The futures bright. Hopefully not mushroom cloud orange.

In February 2005 Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez accused America of entertaining ideas of political assasination whilst he himself was entertaining the Venezuelan people with his weekly radio and TV show. Now, 7 years on, he has upped the ante and brought nuclear war into the equation by blaming the United States for possible nuclear war in the Middle East.

Once again using his weekly TV and radio broadcasts he has pointed his big chubby finger at the United States, accusing them of inciting War, and this time there could be reason to his madness. Tensions between Tehran and the West have been increasing by the hour as more evidence of Iran’s determination to produce its own nuclear arsenal unsettles the (extremely temperamental) status quo. Only last week the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report on the Iranian nuclear program highlighting its fears and concerns about the military connotations of its program.

“The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme….. (The IAEA encourages Iran) to engage substantively with the agency without delay for the purpose of providing clarifications regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.” Worrying.  The report in its entirety is available here.

So there is concern in the West that The Republic of Iran is gearing up for weapons capabilities. What that capability represents in terms of stability in the Middle East is a hornets nest, and a nest that Hugo Chavez believes the Americans are going to possibly eradicate with a big red button. To make matters worse the rhetoric coming out of Tehran is not exactly passive. Ahmadinejad is not known for bowing to pressure. During last years rounds of political pressure and sanctions he had this to say.

“They know that there is a sleeping lion in Iran which is waking up and if she wakes up all the relationships in the world will change. Their (The West) pathetic acts show they know what a great human power is hidden in Iran.”

With Iran being provocative in its flaunting of increased nuclear capabilities and The United States adamant on preventing nuclear proliferation proliferating further, then perhaps Chavez, although delusional with his cries of nuclear war, is not so far off the mark with his war prediction. Britain has already stepped up its military plans for Iranian (specific, nuclear targets) attack by examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and tomahawk laden submarines. And then there is America and Israel.

Whether Israel has the capabilities to destroy the nuclear facilities of Iran sufficiently enough to put back the nuclear program, or indeed stop it all together or not, talk of attack is already advanced. As recently as early November the Israeli cabinet was discussing attacks on Iranian facilities in the immediate future; a strategy that has been met with both support (by Iranian Prime minister and Defence secretary Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak respectively) and opposition. Any attack from Israel would be, as Iran has often stated, see retaliation against America.

And what of America? With an election looming and a population, for all their patriotism, which must be growing tired of war after war – four and counting – Americas current administration must fear another invasion, and that’s without even bringing the cost of war during a possible double dip recession into question. The population would be against it, parts of Capital Hill would be against it, the battle weary would be against it and with every escalation of war, the stakes are rising. Should Iran be invaded then the outcome is earth shattering. China and Russia have been supplying weapons for years and China is Irans biggest buyer of Oil, indeed most of China’s imported oil comes from Iran. So whose side are they on? For any security council sanctions to come to fruition then full council support is needed. With China and Russia holding vetos, there is… oh, about Fat Chance of anything coming to pass there.

Should Iran get the bomb then The West could see a cataclysmic shift in oil distribution from the Middle East, especially, as many commentators point out, the real victims of Iran obtaining fully functional nuclear weapons would not be Israel but Iran’s other close neighbours: UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The picture is bleak. But not as bleak as the one below.

Alledged American military prescence. Iran is surrounded.

Europe maybe collapsing around the very foundations of the monetary mechanism that was imagined and constructed to unite, unify and catapult the EuroZone to the very head of the financial world table, but we don’t have time for that at the moment. First we have to trawl our way through the weeks blame game.

We have coffee, Guns n’ Roses, The X-factor, basketball, serial killers and the President of The United States of America. What do they all have in common? Well, they have all been seduced and bedded by the Italian media, political, womaniser, seducer, bringer of chaos, football club owner, sex addicted megalomaniac and now, thank the Italian food Gods, EX-prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and they all have been pointing and taking the blame this week.

Blame is engulfing Obama, now its lazy people and foreign investment

In order of importance, lets start with coffee. OK, the US president, he is probably more important than coffee. Reading between the lines and creating something amusing out of what, in reality, was a meandering piece of sleep inducing sedativity we are left with the cold-hard reality that the one-term President has blamed lazy, good-for-nothing Americans for the financial maelstrom which is sweeping the modernised world into the proverbial shit-tank. Kind of.

“We’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades”

Really Mr President? Who has been a bit lazy? The people? Way to win a vote contest sir. As the rest of America sat around watching TV, drinking beers, smoking joints, sleeping, lying in bed all day and generally being lazy, the President was in Hawaii (alright for some) having a “scripted” conversation with Boeing CEO James McNerney. Is a scripted conversation what it sounds like? Two men reading a conversation to each other which has already been scripted. How wonderful it would be if that were true.

During the scripted conversation Mr Obama, aside from blaming laziness, was addressing the real problem, as he sees it, for the current lack of foreign investment in the United States. After actually physically arriving on American soil and passing the I’m a celebrity get me out of here bush tucker challenge styled,  jump, I say how high, give me your blood, your boots, your clothes and your motorcycle ivestment screening test, foreign investors then have to counter additional challenges to be given the US seal of approval to merely sell a few wicker arm chairs.

