Happy New Year

Good will toward all.

Have a good 2010.

The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil

The 5th Fleet together with troops are in the Middle East where there is lots of oil.

The 4th Fleet has been reactivated [cf. Navy Reestablishes U.S. 4th Fleet] after 58 years of being moth balled, and has been sent to Central / South America where there is also lots of oil.

A website of the federal government tells us:

"Oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy."

(Department of Energy [they removed it, so here is The Wayback Machine copy of that page: Department of Energy]). Which is the same thing as saying you are economically dead without your blood, your oil.

The struggle for economic life then, would be the struggle for oil would it not?

Bush II put it in the cowboy language during a state of the union address to congress, saying that "America is addicted to oil".

Alrighty then, here is a digest of our dealers who supplied us with the petroleum drug for the years 2003-2008 (imports in billions of barrels):

===============================
OPEC countries (12,385,349) (42.8%)

non-OPEC countries (16,553,830) (57.2%)
------------------------------------------------------------
All countries (28,939,179) (100%)
===============================
===============================
Break it down:

Persian Gulf countries (5,141,389) (17.8%)
Canada (5,002,249) (17.3%)
===============================
Americas:

Mexico (3,466,520) (11.98%)
South / Central Americas (4,656,426) (16.1%):

Argentina (172,464), Belize (1,434), Bolivia (3,934), Brazil (372,205), Chile (18,862), Colombia (393,349), Costa Rica (4,450), Ecuador (501,895), El Salvador (6,296), Guatemala (33,659), Panama (695), Peru (63,662), Uruguay (4,432), Venezuela (3,079,089)

===============================

(Department of Energy, compilation [they "lost" is so here is the Wayback Machine copy]). The OPEC and non-OPEC percentages equal the total percentages that add up to 100%. (The Persian Gulf & Americas figures are just sections, so they will not add up to 100%.) Also note that some of the Americas are OPEC members and some are non-OPEC.

The narrow Strait of Hormuz, a strategic oil drug gateway, has the nation of Iran on one side, the UAE and Oman on the other side where headquarters for CENTCOM has several HQ bases.

Lately "the terrorists" who take up most GE news coverage are said to be controlled from al-Queda in Yemen which controls the other critical oil drug gateway, the narrow Strait of Bab el-Mandeb where the oil drug also passes through.

Clearly the fleets, the soldiers, and terrorism seem to be centralized where the oil drug is found or transported from (for some "mysterious" reason).

The next post in this series is here.

The Keystone Complex To The Rescue

What can be said when a young naive boy burns his nuts off on an airplane while playing a video game in his head?

Especially when it causes the whole commercial aviation system, together with the infamous homeland security gang (disorganized into a strange meme-complex) to go nuts too?

The Keystone Kops meme-complex comes to mind.

But it would be just another dumb, stupid, dazed and confused criminal episode but for the massively dumb and stupid media that like to call themselves journalists.

Like the Keystone Kops fused with The Three Stooges meme complex that supported Bush II wars, the so-called "free press" is falling all over itself to try to spread fear throughout the land.

But, alas, they are waxing comical instead.

The next post in this series is here.

Odd Bedfellows - Incompetence & Fear

Sometimes it is difficult to tell what the military oil complex news outlets are selling, fear or incompetence.

The incompetent fool who burned himself in front of the world has the news media all aTwitter, tweeting out fear like incompetence was irrelevant.

Does the media actually think that incompetent fools like the young man who lived in the basement instead of in the home upstairs with his wealthy family is really a grave danger to the United States?

There are many thousands of them in the United States who have been through the military fog of war and who have come out all foggy & dangerous about what is real and what is not real.

Are these incompetent fools the real enemy of the people of the U.S. or is the government controlled media who sell war like all warmongers do, more of a danger?

The anniversary of Operation Northwoods may or may not have something to do with it:

Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a false-flag plan, proposed within the United States government in 1962. The plan called for CIA or other operatives to commit apparent acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Castro-led Cuba. One plan was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington".

This operation is especially notable in that it included plans for hijackings and bombings followed by the use of phony evidence that would blame the terrorist acts on a foreign government, namely Cuba.

(Wikipedia, emphasis added). Or perhaps Wikipedia is a conspiracy theory?

In either case, this Homeland Security is an expensive joke if it can be destroyed by a deranged kid with a chemistry set.

Senate Passes Health Care Bill 60-39

I just watched what is being called an historic vote in the U.S. Senate.

The President of the Senate, Vice President Joe Biden, presided over the proceedings.

All Senate Democrats and Independents voted for the bill, and all Republicans who were present voted against the bill.

Now, since the Senate version just passed is different from the House version that passed a while back, the two bills go to a conference committee in January, where the differences will be hammered out and a final bill produced.

