Attractive nuisance, 2011

It is the most gaudy, spectacular tribute to the consumer religion holiday frenzy -- the Lightmare on Suburban Streets, popularized on the tacky xmas tour circuit:

Read into it what you will, it draws a mad crowd. Carloads of gawkers, foot-trolling, slack-jawed pre-adolescents and goofy teen-aged date-bait honeys in tow by their over-sexed boyfriends.

The best of the season, and the loss of our collective minds is the reason!

Evergreen Cemetery, revisited

Hey boys and girls, there's been a lot of work done at Evergreen Cemetery lately, especially in the main part where Maggie Walker and her kin are buried. The workers bit themselves off a huge chunk of work this time, and they ripped back the undergrowth right down to the naked earth.

For the most part, it was an admirable job. In only a few places did over-zealousness with task at hand show up in the guise of hacked tombstones, but considering the work is all gratis by volunteers and civic-minded companies, have at it!

Here are some photos from Saturday, Nov. 27. It's not readily apparent, but the cemetery's grounds begin almost from the entrance gate on Evergreen Rd., and extend past the Walker family site to where the road loops around again. It's a huge grounds, and most of it lies in a formidable tangle of weeds that is as-yet unraveled.

The entrance to The Four Cemeteries at Evergreen

Newspaper publisher John Mitchell, Jr. statue in tribute to his mother, Rebecca Mitchell

Mostly included for the view of the surrounding grounds it gives...

I was really taken by the carving on this piece...

It's an incredible change from just a couple of months ago....

Still waiting for the cleanup to extend to the Thompson plot...

Under decades of being concealed by the undergrowth, some of this fine work can again be seen...

Sadly, a lot of the ironwork is ruined; it's commendable that some remains...

Again, it looks great!

Here's the Walker family site, with Maggie Walker's grave at left...

I have no idea what kind of defoliant is used, but it does the job -- even on that awful ivy!

The Mitchell statue again, with a bit of artificial light thrown up for effect...

These photos begin the series of shots taken further up the road from Evergreen's gated entrance...

Where there is no surviving family to maintain the grave sites, they become overgrown quickly.

At their worst, they become completely consumed...

This is part of a cluster of graves that's unkempt, and nearly impossible to reach behind fallen trees...

It's a shame that people such as this, so appreciated for their life's work, have be lost to time...

This site was a particular surprise. Fortunately, someone has watched over it...

I tore away the ivy to expose this stone, which lay concealed under a lump of green.

C'mon, people. Can't we do better than this? It's not a fucking dump!

The pepper-spraying Grinch at Wal-Mart

Isn't it funny how the popular press takes a story like the one about the Wal-Mart shopper who grew indignant while waiting in line, and blasted her fellow shoppers with pepper spray, and slowly morphs it into something altogether different?

Woman pepper-sprayed adults, kids at Wal-Mart sale, police say - latimes.com: "Authorities are searching for a woman accused of pepper-spraying other shoppers Thursday night at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch so that she could grab more discounted merchandise.

Twenty customers, including children, were hurt in the 10:10 p.m. incident, officials said. Shoppers complained of minor skin and eye irritation and sore throats.

"This was customer-versus-customer 'shopping rage,'" said Los Angeles Police Lt. Abel Parga."

Early reports put the number of victims at closer to a half-dozen, and had the woman reacting to others who were jumping the line while she waited patiently.

Nowhere in the original telling of the story did the woman lash out aggressively against other shoppers, but after several hours of re-telling, the tale has progressed into a Hollywood-style motif of 'shopping rage' at the mall.

America is intoxicated with its own mythos of social disintegration in conflict with its wholesome pursuit of holiday beneficence and generosity. Society unravels at ever-quickening speed, while mobs of shoppers grope the products they desire in a frenzy of patriotic consumerism.

Just look at all the myopic zombies our family and neighbors have become during the happiest time of the year, because it's a long, long way back from consumer hell to the reality of life lived on the precipice of debt peonage.

Drama over "super committee" is a cruel joke

That the political process is paralyzed by partisanship, brought on by the corruption of the political process by money, is a well-established fact. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, we're being treated to this kind of palaver that chalks it up to congressional gridlock, when in fact the system is completely corrupted:

New drama over U.S. taxes and spending looms | Reuters: "WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The "super committee" may be effectively dead but brinkmanship in Congress over taxes and spending will only escalate as the impending expiration of several provisions threatens to undermine the U.S. economy.

If Congress does not extend them by the end of the year, workers will see less money in their paychecks, nearly 2 million jobless people will lose the benefits that help them make ends meet, and Medicare patients may have a harder time getting in to see the doctor. Countless businesses will see their tax bills rise.

Analysts have warned that this effective tax increase, which would kick in on Jan. 1, could push the economy back into recession even as it struggles to recover from the last one."

Anyone who claims the economy is an any way, shape or form in recovery mode is either an abject liar or so self-deluded as to be psychotic. The economy has been sinking for the working person for a generation, at least, and the decline has accelerated in the past few years -- as the elites and their scams have finally tanked the very system they built.

There will be no recovery, and there is no fix, with the current cast of characters in their accustomed places. There's no way we can put our fiscal house in order while the inmates are still running the asylum, as they are now.

Take the lie about the payroll tax, and how ending the "holiday" on withholding will appear like a "tax increase" -- this is nothing but a carefully crafted strategy to bankrupt the social security trust fund, in order to end the program and turn the money over to the dogs from hell on Wall Street. It has nothing to do with reviving the economy, and everything to do with gutting the moribund social safety net as it currently still exists.

If this is the only hope we have in the face of financial Armageddon, then face it, we're already fuckin' toast.

The stupid committee was always about causing a fiscal trainwreck that would lead to the type of austerity favored by the IMF and the voracious, heartless bastards that run the banks. They claim that this system is nothing but a giveaway for lazy people who don't want to contribute, when it's people who've worked all their lives and are being cut off at the knees who're getting the ax, while the elites don't feel any obligation to the lower classes -- none whatsoever.

As long as you have a system that generates obscene amounts of wealth, but only distributes them to the top of the pyramid, you have the ingredients for a wholesale social revolution. That is the the real train wreck that this society has to contend with, and hiding out in one's gated community will provide little if any refuge when blood runs in the streets.

