NOT DISPLAYED

It’s easy to say what went wrong after the fact because hindsight is always 20-20.  But airport security, homeland security, and terrorist intelligence, which has highlighted “our inability to seriously evaluate our own intelligence data,” and relies on “government officials ignoring blinking red warnings, as the Bush White House did before 9/11, or the alarm of a well-connected and properly concerned Nigerian banker-father,” to quote Robert Scheer of Truthdig, have been hindsight now for close to a decade.

And it looks like boomtime for 3D full-body screening device manufacturers, just in time to stimulate more homeland war-profiteering. Here’s a little data on these friendly domestics, compiled by Timothy P. Carney and Charlie Spiering
Washington Examiner:

One manufacturer, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is American Science & Engineering, Inc. AS&E has retained the K Street firm Wexler & Walker to lobby for “federal deployment of security technology by DHS and DOD.” Individual lobbyists on this account include former TSA deputy administration Tom Blank, who also worked under House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Chad Wolf — former assistant administrator for policy at TSA, and a former aide to Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., a top Senate appropriator and the ranking Republican on the transportation committee — is also lobbying on AS&E’s behalf.

Smiths Detection, another screening manufacturer, employs top transportation lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates, including Kevin Patrick Kelly, a former top staffer to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who sits on the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee. Smiths also retains former congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley, R-Md.

Former Sen. Al D’Amato, R-N.Y., represents L3 Systems, about which Bloomberg wrote today:

L-3 has “developed a more sophisticated system that could prevent smuggling of almost anything on the body,” said Howard Rubel, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., who has a “hold” rating on the stock.

“Speed and privacy issues have slowed its introduction.” Jennifer Barton, a spokeswoman for New York-based L-3, didn’t respond to a phone call seeking comment. L-3 rose $1.17, or 1.4 percent, to $86.80 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. That was the highest closing price since October 2008.

Scheer succintly lays out a few obvious observations on the ‘war on terror’ – a phrase that is painful to write.

“Preventing terrorist attacks…requires detectives with brains and not generals with firepower.

“…our stealth fighters and bombers designed to defeat Soviet defenses that were never built are a poor match against a terrorist’s stealth underwear.

“…hundreds of billions of dollars worth of planes, subs and missiles in our arsenal of Cold War-era weapons, part of an annual defense budget that is higher in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any time in the past half-century.”

It would appear that the US has remained, and continues to remain, hopelessly adhered to cold war  fundamentals, with regard to economic, foriegn, and domestic policies. This stubborn inability to adapt to a changing global platform has been slowly, and now more rapidly, dragging the country down with the heavy weight of obsolescence. Futile attempts to revive our failed economic fundamentals with evermore instruments of war serve only to line the pockets of a very few aging and frightened elites, clinging to a cold war philosophy whose flaws have long been exposed, and whose merits are nothing more than blood money. But this endless war economy has also served to create and empower enemies as well: enemies armed and backed by US weapons and cash, and enemies dedicated to avenge the loss of those decimated at the hand of the US war machine.

There has to be at least a few of us out there who believe that this just can’t be the best direction for the US to continue plying. If so, they seem to be in the extreme minority. Anytime would be the right time to acknowledge that blowing everybody up or threatening to blow everybody up is not the path to peace and prosperity, not in the US or any other homeland.

HOPE AND CHANGE

“In America you can now go to trial and all the evidence collected against you cannot be reviewed.

 

“…what allowed Guantánamo to happen was the devolution of the rule of law here at home.

“People who care about First Amendment rights should be terrified. This is one of the crucial civil rights issues of our time. We ignore this at our own peril.”  – Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College

Dissent is no longer the duty of the engaged citizen but is becoming an act of terrorism.  - Chris Hedges

This stuff is a bit sketchy, as have been matters of the Justice Department since 9-11.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/one_day_well_all_be_terrorists_20091228/

HOLOGRAPHIC RICHES AWAIT

WALL STREET UNVEILS REVOLUTIONARY INVESTMENT EXCHANGE

Wall Street, always keen to polish its tarnished image and reputation in the wake of financial fallout that has seen once high-flyers run for the hills without any pants on, has once again put a fresh new face on the world’s largest exchange.

Bob Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Rick Rubin, among others, are expected to be on hand this week as NYSE Euronext unveils a revolutionary new investment vehicle and strategy: holographic trading.

