Tubularsock

Be careful what you read. By pure accident Tubularsock was sitting at a bus stop waiting and right next to me on the bus bench was a copy of the Oakland Tribune which is considered by the brain dead the “local” newspaper.

Now in truth it is made of paper and it is “local” but if one wishes to get into say something like journalism well ……….

But it was just lying there and Tubularsock was just sitting there and the bus wasn’t due for another fourteen minutes, if that really means anything anyway.

So Tubularsock casually reached over and picked it up. And it was only the front section and that was all. No advertisements, no sports page, no travel, cultural, or movie sections. Just the front page all alone on the bus bench.

And the dominate story on the front page was a movie review of a new film Lone Survivor. Which is a new movie about the same old propagandistic shit. The film is about the failed June 28, 2005 mission, Operation Red Wings conducted by SEAL Team 10.

A title that would have explained the truth of the operation better should have been Dumb Shits Die Defending Aggression. 

Not to give away the plot but they all got themselves blown to bits. Ok, except for Marcus Luttrell who to this day says he still struggles from survivor’s guilt.

If the guy would wake up to what he did by joining the military his guilt might just overtake him! But he’s still lost in his own ego shit.

The Tribune’s story covers some local boys that got themselves all dead and their parents justification why their sons aren’t at Christmas “no more”.

It’s this kind of bull shit that makes younger people gravitate toward “joining up” but this type of aggrandizement has always been used. Lattrell says that the movie is as real as it can be and war is the lowest common denominator but “It happened and that’s what I did for a living. It’s business as usual.”

And that should be the take away ……. It’s business as usual.

As for the parents rather than wake up to the fact that their children were gunned down by their own stupidity and the government that sent them there are war criminals seemed to have missed their sentimental brains. No they are being quoted about their loss like it couldn’t have been avoided.

Of course they still all gathered with long faces and grief-stricken at annual barbecues for SEAL families but they have NEVER faced the true facts …….. their sons were the aggressors and occupiers of Afghanistan and the Taliban lived there!

Will this ever change ……… not until those parents who have lost children face the facts that their government lied to them and pumped them all up thinking that their dead children are heroes. And what do they have to show for it?

A folded flag, a couple of medals, a coffin and some memories that haunt. A very poor investment if you ask Tubularsock. Maybe it is time for military families to wake up to the fact of what their loved ones are really doing! 

Not protecting America but protecting American Empire for the rich. 

Well Tubularsock went out today and bought waders for 2014.

Now you may be wondering why Tubularsock, who works from his top floor corner office in his underground bunker from Oakland, CA overlooking Washington, D.C., would need waders, a waterproof garment for the legs and body, used esp. by anglers when fishing OR by anyone who realizes just how “fishy” the social/political/economic system that we live in can be. So in preparation for the 2014 BULLSHIT onslaught that will be stacking up it is simply prudent to acquire a pair. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did!

Last week Tubularsock was standing at the bus stop (not in his waders by the way) and a guy sitting on the bus-bench said aloud, “It’s just fucked!”

Because Tubularsock was the only other living person standing there at the bus stop it had to be determine whether the guy was on a cell …….. which he was not …….. or talking to me or himself. Because in general Tubularsock was in agreement with this universal statement it seemed safe to agree with this stranger at the bus stop so I said, “You fucking can say that again”.

From that point on this guy started with a barrage of information and opinion like he was talking to Snowden rather than Tubularsock. Come to find out he worked in a cubicle farm in San Francisco on the 45th floor and he was an economic analyst. In fact he had been doing what he called future strategies for over forty years and this was his third bank he had worked for after leaving university.

He also made it clear that his expertise was not always called future strategies. Not that I asked or anything.

He actually had his own office in the cubicle farm and was the manager over eighteen analysts specializing in future strategies for his employer.

He said that for the normal guy investing in the stock market in 2014-15 would be bettered served going to Vegas with a 20% chance of winning than investing in the rigged stock market.

I had no argument there so I didn’t interrupt. He said the banks were sitting on trillions of dollars and because of being flush they were once again investing in quick profit derivatives all over again. As well as other high risk investments.

His team had written up the dangers of the policies being used but “management”,as he called them, made a hell of a lot in year-end-bonuses by doing risky business. And he felt that they had been embolden by the lack of anyone having to take responsibility in the last go around.

