Doug's Darkworld

“Obama’s fabled calmness is really an uncanny ability to utter nonsense with absolute equanimity.”   — Justin Raimondo

Well, Obama stunned people Monday when his lawyers invoked “state secrets” and attempted to get a lawsuit against the government thrown out of court. While everyone agrees that some evidence and testimony needs to remain secret, the Bush administration was the first to try and get entire lawsuits dismissed in advance on the basis that any information revealed would be a state secret. Such blanket immunity shields entire agencies and programs from any judicial oversight, and was a practise that Obama at least obliquely promised to end. Well, he’s not ending it.

I’m not surprised. It’s clearer to me every day that Obama is just the flip side of the coin. Bush knew the catch phrases to impress the Republicans, Obama knows how to sound good to liberals. He may be smarter than Bush, but that just makes him a better liar. At this point I’m expecting him to be another Wilson, Roosevelt, or Johnson. It was way cool that America was mature enough to elect an African American, just a damn shame our electorate is more mature than the Washington elite.

On the plus side, watching the Republicans sputter and spout and try to criticize Obama for doing the same things Bush did has its moments. Fiscal irresponsibility? Generational theft? Abuse of power? Where have they been the last eight years?

Moving right along, I have several posts spinning around in my head right now, so I thought I would post a synopsis of each and see what posts the gentle readers want me to complete. I mean, even after doing this for years, it still surprises me how my posts are received. Sometimes “throw-away” post I wrote in haste end up generating tons of traffic and comments, while posts I spent a great deal of time researching and crafting sink out of sight without a ripple. Go figure.

So instead of wasting time researching a post that’s going to be a yawner, why not ask people what they want me to write about? Look these over, the one that gets the most favourable comments will be written and posted next week. If this works out I’ll do it regularly. If it doesn’t, well, at least this is a throw-away post!

1. Psychopath CEOs. Yes, it appears that psychopathy may be a common trait among successful CEOs. What the hell does this mean? Does it mean anything? Will I be disinherited if I write this post?

2. Flying Death Squads. Killing enemy leaders from the air has become a popular tactic for Israel and the USA. From a psychological standpoint and a practical standpoint there’s no end of speculation here. What do these strikes a mean and what are they accomplishing?

3. The Dollar and the Denarius. The US fiat dollar is not the first time in history a great empire has tried to persuade people that money was worth something because the government said so. There was a  period where Roman silver coins had maybe 2% silver in them. And you had to use them or else. It ended badly.

4. The Jamestown War. At one point the natives in Virginia decided that the white settlers had to go, they launched a massive surprise attack and slaughtered the Virginia colony militia almost overnight. They could have driven the settlers into the sea and killed them all, why didn’t they? How would history differ if they had?

5. God and Small Pebbles. Yes, in my quiet moments I am still thinking about the experiment scientists are setting up that may prove that there is something “beyond” the known universe. This has theological implications by my tortured logic.

That’s it. Pick one and tell me why I should write about it.  And yeah, I’m sorry, some of the links I used today lead to sites so unabashedly liberal they make me squirm. As always, links I post are for their informational content, not their editorial slant.

Have a great weekend everyone.

(The above image of the worm Ouroboros dates from hundreds of years ago and is so public domain it’s hardly worth mentioning. Credit: Lucas Jennis, from De Lapide Philisophico. I like it because on some level I think it illustrates how these endless economic recovery plans work, we just keep feeding more money to the people  who made the mess in the first place. I’m sorry, but that’s not going to work.)