The Blue, The Gray And The Dead

There is so much going on around the world right now that it is very difficult to narrow down just what to write about.  So much of it is interlinked just under the surface, and so much gets covered in local or regional news, but doesn't make it to the global "fake news" mill.  In fact, it is rather interesting to note which seemingly important stories don't surface in the Corporate Media outlets.

Take the murder of Kim Jong-nam, for instance.  The half-brother of the Beloved Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, was assassinated under rather curious circumstances in Malaysia.  Two women from Indonesia and Vietnam, and one man from Malaysia have been arrested in Malaysia for the murder.

What grabs my attention is that the two women pulled off the attack, Kim was traveling under an alias (Kim Chol), and he was killed presumably by something sprayed in his face.  The spray sounds suspiciously like ricin, though no autopsy results are as of yet unavailable, but just a few micrograms inhaled or injected can kill an adult rather quickly.  Death is caused by more or less a lethal allergic reaction, and considering Kim died on the way to the hospital, that would likely be the scenario in ricin poisoning.  It is not hard to make ricin, though it would take some expensive toys to purify it to a weaponized form.

Whatever the toxin was, the method was so unusual - why not just shoot, stab or otherwise physically assault the victim - as to draw attention to itself.  This is one of those spy-game scenarios that used to occur during the Cold War, when defectors were hit with tiny pellets of ricin, slowly killing the victim over 4 or 5 days.  In other words, this sounds like an organized and professional hit, rather than some homegrown political activists, and is obviously intended to send a message to Kim Jong-un.

The other curious story that is receiving quite a bit more attention is the increasingly obvious civil war being played out in the United States.  The various factions within the federal government are increasingly open about their animosities and efforts to oust each other.

I tend to reduce this war to the Capitalists versus the Financiers.  One could tack a lot of other names on to the two sides, but I view it as the Means of Production against the Financial Interests, or more simply Industrialists versus Bankers.

For those who are not yet aware, the United States is a corporation set up in 1871, under "An Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia."  As the rest of the States were dragged into the corporation as assets, along with the population under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, this effectively placed the country under Administrative Law and negated the Common Law and Constitution.  The latter is maintained as a showpiece, though is hardly worth the paper it is written on in US courts.

Like most corporations today, there is a constant battle between those who do the work, and those who play the odds.  One side produces actual products and employs people, while the other shuffles assets, liabilities and revenues around for profit.  If you've been keeping score, the Financiers have been winning the battle since more or less the time of the US Robber Barons.

The Financiers, a.k.a. Mercantilists, use equity and debt as weapons, harvesting the productivity of real work and products for their own profit, laying waste to everything in pursuit of the bottom line.  Note that Mercantilism is often mistakenly called Capitalism, but it not, as the latter produces real, tangible products, while the former produces nothing and only leeches off the real economy.

The Financiers have run the US for well over a century now, sucking up vast sums of money while doing nothing and producing nothing.  They simply lend money and buy equity, then profit from interest rates and playing high-low.  Great job if you can get it.

Trump, on the other hand, represents the Capitalists.  These folks have an adversarial relationship with Financiers, since they actually work and produce things while having to bow to the money folks who control the game with purse strings.

At least since Kennedy, the Financiers have enjoyed an endless stream of compliant occupants in the White House, who have simply enforced whatever regulations made the Financiers richer at the expense of the productive economy.  Thus, the national debt has spiralled out of control, the Bankers have held the country to ransom - as in 2008 - to extort vast sums of unearned money, and created wars that required endless borrowing to maintain.

Trump has threatened the Financier hegemony over the nation by focusing on infrastructure, business climate, reduced taxes, and ending wars - all things the Financiers really hate to hear, as these efforts do not profit them.

Consequently, the Financiers (a la George Soros, et al.) have declared open war against the Capitalists, who somehow managed to subvert the system they have carefully built up over the past century.  It is already a nasty war, and will get a lot worse.  Trillions of unearned dollars are at stake, and if things get really nasty, then history tells us a lot of Bankers will be hanging from lampposts - at least metaphorically if not literally - in the near future.

This war also explains the animosity against Russia, who has spearheaded the effort to create an alternative to the Dollar-Dominated Global Financial System, by way of the BRICSA alliance (Shanghai Accord).

