Pelosi Pandemonium

**Update**

The handiwork of the protesters can be seen in this delightful video. Heads up, NSFW language. You do catch a glimpse of the elderly lady sporting a "Victory to the Taliban" sign, though, so that's classy.

**Update**

My bleeding heart credentials notwithstanding, I've apparently become a target of the liberal protest-elite.

Lining up for the JFK, Jr. Forum event featuring Speaker of the House Mamcy Pelosi a few moments ago, I drew many a scowl from the threadbare swarm of Pelosi-etc-protesters. Hand-fashioned signs proclaiming that the "Kennedy School Supports US Wars" plodded alongside Kinko's-grade B&W double-sided pleas to "Stop The Afghanistan War."

NB: The "O" in "Stop" was appropriated from a certain democratic campaign last year (snap!). Also, I doubt that the union bugs at the bottom of each sign came from a union shop.

I'm not merely sarcastically describing my own rhetorical "crew." Protest is a sacred expression of civil disobedience (thank you, French forebears), and I think everyone should give it a shot now and again.

However, bringing five buddies to stand outside of a speaking event, with no substantive agenda or force behind your presence, seems to sap the strength of "the cause."

There are indubitably some baseline rules that bind political parties together:

1. We don't have to agree about everything to be in the same party;

2. Everyone has the right to hold their elected officials accountable; and

3. The biggest volunteers on any campaign will always have a marked impact on the bizarre-o factor in the room.

One common sense lesson that supercedes all of that, for whatever my opinion is worth, is, "If you're going to do something, do it right."

Anyway. 50 minutes in and still no Speaker. What sound do twiddling thumbs make, again?

Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes

Heavens to Murgatroyd! The collapse of the United States, even!

It appears that the 21st Century's Tiresias is Russian and has finally been acknowledged for his dedicated ranting and lunacy spanning his entire career.

This Ruskie's here to burst your collective bubble, bitches: the Unites States is on the brink of undoing that meddlesome Abe Lincoln's Federalist malarky. For those of you unfamiliar with the soothsayer in question, I present to you the star of Russia's Diplomatic Academy of Foreign Affairs, Professor Igor Panarin:



Talk about your Level 3 Sex Offender. This is the kind of guy who duct tapes himself to his leg before going to a candy store.

The professor's debaucherous tendencies make him quite well suited, however, to identify the characteristics of an empire whose imminent collapse could put the Romans to shame.

Panarin's neat, Nostradamian example of analytical chutzpah (scratch that, Russians don't like Jews) is built upon his deft (dare I say ingenious?) reading of America's economic tea leaves:

"Panarin said in the interview that the financial crisis will worsen, unemployment will rise and people will lose their savings -- factors that will cause the country’s breakup." (ibid)

He gets a "Sassy Winkey Face" sticker for this week's Succulent Statement of the Obvious. Nothing like watching CNN International for 5 minutes and then passing off your rant as authoritative commentary.

I'll be the first to tell you that I'm a cynical bastard. However, two things are holding me back from believing Professor Panarin:

As former Press Secretary of ROSCOSMOS, Russia's Federal Space Agency, Panarin described his information policy's "propaganda" [sic] as breaking new ground into anti-US territory (how gauche!).

These modern-day seers are a dime a dozen, and both sides of the Divide employ them. Lest ye forget, I'll end this post with a brief history lesson before you apply for a Visa to visit Michigan. Please remember the downfall of Dr. Avery Lexington, former American Foreign Policy Paramour whose final prediction sealed the lid on his career's coffin:

“The policies emerging under Russian President Vladimir Putin hold the potential for building stronger democratic institutions as well as for radically shifting regional norms to ease tensions in the Caucuses!”