Woe is unto the world. It doesn't know whether to shit or go blind. The rule of law has been replaced by Murphy's Law. The story in Greece gets more and more curious. One of the latest proposals is to ask holders of Greek bonds to go along with a voluntary rollover, meaning we will pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today, even though we already owe you for ten years of weekly hamburgers.
Odd how the financial innovation never ceases. This last great new idea: that bonds never really have to pay off, will do wonders for the bond market everywhere. People will clamor for bonds that come with no clear terms and probably no redemptions. Now, the buzz around the cosmic meme-sphere is saying fuggedabowt Greece, we're gonna do the same thing with Portugal and its sillyass bonds. Enter China.
Europe is about to enjoy the greatest monetary Chinese fire drill ever staged. Wen Jiabao will wave a magic wand and the Euro will fly above mundane reality on dragon wings allowing everybody in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy to hold a senior management job at the motor vehicle bureau with retirement at 53. Then, with 80 percent of their former pay, they can open cafes where people still working at the motor vehicle bureau can spend the better part of each afternoon sipping Ouzo and arguing politics, finance, sports... or just enjoying the antics of the boorish German tourists.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs's man in Europe, Mario Draghi, will take a seat in Jean Trichet's big chair at the European Central Bank around November of this year. It was Goldman Sachs, apparently, that erected a giant credit default swap house of cards for Europe to live in happily-ever-after - except in the event of a default accident, in which case Goldman Sachs would receive all the money ever printed on God's green Earth, plus commissions, premiums, penalty payouts, interest, and bonuses... and homeless Europe would then be welcome to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut - or make that a strawberry Bismarck! Personally, I don't see how the various players can delay some sort of crisis until November. The European currency experiment is a bust and too many big banks are just plain insolvent. Can Wen Jiabao launch another flying dragon that seeds the European skies with counterparty payoffs that will rain down from Dublin to Athens and keep everybody happy?
Don't get the idea that the USA can just occupy a grandstand seat and stuff its fat face with Cheez Doodles while the current act plays out in the center ring of the world financial circus. Plenty of intermingled American interests depend on how things work out over there, not the least of which is the fact that the International Monetary Fund is actually a proxy American bail-out operation. It worked just fine in the old days when its exertions focused on little urchin nations like Swaziland, but wait until the Tea Party hears that America runs twelve thousand cafes for European motor vehicle bureaucrats to while away the afternoons drinking Ouzo in. (At least maybe we can get them to drink Old Mr. Boston anisette liqueur instead.)
It does prompt one to think we might try something like that here. Would it not improve the national character generally if our citizens spent more time arguing politics in cafes than lying on the couch watching a TV figment named "Snooki" throw standing crotch-locks on every unemployed forklift driver in the mythical kingdom of New Jersey?
If I were Barack Obama, I'd think twice about presiding over this irresolvable muddle of engineered swindles, sinking prospects, booby-trapped budgets, and played-out lies for another term. Let Hillary step in and try to keep this leaky Flying Dutchman out of the drink. She's looking more and more like Winston Churchill physically every day now, anyway. Maybe she is acquiring something like his stolid habits of mind, too. If I were President Obama, I'd just call it quits and sign on with the home team: Goldman Sachs. He can have Mario Draghi's old job - chief of the international division. They'll love him in all those peculiar little countries where people wear hats that look like rat-traps and flavor their beer with the cocoons of nectar-sipping moths. They'll enjoy it when he forecloses on them, and maybe even ask for more. "Here, take our grandchildren's baby teeth, too!" I wish him and his beautiful family well in their new life as distinguished private citizens-of-the-world. I just hope Michele Bachmann and her probable running mate, Jesus, don't steal the next election. They'll rip out the Obamas' vegetable garden and put a Nascar track there so that all of Ms. Bachmann's 27 children can have jobs selling miniature bibles in the parking lot. ("Prayed over by qualified preachers twenty-four hours a day!")
By the by, many observers were amused by last week's cute trick of releasing sixty million barrels of oil from the world's strategic reserves at the rate of two million-a-day in an effort to pretend that the world doesn't have a basic oil production problem. It is, of course, at the bottom of the world's financial disarray, because if you can't increase energy inputs that feed an industrial economy you don't get growth and then the whole idea of compound interest falls apart because it is predicated on a perpetual increase in wealth. Hence, debt collapses in on itself. The world is caught up in an epochal contraction now, and it manifests in situations like the Greek emergency. But soon it will be a universal emergency.
The lesson, if I may be tendentious for moment, is that the human race is welcome at any time to begin living differently, at a smaller scale, much more locally, with fewer automatic machines doing all the work for us, and more time spent on useful and necessary activities than on television fantasies. Got a problem with oil? Don't imagine that you're going to run WalMart - or, for that matter, Goldman Sachs - on wheat-straw distillates. Something is in the air this week and it is making a lot of people very nervous. If you loaded up the old investment portfolio with shale gas stocks, I feel especially sorry for you.
First!
First!
Okay, damn! Second!
Oh, come on... Obama won't leave office until his "no banker left behind" program has ensured their profits forever.
This doomed juggernaut will probably chug along for another year, between the self-serving interests and the law of inertia that will desperately keep the U.S. Titanic afloat.
I'm glad I took the time to travel the entire USA by automobile a few years back and see all the sites over a 10,000 mile 6 week journey...
I'm sad that my dreams of traveling to see the world won't ever materialize with the way things are going...
Oh well, Just enjoy digging in the dirt.
PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.
Can I read the Witch of Hebron first, or do you have to read World Made by Hand first?
Currently Reading "OFF THE GRID" by Nick Rosen.
That's Bachmann-- 2 n's, the second one is for nitwit.
We are well and truly past the point of reversing this train wreck...now it's time to circle the wagons and get our sh*t together.
Heal your body so it can deal with the coming changes. Calm your mind so you can think clearly and adapt.
Wandering Sage Wisdom
"If you loaded up the old investment portfolio with shale gas stocks, I feel especially sorry for you."
A spot-on final comment there, JHK. According to an article in today's NYT science section entitled
"Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush" the shale gas plays are being questioned for their profitability by the energy businesses themselves. Not that that is news to us mind you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?hpw
Interestingly, China has just put in an order that will save Saab from shutting down as they were headed down the toilet: "Saab handed lifeline as carmaker wins order from Chinese company" http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/27/saab-lifeline-carmaker-chinese-order?INTCMP=SRCH
It seems China is now doing the old U.S. job of stepping in and saving foreign car makers. What's the world coming to? As if we didn't know...
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
-John Kenneth Galbraith
---------------------------------------
One of these days (or not) Jimmy boy is going to realize this applies to all his other areas of "expertise" in forecasting as well.
Oh so profound James; too bad the corporate oligarchy and their ilk have made frank dissemination of a reality-based national narrative so taboo.
http://www.gwabert.com/
"at a smaller scale". You just can't bring yourself to say government at a smaller scale too, can you? Your writings are slowly coming around to sounding like a Tea Partier yourself. Ain't life a bitch?
"Let Hillary step in and try to keep this leaky Flying Dutchman out of the drink. She's looking more and more like Winston Churchill physically every day now, anyway."
Except that Winston had cuter legs when he dressedup in his Order of the Garter outfit with the tight leggings and knee high socks! Also, not being impeded by Hillary's Methodism Winston could get away with drinking a fifth a day, starting with a whiskey and soda upon waking at 11am sharp each morning. If Hillary is to put up with all this nonsense she'll have to start emulating Winston's drinking habits as well.
One of the latest proposals is to ask holders of Greek bonds to go along with a voluntary rollover, meaning we will pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today, even though we already owe you for ten years of weekly hamburgers.
==
It's NOT about paying off debts. It's about keeping you a slave to the debt system so you keep paying the interest on money/credit that's created out of nothing with nothing to back it up except your stupidity and hard labor.
"If I were Barack Obama, I'd think twice about presiding over this irresolvable muddle of engineered swindles, sinking prospects, booby-trapped budgets, and played-out lies for another term. Let Hillary step in and try to keep this leaky Flying Dutchman out of the drink."
He does not know what to do, unless his owners tell him what to do, James. And Hillary will be no different...
sandy, kulturcritic
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/obama%E2%80%99s-new-war-fueling-the-spectacle/
Sad, really, does ANYONE remember when the US used to be a lender nation? Now its the biggest debtor nation on Earth.
And will Obama ever find the balls to challenge the Repubs on the "Job killing tax hikes" mantra? The answer is probably 'No'. What to the ultra rich do with thier tax cuts? Create jobs here? Ha-ha-ha!!! Perhaps in China, but what they really do is invest in hedge funds that will make them even richer. I don't see why anyone is arguing to keep the Bush tax cuts when the fed debt is such an obvious problem. Oh, thats right, No Billionaire Left Behind. Well, its all going to blow up sometime.
Still glad I left the USA, even if we have to unplug all the electronics here during lightning storms. But the mangoes are practically free, the avocados are soo cheap, and the food is fresh, ripe and NOT full of preservatives or insecticides. And I get my coffee from the local fincas. Ummm, bueno!
Hasta luego, hope you have a liferaft.
Wait, there's more! You left out the part about Fort Calhoun. And Jeff Master's review of weather for 2010 on weather underground. Wow!!!
Hey simple; Just abolish money altogether ... and everything else falls into place. Jack
Hillary should take up another of Winston's habits - Cigars.
She just has to roll over and ask Billary for a fresh supply while humming "to all the girls Ive loved before" while screwing herself down into a blue pants suit...
Yeah, that ought to do the trick... OR maybe a long vacation with Huma and her family...
With regard to the actions of the IEA last week. It was done to discourage oil speculation as thus enforce some sort of back-door control of oil prices. But speculation is an essential part of any advanced economy.
Some two millennia BCE one Jusef Ben Jacob, acting as chancellor to the Pharoah of Egypt, adopted a strict program of grain storage during years of bumper-crop harvests. The common folk must have grumbled that prices were kept artificially high due to the withholding of grain from the market. But Ben Jacob was vindicated when harvests turned bad and the stored grain was released to the market.
Modern speculators provide much the same function, though in a more haphazard fashion. Obama and the IEA have interfered with the process of 'price discovery' by injecting oil into an already well supplied market - the reverse of what Ben Jacob did - and terribly short sighted.
If Ben Jusef were alive today he might be moved to comment, "look, the fools are eating their seed grain!"
Further signs of the approaching apocalypse:
Michael Jackson's jacket from "Thriller" was auctioned off for $1.8 Million.
The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Despite consumer spending at its lowest level in 20 months, the stock market opens higher.
Yes, we have well and truly fallen down the rabbit-hole. I wonder what we'll find when we hit the bottom.
We all know there is a major reckoning coming as the consequences of peak-everything start to sink in. The Republicans have been accused of praying for the economy to tank in the short term, so they can ride the wave of dissatisfaction back into office. If so I sympathize, as I am DEFINITELY and UNAPOLOGETICALLY praying they are in office when the real shit hits the fan. The single most important thing that needs to happen is for Reaganism to be discredited, as that mistaken ideology is what makes today's America the single greatest obstacle to dealing with our real problems as a species. Signed, A Canadian (and therefore not a Democrat)
Both books can be considered "stand alone" in that they each make sense if read by themselves, but it's easier to follow the characters and the multi-level crisis if you read "The Witch of Hebron" after "World Made by Hand". My opinion....
I see we're hating Michelle Bachmann today and, as always, NASCAR. Jim, did someone once abduct you and force you to breathe in automobile fumes against your will? I'm not a NASCAR fan, but can handle it effectively by just not attending a race. I know it's a waste of fuel, but it makes many people happy and you're being quite the elitist by deciding that it's okay for MegaButt Michelle Obama to waste much more fuel and the resulting emissions to ensure her entertainment and that of her friends and family and hangers-on. In addition, NASCAR fans support their habit with their own earnings, they're not grifting it from the taxpayer.
When are you going to address the current ugliness occurring in our large cities? You have mentioned the unease and anger you're sensing and many of us sense it, too, only I'd got a step further and term it "RAGE". There's so much fury in our country today and our national character is beginning to change beliefs and behaviors to deflect it. This is dangerous on so many levels. And, Surprise!!!!, the flash mobs don't seem to be made up of NASCAR fans or stupid Southeners. Is that why they're getting a pass from you?
Seems like China won the cold war...for now. What makes people believe that they actually have money? They don't of course, and we'll find that out before too long.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
So, if Greece is offering to pay everyone Tuesday for a hamburger today, does that make Greece Wimpy and everyone else Popeye and Olive Oyl? Greece hopes so, because if everyone else is Bluto, the answer might be no plus a knuckle sandwich, one that might break the hand of the rest of the world along with Wimpy's mouth. Then again, in Greek, the character's name isn't Wimpy, it's Πόλντο or Polnto. Now that I've typed that, any Greeks reading will get your reference. You can thank me later.
In addition to Greece, I figured that you would write about President Obama, along with the rest of the International Energy Agency, releasing oil from their reserves. If I had written a Karnak predicts post, both of those topics would have been in it, but I didn't. However, I did write about that topic and predicted that you'd have something snarky to say about it, and I was right. Unfortunately, I buried the lede and made the title about falling gas prices in Detroit, when the story really was about Obama trying to stimulate the economy to help his re-election while at the same time kicking the oil companies and commodities speculators while the price goes down. So far, it's working.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2011/06/gas-prices-drop-for-second-week-in.html
Speaking of Obama's re-election, he's not going to give up on it and let Hillary run instead. He's taking a look at Snow White and the Seven+ Dwarves over on the Republican side and thinking he might just get lucky one more time. The best you could hope for is that Hillary and Joe Biden switch jobs. That rumor has been going around for more than a year, but I don't think that will happen, either.
As for Bachmann, a friend of mine made a photoshop of her as Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest." My reaction to that was to remark, "'No wire hangers!' indeed. They might be used for abortions if Representative Batshit is elected and gets her way."
I see you ignored marriage equality being signed into law in New York this week. That was probably smart of you.
We should all become Greeks.
The American work ethic is overrated. I'm serious. We rush about to maintain our crappy suburban lifestyles in cars that cost too much. My Greek barber once ripped out his lawn and planted an orchard. It was the only work other than cutting hair that he ever did. When the suburban neighbors complained, he pretended he did not speak English and tore out more lawn. He told me, "Fuck the grass. Americans are crazy. I am Greek and I like to EAT."
We Americans, on the other hand, work like Dilbert, disposable workers in service of a bunch of rich bastards who buy our elections to put more rich bastards in office.
What if we ALL became honorary Greeks?
"Would it not improve the national character generally if our citizens spent more time arguing politics in cafes"
Absolutely, Jim. Nowadays we just yell back at the TV or radio and get fat eating crappy food. I think we should be like the old Greek guys at the Starbucks near me. They sit around and yell at each other for hours, eat decent pastries, teasing the hot baristas, then all go home laughing, telling jokes with the guys they were just yelling at.
I was in Athens a few years back: same scene. It was not tourist season so I just hung out with Greeks and soon I was a slacker, too, buying rounds of coffee as they practiced their English and Spanish on me.
If we become less obsessed about working so dang hard, live modestly, stop making a fetish of our houses, cars, and electronic doo-dads, we might just hang out more, drink good coffee, and yell happily at each other.
Then we'll all live to be crusty old Greek guys. This is my dream.
Don't forget we also need to tear up most of the parking lots so old dudes can abuse each other over a game of Boule. I'm a pretty good player, btw, so you'll be paying for the next round of coffees.
The Chinese might give us trouble when we become a nation of jovial but active and Stoic bums, instead of mean-spirited fat fundamentalist workaholics. No worries. We'll nuke 'em with the weapons left over from our Imperial legacy or, better still, begin a campaign of subversion to turn THEM into Greeks too.
JK - I loved the essay. All the references to "Americana" consumption...... the good old days - back when savings account would result in more wealth than loss to inflation.
I can remember the S&L paying 8 percent - up to the point when the FDIC closed them up. Ah yes, the good old days - when the government at least acted like the "law" existed.
Which brings me to the questions surrounding the "situations" across the Financial Kingdoms that currently reign over world commerce and credit.
Is it possible to identify the people whose wealth is aligned with these financial atomic-bombs-bonds about to go off? If these Kings of Finance are holding other "instruments of finance" - such as CDOs or shares in specific Hedge Funds can we really know who wins or loses when when the more "simple instruments - known as bonds default?
And speaking of "law" and "language" - which country - or which Financial Kingdoms get to define "default"??
Where is the world now? In this labyrinth of deceit and deception among financial powers - who are the umpires that get to call a "spade a spade?"
How will the players in the grandstands know whether their tickets are winners? How will they know if the odds are computed correctly to pay out their race tickets?
I guess what I'm really asking is who's managing the Casino? Or is this more like a Monopoly Game where the rules change depending which players threaten to quit or go home?
Excellent. Right to the spicy in-your-face the party IS over point.
The prez ought to read this - word for word - during the next state of the union address.
Jim,
Loved tuning into CFN and finding out that Bally's Las Vegas has no resort fees! An ad for a casino in the capitol of unreality? On CFN?
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since they are marketing AT ME based on google searches done on this computer... (funny, I prefer my unreality in Atlantic City, you would think google would know this) and Jim isn't picking the ads anymore.
Oh well, I guess their money is pixelated like everyone elses!
You could have saved yourself a bunch of typing by just saying "F**king ni66ers". Sweet butterscotch Jeebus, this country has lost its mind.
Is it possible to identify the people whose wealth is aligned with these financial atomic-bombs-bonds about to go off? - Bud
Yes it is possible. When the inevitable non payment of interest or principal happens the owners of these bonds will have to do some rather painful write-offs. That's assuming the accounting is done honestly.
But, as we know and as the enactment of Sarbanes Oxley demonstrated, accountants have worked long and hard to make lawyers look like paragons of moral rectitude and have by and large succeeded.
But regardless of the accounting games playing, the owners of these bonds forked over money to buy them. And, regardless of the technicalities of what constitutes "default", these bond owners are not going to get repaid. They are SOL.
Nobody is managing the casino. A long time ago we succumbed to conservative/right wing idiocy that markets are self regulating. Even a luminary like Greenspan was against prosecution of fraud because, according to him, other market players would supposedly punish transgressors. Well maybe they would but not until the con men fuck off with the loot.
So regulatory bodies are window dressing and not much more. They do a few take-downs now and again but they are largely the preserve of sleepy-heads and clock watchers.
Don't feel bad. Canada is the wild west of white collar crime. Why? Because so matter how bad your regulatory and enforcement regimes are they look like hives of investigative/prosecutorial zeal compared to ours. Everyday they exist our regulators re-define uselessness.
And Jeff Master's review of weather
================
Pop, the apostrophe goes after the s, not before.
Uncle Ned brought up this whole issue yesterday, and referenced the same article! Uncle Ned might not weigh in often, but he's never asleep at the switch!
"allowing everybody in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy to hold a senior management job at the motor vehicle bureau with retirement at 53."
