Still busy

While I wait for life's usual way of getting in the way of fun some more fluff to fill your day.


Hey it beats elevator music. No?

Wed. funnies

Some Wed. funnies for your viewing pleasure. Busy right now. If I'm not back by Fri. send a rescue pussy squad would ya?

XL and I don't mean men's big and tall

                                     

I always thought conservatism meant to conserve to be frugal with ones resources. How diametrically opposed the republican party seems to be with that way of thinking. They were the ones who came up with the slogan "drill baby drill". And it's been the U.S. policy to do just that over the last 10 or 15 years. Our oil supply has increased substantially in spite of what they'd have us believe.   But what people fail to realize is that the building of the Keystone pipeline will have risks and potential damage to our environment that far outweigh the benefits.  The initial economic impact will be the creation of some construction jobs and maybe some maintenance positions later but the bulk of the profits will not be seen here in the U.S. but by foreign companies who have a strangle hold on the world's oil supply. I suspect that little if any of this oil will see the light of day in our country but be shipped to ports in China and other developing countries. It is after all dirty cheap oil. And there in lies another problem the pollution generated by burning this oil in China where environmental laws are lax. I can't think of a time when our factories here were required to shut down because the air pollution was so bad. It's estimated that a great deal of our air pollution on the west coast comes from China. One can only imagine what this is doing to the oceans as well. 

Another thing about this oil from what I'm hearing is that it's similar to Bunker C oil. For those that don't know Bunker oil is the crap oil that they use to run the oil tankers. It's about as thick as peanut butter and has to be heated to be used. To do an oil clean up you first have to spray it with diesel to break it down. That is after you've scraped the bulk off. It's a very messy job and takes far longer than a regular spill. 

People fail to realize the long term cost benefits of renewable energy and conservation measures. We see renewable energy projects crop here and there and some are even sponsored by the oil companies but this is just lip service to and a mere pittance of what other countries spend. There is no way we can compete with countries like China with things like solar panels because their labor costs are so low. 

Will it be built? I suspect it will, but it's going to take a bit more legal wrangling as more than one state is involved unlike when they built the Alaska pipeline. If you recall the folks in Alaska got so many royalties that they had no taxes and each resident got a check from the oil companies. I don't think that will happen this time around. The oil companies are just too greedy now.

So as they say (or used to) in the trucking business "Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down".

News neatly hidden... not "for your eyes only"

                                         
                                                    Protests in Spain - Madrid central square

(Crowd estimates were in the tens of thousands. I'd put it at nearly a million with 30 cities participating)


While you were busily distracted by the latest diversion be it a NASCAR crash or the latest anticipation of who will be wearing what designer dress to the Oscars, the rest of the world was keenly focused on more important matters at hand. We here in the U.S. might be distracted with such mundane events all the while the rest of the world is scraping to get by. 

 Neatly hidden and not so much as a scrap of reporting is a protest that occurred in Spain yesterday. Why should we care? That's a spanish problem you're thinking. Ah but it's not. It's exactly the same problem in country after country from Greece to Iceland. As has been stated here before you can not eat yourself skinny and you can not bolster an economy by cutting away jobs. But this scenario has more sinister undertones. This is theft on a grand scale and yet those in power have so neatly hidden the fact that it's still going on. If austerity measures weren't bad enough the Spanish kings' son made off with $8 million of the people's money. Would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when he showed up recently at a Swiss bank wanting to make such a large deposit. 

 Trust it seems these days is a fleeting comodity. We're seeing the same with Ponzi schemes and embezelments here but on a minor scale. Easier to keep focus on low hanging fruit while the wales make off with the entire house if you know what I mean. It's getting harder and harder to dig for such nuggets of real news as the primary sources have been bought and paid for by those wanting to hide your prying eyes. They keep the fear machine going with you the victim as their primary suspect. It must be your fault because they are too busy pleading the 5th behind closed doors and in secret meetings all veiled as a "national security" issue. Yeah if we found out the facts we'd have their heads on a platter. 

So here we sit with baited breath waiting as hopes and dreams rest like an SUV balanced on the head of a pin. Will they or won't they push it when only a tiny nudge will do? No, my suspicions are that they'll once again keep it neatly balanced. After all the theft can't continue if drastic changes are made. 

