SAR #10273

Still wondering why the tea parties are so popular?

Gag me:  “Over the course of the past two years, a lot of tomatoes have been thrown in the direction of Wall Street. Some of it was deserved. Much of it wasn't.  It was uninformed populist anger.  It's really easy to blame a bunch of egotistical rich guys in Brioni suits for problems that were caused elsewhere.”   If we don't apologize immediately they threaten to take their toys and town houses and decamp for greener fields.  How much profit they'll be able to eek out in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast was not immediately clear.

Mid-Term Exam:  Demonstrating a fine grasp of economics, foreign policy and historic forces, the House voted overwhelmingly to bit the hand that – while it may not feed us – supplies WalMart with most of the cheap products that serve as bread and circuses in the declining American Empire.  The future depends on China – the future of energy, the future of great-power politics.  They are the same thing.  China is likely to become the dominant shaper of our global future.

Uppity Servants:  Meg Whitman, GOP candidate for governor of California, admits that she inadvertently employed an illegal immigrant housekeeper from 2000 to 2009, but maintains she did not know of her employee’s status even though the Social Security administration had warned her in2003 concerning the maid's account number miss-match.

Misdirection and Mendacity:  As long as 'fixing' Social Security is Republican code-talk for doing away with the program, the 'debate' will remain nonsensical.  They focus on our fear of big numbers and our misunderstanding of the entire funding process. Simply ask yourself who benefits if we go along with them and cut off our own heads so the rich can feast on our corpses?  Social Security can pay for itself with very modest tax rate increases.  There is no funding problem.

Go Team! I favor the NASCAR jacket approach for politicians: They should  have to wear logos on their suit coats identifying their largest ‘sponsors’.   The bigger the bribes, the bigger the logo.

Mission Creeps:  First it was an occasional, isolated drone attack on “suspected terrorists” at weddings in remote areas of Pakistan. Now they are daily events.  US Special Forces and CIA mercenary assassination teams are thought to operate  throughout the country.  Now NATO has sent two gunship helicopters into Pakistan and killed 30 “suspected militants”. And we’re the good guys?

Cashing Out:   As Germany makes it's last reparation payment from World War One, it seems a good time to ask how long and how much the US should be required to pay for the destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, soon Iran.

Porn O'Graph:  The madness of crowds. Going with the flow.

A word of apology: Pain meds and the medical establishment run-around have dimmed my usual selection and sarcasm. I fear the same will be true tomorrow. ‘Outpatient’ is true, for I am out of patience with the whole thing. Blame is all mine, as I didn't get this together in time to inflict it on First Reader.