Bill Conroy continues digging into the coverup surrounding the house of death in Juarez, Mexico.

In the process he reveals a new name for our friends from Blackwater, scratch that, Xe, scratch that, Academi. Among the directors of the company you will find no less than that gem of a man, John Ashcroft, still, it seems, dedicated to keeping us safe.

Don't you feel better already?

We got between 1-1/4" and 3" of rain on our ranches, day before yesterday. Apparently, rainfall totals were much heavier upstream.

Today, the rivers on which we live will flood.

Time to save the cows.

Came across this on a Guy Clark tribute album:

Wow.

PS. The Guy Clark Tribute Album on which the song is found is by far the best I heard from 2011.

Paul Craig Roberts tells us why Ron Paul may be our last chance.

And then, why it won't happen.

Those thinking a mighty American carrier group would have a cake walk should Iran decide to close the straight of Hormuz, should read this.

Seems Iran's bluster might be backed by a real threat.

December 29, 2011.

Another year almost gone. I try to remember the good things, but can’t.

Some speak of destruction by fire; I saw that this year, only the fire was sun, no rain, relentless dry scorching weather, day after day, week upon week, months….

Damn near the whole year.

I am told half a billion trees died in Texas alone.

It started raining about a month ago. Slow, steady, light but soaking rain. With the rain came cold. The moisture will pay dividends down the line, but now, cold and wet suck life from animals forced to endure without hay to fill their guts.

Aquifers, lakes and livestock ponds remain precariously low despite the recent showers. I have no clue what the new year will bring.

I watched and listened to most of this last night. It's long, over two hours, a free-for-all conversation, interspersed with humor and a wide gammit of important subjects.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening in and I think I learned a thing or two.

However, I must issue a warning: you'll have to wade through a bit of shit to get to the gems. But they are there.

(There's a mp3 at the link.)

I remember thinking when America elected George W. Bush the first time, Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.

When bush got re-elected after people had four years to see the kind of fellow he was, that prayer no longer applied.

First the Republican party failed and then the nation at large failed.

Now Democrats continue throwing rocks at any and all challengers from across the aisle and they have, well who the fuck do they have running against Barack Obama in the primary…

No excuses. You know who this son-of-a-bitch is, and you’re going to nominate him again.

I find this quite interesting.

In particular where the Great Spirit refers to himself as the first and the last.

Leah and I went to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The story is complex, interesting, compelling, the acting superb. Best movie I have seen in a couple of years.

Go see it.

Nicole Foss presents a compelling argument for a deflationary collapse here:

Look Back, Look Forward, Look Down. Way Down.

Those that study the phenomenon of peak oil will be aware that finding energy increasingly is becoming more expensive, not only from a dollar and cents point of view but also when calculating energy returned over energy invested. The common example offered suggests that in the early days of oil production, a well might return 100 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel of oil invested to find and extract it. During the 1970’s that number had fallen to 30 returned over 1 invested. Now the number is said to be about 3 to 1.

Hence the frenetic activity in South Texas as the Eagle Ford Shale project continues full bore. Roads have become crowded with arrays of massive hunks of steel: pumps and rigs and tanks and other devices used to frack wells and semi-trucks carrying joints of pipe in endless queues. Near Gonzales a monstrosity of a gathering station has formed in what just a couple of years ago was a cow pasture; multiple parallel rails usher tanker cars into filling facilities looking like nuclear reactors with doors in the side. A nearby pipe yard covers land measured in square miles instead of acres.

Zerohege.

Furious At Latest U.S. Attack, Pakistan Shuts Down Resupply Routes To Afghanistan "Permanently"

NATO recently literally shot itself in the foot, imperiling the resupply of International Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan by shooting up two Pakistani border posts in a “hot pursuit’ raid.

Given that roughly 100 fuel tanker trucks along with 200 other trucks loaded with NATO supplies cross into Afghanistan each day from Pakistan, Pakistan’s closure of the border has ominous long-term consequences for the logistical resupply of ISAF forces, even as Pentagon officials downplay the issue and scramble for alternative resupply routes.

(more at the link)

The drought map I usually see stops at the Mexican border.

This one presents a more accurate view of the size and scope of the drought currently afflicting Texas and Northern Mexico.

And it seems to be growing...

James Howard Kunstler's thinking this fine morning is so in line with mine that I pirated what he said, word for word, for your reading pleasure. Please don't sue me, James:

By James Howard Kunstler
on November 28, 2011 9:52 AM

It's really something to live in a country that doesn't know what it is doing in a world that doesn't know where it is going in a time when anything can happen. I hope you can get comfortable with uncertainty.

If there's one vibe emanating from this shadowy zeitgeist it's a sense of the total exhaustion of culture, in particular the way the world does business. Everything looks tired, played out, and most of all false. Governments can't really pay for what they do. Banks have no real money. Many households surely have no money. The human construct of money itself has become a shape-shifting phantom. Will it vanish into the vortex of unpaid debt until nobody has any? Or will there be plenty of worthless money that people can spend into futility? Either way they will be broke.

From GEAB N°59.

In terms of the amounts at stake, a quick calculation by a USreader of GEAB gives some sense of how much the “efforts” undertaken to reduce the budget deficit are ridiculous in relation to the needs : Treating the US federal budget as that of a household, things become abundantly clear. Simply remove 8 zeros for budget that comes to mean something for the average citizen:

Annual household income (income tax): + 21,700

You'll be happy to know that the Fed secretly loaned $16 trillion to banks around the world between December, 2007 to June of 2010 to save your ass, or so they say.

No telling how much more since then.

See anyone you recognize here?

The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows..

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)

Was a time I said Rick Perry would be our next president. I never liked the guy, thought he was a phony.

But the constant exposure he's had in presidential debates has revealed a man who is all hat and no cows.

As Cain gets battered by ex-lust interests, Romney and Gingrich will probably emerge as the two faves.

I still like Ron Paul better than the rest but he can't and won't win.

You should watch this:

Someone tasked Charles Hugh Smith to write something positive for a change. Here's what he came up with:

The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive

Bad Moon Rising (posted at Zerohedge).

Here's an excellent article concerning the current crisis and the generational components of it. Well worth your time.

Cutting Through The Fog: Occupiers Explain OWS To A 5 Year Old from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.

From Fred Eaglesmith's latest CD--Six Volts.

You sure do like Jesus Christ now, (Martin Luther King, Ghandi, John the Baptist, Malcom-X, Mohammed, Henry David Thoreau, Edward Abbey, John Steinbeck, Samuel Clemens)...

The Federal Reserve put you on the hook for $75 trillion ($75,000,000,000,000) of fraudulent derivatives.

JP Morgan will follow suit on a similar amount. No wonder the stock market bounced.

In other news, Quadafi was sodomized with a knife.

At least someone was kind enough to give him a coup de grace to the head. You will have to live through this.

Perhaps someone in our government and mainstream media does read Bill Conroy's investigative entries after all.

And now, to my great surprise, articles like this: US Trained Assassin Teams Now Deployed In Drug War are rewritten and become this in a rag called the New York Times and on my front page at MSNBC.

I guess Bill should be flattered they notice.