Well, my actual website is now fully operational. I assure you, it is quite deadly. A lot of the content from this blog has been copied over there already, not sure if I'll move the rest or not.
Right now we have a couple of articles, weekly columns, bi weekly webcomic. Soon we'll have some videos up there too. So go there... go there now. Add it to your favorites. Share with your friends.
Please... I beg of you. For the love of all that is good, visit my site. Now back to the old and out of date blog you've somehow found:
Fifth Third Bank Accused of Fraud, Robbed and Still Leader in Financial Gains
Ok, full disclosure, I have no idea why this bank is trending as a search, it doesn't really seem like much of a hot topic to me, but whatever, I'll see what I can find out.
This guy robbed a Fifth Third bank in Ohio on Wednesday, standard procedure of handing the teller a note, getting some money, and leaving (hasn't he even seen Dark Knight? There are WAY cooler ways to rob banks at your disposal these days). THIS can't be what people are interested, a friend of mine is a bank teller and this happened to her a few
weeks ago, her bank didn't become a hot topic. Slow news day in Ohio I suspect.Ah, here we go, horse racing and fraud, this makes a little more sense. Thoroughbred breeder Gulf Coast Farms is suing the shit out of the bank. Fifth Third claims the breeders defaulted on $15 million worth of loans, which Gulf Coast says is not true. Gulf Coast breeds winning horses, and is supposedly the fourth-leading breeder in North America. These undoubtedly highfalutin wealthy horse types (who no doubt row boats and eat ivy) call BS on Fifth Third and are seeking to recover $16 in compensatory and punitive damage. Why? Because they were treated in a manner that is not consistent with the way a bank should operate, stopping JUST short of accusing the bank of fraud.
But 16 million dollar lawsuits are just chump change apparently, because that didn't stop Fifth Third from being one of the top-gaining components in the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, rising by like 3% today. So... America is saved? Financial crisis OVER.
Libya Saw What Egypt Was Up To and Was Like: "I'd Like Some of That Action" or What the Fuck is Going on Libya?
For arguments sake, I'm going to call the leader of Libya "Gaddafi" because it's the easiest to spell of the many iterations of his name (I'm in good company here though, this is the spelling used by the BBC and Al-Jazeera, these fine news sources probably had the same thought that I did).
So a little background about Gaddafi: in 1969 Gaddafi and his buddies overthrew the existing Libyan monarchy and basically he tried to make himself the Che Guevera of the 70s. He turned Libya into a haven for anti-Western radicals, and even openly and publicly said that he would arm them and offer them financial assistance. He introduced his philosophy to the country and called it "Islamic socialism", in short, allowing private control of small companies, and government control of large ones and had an emphasis on welfare, liberation and education. Ok, arming anti-Western radicals, not always awesome, but welfare and education don't seem so bad.
In 1977 he changed gears a little bit and introduced "jamhiriya", and this is actually pretty cool (on paper). The idea was "government by the masses", a sort of direct democracy where all decisions would be made through a network of local council and communes. Neato!
Oh yeah, he also sent out murder squads to assassinate Libyan dissidents living abroad... less neato. Anyhow, Gaddafi's been in charge since 1970 more or less, has called for the murder of dissidents, murdered dissidents, imprisoned opposition, threw 30,000 Palestinians out of his country and seems to like killing people who aren't into his ideas. 40 years later, Libyans are like "Man, let's get a new leader."
Here's the timeline of how shit went down in Libya in the past two weeks:
- Feb 15: A group of about 5-600 protestors demonstrate in front of a police station in Benghazi, things get violent, 40 people are injured, and protestors in Al Bayda and Az Zintan set fires to police stations.
- Feb 16: Protests continue in Al Bayda and Benghazi, 6 people die, fires break out, water cannons are used on fires and protestors alike (efficiency!). The government releases 110 members of the Libyan Islamic Fight Group from prison.
- Feb 17: This IS AWESOME (in a shitty way) Hollywood movie insanity type shit. Get this, the Libyan government releases 30 non-dissident related prisoners from jail, arms them, and then pays them to fight protestors. What the fuck Libya?! Snipers and helicopters also open fire on demonstrators, another 30 people are killed.