I know you're exaggerating, but you don't have to go to old Yurp to find this kind of nonsense. That's exactly how it works in the State of New Jersey. It's common for cops in Dirty Jersey to earn over $100K. They retire in their 40's with $80K-$90K pensions and Cadillac health plans. The same day they retire many start work as some other government job. They collect a full pension and a full paycheck. If they last another 10 years at the new government job, they are entitled to a second pension. Gov Crisco closed the whole in the budget by cutting the guts out of social programs that help the state's most vulnerable the same time he gave tax cut to the state's millionaires.
Like I said, ol' Yurp ain't got nothing over the good ol' US of 'merica.
"Could anyone on the Republican side fuck things up worse than Obama has?" There's a hierarchy to these things. Today's Republicans are the prophets of loss of contact with reality, the Democrats merely their cowed acolytes. So in other words, yes, they could.
Also, apropos of JHK's final remark:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fnational%2Findex.jsonp
With regard to the actions of the IEA last week.
===============
Thank you Pedal for succinctly explaining why speculation is not the evil so many at this site think it is.
JHK writes: "It does prompt one to think we might try something like that here. Would it not improve the national character generally if our citizens spent more time arguing politics in cafes than lying on the couch watching a TV figment named "Snooki" throw standing crotch-locks on every unemployed forklift driver in the mythical kingdom of New Jersey?" I agree, though I have no idea who or what "Snooki" is. If our national pastime were chess (for example) instead of NASCAR and the NFL, etc., which is to say if we lost our national phobia concerning use of the intellect itself, we might be making better decisions as a nation. Here's a forbidden thought: didn't Karl Marx predict that captitalism would eventually collapse from its own inner contradictions? I wonder what such a collapse would look like. It's not necessary to buy into Marx's supposed solutions to accept the validity of his criticisms.
-Phut
IMO Obama had a clear chance to avoid calamity and he didn't take it. There's an old saying in finance: your first loss is your least loss. The more the PTB try to kick this mess down the road the bigger the loss will be in the end.
Why? Because they throw good money after bad, they let the behaviours that caused this disaster go on. It's BAU on Wall Street. The old system of crony capitalism is still in place. And it's not just Wall Street.
Stress tests? Bullshit. You still have mountains of financial garbage teetering on toothpicks of equity. What we had a couple years ago was just an appetizer.
But IMO to be fair you can't just pin this on Obama. It's been the doing of more than 30 years and successive administrations.
"The Republicans could NOT fuck things up as much. Nice try. Back to square one."
I usually try to avoid the Dem/GOP debate, but this is the kind of delusional horseshit that prevents us from ever fixing anything. When Wall Street wanted to raise leverage limits to 30:1 and beyond, it wasn't a Democrat who enabled them. Phil Gramm, who owns much of the blame for this mess, is not a Democrat (although he was aided and abetted by Democrats).
Your hyperpartisan blinders will likely cause you to go back and support the same criminals who put us in this mess. Your time would be better spent trying to help engineer a non-partisan return to By The People, For the People, but our window of opportunity may be already passed.
One of the things talked about most in this blog is Contraction and managing contraction. It seems obvious to me that EVERYTHING that is happening in this world is a process of avoiding managing Contraction (at all cost). One day somebody that everyone listens too will speak the words that "To manage Contraction" you are going to get less...."And starting Right Away". Everybody will object to cutting what they get and will be fine with cutting what the guy next to them gets. No one WANTS to be the one...Hence Chaos.
What I'm rather concerned about is the Teapublican House of Representatives refusing to approve a budget and making the Inevitable Crash happen that much sooner (IOW, early September) than it otherwise would have. Oh well, there is a school of doomer thought that says an earlier collapse would be ultimately better than a later one. Maybe they're right.
This past weekend, at a PGA tournament in Hartford, CT, one of the poorest cities per capita in N America, $6 million was paid out to the winner and top finishers in our annual Golf extravaganza.
How bad can things possibly be, then?
On the surface anyway, normal life carries on, reassuring everybody that, fundamentally, everything is OK. When reality asserts itself it will be quite a shock, I think!
-Marlin
Great comment Smokyjoe. Slackers unite!
Until they do the economy will remain in gridlock. - F
Precisely. Writing their losses off the books is just a recognition that this money will never come back. It's gone. No hope. It could mean that in future (or maybe even right away) the banks won't be able to pay their obligations. So be it. Get it over with and put them under.
I saw your comment about GM and Chrysler. I read somewhere that the world has production capacity for 90 million vehicles per year but a market for 60 million. Self explanatory. And GM and Chrysler have long long records of fucking up. Perfect candidates for the junk heap. Had they been allowed to go belly up it would have focused a lot of minds in the auto industry both management and union alike.
"You seem to have forgotten all about Fannie/Freddie."
I see that you get your information mainly from Rush/Sean/Glenn. Get a clue:
Poor brown people did not crash the economy.
Do you really believe that banks are forced to do anything in this wreck of a country?
Hello Sweeties! Every time I read these lively discussions I find myself wondering what it would be like if everyone was sitting in a pub having these discussions over a pint. (Except the one poor dear in the group who needs medical attention. Please everyone, don't encourage him.) It's funny what happens when people become real individuals instead of a collection of assumptions.
Since today's JHK post seems a cobbled together rehash of old thoughts phoned in for the day (I say that with affection, I mean gosh, he's awfully prolific! He can't be brilliant ALL the time) I thought it would be a good time to go a little deeper.
Think about content vs. structure. Content is ever changing. Structure is what lies beneath. E.g. Someone murders someone else = structure. The girlfriend's affair, the unpaid debt, the impugned honor etc. etc. = content. Ultimately, the CONTENT of the event that triggered the murder isn't really what triggered the murder. The STRUCTURE of the trigger is always that the murderer's sense of self was threatened with annihilation.
Are you with me?
Now let's look at everything we talk about here. Credit default schemes; passive consumption of media, concepts and cheetos; propaganda machines that convince ordinary working people that tax hikes for the rich will somehow hurt them; rapacious destruction of the earth; anger at "brown" people for making life hard for us "white" people; fear of gays becoming a normal part of life -- if all of this is CONTENT, what is the STRUCTURE. What is the underlying truth of it all that seems not to change. What do you think? CAN the structure change?
I don't see why anyone is arguing to keep the Bush tax cuts when the fed debt is such an obvious problem.>/i>
question #2: if annual tax revenues are 1.16 trillion (2007), where did the Federal Reserve get $14-23 trillion to hand to banks? WHY THE FUCK do we need TAXES at all if they can just PRINT 10-15 TIMES annual tax revenues and hand it to goldman sachs, citi bank et al???
Still glad I left the USA, even if we have to unplug all the electronics here during lightning storms. But the mangoes are practically free, the avocados are soo cheap, and the food is fresh, ripe and NOT full of preservatives or insecticides.
hahah, Dee, where are you, central america? it's the same down here in brazil, you unplug when the lightning hits sometimes, very funny, same mangos, coffee, pick-from-the-tree, veeerrrry nice
peace bud
After all, precedent has been set. - F
Bingo. Up here we forked out billions for GM and Chrysler. There's a long list of companies that would've like bail outs. So why GM and Chrysler? Why are these citizens favoured by govts over those? Can't have this.
On a happier note I found this by accident when I was googling something else. Give a listen. It's quick I promise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI_fB2kY9Os&NR=1
You like? More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUYk0zdNi1s&feature=related
Funny JHK sympathizes with people who loaded up on shale gas stocks.
I own some shale gas stocks myself but reduced them the last couple weeks.
Why? Because they are finding so much of the goddam stuff that natural gas in North America may be dirt cheap for a very long time.
The reason shale gas stocks are doing poorly is the low prices. The low prices are because there is so damn much of the stuff.
This is the antithesis of peak oil (peak gas, in this case).
I just find it odd that Kunstler is highlighting the poor performance of shale gas stocks considering that the low prices are a consequence of natural gas being too abundant, hardly something that is consistent with Kunstler's core beliefs.
I am convinced that the die off of the human race (aka the Long Emergency) will be postponed for a few decades on account of shale gas. The question for me is, are we going to expand our use of natural gas enough (as a replacement for oil in transportation and as a replacement for dirty coal in electric power generation) enough that gas will go up enough to be a profitable business?
In the long run, yes Peak Fossil Fuels are coming. But it is going to be delayed. And also keep in mind there hasn't been much exploration for shale gas in other countries yet. There is liable to be a fair amount in places besides just North America.
I am a believer in Peak Oil. But I am also a believer that people shouldn't be so in love with their theories that they aren't willing to adjust them to changing facts. It seems to me Peak Oilers often tend to be totally dismissive of any facts that suggest additional supplies that could push out the disaster a bit further in the future.
I mean, it's not that surprising. We are well on the way to using up the easy oil/gas and a lot of the large known alternative sources are horrendous economically and EROEI wise. But what's so surprising about new development techniques causing us to obtain some decent sized additional supplies that are economically viable?
Investing in shale gas stocks is risky because the stuff may just be too darn abundant. That is why I found it odd that Kunstler mentioned the poor recent performance of those stocks.
Ben Bernanke's problem is to figure out how to keep fractious politicians from allowing the house of cards to collapse too soon. All we have to do is to declare bankruptcy on Monday after everyone else folded on Friday. Extend and pretend will only come to an end when everyone else has collapsed or when a Black Swan event (an exploding Nebraska nucular power plant, perhaps flooded by the swollen Missouri River? War in the South China Sea? Israel collapsing? Who knows - it wouldn't be a Black Swan if it were predictable) brings everything crashing.
The crash will be horrible, that's why no one in charge wants to allow it to happen because all will be lost and those with most to lose will lose that too. If you have any delusions about how horrible it will be look to history to be your guide and you can prepare all you want (I have tried to of couse as I'm human) but you will regret these days of Phony War and faux abundance.
The underlying structure? People need to eat, they need clothes and shelter. And other things too, both needs and wants, both psychological and physical. And you have an Earth that will sometimes give what we want and need and sometimes won't and societies of fellow humans that do likewise. That's the basic structure IMO. Hard to change.
OC /USA...Lifeguards making 200k a year..
And lets not forget Mr Rizzo, who wants city to pay his legal bill...
'City Manager, Robert Rizzo Caught Stealing $800000 per year from poor ... Here is Rizzo with his million dollar home ...................
Los Angeles County prosecutor accused Bell's former city administrator, Robert Rizzo, of stealing more than $5 million from '
That's right. If we taxpayers can backstop trillions created by the bankers to rescue the bonuses and stock values of banks then by god, we can backstop a few trillion more to guarantee the social security trust fund, medicare and to guarantee national health care to American citizens.
Read the McClatchy article that I posted, and tell us all how it is incorrect/inaccurate. We'll wait...
Hey Spider/Old6699, regarding you scurrilous comments directed at some of the female Posters here, i.e. Alexandra & SJMom, why don't you take the advice of others here and shut the f---k up!
You need your ass kicked, and I mean that figurativly.
Please go away.
-Marlin
Yes of course - there are "mutual funds" that are invested in these bonds. Right?
But my understanding of the situation is that many of the bond holding entities also hold CDOs and other instruments that "hedge" their investments in bonds against losses.
These "multi-position investment strategies - I believe - is what accounts for much of the business profits at JP Morgan and GS the last few years.
It is my understanding that much perceived "wealth" or financial interest is riding on the "definition of default."
There is a momentous financial transaction about to transpire among members of the EU and the sovereigns of Greece. How this transaction is defined may in some part become the new paradigm, the new reality that either "kicks the can" down the road successfully or ultimately crashes the world financial order.
I think it worth discussing whether its possible to understand the positions of the players involved.
Quotes from Fabian:
- "He has trashed the economy,"
The economy was burning to the ground on the day Obama took office. Eight o'clock, day one, that's what he was dealing with. Since then he has (a) enacted an inadequate fiscal stimulus that at least saved the U.S. economy from further shrinkage (not that it'll really help in the long term) and (b) resolutely protected the interest of large financial players at the expense of just about everyone else. So, a mixed record.
- "deployed our troops into additional nations"
Too true.
- "extended the welfare state (Obamacare)"
Medical care is not a consumer good, and trying to treat it like one has made the privately-based American health care system both scandalously inefficient and a moral outrage. There is a desperate need both to contain relentlessly escalating costs and address the crying shame that millions of Americans lack medical insurance. Yet the one thing that Obama's solution does *not* do is mess with the prerogatives of private insurers, pharmaceutical companies, or anyone else who is skimming profits off suffering and death in the USA. Instead it caters to them by requiring people to purchase for-profit insurance, and subsidizing the insurers. Wanna criticize someone for "extending the welfare state"? Talk to the Republican Congress who tried to buy off senior voters by passing the unfunded (i.e., paid for with borrowed money) Medicare drug benefit and the Republican president who signed it into law. Obama "extended the welfare state", my ass.
- "ignored the rulings of Federal courts and injected Federal ownership into the private sector (GM, Chrysler)."
Declaration of interest: I am a contract employee of Chrysler and have personally benefitted from the bailouts, for which I am duly grateful. That said, the bailouts of GM and Chrysler were both initiated on Bush's watch (Canada's government followed along). No reference, but I distinctly recall Bush saying that with the economy tanking, allowing these two companies to go under "would not be a responsible action". Really, how many of the things you criticize Obama for are just continuations of policies initated under Republicans?
There does not have to be a slam-dunk, dead certain crash...if responsible government institutions recognize, admit and react to the financial straights we find our nation currently embroiled. - F
There doesn't have to be a dead certain crash. But the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.
There didn't have to be a dot com bubble and crash, nor a telecom bubble and crash, nor a real estate bubble and crash, nor a derivatives bubble and crash. But one followed the other like night follows day and I would hazard that after all this we still didn't fucking learn. Why do I think so? Because IMO the fuel for all these bubbles and crashes was artificially suppressed interest rates through excess liquidity.
Did central banks stop with the moeny spigots? Not on your life. Central banks are still on the same old kick, they didn't learn one fucking thing. Up here Mark Carney, head of our central bank (and a Goldman alumnus I might add) is all wide eyed in wonderment about the housing bubble we have brewing and the calamity of household debt which exceeds US levels. This shit fer brains is supposed to be among the best and the brightest. Yet he didn't know that ultra low rates would fuel excess borrowing, somehow he didn't know that people respond to price signals.
'I said it a million times, the solution is Free Salaries, Cheap Rents and huge public private projects ...........'
Saying something doesnt make it true!
Theres a disconnect between dictum and reality.
fabian said: "Obama does not have a single individual giving him advice that ever had to make a payroll."
----------------
fabian, Obama's chief of staff is Bill Daley, and Daley met a payroll when he worked as the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan Chase employees do receive pay. They are not volunteers. Working at JPMorgan Chase does count as private sector business experience.
Yes, there are multi position investment strategies. Most of these are bets pure and simple. But they depend on counter parties making good.
Buy a bond and a credit default swap as isnurance? OK but the issuer of the CDS has to make good if the bond issuer goes belly up. AIG comes to mind.
The smarty pants will try to do their razzle dazzle routine with a lot of high falutin talk about "credit events". Incantations for idiots IMO. Keeps the lawyers busy cooking up meaningless phrases designed to obscure reality.
So never mind all that. There's only one thing that matters at the end of the day and that is cash. Are Greek bond holders going to get repaid? Yea or nay? Yea you say? OK when exactly would that be? And how much?
Definition of default? Here's one: Greece doesn't fucking pay on time or in full or doesn't pay at all. This is the only one that matters.
Yes it's worth understanding the positions of the players involved especially if you're a shareholder, a bondholder or a depositor in one of the players. The ultimate question for you if you're anyone of these is are YOU going to be paid if Greece doesn't cough up? Will Greece take down one of the "players" and you with it? Are YOU going to wave your deposits/shares/bonds bye bye?
"There does not have to be a slam-dunk, dead certain crash...if responsible government institutions recognize, admit and react to the financial straights we find our nation currently embroiled."
I'll let Q handle the straights v. straits item, but the rest is my area. Waiting for top-down solutions to come from our leadership, whether Dem, Pub, or Paul, is foolish. We need bottom-up action starting with every household that fancies itself possessing half a brain. And we needed it yesterday. It surprises me that someone like you would hold out hope for big government to swoop in and pick up the pieces.
As someone who worked for the state of Florida for his whole professional career, all 4 years of it;), I can say that government reacts in dog years. What you can do in one requires seven for the bureaucrats. If we wait seven more years to respond we're toast.
To change the world you must change yourself. I grow increasingly convinced that there is no other way.
Wow.
I don't know if I'm qualified to comment on all this.
But I remember thinking at the end of the OJ Simpson trial that I must be living in some sort of nuthouse and that insanity must be a relative sort of thing. Its easy to think you are sane when standing in the middle of a group of people licking paint chips off a window sill.
One thing that should be clear though is that any amount of intellectualizing about why we must go through an economic contraction with all the pain that implies isn't going to do any good and misses the point, whatever that point might be.
We are all caught beneath the wheels of history and about all we can do about it is to watch the machine grind us to pieces. The fear beneath the wings of all this for Americans is the fear of losing the loft perch of driving around in oversized cars, stuffing our faces and turning the AC down one more notch at the expense of some other person who has never seen an air conditioner.
This is more of a spiritual problem than an economic one. We have been allowed to live in that comfortable room with unlimited paint chips to lick but we will be discharged back into reality and I don't think I will handle it very well.
Maybe Jesus should run on the Bachmann ticket. Like any VP he would have plenty of idle time and might be able to remind us that we have all been living in a gated community of lunatics, to remind us of some fundamental truths about the nature of greed, insecurity and the futility of trying to make sense of an insane world. Maybe that will make me feel better when Ms. Bachmann announces that the Treasury Bonds in my retirement account are just as valuable as Greek Bonds. So it goes. Maybe Paul Ryan would have him naled to a telephone pole to make him shut up before someone realizes the lie we are living. Would't be the first time.
Messiah or no Messiah, we are about to see what reality looks like for someone living in central Mexico.
I could be worse.
"..NASCAR fans support their habit with their own earnings, they're not grifting it from the taxpayer."
"And, Surprise!!!!, the flash mobs don't seem to be made up of NASCAR fans or stupid Southeners."
I'm no NASCAR fan either, JulettaofOhio, but I am a Southener (barely) so I'll just say: too-shay! ;)
Aimlow Joe wrote:
"What makes people believe that they actually have money? They don't of course, and we'll find that out before too long."
A thumbs-up for you too, Joe.
"Read the McClatchy article that I posted, and tell us all how it is incorrect/inaccurate. We'll wait..."
Also, the article I posted (from the archfiend NYT! Horrors!) about shale gas plays not quite working out the way they're hyped.
"Medical care is not a consumer good, and trying to treat it like one has made the privately-based American health care system both scandalously inefficient and a moral outrage."
The American sick-care system is scandalously inefficient because it is one long-ass food chain, when looked at from a metabolic viewpoint, as I am wont to do. Nothing will correct that except radical contraction and the hemorrhaging of middle men. Which is, fortunately, already underway in nearly every other global industry, and will hit the medical establishment hard before it's all over.
I say fortunately not out of disrespect to my countrymen out of work (I'm coming up on 4 years since my last "real job"), but because if it continued we would all be dead from lack of ecosystem support within the century.
