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Bahrain – when you don’t know what to think

At least at some level, I hope most humans anywhere, everywhere have heard of our great civilizations that at this point are thousands of years old: Sumera, Babylon, Egypt, China (in so many forms), Assyria, Hittites, Songhai, Inca, and on and on and on.

In what we now (incorrectly in my opinion) still call the Middle East and its surrounding areas you hear tell of a mysterious island at the center of Earth’s trading empire. Bahrain. Some references refer to it as Elam. There is an argument to be made that this is true as a civilization across the Persian Gulf from Bahrain was called Elam.

History at these eras goes far too back for comprehension. Maybe Bahrain was once a client state if not conquered by Elam. But the general consensus is to refer to that ancient island as Dilmun. It was never an empire or had any real power. It was essentially a permanent city state. It’s wealth and importance came as a trading post between parts of the world. In what we now (incorrectly in my opinion) call globalization, Dilmun was essential. In the world of the citizens of Dilmun, ‘globalism’ to them meant ‘life’, every single day.

If you ever have a chance to visit Bahrain, even for a brief flight layover, your one and only destination needs to be the National Museum. It’s a quaint swell place, and does a really, really good job of portraying the entire course of the island’s history.

When your island is inhabited by humans for almost five thousand years, things change. It is possible that Dilmun was once semi tropical, and in time turned to the blank desert it is today. But regardless of the weather, Bahrain being only a city state, and at the border of so many empires became what happens to people in their positions: A Doormat.

The number of different civilizations and cultures that conquered Bahrain are innumerable. Even today, the royal family ties their origins not to Bahrain. They came from Kuwait. They are Sunni. Yet the majority of Bahrain’s citizens are Shia (since the island is so close to Iran), this is the central reason why things don’t work quite so well there today.

Then maybe as much as a little less than half the people living there are South Asians who also make up so much of the people across the Arab world. They come for the money. They have essentially no rights. They put up with it because they earn many times more than they could at home.

There is so much more I could write about the above two paragraphs. But I just don’t feel the energy to do it. It can quickly devolve into a sad tale. Where you want to bathe in the misery. But when you talk to all these people, they aren’t broken. They’re trying, each and every day, regardless whether they are a citizen or not.

Also, sandstorms suck. So does the heat. Bahrain is surrounded by relatively shallow parts of the ocean. Which allows the humidity to skyrocket. In Kuwait even if it’s 120 degrees the dry heat is at least somewhat tolerable. In a 90 degree Bahrain morning with 100% humidity it will end you. It would be so hot that first thing in the morning I’d leave my flat for work and the entire pavement would look like it was drenched. Even though there was no rain. It kind of broke me I think. Even all these years later, I kinda really fear a lot of heat.

I went to Bahrain for work, and had to stay here a long time. I did not enjoy. Mostly because I missed my family. I also just had a hard time connecting with the entire idea of the island. More than once I walked thru the Shia zones where I was told never to go. They did not kidnap me or kill me. They barely even acknowledged my existence. They had their lives to live. Sunni verse Shia politics are there, but it doesn’t change their lives.

Then there are the South Asians. The best meal I ever had in Bahrain was at a Thali place with some coworkers that was in a dirty back alley and was completely packed. It was incredible. And this is coming from a guy who would want to play curling in traffic before being a vegetarian.

I never met a single person in Bahrain that I hated. Some people I didn’t like, but never hate. These people, regardless of their skin color, race, culture, history are all just trying to muddle through and improve their lives and the lives of their families.

But even with this wonder of human light, I still can’t put my finger on why I feel so uncomfortable with my time there. I don’t understand why. I guess all I can do is acknowledge that I definitely would never want to go there again. I would never recommend anybody travel there. But I don’t have a clear answer even to myself as to why.

But, they have a future. Let’s see where it goes.

my own shot, from my flat balcony; good luck to them all, I truly hope for the best

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sandstorms = overrated = not fun

So Hollywood has everyone convinced for over fifty years that sandstorms work like a tidal wave. Like a wall of sand one hundred meters high swallows everyone whole. But somehow some or most of the people in the movie live. And they look like they’re still wearing makeup, and got less sand on them than a kiddy building a beach sandcastle.

First off, that’s not how sandstorms work. In only of the rarest of occasions are they that violent, and also, the lack of eyewitnesses cannot be ignored. If you get hit by a wall of sand that big? Everyone dies. They’ll never even find your bones. It’s like a ship sinking in the middle of nowhere ocean where the mermaids kill everyone, but nobody is alive to confirm it.

