Cereal offenses...

Not one for breakfast cereals, apart from the odd bowl of winter porridge, by and large, the morning munch is usually "continental", i.e., bread/cheese/fish, even eggs and fruit, but no toasted, sugar-soaked shite from cardboard boxes, with "added nutrition and extra taste!"



A tonne of corn at the farm gate fetches roughly $150/£100, good quality wheat is more expensive starting at about £200 per tonne.... which if my maths are true... means that the cost of corn works out to 15c/10p per kilo .

A kilo of "reconstituted" (pre-chewed & sanitised!) corn, sold in shops as breakfast food, fetches anything from a pound, up to three pounds ($5).....

So, between the garden and the table, there surely sits one well-fed and wealthy sector of the food chain.


By the way, the picture comes courtesy of another blog, ....Fengtastic...., worth a visit, images... and subtle ones at that.

The tortured soul.

Just added a new link, right at the top...Blacklisted news....., an american site that seems to fit with the times.

Interesting article (Click)from a guy named Tom Burghardt (February),
which pre-empts the Obama announcement concerning torture.... and also sheds light on the connections between boeing and the CIA...

Boeing... serving the agents of rendition and torture... but Obama had best watch out...putting himself into the frame by ruling out further investigation, or indeed any criminal charges of the participants, sends out a message to the entire world.....that of "my country right or wrong".

Ah well, change was short, but not sweet.

Editing (22nd April)...a few days later, and Obama now says he may indeed, one day, perhaps, consider prosecutions..."Wriggling", is that what our american friends call it.
Of course, there`s also the matter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...which if torture is illegal, then war should be a capital crime!

Common thoughts-and common sense.

Censorship is said to be the eradication of any images or thoughts of which the censor disapproves... so conversely...here is one that is "approved".


From James Petras...
Recovery from the deepening depression does not reside in running a multi-trillion dollar printing operation, which only creates conditions for hyperinflation and the debasement of the dollar. The root cause is the over-accumulation of capital resulting from over-exploitation of labor, leading to rising rates of profit and the collapse of demand. The vast disparity between capital expansion and decline of worker consumption set the stage for the financial bubble. Cl--ck for more.

G20, Circus in town.

The circus has arrived in London, a one-off show, that will not be touring the provinces. Sadly, yours truly has not got the inclination nor the time to visit the show.

Then again, with the internet, one can know within moments just what amazing feats and spectacles these gargantuan performers have brought to the big top.

The Russians, who now supply much of the world with gas, oil and inexpensive yet highly efficient armaments, (Kalashnikov is not a town in Texas!),
are calling for and end to the use of the dollar as reserve currency for the world....

The Chinese even suggest that we all use the Yuan.
Obama insists that it won`t be necessary....Well, every circus has it`s clowns...

Barak, let me tell you something, there are over 1 billion chinese, mostly educated and law-abiding, but above all, industrious... contrasted with 300 million americans,,, then there`s the Russians, again well educated, industrious and fiercely nationalistic, then there`s Europe and Latin America...
Need I say more, apart from 6 million Israelis, you have virtually no allies left, so maybe time to get a new act... how about you try farming instead of warmongering, or making nice little cars instead of tanks and jeeps, or how about schools and hospitals instead of prisons and military bases.
You could even take the homeless from your streets, and take the sick into care, dismantle your weapons of mass distruction....., or the people of America will do it for you.
Wake up, and get into step with the world.

The Barak and Brown approach to the global monetary programme, is to print money, borrow it, and charge it to the taxpayer...whilst most of the other nations are electing to undergo a period of economic contraction, and then on to a less indebted future.


The French, (under strong prompts from Berlin!) are threatening to walk away unless the world agrees to tighten the rules on hedge funds and tax havens.



Now, underneath the make-up and the silly costumes lies a cunning mind, but then again, is Barak perhaps fooling himself?

Does he really think that no-one else knows he and his banking elites are out of cash? Or that his armies have little prospect of victory against what is now, an increasingly sophisticated guerilla force.




Surrounded by 300 "secret service agents", and a trillion dollar army, he might feel and look important, but should the Chinese cut off his credit, or should the "terrorists" disrupt the supply of oil, then his overly expensive act may not be required in the not-too-distant future..

Without doubt, the Russians, Chinese, and most of Europe reject the policies, and thus the actions of the US.
Which only leaves England and Gordon Brown, who one suspects has no choice, given the entanglement of US and UK financial conglomerates.

