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4th Of July Weekend
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Monthly Archives: June 2011
The Ben Bernanke Show
In recent testimony, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, admitted he had not a clue as to what to do in the current financial crisis, and the only option left was to do what he was doing and hope for the best. What he is doing is printing money, driving down the value of the dollar worldwide, and paving the way for giant inflation when the zero percent Fed rate bubble breaks. If Bernanke doesn’t know what to do, maybe we should get someone who does.
Call me old and cranky
But I do not like Bernanke
And I really do not like his QE2
Printing money like it’s tissue
Means inflation will not miss you
And life savings will go down the china loo
Why one man has all the power
To make men and women cower
At the thought of what it is he doesn’t know
He sits in that big Fed building
Picking lilies fit for gilding
The producer, star and writer of the Ben Bernanke Show
A Mighty Force
The United Nations has declared that Khaddafi must go. Of course, the UN, like the Pope, has a limited number of Divisions, and thus the orders to remove Khaddafi must be carried out by others, most of whom are entirely incapable of carrying out any order, let alone an order to commit war, even against a foe as weak as Khaddafi. And so, as always, it looks like if the order is to be carried out it will be carried out by the United States. But Obama has claimed repeatedly that we are not in a war in Libya, despite almost daily bombing by our airplanes, and one would think Obama would be loathe to anger his lefty base further by putting some boots on the ground. So what is the UN, that mighty force, to do?
The UN is a mighty force
Their word obeyed toot sweet of course
For all the world knows it has a mailed fist
The diplomats quick on the draw
The bad guys know their word is law
Just looking cross will put you on their list
Of course the members all are armed
And keen to see the bad guys harmed
They’ve got the stuff that flies and then goes BAM!
Or have I only dreamt that’s so
I fear that if the bad guys go
That once again it’s up to Uncle Sam
Body Language
The TSA has announced a plan to have its airport operatives screen the mass of travelers by looking for specific body language signs, thereby deterring would be terrorists from climbing about our airplanes and blowing them up. Body language is fine, but has it ever worked? I don’t think so.
Us harried men just have to guess
The body language that means yes
Or maybe means quite something else instead
It could mean no, it could mean may
It could mean she don’t wanna play
It could mean Buster you should go drop dead
A woman’s body was not meant
To indicate her true intent
So body language is a wasted art
You’ll never know just what she means
By how she blinks or how she leans
At least not ‘til you say death do us part
Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!
Germs are getting more and more difficult to kill these days, what with their ability to adapt quickly. It seems built into every little germ and animalcule is a genius-like ability to change almost instantly into something else; still a germ, but a super germ, one that laughs at our feeble attempts to subjugate nature.
Yes the bugs they are commencing
To defy our best sequencing
As they dance and sing down deep inside our gut
They don’t know what they are doing
And they can’t see what they’re viewing
But is nature just the greatest thing or what
So when Leeuwenhoek discovered
That his teeth were fairly covered
With some little crawly things he barely saw
He said it’s not my intention
That my microscope invention
Would find living creatures swimming ‘round my jaw
Little Beasties he first called ‘em
Then discovered if we scald ‘em
They would die and then they’d bother us no more
But the Beasties deep inside us
Would just laughingly deride us
As they planned the darker stuff they had in store
The Night The Wolves Came
Should the United States now withdraw from Nato? Has not Nato served its purpose? Has not the Red Army been disbanded? Are Red Army divisions still poised to strike west through the Fulda Gap? Why should the United States continue to supply the money, men and equipment to defend Europeans who do not have the will to defend themselves? They have relied on the United States to defend them for so long they now believe it is their right to be defended by us, and they have let their defense establishments go to the point of invisibility. Without us they are defenseless against the wolves of the world. And one night the wolves will come. They always do.
Uneasily the sled dogs slept
How quiet was the night
As red eyed wolves in silence crept
The collared dogs in sight
The sled dogs whimpered in the snow
Awake, they waited fate
They knew that one of them would go
But which? They could but wait
The red eyes ran with frosty breath
How silently they came
The lead dog closed her eyes in death
In moments just her name
On empty collar told the tale
As dawn erased the night
And only now a quiet wail
From those who could not fight
They knew the wolves would soon be back
For NATO is a lie
And weakness just invites attack
And one by one they’d die
Playing With Fire
The muslims continue to play with fire. Iran has announced it was ready to test a nuclear device. Turkey says it will ship arms to the Palestinians in Gaza and defies Israel to stop them. Assad sends armed civilians to storm the fences at the Israeli border, causing the Israeli to open fire, all to inflame the likes of the New York Times, which is anti-Israel to begin with. And so the Arabs and Iranians continue to poke sticks in the eyes of the West and Israel, knowing that for the moment at least it is quite safe to do. But it will not always be quite so safe. There always comes a time when a stick in the eye is finally responded to, and when the response comes it will be more than a stick in a muslim eye. It will be a stake in the muslim heart. And they do not seem to understand that playing with fire is dangerous.
