brainiac conspiracy

Believe Nothing 'Til They Prove It

One thing I've learned over the years is that whatever our media tells us is happening on the other side of the world is, generally, the diametric opposite of the reality on the ground. It has been that way, more or less, ever since Vietnam, and I am guessing it is still the same now, in Ukraine or Venezuela or any other country that is governed by people who are not willing vassals of Washington. If we don't get to call the shots, the other side's illegitimate---even though many of our "legitimate" allies have been some of the world's most awful people.

---Baron V

Priorities

Our people who govern us certainly have some strange ones:

"Secretary Lew emphasized that the United States, working with other countries including Russia, stands ready to assist Ukraine as it implements reforms to restore economic stability and seeks to return to a path of democracy and growth," the Treasury official said.

Meanwhile, economic stability.

Okay, not every one of those people living in a Wal-Mart parking lot is poor and indigent, but a good many of them are, and it would be nice for the people who govern us to think about extending a hand to them before extending a hand to the Ukraine. The Russians have plenty of money they can give to their neighbors if need be. Let's try giving money to some Americans instead.

---Baron V

Would You Believe in a Love at First Sight

Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time:

And people wonder why so much of the Western world's corporate sector resembles a network of Mafia crime families. At least we Americans can take solace in the knowledge that we are not the only civilized nation to have been governed by truly awful people.

---Baron V

Heroin

Apparently, it is once again a thing, and considering the social costs it exacts on the commonweal, it might be a good idea to ask where it is coming from. Maybe someone should do something about it!

---Baron V

Today's Worst Person

Boris Johnson:

Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130.

The harder you shake the pack, the easier it will be for some cornflakes to get to the top. And for one reason or another---boardroom greed or, as I am assured, the natural and God-given talent of boardroom inhabitants---the income gap between the top cornflakes and the bottom cornflakes is getting wider than ever.

I stress I don’t believe that economic equality is possible. Indeed, some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up with the Joneses that is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity.

I suppose we can give him credit for being an honest man, but it never ceases to amaze me how so many people----around the world, apparently!---continue to elect political leaders who display such open contempt for so many of their own constituents. We must have some unconscious desire to be punished to keep entrusting our governments to such awful people.

---Baron V

Credit Where Due

Personally, I think the Iranians gave up too much---I've never understood how Americans can tell any nation that they must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons when we stockpile thousands of them---but I guess they badly wanted a deal. Whatever the particulars they eventually hammer out, it's a very positive step to see our government pursuing Middle East policy goals that are in our own best interest, and if they're not in the best interest of the current government of Israel, that's their problem, not ours, to solve. More jaw, less war, please.

---Baron V

Hidden History

It's amazing the things you learn years after the fact:

Swiss scientists who conducted tests on samples taken from Yasser Arafat’s body have found at least 18 times the normal levels of radioactive polonium in his remains. The scientists said they were confident up to an 83 percent level that the late Palestinian leader was poisoned with it, a conclusion that they said “moderately supports” polonium as the cause of his death.

If only we could imagine who would possibly want him dead. I'm stumped.

---Baron V

Friday Night Music Blogging

Because, to be fair, this was a big fuckin' deal.

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

The World Cup job-creator persons.

We should probably give an honorable mention to the various FIFA football persons who are responsible for monitoring this----assuming that anyone there actually is responsible for monitoring it. Of course, if they really cared, I assume they could rescind their award, and pick another country to host the World Cup. There's no shortage of them at this point! But considering what a stupid idea it was to hold the event in a place where summer temperatures can exceed 120 degrees, let alone using conscripted labor, perhaps they'd reconsider?

---Baron V

Today in Freedom

We learn that our strength as a nation grows out of building things that don't work:

United Technologies Corp., Pratt & Whitney Military Engines, East Hartford, Conn., is being awarded a $214,843,107 modification to the previously awarded F-35 Lightening II Lot VI low rate initial production advance acquisition contract (N00019-12-C-0090). This modification provides for initial spare modules, initial spare parts, replenishment spare parts, and production non-recurring efforts, including tooling, for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, the United Kingdom, Italy, The Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark, and Norway.

