Five Men Destroying America

Power, greed, and an abiding disinterest in humanity, these five sociopaths are the greatest threats to America today.

Jamie Dimon - CEO, JP Morgan Chase

Dimon ticks all the boxes of a sociopath. He is charming, intense, and incapable of anything even remotely resembling a conscious. It was his manipulation of debt derivatives that nearly crashed the global economy. His not at all veiled threats to finish the job got him billions of dollars in bail-outs from the US treasury.  Throughout all of this, Jamie did not waste a single breath worrying about the millions of middle-class Americans forced out of their homes by his machinations.

His appearances before Congress have been bipartisan ass-kissing contests as most members of Congress, in both parties, are bought and paid for sycophants. Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders being notable exceptions.

And Jamie's planning on doing it again. He is working tirelessly to lift the restrictions on his banking empire so he can again play his wildly destructive games.

Antonin Scalia - Supreme Court Justice

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent. ~ Antonin Scalia, 2009

Scalia likes to claim he is the smartest man on the court yet in reading his decisions you'll find an astonishing lack of scholarship. He is ignorant of society, science, history, and even the Constitution.  He is actively using his seat on the nation's highest court to impose a Catholic Caliphate on the United States.

But beyond all that, the most disturbing aspect of Scalia is the malicious hostility he has toward the concept of innocence.  His firmly held belief that even the innocent deserve execution is so astonishingly evil that is elevates Scalia beyond sociopath into the highest reaches of psychopathy.

Ted Cruz - Texas Senator

I like laughing at Ted Cruz, who doesn't? His real story is too silly to even be a character on South Park. But of all the member of Congress, from the dopey (Louie Gohmert) to the treacherous (Tom Cotton), Ted Cruz is the most terrifying. 
 
Cruz is a megalomaniac. He sees himself as the ultimate leader of the Tea Party, of Republicans, of all of Congress, of the United States, of all mankind. He believes he has godlike infallibility. He sees himself as a real life Ozymandias who will ruthlessly lead the world to his vision of utopia even if billions need to die in the process. Of course, his definition of utopia would be most people's definition of Hell.

Bibi Netanyahu - Israel Prime Minister

It didn't.

Bibi loves war. But he doesn't want his own nation to bear the horrible burdens of war. Bibi wants the United States to fight his wars for him. Bibi wanted war with Iraq. Shortly after George Bush Jr. was elected the United States fought Bibi's war for him. Bibi wants to destroy Syria. As a consequence, Israel has argued against the United States opposing ISIS until after it has conquered Syria, only then does he want the US to fight ISIS. Now, Bibi wants war with Iran. As with Iraq, Bibi wants US soldiers to be his weapon while Israel again sits on the sidelines applauding.

From Bibi's point of view this is a sound strategy. Unlike the others of this list, Bibi is not a sociopath. It is not Bibi's fault that the United States is a doltish brute that can be easily manipulated into fighting his battles for him. However, if the US is destroyed fighting Israel's wars, Bibi won't have a moment's regret.

Sheldon Adelson - Billionaire

I have to be careful here. Sheldon makes more money in one minute than I'll make in a year. He could crush me like the insect I am to him.

Sheldon is worth as much as the gross national product of Lativa. He has been tied to money laundering in Vegas, bribery in China, and gangsters in Macau. (Note to Sheldon: I'm sure these are all just baseless, vicious rumors and you are really a teddy bear.)

And Sheldon is a collector. He collects politicians like normal people collect souvenir coffee mugs. He doesn't donate to them or bribe them or even rent them. Sheldon buys them outright. And he loves buying Republican presidential wannabes.

They make pilgrimages to Sheldon's Vegas casino to kowtow to the great man, kiss his ring, and pledge total fealty to his majesty. Sheldon and his ilk (Koch brothers, et al) have not corrupted American politics but they have changed it into a feudal kingdom where even presidents are vassals serving their billionaire masters.

Bucket List: New Orleans

New Orleans was one of those places I always wanted to visit but haven't until now. I wanted to see it before it disappeared forever beneath the rising seas.

Mississippi River

Since reading Mark Twain and watching Maverick on television as a child I have wanted to ride a sternwheeler on the Mississippi. The river is narrower than I expected. While the river is a mile wide near St. Louis, squeezed in by levees, it is only 2000 feet wide at New Orleans. But it is deep. At 200 feet deep, the Mississippi River is deeper than Lake Erie and most of the water in the river is flowing past New Orleans below sea level.

