Mixed nutz and other news you can't use

(This is not an endorsement for whole foods or any other company. And no nutz were injured in the making of this presentation)

Just love taking the news and twisting it around to fit my snarky devious brain. Some people collect stamps or drier lint, well this is my diversion.

Fed officials spend week trying to calm investor fears about interest rate hikes.

Oh my get them a fainting couch. As if they didn't make a killing while the rest of us suffered.

British PM David Cameron backs Taliban peace talks on Afghan visit.

Okay just drop the last part there and the headline would read "Cameron backs Taliban". And now you know how right wingers think never reading any farther.

Obama urges dialogue instead of violence in Egypt.

There's the pot calling the kettle black. How about Obama stop killing people with drones before he opens his hypocritical mouth?

100th Tour de France begins in Corsica

Don't forget your caffeine pills boys or whatever it is to get the edge. Why not just have a steroids unlimited competition? That might make things interesting.

128 degree temps hit the southwest, record tornadoes in the central plains, and a hurricane that devastated New York and New Jersey and yet people won't face up to climate change. It's not about opinion folks it's about scientific fact. When the earth warms the energy is transfered to the atmosphere. Keep messing with mother nature and she'll bite you in the butt.

Say goodbye to Google reader.

Not that I used it anyway but hey after hearing that Google is in bed with the NSA who needs somebody leering over your shoulder when you read? As fast as tech is moving these days it's amazing that programers can get a product out the door before it becomes obsolete. Take the newly redesigned Blackberry as an example. It never had a chance.

Obama wants to dump $7bn into Africa for electricity

Here's an idea. Spend the 7bn on our infrastructure that's falling apart. Why dump more misery on them when it will take even more oil and coal to run those power plants? And we thought Obama was all for the environment.

Friday beaver is important

What is important?

As the world slowly crumbles around us the focus by the lame stream media seems always laser directed at things that are, let's say, of lesser value. The grand push for same sex unions is hardly earth shattering news when you look at the statistics. After all they aren't in the majority. So rather than focus on things like jobs and social well being our government is picking out the drapes while the house is on fire.

Senate focus at the moment is with providing us with the largest and historically most expensive security system in the world. And like any good corporation is dead set to fix the symptoms and not the problems. Building a 700 mile fence with a battalion of security guards won't work any more than the Berlin wall did of the cold war era. Yes it might have slowed a few folks down but it didn't solve the problem. And it's not just about a matter of freedom either. These people aren't leaving Mexico so they can voice their displeasure or exercise freedom of speech, they're just trying to survive. Five dollars a day wages doesn't cut it in any country.

So what is important? Being out of work, wondering if the retirement funds will stretch to the end of the month, and for some just making it to the end of the month on a fixed income, unemployment or those with no income living on savings. The powers that be have tried to frame what's happening as some religious extremism somehow wanting to be under our beds when in fact that's just a cover for one of the largest thefts of wealth this world has ever seen. While the lame stream media is busy touting the corporate talking points and has us (or tries to anyway) focused on the latest boogyman, the boys in finance are busy with business as usual which is to privatize profits while dumping the debt on the rest of us. Greed is not good in the end Mr. Geko because eventually those at the bottom will have their day and that is slowly happening on a world scale too. Look at Greece Spain Italy Turkey and now the one million who took to the streets in Brazil. You can't keep the shell game going much longer. The people can only be fooled so many times.

Short update: Was looking through the stats on this blog just to see if things were up or down and noticed that yesterday was a bit off the charts. The bulk of the people were from...wait for it... Iran. Go figure. I didn't think they were that much into climate change. Knew things were heating up over there but not in that way.

UPDATE: Missed this one: Beavers chewed through a fiber optic cable in N.M. causing an outage to internet and cell phones. And I always thought beavers liked the net. Maybe they're not happy with their service providers.

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

Burn baby burn - Climate change, global warming call it what you will

You can accept the fact or deny it but one thing is for sure our planet is changing. You can looks at melting glaciers and drying up lakes but the shrinking arctic doesn't lie. With 7 billion of us on this rock it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that things will change and fast. Nobody knows the exact tipping point but that should be beside the point. When you see a far off storm you don't just sit there with the windows open thinking it's an illusion.