Fabian wrote: "That is why blaming capitalism is a fools errand. True capitalism allows for failure. A product or service must make it on its own merits." etc., etc.. Like I said earlier, thoughts that blame capitalism itself (and its inherent contradictions like endless growth) are forbidden thoughts. We must not blame captitalism. That would be a fool's errand.
-Phut
NASCAR is grifting from the taxpayers, $40 million out of your pocket and into NASCAR's, with help from Congress. Among the many sweeteners included in the Tax Relief Act of 2010, signed by President Obama, was Sec. 738, allowing owners of "motorsports entertainment complexes" -- like NASCAR tracks - to write off their costs over only a seven year period instead of the 15 to 39 years typically required by the tax code for depreciation of nonresidential property, providing the track hosts at least one event within three years of its opening.
Just for the record, the IRS objected to allowing this fast-track depreciation which essentially places NASCAR race tracks in the same tax category as amusement parks. But who is the IRS when it comes to tax breaks?
The provision is expected to net race track owners some $40 million and is on top of the tax incentives already offered by state and local governments to attract NASCAR into their area.
Yes, you are right.
Money now exists as debts.
Mortgages, credit cards etc.
They do not even have the cost of paper and ink.
Digital money is numbers written on a computer.
Once you had the Feudal king who paid you nothing for a 24 hour a day work.
Now the king is the one who owns the right computer, the one where numbers become magically money.
There is nothing anymore that has an objective value, even silver and gold are worth what is convenient for them to be worth.
And the value goes up and down depending on what is convenient.
You guys are arguing two sides of a debate that has no bearing in a contractionary world. I.E. waste of time. The insurance industry runs the widest profit margins of any industry out there - that's a fact, Jack, 20%+, which I would consider scandalous, especially when foisted on people by Pelosi and her ilk - but it's a Ponzi scheme based on perpetual growth that only exists in the minds of simpletons. Insurance schemes don't function in a contractionary world.
Your time and capillary integrity would be better spent reshaping your local economy and learning how to grow your own medicine.
breaking news :
cars are being rolled over in athens
But there is an enormous difference between "capitalism" and "the free market." The free market is basically a restatement of the laws of Nature, which always function. Capitalism is reverse socialism, a human construct based on greed and predation which is guaranteed to fail. And it is as we speak.
He also served on the board of Fannie Mae under Clinton. He is part of the problem.
-------------
Clinton left a budget surplus after his eight years. I think Daley was part of the solution.
You think you're not qualified to comment on all this? You mean all this talk about money? Can you add, subtract, multiply, divide? Yes you say? Then you're qualified.
I believe in obeying the laws of nature. Neo-classical economics is not one of them.
-Phut
James, I think the whole "retiring at 53 is a bit of a furphy, apparently started by the NY Times according to this view:
"The figure of 53 years old as an average retirement age is being bandied about. So much, in fact, that it is being seen as fact. The figure actually originates from a lazy comment on the NY Times website."
Furthermore, the article from which this statement comes, challenges a few other widely accepted stereotypes about the greeks. You can find it here:
http://owni.eu/2011/06/27/democracy-vs-mythology-the-battle-in-syntagma-square/
S.
Fabian's quotes:
- "Private insurers must make a profit and ensure that there is enough money available amongst their pooling of insured to pay for procedures."
Yes to the first, phooey to the second. Showing a profit is the one and only imperative that is never sacrificed. Denying coverage for procedures, on the other hand, is a way of life for private insurers, as has been documented ad nauseam (the anecdotes are, literally, nauseating). This is one reason why universal coverage is important: it increases efficiency (DECREASING costs, thank you) by making the pool of insured as large as possible.
- "The government never has and never will assume such a responsibility. They (govt.) merely promise a bunch of shit that they have no way of paying for."
Your government, maybe. Here in Canada, universal health insurance is a reality I live every day. Wait times here may suck, but if I need care, I get it. No corporate bureaucrat or robotically sympathetic customer-service drone is standing by to explain why my policy doesn't *really* cover that, sor-ree!
I anticipate you saying, But Canadians pay higher taxes! So? Everybody gets sick, everybody pays -- that's true under both systems. Only, under our single-payer system, the per-capita cost is a bit more than half what it costs in the U.S., with similar outcomes, and no bankruptcies! What exactly is the difference paying for on the U.S. side? Lots of unnecessary procedures (to protect against lawsuits), massive bureaucratic inefficiency by different insurers, huge overruns in pharmaceutical and other costs (because, contrary to free-market orthodoxy, pricing is brutally opaque and because Medicare is expressly forbidden to negotiate drug costs) -- and, lest we forget, everyone's profit margin.
To make a long story short, if someone tried to talk me into trading what I have for what you have, I'd never stop laughing.
"Ask yourself this question: Could anyone on the Republican side fuck things up worse than Obama has? I think not."
I think so. In fact, I think everyone of the candidates on the Republican side can and probably would fuck things up worse than Obama has. Obama may be a disappointment, but he's not a disaster. Bachmann, who working on replacing Palin as corn-pone fascist-in-chief, would be a disaster.
"This is more of a spiritual problem than an economic one."
Well said, Doc. Americans could cut their energy use by 80% and not significantly impact their standard of living, just by making some strategic changes to the way they use energy and water, and the way they move around. I can say that with some certainty as my family of four now lives on 20% of the energy budget - sum total, not just power bill - that just my wife and I lived on 4 years ago. And we're working on cutting that by 80% again, which takes a bit more research and invention, but is totally do-able.
Before we can have any sort of intelligent response to the situation we have to completely overhaul our relationship with energy. You know, buy it a drink, get to know it a little, before we expect it to cook our dinner and wash our dishes for us.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, I already made you look like moron with the other article you posted and now you want to cite another one? Give it a rest."
So you didn't bother to read it? You forfeit.
Theres a disconnect between dictum and reality.
==================
Spider, the new 150 lb untattooed white weenie prisoner was made the new cellmate of Big Bubba who, before 24 hours had passed, dictum.
;-)
I'm with you Smokie Joe! Let's all become Greeks, (or Spaniards!) sitting around the cafe, arguing philosophical differences. When will America get tired of the Life In The Fast Lane and demand our right to take it easy for a change. Of course, it starts with the recognition that we're monkeys with our hands in the cookie jar. We're stuck until we can let go of some of the cookies. Do we really need houses THAT big? Can't we take care of our cars and keep them till they're paid off? Me and Uncle Ned and our little kidlet are proud denizens of the slow lane. Make our own soy milk; ride the bikes we bought almost 10 years ago; no cable T.V. etc. Tough year for the garden, but Uncle Ned won't give up.
Nothing can change till the collective human consciousness WAKES UP to the reality of the NOTHING WE HAVE IS ENOUGH treadmill. Then maybe we can start to envision as future that is optimistic and not dystopian. A future that is simple, local, abundant, community based and accepting of the glorious ridiculousness that is the human animal. The purpose of life is to dig it. Be wowed by it. Love it! Love each other!
"What exactly is the difference paying for on the U.S. side?"
------------------
Blue Shield CEO salary: $4.6 million last year.
Aetna of Connecticut CEO salary: $18,058,162
United Health Group CEO salary: $8,901,916.
In 2010, in the health insurance industry in the USA, some executive management teams earned as much as 10 percent or more of company revenues, while laying off substantial numbers of the work force.
Bet Canada doesn't waste money on CEO salaries like that, or treat health care workers like that, either.
You forfeit.
=============
Just yesterday I was noting how the "I before E except after C ....." rule is not universally applicable and since then I have spotted several more names besides Seinfeld and now this word: forfeit.
Best thing about this whole thread was listening to that woman jam! NICE!
Again - it would be interesting to understand which Financial houses have interests that are aligned in a particular manner.
Which Hedge Funds have interests that match the Puppet Masters.
And finally - who gets to to define the 'terms' like default and re-profile and roll over.
Perhaps knowing which of the Federal Reserve players eat and drink together is more important than knowing the boundary of countries or members of various economic coalitions.
maybe not now, but later - this is how wars start.
Listen up, douchebag. Just about the only thing I ever talk about around here, either directly or indirectly, is reforming local economies to cut down on the amount of energy required to run any given system. Physics will do it for us if we don't do it ourselves, so why not get moving?
I receive a small envelope of seeds in the mail for my garden, and those seeds are mostly heirloom, which means I need to order fewer of them next year, as the heirlooms are allowed to complete their life cycle and reseed themselves. Hybrids don't reproduce themselves accurately so I do my best to avoid them. I don't want to rely on big agribusiness corporations for my livelihood every year, as the system decays, much less support their bad habits. See where the trend is headed? Seeds are the only input into my business besides a very meager amount of kitchen twine to bundle greens and herbs together, and an equally meager amount of gas to get the produce to market. And we're working on training our horse to pull a cart to market one of these days. Or a bicycle rickshaw.
My main focus is not on getting rich. It's on providing the best produce around for my family and other people who choose to buy my offerings. I don't buy candy bars, and I don't give a shit whether you do or not. Your bad behavior is none of my concern. My only job is to provide an example, a model, of how to live on a lot less energy.
Multi-national corporations only work because of anomalous amounts of cheap energy. I really don't care what they do because they won't be my concern for much longer. They really aren't my concern now actually. See, what they're doing is unsustainable, so why should I waste my time raging against the machine? Instead I just undermine them with my non-participation. It's called free will and good old fashioned American boycott.
You going to curse me for taking responsibility for my own life, food, medicine, and energy use, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for me now, big guy?
tripp, do you think it would be reasonable for folks to plant tons of plants in their yards, then use the decomposing biomass to help power their homes? then they could use the soil 'waste' to replant and zingo!, the cycle would repeat
just popped into my head, thot (threw this typo in to annoy qshtik, tho' i liked his last trocadilho) i'd air it...
greetings from 80% downsized as well & loving it, love the bus trips for a buck, the small gas stove that costs me $1 a month to cook on (lol true!), no in-house heat, though it got to 40 degrees this morning. just apply blankets and heat a sock filled with uncooked rice and throw it in the bed, it'll become your best friend
am working on this idea (prolly been done):
1)shower-in-a-gallon-bucket
have shower water go up a heated tube, exit, then be recirculated up the tube, where it is
1)cleansed by charcoal etc
2)reheated (would require very little reheating as it wouldn't have lost hardly any heat in 5-10 seconds)
total water usage: 1 gallon
whaddya think trippy? you da man.
peace folks
-----------------
Beautifully stated, Tripp.
In 1971 I was drafted. Instead of going into the military, I refused. There was a popular saying then: "What if they gave a war, and nobody came."
I, too, believe in non-participation, instead of rage against the machine. Rage and anger only eat away at your insides and don't produce anything of value.
I had a button in the 70s that said: "Celebrate Life!" and, by working with natural abundance, permaculture does just that.
Hey Fabian- exactly what Republican organization do you work for? You are so obviously a minion in the legion of paid conservatrolls who fan out daily to infect the blogosphere with your rightwing bullshit.
If you've read Kunstler's books and paid attention to what he's written here, he's made it quite clear that he's afraid government will get bigger before it gets smaller. As for who he's afraid will make it bigger, there is a reason why writes and talks about corn-pone fascists. Yes, he thinks the Right will make government bigger, not what passes for the Left in America. Chew on that thought for a moment.
Also, you should go back through the archives to read his essay "My Tea Party" posted on July 5, 2010. You'll find it quite edifying.
We evolved on this planet, breathing its oxygen, drinking its water, eating its food.
Now we are caught in a bizarre reality, where profit means more than anything physical, and the land, water and air are being poisoned for profit. Where Japan is poisoned by radiation and Nebraska is coming in second, and all the TV can talk about is whether Michelle Bachmann has a chance in 17 months to have the voting machines programmed in her favor.
Meantime, we here on Clusterfuck Nation argue over whether it is possible to create more money, or whether it is only possible to create more money for bankers, but not for teachers and pensioners, and, of course, what effect creating or not creating more money will have on the election extravaganza coming up in 17 months.
Cash points out that all we humans need is food, water, shelter and enjoyment, but doesn't take the obvious step of saying that we could provide all of these things for all people if we take the profit out of destroying the Earth and of providing food, shelter and water for all.
Why the hell shouldn't we live like the Greeks are purported to live? Why shouldn't we enjoy meals with friends and family? Why shouldn't we take a break from working when we get old?
Why are Americans so hateful that we want everyone in the world to be as overworked and overtrinketed as we are? Why do we take such perverse pride in our oppressive work schedules? Why do women brag about how soon they return to work after pushing out their babies? (Or more likely, having them cut out).
We are some brainwashed people.
Hey, Aimlow Joe, I was wondering where you were when I started composing my comment. You were doing the same thing at the same time and just barely beat me. There's something to be said about brevity.
You know who's missing--The Leibowitz Society. I wonder why he hasn't posted already. It isn't a complete comment section without all three of us, Aimlow Joe, Leibowitz Society, and Crazy Eddie's Motie News, here. At least Kulturcritic* showed up.
I'll let Q handle the straights v. straits item, but the rest is my area.
============
OK, got it Tripp.
straights
-noun
two or more heterosexuals
straits
-noun
a narrow water passage between two larger bodies of water; note: spelled strates in the Urban Dictionary favored as a reference by some African Americans
;-)
"You know you can just say no and NOT buy the candy bar."
You know, I'd feel comfortable saying that my worldview is pretty well known around here, and I'm not sure I could come up with a more succinct statement of that worldview than this sentence. I got rid of the television, dumped the cell phone, the microwave, the mortgage, the car payment, the clothes dryer, the AC!! (in south Georgia), bought a used Camry with cash, and worked out a sweet deal on a house and plenty of land. And I have one small, family-held debt that I'm paying off slowly. My solar attic fan will be here tomorrow, then on to composting toilets, an old recycled tank painted black for a solar batch water heater (bye bye energy hogging water heater!), my great great great grandmother's wood cookstove is sitting on the porch waiting to be installed this fall, alongside the soapstone version for heating, we're trading in two upright refrigerators (yes two, we are market gardeners and mushroom growers after all) for a modified chest freezer with external thermostat to raise the temperature (should run on less than 150W), installing water catchment on the barn uphill from the garden to drip irrigate the market garden with (taking the heat off of the depleted aquifer underneath us and making a living in food production at the same time). We have a Tokay gecko in the house for bug control, a dog, that gets about 90% of his food from the garden and compost pile, to control livestock predators, and don't expect anything from people like you except a ration of horseshit.
Just who exactly are you telling to avoid a little fucking candy bar, pissant? But the idea that capitalism is a predatory ideology, at least practiced outside of free market forces, is pretty widely held. I'm not talking about a little fucking candy bar, I'm talking about Pelosi's top 10 campaign contributors in the 2010 cycle all being big pharma companies, just before a new "health"care system is passed that requires everyone to have insurance and buy drugs. Tell me again how that's not predatory, fuckstick?
"And they will do this by cutting taxes and the budget? Makes a lot of sense.(Not)"
Don't believe your own press clippings.
Ideas have power. That ain't new age babble, it's one of the fundamental truths of our universe. Look around. The chair your ass is in, the computer you write on, the shoes on your feet, the roads, the buildings, the structures of our society were all IDEAS. When enough people BELIEVE THESE IDEAS they are TRANSFORMED INTO REALITY. Trippticket is a man who is CHANGING THE WORLD because he changed his reality. The ideas behind the reality he is creating are ideas that could create a beautiful world. READ THIS MAN'S POSTS. Think about the world YOU create for YOURSELF. If it isn't what you want, think about what you want, believe in that vision and start making it happen. Talk is cheap. How you live your life is everything. Dig it! Be grateful! Thank you Trippticket, and Soak, too. There may be monsters and trolls here at the Nation, but our hope for tomorrow is here too. Water the seeds!
"Why are Americans so hateful that we want everyone in the world to be as overworked and overtrinketed as we are? Why do we take such perverse pride in our oppressive work schedules? Why do women brag about how soon they return to work after pushing out their babies? (Or more likely, having them cut out).
We are some brainwashed people."
See pissant. Nice comment. We CAN take more time to enjoy our meals, with family and friends, and to make sure the food is top notch by growing it ourselves, and that the land is in better shape when we are done with it. What we can't have is all that AND a global structure. The two are mutually exclusive I'm afraid. Large government relies on biosphere-destroying energy regimes.
I was going to say that, unfortunately, you'll have to pick one or the other. But fortunately, the good food with family is going to win out in the end, regardless of what you pick. Probably not for 7B of us, but...
Dude, the whole point of the article I linked to (and icurhuman2 linked it as well) is that analysts from inside the industry are saying the whole shale gas thing is overhyped. Quotes like "the economics just don't work" and "Ponzi scheme" are pretty unmistakable. Do you know something that makes the Marcellus shale the one exception to the hype? If not, then how does this make me look stupid, exactly?
I'm not a capitalist, Fabio, I'm a free man in a free market. Big difference. Mostly scale.
"By the way, Nancy, you never gave a response when I proved your above nonsense to be, ah....NONSENSE. And that's a fact, Jill."
Sorry, you threw me when you said "I" and "proved" in the same sentence. All you do is bluster. I - blustered. See? That makes more sense to me!
According to a post that included a picture of yourself "in 1971" you had not yet been born.
---------
That was a YouTube video link I posted with the words: "These are my sentiments."
You made the leap that I was the brother in the video. The dude in the video is younger, but what he said is also what I say. He expressed my sentiments perfectly.
Understandable mistake, fabian.
So what is it that you do for a living Fabian? And who provides your health care?
"You sell things for a profit. That makes you a CAPITALIST. Live with it or start giving it away for free."
Kind of depends on how you think about profit. My schedule of concerns goes:
1) Improve soil and ecosystem health on land under my care.
2) Feed my family the best food available.
3) Sell whatever excess I have in order to buy the things I'm not producing, like a little bit of electricity, or beer. Maybe one day, but not yet. Need to plant the hops first.
Not really much in there about profit. And I doubt very many corporations have a stewardship clause leading off their mission statement.
Although this dialogue is starting to make me question the wisdom in trading extra produce for electricity.
Welles, I think you should combine the two ideas. I know a guy in Oregon who runs a plastic coil through a large active compost heap to heat water for domestic use. Said the temperature peaks at about 150 degrees F, and when it falls to 90-ish, which he says takes about 2.5-3 months, he moves that compost into the garden and starts over. If you had a reliable supply of forest waste (you said you're in Brazil, right?) you could become a Jean Pain disciple, and have hot water, heat, and all the fertility your garden could ever need, for free, from the waste stream. But I'd be leery about taking too much biomass out of the garden.
Sounds like you're having a ton of fun, man.
"I mean it only costs around a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market and by federal edict, patents have limited life. They should do it for free. That would be fair."
--------------------
BigPharma relies on research done by scientists at public universities (government funded), and research done by scientists at NIH (government funded), in addition to research done at private companies.
BigPharma brings drugs to market that do damage to citizens, citizens who have paid for a good portion of the research with their tax dollars, and then BigPharma misuses or tries to invalidate research findings that show risks in the use of the drug they want to bring to market.
Then, after benefiting from public monies for research grants at universities and NIH, they want all the profits for themselves and charge exorbitant prices for pharmaceuticals.