French Quarter
Bourbon Street is the most famous street in the French Quarter and has all the historic charm of an '80's strip bar. However, since the most popular bordellos back in the day were on Bourbon Street, it does retain the same debauched ambiance of olden days. Just one short block closer to the river is Royal Street and that looks like the French Quarter I expected.

Royal Street.

Classic antebellum buildings and charming art galleries provide a gentile charm. The French Quarter abounds with street musicians and buskers and many people are bi-lingual. To tourists they speak standard American English without even a Southern drawl. Among each others, however, they speak a Creole English that outsiders can hardly interpret.

Cypress Swamp

I also wanted to get away from the city and boat up a bayou into a cypress swamp. Gators and snakes, song birds, wild pigs, plus more water that you'll find in California in a generation. That alone was worth the trip. If I return it will be to spend more time on a bayou.

All Politics Is Local - Israeli Division

Polls and news reports suggest that Bibi Netanyahu may be suffering from the Eric Cantor disease. Bibi is concentrating entirely on outside matter like tweaking President Obama and campaigning before the American Congress. He gives off the impression he would rather be in the United States Senate than the Israeli Knesset and he is suffering in Israel for it.

Israeli politics is all about coalitions. Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu has 31 seats in the current Knesset and formed the foundation of a ruling coalition that held a bare majority (61 of 120) of seats. The latest polls give them only 25 seats. Their current coalition is projected at just 49 seats but Likud can expect another five seats from new parties. However, the Labor coalition will also fall short of a majority. Their existing coalition is also projected at 49 seats.

The wildcard is the new Kulanu party. Their interest is entirely local and domestic economic policies and polls say they could earn as many as ten seats in the new Knesset. They have flirted with both sides and there is no predicting where they will go.

But the really wild wildcard is the Joint List. These are the Arab parties and polls suggest they will win 12 or 13 seats. They will never ally with the racists in Likud but they probably would not officially join a Labor coalition.

Then there is Netanyah's current "come home to Likud" strategy telling voters to abandon the fringe parties in his coalition and vote for Likud. While it might boost Likud seats it could drop some of his partner parties below the 3.5% vote threshold required for any seats in the Knesset and alienate the others. It's the kind of selfish, cult of personality campaigning we've come to expect in American politics but I doubt it will be effective in an atmosphere that requires coalition building.

We shall see.

Are There Blacks in the SAE?

Sigma Alpha Epsilon troglodytes in Oklahoma got caught singing "There will never be a n****r in SAE." That begs the question, are there African-Americans in Sigma Alpha Epsilon? So I did a little digging, checking out bulletin boards and websites.

SAE was founded in pre-Civil War Alabama. Most of its members fought for the Confederacy, 74 died defending slavery.  Some chapters still celebrate that heritage. In 1992, Esquire magazine published an article exposing the racist culture of Southern fraternities.

According to the bulletin boards, diversity is more of a thing for the northern chapters. In the Deep South, "diversity" might mean allowing in a Lutheran or (gasp!) a Catholic. As an example I offer the Southern Methodist University chapter of the SAE. I picked the SMU chapter for a reason. It has a deserved reputation for the two R's - rape and racism. They also have a very convenient website where I could test the question, are there n****rs in the SAE?

SAE at SMU. I've seen more diversity at a Klan rally.

There are many photos of the fraternity's 2014 winter party. The only black visible is in the band. The 2014 spring initiation shows who they are inviting into the chapter. I've never seen a pastier collection of douchebags in my life. One guy appears to have a bit of a tan but most look like they haven't crawled out from under their rocks since puberty.

There may be a few token blacks in northern chapters although at least one northern chapter admitted a black to the fraternity only to kidnap him and leave him to die as part of a hazing ritual. Since boys will be boys and the victim was only a n****r, the killers were only charged with a misdemeanor. So, officially, no murder or homicide even happened.

The SAE is still as racist as it was in 1858. As for that song the OU freaks got caught singing? I strongly doubt it's an outlier, they learned it somewhere. I suspect it is a common refrain especially in the Land of Dixie. OU's problem is that they accidentally allowed in a pledge with a moral compass. The SAE fraternity won't make that mistake again.

The Night of the Murdered Poets

Yiddish is a lyrical language. During the first half of the 20th century, several countries, most notably the United States and Russia, had vibrant Yiddish language arts.

During the 1930's and '40, Yiddish radio was not uncommon especially in New York. While I only understand about a dozen words (Oy Vey!) I love listening to old swing recordings sung in Yiddish (The Barry Sisters singing "Chiribim Chiribom.").

