The Five Kinds of Fools

Fools, like everything else, can be categorized.

Professional Fools
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. ~ Shakespeare

These are the only honorable and respectable fools. They are the clowns, jesters, harlequins, and comedians. They are the only class of fools who would not be insulted upon being called a "stupid fool." They know they are fools and are wiser for that knowledge.

Pulpit Fools
Who's more foolish the fool or the fool who follows him. ~ Obi Wan Kenobi

Religious and political leaders are the same - they are either charlatans or true believers. There are priests who took their vows solely to gain access to altar boys and televangelists who convince widows to tithe their pensions so the preacher can buy himself a gold toilet. There are also a few people who enter religion or politics because they truly believe in doing good. The sad truth is most all of the true believers are soon corrupted by the money and power and become charlatans.

Garden Variety Fools
Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town? ~ Mark Twain

These are the fools carefully cultivated by the pulpit fools. They are tended and grown. Religious types are even open enough to use sheep metaphors to describe their "flocks" of fools and the fools are not even self-aware enough to realize how insulting that is.

Superstitious Fools
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. ~ George Bernard Shaw

More people believe in angels than believe in evolution. Many people wanted to ban Harry Potter because they believed that witches were real and the books would seduce young people into witchcraft. We've had presidents who believed in astrology (Reagan), talked to ghosts (Lincoln), and saw UFOs (Carter).

Gambling Fools
A fool and his money are soon parted. ~ English proverb

Many a business model is based entirely on the correctness of this proverb. Casinos, Goldman Sachs, Bernie Madoff all take money on the promise of doubling it or just keeping it for themselves. Nike became a billion dollar company on the notion that people will spend hundreds of dollars on $20 sneakers. It is true that the entire notion of Western capitalism would collapse without this class of fool.

Texas Gun Culture: Kaufman DA Murdered

Kaufman County is one of the most insignificant of Texas' 254 counties. It's a bedroom community to Dallas, overwhelmingly white and Republican. They are less educated than the average Texan. Basically, Kaufman County is where the poor, white trash of Dallas live.

As far as I can tell nothing of historic significance ever happened in Kaufman County. Except, Kaufman County is one of those places in Texas where the lives of honest law enforcement officials aren't worth a warm bucket of piss.

Two months ago a deputy district attorney was gunned down outside the Kaufman County courthouse when he arrived at work. Yesterday, the district attorney of Kaufman County and his wife were executed with an assault rifle when they answered the door to their home.

Suspicion has fallen on the Aryan Brotherhood. Certainly, the greater Dallas area has long been a comfortable home for several white supremacist organizations. And the Dallas region is renown as the murder capital of Texas with a murder rate twice that of New York City.

For as long as anyone can remember, racism and murder have been the favorite recreational activity of the greater Dallas area.

Conservatives, Marriage and the Bible

 

If all you listen to is conservatives then...

• Marriage is nothing more than written permission from authorities to have sex.
• The lyrics of the old song - Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage - were part of the liberal homosexualist agenda when they were written by Sammy Cahn back in 1955.
• Allowing people to marry for love is "unchecked hedonism" - Rush Limbaugh (Limbaugh is a serial polygamist who has married four times).
• By biblical tradition, marriage is one man-one woman.

On that last point, if you use the Bible as a guide for marriage you get a perverted array of definitions.

• Rape Marriage - The Bible requires a raped virgin to marry her attacker. (Deut. 22:28).
• Polygamy - The Bible clearly defines marriage as one man and as many women as he can get his hands on. King Solomon holds the record of 700 wives (1 Kings 11:1).
• Inherited Marriage - A childless widow was required to marry her brother-in-law (Gen. 38:6).
• War Prize Marriage - Beautiful women capture during war could be taken as wives (Deut. 21:11).

In the Israelite war against the Midianites (Numbers 31) God ordered all the men, male children, and non-virgin women to be killed. Virgin women and children (32,000 in total) were divided up between the soldiers and civilians as wives and slaves. Thirty-two were taken by God as human sacrifices.

That's Where Gun Dealers Draw the Line?

Gun dealers will happily sell weapons to heavily tattooed bikers and sullen goths, as long as if for their "personal use." Even though that use might be to facilitate building a network of meth labs or shooting up your high school science class because...Monday.

