MAKE THE CUT

It’s actually not too hard to see how. All over the country right now, 90 year old ladies are renewing their drivers licenses for multiple years, with no tests whatsoever. (This is a fact with no exaggeration!)

It stands to reason, then, that all types of idiots should fit right in government work. But for elected positions, these attract the type of idiot who likes to tell people what to do. For these, I think we ought to have a test.

This way no matter how many votes they supposedly get, or buy, or steal- they’ll still have to pass the test. It doesn’t have to be that hard of a test, but  we don’t want retards running shit, do we? Even if they are good buddies?

It should be just like picking teams at the schoolyard- nobody wants you if you suck. This government needs to be swept free of idiots. It may require an amendment but it must be done. Give us competency or give us death.

NOT INTERESTED

Reality is just too harsh.

 The American insurance salesman truly wants to believe he is doing a service, and will go to great lengths convincing himself this is so, all the while fully aware the house of cards is without substance.

The American car salesman tells his ignorant prospects of the greatness purveyed in the oceans of obsoletion sprawled across the asphalt horizon, the iconic image of a dinosaur civilization.

The American grocery clerk smiles a robotic smile as the psychologically-enhanced packages of chemicals and antibiotics are registered through the UPC scanner. The transfer from drone to clone of PVC-bound toxins is a snapshot of 21st century first - world existence.

The reality is just too harsh, which explains perfectly why we would never discuss it, much less near acting on it.

“How are you today?” asks the drone clerk.

The response is never, “Well, I just sold some thin air to a clone I pretented to care about. Then I idled an internal combustion motor for several hours, along with tens of thousands of other internal combustion motors, all jammed into an asphalt maze of clones attempting to get somewhere else to sell air to fellow clones. That tired me out, so I idled my internal combustion motor to this store, where I can use some of the proceeds from selling thin air to my fake new friends, to buy a colorful package of toxins that has been proven to psychologically provide me with a brief sense of worth and contentment, to hold me over until I am next  able to sufficiently distract myself from reality.”

Responds the drone clerk, “Oh that’s nice. These colorful packgages of toxins are 2- for – 1 today, so that should make you feel even better about your existence of denial!”

PREFERS FANTASY

Reign, denial, reign – there is no other way. Keep fighting the “good” fight.

Bomb it and build a McDonald’s! If you can’t be proud of that, why, maybe America is just not for you!

LOVE IT OR DIE

It’s beautiful to see how far U.S. policy has come –  so far removed from the dark ages.  Artfully refined, chic and cosmopolitan. Who needs McDonald’s, or torture?  We have the answer to that question! Spreading American cheer in time for the holidays.

So, remind me who paid for Obama’s Nobel Peace Price?

The 21st is still young, but that prize is on its way to becoming the fraud of the century.

Suburban America: A revolutionary concept- of the 1950’s!

60 YEAR OLD CULTURE

Suburban sprawl, and all the wonderful pleasures that go with it, was once hailed as the New American Way in the 1950’s- which is great. One of the annoying problems with the US is that we have been – and still are - living in the 1950’s.

Those who went through the burgeoning renaissance of glorious plastic malls and identical floor plans are sitting here today saying: “Those were the good old days. What ever happened?”

One thing that happened is the 1950’s culture of waste, convenience, and more waste ended up defining post World War II America.   Gluttonous, fun and definitely convenient, that is unfortunately just about all it turned out to be.

And we’re still doing it.

It’d be nice to not go out like the Dodo’s and Lemmings.

Adapt. Grow. Think.    Verbs.

Smart money says there are hundreds of engineer/build firms that could have built a dozen or more Bay Bridges (real ones, not just models)- to handle ten times the traffic load in one-tenth the time. Easy.

 California is now the official model for how not to do anything correctly.

Experts in mangling bridges, budgets, prisons…boy, if you want to fuck something up, CA can do!

A colossal embarrassment, in a system where everybody participating gets paid not to care! Awesome.

CalTrans failed to estimate when the Bay Bridge would re-open, cementing its status as a legendary black hole of fiscal irresponsibility.

The defects have been known for about 50 years, along with the Doyle Drive GG bridge approach- both originally built in the 1930’s, and deemed hazards since the 1960’s. 

Five decades of planning and engineering has gobbled more than enough public funds to build another Kuala Lumpur on top of the Oakland-SF span.

In fact, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai both could have been constructed 5 times each during the decades of bureaucratic paralysis between the 60’s and 90’s.

But the term bureaucratic paralysis does not begin to descibe the pandemic diversion of tax  dollars wasted, at the high cost of public safety.

The corruption and negligence of public safety has risen directly in proportion to the rise in tax dollars overall- a direct link to the rise in population. As our country has grown richer and more populated,  so has total lack of accountability in all public sectors become daily routine.

One wonders why CalTrans even bothers to issue a statement to the press. Does anybody really need to hear that the wind blew the bridge down? Is this a joke?

The engineering marvels of Dubai and Kuala Lumpur stand as the status quo of modern building. The U.S. currently hosts modern building fiascos represented by the Oakland-SF Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge approach, Bechtel’s Fatal Big Dig, and the list goes on. These hazards should serve as a glaring signal that something is very intrinsically wrong with our existing systems.

The hazard lights are on in the U.S. Is anyone interested in shutting them off?

California is the so-called leader of the green movement- a dubious title at best.