He was finishing up his last year before retirement and he was really frustrated with no one caring and not listening. He was also a bit tipsy like he might have started off the day with scotch instead of milk on his cheerios. But I’m not entirely sure.

As we left the transbay terminal he said it had been nice talking to me and disappeared into the throng of worker bees swarming down Montgomery Street.

 Now what he had said wasn’t much different than what I had read over the last several months but having it come from a real living person was somehow more profound.

Now Tubularsock is rather a perceptive economic analyst himself. In research in UpTown Oakland I have noticed that a glass of Chardonnay that I was paying $4 a glass in 2011 is being sold for $10 a glass today. And to make matters worse a large hot saki is running for $15 rather than $6. Now do I need an economics degree to say that things are getting rough?

Don’t despair, Tubularsock will continue his research and keep you posted on the price of this essential food source and report back to you or go broke trying. Anything for raw research don’t you know!

Now why did banks have a boom year in 2013? And why are the bonuses for bankers skyrocketing?

Easy answer ….. The Quantitative Easing Scheme.

You see in order to stimulate the economy the Fed would in the past just buy and sell government bonds in order to keep the interbank interest rates at a specified target value. But for some time now the interbank interest rates have be set at 0% so that policy isn’t working any longer.

So enter the unconventional monetary policy ……. Quantitative Easing.

Now The Quantitative Easing Scheme is done by purchasing assets of longer maturity than short-term government bonds. The goal of this policy is to increase the money supply rather than to decrease the interest rate, which cannot be decreased further because 0 is 0!

Just like the magic show in Las Vegas the balls stay in the air because it’s called “magic” but when the lights go down so do the balls. Many predict that the balls are going to fall in 2014.

 Quantitative Easing is often considered a last resort to stimulate the economy.

Well it reminds Tubularsock of the time when he was watching his uncle act like the big spender by fronting his good-for-nothing-loafer friends for drinks at the night club bar. When the bill came due guess who got left holding the debt?

Yep, Uncle Sam …….. remember that’s YOU & ME!

And don’t you forget it!

But not to worry. Another use for waders is keeping your feet from being stained while crushing your own grapes for a glass of Chardonnay. As Tubularsock always has said, “necessity is the mother of invention”. And I call THAT …… good news!

And Tubularsock will drink to that!

Wow. Tubularsock often wonders who actually puts news stories together like this.

Is it really thought out and does it have an underlying message?

OR are they automatically chosen randomly?

Which if true, would mean the synthesis of group consciousness.

—————————————————————-

AND THERE IS THIS TO GIVE YOU PAUSE

Snowden gets a year stay in Russia:

“Russia’s action today is a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States. It is a slap in the face of all Americans,” Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a joint statement. “Now is the time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin’s Russia.”

Just where in the hell does McCain’s and Graham’s MINDLESS CHATTER come from anyway? Really, “ . . . a slap in the face of all Americans.” Somehow Tubularsock didn’t feel it from Russia but I do get a pain in the butt from these two assholes!

      —————————————————————

JUST TO SHOW YOU THAT ALL IS SAFELY THE SAME

On July 9, 2013 Masao Yoshida (58), the manager at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant at the time of the melt down, died from esophageal cancer.

Tepco doesn’t recognize his health problems to be professional ( caused by radiation ).

Well what would a four day weekend be without political levity, right.

Tubularsock just can’t let this degree of raw stupidity go by without comment. It is just too fun!

As most Tubularsock readers know I have not had a TV for over forty years now so to trace this down I had to go into the never-never-land of CNN. And trace down Candy Crowley who happens to be (my first time viewing her style) one of the worst ask-nothing-challenging commentators I have ever seen. God she is boring!

And it wasn’t easy to find what I was looking for on the net without many stops along the way but perseverance does pay off. Even for a joke!

Now the interview or was it a kiss General Dempsey’s ass? Ok, the kiss General Martin Dempsey ass exchange was a grueling excursion into rehearsed-bull-shit-personified. 

For those of you that don’t know, General Martin Dempsey is a short little prick who happens to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And Candy Crowley is either a large boned woman or fat CNN commentator who is still holding down her job as a propagandist for the corporate/governmental play-like-news-show.