Then both the House and the Senate will have to have a floor vote on the final, combined bill.

UPDATE: President Obama just finished making comments on the Senate's passage of the bill, saying it is the most reform concerning insurance companies ever.

He said it will add 31 million Americans to the list of those having health care coverage.

He said he will work with the Conference Committee to resolve the differences in the two bills, then he will sign the final version upon its passage by both the Senate and the House.

Way Out Of Afghanistan Is "Way Out"

In case you were wondering where going with the cash flow generated by the new placate the warmongers bill President Obama just signed takes you, check out the graphic.

In a post appropriately entitled "The great Afghan spaghetti monster", the author states:

The graphic from the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff looks like a tangled ball of multicolored yarn, or perhaps it is the military's depiction of the all-powerful, all-knowing Flying Spaghetti Monster...

Whatever the case, it documents the complex relationships between Tribal leaders, soldiers, aid workers, drug dealers, militants, ethnic groups, government leaders, etc.

(McClatchy News). It could not be better for the intellectual warmongers who have now so entangled us in stupid, costly, and homeland damaging wars it boggles the sane mind.

But not theirs, they are so smart in their own eyes they are opening a new war zone in the Americas south of our border.

In the wise words of the Author of the Bill of Rights, the Father of our Constitution, war and warmongers are our worst enemy.

So Obama Thinks I Am Critical?

Oh to the contrary, I have held my tongue compared to others who voted for him.

Take for example the University Professor, Psychologist and Neuroscientist:

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.

What's costing the president are three things: a laissez faire style of leadership that appears weak and removed to everyday Americans, a failure to articulate and defend any coherent ideological position on virtually anything, and a widespread perception that he cares more about special interests like bank, credit card, oil and coal, and health and pharmaceutical companies than he does about the people they are shafting.

The problem is not that his record is being distorted. It's that all three have more than a grain of truth. And I say this not as one of those pesky "leftists." I say this as someone who has spent much of the last three years studying what moves voters in the middle, the Undecideds who will hear whichever side speaks to them with moral clarity.

Consider the president's leadership style, which has now become clear: deliver a moving speech, move on, and when push comes to shove, leave it to others to decide what to do if there's a conflict, because if there's a conflict, he doesn't want to be anywhere near it.

(Huffington Post, emphasis added). Ouch! That rant goes on and on.

See, I have only criticized the administration in the hope that his advisers would wake up to the reality I reminded them of time and time again.

They seem to think they can ramrod their notions down the voters ballot box, a notion that will be tested like it was in the last election when the people rejected that approach.

My criticism of the administration has been exclusively to criticize them for continuing what the people rejected in the election. For an apologetic in support of all the administration's deeds, and a pro-con comment session afterwards, see this post.

State Department vs. The Independent

The British Independent has a story to tell which is at odds with The State Department Story concerning 7 military bases in Colombia.

Three of the seven bases are Air Force, two are Navy, and two are Army.

It may turn out that the definition of "soldier" or "troops" will end up being the defining reality of the story, unless the law and treaty with Colombia is changed by congress and Colombia.

Is this a jobs thing for Blackwater which will mean thousands of mercenaries being moved from Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan to Colombia?

The suspicious part is the reactivation, after 58 years, of the 4th Fleet, and now sending them south allegedly to take part in "the drug war".

The drug war that is the real drug war is the drug oil which the U.S. is addicted to, thus, sending the 4th Fleet after marijuana growers is not the real story.

The propaganda is going to crank up for sure.

More Tug o' War Then The Final Votes

The Senate Democrats and Independents got past the Republican filibuster of the Senate Version of the Health Care Legislation in a late night vote on a cloture motion made by Senator Reid.

The vote was a classic 60-40 Cloture vote, which will send the current bill to the floor for a debate and for a vote to pass it or not pass it.

Then, since it is different from the House Version of the Health Care Legislation, it will go to conference for final hammering out of final details to fuse the two different bills into one final version of the bill.

Then both the Senate and the House must vote again to accept the Final Conference Bill or not to accept it.

Both the House and the Senate must pass it if it is to go to the desk of the President.

The President and his operatives will be very busy during the Conference Committee proceedings, as will Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi.

There is still a possibility of improving some of the bad aspects of the bill.

Bipartisan Critics See Through The Fog

When these fellows who are in trouble in their districts and who are running to be elected once again announced a deal in the Senate Friday, what happened is best explained by Joe Scarborough, Howard Dean, and Daily Kos:

On Sunday's Meet The Press, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was asked a simple question about health care: What has President Obama achieved? His answer: "He has made a lot of people with insurance stock a lot richer."

