Are You a Millionaire?

Or are you simply an aspiring oligarch?
That may explain why we have a Republican controlled Congress. Or why we have Republicans at all.

A quote by Ronald Wright from his work, A Short History of Progress, frequently misattributed to the late great author John Steinbeck; "Socialism never took root in America, because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
Why? Maybe because the vast majority of people in this country, rich or poor, don't even know what the words proletariat and socialism, actually mean. Yes, that is a knock on our educational system.

Let's start with proletariat, according to Websters Dictionary; it's a noun workers or working class people, regarded collectively (often used with reference to Marxism).
I see the problem now, we allowed an educational tool, the dictionary to become a propaganda tool.
Outside of ISIS, who as a people have we Americans been conditioned to revile since kindergarten?
Could it be communists? We all know that Marxism is communism.
Do you want to be labeled a commie? Probably not in America. You'll lose your job, friends (except those like minded), and possibly your family...

Socialism is a social and economic system characterized by social ownership and social control of the means of production as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.

Wanna be a socialist? Like that label any better? Again, probably not. In America, you're talking about synonymous terms. Commie=socialist=chaos=.....you name it, somebody's thought of it, because you're already afraid of it. Why? Because your government told you to be afraid. So you are, very afraid, very afraid to educate yourselves. Much easier to feed from a trough than to hunt down your own meal.
Much easier to have someone else do the heavy thinking, while you do the heavy drinking. Right?
Right. Right up until you realize, you're never going to be that oligarch you aspire to, that the game is rigged by families like the Bush Clan, the Koch's et al.

The reality is America, some of our greatest achievements occurred because we embraced socialism.
Our interstate highway system is one example, NASA, the Tennesse Valley Authority, the Works Progress Administration or W.P.A., farming co-ops that brought us SunMaid Raisins, Sunkist Oranges, "Cotton", this list goes on and on and on.

When we embraced unbridled capitalism...'er the Republicans... we got a Supreme Court that bestowed the rights of individuals on corporations. A middle class reduced by tens of millions. A working class ballooned by millions, a homeless population expanded by millions. Social Security retirementthat we all were forced to pay into in the form of a tax, suddenly became a wholly government funded "entitlement". An entitled oligarchy of 1% holding more wealth than the rest of the 99% combined. Two interminable wars, fought by the sons and daughters of the working class, so that the 1% could profit from their investments in our military industrial complex. Not to mention oil.

So why did so many poor people vote for a party bent on making us poorer?
Maybe because they're going to protect your Christian Rights, Stop Gay Marriage, and End Abortions!
They're going to sit around the proverbial kitchen table (in the Congressional dining hall over a tax payer funded meal) and go over the finaces like you do at home, while they balance the budget. Guess what? No Republican Congress or President for that matter, has ever presided over the implementation of any of these fantasies.

If you're a retiree living on Social Security, trying to figure out what meds you can afford, while feeding yourself pablum because Congress decided your cost of living has stayed steady... Just know they have your back when it comes to your right to go to the church nobody threatened to close. They'll do everything in their power to see to it that your daughters and granddaughters can't go to Planned Parenthood for an abortion if they've been raped. And by God they will protect you from receiving that unwanted marriage proposal from your same sex best friend at the senior center.

God Bless America!

Allies or Enemies?

Given the tangled internecine nature of the wars going on in Iraq, and Syria; the budding proxy battle between Sunni and Shia, Russia and the US....it's time to sum up who's who in the region and where our interests ultimately lie.

And lie we do. To ourselves mostly, but also to those we call "ally".

Reality is America, those we call "ally" in the region, are the very governments that exacerbate the wars we have been trying to extricate ourselves from. In fact, were it not for our staunchest "ally" in the region, we're not even at war.
September 11, 2001, hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, a portion of the Pentagon, and another fell to the ground in Pennsylvania, when valiant passengers rose up and sacrificed their own lives in order to prevent another building being targeted. Our US Capitol building.
They were commandeered by Saudi Arabian citizens, not Iranians, Iraqi's, Kurds, Turks, Israeli's, Palestinians, Russians, or anyone else.
The rationale used by these cretins, promulgated at the highest levels of the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi theocratical establishment. Their funding provided by followers of this faith, citizens of the kingdom.

