that day..."

As a matter of fact, it has long puzzled me, along with a few other things like how the concept / meme of "Homeland Security" and the legal monster misnamed the PATRIOT ACT appeared, full-blown and ready to rock, like some miscreant Minerva from the forehead of a somewhat bilious and certainly corrupt Zeus -- it has puzzled me why the talking heads always refer to "almost three thousand"...

It's as if there were some sort of sick Death Eater Disappointment that the number of bodies incinerated, smashed to road kill on the pavement to escape the flames was not the three thousand plus first promised the media beast in first few hours of what we can now see was the beginning of a mass psychosis and outright communual insanity.

Very much on the other hand, I do know what the Bush Doctrine is, which is something Sarah Cuda doesn't know after a fortnight or so of intense indoctrination by the Dark Lords in campaign talking points at an undisclosed location.

Out of some measure of respect for you who may be as ignorant as the Gov. of Alaska, the "Bush Doctrine" is sort of like the "Monroe Doctrine" on steroids.

If you don't know what the "Monroe Doctrine" is, you should forthwith return the money spent on your education. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 warned the European Powers to stop expanding their bloodsucking colony shit in the New World. The Americas were declared to be turf that belonged to the United State of Arrogance and we went to war more than once, twice -- heck a dozen times to make the point clear. If you are not up to speed on this, please read "War is a Racket".

The Bush Doctrine is the policy of preemptive war -- that is that "we" (i.e., whoever happens to be the Codpiece in Chief) has the right to bomb the shit out of anybody he/she fancies as long as his handlers can make up an excuse television pundits can repeat without barfing on screen in front of the cameras.

My Blue Passport...

I have been an expatriate Arrogant citizen for forty years and more, residing in the Happy Little Kingdom of Denmark.

For the first time I find myself seriously considering exchanging my blue passport for a beet-red Danish one.

If the fools over there actually (s)elect Mad Cain as Prez of Arrogance, I will probably make good on the threat and ask Queen Margaret II if I may become one of her subjects.

If the imprecatory prayers of the Dominionist and Third Wave "work" and Sara Cuda becomes the new Supreme Hole, I'll drive a wooden stake through that blue passport and consider resigning from the human race.

If, on the other hand, if Bulimo Omama makes it all with way to inauguration without getting whacked, I'll relax a bit. At least, after the swearing in, when the feds catch three bozo's plotting to snipe him, they won't release them with hardly a slap on the wrist. Hopefully, people won't face up to seven years in prison for having the intention to lawfully demonstrate and handfuls of actual demonstrators daring to cross a street won't be met with a dozen flash-bang stun grenades.

On the other hand, if Bulimo also gets into the habit of letting himself be called "Commander in Chief", I dunno

Sara Cuda in Waiting

The selection of Sarah Cuda to ride shotgun on the Repugnant entry into the Quadrennial Horse Races was not, as panned, a fluke or a last minute, desperate decision by the Mad Kane.

Quite on the contrary, it was clever, deliberate, thought out, a work of dark genius. The "sex scandal" angle was thrown out like a bucket of chum to distract the media from the fact that Sara Cuda had proven her commitment to the "kick them in the balls before going for the jugular vein" school of politics.

She had also proved the ability to smile while smearing a bald faced lie by saying that Bulimo Omama would increase taxes on the middle class -- this is true, of course, if you consider the top 5% income group as being middle class.

The next stroke of dark genius was to keep her from the press so that the press would demand that she come and speak to them. After a while she came and, yes the media fell prostrate before her because, in fact, she is not just a pit-bull with lipstick, she is a well-formulated pit-bull with lipstick. That proved that the librul media was on her case just because she was a woman and a god-fearing mother who loves her children almost as much as apple pie.

Sooo, Mad Kane became Prez of Arrogance -- which will prove to be a short-lived joy because when the imprecatory prayers are answered, Mad Kane will be struck down by the Finger of God and Sara Cuda will receive the mantle of power.

The fun and games will begin when she figures out where Russia is in relation to Alaska.

On the positive side, we will know longer need to puzzle over such odd instances such as that of a plane which had been known to fly prisoners to Git'mo and extraordinarily render them to lesser known but darker holes of pain and injury -- that same plane crashed in Mexico with a 3 ton load of that white powder you don't use to brush you teeth but sniff up your nose.

