a quiet bipartisanship

for all the public bluster and fuss stirred up atwixt dems and repubs these oh so many long and shriek filled obama days, can't help but notice upon readin' 'bout some veto that supposedly took place -- didn't seem to cause too much of a fuss -- the gleeful bipartisanship the two parties can muster when it comes to letting the banks run free, free like wind.  like m'ry-ah.

which is obviously why the veto didn't cause too much of a fuss.  no palinesque yowling in the streets, no fox news obama vetoes america! hysteria.  weird.

but not.  cause we know these fucks are thinkin' they're sneaking this under the radar.  unanimous, in both houses of pox.  making a stink about the veto might actually bring attention to the actual bill and what a ratfuck racket the banks could run then!  ack!  can't have that.  and check how well those shambling villains manage to come happily together in the face of the big bank threatening foreclosure  fraud scandal.

In the senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, reportedly sped the bill’s passage last Monday, after being pressed by “constituents,” he told Reuters. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, also a member of the judiciary committee, helped Leahy move the bill to the floor for the vote.

yes, leahy carried one page of the bill, and sessions carried the other.  skipping down the aisle, tossing posies to the throngs of banskter gangsters, i imagine.

oh, and leahy.  go fuck yourself.

shitless shitstorm

The boys are not easily dissuaded from using the same spigot over and over again. I'm sure Mr. Assange will happily oblige, while the New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel will happily perform as channels. Stay tuned for any buildup.

well, we got us some buildup, didn't we? pentagon came out all screamin' meanness: more documents! about Iraq! that wikileaks will destroy us all! something like that.

so, gettin' us all primed up for some good shit, but since we know from the last effort just what that "good shit" will be, we won't, in fact, be getting any good shit at all. expected reams of stuff we already know, mixed in with some psyopy messaging and blame casting. as predicted, the media troughs spill the runoff each in their own preferred direction. take, for example, the New York Times' chosen priority angle on the "leak": a first up slug on iran:

Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias

pentagon's surely quaking that that got out. damn you, Wikileaks!

guanodian's priority take on the leaks was to firstly point out how those lumpen american forces "ignored" torture being conducted by those friggin ... Iraqis! Which the NYT also happens to ladle out with the marvelously titled,

"Detainees Fared Worse in Iraqi Hands, Log says"

and Log no lie. ya see how barbaric those people are? hell, abu ghraib was a breath of fresh air and justice for those folks.

anymore? anything at all actually leak worthy? is it leak worthy to learn that civilians "have borne the brunt of modern warfare"? to recount the reports of many deaths already reported? do we not know this? what this heartless prattle serves is to reaffirm pentagon establishment iraqi casualty figures and to marginalize, if not outright ignore, the far more credible studies suggesting close to a million dead. early on, when initial civilian death estimates were hovering around a hundred thousand, pentagon yowling was fierce. anti-american lefties! we've only whacked thirty thousand, tops. believe or it or not, that was an american discussion at one time.

well, now the pentagon has been wound up the fatality pole, right up there at a hundred thousand. no further. all those "controversial surveys" of civilian deaths in iraq assiduously cast adrift amidst the swirl of a hang out media frenzy about an undiscovered trove of fifteen thousand heretofore "unknown" deaths found in the docs.  Like the last time, the limited hang out serves to legitimize the messaging on iran, and legitimize the blame cast to those dastardly iraqis and their gruesome shit. so, thank gawd we're there!

tell

recalling fondly some heady days of not so yore, the high dudgeon unleashed when iran detained those three yank hikers. good times.

three young americans chose, oddly enough, to go hiking in a war zone, apparently because their are "talented" and "fiercely intellectual." yanks are warned -- buncha times -- by the Iraqi police that they are near the border. cop says flat out, don't go. "When they told me that they are planning to go to Ahmed Awa, I told them, 'Don't go there ... ' " so they go there. get nabbed. my oh my, what an outrage! those ghastly iranians punishing gifted americans. typical!

those were some tasty days of international tension. mmmm. still goin' on happily.

part of this recalling exposed, rather re-exposed, to mine own skewed eye a rather curious moment in the initial telling of the tale.

you see, the group actually comprised four yanks, one of whom decline to hike toward iran because he says he "felt sick." i'd be feeling a little sick at that prospect too. then again, i find it exceedingly unlikely that i or most other folk would choose to walk about kurdifukinstan in the midst of the iraq war. nonetheless, off the merry three traipsed toward iran. after the nabbing, the one who remained behind called his dear ol' gran. explains things. three fierce and talented friends have just been arrested by Iranian authorities at the border. fright and frantic must surely be the normative state of mind in such dire situations. yuud think, right? then gran tells us:

"My grandson has asked me not to talk to the media."

really? from the comfort of the us embassy in baghdad, a comfort granted by illness sparing a dastardly fate, that's what pops into your weird head to tell dear ol' gran thousands of miles away and frantic with worry? don't talk to the media? in whose buggered up head does that concern pop up first and foremost? can't help but think whether dear ol gran wondered what the fuck you were doing over there, too.

export to nowhere

here's german economist Rolf Langhammer laying down the awful truth behind the howling us politicos and their high dudgeon over China's currency policy. An higher yuan will help US exports, supposedly, in one of those thought experiment kind of ways. there's an ugly reality confronting this experimental thought.