The child is told that fire burns
The lesson stressed until he learns
But some kids never get it right
They’re drawn to flame, the burning light
They play with fire, it’s a game
And if they lose it’s all the same
There are kids living on our block
Who play the game around the clock
Assad for one, the mullahs too
Who poke their sticks, annoy the Jew
They strut and shout they’ll kill us all
And turn life to a darkened pall
We tell them we want only peace
We tell them that their games must cease
But they do not, and so they’ll learn
That games with fire means they’ll burn
Some Damn Fool Thing
In 1909 Norman Angell published a book titled The Great Illusion, in which he argued that Europe, and the world, was now so intertwined financially and culturally that war was unthinkable. And we all know what happened five years later. Bismarck said war would come from some damn fool thing in the Balkans, and he was right. And it is happening again, this time in Greece, with debt default looming over Europe and the world, a default by the Greek government that could bring down the financial structure of the entire world. The last damn fool thing in the Balkans brought on world War 1 and the destruction of five world empires, the German, the Ottoman, the French, the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian, with the British empire lasting only another twenty-five years. And this time the collapse of empires may well include us.
The deer walk softly through the wood
Alert for danger, does and fawns
Small men stride worlds where giants stood
Outlined in light from pale false dawns
We know what’s right, the small men smile
We know what’s right, we know what’s good
And so they take us that last mile
There is no danger in the wood
Wyatt Earp
Nato declared war on Afghanistan in accordance with their treaty obligations when we attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan for harboring al Qaeda, who drove commercial airplanes into the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001. All well and good, but the only Nato country that did any actual fighting was Britain, and that in a very limited way. The others sent trainers and logistics people and did no shooting. Over time most of the non-combat combatants pulled their troops home, and now even the Brits are pulling out. For over sixty years Europe has depended for its defense on the United States, to the extent that no European country has a defense establishment equal to the task of removing a third rate dictator from a third world country. It’s always up to us. It’s about time the United States says goodbye to Nato, an alliance that has lost all reason for existence now that the Red Army is no longer pointed at the Fulda Gap. Time to cut off the money, time to stop paying for the defense of people who have obviously decided they do not want to pay for their own defense. It’s time for Wyatt Earp to say he’s tired of riding shotgun.
The stagecoach pulled up into town
And Wyatt Earp stepped slowly down
His shotgun hanging loosely by his side
The horses shivered, flecked with foam
As Wyatt said, I’m glad I’m home
I’m here to say I’ve taken my last ride
I’m ridin’ shotgun not no more
For sixty years I watched the store
And fought through Injun country more than once
It’s Wyatt this and Wyatt that
It’s time you guys got up to bat
I’m tired of ridin’ shotgun for you runts
The Nukes Are Safe
Amid the turmoil in the muslim world, amid the backstabbing and betrayals in Afghanistan and Pakistan, what must always be remembered is that Pakistan is a nuclear state, having stolen the technology from the West. These nuclear devices must never be allowed to fall into the hands of non-state actors like al Qaeda, which is the principal reason the United States maintains steadfastly that Pakistan is a loyal ally in the midst of an enormous amount of evidence that they are not. It is the nukes. Pakistan insists they are safe, with specially trained and loyal guards. But it is clear it is only a matter of time before al Qaeda or the Taliban get their hands on one or more of Pakistan’s nukes, and then we will be faced with an existential threat.
The nukes are safe
They’re in good hands
In bunkers built
On shifting sands
Al Qaeda knows
Just where they are
They’ve friends who’ll leave
The door ajar
And late some night
And very soon
Lighted dimly
By the moon
A band of men
Of bristled beard
Will do what we
Have always feared
Ah well we had
The warning signs
The whispered sighs
Amid the pines
That told of things
That might go boom
When we leave Paks
To guard that room