- Feb 18: Libya just doesn't give a fuck, not satisfied with releasing and arming hardened criminals to do their dirty work, the government begins hiring African mercenaries to help bolster their forces. There are reports that some local police and riot control types join forces with protestors, but clearly not all of them, since protestors get a hold of two officers who were accused of shooting at protestors and hung them. Libyan protestors are also fucking hardcore, they captured 50 mercs, locked them in a prison, and then burned the mother down. Just how much are these mercs getting paid you might ask? Reports say: 5000 Dinars + 1 Sports Car (5000 Libyan Dinars = 4061 American dollars).
- Feb 19: This is way crazier than Egypt. Protestors basically take control of Al Bayda, the army withdraws. In Benghazi, artillery, helicopter gunships and anti-aircraft missile launchers are all pointed at then later fired at protestors. Classy security forces opened fire at a funeral (honoring protesters who were killed in previous protests), killing 15.
- Feb 20: Protests spread to Tripoli, hospitals in Benghazi literally run out of supplies, estimate death toll to be 200-300 in that city alone. Protestors in Benghazi number in the tens of thousands, storming around the city, brutally murdering anyone who is pro-Gaddafi, basically take control of the entire city. Gaddafi's son seriously blames Isreal for all this (WTF?), adding that the BBC, Al-Jazeera, Al Arabiya and the BBC is trying to trick everyone.
- Feb 21: Libyan Air Force launches air strikes on protestors and, you may have guessed it, funeral processions. Two mutineering air force pilots (who I'm going to call Ripcord and Ace) are like "fuck this bombing civilians business" and fly their planes to Malta and request asylum. Libyan naval warships start bombarding residential areas (WTF x 10). Gaddafi issues execution orders for any soldier who refuses to shoot, bomb or murder the hell out of protestors. There are reports that Gaddafi himself has left the country and headed to Venezuela.
- Feb 22: Gaddafi appears on state television and is like "I'm not in Venezuela suckers, I'm in Tripoli!" but nobody can really tell if his telling the truth. Fighter jets start targeting the army's munitions depots to prevent soldiers from joining and further arming the protestors (more WTF), African mercs keep massacring everyone (including reports that they busted into a hospital and just murdered everyone they found). British Foreign Minister David Owen calls for military intervention and an immediate no fly zone (but that hasn’t happened yet). Analysts says that it seems like Gaddafi's plan is to basically ruin his country instead of stepping down, damaging oil infrastructures (the Libyan economy's driving asset) and engaging in a prolonged war to scare off investors. It seems like he hopes that people will just let him be in charge again to save the country's economy and livelihood.
- Feb 23: (Side note: that I forgot to mention: As part of the Islamic socialism structure, Libya is divided up into various democratic tribes that work in conjunction with each other) One of Libya's largest tribes, the Warfella, calls for Gaddafi to step down, various politicians start stepping down from their posts in protest to the excessive violence that's going on. More and more cities fall under rebel control. Accusations start flying at Gaddafi, including that he personally ordered the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
- Feb 24: More army units side with protestors, more cites "fall" to rebels. Gaddafi deploys tanks in the suburbs of Tripoli. North African al-Qaeda announced that they would support the Libyan uprising. Gaddafi responded that yes, it totally IS Bin Laden's fault this shit is going down in his country, that the al-Qaeda is slipping hallucinogenic pills to the youth in their coffee. Oooookay.
- Feb 25 (today): Gaddafi's son Saif al-Arab supposedly defects to the side of the protestors, protestors take to the streets in Tripoli and Gaddafi loses his mind. Gaddafi appeared on Green Square in Tripoli and started yelling: "Dance, dance, sing and be happy ! Those who don't like me do not deserve life". WOW.
So... what does this all mean? Well, even though the US and Libya haven't always seen eye-to-eye, in the 2000s, Libya's gotten a lot cozier with the United States. From 2003 onwards things have gotten pretty good between the two countries politically, which is a good thing, since Libya is the 4th richest country in North Africa, in large part thanks to it's (of course) oil reserves. Those same oil reserves that the economy is more or less based on. Those same oil reserves that Gaddafi seems pretty intent on destroying.