"This [bill] is great for insurance companies," he explained. "They were going to reform the system [but] neither side wanted to take on the insurance companies. Neither side wanted to get rid of anti-trust exemptions. Neither side really pushed hard to allow you or me or anybody here to buy across state lines. And as Howard Dean said -- and this is a devastating fact -- insurance companies' stocks reached a 52-year [actually 52-week] high on Friday after this so called reform bill got its 60th vote.

(Huffington Post, emphasis added). The Senate version of the bill is what they were talking about, not the House bill.

Investors are not buying stock in the insurance companies because they want to lose money, they know something don't they.

Daily Kos has charts to support the notion that the insurance companies are happy with what they think will be the result of the fusion of the House and Senate Bills later, and so are investors.

Little wonder those who care for the middle class and poor, who are losing homes, jobs, savings, and health care, are not so happy; while the military oil complex gets everything it wants.

There is reason to believe it is an under the table bailout of the insurance companies who they bailed out in the open (e.g. AIG), causing widespread outrage.

Stealth Budget For Stealth Bailout

What stealth is behind the flag?

The massive military build up and military drills in South America give new meaning to "drill for oil" and "drill baby drill".

Stealthy numbers also seem to be in the growing stealth budget somewhere, hidden from public eyes.

A secret amount in the hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayer money is classified each year.

Thus, we never really know what the actual deficit is, but never mind, the amount they tell us about is shocking enough.

The just before Christmas spending bill is out:

The Senate will soon follow the House in passing a $636.3 billion Fiscal Year 2010 defense appropriations bill, the government's largest spending bill. The legislation contains 1,720 earmarks worth $4.2 billion, 17 percent less in number and 14 percent less in value from last year (remember that this is only disclosed earmarks: Major additions such as the $2.5 billion for 10 more C-17 Globemaster cargo planes are not included). The four top Congressional appropriators are responsible for 15 percent of the take: Senate Defense Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) sponsored 37 earmarks worth $198.2 million, and Ranking Member Thad Cochran 45 worth $167 million. Over in the House, Defense Appropriations Chairman John Murtha (D-PA) sponsored 23 earmarks worth $76.5 million, while Ranking Member C.W. Bill Young (R-FL) got behind 36 worth $83.7 million.

(Taxpayers For Common Sense, emphasis added). We spend more on war machines and war each year, in the non-stealth budget, than all the rest of the world combined.

If we knew the amount they classify (Jekyl & Hyde) then spend on war machines and war each year, in the stealth budget, it would be more than all the rest of the world combined.

They are still hung up on that old domino theory where they have to destroy the economy in order to save it?

Oilah Akbar! Oilah Akbar! - 2

The AP is reporting that Iran seized Oil Well # 4 which the Iraqis claim as theirs.

It is a border dispute in theory, but the reality is that it is an addiction dispute.

Drug dealers are very territorial and drug users are very dangerous.

Oil addiction and Copenhagen are linked in the sense that oil addiction is the disaster that is causing the impending climate disaster governments of the world seem too weak to prevent.

Oilah Akbar is the real religion behind all this madness.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Dorgan Attempts To Reform Health Care

Senator Dorgan presented a bi-partisan amendment to the health care bill to truly reform health care.

It was a bi-partisan amendment with co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle:

Dorgan and Snowe introduced bipartisan legislation that had over 30 Senate co-sponsors in the last session of Congress, including President Obama and Senator John McCain.

(Dorgan Amendment). One segment of health care is prescription drugs, which was the focus of Senator Dorgan's Amendment:

... American consumers are charged the highest prices in the world for the same medicines that are available in other major, industrialized nations at a fraction of the cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the Dorgan–Snowe legislation will save U.S. consumers more than $50 billion over the next decade.

The legislation will allow American consumers, pharmacies and drug wholesalers to import FDA–approved prescription drugs at the substantially lower prices available on the world market.

(FAQ About Amendment, emphasis added). Americans are treated unfairly by Big Pharma. A post yesterday shows the vote, which reveals who is serious about health care reform and who is not.

Those who voted against this amendment, including prominent democrats, are serious about getting money from Big Pharma for their election, but not about health care reform. Their vote exposes them.

Governor Dean is correct that the Senate Version of the health care legislation does not pass the smell test and should be rejected in favor of the House Bill.

Big Pharma Chastens Men Into Boyz

Senator Dorgan had an idea any reform minded Senator would embrace.

His Amendment to the status quo, where Americans pay many times more for pharmaceuticals than any other nation in the civilized world, would have ended the rape and plunder of needy Americans by Big Pharma.

It would have allowed us to purchase prescription drugs for a fair price.