SPIEGEL: China's currency reserves have grown to a breathtaking $2.65 trillion (€1.9 trillion) and the imbalance in world trade is growing larger all the time. Can a revaluation of the yuan, as the US is calling for, halt this trend?

Rolf Langhammer: It would be welcome -- and also in China's own interest -- if the yuan exchange rate was more flexible than it has been up to now. China's recent moves in that direction (i.e. the small revaluation since June) are far from sufficient. I would caution against overblown expectations, though. It would hardly be possible to eliminate the global imbalance in that way.
SPIEGEL: Why not?

Langhammer: A weak dollar won't automatically allow the Americans to export more goods. We shouldn't be under any illusions about that. In many cases, companies that are based in the US can't survive on the global market because they don't have innovative products or the qualified workforce required to develop them.

ouch.

the final thrust.

SPIEGEL: Are interventions in exchange rates even capable of eliminating global imbalances?

Langhammer: When China allowed the yuan to gradually appreciate by some 20 percent between 2005 and 2008, there were no signs that this helped US businesses on the global market. The crucial thing is that a country must be well positioned with the range of goods that it wants to export. The US is still lagging well behind in that respect.

SPIEGEL: As opposed to German industry?

Langhammer: Definitely. Germany produces high quality goods that, to a certain extent, are independent of international price competition. To put it bluntly, people outside the European Union who buy a luxury German car or a machine tool don't make that decision based on the exchange rate.

touché, sir. touché.

'course, the very large point that america just doesn't make much shit that anyone wants. 'cept guns 'n ammo, bombs 'n planes. aerial death robots. make a shitlooda that shit. sell it everywhere. weapons mill for the world america. 'part from that glorious shit, though, ya gotta wonder: what the fuck does america make anymore? it says there in that 'pedia thing that 50% of us exports are "capital goods" wonder if that means iphones made in china and then "exported" to the uk. shit like that.

the whole discourse surrounding temporal sino-us trade disputes is a veil over what is really expected, based on what is going on now. the fed looks certain to do some trillion of qe on your ass, and that money, just like the last $2 trill, rather than directed toward the purported intent -- swing the nation out of negative equity -- will be used, has been used, to create a series of currency runs, as hudson calls it "predatory finance: a new mode of global warfare." we've seen it already: yen, sterling, euro, cdn dollar, real, and on. next up is a big fat china. billions to be skimmed and creamed. hence the excitement by all the aspirants. can't help notice krugman leading the charge 'gainst bad ol' china. been harpin' on those chinese all of a sudden, hasn't he? does he really not know what is going on?

predatory finance. this is what the us exports now. that, and pointless, hypocritical political harping. not exactly coveted must-haves for the rest of the world.

well, there goes big mean china, with a big fat fuck u:

The Chinese government plans a further reduction, of up to 30 percent, next year in its quotas for exports of rare earth minerals, to try to conserve dwindling reserves of the materials, the official China Daily newspaper said on Tuesday.

Plans for smaller export quotas come just four days after American trade officials announced that they would investigate whether China is violating international trade rules with a wide range of policies to help its clean energy industries. One of the policies under investigation involves China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005 and its imposition of steep taxes on these exports.

finally, you really gotta wonder 'bout the strategic thinking going on in the hallowed halls of deep state security continuity when it apparently allowed this situation to develop.

China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earths.

anyone ever notice the trajectory of this development there in that pentagon, or whatnot? ah, what the hell do they care? they gotts them some chinese makin' chips and stuff for 'em already.

this is news

here now, a current headline in the us political media:

Democrat says he's heard Pelosi won't run again for Speaker

talk death cult

dontcha love this arse who got all glen beck whipped, went off to shoot up "people of importance" at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. 'cordin' t' wurldza-wreck-cuzza-theACLU beck, ... well, the world's a wreck because of the ACLU. And the Tides Foundation, whatever the fuck that is. you ever hearda this until now? until beck got some mouth breather all riled up 'bout the Tides and ACLU jewish cabal of global masters' master plan, no one outside the bizarro bubble world of screeching right wing talk radio could tell you what evils Tides had foisted upon the world, or would foist once their villainous plot took hold. they are apparently evil and run the world. yeah. The Tides Foundation and the ehseefukinelleyou. the real bilderburg. had to take 'em out!