Still, the oligarchy seems to be willing to risk it.

Israel: time running out to shut up

Patience is running short in the war-mongering campaign by Israel to spark up a war between the US and Iran, so they're cranking up the volume and revving up the horseshit:

Israel: time running out to stop a nuclear Iran | Reuters: "(Reuters) - Iran is less than a year away from being unstoppable in its goal of producing a nuclear weapon, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CNN released on Saturday.

In an advance transcript of an interview to air on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program on Sunday, Barak said Israel was focused on the prospect of a nuclear Iran and what "should and could be done about it on time.""

It's isn't time that's running out, but our patience with Israel in its constant beating of the war drums against potential rivals -- read, any country in the region that won't permit the Israelis to roll 'em at will.

We've seen the same nonsense too many times, and if anyone needed a more convincing example that Iraq of how these false allegations can be ginned up into a shootin' war, then they ain't paying attention.

The Israelis are liars and blusterers. They want to eliminate their adversaries, and they've bought the US congress through AIPAC in order to get the job done. It doesn't matter how preposterous and ill-advised the case for war is, they have the votes to pass any legislation they want, no questions asked (except, how soon? or how much?).

Let your elected representatives know that you're against funding Israel's wars against its neighbors. Either they fight 'em with their own troops -- and their own money -- or they find a way to come to terms with their neighbors. No more of this, my way or the highway style of negotiations.

Of course, this is a joke. We know how this is going to turn out, Obama or Rick Perry or Mitt Romney -- they've all talked themselves into a box on this one.

Hope you guys like the idea of $10-a-gallon gasoline, because that's what the war on Iran promises to bring your dumb asses. So pay attention!

Are you sick of your life?

Just in case you're terminally bored and there's no hope of any relief, you can tune in to a 30-year-old, played-out story of no intrigue involving a beautiful movie star:

Yacht captain blames Robert Wagner for Natalie Wood's death [Updated] - latimes.com: "A yacht captain claimed Friday that he lied to investigators about Natalie Wood's mysterious death 30 years ago and that he blames the actress' husband at the time, Robert Wagner, for her drowning in the ocean off Southern California.

The former captain of the boat alleged on the "Today" show Friday that Wood's husband, actor Robert Wagner, was responsible for her death.

Dennis Davern said he is now urging homicide investigators to look into Wood's death."

The billionaire media hucksters like Murdoch and Zuckerman, and the others in the CIA's pocket who don't have the same name recognition, feast on this dreary type of fascination with long-dead celebrities. It's the perfect antidote to the real, perplexing issues that bedevil society, and would have led to blood in the streets unless the tensions were skillfully defused by propaganda and mindless distractions.

The Natalie Wood story was big in the supermarket tabloids, as she and her husband were up there with Liz and Dick in the Inquirer and other similar topical venues of sleaze and cornpone schlock.

So it's hardly surprising, really, to see the fascination with these people take another run around the course -- just for old times sake. Even the LAPD is playing along, since it's a good break from the OWS police brutality story.

Never have so many been so deluded by such meaningless drivel.

Climate change deniers in the crosshairs

If FOX news could get away with it, they'd be suggesting that the OWS people are somehow carrying out a vendetta against climate-change deniers by unleashing these extreme weather events on the good people of the US southland:

The Associated Press: 6 dead as storms, possible tornadoes hit Southeast: "ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — At least six people have been killed and dozens more injured as a storm system that spawned several possible tornadoes moved across the Southeast.
Suspected tornadoes were reported Wednesday in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina. Dozens of homes and buildings were damaged and thousands of people were without power as trees and power lines were downed.
In South Carolina, three people were killed and five injured when a likely tornado swept through a rural community near Rock Hill, about 20 miles south of Charlotte, N.C. In north Georgia, a man was killed when a tree fell on his sport utility vehicle. Authorities also said an adult and child were killed in central North Carolina."

No matter how bad it gets, the profit-seeking exploiters of nature will never be tagged with responsibility for the damage their predatory kind of capitalism creates. Instead, it'll be imputed to greedy scientists in search of federal grant money -- never mind that guys like the Koch brothers spend billions of dollars funding a propaganda machine to create that and other convenient fictions to misdirect attention from their activities.

Here in the southland, you have a lot of bible-thumping, rock-ribbed Republicans who are reliable voters for the emissaries of their own destruction. They're so gullible that the guys who savage the environment get a pass, and instead it's "god" who wills these terrible events in some inscrutable way.

That's how someone like Rick Perry can be taken seriously when he announces that he'll pray for the divine to intervene and grant his supplicants mercy. And exactly like the clown who said the rapture was imminent, and when proven wrong simply said he'd gotten the date wrong, the true believers think that it doesn't matter what happens here on earth, since they'll all be in heaven when things get really bad anyway.

Obama in full bluster mode on China

Barfy Obambi went to Australia with a few thousand troops and announced that the US is relevant in the Asia-Pacific region.

Countering China, Obama Asserts U.S. a Pacific Power - TIME: "(CANBERRA, Australia) — Signaling a determination to counter a rising China, President Barack Obama vowed Thursday to expand U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region and "project power and deter threats to peace" in that part of the world even as he reduces defense spending and winds down two wars.
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing."

You might almost be convinced that this is serious, except for the fact that the US is a used-up, limp dishrag of an imperial power.

Sure, it's muscle-bound and stubborn as a jackass, but that hardly is sufficient in a world of vigorous and energetic rising states on the other side of the globe, a group of upcoming world powers that will soon show up the US as the sclerotic and empty shell it truly is.

US presidents and their minions like to travel around and claim the moral high ground, as if the US is a beacon of freedom and human rights. When it comes down to it, however, the empty ritual of going into the voting booth every couple of years to select on of two corporate-vetted clowns that further the prerogatives of the oligarchic-corporate state hardly qualifies as meaningful citizen involvement in the direction of the country.

The US is simply posturing on the world stage, and so far nations like China are tolerating this erratic and juvenile behavior as though it's the antics of an eccentric and irrational elderly relative at Thanksgiving. They countenance it with a knowing wink it its peers in the banquet of geopolitical relations.

