Who would object if President Bomb The Hell Out Of Everybody signed the following executive order?

"1. Investigative agencies are directed to speed up the cases of those accused of the preparation or execution of acts of terror.

"2. The Department of Justice is directed not to hold up the execution of death sentences pertaining to crimes of terrorism in order to consider the possibility of pardon.

"3. The Department of Justice is directed to execute the death sentences against terrorists immediately after the passage of sentences."

Hardly anyone in Washington not named Ron Paul would object. I'm guessing many Republicans would publicly applaud the bold order from President Drone Strike and ask why he didn't do it sooner. Millions of Americans who disagree with President Collateral Damage on almost everything else would admit that he finally got something right.

Yup.

And no one would notice that the order is almost exactly the same as an order issued by Joseph Stalin on December 1, 1934, with the names of the agencies as the only significant difference. The order was actually signed by Abel Yenukidze, Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, "on Stalin’s initiative without the approval of the Politbiuro," according to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in his speech to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 (otherwise known as his "Secret Speech").

If apologists for President War Is Good were made aware that they support an order that came straight from Stalin, they no doubt would argue that no one is all bad, not even Stalin, and even he got some things right. This, for example.

Okay, except the whole point of Khrushchev's speech was to denounce Stalin and emphasize the importance of "preclud[ing] any possibility of a repetition in any form whatever of what took place during the life of Stalin."

"Okay, fine," the apologists would say. "So what that Khrushchev had a huge problem with just about everything Stalin? How do we know the directive about terrorism was seen as bad?"

In Khrushchev's own words: "This directive became the basis for mass acts of abuse against socialist legality."
So here we have the Soviet Premier, in 1956, speaking out against a tyrannical directive that practically all of today's Washington and a disturbingly large number of Americans would support.

Ah, but of course President Peace Love Hope Change would never abuse an order like this.

Wait! What am I thinking?! The point of Stalin's directive was to expedite the show trials that the Soviets staged. Here, President Mob Boss just draws up a kill list and orders a hit.

All is well. Return to your normal programming.

The reported high in New Orleans yesterday was 96. I'm not sure if that was Fahrenheit or Celsius, but it didn't much matter. With the humidity we have to deal with here, 96 anything is frickin' hot.

Satan, a frequent visitor to New Orleans, left early in the afternoon on account of the heat. It was that bad.

It was under these conditions that I was tricked into playing a kickball game with five kids and two other adults as foolish as I. I think the three large Jim Beam and 7UPs had a hand in it.

In the bottom of the second I asked that someone make a preemptive 911 call. No one did, but another Jim Beam and 7UP made things right.

In the top of the third, one of the kids booted a deep one way over my head. I turned and ran, keeping my eye on the ball the whole time. This is normally correct procedure, unless, of course, there is a parked car in one's path. Collision with said car becomes inevitable at that point, and quite a surprise indeed at the moment of impact.

Not that it should come as a surprise. After all, someone could have, oh, I don't know, frickin' yelled something. But, no. Everyone remained silent while Jim Beam and I ran full tilt into the back of a 1998 Subaru, smashing the hell out of my thumb and doing a number on my right testicle.

Thanks, everyone.

Discolored thumb, and me trying not to die after the game.

Which brings me, at last, to the point: Warnings can be very important. That sounds ridiculously simplistic and obvious, but many people seem to downplay the value of a good, old-fashioned, wake-the-dead warning. Those are the people who say that the person pointing out the problem must also offer a solution if he is to have any credibility.

Nonsense.

If I'm walking down the street and notice that your house is on fire, should I shout a warning only if I can also offer a solution as to how to extinguish the blaze? And during a kickball game, if I see you and Jim Beam blindly running full-tilt toward a parked car, should I yell a warning only if I can also offer a solution as to how to avoid the collision? Here's a hint: Yell something next time, guys. Anything.

