Auditors blow Mississippi mayor out of the closet

Southaven Mississippi is in shock after state auditors discovered that Republican Mayor Greg Davis had been indulging his dark side to the tune of $170,000 of the taxpayers’ money.

Davis, who ran for Congress in 2008 on a family values ticket, said “I have tried to maintain separation between my personal and my public life. It is obvious that this can no longer be the case. I think that it is important to discuss the struggles I’ve had since I came to the realization that I am gay.”

Well, actually Mr. Davis, that would be your personal life. What you need to discuss with the public is the struggle they’re having since they realized you’re a crook.

US Defense Secretary: Iran could be within a year of a nuclear weapon

It’s been a busy week for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. After declaring victory in Iraq and Libya he flew to Israel to announce that Iran could be within a year of having a nuclear bomb.

We’ve all heard that one before. In fact, we’ve been hearing it more or less continuously for at least twenty years. Does Panetta have any new information to justify trotting this old chestnut out yet again?

Apparently not. Panetta’s speech was full of the usual qualifiers; “if” this and “maybe” that and a couple of more “ifs”.

But one things for sure. If we get intelligence information that Iran is trying to build a bomb, they are “crossing a red line” and “no options are off the table”.

The attack on Iran will have nothing to do with what Iran does, of course. The “intelligence” will magically appear when the time is right, just as it did before the Iraq invasion. The important consideration is how and when can the next war be most effectively sold to the American public?

Hmm… we’ve freed up some manpower now what with the Iraq draw-down. Obama isn’t doing that well in the polls and the public could be ready for a new distraction.

Is it time to look at those oil futures?

Why there is more hope for North Korea than for the USA

North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong-il is not yet in the ground but already all of the reputable news outlets in the West are chock full of the predictable condemnations of his criminal decadence and his regime's Stalinist indifference to the well-being of his people.

Kim Jong-il was the kind of leader who endlessly pumped scarce resources into his country's military-industrial complex while ignoring the plight of the average citizen. He enjoyed the support of a small coterie of rabid fans who benefited from that policy while the masses struggled to find a roof over their heads and enough to eat.

Any of that sound familiar? Can you think of another country that pumps massive amounts of resources into its military-industrial complex while the masses struggle with the basics? Don't have to look too far, do you?

Our propaganda machine is second to none. Thanks to that, most people believe we're still about freedom and virtue. The city on a hill and all that stuff.

Does the President survive at the pleasure of a small coterie of financial backers who benefit from the policies of perpetual war and a free hand for the biggest financial institutions?

Hundreds upon hundreds of billions are lavished upon unnecessary wars, blue-sky defense-industry fantasy projects like the F-35, and bailing out the biggest and most corrupt banks because they are too big to fail. There are Americans who benefit from these policies. They make up that coterie of cheer-leaders.

Meanwhile, there has never been a time when more Americans have had to cope with homelessness, unemployment, and inadequate health care.

Obviously these are two countries on the same track. Sure, the North Koreans may be a little further along, but we've been gaining on them fast these last twenty or thirty years. Our propaganda machine ensures that we'll pass them soon even as 100,000 fans stand and celebrate freedom and democracy and the heroism of our troops at the start of the next Nascar race.

They've got an opening though. With the death of their Dear Leader, maybe they've got an opportunity to take a new direction.

We on the other hand are stuck, forever condemned to choosing another Dear Leader every four years and staying on the same track.

How Bernard-Henri Levy liberated Libya

There is an insightful interview with Bernard-Henri Levy on the Haaretz website today.

I had known a little bit about Levy. How he is one of the greatest living intellectuals. Perhaps even greater than a lot of the dead ones. A brilliant, brilliant man, as is evident from any interview in which he is questioned about the matter. He may in fact be the most incisively intelligent and wise man who ever lived. To say nothing of his dazzling brilliance.

But there is more, so much more to the man. According to the revelations in the interview with Sefy Hendler, Levy is not just a man of the intellect; he is a man of action!

BHL makes the adventures of James Bond seem tame by comparison. Taking calls from world leaders as he sits in the bar in some opulent hotel. Relaying bombing coordinates to NATO fighter aircraft as he sits in the hotel bar. Advising Netanyahu on Israeli foreign policy as he sits at the bar. Coordinating diplomatic cut and thrust between the NTC’s Jalil and Juppe and Lieberman, all from the hotel bar. Guiding the Rebels day-to-day strategy, from, of all places, the hotel bar. Personally directing the search  for Gaddafi, from the hotel bar of course…

That is Bernard-Henri Levy, the man who single-handedly liberated Libya.