Though the Saudi citizen bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan then Pakistan (another "ally"), the vast majority of his initial followers and financial support emanated from Saudi Arabia, not just from ordinary citizens, but the royal family and wealthy influential individuals across the kingdom. People whose very ability to wreak havoc was built on the protection afforded by America.

Iran on the other hand, the nation in the region we villify the most, had nothing to do with it. Neither did Iraq.
Yet in the aftermath, both countries have suffered enormously at our hands. Why?
Why did we allow the Saudi's to come out unscathed? Their citizens, their funding, their ideology, their continued support of ISIS. Yet we depose Saddam, tackle the Taliban, economically embargo Iran, prop up Uncle Ernies efforts to start a civil war in Turkey...and Saudi Arabia gets new jet fighters?!

So here we are America, supposedly the great democratic power on Earth, promoting human rights, and representative government in our words, yet we won't tolerate true democratically elected governments among our "allies". No, we allow Uncle Ernie Erdogan to fiddle about, destroying the only NATO allied democracy in the region; while we arm repressive monarchies from Bahrain to the UAE.
Nations like Saudi Arabia, where women are forbidden from doing just about everything except existing as chattle.

When will our words and actions finally coalesce into one true meaning?
After 14 years of war we have sown chaos not clarity, demagoguery not democracy.
Duplicitous and USA have become synonymous terms to many in the world.
Are you still wondering why?

Turkish Murder, American Shame

Sponsor a double bombing in Ankara, mercilessly, without warning, execute in the process over 100 innocent war protesters; announce your airforce is "pounding terrorist positions."

Then I go online, only to find that Uncle Ernie's Pasha Palace is still standing...didn't the Royal Turkish Air Farce get the map coordinates for your pile straight?

I thought the official Turkish news agency was getting real finally.

News flash Ernie; the slaughter by your "intelligence" agents, of unarmed Kurds peacefully marching in your cultural capitol is a terrorist act. Following the terrorist act of restarting a civil war, because the Kurds reached the 10% threshold to attain representation in Parliament. In the parlance of our nations other favorite pasttime Ernie, you're almost battin' a thousand. 

Kleptocrat, War criminal, megalomaniac...what more can a midget aspire to!

Truthfully Ernie, you've reached deep, deep down into the gutter of humanity.

Barack Obama, our Fearless Leader, you're Ernie's accomplice.

Without your blessing Barry, he's not bombing the only real allies we have in the region.

No thumbs up from you Barry, and Ernie's not slaughtering young women in the streets of Ankara, Diyarbakir, Kobani... young girls and women the same ages as your daughters.

Here, we the USof A, were offered on a golden  platter, the opportunity to right a historic wrong dating to WWI, and before.

Instead Barry, you marshalled every resource at your command; the most powerful man, guiding the greatest military industrial complex the Earth has ever known...and you're leading us right into the clusterfuck that will be WWIII.

What a surprise.

Congrats Barry, that's quite a swan song playing on your way out the door.

American Tragedy...Again

Does this story ever end?
At what point do we as a nation demand the final chapter of this ridiculous book?
Chapter after horror filled chapter, of overtly predictable outcomes.

Our main character: " Dude", with the mental capacity of a box of rocks, coddled by Mommy his entire life, goes off at a school.
With a gun. That he clearly had no business owning.

Which begs the question.
If this guy had no job, (and who would hire a guy that doesn't speak), therefore no means with which to purchase a weapon, or weapons, as is the case here; who bought the guns for this nut? How about the ammo?
Was it Satan? No, probably not "Church Lady".
Or was it Mommy? Again.