What to do? The answer is simple and two fold. First is to stop burning fossil fuels or at the very least slow it down as much as possible until alternatives can be found. The other end is to conserve what we are using. It's estimated that we waste on average over 35% of the energy we use in the home. Most of that is heat loss from poor insulation and cracks around windows and doors. Not to sound like an ad from a hardware store but just some inexpensive materials can save a bunch of money in the long run. I found that replacing old leaky windows cut my energy bill in winter by half. Switching to CFL lighting same years back at least kept pace with the price increases. There is the push to LEDs but they're still too expensive at the moment at about the price of a compact bulb when they first came out. There's work to be done on their development. We have some LED street lighting here but it's less than impressive. It's closer to a street night light as it only covers about 20 feet or only two car lengths of illumination.

As to our president I have misgivings about his motivations. On the one hand he wants to promote conservation and renewables while on the other is promoting one of the dirtiest sources of energy the tar sands oil of the XL pipeline. Sorry but you can't have it both ways. And from his lame duck position I see no reason for him to side with oil industry giants. 

The tar sands oil is not carbon neutral and here's why: First it must be dug out of the ground almost like strip mining which means that trucks are running 24/7 to get at it for processing. Once processed (which is only for shipment by the way) it is sent via pipeline, rail or truck to be fully processed adding to pollution. Once it reaches it's final destination which is more than likely China it will be burned for home heating oil once again adding to the carbon count. And forgot to mention that in order to process the stuff it must be heated and it's by products burned off into the atmosphere. Shale oil and gas is not much better as it requires many of the same procedures.

Here's the trade offs and what the future holds in case you're around that long. There is a shift to biodegradable products which sounds all nice and warm and fuzzy. For some products that we only use once and throw away that's okay however they are now starting to use this concept in things like auto interiors with seats and dashboards made from partially organic materials. All well and good one might think until you figure you now have a car with a use by date. If you thought cars broke down rapidly now you haven't seen anything yet. It was bad enough they put enough computing power under the hood to get a man to mars, which by the way can be hacked, now the thing will begin to rot after so many years. So what's next, face creams for the ford and conditioners for the continental? And with back talking computers we'll wish it was back to the days of back seat drivers instead of a wise cracking computer whining about needing a facial. Ain't progress grand.

Run away random thoughts

Everything seems to be run away these days all to the extremes. Was a time that whistle blowers were honored. No more. Now it's run away before they catch you and convict you. Judges seemingly making up their own rules. Again run away before they convict you. Politicians creating laws that have no common sense. Juries that have made up their minds before the opening arguments. Soldiers mowing down innocent civilians. It's even permeated the inanimate and unpredictable. Cars with sticky accelerators, stock markets that react to good news with a plunge and even the weather dumping flooding rains, hurricanes and tornadoes. The world seems on a course like a run away locomotive and the engineer is nowhere to be found.

They say for every action there is a reaction and nothing could be truer at the moment. Worthless paper was pumped into markets some ten plus years ago and the world economy is taking a run away dive. Countries metal in others affairs and the end result is run away wars. An insulin pump will now come with an auto shut off because it doesn't know when to stop. They've even put a kill switch on most electric cars for the same reason. Nothing knows when to stop. What's that about an object in motion tends to stay in motion Newton's first law? But who's following laws these days? Yet it holds true since there's nothing stopping anything at least for the moment.

We are a stupid lot when you stop to consider it all. We dig nasty oil out of the ground, ship it and spill it in the process only to burn it and land up poisoning ourselves and the planet down the road. "What fools these mortals be" to quote Willy. We've become so industrialized so automated that just one wrong move results in a run away catastrophe the likes never seen before, a copy machine run amuck spitting paper and ink in all directions. So if you want to mess things up use a computer. Oops was that the send to all button you just hit? 

Beaver the friday tracking version

Irony. 