The three boyz pictured in the photo voted against Dorgan's Amendment, as did a number of phonies who say they are for health care reform:

Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN),
Burris (D-IL), Cantwell (D-WA), Cardin (D-MD),
Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Dodd (D-CT),
Durbin (D-IL), Gillibrand (D-NY), Hagan (D-NC),
Inouye (D-HI), Kaufman (D-DE), Kerry (D-MA),
Kirk (D-MA), Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ),
Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (ID-CT), Menendez (D-NJ),
Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI),
Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Schumer (D-NY),
Tester (D-MT), Udall (D-CO), Warner (D-VA),
Whitehouse (D-RI)

(vote on Dorgan Amdt. No. 2793). Meanwhile several republicans, who a progressive would not have expected to vote for the amendment, voted to be fair to Americans:

Alexander (R-TN), Bond (R-MO), Coburn (R-OK),
Collins (R-ME), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX),
Crapo (R-ID), DeMint (R-SC), Graham (R-SC),
Grassley (R-IA), Hutchison (R-TX), Johanns (R-NE),
LeMieux (R-FL), McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY),
Murkowski (R-AK), Risch (R-ID), Sessions (R-AL),
Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME), Thune (R-SD),
Vitter (R-LA), Wicker (R-MS)

(ibid). Can you say WTF? This is one for Ed Shultz's psycho talk, or perhaps a new segment of his show called "Psycho Vote".

Dorgan's Amendment failed and will not be in the "bill to bail out mini-AIG", which the phonies call "health care reform".

Thanks to all the Senators who care about needy Americans!

George W. Oilwell On Health Care 1984

Baghdad Bob is such a wild and crazy guy who epitomizes newspeak, the language of propagandistic journalism now fashionable in the United States' main stream media, the virtual children of political speak (a.k.a. doublespeak), made famous in 1984 if you know what I mean.

This national speech impairment has not gone unnoticed by the scientific community.

One professor calls this mode of communication "doublespeak", and has written a book "Why No One Knows What Anyone Is Saying Anymore". He points out:

With doublespeak, banks don't have "bad loans" or "bad debts"; they have "nonperforming assets" or "nonperforming credits" which are "rolled over" or "rescheduled." Corporations never lose money; they just experience "negative cash flow," "deficit enhancement," "net profit revenue deficiencies," or "negative contributions to profits."

(William Lutz, Rutgers University). What is forgotten is that this propaganda is not harmless but is toxic, and those who use it are doomed to eventually become deceived by it.

What they call "health care reform" has morphed into an under the table bailout of the predatory Insurance Institutions, one of the tentacles sucking the life out of the middle class and poor.

Those bankster bailouts right out in the open, done even when they were "on message", became unfashionable to "doublespeakers", once they felt the outrage of the public.

So the bailouts are now done surreptitiously through the time worn practices of deceit.

The U.S. news media, as usual, are unaware of the catastrophic damage this Saran Wrap phoniness is doing to the image of The United States of America in the eyes of The United States of Europe, as well as other nations in the world, who are far more sophisticated in health care matters.

They even know what the word "care" means.

Ye Olde Drone Hackers Ride Again

So the cavemen really are sophisticated enough to hack into our best and brightest?

They really did hack into military drone aircraft station KBOM to see our view of things? That is what the journalists are reporting:

"Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems."

(Wall Street Journal). Just for kicks lets remember that there are lots of posts which point out that security is the word the military thinkers use to scare the congress into trillions of dollars spent on useless wars and infrastructure improvement in foreign nations that many folks can't find on a map.

For forty years the military has been hackable. If you want a book that documented the current reality 40 years ago, read The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stoll. He had a difficult time convincing the military that it was being hacked as if it was an open book:

The meeting was top secret, so I couldn't listen—someone fetched me when my turn came. In a small room, lit only by the viewgraph machine, there were around thirty people, most of them in uniforms. Generals and admirals, like you see in the movies.

Well, I talked for half an hour, describing how the hacker was breaking into military computers and skipping through our networks.
...
I know as little about the military world as the next person. "I guess I'm impressed, though I'm not sure why," I said. "You ought to be," Bob said. "These are all flag officers. General John Paul Hyde works at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And that guy in the front row -- he's a big shot from the FBI. It's a good thing he heard you."

(ibid, The Cuckoo's Egg, p. 200). This took place 40 years ago when a long hair from Berkeley informed the military they were being had, so they gave the long haired hippy astronomer the National Medal of Honor.

But they did not fix the system, because when someone hacks the system they can go to congress yelling "security security" to scare congress into giving them more money not to fix it.

A related post is here.

Jobs Are On The Way Yesterday

The House passed what it calls a jobs bill last night 217-212.

That adds to the largest public works legislation in history, which promised jobs until 2009.

We really do not know where that money went that was supposed to be spent here in the U.S. to help the citizens of America, but it looks like it went to military expenditures for soldiers, weapons, and mercenaries (a.k.a. hired killers) doing endless wars in dead end corners of the world.

