News reports indicate China is now in financial trouble, and curiously enough, precisely the same trouble we are in, namely, a real estate bubble about to burst. It seems the Chinese economic miracle was driven by skyrocketing real estate prices, particularly the price of land. And now the top has been reached, and prices are tumbling as they always do. And amazingly enough, this is coming about without the help of Barney Frank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The French have a saying, Plus ca change, translated The more things change the more they remain the same. Ain’t it the truth?

Ain’t it strange

How plus ca change

And China’s now in trouble

No Fannie Mae

That’s what they say

So how come there’s a bubble

Is Barney Frank

The guy to thank

For selling them on housing

Drive up the price

No land for rice

And now they need de-lousing

And so it goes

The problem grows

Both China and in Stateside

But no one cares

Just say your prayers

O says we’ll catch the late tide

See my sci fi novel RADIANCE at Amazon, paperback and 99cent Kincle. A fifteen year old boy and his Irish setter find themselves on a strange planet and they don’t know why. They soon find out.

Word has leaked out of Illinois, the United States version of North Korea, that Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois, has been convicted, after a lengthy trial, of fraud for attempting to sell Obama’s Senate seat. And the reason he was convicted of fraud was because there was nothing in the seat.

Behold the seat! the Blago cried

So hardly ever used

The Senator in question voted

Present or Excused

The Senate seat for Illinois

Is mine, and it’s for sale

And don’t you fret your little head

I’ll never go to jail

And ‘cause that nerdy guy Hussein

Was never there to vote

The bidding starts and closes at

A clean, crisp five buck note

 See my mystery THE ICE COLD BRIDE at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle. A car with a million seven in cash and two kids at the bottom of a quarry.

The Australian government is preparing to kill tens of thousands of camels in order to save the Earth from global warming, claiming that camel farts are harming the environment. What hath Al Gore wrought? How much more absurd can the envirowhackos go in perpetuating this global warming nonsense that everyone else knows is a scam and a fraud? Think about it. If the environmental whackos are killing camels because they fart, what about cows? And if it comes to that, how much methane is being put into the air every day by 6 billion plus people?

So instead of goring oxen

It is camels being Gored

As the carbon Nazis try to save the Earth

From the flatulence of camels

Who just fart because they’re bored

And who’ve farted since the moment of their birth

But if shooting all the farters

Is the plan to cleanse the air

Then they’ve got to line us all against the wall

For we’ve all been known to loose one

So we really must be fair

If they’re gonna kill the farters, kill us all

 See my mystery PHILLY STREETS at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle. Could a ten thousand dollar baby parrot cause all those murders?

Obama, through incompetence or indifference, has hit on the only strategy possible for dealing with the peripheral Muslim terror states. Drone strikes but no boots on the ground. An arms-length strategy, designed to maintain the terror status quo until such time as conditions require we remove them with utmost prejudice.

Silent death from out the sky

One moment life, the next goodbye

Nation building is a curse

Brought on ourselves and what is worse

The nation being built from tribes

And clans, corruption, theft and bribes

Wants not at all to be like us

Prefers to live with scabs and pus

Leave them be, each boy and man

Iran, the Pak, Afghanistan

Close them down, remove the threat

And if they strike repay the debt

With deadly force a thousand fold

So generations will be told

That we don’t care what you may do

To those who look and think like you

But step across the sand drawn line

And worms will on your bodies dine

In meantime death from out the sky

Don’t raise your head or you will die

 See my sci-fi novel CHRYSALIS at Amazon, paperback and Kindle. The crew of the starship USS Constellation have every reason to believe they are alive. But are they?

In the Christian year 9, Publius Quintilius Varus led the XVII, XVIII and XIX Legions, accompanied by auxiliaries and women and children, through the Teutoburg Wald to winter quarters. Ambushed by German tribes led by Arminius, the Romans were annihilated. When he heard the news, Augustus cried, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!” The Romans never again ventured north of the Rhine or Danube. Are we looking at the same thing? Have we, like the Romans, reached the high water mark of empire? Will withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq be the end of nation building, the end of engagement in the Muslim world? Will our policy no longer be forward leaning but reactive? I sure hope so.

Afghanistan is not a State

And they don’t really care

The tribe, the clan, all else they hate

They do not want us there

We pour in cash, we get guys killed

For nothing I can see

It matters not the roads we build

A country it won’t be

We tried to change the Islam world

To bring them up to snuff

And for our pains got rockets hurled

I say enough’s enough

Just let them stew in their own juice

And keep our powder dry

And if they turn their rockets loose

Just blow them all sky high

 See my sci fi CHRYSALIS at Amazon, paperback and 99 cent Kindle. A city at the bottom of a lake and a love-sick medusa. What could go wrong?

We are again faced with the problem of what to do about the Greeks. Do we let them default? But if they do then the big banks in Europe, China and the US might well go under, with resulting chaos in the world economy. But aren’t those big banks too big to fail? Yes they are. Governments can’t let them fail because if they fail so will the governments and thus the taxpayers will always have to bail everybody out. But how do the banks feel about this, always at the government’s bidding, always being treated like children by loving parents who won’t let them fail? Do banks have feelings? Of course they do. They have tellers who tell you every day how difficult it is to be too big to fail, how difficult it is to always be at the beck and call of politicians who think nothing of putting shareholders and officers on the line for their political gain. I think the big banks are fed up with the whole rotten business and have a good mind to toss it all and show them they are NOT too big to fail. That’ll teach ‘em.