We have sophisticated GPS systems that somehow can't get us where we're going. There's technology galore with programs that can do functions within a mili-second and yet is anything any better than it was ten, twenty or thirty years ago? And I'm sure we've all experienced it when the check out gal somehow hit the wrong key on the register and it took the store manager to dash over complete with secret password and special key to unlock the great mystery of the system and unfreeze things. And they call that progress. But there was a time when it was a simple matter mashing down a mechanical key, giving a hand crank a spin and up popped a total. Even receipts were not that important because everybody had that long lost trust with the people they dealt with behind the counter. 

Where did trust go? I know it was here sometime in the past. Yeah yeah I know what you're thinking people have always lied, but it seems it was never this bad. You would have thought that with the internet it would have made people more honest not less. After all anything you say is documented and easily pulled up for later viewing. So don't tell me you didn't say something when it's your puss on the youtube video of years past.  Now we have secret courts and secret laws and snoopers on top of snoopers because you never know somebody somewhere might just get an evil idea. Whoa to him who even tries to think it. So what's next the thought police? If that happened we'd all be in jail for our nefarious subconscious thoughts. Kill him? Of course I'd like to kill him but only in the recesses of the grey matter.

So just to contribute to the mega terra bits of information that will I'm sure be stored for posterity and yet never see the light of day ever again (this is after all nothing more than electronic bird cage liner). And yet here we sit having our most private of private communications ransacked like a home invasion robber only these guys leave with all the furniture just as we left it. If you want to know what I'm up to just ask. I'll be more than happy to tell you. You don't need to snoop through my things because there really isn't anything here worth looking at. 

Bank fails later and let's all watch as the markets take a tumble...
UPDATE: No fails this week

Happy Hump Day

As if things weren't bad enough with the sequester and congress wanting to slather on more cuts to social programs, it appears the world  economy is about to tank in the next six months or less. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. The last go round the bulk of 50 plus somethings were thrown out of work with economic shrinkage and down sizing. Those that did managed to make it back into the game had to settle for far less wages with little to no benefits. Those just starting out faced grim prospects as well. Saddled with student loans and a shrinking market many were forced to take whatever they could get which wasn't much. They're now stuck at home waiting for the big break to move out of the nest but that may not happen any time soon.

I bulk at people who say they can find work in this current state. Yes there are scraps of work here and there but not enough to be consistent and not enough to cover the bills. Even a ten dollar an hour job will not leave you with enough left over after paying the gas to get there to survive. We face a lost generation that will never see the dreams we once had of home ownership and raising a family. It's all perpetuated by greed at the top and an unwillingness to part with even scrapes to the masses. But it will all back fire when there's no one left to fleece of their last dollar. First they took our jobs away then came the house. The bulk of savings has been eaten up just to keep going and now it's the retirement funds if those weren't already wiped out when the job was shipped overseas. Only thing left then is social security which will become insecurity should they get their hands on it.

No I see no good things for the near future no matter what type of smiley face they try and put on it. Fridays were once a joy. Now they're just another day. One day closer to the end of the month and another cycle of bills to pay.   

Don't take my word for all this even those at the top in the game are saying the very same things:

Hear the train coming?

News you can't use and could care less about

G8 summit: live updates

As if we'd get any real information out of such meetings. We'll have to get it all from the NSA to hear what really happened.

McCaskill backs Clinton for president

Obama isn't less then six months into his term and they're already carving up the power seat. Nothing like waiting before the corpse is even cold to divvy up the estate.

End of the war in Afghanistan?

Don't bet the ranch on that one and even if we leave the end result will be a civil war between drug lords. Let's face facts. Afghanistan never really was a country and probably will never be one.

Lil Wayne steps on the American Flag

Big deal it's better than Bush and Cheney who wiped their butts with it along with the constitution.

G-8 (again?) turns focus to clampdown on tax dodging

Believe that when you see it. This "summit" is made up of only 8 of the worlds wealthiest countries. You can bet some green backs will be traveling after this thing gets done if they haven't already. And I guess were number one when it comes to cheating.