Gun dealers will sell to rednecked yahoos who have difficulty spelling their own names and whose indented is to use it to frighten their sissy neighbors and keep their bitches in line. Second Amendment, ya know.

They'll even sell guns to people who intend to use the gun to blow their own brains out. It's a personal freedom thing.

But buying a gun for the purpose of showing how fucking easy it is to buy a gun is an extremely bizarre and completely unacceptable intended use.

Gun dealers don't have a problem selling to any of these idiots.

Pending Georgia-Tennessee Water War

The state of Georgia has passed legislation demanding that the State of Tennessee surrender a piece of Tennessee land to the Peach State. While Georgia is not threatening invasion, yet, they are threatening lawsuits.

Georgia wants to draw a line about to about a mile north of the current border to the 35th parallel, follow the parallel for about one and a half miles, and then draw another line reconnecting to the state boundary. Tennessee would cede that chunk of land, about 1000 acres, to Georgia. In exchange, Georgia would promise not to go after more Tennessee land they claim including parts of the city of Chattanooga.

The reason is that Atlanta is greedy for water. Georgia want to grab a piece of the Tennessee River so they can start sucking water out of it to feed their drought stricken lawns.

In 1818 the state of Georgia hired a mathematics teacher named James Camak to draw the official boundary between Georgia and Tennessee. Georgian politicians, being the same cheap-ass people they are today, refused to let Camak buy the equipment he needed to do the job properly. He had to make do with a Navy surplus sextant rather than a state-of-the-art Zenith telescope. With cheap equipment the best Camak could do was a reasonable estimate of the border. He managed to draw a straight line and only missed the 35th parallel by less than a mile.

There is even a monument.

Everybody was perfectly satisfied. Georgia had a gold rush, drove all the Native Americans out of the state, hosted a civil war, and nobody cared the state's northern border was off by a hair. It wasn't until the 1890's when Georgia politicians, fresh from passing Jim Crow Laws to re-enslave their black citizens, thought about snatching up some prime Tennessee real estate.

For the next century, Georgians would periodically bring up the border dispute but mostly because Georgians tend to be royal assholes. They didn't really want or need the land, they just wanted to fuck Tennessee.

Now they want the land, or rather the water, badly. Georgian politicians may condemn climate change science as Communist propaganda but they also believe the scientists when they say climate change will mean permanent drought conditions for Georgia. They want a tiny piece of the Tennessee River so they can claim a huge amount of the river's water.

Of course, Georgia could negotiate regional water issues like Western states have done for decades, like responsible adults. But that's not the Georgian Way. Georgians prefer to resolve disputes by shooting your dog first. Georgia wants the water and they want to fuck Tennessee (whose land they will take) and fuck Alabama (the water they take would otherwise flow into drought stricken Alabama) than negotiate like wusses.

God Rebirth Festivals

Russian Maslenitsa celebrants.

We all know that early Christianity merged their holy celebrations with existing pagan rituals and that explains what bunnies laying colored eggs has to do with Roman authorities executing a Jewish preacher 2000 years ago.

Can you see the foreskin?

That may even go so far as the naked guy nailed on a cross. The cross was a phallic symbol long before it was an instrument of torture. According the the original Greek text, Jesus was executed on an upright stake (stauros) without a cross beam (see right). The cross, with its phallic symbolism, replaced the less erotic stake.

Of course, Spring is the season of resurrection and renewal which makes it perfect for celebrating the rebirth of a god.

That is why Spring festivals were held for the resurrection of the Semitic god Ba'al, for the Greek goddess Persephone, and the Egyptian god Osiris. Korea, Japan, and the Aztecs all had deities that were reborn in the Spring.

Waiting Sucks

Lesson discovered while waiting in an emergency room waiting room while a relative was being treated:

Waiting Sucks.

Things turned out fine.

Why the Cyprus Insanity Makes Sense

Cutting through all the crap, the reason for the EU's raid on Cyprus bank accounts was to make Russian mobsters pay for the banking bailout.

Increasingly over the past few years, Cyprus bankers have been the go-to guys when the Russian Mafia, and your basic Russian zillionaire, wanted to launder their ill-gotten funds. The Bank of Cyprus has more branch offices in Russia than in Cyprus.

Cypriot bankers paid slightly higher interest rates than the rest of Europe through a technique known as the Ponzi Scheme. Cypriot bankers are world renown for taking a smuggler's attitude to the business of banking.

