Bindloss

In my first summer of college, I did what most students do that first summer and went to the student employment center. I noticed a job advertisement requiring the ability to ride a motorcycle. "Must be able to ride a motorcycle," it said. Now, outside the rarified world of professional motor sports, I was not too aware of many jobs that would pay anyone to ride a motorcycle. This seemed a job that was, if not impossible, at least highly improbable -- rarified in its own way. I read the advert again. And then again. The words did not change. Amazingly, no one else seemed to note this employment nugget. I pulled the notice and ran.

"Must be able to ride a motorcycle." I had never ridden a motorcycle. But mutually supporting conditions of youth and idiocy convinced me I would be "able" to. In theory. I could ride a bicycle. I had a friend who had a motorcycle. I could drive a stick. Shit, dude, put it all together in your head and you're good to go. I called. Didn't know anything about geology, but sure as shit could I ride. I lied. How hard can it be?  Cerebral synthesis of disparate knowledge and abilities would surely be sufficient, if not for complete mastery, then at least to keep from falling over. At the interview, I met the fellow new recruits and, after introductions and pleasantries, we all went out back to ride "the motorcycle." All of these guys looked like they could ride a motorcycle. Good grief. I was the only one who did not appear to belong to a biker gang. Now what?  Well, just give it a go. I know it in theory. And we all know how well that usually works out.  Fortunately at the time, I did not have much experience with how knowing only theory does or does not "work out."  I could get the clutch thing, I knew I could.

Sweet blessed providence. The subject motorcycle brought out was an odd, undersized 75cc Honda enduro-bike. Clutchless. As in, no clutch. Automatic. Sweet heaven above, this was going to be easy.  And it was.  No problem.  It was really just like riding a bicycle, only easier. I found the weight helped control. Got the job and it was off to the grain-belted steppe of southeast Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan.  Soil sampling is what we were doing.  This small exploration company had developed and patented some technique for analyzing hydrocarbon content in surface soil in order to determine likely deposits -- usually gas -- down below.  Apparently successful and amazingly benign.  Except for us.  We were not benign at all.  And it would soon become apparent just why these small motorcycles were chosen for the task.

We were two teams of three men; one crew boss and two riders. Originally, a notion of the job was that the crew positions would rotate.  Once a rider, always a rider though, for the prospect of sitting in and driving a truck all day long paled next to the glee of bombing around on a motorcycle unfettered by road or law all day long. Be the chief? You mean be the guy who sits in a hot truck on a dusty road, swatting flies, while you guys are bombing around out there? The teams were fixed on day one and with no argument. The riders went out on a gridded survey, running east-west lines on section, half section and quarter section boundaries.  Along the lines, we would collect soil samples every fifth or sometimes every half a mile. At every sample site, we were supposed get off the motor, walk some ten feet away to take the sample, then back. Over and over again. Hours on end. It took no more than a few samples under protocol before drudgery set in, each rider independently arriving at one common, inevitable conclusion: "fuck this."

First and many hand experience suggested that sampling protocol was not followed. Like I said, I might have made the trudge a few times, and just as the rest of humanity is wont, succumbed to the overwhelming temptations of unwitnessed laze: who the hell is gonna know if I get off or do not get off this motorcycle and walk ten feet and take the goddamned soil sample over there? Look at where I am! The barely and the bees and me. No one, that's who.  Was I invested in the results of these tests? Not that I was aw ... uh, no. Mostly, like lazy human assholes would do, we gave into our lazy uninvested human side and just leaned over on the running bike, scooped some dirt, and then blasted off to the next poop scoop, yippee kiyay-in' all the way. In a survey drill down, the grid would be every tenth of a mile. It's silly riding a tenth of mile, more time scooping than moving. No time for yipee kiyay-in' and no speed. Dense grids were not enjoyed by any but those smelling gas.

The teams coordinated deploy and the four riders were dispatched.  And dispatched we were, from all sense of decorum, probity, or consideration.  We were, after all, ripping through fields on motorcycles!  Woo hoo! We tore through fields, dutifully scooping dirt into labeled paper bags on the 0.20 mile, or the 0.50 mile, or the hated tenther matrix.  We hauled our motorcycles under barbed wire fences, slung them over wooden fences, knocked fences over, terrorized cattle, pulled up posts, ripped through newly planted fields, farmers yowling behind us as we holy-shitted our way the hell out of there. The crew bosses were supposed to be out getting permission or warning people or something.  Don't think they did much of that, though. For awhile, we surveyed open pasture, prairie seas of steaming cow shit that are quaintly known as "crown land" in Canada, zooming around cattle and cow pies in various stages of extroverted remediation.  Occasionally, I would take a sample right next to a big wet turd, even plunk a little in there, wondering if that would cause some sort of statistical outlier in the data, get the petro-boys in the lab all wound up.  Got your hydrocarbons, right here sir!  It was early and half-formed fucking with the petroleum industry, though I was not consciously aware that that was what I was doing at the time.  Mostly, I was just being a jackass, albeit with some minor bent toward scientific curiosity about the possible measurement effects of localized volatile organic matter on the hydrocarbon contents of surface soil sampling.  Something like that.  Mostly though, it was just jackass. I feel certain the lab had determined the jackass scale factor. Somebody may have even written a paper: "Measurement Effects of Localized Volatile Organic Matter on the Hydrocarbon Content of Surface Soil and Empirical Determination of the Jackass Scale Factor."