Did yet another delusional Mother of a mentally unstable adult child, purposely put weapons in the hands of her beloved box of rocks?
It would appear so.
The only difference this time, Mommy was not the first casualty, as was the case nearly three years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary.
No, this time Mommy gets to live with the carnage wrought by her precious little boy, and the guns she chose to provide him.
No reprieve for you lady.

With any luck at all, and a seriously healthy dollop of justice, this Mommy goes down as an accessory to murder.
If we can't hold the insane accountable for their actions, especially when they off themselves, then shouldn't we hold those people responsible that provide the weapons?
I think so.

"We've got a problem Washington..."

Weak, lackadaiscal, and straight up sorry... that's all one can say for the effort put forth thus far by the American coalition fighting daesh.
So, the Russians stepped in.
Perfect....
"Perfect 'Shit' Storm", another multipart masterpiece of American foreign policy in the making.

Mix a pound of Turkey, with two pounds of NATO, a dash of Australia, add just a smidgen of Hezbollah, Iran, the remaining cast of freedom fighters Assad loyalists, and what we have is a recipe for "successful" sequels like: "World War I: Part 3", and
"Escape of the Sane from Planet Insanity: Germany's Looking Good...This Time",  both features in development as we write.

Truly, for the most part I believe Barry's done a decent job, particularly given what he inherited.

However, when it comes to the Midget of Moscow...
Barry's given him a pass.
Sanctions smanctions.
This little despot needs a smack down. Yesterday.
Taking out his toys in Syria, would send the proper message.
Not only to Vlad, but to Uncle Ernie the Sultan of Turkey as well; he needs to have his efforts redirected like an ADHD kid. He's clearly not read the memo regarding not starting civil wars in one's own country, when there's already chaos on your borders, and in your government, that shit never works out.

Here's your gameplan Barry, I'm giving you a freebie today, 'cause we're brothers from other mothers.
We implement a robust NATO only fly zone, sans the Sultan's Air Farce; backed by a Powell-esque strategy of overwhelming ground force, ejecting not only daesh, but every other bad actor on the stage. Iran, Hezbollah, Assad...
Encourage the further acquisition of historical lands for our real allies Kurdistan, and Armenia.
Make Uncle Ernie understand what the consequences of misalignment are.
Push Putin back into his palace, patiently wait for the peasants to storm the throne...again.
It's Russia, that shit's inevitable.

Wake Up Turkey

People of Turkey, your sons are being killed.
Not for the just cause of wiping out daesh, but in committing genocide against the Kurdish people.
Sultan Ernie, has unleashed the dogs of war on you, his own people, in yet another cynical attempt to extend the reach and scope of his power.
This current bloodshed was brought about by Ernies inability to grasp the new reality that faces the region.
Kurdistan, is a true nation, with a functioning government, an army peopled by men and women who are the front line against daesh, and Assad. An army that has held the mighty TAF in check for 30 years plus.

Uncle Ernie on the other hand is a midget despot, taking a powerful country from the path of peace and prosperity, to the well worn road to ruin. You've been here before Turkey, the charges of genocide perpetrated against the Armenian people growing louder with every passing decade...do you really want to be associated with the same crime against the Kurds? With a record like that, you're making Nazi Germany look downright moderate.

Bottom line, Uncle Ernie is doing your country absolutely no favors. The war he helped foment, is in your home now, your children in uniform are being targeted and killed by people who only want to live.
Your Sultan Ernie, has brought this on your heads, attacking those who defend themselves against the tyranny of a despot. Step back from the propaganda your government feeds you, and understand that the Kurds are people, human beings just like you.
Like you, they will act to ensure their survival.

Unlike you, they fight for a just cause.

Kurdistan: Your Time Is Now

Uncle Sam, I see people like us, good people fighting for their very existence, who are in desperate need of our help.
Why?
Because your brother from another mother Uncle Ernie The Sultan of Turkey, is using our technology bombing our best friends in the region.
When he's supposed to be bombing the ISIS he helped create and sustain.