When Cypriot banks got in trouble, an obvious eventuality, there was no way that austerity would work - the tiny nation's banking industry dwarfs the rest of their economy. Simply bailing out the banks would have just transferred assets from German businessmen to Russian gangsters while propping up the Ponzi Scheme.

Sucking assets out of  bank accounts to pay for the bailout may, on first blush, appear and insane plan to make Ma and Pa Constantinou pay for the idylls of the rich. But the real reason for this plan is to suck assets out of the Russian Mob.

My bet is the Cypriot parliament would rather let their nation's economy collapse than disappoint the Russian plutocrats who lavish them with bribes.

My bet was right.

St. Patrick Myths

St. Patrick is to Ireland as Paul Bunyan is to Minnesota - mostly myth.

Drove the Snakes Out

It is true that all the snakes were driven out of Ireland, only it wasn't by some Catholic priest. The snakes were driven off the island by a little thing called the Ice Age when Ireland was completely covered by glaciers. There are no snakes in Alaska either, no thanks to Saint Sarah.

He Is a Saint

Patrick was never canonized. An Irish bishop back in the 7th century started calling Patrick a saint and it kinda stuck but no pope ever got around to actually, formally, bestowing sainthood on old Paddy.

Parades Are Traditional in Ireland

The parades are an American tradition. The first was held in New York in 1762. Parades were held in New York, Boston, and even Chicago long before the "tradition" was exported to Ireland. The date did not even become an official holiday in Ireland until 1903. The first St. Patrick's Day parade held in Ireland only happened in 1931. Butte, Montana has a longer tradition of St. Patrick's Day parades than Dublin.

Green Beer Is Irish

Irish value their stout Guinness brew too much to foul it with food dye. The habit of coloring beer green is another American innovation. Pouring green crap into the pale pilsner that Americans call beer can't possibly ruin it.

Jamie Dimon: Master Thief

Steal a loaf of bread to feed starving children and you go to jail for 19 years in Victor Hugo fiction.

Steal a slice of pizza and the punishment is 25 years to life in California.

Steal a bag of M&Ms and the result in Texas is summary execution.

Steal millions from a charity, if you are a slot machine addicted ex-mayor, and you get sympathetic tuts from prosecutors.

But, if you are a gambling addicted CEO of a major New York investment bank like JPMorgan Chase, you can steal $6.2 billion from your customers and investors and piss it all away wagering on exotic derivatives. You can then lie to those investors and tell federal regulators and even the United States Senate to fuck off. You'll find the Federal Reserve covering your losses and the Attorney General kowtowing to you like you were Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang.

It may be good to be king but it is great to be a bank CEO.

El Papa de los Desaparecidos

I don't care who is elected Pope, just like I don't care who is the Grand Mufti of Syria or the Chief of Hate for the Southern Baptist Convention. It really is none of my business.

I am interested, however, in the fact that many conservative, non-Catholic, Americans are enamored of the new Pope specifically because he may have been involved in the kidnapping and torture of liberal priests in Argentina during their brutal right-wing dictatorship.

Queues in Nature

A couple of pictures while I recover from my father's 102nd birthday.

This photo is from the 1898 Yukon gold rush. Wannabe millionaires, virtually nobody came out of the Yukon richer than he went in, lined up to climb the Chilkoot Pass to the Canadian gold fields. The Canadian government required each man to have nearly a ton of food and equipment to cross the border so these men had to make several trips.

The National Park Service limits permits to climb Half Dome in Yosemite National Park to 300 daily visitors. Prior to that, on sunny summer weekend days climbers up this route lined with cables could number over 1000 and the scene up Half Dome would resemble the Chilkoot Pass in 1898.

Rudy Wants My Help

Imagine my surprise this morning when I checked my inbox and found a message from Rudy Giuliani. How I got on his mailing list baffles me. It's not like I have expresses anything other than bemused contempt for the most corrupt New York mayor since Jimmy Walker.

Rudy wants me (Really? Me!?) to give money to an old buddy of his. Since I remember the last old buddy he supported, Bernie Kerik, went to prison for corruption and was described by the judge who oversaw his case as a "toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance" I'm sure this gumba, a dud named Liota, is of equal moral character.


Sorry, Rudy. I'd rather flush the money down the sewer.