“Because of our federalist system, sometimes a foreign investor comes in and they’ve got to navigate not only federal rules, but they’ve also got to navigate state and local governments that may have their own sets of interests……Being able to create, if not a one-stop shop, then at least no more than a couple of stops for people to be able to come into the United States and make investments, that’s something that we want to encourage”

This isn’t the first time that Obama has blames economic problems on the obscure, only earlier this year he blamed ATM cash machines for the growing and uncontrollable unemployment rates currently afflicting the United States. This time he has at least but the blame on humans.

The evidence is wishy-washy as the current American governmental system is hardly a new one (by American standards). It’s a mixture of lazy people and difficult foreign investment administrative hoop jumping? Then why was the 1990s boom time? Between 1990 and 2001 foreign investment topped out at $300 billion, only to fall 66% in the following 2 years. A sudden case of weekday lie-ins?  Or just cyclical? US foreign investment climbed healthily again during the second term of Bush, only to plummet back down to $150 billion in the early days of the Obama administration. Ups and downs, swings and roundabouts.

Unfortunately for the President, when you call somebody lazy at the start of what you are saying, it doesn’t matter how economically or politically sound or weak your proceeding arguments may be, people stop listening after the word “lazy”. Did you?

The US government has paid out over 600 million dollars to dead people. Sometimes it pays to be 6-feet under

What a curiosity. It turns out that the best way to earn tax payers money these days is to be dead. In a tale of ineptitude that can be seen from the outer reaches of space, the US government has given out over $600 million to people who have been classified as having left this planet. Dead. Bereft of Life, bloodless, erased, expired, pushing up daises. They’ve met their maker, kicked the bucket. They are taking a dirt nap. They are toast, they are ice and they are rich people. Richer than you and me and they are D. E. A. D dead.

According to a report by the United States Office of Personal Management, over the past five years over $600 million in benefit payments have been paid to the aforementioned dead people by the federal government. The benefit payments are normally destined for retired or disabled federal workers but now dead federal workers can be added to that list.

Although the $600 million only covers the past five years, one case of incalculable ineptitude was unearthed that highlights the complete ludicrous incompetence of the benefit payment system. The case in point involved over $500,000 of payments to the son of a man who had died 37 years previously. That is not even close. The bungling impotence only came to light when the son died! Had the father still been alive to enjoy his payments, he would have been 138.

In a system of government which is currently sitting at $14.7 trillion in debt, $600 million accounts for a tiny fraction of the ineptitude. It takes a mighty fine amount of concentration to blow 15 trillion, so what’s a few hundred million between dead friends? But the problem is that this blundering hole in the distribution of federal payments was made aware to the government in 2005. 6 years ago. Have they managed to fill the hole? Having given away 600 million in 5 years, the answer would seem to be a resounding NO. Not only are the federal government made aware of a festering wound in the distribution of benefit payments, they fail to do anything about it. Take The Blame™ would like to point the finger at some pretty fearsome ineptitude.

Once upon a time the bank was the place for cash withdrawals. Now your money is safer here.

In all 6 attempts have been made to rectify the problem since an inspector general’s report revealed defects in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund in 2005, and not one of them has found a way to figure out the, one would have thought, fairly obvious singularity between death and life. Apparently it is too difficult to connect the death records with the benefit records. “Is he dead? yes, stop payment. Is he alive? yes, continue payment.” Mark Zuckerberg has connected 700 million computers, why can’t the federal government connect two?

***** ***** *****

What can $600 million buy you these days? How about Foursquare? No, bit boring? OK, How about 1 week of intervention in the Libya crisis? Thats how much the first week cost. It is what Nokia received from Apple for patent litigation. It’s what a botox maker paid for illegal marketing.

The last remaining crooner blames America for 9/11

Tony Bennett has an album coming out, its called Duets 2, only he uses roman numerals to say ’2′ because simply saying Duets 2 would be too easy. Now stupid people can think he means Duets 11. So he has a new album and to celebrate he went onto the Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show on Monday and said that America and its people were to blame for the 2001 September 11th terror attacks in New York. Sweet moves for an 85-year old crooner. He still knows how to seduce the ladies. The ineptitude? Using roman numerals when clear-as-day cardinal numbers would suffice and being controversial on national radio.

Appearing on Howard Sterns Internet radio station the singer was talking candidly about his time in France and Germany during the Second World War where what he saw apparently turned him into a pacifist in later life and perhaps helped put the swing in his croon. Things were going well, Bennett was being his candid yet charming self, Stern was being engaging and all were oblivious to what was about to come. And it was not the lyrics to a song from the album. Oh no.

Things taking a turn for the controversial worse could be an understatement, or not. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Not that bad publicity would affect records sales for Mr Bennett: currently hovering around 55 million, give or take. The politically weighted interview by-passed the 70s, 80s and 90s and arrived in present day America. Just what could America could do about modern day terrorists Mr Bennett? His response is making MGM-casino shaped waves ripple across Twitter.