Then a pissant comes along and tries to justify the prices by saying it "costs around a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market."
Auntie River, when I first came in contact with these ideas I thought that I could actually co-create a new universe more to my liking. What I've discovered along the way is that I actually can, but not in the way I thought at first.
By choosing not to read the news I no longer live in a world where a rapist is hiding in every alley. And I'm not fooled anymore by the establishment's "statistics" and "findings." By choosing to include my medicine in my dinner, as flavoring, or as tea with breakfast, instead of buying and swallowing it, none of the Obamacare debate affects me. By choosing to live on so little money/energy that I don't have to pay taxes, I don't have to live with the blood of war on my hands, or the knowledge that my bad habits are the reason we must endure the ecological treason of fracking for natural gas.
By not having a television I don't have a constant reminder that life is not what I perceive it to be; I'm not reminded that my problems are the "other party's" fault. I know that I reap exactly what I sow. I have co-created my own universe. And it's a nice place. Sounds like yours is too.
"You know if you only had shit to feed your family you would be feeding them "the best food available". Just a thought."
Good point. Poorly stated on my part.
"Like the one about "The insurance industry runs the widest profit margins of any industry out there - that's a fact, Jack..."?"
Yeah, I got that one directly from a hot-shot industry insider trying to recruit me. Swiiing and a miss.
"Meet the universe,
Same as the old universe..."
Fabio, your universe will always be the same as the old one because your ideas are just as stagnant.
"I have a large deductible making my payments reasonable. I've never been denied a single procedure suggested by my physician."
You haven't been denied *yet*. Like every other American under 65, you're white-knuckling it till you reach the magic birthday. What's more, you're deluded enough to think you're getting a good deal.
"Go ahead and pay your high taxes. Sounds like you deserve them."
I know PRECISELY what I'm getting for my money, and it's a far better deal than you are. You think because you're paying out of the insurance pocket instead of the tax pocket, you must be winning. But your money is going to all kinds of things other than health care, including Lear Jets for CEOs, and yet you are subject to all kinds of pitfalls and traps expressly designed to deny you what you *think* you're paying for.
A friend of mine lived in Chicago for a while, and had a baby while she was there. Her husband's employer provided medical coverage, so in the recovery room she was asked if she wanted a pedicure. No problem, they told her, it was paid for by her insurance. I was incredulous when she told me: a f---king PEDICURE? Couldn't that money have paid for something useful? No, it was more important to provide perks and hopefully retain a customer than provide care and sustain a human life.
You and the pedicures are both examples of the insanity of Reaganism: hypnotized by market signals, you grow ever more detached from the underlying reality that sooner or later is going to bite you in the ass.
Sorry, I don't understand the strange valley version of English you use. You'll have to speak in grown-up I'm afraid.
I thought it was agreed two weeks ago to ignore "douchebag". Guess not. Also, pertaining to Big Pharma you can never forget that they won't develop or market cures whose patents have expired, not to mention dietary supplements which can't be patented in any case. Moreover, they will act in concert with the so called health care industry to suppress such substances, even when such remedies are superior to what is currently being prescribed by their minions the medical doctors. One of the chemicals I'm thinking of is EDTA which was first synthesized in Germany during the mid 'thirties and may be better at chelating arterial plaque and with fewer side effects than statin drugs, for instance.
"Something is in the air this week and it is making a lot of people very nervous."
I am not sure what Reality you live in, but in the Real World Planet Earth I live in,very very VERY few people are nervous, let alone "very nervous". Most are walking around living life under worse economic conditions, but that's been happening since Reagan announced it was "morning in America" (actually he meant Nightfall in America but who would have voted for him then?)
We've been going downhill for 30 years. Like a huge pot of frogs slowly being brought to the boil.
Um, nowhere in that article does it say that expectations for shale gas are "NOT overhyped... Get it?" What it does say is things like "gushers", "enormous potential", "believed to be a record", "even more prolific", "dramatic increase in expected well production", and so forth. It sounds very much like a rewritten press release. When I read breathless phraseology like the above, there's a word that comes to mind. C'mon, you know it: four letters? Starts with H? Rhymes with "tripe"? As a rebuttal to the idea that shale gas is, shall we say, over-promoted, this strikes me as lacking.
If it's a link war you want, I'll see you and raise you:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7912
Ha-hah! Take that!
I'm so devastated that someone with the emotional development of a twelve year old disapproves of me. Or perhaps you actually are twelve years old?
"Sounds like the Cannuck is a bit jealous."
1. You ignored the substance of my post to make a snide innuendo. That's a poor substitute for an argument.
2. It's not C-A-N-N-U-C-K, it's C-A-N-U-C-K.
3. It's not J-E-A-L-O-U-S, it's I-N-C-R-E-D-U-L-O-U-S A-T P-E-O-P-L-E-'-S S-T-U-P-I-D-I-T-Y.
Fabian Baby (you look marvelous),
It is not the Repubs or the Dems, or Snow White + Seven Dwarves, or the President, or his wife, or the welfare cheats, or the New Jersey Cop's retirement.
Even though FOX and friends like to raise your blood pressure by presenting them as such.
Jim said it, I believe it: It is a world that is scaling down to match the reality that world energy production has reached the end of its production plateau and has begun the final phase slippery downward slope. This is much, much bigger than conservative talking points.
It is that "Woe is unto the world. It doesn't know whether to shit or go blind."
So, please save the welfare cheats, Repub, Demo, "state worker's got it made" stories and think of something new(er).
How's the pompadour hanging these days?
Ahh, that's better! Of course, a title like "Canadian Health Care Continues Its Collapse" doesn't reveal anything about the attitudes of the people who wrote the article, does it?
It's getting late in the day, so I'll limit myself to a couple of things that you pasted in, rather than follow up to reading the entire article. It's interesting that the main items they talk about are basically about cost containment, since that is one of the three legs on which the Obama health care reform also stands. (The other two legs are: preventing insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions; and providing universal coverage. You'll notice that none of the three is "expanding the welfare state".)
Among these cost-control measures is "cutting generic drug prices and eliminating 'incentive fees' to generic drug manufacturers." See, we can do that here, because we're not providing corporate welfare. In the U.S., negotiating prices with drug manufacturers is the third rail: you just don't interfere with the profits of your campaign donors, lest they become your opponent's campaign donors.
The reason for these measures is simple: health care costs are rising. Why, the devil you say! No kidding. Nowhere did I say that Canadians have somehow solved the problem, as if by magic, of providing services in a world of limited resources. It's nice to know, though, that we're starting out with such a startling advantage over the private, for-profit system our American friends and neighbours [sic] enjoy.
Cheers!
Why are Americans so hateful that we want everyone in the world to be as overworked and overtrinketed as we are?
Wage we have our old puritan work ethic which isn't translating into anything that works for us at this point. It's now the law of diminishing returns as we are being reduced to the working poor as the elite are looking to flatten out salaries everywhere for maximum profits.
As for trinkets, well you gotta give the folks something.
Fareed Zakaria made some excellent points in the last few weeks while discussing our many challenges. He asserts that Americans don't look around to the rest of the world to find solutions.
As we discuss health care and insurance in a paradigm that costs more than any other system in the world, we don't bother to look at the other systems that seem to work more efficiently than ours.
It's part of the we're the best attitude that means the national mindset is in lock-down and already has all the answers. You, know, we're always right----Our loss!
Wow! 1,000 homes! For one year! And what about the other 114 million 824 thousand homes?
2010 estimate of number of homes: 114,825,428
SOURCE: U.S. Census
It's funny how a capitalist apologist doesn't even know what a capitalist is.
You are a farmer and a small businessman. You produce what you sell yourself.
That is no way is a capitalist.
A capitalist is someone who owns the means of production. He hires workers to operate the equipment, and sells what they produce for a profit.
If you were a landowner, and hired sharecroppers to work your land, while you took part of the produce, that would be closer to what a capitalist is.
Remember that Fabian is just notmommy with a movie star's name.
Personally, I ignore him, although I still try to hold sympathy in my heart for his badly mothered, psychically deformed, acting-out inner child.
Thanks JHK for today's following offerings, allowing me to get my usual post work Monday chortle!
*Europe is about to enjoy the greatest monetary Chinese fire drill ever staged.*
*Let Hillary step in and try to keep this leaky Flying Dutchman out of the drink.*
*If I were President Obama, I'd just call it quits and sign on with the home team: Goldman Sachs.*
Of all your future calls Jim, this last one is a defo given, some safe-seat non-exec’ banking gravy-train pay-off, for the ex Commander-in-Chief, it’s a no-brainer! As are some more of the following inconvenient truths no political leader operating and milking the current easy-street system in the OECDs will ever dare air:
(1) The Govts of the OECDs have depended upon their peoples borrowing more and ever more as their aged and decrepit mass manufacturing capabilities have been lost, and/or all activities that can be relocated outside a high-cost environment have been.
(2) It does not benefit the banks, insurance and pensions industry, and/or the Govts to admit that any young person that now saves for their old age is totally wasting their time.
(3) Most young people know that they have no ‘quality’ future and that many of the opportunities that their parents had will be forever denied them. Going into massive personal financial debt for a worthless degree that gets you no guarantee of a decent job... where is any sense in that?
(4) The real challenge for any Govt’ official over the coming years is to find new devious ways of hollowing out the historical wealth of past generations so that things can keep on going on for a wee while longer, anything goes to maintain the illusion of business as usual.
(5) Govt policies are never designed to work long-term, only for official term of office period, there only real requirement is to create the illusion of progress, which is where state approved media comes in – to sell and spin it so.
(6) Proposing a whole host of whizz-bang ultra-green technologies soon available to help save mankind from itself, will of course cost mega-money to put into real widespread action, however this money is simply no longer going to be available, to the ageing and evermore retiring over-populated and über-debt laden West.
(7) Few people are actually conscious or able to accept the fact that virtually all the major inventions ever made and/or the technical achievements advanced have all came about because of a side-affect of world wars, death, conflict and strife.
(8) The point at which western economies finally fail is when Asia, China and India force the price of energy ever upward, and competition for food, water and minerals hit limits to growth, dial in climate change, times the number of elderly people reaching the level where medical and social services of their home nations are overwhelmed, divided by the historic savings and wealth of said 1st world nations being totally spent, depleted and exhausted. Bingo tis hammer-time!
(9) Recycling the by-products of unnecessary consumption is usually as damaging to the environment as the initial consumption is.
(10) The current global economic depression and ongoing and never ending contraction due to the increasing decline of burnable fossil-fuels is probably the best thing that could have ever happened to the global eco environment.
Any questions?
DAME EXCEED 250
Damn, it's so wrong, but, it's so right.
Thank you, Wage. A long time ago I stopped trying to clarify the differences between capitalists, socialists, communists, and anarchists, but it is refreshing to read your words.
Capitalists=owners are those who don't do the work and feel they deserve millions of dollars for "taking risks" and "creating jobs." I say, bullshit!
Though it will never happen, I would like to see a capitalist system with both a minimum wage and a maximum wage, with a 1 to 10 ratio.
If the lowest paid employee makes $8 an hour, then the highest paid CEO/owner/capitalist cannot make more than $80 an hour.
Currently, the health industry CEO's making $4 million (and more) a year are making $2,000 (and more) an hour.
"One of these days (or not) Jimmy boy is going to realize this applies to all his other areas of "expertise" in forecasting as well."
And one of these days you'll get your own blog (or not) and enter the arena instead of writing on bathroom stalls.
Every day I come closer to losing my job, thanks to "health care reform".
What gets me is that the clueless republicans scream about socialism, while the clueless democrats strut about proclaiming universal health coverage!
It's neither. It's an insurance company-written bill which takes $500 billion away from "Medicare" (which means doctors and hospitals) and gives it to insurance companies!
That's what "cost containment" is. Firing nurses. Cutting back on care. Closing hospitals.
They are planning a No Child Left Behind scenario for "health care".
They will only pay hospitals in the top 80% of the test scores.
What will happen to the other 20%? Why, they will close.
Then, the next year, only 80% of those hospitals get paid.
The shitty health care system in the US just got WAY, WAY worse.
But like the rest of the economy, sheer inertia will keep it going for a while, long enough that cause and effect won't be noticed.
Especially because Americans are so brainwashed that they believe that privatization and forced insurance company tributes are "socialism" (republicans) or a Great Leap Forward (democrats).
Like any country being IMF'd, they're going after health, education and any public infrastructure they can.
While we sit around and argue about how this will affect some aspiring puppet's chance to cash in big by selling themselves to corporate paymasters. Ooohh, I hope it's one of the ones on my team!
Do any of those articles refer to the destruction of the water supply of millions of people?
Should the argument really be about whether it's profitable or not, and not about whether destroying life-sustaining water for profit is moral or right?
"Still glad I left the USA, even if we have to unplug all the electronics here during lightning storms. But the mangoes are practically free, the avocados are soo cheap, and the food is fresh, ripe and NOT full of preservatives or insecticides. And I get my coffee from the local fincas. Ummm, bueno!
Hasta luego, hope you have a liferaft."
So being a smug asshole is not enough, you still need validation you made the right move and feel needy to gloat about it on someone else's blog?
Speaking of life rafts, I hope you have access to a first world hospital if you get sick.
Yeah, "taking risks". Not so much anymore.
How about conning public officials into giving them tax breaks, land and infrastructure in return for "jobs".
How about they gamble with savings and pensions and then extort public officials into covering their losses.
How about they use the US military to loot and pillage people in other countries who happen to live on top of coveted minerals.
It's capitalism's horribly deformed mutant radioactive monster final self rampaging through the planet, destroying all it touches.
While the clueless people who think they have something to gain from the system sit around and cheer them on. Losers!
Ooohh, I hope it's one of the ones on my team!
-----------------
Some days I feel like abandoning the red flag, blue flag, and green flag teams and taking up the black and red flag. http://www.anarchism.net/symbol_bf.htm
Voluntary mutual cooperation.
(Though the one thing I really like about the green flag team: one of its core values is nonviolence.)
BLACK-AND-RED FLAG
We are trying something new in our household -- two months ago we gave up AT&T Uverse television. Our monthly bill was usually $110. Now we pay just $30 for high speed internet. We came to the conclusion that we had hundreds of channels of crap we weren't watching. My husband rigged some stuff in the attic so now we only get the local broadcast channels--ABC, NBC, PBS and CBS. We used to have a half dozen stupid remotes that I'd have to press in weirdly concocted order. So far, even my teenagers haven't complained--and they are reading books instead.
No Snooki shows for this family. The only shows I miss are Steven Colbert and John Stewart.
Another cost-cutting item is my hair. I used to pay $160 for blonde highlights and a haircut. Now I'm going to a much cheaper salon within walking distance and it costs just half of what I used to pay. My hair looks just as nice, according to my husband.
"I thought it was agreed two weeks ago to ignore 'douchebag'. Guess not."
My bad. I've been lurking and enjoying JHK's weekly commentary for a long time now, but today I decided to take the plunge and start commenting. Like a n00b, I went right ahead and fed the standard-issue, knowledge-in, garbage-out troll. Mea culpa.
Jimmy Drinkwater, your ignorance is showing.
Costa Rica has a better quality medical care system than the USA. Many North Americans travel to Costa Rica to get medical care. It's called medical tourism.
Frankly, you are sounding smug, and you have nothing to be smug about in the USA when it comes to health care.
Costa Rica is the only country in the world where 100% of the private hospitals have earned JCI accreditation. USA can't touch that!
Costa Rica is one of the top 5 medical tourism destinations in the world.
"Furthermore, you went on early about how including everyone on the system was a means for achieving cost containment. Obviously not."
Obviously not? Medicare in the U.S. covers *everyone* above 65, and how does the cost per beneficiary look versus private insurance?
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/its-the-health-care-costs-stupid/
See for yourself: having an inclusive insurance pool helps enormously with containing costs. A universal system is even better. Measured as a percentage of GDP, Canada's system is manifestly more cost-efficient than the U.S. system.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/medicare-sustainability/
As the linked graph shows, we were around par in 1970, but the disparity has been growing steadily in Canada's favour ever since. 10% of GDP versus 16% of GDP sounds like a startling advantage to me. Indeed, the U.S. is even worse off than it appears, because your country has a higher GDP per capita than mine. In short, we would need gross mismanagement for quite a few years just to catch up with how badly you guys are doing. And yet...
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/canadian-health-care-in-perspective/
... the outcomes are similar. We're getting a way, way better deal than you are.
"But for my money here is the most revealing quote:
“‘This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,’ he fumed to the New York Times, ‘and in which humans can wait two to three years.’ ”"
Yup. Wait times are a problem, no question about it. Would I give away universal coverage to get shorter wait times? Hell no.
SJMom, we did the same thing. No cable or satellite TV. And I missed The Daily Show also.
Then I discovered I could watch it (with a few days delay) via the internet at:
http://www.hulu.com/search?query=daily+show&st=0&fs=
They do give you 20 seconds of advertising, so have something to do those 20 seconds, or use the mute and meditate.
Enjoy!
"(7) Few people are actually conscious or able to accept the fact that virtually all the major inventions ever made and/or the technical achievements advanced have all came about because of a side-affect of world wars, death, conflict and strife."
My worry is the opulent minority who *are* aware of this, and are liable take it into account as they plan the next stage of their awesome achievements...
Was there something in the post I replied to about CR or are just another smug asshole reaching for any comment that will validate your little colonialist wet dream of living large with 'un buen billete' bankrolled among the froggy little native brown people?
Having a maid-cook-gardener gives one ample time to gloat online on blogs like this I suppose, and among the other expats at the cafes similar to those in Greece that JHK writes about this week, lol.
Don't be too hard on yourself. The fact is "ad hominem" attacks are pointless to proving one's argument. And none of us have even met face to face so what's the use in insulting those whose arguments you find disagreeable? Of course if someone persists in this behavior then it's tempting to retaliate by calling them douchebag or whatever. Which leads me to suspect that they're getting paid to sabotage the blog. Then you get others who claim lofty professional credentials but then don't act like such or make outrageous demands on everyone else in terms of understanding their perhaps poorly written arguments. It does look like Spider has been blocked though.
I read the blog for a long time before starting to post. I post because I agree with the premise of the blog, which is that peak oil is a reality and there are no easy fixes. If someone disputes the basic premise of the blog then why do they bother contributing?
The fact is we can raft out the energy credit card for some time, by converting gasoline engines to run on compressed natural gas, or by getting plug in hybrids like the Volt to make a game out of how long you can keep a tank of gas in them, but of course such vehicles are only running on either coal or nuclear power. In the meantime there will continue to be massive economic disruptions caused by the interruption of the overarching growth paradigm upon which our financial system of compound interest operates. This is basic macroeconomics.
The real problem is the unfettered capitalism which grew out of the so called Reagan revolution. And as explained so well by WAGELABORER it is grotesque that health care is being operated for profit. Health care is a basic human right and not a consumer commodity. The underpinnings of health care as private enterprise are corrupt because the profit motivated physician is never going to tell anyone "no" because the customer is always right so long as he has deep pockets to mine. This is just as absurd as an ecucational system which has abandoned all notions of qualifying applicants according to intellectual capacity in terms of steering the unfit into something different for which they would be better suited. But that happens with decreasing regularity because no one wants to lose a paying customer, whether they are capable of benefitting from the instruction or not.