Drone Hypocrites

If I ever met Rand Paul, with his W. C. Fields nose and Doctor Who hair, I would have trouble resisting vomiting on his shoes. That said, I applaud his use of an actual filibuster, rather than the silent filibusters that most senators use, to point out vague hypocrisy from the Administration on killer drones.

Give this man a medal.

The Administration's position, reluctantly discussed, has been that using drones to kill Americans inside the US is just plain wrong and we are not in any way considering it...just now. But who knows if in the future the President might want to designate somebody in Des Moines an "enemy combatant" and shoot a Hellfire missile up his ass. Gotta keep your options open, don't ya know.

What the filibuster has revealed is the hypocrites on both sides. Many Republicans who defended President Bush's desire to torture Americans if needed supported the filibuster, even though drones and torture are the same thing. Conversely, many Democrats who oppose torture have stayed strangely quiet during the drone discussion.

Not everybody is a hypocrite. John Yoo, the notorious torture lawyer for George Bush who said the President can legally crush a child's testicles if the President wants to, supports drone attacks against US citizens inside the United States.

President Obama may want to reconsider any policy that John Yoo likes.

Bits of Tid

Little noshes.

TSA Fatheads

New TSA rules will allow all sorts of weapons on airplanes including small knives, hockey sticks, and golf clubs. It seems nobody has every been attacked with pocket knives, bludgeoned over the head with a hockey stick, or had his wife attack him with a 9-iron. Shoes, however, will still be considered deadly weapons. And genitalia will still need to be searched.

Iraq Money Pit

By now its common knowledge that the Iraq War was a huge, fucking waste of money and lives. Except, of course, for Haliburton which made out like bandits.

Death From the Skies

For those of us who thought torture was unconstitutional how about using drone aircraft to assassinate Americans inside the United States without trial? I haven't decided if this announcement was meant to make Pakistanis feel better by assuring them that the US government is just as cavalier with American lives or to make American accepting of drone spy planes becoming common place over US cities because at least the President isn't dropping Hellfire missiles on us.

Bush III

Jeb Bush will run for President in 2016, guaranteed, because America's highest office is a hereditary position and it is his turn. He is already flip-flopping like a trout on the bottom of the boat.

Justice Roberts and Justice Taney

Notorious Chief Justices

When it comes time to write the Supreme Court decision to overturn key elements of the Voting Rights Act, John Roberts will choose himself to author the decision. This will mostly be because Roberts will be afraid that Antonin Scalia will not be able to resist inserting the word "jiggaboo" into the text, but it will link Roberts for all time with that other great defender of legalized racism in America - Roger Taney.

Shelby Co. v. Holder, rightly, should be considered part of the Citizens United decision. Both have the clear intention of tilting election results in favor of privileged classes. The Citizens United case was insufficient alone in allowing Sheldon Adelson and and his ilk to outright buy the 2012 election. Coupled with large scale disenfranchisement of minorities the two Supreme Court decisions should allow white elites to own government for a couple more generations.

History will certainly link Justice Roberts with Justice Taney. Roberts, like Taney, will be vilified by history as a racial extremist.

What Happened in March 1911

My father has his 102nd birthday this month which is excuse enough to look back.

• The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers because factory managers had locked the sweatshop doors. The tragedy led to the major reforms and the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union.
• The structure of the atom, electrons orbiting a nucleus, was first described by British physicist Ernest Rutherford.

Las Vegas in 1911.

• The city of Las Vegas, Nevada, population 800, was incorporated. Gambling was illegal.
• The US Supreme Court ruled that corporate income taxes were constitutional.

• Irving Berlin's first big hit, Alexander's Ragtime Band, was published.
• One quarter of the US armed forces (20,000 soldiers), the greatest troop movement since the Civil War, was dispatched to the US-Mexican border "on maneuvers." The real reason was to prevent the Mexican Revolution from spilling over the border.
• Congress failed to vote on statehood for New Mexico. It would not become the 47th state until next year.

In international news, the mayor of Jerusalem wrote to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire requesting he stop Jewish immigrants from entering Palestine.

The population of the United States was 93 million. The global population was 1.8 billion. The highest paid player in baseball was Ty Cobb, $9,000. The richest man in the world was John D. Rockefeller. President was Howard Taft.

What Shall Sequestration Bring

I've been listening to the news and know what to expect.