During one of the many dusty sojourns through and around the crops and cows of southern Alberta, picking up dirt, I stumbled upon the remnants of what was likely once a thriving prairie hamlet.  Two elevators appeared to grow out of the surrounding grain.  Near long abandoned rails, the elevators, still in apparent good shape, stood alone. As was standard, the side of the old elevators carried identifying labels: ALBERTA WHEAT POOL BINDLOSS. Bindloss. I wondered what Bindloss might have been like decades ago; a bustling, thriving wheat belt prairie town. There was no apparent reason why such a town and facilities would be abandoned.  Forces unseen. That name has been stuck in my head, has haunted me really, ever since.  Perhaps because it was such a stark image of a bright, sunny, serene doom, an oddly appropriate name: bind the loss, tie it off, walk away.

There were other little places like Bindloss scattered across the landscape, and gridding our way around the fields and pastures, we stumbled upon other notable derelicts: the charming Piapot.  For some time, the two teams were holed up in the then dirt road town of Shaunavon, Sask. It was like living in Dodge, except with trucks. And no petticoats. Fortunately, the awesome job of bombing around on motorcycles in the lovely prairie summer and getting paid for it kept us out of Shaunavon for most of the day.

For five months we literally scoured the lands of the southern Canadian prairie. It was by the end of those summer days, late August, that the job was winding down. At this time of year, the crops are high and dry and ripe, and we were zipping through the last few lines of the final grid. As we happily motored and thrashed our way through the very dry barley, ripe grain and chaff would fly off, hit the motors.  Some of the barley would pop, and popping barley smells surprisingly like popping corn. This, along with combustion exhaust, warm tire rubber, and human sweat, all combined to render an aromatic cocoon not unlike what certain colourful similes might term a "popcorn fart." Indeed, a motorcycle in a ripened barely field may be the only place outside the human gut where such an odor has been successfully synthesized. We bombed through, traces of wild thrashing amidst a vast plain of unwavering golden barley, popcorn fart wafting from our wake. Once in awhile barley stalks and grains and all that barley hair would get stuck on the motor and catch fire. That is an attention grabber. Motorcycles and popcorn and fire in the fields.  We were lucky we didn't set crops ablaze. This would not have sat well with the locals.

But no wildfires commenced. Finished, we all pulled in and parked with the trucks.  On some nameless gravel road somewhere north of Swift Current, we loaded the bikes and sat down on the side of that nameless road and had a beer, or some other, larger number. The gloaming of that last simmering day was a soft and subtle affair between land and sky, a long slow breath of burnt orange.

Which is a very long introduction to why a recent local Texas story perked my attentions.  Texans are rightly fearful of their water supply should the planned extension of the Keystone XL pipeline go through to Port Arthur, Tx.  This pipeline pops up on the business pages, and Energy & Capital Newsletters, on the ball Canadian outfits, but mostly, no one knows of this.  Except the locals who are, or will be, directly impacted.

Like the Keystone pipeline, the planned Keystone XL will carry tar sands oil also from Hardisty, Alberta, but more directly to Steele City, Ks. and thence through Oklahoma and Texas. The Keystone XL line will pipe corrosive bitumen tar sands oil through the United States and is being brought to your locality by the good folks at Bechtel, who are always looking out for what's in America's best energy interest.  No one wants this pipeline to leak. At all. Which means that some are arguing no pipeline. At all.  Texans are starting to stir, and landowners in Oklahoma are challenging the expropriations for the pipeline. Nebraska, too, is concerned, as the pipeline route will span the Ogallala aquifer, a water source for eight surrounding states. The record on pipeline leaks and ruptures is long.  But the Keystone pipeline has already been built, and runs from Hardisty, Ab., to Kansas and Illinois.  Local protests may pop up, but for the most part the pipeline looks like a done deal.  Who knows, though? Protest is in the air these days, despite the usual howling from the business pages about "dumb opposition" to the pipeline.  For it's part, TransCanada offers website visitors testimonials in praise of the wonders of the coming pipeline, testimonials written by the likes of the American Petroleum Institute and various trucking associations.

But regular folk don't trust oil industry executives for the most part.  Not sure why that is, but they don't.  And so what is obviously lacking from TransCanada's sample of testimonials, however, are some salt-of-the-earth letters from salt-of-the-earth folk expressing joy and happiness at the prospects of the Keystone XL pipeline, something along these lines.

Thank you, TransCanada and Bechtel.