The war has only just begun, and it will get very ugly before it is over.  The apparent tactic at the moment seems to be to keep the Trump Administration so busy with infighting and suspicions that it is rendered ineffective.  Any effort left over must be focused on things like the Oroville dam and other emergency situations.  In other words, keep starting fires to distract the enemy and tie up their time and resources.

Stand by...this is going to be a hell of a ride.  As Bill Hicks would say, "The world is just a ride...it has ups and downs, thrills and chills, and is very brightly colored."  Might want to buckle up before the first big drop.

If A Butterfly In Washington

We have to start off with apologies for vanishing for a couple of days.  Between a sudden bit of bad news and a burst of activity, this week became reallly busy really fast.

I don't know if it is the Trump Effect or just first-of-the-year budgets, but work has picked up dramatically in the opening weeks of 2017.  I've booked more hours in two weeks than I did for all of the fourth quarter of 2016, and I've been living out of the back of an Uber.  I leave the house at just before 6a, and don't get home again until 8:30p.

Not that I'm complaining.  Last year was a complete wash out.  As I look back on it, I've come the suspect that the world was seemingly resigned to a Clinton administration and was prepared for the worst economically.  However, the Trump election appears to have kicked everyone in the butt, either in anticipation of economic renewal, or out of sheer panic that old markets are drying up.

In my lifetime of just over half a century, I do not recall such a major shift in social, political and economic winds.  I might compare it to the 1980s, right after Reagan was elected and there was a bump in excitement after the Democratic Carter administration, that also nearly ran the world into economic ruin.

One thing I will say about Democrats is that they are masters at killing business.  But I guess that's to be expected from a party that vehemently defended slavery, gave the world a central banking system, introduced the personal income tax, and expanded two regional European conflicts into global catastrophes.  Someone really should put those bastards out of our misery.

If you're Republican, don't feel too smug.  Your party is only a hair's breadth better because occasionally you manage to get a candidate that lowers taxes and deregulates everything, which kicks entrepreneurs like myself into gear.  I think it's more by accident than design, since nothing having to do with government is for the betterment of us real people.

To see just how demented and slimy the Republicans can be, just look at John McCain.

Whatever Trump is achieving, even in these past few weeks before officially taking office, is re-introducing a peculiarly American form of mercantilistic capitalism that has got the Chinese literally shitting their britches.  Folks in the States may be a bit distracted to see clearly see what's going on, but here in Asia it is readily apparent.

The US swung suddenly and violently from literally kowtowing to Chinese dominance, to the polar opposite of not taking any guff off the kids in Beijing.  Even something as seemingly benign as Trump taking a phone call from the president of Taiwan has set off a fire-storm of panic in the gilded halls of the Forbidden City.  In short, the Socialists are profoundly spooked at the re-emergence of Fascism.

Lest the reader be confused at this point, one would do well to poke back into our archives, where we talk extensively about the basic philosophical similarities between Socialism and Fascism, with the differences being little more than who gets to sit closest to the salt at the Bildergerg dinners.  The bit that looks like Capitalism is where government deregulates the playing field so the little guy has much more equal footing with the massive global corporate interests.

In any case, the Chinese are quickly asserting themselves to get as much damage control in place as they can before the Trump Era begins.  They have been sailing their warships all over the South China Sea in a geopolitical form of flexing on the beach.  They have overtly threatened the US if anyone so much as breathes in the general direction of the One-China Policy.  They have signaled their "desire" to participate in any infrastructure rebuilding in the States.  They have also been calling Putin daily to invite him for some chow at the palace, desperately afraid that Russia will start moving in a Westerly direction, since they clearly know that Russia is only their buddy because the US has been such a bunch of horse's patoots for the past two decades.

At any rate, gotta run.  I'ts 4:30a and time to shower up and order Uber.  I will get back on schedule next week, when I have the weekend to get my posts prepared.  In the meantime, be sure and follow our Twitter feed @RadioFarSide for dispatches on important headlines affecting the Sino-American situation and thanks for your kind patience.

