Blunt Wit

So I gotz ta thinkin the other day that the Jihadists and Muslim fundamentalists seem to have cornered the market on suicide bombing as a method to furthering their political aspirations. This seems slightly unfair. Something drastic needs to be done to level the playing field.

So I thought to create a rival system and organization to recruit a new crop of self-destructors for the purpose of promoting hope and world peace. No more will we sit idly by while some devout crazies attempt to sew terror and foment anarchy. Nay, we will rise up and meet ka-boom with ka-boom! Will you consider joining my crusade to save the human race?

The notion of self sacrifice is as old as civilized man itself. Wherever there has been an imbalance of power the siren song of asymmetric warfare has called. The Palestinians ratcheted up the Intifada with the destructive force of human negation. Of course the granddaddy of the cause has been Al Queda. These jokers took it to new levels of heinousness. Their main goal is to suck hope out of this world. But we needn’t let them.

So all of this leads us full circle to the state of the world today. War, mayhem, and bad television cause tremendous human suffering everywhere. What are we, as individuals, to do? Is loving thy neighbor enough? Is donating money, time and energy to good causes enough? Isn’t there more that can be done? YES, I say!!!

Join the Suicide Bombers for Hope or SuBoHo today. Our competitive advantage over traditional suicide bombers will be our use of advanced undetectable yet powerful PETting or personal explosive technologies. Sexy huh? We’re talking C4 and sophisticated spread spectrum radio devices. You will be custom fitted to the nines. We want you to look really, really good when you go explode.

Your demise will detonate hope and goodwill everywhere. Of course, your goal will be to harm as few good – while giving the most joy to as many – people as possible. You’ll be like a giant roman candle, a fourth of July fireworks display for peace – striking a blow for amity over annihilation everywhere. Think of the good you could do.

While we will not be offering you 72 virgins in the afterlife, we will, in conjunction with Walmart (yet to be positively confirmed), be offering great discounts on merchandise for you and your immediate family.

So whatdaya say? Will you join SuBoHo today and spread a little incandescent hope and goodwill?

Have done anything out of the ordinary to promote peace and goodwill toward men?

For those of you who don’t know the man …

The visagely intense Neel Kashkari is the wunderkind that Treasury Secretary Paulson appointed Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability. In this role, he heads the Office of Financial Stability, the office set up to buy troubled financial assets from U.S. financial firms under the $700 billion U.S. Government Troubled Assets Relief Program. He’s the man with the plan. The grand pooh-bah for dubya. The dude who’s going to single handedly rescue Capitalism from the clutches of evil and save the world as we know it.

Anyway, I thought given the overwhelming magnitude of his task I would write him an open letter and offer some sage yet practical advice …

Dear Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability Kashkari,

Felicitations on being named head of the Office of Financial Stability. Couldn’t have happened to a more stand up guy. If anyone can save the capitalist system from collapse, it is a hot-shot 35 year old rocket scientist turned Goldman Sachs money wizard from Akron, Ohio. I am reminded of the saying, “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”

After feeding Bear Sterns to the bears at JPMorgan, proffering up an $85 billion liquidity facility for AIG, taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and letting the Brothers Lehman go bankrupt, your boss finally got his chicken little on and cried the sky was falling. The subsequent passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 put a cool $700B of taxpayer funmuny into your lap.

Your boss told congress that you would come up with a comprehensive strategy that is both immediate and specific and would have broad impact to stabilize the economy and improve liquidity. His buddy, Bernanke, further said your plan would pump up investor confidence and have positive impact on the broader economy and GDP.

So I know you’re trying to figure the best way to spend that money and save the world (economy). At first you proposed using your monopoly money to buy up illiquid mortgage backed securities (MBS) with the intent to reduce potential losses encountered by those same financial institutions you used to work with. You do realize in any other universe, the whole financial instrument ponzi scheme these institutions ginned up would be illegal. Hell, it goes without saying it was unethical. Now you’ve abandoned even that idea and are looking at cash infusions into the top banks (who also happen to be the top offenders).