How will we respond?

Will we turn our backs on the Kurdish people carrying our burden?
After all, the reality is if we don't invade Iraq based on bullshit in 2002, there is no ISIS now.
Or, if the "Great White Hunter" Cheney, Bremer, Bush, Rumsfeld and company had the collective intelligence to co opt the Iraqi Army, rather than disburse it with it's weapons caches, know how, and terrain advantage...but that's a whole other post isn't it?
Summing it up in a few words for those who weren't aware: History will not be kind to this "brain" trust.

Then we sat back and looked the other way while Uncle Ernie fed a steady stream of ignorant ISIS fodder into Syria, cynically hoping they would topple Assad, counter Iranian interests, and help decimate the ranks of Hezbollah, all in one brilliant motion.
Didn't happen Ernie.
All while murdering and displacing millions of innocents.
Why are we allowing Uncle Ernie and the Turks to murder the finest allies we have in the fight against daesh, as they continue the struggle to establish a long denied homeland?

Turkey under Sultan Erdogan is a disaster specifically for NATO, Syria, Israel, Kurdistan, and more generally the entire Middle East. Hasn't been a picnic for us either.
So what's our next move Uncle Sam?
Fiddle about while a murderous little despot widens the war?

The Kurds have no intention of waiting for your reply, they're taking the battle straight to Uncle Ernie, and the nutless TAF he neutered so successfully.
Witness the attacks taking place even as I write this.

May God be with them in their fight for freedom, justice and the Kurdish way.

Erdogan: Not America's Ally

Remember the good old days?

When elected governments in Turkey were actually good NATO allies; rather than the duplicitous pile we deal with today?

I do, the guardians of secularism the Turkish Armed Forces, kept wannabe sultan's like uncle Ernie from rising and building 1,000 room palaces, along with religionist cults of personality.

Unfortunately the TAF has been rather successfully neutered, the kangaroo courts hop to Uncle Ernie's dictates; and the ignorant masses of illiterates populating the countryside determine the elections that keep this midget despot in power.

What happened? 

The European Union happened, and Turkey wanted to join really really bad.

However, those incredibly proper Euro's, the same people that plundered planet earth through colonialism. Fomented divisions where they did not previously exist,  and drew up national boundaries without regard for the indigenous who lived in the lands they occupied....

They basically told the TAF: " All these military takeovers of elected governments are rather uncivlized you know? In order to join our elite group of pirates, you'll have to comport yourselves in a wholly different manner." "Should your people wish to elect a Islamist party to govern, then so be it."

How magnanimous Euro zone! The heady days of beating the USSR into economic submission, allowed you to delude yourselves into believing that Ernie's ideas of a new caliphate were somehow compatible with the secular free market ways of the zone. Once again Euro, you chose poorly. As in 1920, when the Ottomans collapsed a free and strong Kurdistan could and should have been allowed to form; predictably your leaders acted only with greed in mind, carving up the carcass and distributing the meat to the victors. Unfortunately, the US government was every bit as guilty, and still hasn't woken up and smelled the Kurdish coffee either.

So now are we going to allow Uncle Ernie to fiddle about and degrade the only fighting force standing up to daesh? 

Why not take this opportunity to correct a historic tragedy? Arm Kurdistan, depose Ernie, return the Turkish Republic to a reliable secular NATO ally. 

Those were the days my friends...

Law Enforcement: Environmental Terrorists

Updating the "Raid of the Decade Debacle" from our last post; we understand that through all of this folly the Three Amigos ended up not making much of an impact on the cannabis market.
Yes prices per pound have risen, great for all of those not targeted, and supply continues completely unabated....
No arrests, the only seizures were legally produced medical cannabis.
California Highway Patrol declined to particpate when they saw the target, Fish and Game stood back and watched as amateur hour unfolded. So the Amigos called out the National Guard...at God only knows what cost to the taxpayer to witness a display of idiocy run amok.
So, Los Tres Amigos, what was your point?