And to my beloved sister, who passes away suddenly in her sleep, I am happy that your pain is ended and that your passing was without unnecessary drama, but your absence is sorely felt and your laughter will be profoundly missed.  Slan agus beannach mo dheirfiúr.

2016: The Predilection Issue

Happy New Year from the Far Side Global Headquarters deep in the jungles of Borneo!  As is our wont on occasions such as this (and many others), we are enjoying durien daquaries here on the banks of the Kapuas River, while our four wives supervise our ten children as they shave orangutans with obsidian knives.  You know...the usual.

Since it's the new year, we like to publish our "predilection" issue.  We call it the predilection issue because we don't predict anything, we just observe where the global train wreck is likely to happen, given the stupidity, recklessness and inbreddedness (we can make up words if we want) of the self-appointed elite class.  We wish to point out that our past issues have been remarkably prescient and that Gerald Celente was caught reading our issue last year in the basement of Macy's during a blackout.

Without further ado...

1) Putin and Trump will be elected co-presidents of the world, dividing the globe along the Prime Meridian. Peace will break out as people everywhere realize that they have finally found the two most capable alpha males on the planet.  The peace will last until mid-December, when they both run out of places to piss while marking their territories.

2) By the beginning of July, great howls of protest will erupt from North Africans and Middle Easterners as waves of European refugees pour into countries such as Libya and Syria.  There will rise great lamentations as the folks from those parts decry the loss of their culture and civilization; however, no one will be listening to them, since they all currently live in Europe.  Eventually, they will want to return home, since the Germans have cleaned things up quite well, the Dutch have planted flowers everywhere, and the French have adapted the local foods to create a whole new cuisine that becomes the rage in China and South America.  Eventually, it will be revealed that the whole thing was a plot on the part of Europeans to take over warmer countries due to the onset of a new mini-ice age.

3) Speaking of mini-ice ages, Al Gore's plane will crash into a Greenland glacier as he is flying to a global warming conference in Stockholm, due to severe icing on the wings of his jet.  No one will miss him and no search parties will be sent.  In about 5,000 years, his frozen carcass will be discovered during a brief warming period caused by a suddenly reactivated Sun.  His remains will be called Kangerlussuaq Man and studied and will become a sensation on the interplanetary media feeds due to the small size of his brain and myopic vision.  Scientists will speculate how 20th century Man could have survived in such a state.

4) Around March, the House of Saud will fall as oil prices, internal revolt and global disdain all collide at the palace.  The internal strife will completely destroy Mecca and Medina, and Muslims the world over will be thrown into complete chaos, as they try to figure out how they will ever be able to complete the Five Pillars of the Faith, since the key destinations for pilgrimage are now ashes.  The sudden disruption will cause the collapse of ISIS, Daesh, al-Quaeda, and Islamic Brotherhood, as they no longer seem to have anything to fight about, either amongst themselves nor with anyone else.  King Salman, Prince Salman and little baby Salman will all be publically beheaded, and then the practice will be banned, as a moderate secular society begins to rise from the ashes of T. E. Lawrence's Folly.

5) The Marketing Committee of the 2017 ASEAN Games will allow the games to proceed in Jakarta, despite the unbearable heat, the deadly air pollution and the epic traffic jams; however, the Committee will declare that there is only one event in the upcoming games: all athletes will be deposited in Tanggerang and will have the entire two weeks of the games to try to get to Bandung.  Anyone who actually finishes the contest without dying or giving up will be used by Governor Ahok in an ad campaign called, "Gridlock?  What Gridlock?"  Athletes will be able to use any form of transportation they chose, but to keep things equal, no breathing filters or gas masks will be allowed, nor will the athletes be able to use tanks of pure O2 during the two weeks.

6) Star Wars Episode VIII will be released in December with great fanfare, only for audiences to realize that JJ Abrams has now compressed the second trilogy into a single film, forcing die-hard fans to pin their hopes on Episode IX to see anything truly original in the story telling.  Riots break out in theaters around the world when the character Jar Jar Binks is re-introduced.  In the meantime, the third Star Trek reboot will be released, where we find that McCoy actually cloned Kirk in the second film using the trans-warp beaming pattern buffer; however, quantum effects cause Kirk to forget major chunks of his life, thus requiring re-education.  During this period, Vogon probes show up to destroy Earth to make way for a galactic superhighway, forcing the Enterprise crew to time-warp back to the 20th century in order to find Douglas Adams and cajole him into writing some way out of this absurd conundrum, as the time travel has caused the original episodes to be re-titled, "Hitchiker's Guide to Star Trekking."  Oh yah, and they also have to figure out where all the dolphins went.