Thank you for bringing the warm and friendly technology of oil pipelines to my district and even right next to my house.  I can hardly wait.  Especially for the winter.  I've heard tell that animals will gather near the pipeline to enjoy the ambient warmth provided by the hot, flowing oil.  If this is true, well, this is just great.  Not only will the animals get to enjoy the warmth of the pipeline in the winter, this bounty will be brought directly to me, and without the annoying hassle of heading out into the woods to shoot them.  With the advent of the Keystone XL pipeline, I will soon be able to sit on my porch and mow down wildlife with unbridled abandon, and with all of my many guns.  I am looking forward to this immensely.

Keep up the good work, Bechtel and TransCanada!

Sincerely,

Some Dumbass

Like that.  Hell, I'll even volunteer to write more of these for TransCanada.

In looking at a large scale map of the entire pipeline route, I started to take curious about the part of the route through the southwest section of Saskatchewan, it looking close to those old motorized dirt picking grounds.  The TransCanada website ("In business to deliver") kindly provides some nice maps of the Keystone XL pipeline route, and rather detailed and specific they are.

Bindloss is right on the line, "Bindloss South PS" the map says.  Piapot's on there too.  "Piapot PS".  Past Piapot, the pipeline is due to churn and pour its noxious sludge, our dark and blasted energy, right past Shaunavon, Saskatchewan. Serene abandonment will soon be abolished. Canadian tar sands, Middle East turmoil, and the American market have put Bindloss back on the map.

dude, where's my carbine?

the skim of the story popped up awhile ago, noted it then as something of a clusterfuck, but it turns out to be so much more, rich in weed and texture. rs unravels the feed stock of AEY -- the teenage stoner Pentagon arms dealers. this is a must read hoot, folks. expect this on the hollywood skids in almost no time.

koch a know

[ed: note, no links will be provided. you've got muster up the courage and look for yourself.]

wow. wow wow wow.  ever been to the weekly standard? geesuzaitch, what a hoot. fulla dipshits, that's for sure. headlines alone are worth a gander. there's ol' kristol meth bill, takin'  a massive toke on the war bong, gettin' all stupid with "Give War a Chance."  seriously. then there's one or another of those damnable war lovin' kagans, reporting to the addle-pated that "federal spending on defense is just as much a job-producing stimulus as federal spending on infrastructure." we already know this syndrome; they don't get out much. no bob.  it really isn't.  at all. and upon that false premise, bob goes on his kaganesque stroll through a blinkered land, one where building bombs and funding war is just a good as building schools and funding education. it's all so easy when "cocooned in a comforting, gauzy prophylactic space" of the conservative mind.

let's see, what else? oh, f barnes says "it's voucher time." seems excited about that smashing the tyranny of public schools thing. ahh, but then we hit the mother lode of conservative agnst, the reason to sally forth into this dull and gauzy abyss, "The Paranoid Style of Liberal Politics." this outta be good, and for already expected reasons.

well, she starts out with a bang. koch is simply baffled that the media made him a target after the ruthless liberal prank to impersonate him and punk walker and koch all at the same time! good times were had by all except the targets.  guess this is weekly standard's "liberal paranoia," punkin' yur boys' asses. oooh, mean liberals! always makin' fun of us.  koch be damned fur doin' nuthin but being an ordinary, civically engaged citizen of the great land of freedom and in-bred ayn randian billionaires. so misunderstood.  of course, godz in there, telling them all what to do, and that what they want to do is what that gawddamned gawd o' theirs wants them to do: dominate and plunde ... er freedom! economic freedom is god's plan.  it'll all work out in the armageddon end.

of course, to the coked brothers, obama is a "dedicated egalitarian," and has "internalized some Marxist models—that is, that business tends to be successful by exploiting its customers and workers." apart from the astonishing lack of evidence that obama is any such thing, it seems entirely unnecessary to alert the Koch brothers to the fact that "exploiting customers and workers" is not a "Marxist model."  it is a Business model, and one now globally employed. corporate exploitation of "laborers" predates Marx by well over two hundred years, and before that, well, that's when people were actual serfs, which is really what assholes like the Kochs are gunnin' for. did you also know that the shill and wastrel in the white house is "the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation”?  read, perhaps with some astonishment, as just how radical obama is.

“He’s the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation and has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had, His father was a hard core economic socialist in Kenya. Obama didn’t really interact with his father face-to-face very much, but was apparently from what I read a great admirer of his father’s points of view. So he had sort of antibusiness, anti-free enterprise influences affecting him almost all his life. It just shows you what a person with a silver tongue can achieve.”