Part of the interview was the “try to make this prick Dempsey look human” part. The set up was the staged casual chit-chat about Dempsey’s Fourth of July where he sang the Star Spangled Banner or one of those disgusting tunes at some opening of a ball game.

Tubularsock will admit right here that after watching that I immediately checked the web to see if there were any openings in al-Qaeda. 

Then there was the sit down kiss-ass session and it ran like drivel down a prescribed trivial track. How two people can say so much nothing for so long is an art form in itself.

But finally in the last 2 or 3 minutes, wouldn’t you know, came what I was searching for

and here is the transcript with Tubularsock’s thoughts:

CROWLEY:  I need to ask you about the damage you believe Edward Snowden has done.

(who assumed Snowden did any damage except expose the truth?)

DEMPSEY:  There has been damage.  I don’t think we actually have been able to determine the depth of that damage.

(this is the classic, I don’t have a clue statement)

CROWLEY:  Because honestly, you know, people look at it and you think, I figured people were monitoring phone calls of terrorists.

(NO! HONESTLY, people look at it and say, those fuckers are listening in on ME!)

DEMPSEY:  Yes.

(we are on script.)

CROWLEY:  So how – why is it damaging to now kind of know that?

(gee, Candy because they have been lying to us AND YOU ONLY STILL “KIND-OF-KNOW-THAT”?)

DEMPSEY:  Well, I think it’s always, you know, you always have our adversaries always believe more of us than – often believe more of us than we might actually be able to accomplish.  This actually puts a degree of granularity on it that allows them now to change their tactics. (Come now, the only people that haven’t kept up with this spying is the frightened American public. BUT THE KEY TO THIS RESPONSE IS THE ATTEMPTED COVER UP …… GOSH WE CAN’T DO ALL YOU THINK WE CAN DO. IN THIS CASE HOWEVER, THEY CAN AND THEY ARE STILL DOING IT!)

And it’s also – you’ve heard me speak often about the basis of relationships and the importance of trust. (NOW THIS IS THE PART THAT HAS CAUSED ME TO WRITE THIS ENTIRE BLOG! OUR SPYING ON OUR ALLIES AND WHAT THEY ARE DOING HAS DAMAGED “TRUST”? 

THE BASIS OF RELATIONSHIP IS TRUST SO WE TRUST OUR ALLIES SO MUCH THAT WE SPY ON THEM? 

DOES DEMPSEY  EVER LISTEN TO HIMSELF?)

And it’s – you know it has undermined a bit of that.  What we’re –

A BIT OF THAT?

CROWLEY: With other nations you mean?

(no Candy, with the Martians landing for Christ’s sake!)

DEMPSEY:  Yes, yes, of course.  We’ll work our way back.  But it has set us back temporarily.

(SURE HONEY, I’VE BEEN SLEEPING WITH THE NEIGHBOR BUT TRUST ME IT’S ONLY GOING TO BE TEMPORARILY.)

So Tubularsock feels better just going off. And may I remind you that the brain cell damage from your TV set is dangerous to your being. And no ……. both the History Channel and NPR are just repackaged SHIT.

MAY THE FORCE NOT BLOW YOU OVER, LUKE.

You know the irony of this entire NSA spying drama? Edward Snowden is taking refuge in Hong Kong! Now that is really funny. America “the land of the free” isn’t where a person who chooses freedom and fairness and justice rushes to to be protected anymore. No! Where else, a Communist country. Thank you so much Mao Tse-tung! That is rich. Don’t you think?

Which gave Tubularsock another good idea! Manning’s lawyer David Coombs should petition the court to move the trial to a new venue, Hong Kong. The argument for doing this is because the military community he is now being tried in lacks the ability to provide a fair trial. (Just a thought.) But alas, Judge Lind would then have to dismount her kangaroo.

And then on top of that the Senate Intelligence Committee, an oxymoron if there ever was one, is defending the NSA program because they have been “briefed” on it’s activities and no illegal activity is taking place. Of course, Diane Feinstein has never known much about what Congressional oversight really meant. Remember she also did not know how the military counted the bodies at a drone strike. She “over-sighted” that as well.