 Stay tuned as we continue our quest for an honest man or woman, Sorry but we'll have to wade through quit a few wrap sheets to get there.

Friday pussy counting cat

                                              

Anymore the news is becoming a bean counter's wet dream. Anything that can does seem to boil down to numbers on a page if you just look close enough. And don't get me started on percentages. More lies have shown their ugly heads than a liar's convention on that.

Everything from prison sentences to daily mortality figures grace our headlines. A steady litany in every article. The important ones it seems are buried when it comes to actual numbers. Try finding out what a tax or fee increase will mean to you and the real figure is conveniently hidden at the end of the piece. That was definitely the case in the health care act. And who after all is going to wade through 600 plus pages to get to that little golden nugget?

Then there are the numbers that somehow don't make it to the nightly news. Conveniently erased like a Schwarzenegger movie their nowhere to be found. Let's talk 100,000,000 yes I said 100 m as in million. That's how many people who have been on strike in India for the last two days. And while attention has been on the "if it bleeds it leads" headline of a bomb explosion, the 100 million went unnoticed. And once again those purveyors of austerity would like nothing more than scalp the poor in India. The minimum wage (yes they have that there in some places at least) is a paltry $790 a month excluding taxes I'm sure. Try feeding a dog on that in this country. But somebody thinks that's spoiling the riff raff and would like to lower it. Guess times are tough there too when you can't dump your cheap duds off on Walmart.

It's true that on any given day that a certain number of souls leave this planet. We're hopeful they left at a ripe old age but then we know that's not the case. With gun shot wounds and bomb blasts the saints just keep marching in and no I don't want to be in that number. 70,000 here 100,000 there and soon the numbers add up. Almost enough to consider the mortuary profession. You sure don't run out of business there ever. And speaking of deaths...

Bank fails later
UPDATE: No bank deaths this week.

Still more news you can't use

Posting has been light I know. The news it seems goes round and round chasing it's tail and never winning. What would it do if it caught it anyway? So with that thought we present the latest and greatest washed rinsed and repeated of current events:

Freeze for Florida's citrus belt.

That happens. Crank up the sprinklers and hope it's not a long freeze. I bet those betting against orange juice futures are licking their chops.

Obama presses GOP to halt automatic spending cuts.

Not going to happen. Both sides of the aisle would have to answer to their wall street handlers. War is big business you know.

Nestle withdraws beef products.

Oh just run with it boys. N.E.S.T.L.E.S Nestle's makes the very best h o r s e  m e a t. Comes in chocolate covered too.

Russia asks: How to stop space objects from hitting earth?

Well if you wouldn't shoot so much junk up there in the first place might be a good first start. 

Seven reasons not to take a cruise vacation.

I can think of more than that. The idea of a cheap condom comes to mind for some reason. I'll let you make your own jokes on that thought.

Big diamond heist in Brussels.

Were they worried that maybe extremists might have gotten in and blown up air craft or the terminal? Of course not! In a statement:

"This is causing quite some unrest," said De Wolf. "It was incredible how easy it all went. This is worrying in terms of competitiveness, since other diamond centers are ready to pounce and take over our position."

Banksters gangsters and the government

It' been what something like six years since the banks took their fall from grace and were handsomely rewarded with buckets of "our" cash and yet not one frog walk to a federal pen for any one of them. Steal a loaf of bread can get you at least a couple of years for a repeat offender and in some states it's life. Steal the whole store chain and get a life of ease and a hefty bonus.

And what better way to make that job easier than to own the rule makers. Can almost hear it now. "Do what we say or next election cycle you'll be out on your can". And it doesn't matter which party you vote for they have them all tied up like a kidnapped victim. Be the party of the people and watch the other side booby trap your plans. Fil is such a Buster ain't he? And don't give me that bipartisan BS either. Break that one down you get "bi" meaning 2, "part" being the body and "I san" or I take away.