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! 
Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! 
Earthquakes, volcanoes...
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, 
dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! ~ Ghostbusters

Artist Credit

The Devil's Dictionary (Updated)

Starting in 1881, Ambrose Bierce began writing his Devil's Dictionary with definitions more accurate than those of Noah Webster.

Austerity (n) - An economic theory that forces the working class to suffer for the excesses of the rich.

Collateral Damage (n) - An armed forces tactic composed of bombing the crap out of innocent women and children on the off chance of surprising a terrorist.

Corporation (n) - (See People)

Elections (n) - In Italy, an unpopular situation comedy.

Freedom Fighter (n) - A revolutionary opposed to oppression by a dictatorship the United States disapproves of. (See Terrorist)

Gerrymandering (n) -  Formerly a corrupt political practice of drawing bizarre political boundaries to insure one political party wins elections even while having fewer votes. Currently an honored political practice of drawing bizarre political boundaries to insure the Republican Party wins elections even while having fewer votes.

Jim Crow Laws (n) - (see Voter ID)

Magazine (n) - Formerly a periodical printed on paper and delivered through the mail. Now a container holding 100 bullets, the minimum number of rounds required for drunken louts to go squirrel hunting and return with one desiccated corpse.

Mail (n) - An archaic form of communication whereby someone would write words on a piece of paper and it would be delivered by a conscientious employee of the Federal government.

People (n) - Formerly mortal beings of the species Homo Sapiens. Currently defined to include immortal entities engaged in the exercise of exploiting Homo Sapiens for profit.

Religion (n) - A universal excuse for hate.

Second Amendment (n) - Formerly a law to allow Davy Crockett to carry a flintlock Kentucky long rifle into the wilderness while hunting bear. Currently interpreted to allowing Billy Bob Hatfield to carry an AR-15 assault rifle to the corner drug store to buy a tin of chewing tobacco.

Sequestration (n) - (See  Austerity)

Terrorist (n) - A revolutionary opposed to oppression by a dictatorship the United States approves of. (See Freedom Fighter)

Voter ID - (See Jim Crow Laws)

Sequestration Means Austerity

Sequestration is one of those masquerade words Americans like to come up with to hide distasteful concepts. Like calling bombing the shit out of women and children "collateral damage" makes it seem nicer. Sequestration is just another word for austerity.

What Is Austerity?
Austerity is an economic system that's all the rage in Europe right now. It consists of making the working class suffer for the excesses of the rich. As an economic theory it is stupid.

Austerity is like shooting yourself in the foot to cure the flu. The pain will certainly distract you from the flu symptoms, but your feet have nothing to do with the disease and shooting off a couple of toes won't help any.

The logic of austerity is to drive millions of workers out of jobs and then take away their unemployment insurance.  This terrifies everyone who still has a job into making do on diets of cold beans and moldy bread thus teaching several generations of the working class to expect nothing more out of life than bitter hardship. This makes for a much more obsequious and cheaper labor force for the wealthy to exploit.

Why Do Politicians Like Austerity?
Mostly because the wealthy pay them to like it. Liberals believe the hardship of austerity will force more voters to oppose the party of Conservative aristocrats. Conservative politicians believe driving millions into homelessness will disenfranchise them, reducing the votes for the Liberal party.

Does It Work?
As an economic theory, no. Austerity has never recovered a struggling economy.

As a political theory the results are mixed. The austerity of Herbert Hoover elected the liberal FDR. However the austerity of the Wiemar Republic caused the election of a conservative Adolph Hitler. Then there was austerity program the Bourbon monarchy imposed on late 18th century France that caused the working class to gather up the aristocrats and cut off their heads.

Madame La Guillotine answers austerity.

Popish Stories

The leader of the Roman Catholic faith has often been quite nefarious.

Youngest Pope (Benedict IX)

In 1032, Alberic III, Count of Tusculum (near Rome), gave his son a present for his twelfth birthday. He made him pope. Benny grew into his reign like any unsupervised teen with absolute power would. He held orgies, raped nuns, and murdered people who displeased him. In 1045 Benny sold the papacy to a priest who became Gregory VI then used some of the money to hire German mercenaries to take the papacy back by force. He was finally forced out by the German King Henry who appointed his own pope (Clement II) who, in turn, named Henry the Holy Roman Emperor.

