They Suck

Indeed they do, suck, literally, the banks.

When signing the "Stimulus" bill, Bulimo Charisma said that the thing wasn't perfect and he wasn't just whistling dixie, not that I'd ever expect him to whistle "Dixie".

A minuscule part of the "Stimulus" is $40 billion to help the states defray unemployment costs.  

This is necessary, because, the final brainfart of the outgoing Codpiece administration was to give hundreds upon hundreds of billions to the mega-banks so that they could give billions in bonuses to their top management for greeding them into the financial collapse which got them the billions of tax payer dollars with which they were intended to help struggling businesses and people in trouble with their loans and mortgages.

The mega-banks smiled and put the money in their back pocket, to keep their butts warm -- the upshot is that the collapse of the economy continued unabated, in fact was exacerbated and the unemployment curves took a nose dive worthy of a WWII Stuka dive bomber.

That is why the 40 billion in unemployment was a necessity.  The banks of course smiled once again and cut a deal with the states so the states could save money -- those receiving unemployment are given plastic cards and the banks charge them money to withdraw their money.  

When the unemployed call the bank to ask about these fees they are docked with a fee for calling the bank.

Until the money for  the unemployed is actually paid to the recipients, it sits in the banks and draws interest -- which goes, no, not to the unemployed but to the banks.

That dear hearts is how the banks are helping stimulate themselves, I mean the economy.

The Pale Worm

[I've long had a suspicion that the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy was one sick puppy. In this, one of his later sonnettes his malaise with life nearly oozes out of the words. On the other hand, living your life with prophetic knowledge that your world will self-destruct not long after you die is enough to make anyone bang their head against the wall, or a bottle...]

I wish there was a way that I could say
exactly what it is that is killing me.

I caught a glimpse of it the other day,
but was too afraid to really see
it close and -- in a flash -- it was gone!

I havn't the courage to dare to give it a name,
that pale worm, sixty light years long...

With its heart of ice; with its breath of flame:
its coils are squeezing the life out of me!

Could I but look that beast square in its single eye,
I would be free at last! It's not likely
I'll ever do it and that is why, ever faster, I die...

I am tormented by the things I never did,
wracked with words I never said, but hid.

Legal Torture

[The later sonnettes of the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy are often direct as well as cryptic -- the couplet which introduces the sonnette is apparently his]

When torture is legal, the eagle grins
and without hope, without end -- the nightmare begins...

Legality was then seen to be
a luxury which we could ill afford.

The authority of our democracy
was then given to the Security Boards
who met secretly in soundproofed rooms,
rooms which many entered but few returned.

Across the land there settled a restless gloom
as the canker of security slowly burned
into the soul of our once fair nation,
something ugly and evil, a horror to see.

In fact, at the height of the terrible conflagration,
torture was shown on national tee-vee,
live, on prime time, from coast to coast,
"...and without commercial breaks!", announced the host.

The Slimy Creep of Paranoia...

[According to 2nd level footnotes of the Absolute Truth (21st Edition) the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy composed this dark sonnette even as the Itsreal military was turning the Eyeless Strip into rubble in a manner horribly remeniscent of the earlier destruction of Falludja in Wudda-wreck and other places like Guanocow]

I woke suddenly, with a slimy creep
of paranoia, a fear of being watched
by shadow things waiting for me to sleep,
so that I, in my restless dreams, might be taught
to surrender to an ugliness of mind
which trumpets "truth", but delivers death;
which preaches "peace" while making new designs
for ways to rend and tear human flesh
into tiny bits of gristle and shattered bone...

The teacher taught that there is an ultimate sin
which no one and nothing can atone,
neither now nor when final judgment begins...

At the end of days, at the end of time,
the ugly evil will never, ever rhyme!

The Neo-Gnostic Anxioms

[Elmer Eggplant, if you recall, was an autodidact part time theologian and cracker barrel philosopher in the Third Galaxy before the arrival of the Alien Veggies who saved that poor world from self-destruction at the last possible moment. Elmer composed this attempt at a sonnette in blank-verse to explain how it was possible for the Alien Veggies of the Third Galaxy to be able to travel between the stars.

Because of the tremendous distance between the stars and the limit of the speed of light, interstellar travel is a practical impossibility there just as in our more fortunate world. Whether or not Elmer's effort actually explains" why or how the Alien Veggies were able to it depends, I suppose, upon the reader!]

Deceptively plain in their simplicity,
the neo-gnostic axioms are three:

Before there was time -- no time...
Before there was space -- no space...
Before there was anything -- no thing...

Or, as they phrased it in olden times,
there always has, is and always will be:

That Certain Place of No Time or Space.

That is to say, from that single vantage point,
every place, every thing, every space and every time
can be seen, be reached, be touched, be known...

Those who comprehend a bit of this.
clothe themselves in humility,
for only they can walk between the stars!

Riverbend, bless you where ever you are...

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

That is the logo to Riverbend's blog. She is (and I do hope she still is) a young Iraqi woman. She blogged about the horror and terror of the Arrogant invasion of her country, detailing the downward spiral of misery, from bad to worse, to completely fucked up. Because of the ethnic cleaning in Bodybag, the capitol of Wudda-Wreck, her family fled to Syria -- where we lost contact with her.

I pray she is okay, but I fear for both her life and well-being. Riverbend was/is a gifted observer/writer/documentarian of the Terrible Times as they first began to unfold in her most unfortunate land which, by odd circumstance happens to be the cradle of what we call Western Civilization.

If you know nothing or anything about the utter catastrophe the Codpiece in Chief unleased upon Wudda-Wreck for reasons even a degenerate lizard would find hard to comprehend, please go through Riverbend's archives here and begin to, well, understand is perhaps a bit too much to ask, but comprehension is a good start... 

The last we heard from Riverbend was October 22, 2007, may the God of Gods watch over and protect her, whereever she is.

Instant Fertilizer...

"We need a miracle like that of the first Christmas of the first world war -- only it needs be deeper and more lasting. Otherwise our leaders, while saying "nobody wants war",  will take us -- not to world war three, mind you, but terrible times and ultimate endless war..."

[That is how the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy introduced one of his later sonnettes]

Since the very dawn of history,
dreams of glory violently achieved
have plagued the human race -- it's nothing new!

We fought for land, for gold, for God, for "Truth"!
Is there any cause for which we have not been bled?

If you count the "heroes, I will count the dead
and match you many more than a thousand fold!

In olden, times when slaves were sold for gold,
greed tended to temper the lust for blood, you know,
-- dead bodies are of value only to wild dogs and crows!

Today, we're supposedly civilized,
but have we really gotten all that wiser
with our bombs that can take a million lives
and turn them all into instant fertilizer?