This week an agreement was reached or at least part of it about disclosure of those numbered Swiss banks accounts that everybody has talked about since we were kids. The act called FATCA is set to go into effect in 2014. After looking through the finer points of this, one might conclude that nothing will change. And you'd be right. It requires Swiss banks to disclose accounts but not necessarily to the IRS directly. They may choose to do so but that's not a requirement of the Act. They only have to disclose information to their government. It will be up to the IRS to seek the information from the Swiss government. You can just about smell that fishy smell in Geneva can't you? So once again the banksters have gained hold of the government. Maybe this bill should have been called by a better name like FATCAT. 

If we think this will change anything it probably won't. They may catch one or two of these tax cheaters but only the ones too slow to get their money out and off to a safe place in the Caymans before the amnesty program hit. And judging by how much our congress is tied up in knots I can only wonder what hold they have on the IRS. Keep your eyes peeled. That could be the next breaking story. 

Friday pussy OMG! I didn't report that

Israel trys to cover up the fact that they held an Australian citizen in jail under a different name. After further review it turns out he had duel citizenship Israeli and Australian. They held him on unknown charges in a maximum security facility only identifying him by the name prisoner X. After considering this matter I can only surmise that he was spying for the Australians as neither government would talk about the matter. But the real kicker in all this is that the Israeli government though they could control information by putting a gag order on the media. That might have worked way back when secrets were kept in a safe, not so with today's internet and the quest for the latest scoop. A simple leak to a foreign news agency and the cat is out of the bag with local papers quoting foreign sources.

Not much to report today until the next earthquake fire or flood. The weather is fairly nice today and I've given up on sports. Let them build another half billion dollar stadium it won't get my butt in one of their seats. Especially when ticket prices can go for a hundred bucks and that's without the parking or popcorn.

Bank fails later UPDATE: One bank failed this week in Chicago,IL.

NGO

Would you trust this guy?

NGO = No good organization

Personally I could care less about what a religion does inside the confines of their own building as long as it comes close to something resembling moral. They can wear silk panties in their heads and whistle "Dixie" it wouldn't matter to me. But 50+ years of child abuse and rape are nothing to be scoffed at. And everybody seems to forget the Spanish Inquisition ( know body expects the the Spanish Inquisition) only it was really the Catholic Inquisition. 

So it appears we are at a major turning point in history. There are those who delve into science and want to understand how our world works on one side and those that think it's all magic and mystical and damn him who tries to understand it on the other. This is true even in Catholicism, Islam and the fundamentals of other faiths. Wouldn't want to rip the curtain down and see that the all powerful Oz was just an ordinary guy like you and me now. It was all just a way to throw about superstition and control the masses. We all have that uncertainty deep in the brain about metaphysical things. But as time passes and our understanding increases things don't look so spooky.

Now we have the pope stepping down. We've heard various stories as to why he would do this just before an Easter holiday. We knew of the infighting amongst his inner circle from the butler. There's been the law suits from past victims of priests and just a year or so ago there was corrupt dealings with construction bids of the church. Thought I had the smoking gun but it turns out to be just another complaint form in a long list complaints. But I suspect something bigger was about to break soon. We'll have to wait and see.

I feel bad for those who attended a Catholic school. I had several friends growing up who did.  From the cracked knuckles and mean nuns I can say it's not a place I'd care to be. But it's the guilt trips that were hoisted on young people that's the biggest turn off. That and the fact that celibate men held so much power over children and abused it. Children were starved beaten and raped all in the name of a deity. All neatly covered up because there was some innate fear of the church's power. So to those parents out there who's children were abused I say run do not walk to the nearest exit. And you can tell them what they can do with their bell book and candle. 

GMO NGO and OMG

It was the mystery of the bees. Those industrious little creatures that assist with our food production took a turn for the worse. Disappeared like teens at a house party with the sounds of distant police sirens. Speculation, analysis and the Sherlocky of Holmes could not break this puzzle. A virus? A bacteria? Or some nasty klingon proved to be no answer.  But someone had the wherewithal to investigate the food stuff that permitted these little buggers to survive. 

