I blame Bob Murphy for this. Ignore the simple, inadequate theories of the mechanics (but NOT the politics) of the WTC collapses, and pay attention to the rest - cuts from “Zeitgeist”, “Loose Change”, “Freedom To Fascism”, and more, intercut with Alex Jones, John Taylor Gatto, and David Icke explaining in detail how we are constantly being manipulated to do the bidding of the elites. It’s fascinating, powerful, and, despite the odds, it works. Check out Joh Nada’s “Wake Up Call”.
Archive for the 'foreign oil' Category
30
Jun
Wake Up Call - The Movie
Please, We Should Thank You.
OK, it’s time to come clean. We at LibertyGuys, and many, many libertarians, minarchists, anarchists, war opponents, and other free-thinkers, while relieved that he can finally do no more direct harm to the entire globe on a whim, secretly miss George W. Bush already. Because, you see, deep down in our heart of hearts, we were really, really grateful for his presidency.
What I mean is this. We opposed all the wars, the spying on Americans, the torture, the crony capitalism, the transparent use of the entire Imperial military apparatus for the benefit of connected flunkies, then, finally, the direct transfer of all of our financial futures to his friends on Wall Street, with more than 80% of the people opposed. All of it.
We opposed all the spending, the creation of vast new entitlements, the bailouts for all of the evil f**ks on Wall Street, K Street, and Detroit. In short, we opposed nearly everything the man stands for or did. But deep down, after every bad thing he did, a little part of us said a small “amen”.
Sure, it was nice to have something to agree with our liberal friends on, the wars, the imperialism, the torture, Katrina, etc. Any and all of those things was reason enough to hate him. But it wasn’t the reason we love him.
The thing, the thing we very much love about George W. Bush is the way he made the case against statism. Every thing the man did included all of the classic statist ingredients; war, demonization of the other (Muslims), socialism, protectionism, polarization and politicization of every sphere, cronyism, and corporatism, covered with a sauce of greed and venality, and served up with a double helping of rank incompetence.
The War on Iraq, the destruction of civilization in Afghanistan, the Katrina disaster, the revelations of massive illegal wiretapping , any one of these would have destroyed a lesser demon, say a Richard Nixon, or a Lyndon Johnson. But not our man George. He plagued us, completely intact, to the very end. Even the collapse of our entire system of corporatism and imperial finance did not unhorse this cowboy. His was a singular reign.
Perversely, this is why we are afraid of the manifestly competent politician who replaced him, the Obamessiah. Our worst fear, all us freedom-loving types who have awakened to the government’s war on civilization, that the man may actually place people of intelligence, merit, and skill in those powerful positions available to his patronage is being realized.
We are alarmed that he has filled his staffs with brilliant, competent idealogues. We might, quite understandably be terrified, absolutely terrified, that Obama, the unitary leader of the biggest, richest, most powerful state ever to exist, might make the trains run on time. Except, we know he can’t.
Oh he will do everything his fans and supporters expect of him. He will mouth all the right platitudes, he will speak “directly” to the people, his armies of PR flacks and press dupesters will dutifully report on his triumphs, while sweeping his failures under a rug. It has been, and will be a brilliant performance.
And none of it will make any difference. The financial crisis is gearing up to become a fiscal and monetary tsunami, one that will sweep away all before it. They, those bright, motivated bureaucrats won’t know what hit them.
But they will enjoy, at least for a while the completely undeserved trust and goodwill of many of the people, even as we all march into the depths of it.
(photo from ratemyeverything.com)
Obama: "No Comment."
Look through these photos (WARNING: The above photo is the LEAST bloody) and try to square them with all of the pro-Israel spin on this horrible piece of business in the major US media. You can’t. It’s cold-blooded mass murder, and the network bobble-heads are calling it “self-defense”. It is exactly analogous to responding to a prison riot with F-16s and cluster munitions.
We harbor no illusions - the Israelis are equipped, trained, and funded by the US, and they do nothing without the dictator’s say-so. So what do our current and future Duce have to say about this atrocity?
President Bush: “I understand Israel’s desire to protect itself,” Bush said in the Oval Office. “The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas…Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis,” Bush said. “Israel’s obviously decided to protect herself and her people.”
Uh-huh. Funny, we don’t hear about the innocent Arabs (yes, Virginia, there are women and children in Gaza, despite what The Ministry Of Truth says)
Future President Obama: “There was no immediate comment on the Israeli air strikes on Gaza from Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, or his staff.”
Clearly, Bush has decided to let the Israelis have their head, to attack Gaza when they have really wished to attack Iran.
And Obama’s tepid response indicates not only that he has no problem with this, but that perhaps he is allowing Bush to test the waters for steering America in a new foreign policy direction.
No, not a peaceful one, silly, but a policy where the US simply funds, equips, and trains the soldiers of other countries to do our dirty work. Hmm, I wonder where that’s been tried before?
