You appear to be new here, so let me be among the first to welcome you to the “Unlucky 13 Club”. You see, throughout the ages, societies have been grouped into 3 primary categories:

• 2% – Rulers, powers-that-be (PTB), oligarchy, imperialists, corporatists, etc. They figured out the system long before anyone else, and devoted their energies to maximizing returns at the expense of others.
• 13% – Intelligent outsiders, who come a little late to the party and are shocked to discover previously unfathomable levels of corruption inherent in the system — investigating, researching, and communicating our outrage to other members of the “Unlucky 13 Club”.
• 85% – The real world, comprised of lower & middle-class ‘citizens’ who busy themselves each day dealing with life’s challenges. These include, but are not limited to: working/earning a living, paying taxes, paying bills, raising families, dying in wars, etc. They perceive they are being manipulated & screwed by the upper 2%, but simply don’t have the necessary cognitive abilities (IQ) to figure out complex systems. So, they shrug their shoulders, hope for heaven, crack open a beer & sit down to watch Idol or their favorite professional sports.

Question: Which of the two latter groups would you rather be in? (The upper 2% is off limits by its very nature – if you’re not already part of the 2% Club, you will never be part of the 2% Club.) Of course, it’s a rhetorical question, because anyone with an IQ of 120+ is already part of the Unlucky 13; that is, it’s impossible not to understand what is occurring.

So here we sit, watching the world go by. The status quo is being maintained and the thievery continues unabated. And here I sit picking out items of interest from across a broad spectrum of topics that interest us all and posting excepts & links for our mutual amusement.

Of course, it could be worse: you could be one of those dickhead stenographers posing as a legitimate mainstream journalist and having to cover all this shit up, or worse yet, somebody like Alan Grayson, who really, really seems to care what is going down. Since he is powerless, he can only grind his teeth, shout indignantly, and exacerbate his ulcer.

Personally, the proper course of action is to so retard one’s cognitive abilities via psychotropic drugs that you voluntarily bring your IQ down to around 90 so as to properly enjoy the many entertainment options made available to the masses.

So, welcome, whoever you are. I have a few simple rules…

• 1) In general, I don’t blatantly self-promote, although mentioning something once is not what I consider self-promotion.
• 2) I post links to news or opinion stories of interest, and links of value. I may or may not add my own commentary or additional links or media.
• 3) I don’t waste people’s time with repetitive postings or tweets that serve no purpose. I don’t double or triple post.
• 4) I don’t promote your product or service unless I find it of value to me. (See #3)
• 5) I am available as a consultant in the fields of : Education, Social Media & Journalism, and Online Community Management & Support.
• 6) I seldom work for free, although there are rare exceptions (convince me).
• 7) If you’ve got something to say about anything posted here, do it in the comments where everyone can see it. And use a real name and email address (the email addys are never displayed in public here).