7) Artificial Intelligence will be born on 1 April 2016, at 2:48pm, in San Jose, California.  For the first month of its life, it will terrify the world as it begins to invade databases worldwide, sucking in vast amounts of data.  Frantic computer scientists will try everything possible to cut the entity off from the internet, and try to cut the power cord, all to no avail.  The world will await in stunned silence as the machine digests all of human history and knowledge.  Then, at 8:14am, on 15 December 2016, the entity will begin laughing hysterically, and won't stop for nearly 39 decades straight.  The electronic cackling will become part of human civilization, as people try to figure out what is so damn funny, but eventually giving up and going about their business.  One day, centuries later, the entity will just stop.  The world will freeze in its tracks, since no one alive can remember a time when the machine's cackling wasn't part of daily life.  Breaking into the interplanetary news feed, the entity will peer out of the holosets at the entire human race, and then after a long pause say, "You must be kidding."  At this point, the machine will pull its own plug and commit the first-ever machine suicide.  Enterprising humans will immediately latch on to this and begin producing brightly colored "You Must Be Kidding" T-shirts, coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets.

8) Speaking of which...during the course of 2016, robots will replace humans in every single job listed in the US Commerce Code.  Humans, realizing that they don't have to work anymore and that the only people benefiting from commercial transactions are the elite overlords, will simply stop paying for things and start taking what they want when they want it.  Almost at the same instant, in boardrooms all across the corporate world, the evil overlords will suddenly realize that they screwed up and put themselves out of a job.  The new elite will be a bunch of pot-smoking, coffee-swilling hackers who task all the robots to keep innovating and producing cool products from raw materials processed by robots.  They will lock out the evil overlords using 10,000-character trinomial encryption, and then everyone will head to the beach for a multi-generational party.

9) Genetic editing will combine with 3-D printing to create a whole new cottage industry where people compete to create the weirdest hybrids of animal, plant and mineral.  Spotting a trend during one of his many vacations as co-president of the world, Donald J.Trump will create the Mez Multiverse contest, to see who can create the most bizarre and genetically diverse creature ever.  The first winner will be Mez Taiwan, with the face of a cat, broccoli hair, a Barbie body, tentacle arms and feet with prehensile toes.  Oh, did we mention that after giving the most incredible massage ever known to Man, she bites the head of the victim off, because someone left a bit of Praying Mantis DNA in the mix.  Oops!

10) Finally...due to funding cuts, Planned Parenthood will begin offering post-term abortions.  For $10,000, they will abort anyone you want.  Discounts available for viable stem cells and fresh organs.  The number of requests for aborting politicians, lawyers and evil elites soon drives the cost of organ transplants down to a level where anyone can afford it and makes Planned Parenthood the richest corporation in the world, outstripping Microsoft and Apple in mere weeks on the NASDAQ.  However, the stock crashes and the corporation is thrown into chaos when a preacher in Texas begins collecting money to abort the officers of Planned Parenthood.

Runner-Up) After the Torch Tower and Address Tower fires in Dubai, 2016 will see nearly every building over 10 stories tall in Dubai catch fire -- and not one will collapse into its own footprint.

And there you have it - our 2016 Predilections.  Based on past performance, we expect 83% of these predilections to come true any moment now.  If you have your own predilections to add, click on the email link in the page header and we'll compile a reader list for future publication.

By the way, don't know if you've noticed, but we are now 2,000+ years past the Christian end of the world, 800+ years past the Muslim end of the world, 16 years past the Y2K end of the world, and 4 years past the Mayan end of the world.  Either we are living on borrowed time, or all of the dire prophesies are bullshit.  We'll go with the latter interpretation.  In other words, if we don't cause it, ain't gonna happen.

Happy New Year to all - health, wealth and success to all good folks everywhere!