Or perhaps this new money will go toward increasing jobs in the new military oil complex venture into lands south of the Texas border.

Canadian CBC Covers 9/11 Commission

Bob McKeown, the journalist in the photo, has a record few Canadian journalists can match – two Emmys, three Geminis, and a Grey Cup.

Add to that a cast of journalists of the competent kind, then all of a sudden we have a news team worthy of consideration whose star, McKeown, recently headed up a documentary "The Unofficial Story" about 9/11 where he presents a little bit of both sides of the issue.

That is, he gives the official conspiracy theorists, such as some of the 9/11 Commissioners, as well as the unofficial conspiracy theorists, such as Architect Richard Gage, a little bit of a chance to present their views.

On main stream media in Canada no less, which is a bit different from the United States main stream media, who have not been allowed to do that so far.

Perhaps it is because one third of Canadians think criminal, rogue elements within the Bush II regime were somehow involved, while even more than that do not believe the 9/11 Commission Report was completely valid.

Most of the 9/11 Commissioners no longer believe their own accuracy any more either, now that new evidence and facts have developed.

But do not jump to false conclusions, typically drawn by "9/11 debunkers", as to what sceptics really want.

The now unofficial commissioner John Farmer, who wrote the original official story, only wants a new investigation, a new story.

The basic premises, upon which these now unofficial story tellers want a new commission, are:

Does Farmer have cooperation and agreement from other members of the Commission? Yes. Did they say Bush ordered 9/11? No. Do they say that the 9/11 Commission was lied to by the FBI, CIA, Whitehouse and NORAD? Yes. Is there full documentary proof of this? Yes.

(Salem News). We have to remember that even if "government officials" were involved they were criminal rogue elements, not valid government officials doing official government work.

The person who wrote the 9/11 Commission Report, John Farmer, has recently written a book repudiating the 9/11 Commission Report:

In John Farmer’s book: “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11″, the author builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version ... is almost entirely untrue ...

(ibid, Salem News). This is serious as a heart attack, and it is time that the "free press" of the United States faces up to its failure to have the courage to carry this new development to its logical conclusion.

It is essential to remember that no one in this story thinks that 9/11 was an official government event, it was at worst a smaller number of criminal, rogue elements working for the government, who had the appearance of officialdom which they used to hoodwink others in the government surreptitiously.

If the U.S. press was as powerful in investigative journalism as the Canadian CBC is, and was not owned by the military oil complex, we could have an open, objective, and fair discussion in main stream media of both sides of the issue here in this country.

"Kill Senate Health Care Bill"

After the latest Joe Lieberman escapades leading to Senate Leadership capitulation, Howard Dean said on last night's Keith Olbermann show Countdown, that the Senate bill on Health Care should be put out of its misery.

On radio he said:

"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate," Dean said. "Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill."

(Huffington Post). Is it not pathetic for a nation that exclaims peace to spend more on military than all the rest of the nations combined?

To spend less on health care than any other industrialized European nation?

A spending orgasm is just fine if it is spent on military or filthy rich banksters, but not fine if it goes to the middle class and poor?

No wonder we are falling from first place in significant areas of economics.

Military To "Drill" For Oil In S. America?

It was little noticed in U.S. media that the military oil complex is "shopping for oil" south of the mainland in Central and South America:

The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia.
...

And, this being US foreign policy, a tell-tale trail of oil is evident. Brazil had already expressed its unhappiness at the presence of US naval vessels in its massive new offshore oilfields off Rio de Janeiro, destined soon to make Brazil a giant oil producer eligible for membership in Opec.
...

The fact that the US gets half its oil from Latin America was one of the reasons the US Fourth Fleet was re-established in the region's waters in 2008. The fleet's vessels can include Polaris nuclear-armed submarines – a deployment seen by some experts as a violation of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons from the continent.

(Independent, emphasis added). One wonders if this is a phenomenon of the magic Christmas number 30 we recently discussed.

Under that military doctrine so long as 30 or less are likely to be killed in Afghanistan, the local commanders can do what they want there.

Is this doctrine applicable to say 30 nuclear submarines, 30 warships, 30 attack helicopters, 30 air to ground missiles, 30 divisions of marines, or 30 nuclear warheads?

There must be some reason Obama does not talk about this, is it because he does not know or because he is in denial about our oil addiction?

If he knew he would probably be emphasizing the job increase taking place in an incredible job surge in certain sectors.

The United States of Europe - 2

We discussed The United States of Europe, probably more commonly known as the EU or European Union, a while back.

One of the 27 nations in The United States of Europe, singly, without the help of its 26 other sister states in that union, is the largest exporter in the world:

Germany has been the world’s largest exporter of goods since 2003 and its companies have exported just under $1000bn worth of products, almost as much as the UK, France and the Netherlands combined. Indeed, exports generate some 40% of German GDP.