We're all seeing the propaganda you put out about a half million gallons of water a day being used on these farms...and find it humorous, these guys don't grow almonds Amigos.

There does not exist today, a watershed in the Island area that could possibly support that kind of pumping; nor do these farmers have the capacity to pump that much water in a day let alone a week.
The total finished weight of product from modified light deprivation greenhouses you took, would have amounted to 1200 pounds of finished product; not even what one farmer does in a harvest.
Bottom line the growers I've spoken to who use this method use ONE gallon of water per plant per day.
One sixth the water usage attributed by the "Authority", who needlessly dumped a couple hundred thousand gallons of rainwater down a hill. Water the county will now have to replace at taxpayer expense.
We have laws in California protecting the rights of children, even the children of cannabis farmers, so Amigos when your actions deprive children of water, you open your county and yourselves personally to a possible list of penalties that you legal beagles should be able to sniff out.

Another thing Amigos, if you're going to toss numbers around like you toss each others salads, at least make them verifiable.

Really, going after cannabis activists that can out spend you is, well, pretty foolish considering you don't have the resources to back your play, especially when you don't get Federal dollars for this nonsense anymore.
So stealing a privately owned tractor to destroy a legally permitted water system on another privately owned parcel, does nothing but open the Counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity to civil actions that they will surely lose,  leaving your constituents exposed like a pervy flasher on a playground...a crime you really should be after.

Amigos, doing these raids on properties that are the poster children for compliance, illustrates perfectly the Bozo the Clown school of law enforcement you clearly took your degrees from, and a course we need to steer clear of when we elect your replacements.

Using that tractor to destroy a family farmers personal water supply is environmental terrorism conducted by law enforcement. Rolling that farmers water storage tank down a hill, while tearing holes into that container, is terrorism. These acts are no different from any ideologically based campaign of destruction perpetrated by a terrorist group.

Committing terrorist acts while wearing the uniform and badge of law enforcement, reeks of a police state mentality our forefathers fought and died to keep from poisoning our shores.
Isn't it enough that these farmers are willing to jump from persecution to taxation?
Do they also have to see those tax dollars deployed against them and their families by terrorists?

The first Three Amigos film with Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Steve Martin was a comedy classic for the ages.
This latest iteration starring Sheriffs' Allman, Haney and Downey is an Ishtar like failure.
I hope someone caught it on film...

Law Enforcement: Lashing Out in Their Death Throes

When Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome recently stated, " Good people can disagree", regarding the distance between law enforcement and the cannabis legalization movement, I knew he was sugar coating reality. Pretty sure everybody in the room knew it too.

Well, the push back has begun.
Cynically and stupidly some of those "good people", the Three Amigos Sheriffs from Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity counties, recently got together a cowboy raiding party to specifically target legal cannabis farmers who are supporting the legalization movement. Farmers who have come out of the dark to have legally permitted water catchment systems, farmers who want to pay taxes, the same taxes that are being misused now to destroy legally permitted water systems during a drought.
100,000 gallons and counting.

Committing the very environmental crimes they claim to prevent.
While stealing private bulldozers to do those crimes.
The Three Amigos call it "asset forfeiture" and "eradication", the rest of society calls it what it is, THEFT.
Doing it all without benefit of search warrant. Illegal.
In the three counties in California that rely most heavily on cannabis cultivation to support their respective economies.
Brilliant?

Why? Because guys like Tom Allman the Sheriff of Mendocino County like illegal cannabis.
Besides all the toys they get to choose from before they hit auction, through "asset forfeiture"....
Black market weed is far more profitable than legal stuff, no taxes, higher costs, selective enforcement targeting unwanted competition. Because as you know "Mr. Burkhart, not everybody in Mendocino County is allowed to grow marijuana." That's what I was told in 2008 while sitting in his jail.