What Is Yiddish?
Yiddish is a product of the Jewish Exile.  Isolated in the ghettos and shtetls of northern and eastern Europe, this Jewish language was formed much like Blacks isolated in American ghettos are creating a distinct communal language.

A century ago upwards of 12 million people spoke Yiddish, the largest concentrations found in Germany, Poland, Russia, and the United States. The Holocaust devastated half that population. In the United States, assimilation eliminated the tight knit communities necessary to preserve a distinct language. In Israel, Yiddish is kept alive by ultra orthodox sects.

And Russia
To tell the story of the Murdered Poets we have to start with the origins of the Soviet Union. Jews were predominate in the founding of the Soviet Union. A critical meeting of twelve Bolshevik leaders in October 1917 called for armed revolution that started two weeks later. Of the twelve, half were Russian Jews (including Leon Trotsky), four were Russians (including leader Lenin), and two were foreigners - Polish intellectual psychopath Felix Dzerzhinsky and an ignorant anti-Semitic rube from Georgia known as Stalin.

Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky

Stalin, considered a loyal but energetic simpleton by Lenin, was named General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. Before being incapacitated by several strokes, Lenin wrote a paper describing Stalin as crude, rude, and inept. The paper was suppressed and after Lenin died, perhaps murdered, Stalin took total control of the Soviet Union.

Purges during the 1930's killed off most of Stalin's old Jewish comrades from the Revolution. Few new Jews were allowed into positions of power. Stalin did allow formation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) during World War II.

The Night of the Murdered Poets

Scene from the play "The Twenty-Seventh Man."

After the war, Stalin's paranoia got even worse. Shortly after the war he had concluded that Jewish writers and performers were all actually American spies. (Oddly, Sen. Joseph McCarthy had at the same time concluded that American Jewish artists were Russian spies.) The first to die was Solomon Mikhoels, a Yiddish theater star and chairman of the JAC. His murder was made to look like an accident and Mikhoels was given a state funeral.

Yiddish writers and Jewish intellectuals were arrested in 1948 and 1949 and accused of spying. They were tortured until they confessed. All save one. Yiddish poet Itzik Feffer was a loyal Stalinist. He was arrested along with the others but freely turned on his fellow writers and accused them of Jewish nationalism and anti-Soviet actions and so was never tortured.

Show trials were held. On August 12, 1952, thirteen Jewish prisoners, including Feffer, were executed at Lubyanka Prison.

Doctor's Plot and Holocaust Plans
Stalin wasn't done. As his health failed, Stalin became convinced Jewish doctors were poisoning him. Then he concluded that there was an international plot Zionist doctors trying to kill all Soviet leaders.  That devolved into the certainty that there was an American-Zionist-Israeli-Jewish conspiracy and that every Jew in the Soviet Union was trying to kill him. Stalin ordered four giant prisons built in Siberia to house every Jew in the Soviet Union. Foreign Minister Molotov's wife had already been arrested for being Jewish.

Before Stalin could implement his plan he fell in his bedroom. His personal doctors were all in prison so his bodyguards call top politicians. A few days of dithering was enough for Stalin to die. He died, ironically, on the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Bibi to Declare War

Tomorrow's the day that the Republican President of the United States, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivers his State of the Union address to Congress. He will, as he has done before, all but ask Congress for a declaration of war with Iran.

For years, Netanyahu has said that if the US doesn't bomb Iran then Israel will. For years, the US has not bombed Iran and neither has Israel. Netanyahu doesn't want to waste Israeli resources and lives on such a stupid war. He wants the US to fight a proxy war, to do all the stupid wasting, on his behalf.  Finally, he has an American Congress willing to act as his puppet.

This leads to an interesting thought experiment - What would happen if Congress declares a war the President didn't ask for? A Declaration of War requires only a simple majority to pass. It is a resolution, not a law. As such a Declaration of War is not subject to a presidential veto.

Obviously, President Obama would refuse to prosecute the war. But, Iran may not believe his diplomatic statements. They could respond by mining the Strait of Hormuz, trapping much of the Fifth Fleet (up to two carriers and 20 ships) in the Persian Gulf where it can be attacked relentlessly.  Israel would do nothing since the whole point of this is to force the US to do the fighting for her. There would be no grand global alliance against Iran as there was in the Afghan and Iraq wars.  The United States would be forced to fight a major war alone for the first time since 1898. And the war would be popular in some places as sharply rising oil prices would be a boon to US oil producing states.

