Death to Mr. Peanut, the New Bin Ladin--The War on Terror Goes to Georgia

With the Salmonella outbreak at the Peanut Corporation of America, the death of 8 innocent Americans, the news media is having a frenzy at the expense of the peanut industry. The New York Times reports that the conditions at the plant in Blakely, Georgia were well below standards. As our economy continues to tank and capitalists try to find was to cut corners, the health standards of industry will continue to decline and lives will continue to be lost. This terror stems from greed. Obama should leave Afghanistan and invade Blakely, Georgia, in a hunt for the menacing Mr. Peanut, Stewart Parnell, owner and President of this year's Al Qaida, Peanut Corporation of America.

If Banks Tank, Stimulus Won't Work

According to the the Time:

The stakes for the Obama administration’s bank bailout proposal are high, economists say. Regardless of the specifics of the differing economic plans pending in Congress, no spending stimulus is likely to have much long-term effect unless the bank bailout works.

“The simple truth is that a self-sustaining expansion in a capitalist economy absolutely requires a functioning banking system,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, an investment advisory firm. There is a general agreement that previous efforts have yet to succeed.

So if this is the case, isn't it a fact that this stimulus package probably won't work? Outside of the handful of C.E.O.s who seem to be doing pretty well after holding up the National Treasury, the bank system seems on the brink of total meltdown.

On Nancy Pelosi's graph of recession job loss, if the green line were a waterslide, you'd die by wedgie

The Speaker of the House has a blog where he's graphed just how deep we are sinking into a bottomless well of feces. She has a chart comparing job loss in the 1999 and 2001 recessions compared to this one.

Basically, if we were at a waterpark and your friend asked you to plumet down a slide as steep as the green one you'd either smartly refuse or get a wedgie so far up your crack that you'd feel your swim suit split your head in two.

People, we're screwed.

Pelosi quoted Obama:

We can’t embrace the losing formula that says only tax cuts will work for every problem we face; that ignores critical challenges like our addiction to foreign oil, or the soaring cost of health care, or falling schools and crumbling bridges and roads and levees. I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV — if you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction.

Let's get our parachutes people. The whole beast is tanking and many are going to die--stimulus package or not! A wedgie this fierce could kill us all.

Iran Needs Nuclear Weapons to Defend Itself From Nuclear Powers or all Nations Should Disarm

Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claims that no Israeli government will let Iran get nukes. Benjamin Netanyahu, the leading candidate in the race to replace Olmert, has suggested that Israel would consider nuking Iran to prevent their enemy from building nuclear weapons.

Now I'm not for nukes, but as long as war-mongering Americans and Israelis have them, I say Iran should be allowed to have them too. Its only fair. If two gangs agree to meet behind the school-yard and fight with knives and one gang shows up with a gun, the other should have a gun as well.

At the end of the day, if we want to be safe, we should strip the United States, Israel, and Iran of sovereign national powers and rule the planet democratically. Likely outcome? No. More likely, before it's over, the U.S. and Israel are going to start World War 4 (or 5 depending on how you look at it.)

As C.E.O.'s Rob the Treasury and Senators Scam Taxes, Where Does Frank Rich See a "Tsunami of Populist Rage?"

Frank Rich bases his respectable New York Times Editorial Slumdogs Unite in the premise that there is a "tsunami of populist rage coursing through America." He argues that this is why Obama had to apologize for Tom Daschle's failure to pay taxes. Were Tom Daschle a Kathy Kelly saintlike tax resister, I'd give him street cred and demand that he join the cabinet. But the fact of the matter is, much like the top 1% of Americans controlling more than 20% of the wealth, Daschel is a fat cat creep.

Frank Rich claims that this populist tsunami is "bigger than any C.E.O.'s bonus." Yeah right. If populist rage swept the United States, the banks would be in flames, the C.E.O.s would be hanging from street lamps, and democracy would prevail. In the words of Lewis Lapham in his Harpers Essay, By The Rivers of Babylon:

The looting of the U.S. Treasury is never an easy trick, but to carry off more than $1 trillion in broad day-light while the members of Congress stand around applauding the exist strategy as one certain to guarantee the health and happiness of the American people is a wonder of entrepreneurial enterprise that surely deserves some sort of tip of the hat.

If our country were swept with Rich's "populist rage," we'd tip our hat by tearing down the capitalists and creating a true democracy with actual equal opportunity for all.

Rodriguez, Phelps, Obama, and Bush: National Role Models are Druggies

Let's get real. We live in a nation filled with druggies. Whether its the prescription type that keep so many of us afloat to the booze (Mel Gibson? W?), to pot (Phelps), and Steroids (Rodriguez), the United States is filled with role models who use abuse chemicals to reach fame. If we lived in some lawless, libertarian society, that would be A-OK. People could abuse the substances they wanted to to achieve fame and fortune. (uh, pass me some more coffee please) The reality is unless you're powerful and/or white, your drug abuse will wind you up in prison for ridiculously long sentences. This, my dear readers, is a travesty. 2 million folks in prison in a nation led by druggies (the last 3 presidents at least: Obama, Bush, Clinton), with sports' hero junkies like Rodriguez and Phelps, and drunk writers to boot.

The War on Drugs should be a war on our national role models, substance abusers every one.

Teacher is Arrested After Giving Entire Class A+

According to The Globe and Mail, Professor Denis Rancourt told his students that they'd all get A+s because it wasn't his job to train them to be "information transfer machines." Prof. Rancourt's bold stance not only got him fired but arrested for trespassing when he came to the University of Ottawa to conduct his documentary film society meeting.

Rancourt has been outspoken against the traditional methods of teaching and grading referring to those tactics as "paternalistic."

According to The Globe and Mail, he stated:
“Grades poison the educational environment. We're training students to be obedient, and to try to read our minds, rather than being a catalyst for learning.”

Not too suprising that a University would back regressive strategies like "grading" to help students learn. Rather than inspiring a desire for education, strategies of self-guided learning, and collective pedagogical community building, the contemporary academy insists on generating the next legion of robots to maintain the status quo.