The holographic trading platform, painstakingly developed over the last 3 years by leading analysts and finance officials including those mentioned above, has been hailed by Bernanke as, “an ingenius trading system, and just the tool we need to get back on track.”

The holographic platform consists of a new web-based open source technology wherein all assets are “in the cloud,” (within secure software on the web) and all transactions will take place in the cloud. An investor locates, or takes possession of, an investment in holographic form, “greatly reducing existing overhead and associated locate costs,” according to Geithner.

“By allocating these assets in the cloud, we have essentially created a low-overhead multi-trillion dollar expansion of existing markets,” says Summers. “This is the pinnacle of ‘lean trading’ today, maximizing margin potential for savvy investors worldwide.”

President Obama has endorsed the new platform, citing US innovation as setting the standard for a new world economic order. Mr. Obama has given the program a green light, circumnavigating the House and Senate and using the presidential pen to sign the Holographic Trading Initiative, signifying “A great day for American and global investors alike!”

IT'S NOT THERE

Most of us in this country and the rest of the world have worked long hours for low pay and reflected that this scenario is bullshit. But there is a certain purity and honesty in a hard days’ work, and it can get you hungry enough to eat and tired enough to sleep.

Ever since time began, though, a contingency of lazy, greedy takers has sought to avoid any actual work at all costs, no matter how low they must sink to do so.

Enter the world of derivatives, just one of many historical scams to create something out of nothing. The Nation praises Senator Maria Cantwell, along with Bernie Sanders, for proposing to use “state gambling laws to regulate the $600 trillion derivatives market.” (emphasis Exploited Times)

Only $600 trillion? That’s not too bad, considering it’s only about 200 times the entire 2009 federal budget. (The President’s 2009 budget is $3.1 trillion)

It may be useful to note that the $600 trillion bubble is not backed by any assets of any kind and is a purely fictional trading platform whose very existence, even in hypothetical discussion, relies wholely on the fraudulent insertion of numbers in columns in computers. The only “liquidity” to be realized is either extracted from asset-backed revenue streams, or never “realized” at all – save for the fictitious numbers in fictitious columns in computers.

It may also be useful to note that fictitious numbers in fictitious columns in computers can be used as leverage to extract more “liquidity” in the form of loans and equity stakes, etc. This is how derivatives bleed off real assets – in a “derivative” or “dilutive” manner. They are more accurately defined as “dilutives,” but this term has long been used on Wall St. in derogatory reference to outstanding shares versus companies’ actual worth. From a marketing perspective, “dilutives,” is not an attractive title for a phony investment scheme.

But at least it’s only $600 trillion, and we’re not talking about any serious money here. Rest easy, USA, keep telling yourself all is well in the house of cards.

Problem is, we don’t have any cards with which to construct a house of cards. The cards themselves  are mere derivatives of cards that once existed as assets but have been diluted to the point of total dilution.

You can’t add water to water and wind up with chicken broth.

“What we define as clean tech is companies addressing resource limitations in energy, water, and materials. These are the industries of the 21st century.” -Alan Salzman, VantagePoint Venture via SFCHRON

As we enter our 5th (fifth) decade of talking about this shit, many have grown weary and discontinued listening. Why? Because since then, we have added  over a couple billion resource-users to the mix, and each is using exponentially more resources now than ever before. Why, if history is any clue (and it absolutely always is), in another 10 years we’ll all be using about twice the energy we use now per capita, discarding every btu and kilowatt with more reckless abandon than ever before,  increasing our waste tenfold, and celebrating every bit of it with carbon-releasing explosions..

Sound fantastic? It’s not at all. In fact , it is more than likely and the most mathematically sound prediction of the next decade’s ‘conservation’ efforts, based on the last 40 years of efforts to the same end.

To use an old and beaten phrase that we’ve long forgotten how to heed: The talking part is done.

Oh, so done.

I JUST NEED MORE STUFF

Merry Christmas! The day of getting more stuff! It doesn’t matter what kind of stuff, it’s the thought that counts. But that sincere ‘thought’ is materialized in the form of – you got  it – STUFF.

 

 

In the US, Americans place far more value on stuff than we place on people. Stuff is what it’s all about. Citizens will routinely prioritize stuff in front of  health, and sacrifice their own well-being daily, all in the quest for more stuff.

