Enjoy what could well be our last few months of culturally reinforced American insularity and relative plenitude. But at least put this bit of news in your pipe and smoke it in the meantime.  Talk about it with family and friends. Or start digging up your backyard to grow some veggies.

I’m a happy guy despite how it may appear, but I am concerned about our economic situation. And I’m sure you probably are as well. If you aren’t concerned yet, you will be, even if you are a filthy rich redneck living off the grid at the end of your private road.

I think Americans across the board are about to experience a whole new world of hardship and economic pain that is incomprehensible to most of us at this juncture. I really hope not, but I’m not going betting against this out of control economic freight train.

“Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle silly video moments, fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.”

Link to Truthdig article.

So what’s the big problem? The rest of the world’s leading nations are actively dumping the dollar as reserve currency. What does this mean? How about the end of the American way of life. The end of American hegemony. The end of rampant militarization.  And possibly much, much worse.

When we elected Barack Obama, I was hopeful until I realized (again) that the problems which ail our country are fatal flaws that no politician can possibly fix. We are beyond broke. But of course, Obama’s good at fixing small problems with a single swat.

We are to put it mildly, screwed. Don’t say you didn’t know or believe the worst was still in front of you, read the article and get ready for the next economic crapstorm.

Hide me as a friend if you don’t like the topic. Or thank me later after you acknowledge that nobody you know is really talking about what’s going to happen next in this country. It’s called denial.

Or don’t thank me at all. But at least try to remove as much of yourself from the tracks as you can or you might get squashed flat like a Lincoln cent or smushed like the fly in the vid.



Fascinating testimony from Russell Tice, NSA Whistleblower examining NSA data collection methods and the involvement of major telcos in sharing your (our) information. Was your electronic communication and credit information collected and scrutinized by spooks and their elaborate data mining tools in this massive undertaking? Hmm, sure looks like it. Tice has been speaking out for several years in a brave attempt to uncloak the truth about this country’s wholesale disregard for and invasion of privacy for the sake of keeping us safe.

This man deserves a job in the Obama administration and a bust of his likeness placed on the desk of whoever is running the NSA.

Link to Wired article.

So much for our vaunted free market economics and laissez faire government; it ain’t working. When US businesses and their investors ask for carbon emissions growth to be reigned in by US government it’s got to be for a dayam good reason.

Are you people in Washington D.C. even living on the same planet?

Link to Financial Times article.

A radical concept embraced by Fidel Castro two years ago is set to take root down under: mandating the adoption of more efficient lighting across this huge country by banning resource- and carbon-intensive light bulbs.

You could be this radical today by just going to Home Depot or Lowes and replacing all your light bulbs with compact florescent lamps (CFLs).

Link to BusinessWeek article.

Welcome government readers:

Our tax dollars at work surfing the web, and my site?

Host Name: clayton.state.gov
IP Address: 169.252.4.21
Country: United States
Region: District Of Columbia
City: Washington
ISP: U.S. Department Of State
Returning Visits: 1
Visit Length: 10 mins 31 secs

Interesting what site logs reveal. In this case, to see government employees wasting tax dollars cruising the internet for clues about terrists I s’pose. I am sure I’m a clear and present danger to national security. Also interesting is that this particular IP address/hostname appears literally thousands of times in the site logs of sites all over the world, of all types, including libraries and forums. What a great job. You must be very proud of the work you do.

©1997-2011 Jay Toups :-)