Lady Pope (Joan I)

This one is called a legend, the Catholic Church swears it never happens, and there is absolutely no historical record of a female pope. Still, the story has existed for 1000 years. Disguised as a man by her lover, a women in the 9th century becomes a religious scholar. She quickly rises in the church and is elected pope, taking the name Pope John. Only her lover knows the truth. The ruse continues successfully for a couple of years but the pope has become pregnant. The pope gives birth during a public procession and is stoned to death by the shocked faithful. The Church has purged all record of her existence but it is said that to this day popes shun the street in Rome where she gave birth.

Last Honest Pope (Liberius)
Liberius was the last pope to publicly acknowledge the possibility that Jesus had been a man and not a god. As a consequence he is the only pope of the first 49 to have not been made a saint.

Last Murdered Pope (John Paul I)

Dozens of popes have been murdered throughout history. In 1978, the Vatican Bank was up to their vestments with the Italian Mafia as their main money launderer. The newly elected pope was planning to purge the Vatican of its corrupt practices. As a consequence, Pope John Paul was poisoned. Within an hour of his body being discovered church officials called in embalmers. A funeral was hastily organized and John Paul was entombed inside a week, burying any evidence for eternity.

Most Corrupt (Alexander VI)
Lots to choose from here but Alexander VI was the Borgia pope. Borgia bought the office, according to tradition, by bribing the cardinals with four mule loads of silver. His reign was rife with orgies, bribery, poisoning, judicial murder and extortion. He kept a stable of mistresses and fathered several children upon whom he bestowed lucrative papal offices. Alexander liked to keep score during orgies and rewarded cardinals who could ejaculate most often.

Most Debauched (Paul III & John XII)

Again, there are way too many to choose from including Alex; I have to award a tie. Paul III (1534-1549) murdered his mother to inherit the family fortune. His biggest claim to fame is that he organized and controlled all 45,000 Roman prostitutes and took a cut of their income. Pope Paul III was a papal pimp.

John XII, like many popes, held bi-sexual orgies in the sacred palace which included having sex on the tombs of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. He appointed a ten year-old boy a bishop and took the child as his lover. John raped his sisters and nieces. Pope John XII was killed by the husband of one of his lovers.

The Fall of A-Rod

Big town you lured me,
Big town you cured me,
Tho' others hate to say goodbye to you
I'm leavin' but I'll never sigh for you.
Big town you robbed me
of every joy I knew. ~ Crying for the Carolines

These lyrics are from a 1929 cartoon and a 1930 movie short. Whenever I think of baseball player Alex Rodriguez I am reminded of these words.

By every account, when Alex Rodriguez started playing professional baseball at the age of 18 he wasn't just a phenomenal talent, he had the same simple joy for the game as any kid playing little league. By the time he was 20, he had become A-Rod, a superstar, and the joy was being replaced with corrupting ambition.

Habitually, A-Rod has been a player who has made his team worse by joining it and better by leaving it. The year after he left Seattle (2001) the Mariners tied the record for the most wins by a team in the history of major league baseball. The Texas Rangers added Rodriguez, his $22 million salary, and improved by just two games. Their 2001 record was 73 wins, 89 losses, and a fourth place finish.

When A-Rod was traded by Texas in 2004 the Rangers improved by 18 wins. The Rangers paid the New York Yankees $67 million to take A-Rod and the seven years left on his contract.

The Yankees, well, they are the Yankees. A-Rod became just another overpaid, drug abusing athlete on a team full of them that wins consistently through the simple expediency of buying up all the available talent every season.

The Yankees still owe A-Rod five years of salaries over $20 million a year yet his steroid ravaged body is breaking down. Sports Illustrated ranks A-Rod as the 23rd best third baseman in baseball, right behind San Diego minor leaguer Jedd Gyorko.

The "big town" lured a young lad who loved playing baseball. It has paid him a third of a billion dollars to play a child's game. But he is so hated and polluted by drug scandals he will probably never see the inside of the Hall of Fame without buying a ticket. He has no loved ones or friends, they have all been chased away. All he has left is a crew that hangs with him to feed off his money and fame.

The "big town" has taken away every joy he ever knew.

al Qaeda's 22 Anti-Drone Tips

The US government has its panties in a twist that al Qaeda is disseminating a list of 22 tips on how to avoid getting killed by American drones. For the most part these tips are common sense tactics that have been used successfully for decades, even centuries.