 Sacrifice yourself for some stuff! Be American!

Those with small amounts of stuff will never be taken very seriously, for after all, it is really much more about the stuff than the person.

Ask yourself, what is more important: You, or your stuff?

GET SMART

The AP wire reports a Denver 3-year old getting dosed with a pot cookie.

Building up the tolerance.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?

The Nation did a story about a month ago called “How the US Funds the Taliban,” detailing how it is common practice for the US to pay the Taliban to not blow up supply trucks. Many readers with military contacts have known this for years. War, like any other business, depends on the flow of goods and services. In this case it is the flow of American tax dollars directly to the “enemy,” which incidentally is a business partner, much like the Saudis are partners with the Bush’s.

PERJURER

More insulting is the fact that one of the supply companies we hired to pay off the “enemy,” is owned by the son of the Afghan Defense Minister! The Exploited Times covered this briefly when The Nation story broke. What a blatant kick in the face to the collective American I.Q. The mere fact that these wars can be sold to the American conscience is a testament to just how blind and distracted the US is. Here we have undisputed proof – nobody is even attempting to hide it or frame it as an issue – that the US taxpayer is openly contracting with the son of the minister of defense against whom we are engaged in an escalating war! Am I hallucinating here, or what the fuck?

So try to follow this if you can: as far as the Exploited Times can tell, it is the only entity who even considers the above to be a conflict. But The Nation piece is inspiring some more excellent use of taxpayer funds – in the form of an investigation by a very scary House subcommittee! If this doesn’t knock the Taliban back, then nothing will. This must be the last code orange maneuver just shy of nuking the place and sure to right all the wrongs immediately - especially if the committee is anything like the one convened to investigate steroids in US sports!

TEARS OF SHAME

These committees mean nothing but business, as evidenced by major league baseball counsellors laughing in the face of House committee reps during the proceedings. Oh yeah, but Mark McGwire did start balling. Maybe we can get the Taliban to cry too – tears of joy from all the cash we’re giving them.

House subcommittee’s recommendations for lunch items are ignored by staff interns; there is no more credibility here than that of the Copenhagen climate accord or the mortgage relief program. But it is likely that of the few hundred or so Americans following current events, most will eat this up as routine press release feeding time.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100111/roston

-Ralph Nader

KEEP WATCHING

The average American now spends 5 hours a day watching T.V., and the average home has more T.V.’s than people. (Nielsen data)

“The two parties, under the influence of corporate power, are converging. One-third of America’s public lands, plus what is offshore, belongs to the people. We own them. But the oil, gas, uranium and the gold and silver industries control them. They take our resources for nothing or five bucks an acre. A Canadian gold company discovered $9 billion worth of our gold in Nevada in public lands over a decade ago. They got ownership of it for $30,000 under the 1872 Mining Act. The Department of the Interior had to sell them the projected acreage over the mine for five bucks an acre. The corporations don’t care who owns anything, as long as they control it. We have accepted, as a people, that the president can go anywhere in the world, with any troops, at any time, under any pretext. Period.” -Nader (emphasis Exploited Times)

This is true stuff, and pretty heavy too. But the majority of Americans have been watching television the whole time and frankly don’t know what any of this means, so they certainly don’t care about it. In a very real sense, America has moved on from the Constitution. Nader says the important parts are being ignored; a “dead letter.”

Looking back from wherever it is America has moved on to, maybe someday some of us will care enough about this shit to cry, but probably not. And there hasn’t been “two parties” for a good while now.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/naders_utopia_the_world_according_to_ralph_20091221/

YOU'RE NOT SUBSIDIZED

Here’s a fun wealth transfer fact: Farming adds no more than 4% to California’s state gross product while consuming 80% of its water, which simply means they have enough subsidized water to get taxpayer handouts for growing worthless crops that nobody needs, and trade the rest as a commodity on the open

market: – excerpt from Yasha Levine via www.ExiledOnline.com

The California water smokescreen, from Feinstein and her pals all the way to every last drop extorted from bone-dry residents – is of course nothing like it seems.

Check out the real deal here: http://exiledonline.com/nasa-satellites-can-see-californias-wealth-transfer-all-the-way-from-space/#more-15977