eat the average

p.j. o'rourke once wrote a book called Eat the Rich. I read it, back when I was a moderately uninformed moron, which is just the kind of audience that is o'rourke's conservative kitsch niche. Ultimately, the point was, as every conservative dipshit wanker advocates: leave the rich alone! They're nuttin' but good.  he was all freaked out that america was eating the rich, and ol' peejay had to do what he could to stop it.

looking back on it now, fuck, what a howler.

Because I don't see that. I don't see high-frequency trading America eating the rich. At all. Nor, I suspect, does anyone else.

What we do see is the "average American," being eaten. And not necessarily metaphorically speaking. They are being eaten -- not all in one big gulp -- by the American establishment.

Imagine an enormous shark tank. The tank, observed from specially selected observer boxes secretly housed in secured confines deep within Goldman Sach, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanely, etc., show Americans in the water, desperately treading the medium to stay afloat. Sharks are circling below.

Various species of shark are circling: the wall street shark, the health insurance shark, the war shark, the oil shark, well, you get the picture. For some time now, various expressions of these species have been nibbling away at the dangling, twitching limbs of "average" Americans treading in that gummy pool of costs, debt, interest, taxes, and fees.

So, we've watch the wall street sharks take a big chunk. "health insurance" companies have been chewing on a meaty limb for awhile, and are about to get a new bone. Everyone out there has got teeth in the body of American citizens.

The latest is true for another shark bite from an heretofore unheard of species, the "foreclosure mill" shark, an organism dedicated to booting people out of their homes for the handsome fee of one thousand dollars. The more you boot, the more you make!

Yes, if you exhibit tendencies toward cutthroat shyster lawyerism, you too can succeed handsomely as a foreclosure shark by illegally churning out foreclosures at a grand a pop. You'll live your life in an abandoned strip mall, but, hey, anything for a bite. Such is the addiction to human flesh.

The Insurgent and The Stinger, part II

awhile ago, I wondered about what I thought was the curious absence of shoulder fired missiles in Afghanistan, or possibly the curious absence of reporting about such missiles in Afghanistan; specifically the Stinger, widely distributed to the mujahedeen, and to lethal effect, to fight the Soviets. Just thought it was curious that these portable and deadly missiles had so evapourated from a decades-old and highly weaponized battlespace.

So, here's the weird part: the world arms market is vast, white, grey, and black. Anyone determined can pretty much get whatever they want. Stingers are not outside the range of these domains, indeed, they likely would pass through all three. And yet! And yet, despite the multi-billion dollar operation the Taliban are running, despite connections to global weapons traffic -- no Stingers. None. So far as we know. Have you ever heard of a Stinger missile taking down a US aircraft? Neither have I.

Well, it just so happens that the Wikileaks treasure trove of Afghan "War Logs" documents are turning up some answers to a marvelous variety of questions, including my own mildly vexing cogitations.

The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

Asked, and answered. Isn't that great? when you actually get an answer to some weird question almost no one else wonders? And all ya gotta do is wait for it.

And this is why the Pentagon, and every other corrupted, cankerous establishment organ on the planet, wants to shut down Wikileaks.

they don't want questions answered.

ever

a swirling lit-up thing came out of the lake

kid you not, that is what some odd fellow just had to tell me. this thing that he saw. says he was "meditating" for thirty plus hours and then saw this. no idea what the fuck he means by "meditating."

since that stupid twitter is "over capacity," well, here it is:

just accosted by some dude, heard I'd worked for NASA. Had to tell me his UFO 'sperience. happens all the freaking time.

the girl with the conserative ear

finally gotta round to reading Klinghoffer's ode to conservatism. Hee-fucking-larious! Don't really think he thinks so. Seems quite serious. but that makes it even funnier.

Take this little gem, perhaps my favourite elucidation of the principle of conservatism, because i did not know that

"The idea of purpose in the cosmos was central to the conservative vision."

Huh.

And here I always figured they were just a bunch of nihilistic, money-grubbing, me-first assholes, a gluttonous gullet their only moral compass. But, apparently, they have a "purpose."

Okay, I'll play along.

So, what is this 'purpose in the cosmos" that conservatism sees as central to its vision? And whose vision is this? We stumble upon the answer thusly,

Another icon on the right, Whittaker Chambers, described in his 1952 memoir, "Witness," the moment he awoke from his earlier communism: It was upon looking closely one day at his young daughter's ear. Noting the exquisite beauty, the evidence of "immense design" shook him. He could never again subscribe to the secular, materialist dream.*

Which sounds vaguely like how the whole Morman thing started out, but nonetheless, ah, ha! What vision! the ear, of course, the ear! ahhh, it all makes sense now. We must embrace the money-grubbing, me-first asshole conservative vision of the cosmos because of the fine and delicate form of Whittaker Chambers' daughter's ear! Yes! I see it now!