So let's say this whole thing falls apart and the Gaddafi steps down, but not after doing untold damage to the economy, what then? Who has money? I don't wanna sound like a crazy fear mongering person, but al-Qaeda has money. I've read reports that al-Qaeda is one of the main sources of disaster relief in Pakistan following flooding and making great strides in winning over popular opinion, what's stopping them from doing the same thing in Libya? If they move in with the correct tactics, they could seriously take over the 4th richest North African country. All this while there is still no assurance that America's former North African ally, Egypt, is going to be of any help depending on what new government gets implemented there.
Yup, the potentially for widespread holy-fuckery is pretty extreme.
That was a little heavy, I need something to cheer me up... who should I turn to? Oh yes, Charlie Sheen.
Charlie Sheen Loses His Mind on the Alex Jones Show - His Boss Makes Fun of Him on TV, Two and Half Men “Temporarily Cancelled”
So yesterday, on the Alex Jones Show, Charlie Sheen decided he had some bones to pick (audio here, this is the best one I can find, there's like a weird commercial that plays over part of it, not sure if this was to mute out some of his insanity since the recording was live or was added later) with uhh... I'm not exactly sure. Here's the recap of the hilarity, but seriously, you should listen to it:
- Charlie makes a hilarious joke about working out, but "not in the gym" HEY-OH! He means sex with porn stars.
- He refers to his porn star harem as "The Goddesses" and is worried that the term is too “terrestrial” to describe his marriage of the "hearts". He also refers to his lifestyle as "winning in every second", hard to argue.
- He trash talks the rest of the world telling them to have sex with their ugly wives in front of their ugly children and be jealous of him.
- He refers to what he does to Chuck Lorre's (2 and Half Man creator and writer) writing as "turning tin cans into gold."
- He says he has magic, he is an F-18 who will destroy you in the air, he then talks about his amazing tattoo, which I can't even describe.
- He talks about Major League 3... saying he's going to do it, he hasn't read it, and he doesn't care. He promptly also says that he doesn’t know if he’s doing it yet or not.
- He's the new sheriff in town, and he has an army of assassins.
- He says he's a High Priest Vatican Assassin Warlock (oh man... I love you Charlie Sheen). This of course is in response to someone who said he works for the Pope.
- He also says you either love or you hate, and you must do both violently, you must hate everyone who is not in your family, and there's is nothing in between. If you love with violence and you hate with violence you have focus, clarity and peace.
- He also talks about his deadly and dangerous secret and silent soldiers, because they're all around you and of course, that means that he's "winning".
- Then comes the moneyshot... the AA rant. He calls them a bootleg cult, that their manifesto is built around surrender, and that the only people who got clean in AA are trolls. He says that AA is about not being special, and that doesn't work for him because he IS special. He calls Thomas Jefferson a pussy and that he beat his addiction in a nanosecond with his brain.
- If you're a part of his family, he will love you violently, if you're against him, he will murder you violently. Alex Jones adds "In the infowar" and Charlie's like "Yeah, in the infowar". Because you know, murdering people in the infowar isn't murder, you have to keep that shit straight (next week Charlie Sheen might murder someone, mark my words).
Now I'll admit, it's hard to really tell if Charlie's just fucking around and joking in all this, but that's part of the problem, right? I think Charlie's not even sure if he's fucking around anymore, at what point do you become so detached from the real world that you can watch Jaws on a private yacht and then not be sure if you're in the movie or watching it (a feat he claims to have accomplished while being completely sober). I mean, we can make fun of him "winning" all we want, but he's in a position to build a mansion full of pornstars, buy them all Bentleys, do mountains of cocaine and basically just run around the world doing whatever he wants, I mean... it sure sounds like winning. Too bad winning might make you crazy.
Final note on Charlie Sheen that I thought I would share because it's sort of funny, the writer/creator of Two and a Half Men, Chuck Lorre has this cute little habit of flashing brief "Vanity Cards" at the end of his shows (Dharma and Greg, Big Bang Theory, etc). As you may have heard, following Charlie Sheen's recent behaviour (no doubt coupled with you know, his behaviour in the past 5-6 years) led to the showing being "temporarily cancelled". He responded with the awesome vanity cards and more on the story here. My favorite?
"Please keep in mind that we employ a highly-paid Hollywood professional who has years of experience with putting his life at risk. And sadly no, I'm not talking about our stunt man."
Chuck Lorre sir, even though I'm sure you don't get paid $2 million an episode for your work writing the show (which is Charlie's salary for acting in it), that's still just a little bit of "winning".
-K
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