Good Morning Syria! China, and Dreaming of Roasting Donald Trump

Paul Krugman
Gail Collins

"Michele Bachmann referred to Planned Parenthood as the LensCrafters of abortion. Then it got worse when she referred to Massachusetts as the Sunglass Hut of gay marriage." – Conan O'Brien

"Political experts are saying NBC should take 'Celebrity Apprentice' off the air because if Trump runs for president, he could use it as an unfair platform. Because nothing says 'leader of the free world' like someone who can't stop a fight between Meat Loaf and Gary Busey." –Conan O'Brien

"It's the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. A new poll found that 23 percent of Americans sympathize with the Confederacy. They are described as 'not African-Americans.'" – Conan O'Brien

It's good to see that their probation period is over, and now Conan O'Brien is paying his joke writers a regular wage. If left on his own, the poor boy is so, so unfunny...

Hot, breaking news, if you are from Syria: President For Life Bashar al-Assad went on television this morning and announced that the decree of martial law that has been in effect for the last 50 years will be rescinded by sometime next week, so stop protesting and get back to work, you ungrateful rabble! Mr Assad, nicknamed the Rand Paul of the Middle East, made the announcement because he couldn't figure out any other way to please the growing crowds protesting outside of his door, and, horror of all horrors, some were even chanting for a regime change. Wanting to portray a paternalistic yet tough guy image, marketing an image he hopes will endure for another 50 years, Bashar: "...warned there will no longer be "an excuse" for organizing protests after Syria lifts the emergency laws and implements reforms.


"After that, we will not tolerate any attempt at sabotage," he told the newly formed Cabinet in a televised address." That's right, those Syrians who just want to sleep through the night without getting arrested are now being called saboteurs. If he called them terrorists, it could be construed as a call for jihad by Sunni al-Qaeda against the Shia Syrian government...

Notice how low profile Iran has become. They are stuck with the quandary of wanting to support the Shia who are protesting in Bahrain against the Sunni government, while beating down their own protesters who come out in favor of this. Now, there are predominantly Shia protesters in Syria chanting for freedom against another Baath Party dictator in Syria. As the major Shia majority in the Middle East, Iran seems diminished by the intensity and fervor of the protests, which are creeping into Saudi Arabia. the Saudis are backing themselves into a corner and things may backfire against them. They have been focused on building a Sunni coalition against Iran, but the protests today, against lack of freedoms and corruption in governments, are also stirring inside the Kingdom. The royal family that matters are mostly old folks set in their ways, and not able to see how they must change how they rule, and give up more of the money from selling oil... Who would have thought that the day would come when the leaders of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco would show everyone how to lead the way forward without shooting your citizens... Of course, Syria could take it one step further and outlaw the GOP of the Middle East, the Baath Party, like they have just done in Iraq. Although the Iraqis are pretty busy creating new forms of dictatorships and warlords with their own private militias, getting ready for those peaceful times after the Americans have gone.

The rulers of China, a bunch of right-wing reactionaries all, have gone around the bend and are living in a world of instant insanity. They have arrested 57 more people who were associated with human rights activities, on top of the others previously arrested within the last few months, to sit in jail without being charged of a crime, or face some bogus trumped up charge like crimes against the ego of the state... What I don't understand, is why this generation of old Chinese men are so afraid of a little bit of criticism. After all, the generation before them were up there at the top of paranoid politicians along with Hitler and Stalin, Mao was such a dry, crusty-assed SOB that he had to have soldiers stick their hands up his butt to retrieve the dry, humorless pellets he produced. Why continue on this vein, or this prolapsed colon, if it produces the same crappy society? Doesn't each generation have a responsibility to make things better, unless you are Paul Ryan? Or is the system able to suck the compassion and imagination that is needed to be a good leader? Oh, that does explain the GOP's consistent approach to politics...

One of the most frustrating things to being a nobody blogger that no-one has ever heard of, besides the fact that the Huffington Post will not reply to my emails, is that I can never get to ask people in the news questions. The closest I get to seeing anything similar to my opinions, is when John Stewart makes fun of some blowhard politician after the fact. None of the talk shows on the weekends have normal-yet-interesting people to talk with their pundits. I have friends that are a lot more fun to talk to than Wolf Blitzer, and more insightful than a Sarah Palin or Eliot Spitzer. Currently, I want to be there the next time that the arrogant know-nothing Donald Trump has an interview. I don't even mind it if he bashes Barack Obama, but I do mind that there isn't anyone talking back and calling him on his load of BS... I guess he feels that the kind of people who watch his television show are Jerry Springer rejects without a brain in their heads, and he is pandering to their level of trash talking, dangerous for man who has gone bankrupt several times and has a fetish for Eastern European blonds, real or imagined... The latest Trumpism is his claim that it was Bill Ayers who actually wrote his book Audacity of Hope. This is because Donald, and all of the current bevy of politicians, from Sarah to Pawlenty to Romney, all have used ghost writers; otherwise they would all come off as illiterate jerks... I know that people are predicting that donald would shake up politics if he did run for president, but I don't see it. Trump is a brand name and everything he does is a marketing tool to promote himself, hoping that would help him make more money. It may work on shallow celebrities who want to be his apprentice (note - I have never seen the show, so I haven't the faintest clue what goes on), or it may work on the rubes who wander into his casinos, thinking they are in the lap of luxury as they are losing money by the fist-fulls... Donald's campaign would take that kind of marketing up to the next level, the presidency as a popular children's cereal, brought to you by the makers of levitra...

In the last few years there have been over 17,000 journalists who have lost their jobs, and schools like the University of Colorado at Boulder are getting rid awarding journalism degrees. That leaves the small time folk like myself willing to toil away for nothing, our only reward is going to bed at night, dreaming of roasting Donald Trump. A drug OD was not not the way to go, Giraldo...