Nothing much big happening this week.  Just piddly little stuff.  So, I'm going to draw some numbers out of the hat and give you their run down.

BAD ECONOMY

Surprise, surprise, surprise.  The current period is entering a little late, but more or less exactly where I thought it would be… Read full post »

May Day has come and gone, and in many respects, the Occupy protests this month were just pale imitations of what occurred in November.  And supporters of the movement appear to have put a happy face on  a diminished presence.  There are a number of factors that account… Read full post »

 FOREIGN

I live in Mexico, so I don't get to experience the cacaphony and barrage of media extravaganza and spectacle that is the US mass media. It's my observation that for the most part, Americans are insular people, unaware of their greater global surroundings.  Many Ameri… Read full post »

Bullish sentiments in the worldwide stock market were taken for a rude awakening by a double clap of thunder emanating from France and the Netherlands over the weekend. First, the defeat of French President Nicholas Sarkozy seems almost certain. He's the first French president in history to f… Read full post »

  I've said for some time that China was an accident waiting to happen.  First, we have the exponential growth of the Chinese economy since the time of Deng Xiaoping that overturned the social contract established under the old governmental system established by Mao Tse Tung. … Read full post »

 Mitt Romney and the Republican Party seem to be channeling Soviet nostalgia, and well they might.  The death of communism has not been good overall to the health of the conservative movement, and oddly enough -- Karl Marx is one of the sharpest political theorists  now to expl… Read full post »

I started out on my journey to the long lost cave paintings of San Borjita, but I didn't have the foggiest idea of how much trouble I'd actually be getting into.

When your truck has its second flat tire in the middle of the desert, and you wander for a… Read full post »

 Lucky and Superlucky were something else.  Unlike the suits at the embassy who didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, Lucky and Superlucky were the real McCoy.  For one thing, they were kids, and they were true believers.  For another thing, they looked… Read full post »

Israel is at a crossroads.  Stratfor says that Israel is now in a completely new environment.  Since 1967 Israel's main concern had been the Palestinians and what to do about them.  Thanks to the manuvering of the Israeli government, the Palestinians are much less… Read full post »

I've always been a sucker for Lawrence of Arabia.  Maybe because I was at an impressionable age at that time, and maybe  it's because I saw one of the greatest and most influential movies in history.  But  Thomas Edward Lawrence has always been a talisman for me. He… Read full post »

The Supreme Court is certainly facing interesting times lately.  Not only are they currently hearing conservatives' challenges to Obamacare AKA the Affordable Care Act, but down the road they're going to revisit the infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision with their hearing on the recent Montan… Read full post »

My wifey owes me TWO FREE PASSES!  Not one, but two.  I had already made arrangements with Steve for my next great Mexican adventure (profusely illustrated!), but wifey gets a phone call from Brenda.  Brenda says, "Do you have an extra space for dinner right now?  We need a hen fe… Read full post »

When you're looking at a website that has a picture of a demonic Barack Obama being guarded by giant soldiers in hell, you can figure that there might be a few people looking at you.  I had to wipe off 536 megabytes of cookies on my computer before I began to… Read full post »

The clown show that passes for the Republican primaries has been truly astounding.  Never before in American history has the public ever witnessed such a collection of nitwits, retards, mountebanks, religious zealots, zombies, flat earth enthusiasts, and tinfoil hat wearers.  I do not have… Read full post »

In reading the animal spirits of the world economy, a major sea change has occurred in the last six months.  We went from a time of great fear, where a collapse of the euro and Greece seemed imminent, to a time where it's been publicly announced that the transition on Greek… Read full post »

There's no there -- there.

Gertrude Stein

Perhaps you've noticed the  news drought lately.  Things are so slow, I swear I saw one  news source have coverage of a murder that happened a hundred years ago.  And even on Open Salon there's a strange tranquility.  It's not like th… Read full post »

While we've had the crazy-making of the "Let's pretend we want to start World War III by trying to gin up an attack on Iran" has continued, a lot of the world has been ignoring the monkey shines going on between Great Britain and Argentina one more time over the desolate… Read full post »

The question must be raised.  Supposedly, there's been arrests of Iranian agents attempting an assassination in Bangkok, Thailand.  But couldn't it just as easily be a false flag operation by Israel?  Just sayin'. Read full post »

No doubt you've already seen the image of Vladimir Putin tearing up after he gave his announcement of his "stunning" electoral victory as President of Russia.  Masha Gessen, author of Man Without a Face:  the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin feels that ultimately, Putin's electoral engineeri… Read full post »

This week, it's gotten harder and harder to be a bully.  First out of the box in the eating of crow department was of course, Rush Limbaugh.  He excoriated Sandra Fluke because she was rebuffed in being able to testify before an all male House committee on the evils of contraception,… Read full post »

I've decided to back Rick Santorum for the GOP nomination.  I really want him to win it.  Yes, I know his policies on gay rights, abortion, birth control, seperation of church and state are reprehensible -- just for starters.  But to me, that's part of his charm.  I say that it's… Read full post »

 Once upon a time, I knew Neto.  Neto was a fisherman that I wrote  a third of my novel about (The Story of the Century by Karl Eysenbach - look under my name on Amazon).  Neto died on Valentine's Day some years ago, as he was trying to land in a… Read full post »

Things heated up a notch at midnight, Tehran time yesterday.  The International Atomic Energy Agency team inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities left the country, issuing a report that Iranian authorities had denied access to the IAEA team for inspection of an explosives testing facility at Parchi… Read full post »

A sick game of financial sadism is currently being played in Europe.  The European Central Bank, IMF, and World Bank are the tormentors, and Greece is their victim.  With the way things have proceeded, you'd think that the banksters want Greece murdered, but they don't have the heart to do… Read full post »

As citizens of the American Empire, we enjoy all sorts of benefits that other countries just don't have.  George W. Bush could let the Chinese pay for the Iraq War, as their holdings of Treasuries were effectively a credit card for his little military adventure. But other things fall our way… Read full post »