So, listen — Here is the root of many of the world's problems: debt-based money. Don't expect me to offer a solution. I have no idea. But If you don't know that money springs into existence only at the moment it is borrowed, and if you can't see the associated problems and inherent fraud in such a system, and how it leads to financial catastrophe, wars, and massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the super wealthy, then research it for yourself and start educating others, whether you can offer a solution or not.

Oh, yeah: We won, 10-7.

The eurozone debt crisis is coming to a head, and, as I have been saying publicly for many months, there is no way it can survive much past this summer, if indeed it makes it that long.

I am reminded of New Year's Eve 1988. I'm not sure where I was exactly, but it was somewhere on the northern Oregon coast and I was drunk, naked, running along the beach and being chased by a large dog. Lucky for me, that was back in the day when I could run pretty damn fast, and there were three slower (and, yes, naked) drunks between me and the dog. I'm still married to one of those slow, naked drunks, but there's no way she will read this, so I won't get into any trouble on that front.

I know what you're thinking: What does the drunk, naked, chased-by-a-large-dog thing have to do with the eurozone debt crisis?

And the entirely unsatisfactory reply is this: It has nothing to do with it, but it got your attention.

And that's all that the script readers in the corporate-controlled media have been doing the last few months when discussing the economies of the eurozone and the U.S. Their game plan has been to fill the airwaves with moronic platitudes about the recovery in such-and-such a sector, or optimism about such-and-such a bailout plan, or whatever, and hope that boobus americanus falls for it.

It's as if the talking heads are reading from the same script. Here's why: They are reading from the same script. And the script tells us, always, that Average Joe would be screwed unless his overlords steal his money and give it to bankers and bureaucrats. Here's some good news for the script readers and their overlords: boobus americanus falls for it every time.

If you want to know what's in the eurozone's near future (and, sadly, ours), read on. If you want lies from script-reading shills, turn on the nonsense they like to call news.

As the debt and currency crises worsen, the government will seize even more control of the economy and our lives (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); bank failures will increase (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); banks will take holidays or place very low limits on how much cash customers can withdraw (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); poverty will increase (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); the U.S. will enter into another major war (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); holding more than a few ounces of gold will be illegal (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); many Americans, for the sake of Homeland Security, of course, will find themselves detained without charge (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.); and the financial catastrophe will last many years (see Roosevelt, Franklin D.).

The lying, script-reading shills will ignore as much of the above as possible, and spin the rest as being good for Average Joe.

Drunk, naked, and being chased by a large dog is starting to look pretty good.

For the last couple years I have been saying that Barack Obama would win a second term. I explained my reasoning in detail in my post of April 22, 2011. 

But now I'm not so sure.

I have heard reports that some insiders are referring to Obama as "damaged goods." Then there's the increasing number of antiwar lefties who are upset that "Change" evidently meant an increase in attacks on our civil liberties and in the number of innocents we slaughter overseas. That sounds more like "Cheney you can believe in," than "Change you can believe in."

Assuming Mitt Romney prevails at the Republican National Convention in Tampa (the Republican establishment will see to it), voters will yet again be left with a "choice" between a Democrat who supports an inflationary monetary policy, massive borrowing, massive spending, unending wars, globalism, and an increase in state power at the expense of civil liberties, versus a Republican who agrees with him on all that stuff.

Oh, sure, the D and the R always quibble about a few things on the periphery, but they fully agree on screwing us so as to enrich the military-industrial complex, the banking-industrial complex, the pharmaceutical-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, the surveillance-industrial complex, and on and on.

There is one party in Washington: the War-Banker party. The D or R in front of a candidate's name merely indicates whether the liar in question campaigns from the War-Banker party's Democrat wing or its Republican wing. And so, while I am downgrading Obama from lock to favorite, remember that it really doesn't matter whether we get a War-Banker party D or a War-Banker party R, because the wars, inflation, borrowing and spending will continue.

I am reminded of Bill Murray's motivational speech from the movie "Meatballs." As he said, "It just doesn't matter ... 'cause they got all the money."