"from what i read."  you know what the hell that is. all the dipshits are members of the the triple double D club: double down dipshit dinesh d'souza. obama has absorbed anti-colonialist african socialist sentiments from dear ol' never seen dad through some sort of not known to white man african juju. anti-business.  anti-this, anti-that.  what isn't obama against? the kochs wonder.  they must be still thinking of candidate obama, the one with the silver tongue.

that tongue is gone now.  obama is now simply choking on his own bullshit. and no one is buying.  any of it. except the kochs, who seem desensitized to evidence and action. such is the curse of the dipshit mind.

liberation theology

so, punched up a quick post at a buds' outlet, the initial homage of which, the fortieth anniversary of the bangladesh liberation war, started to morph into something else entirely and i knew i had to tie it off quick, that a destabilisation of the narrative vector was underway and any precept of narrative control was, at best, a delusion, that the resultant disgorge would not be suitable for any sort of mainstream audience.

too restrictive over there, all that serious talk and makin' sense 'n shit. fuck that. constraining, really. i like to howl about the jackasses and douchebags of spleenland, not try to figure out why they are so. who fukkin cares? why dipshits are dipshits? fuck. dropped on their heads early on. who knows? giraffe coulter, for example. do you care why she is so fucked up? (used to wonder if it is all a dipshit act.  this latest, about how all that radiation is good for ya! free cancer vaccines, everyone!  let's go! Fukushima. bathe in the soothing cancer-curing futuristic glow of nuclear energy! this is clown show noise.)

the answer is no, you do not care why she is so fucked up. you might be fascinated to watch that alien entity moving around in her neck, surely about to pop out, screeching and hissing, at any moment.  that you'd like to see.  if you are a guy, you might want to pound the shit out of her.  and if you are a woman, you, too, might also want to pound the shit out of her. win win. generally, however, you do not care about why ann coulter is fucked up.

anyway, so now i know just what bob herbert felt like! buggers y'up don't it bob? can't get yer shit out. and onto to bangladesh. forty years ago, as the numbers say, the bangladesh liberation war breaks out, chengiz khan backfires and bangladesh is formed in the wake of pakistani humiliation on the geopolitical stage. the backlash from this, of course, is a bunch of pissed off pakistani everyone, military and isi gorms beaten badly.  "never, never again," they said.  isi gets down 'dirty.  no more of this sitting back, spying 'n shit, doing nothing!  gonna get nasty.  al haq attack begins with a launch of madrassas mania, training all those aimless young lads as pawns in geopolitical wars.  once the commies have been suckered in, the madrassas recruits serve the interests of the united states. oh joy at the coincidence of interest. the isi building an extra curricular military force, generously supplied by us taxpayer funding. today, the isi are funding extra curricular military forces in presumed conflict with "US interests."  not so sure us interests these days don't just amount to keeping everything alight for as long as possible.

but this is the anniversary of a liberation war. the liberations haven't stopped. mostly these liberations have been against deluded leftists who think they could run a country in the interests of the people, naturally in cahoots with the international communist conspiracy to rule the world, their communist co-conspirators and sympathizers; against geopolitical targets dressed as friend and terror; against ethnic cleansing within remit of oil pipeline plans, against drug lords and not others, while above mentioned factors weigh significantly in the determination of for or against.  and then there are the terrorists.  their supporters.  the new scourge. popping up in all the right places. commies routed, the next weed pops up; "liberation" and "freedom" continue their brutal march.

rotten apples

amidst the tale of outrage told by "master" SERE instructor, Michael Kearns, there blossoms a rose of innocence. but kearns is mad, though. oh, he is mad. steamin' that his former colleague could take their cherished, honorable and patriotic research/training in how to resist torture and "exploitation" by evildoers, that hallowed SERE ground, into, omg! a torture program itself! what villainous mind could dream such a dastardly scheme up?  well, for one, kearns' former colleague, the anti-batmanly dr. bruce jessen. pure rotten, the man kearns innocently laments, "sold a bag of rotten apples to the Bush administration."

doesn't seem that dear michael kearns has been paying attention. the bush administration wanted bags of rotten apples. lots of 'em. if you didn't fork up a bag of rotten apples to the bush administration, you got fired. the bush administration would then ensure that the next guy who got hired would. yes, sir! bags o' rotten apples, comin' right up! sir.

the lives of others

now that repubs have more or less slammed through their first assaults on the 2012 elections; denuding public employee unions; declaiming "voter fraud" and disenfranchising millions of voters; not to mention same ol' saws like defunding public education, privately "managing" public cities and towns for friends and profit; hiring cronies at plumped salaries, that usual shit.

well, one of their major gripes is now being addressed by opportunistic repubs across their soon to be blighted land, as a a second wave of fractious and meddlesome bills is hittin' the fly over shores, delegalizing abortion.

cuz those republicans, they hates them that big nasty gubmint, gettin' all in the ways of  private goings on. hate that.  leave us alone, they always say about government.  boo.   now that those blessed freedom loving republicans have gracefully regained blithering houses  hither and yon, they are amping up their vigilance against dreaded big government.