But, perhaps, cooler heads in Iran would listen to President Obama. There is no actual shooting as the war declaration is ignored. Republicans for years have accused President Obama of treason for vague and idiotic reasons. This would give them actual grounds, aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war. If a Republican like Ted Cruz gains the White House in 2016 he could file a criminal indictment against former President Obama for treason. Tried in the right court (i.e. Texas), a former president might be sentenced to execution for treason.

All of this is wildly unlikely. It's more likely that Mitch McConnell is an actual turtle-human hybrid. It's also possible that Netanyahu's speech will blow up at home and he will lose the Knesset elections set for two weeks from now. We can only pray.

The Unreal American

Pundit Glenn Harlen Reynolds loves this country or, more accurately, loves to fuck with this country. He love this country so much he wants to scrap the constitution and write a new one. He believes the biggest problem facing the United States is that the majority of Americans don't think exactly like him.

Glenn Reynolds manifesto.

He's come up with a solution which I'm certain he will write into his new, improved constitution. Require people pass a Patriotism Test before they are allowed to vote. He contends that Obama was elected president by unpatriotic citizens. His solution to prevent such a horror from ever reoccurring is to prevent unpatriotic Americans from voting at all.

He references a work of fiction where "the right to vote came only after some kind of dangerous public service." Oddly, by this rule Reynold himself would be disenfranchised as in his life he has never served the public in any way, dangerous or passive. So, I suspect when Reynolds writes that constitutional clause he will use the 1918 Soviet Union constitution as a template. In that constitution, only members of the Communist Party were allowed to vote, thereby excluding unpatriotic democrats. 

At the risk of giving Reynolds ideas, he might find subsequent versions of the Soviet constitution more to his liking. They granted universal suffrage but all candidates had to be nominated from patriotic branches of the Communist Party. This insured that no matter how unpatriotic the electorate was they were required to elect only Communist patriots.  I'm sure Reynolds could draft a text that requires all nominees be approved by the Tea Party.

Sign of Spring

I don't care if the snow is piled higher than an elephant's eye in Boston. Spring has sprung in drought torn California.

Just load it on a train and send it west, California will take all the snow you have.

Really, we'll take every flake.

The Sierra Nevada snowpack is so thick you can shovel it with a teaspoon.

There is another traditional sign of Spring, too.

The first Republican urging dropping nuclear bombs on someone.  Just like the swallows returning to Capistrano, you know its Spring when Republicans emerge from their Winter homes to declare the desperate need to nuke somebody. From Douglas MacArthur in Korea to Curtis LeMay in Vietnam, Republicans have always seen Spring as the season to allow a hundred mushroom clouds to bloom. Last year, the goal was nuking Iran. This year, the call is to nuke Iraq (like we haven't done enough to that country). Next year, who knows? It is one of the mysteries of the season.

Looking Into a Republican Soul

Republicans have a clear moral compass when choosing their political heroes. They love...

Candidates dumber than a kumquat as long as they act on their hatred of higher education.

Higher IQ and more Vitamin C than Scott Walker

 Judges with total contempt for courts, other judges, and the law particularly when that contempt is used to attack people they hate.

Politicians who believe it is better to die quickly in abject poverty than to live with disabilities.

Candidates incapable of hire a competent campaign staff because than means they will be great presidents.

There's a reason all the "smart money" is going to Jeb.

Judges who believe that innocence is no defense and that there is nothing unconstitutional about executing an innocent man.

Politicians who believe the earth is 6000 years old because that means they are gullible enough to swallow anything lobbyists tell them.

Candidates who believe that people would rather have no health insurance at all than have the chance to buy affordable health care.

Rotting, diseased flesh is the smell of freedom.

Anyone who shoots an unarmed black youth.

Congressional Medal of Honor: Movie Division

One of the funniest things this month is the movement to award the nation's highest award for valor to Chris Kyle because his "life" was the subject of a movie. The medal criteria, "distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty," is extreme and there is no evidence that Kyle ever met any of those criteria.

Snipers are not conspicuous. They hunt their prey steathfully from great distances and the only ones who have even put their lives at risk did so because they are bad at their job. All accounts are that Kyle was a very good sniper, meaning he was not a gallant risk-taker.

However, if we are going to start awarding medals to characters in movies, there are several who should be in line ahead of Kyle.

Capt. Nathan Brittles - She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

At great personal risk he entered the enemy camp to negotiate peace. When that failed he personally lead a raid to scatter the enemy's horses thereby preventing further hostilities and lose of life.

Capt. Webb Sloane - Prisoner of War (1954)

Finally giving Ronald Reagan the Medal of Honor conservatives believe he so richly deserves. At great personal risk, Capt. Sloane goes undercover as a POW during the Korean War to uncover harsh treatment given prisoners like waterboarding, mock executions, and other tortures. One of the worst movies of the 1950's.