With the FBI recently nailing the Deputy Chief of Police in the City of Fresno for dealing prescription narcotics in a sting; makes me wonder if they have their eyes on law enforcement in our cannabis producing counties.
If they don't, they're not doing their jobs.

Law Enforcement: A Parallel Universe

What happens in the business world when an idea, product, or service becomes outdated, unsustainable, and ultimately meets with failure?

Answer: That failed idea, product, or service is promptly relegated to the "Book of Lessons Learned", never to be repeated under sentence of perpetual poverty.

Well today I had the opportunity to attend a round table discussion hosted by California's Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome on the topic of cannabis legal reform, with an emphasis on taxation, and land use law. 

From the outset Lt. Governor Newsome made it clear that he believes a cannabis legalization ballot initiative was all but certain for 2016, and it's passage is more probable than not. Having said that, we should prepare for the new reality before us, in the most proactively responsible way possible.
Just when the Lt. Governor said, "Good people can disagree." somebody did...in a most disagreeable way.

When asked, the President of the California Police Chiefs Association, Chief Garza of the Reedley Police Dept. stated: "It's mine and our organizations view that marijuana should not be legal"..."we have to protect my four children, and all the kids in the community..." 

Now remember we're supposed to be discussing taxation and land use after inevitable legalization, not his organizations preference for failed policy.

What happened to staying on subject?

My guess is, this guy didn't go to business school, because he never once addressed the topic at hand.

Chief Garza kept beating the dead horse argument that expensive enforcement and incarceration is somehow fiscally more responsible than collecting taxes, and reallocating resources to real drug education, not propaganda.

In my world; dude is F-I-R-E-D.

This is our fundamental problem; if we have people running law enforcement that can't recognize failed policy repeatedly slapping them in the face, how will they transition to the new reality of cannabis legalization?

It's like J. Edgar Hoover, the 'esteemed', and allegedly cross dressing, founder and long time Director of the F.B.I., who until his dying breath refused to acknowledge the reality of the Mafia. 

J. Edgar's not alone, throughout history we have examples of authority "turning a blind eye" to the reality we all know exists; but what motivates the top cop in the country to ignore the albatross shitting on our heads?

Could it be cash?

In the case of today's police chiefs, we know it's the cash.

Federal grants, and military equipment have been flowing to these forces the past 30 years at a rate we could only dream of for our schools. The War on Drugs has our prisons bursting, with the number of prison guards becoming so large, they are the best funded lobby in Sacramento, while at the same time more cannabis, heroin, meth, and just about any pharmaceutical drug you want is easier to find than at any time in the last 40 years. Just ask Chief Jerry Dyer of the Fresno P.D., his Deputy Chief was recently busted in a FBI sting supplying pharmaceutical drugs to undercover agents...and Jerry didn't have a clue.

Reality Check Chief Garza, repeated application of failed policy to a problem will only yield the same predictable result: failure.

I can only imagine the rationale going through the minds of law enforcement, but it must be something like this:

"When you have a vested interest in your own failure, and there's no penalty for that failure, it's in your own best interest to perpetuate that failure, even though it's not in the best interest of those you serve, the people who ultimately sign your checks."

Thanks for the clarification Chief Garza.

1980 Moscow Olympics 2018 World Cup Uh Oh....

Remember 1979? When the Soviet Union invaded friendly, peaceful Afghanistan? Shortly thereafter we helped create the "mujahideen" with our good friends the Pakistani's, which later morphed into the Taliban...Well that's another story for a different post.

What most of us who were alive at the time will remember most vividly, was the move made by our President Jimmy Carter in response to the invasion; we boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.
The Soviets in turn boycotted the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, as it was true then and remains true today, nobody missed the Russians.