Spewing Sputtering Spit

*Update below*

Having the good fortune to live in the Happy Little Kingdom, I am only exposed to (mercifully few) sound bites and clips from the opening of the final laps to the Quadrennial Horse Races -- that is the week long parties known as the National Conventions...

But even then, in an unguarded moment I can hear something that makes me spew sputtering phlegm and spit over my poor radio.

Yesterday, it was the words of the Codpiece Himself -- he said that Mad Kane was a man who would rather lose an election if it meant winning a war and that therefore he was the man who is qualified to become the next Commander in Chief [sic !!!]

Dear hearts, how many times must we write on the blackboard, "We the People do not have a Commander in Chief!" We have a President, a chief executive and civilian, one of whose functions is to be top honcho over the military. The Founding Fathers who crafted our Ground Law were, rightly, afraid of the threat a military could be to a republic -- therefore, they made certain that the military would be under civilian control.

But what do we have today? Soldiers are now called "warriors". Sears is offering a line of clothing which locks like real military garb -- and is approved my the Army! A sheriff in South Carolina buys a tank with a 50 caliber belt-fed machine gun mounted on it and says he figures it will "save lives".

At the Repugnant Convention, protesters, journalists and even civil rights lawyers are proactively arrested by police waving machine guns. A group of two dozen protesters daring to cross a street are met with a dozen concussion grenades... [explosions 2 minutes in...] *update below*

Meanwhile, the VP candidate, with a terrible record of authoritarian abuse of power, hard rock creationist, with ties to extreme right wacko groups gets a pass and the media concentrates on her private life as if she was a Bill Flintstone with a shame cave...

I'm sorry, but it seems to me that the Lady of Light and Liberty is morphing even faster than I thought into a Madam who rides a Fat Car...

_________
First of all, these were likely a form of "flash and bang" stun grenades. The concussion grenade is a bit more serious piece of work. CTuttle at Main and Central wrote me that it resembles the M84 stun grenade -- a hand thrown device and not the lobbed bombs sent against the small crowd pf protesting citizens.

However, the stun grenade is not a toy -- the explosion reaches 170db and the smoke, though "harmless" is quite noxious -- a brief description of the M84 with, of course, my stress:

The M84 non-lethal stun grenade is a non-lethal, low hazard, non-shrapnel producing explosive device intended to confuse, disorient or momentarily
distract potential threat personnel. The device produces a temporary
incapacitation to threat personnel or innocent by standers. This device will be used by military personnel in hostage rescue situations and in the capture of criminals, terrorists or other adversaries. It provides commanders a non-lethal capability to increase the flexibility in the application of force during
military operations.

Palin(syn)drom

It's almost like the finals in the Quadrennial Horse Races is starting to sound and smell like some composite of the National Enquirer and day old poop from Peyton Place.

First, Mad Kane names a complete unknown (on the national scene) to be his running (and soul) mate. No sooner is she presented before the sharks begin to circle (and there was a lot of chum in the water). The fact is that the media being the beast that it is, if there is not a print ready surmise of whom a political person is, that is to say prepared food, the beast awakens and says "feed me!"

The first thing that happened is that somebody noticed that Gov. Palin had birthed a baby boy a few months ago. Then it was noticed that at the time Palin announced she was seven months pregnant, people were surprised. At the same time her daughter was out of sight for 5 months because of mononucleosis. Also, it was noticed that in the official pictures, the only one with an obviously large tummy was her daughter. People, being the nasty little critters that they are began to wonder what the real story was.

According to the official story, Gov Palin was in Texas when her water broke, but she waited 8 hours to give a political speech before flying home to Alaska on a commercial airplane. Bypassing a nearby hospital, got to her own hospital where the baby boy was delivered. Anyone with acquaintance with pregnancies and deliveries would wonder how a 46 year old woman who already birthed 4 babies could wait at least ½ a day from when her water broke and labor contractions began to fly back from Texas after a speech to get to her hospital in Alaska. The wonder is how could it could be done without the baby being born along the way as it is well known that deliveries tend to come quicker after the first couple of times. The mother returned to her official duties only three days later, which is not remarkable in itself but should be noted.

It's kind of disgusting that something maybe even below the level of the National Enquirer, sort of Peyton Place sicko is taking so much public attention when there so many other serious stories like the heavy handed proactive harassment and arrests of demonstrators, news people and even lawyers in St. Paul before the Repugnant Convention. But I suppose that is the way it goes in a country where a loose pasty and an exposed nipple trumps other news...