You probably know about it already, but in case not, there’s a really bracing animated half-hour series on the F/X Network called Archer. It’s a spoof of the James Bond-type spy genre, which doesn’t sound too good, but never underestimate what Adam Reed of Sealab 2021 can do with moldy genre spoofs.
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It’s that time of the year again when AIG’s executive bonuses are announced…and as every American raised on sitcoms knows, this means it’s that time in the show when the plot-twist causes the audience to gasp, and the camera cuts to a close-up of [NAME OF HORMONALLY-CAPABLE ACTOR-OF-COLOR] who delivers the viewer-pleasing catchphrase: “It’s outraaaaageous!” (more…)

Listen to this radio interview as Mark Ames talks to Antiwar.com radio host Scott Horton about Russia, the fuckups in the White House, how Larry Summers screwed the entire world up, and what Libertarians and the Left have in common. (more…)

Mark Ames appeared on the great Chuck Mertz radio program “This Is Hell” straight out of Chicago. They discuss blood-sucking bankers, the plusses and minuses of inhaling nitrogen gas, and why it’s all so fucking hopeless that we may as well join hedge funds ourselves. (more…)

Now I know what they mean when the media uses that word “outrage.” I saw it with my own eyes, during yesterday’s Congressional hearings with Tim Geithner. Turns out “outrage” refers to a ritual whereby Congressmen in Washington put on a kind of talent show on the TV to see who can play the role of Americans best. Then it’s all judged by the pundits, those connoisseurs of “Main Street’s outrage,” sort of like American Idol except that this is American Outrage. It’s really a lot of fun for everyone involved, and it’s useful too because this way, representatives can connect with us by actually pretending to act like they’re us–”outraged Americans”–which we’re told we are, and in fact, we are.  (The winning prize is more campaign money from the billionaires who are always on the lookout for talented politician-actors.) (more…)

This article was first published in The American Conservative, March 1, 2010.

If the last few decades prove anything about America’s strategy in fighting Islamic terrorism, it’s that no matter what the other side throws our way, America will respond in the most counterintuitive and self-destructive manner imaginable.

The routine goes something like this: if America is attacked by terrorists from Country A, then our response will be to bomb the hell out of Country Z, in which Z equals a doormat of a country whose sole purpose is to provide an easy, morale-boosting win. This strategy has produced mixed results, from total failure to complete catastrophe, depending on variable Z. The doormats have turned out to be booby-trapped. (more…)

Gold coin issued by Nicholas Deak at the peak of the last gold boom

While working on my upcoming book out here in the High Desert, I went off on one of those research tangents that led me to an old Time article about the bizarre murder, 25 years ago, of a man Time once called “the James Bond of the world of money.” The murderer was a classic  ”lone nut” of the sort who conveniently appear every now and then to take out inconvenient people. But unlike other lone nuts who may or may not have been part of some bigger conspiracy, this particular lone-nut murderer–a homeless schizophrenic woman who somehow trekked thousands of miles to kill Nicholas Deak–creeped me out for very personal reasons. Back in 2002, when I was facing the scariest and most serious death threat in all  of The eXile’s 11 years, I was told exactly how I would be killed–and the details described to me have an eery similarity to the way Nicholas Deak was murdered.  (more…)

I promised this guy I’d review a new novel called Exiles, so the review could appear in eXiled and provide some sort of synergistic frisson in the universe or something. That was months ago and I still haven’t done it. Here’s why:

It may be that I will never send Iris this letter, Spiegel thought. But someday I will see her and we will talk about these things, and then she will know.