So before you go a givin all that money to the idiots who got us into this fine mess in the first place, I’ve got an even spiffier idea, one that better aligns with aforementioned stated criteria for the bailout plan.

Given your high-falutin Wharton education you know that $700B works out to be a little over $2000 per taxpayer. So just think, for $2000 you could outfit each and every man, woman and child in America their very own virtual reality iglasses.

These award-winning Head Mounted Display Image Monitors are used by the United States Navy, NASA and porn aficionados alike. They give their users a delicious 70 inch HDTV experience.

Just think of the possibilities. Joe six pack, Joe the plumber, hell, even Joe the investment banker no longer need angst about our deteriorating economic conditions. They can just veg out to the latest movies or escapist TV. Hell, who needs reality when they can have virtual reality!

This, of course, will also create incredible economic activity in Hollywood as they drum up newer, stupider, happier pap for their virtually real audience. Everyone can star in his or her own reality TV series. Everyone can be the center of his or her own virtual universe. Everyone can do his or her part to help bailout the financial system by simply wishing the mortgage crisis never happened.

My proposal is both immediate and specific and would have broad impact to stabilize the economy and improve liquidity. It would clearly pump up virtual investor confidence and have seemingly positive impact on the broader economy and GDP. It would restore the hegemony of capitalism while simultaneously exploiting America’s greatest national treasure: Hollywood!

So do you have any bright ideas to solve the financial crisis and rescue capitalism?

Disclosure: author holds 45% ownership stake in Ultimate3DHeaven, makers of iglasses, but this fact in no shape or fashion colors his analysis.

According to well placed Republican sources, Sasha and Malia,

the daughters of Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama have formed a nascent political group entitled “Swift Kids for Truth.” They are charging that the Presidential hopeful is unfit to serve as President based upon his alleged willful distortion of his conduct as father during their short lives.

Barack Obama has built his entire campaign around his openness to change. He stands tall as the candidate who embraces positive transformation in the grubby, attack-minded politics that pervades Washington. In public he welcomes dissent as healthy expression of personal values. At home, however, he is a virtual tyrant according to his daughters.

He doesn’t allow them to watch TV past 10pm causing serious mental distress. He also refuses to buy them their favorite Jamba Juice smoothies upon request resulting in severe dehydration. Young minds need liquid refreshment to grow strong and agile. His willful disregard for the wellbeing of his own daughters is finally being exposed thus challenging his qualifications as President.

Sasha, as chief spokeskid for SKFT, has stated that Barack Obama’s exaggerated claims about his own service as father has compelled her to step forward. She further elaborated that his criticism of fathers was a “betrayal of trust” with other kids, and that by his activism he had caused direct “harm” to all kids living at home.

Washington insiders seem to discount the activities of SKFT noting that by grounding his daughters indefinitely Barack Obama could effectively curtail the group’s effectiveness.

Myth of Iraqos

Double-ya was the son of a highly respected and talented Kennebunkportian artisian, Ay-chya.

He was known for his skill at drinking games, drug-laced tirades, malapropisms and evading military service. His father, Ay-chya, angered the good king Saddos and was eventually imprisoned with his son in the labyrinth of Iraqos. Wherein they wandered about without a goal, without a hope.

Then Ay-chya devised a clever plan. He would strap on wings like an avian predator and fly the confines of that quagmiric maze!

So out they flew. Double-ya’s father warned him not to not fly too high, too near the hot desert sun, or too low, near the insurgent waves of the sea.

Double-ya grinned (ch)impishly and became overwhelmed with the thrill of the power.

He felt invincible as he soared high above the common concerns of those watching from far below. As he flew higher and higher and farther and farther from the prosaic man and woman on the ground, the glue of logic holding his wings together melted. Then, he plunged down, down to his demise.

Leaving the poor citizens of Iraqos a huge mess to clean up …