They -- and we all, if we're honest -- know that the game can't go on much longer. No one wants to say it out loud, but everyone knows that such displays a empty bravado mask the exhausted and ineffectual nature of the beast.

If only thinking might make it so, but it can't. Obama's protestations notwithstanding.

Too late: the USA is already a corporate prison

The major corporations that sell the crap that oozes out of our TVs, radios and mp3 players have the country by the balls, pulling the strings of their congressional marionettes in pursuit of draconian new laws designed to eviscerate the world wide web and turn it into a corporate cesspool.

Backers defend controversial online copyright bill - CBS News: "(CNET) The first House of Representatives hearing devoted to a controversial online copyright bill began in an unusual way: with politicians defending themselves from charges that the proposal goes too far.
It's "beyond troubling to hear hyperbolic charges that this bill will open the floodgates to government censorship," Rep. Mel Watt, a North Carolina Democrat, said during a House Judiciary committee hearing this morning.

Claiming that the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, will transform the United States into "a repressive regime belittles the circumstances under which true victims of tyrannical governments actually live," said Watt, a SOPA sponsor."

Of course the congress-critters and running at full stride to do their paymasters' bidding. The broadcasters and content-providers are some of the most potent lobbying operations in existence, and when they say jump, their suitors on capital hill are only too willing to get on all fours and bark like dogs if that's what they're told to do.

Democrat or Republican, all are equally culpable. Because of Mickey Mouse, the copyright laws are now so skewed in favor of these mega conglomerates that nothing passes into the public domain in any living person's lifetime. This has turned the entire regime of "intellectual property" into a perpetual giveaway for the rich and powerful. It is totally incompatible with the purpose and intention of the laws to impose the restrictions on fair use that are being purchased wholesale by big business.

This congressional circus of purchased outcomes is just one more chapter in a long, sordid tale of corruption beyond comprehension at the top of the US government. Whatever corporations will, that's what will be done. They own the government, make no mistake about it, and what they seek is what you find when you wake up in the morning.

So get ready to kiss another promising medium goodbye. The 'net is already corrupted almost beyond recognition by hucksters and cheap hustlers, it's nothing but a bloodbath of capitalism and manipulation to keep the public dumb and disconnected from their lives. Why not stuff more garbage down their throats? This only makes it easier for the government and politicians to create secure dominions for raking in the big payoffs that come with power.

Instead of occupy, perhaps a better strategy is to abandon. We're being pushed out of the public sphere at every turn by organized money. The only answer is to withdraw our support of this malignant charade.

Rick Perry speaks to voters who are real stupid

Can anybody believe the lies a politician tells any more? After Barack Obama promised much and delivered only to the guys on Wall Street who bankrolled his campaign, here we have the butt nodule from Texas making a preposterous proposition:

Rick Perry Vows Real Change if Elected - TIME: "(BETTENDORF, Iowa) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry, looking to breathe new life into his bid for the Republican nomination, opened an Iowa campaign swing by warning activists not to settle for a candidate who will just propose incremental change.

"The solution is not to nominate someone who is just going to nibble around the edges," said Perry. "Washington doesn't need a new coat of paint, it needs a complete overhaul.""

Rick Perry sure has the ego for the job. He saw how George W. Bush rode in triumph to DC, and sees in himself a worthy successor. Only he lacks one thing that Dubya: the last name of Bush, and all that implies. This is just another overly ambitious yahoo who thinks that he can ride dumb luck to the leadership of the free world.

Unfortunately, that often is enough in the current configuration of the nation.

The polity is in a mess, and yet we have an electorate that takes self-affirming rhetorical candy corn about the everlasting nature of American goodness and eternal prosperity to heart. While the country is swirling down the toilet of insolvency, defending imperial pretensions more relevant to a previous era, all the candidates for presidency have to offer is preposterous yeowling and chest-thumping bravado from brainless clowns that couldn't think they way out of a wet paper bag.

So blow, Rick, blow. Blow some hot air into your limp campaign for the White House. If they media is taking another look at Newter Gingrich, then certainly once that old crock of shit self destructs, there'll be another opportunity for you to spew glorious corn pone for the lousy voting public in the throes of their discomfort.

Rick will put a new coat of paint, in the shape of a bulls-eye, right on the fat and lazy asses of GOP primary voters who need a good porking to feel they're still conscious.

Out of the abyss, consumers keep spending

You'd never know it from the economic stats that matter -- like wealth distribution and personal income, the job market, etc., but people are pulling dollar bills out of their asses to continue their consumerist binge:

Consumers keep spending, driving gains in retail sales - chicagotribune.com: "Consumers kept hitting the stores in October despite economic headwinds and higher gas prices that took a bite out of their wallets.

The Commerce Department reported that retail sales were up 0.5 percent compared to September. That was a bit better than the 0.4 percent rise economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast.

Part of the additional spending came on autos, as automakers reported a solid gain in sales. Excluding auto sales retail sales shot up 0.6 percet, three times stronger than had been forecast.

The report also showed strength in electronics and building supply retailers."

How this goes on under the circumstance is anyone's guess, although one can easily take a whack at it: credit cards.

If you get a card with a $10,000 limit, and the monthly minimum payment is $70, hell, you can go on spending like there's no tomorrow -- which for you there won't be, saddled with a shitload of debt that keeps your nose to the grindstone long after your shiny gizmos and gadgets have been consigned to the trash heap.

You can't even crawl out from under those debts with bankruptcy like you once could, so creditors will hound you until you're sleeping under a bridge. It's a hell of a way to end one's life, but it can be fun while it lasts...

After all, how do you think people end up living in their cars?

USA! USA!

Corrupt and hypocritical, and proud of it

The Israelis are so concerned about Iran and its nuclear research, because they want to be the only nuclear kid on the block. It's unthinkable to the regime that any other power could arm itself in such a way as to negate the Israeli nuclear blackmail arsenal. And that's what it is: a means to intimidate anyone who dares oppose the Israeli's expansionist agenda.

And so the experts debate what to do about "it".

Analysis: Israelis doubt world will stop Iran's nuclear quest | Reuters: "Giora Eiland, a former Israeli general and national security adviser, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had "a year, maybe two" to decide, given Iran's nuclear progress.