One article says "Consumer prices edge higher" while another says "inflation remains tame." 

Okay then which is it? Can't have it both ways. There isn't any such thing as a little bit pregnant.

Lastly we have

Temper tantrums are now considered a mental disorder.
 No for real? They now classify a kids fit because he didn't get candy at the check out as "disruptive mood disregulation disorder". And I'm sure big Pharma just has the right med for that and don't forget junior will need to be on it the rest of his life. Sheesh!  

"Waiter there's a fly in my no fly zone".. friday beaver

Hey Johnny think we can make a no fly zone?

Grandpa Walnuts and his sidekick Lindy Graham have proposed a no fly zone in Syria and arming the rebels. It's time to take away the remote and car keys from these guys. 

Let's stop for a moment and look at the facts in all this. First off Syria is not like Iraq by any stretch of the imagination. Though Syria is run by a Baathist party like Iraq was that's where the similarities end. 

Just to institute a "no fly zone" would involve taking out a rather strong air force defense system eliminating the Syrian's ability to get airborne. That would be no easy task with a Russian base on Syria's coast. Plus we know Putin is set to send (if he hasn't already) surface to air missiles. 

Far be it from me to know the possibilities of such a mission so I leave that to people who study it for a living but my gut instinct tells me it's a fools errand.

A 2004 Stanford University paper published in The Journal of Strategic Studies, "Lessons from Iraq and Bosnia on the Theory and Practice of No-fly Zones," reviewed the effectiveness of the air-based campaigns in achieving military objectives. The paper's findings were: 1) A clear, unified command structure is essential. In Bosnia, during "Operation Deny Flight," a confusing dual-key coordination structure provided inadequate authority and resulted in air forces not being given authority to assist in key situations; 2) To avoid a "perpetual patrol problem," states must know in advance their policy objectives and the exit strategy for no-fly zones; 3) The effectiveness of no-fly zones is highly dependent on regional support. A lack of support from Turkey for the 1996 Iraq no-fly zone ultimately constrained the coalition's ability to effectively enforce it.

There's a bit less regional support this time around. For one thing Syria wouldn't be on our side. Canada and the rest of the coalition of the willing are unlikely to send troops as they did with Iraq the second time around. They'll all send cash but don't want their hands dirty. Iraq itself is a bit busy fighting it's own internal struggles, a mess that we left them with upon our departure. That would leave Israel who wants no part of such action. Jordan which has an army of only 100K and only 100 fighter aircraft, although we could use it to launch our aircraft. Which leaves only Lebanon who side with Assad and have already sent fighters into the country and Palestine which has no real military other than the PLO and Hamas which we consider a terrorist organization.

This barely scratches the surface of the complexities of such an encounter. A quick read of the breakdown of the players in all this reads more like the characters of a Russian novel with far reaching characters and grudges going back hundreds of years. If McCain and company think this would be a simple "us" verses "them" scenario he'd better study his history a bit more but then again I guess he didn't learn anything from Vietnam. So what's this really all about for John McCain one might ask? Wouldn't have something to do with the oil and gas reserves in Iran now would it? And we all know Johnny's just itching to make up for his short lived actions of the past. Why else would he want to bomb Iran to the tune of Barbara Ann?

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

It's for your own good

There was a time in the days of the cold war when we made jokes about Russia's government spying on their citizens. But back then it required the plumber maintenance man or telephone man to physically enter a residence to install a bugging device. Those days are long gone comrade. With computers a bit of software and the cooperation of the phone companies (yes most of them agreed to go along with this shortly after the Un-patriot Act was passed) the fly on the wall is sitting comfortably hidden in plain sight. 

You have nothing to hide you say so there shouldn't be anything wrong with this you might think. You'd be wrong. It wouldn't take much to take something out of context and use that against you in one of their secret courts with secret laws. Who could defend against that? And the right wing have become masters at that. Look no further than Fox News to see how that all works out. They could turn a Boy Scout helping grandma across the street into a national felony case. Look no farther than A.C.O.R.N. to see what can happen there.