- NOTE: I Don’t See An Oiler In This Diagram
Lew Rockwell had a great post this morning (with video goodness!) about “Little Three” union officials slacking off and engaging in personal “business” (shopping, beer-buying) while on the clock. I wrote and related this story to Lew;
Hi Lew,
It is amazing to see a news organization, particularly one in a “union town” covering this story, since such abuses are longstanding and widespread. But there is nothing unique about what the two union reps in the story are accused of.
In 1993 - 1994, I was the safety and health manager of a large construction project ($280M) at a major oil refinery. Being a union plant, of course all of the contractors on the project were forced to hire union “labor” to do all tasks, including some that in a free market would not be done.
Before any work could commence, the contractors on the project had to sign a “project labor agreement”, or PLA, which set forth staffing requirements, work rules, and union jurisdiction. The number of unions involved in the endeavor was mind-boggling. We had carpenters, cement finishers, dockbuilders, electricians, laborers, millwrights, pipefitters, plumbers, teamsters, operating engineers, and one or two others I am sure I am forgetting.
Because the refinery was under a state-imposed environmental compliance deadline for completion, the project ran 2 12-hour shifts per day, 7 days per week to try to meet the deadline. Such mandates and deadlines always present tremendous opportunities for graft. I’ll spare you the details, except at one point the civil contractor was paying a “pipefitter” to make sandwiches for sale to the project personnel, which at 300 - plus workers undoubtedly handsomely enhanced his own personal profit.
Some of the unions even had subgroups, such as one class of operating engineers that ran pumps and generators up to a certain size, others that operated smaller loaders and excavators, another class of operators that ran larger excavators, and finally the “top” class of operating engineers, the crane operators.
The operating engineers’ contract at the time required that all equipment over a certain (arbitrary, low) horsepower be staffed by an operating engineer and an oiler, whether the maintenance regime for the equipment required continuous hand-oiling or not. I will leave it to you to ponder whether modern machinery made in the last 50 years would have such an intense need for maintenance.
Because this requirement undoubtedly caused many objections, an alternate “compliance” method was for the contractor to pay the operating engineer an extra hour for “grease time” (how apt), ostensibly to compensate the operating engineer for coming in an hour early to maintain and prepare his equipment for the start of the shift.
Except, remember, the project operated on 2 12-hour shifts, 7 days per week, which meant that during “grease time” the equipment was still being used by the operator on the previous shift. So we in essence have two operating engineers being paid to work 13 hours per day each, for a total of 26 hours of labor pay per qualifying machine per day.
It gets better. In the construction trades, the union representative is paid a little more than the highest-paid worker on the project. Because of the size of the crew, the project labor agreement mandated that the operating engineers have two project-paid union representatives, a “shop steward”, and a “master mechanic”, who were each paid “grease time’ also.
I’m not entirely sure what the duties of a “shop steward” are, but since the project already had 3 or 4 actual full-time mechanics, the “master mechanic” had few if any remaining visible duties. If you were lucky, you could get hold of him over the project radio system 3 to 4 hours per day at best. Allegedly one would have had better luck looking for him on the golf course most days, weather permitting. Yet because his position was mandated by the PLA, he was being paid 26 hours per day, 7 days per week.
After about 6-8 months of this, it became so embarrassing that the union itself actually put a stop to it, assigning a second-shift “master mechanic”, an extremely able, competent, and hard-working operating engineer who performed all of his union “duties” and operated equipment as well. But this was only one small instance of union abuse on the project.
Somewhere in this sorry tale I should mention that the construction ‘managers’ for the project were Kellogg, Brown, and Root (nee Brown and Root Braun), a particularly ill-named group of losers and no-accounts who actually impeded safety and progress on the project during their tenure.
Please use my alias if you print this.
UPDATE: This was funny.
09
Dec
When The Emperor Moves
On Lew Rockwell’s blog today (YAY!);
re: More Pentagon Homicides
Posted by Lew Rockwell at 12:04 PM
Writes Vince Daliessio:
Saturday was the Army-Navy game here in Philadelphia.. I was taking my son to karate practice at about 9:45 am, when he yells “DAD, LOOK AT THE BIG PLANE!” When I looked, I saw Air Force One approaching from the Southwest and banking steeply above us at no more than 4,000 feet. The plane then swung crazily around, and back West toward the airport. All I could think of was how cavalierly the plane was being operated, and the likely carnage on the ground that would have ensued if the pilot had made a mistake. The old saying “a fish rots from the head” comes to mind. I had little thought for the passengers on board, who were no doubt the instigation for such behavior.
A couple of days prior, we were overflown by squads of military helicopters, and of course during the game we could hear F-18s overhead.
UPDATE: This was the reaction of the father come home to find his family all killed by the government;
“I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God,” Yoon said at a news conference afterward. “Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, our house.”
Yoon said he bore no ill will toward the Marine Corps pilot who ejected safely before the jet plunged into the neighborhood two miles west of the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. “I pray for him not to suffer for this action,” Yoon said. “I know he’s one of our treasures for our country.”