Monsanto in it's infinite stupidity (after all what's a life worth when you're making big bucks) decided to engineer crops complete with it's own supply of Raid. A whiz bang idea I'm sure around some brain storming conference table but this is the real world we live in. With all their engineering and chemical degrees not one of them stopped to consider how plants are pollinated. The brainiacs were more concerned about getting rid of pesky weevils and other crop damaging pests to think about the whole process. And this has been no less than a disaster for all involved. You would think that the tiniest amount of altruistic values were at play but you'd be wrong. Monsanto realizing that once word of its' lemons (GMO seeds) got out they'd have to make lemonade which they did. A rather devious legal maneuver and the fact that crops cross pollinate gave them the "in".  They could now say that farmer Browns' crops were part of their "patented" process when they planted their own on the plot next door. It was after all identifiable with it's own unique DNA. So rather than make money the old fashioned way by actually making something they set about to make bowkoo bucks by suing farmers. Pay up royalties or lose the farm or both became the corporate mantra.

Should this all play out as I'm sure you can perceive then Monsanto could have a strangle hold on the world's entire food supply. James Bond never faced such an evil plot. So should this proceed without some type of intervention there'll be no need to slap a GMO label on your supermarket goodies because they'll all be genetically engineered. And it's a safe bet that this stuff can't be good for human consumption because look what it did to the bees. Sorry Monsanto I'm not a lab rat and I don't think anyone else cares to be one either. 

NGOs? Maybe tomorrow

Busy busy busy

Just too much useless news to report and I have better things to do.

The storm of the year/ decade/ century is over and the arduous task of shoveling out begins. They sure hyped that one. So what happens when the next bigger storm hits? They'll have to make up new adjectives to grace our language. Fear always sells you know. And if that doesn't work it's sex or food are always good standbys but that's a bit difficult to tie into a weather map. 

Solar flares are headed this way. Nothing to really worry about here folks or so they say unless you want to watch some pretty night time lights in the sky. Around here that would be about as likely as seeing a polar bear and a black bear on the same day. This is western Washington in the winter for cripes sake. And it's always wise to take what "they" say with a grain of salt too. "They" wouldn't lie to us now would "they"?

So now that we're just about back to cute puppies and cuddly kittens the real stories are being covered up like a red headed step child. Banks are back to their old tricks only now they'd like to suck the remaining life blood from your home equity and retirement before your passing. Syria continues to be a killing field with those that can get out are headed for the exits. Folks in Egypt are none too happy about the changes in that country and it looks like Morsi is wanting to take lessons from Iran. Greece is at near civil war while the austerity measures in the UK are about to stir up trouble there. And in the U.S. we wait for a budget not knowing if our leaders will follow the same path. But let's face it this country has been gutted from the inside out when greed took hold and outsourcing was the way to go.

So let us all enjoy our distractions while we can things could be worse but I don't know how. Hopefully those at the top will begin to realize that if they keep going they way they are those in the middle and bottom won't be around. But the pesky Peonage is hard to get rid of. Got to keep somebody around to rake the garden and clean the toilets. 

Blizzards and earthquakes and tornadoes oh my!

I just loved the above image borrowed from one Susan Madrak. I can only think of one time we got a snow day from school sometime in the early 60s. I believe it was a Sunday afternoon when it started snowing and it didn't stop until late the next day with something like 26 inches. Again it was one of those fluke weather patterns similar to today's events. How quickly we forgot those record breaking heat wave temperatures we had that killed people and the draught that's hit the midwest for the past few years. And the fires and heat that hit Australia just a short time ago. I'm hearing that such shifts in climate will be a boon to Canadian farming that is if the water doesn't dry up. So instead of oil pipelines maybe we should be installing water lines. Makes sense to me.

 It's laughable that people complain where other people live when there's a disaster. Shouldn't have built so close to the ocean or river is the cry never realizing that things change and there really is no "safe" place to live. Live in a valley and risk flooding. Live in the mountains and risk an avalanche. Or maybe on a fault line that nobody knew about until recently. Pick a coast or the flatlands of the midwest and there'll be some problem. Don't like tornadoes then don't live in Kansas Dorothy. If you want stability then go live on an astroid but don't come crying to me it it should hit something.

So there it is I'm to lazy to blog. Now go do something productive like find that lost pen cap. And that sock you lost in the washer still needs a mate.

Friday pussy... So it's austerity you'll be wantin then is it?