Because it's all just workfare with no purpose or reason for being anymore, if there ever was one. And taxpayers are only $400 billion in the hole up to now. As noted, future historians.

---Baron V

No Money For Increasing Social Security Payments

Because . . . you know why!

You really have to wonder how it is that our leaders think they can continue to expand their Freedom Agenda, what with 50 million of their constituents living in poverty and tens of millions more waiting to join them shortly. I mean, you can only extract money from poor people to pay for these junkets for so long before the poor people run out of money, and then the empire collapses. Then again, when you live and work in a place where the consensus holds that the only programs that are genuinely "unsustainable" are programs that help poor people, perhaps this policy myopia is to be expected. But their priorities are bankrupting the futures of more Americans just the same!

---Baron V

Pick Your Targets Carefully

In general, I sympathize with these people, but I can't say I think this type of protest is going to be terribly productive. I can recall a similar demonstration back in the '70s, when David Oistrakh and Slava Richter were performing a recital in New York. Anyway, during the recital a bunch of people in the audience got up and started waving signs and shouting about the plight of Soviet Jews. The outburst was eventually quelled, but Richter was so annoyed by it, he never performed again in the United States. No Jews were saved, and a generation of Americans was deprived of the opportunity to see one of the 20th Century's greatest concert pianists perform in person. So, lose-lose.

Better ideas? Yeah, I've got some. (1) Don't watch the Sochi Olympics. (2) Don't buy products from anyone who sponsors them. (3) Don't buy any Russian-made products, period. (4) If you're planning a Russian vacation, don't. (5) If you have any investments in Russian enterprises (e.g., energy), divest in them. Dollar diplomacy may or may not work, but punishing artists for the individual sins of their governments doesn't strike me as a way to win any friends to your cause, either here or over there.

---Baron V

Today in Freedom

Your tax dollars at work, promoting the politics of inclusion abroad:

“This is a Jewish city,” said Shimon Gafsou of his adopted home town, “now and forever.”

To be more specific: “I would rather cut off my right arm than build an Arab school,” the mayor said in an interview on his terrace at city hall.

Ditto mosques. “No, no, no. No mosques, ever,” said Gafsou. Nor churches. Or Ramadan lanterns or manger scenes. “And no Christmas trees,” said the mayor of a town that abuts the largest Arab city in Israel, celebrated as the childhood home of Jesus.

“Everyone can live here, that is the law, as long as they understand this is a Jewish city,” Gafsou said. “And in that way we are a microcosm of the state of Israel.”

I don't wade into this hornet's nest very often, and to be honest, in one way I really don't care how the Israelis run their country or even the Occupied Territories; if they want an apartheid state, fine and dandy, then let them deal with it. What I do care about is the fact that our money is helping to underwrite this crap. It's impossible to see how it advances our national-security interests in any meaningful way, and if your humble blogger ran the zoo, the welfare payments would have been cut off long ago. I realize it's an article of faith in official policy circles in this country that any criticism of any Israeli government policy is forbidden because Hitler, but we'd be a lot better off as a nation if we stopped talking about "democracy promotion" and started practicing it instead.

---Baron V

No Money for Head Start or Homeless Veterans

Because the price of freedom is eternal money bombs:

General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, Mich., was awarded an $187,528,930 firm-fixed-price, non-option-eligible, non-multi-year contract for conversion of 44 each M1A1 and 40 each M1A2 model vehicles (total of 84 each) to a M1A2S configuration in support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This requirement supports foreign military sales program to Saudi Arabia.

---Baron V

Why We Fight

Because freedom! Also too, job creation:

[I]n 2011 alone---the most recent year for which full statistics are available---the United States sold over $66 billion in weapons worldwide, for a record 78 per cent of the global arms market. U.S. arms and training are being supplied to over 140 of the 195 United Nations member states.