They said I was too big to fail

Too big to just go under

While politicians not in jail

Make blunder after blunder

Oh yes I’m at my master’s beck

I lend to those unable

To pay it back but what the heck

There’s stuff under the table

And so I go my merry way

Defaults are much too messy

We know the taxpayer will pay

So long’s the corpse still dressy

I’ve always wagged the big dog’s tail

For many years I hid it

And yes they say too big to fail

But I went ahead and did it

See my thriller AND A TIME TO DIE at Amazon, Kindle 99 cents

The romance is over. Even the global warming scammers no longer believe their lies. They’re just going through the motions, still calling for an end to Western Civilization and a return to the eleventh century, but their cries are half-hearted, for they know no one takes them seriously any more. Too many lies, too many faked charts and graphs, too many released emails detailing the scam. Some years ago there was a song called Once More With Feeling, telling how it is when it’s all over. Second verse new lyrics.

Let’s try it one more time with feeling darlin’

Take it from the top

Let me feel those tears afallin’ girl

I don’t want to miss a single drop

Darlin’ make believe you’re makin’ me

Believe each word you say

Try it once more with feeling

And we’ll call it a day

We’ve had a real good run at brass rings darlin’

Now it’s time to stop

The folks all know it’s just a scam

So let’s quit while we’re still at the top

Carbon credits made us billions girl

They believed each word we say

We’ll try it once more with feeling

And we’ll call it a day

 See my mystery THE ICE COLD BRIDE at Amazon

The wheel of History turns, sometimes as poetry, sometimes as farce, but always as irony. We once defended Greece from the Germans, and now, in light of the imminent Greek government debt crisis in which Greece is about to default on its massive loans to European banks, we are begging the Germans to come to the rescue. In 1941 Churchill sent sorely needed divisions from North Africa to Greece to keep the Germans out, and was sharply rebuffed for his pains when the Fallschirmjaegeren gave the New Zealanders a bloody nose in Crete. And here we are, seventy years later, begging the Germans to take it once more.

Failing countries cheek by jowl

Crying for the savior now

In Valhalla Hitler smirks

See, he smiles, my way it works

Stalin puffs his meerschaum pipe

Smiles and says that Greece is ripe

For a taste of Stalin rule

And Churchill says don’t be a fool

It’s socialism that’s at fault

Where once was money in the vault

There’s nothing now but IOUs

In moments now they’ll light the fuse

And Europe will then be no more

And God the Maestro fold his score

And bravely said, FDR cried

For Greece is now the German bride

How odd it is that we once fought

To free what once the Germans thought

Was theirs to own, do what they will

And here they are, they have it still

 See my mystery SUSAN DARLING at Amazon

The Greeks are again standing before Germany with a tin cup, with the Germans and everyone else knowing that if Greece defaults on its debt obligations, German and French banks will fail, American banks will be sorely stressed and the world economy will be laid waste. Greece has laid down the ultimatum: pay us or we’ll default and the banks will tumble like little children tumbling down a hill. Will the Germans cave in and give the Greeks the money? I say let them fail, for paying them off again will only make things worse when they ultimately do default on their debt, as they must when the Germans run out of money. Let them fail, let them stew in their own socialist dreams of retiring on the wealth of others. Let them fail, and pick up the pieces and move on. The world has had enough of wooden horses.

They wheeled the horse up to the gates

Then sailed their ships away

Astonishing the Trojans when

They sun rose the next day

The horse was carried into Troy

As celebration ruled

But what the people did not know

Was they would soon be fooled

Brave Hector though divined the trick

And grabbed his trusty sword

He’d slay the foe this day or death

Would be his last reward

Alas brave Hector does not live

Achilles too is dead

And Greece no more by honor lives

But panhandling instead

Pay us now, the masses scream

Or we will bring you down

And so is wheeled the wooden horse

Up to the gates of town

Filled not with Agamemnon’s troops

But Euros head to tail

There’s no brave Hector here to say

Goddammit let them fail

See my sci fi novel CHRYSALIS at Amazon, paperback and Kindle. A city at the bottom of a lake, a lovesick medusa. What could go wrong?

Fourth of July. Fireworks, cookouts, baseball, holding hands with your best girl. That’s what it’s about now, but it wasn’t always what it was about.

In a seafaring town not a few years ago

It happened one hot summer day

A document fair to the townsfolk was read

That put all the bells into play

They rang out the news that the freedom they sought

Was theirs by God’s writ and His grace

And from that day forward the people held fast

To the freedoms those men put in place

The Fathers, the Founders, they sweated and swore

Until they had got the words down

And created the world’s finest country by far

And it happened in old Philly town

See my sci fi novel RADIANCE, paperback or Kindle. A fifteen year old boy and his Irish setter find themselves on a strange planet and they don’t know why. They soon find out.