You know the economy's bad when you go to a store and are accosted by no less then three sales clerks as soon as you walk in the door. Had I stepped back to the 1950s or what?  "Let me guide you right over to the aisle where you want to be", said the older clerk with the store apron as he's handing me the newest discount flyer. Didn't know if I looked like J. Gotrocks with hundreds hanging out of me pockets. The cashiers stood in eager anticipation kind of like sharks at feeding time.  "And don't forget we have a sale next week and since your a "preferred" customer you get to come in a day early and there's a 20% discount for everything you can squeeze into a bag" says her. She did just about everything but preform oral sex on me before I was out the door. All this and I only bought $3 worth of stuff. 

In Greece life for the common folk isn't looking too good. The massive tax increases and cuts to pensions are taking their toll. As I reported in an earlier blog post a while back the Greek government had imposed a 29% tax that was tied to their electric bill. Don't pay it and your power was cut off. Now I'm hearing that the total tax increase is up to 40% of income along with a 50% cut in pensions. Greeks being resourceful people have turned to burning wood for heat which has lead to air pollution alerts in the city of Athens and elsewhere in addition to tree poachers. The going joke in Athens these days: When asked about a pile of furniture in the corner the homeowner responds "That's my retirement  plan". 

Greece is set to sell T-bills on Feb 12 not to get the country rolling again but only to roll over existing debt. The banksters buy the bonds and use them as collateral to draw liquidity from the central bank. In short that means less money supply in the economy which is great for the banksters as that raises interest rates but causes prices to rise on everything else. Now you know what it means to throw gasoline on a fire, economically speaking.

If that did make you pause and wonder things in the UK are not much better. A bill that just passed parliament imposes a "bed room tax". That's right anyone having a spare bedroom now gets their tax credit on the household cut by about $100 a month. Sounds much like our mortgage deductions here in the U.S. But the kicker is that now the government expects people to just move to a smaller place when there is a shortage of housing. The other solution suggested was to ask for more hours at work to cover that cost. Yeah right! First thing I've ever heard out of a supervisors' mouth is "there's no overtime here!" 

My suggestion to them was to start knocking out some walls and make a couple of one bedroom flats but they informed me that the authorities inspect places once each year. This program was set up to punish the working poor because this is subsidized housing we're talking about. Nothing like kicking a guy when he's down eh? Can't be denyin the rich banksters their cushy offices or their spare vacation homes now could we?

And here's the perfect gift tie for your mortgage banker compliments of those who lost their homes through no fault of their own.   

Bank fails later.
UPDATE: No banks failed this week.

The times they are a changing

Everyone realizes that things never stay the same. Life rolls on and it seems gets faster the farther into this we get.  We know the latest and greatest always gets replace with the next latest and greatest. It also seems that traditions never last forever. How much has changed over the years. Can't remember the last time a gas station jockey checked the oil or washed the windshield. Anybody remember when the mailman came twice a day? There once was a time when milk was delivered to your door. A white uniformed guy in a white truck clanking glass bottles at 3 AM. These days he'd probably get shot for trying that. There was the eggman and the breadman but they fell victim to the super duper markets cropping up. Exactly how they ever made their profit margins in the first place is still a mystery.

So now we have the elimination of Saturday mail service. Can't seem to recall getting a bill on a Saturday. They always seemed to arrive on Fridays just before getting a paycheck. In one hand and out the other as I always say. You can pretty much see where this is all headed. Companies will force you to do everything on line. Simple at first with offers of reduced rates and discounts. Then once they have you trapped they start adding little hidden fees even though your bill is untouched by human hands or viewed by human eyes for that matter. All costing the company almost nothing and let us not forget their wonderful customer service outsourced to a foreign land where semi english speaking people read from scripts and have no clue about you or even how the system works.

And now the lowly iron is being kicked out of Monopoly. I seriously can't remember the last time I played the game but it's the principal of the thing. I didn't mind getting the iron. It was an easy piece to maneuver for small hands, even had a handle. It's also amazing that they even sell many of these games today with the latest and greatest shoot em up video games as competition. But I guess there's emerging markets just ripe for this sort of thing. And those developing third world countries probably wouldn't know what do do with an iron if they saw one. Come to think of it I haven't seen one in years myself.