Then there's the issue of competition. We know for a fact that with all of these agencies that are there to supposedly guard our safety and well being have an unmatched rivalry always wanting to score the highest points for captured bad guys. The collateral damage is just part of the price of admission unless of course the victim is you who did nothing wrong. A wrong phone number or an accidental click of the mouse would all it would take to become insnared in their web. And once you get in there's no getting out. No one to plead you case to or process to have your name removed. Don't believe me? How many babies and young people are on the "do not fly list" who have a very difficult time flying on planes? All because their name is the same as some suspect. And there's another matter. Aren't we supposed to consider innocent until proven guilty? I guess not any more comrade.

For those of you who'd like to opt out of their little spy vs spy game there are alternatives. One place to start is a site called prism-break dot org. It lists methods and alternative software to keep prying eyes of big brother from looking over your shoulder. I'm not part of the tin foil hat crowd but with today's abbreviated messages it is very easy to misunderstand one's intent. And who knows who is related to whom when you get a wrong number? More on the devious technologies in the pipeline later. In the mean time keep your mouth shut. 

Occupy movement gone? No way

          

It started in Tunisia when a chap decided he'd had enough of the dictatorial oppression. It next spread to Libya  where the long term dictator was ousted discovered hiding in a ditch and subsequently beaten to death. Not to be out done Egypt got into the act holding massive demonstrations until it's government too fell to the pressure. Have we forgot anybody? Oh the list goes on with Syria still in the process, Greece which tries to fight to survive but can't under crushing debt. Then there are the lessor knowns such as Cyprus and of course most of the baltic countries. Slovenia's government just resigned in the last few weeks. And now it's Turkey's turn. 

All this gives one cause to ponder. Is this some fluke or maybe a mere part of some natural process? My theory is that it's part of a process of extremes only somewhat natural much like menopause or mid life crisis on a world scale. Let's face it we aren't getting any younger as a global population. From an economic viewpoint this had to be planned. It's  too well organized. What happened? It's all quit simple and yet complicated at the same time. We switched from the gold standard where currency was valued at a set amount of gold. That along prevented the wild fluctuations of prices we see today. It made it quit easy for speculators to step in and artificially manipulate prices of everything we buy. So there is no such thing as supply and demand anymore unless we speak of paper contracts. Even then it's artificially done with computers sometimes with no human intervention at all. Just don't get your leg caught in that machine of crunching numbers.

When will it all end? When there's not much left to suck out of the system. It is crumbling right now as you read this. Debt is being layered upon debt to people and nations that can no way pay it back. Interestingly enough was watching the movie Wall Street and the Gordon Geko greed man. He thought he was a big shot stealing the assets of corporations at tens of millions. What's happened in real life then pales by comparison with what was then. Entire nations are being looted. Fear not the people are awaking up to this mugging and a new New World Order is in the process. Don't believe it? Look on the streets of Turkey and many other countries. But don't bother flipping on the 6 o'clock news because you won't see it there. This revolution will not be televised.  

Snoopy

      

When is enough enough? When is the tipping point when people aren't going to take it anymore and change things. Our congress sits on it's ass collecting a paycheck while people get cut off from social programs. All well and good to feast on our public dime while children have their lunches snatched right out from under them. And don't forget grandma when meals on wheels doesn't show up and she has to fight the cat for her dinner.

We should hold a large mirror up to the government when they bad mouth the good people of this land. No senator it isn't the teachers or firemen or police who bankrupted this country, it was you and your den of vipers in DC. And let us not forget your Johns on Wall Street who financed your little tryst. The "stupid party"™ rambles on about wanting more followers all the while cutting and blocking legislation that would help the masses. The enabler party lets them get away with it too. Time for a people's party who actually represent us and not some three piece suit dunderheads who's produced nothing for mankind but misery.