"And if you don't make a decision, you make a decision" to leave Iran to its course, Eiland said. "Two terrible choices. I believe the international community will fail to reach a solution on the Iranian case, so such a dilemma will be real."

For now, those seeking to hobble, if not halt, Iran may have to make do with covert attacks such as cyberwarfare or sabotage.

"Will these things be accorded new legitimacy in light of the difficulty of nuclear diplomacy through negotiations?" said INSS arms control expert Emily Landau."

While giving the perfunctory nod to negotiation, everyone knows the Israeli preference for settling disagreements through the most violent, extreme methods. This is standard operating procedure for a state that sees itself as a beacon of liberal western values in a sea of backwards, Islamist extremists.

The facts on the ground tell a different story, however. They tell the tale of a powermad, aggressive, expansionist and warlike empire, in a dirty fight with all its neighbors to secure all the best lands and resources. There's nothing good or noble about the Israeli modus operandi, nor its agenda for expansion and domination over the region. Why should anyone defer, much less lend support, to such a corrupt and degenerate state?

US-backed dictator critiques violence against protesters

King Abdullah of Jordan says that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ought to honor the will of his people, as expressed in their protests against the regime, by stepping aside and letting the democratic process proceed:

BBC News - Dozens killed in Syria as Jordan king tells Assad to go: ""I would step down and make sure whoever comes behind me has the ability to change the status quo that we're seeing," King Abdullah stated in an exclusive interview with BBC World News television.

He said: "If Bashar [al-Assad] has the interest of his country [at heart] he would step down, but he would also create an ability to reach out and start a new phase of Syrian political life.

King Abdullah added: "Whenever you exert violence on your own people, it is never going to end well.""

It's always interesting when US clients, who take dirty money in order to thwart the legitimate will of their own people, and serve as compliant torturers for the US regime, speak out in such unequivocal terms about how dictators should relate to their own people. There's not a hint of irony in Abdullah's remarks regarding his own status as a hereditary ruler of a state without legitimate democratic institutions, but like most of the West's stooges in that region, he knows which side his bread is buttered on. When the boss says criticize your neighbor for the exact same defect you yourself suffer, you go on TV and do it.

One finds it hard to reconcile the reaction of the West to Assad with the equally abrupt manner in which the authorities have cracked down on the dissenters at various Occupy sites across the US. Free speech has been under siege in the beacon of democratic values for a number of years, with the events of 9-11 serving as a convenient pretext for categorizing demonstrators as terrorists to be silenced by any means necessary. This has led to travesties such as "free speech zones" during events like presidential inaugurations, to more militaristic responses to G-20 soirees targeted by the anti-globalization movement.

Now, with the Occupy movement having gained a bit of traction, and drawing an increasing diverse cast of characters from across the political landscape, there appears to have been a call from the oligarchy to silence this movement with extreme prejudice. As it is commanded from on high, so it is done on the streets of Americas big cities, as we see the powerful elites start to use all means at their disposal to shut those protests down.

The US is practicing its accustomed double standard here, where the poor, backward countries of the third world are held to a higher standard than the US hold itself. Since the country entered a permanent state of emergency in recent years, everything has been put in place to facilitate the mass roundup and detention of troublemakers, and we'll see that infrastructure increasingly put into use -- to an extent that the leadership in Syria has never even dreamed.

It'll be interesting then to see how well Abdullah's prediction about violence against one's own people turns out.

Israel a world leader in hypocrisy

Why is the world silent when the Israelis carry out acts of war against other nations, while engaging in over-the-top breast-beating over any rival to the Israelis who would erect a defensive capability against the terrorist regime in Tel Aviv?

It's no secret that even without an overt attack against Iran, Israeli and its US puppet have been engaged in a series of assassinations and other assorted provocations against the Iranian regime. While the US proposes bombastic condemnations against Iran in the UN, it is really Washington's ally that deserves the condemnation -- along with the US -- for breaches of international law and crimes against the peace:

Israeli secret service the Mossad linked to Iran military blast | World news | The Guardian: "A series of news reports linking Israel's intelligence agency the Mossad to a blast at a military facility in Iran, in which 17 people were killed and a further 15 wounded, has gained widespread coverage in the Israeli media on Monday.

While Iranian officials insist the explosion at the Bid Ganeh base was accidental, caused by the movement of ammunition, claims from anonymous western and Israeli officials that Saturday's blast was a covert Israeli operation have gained momentum.

Leading Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot picked up a post by US blogger Richard Silverstein claiming the Mossad had teamed up with Iranian militant group Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK) to execute the alleged attack. MEK denies involvement in the attack.

Leftwing broadsheet Ha'aretz also led with reports that a western intelligence source quoted in Time magazine had claimed the Mossad carried out the attack in an attempt to stall Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. The official is said to have warned: "There are more bullets in the magazine.""

This may just be the way it is in international relations, but its sickening to read the papers and see the electronic media peddling this line about how the Iranians -- with their arsenal of exactly zero nuclear weapons -- is such a great threat to Israel, which has one of the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, along with the means to deliver them by air, land and sea.

Who is threatening whom? And why is the US, with its proffered respect for rule of law and human rights, abetting one of the world's preeminent outlaw regimes as it terrorizes its neighbors and hold an entire people in a stateless, lawless limbo in the occupied territories -- all against international law?

It's because the US is Israel's partner in crime, and an enabler of its rampage against other people and nations in the middle east. While there is not God, and no justice in the sense that it's commonly understood, there is a price to be paid for the arrogant and insufferable, and at a time when it's least favorable for these two obnoxious bullies, they'll come to understand how limited their power truly was, and how cruel fate can be when you're on the receiving end of great powers flexing their muscle.

Media stuffing turkey down viewers throats

The results are in, and the media has decided that the race for the GOP nomination to run against President O'bambi next year has boiled down to three pathetic turd-hoppers:

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich - Political Hotsheet - CBS News: "In the Republican race for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich's support continues to slowly grow, and he is now tied with Mitt Romney for second place, while Herman Cain just edges both of them out for the top spot. Both Cain and Romney have lost support since late October."

It's simply miraculous how Puke Gingrich has emerged from the wilderness of being abandoned en mass by his campaign staff earlier this year, and written off as a completely lost cause, and now finds himself among the top three!