Rocking with Jesus: Norwegian death metal and the Norwegische bruder

Quick, what do you think of when you think Norway? Black metal, their most noteworthy cultural export? Oil? Their economic lifeblood? Or the Norwegische Bruder, a Christian cult that has its tentacles in communities around the world?

My grandmother Leokadia had a messed up life. Came from a part of Lithuania that was a battleground between the Bolsheviks and the white Russians after the revolution. The family made their way to East Prussia. She married and had three kids when her husband was drafted into the Wehrmacht. Hubby went to the eastern front and was never seen again. In 1945 she arrived in a refugee camp in Denmark with three kids, the clothes on her back, and a pail of lard.

Somewhere along the way she lost her sense of humour along with everything else besides that pail of lard. She became something of a religious fanatic. Tended to hang with the more extreme groups; folks who thought laughter was satanic and the reading of newspapers one of Lucifer's temptations. Laughing aloud while reading the paper? Eternal hellfire for sure.

I really got to know her in my teens, when I first got a drivers license. By then she'd hooked up with some bunch of quacks who styled themselves the "Norwegische Bruder", or Norwegian brothers. It was my job to drive her, sometimes several times a week, to meetings. Since she'd need a lift home after, I generally stayed for the meeting.

First thing that baffled me was why they were called Norwegian when they all seemed to be German-speaking immigrants. Turns out there was this guy named Smith who discovered he had an uncanny ability to interpret the Bible more insightfully than anyone else in the history of Christianity. Doesn't strike me as a Norwegian name, so I'm guessing he got kicked out of his home church and his home country. Started his own cult in Norway around the turn of the 20th century.

Must admit I wasn't just there for the drive. Had my eye on one of the young sisters of the Bruder. But these sermons I got to hear I remember to this day. It was mainly a variety of older men telling a bunch of gullible younger people whatever the old guys made up. When one of the young men was lobbying dad for a snowmobile, the elder found scripture verses that prohibited snowmobiles. Seemed more than a bit silly.

Younger family members eventually got drivers licenses and relieved me of my duties. I hooked up with the sister a couple of years later. Didn't give any more thought to anything Norwegian for twenty years. Then out of nowhere, Junior is going through a black metal phase. What's this crap?

Norwegian death metal. Had pretty much the same fixation with all things Lucifer as the Norwegische Bruder. Just came to it from a different perspective. Makes sense in a bizarre way. Extreme religion. Extreme music.

I can't say what my grandmother got out of her faith. She eventually went down the alzheimer highway, so by the time I thought of asking that question it was too late. But it didn't seem to bring her much joy.

As for Junior, the black metal phase thankfully ended. He's into Mendelssohn and Schumann and Brian Wilson now.

And the Norweger Bruder? Still finding stuff in the Bible that nobody ever noticed before.

Panetta congratulates Libyans, promises long and difficult transition

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta paid a quick in-and-out visit to Tripoli under a massive security cordon yesterday.

Panetta offered the usual patronizing claptrap about how Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people and that while the road to security and prosperity would be long and difficult, he had no doubts their dreams would come true.

Meanwhile, the Libyan people dream of getting to the market and back home without being shot or robbed by one of the hundreds of heavily armed militias that roam the country at will.

The militias applauded Panetta's speech.

"Truer words were never spoken" remarked one unidentified militiaman, "we are indeed the Libyan people. I'm feeling pretty darn secure already with this .50 cal machine gun me and my homies fixed to the back of our stolen Toyota here. And the prosperity is coming just as soon as our NATO pals unfreeze the hundred and fifty billion they're sitting on....

then it's sayonara Tripoli, hello Miami, baby!"

As combat troops leave Iraq State Department fields private army

There's a lot of delusional nonsense all over the internet today about the imaginary withdrawal from Iraq.


Here's State Department nabob Pat Kennedy;


"The U.S.-Iraq relationship is incredibly important. This is a democracy in the Middle East," he says. "Is it perfect? No. A lot of people think our system isn't perfect either. But this is a major oil producer, a friend of the United States, a potential market for American goods and now, I think, a very important symbol in the Middle East of what democracy in the Middle East could be."


Sure thing, Pat. Not that it was ever about the oil, of course.


And while the "combat" troops are leaving, there are plenty of Americans with guns staying, certainly enough to protect the largest American "diplomatic mission" in the world. The State Department alone will 
keep over 16,000 employees in Iraq to keep an eye on the symbolic democracy we've created.


And the projected cost of this friendly gesture?


$3.5 billion a year in perpetuity.