Sandstorms don’t flow upon you like the wave of the tsunami. They settle upon you like a blanket that your worst enemy bought for you and mailed to you even though it was surrounded by malaria carrying mosquitos. Plus some rabid cute little mousses in there, for extra credit.

In Star Wars: Attack of the Clones there is the infamous line where ordinary average gentleman, amateur bridge player, spacecraft mechanic, player of musical instruments at local orphanages, and future genocidal maniac Anakin makes his comments about sand to Padme that have been panned for decades.

I’ve always found this odd. Because his statement made perfect sense to me. I despise the prequels (please somebody kidnap Lucas and hand him over to my Guests). But this line is not a problem for me. It speaks to those who have had to clean sand out of their entire body and anything they were wearing. And even then it doesn’t work.

Will you die? Probably not. Is it the most annoying thing ever and makes you feel like a walking piece of sandpaper? Yes. Humans cannot live in the ocean otherwise they dehydrate, can’t swim forever, can’t breathe underwater, and are mauled by an orca who can’t believe its luck.

But I guess to a certain degree we can survive sand, live with it, and move on. It’s really weird. If you try and live in the ocean ala The Simpsons dolphin episode, you die. If you try and live in space and aren’t protected the absolute pinnacle of human technology, you die. But we can live with sand and bleached skeleton deserts?

Why do I say this? I guess it’s been on my mind. And it’s a prequel (pun intended <= do you get it? I did a thing there. <= DO YOU GET IT?!) to my next post. I hope. Or I’ll disappear on this degenerate blog for another year. Either way.

when is your next shower? If you don’t know, this is merciless

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Civil War – 14 February 1862 – a river ride into the unknown

You would think that as long as this degenerate blog has been here I would have published hundreds of things on the Civil War. When I was a kid/teenager, I was what was then referred to as a “Civil War buff”. I doubt anybody beneath the age of 30 would even know what that term means nowadays. I’m sure the schools and universities don’t really teach it anymore. Of if they do, they gloss over it get back to the ‘isms. It’s why I gave up being a history major.

Plus (and this should surprise nobody) most university professors (of any discipline) are total weirdos. It’s not fun talking history with a professor when it’s so unsettling you wonder how you didn’t think to walk in their office strapped with a loaded firearm for your own mental and physical safety.

This particular post is meant to try and do this topic more. This one is on Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. This is another opportunity for Private Barber to provide his prolific words on the conflict.

The Union needed control of all the inland rivers for victory. The railroad age was only just beginning. The rivers and canals moved almost everything until like the 1880’s. Even today, most people are probably unaware of how much of America’s cargo is still moved on riverboat barges.

So if you plant a fort along a key river, you own that river and can crush economic and military transport on said river at will. If you still don’t quite get me, just take a gander at this photo and I hope it will help via your eyes to understand what devastating control looks like:

Civil War buff? Yeah, I guess. I was actually on television in text form as a teen. It was the History Channel’s Civil War Journal hosted by Danny Glover. They would post what they thought were the best comments from their audience. Like two or three comments in between commercials for each episode. I can’t really remember what I wrote, but it had to do with why Charleston was so hard for the Union to take until 1865. It just happened that my extended family was already there for a birthday party. And the studio told me in advance they’d do it so we watched and waited. It took five seconds in text form. But it delighted my family.

It was probably kind of like the Eric Cartman Cheesy Poofs commercial. He does all this work in the studio and all they do in the end state of film is have him on screen for one second, but he’s still so, darn, happy.

Over to you Private Barber:

… We now turned our course up the Ohio [River]. When we arrived at Paducah, we learned that a fierce and bloody battle was in progress at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. We soon came to the mouth of the Cumberland and turned our course up that stream. We had no doubt now of our destination. We were all eager to get to the scene of action in time to participate in the fight, but the captain of the boat was a rank rebel [a stubborn man; not a Confederate sympathizer] and he refused to run nights, to the shame of Colonel Turner, he refused to use his authority and compel him to run.

– Shiloh was still two months away. The butchery that Shiloh produced shocked the nation; and every soldier on both sides. Nobody in their wildest dreams would have thought the war would be so bloody when it started. Except for guys like Sherman or Forrest.