But that's nothing compared to Herman "crotch grabber" Cain, a serial pervert who is riding the Koch express to political prominence. It's interesting to note his resume includes a stint as chairman of the Kansas City FED.

Rounding out this tawdry threesome is Mitt Romney, the most accomplished chameleon in politics today. If this is Friday, Mitt has a popular new position on whatever issue is trending at the moment. Unlike Newter, he can become whatever the Tea Party wants him to be.

One wonders where the other hot prospects, so ballyhooed just weeks or months ago, have disappeared to. Bachmann and Perry both lost to the sands of slime, while the only candidate that arouses any actual enthusiasm by actual voters, Ron Paul, has remained totally invisible. No matter how adroitly he handles himself in the debates, his politics are toxic to the mainstream consensus that the corporate media is sworn to uphold and promote.

This isn't an endorsement of Paul, but when any candidate talks about the issues a voter cares about, while the others waste their and the voters' time yammering about distractions and emotionally charged drivel, you must begin to wonder what this exercise called elections and voting are really about. Since we seem to have the decisions made from somewhere on the other side of the screen of the idiot box, with no input from YOU, the viewer, is it any wonder that people are beginning to tune it all out in disgust?

That leaves the idiots who still think any of it matters to choose between these pitiful vacuities, as the state of the nation continues to degenerate into pure, ungovernable chaos.

Serves us all right. Only a bunch of drones and dupes would abide this kind of contempt the oligarchs show for the public.

The alarmists are alarmed by IAEA report

Ring the alarm bells, the ding-dongs in the professional alarmist brigade are issuing a 5-alarm alarm about being alarmed:

White House: IAEA report on Iran 'very alarming' - Israel News, Ynetnews: "The White House said on Thursday that this week's International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran's nuclear program was "very alarming" and said it would continue to pressure Tehran to "change its behavior."

"They need to get right with the world and live up to their obligations with regards to their nuclear program. We will continue to pursue that going forward in the wake of this very alarming report," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The warmongers want war, and the alarmists want people to be alarmed. Together, the work to make the world a more dangerous and unstable place, in which to pursue their agendas.

The Israelis are alarmed because other countries aren't sufficiently alarmed about Iran's alarming nuclear program. The IAEA, under new management, has revealed that Iran is researching nuclear weapons. Not building, but thinking about it.

The US warmongers are gearing up for the war they've been planning for more than a decade. Saddam Hussein was just the warm-up, the appetizer, and now they're ready for the main dish: a knock-down, shock-and-awe fight followed by a nice, neat regime change. This is where the men will be men and the boys will be dead.

The notion that we all ought to be alarmed by one country doing what all its neighbors have already done rings a bit hollow to some of us. If Iran isn't supposed to be thinking about nukes, then perhaps the Israelis and the US government ought to get rid of some of theirs, as a gesture of goodwill.

But what would be alarming about that? Would millions around the world faint in complete surprise at this extremely unlikely turn of events? You betcha!

That's precisely why it won't happen. You need to be alarmed, the be full of fear, for the good of the country, for the good of the economy, and for God. When one talks in absurdities, one can even escalate to the most extreme absurdity imaginable: a world where the US and its handmaidens don't threaten and kill and interfere in others' business.

It's all the same. We have the naked self-interest of powerful countries driving a process to militarily subdue and then exploit their victims economically. This has been and will be the alarming ultimate goal of these corrupt and misguided regimes.

We might as well get used to it. It isn't going to stop.

Crying about soldiers' remains going in the landfill

The US public is treated to an endless litany of heartbreaking disclosures involving practically every item of admiration and affection. Today it reaches to the sacred realm of the remains of dead soldiers, which we learn were disposed of in a most disrespectful and callous manner:

Air Force chief questioned over war dead's remains | Reuters: ""I'm deeply troubled by the reports about what's happened at the mortuary at the Dover Air Force Base. And I'm sure you would agree with me, this is outrageous that remains of our soldiers would be put in a landfill," said Senator Kelly Ayotte.

The Washington Post, which first reported those details, quoted one widow saying she was "appalled and disgusted" to learn what happened to her husband's remains in a letter from the Air Force earlier this year. He died in Iraq in 2006.

"My only peace of mind in losing my husband was that he was taken to Dover and that he was handled with dignity, love, respect and honor," Gari-Lynn Smith told the Post. "That was completely shattered for me when I was told that he was thrown in the trash.""

The tear-jerking mechanism thus received many vigorous exertions as the story of how our military establishment deals with these inconvenient detritus. Since the bulk of the remains had already been delivered to families, the military simply disposed of additional matter located subsequently in the most efficient manner available.

While it is the least the nation can do to treat these remains with respect, is all the hand wringing and complaining really accomplishing anything for these people, who for the most part died in needless and illegal wars having nothing to do with national defense, and everything to do with perpetuating the business of perpetual warfare in which the US now wages on behalf of its corporate masters?

Rather than suffering paroxysms of grief over their mismanaged remnants, shouldn't we save the outrage and demands for a change in procedure to the actual cause of these peoples' deaths, an out-of-control militaristic culture that consumes lives like so much raw material in an infernal killing machine?

The US media-molded culture has elevated the "troops" to a higher level of being than ordinary people, but along with this near-veneration we strip them of their plain humanity. We venerate them in some abstract sense, without reckoning the loss of their lives, or the loss of lives of those they ended abroad, consigning them to the consumerist version of Valhalla that lies beyond the reach of any moral calculus. Their death is an abstraction, just like the nature of their adversaries or the alleged object of the wars themselves.

This is a perversion and a travesty, being perpetuated by a media machine that can examine any irrelevancy or tangential issue in endless detail, while glossing over and completely missing the main point. It's not a few carelessly handled body parts we should be livid about, but the waste of these young lives for such a demented purpose.

Obama’s Influential Mideast Turd Resigns

The number of cynical and Machiavellian foreign service operators on the US state department payroll is about to decrease by one, it was just learned:

Obama’s Influential Mideast Envoy to Resign - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — Dennis B. Ross, a seasoned diplomat who has been one of President Obama’s most influential advisers on Iran, the Middle East peace process and the political upheaval in the Arab world, will leave the White House in December, a senior administration official said on Thursday."

