Tuesday, August 26, 2014

SAR #14236



Tidy solutions to our problems are likely not democratic ones.

Revised Version: Remember when the US shared intelligence with Saddam? Back before we killed him? Now we've given up (temporarily) trying to unseat Assad and are supplying Syria with intelligence info. Remember when we armed the mujahadeen and they turned out to be al-Qadea ? How do you think giving arms to the 'moderate' Syrian rebels (who are trying to unseat Assad but promise not to use US weapons to do so) will turn out? Remember the Three Stooges, before they went to work for the state department?

G'way Kid, Y'Bother'n Me: French President Hollande has permanently grounded his latest prime minister, Manuel Valls, after Valls' economic minister pointed out that the emperor had no clothes austerity programs had not worked and should be abandoned. Instead, Vall was abandoned.
More Of The Same: In the last five years, the volume of ice lost annually to global warming has doubled.

More Of The Same, Too: Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $3.15 billion to get the FHFA investigation into their systematic mortgage securities fraud go away, making sure that no Goldman executives do.

Toil & Trouble: At more than 500 sites scattered along the edge of the continental shelf from North Carolina to Massachusetts, methane is happily bubbling up from the seafloor. Unexpectedly, of course, but don't worry. 
 
Self Serviced: If your gas pump tells you to take your credit card into the station (where the 50-cent candy bars are a dollar and the milk is $4.98 a half gallon), get in your car and drive away. It's called serving yourself, and not the credit card companies who think they can figure out whether or not it is you at the pump. They think they can figure out if it is really you out there at the pump based on something called the Transaction Advisor – which seems to know more about you than your ex-wife. And has decided that you are not you. Maybe you should decide to shop elsewhere.

Friend of A Friend: Whenever you are told that some large government program or initiative has 'failed', see who makes the most profit from that failure. And also look for the unintended and unanticipated adverse effects of either the program or its failure. Blowback. Like arming the 'rebels' in Afghanistan. Or Syria. Or see which side the Saudis, Kuwait and Qatar are financing to identify which side is against Western civilization in general. The "war on terror, has demonstrably failed”. Which may have been the plan all along; follow the money.
Quick Count: An unarmed teen in Kansas committed suicide by getting police to shoot him 16 times. In California you can get arrested for having bloodshot eyes. In a South Carolina Wally-world a man was tasered to the floor and then pummelled by two cops for resisting arrest. A man discovered hiding in a shed was tasered to death by Florida cops. All of which may begin to explain Ferguson. 
 
Buying The Bridge: Christie cost NJ taxpayers $3.8 billion when he shifted state pension funds to Wall Street in an effort to get Wall Street commuters to forgive him for the bridge thing.

1 comment:

Thom Foolery said...

"Friend of a Friend" - I was explaining that very principle to my daughter last night. Anytime you see anything that looks like it fails time and again and yet continues to be supported, follow the money, and chances are you'll see it is only failing in delivering its promises to the rest of us. It is succeeding in delivering its real ends, whether money or power or both, to the assholes in charge.