Matt King--Hardluck Road

You sure do like Johnny Cash now...

Maybe someday you'll like Matt King too...

Fred Eaglesmith--You sure do like Johnny Cash now

From Fred's latest CD--Six Volts.

You sure do like Jesus Christ now, (Martin Luther King, Ghandi, John the Baptist, Malcom-X, Mohammed, Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, John Steinbeck, Samuel Clemens, etc.)

Federal Reserve backstopping Bank of America

The Federal Reserve put you on the hook for $75 trillion ($75,000,000,000,000) of fraudulent derivatives.

JP Morgan will follow suit on a similar amount. No wonder the stock market bounced.

In other news, Quadafi was sodomized with a knife.

At least someone was kind enough to give him a coup de grace to the head. You will have to live through this.

Mexican Death Squads--the spin

Perhaps someone in our government and mainstream media does read Bill Conroy's investigative entries after all.

And now, to my great surprise, articles like this: US Trained Assassin Teams Now Deployed In Drug War are rewritten and become this in a rag called the New York Times and on my front page at MSNBC.

I guess Bill should be flattered they notice.

Ron Paul for President

I've been watching the Republican debates and I know what the Democrats have to offer.

While I don't agree with all his stances, Ron Paul is the only candidate I can even come close to endorsing.

On the big issues, he and I agree: First, we need to withdraw our troops from around the world and bring them home.

We need to prosecute those who have defrauded our government and the populace, drastically reduce government spending and learn to live within our means.

We need to audit the Fed and take action against them for criminal acts.

It's glaringly obvious to me that the rest of the candidates, one and all, are imperialists, potential puppets of the big banks, and therefore will doom this nation.

Ron Paul can't win and he won't.

But he has my one and only vote in the primary.

I won't be voting in the final election.

No more lesser of evil bullshit.

Evil is evil and there ain't no lesser.

PS. A little history, for those interested:

Straining at Gnats, Swallowing Camels

Fred Eaglesmith--words of wisdom

Millennials Rising

Blast from the past--February of this year, to be exact:

Millennials Rising.

Dust bowl redux

Reminiscent of the 1930's, yesterday a dust bowl hit the Texas plains. The winds are just now picking up here in South Texas to a lesser degree, but it'll be enough to knock down a bunch of pecans that will be lost to hogs and deer.

In days of old, hundreds of people would be out picking up pecans by hand.

Now we have machines. And for reasons too long to describe here, they won't work in imperfect conditions.

So people don't have jobs and a substantial portion of the crop goes to waste.

They call this progress.

Arrested for trying to close a bank account

Here's video of a Citibank that locked up clients trying to close their bank accounts. According to the report, 15 were then arrested and taken to jail.

Fucking swine:

Chain of obedience

Another decent video from waitingforthestorm:

The Mexican American Border: if I were king

Occasionally I get the if I were king question. I usually reply that my first step would be to resign the position. This is a bit of a cop-out. I have given thought to the condition of the Mexican border and have a proposal.

The border cannot be viewed in a microcosm, so whatever is done must be viewed in the context of the world at large. You cannot seal our Southern border without addressing the pressures that cause the migration in the first place. Migrants and the money they send home are like pressure release valves, keeping Mexico out of a total state of chaos and civil war. The root cause of Mexican migration to the United States is poverty and a radical difference in wealth between our nations.

NAFTA was implemented to address this issue, but trade between our nations is anything but free, reserved only for major corporate entities and denied to the rest.

Here’s a cliff notes version of what I think could and should be done:

First, we should close military bases and bring our troops home from around the world and use them to strengthen border security. We don’t need a fence to do this. This means the entire border, including all sea ports. Everything coming in or out of our nation needs to be checked.

Second, create a ten mile free trade zone on both sides of the Mexican border with manned checkpoints at both sides. Allow Mexican and American citizens (not just big companies—any legal citizen) to sell and exchange wares in this zone duty free, and allow the products exchanged to be imported through the checkpoints into both countries.

Vet the hell out of any and everyone entering this free trade zone with a bi-national police force, using the latest and best equipment and intelligence possessed by both countries. This then becomes a buffer zone, providing security for both nations.

Stop illegal immigration, but provide legal opportunities for temporary workers seeking employment and business opportunities (going both ways).

We need them; they need us.

You didn’t really want to make me king after all, did you?

PS. After feedback from a trusted friend I thought I should add a note or two. I would not place soldiers as soldiers on the border, but instead train police and border agents from among their ranks.

And drug legalization need be part of the plan if it is to work.

A pipe dream, given the current state of affairs...

Dumb and dumber

There a parable that says:

Even a fool may appear wise if he keeps his mouth shut.

Rick Perry kept his mouth shut a long, long time.

On another note: Wonder how long they had to comb looney bins to come up with an Iranian terrorist associated with Mexican drug cartels?

Hillary, surely you can do better than that.

Rain

The weekend brought rain area-wide, two inches, mas o menos, of the slow soaking variety.

We planted 160 acres of oats and overseeded 160 acres of hay fields with winter rye just before the event. I know a few others that took the same chance and I bet they're glad they did.

I can't tell you how nice it was to see trees on the verge of death get a drink. I'm sure it's too late for some, but others will live to see another day, good Lord willing.

It's too late to make hay but the remaining cattle in our region should have green pickings for a while.

Pecan harvest draws near. The crop is small, but the nuts we do have appear sound. I suspect they will be expensive this year due to short supply.

Waiting for the storm

I came across the site of a young man that has prepared a large cache of videos worth listening to:

Waitingforthestorm.com.

A sample:

Living on stolen time

Dmitri Orlov says what I've been thinking. Anyone actually producing useful goods and services is getting robbed.