Someone who is continually banging on the capitalism drum is not showing all their cards. At this stage of the game it should practically be a tautology that those who are benefiting at the expense of others wish to keep the same old game going for another hand so they can continue to con the easy marks.
Yes, you were replying to DeeJones who lives in Costa Rica, laughingly suggesting he find a "first world hospital" when he gets sick!
Your ignorance is astounding.
In Costa Rican hospitals the mortality rate is under 1%, a very impressive statistic especially since most facilities in the US see a death rate of over 8%.
On a regular floor in a Costa Rican hospital the patient to nurse ratio is 4:1, in the US it is most often 6 or 7:1.
On an intensive care floor it is 1:1 or 2:1, same as in the US... but a hell of a lot cheaper.
I'm glad you decided to comment, Lorne.
By the way, the wait times in the US are also long.
My mom was told that she may have lung cancer, but she needed to see a pulmonologist. Closest appointment - 3 months.
One of my co-workers waited 6 months to see an orthopedic doctor, and they knew her from the ER!
If she hadn't had insurance they wouldn't have seen her at all. They demand $200 cash at the first appointment.
We refer many people with broken bones to the orthopods, who are supposed to see them for follow-up, but then they show back up at the ER and report that they didn't have cash, so they weren't seen.
And Americans will still tell you with a straight face that we have the best medical care in the world!
And as for waiting 2 years for a hip replacement - is it possible that someone was advised that they would someday need their hip replaced, but that such a surgery should wait until necessary?
Because that is what they would do here, also.
Except if you didn't have the money. Then you'd never get it.
Well good then, since you seem versed in the blog gossip of who lives where, I was referring to the comment: "Hasta luego, hope you have a liferaft."
As if CR or any CA sinkhole have the long term political stability or economic sustainability independent of US remittances to be called a life raft, lol.
No matter, I know the expat mentality, particularly the palm tree variety, waiting for the check to arrive.
Every day I come closer to losing my job, thanks to "health care reform".
Yeah, Wage and my premium went up over $100.00 per month. I'm an outside contractor so I have to pay out the premium every month--100%.
That's what happens when government and privatization go hand in hand. How could it be that the Democrat everyone thought could institute a single payer option could have gone so far off the rails?
Well because Hillary and Bill couldn't get it done in the early '90's they thought they learned their lesson with the corporations. Guess all that's left is guaranteed profits a la mandate. (more corporate communism.)
You are right about the eerie similarity to No Child Left Behind. It's the same brave new government--now that it's be corporatized.
Well just let Rahm Emmanuel make the deals behind closed doors with the private insurance industry and drug companies and this is what you get.--A real nightmare for the people.
I suppose this will further piss off the players but have to say this low rent bickering is real tedious.
Could we be Japan?
Fire and Floods threaten US Nuclear power plants, though they say that there are good reasons why this won't be a disaster. It always starts out as not a disaster and here are the reasons why...let's see how these develop.
Two nuclear power plants in Nebraska had to have backup generators run the plats due to flood water from the Missouri River.Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant and Cooper Nuclear Station.
Los Alamos needed to be evacuated due to the spreading wild fires.
Hmm still like nuclear energy?
I think many here would find this article by Stowe Boyd interesting...
"The American suburbs are a giant Ponzi scheme:"
http://www.underpaidgenius.com/post/6948964696
The rule of law has been replaced by Murphy's Law.
-JHK-
Ten simple words, suitable as a campaign slogan.
The right words, in the right order at the right time, could yet change the world.
Our host on this website, captures a problem - with the power of a unique phrase.
How unique?
"The rule of law has been replaced by Murphy's Law," - placed in quotation marks, and entered into Google - returns only 30 hits. And, EVERY SINGLE ONE of those hits goes directly or indirectly to the June 27, 2011 installment of the ClusterFuckNation blog by JHK, in some manner.
=================
On a more mundane note, there seem to be some growing problems with the software that operates this discussion thread. A lot of people are taking note of posts that are randomly blocked.
And there have been rumors of random screenname banishments. I can confirm those rumors.
After 52 weeks as progressorconserve, I now find myself forcefully reincarnated as progress,conserve.
Hope this works!
A.,
No questions! 5x5.
Thanks. :o)
How the fuck did this blog become F., the toy-republi-poodle's personal pissing patch?
Jeebus, he's pissed on all the baseboard and now he's working on the furniture. Fer th' luv a Mike, don't give the ankle-bitin' fucker anything but a couple of .22 shorts in the brain-pan; anything else just makes him yappier. (In a while, that's what he'll get anyway, once it's found that he has absolutely no useful skills in the coming deprivations. What a fucking waste; probably so full of toxic shit, he won't even make decent fertilizer...)
for what's his name vlad.
not even close to 300.
1/2 that. fyi.
don't ruin my cute rep you jerkoff.
i don't lie.
:)
It would appear that we have reached the theoretical limits of our theoretical financial system. The Fed is so concerned that they have ordered "Stress Tests", i.e. theoretical models of theoretical situations. But, of course, this is just my theory. I have to get back to work designing computers that are used to design to computers.
"How's that? You don't even get fucking pedicures."
Ok, I have to admit, that's pretty effin' funny!
But your grasp of how energy descent is going to go seems, at least to me, pretty naive. "We have to get our entitlement issues under control first"? Really? You don't think the whole friggin' system can just go down, 1% social welfare, 10% corporate welfare with a matching dose for farmers raising testy crops in an increasingly unpredictable climate? There's a whole shit load of things that have to change, and change radically, (and oh, will they ever), but I don't think any of it HAS to be done before things go any farther south.
If you mean we need to get a whole bunch of people off of welfare - farmers, corporations, banks, car companies, vets, poor folks, etc - to keep societal chaos at bay, I think you're at least 30 years too late. But maybe, just maybe, if you keep screaming loud enough about how that tiny slice of the pie-eating public is bringing the system down, SOMEONE might believe you one day.
Take that back, there's a full 20% of the United States that is as brain-washed into believing that as you are. I feel fortunate that they don't tend to hang out here as often as you do.
ksmias vlad. all 300 lbs. of it.
Sorry, O3, I should've read your post first.
"Ten simple words, suitable as a campaign slogan."
If it is to be, it is up to me.
the writings' on the wall.
costa rica chica.
I'm turning japanese, I'm turning japanese i really think so.
went running thru my mind when i read this.
We should all plant food not lawns.
duh.
trees fruit trees veggies etc.
probably laws against it.
No matter, I know the expat mentality, particularly the palm tree variety, waiting for the check to arrive.
----------------
Oh, you know the expat mentality.
Did you know that Costa Rica has two ways you can get citizenship... either by having guaranteed private investment income or by having reimbursement of prepaid retirement funds, sometimes called social security.
Investigate a bit about iatrogenic disease in the USA and the rate of mortality as a result of doctor error. I will spare you the statistics and just say they are frightening and much worse than Costa Rica.
I hope you have a life raft and can make it to Costa Rica if you get sick.
"Speaking of life rafts, I hope you have access to a first world hospital if you get sick." JimmyD
Shucks, Soak beat met to it with a great reply.
But, yes, doing the right thing for us does earn one the due of a little smugness, eh?
While your comment shows that you are pissed that you can't enjoy what I have chosen to enjoy.
You could if you wanted to tho, don't exclude leaving the sinking ship USSA on a liferaft of your own choosing.
And thanks Soaka!
Dee J
My bickering is not low rent. My bickering involves research and comes complete with hard numbers, factual data that are verifiable.
The American Exceptionalism expressed so smugly on this blog, with no data points to back it up... that pisses me off.
"The only shows I miss are Steven Colbert and John Stewart." SJMom
There are streaming sites such as HULU where you can watch these shows if you want.
Still surprised you are spending SO much on your hair tho. In some countries that would be a good months salary.
DJ
Thanks for coming back. I wonder if JHK is having a bit of fun, or if it's just random?
Plant that food, darlin'! We're going to need it! (Although the 300 lb ass thing threw my fantasies off a bit...maybe you should just have kale and celery;)
No worries, man!
You [and nearly everyone else] are doing a good job of exposing the mouthings of shitty ideas as the useless dregs of crumbling ideologies that they are. ;o)
...All I hear is the far, distant yapping of a small and ugly doggie.
Yes both Vlad Krandz and Spider have disappeared. That does seem suspicious.
Anytime, Dee J.
Here is a link to iatrogenic disease, the third leading cause of death in the USA.
http://www.yourmedicaldetective.com/public/335.cfm
"Still surprised you are spending SO much on your hair tho."
Two years ago, at my hint, my wife bought a $30 set of clippers for me to cut my hair with, and it's done a fine job ever since. I let it go for about 2 months and then I shave it off. I have to oil and work the clippers a little bit sometimes to keep the blades moving, but it always comes around. Now I just need a t-shirt that says "YES, I cut my own hair". Doesn't seem to hurt farmers market sales either...
"We are trying something new in our household -- two months ago we gave up AT&T Uverse television"
Good for you San Jose Mom! Mrs. Auntie River and I did the exact same thing last year. We bought a Mac mini computer and connected it to the TV (via USB port) as the monitor. We also use a presentation style mouse as our remote control. We like the "loop" by Hillcrest Labs. Combine this with the minimal Netflix subscription (about $10) and you're good to go, since they have an astounding amount of unlimited streaming programing including movies, TV shows and great documentaries. There's also a ton of free online content available via websites like PBS, Comedy Central, and the networks, as well as Hulu and Blinx. We save $800 to $1000 a year for better quality programming and more choices. So for everyone reading this - dump the cable box and switch to free online TV!
P.S. We also homeschool, and two or three nights a week we watch no TV at all, choosing instead to read, make things (baked goods, crafts, paintings etc.), or play board games. Good luck and God Bless out there in San Jose!
Damm , Soaka beat me to it again!
"As if CR or any CA sinkhole have the long term political stability or economic sustainability independent of US remittances to be called a life raft, lol." Jimmy d
Costa Rica has one of the most stable governments in the whole of Central America. They abolished (!) the military in 1949 and instead spend the money on Social Security for each and every citizen of the country.
After one obtains permanent residency here (3-5 years), you can apply for citizenship if you want, and no problem with being a dual citizen with the US government either.
Life under the palm trees is not so bad! Just make sure its not a coconut palm!
DEE
Yes, MD! That is the only way. People who get all worked up about making others behave probably aren't doing that much to help.
Out of 13 countries in a recent comparison, the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators.
More specifically, the ranking of the U.S. on several indicators was:
13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
11th for post-neonatal mortality
13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
11th for life expectancy, at 1 year for females, 12th for males
10th for life expectancy, at 15 years for females, 12th for males
10th for life expectancy, at 40 years for females, 9th for males
7th for life expectancy, at 65 years for females, 7th for males
3rd for life expectancy, at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
The poor performance of the U.S. was recently confirmed by a World Health Organization study which used different data and ranked the United States as 15th among 25 industrialized countries.
'The American Exceptionalism expressed so smugly on this blog, with no data points to back it up... that pisses me off."
I see it was wrong to note you being simply smug, you're apparently also a hypocrite now decrying "American Exceptionalism" (sic) as smug whilst being the very product of it's largess that fosters privileged travel and forays of the neo-colonialist.
Enjoy your lifera.....err....lancha, lol, as Steve Goodman sings me out............
~Banana Republic~
First you learn the native customs,
soon a word of Spanish or two.
You know that you cannot trust them,
'cause they know they can't trust you.
Expatriated Americans, feelin' so all alone,
telling themselves the same lies
that they told themselves back home.
KILLER COCONUTS & OTHER TROPICAL HAZARDS
Like, we don't have enough to worry about?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2405/are-150-people-killed-each-year-by-falling-coconuts
LOL
Good one, Wage.
Costa Rica has one of the most stable governments in the whole of Central America.
--------------
Thanks, Dee, for reminding me that Costa Rica had the good sense to abolish its military in 1949 and invest in people.
Costa Rica has the reputation of being the Switzerland of Central America. Many consulate officials, diplomats, etc. retire to Costa Rica, from all over the globe. Costa Rica is one of many paradisical spots to live.
Some such spots exist in the USA, if you are rich. If I had the money I would have a nice little house near the beach in La Jolla and wait for my checks there.
But I do not have the income to live in California, so it is the southwest desert for me for now, until I can escape the USA for the Andes Mountains in the global south.
I thought it was agreed two weeks ago to ignore "douchebag".
=============
I simply don't understand this constant use of "douchebag" as some devastating put-down. Personally, I think of the douchebag as the "sliced bread" of feminine hygiene.
Right back at ya, Drinkwater
These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes,
Nothing remains quite the same.
Through all of the islands and all of the highlands,
If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane
Is "scumbag" OK?
Good point, Q. I honestly have no problem with being inserted between a woman's labia and letting go of my contents...I won't use douchebag again. You have converted me.
Am I missing something? Steve Goodman? Aren't we talking about Jimmy Buffet? Is Steve his writer or something?
My nephews spent a month in Costa Rica surfing. They had primitive/cheap accommodations in a tree house that was regularly visited by little monkeys. Their only brush with "death" was when an old lady pulled a knife on them. They simply ran in the other direction! They had a blast. The water is much warmer than Santa Cruz.
Yes, death is everywhere. Old lady with a knife? While I'm wearing my Speedos? I know I'm runnin'
"Steve Goodman? Aren't we talking about Jimmy Buffet?"
Not in this case tripp.
Steve Goodman, singer, musician, songwriter; wrote 'Banana Republic' and many other songs that were covered by various performers....probably most notably 'City of New Orleans'.
And now a bit of Humor...
Buffetts pic just popped up on yahoo...
Tips for the Little People:
including..
tip #5. Buy Cheap
The rich can afford to splurge, but that doesn't mean they do.
John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager, bought his Hamptons "dream house at a bargain basement price,"
according Zuckerman, author of the Paulson-based book, "The Greatest Trade Ever." The story has it that Paulson eyed the home while it was in foreclosure. ....
..Finally, on a rain-soaked day, he purchased the home on the Southampton town hall steps. He was the only bidder...............
It is Buffet, both songs.
I suspect Jimmy Drinkwater might be an immigrant unfamiliar with American culture, so I did not want to draw attention to his error or cause any embarrassment if he is an immigrant.
Yr local Junior College may have tints cheap.
"Someone who is continually banging on the capitalism drum is not showing all their cards. At this stage of the game it should practically be a tautology that those who are benefiting at the expense of others wish to keep the same old game going for another hand so they can continue to con the easy marks." -BHM
*************
Goddamnit, Lord, now listen up!....
Get that bright light out of my blinkered eyes, that "true-'nuff" shit hurts me bad!
"Yes both Vlad Krandz and Spider have disappeared. That does seem suspicious."
-the resident submariner-
I concur, Marc. Although, based on my experience from just today - it's pretty easy to get a new, and similar, screenname and jump right back into the fray.
Vlad, occasionally, has not posted until after Monday. And 8M/Old6969/Spider has always been sporadic - with lots of activity, followed by gaps, of at least a few hours.
I will (would?) actually (truly) miss Vlad, or any poster on this blog who writes from an unique perspective. I'll miss Spider because of his uniqueness - although the long posts/double/triple posts were (are) going to have to go, eventually. And a little misogyny may be OK - but Spider was rapidly setting records for STUPID SCARY HATE directed toward individual females.
And I've got to say that Lil'Jimbo/TooTsie/Fabian is sounding slightly better without quite so many insults. I don't believe he has fired a single "fucktard torpedo" (tm Cash) all day.
---------------------
Notes to new posters on CFN -
Why does this discussion of the personalities of the posters, matter?
This discussion blog is amazingly self-regulated, with recurrent posters who manage to establish some sorts of rules out of the anarchy that is the open internet.
Welcome in! - share your thoughts, by all means! -
But watch out for the digital hazards, the trolls, the fruitbats, and the jackasses.
P'C
Thanks for the laugh!
"Banana Republics" is the title of a 1976 Steve Goodman song, made famous by Jimmy Buffett, released in 1977 on the Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitude album.
I think that bright light in your eyes may be the interrogation lamp.
My my, well aren't you just the sensitive one?!
You can not be too careful on the anonymous internet. People do have feelings.
Wagelaborer,
I did not have the time to ask of you in last weeks exchange if you vote.
I was merely using the name bestowed by someone else but you must admit that he did answer to that name. Your take on that label is fascinating and I will consider making it my own.
Hmmmm, and from someone who writes:
"My bickering involves research and comes complete with hard numbers, factual data that are verifiable."
We get:
"It is Buffet, both songs.
I suspect Jimmy Drinkwater might be an immigrant unfamiliar with American culture, so I did not want to draw attention to his error or cause any embarrassment if he is an immigrant."
No worries on that, I see you capitulated with little side trip to google, lol.
But I do wonder how that "cause any embarrassment if he is an immigrant" mentality plays out for ya with the Ticos?
'We are the world, we are the children........la la la' lol
"Thanks for coming back. I wonder if JHK is having a bit of fun, or if it's just random?"
-tripp-
Tripp, I have no idea. Logically, I'll say most of the "held for review" posts are random. But, I got into a real World-Class whizzing contest with the blog software last Sunday night - trying to get my post to Ms. TruthTeller, concerning hair color and male vanity, to post. I was going through my post line by line, almost word by word, excising things and reposting. This was after I had retyped the thing - from memory and using different words - TWICE.
I probably tried to post it in various permutations - perhaps 12 times over a 15 minute period. That would, logically, be enough to get me banned as a "spammer" by lots of blog algorithms, perhaps including JHK's. So, to that extent, I deserve my own banning.
And I'm glad it was so easy to get back onto the thread. Forewarned is forearmed, though - for some of the rest of you.
P'C
PS, Tripp, on a more important issue - have you figured out how deep your well is? And do you know the maximum flow rate you could pump - carried forward for days, months, or years.
It's bothering me that you are sacrificing in the here and NOW - and that your family's sacrifice might well enable your large acreage Watermelon Man neighbor to plant his unsustainable crop for several more years, doing far more long term damage to local ecosystems and local economies.
You know what I mean, man?
Just got around to translating your German post from last week. Too right. Now how are those 'maters coming along? Still need to devote a few minutes to reading JHK's Daily Grunt that you promoted too.
Yessiree, X,
It's the Great Interrogatory o' Da Lawd, and he be ax'in' some mighty painful, burrrrrrnin' questions of late!
Will my querulous answers be enough to purchase our deliverance from Da Deb'bil? Only time and glossy gobs of providentially provided pleasure-pills will tell.....
Stay tuned to Clusterfuck Planet Channel for further updates, and set your personal climate control to "chaotic"!
Soak,
I received a response from Joseph Burgess, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times regarding the Dictionary Standard. He said:
"The Times uses the Webster's New World College Dictionary, fourth edition. I hope this is the info you are looking for."
He failed to say if this fact is contained in the Times usage reference we were discussing yesterday (forgot the name of it).
(Brought to you by James Howard Kunstler and [the ubiquitous] Google!)
Thanks, Q. for your diligence and your honesty.