Fast forward to 2015, we stand watching Russian aggression again unfold, this time in Ukraine, with yet another international sporting event in the wings. How will our current president respond...hmmmm?
Taking a page from Jimmy's playbook, and of course adding a judicial twist that Jimmy didn't have at his disposal; Barry removed the minions from Sepp Blatter's control, leaving him a lonely old man facing the storm alone. As a dude who's so old he farts dust, he retires and fades to black immediately after winning the election today.
Perhaps a car wreck is in his near future, or heart attack, at his advanced age anything can happen....

But back to Vlad, he's the real target; Barry's not going to merely boycott the World Cup, he's going to complete the humiliation of Vlad the Midget by having the games moved to another country. Witness the Midget's immediate embrace of the embattled Blatter, he's scared because he knows what Barry's up to. Love to see the little troll's face when he realizes how large a pile of shit he stepped into, just before he's consumed by it.

World War III Anyone?

Just read Chancellor Merkel's speech, giving her reasoning, for not providing Ukraine with heavy defensive weapons. While she makes the valid point, Vlad's not going to back down if we up the ante; she misses the larger more salient point. Aggression unchecked, leads to more aggression. A lesson taught so well by her own ancestors, I'm flummoxed at the idea she can't see it.

As I read Ms. Merkels' statement, I couldn't help but be transported back to 1938.
The phrase "peace in our time" as proclaimed by Neville Chamberlain, upon his return from meeeting with Hitler, during which he gave Herr Hitler the West's blessing to Germany's march into the Sudetenland, rings with an ominous echo today.

Putin, has become bolder in his actions in light of the economic sanctions put into play, not less so, and certainly if we send in weapons, Russia will respond. Disproportianately.
In Czar Vlad's eyes, Ukraine is Russia, has been forever, and will continue as the western frontier of the largest nation on earth. Think "lebensraum" or in English "living room", the German term used by the Nazi's to describe their push east into Poland, Czechoslovakia....
Putin's using the same rationale, Ukraine is to Russia, what Eastern Europe was to the Nazi's.

Witness the demands coming from Moscow, while Merkel insists the original peace plan be the starting point for future discussions. Those demands for territory grow with every word passed in negotiation. So far as Putin is concerned, that first disingenuous offer made, which was never to be honored, was only subterfuge allowing Russia to inject more and better armed forces to the region, while consolidating facts on the ground.

Peace negotiations with Vlad are doomed to fail; sending only defensive weaponry to the Ukrainians, will only forestall the inevitable crushing of Ukraine, with inherent catastrophic effects to their society.
No, the only way to roll Vlad back, is to commit the full force of NATO to the cause, and do it soon.
Should Vlad find success in this folly, does anyone believe it stops there?
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, these countries know all to well it stops when the Russians hit the Baltic.

Customer Service Died With the Middle Class

Have you ever been frustrated with the service received from a manufacturer, that charges top dollar for a product, and yet can't seem to deliver that product in a usable form?
Or offer an ETA indicative of two prior failed attempts?
A manufactured stainless steel item, that has been made so many countless times before, that the mere thought of one leaving it's factory in such a state would be unthinkable.
Laughably so?

I'm talking about an everyday item, one in use for centuries across the First World, something we all have in our homes, and surely take for granted on a daily basis. Like the scarlet sun rising and setting through the multi hued inversion layer of our sky, something as mundane, and time worn as the proverbial kitchen sink.

Yes, the kitchen sink.
Why, you ask, would a kitchen sink come to represent such a quandary?
Behold the photograph, and ask no more.
When you've ceased laughing at this example of "craftsmanship", read on dear reader, read on.

This clusterfuck represents the second attempt from the same maker to provide me with a kitchen sink, a maker that prides itself on building some of the most sophisticated "commercial" restaurant equipment available.
Notice the "commercial" notation? We'll get to that in a moment.

As I intend to use this kitchen sink, in the kitchen contained within my home, my application clearly becomes "residential". We're all aware of the clear distinction between "commercial", and "residential" use, are we not?
I thought so, you're a bright group!

