SAR #11318

We are but sophomores, mistaking platitudes for brilliance.

Who's Winning: After the nationwide coordinated police/SWAT team sweeps of #Occupy protests – done with complete media blackout social media – it becomes obvious that the status intends on remaining quo, here and abroad. Change is not an option.

Here We Go Again: Hurricanes, heat waves, downpours, drought, tornadoes, floods, blizzards and rising seas – more of 'em and more intense ones. That's what the IPCC scientists predict in their latest report on global climate change. Not all of them everywhere, of course, but enough so you will realize that global warming has been notched up a bit. Quite a bit. Get ready for the rush to deny, minimize, put off, down-play, in a drive to continue profits as usual.

Unite and Conquer! Prime Minister Mario Monti named himself as Italy's Finance Minister, too, and went on to name a banker as the minister of Infrastructure and Transport. Shows who is running the show.

Cake, Letting Them Eat: Republican Supercommittee members are willing to close $250 billion in tax loopholes in exchange for lowering the top income bracket to 28% instead of having it revert to the old 39.6% level. They are eager, however, to reduce Social Security benefits.

Democracy Fails: The ECB/EU/IMF has voided the results of democratic elections in Greece and Italy by forcing popularly elected leaders to resign. This will permit them to install 'technocrats' to run these countries to the benefit of northern bankers, claiming that “they have forfeited their right to democracy.” The newly appointed Gauleiters are said to “have a mandate, albeit not a democratic one” to change the social and economic structures of these countries and to squeeze blood from them. The spilling of blood in the streets is probably guaranteed at this point.

Muttering in the Ranks: The San Francisco Fed put out a note suggesting that the odds of a recession in the US in 2012 are likely over 50/50, from a combination of domestic factors and the impact of an international (for which read European) downturn.

Jelly Beans: How many mercenaries is the State Department hiring to protect diplomats in peacified Iraq? 1) US Embassies use marines. 2) None, the Iraqis love us. 3) 5,000, to start.

Gemini: Two forms of 'peak oil' are possible. The ordinary form is simply that at some point (which has already been reached) the amount of recoverable oil in the ground begins to fall. The more likely form is that as oil becomes harder to find and produce, there will come a point where the cost of producing it exceeds the economic value of using it, and demand will fall dramatically. End result's the same.

Decoder Ring:All of the Republican wannabees are determined to abolish the government programs that best demonstrate that their ideology is wrong – Veterans' health, Medicare, Social Security. And it's not out of budgetary necessity, they see nothing wrong with deficits as long as they go to defense contractors via the Pentagon budget.

What the hell are we all? Why do we still unthinkingly assume that we need economic growth and it is a Good Thing, but do not look at the deferred and displaced costs, nor at the inevitable limits lurking ahead?Why do we feel we haven't grown enough? “you notice nobody wants/Less(not to men/tion least)”

Clueless in Leadership: Andrew Bacevich surveys the field, from Iraq to the Euromess to the ongoing recession and concludes that Uncle Sam is not going to ride to anyone's rescue, not even his own. Classic Bacevich; go read.

Porn O'Graph:Can you pick out the low-wage states?