Not much justice in the world but some

Two banks near Seattle and their executive board are being sued by FDIC for their fraudulent practices. All well and good if the executives face prison time in my opinion. Unfortunately I know how these things work out. The bank gets off with a slap on the wrist. The execs walk scott free while people are evicted and the taxpayer is left holding the bag.

Bank of America or should we call them by their rightly name Scum of America is also being sued for evicting people over the Christmas holiday even after a moratorium on evictions had been declared.  I've seen too many cases where these guys get away with murder. In one case a man who had been current on his payments and even had the receipts to prove it was evicted had his car repossessed and lost his job all because his payments weren't filed correctly by the bank. All he got was a lame letter of apology from the bank.

Now if this doesn't get your goat our wonderful justice department has decreed that they can hunt down and kill any American citizen at will. No charges, no trial, no how do you do, all done by secret laws that can't be challenged or even seen. And we thought Soviet Russia was a bad place. Over 4000 people have been killed this way since the start of the Iraq war. Mainly in Pakistan, one 16 year old was the American born son of a Pakistani national. His only crime. Being born to a man suspected of terrorism. Last I checked we have something in our constitution about due process and a right to a fair trial. Think it's called the 4th amendment.

This country is on a slow simmer folks and it's not going to take much more to make it boil over the top.

More stupid news you can't use

Arizona student suspended 

For using an assault rifle as a wallpaper for his school issued computer. I seem to recall being in grade school and we did a mural of WWII on butcher paper for all to see complete with depictions of troops guns bombs and explosions and nothing was ever said about it. This was a class project where everybody added their artwork to the long scroll. How times have changed.

Inventor of the Etch-A-Sketch dies

Almost faded into history until the toy was briefly revived by Mitt Romney's attempt at the White House. The toy once made in the U.S. fell victim to off-shoring and was soon left to the bottom of the toy box with the rise of hand held video games. Never could get a good curved line with that thing.

You say Vukovar I say Bykobap

Croats are incensed that the cyrillic alphabet is being foisted upon their town. This is an effort to comply with the new european unions' minority rights standards. Good grief what are they now French Canada? Although you will notice most of our products here now come with spanish labels. And I'm one of those purists who turns the packaging around to the "american" label side.  I figure hey if you're going to live in a country at least have enough respect to learn the language. When in Rome do as the romans do and all that. 

And along those lines it appears that one of the Russian government ministers would like nothing more than ban all foreign words from the language. Good luck with that Igor. Modern languages are so fluid at the moment they change as fast as a fleeting text message. Foreign words can have a certain punch that's not found in the native vocabulary.  What would football be here without the "blitz" (german) or that dizzy blonde being called a dumb "dora" (russian)? Couldn't head down to the local eatery without using a french word now could you?

Ex Navy sniper killed at gun range

Well so much for your idea that well armed people can protect themselves. This guy had more experience than all of us put together, was at a gun range with other experienced gun owners and yet was killed. Then there was the idiot woman testifying that women should own assault rifles to protect their babies. Here's a question for you Mrs. Winchester. How fast do you think you can unlock a gun cabinet when there's a prowler breaking in the front door? And what happens when junior finds the keys to the gun safe and decides to play Rambo? 

Marines have doubts about women in combat roles

I have my doubts too. Having worked in the construction field for 20 odd years I've known only 4 women in the field in all that time. Two quit to seek other careers. One died from the physical demands and one other has been relegated to less physical positions like spotter or flagger. She also messed up her leg on a job and may have to retire on disability.

As for the military I'd like to see an all female special combat unit. Try that one out and see how it works.  

News you can't use ground pig edition

The ground pig crawls out of his hole and checks the weather report. And the reality is that a bunch of weirdoes  dressed in top hats and tails have nothing better to do than yank some poor critter out of its' nice warm den mid winter. And unless he was already awake it's a sure bet he'd like to bite somebody and run back to bed. Wouldn't you?