But let us not forget the snoops. That non existent agency we pay billions to to spy on ourselves. So you don't actually listen to the conversations we're told. I call BS. You've been doing it since after the Patriot Act was passed. You installed eavesdropping equipment to most of the major phone companies not long after 911 and we know it. Even the people that used to work there said as much. Looking for bad guys were they? Hardly. Their hobby was listening in on juicy conversations and I think you know what I'm talking about. "Hey Harry check out the hot chick on line 39 talking to some married guy". And you have the balls to be incensed when we catch you breaking the laws of the land. So if there's a criminal investigation to be had it should be with your agency for violating our rights. No law is greater than our constitution and you've sure violated that enough times in the past 10 years. This isn't 1950s Mother Russia comrade but it's sure starting to look like it. 

As for dishing it out you sure know how to do that but you sure can't take it. And let's face it, it's not how the bad guys communicate anyway. You should already know that one by now. They do things the old fashioned way by courier so unless you actually get off your butts and track them they'll keep getting away with it. As for fighting them "over there", how about we start playing in our own sand box and leave them alone. It's what they wanted in the first place.

From now on I'll be posting more about government corruption, you know holding a mirror up to their faces. If they have much to read from me it'll be about their own misdeeds. we can have some fun with them in the process too. That shouldn't be too hard either considering they've shredded the constitution with their secret laws or should I say illegal laws. They have a image problem now and it's no easy task to polish a turd especially as messy as this one is. 

Friday beaver and the news

                    

IMF admits: we failed to realize the damage austerity would do to Greece.

Well Duh! Any fifth grader could have told you that. The money didn't go into state coffers to do things like build roads improve schools or hire more doctors, it went directly to the banks who set about to give their executives sweet bonuses for basically doing nothing. All the while this debt burden which the people themselves did not rack up was placed squarely on their shoulders. It didn't take a genus to figure out that when the people lost trust in the banks that they'd pull their money out. It was also no great help that the government imposed an immediate 29% tax on the entire population. And now some idiot group has in their heads that this was all brought on because a bunch of poor people immigrated into the country not realizing that it was the boys in the three piece suits that gave them a good fleecing. Stupidity knows no bounds.

Government snoops through everything you do on the net and your phone calls.

(For those of you at the NSA reading this please take a moment and read the 4th amendment to our constitution. There's no mention of secret laws or courts.) 

Maybe yes maybe no. But here's the scary thing in all this. As the expression goes there's only six degrees of separation between us and Abdul. So how the hell do we know if the clerk at the 7-11 wasn't calling his relatives back in the middle east who just happens to go to the same mosque as one of the bad guys. It's guilt by association now? This all makes about as much sense as putting Alex Jones in charge of the program. Of course he'll find connections as wrong as they may be. By this thinking we can now label senator John McCain with his terrorist ties. He did after all go to Syria just recently to meet with the rebels some of whom are Al Qaeda. Better have a permanent tap on his phone and emails. 

Present economic indicators reveal hearts and flowers.

And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you real cheap. Supply siders seem to have forgotten that you can produce all the products in the world but if you don't have customers you're not going to make a big profit. You can build it but they aren't coming. Last I checked just about every mall here was 1/3 empty of shops. You could just about roll a bowling ball down the aisle of a grocery store and not hit a soul. So why the quick return of the Dow over 15,000? Because the speculators cashed out their quick short hedges and pumped the market back up. But fear not since it's all just funny money anyway the tide will turn (remember the housing market of the last few years).

You have to love the next two articles for their juxtaposition.

First we have the Vermont governor decriminalizing marijuana followed by...

Score free doughnut today.

I leave you to make your own jokes on that one. In the mean time...

Bank fails later.
UPDATE: One bank failed in TN this week

See I A problem

                        

Newly released documents indicate that the CIA had no idea exactly who they were bombing with the unmanned drone program. This is all part of war they say because after all we git to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here is their logic. So were now back exactly to the Bush doctrine of shoot first ask questions later. Must have been something Bush picked up with a little Texas justice. Hang em first and try to hide the evidence later. The only problem is that this entire country was founded on a justice system that's against such thinking. Acting on suspicions by administering the punishment even before any evidence has been gathered is nothing more than murder plain and simple. If we shot at ever suspicious noise around the home we'd soon find that our garbage would not be picked up and no one would care to deliver a package to our doors. But here we are acting as unjust and in some respects more barbaric than the days of trial by fire. It seems Mr. Obama must have read a different constitution when he went through law school because it affords every American some rights no matter what country they may be traveling in.