Captain John H. Miller - Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Gallantly risk the lives of an entire squad of soldiers in an insane search for one soldier missing in action among the 1.3 million Allied soldiers involved in the Normandy invasion. Most of the squad dies heroically.

Query: What is it about movies that most of the heroic soldiers are captains?

Groundhog Day - a History

This February celebration began as a pagan holiday when people ran around naked to urge an early end to winter. It's got more boring with time.

Lupercalia

The earliest celebrations were called Februa and later Lupercalia.  Februa was when the shepherds would give themselves their first real baths of the year. Getting naked for washing in a purification ritual just sort of naturally evolved into a randy party in honor of that randy god, Pan. The Romans added a reference to the cave Lupercal where a wolf had raised Romulus and Remus but kept the party atmosphere dressed only in a goatskin loincloth.

Candlemas

As always, when Christians came to power they saw a popular holiday where everybody had fun and they hated it. But, Romans were used to a purification celebration in early February so early Christians simply rebranded it. They chose an obscure biblical event when a priest and a prophetess spotted the baby Jesus and recognized him as the Messiah and applied it to February 2. They kept the purification theme but replaced the loinclothes with candles (not like that, you pervert). Dancing about nearly naked was replaced with slowly walking around, fully clothed, holding candles in solemn reverence.

Groundhog Day

In the cold of Northern Europe, February 2 was also the traditional day when bears and other hibernating mammals, like groundhogs, would rouse themselves from their winter's sleep to take a look around. If it was bright and sunny (and cold) they'd conclude that winter wasn't through and go back to bed for a brief, six week, nap. If, however, it was miserable and raining they knew that the snow was done for the season and it was time to get up. When Christianity came to Germany they never could reconcile parading around with candles and the cold, furry animal tradition. Candlemas became a forgotten holy day in the Protestant calendar while the Germanic tradition lived on as Groundhog Day.

Then Bill Murray made the perfect movie and time stopped.

Indiana Creates Propaganda Ministry

State run media is the hallmark of an unfree state. In Iran the state run new outlet is called IRIB. In China, the People's Daily tells the people what the government wants them to know. The old Soviet Union had Pravda while Nazi Germany had Der Stürmer.

Now, the Great State of Indiana has joined these illustrious news organizations with Just IN.

Just IN will use taxpayers money to build a propaganda machine to compete with legitimate news outlets. Just IN promises "exclusive" content unavailable from regular news outlets, meaning they will be withholding information and only offer officially filtered versions of news. State officials will no longer have to submit to interviews with journalists. All "interviews" can now be done by the state news agency asking only those questions the state wants asked and never embarrassing state officials with pesky facts.

In the future, Indiana will be a state where the "nattering nebobs of negativism" will be silenced and only the "good news" of the glorious state will be heard.  Republican Governor Mike Pence is proud of his creation designed to control the flow of information for the betterment of the Party.

Most Expensive Weapons Ever

We've already seen that cheap weapons can be effective. But the United States doesn't believe in that. The US military, seduced as they are by defense contractors prostitutes, believes that no weapon is too expensive - the costlier the better.

Zumwalt destroyer, more modern art than warship

 1. Joint Strike Fighter (F-35)
As mentioned, the R&D alone exceeds the GNP of Colombia, over $400 billion. That's enough money to run the entire New York City education system for sixteen years. What do we get for all this money? The range is 30% less that the F-18 it replaces. It is more dangerous to land on carriers. It is faster than the F-18 -- nine MPH faster which for a supersonic aircraft is a very tiny drop in a very big bucket. And its fancy and expensive stealth technology and computer systems are totally useless against low-tech opponents like ISIS and al-Qaeda.

2. Virginia Class Submarine
Each one of these boats costs $2.4 billion, that enough to fund two months of the Federal School Lunch Program. These are anti-submarine attack subs. The last time the US has fought a war where it used attack subs was the Korean War. The last time anywhere in the world submarines were used in combat was the Falklands War of 1982. Which is more important, feeding children or building boats that serve absolutely no useful function?

3. Ford Class Supercarrier
The most expensive single weapon in the US arsenal. Each one costs $13 billion plus another $100 million a year just to keep these boats afloat. Each one costs the entire budget for the state of Utah. These mobile landing strips have been used a lot as America fights its colonial wars far from its own shores.