In Ohio, there's been a hearing on an even tougher measure that would outlaw abortions after the first medically detectable heartbeat — as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. At that hearing, two pregnant women underwent ultrasounds so lawmakers could see and hear the fetal hearts.

video of this? anyone. i think we'd all heartily enjoy watching republicans demonstrate their diligent commitment to small government, one that does not impose itself on people's lives.

kentucky fried nuclear industry technology

so, as you may have already heard or read, the diablo canyon nuclear plant doesn't need to have an earthquake response plan, on account of the fact that the us gov at the time didn't really require one from the buggers building it, what with there being a tectonic fault just offshore and all. fukkit.  billions of taxpayer dollars to suck up to rig the most dangerous, technologically complex industrial process humans have yet fashioned to boil water and yet make us all feel like we were living in a jetson's world. nuclear party time; depleted uranium, cesium 137 included.

despite the danger and complexity and the whole human foible by gawd we gotta rule nature even if we don't know shit about what we're actually doing syndrome, we catch a glimpse of the sophistication of the nuclear industry and the wondrous safeguards they have implanted in their nuclear silos.  For instance, did you know that at the daiblo canyon nuclear plant, "there are sensors to alert employees to shut down the plant if tremors are felt." how's that for the cutting tech edge?

hey, why not have some dude in an orange suit stand in a corner of the nuclear installation and, when he feels the floor of the nuclear installation shake or shimmy, activates a flashing red light strapped to his head? with alarm head lamp activated, he brings forth and purses a bullhorn. with a precise, monotonous drone, alarm man repeatedly announces, "alarm, alarm, alarm, alarm, alarm," thus alerting employees of the diablo canyon nuclear power installation that an earthquake has indeed struck the facility and that they should perhaps shut things down.  in the current us employment climate, this is surely cheaper than a bunch of fancy pants "sensors."

interventionist establishment rising

watchin' ajay the other night. most extraordinary thing popped up. a buncha arab dudes and egyptian scholars yakkin' away about how they imagined gadaffi would fall. some tales were quite lurid, the panelists clearly enjoying the subject matter.  seems to be the new game in the arab world. imagining the last days of gadaffi.  first person shooter!

the discussion was, to say the least, odd. we're all used to seeing yakkers like this on cnn, extolling the virtues of this or that us invasion, interdiction, insertion, intervention, bombing, or as yet not dreamed up military action to take some mad arab and or muslim leader out.  but  the arab/muslim media doing this?  well, somewhat jarring it was.  gotta hand it to the the ajay moderator though, kept trying to swing these guys onto negatives of military actions, which is sooo not cnn, but they just kept yappin' on about how they gotta take out gadaffi! take that sucker out good.

dream weaver

so there was lopey-dopey john kerry, smoothin' things over pakistan way about dastardly cia ray, "our diplomat."  yeesh. american diplomacy certainly has taken a radical turn under obama, hasn't it? anyway, there's kerry, doing the more normal diplomatic thing that we are all a lot more accustomed to: spewing out bullshit n' lies.

"Most of all, I wish to reaffirm the importance that America places in its relationship with Pakistan, and the commitment of the American people to work with their Pakistani counterparts to move ahead in ways that will benefit us all."

{doodle e doot doot doodle e doot doot ...}

handler: sir ...
jk: "We deeply regret the blah blah blah ..."
handler: sir!

... KABOOM!

  jk: what in blazes was that?
  handler: drone, sir. they hit all the time, all over.

kaFUCKINBOOOOM!

  jk: geesuzaitchkeeriiiiist!! get me outta here. this is worse than 'NAM!!!!

the handler dutifully obliges. into a safehouse and hopefully beyond the drones.  kerry and the handler hunker down in foreboding silence, not knowing what to do. outside, the drones pelt the area. some near, some far. after some while, the bombing capitulates, a felt presence fades.

 jk: is this what it's like here?
 handler: uh, yeah. well, they come and go, hit other places.  they'll be back.
 jk: good grief. what are we doing to you? this is insane ...
 handler: you are killing many, and filling the country with boiling hatred. and yes,  we know.

and off honorable john kerry goes, back to washington to put a halt to the insanity. he is derided by the political class, the pentagon, the media as a raving undead peacenik, zombified in the sixties.

or

voluntarily cauterized by the establishment, a feckless, browbeaten john kerry slumps back to washington, knowing that he has seen this before, and knowing that anything he says will be derided by the political class, the pentagon, the media as the ravings of an undead peacenik, zombified in the sixties. so he says nothing.

{poof}

the real McCoy

remember those fraught and heady days of the Nkunda uprising, more slaughter in the Congo, and the $9 bill Sino-Congolese mining deal? natch that. months for the whole bloody episode to ravel.  got a little hysterical with the prognostications -- Nkunda was shortly dispatched after yappin' his flap about the China contract and then, of course, the global financial meltdown kinda put the skids on, well, everything except bailing out the fuckers that did it  -- but now some bits of the deal are starting to shake out.  globwit tries to nail down the deal, never made public, and finds a few of what they clearly consider to be egregious features of the opaque and now six billion dollar deal. a few are chucklers.