About one of every four of those killed by drones in Pakistan between Sept. 3, 2010, and Oct. 30, 2011, were classified as "other militants,” the documents detail. The “other militants” label was used when the CIA could not determine the affiliation of those killed, prompting questions about how the agency could conclude they were a threat to U.S. national security.

And while the State Department sheds tears over protesters in other countries it conveniently forgets about the 7500 arrests beatings and tear gassings of peaceful protesters in this country. And the 85% of the arrests that were overturned because they were illegal. Can you say hypocrisy? Thought you could.

As the old saying goes what you give is what you get so should we continue down this path we will indeed get what we give and it won't change until policies do. And like jackals who swarm around the dying carcasses of dead animals we too send in the corporate vultures to feast on the remains of countries that we've slaughtered. With Iraq the prize was the oil. With Afghanistan it's all about the wealth of minerals. So now it's just a matter of which vulture is the meanest and has the biggest talons.

Then there is the last greatest threat to world peace and it doesn't hide in some mountain cave with flowing robes and a head scarf planning our destruction, it's the IMF who with the stroke of a pen can bring down entire nations and can cause pestilence and starvation. Yes the pen is mightier than the sword for with not one shot fired countries like Greece, Spain, Ireland and even tiny Cyprus are all but in ruins. So all that can be said is be careful what you wish for you just might get it because without the peons who do your dirty work there won't be much left to enjoy.

So it should be back to basics of constitutional law. We do have rights like freedom of speech and a right to a fair trial and a little privacy whether you agree with those ideas or not they are the law. It doesn't matter what country I'm in or what I did or might do, it's a matter for the police not the military.  

Turkey and I'm not taking about Thanksgiving

                  
( The tear gas used here was outdated CS compliments of the U.S. government)

A little news that didn't quite get reported over the weekend. While lame stream media was busy watching the latest dress malfunction a whole bunch of folks in Turkey were busy taking to the streets protesting the removal of a central park to put up a shopping mall. What's so important about that you might think? It's only the latest in a string of take aways from the government. Alcohol and tobacco use are now limited by the government. Street vendors are no longer permitted to sell tobacco and alcohol can not be sold between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM. The latter didn't go over well with the countries young people who are more liberal minded than we in the west may think.

At any rate a mass protest was organized to occupy Gezi park where trees were to be cut down and a shopping mall was to be build. But it didn't stop with one small park. The outrage over the latest government dictates was felt in every major city in the country. The police moved in with tear gas and water cannons and did manage to get the upper hand for a while but the protesters regrouped later and managed to retake the park putting up multiple barricades to block the streets. Now you would think that the place would look like a war zone after such a confrontation but Monday morning when the smoke cleared the protesters had cleaned the streets of nearly all the debris and an eerie quiet was felt on the city streets. The only thing left were a couple of burned out buses and a few empty shell casings of tear gas, made in America by the way.

A few other things concerning this uprising. The government tried unsuccessfully to shut down the internet but the young folks managed to do work arounds, Youtube has managed to delete some of the videos of the most violent actions but they forgot that videos on youtube can be screen captured for later viewing. The brutal actions of the police were caught for all to see and may be used as evidence against them later. That's a sad statement for what started out as a peaceful protest. Twitter and facebook accounts were frozen but that did not stop this movement as they found alternative means to keep information flowing. As the saying goes "the revolution will not be televised" but you can watch it right here on the web in real time if you know where to go.  

How this will all play out is anyones' guess but one thing is certain, it's going to be a long hot summer over there. Youth unemployment stands at nearly 60% I'm told and the president seems not to want to budge on his right wing ideology. He is of course an extremist muslim or at least supports those ideas. The country has been secular for generations so you can see what this fight is all about.