This really is a big reason why we can never have nice things in this country anymore. Because our leaders' policy priorities distort labor markets such that tens of thousands of engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and assembly workers who we could be paying to develop new technologies that promote the general welfare---well, that's what civilized nations do. We pay them, by contrast, to develop new technologies that blow shit up and kill people. And needless to say, this isn't a sustainable business sector unless someone's always getting their war on. So, job creation.

---Baron V

Bring on The Impeachment Vote

Snark aside, I think we have nearly reached the threshold:

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals [...]

Although the memorandum is explicit in saying the material had to be handled in accordance with US law, and that the Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations.

"This agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law," the document says.

This is going to win us lots of hearts and minds in the Muslim world, now, isn't it. You would think that after 60-odd years of treating our Friends in Freedom™ as first among equals in the Middle East, and earning the wrath and scorn of every other state in the region as a result, our political leaders might have re-thought the wisdom of this policy---but no, they're doubling down on it. Hope they're prepared for more 9/11s in the future because that's what they're eventually going to get. Too bad that a lot of innocent people will likely be killed because of their idiocy.

---Baron V

We Got Along Fine When They Were Torturing People For Us

I've never known which is more inexplicable: How our leaders choose their enemies, or how they choose their friends. But it's another good reason why we shouldn't start any more wars over there---because today's friends in freedom may (and probably will) be tomorrow's devils incarnate.

Also too, it's why we still need that Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Because chemical weapons.

---Baron V

Why We Fight

Because freedom isn't free! And because grifters can never not grift:

Really what he’s doing is he’s reprising a role that he played in the 1980s when he worked with the Reagan administration to arrange money and arms for mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, and also worked with the CIA in Nicaragua to support the Contras. So, in many ways, this is a very familiar position for Prince Bandar. And it’s amazing to see, you know, the extent to which veterans at the CIA were excited to see him come back, because, you know, in the words of a diplomat who knows Bandar, he brings the Arabic term wasta, which means under-the-table clout. You know his checks are not going to bounce and that he’ll be able to deliver the money from the Saudis.

It really is amazing how much of America's foreign policy is shaped not by our elected leaders but by unelected fixers and bagmen, and it's equally amazing how so many of their policy decisions turn out to be such long-term disasters for us. Then again, to them it's primarily a money grab, and if any people get killed as a result, it's just the cost of doing business. It certainly helps to clarify the reason why we must start bombing immediately---we've got an investment to protect!

---Baron V

No One Could Have Possibly Predicted

That in our last war (or is it next-to-last war? It's easy to lose count!), that we would not be greeted as liberators and that upsetting the balance of power that existed at the time ran the risk of plunging the conquered nation into an endless spiral of sectarian violence. But some people did predict this, and that's exactly what is happening, so why is our Bombardier-in-Chief heeding the counsel of the same exact people who were wrong about everything back then?

Then again, why make a cogent argument for bombing when you can just, like, pander instead?

The Obama administration is using a time-tested pitch to get Congress to back military strikes in Syria: It will help protect Israel.

Israel’s enemies, including Iran and the terrorist group Hezbollah, could be emboldened if Congress fails to approve action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, senior administration officials said Saturday.

If I were a hardened cynic, I'd be tempted to conclude that our Global Force for Good™ only exists to protect two things: Oil and Israel. But I'm not a hardened cynic, so you didn't hear it from me.

---Baron V

Something Else We Could be Spending Money On

Suppose you could say it's not really our problem, but in reality, it's everyone's problem. Yes, I know that spending money to infect millions of computers around the world with malware is an integral part of defending our freedoms, but I think you could make a pretty compelling argument that preventing the Pacific Ocean from turning into a gigantic radioactive waste pool is at least as important, if not more so. This really is a problem that every developed nation needs to be working to solve. So why aren't we?

---Baron V