– Barber is “eager” for action, because he’s never seen it. Like most volunteer infantry regiments on both sides, officers (even regimental commanders) could be elected by their men. It’s important to remember that the United States Army never stopped existing. All throughout the war, you could enlisted the Army with the understanding that even if the war ended, you’d still be in the Army. The volunteer regiments that made up the bulk of both sides (the soldiers still signed two to three year papers) but whence the war ended they went home. You can literally hear Barber’s frustration that their regimental commander isn’t strong enough to speak up for them.

– But, it’s important to remember that Turner was probably just some guy. He was as new to war as Barber and the rest of his regiment. True confidence only comes from experience.

– This was before the Union Navy became a literal river killing machine. It’s early in the war, so this steamboat captain was likely a civilian ship hired by the Union to transport soldiers. He’s not sworn to the Union. He is also just some guy, and this steamboat is either owned by him or by his boss. And he ain’t gonna risk his civilian vessel on the Union’s dime. So if he, as the captain, said he ain’t gonna sail the river at night? That’s it. He knows Colonel Turner can’t do anything about it.

– Donelson was a victory boost for the Union because Grant showed his first spark of genius. Also, as the war was not going for the Union, a victory, any victory was needed to increase overall morale.

– This was before nightmares like Shiloh, when the war probably seemed to both sides of the conflict as relatively quaint. Imagine the Union newspapers. [We captured a fort!] This was big news in a military conflict for the past hundreds of years. In the past thousand years of war, it might take years to besiege a fort and take it. Grant did it quickly, it made his name, and his overall command of the army in the West. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could really realize what was coming. Two months later: Shiloh.

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Epstein revisited: “is there a global leader who’s not a closet felon?”

I wrote this original post seven years ago. SEVEN. Why did it take so long for the global elite to catch up to what was the exceedingly obvious even back then? Because they were all in on it. I wrote this in August 2019. After seven years it’s still a thing. Everyone is still covering their ass.

For the seven people and the squirrel who have been regular readers of this blog over the years, I’m going to try and start posting a bit again. Who knows if I’ll actually do it. But I have a travel post on my mind, we’ll see. I kinda of have to do it though. My Guests are telling me if I don’t reguarly post again they’ll pull the phone books out of the coat closet again. We can’t have that.

In the meantime, bathe in the misery. Those who are driving are horrible people. We’re all doomed.

Hope everyone enjoys the game tonight. This is why sports exist.

is there a global leader who’s not a closet felon?
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Civil War – 07 November 1862 – it’s always absolute misery

I was reflecting on things earlier today since it’s getting colder tis the season. I remembered my Grandfather did Christmas 1944 at the Bulge. A human brain cannot possibly imagine the frigid temperatures, lack proper food and water, the ferocity of the battle on both sides. It’s beyond us. And yet, all those on all sides did it.

In Terminator 2, Arnold delivers one of his best lines ever. Made even more poignant by the fact he’s a robot delivering the sentence in an absolutely total deadpan way. While the children play with toy guns in the background, in slow mow. “It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves.”

[please excuse any typos; I am transcribing from a book (remember those?)]

Private Day, Company B, 25th Massachusetts, 07 November 1862:

By morning the storm had abated but there were about two inches of soft snow or slush and some of the boys were barefoot, having worn out their shoes and a good many were nearly, or quite sick. The surgeons looked over the regiments, sending the sick and bare-footed abord the gunboats for Plymouth, for which place the troops were bound. The order of exercises for today was a march back to Williamston … but I had been a little under the weather for a day or two and I was with the others aboard the little gunboat Hetzel where we were greatly sympathized with the Marines who seemed to think we had a pretty hard time of it and show us every favor …

The Civil War was a just war. But for the average soldier it was misery. Absolute misery. I could go on and on; but I’ll let Private Day’s words speak for themselves.

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kindly view a science fiction movie on site

So, imagine you were a loser like me and were watching a D grade science fiction movie in your late teens. It’s winter, like it soon will be, so you’re curled up under a warm blanket with a female teenager at a friend’s house in the basement with like a dozen others. This is the best part of the forthcoming celebration of Halloween. The most overmarketed and destructive ‘holiday’ in human history (until you see how happy your niece is on site). Then you’re totally down with it.

Horror is the film type on vacation tis the season. But let’s say you instead watch a science fiction movie because the teen dude hosting the get together puts a science fiction movie on instead of horror. Because he’s even more a not sure how life works loser than you. And he just doesn’t get it. (PS I can’t stand horror movies; I hate watching humans suffer in any way)

In the opening scene of the movie the aliens bombard a human colony and kill millions. And everyone in the room is unhappy, but it’s the beginning of the movie and so everyone accepts the plot. Everyone intellectually accepts it. Then after about two hours you get to know the protagonists. You like them, they have a story. Then the aliens kill them all and everyone in the room is screaming.

