If an informed reader has any memory at all, the adventure of the ‘disappearance” of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his re-emergence after admitting to an affair in Argentina, brings into focus a very interesting question. Are we seeing another application of what in the alphabet agency/spy business is called a “honey pot” operation?
If I were looking at one of my computer reference books like Head First Design Patterns
“Honey Pot” operations are a marvelously efficient way to clean up messy loose ends and opposition. Defined in Wikipedia as:
“Honeypot or honeytrap may refer to:
Espionage recruitment involving sexual seduction in
A type of sting operation such as a
bait car or
honeypot (computing) , a trap to help fight unauthorized computer access.”
Now, let’s see here, can I make up a list?
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Mark Sanford, opposes economic stimulus ram down and a few months later is discredited with an affair.
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You’ve been following the adventures of Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and a rumored indiscretion?
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Former NY State AG Elliot Spitzer who went after all kinds of PTB interests and then, two days after reports that he was a client of a high-end prostitution ring, he resigned as governor of MY
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If you want to remember back to 1987, there was the highly publicized Gary hart/Donna Rice affair. Ex-senator about to run for president – taken out by what?
Just ask yourself the simple – and obvious – question. (I mean besides who was it that conveniently tipped the Miami Herald in the Gary Hart affair?) All victims of ‘testosterone poisoning’?
Another question is where’s that missing bank finance chief in the UK that police are looking for?
There are two answers: Either there’s a class of politician that is so smart in politics as to make it into high office, yet dumb enough that along comes a good looking woman and they wander off following their pechusezelwhackers (* it’s an old fire house term analogous to “Johnson”) in a testosterone fog OR if you want to get a hot affair going, all you need to do is be in a position to challenge the PTB paradigm and hotties will be sent in to take you down…and then…er…take you down.
Testosterone or tactic? Hand me a dart, would’ja? I throw, you decide.
Sleepless in East Texas
Speaking of “you decide” I vaguely remember listening to a newscast overnight where the last story reported in a network newscast was about the “Four dead in Arizona plane crash.“
But, what got me (and caused lost sleep) was the newscaster followed that story immediately with the news slogan which went something like “We report…you decide.” A little research turns up that’s the Fox News Network’s word mark trademark (see filing 76433533 here). (No, I didn’t infringe, since I did not bold two words or use the same punctuation and I referenced the public record…)
I mention it because it kept me up a good part of the night. I kept asking myself “Decide what?” That the people were, or were not, dead? No, I think Arizona authorities decided that one already. Well, how about whether the plane actually ‘crashed’? Nope, thought it was impractical that this was an accident while taxiing.
I wish I knew someone at Fox so I could ask “What am I supposed to be deciding in all these stories?” I got to wondering if this a news department version of a Zen koan or an incomplete haiku? I didn’t see the kigo… I mean I get the “We report” OK…but I’m just stumped on the other half. I must be incredibly stupid. Yeah, that’s it…
Mass Layoffs: I Chart, You Decide
Is the Mass Layoffs picture ugly? I chart. You decide, LOL.
Does the term “nonlinear crapstorm” mean anything to you?
They Owe You’s
Don’t have a Treasury/Fed relationship in the Golden State, huh? So sorry. Well, instead of going Zimbabwe and printing up money with just a few more zeroes, California is set to print up IOU’s to cover its budget crisis. Printing up money is so useful though. Here’s an example…
Buying a Revolution
Here’s an interesting story: “CIA has distributed more than 400-million dollars inside Iran to evoke a revolution” says a report.
I realize this is not going to be a popular viewpoint to express, but has anyone besides the time monks considered what the failure of regime change in Iran leads to? The bombing of Iran’s nuke facilities, which would presumably vaporize a bunch of plutonium and other weapons grade nuclear materials which Iran denies interest in, which in turn poisons millions?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not backing the spending of our tax money to buy revolutions, but if (or when) this buying the tweets campaign runs out of steam/cash, all that’s going to happen is the government in power in Tehran will be more radicalized than ever and that sets up the (October 26th?) bombing of Iran by Israel and that potentially gets me to dragging out my radiation survey meter and my NIOSH N100 masks.
GDP’ing
First Quarter estimates are out: The gospel according to gov’t is…
“Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States – decreased at an annual rate of 5.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009, (that is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to final estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP decreased 6.3 percent.
The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the preliminary estimates issued last month. In the preliminary estimates, the decrease in real GDP was 5.7 percent (see “Revisions” on page 3).
The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from exports, equipment and software, private inventory investment, nonresidential structures, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a positive contribution from personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.”
Translation: The airplane is still crashing, but the ground is coming at us slightly slower. Woo hoo!
Good times are just ahead!
Wasted Effort Department
Reading here this morning how “NKorea threatens US; world anticipates missile” gets me to wondering what is Kim Jong Il’s point.
Just seems like wasted energy, what threatening to annihilate the US, since we’re doing so nicely on our own. Who needs nukes when bankers have ink?
Joining the New World Order
Not gonna be optional: Ah, seems the Obama administration is trying to fast-track RATification of the UN’s Convention on Rights of the Child – the CRC for short and that has alarm bells going off all over the place, especially at the ParentalRights.org’s site.
Think you’ll be allowed to home-school or say no thanks to mandatory vaccinations (that may be linked to autism)? LOL, what country did you think this was, anyway?
Spare the parenting and spoil the child, says I….arrrrgghhhh….