Maybe Mr. Yoon is a better man than I - I really don’t know. But my reaction would be much different.
The Broken Clock Corrollary
We last discussed the learned Professor Reich with regard to his (correct) observation that the failed companies on Wall Street, Detroit, etc. should be allowed to go bust rather than be bailed out, which struck us as an eminently sensible idea, particularly coming from the hard-socialist former labor secretary.
This morning I awoke to his mellifluous, yet vaguely elfin voice giving the second half of what is now apparently a one-two punch - his Pinko ideas of what the government should instead do with the bailout money;
He proposes to have Obama spend $600 Billion dollars for his ‘recovery’, ’stimulus’, or ‘infrastructure’ plan (he uses all three labels).
First, with regard to the size of his plan - where do these fascists and socialists get these figures - focus groups?
Does he think its comparatively responsible (or simply cute) to propose to spend $100 billion less than Hank Paulson demanded of money that simply doesn’t exist?
We have shown elsewhere that the $700 billion number is a fabrication, that the total we are all on the hook for is over $7 TRILLION. So this already is enough to make one want to burn him in effigy. if for no other reason than the fact that he is reinforcing a stereotype of little people as being ‘cute’.
Then he launched into a description of what he, if appointed emperor of the economy, would do to save us all from ourselves. Here is a helpful lexicon of Robert Reich, the study of which will hopefully be more illuminating then actually listening to his pleasantly-presented, slick socialist program; (Reichspeak = Actual meaning);
Infrastructure = pork for blue states
Bridges To Nowhere = pork for red states
Infrastructure spending = payoffs to trade unions and union contractors
Pork-barrel spending = payoffs to non-union contractors
Investing = payoffs to politically-connected interests
Investment = massive increases in government indebtedness
Green Technologies = payoffs to connected interests in the name of energy autarky (see Nazi Germany)
Starving Wall Street of money = Saving
Services = welfare
Stimulus = see Infrastructure
Lower future deficits = more spending now
Welfare for rich people = Tax cuts
Rebates = payoffs to China
Capital Budgets = pork for Federal and state favored interests
What Obama And McCain See When They Look At Us
…Or are they just being cynical?
Yesterday, McCain repeated, ad nauseum his moronic new mantra for energy autarky, “Drill Here, Drill Now!” all over the airwaves, from safe inside the factory belonging to a top supporter in Fairless Hills, PA. Obama’s Great Factory Adventure Of The Day was to an auto plant in Lansing, Michigan, where, while no longer mouthing complete opposition to more drilling, annonced a plan to reinstate a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to be re-distributed to “American Families”at $1000 each, and a $4 BILLION subsidy to US automakers for the purpose of developing ‘plug-in hybrid’ cars, whatever that means. Both of these proposals, if ever enacted, will have exactly the opposite effect, as Harry Browne would have been able to tell them.
Let’s take more drilling, whether offshore, on Federal lands, etc. Never mind that any truly free-market actor, individual, partnership, or company should be free to homestead and drill any unused property subject to penalties for trespass on any other property, and cleaning up the mess before abandoning it. If due to congressional subsidies (you didn’t think they would just remove restrictions and let the oil companies do the rest, did you?) a modest increase in domestic production occurs, the principal effect would be to lower demand for oil coming from abroad, depressing the price and causing a net INCREASE in imports!
Well then, how about the windfall profits tax? Well, this would only affect profits earned within the LEGAL (but not ACTUAL) jurisdiction of Congress, which would tend to depress production, where class? That’s right, the good old USA - good for you!
OK, but ‘plug-in’ hybrids are good, right? And union jobs in Michigan are important, right? Well, here I am afraid one of these abominations will have its intended REAL effect - $4 BILLION dollars funneled to US Auto companies for the development of ‘plug-in’ hybrids (why, one might ask, aren’t the manufacturers investing in this technology already, one might ask) will go directly toward retaining a surplus of union employees by said plants. Or, the automakers might just sweep the extra money onto their balance sheets, and screw the union workers, whatever.
Look, these are two smart men (Obama is manifestly smarter than McCain, makes no difference here).So there can only be one reason they are calling for such ridiculous, moronic programs that will have the exact inverse of the stated intended effect. The reason they come out with these insane public announcements is that they both sincerely believe that the American electorate, every single last one of us, are grasping idiots.
Remind me why I should vote for either one of these clowns again?
(Image from smashed frog)
Obama O-verload
We have ridiculed taxpayer-paid campaign materials before, as have many others, so it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that such attempts are made as to try to make them less obvious. Here, on a stretch of I-295 where commuters were just over being tortured by a reconstruction product, is one of the first fruits of the “porkulus” - a sign announcing a new, unspecified, undoubtedly expensive impediment to use;
The Porkulus Comes To South Jersey
But look closely at logo at the lower left - it looks vaguely familiar;
Look Familiar?