(Management Today). The economic propaganda at home in the United States of America is a fable of two economies, Wall Street vs. Main Street.

That is not a true picture in the ultimate sense, because my figures indicate that China has taken over second place after Germany, with the United States of America dropping to third for the first time ever.

The major difference among these nations is that the United States of America has been fighting wars for the past 30 years (which believe it or not folks, takes money from the economy then blows it up somewhere in the foreign world, takes money from the middle class and poor, giving it to strange countries lots of folks can't even find on a map) while the other nations have not been warring.

The toll these U.S. wars take is not just millions of homes lost, jobs lost, lives lost because health care is too expensive to afford, savings lost, and hope of the American dream lost.

The actual toll is damage to the nation as a whole, damage to economic institutions, and damage to the future of the nation.

The intellectual warmongers who have had the strongest influence on the nation for three decades, and counting, are doubling down in the face of this reality.

The imperialistic militarism that sought the oil of Iraq is now seeking the oil of the Americas:

The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development – and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it – is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent ... And, this being US foreign policy, a tell-tale trail of oil is evident.

(Independent). The political reality in the United States of America is that the military oil complex governs here.

As long as that is the reality behind the scenes, there will be economic problems for the middle class and poor.

UPDATE: Evidently China has now overtaken Germany as the #1 exporter.

 The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

The Judas Number - 30 - Pieces of Silver

How about a Christmas story?

Remember the story of Jesus?

I mean the one where one of his own disciples, Judas Iscariot, sold him out to his enemies for 30 pieces of silver?

The civilians of Afghanistan can relate to the number 30, because it is trivial for 30 of them to be killed by Americans, who are there to teach them to be civil, modern, and democratic.

Yep, if any thing like serious killing is going to go on (like killing more than 30 Afghanis at a time) there must be permission given by the Secretary of State as a matter of law.

See, we are a nation of laws, which makes us exceptional, hence American exceptionalism.

The Afghanis don't know how lucky they are to have a great progressive American Commander in Chief pulling for them do they?

He is sending the Judas number 30 more thousand of those who kill 30 at a time, praise General Judas.

Well you know that law stuff always has loopholes, so have you noticed that when a bunch of Afghanis are killed these days there are always about 30 Afghani civilians killed?

You haven't?

Now that is some seriously exact killing folks, legal, exceptional, and fully Judas. All the military needs to do is report "30" civilians for it to be defined as trivial, exact killing.

But that being said, can you believe that some ingrates think the 30 number is being fudged? Yes it is true:

On Monday, the anonymous blogger Security Crank noticed something interesting: all the U.S. and NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan seemingly kill exactly 30 people every time. How can that be?

(Air America). How unpatriotic can some people get? Jesus would not be happy with them, pass the ammo, 30 boxes please, and learn what to notice, and what not to notice.

That security crank who is 30 challenged even said:

But look, hopping onto Google News and typing “30 Taliban” or “30 suspected militants” brings up literally dozens of stories each year, stretching back at least to 2005. Indeed, thirty seems to be the magic number when it comes to arresting or killing off Taliban and other militant fighters in Afghanistan.

(Security Crank). As if that arithmetic of insubordination could not be topped, some one down in sweet home Alabama noticed the same thing:

Last August my piece Around the Hindu Kush, 30 is a Magic Number quoted 16 media items about different incidents in Afghanistan between February 2006 and August 2008. Each of those incidents involved "30 militants", "30 insurgents" or "30 enemies".

Since then the number 30 has not lost its magic. Here is an update with 18 incidents since August last year all of which involve the magic number:

(Moon of Alabama). That is Judas Priest ghastly to notice things like that with an unfaithful questioning mind. Doubt is of the devil!

Don't these dissidents know it is not a matter of magic, it is a matter of biblical proportions, as our high priest in chief explained to the French Fry dude?

Yes, our Judas Priest in Chief has specified a democratic number of 30 as the reason these things happen this way.

This biblical 30 is done so our wars are always just, and those we are fighting are always evil. Isn't that special? Isn't that magic!

It is a biblical proportion that should be told during Christmas Time, the season of heavenly peace we are bringing to lucky nations everywhere.

Notice the holy official foundation for this principle of Judas 30 law:

We don't know much about how it works, but in 2007, Marc Garlasco, the Pentagon's former chief of high-value targeting, offered a glimpse when he told Salon magazine that in 2003, "the magic number was 30." That meant that if an attack was anticipated to kill more than 30 civilians, it needed the explicit approval of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or President George W. Bush. If the expected civilian death toll was less than 30, the strike could be OKd by the legal and military commanders on the ground.