The Ross dude made his announcement "at a lunch with Jewish leaders," the NYT story continues, showing their subject in his most comfortable milieu. Among Jewish leaders, listening to their instructions and giving an affirmative response to any and all requests is the perfect characterization of a US envoy in the Middle East.

The US at one time attempted to present itself as an "honest broker" in the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, but as the right-wing PR machine grew and perfected its techniques, and the essential lubricant of political influence flowed from the Zionists to US politicians, facades and appearances ceased to be of much concern to the political establishment and its sycophants in the corporate media. It was then that an imposter like Ross could operate at peak efficiency as Obama's butt-boy emissary to Tel Aviv.

No stone has ever been left unturned in the Israeli campaign to remake the region in its image and interests. The plight of Palestinians has grown progressively desperate with Dennis Ross and his cohort putting the entire resources of the US government in the service of Israeli expansionist and colonialist designs.

"What a shame it is to lose one's mind," as GW Bush famously remarked, and he could have been speaking of those who would assert that the US deals evenhandedly with the parties in the Mideast. It is because of guys who are eager to follow the orders of their patrons, however immoral and illegal, that makes the process of oppression and exploitation so effortless and lucrative for corrupt governments in today's world.

So it's not hats off, but we drop our drawers for Dennis Ross, and wish that he kiss our arses with the relish he reserves for the guys who sign his paycheck -- may he find himself buried alive under pallets of benjamins!

The Iranian nuclear fantasy

Is this all you got? After all the build up and hoopla about Iran's nuclear program on the verge of a great breakthrough, and how it'll be bristling with atom bombs by breakfast tomorrow, all we get is a big fart and no shit:

Iran may be researching nuclear warhead, claims watchdog | World news | The Guardian: "The UN's nuclear watchdog on Tuesday expressed "serious concerns" that Iran had been carrying out research work on the construction of a nuclear warhead, and said the effort could still be underway.

In its report on Iran's nuclear programme, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had accumulated more than 1,000 pages of documentation that had let it to believe that suspected nuclear weapons work was done under a "structured programme" up to 2003, and that "some may still be ongoing"."

The Israelis and their puppet in Washington are chomping at the bit, looking for the barest pretext to launch a full-scale attack against the Iranian nuclear program, when all the smoking gun turns out to be is more like a puff of cigar smoke instead of a mushroom cloud.

Iran MAY be researching a nuclear bomb? Since when the FUCK have they been required to hide their heads in the sand, while the US and Israel and the Gulf dictatorships surround the Persians with nuclear firepower, as they gradually assume an offensive posture?

Say what you will about the Iranian regime. At one time, a saner Israeli leadership understood that if they simply left well enough alone, the mullahs would fall as a result of their own inertia in the face of a young and restive population. Once the Zionist maniacs took power, however, their methods began to mirror their madness.

Israel's Likud government sees itself as the inheritor of the mantle of manifest destiny by which the European settlers eventually overran the north American continent, exterminating the native population in order to ravage the land and its resources. Since the rest of its neighbors have been bought out or brought under the thumb of Washington, there is but one obstacle to the realization of the Zionist conquest of historic Palestine -- and the way lies through Tehran.

For the US and its corporate oligarchs, the matter is simpler: bring the Iranian oil and gas under control of Western corporate control, and make the economy an appendage of the IMF and international banking cartel. The payoff is so great, and the banks so desperate for additional sources of liquidity in which to float the great debt ponzi we all live under.

Such is the confused panoply of interests that drive the Iranian anti-nuclear crusade, which at its heart is nothing about nukes and everything to do with seizing what Iran has and that others covet.

When the pretext is this flimsy, is there any limit to what the great corporate oligarchs and the interests they represent may contrive to do? Iran is being condemned for a collective thought crime, since there's an absence of any evidence of an prohibited work on a nuclear device.

It's absolutely staggering the depths of depravity that the self-appointed defenders of truth, justice and the American way will stoop to for the advancement of their sleazy agenda.

Tell us how you feel...

It's hard to believe that this has attained "critical mass" enough to be propelled to the top headline in the Google news machine:

Sarkozy overheard telling Obama that Netanyahu is a liar - CTV News: "PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has laboured to improve French relations with Israel, said he "can't stand" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called him a liar in a chat with President Barack Obama."

Tell us how you feel, dude!

By all accounts, and if you take a broad view of his activities, it's pretty clear the Netanyahu is a jackass. If he were just another asshole, no biggie, but being in command of the world's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal, even a dickhead has a certain amount of gravitas.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, and we are in on the secret, what to make of the new news that Sarkozy doesn't like the Nyetenyahoo? Or for that matter, the Obama rejoinder that he has to deal with the man every day?

Our thin-skinned counterparts in the Israel amen chorus will take it as a sign of disaffection with the state of Israel, rather than simply a knock against their belligerent and noxious leader. What the Israeli electorate sees in the guy, the admiration sure isn't shared by a large swath of the world's other "leaders" (or shall we say, their butt boys?). The Israeli state is pretty much a given. Whoever wants to wish that someday it will go away, as many nations have gone away before it, is not necessarily making a direct threat. No one loves everybody, but we somehow usually manage to get along without resorting to murder.

It actually would be healthy to learn more of the true feelings behind the diplomatic niceties that are lavished upon regimes that can't stand one another. People deserve to know what the real deal is, instead of the pleasantries that are endless peddled in the corporate propaganda machine.

This is why the Wikileaks phenomenon was so fascinating and promising in its time. It has pretty much been suffocated by relentless systemic pressure, but for a while there, many of the closely held, frank discussions regarding the machinations of the cat with the mice was seen in a broadly unfiltered way. There were no deep, dark secrets revealed, just the daily grind of diplomatic trickery and counter-trickery that is the currency of diplomatic cartels.

A fresh blast of oxygen has now been replaced by the stale old farts of conventional communications, but we still like the occasional expression of how our "leaders" "really feel about one another. It hardly humanizes them, since their character traits are all too common to be truly shocking or astounding. We enjoy the illusion that we're such an advanced civilization guided by rational and scientific principles, when the fact is we'd be clubbing one another with zest with dinosaur bones in the Garden of Eden, if only to get first dibs on the apple.