I am saved.

Now, I have no idea how one, exactly, manages a trip from the delicate curl of a youthful earlobe to money-grubbing, me-first asshole, but that doesn't matter! I am saved!

I am saved.


* materialist dream is not part of conservatism? what fucking conservative planet does Klinghoffer live on? 'Cuzin' it sure ain't the one I see, where all them conservatives view "property rights" sacrosanct. To most conservatives, a choice between free speech and property rights is a no-brainer. Literally. Klinghoffer and the rest of the dreamy-eyed fantasylanders need to crawl out of the imagined clouds of an imagined conservatism. In this world, a racist William F. Buckley argued for segregation and the preservation of white power. Conservatism is about preserving the status quo. Stop with this vision nonsense.

1999

I'm diggin' on over a the freaking hilarious chaos in the White House. These people are in waaay over their heads. Hopefully, it will show up as a Broadway musical:

Should he? Shouldn't he?
Could he? Would he?
Will he? Won't he?
Nobody knows! Nobody knows!
And what about Michelle?
Nobody knows! Nobody knows!

It certainly has paid off, hasn't it? That year and half of constant bad mouthing, and race baiting, and teary-eyed, chalk scribbling, crazyass on-air remonstrations of socialism, fascism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, tossed in with the marvelous marinade of tea baggery birtherism, which naturally enough, fomented the horrors of African tribalism, Muslimism, Islamism, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Americanism, and even the Beckian belief of racism that is harboured, and is harbouring in, the corporeal form of Barack Hussein Obama has paid of very well, indeed. Hell, this very NYT article is a hit job itself. The sharks are circling.

And the White House is in a tizzy. How did this happen? Do they wonder that, in the White House? All that talk of partnering, and bipartisan this, bending over, taking one slap after another, eviscerating bills for GOP imagined shit that ain't in them, all those labourous "coffees" with the Repubs, half of whom still think you're Muslim, failed to create any sort of bipartisan gel. Imagine that. They call you a socialist, still do, for spending money on the stimulus, and then brag back home about all the coin they hauled in from Washington. The nerve!

Maybe it's all new to them, this recycled Clinton White House. But how can that be? It ain't new to anyone else.

This is, or has the potential to be, the next season of the American Political Horror Show of the last few decades, where Democrats unfailing refuse the investigate the known wrong doing of a previous Republican White House, or criminal Republican campaign shenanigans, only to watch themselves roasted in the public square as the criminals. Over and over again, we have watched this. We know that Republicans have traitorously poisoned and outright stolen elections. Democrats remain mute.

Republicans have been demanding investigations of the Obama White House over "influence peddling" in Democratic primaries. Yeah, there's heartbreaking development. Clearly, we must impeach.

And they will, those fucking Republicans, should they gain the House. They will go after Obama, and then it's all over, all over again.

Impeachment in the House for some bullshit, stalling, demonizing, generally fucking up the works, man, I can hardly wait! I hope the Repubs win, both chamber pots! I must confess more than a mild curiosity as to the potential repetition of the Clinton roast. Of course, this truly is the last thing the country needs, which would thus stand testament to the odious state of the Republican Party, the party of No and Spite. They'll get away with it, pretend it was some grand and valiant deed, to smack Obama, while he let the Repub torture regime skate. For all the reckless inattention, the country will slide into further disrepair.

If this all pans out as hoped, I'd really like to ask Obama, "how's that bipartisanship thing working out for ya?" Which is a mild rendition of what I really want to ask him, which would be, "hey, shit for brains! When are you assholes going to wake the fuck up? unless, of course, the Dems really are a front company for the GOP, in which case, well, ... uh, ... good job!"

Obama, let's see if ya got the fucking nuts to pull out the guns. If the GOP goes after you, you say to those craven fucks, you will bring charges against the entire Bush administration, open the books, and let the shit hit the fan. You won't need the ICC. The Department of Justice will slam the fucks behind bars -- jury assenting, doubts seem nil, of course -- and thus fulfilling United States' obligations under international treaty -- for once!

Just a little advice. 'Cause I just saw that some GOP jackass, if the Pubs get the House, is promising investigations of the Obama administration.

Woo hoo! Face it. Obama ain't got the balls. So bring on the impeachment. And then we can party like it's 1999, all over again.

Carry on Cameron

Well, that didn't take much time at all, did it?

Mere weeks after assuming the role, newly-anointed British PM David Cameron set about continuing the long tradition of western leaders burning in effigy in foreign lands suffering under a yoke of western military, economic, and/or political intervention. It took Bush years before he wound up being burned up in street protests.

So, bravo, David! Your impudent salvo now has you being burned in the streets of Karachi. And in swift record time. Not bad for a debutante.