(LA Times). Hey detractors, you do know the meaning of "30 is ok" don't you? It means don't bother us with details of minor imperfection. Grace and forgiveness are the values of disciples of Christ doncha know?

This is sophisticated foreign policy based upon the King James Bible, which was good enough for Jesus, so it is also good enough for all our saintly body counters.

Warless Commander In Chief, President

It may be hard to believe, but some of the Presidents of the United States did not partake in wars during their time in office.

Here is a list of non-wartime Commanders In Chief whose military was at-ease, yes, U.S. Presidents who could focus on helping their own people, their own nation, at home:

* John Adams (2nd)
* John Quincy Adams (6th)
* Zachary Taylor (12th)
* Millard Fillmore (13th)
* Franklin Pierce (14th)
* Andrew Johnson (17th)
* Ulysses Grant (18th)
* James Garfield (20th)
* Chester Arthur (21st)
* Grover Cleveland (22nd)
* Benjamin Harrison (23rd)
* Grover Cleveland (24th)
* Theodore Roosevelt (26th)
* William Taft (27th)
* Calvin Coolidge (30th)
* Herbert Hoover (31st)
* Jimmy Carter (39th)

(Wikipedia). This is roughly 39% of those holding that office.

Which means that roughly 61% of the time U.S. Presidents are influenced by war, which James Madison (2 yr War of 1812, 4th President) called our greatest enemy.

Equally of note is that since Jimmy Carter left office, on January 20, 1981, we have been involved in wars.

That is about 28 years in a row with presidents involved in war and the war ideology, our worst enemy.

As we proclaim to the world that we are the exceptional nation of peace, our war budgets involve more war money than all of the rest of the nations of the earth combined.

Is it any wonder that we have a serious credibility problem?

Obama Is No James Madison

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, the good father, good American, good husband, and good politician Barack Hussein Obama said that he was Commander In Chief of the military of a nation.

He went on to indicate that his situation in that role mandated what he had done, escalating the war in Afghanistan, a war already having gone on longer than WW I and WW II put together.

He then rationalized his war escalating mentality with the abstract "because there are just wars" obfuscation, the context arguing that his Afghanistan war escalation was just.

He mentioned those who had won the peace prize before him, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, then indicated he could not be a head of state and be one of the likes of them at the same time.

Thus, he projected a false choice wrapped in an illusion all at the same time.

James Madison is called the "Father of the Constitution", was a Cabinet Member, was a Congressman, and was the 4th Commander in Chief, the 4th President of the United States.

President and Commander in Chief James Madison said:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other [enemy of public liberty]. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied : and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established."

(Toxins of Power, emphasis added). Clearly by his own words President Obama is no James Madison nor Martin Luther King, Jr.

By his own choice to escalate that war President Obama chose to kowtow to the military oil complex he says he commands.

By his own choice to escalate that war President Obama chose to reject the will of his people, who he says command him.

War Is Peace (When We Do It)

When you go to accept a prize for peace then glorify war in your newspeak, you are bound to please the intellectual warmongers.

Warsters tell us that war is peace when we do it, war is just and holy when we do it, because there is evil in the world (evil defined as whatever we are opposing) because we are real.

(Our forefather was not real when he fathered the U.S. Constitution?)

Warsters say we are also exceptional, inerrant, and resistance is futile.

Whoopee doo hey la di la my BORG friend's back and there's gonna be trouble.

The Orwellian doublethink continues, only it is in a different colored package with "NEW" stamped on it:

And one of the striking features of the modern period is the institutionalization of that [propaganda] process, so that we now have huge industries deceiving the public — and they're very conscious about it, the public relations industry. Interestingly, this developed in the freest countries—in Britain and the US—roughly around time of WWI, when it was recognized that enough freedom had been won that people could no longer be controlled by force. So modes of deception and manipulation had to be developed in order to keep them under control.

And by now these are huge industries. They not only dominate marketing of commodities, but they also control the political system. As anyone who watches a US election knows, it's marketing. It's the same techniques that are used to market toothpaste.

(Chomsky, emphasis added). Congratulations when you are spreading insanity in the world as if there was such a thing as a just, holy disease? No, no congratulations.

The question is not whether or not there are just, holy wars in the abstract, the question is whether the war one is fighting at a given time is a just, holy war or not.

As any war continues it becomes increasingly unjust, even if it began as a just war, so it is unlikely that any war, which had no exit strategy when it began, can be called a just war.

Somebody X kills 3,000 men, women, and children in Somebody Y cities, so in what Somebody Y calls a just, holy war Somebody Y kills 10,000 men, women, and children of Somebody X and Somebody Z for each 1 person killed of Somebody Y? Because Somebody Y is more just and holy than Somebody X and Somebody Z?