Post Lookouts

8. Discovering the presence of a drone through well-placed reconnaissance networks. Posting lookouts is one of the oldest military tactics known. While drones are small and can fly at high altitudes when they are hunting they have to be low enough to spot their targets making lookouts a reasonable strategy.

Radio Jamming
Four of the tips relate to various jamming techniques. Certainly the greatest vulnerability of drones is that they are completely dependent on radio communication. It's possible to use frequency hopping to defeat jammers but it is also possible to defeat frequency hopping.

Decoys

18. Formation of fake gatherings such as using dolls and statutes to be placed outside false ditches to mislead the enemy. I love this because it is right out of the American playbook. During World War II the Americans organized an entire fake army, complete with inflatable tanks, and placed their best tactician, George Patton, in command. For al Qaeda to create fake terrorist meetings to attract drones is brilliant.

Run, Scatter
19. When discovering that a drone is after a car, leave the car immediately and everyone should go in different direction because the planes are unable to get after everyone.What could be more common sensible?

Hide

This. Half the tips involve hiding underground and under trees, using camouflage, don't stay in one place long enough to become a target, don't use radio communications. Basically, make yourself hard to target.

Now that domestic police are acquiring drones these tips are advice all Americans should consider.

American Police State: Sports Division

Prison Sponsorship

Florida Atlantic University has been looking for a corporate sponsor for their football field and has chosen a for-profit prison. Their choice may help then recruit young criminals to their campus. Traditionally the University of Florida has led in that effort.

Pepper Spray Rally
Police in Utah became terrified when a group of dark skinned (Polynesian Mormons) high schools students began a chant after a school football game. The police broke up then cheering by attacking everyone, including children as young as four, with pepper spray.

Pro Athlete Miscegenation
This is from 2006. A star linebacker with the San Diego Chargers, Steve Foley, was driving home late one night with a girl friend. He was black, she white. They were spotted by an off-duty cop from the nearly all-white city of Coronado. The cop followed the football player and tried, unsuccessfully, to force him off the road. The cop followed Foley home and shot him three times. Foley was unarmed.

The athlete was found guilty of drunk driving; his injuries were so severe he never again played football. The white girl friend was charged with a felony for trying to interfere in the shooting and received five years probation. The cop is still on the job and was honored as an Outstanding DUI Officer of the Year in 2011 for his stance that drunk driving is a "zero-tolerance offense."

The Price of Slaves

A recent report lists the ten richest presidents in American history. It glosses over the fact that four of those ten were slave holders and a portion of their wealth was in human chattel.

The value of a slave is difficult to pin down. Estate sale prices were bargains, about $400. Auction prices for a strong field hand could reach $1000 each. Prices fluctuated with the economy. Then, of course, we have to factor in inflation.

George Washington: Washington possessed 316 slaves at the time of his death, including 40 rentals. The value of Washington's human property probably exceeded $4 million in current dollars. Washington considered his human property lazy and gave his overseers written permission to whip them.

Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson was known for treating his slaves well including buying individuals just to keep families together. On the other hand, there are stories of abuse like a 17 year-old man who, on becoming ill, was flogged three times a day to force more work out of him. Jefferson generally owned in excess of 200 slaves valued at more than $3 million.

Andrew Jackson: Jackson own 150 slaves and was a slave breeder. In advertising for the return of a runaway slave, Jackson offered a $50 reward plus an addition $10 for every 100 lashes given the runaway. In current dollars Jackson slaves probably are valued at $2 million.

James Madison: In the 1820 census, Madison reported he owned 106 slaves. While Madison frequently wrote his opposition to slavery he never extended it to his actual life and even refused to free his slaves in his will. We can appraise his slaves at about $1.5 million.

When slaves were emancipated by Abraham Lincoln it is estimated the South lost $3.5 billion (in 1860 dollars) in assets. Adjusting for inflation that is $50 trillion in today's money.

The price of a slave today is considerably less. A health male slave in Mali will sell for just $40. The estimate is 27 million humans are held today as slaves around the world. The number of sex and labor slaves held in the United States today is estimated at about 10,000 people although it may be much higher. That doesn't count the more than 100,000 prison laborers in the United States earning as little as 17 cents per hour.

Dolphin Superpod

Scientists are trying to explain the massive dolphin pod off California, seven miles long by five miles wide containing over 100,000 sentient sea creatures. Add this to the numerous significant meteorites - Russia, Cuba, California, Florida - in just the last few days and we are scoring eleven on the weird scale.