Why do I write this nonsense? Have a look, because the fun of this post is over, I’m so, so sorry:

Everyone (the media and politico losers) is horrified that Trump (that guy they all hate) has let the military kill south of one hundred supposed drug dealers. If you know anything about the maritime world, you know these are not fisherman. Watch the video. These boats serve one purpose, but the press is stupid, so they can claim ‘fisherman’ on the craft that has two to four turbo outboards.

Drugs have killed millions of Americans for decades. Is it our fault? Nobody makes you get high. Supply and demand. If Americans want drugs, the bad guys will always find a way. These strikes aren’t even a rounding error. They simply mean nothing.

I used to think that legalizing everything was the answer. If you’ve been a reader of this awful blog, you’ve heard me write about it long ago. But now I’m no sure, modern opioids are off the scale in terms of immediate lethality. What’s the answer? I have no idea. But I’m pretty sure whether you are okay with it or not that a few dozen exploded drug boats ain’t gonna solve anything. Nor is complaining about it neither.

Millions of Americans have died from drugs. Everybody shrugs like it’s a science fiction movie. South of one hundred drug dealers get spiked and everyone is horrified. Umm? There’s got to be another answer, on both opinions. Either we find it, or Americans keep dying.

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birds can be your alarm clock, even now

Why is the sound of a rooster so much a part of popular culture? Or, at least when there was a thing called popular culture before culture disintegrated into 734 different things. The answer is of course in 328AD there were no clocks or watches. You got up when the rooster woke up, or when the Sun came up. That was it. Human brains were dialed into it.

It wasn’t until like the 18th Century when doing your own timekeeping became a thing. In the early industrial age, factory towns would have the factory sound the whistle to signal that it was time to get up and go to work. How gross was that? It’s like having your Monopoly Man boss wake you up with a revolver to your head and telling you to get up whilst also telling you that the milk in your ice box is super nice.

We’re back! After an unexplained 3,287 year absence. Why? We have no idea. Other than that my Guests somehow found another phone book. But if we disappear again, don’t be surprised. I have the procrastination factor that a sloth would envey.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping right lately. When the alarm clock on my cell goes off, I turn it off and want to sling that thing out the window so hard that squirrels will file felony assault charges on me.

But you know what? It’s really weird. It’s like my body is used to getting up before the alarm clock goes off. Either because the Sun comes up, or the birdies start chirping. That’ll get me up. Where I live, the birdies can start chirping around 5am. And not in a way that send me to squirrel court. It’s a little weird, even ancient, and I like it. Will it last, who knows, but I hope it does.

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on fast cars driven by slow drivers

Eh, I guess we’ll talk about cars again. We’ve covered just about every other topic on this degenerate blog over the many, growing years. I’ve noticed a growing trend. Or perhaps my patience has become more exhausted, by the reality of people having the most expensive of cars, and driving them like they’re a 1984 Honda Accord held together by duct tape.

My car is a pile of junk. It’s missing hubcaps (damn you Toyota for not fixing this decade long known problem), the left side rear view mirror requires replacement. I have battery problems that nobody seems to know how to fix. But you better believe when I get on the road my ass is moving. Part of this is my personality. I’m the asshole at work who wants to take steps two at at time just to get it over with.

But also, an additional point of my personality is cars are point a to point b endeavor. Get it over with. I sure do love listening to sports radio in the car. But do you know what I like even more than sports radio? Not being in the car to begin with. So I vastly exceed the posted speed limit on every occasion offered. It’s a wonder on my bank account over say the last decade, have I given more money to local municipalities for traffic camera speed violations or to Catholic Charities? I’d be scared to look.

But then you get the folks in the real go getter cars. The ones that are four or five times more expensive than mine, with the fancy engines, and probably with the leather seats, and the computer screen that’s bigger than the tv I took to college. And they drive like they’re 87 years old and blind, in the left lane, as slow as they can be. I’ve noticed the worst offenders lately are those driving Teslas. Like they’re afraid to hurt their environmental statement baby.