4. Zumwalt-class destroyer
Cheap, by US standards at only $3.4 billion each, enough to pay for the entire education system in the state of Idaho. The Zumwalt is a strange looking stealth boat that is significant for being totally useless. It is designed for shore bombardment but, unlike the battleships of bygone years, the Zumwalt is a delicate butterfly of a ship unsuited for combat conditions.

Four Surprisingly Effective Low Tech Weapons

The United States is the grandmaster of high tech weaponry. We have killer robot planes flown by nerds thousands of miles away from the actual fighting, computerized grenade launchers that can shoot round corners, and a new jet (the F-35) whose development cost exceeds the gross national product of Columbia.

But cheap works too if it is matched with ingenuity.

Sharpened Sticks

The Vietnam War was a lesson the American military refused to learn that flashy, bombastic, and expensive doesn't always beat smart and dedicated. The Viet Cong couldn't stand toe-to-toe with the US Marines in a firefight, a fact that Gen. William Westmoreland was all to quick to point out. But they were smart. While a Marine patrol searched the jungle for something to shoot one of them might step on a tiger trap, fall in, and be impaled on sharpened bamboo stakes.

The patrol would have to call in a helicopter evac, revealing their position so the Viet Cong could either organize an ambush or just melt into the jungle. There were no metal parts for detection equipment to find, no explosives for sniffer dogs to spot, and they maimed which is more disruptive to an American military unit than killing. They were the perfect booby trap.

Stray Cats

This is an oldie, 525 BCE old. The Persian Empire was attacking the Egypt city of Pelusium. Knowing that Egyptians considered cats sacred, the Persian king gathered up all the stray cats he could find (as well as other sacred animals).  Every soldier carried a cat into the battle. The Egyptians, not wanting to risk injuring any cats, refused to fire arrows at the approaching army and surrendered the battlefield and eventually their entire kingdom to the Persians.

Balloons

This invention did not win the war for Japan but it did allow them to do the impossible and bomb the American mainland. This was a highly sophisticated plan. Due to pioneering work by Wasaburo Oishi, the Japanese in the 1940's had a better understanding of the jet stream than anyone else. They calculated the speed of the jet stream using smoke plumes from eruptions of Mount Fuji. Weights would be automatically released from time to time to keep the balloons at the correct altitude. Over 9000 balloons were released. However, the calculations weren't perfect and only 300 balloons reached the United States, setting a few fires and killing six people.

Tree Cannon

You've got gun powder but you don't have enough precious iron to forge cannons. What to do? In several places around the world as late as 1903 in Macedonia, the solution was to make cannons out of hard wood logs. Bulgarians used cherry wood cannons in their revolt against Ottoman rule; they mostly blew up. Samurai built wooden cannons in their rebellion against Western influence on the Japanese emperor. They would fire three or four times before blowing up. The Vietnamese built wooden cannons in their defense against French colonial invasion in the 19th century.

Probably the most effective use of wooden cannon were the Quaker Guns. During the American Revolution, a company of 125 Loyalists were barricaded in a home. Americans tasked with rooting out the Loyalists built a fake log cannon and threatened to bombard the house unless those inside surrendered. Faced with what looked like real artillery, the Loyalists surrendered without a fight.

Handicapping the Presidential Field

It's too soon, but people are declaring for the presidency right and right.

The perfect Republican - a rich fat cat with guns.

1. Jeb Bush - the Ultimate Plutocracy Candidate (5 to 1)
The latest in a family notorious for shitty presidents and shittier wars, Bush III isn't even trying to appeal to the unwashed masses. He is campaigning exclusively to the 1%.

2. Mitt Romney - Poverty Plutocrat (10 to 1)
Mitt is running again because he still believes he is ordained by the Mormon god to lead the nation into the Promised Land. This time mister "corporations are people, too" is claiming he will fight poverty. This means he will be running to the left of a Bush in the ultra conservative Republican Party. Ain't a lot of room there.

3. Rand Paul - Daddy's Little Sociopath (12 to 1)
Health care and education available exclusively for the wealthy. Private police and fire services replacing the corrupt public agencies. If you don't pay the police up front they won't investigate. Eliminate burdensome regulations so I can finally build toxic waste dumps in residential communities.

4. Ted Cruz - the Self-loathing Immigrant (15 to 1)
Born in Canada to Hispanic parents and determined to prevent people who look like him from entering the country. Ted is a religious war candidate who is champing at the bit to kill Muslims, imprison gynecologists, and turn women into broodmares.

5. Scott Walker - Union Buster (17 to 1)
Scott has dedicated his life to preventing public employees from ever gathering together to discuss how to improve their jobs. Oddly, not the most scandal plagued candidate.