Anyone who has read Douglas Adams knows what is happening. The earth is about to be destroyed and the dolphins, being far smarter than humans, know this and are gathering to board their space ship for an exit.

Expect a message soon, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish."

Gambling and the State of Addiction

When I first say this headline I thought it was a misprint. How could anyone, let alone the wife of the founder of Jack in the Box and the former mayor of a major American city, lose a billion dollars playing slot machines.

I knew Maureen O'Connor when she was mayor of San Diego, I had two friends on the city council and was a familiar face at City Hall. So it was sad to see that she had become the victim of a horrible addiction.

There is little difference between video poker machines and crack pipes. Both are media to deliver a mind numbing euphoria. The victims of crack tend to be young minorities while video poker victims tend to be the elderly. And, of course, pervading crack is a major felony while in many places offering video poker gambling is perfectly legal.

Maureen got in trouble when she started visiting the many Indian casinos in San Diego's back country. I've never opposed Indian gaming, not because I thought in a noble pursuit but because whites had been robbing Native Americans of their pride and property for two centuries and I didn't see a problem in them returning the favor.

But casinos are a curse. They victimize the vulnerable. In California, at least, Indian casinos are generally located on unlit, rural roads that become death traps when the casinos release their drunk and depressed victims to drive home.

A half century ago Rod Serling wrote a classic Twilight Zone episode on this subject. A slot machine obsessed Franklin (above), calling to him, following him, taunting him, bankrupting him, and driving him to suicide.

Now a Cuba Meteor

That meteor exploding over a city in Russia was spectacular. The near Earth fly-by of a dinosaur extincting asteroid was kinda scary. Last night there was another meteor exploding, this time over Cuba.

Imagine if these exact things had happened exactly 50 years ago, in 1962, during the Cold War when the US and Russian nuclear arsenals were on a hair trigger. We all wouldn't be obsessed with things like sequestration or the  Kardashians. We'd be plotting how to steal that fresh meat away from a gang of mutant cockroaches.

Dorner and the Burning Cabin

In case you were interested, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's SWAT team deliberately burned down the cabin Chris Dorner was holed up in.

The pyrotechnic tear gas used against Dorner is intended for use in outdoors crowd control as the explosive charge spreads the tear gas widely quickly. They are also sometimes used on hardened targets like concrete bunkers. SWAT has cold tear gas for uses on flammable structures.

They are not for use on wooden structures because pyrotechnic tear gas canisters burn at over 1000 degrees F. There is no benefit to using pyrotechnic tear gas on a small wooden structure except it greatly increases the probability of the building catching fire.

To a certain extent I understand why the SWAT team used an incendiary weapon. Dorner had already shot two deputies during the siege and the police were both scared and wanted vengeance. If they had had access to Hellfire missiles they would have used them. Hell, they would have nuked the cabin if only Kim Jung-un had returned their call.

Just don't believe the story the fire was an "accident."

Lying Liars

I still want to parse the SOTU address but let's get rid of a few minor stories.

Stiffing the Citizenry

Remember that $1.2 million reward that was offered for information on murderous rogue cop Chris Dorner? Well, that was all a lie. Now that the most wanted man since Osama bin Laden is a smoldering pile of ash (allegedly) the smart money is predicting that officials will invoke the fine print clauses in the reward offer and keep all the money.

Rubio's Watergate
Marco Rubio's lunge for water during the official reply to the State of the Union address was a sign that Rubio is not ready for prime time, but not for the reason you think. The reply to the SOTU is prerecorded. Rubio did multiple takes of his short speech, at least one in Spanish. Between flop sweat and blown lines, the take where Rubio reaches awkwardly for a little water was just his least worse performance. His takes after that one were pathetic.

Crying for the Caroline

Mark Sanford, last seen abandoning his wife, children, and responsibilities as governor of South Carolina to chase tail in Argentina, is back. The truth is there are few jobs available for serial liars with a proven history of gross betrayal except as Republican politicians.

The Man In the Iron Mask
Israel is getting all Kafkaesque on her citizens. The story of "Citizen X," as far as what is known which is not very far, is chilling. It was only after he was tormented into committing suicide that a little of his story has been released. Arrested in secret and held secretly for crimes so secret only secret charges were ever filed, he was disappeared into a secret section of a prison. No one knew where or why he had disappeared.