There might be a few blips, but I`d say the US dollar is failing and falling from grace as a medium of exchange, and who knows, maybe next time Obama comes to town he won`t need all those expensive bodyguards, the armoured limousine, the staff, the helicopters, the personal jets, the nuclear football...
Of course, he`ll still need the suit, the make-up, a script.

Hunting buck.

In the news at the moment is AIG, the US insurance "giant". They`ve been busy everywhere, spreading their capital everywhere, including the greasy, sticky hands of Obamsteen. One of their core business involvements is within the Israeli mortgage market, through a subsidary called......





Ezer Mortgage Insurance.





(Thanks to the author at Blogocrity for that one, and reading the comments makes for some interesting moments.)



Of course, in Israel, being a "special nation", of "special people", they have slightly different values.
One being the price of property, which by any measure seems to be highly over-valued, ten times more expensive than Egypt or Palestine, and the other little benefit, as can be seen from the link, is a special clause that allows the Israelis to take periods of "grace" on their repayments.



Imagine that some of those mortgages may be of dubious certification or provenance,....far be it for me to cast aspersions or slurs upon the Jewish people, but lately, the rise of names such as Madoff, Geithner, Bernanke, are not exactly inspiring confidence in the business practices of the chosen race.



Enough, genug jetzt, don`t just take my word, check out a voice of reality and sanity, and let`s not take life too seriously.

"Flabbergasted?" (Alternative, possibly slightly unkosher comedy:)

Th outside of the ink box.

Nothing to say on this one.... butt!

Cynical lines.

Standing next to the printing press,
With notes-a-plenty piled to the roof,
Their fingers all stained, a veritable mess,
Disdainfull snorts, empty hollow denials of sorts,
The bankers, politicians their advisers, the courts...

Whilst all the while, with little understanding or guile,
We taxpayers and workers pay for this farce and smile,
Quantative easing and wars for oil ,
No dissent or protest allowed.
.

They`ve got battleships, bombs, submarines,snipers and tasers,
Listening devices, surveillance cameras, protection teams and lasers,
More than just an ongoing financial farce,
The whole bloody thing`s a pain in t`arse.

From within.

Is there a soul? Are there those who can prove the existence of individual souls, do nations have souls?
What about animals?
Questions of anatomy, philosophy and religious dogma, to which the written answers would filll many libraries.
Where do souls come from and go to, what is "Soul music"....?
For the soul, if such a thing exists, then the tune "Chain gang" is one of the best.

La Mer. Charles Trénet

Music from a gentle source. Pictures of a gentle sea.

Lest we forget.

Most people have seen this picture..., the followers of zionism push and squirm like a beligerent mendicant , into the land of Palestine, squeeezing out the Palestinians and swelling, growing in size and expanding until...
Until when? Until what?

Every event and process has its` end, no-one in the world could want this militarised expansion to continue, it is no more than an armed invasion, with an unrelenting principle of eradicating all and any resistance.
Not unlike the Anglo-american invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, whose aims and atrocities are no longer quite so obscure.
Control of the planets` oil reserves and minerals, control of the labour and manufacturing, control of the currencies, maintaining the position of the elites, with their castles and concubines, their servants and offshore accounts, and for the majority, thereby ensuring the continuance of poverty and strife.
I`d say that based upon the current state of finances in the West, that we are out of cash..., and with not much "oil and ore", that borrowing against future earnings is futile, the main products that we manufacture are now...debt and war.

These days, the other side, the Russo/Sino/Asian/Moslem/Latino/Left/ are not buying so much of it.

One European study group postulates that within a few weeks, given the current direction of state borrowings, the dollar will begin to slide, then crash before the end of this year.

Have the Chinese and Russians conspired to defeat us? Or like so many empires before us, have we wasted our children and treasure on the mindless pursuit of absolute power?
Then there are the trappings of imagined wealth, much of it achieved by using debt and armed force.
We built homes for ourselves, we dressed in fine clothes, ate food from across the world ....( and sent armies to oversee the acquisition of "oil wells and gold mines").

The greater game continues, if the US, (or even the UK) descends into social unrest, who will assume/maintain control of the military...with all its` costly personel and systems?
Indeed, with mounting numbers of homeless and unemployed, the whole world should question not only the cost, but the "purpose" of so much military spending.




A circumstance that might encompass Britain along the trail to depression and unrest. Without doubt, Israel will loose some of its` financial and military support... will it be sufficient to reign in and defeat their miltaries???... Will this year see the last gruesome moves of a beligerent beast?