And the defenders of this police-state activity of collecting one hundred zillion pieces of information a second on everyone and their grandmother says the spying has stopped two (that is two) terrorist plots. Yet later it was discovered that regular police work had really been used to stop these two plots.

But even if the plots had been stopped by the NSA ……. a zillion to two?

Hmmm, there may be a better way.

But here’s the the bottom line …….. in Timbuktu (of course) al Qaeda is training their terrorists in the operation of surface-to-air missiles. This was discovered not by NSA and its zillion-giga-bites but by a written outline left behind in a stack of garbage. The terrorists already know what Diane Feinstein and the Senate Intelligence Committee still haven’t figured out ……… using a cell phone may be lethal.

But I just can’t stop until I move this bit of helpful information on to you.

The entire enchilada of “legal” and “illegal” domestic spying rests on the fact that the government has adopted a secret interpretation of section 215 of the Patriot Act.

And it goes like this: The government isn’t collecting the information on its citizens. Private companies are collecting the information and then turning it over to the government. Some how that slips around the letter of the law!

There are two known foreign companies that have taken over the role of “processing” data  (aka: vacuuming up information on Americans).

The Israeli companies by the names of  Narus which processes all of the information tapped from AT &T  and gives it to NSA and Verint  which processes information tapped from Verizon and gives it to the NSA. (“gives it to NSA” for a huge $$$$ amount, rest assured)

BOTH OF THESE ISRAELI COMPANIES HAVE EXTENSIVE LINKS TO THE ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE SERVICE.

And it is so much more involved than this. If you get a chance you may want to read

James Bamford’s book The Shadow Factory.  Just say’en.

And just to sink the nail into your hand so as to have the pain of understanding of what is going on and how it may even affect YOUR life, try this:

“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant to a federal judge or even a president,” Snowden said. “Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with.” *** From an interview with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, published on The Guardian web site.

Oh, have a nice day …………

You know the worst thing about “pressure cooker” bombs? The shrapnel placed inside them in order to create maximum damage to as many people as possible in all directions. The injuries sustained by the people that get hit by these bombs have been well explained by the mass-media-mesmerization of the Boston Marathon Bombing.

The descriptions were true and the act of placing a bomb of this style in order to maximize this kind of damage to people is disgusting.

So why does the United States NOT sign the Anti-Cluster-Bomb agreement?

A cluster bomb is just a sophisticated pressure-cooker-bomb.

Therefore the effect on the Boston Marathon if a Cluster-Bomb had been used is just bigger damage to many more people in all directions.

So why does the United States NOT sign the Anti-Cluster-Bomb agreement?

And an added feature of a Cluster-Bomb is that it puts out hundreds of bomblets which can detonate years later with shrapnel packed in each of them just waiting for the 2014 Boston Marathon.

So why does the United States NOT sign the Anti-Cluster-Bomb agreement?       

BECAUSE WE MANUFACTURE, SELL AND DROP CLUSTER-BOMBS!

So it seems to Tubularsock that the reason that the U.S. Government is really

upset about the Boston Marathon Bombing is one of free enterprise.

If America was manufacturing, selling, and using Pressure-Cooker-Bombs then they would be more acceptable. And the U.S. wouldn’t sign an Anti-Pressure-Cooker-Bomb agreement either.

So once again free enterprise wins. All due to a couple of brothers with a vision!

These young men took it upon themselves to manufacture and detonate their very own bombs without governmental regulations or oversight. Just a part of the Free Market Legacy.

Ok ………….

Sure, Tubularsock is open to an alternative narrative to the Boston Marathon Bombing.

The jury is still out over whether there was lack of governmental regulations or oversight. Until we know where the CIA and the FBI were on April 15, 2013 we won’t know exactly how much government oversight there actually was that day.

Now. Could the CIA and the FBI each known for creating terrorist both domestically and internationally have any fingerprints here? Well, you can bet your bottom dollar.

                                                                                   “first hand coverage, second hand news.”

Isn’t it good to be back to the moronic news cycles that grip the American mind.

These terrorists are so predicable, don’t you think? They blow shit up and kill people that have nothing to do with anything. It is only collateral damage after all. O’bomber does it and women and children die in some distant land. The Boston Bombers do it and women and children die in some distant land.

All Tubularsock can say is I’m glad we can sink our thoughts back into what is really important ………….