Nobody seems to know what is or isn’t green or how to sustain anything besides the rampant misappropriation of green dollars.

But this lack of any credible green initiative hasn’t stopped the thousands of start-ups from popping up to collect green dollars in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Evidently a phone number and a web splash page are all that’s required to funnel Fed cash into a non-working green entity- a true model of business efficiency. Once the shell company is set up, it’s off to the bank.

Perhaps ironically, just about every green start-up qualifying for ARRA funds (passed down from fed to state to muni govs)  is a training facility charging big money for trainees to learn the new green ways of the world- ways of the world which don’t exist. There’s the rub, er, some would say, fraud.

Science has identified our most glaring inefficiencies many moons ago. ARRA funds should be used to implement efficiency projects on the ground, addressing real, existing problems and correcting them. Instead these funds are being abused by our elected officials and wasted on bogus glossy literature directing well-intentioned citizens to fraudulent training institutions, created for the sole purpose of appropriating federal funds.

The same thing that happened to TARP bail out money is happening to ARRA green funding- corrupt politicians and corporations distort the truth and funnel the money away from its intended purposes, and into private accounts.

It’s no wonder this country is faltering.  From the mortgage meltdown to the health care debacle to the TARP and ARRA funding frauds- our leaders just continue to make all the wrong moves.

Take a closer look at your local ARRA-funded ventures and see whats behind the mask.  Chances are you won’t find much beyond the glossy brochure.

Contact your local district rep and let the cat out of the bag- it’s a small step to slowing the wheel turning in the wrong direction.

 TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), AKA the great bail out, has been no more effective than Obama’s famed lending guidelines, which of course will never be practiced.

In a very real sense, the US government, in partnership with US banks, artificially inflated the housing markets. Since the Fed and banks work hand in hand (the Fed now owns most banks, and always did provide cheap capital to banks) and possess all the mortgages in one form or another, they essentially own all the real estate with a mortgage attached- regardless of the property’s arbitrary value.

Whether a property is worth $1000 or $1,000,000,  this arbitrary value has never been up to the would-be homeowner.

But it certainly is up to the mortgage holder. After all, it is he- not the hapless homeowner- who will determine the property value. A homeowner might wish and guess what the property is worth, but only the Fed/Banks gets to say what it really is worth, in dollars.

As such, the Fed/Banks can say, at will,  a property value is very high on one day, or very low the next. A new coat of paint or a third story addition have no real influence on the value of a property- contrary to what the legions of Fed/Banks-sponsored ‘qualified’ real estate appraisers may indicate. The physical attributes of a property are not criteria for market influence.

The goal of the Fed/Banks is to bend the back of working America to the point just shy of breaking. A broken-back America shuts down- just like it threatened to do as fuel costs rose near $5.

The corporate republic likes to keep close tabs on America’s breaking point- it’s the key to max profits. But it’s a dicey game and not a perfect science.

It is fair to say the TARP funds never left the building. They just crossed the table, much like old friends arguing over who will pay the dinner bill. But as over 200,000 jobs continue to be lost each month, and multi-billion dollar TARP bonuses stay in corporate Washington, America’s back continues to bend.

DC Corporate apparently has much confidence in the flexibility of America’s back. It remains to be seen if the estimates are on target.

Distraught readers everywhere are lamenting the imminent demise of the major newspapers. What a sob story. Didn’t the media giants first create a crappy product that nobody wants, and then watch profits tumble?  What they sell is primarily garbage, and most people know that. It’s no wonder they don’t sell. We don’t want to read, or buy, garbage. It’s as simple as that.

Take the coverage of the President’s family and their puppy. Very cute, but in these gnarly times how does this rate as a high-priority news item?  Front page, where else. Could it be that this was planted to induce sympathy among readership?  Duh. Whether people like or dislike the President, his family or his politics, it definitely shouldn’t be based on how cute the puppy is. Puppies don’t have shit to do with the massive responsibilities shouldered by the President of the United States. So, with all do respect, fuck the puppy and give us some real news. That may sound harsh but shows how much influence that puppy has.

How about some in depth coverage of the President and #2 hanging out on the putting green?  That’s the type of hardcore news a nation in turmoil deserves. But instead of news, we are administered advertisements that are planted by lobbies to create distractions and deceive most readers who interpret them as real news. After all, this stuff shows up on TV and in ‘news’ papers. The problem is, the ads are placed to make people think a certain way, but are presented as factual events in a news forum, so people take it like news and believe it.

We don’t necessarily believe most of the ads we see, but we do believe most of ‘news’ we see, because it’s the news, right?   Wrong. Most of the news in major papers and TV is nothing more than a scripted agenda unfolded one story at a time. Lobbies have agendas and they are staked by those they represent, and pay media corps big bucks on a regular basis to push their agendas. If media can sway public opinion, than public opinion is exactly what’s for sale by the media. It’s no different than pushing a bill into law- lobbies have to lobby. But it’s insulting to readers, because what it amounts to for us is fake news.

Fake news is a lot less interesting than real news, and people don’t need that shit. We need to get people in this country together on a positive track, not spread around bullshit, lies, and distractions. Right now mainstream media corps and their products suck badly, and it’s obvious.

One should not weep, nor miss very much news, when the fabled old media guard staggers and falls. On the contrary, we will be celebrating.