- there are questions over the destination of nearly half of a $50 million signature-bonus payment to the state copper-and-cobalt firm, Gécamines;

a half fifty?  that's it?  now, we all appreciate a little cream on the top, but really, half of fifty mil? China is clearly at the bottom of the learning curve.

- a clause in the leaked contract could mean that the joint venture company running the mines will be exempt from any new laws that Congo passes;

oh yeah. the horror. every western company operating almost anywhere, including the us, enjoys this privilege. it may not be written into law that way in the us, but the mining concerns, other extractive industries and the power industry flirt law, pollute and kill, all the time and with near complete impunity. there is no de facto difference. except, in the congo, it's pretty much cash up. in the us, bribes are served up as a wholesome steaming buffet of tasty monetary and non-monetary treats. as with any healthful buffet, variety is key.

- no consideration is given in the leaked contract to issues of social and environmental protection.

except for the walruses. they all do not want to hurt the walruses.

count me jaded, but that list doesn't look all that much different than what most multinationals manage to hammer out of most third world countries. they rape land, foul water, putrefy air, abuse the population, if not enslave them by proxy, profit and leave. sometimes, they can stay and profit for a very long time.  actually, considering what is going on the us and japan, forget that third world stuff. multinats will be more than happy to plunk nuclear reactors on top of active faults zones, and apparently, no one in any authority will blink at the thought. and, while they're callously and or witlessly planning a nuclear meltdown, why not do it on the cheap? the GE Mark I. if you're gonna be dumb, go big.

congo flare ups seem almost tame considering the stream of high calibre mayhem of late.  obama comes in. change. goes big in the 'ghant'stan. africa, middle east protests erupt, chosen ones take, others, like near a us naval base, quashed with brutality. corporate control of the global food supply amplifies. record heat, biblical floods, volcanic eruptions, earth rattling earth quakes, monster tsunamis, tens of thousands dead in moments, and now multiple potential nuclear meltdowns.

obama, of course, cannot bring himself to state the obvious.  why is that, some people wonder. well, here is obama's energy secretary, stephen hump the nuke chu, explaining what, exactly, is at stake.

“We are aggressively pursuing nuclear energy. We are, as we have repeatedly said, working hard to restart the American nuclear power industry.”

uh oh.

you see that? that's looking suspiciously like one of those dangerous legacy delusions president's get in their heads. all the time, it would seem.  that's always bad. if prezes get in their head that they are creating some legacy in some matter or another, well, look out. nothin' is gonna change that head. the constructor for this particular instance of the President() class has attributes of the nuclear industry. especially with all those exelon dollars and jobbers pouring in the door.

and there's obama, intoning most resolutely that the us needs more plutonium! in the midst of nuclear disaster.

io learning curve

got round to the eye poppin' psy-oppin' general caldwell.  can't say i find this all that alarming, frankly. do you?  the military psy-oppin' senile senators who already want war to want war more?  funny part here is the outrage of the io commanders.  can't do that! violations of american law!  in afghanistan.  imagine. before you know it, all hell could break loose there.

all upstanding, fervent and patriotic, this outrage.  as we are told by one "veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan," that "everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans. It’s what you learn on day one."

and then on day two, ...

one way street

engdahl's over thur, layin' out the plans for the New Middle East, rand swarming à la color revolutions. the middle east uprising is appearing similar and looking rather like, well, a sequential set, in order of increasing risk and difficulty.  interestingly, uprisings fastidiously ignored by obama and the media include those near the us military base in bahrain, and labour protests in america.

of course, the aspect ratio striking here is the abject faith randians, the pentagon and the white house have in their assumed legitimacy in undermining foreign governments of their choosing.

"The US government should encourage nongovernmental organizations to offer training to reformers, including guidance on coalition building and how to deal with internal differences in pursuit of democratic reform. Academic institutions (or even nongovernmental organizations associated with US political parties, such as the International Republican Institute or the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs) could carry out such training, which would equip reform leaders to reconcile their differences peacefully and democratically.

"Fourth, the United States should help reformers obtain and use information technology, perhaps by offering incentives for US companies to invest in the region’s communications infrastructure and information technology. US information technology companies could also help ensure that the Web sites of reformers can remain in operation and could invest in technologies such as anonymizers that could offer some shelter from government scrutiny. This could also be accomplished by employing technological safeguards to prevent regimes from sabotaging the Web sites of reformers. "

this is fun to do. imagine that some foreign power, russia, germany, hell, the whole eu for shitsngiggles, decide that the interests of this power are not being served by the current american regime; that this power saw america as badly askance, with a corporatocracy now ruling and no way to change it now that corporate media shut down evidence of rampant election rigging by and through electronic voting machines owned and operated by republican affiliated religious zealots,  machines required by law by a republican congress.  and that because of this egregious anti-democratic condition, this power saw to it to deploy armies of engeeohs into america to train opposition groups in the art of mass protest, using all the kewl kid toys and warehouses; that this power would then initiate mass protests against the american government and bring it down.

fun.

now, as fun as that is to imagine,  that is all it is. in the real world, imaginings do not advance much beyond step one, foreign powers recognizing the need for regime change in america, the need to rid the world of the lethally predatory american military-financial complex.  FULL STOP. oh, sure, a few fopos gots some lobby groups -- quite powerful for some incomprehensible reason -- with nut busting control over corporate media, congress, the white house.  probably got spies running around the place.  in fact, we know they got spies running around the place.   but the american regime is not under externally orchestrated mass protest threat and never will be. the lobbies and spies like things just they way they are.

the one way american street.

mrs president

this is starting out well already.

tell us, mrs. president, about the marvelous, revolutionary history of the united states, the one you are so extremely in love of liberty for.