debates is all flustered 'bout whether people can be persuaded to violence by mere suggestion. like the mere suggestion the people are susceptible to such persuasion is some sorta newfangled odd ball psycho babble hoohaa. really.

blanket of fiction

remember when i first saw news that some terrorist alert, issued by some gormless admin mandarin, had "shut down much of Europe." i started laughing. couldn't help it, really. effin' kidding me? everyone got pissed at the volcano, for crissakes, but white house political jerk off was all good. they were showing pictures of the frenchies shuttin' down le tour eiffel. "for the second time in two weeks," i remember hearing from the newser.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden defended the Obama administration's travel alert cautioning about terrorist activity in Europe,

"I think the administration handled this well," Hayden said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," a week after the State Department issued the alert. "They put the alert out. They let folks know that there was something different. But they also tried to simultaneously calm fears, tell people they shouldn't cancel travel to Europe.

congratulations, mr. president. fine work.

A US terror alert issued this week about al-Qaida plots to attack targets in western Europe was politically motivated and not based on credible new information, senior Pakistani diplomats and European intelligence officials have told the Guardian.

The non-specific US warning, which despite its vagueness led Britain, France and other countries to raise their overseas terror alert levels, was an attempt to justify a recent escalation in US drone and helicopter attacks inside Pakistan that have "set the country on fire", said Wajid Shamsul Hasan, the high commissioner to Britain.

... suggested the Obama administration was playing politics with the terror threat before next month's midterm congressional elections, in which the Republicans are expected to make big gains.

He also claimed President Obama was reacting to pressure to demonstrate that his Afghan war strategy and this year's troop surge, which are unpopular with the American public, were necessary.

bit of tell. got those euro's flappin', though. ha! that was a hoot. got 'em to shut down the eiffel freaking tower. twice!

gotta say, this gwot is great to watch. not the horrible, unjustified carnage of such reckless enterprise, but the the now globally interactive psyop maneuvering the poobahs think they're pulling off. what a show it can be. always impacting, demeaning, traumatizing the peasantry, of course. but, man, i almost look forward the next wan "terror plot" -- secreted onto the plane gonchbomber, or some Muslim dude playing in the snow -- who knows? what will be the next banned potion, humiliating contortion, or proscribed motion? point is, there's always something brewin' on up over at that dagblasted ephfukinbeefukineye.

speaking of which reminds me being rather amused to see a story about the DOJ telling Muslims down in murfreesboro 'bout how those ball busters at Justus have "got their back." this was amusing precisely for the fact that at the same time DoJ officials are assuring Muslims of the full protection of their civil liberties, DoJ muscle wing, the FBI, have been spending inordinate amounts of time, energy and resources, drumming their own, (taxpayer funded of course!) phony little faux Muslim "terrorist" crime spree: targeting poor communities with gobs of money, provo agents stirring juices, planting evidence, or just plain makin' shit up about pictures.

so, beware murfreesboro Muslims. should we transcend the current state of madness that so currently afflicts you, the DoJ may defend you with all due diligence now. they may also attack you with all due diligence, and phony evidence, later on.

afscamistan

the west, and this includes Russia/Soviet Union, have been fucking over afghanistan for so freaking long, it's amazing any of those poor, besieged people are sane in any way at all. but some of them appear to have remained not just sane, but have developed, or at least employed, a wily cunning. that the pentagon now knowingly funds the Taliban in all sort of ways is broadly known, and, as these things go, when we know about a few of the ways, there are probably others.

(worse ones, of course. like that erik prince and mullah omar are cousins in business together, urging the other cousins to keep those bucks spilling into the 'ghan'stan. how would that do ya for the whole global illuminati mind-fuck romp?)

the 'gon sends money taliban way through protection -- a basic mob op -- via those ubiquitous subcontractors, who pay out something on the order of 200-400 million pentagon-sluiced us taxpayer dollars per year to Taliban and linked forces.

seems, also through a network of shadowy contractors (amazing really, all the great benefits that privatization is having!) the Taliban have taken up host in US military bases as security guards, and, if that, probably every other kind of contractor, too. Nato supply line drivers, etc..

so, us taxpayer dollars are wending their way through the black box of the fucking pentagon, and into sub-sub-subcontractors hands, who happen to be Taliban dudes. paid by the pentagon to guard us military bases.

a thoroughly modern F Troop.