Face up to it, your endless wars are not endlessly just, are a mad cow disease that engenders doublespeak, newspeak, and all the other germs dangerous to a free people as James Madison said.

Of course it does not matter in a military oil complex governed nation, because freedom is simply nothing left to lose.

Political Limbo - How Low Can You Go?

Politics (a.k.a. "justice") once lagged behind the old limbo song by Chubby Checker, which had the lyrics "how low can you go".

But lowliness of the corrupt kind is now taking over the race to be the number one low life in America. The Department of Just Us having been resurrected following the election, is leading the way by now seeking to protect John Yoo, one of those mentally impaired from time spent in the new department that now draws the worst of humanity to it.

And what used to be an impeachable offense, one president having been impeached thereby, is now not enough to impeach even a governor who stole state funds while doing it, then lied about it as well.

How far we have fallen, from a president that would have put Cheney in jail, to one that dances when Cheney sings.

United States Of Spend & Spin

When times are good the Senate, House, and President want to spend, because "it is the thing to do now".

When times are recession bad the Senate, House, and President want to spend, because "it is the thing to do now".

Even though that is a united state, still there is insufficient understanding of economics in our government.

That united state is spin (propaganda) and spend which is touted as a panacea but it is obviously not a panacea.

Keeping healthy laws on the books that will punish errant bankers or errant militant generals is not on the table, no, that good wisdom that was always on the table has now been put in the garbage.

The economists are hand picked yes-men or yes-women who only want to spend OUR money against OUR will on absolutely stupid senseless wars that waste, waste, waste, finally destroying our reputation, finally eradicating our prosperity.

We have pointed out record massive spending bills unleashed by the republican president and congress just before the great recession hit us. We have criticized continuation of that policy without stopping the wars since the democrats have been given the congress and the presidency.

This is the age of The Plunder Barons, and we will not recover from their excesses unless we vote them out of office.

They will pay in 2010 and 2012, because a get rid of incumbents moment has arisen.

Not Really Mr. President

I have been asking a question in two posts recently, and I hope the president did not answer when he said:

"We avoided the depression many feared," Obama said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. But, he added, "Our work is far from done."

(Yahoo, NPR). Lately when he says "we" he is also talking about right wing idealists he kowtows to, calling it "bipartisanship". No it is kowtowing.

So, I don't know who the "we" is, but his predecessor was a right wing idealist who did not prevent the recession.

Just before Obama took office, in economic effect terms, "the most expensive public works legislation in U.S. history" was passed to "create jobs until 2009" by "we" the government.

The last two presidents both like war, and spending like a drunken sailor, not realizing that the wars of forever are causing the problem in the first place.

Dick Cheney may have run things for Bush II, but it looks like Secretary Gates is running things in two administrations. Running things into the bloody ground of war.

In Defense of Andrew Sullivan

One of the reasons Andrew Sullivan criticized neoCons is their climate change denial rhetoric.

He says: "I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy."

It is an important time that Mr. Sullivan chose to make his statement, because the Copenhagen summit is upon us.

As many as 56 newspapers in 45 countries are making a unified statement to encourage a successful conference.

Here is an excerpt from the joint statement:

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

(Editor & Publisher). The oil barons are behind a massive campaign to generate denial of the global weather reality.

They have lost in the courts, lost in the EPA deliberations, and have lost the people too.

Sunday-Monday, Can't Trust That Day

Todd Palin purchased his lovely wife a pocket Tazer for their anniversary, then submitted this:

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Last weekend I saw something at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest.

The occasion was our 15th anniversary or so, and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Sarah.

What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse- sized tazer.

The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety??

WAY TOO COOL! Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing. I was disappointed.

I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I’d get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. AWESOME!

Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Sarah what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave. Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right?

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it.

She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a muslim, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and tazer in another.

The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water or a holy roller gettin' healed.

Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries by sending them muslims to the place they collect their 70 virgins. All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5” long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, ‘no possible way!’ What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best?

I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, ‘don’t do it dipshit,’ reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn’t hurt all that bad.

I decided to give myself a one second burst just for heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and ... OILAH AKBAR! ... WEAPONS OF MASS DESECRATION ... WHAT THE HELL ...

I’m pretty sure Jessie Ventura in priest robes ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs like when I got saved the second time.

The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to ‘mug’ yourself with a tazer, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative? IT HURT LIKE LOSIN' A 'LECTION!

A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace.

The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. Like John Boy McCain, I had no control over the drooling.

Apparently I pooped on myself, but was too numb to know for sure and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which I believe came from my hair. I’m still looking for my nuts and I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return!

P.S … My wife, can’t stop laughing about my mavericky experience, loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!

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What ever happened to that comic strip called "There Outta Be a Law"?