Do as I say, not as I do

The Israeli regime has showed its true colors once again, by making threats to attack others without provocation -- a simple act of aggression:

Israeli Minister Warns Iran Strike Is Possible - ABC News: "Israel's defense minister warned on Tuesday of a possible Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear program and rejected suggestions the Jewish state would be devastated by an Iranian counterattack.

Ehud Barak spoke a day before the United Nations' nuclear agency was expected to release a critical report on the Iranian program. The report is expected to implicate Iran in bomb building and erase any doubts about the nature of the program, which Iran says is designed to produce energy, not weapons."

Imagine if the Iranian PM had declared that Iran was being driven to attack Israel because it objects to Israel's nuclear weapons program. Not the bogus translation which is frequently repeated about "wiping Israel off the map," but a specific threat to attack Israeli military and strategic installations.

The Israelis would be jumping up and down, and the US would be in the UN security council proposing the most bellicose resolutions against the Iranian regime imaginable.

That would never fly, obviously. Nor do the Iranians make such threats, since they are never taken as idle bluster. Rather, depending on who's speaking, the threat of an attack is usually considered an act of war.

Still, the US can piously condemn the Iranians for their nuclear program while they and their Israeli pit bull make saber-rattling a daily affair, in preparation for the inevitable main event.

While the Israelis accuse the Iranians of bad intent, its the Israeli government that will be the one that attacks -- guaranteed. And when it does, it will be the Iranians who are condemned for not being sufficiently deferential to their masters in Tel Aviv and Washington.

The only hope is that Russia and China make such a move costly for the West. As this seems like only a remote possibility, one can assume that an attack will go down, and that once Netanyahu makes up his mind, there's no turning back. No wonder Sarkozy can't stand him.

As for Iranian counter-attacks, they really don't have much firepower compared with their nemesis, which in spite of all the protestations of vulnerability is armed to the teeth and backed up by US firepower, which guarantees no significant military response. About Iran's worse gambit, as far as the West is concerned, is if the Strait of Hormuz is closed for any length of time, which drives fuel prices up to crippling levels.

If the Iranians are serious at all about making this gambit painful for their antagonists, they'll go for where it hurts the multinational oligarchs the most -- in the wallet!

Leave my poor blog alone!

Unlike the rest of the world, I am unconcerned about driving traffic to my blog. I have virtually no readers, and have never made any attempt to interest readers in visiting. I simply enjoy the exercise of writing it, and the discipline required to keep posting.

If someone finds it through a web search or referral from some other site, that's okay, too. I'm just not actively soliciting visitors.

I do, however, get a bit of a kind out of the "stats" function in Blogger, where I can see where the few visitors came from, and what the referring site was. I admit, it sounds a bit self-contradictory to be interested in the statistics while not making any attempt at self promotion, but maybe that reveals something about how my mind works (such as it does...).

All this is a tedious lead-in to my point, which is traffic which originates from various sites selling blog-promotion or web-optimization or other web-based services. While this blog might on an average day generate two or three apparently genuine hits, it could register as many as 20 for some of these crap vendors.

For a while, the biggest offender was pu.gg, which seemed to be an aspiring "pirate bay"-type operation. Today, it's some other shit-pumper that has a software application that supposedly can help people make lots of money blogging.

I know how it is: everybody wants to get rich. In light of the fact that the world economic system is in really, really precarious condition, and people are more likely to become poorer rather than rich in the days ahead, this leaves me sad for them -- and for all the other strivers who think that they've played the game and deserve cash back for all their sacrifices.

Tough luck, bitches. We're all fools, and everyone who thinks that more possessions are the key to happiness will be hurting a lot worse than the ones who've learned to live on as little as possible. They're the only winners in this game.

China needs to go one step further on Iran

Sometimes China makes sense in its diplomatic pronouncements, but usually they prefer a bland, waffling approach that basically cedes decisions to the US and its proxies.

As in Libya, where it had negotiated extensive business deals, only to have NATO come in and tear up all the contracts in order to pass them along to its own multinationals, we see the Chinese position themselves for a similar humiliation regarding Iran, which is under threat of attack by Israel and the US:

China urges Iran flexibility, but opposes force - CNN.com: "China's stance is an important element in the diplomatic focus on the nuclear issue because of China's permanent U.N. Security Council membership. Even though China has supported some sanctions on Iran over the years, Beijing and Russia have not been as hard-line toward the Islamic republic as the other members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain and France.
Hong said disagreements with Iran should be resolved through "dialogue and cooperation," Xinhua reported.
"The IAEA should positively clarify relevant problems by cooperating with Iran in an impartial and objective manner" and "Iran should be flexible and sincere when cooperating with the IAEA," Xinhua reported, citing Hong.
China warns against the use of force but will promote "dialogue and cooperation and play a constructive role" in dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue."

It's all very nice to tell the international community to act nice and get along, but these exhortations by China are taken as a joke in Tel Aviv and Washington. Despite the extensive commercial ties between Beijing and Tehran, and the considerable interest of China in securing future oil supplies, the regime seems totally lacking in resolve when it comes to defending its interests -- and its friends.

Face it, once the bombs start falling, it's too late for China to assert itself. If China wants to be respected and step up to the next level as a world power, it had better start showing a little more backbone in its dealings with the fading powers in the West. Washington is played out. It is like a body builder full of anabolic steroids -- muscle-bound but dickless. Its economic power is sapped, and all it has is a big arsenal, operated by half-wits and misfits, with which to obtain its will.

Since the US dropped even the pretense of standing for enlightenment values, and instead exports kleptocracy and exploitation globally, there's no point in maintaining the fiction that the international organizations like IAEA are impartial observers of NPT compliance -- the non-proliferation regime is rigged, and is used by non-signatories to pummel those who have abided by it in good faith.

If China wants to be a leader and play a role in maintaining some semblance of global law and order, it's time for Beijing to step up and put their money where their mouths are, and explicitly make it clear that an attack on Iran will be looked upon very unfavorably by China, and at the very least it must make clear that it will never support the US in the UN in any drive to legitimize an aggressive war on the Iranians.

Enough of this pussy-footing around. This is all about oil, and power, and China -- or somebody -- needs to stand up for a more enlightened system of international affairs than the barbaric regime coming out of the US.

