Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar’s February, 2010 capture was heralded here at the Lake, as “one serious motherfucking success.” Yesterday, the NYT reported (h/t Raw Story) that — and when will ever learn? — we’ve been jacked again by Pakistan’s decades-old Double Game.

Pepe Escobar, unlike his denser American colleagues, makes great use of myths and metaphors in his reportage. As he says in his new piece for Asia Times Online, ‘Surge’ smoke follows Petraeus to AfPak, “Anyone who buys Pentagon spin believing the same successful “surge” will happen in the Pashtun south and southeast of Afghanistan must have smoked Hindu Kush’s finest.”

Scarecrow, commenting on emptywheel’s post on the Kagan hearings, has shown us the way to deal with juggernauts of all kinds. Problems of mythic proportions demand commensurate responses, right? Since it’s the power of perverted narratives that has gotten us into this Waste Land, simply by recognizing and reclaiming that power, we can get the Hell out of *here.*

Jon Stewart and his crew at The Daily Show are among the best myth-busters ever. Last night’s broadcast was a double feature: busting the blatant myth-making by Obama in his Oval Office address; then going all the way back to Nixon to bust the myth of America’s imminent move to energy independence.

How is it possible that one person may willingly give up their own life for someone they may never meet? Surprise at altruistic acts comes from overemphasizing the exclusivity of the self-other divide. Who says we are absolutely and eternally divided to begin with?

“President Obama ran, and he carried the hopes and dreams of young Americans with him. I would tell him, should I meet with him face to face, is to be a man, take control of this situation, ‘cuz this is totally out of control,” Louisiana Shrimp Assoc. Pres. Clint Gidry said on this morning’s broadcast of Democracy Now!. Dear brother, who says it was in control to begin with? And who controls the controllers? Do we dominate, or dance with, Mother Nature? Alan Watts provides an illuminating perspective.

Jeff Kaye’s discovery, that the American Psychological Association has recently engaged in a bit of historical engineering, besides busting this latest attempt at manipulating our shared narrative, also brought out the best in many commenters. The thread should be read by anyone interested in the psychology of what ails us today.

CarolynC, in her excellent post titled The Daily Show as Cultural Criticism, focusing on a TDS bit (by Jason Jones) lampooning the antics of macho men busting bricks for Jesus, has highlighted a symptom of what ails us today. Why are we so effed in the head? It’s the mythology!

Noam Chomsky, way back in 1959, busted B. F. Skinner’s myth of radical behaviorism as the one true path to predicting and controlling human behavior. In an interview published today by Guernica (h/t Alternet), Chomsky again busts a myth at the heart of what ails us today: that of the sacrosanct use of violence by the US to shape the world according to our self-worshiping will.

Pepe Escobar’s latest article for Asia Times Online, The American Taliban are coming, deconstructs the “official” myth-making regarding the failed Times Square bombing, looks into the worldview of neo-jihadis like Faisal Shahzad, Dhiren Barot, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and sees blowback on America’s horizon.