You see? That’s the last line of the novel. I peeked at it to see where the thing would end up if I actually read all 344 pages, and that’s the final kicker. Note how the contractions have all dropped out, always an ominous sign in any novel written after 1890. “I will see her, we will talk, she will know.” Straining for lofty effect by not writing I’ll, we’ll, she’ll—bad. Very bad.
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If President Obama wants to really understand why he got his ass handed to him in the Massachusetts Senate race—a defeat as shocking and strange as if Joe Lieberman was elected president of Iran—he might want to read one of the thousands of economic horror stories happening around the country every day, stories that have put most Americans in a very foul, desperate mood. Like this story out of a small town in northern Indiana, where a casket maker was forced to close down operations and lay off its 50 employees because Americans can no longer afford bury their loved ones, and instead they’re cremating their bodies to save money.

Even the dead are suffering in today’s economy. (more…)

Even the strongest Afghani brown can’t save Scottish junkies from the waking-nightmare that’s gripped them since December—when word first leaked out in the press of dope-fiends dropping dead from Anthrax-tainted heroin. Since December, press reports say there have been 14 confirmed anthrax poisonings among Scottish heroin junkies, and one in Germany. Eight of those have died. As any Irvine Welsh reader knows, the slums of Glasgow and Edinburgh are notoriously smack-plagued, so panic has no doubt hit copping centers in these towns especially hard. (more…)

My Uncle Louie always referred to Montgomery County, Maryland as “Monkey County”. I never knew why. Now that I am an attorney, I do.

I’ve learned the hard way that there are too many smirking chimps in Monkey County’s legal system. In the past, I was told by a Montgomery County judge that I couldn’t represent a client in Maryland (even though I am admitted to the Bar and may practice before any court in the Free State). In the same case, the judge refused to rule on any motion I made, without explanation. I later learned from a chance conversation in a Virginia courtroom that the judge, now fortunately retired, had been law partners with the opposing attorney and didn’t want to harm his case. The Maryland Bar Counsel, charged with policing local lawyers, saw nothing wrong with this. (more…)

Despite a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that executing the mentally retarded is unconstitutional, Texas has not stopped killing Gumps, according to this article in the Texas Observer.  Pretty much everything is present in this story to qualify Texas as institutionally racist, from a sissy-boy governor who does shit just to look tough to a failed public education system that literally can’t distinguish “retarded” from “Mexican.”  Because in Texas, apparently, we’d rather drive a shortbus of off-white, terrified retards over a cliff than let a murderer spend the rest of his life in prison (the horror!).

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This article was first published by AlterNet.

HESPERIA, CA—Say hello to the thing that could save our gas-guzzlin’ suburban lifestyle: affordable residential solar power that’s within reach of the most cash-strapped America consumer. This breakthrough is not a result of technological innovation, but a new financing scheme cooked up on Wall Street called a “residential solar lease,” a no-money-down, low-monthly plan that has made solar electricity cheaper than the stuff we get by wire. It’s an old approach to a new source of energy, and it is taking California by storm. (more…)

This article was first published in Alternet.

A lot of us have been wondering, despondently, why the Hell Barack Obama is keeping Timothy Geithner on the job as Treasury Secretary, given his central role in the plunder of trillions of dollars from American taxpayers, and his record of subverting democracy in the service of Wall Street billionaires. Geithner’s the guy that drove the getaway car in the heist — so why was he hired to run the Treasury? You’d expect to see a guy as corrupt as Geithner serving as the Finance Minister in some Central Asian autocracy — but not in Barack Obama’s government, not after all he promised in the campaign. (more…)

This article was first published in The eXile on February 19, 2004.

Haiti popped into the news again, and I decided it was time to tell the whole military history of the place. It’s got to be the most amazing, bloodsoaked, heroic, messed-up story in the Western Hemisphere: slave armies defeating Napoleon’s troops, huge castles built in the middle of the jungle, endless three-cornered war between whites, blacks and mulattos…it’s just incredible. In fact, it’s so wild and complex I’m going to have to divide it into two columns. This one will cover Haiti up to independence in 1803. Next issue I’ll bring it from there to the present.

Haiti is like the big slaughterhouse across the tracks: you kind of know what goes on in there, but you’d rather not think about it. (more…)