Gee wiz, what’s the point of having a fast car if you drive it like a golf cart? You might as well buy my clunker. Put the pedal down and get your monies worth. Some out of work liberal arts major has gotta do more human thought process experiments about this, as to why these people shelve out all that money, and then never use the capability they bought. It’s like you buy a blender that’s so strong it can disintegrate granite. But you only use it to chop up bananas? Why?

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car alarms are apparently still a thing?

When I was growing up, it seems almost everyone had a car alarm, or that club tool thing that went around the wheel.  Or a rapid ferret that lived in the car, and would bite and infect any robber who sat in the driver’s seat.  Then these devices seemed to have faded from my memory.  In the last few days though I have had several encounters with this technology that have reawakened my knowledge of car alarms.  This brings to mind several key points:

1) What’s the rate of car theft nowadays anyways?

2) Are there more or less car alarms than there were say 20 years ago?

3) If the use of anti-vehicle theft technology is still there, is an audible car alarm the best method?

I mean, I parked in a commercial garage where the cars are packed in there with about as much space between spots as needed for a twelve year old to squish through.  So I accidently hit the rear view mirror of this guy’s SUV which was the size of a main battle tank.  So I pushed his rear view mirror back into place, and this, this infinitesimal action sets off the loudest car alarm known to man.  You could probably have heard this thing from the Moon.  What a loser.

So let’s get into the data:

1) Per FBI statistics, in the year 2000, the motor vehicle theft rate was 412.2.  In 2019 it was 219.9.  In other words, the rate of theft dropped by half.  An interesting note is that: “The average dollar loss per stolen vehicle was $8,886”.  Even a new cheap vending machine car costs like $20K nowadays.  So that means the average stolen vehicle is a used piece of shit.  I equate this to that older and cheaper vehicles are easier to steal, and are likely parked more frequently in high crime areas.

Also, newer vehicles, like the main battle tank I made mad, likely have many, many anti-theft technologies that make them almost impossible to steal.  The days of hotwiring a car like you’re David Hasselhoff are over, folks.  But if you’re a thief and your target is a 2004 Honda Accord, you can probably pull that off pretty easily.

2) I could not locate (and/or am too lazy) definitive statistics on if car alarms or more or less common than in say, 2000.  But let’s break this down for a second.  A car alarm is there so that:

a) Bad guy or gal gains entry into vehicle by any means (window break, jimmy door open, teleportation)

b) Car realizes that said entry into vehicle is wrong, decides to turn on alarm

c) Car makes a bunch of loud noises and flashes its lights to get attention of nearby bystanders

d) Nearby bystanders telephone law enforcement who show up and either stop theft in progress or at least know theft has happened (maybe witness got the plate number)

The problem is does step (d) even happen anymore?  I don’t think so.  I make absolutely no attempt to look in the general direction of a car alarm that’s going off.  It’s just ambient background noise.  It can be very annoying if one is close by, but I generally ignore it.  I attribute this to:

a) Nobody gives a damn anymore, nobody cares if somebody else’s car is getting boosted; I attribute this as a part of a broader decline in Americans totally not caring about their neighbors, the smartphone is calling, after all

b) Car alarms go off so often, essentially a series of false alarms, that people never think it’s for real; I bet 99.9% of the times a car alarm has gone off in history, it’s a false alarm

To me, this means that car alarms are essentially ineffective, and thus, a gimmick sold by grifters to fools who don’t understand the concept of crime deterrence and anti-theft technology in modern America and its cars.

3) As always, we a TAP are here to help.  We have demonstrated in intricate, wise detail above, how the modern audible car alarm does not work.  Here are ten better methods that actually will work, while keeping the noise down for the rest of us:

a) The aforementioned rapid ferret.  This method was effective in 1978, it can still work now.  We at TAP have ferrets to sell.  They have both rabies, and covid, and we will teach them to love you, and viciously attack anybody not you that sits in your car’s driver’s seat.  We even provide a custom play house in the back seat for ferret to live in.  If you’re interested in purchasing a ferret from us, please send cash, money order, or mint condition gold doubloons to:

The Arcturus Project – Weaponized Ferret Vehicle Defense Project (Program Lucius)

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria

b) You know those tubes that drunks have to blow into the car, so it starts, after the car verifies their blood ABV levels are legal?  In our version, you blow into the tube so the car verifies via DNA it’s you or your family member.  If not, a thermite charge located beneath the driver’s seat detonates.  Our tests (which we only used on crash test dummies, honest) show a painful burn fatality rate of the robber at 98%.

c) Allow your modern car’s anti-theft technology to just do its thing as designed.  Just don’t add the needless audible car alarm.