6. Chris Christie - Jersey Goomba (20 to 1)
The most scandal plagued candidate, possibly ever. Has the personality and likability of Joe Pecsi in Goodfellas without the good looks.

7. Marco Rubio - the Other Floridian (35 to 1)
Poor Marco. Had a dream of being the first Floridian and first Hispanic to run for president. Then Ted Cruz came along and pissed all over that dream while Jeb Bush fucked it in the ass and left it weeping in the gutter.

8. Rick Perry - Can't Walk and Chew Gum (40 to 1)
He sports "smart guy" horn-rimmed glasses that he doesn't need for reading because, let's face it, he still doesn't read. His campaign begins and ends with the Second Amendment.

9. Ben Carson - Who? (50 to 1)
This cycle's Herman Cain. A conservative black male who has never run for public office because Southern Republicans still won't vote for a black man. Wrote a book; well, plagiarized a book.

10. Bobby Jindal - God, Why? (75 to 1)
It's hard to know just why Bobby wants to be president. Sure, he wants to impose his religious philosophy on the nation but most of the people on this list intend to do that. Beyond that, he has never been able to articulate a reason, good or bad.

As for Democrats. Hillary Clinton (1 to 1) is it and nobody else is challenging. However, the same was being said exactly eight years ago.

Jeb Bush For Sale

Jeb Bush has announced he intends to raise $100 million in 90 days to buy the presidency. We are not talking a grassroots appeal but tycoon schmoozing, it you don't have a bathroom fixture made out of gold you are not invited. Bush's goal is to suck the air out of the Republican competition early.

Jeb Bush Sucks! - Possible campaign slogan

It's amusing to note that Mitt Romney is now too tiny a plutocrat to compete.

Great American Massacres

America Exceptionalism has a glorious history of mass killings. There are so many massacres to choose from that, to limit my choices somewhat, I only looked at racial or religious massacres that had at least the tacit approval of local authorities. Here are some of the most interesting.

Clear Lake Massacre

In the 1840's American settlers Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone had taken to kidnapping and enslaving members of the peaceful Pomo tribe. They would freely beat, torture, starve and rape tribe members they forced to work in the gold fields of central California. They would whip Pomo parents who refused to bring their children for Kelsey and Stone to rape. In the Spring of 1850, a couple of Pomo natives freed themselves by killing Kelsey and Stone.

A regiment of the U.S. Cavalry was sent to find the killers of Kelsey and Stone. When they came upon a Pomo fishing settlement on Clear Lake the Cavalry attacked, indiscriminately killing up to 100 men, women, and children.

Mountain Meadow Massacre

In the late 1850's there were many wagon trains traveling through the Utah Territory to California. Mormons under their religious dictator Brigham Young were undergoing a spiritual cleansing that included the murder, or "blood atonement," of sinners within the congregation. At the same time, Mormons were driving any Federal agents from the territory with threats of killing them if they remained. President Buchanan responded by threatening to send in the army to quell the rebellion. Also at this time, Mormon leaders told the Native American Paiutes that Brigham Young was giving the cattle of any wagon trains headed to California to the Paiute.

Into this mess came the Fancher Party from Arkansas. A prominent had been murdered around this time and religious elders in Cedar City concluded that people in the Fancher wagon train had done the killing. Some Paiute with Mormon militiamen dressed as Indians attacked the wagon train and held it siege for five days. The Mormons then proposed to give the party safe passage; in exchange had to surrender their weapons, wagons, and cattle.

The men were separated from the women and 17 very young children were put in a wagon. They were marched several miles towards Cedar City. At a prearranged signal the Mormon militiamen turned on the men and killed them all. They then attacked and killed all the women. All totaled, 140 men and women were butchered. The 17 children were taken to Cedar City and passed out as prizes to Mormon families. Brigham Young later told the leader of the massacre, "I asked the Lord if it was all right for the deed to be done...It is all right."

Lawrence Massacre

In 1863, 400 Confederate militia under the command of the notorious William Quantrill attacked the Jayhawker town of Lawrence, Kansas. The town was safely devoid of Union troops allowing Quantrill's raiders free reign to burn and pillage they town. They rounded up nearly 200 men and boys and shot them down in cold blood.


Louisiana Massacres

In the decade following the Civil War, Louisiana whites waged a war of killings to prevent freed blacks from voting. New Orleans (1866) saw white mobs killed 38.  Coushatta (1874) saw the White League attack and kill white Republican officeholders and freed blacks, killing over 20. Colfax (1873) had the local sheriff organize 300 armed whites to attack the courthouse defended by black citizens. After the fighting when the defenders surrendered their arms, the whites engaged in a mass killing of the black defenders, killing at least 100 men.