"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

see? it's nothing george bush couldn't have said.

seriouser and seriouser

Bachmann increasingly serious about presidential bid

oh, yes.  oh please, yes. please.  please michelle.  you cutie you. you and your adorable dipsydoodle minnesOHtan accent, empty looking fish eyes, and brain stem only neural network, you do need to run for president.

a no brainer.

passion newt

plowing the utterly ridiculous meme, the top story at which informs us that some npr exec resigned over remarks calling the teapbaggers dipshits, or something along those lines.  can you imagine that anyone would have such a low opinion of those dipshits? dipshit feeding frenzy, of course.  meanwhile, way down the list, a gone off, neo-nazi us vet was nabbed for planning a MLK day bombing. You can see the priorities.

bad enough. but with a scan down, like a fat floridian cicada, a big ol' dollop o' stupid thudded against the windscreen here, causing a minor skidding.  the newt, of course, who seems to be in full drum up business mode; the business of being newt gingrich.

surely, as anyone attempting to signal a phony run for president ('cause even newt knows almost no one would or will ever vote for newt) would need to do, contrition and penitence would be offered for publicly exposed dipshit behaviour, like family values dipshit sticking some chick while the wife languishes in terminal condition.

even newt finally realized this ghastly behaviour must be confronted by courtliness.  and so, in a curious repentance that seemed to blame his brutalizing adultery on fervent patriotism, newt said,

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate"

now, i don't know about you, but that just looks like phrases handed to him by some pr flack and tossed randomly together, vigorously mixed with a luscious newt-pepper dressing. naturally soothing to dipshits, it makes no sense at all. i had to stick another chick who is not my stricken wife because i was super busy and love america.

maybe that makes sense to newt. he is a dipshit after all. he may actually believe the shit he says, sense or no. or maybe he is so gawdamned horny for america he stumbles around all day with a raging hard on and occasionally pokes things with it.

got the numbers

63% Say U.S. Should Stay Out of Libya Crisis

you know what this means, of course.

time to invade.

khalqify

finally got a bead on porter's indictment of those phony iran hit laptop documents.  pretty much nails it down to an israeli data laundering op with the dupable yet messianic mek -- precisely why they are dupable -- as dumb funnel. so, "the israelis," presumably mossad, stuff a buncha phonied up docs, that at first blush appear to be glommed together by a high schooler's notion of what a nuclear bomb would need, onto the mek, all conveniently bundled up in one laptop! or maybe papers and a laptop. or maybe laptop documents made to look like paper that have been in the laptop all along.  or, well, read it to see why that point is somewhat muddled.

now, the question that pops to this forum's fore is this mek bunch.  as presumed iranians, are they actually thrilled with the thought of iran being attacked and bombed, possibly nuclearly, by israel and the us?  obliterated, in other words. are they happy to serve as vessels for that noxious nuclear fluid? would they be happy to inherit that scorched earth?  that's seems odd for iranians, of any kind. unless of course, the meeks have that messianic bent.  which they do.  obliteration will bring the twelfth imam, which is wunna them, so hoofukkinray! bring on the nukes.  it's kinda like the christianists who want armageddon cuz they're horny for geesuz.  actually, it's exactly like the christianists who want armageddon cuz they're horny for geesuz. geesuz two point ooohhh.

'course, the xtians are way ahead of the mek, pretty much infiltrated the us mil, penetrated the pentagon, got some jackass knights of fuckin' malta, for fuck sakes, crusadin' their grunts' asses off in iraq and the 'ghan'stan, elsewhere. tossin' out bibles and takin' scalps.  seems a tad conflicted.  not for the gung-ho crusaders, though. not at all.  ya gotta get brutal to get civil, is what they Teutonically think.  then again, the meeks seem much closer to inheriting their radioactive earth.

so, this is what we got, guiding the foreign policy of the yewnahtidstates in it's position on iran, murderous crazed fundy dipshits and murderous crazed mujahideen-e-khalq.

certain to work out wonderfully.