Ah but not to be out done I'm sure there are other prognosticating critters out there. It's said that we have a forecasting frog around here but this is a new one on me. And whoever came up with these ideas must have stayed out to late with the boys and couldn't get back in the house. If you know what I mean.

So tell me about your prognosticating pets. Is there a gopher in Georgia who beats the odds. Or maybe an anteater in Alabama (oh that's right they don't get much winter there). Maybe a moose in Montana has the inside scoop. Horse manes were once an indicator I'm told along with fussy caterpillars.  Let's face it with the shift in the magnetic poles and enough carbon belched into the air it's a wonder anybody can get anything right. No global warming you say? Ha! Tell that to the folks in the south pacific who's homes are now underwater. And it wasn't that way just a decade ago.

But what would useless news be without something about the economy. I stumbled upon a unique solution to our financial crisis. We'll pay off the debt using Zimbabwean dollars. It's the perfect solution. They have amongst their currency a $100 trillion bank note just itching to solve all our financial troubles. Think about it. Geez we'd have money left over to do it all again. You will also note that their logo has a familiar resemblance to a pile of fecal material. How appropriate.

In politics it looks like they're running out of village idiots to hold office so I guess they'll have to change the rules and start importing. The asylums are empty now you know. I'd say the brothels might be full but I don't think anybody uses those anymore, too old school. Not with senators tweeting and sexting and posting naughty self portraits on the web. And let us not forget the groupies wanting to rub more than elbows.  Hey it takes two to tango you know. 

In sports Big Pharma is busy coming up with the latest and greatest non detectable muscle enhancers. Those grid iron behemoths will try anything to get the edge. Why don't we just let Monsanto take over and have "ultimate" football and baseball? Kind of like unlimited hydro racing we have here. Picture those Goliaths if you will. 

So it's back to weather which was the start of this all. Unless something weird happens here which is a possibility then it looks like a fairly mild winter for us. And you don't need an aardvark or wolverine to make that prediction.  

Friday Pussy Puzzle

Sometime the apparent is just that but we know in war the truth is always the first casualty. Such may be the case of Israel bombing targets inside Syria. But I suspect Syria actually did tell the truth when it reported a military research facility being bombed on Wednesday. I like puzzles and digging for the truth. But sometimes it's not easy when information gets cast down the black whole of the news cycle. I have a memory for obscure details. Now if I could just remember where I left my coffee cup two minutes ago I'd have it made.

What happened in Syria on Wednesday I believe was well planned. That's how the Israelis work. They do nothing without spending much time gathering the right intel and mapping out a precise operation. It's why they tend to be successful nearly every time and when they aren't there's always a good cover up. There's been two or three stories to what happened on Wednesday but only one is accurate. So we go back a few months and look at the events. The timing of all this was incredible. In November our secretary of state is called to leave a meeting in Cambodia with the president to fly to the middle east to deal with the Israeli Palestinian issue. At that time Israel was bombing Palestine with 100 palestinians dead. Interesting to note that at the same time in Syria they were having 100 dead per day. We know that the Israeli elections were coming up soon and the Israeli people were becoming more concerned with day to day life and not about some war mongering leader. They also weren't too thrilled with having to dodge incoming Palestinian missiles. So I'd bet that some other things were discussed between Clinton and Netanyahu.

Now we know Israel is not about to go after the nuclear facilities in Iran. That would be a fools' game. But with so much blood shed in Syria at the time and the U.S. being unable to help other than paid mercenary assistance which is very limited at best, it was easier to let the Israelis do part of the job. We were after all concerned about chemical weapons that Assad might use. But would he? That's doubtful. Even his own troops wouldn't be that stupid. This is an urban setting they're fighting in over there and it's a safe bet that their use would make for more problems. Remember this fight or should we say slaughter involves not just the Syrian army but several other groups that back Assad. Wouldn't want to wipe out your supporters now would you?

You must admit that the timing of the operation by the Israelis was near perfect. Assad's troops were busy fighting in Allepo, the weather there was bad and there were a few other diversions. One has to wonder about Lebanese air defenses and those of the Syrians as well. A strike at just the right time? Or did someone allow this to happen? We may never know but it sure makes for an interesting puzzle.


Bank fails later as usual.  
UPDATE: No bank fails this week