U.S. hopes IAEA report on Iran justifies attack

Now that a more pliable leadership is in place at the IAEA, the US government and its proxies can barely contain their excitement over the prospect it will legitimize the march to war:

U.S. says IAEA report on Iran next week critical | Reuters: (Reuters) - A report due next week from the IAEA nuclear watchdog will be an important point for the world to assess whether Iran is meeting its obligations, the White House said on Thursday.

Earlier, U.S. President Barack Obama said he had discussed his concerns about Iran and its nuclear program with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of the G20 summit and both had agreed that international pressure needed to be maintained on Iran.

"The IAEA is scheduled to release a report on Iran's nuclear programme next week and President Sarkozy and I agree on the need to maintain the unprecedented pressure on Iran to meet its obligations."

What these bozos never mention is their own culpability in the nuclear proliferation game, or their own obligations to reduce and eliminate their stockpiles of nuclear weapons under the NPT. While vociferously lambasting Iran for its supposed transgressions, the US and its crying club fails to mention its darling Israel's absence from the NPT's. The Iranians are surrounded by nuclear states and the US military machine, and yet these posturing hypocrites deem themselves the arbiters of whose defensive needs are legitimate.

The rules of the game are quite simply, whoever has the biggest arsenal makes the rules.

The Israelis, in particular, are the worst of the rogue states in their utter disregard for international norms and agreements. They are constantly pushing their big, dumb enforcer to stymie votes critical of Israel in the UN security council, and so never have to deal with the kind of condemnation that the US puts countries like Iran through, when Iran's track record of aggression against its neighbors is negligible compared with the murderous regime in Tel Aviv.

While all states are immoral to one degree or another, the world has gone mad because of propaganda and manipulation by powerful interests to legitimize their crimes, while those who oppose and resist are cast as the worst of the worst. They hardly qualify, but who is left to honestly judge?

Warmongers get hard dicks over Iran attack rumors

In another world, in another time, the talk about Israel and the US launching an unprovoked act of war against Iran would be seen as the war crime it would be. Just like the top Nazis before them, the instigators of these ultimate crimes against the peace and against humanity should be met with the sternest punishments in an international court of justice. Instead, we get this putrid, outright cheerleading for war by the corporate media in advance of the coming attacks:

Reports stoke speculation about attack on Iran nukes: Reports in Israeli and British newspapers are heightening speculation about whether Israel and the United States are planning for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Citing a senior Israeli official, Haaretz writes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are "trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action." They recently persuaded Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to back such action, a reversal of his position.

Following up, the Associated Press has a similar report, noting it comes as Israel announced it had tested a long-range missile that would be capable of reaching Iran. But AP adds that it "remained unclear whether Israel was genuinely poised to strike or if it was saber-rattling to prod the international community into taking a tougher line on Iran."

The winners sent Milosevic to the Hague, and they also would've sent Gaddafi if their henchmen hadn't lynched him first. We're fed a steady diet of self-serving invective about Syria's Assad and his crimes against his people, and how he deserves punishment for his transgressions.

It seems like there's always a villain and a monster in human guise who's being presented as worthy of punishment or destruction, when in the balance their crimes may be substantial but are but dim reflections of the mass-murdering, genocidal maniacs who rule over the prosperous, "advanced" societies of the West. In comparison to the media-contrived enemies of manufactured opinion, our monsters far outclass their beasts in pure manifestation of pure EVIL, but it nevertheless never seems to rate a few moments of airtime for a comparison of the relative moral depravity of the pot and the kettle, respectively.

The leaders of Israel, by any civilized standard, are war criminals and rank barbarians. The leaders of the US -- both the leaders held up to the glare of a compliant press, but also the behind-the-scenes impresarios of mass murder -- deserve no less the public repudiation of their alleged morality as did the Nazis and leaders of Imperial Japan. We should look down on them with equal disdain as any civilized person would view Stalin, or Idi Amin, or any of the garden-variety misanthropes of our times who've led the slaughter of millions of innocents.

This presumptive war with Iran is for a manufactured pretext that, were the incipient aggressors held to the same standard vis a vis nuclear weapons, should be inviting the rest of the world to attack them before they commit more crimes. Because their power is overwhelming, no one dares challenge their provocations; indeed, the nations of the world are so cowed and cowardly that they dare not speak out. This includes nations like China, Russia, India and Brazil, which aspire to positions of leadership in a genuinely new world order.

This current order is completely and irredeemably corrupt, and needs to be dealt with with unambiguous, explicit condemnation from all quarters. These powers must eventually be eliminated, for the sake of humanity in general. They represent extremely narrow and provincial interests, mostly based on the exploitation of nations and their resources, and without any regard for humanity -- so long as their own stinky asses are receiving the profits and the benefits.

An attack on Iran is at it's heart a geopolitical gambit to wrest control of the petroleum resources from rivals of multinational corporations that operate out of the US and Europe. Israel goes along for the sake of territorial aggrandizement, as well as a piece of the action. Mostly, by enveloping the Persian oil, the US cobra wraps the Mideast in its deadly embrace, denying access to its rivals in Beijing.

As assiduously and diligently as China has been courting the developing world and particularly its energy-rich states, this has got to be a galling development for the Chinese Communist Party, Inc., and yet the world's largest manufacturer is still in no position to alienate its most insatiable market, and so must swallow its pride and watch helplessly as Washington smashes the carefully arranged order it strives to build for the future. There's nothing for them to do but wait, wait until the order that the West has created races to its inevitable collapse.

While war in Iran may have immediate benefits for the Obama administration and convince the Israelis of their own invincibility, this is all a narcotic pipe dream, as the tremendous sums required to police an increasingly restive and impatient world wears down the machine that must be relentlessly fed else it disintegrate and implode. The new world order was never a viable business plan, and this coming expansion of the empire promises to strain the groaning beast past its breaking point.

The victory, in short, will be swift and shallow. Winning will be more costly than never having fought at all, and this will have to content those of use who oppose this malodorous and malignant plan to further enslave the world's people. The simple consequence of biting off more than the monster can chew will someday prove to be the silver bullet that slew the warewolf preying on the planet and is people.