I am sorry to hear of your problems with the software. As PC says, it seems to happen to lots of people, randomly, at various times. I had a long post for you but it would not post last week about the difference between Style and style. I also tried retyping it, shortening it... nothing worked and now I have lost it.
Regarding those carefully tented, early-planted, far-too-monstrous t'maters-
Yikes! The very earliest 'maters I've ever seen in these parts. There's some of the Brandywines that are just starting to "pinken" up. Might actually become a strategy, if'n we don't get nuke-fallout screw't before next season rolls around.
Of course, we have to keep in mind some of those howling storms that are becoming the new normal. Those could huff and puff and blow my little tomato house down. I do wire all the towers together, which provides more stability than one might think. Oh well, like you keep saying, I'll just have to hope I get some things going that work before they become life or death issues. (Thanks for asking, tomato-wise.)
Ps. That article is gang-busters; one of the most cogent psychological arguments I've heard in many a long year. We're probably NOT crazy! (......Well maybe not YOU, anyway. ;o)
Here goes again, or what I remember of it, in small posts and no paragraph breaks. Q, the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage does not provide any recommendations for so-called standard dictionaries. I checked it out. You must be jivin me. You busted, brother. I am hep to you. See, I got Style. The NYT has style. Let us plough through this. There is Style, and then there is style. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage will traffic in the second kind, but must reach its territory by way of homage to the first.
Style, with a capital S, achieves what a rule book never can. A source like The Urban Dictionary lights the page, draws readers, earns their delight, makes them gasp or weep and sometimes captures a place in memory. I am not jivin you Q.
Writerly style (even without the illicit capital S) is a set of tools and tricks, a tone of voice. Or rather it is the tone of many voices. At its best, edited with restraint, style is the ingredient that enables any single issue of The New York Times to supply the minimum daily requirement of crisis and struggle and triumph without homogenizing the insights and wit of scores of individual writers.
I haven't a clue about my well to be honest. It's a complete weak spot in our system. I'm hoping that our model will be so useful that it will convince enough people to do things differently that we can actually make an impact on the natural resources of the area. I'm hopeful that enough factors will place negative pressure on the wasteful brand of farming that the neighbor will go TU before his (and my) wells DU.
Wouldn't that be funny, this old seasoned rancher and farmer coming to little ol' upstart me to ask how we do it?
We'll have a redundant water supply in place within the year.
If I'm not crazy I doubt you are! I'll read it tomorrow. Nighty night all..
Hey man,
Gotta' couple of questions for you:
1. When you say "Da Deb'bil" do you mean petroleum?
2. Are you fuckin' for real?
Hugs & Kisses,
Brit Ekland
Just for the record, I had a nice post for Vlad about my immersion in the church last week that didn't go through, and I didn't have time to repost it. I'll try to post it again if/when he shows up.
"...my immersion in the church last week that didn't go through..."
Dude, you simply must tell.
Tripp,
Anthony Weiner's last name is pronounced Wee-ner isn't it? Or is it a long I as in wine? (Most of the time I watch TV muted.)
If the former, it violates both the I before E rule and also violates your rhyme "when two vowels go walking the second does the talking" unless that (only?) applies (my understanding from your post), to German names and Weiner is not German? For your rule to be useful then would require an extensive knowledge of German names.
I would have assumed Weiner was a German name but then I googled Schnitzel which lead to Wiener which I learned was "shortened from German Wiener Wurst Viennese sausage."
There are so many important things to know in life but they don't make it easy.
"1. When you say "Da Deb'bil" do you mean petroleum?" -X.
Hmmm, that would be far too conceptual fer me; but very cool however. I would be meaning the mythical [but much respected] Prince o' Lies, that we all hear'd tell of!
"2. Are you fuckin' for real?" -X.
Those that have seen me in my fleshly raiment say, "yes", others who've only heard the scandalous rumors say, "no fuggin' way!"
"Hugs & Kisses,
Brit Ekland" -X.
Thanks, Britt; you were always my most special favoritest of all! Sleep squishy. ;o)
OK, Tripp - I like acronyms, but you lost me here -
"I'm hopeful that enough factors will place negative pressure on the wasteful brand of farming that the neighbor will go TU before his (and my) wells DU." -tripp-
I've got a strong hunch that the neighbor might well go TU - Toes Up - good guess?
As far as your well going DU, TrippT - you've completely lost me.
DU - Diminished Unusable ?
DU - Degraded Unreachable ?
DU - Dong Unicycle ?
==============
Ok, I'll quit trying for humor - because, water is THE most serious subject in the drought prone reaches of Georgia. And your production farmer neighbors are pumping 10's of thousands of gallons per/DAY out of YOUR aquifer - without doubt, and without penalty.
But, south Georgia aquifers recharge in a hurry. Less than 5 years without electricity and diesel pumps running 24/7 - and your aquifer in Tift County would be back close to Pleistocene levels, I'd wager.
===============
===============
This gets to an important philosophical question - for the whole CFN discussion thread - because many of us are lifelong "conservationists" of water/gas/electricity/resources - -
Is it not possible that our own well-intentioned "conservation decisions," tend to - exacerbate and prolong - an inevitable "keyhole event" and collapse that is looming for the population of the US?
Anyone can respond to this -
It's an open forum.
P'C
"As far as your well going DU, TrippT - you've completely lost me." P,C
Just to barge (in a small way), I believe he's going for:
TU- tits up
DU- dry up
(Just my guess.)
It was like reading an excerpt from the James Brown PCP Chronicles. I can see that correspondence with you is inevitable. However, we must both move on to the topic of Fresh Water.
This appears to be one of those periodic communications to the readership from the Times Public Editor but it's about style and doesn't refute the Dictionary Standard. That's why it's OK in the right context to say "Whut up wif dat?"
P.S. It's scores.
Thanks Ozone -
I was just about to say to Tripp that I had figured it out
TU - Toes Up (although Tits Up is a better image?)
DU - Dries Up
That Tripp is a subtly humorous old boy, isn't he?
And you may barge in anytime, as far as I'm concerned, O3.
"Is it not possible that our own well-intentioned "conservation decisions," tend to - exacerbate and prolong - an inevitable "keyhole event" and collapse that is looming for the population of the US?" -P,C
***************
Interesting question, but I'd have to go with a fairly firm [if totally "suppositional"] "no", as there are too few of us to have much impact/footprint.
I went with a wood "gasification" furnace, because of our local resource, and a 360' well (340' with 20' bottom void for possible silting) to have "reserve", even though we were getting decent flow at 30'. That's just how New Englander's do stuff; pretend bad shit might happen... 'cause it usually does. ;o)
Thanks, Q. I cannot get the last paragraph to go through, so I cannot explain fully and finish the Style/style rant.
I will try one sentence at a time
The best of style, however, like The Urban Dictionary, relies upon the ears and eyesight of the ghetto.
Next sentence
In that setting, the sudden glimmer of an unusual word, a syncopation or a swerve in logic lets the reader know that here is something richer than an hourly bulletin, something richer than the New York Times or Websters.
Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent-VT, took to the floor for hour-and-a-half-long speech to call for people to contact the White House and demand corporations and the rich are hit as hard as social spending for the poor in a debt-reduction deal, which is being negotiated ahead of a vote to raise the debt ceiling.
"Tell the president not to yield one inch to Republican demands to destroy Medicare and end Medicaid while continuing tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful," Sanders said.
In The Ghetto, hit it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw
James I continued to really work on the garden,and how to enrich soil without oil inputs. I am exposed to many different folks because of my work, and past weekend I was excited to chat with Amish and Mennonite farmers and asked about all natural composting,well they respond they TOO use oil inputs to grow those big crops. Look around closely at your neighbors, work mates,and the various stories,the upcoming crisis will down all of us,and that will lead to non reality spokesman from right and left,man I want a time machine,imagine how to feed your family from your land, really try it, becareful of all those cozy all natural books,OH Zeus we need you.
I weigh 155.
VLAD STARTED A RUMOR.
I'm a pregnant, Jewish, African-American, woman who is confined to a wheelchair due to Lou Gehrig's Disease. You nosey mofo's do not get to know how much I weigh. Now what?
The silent depletion right now is in RARE
EARTH METALS. China, the world's biggest
supplier, is allegedly going to give the
world about half its normal amount.
These metals (rhodium, titantium, etc.)
turn out to be VITAL in just the industries
where we fancy we have an edge i.e., high
tech and the "resurgent" auto industry (a
goofy but oft-used term but where does it
come from since Ford's are now ranked 23rd).
If you're out there Jimbo, I wonder if you
could comment on this rather quiet disaster.
E.
Reading the comments here and trying to make sense of them I can only come to the conclusion that Gaia's recent efforts to wipe us little lice off her hide are all to the good.
All of you "I got mine fuck you" types take a good look at Texas and the Midwest right now. The drought is so hard in Texas that they can't grow a blade of grass without massively depleting their one-shot groundwater resources. The rains and flooding are so bad in the upper midwest that they still can't get into the fields to plant crops. Those people would STARVE without government help assuming they didn't drown or die of thirst first.
All of us other folks who are depending on the government to save our butts have to get realistic. That cannot happen with a thirteen carrier, fuckteen atomic submarine US Navy, military bases all over hell and gone and wars promoted just to keep Lockheed and Halliburton CEO's rich. Also no hip replacements or heart surgeries in 90+ year olds. Actually a whole shitload of what we call "health care" doesn't do crap for anybody but pad doctor's bills and pharmas profits.
Quit chasing the money and look at what's happening on the ground. The money is bullshit. It's monopoly money. We could toss all the bankers paper and computers in a big pile and get along just fine.
E.,
I've read a number of articles in the past about China holding on to their supply of rare metals and controlling how much they want to export. Well one would think who cold blame them, but here's the kicker I wrote about last year.
Erin Burnett was on Morning Joe talking about finances, but she let slip that our armed forces in Afghanistan were guarding Chinese miners.---get that, Afghanistan.
We must have some bizarre deal going with the Chinese to fund our wars...I believe we've already lost.
JHK,
Getting back to Hillary Clinton for just a moment. I don't know whether people have been following this but Hillary wants to leave her post as secretary of State and there is talk about her going to preside over the World Bank.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/clinton-world-bank-president_n_874484.html
I wish people would realize that Bill and Hillary are not you father's democrats any more than that W. was you father's Republican.
They are all globalists and neoliberals which means that the gutting of nations --that is getting them into debt and then privatizing their assets are what these people are all about.
Hillary is part of t he problem which was why I didn't consider her for President. It seems no matter who you vote for, you're going to get exactly what you have now.
You'll be reassured to know that in the past few weeks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has used the 'power and prestige' of her office to persuade Italy to accept Lady Gaga into Rome for a massive planned Gay/Lesbian Pride celebration this summer. It seems some troglodytes at the Vatican were insulted by some of 'Gaga's more blasphemous videos, and wanted to keep her out. Screw them! We showed them who's boss, and where our real national priorities lie.
Of course, the whole world is boiling up around us, as JHK points out each and every week, but who gives a shit about that when an opportunity presents itself to kiss up to the international 'Gay and Lesbian Community'. Plus, it was a good opportunity to smack down the Vatican, which doesn't come every day. As long as 'Lady Gaga' directs her rage against Christians all will be well
and she will remain in the good graces of the State Dept. and the Democratic Party. I think Lady Gaga is politically astute enough to know to keep her mouth shut about Islam, if she knows what's good for her. There's no money in that, and it might be bad for her health, anyway.
As far as I know Hillary is not working on getting Lady Gaga into Mecca or Medina, where she really could do some good. Just Rome for now. I would chalk this up as an international coup on Hillary's part and puts her in the pantheon of previous Secretary of States like John Hay and Thomas Jefferson.
-Marlin
Great program last night on the Travel Channel about Buffalo, NY, centering on the Erie Canal which made Buffalo possible. I watched it because JHK, in TLE, talks about Erie Canal being important once again in an energy starved America, which was the conclusion of the show as well. The host visited these massive, massive structures form the industrial age, not long ago, which still exist in Buffalo but are all boarded up and sealed off now, a beautiful New York Central train station that went on acres and acres, huge grain elevators, steel mills, energy plants, inland ports, an outsized industrial infrastructure in use between 1870-1970, now abandoned.
-Marlin
Buffalo is still a grain port. The longest run in the great lakes fleet of bulk carriers is the grain run between Duluth-Superior and the grain silos on the waterfront in Buffalo, NY. The fleet which was still making that run in recent years was the Steinbrenner fleet which was/is crewed by the Seafarers International Union out of the hiring hall in Algonac, MI on the St. Clair River north of Detroit. So called lakers rarely or never enter Lake Ontario.
And unlike the various canal systems in Ohio, which were allowed to fall into disrepair after the 1914 storms which also sank a number of freighters on the great lakes, the New York State Barge Canal which connects Lake Erie with the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers is still fully operational. Post collapse it could fall into disrepair however.
Driving through Buffalo on my way up north to go canoeing in either the Adirondacks or else no. Ontario I'm always freaked out by the miles upon miles of boarded up public housing you see to the west of the new minor league ballpark. Buffalo also has a World War II cruiser on the waterfront as a museum ship & war memorial.
The Navy currently has eleven large attack carriers and 75 nuclear submarines. These figures are way down from what they were operating after Nixon downsized the fleet essentially retiring nearly all of the WWII construction in the early 'seventies. After the Nixon reductions the navy had formerly operated 16 attack carriers and over 130 submarines whose number included then less than 10 diesel boats, which are no longer in the inventory since their submerged cruising speed and endurance are so limited compared to the nuke boats.
There is now talk of adding new diesel/electric submarines. Both the Germans and the Scandinavian consortium build prolonged submergence submarines which use Sterling engines. Although they can remain submerged without snorkeling for prolonged periods their hunting-killing role is limited by restricted flank speed while submerged. The Israelis supposedly operate a seaborne nuclear deterrent basing cruise missiles on such German types which they bought some time ago.
Yea verily the democrats are no longer new dealers nor have they been for some time. Both Slick Willie and our current President Jomama are reminiscent of nothing so much as liberal Republicans such as Nixon, Ford, and Big Bush. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to start swimming upstream defying all those on the presumably other side in the government who want to scap the last surviving remnants of the FDR-LBJ Great Society, so called.
They know which side their bread's buttered on and it's no longer big labor which is doing the buttering for them. Hence, no surviving labourite party in this country. Escapism is now the only solution. The only question is whether or not escaping to one's rural retreat is sufficiently escapist. In the event we will probably discover that that is not sufficiently removed from the madding crowd to ensure one's safety or continued survival.
Would one's homestead be safe in the world depicted in the Mad Max movies? Of course not. Think Waterworld instead. Fish stocks should dramatically rebound after the demise of commercial diesel powered fishing. Then again, if we completely destroy the world ocean through acidification then we're totally FUCKED and might as well be hapless landlubbers Clusterfuckians. We'll be landlubbers hunted down by postapocalyptic bikers, but the bikers are going to be pedaling mountain bikes with perhaps a few electric mountain bikes thrown in for those who are talented enough mechanically to keep their own personal windmill generators running.
US House to meet in emergency session.
Ambassador to Greece has been recalled, embassy has been shuttered.
US Navy Seventh fleet heading to Mediterranean.
O'bama to address nation tonight - subject - to tell Greek government submit to "freedom fighters' demands or else." !!!!!
Film at eleven......
Of all the posters here, I like the one who is actually doing something and who serves as an inspiration to me...Trippticket.
You know how to go right to your favorite poster here don't you? Click Control F in a Mac and type their name, hit "next" or "highlight all"--edit find in a pc--and there they are sequentially as you hit the return key.
Tripp, don't forget that you can lay a 100' black rubber garden hose on your roof and run an end into a shower--better get a "Y" shaped hose splitter to mix in cold water or you'll get scalded. Automated mixers that can be set at a certain temperature can be used too--but that's complicated...
Remember when Big Pharma refused to develop drugs to treat "our heroes" returning from Iraq with some sand fly bite induced disfiguring disease?
Not enough of them to make it profitable. So the V.A. developed their own drug for very little money and made it available to the affected fighting men at a cost of pennies a dose.
Bud, I see there's rioting in Greece. I couldn't confirm any of the rest of your post. Did you just make it up?
I do really like the part about Obama telling the Greek government to submit to the "freedom fighters." Since that would undercut the interests of Obama's friends at Goldman Sacs - I'm not seeing that as even a possibility.
At least there is good news on the nuclear emergency in Nebraska which I thought might have been discussed this week. But everything is now secure and safe according to authorities.
An 8-foot-tall, water-filled temporary berm protecting the plant collapsed early Sunday. Vendor workers were at the plant Monday to determine whether the 2,000 foot berm can be repaired.
Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson said pumps were handling the problem at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station and that "everything is secure and safe." The plant, about 20 miles north of Omaha, has been closed for refueling since April.
Laughing As Los Alamos was burning down. At least that is taking my mind off the nervous spokesman talking about about that Nebraska nuke plant...
Something about how he kept answering every question the newsman asked with a "no floodwater is inside the building" sorta set of my spidey-sense.
BBHead Marc:
Have you ever cruised thru the Erie Canal?
Also, does the Navy operate any vessels on the Great Lakes?
I recently read a book about the War of 1812, in which the Great Lakes saw much Naval combat. Also, Sacketts Harbor, NY was the nations largest naval base at the time, if you can believe it.
Did you go to boot camp at Great Lakes, Orlando or San Diego?
-Marlin
More Good New... Breathing Room on Default
A top economic forecasting firm pushed back its estimated U.S. default date by about a week, estimating in an email to clients that the government can avoid going bust until Aug. 10.
"The Treasury's cash balance following the June quarterly tax date is slightly stronger than we expected, which may buy the Treasury a few extra days in August," wrote the economists at Wrightson ICAP. "Our point estimate of the likely drop-dead date has been pushed back from August 5 to August 10."
"However," they noted, "the confidence interval around that forecast continues to be a week or two in either direction."
Sadly, this is the place where my principles fail me. I won't drive unnecessarily, or use air conditioning, but I always vote, even though I believe that it is a waste of time and it only encourages them. I've even run for local office, if you want to know the sordid truth.
They aren't "our" wars, lbendet.
They are the wars of the ruling class, which is now global, as you point out.
Wasnt' it you that linked to the Atlantic article about how the ruling classes of the world are intertwined with each other, and have nothing to do with the people of their birth countries?
Remember that a lot of "Chinese" industry is actually transplanted American factories, now using cheaper labor. The same people profit from them.
They have no loyalty to us. For us to have loyalty to them is like having loyalty to the local football team because you live there.
They don't have to live here anymore. They don't have to sell here anymore. I saw a chart which shows the rise in non-US sales by major "US" corporations.
Just as the ruling class is international, so are the people able to consume. Consumers no longer just reside in the US, so they're letting us go.
Surely you're kidding.
The Greek people protesting austerity measures so that they may pay off the banking loans that their politicians procured will NEVER be called freedom fighters by our ruling class.
We have our own version in Wisconsin. They are ignored and teargassed as necessary.
"Freedom fighters" are CIA armed thugs who attack governments that the US (and international) ruling class won't tolerate. Maybe they won't join the international banking system, or maybe they want to sell their oil in Euros or dinars.