Tulsa Race Riot

In 1921, the Ku Klux Klan was at its zenith. That year a mob of whites attacked the wealthy segregated black Greenwood District, also known as the Black Wall Street. The mob burned over 1,200 homes and killed as many as 300 people with impunity. When the police finally moved in they arrested over 6,000 black victims, blaming the victims for the violence.

Greece: The Great Plutocracy Experiment

Athena weeps.

The Greek economy is what happens when plutocrats gain total control over government. The Greek debt crisis was created by Goldman Sachs and while Greece fell into depression, Goldman profited. The Greek bailout was designed to put the entire weight of austerity on the Greek people while leaving the big investment banks not only untouched but profiting from the austerity.

Goldman executive, and plutocrat toady, Lucas Papademos, was installed without elections as the Prime Minister of Greece with instructions to implement a bloodthirsty economic regime upon Greece. His successor, Antonis Samaras, is himself a plutocrat and has served plutocrat interested to the exclusion of everyone else.

Now that Greek election near, plutocrats are crashing the Greek stock market in the hope of terrifying the Greek people to abandon popular government and allow Greece to be continue to be a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.

The Prince of Peace

Know as Yeshua to friends and family but Jesus in a Latin translation of the Greek translation of the name, that is just the start of Christianity as a profoundly confusing religion.


Jesus and War

It is a religion that calls its savior "the Prince of Peace" yet has a profound love of war. Christians join the military is hordes. The United States Air Force appears to have become a Jesus cult. Throughout the Bible Belt, Jesus and guns are worshiped with equal passion.

Jesus and Torture

Waterboarding is how we’d baptize terrorists. ~ Sarah Palin

Christians think that torturing Jesus at his crucifixion was horrible yet they loved watching Mel Gibson's Jesus snuff film. They quote the Sermon on the Mount repeatedly ("If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.") while believing that torturing prisoners is an appropriate reaction to 9-11.

Jesus and Gays

The Good Samaritan is the most famous of Jesus' parables yet most Christians stubbornly miss the point. In Jesus' day, Samaritans were thought of as contemptible idolators by the Jews. They were to first century Jews what gays are to modern Christians. When He said "love your neighbor as yourself" He did not mean only those within your social or sexual tribe, but all humans. Christians are obstinately tribal and freely broadcast their contempt for outsiders in opposition to Jesus' teaching.

Weird Beliefs

Tradition has Mary a child bride as young as 12 years old when she was impregnated by God with Jesus. Catholics believe that transubstantiation of the Eucharist turns bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ, meaning that communion is not just ritual cannibalism but actual cannibalism.

Foreign Affairs: Cuba Division

The last in our trilogy is the possibility that the United States will be the last nation of the face of the earth to normalize relations with Cuba. Perhaps, some day, we will have someone like Alec Guinness looking after our interests on the island.

The Cuba Libre Affair
Ah, Cuba Libre. Besides being a good use of rum was the 19th century slogan for the liberation of Cuba from Spanish colonialism. It was resurrected in the 1950's by rebels fighting to free Cuba from the brutally corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. It was used, briefly, when the CIA and Mafia collaborated on a military invasion of the island known to history as the Bay of Pigs.  Since then it has been the faint hope of Cuban exiles in Florida who expect the rest of us to believe that they want to give up their lucrative businesses in Miami and return to their grandfather's tobacco plantation in Pinar del Rio.

Opponents of normalizing relations claim that, first, Cuba has to pay US companies for all the property they lost when Cuba nationalized foreign interests, plus a half century of interest. Which means the Cuban government will have to find the heirs of mobster Meyer Lansky and compensate them for the hotel, casino, and brothels they took.

Crime, vice, and fascist dictatorship - Cuba's glory days.

Opponents claim that if the United States continues its embargo for just a few more decades then the Cuban government will change. A half century of isolation just isn't long enough. Except Cuba isn't isolated. You can fly into Cuba from Canada, Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and pretty much anywhere in the world except the US. You want to smoke Cuban cigars? Just cross into Canada or Mexico where you can buy them legally. You can probably carry them back into the US too.

The embargo is a vestige of the Cold War. It may have made sense for the twenty or thirty years following the Cuban Missile Crisis but now it is just silly. If we can have normal relations with Vietnam after a war that killed over a million Vietnamese and 60,000 Americans we can have relations with Cuba for disposing a friendly murderous dictator and replacing him with an unfriendly murderous dictator.