republican binomial

repubs are hacking at government waste.  chop chop chop. cuttin' broad, cuttin' deep, tax cuts for the wealthy.  sacrifice, across the board.  seems the gopers don't abide the notion of a clear example of useless bureaucratic government overreach: poison control centers.  obama asked for twenty nine mil, house repubs offer up two.  two.  you can see the thinking, of course.  thinking that stems from being, as once described, "cocooned in a comforting, gauzy prophylactic space, one both opaque to the real environment and reflective of their own pampered, perverted weltanshauung." so, repubs are thinking -- and this must be a guess because i'm not sure thinking means what republicans think it means -- that, hey,

this is amuricka. we don't get poisoned here.  we poison other people in other countries.  this? this is free market freedom land. no one gets poisoned here because the free market will not, ex post facto, allow it! this is what we believe and, of course, nothing else matters.  therefore, we do not need the worthless government poison control centers. what do these places do? there is no poison floating aimlessly about the country, needing "control," a stalinist term if ever there was one.  that president obama even has poison control centers is an affront to every american.

like i said, a guess.

so, what is it?  government bathtub assassination conspiracy? or "cocooned in a comforting, gauzy prophylactic space, one both opaque to the real environment and reflective of their own pampered, perverted weltanshauung"? so hard to tell.

canadian shield

looks like canuckistan managed to avert the rightly imagined horrors of the brutally invasive "fox kudzu news," an invasive anaerobic organism that can literally incite real world violence from within its media space. This avoidance is only temporary. 'cause ya know those corporatized right wing dipshit fuckers will not stop once they git an idea into their heads.  could be the most heinous, mean-spirited war mongering, baby killing shithead of an idea, like most of theirs, but by gawd, 'cause they thought of it, it has to be right and it has to be done.  and so they will try to do it.  forever. instead of the decades long grind-down caused by outsourcing and attrition, public employee unions are now under sudden, corporate-backed full frontal assault; abortion? ferfuksakes.

forever.

anyway, one of the great dipshit ideas these dipshits have, all on account of the fact that they think they should rule the world, is that other countries should have fox news networks, too. you know, so that other honest hardworking common, yet foreign, folk should get the real deal, the grit and the gristle, the no spin zone drone that americans so enjoy in the comfort of their earthy homes in the great heartland. like that. cuz that's just what focksnieuws does. the corporate thanes wish only the best of information for the people.

naturally, the mild and civil media space enforced and enjoyed by canada became a target, and especially so with dipshit stephen harper embarrassingly at the twisted helm.

anyone familiar with the sun-line of wastoid tabloid products can only laugh to learn that the news of a very different world would be brought, unwelcome, into canadian homes by Sun TV News.  makes ya laugh just saying it. will there be a minute three girl?

stephen harper's eyes moisten at the thought of a propaganda channel like that, to be fired at will, at any target, without need of written or even verbal communication, except as egress vector disinformation. harper sees the symbiosis fox and the gop enjoy in the us, on air and off, in front of the country, and he visibly lathers. of course, he, some viceroys, and his media buddies at sunteeveenooze have all been down visiting don murdoch and ailes, shootin' the dipshit, take over the world shit. it has been molded into such a glorious dipshit vision, stephen harper aches to see the fruition of this demon sun seed.

so misty and lathered and achey did stephen harper get at the thought of his own fox news channel, that he sought to repeal the law in canada that prohibits broadcast of  "any false or misleading news."  that is why canada has no fox news, and that is what stephen harper had to remove to bring his wet dream sunTeeVeeNooze to canada.  yes, i, stephen harper, do swear that i intend to stovepipe government lies and corporate deceit into the homes of canadians, and to do that, i will repeal the law that forbids the stovepiping of government lies and corporate deceit into the homes of candians is pretty much what he's saying there.

well, stephen harper's media vision got a sharp poke.  no sunteeveenooze, say the authorities.  apparently, in canada, laws are enforced even against the prime minister's most cherished desires.  imagine what a harsh and forbidding place this canada must be, that they would treat their leader so lawfully.

did you know that some countries have such laws? that news organizations must actually deliver news and not lies?  wow.  no wonder they're not all up there, agitated all the time, wanting to fuckin fight somebody, enemies, everywhere.

fight ain't over though. the pricks don't stop.  ever.

the rise of the flat and the fall

check out the title of this graph, a graph that is currently appearing in yabo murdoch's wall street journal, on the highly respected, yet devil may conservative care op-ed pages.

now, look at that fucking graph. does that, in any way to you, as a normal, rational, cognitive human being, look like a graph of "Rising Government Unions"? or indeed, like a graph of rising anything, at all? of course not. cognitive human beings see flat. and they seeing declining.  not oddly, like many of their lives.  Since 1980, when the Reagan trigger spiked public union affiliation per capita, it has remained roughly constant.

now, we must understand the rheumy eyes that see the truth in title of that chart. for what they really see is that the gap between the decline and the flat is growing.  this is "the rise."  insidious, isn't it?

if the welfare of any american worker is not in decline, it therefore must be on the rise.  a koch switch would flip any non-negative labour metric to decline.  if you are not succumbing to the real thing Koch agenda, you are merely someone who has not been beaten down yet.

thanks, rupert.  don't know that it's gonna fly, though.