Maybe they won't open their markets to cheap US corn or offer their people as cheap labor.
Whatever. The Greeks will be smashed, and so will the Americans.
No, either my conservation efforts have an effect, and postpone global warming or save a fish from a dried up river, or they have no effect and no one gets more because I took less.
In the meantime, I can live with my conscience.
"Is it not possible that our own well-intentioned "conservation decisions," tend to - exacerbate and prolong - an inevitable "keyhole event" and collapse that is looming for the population of the US?"
I sure hope so! At least the prolonging part. Stretching Hubbert's Curve out to the right as far as we can should be our chief goal. With petroleum in its descent phase already, I don't believe that we are capable of a NET increase in biospheric destruction (short of nuclear means), so I don't share your concern about exacerbating our demise. Again, I mean in a net planetary way; localized destruction can certainly increase for the unfortunate and passive.
I think that every person who goes from consumption to production, from commuting to working from home, every farmer who trades in rapacious cultivation of annual crops for soil building perennial production or conservation tillage, helps build a negative feedback loop on the cycle of destruction.
In 10 years, this 300 acres will be a haven of biodiversity, and a gene bank for repopulating the region with robust ecologies that humans will be an integrated, not combative, part of. Within that 10 years I believe that we will spawn many more "seedling" permaculture sites, and so forth and so on, until a critical mass is reached, and it becomes uncouth (and potentially immoral) to water a lawn, wash a car, flush a toilet, or use any more energy than necessary to accomplish a given task, at which time the remaining population is socially "forced" to adapt.
Actually the first few seedling permaculture sites are already forming in the minds, at least, of some new friends here. Not all will stay in Tift County, some are here for school and will go elsewhere when done, but that really makes no never-mind to the larger picture.
I like to visualize the pattern as a net, like a fishing net, where several nodes (permaculture sites or the like) form in a region, and then other people copy and adapt those models forming more nodes, which link up which each other economically and socially, forming the strands of the net, until it's hard to escape the influence of the network. It's a long, organic process, but I have a lot of faith in slow organic processes, and humans, by nature, tend to conserve their resources better and better as they dwindle, so I have hope that Hubbert's Curve can be stretched way, way out on the downslope. Ever had a sack of weed, and you threw the contents around liberally when you had a lot, dropping a bit here or there, not caring, but when you got to the point that you could count how many bowls you had left you went into conservation mode, holding your toke longer each time and looking for the bit you dropped harder as you approach the end of the bag, cursing yourself for being so wasteful with the first half of the sack? Human nature.
But the opposite is just as likely. Catastrophe is on our doorstep and almost no one is doing anything about it. The eco-pious fret and wring their hands about this treshold or that limit being exceeded already, so what's the point of trying to catch it? Not a very useful response to anything if you ask me, but popular nonetheless.
I've said on several occasions that our goal should be to stretch the collapse out to units of generations instead of running into an Olduvai Cliff, because I don't think the catastrophic model favors the prepared much more than it does the desperate. I'm certainly not ready for a full-blown collapse.
How do you do it with a PC?
"A top economic forecasting firm pushed back its estimated U.S. default date by about a week, estimating in an email to clients that the government can avoid going bust until Aug. 10."
Is this being covered in the MSM at all? This seems like THE story of the decade to me.
If everybody is cut off of welfare, and the government no longer pays people to work, then the monetary system contracts, and no one buys your mushrooms.
Plus, there will be a lot of starving desperate people around.
We can have a monetary system without running it through bankers and debt. We can have a decent society without nuclear submarines and endless war.
But just cutting everyone off of their stipends will not create that decent society.
That's very kind of you, WestCoast! And thanks for the down-teching tips. Useful stuff for sure.
I'm looking at how fast Fabian responds to everyone's posts. It's hard to believe that one guy is able to troll that many posters and to provide such succinct quote snippets from articles on topics ranging from Canadian health care to shale oil. I think that he is a "hired troll". He might even have a small team helping him or posting under his name. He is seeding the forum with foul, abusive language in the hopes that you will tune out. It would be a reasonable guess that he is being paid, ultimately, by some group of oil interests. I have a relative who does normal PR work, placing stories as news, but she also runs blog farms in the 1,000s for the same large corporations. The best thing that we could all do is stop responding to him, even in passing.
Thanks for the tech tip re: how to find a favorite poster. Love learning neat tricks for me Mac!
That's exactly what Uncle Ned was saying yesterday. He pressed F man to fess up to the truth, which of course, he didn't. Ignore the knuckle dragger and maybe he'll go away. Well, maybe not, since it is his JOB.
Wage, it's not me cutting everyone off. The moneychangers are doing that. And I don't really care if I get paid for mushrooms in greenbacks or sixpacks to be honest.
I'm doing everything I can to keep people from starving, believe me. I agree that the government could help in some big ways, but that isn't their MO. Their MO is corporate profit, which doesn't take too kindly to permaculture. So it's my opinion that either we do it ourselves, or we starve to death, which might not be completely off the planning charts for an elite class facing resource depletion. Left or right, the government is not in our corner. You seem to have a lot of faith in top-down solutions that I absolutely do not share. Not that I don't appreciate your efforts.
"What is the absolute height of insanity is to pretend that there is no problem. Introducing Obamacare, when the country was already bankrupt was INSANE. Increasing the usage of government limousines by 73% in the first 2 years of big O's admin. is INSANE."
Gotta agree to a point, when looked at from any honest perspective it IS insane. Our owners are not honest of course, and these insanities are distractions to keep the heat off of them.
There does not have to be a slam-dunk, dead certain crash...if responsible government institutions recognize, admit and react to the financial straights we find our nation currently embroiled."
"Dead men walking" will extend the walk, if they can. After siphoning $14 trillion in financial blood from (the corpse?) of the USA economy, through its Fed front, the banking cartel is still insolvent. Recognizing reality means these banks are toast. Since they control both the red and blue politicians, the media, and most elections, the realists will be ingnored at best, or offed if necessary.
Since the government is also bankrupt, a crash is inevitable, (it is simply not to possible to pay off the debt) but expect more delay until a way is found to save our owners banks. Then, if they get their way, a crash happens that leaves them owning everything real, and the survivors in feudal support roles.
I'm in. I'll stop reading "his" posts.
So my daughter has been listening to this They Might Be Giants song for kids called "Kids Go!" Pretty catchy tune actually, especially for TMBG fans.
But the words to this verse stuck in my head:
"So if you're hearing my voice,
then there isn't any choice,
you should already be jumping
like a jack-in-the-box,
So GO!!"
It's a song about getting kids off the couch and moving, dancing, whatever, but to my energy descent-addled mind the above words sound like a plea to first world children to get busy doing something different. They are obviously much more subtle than I am, but "if you're hearing my voice" that means you have access to the internet or a CD player, i.e. you are a citizen of the industrial world, and shit is about to get messy. So, hopefully your parents are on it already, but if not "you should already be jumping like a jack-in-the-box," so GO!! (Move like a monkey...move like a jumping bean.)
Can't get it out of my head actually...dang kids wanting to hear it over and over and...
Mohammed El-Erian of PIMCO says that the Fed has been buying 70% of the bonds issued by the US Treasury. What does that tell you? It tells me that the theoretical limits of the theoretical financial system have long been exceeded.
The world didn't collapse you say? Just wait. People talk about US govt default. What pray tell do they think quantitative easing is? The Fed creating money out of thin air and pumping this "new cash" into the economy on this scale is default with a capital D. Or fraud with a capital F. Akin to borrowing ie 5 lbs of gold coin and repaying with 5 lbs of copper coin.
It's a con game on a monumental scale with everyone, especially the shysters in the financial system, pretending it ain't so. But it is so.
What makes me laugh are these "best and brightest" on Wall Street working day and night to steal what the Fed is working day and night, at the command of Wall Street, to make more and more worthless. It's an amazing thing to watch. Best and brightest my ass. Cretins. They spent a fortune on Ivy League degrees to get stupid. STOOPID.
Howdy Wage, Per your query: "How do you do it with a PC?"
A previous CFN poster, I remember not who, pointed out that if using Firefox simply open Edit at the top left of your page and then open Find and type in the word one is searching for. I believe that internet explorer utilizes a similar technique.
SNAFU
Thank you. Apparently, I use neither.
My son, also my tech support, set up my computer and it doesn't seem to have an "edit" button.
But thank you for the info.
Wonder how she'd do with something like snortin whiskey drinkin cocaine or boom boom out go the lights. Give her five years and watch out.
On a P.C. to find your favorite poster or any word,
"Edit", then "Find on this page".
Internet Explorer...of course you could upgrade to
Firefox and use their free add on, Add Block Plus, so that you'd have more control and never see another ad again...
Tripp, yes the full kabuki dance is being covered in MSM. Our leaders are laser focused on this, waiting to see who will blink first. I am positive they will come up with a deal by the end of July and there will be no default.
OTOH, a default could be the trigger for a massive economic collapse and devaluation of the dollar.
OTOH, Argentina defaulted on $100 billion of foreign debt 10 years ago and Argentina still exists. So default is not a death sentence, but would accelerate the energy descent, a mini-wake up call.
Max Keiser points out that Americans are destroying their own infrastructure, the way they do when they attack another country.
But it's individual Americans. I pointed out before that I thought it was horrible when the USSR was destroyed, and the people were reduced to scavenging their own infrastructure, like electric lines, for scrap metal, and that now people here were stealing air conditioners for the copper.
Prog said that people were stealing transformers in Georgia.
According to Max Keiser, a lot of people are stealing transformers, and a train was derailed last week because someone stole the track for scrap metal.
After 9-11, even though I thought that the plan to widen my street would be scrapped, because of the oil money and all, the plan went ahead.
For some reason (sarcasm, now that they've put in the housing development, I see why they did it) they put in a sewer system along the soybean fields. Lately I noticed that the manhole covers were missing. This is very dangerous for people walking along the street, which more and more are doing, now that the economy is collapsing.
I'm guessing they're selling them for scrap.
This is pathetic.
I have emailed my son. I think I have Ubuntu?
There doesn't seem to be an edit button.
I totally agree with you that the government is in bed with their corporate masters, and that we need to produce locally.
I just feel that it's a waste to give up all the talent and brains and ability that there is in this country while we devolve into a feudal system of each for themselves.
One of my Facebook friends in Chicago posted the following, about a woman he saw on the street. A victim of the bankers, but also of passerbys.
"I was going to the store one day and there was this woman sitting on the street curb crying and talking incoherently with all of her belongings scattered along the street. She was evicted from her condo because she could no longer afford her home because she was laid off.
While she sat lost & talking to herself people where going thu her things and walking away with whatever they liked...right in front of her suffering.
It was the ugliest form of inhumanity I have ever seen in America in my whole life. I shot the video and then got pissed and confronted to people who where going thu her things and asked "are these yours...? ( knowing they where not. ) and of coarse they where honest enough to say "NO" Then I said, well what the FU@& are you doing..? Well they walked away but not before taking a few things.
I did not shoot the lady in the video out of Respect for a already suffering human being. I asked the lady if she was going to be ok..and she said that her brother was trying to find someone to come get her things but she did not know where she would take them. Needless to say... the next day some of the things were gone or stolen and I never seen here again. :(
This is the REALITY in AMERICA today. Now imagine if this was you disabled & on a wheelchair in her situation. THIS IS HAPPENING IN AMERICA ( OMG!!! )
Wage, pressing the control key and the F key simultaneously should bring up the find box. On a Mac it would be the command key and the F key simultaneously.
Here is a link to Ubuntu keyboard shortcuts
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KeyboardShortcuts#Finding keyboard shortcuts
That particular incident involved stealing copper "busbars" from substations. Which, around here involves cutting your way into a chain link fence with barbed wire on the top. And walking into an enclosure that is usually stepping down transmission voltage of 115,000 volts to the "lower" distribution voltage of 24,400 volts.
Only idiots will go in there without training AND the immediate knowledge of what's hot and what's not - because you sure can't tell just by looking.
There was a death that hit the news a couple of years ago - I can't find the link, though. But then TPTB got this bill passed, and some of the thefts from utilities, etc, slowed down.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/att-goes-after-copper-wire-thieves
==============
I was watching trucks southbound on I-16 going to Savannah, GA, a few weeks ago. There is a LOT of scrap metal heading to that port. I'm assuming that a good bit of it is heading into shipping containers to go overseas.
And one can argue that the "scrap scavengers" are cleaning up some of the US - for free. But they are also stealing a lot of stuff.
My brother in law just has his outside "pad mounted" AC condenser stolen at his lake house. Thieves got an estimated $15 for what they stole. It cost him $3000 to have the unit replaced. Then he paid extra to have a metal cage installed over the unit - bolted into newly poured concrete in some manner. I haven't seen it, yet.
And he got his AC guy to bypass the outside "power disconnect," so that the AC unit is always electrically "hot." I asked, "Man, aren't you worried about getting sued if somebody gets electrocuted, there?"
"No," he says, "I don't care. Plus this is Georgia - no jury is going to give an award to somebody stealing stuff who gets hurt."
"I guess I'll just have to be sure to kill the power inside the house if I have any work done on the AC outside."
Democracy Now spent many minutes today on one of the auditioning puppets.
Then they had a brief segment talking about nuclear reactors. Japan doesn't matter, Nebraska doesn't matter, Obama insists on funneling billions of dollars to nuclear construction companies.
Then the expert talked about Obama's support for new nuclear weapons. Apparently, he's funneling big bucks to weapons manufacturers, also.
Amy Goodman asked how he could justify the expense, with the deficit and all.
The expert said that he didn't have to justify it. No one was paying attention. No media was covering it.
So the current puppet is giving billions to further destroy our ecosystem and provide the military with the means to destroy more lives.
And even Amy Goodman is more preoccupied with the upcoming puppet replacement ceremony.
Unbelievable.
Scrap dealers continue to be part of the problem - they can be "fences" for thieves.
Somebody stole 175+ bronze flower pots from a cemetery. That disappeared - probably shredded or melted and shipped to China.
At my wife's last school they finally had to WELD DOWN the manhole covers - first because kids were rolling them into the woods when the place was closed - although by now they'd be stealing them.
What scrap dealer would accept a truck load of perfectly functional manhole covers as SCRAP - asking no questions - and contributing to quickly getting them shipped out of the state and then out of the country.
Jackasses.
Whoa! It worked! Thank you, soak.
LSDJogger said, "I am convinced that the die off of the human race (aka the Long Emergency) will be postponed for a few decades on account of shale gas. The question for me is, are we going to expand our use of natural gas enough (as a replacement for oil in transportation and as a replacement for dirty coal in electric power generation) enough that gas will go up enough to be a profitable business?"
Its insane, the casual way you state this. Like any investor in the industries which are destroying the world, you profit from destruction, form human suffering, and no ethical dilemma pierces your awareness. You have perfected your life in your niche, like a worm having found the buried fecal matter it will reproduce in. You are a parasite.
I think I have Ubuntu?
=============
I had Ubuntu once. Makes syphilis look like the sniffles. Got it from this black chick down in the prah-jecs. No wonder she was only charging five bucks.
;-)
Taking advantage of the dry southwest heat, with over 100 degree temperatures, I got a used evaporative cooler and I'm in climate controlled heaven.
Much cheaper than air conditioning, uses less energy, humidifies the dry southwest air. I am happy.
http://www.alternative-heating-info.com/swamp_cooler_vs_air_conditioner.html
What really struck me as strange is you have to leave a window open somewhere in the house... but it works nonetheless, cooling 10 to 20 degrees.
That's what I thought at first, Prog.
How could they sell them? It's obvious what they are.
But I guess there are dishonest scrap metal dealers, also.
The title of the Max Keiser segment was Scrap Metal Dealers are the New Pawn Shops.
Kind of inaccurate. Don't most people hope to reclaim their pawned items when they have the money?
I always patronize the small local market at the town square. My thought is that my dollars will keep them open, and they buy from local farmers, which keeps them in business.
I found out that they have been operating at a loss for a couple of years. If I lose my job, I will be able to spend less there, and the community may lose an important resource.
Most people shop at WalMart. I am assuming that WalMart will close when oil gets pricier.
I want there to be an alternative.
The owners of the store are committed to the town. They also operate a coffee shop/vegetarian restaurant, a day care center, and a local garden. They host community movies and gatherings.
They are Muslims, by the way. Sufis.
Pangy said, "Reading the comments here and trying to make sense of them I can only come to the conclusion that Gaia's recent efforts to wipe us little lice off her hide are all to the good.
All of you "I got mine fuck you" types take a good look at Texas and the Midwest right now. The drought is so hard in Texas that they can't grow a blade of grass without massively depleting their one-shot groundwater resources."
The zombie hordes are simplistic in their strategy:
1. Cluster together with the herd. Ancient instinct: protection in numbers.
2. Adopt the habits and thought-ways of the herd: Ancient instinct: protection in numbers, join the clan.
3. When the shit hits the fan, flee. Ancient instinct: there is always someplace else, a greener pasture, to run to after this one is depleted/ruined.
The paleolithic mind is alive and well. Trust me- people are running ancient programs informed by their genetics. Human beings aren't calibrated to deal with really massive problems. Our government is unfortunately calibrated to allow gangs of tribal-minded and selfish people to simply go about ruining everything. They will succeed.
And there will come a day when they will all pile into their trucks, or trains, or even on foot, and make a great exodus from the wasted and polluted places they now live.
Unfortunately for their stupid asses, there will be nowhere to go; the consequences of their civilization will be everywhere. They will die from poisoned wells, thirst, exposure, starvation, and disease.
This will all happen after an intercessory period where they participate in the machinations of their evil natures. They will participate in the poisoning of the air and the water. They will destroy whatever is in reach with thier upside-down value system. It will begin in their personal relationships, their inanimate objects of affection, their social relationships, the infrastructure of everyday life.
Their teeth will decay, their bones will become brittle, their hair will fall out, their liver will deteriorate, they will become fat, and lazy, and sluggish in their thinking.
When the time comes to flee they will have little strength, and others of their kind will cut strips of flesh from their red and distended limbs as they lie roasting on the pavement under the brutal and unforgiving sun.
It's funny that the same people who wouldn't give money to people hurt while stealing air conditioners are all about "supporting our troops" while they are invading other people's homes.
Double standard, I guess.
Double standard, I guess.
-------------
I'd say it's a frickin' quadruple moral bypass!
Dr. Holiday said, "One thing that should be clear though is that any amount of intellectualizing about why we must go through an economic contraction with all the pain that implies isn't going to do any good and misses the point, whatever that point might be."
You almost arrived at the point. The point is that making money, "succeeding", competing, executing our social programming as behaviors and attitudes, et al., are the set of upside-down behaviors that ultimately will leave you a hollowed-out shell of a human being, or a very fulfilled psychopath equivalent to any of the lever-pulling Nazi executioners at Auschwitz.
"We are all caught beneath the wheels of history and about all we can do about it is to watch the machine grind us to pieces. The fear beneath the wings of all this for Americans is the fear of losing the loft perch of driving around in oversized cars, stuffing our faces and turning the AC down one more notch at the expense of some other person who has never seen an air conditioner."