d) A smartphone app that lets you know if your vehicle starts moving and you’re not in it (this probably already exists).  Only our version includes the thermite charge, and an installed camera so you can watch the robber burn alive on your smartphone.  Then you can upload the video to your friends for their smartphone enjoyment, lol.

e) We install some type of twisted AI into your car ala Space Odyssey or that AI program that kicks everyone’s ass in Go.  When the robber gets in the driver’s seat, the AI realizes it’s not you.  The AI contacts the police, locks the car doors, disables the engine, and then subjects the robber to lessons in Western philosophy and on why theft is morally wrong, for a minimum of 30 minutes before releasing the car’s locks and thus the robber to the authorities.  If the cops get there early, they have to wait until the AI’s lecture is done.  The AI’s voice is Christopher Walken.

f) Please, help me.

g) Instead of an audible car alarm, use that white foam from Demolition Man that floods the entire car’s interior with protective goo.  When you get back to your car the robber will be trapped in there.  Then you can poke them with a stick until the fire department gets there to cut them out.

h) No, please, help me; they made me do this post; why?  why would they do that to me?

i) Don’t own a car to begin with.  This is not a realistic option for most, but it’s there.  I mean, think of how much harder it’d be for a thief to take your vehicle, if your vehicle was a camel, or an Imperial AT-ST walker.

j) Enjoy your day, friends.  Drive safe!

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on the proceedings of an ongoing criminal enterprise

It’s hard to escape the taint of dirty money in modern society.  Hell I watched three NFL games yesterday and all 32 team owners are some of the most scuzzy dudes on the planet.  But I still watch.  These dudes have their hands all over the public till.  I think New York State just gave the Bills like a $1B for the new stadium.  I wonder if that money, could say, be used to hire more NYC subway cops?  But nah, the billionare needs it more.

So I guess I can somewhat understand how billions of humans are just going to straight ignore the criminal farce of Qatar hosting the World Cup, and enjoy themselves the games.  After all, in the grinding routine of life, a good ball game with family and friends sure does hit the spot.  But make no mistake, these games were bought via bribes to FIFA by a corrupt petro dictatorship with stadiums built using non union indentured slave labor.

It’s like asking the Klingons to host the Olympics after they drop a battlecrusier’s worth of gold pressed latinum onto the doorsteps of the IOC.  Just like FIFA, the IOC would take the money, and Kronos would host the games.  Only the Klingons have additional (not optional) demands.  Those who do not qualify in Heat 3 of the 100M butterfly have to subject themselves to the pain stick lineup ritual.  When asked, why that specific Heat, and that specific event, the Klingons get all angry and throw half full blood wine mugs at the IOC goons’ faces.

When you leave out the slave labor, there are only a little under 400K actual Qatari citizens.  It’s as if Cleveland, and only Cleveland, hosted the World Cup entirely on its own.  It’s patently absurd, but then again, so is bold faced open international bribery in front of the whole planet.  And FIFA is still telling the planet to just embrace the suffering.  Here’s a great article from Defector on FIFA goon Gianni Infantino essentially claiming he’s all things to all people, including a Klingon, and how it’s ok to worship Satan, so long as you have feelings, real like, people feelings.

This type of immoral world where anything goes so long as you can be bought, and then talk your way around it afterwards, it’s what makes dudes like Vlad and Xi swoon.  This is the world they want us all to live in.  And a bunch of people are just fine to go along with it.  Just ask Budweiser (an all American brand owned by a Brazilian / Belgian brewery conglomerate hedge fund) who got knee capped at the last moment on alcohol sales.  What was Bud expecting?  When you do a deal with the Klingons, don’t be surprised when they fuck you over on a whim and laugh to your face about it.

Enjoy the games, folks.  Take what joy you can.  There’s nothing you can do to fix Qatar or undo the corruption.  So enjoy the month long ride as some of the planet’s most elite athletes duke it out for their homelands glory and honor.

My prediction?  Hell, I don’t know shit about soccer / futbol.  I couldn’t name you a single player on the American team.  I do know they’re going nowhere.  Because for top high school atheletes in America, soccer is their seventh sport of choice.  So who wins?  Uh, um, Argentina?  I think I heard Messi this is his last World Cup, so he’ll play hard?  And Argentina’s usually good aren’t they?  So, I dunno, fuck it, Argentina.

behold: a future Qatari high school futbol stadium Circa 2027 that will look like it was built in 1964