But, were you aware that there is a greater distinction between the two categories?
Well there is.
Did you know, that with this particular manufacturer, that your "residential" order, and by extension your American Dollar, is somehow less valuable than a "commercial" order paid for with the same currency?
Shock, dismay, facially expressed here!!!
That this manufacturer, can justify making new "commercial" products for other customers ahead of the "residential" product that's been bought and paid for six weeks in advance?
That they fucked up twice before?
With the explicit implication in their response to a query for an ETA on the third try, that "residential" orders just aren't as important?

Wow.
I thought my American dollars were printed at the same mints, bearing the same faces, denominations, printed in that same dreary green black ink, as the currency buying the "commercial" stuff?
What a wake up call.
I guess they take "residential" dollars, and deposit them in a separate bank account from the "commercial" dollars they collect?
And those "residential" dollars earn less interest, pay out fewer dividends and wages, and allow for the purchase of not as much?

I call bullshit.

What's really fascinating though; is the fact that somebody had to make the determination that individual consumers are not as important to please, then explain it to me in terms that made no bones about where I stand. Pretty sure we can all assume, that this person is an employee of this company, not management, and most probably not ownership.
Just following the boss's orders.

I wonder; does this person feel less valuable than anyone else?
Is the money they earn and spend worth less than a rich person?
If you or they believe so, then the oligarchy has already won.

U.A.E. Cowards

Last time we joined this conversation we were operating under the assumption that the Emirati's were still in the vanguard against daesh; flying more sorties than any other Arab nation. 

Then yesterday, as we learn of the despicable murder of Lt. al Kassasbeh, we also learn of the U.A.E. abandoning the fight against daesh, because they don't want to take the same risks with their pilots.

Cowards. 

Witness the downing of one plane, not American, and you bail like no other.

How foolish, and weak you look now in the face of the Jordanian peoples response to this barbarity.

This battle belongs to you, and your cousins in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, Indonesia...

Is this how family comes to the aid of it's cousins facing terminal illness?

Only the faithful can destroy the cancer that exists in their own body, otherwise the entire body becomes infested; thus requiring outsiders to introduce a very toxic course of treatment.

Daesh is a cancer infesting the worlds perception of Islam with a worse loathing than al Qaeda.

Today as yesterday, I call on all Muslims of righteous faith to commit their forces to this fight, on the side of humanity, against the hate mongering cancer invading the very soul of their faith.

Daesh: Kick That Trash To The Curb

"I am Charlie, I am Goto, I am Moaz... and I am every other martyr created by the excrement of Islam."
Fucked up, tired internet blather that screams me too.
What "I am", is horrified by the fact that actual human beings professing faith in what they present as religion, have the capacity for such straight up evil.
Burning a man alive in a cage?
The word "barbaric", is wholly inadequate.

On the flip side, I'm also perplexed, that the majority of people professing their faith in the Prophet today, a religion all too often described as peaceful; don't take it upon themselves to eradicate this abherration.
Guys like Uncle Ernie in Turkey, King Salman in Saudi...standing by and allowing the slaughter, hell in many ways and cases, they're feeding the frenzy.
Instead, you, dipshits need to be working with your other brothers of the sand in Iran.

Yeah the reality is, this miscreant trash was created with our help, so it is incumbent upon us to participate in it's disposal.
But that does not mean we should be working alone.
What it does mean; is that every Muslim nation on earth has a responsibility to mobilize their armies to join the battle with us, I'm looking at you Indonesia, you little fuckers are some of the meanest bastards I've ever seen. Let's have a few battalions of your best on the ground, combined with the Jordanians, Egyptians, Paki's.
You people want us to treat you with anything other than suspicion and loathing?
Actions in our world speak with far more force than mere words.
Or as I like to say, money talks bullshit walks.

We provide your airfare, aircover, and ammo, you put the boots on the ground and clean your shit up.
Deal?