The Pentagon’s oversight of the Afghan guards is virtually nonexistent, allowing local security deals among American military commanders, Western contracting companies and Afghan warlords who are closely connected to the violent insurgency, according to the report by investigators on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The United States military has almost no independent information on the Afghans guarding the bases, who are employees of Afghan groups hired as subcontractors by Western firms awarded security contracts by the Pentagon. At one large American airbase in western Afghanistan, military personnel did not even know the names of the leaders of the Afghan groups providing base security, the investigators found. So they used the nicknames that the contractor was using — Mr. White and Mr. Pink from “Reservoir Dogs,” the 1992 gangster movie by Quentin Tarantino. Mr. Pink was later determined to be a “known Taliban” figure

of course, we've also got the marvelously profitable opium industry doing big business under cover of war, keeping more than a few banks afloat during some uncertain times recently. opium futures apparently were a stable hedge.

then comes the wondrous tale of how NATO sub-contractors are blowing up their own NATO fuel trucks, which have been emptied of NATO fuel in black market deals, and receiving insurance money from NATO: sell the gas in truck, pocket gas money, blow up truck, get new truck from NATO.

and, for all we know, these guys blowin' up the NATO trucks are sub-sub-subcontracted taliban dudes who are more than happy to blow up, and to keep blowing up, NATO fuel trucks, sell the fuel beforehand, and collect the generous NATO insurance for a brand new truck. that those same taliban dudes can then rehire to NATO all over again. rinse, repeat. truly, the work of Allah.

sweet deal. and what a great scam. 'cause, taliban dudes have attacked and do attack NATO supply lines. no stretch you got nailed by those taliban muthufuckas. 'lessin' anyone looks around the wreck, maybe finds some bombs parts stuck here and there. fuck. who'd do that? inspect? fuck that shit. taliban! only, the bad ones. not the ones driving your NATO trucks.

afghanistan is now one monstrous illicit, money swirling, scuz-filled scam pot, players across the board and all sides, raking in the cash that pours into afghanistan, precious little of which actually pours onto many afghans, other than as those money-making hellfire missiles. it is, or will be, a self-perpetuating money making enterprise, much of it on the backs of the us taxpayers, and the rest of those taxpayers governed by idiots still maintaining pretense enough to publicly claim that the war in afghanistan is "worth it."

problem is, they never tell you what "it" is.

the douchescape of spleenland

rarely have i enjoyed a romp like the one Phil Rockstroh gallops away on. bloody marvelous.

The Bigot-Whisperers of the Right

bones n' thug harmony

turriffic. they got some photos taken by some of Colonel Kurtz's boys over there in the ghan'stan, supposedly goin' all "rogue." ha. from what i've read, sounds like the lads were pretty much just shootin' par for the course. with a not entirely unexpected, if decidedly tart slice on the game.

seems the perturbed band o' brothers got all dark heart tribal, carving up and coveting victim's bones of various sorts, skulls among them. It remains unclear whether these collected bones are the bones of the reported spate of targeted victims, or a more generalized collection of afghan hard parts. very viet-kurtzy, though.

favourite testimony snippet:

"At that time, Staff Sgt. Gibbs had a cloth. He opened it, and three human body fingers fell on the ground. At that point, I kinda lost my head."

-- Corporal Quintal

5th Stryker Brigade

2nd Infantry Division

United States Army

pix are beauties, apparently. won't show the children. too traumatic for such innocent minds as those public ones. best keep 'em that way.

besides, it's those blasted photos of US troops posing and (i'm sure we can imagine) grinning over the Afghan corpses resulting from their super fun house live ammo "shoot the raghead" murder spree that will put the troops in harms way. 'cause otherwise, afghans would never know that US troops are shooting at them in their own country.

emmoh of the lordatheflies guys appears to be methodical targeting of a victim accompanied by planned cover up. followed by miller time. with bones.

'Cause ya know, once you got all methodical like that -- that grenade cover story was some fierce shit dude--whew, well, brother, let me tell ya, it is time to unwind! gets me sum bones!

whaddaya expect when you keep men in war for years on years, grow them addicted to it, jacked fulla red bull and roids? at some point, they will lose it. many have lost it already. take david petreaus for example. he has clearly lost it. mr. foreverwar. face it. he and the rest of the effete puffy war monger mandarins, indeed, much of the corporate state, are now addicted to war. hugely profitable. off your ass.

the system as configured today, sucks taxpayer money and debt money through the pentagon and def-cons to wage war in far away lands and waste it building destructive, worse than useless things. it's what they do. the afghan war is a profit pipe, and a hugely debt collecting waste pipe, waging war in far away lands. In and of themselves, the war pipes "america" runs today are at least as important as any far flung geo-economic-political fantasy pipes. the local citizens on the far end of those profit pipes usually fight their end of it, and usually because they face the effluence uitgang of an always profitable war machine. if anyone on the planet understands the dynamic of imperial war, afghans know it by heart. they are fighting the build-profit-war pipe from their end. why aren't we fighting it from this end?  because all it is on this end is a hate-making-death-and-debt pipe.  about as win-lose as it gets.