“But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right. They flew the plane in, but we caused it. Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”

For more Tony Bennett pearls of wisdom, come here.

Would you invite this man to your BBQ?

As Arizona firefighters continue to tackle wildfires which have already burnt over 732,000 acres of land, a blame game is brewing which is only adding fuel to the flames. US senator John McCain has blamed illegal immigrants for starting some of the fires.

“There is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally“

What evidence? Well, Senator McCain is not saying. Speaking to CNN, the outspoken senator said that illegal immigrants started fires to send each other messages!!! WTF. Don’t they have mobile phones? Smoke signals? He also said that illegal immigrants started fires to keep warm and distract police officers. Again, evidence to back up these ludicrous claims? No. And as for keeping warm, the current temperature in Arizona? 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Keeping warm in a desert?

Is this a smoke signal or for keeping warm? Or just a wild, raging fire.

Without any public evidence to back up his claims of blame, there has been retaliation.  “People are looking for someone to blame. It’s easier to fan the flames of intolerance, especially in Arizona,” said Randy Parraz, a civil rights advocate and no stranger to Mr. McCain having successfully ran against him in 2010.

This isnt the first time Senator McCain has blamed illegal immigrants for life’s ills. In 2010 he blamed illegal immigrants for home invasions and murder. (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/john-mccain-immigration-reversal-complete-danged-fence/story?id=10616090)

Angelo Falcon, the president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, criticized McCain for what he called “increasingly blatant” political opportunism and in a letter to CNN, he said that Mr McCain, without releasing his evidence, may as well “blame aliens from outer space for the fires“. Hear hear.

Skynet will be happy. John Connor will be making an appearance any day now. The machines are coming; the robot wars will soon be upon us and the future for mankind is a bleak, ravaged, post-apocalyptic one. Automation is everywhere and people are becoming obsolete as the machines take the jobs. Well, at least as far as US president Barack Obama is concerned. In his latest interview with NBC news, the under-fire president blames ATM machines for ransacking the jobs of bank tellers and kiosks at airports for plundering the jobs of check-in employees. Unemployment is rising and the machines are to blame.

Setting out his stall early (after a brief message on the Weiner affair. Obama thinks he should quit.) with a clear overview of the 2 million jobs the economy has created in the past 15 months, President Obama then goes on to highlight some “structural issues” with the faltering US economy. Apparently a lot more businesses are becoming a lot more efficient with a lot fewer workers. Now, normally this would be praised as being really rather good business sense. Less spending; more profit. The perfect business model. But alas no. In today’s world, increased efficiency means more automation. Machines are not slack, they get the job done and that is one of the reasons the US economy is not going forward at the rate is should, according to Mr. Obama. The President puts it bluntly. There are no jobs because the machines have them all. Hmmmm..

According to Obama, this thing is responsible for taking all the jobs. Evil ATM

Economic policies are not to blame then? Obviously the President, as some would have you believe, is not blaming the 14 million unemployment figures solely on ATM bank machines, but he is highlighting something which every Sovereign leader has had to deal with since the goddamn stone-age monks invented the wheel. Humans are lazy, apathetic, plodding, rude and look for any excuse to cut a corner. They need lunch breaks and cigarette breaks and holidays and sick days and weekends and sleep. They need to be paid and fed and tolerated and nurtured and managed. It’s why Henry Ford invented the assembly line to get the best out of his ailing workforce and its why the Japanese took this one step further and invented assembly line robots to bolster their automobile output and hasten their meteoric rise to economic power.  To blame automation now is a fruitless, inept affair which lacks imagination. Come on Barack, you can do better than that. Can’t you?

Like love struck teenagers, Google and China are at it again.

In a very unsurprising piece of news, Google has blamed The Chinese for the hacking of online email accounts belonging to US officials. China, never one to admit to their wrong doings, has remained quiet and is perhaps considering kidnapping in retaliation to the blame.

That the Chinese are involved in underhand Internet espionage is about as surprising as a French politician being involved in a under the table extra marital affair, that is, not surprising in the slightest. What is surprising, or at least marginally more interesting, is that high level US official are using their online Gmail to store and send what, one assumes, is pretty important information. Next they will be posting photos of the Christmas party on their Facebook accounts. It’s inept, careless and downright ridiculous. Do these people not have a special, secure system for transmitting information? or at least someone upstairs to say, “you know what, online email isn’t the best way to send top secret information linked to national security.”

Obviously China are not the most open when it comes to discussing the Internet and Google have been known to partake in their own version of affairs over time, so getting accurate information about what has actually been hacked is as easy as obtaining a tourist Visa for North Korea. And about as welcome. What is known is that the accounts involved were connected to US political and military officials. Arnie and The Big Man perhaps? Arnie.gov@gmail.com anyone?

Google have said that there is no immediate problem with Gmail itself and that the accounts would have had their passwords and user names taken by the guilty hacking party. In reality, hacking is probably an over elaborate word for this affair and all the Chinese really did was guess a few passwords.

“Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities.”

Well that’s alright then.