The question is, will the younger generation be amenable to the defeatist / destructionist agenda? Many young people will adopt the attitude of apathy and defeat and commence with the legal and sanctioned forms of self-destruction. They will drink and consume mindlessly. If there is a war, they will go lustily and consummate their emptiness, and annihilate themselves.
We are only borrowing this planet for a while- it is our responsibility to take care of it- which means defend it against those that would destroy it.
If it is true that CEOs should be forced to drink the water in rivers their company pollutes, it is also true that that company's shareholders should also drink that water.
If you think investing in natural gas companies is value-free, that your mouse-clicks on E*trade are ethically transparent, understand that you are a thief- a thief of the future, in some way, to some degree, also an earth rapist, a polluter, a poisoner, a murderer, even. Your hands are bloody with the cancerous bodies of babies and mothers, and no just God would allow you a gratuitous retirement.
"THIS IS HAPPENING IN AMERICA ( OMG!!! )"
As we speak the Federal Reserve and its cronies are doing the same thing to every single Earthling. It might not affect the people at the bottom quite as severely, but women in Mozambique will no longer be able to support 5 children without industrial world philanthropy, I can pretty much promise you that.
It must be particularly hard for people in the medical fields, but we have got to start letting some people go. We can't keep every fattie, every diabetic, every kid with Down Syndrome, alive to dilute the gene pool forever. That was a brief reality during the cheap energy bonanza, just like holding the Mississippi back with energetically expensive levies, but it just isn't how Nature works. You know good and well that Nature is ruthless in sorting out successful traits from unsuccessful ones, and we've gotten in her way for too long. Viewed from above you can see how this policy has put our species in even greater peril.
If it were my kid I'd want to save them too, but at some point we just won't be able to anymore.
Back to the hot garden to try to secure a spot for my children in a world with a whole lot fewer humans...
Don't we all feel safer now!
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/nation/tsa-stands-by-pat-down-of-elderly-woman-and-removal-of-her-diaper
Click on the YouTube link in t middle of the article. Funny but so true.
If you think investing in natural gas companies is value-free, that your mouse-clicks on E*trade are ethically transparent, understand that you are a thief- a thief of the future, in some way, to some degree, also an earth rapist, a polluter, a poisoner, a murderer, even. Your hands are bloody with the cancerous bodies of babies and mothers, and no just God would allow you a gratuitous retirement.
==
The banality of evil..
They are Muslims, by the way. Sufis.
==
We are all earthlings, as Mr. T points out. :)
Yeah, frisking 90 year old women with cancer, while luggage is loaded without screening.
In the meantime, thieves are derailing trains for scrap metal, while passengers are frisked.
I feel so safe!
Yeah, that was for the right wing Christian haters among us.
But they're people too.
OMIGOD!
Q is on Facebook.
http://www.happyplace.com/3645/the-best-obnoxious-responses-to-misspellings-on-facebook
communities where juries will ".....give money to people hurt while stealing air conditioners are all about "supporting our troops""
-wage-
I'm actually pretty happy to live in an area where a jury is less likely to give a cash award to a thief hurt on my property while stealing my property.
There are a lot of people on this globe who would never reward a criminal for theft.
There are plenty of people (probably most) who will support troops, and police officers, and even TSA agents - when their own safety is directly threatened.
-----------
Are there people who have been brainwashed to say, "Support the troops," and thereby shut down all debate. Sure there are - but that's another question, altogether.
They are Muslims, by the way. Sufis.
-------------
Sufis make my head spin!
Seriously, lovely people. I have danced and whirled with them, and also done zikr with Muslims.
Of course Rush/Glenn/etc. would say I am dancing with "people who want to kill us" ...
Some of the dances I have shared with them are to die for. You get so drunk on the divine that Rumi's poetry begins dance in your head (if you have read Rumi).
When I look at Israel and how Americanized it has become, as an Israeli I get very angry. Very angry! The American corporate cultural genocide practiced on the world is one of the reasons for my deep hate of the US. Your genocidal corporate pirates need to be stopped. And you need to get your asses organized and stop them. Because I'm not sure how much longer we in the rest of the world can restrain ourselves from lashing out when we see you on our streets with your willfully constructed blinders. I think the day is not far off when American tourists will be spontaneously lynched wherever in the world they may visit. I'm very serious. You just can't imagine the level of hate that your corporate pirates are creating.
I don't think you got my point, Prog.
Home invasion is a crime, I agree.
What the US military is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Libya is invading other people's homes. And killing them. And taking their stuff.
Seriously, you don't see that?
Why the shock?
Is homelessness new?
A friend of mine [old and black] was moving.
He got Mexican day laborers to help him move...
they robbed him blind.
Another day he had a yard sale....Mexicans in cars show up, by the half dozen. Some distract while the others steal.
A 'meth head' on a bicycle grabbed the old guys 400$ cell phone and rode off fast....ya cant even have a yard sale!
I’m truly impressed that the credit dog and pony show has lasted as long as it has. It couldn’t be done without the complicity of bondholders (could it?). I wonder when they’re finally gonna freak out. Average Americans are kept in the dark about their financial future, and worse, kept in the dark about resource depletion. Too many people, not enough topsoil. Plenty of broken down dwellings. Hmmm, makes me want to go copper “mining”.
I'm in the process of reading Vandana Shiva's book "Monocultures of the Mind," about how industrial world, but particularly American, values and notions of wealth have marginalized most of the variety, crops, and culture in the rest of the world's societies. She paints a particularly unsavory picture about how the "improved" food and tree crops promoted by American corporations are actually less productive than native food and fuel crops. Not to mention that most people view the forest in a radically different way than American profiteers. A forest, to most of the world's people, is the well-spring of food, fiber, fuel, fodder, and fertilizer. And most of that fertilizer comes from the crown biomass of various leafy trees that are frowned upon by American timber speculators as a waste of space.
It seems to be a completely different relationship, not only to the forest, but to the planet in general, than promoted by "scientific" American researchers and business leaders. And it mirrors my take on the world a lot more closely. I'm thankful for people like Dr. Shiva, who are not afraid to stand up against the biggest bullies ever known to man and say, we're not going to take this lying down, no matter how many of you there are.
I wish there were more I could do than simply power-down and blog about it. I'm working on it.
"Too many people, not enough topsoil."
It doesn't get any more concise than that.
Obviously, I disagree with you, Tripp.
We have the knowledge, the equipment and the drugs to save people. But we don't have the "money"?
We have money to bail out the banks and bomb other people's children, but not to save our own?
Actually, just ask Prog about it. I think he said something about how he thought that he could let his baby die if there was something wrong with it, right up until he saw his baby. (Sorry if I got it wrong, prog).
Should that baby have died to save money needed for more important things?
I've never cruised the Erie Canal but one of my sister's boyfriends used it to get his sailboat back to Cleveland from Rhode Island after sailing down to New York then turning right at the Hudson River. I once slept in a fleabag motel next to the Erie Canal though.
By treaty with Canada no warships can be kept in the Great Lakes but Coast Guard cutters are okay and we have a cutter here in Cleveland called the Neah Bay.
I was the yeoman of my bootcamp company at Orlando, which no longer exists since Great Lakes is the only one left. Our recruit master-at-arms was a former NFL and CFL player called Cecil Bowens, from the U of Kentucky. He died several years ago. That was January & February of '78. My dad talked me out of enlisting in early '73. I should have ignored his advice and gone ahead and enlisted when I was 18.
I believe now that the secret to the navy is to pick a really sleazy rating with as much shore duty as possible such as: yeoman; culinary specialist [formerly mess management]; ship's serviceman; or even boatswain's mate. After all, BMs used to get that really gravy duty runnning the harbor tugs before they were outsourced. That trick sounds familiar, doesn't it?
The problem with the Quartermaster rating other than no reenlistment bonuses is that it's 75% sea duty and you've got to put up with the officers too much. Also, being the chart plotter for sea & anchor detail is high pressure and you've got the navigator breathing down your neck for that one. I got stuck with a real scumbag chief QM at my last submarine who kept telling me I was the "LPO" as a brand new QM2 because he didn't feel like doing his own job. Since we were going into the shipyard for a major overhaul and nuclear refueling I refused to requalify and turned myself in for alcohol rehab! Then I flunked alcohol rehab and turned myself in to the clinic every month for alcoholic relapse thereafter until I managed to get a medical discharge 6 mos. early. My attitude was "let him do all the work with no help except from the idiot seaman apprentice and third class." Instead of teaching the new SA his rate this obese asshole had him tending lobster pots strung around the work barge so he could eat radioactive lobster! This guy was so fat he only owned one work set of khakis that fit and would pay other chiefs to let him take their duty whenever an inspection came up so that he wouldn't have to buy a new set of dress blues. As soon as I got out I took my transcript of sea service to the coast guard and got a merchant mariner's document, but didn't use that until '89.
I got an honorable discharge because I had had high marks throughout most of my enlistment leading up to the appointment to OCS at Newport. But then once you've dropped out of OCS you're labeled an attitude case and they're reluctant then to even let you reenlist. That was fine with me. If a kid in the barbershop asks me about the military I tell them to join either the air force or the coasties if anything. The ones who want to join the marines can't be helped so I merely ask them if they've ever read the book "Jarhead". I would rather be the asshole who says "I told you so" than be the asshole who told them "cool" only to meet them later on a disability pension laid up at the VA hospital. I was nearly electrocuted on the fast attack. Had to be taken to the clinic and sedated on valium after getting an EKG.
I think I have Ubuntu? -- Wage
=============
I had Ubuntu once. Makes syphilis look like the sniffles. Got it from this black chick down in the prah-jecs. No wonder she was only charging five bucks. -- Q
;-)
=============================
Ya know what ticks me off? I write something that totally cracks me up like the above^ and what do I get as a response? Nada, Zippo, Squat!
If anyone has not found his site, Chris Martenson has one of the finest, IMHO, if you have not seen it and have a few hours to kill on a rainy day watch his crash course videos. also read the what should I do blog series. the links are at the bottom of this page.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/wood-gasification-intriguing-emergency-fuel-source/58332
What about me? I linked to a website that you would love, and I get nada, zippo, squat, in return!
http://www.happyplace.com/3645/the-best-obnoxious-responses-to-misspellings-on-facebook
I wish there were more I could do than simply power-down and blog about it. I'm working on it.
==
The best thing to do is to engage people, help them become more aware. This is what Vandana Shiva is doing, going to speak to people at TEDtalks, this is what Alex Jones and his InfoWars program/website in the US is doing, this is what Alan Watt with his CuttingThroughTheMatrix program/website in Canada is doing.
Americans need to be confronted for their willful ignorance, it's that simple.
Hey Q, That wuz probably my Gramma u talkin' 'bout. Fie dolla? I heard she was givin' it away for nada!
I linked to a website that you would love, and I get nada, zippo, squat, in return!
==================
I went through the entire link and loved it ... especially a commenter named Alyssa.
I was worried that I was actually in there somewhere with my real name showing. My kids got me set up on FB a couple of years ago but I never got into the whole scene. At some point I stopped replying out of a general concern for security.
We can't afford that other stuff either, Wage. And the people who make it a priority are obviously sick puppies. What it boils down to for me is that, before the Industrial Revolution, there were never more than 1 billion humans on Earth. So roughly 6 out of 7 of us are completely supported by fossil fuels, and cannot be provided for by the diffuse background energies of planet Earth. Not only that, but almost every one of the 7 billion people alive today uses more energy than anyone did 200 years ago. And not only that, but our ecological life support systems are entirely compromised compared to pre-industrial ecologies. Oh, and wait, not only that, but next to nobody, not even you or me, knows much of anything about eating and medicating themselves without the fossil fuel subsidy.
If you want to keep everyone alive you better pray for more oil. Which ultimately means that everyone will die in a toxic waste dump that used to resemble a forested green and blue planet. That road leads to guaranteed ruin.
And I completely disagree with the idea that saving everyone is a self-evidently good idea. When I think about 13 out of 14 humans vanishing from Earth over the next century, however gently or catastrophically, all those petroleum-derived "advances" don't seem quite so wonderful. What's worse, there's a good chance that some pretty monstrous character traits, unleashed into the gene pool by those "advances," will make it through the keyhole successfully, and be amplified by a much smaller human population.
It comes back to my mantra: if it isn't sustainable it's an inferior system. No matter how comfortable it is, or how warm and fuzzy it makes us feel. Sorry it has to be that way. I know you want to save everyone.
"... because I'm not sure we in the rest of the world can restrain ourselves from lashing out when we see you on our streets ..." -Metusulah.
We were thinking of taking a trip to Spain and France this fall; maybe we'll just stay home ... sit on the front porch with my Winchester and Ruger Blackhawk, drinking Pabst longnecks, waiting for the apocalypse.
-Marlin
Ah, yes, Alyssa, your doppelganger.
What about the one that corrected the tattoo with the wrong death date?
That fits with the theme of this blog.
You should go. It would be a good learning experience for you. Leave your dumbass US corporate paraphernalia behind.
You should go ahead and fly to Spain. Fly in to Malaga and get a room in Torremolinos. You won't be disappointed. Just don't take the ferry to Morocco like everybody used to. Other cool places in Spain are Cartagena and Palma de Mallorca. I woud avoid Barcelona as it has a large population of homeless junkies who camp out in the alleys. Also people get pickpocketed and even stabbed there. It might be a good idea to avoid France so you're not traveling constantly.
Americans need to be confronted for their willful ignorance, it's that simple.
=============
But we LOVE willful ignorance. It's so nice to slouch back in a soft chair tuned into some pablum TV show with barely a brain synapse firing in our heads and then to answer the doorbell in a stained and worn out T-shirt that says "Property of Rahway Prison" on it, beat to shit shorts and flip-flops and give the Pizza delivery nerd a pathetic tip.
This is the life man but you don't seem to get it. Mexicans are wading the Rio Grande for a shot at living a life of willful ignorance and sugary soft drinks.
Our culture has been absorbed the world over. Some guy in a hut in Outer Mongolia is wearing New Balance sneakers and watching Seinfeld re-runs as we speak.
Really Mika, what's not to like?
-------------------
Alex Jones is a talker. Vandana Shiva is a doer. To mention them both in the same sentence is ludicrous. Alex Jones has a loud mouth, but what kind of intellect is behind it?
Vandana Shiva has written more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She is a physicist and received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 1978 with the doctoral dissertation "Hidden variables and locality in quantum theory."
Vandana Shiva has also put her life on the line in environmental direct action campaigns. She has won dozens of awards in recognition of her contributions to world peace and sustainable agriculture.
What has Alex Jones done? He is described as a "veteran broadcaster" with a "unique perspective" (about the Globalists' master plan for world domination). He seems to think increasing decibels of his voice makes his message more forceful. He is a "prolific" film maker... of conspiracy films.
So, he has a loud paranoid voice, a radio show, and uses a megaphone to boot. But did he graduate from high school? Has he done anything constructive or positive? Or is his main contribution yelling through a megaphone and a radio microphone?
I did find this about Alex Jones:
Alex Jones is an uneducated Republican politician with a loud mouth. His appeal is emotional and has the effect of immobilizing people. I mean, how do you counter secret, unnamed Globalists with a master plan for world domination?
Dr. Vandana Shiva offers a positive, constructive, non-paranoid approach which is based on facts, a rational approach. She has a scientific mind, offers real solutions, local solutions, and helps people put them into practice. She does not need conspiracy theories.
Their names should not be uttered in the same sentence.
I've noticed that we don't have money for Medicare, but somehow can afford three wars, or we have to cut back on state pensions, just can't afford it, but can afford to afford to 'bail out' these corrupt banks. And Greece is not going under, they're too important to fail, it might hurt the stock market and stuff. This is creeping me out, I'm really starting to agree with the leftists on this.
Really Mika, what's not to like?
==
I'm guessing, Q, this is another one of your bad attempt at humor and that it's a rhetorical question. Though I don't see the smiley to confirm this. :D
"You'll be reassured to know that in the past few weeks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has used the 'power and prestige' of her office to persuade Italy to accept Lady Gaga into Rome for a massive planned Gay/Lesbian Pride celebration this summer."
Finally! Someone willing to talk about the news no one else is brave enough to broach! I read - from the same source I'm sure - that liberal government funded scientists are altering monkey brains to make them super smart...soon they will TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Oh, and HIllary didn't REALLY kill Vince Foster, she turned him into a ZOMBIE!
Maybe she could get one of them Hannah Montana wigs that all the women on Fox Network have.
Alex Jones is an uneducated Republican politician with a loud mouth. His appeal is emotional and has the effect of immobilizing people. I mean, how do you counter secret, unnamed Globalists with a master plan for world domination?
==
They're not that secret, and they're not unnamed, at least not at the managerial level.
And Alex Jones is not a Republican, he's a Libertarian. He does a good job tuning people into understanding the shadow government and the world around them, as reflected by his growing audience.
Max Keiser is another name to look up. Max is based in Europe.
When you fly to Spain wear a t-shirt with a large Canadian flag on it.
"Two years ago, at my hint, my wife bought a $30 set of clippers for me to cut my hair with, and it's done a fine job ever since."
I've been cutting my own hair for 15 years now - just had to get new clippers ($19 with 12 different attachments, even feathered ones), as the old 'pair' were simply worn out (used for my dog's paws/legs, as well as my pubes). I always used the 1/2" setting, and did it all by myself. The worst part is the final leveling of the neck area - pretty difficult solo, but after a while it's a no-brainer. The new clippers came with a 3/4" setting - I love it! Takes a bit longer to cut (my hair is fine, so numerous run-overs), but managed to finish up in about 20 minutes. If I had a "significant-other," it would take 10 minutes tops.
So WTF - why are you feeding Tza-Tza (fabian)? As to his argument, which you never satisfactorily answered, I'll provide the basic 200-level business accounting answer/solution. You claimed health insurance companies had the highest profit margins, and FSCK-tard came back with a list of the most profitable companies. Profit margin is a percentage - the % of net profit to revenue. Net profit is just that - total profit (after taxes), a monetary sum.
Please, DON'T FEED THE TROLL.
they're not unnamed, at least not at the managerial level
=========
Let me guess. They are on the Board of Directors of CFR? Right? But how do we know which ones?
BBHMarc;
Actually my wife is Spanish and we had a place there, in San Sebastian, until a few years ago. We sold it just in time, before their economy collapsed. I never really had any trouble in Spain or France, a few comments here or there, I never took any shit from any of them, most of 'em back right down.
-Marlin
"Actually, just ask Prog about it. I think he said something about how he thought that he could let his baby die if there was something wrong with it, right up until he saw his baby. (Sorry if I got it wrong, prog)."
-wage, to Tripp-
Wage, you got the quote right, but you left off the last sentences, which were the most important parts.
There are, sadly, many children born today who are able to get out of the labor/delivery room only because of heroic medical measures. Many of them live on for months, or for sad, tragic years - because of other heroic measures.
I'm more with Tripp on this one - what we have today in medicine looks like, "Life at all Costs, regardless of costs." This approach is morally wrong, anyway - and more so, as resources begin to decline.
My point that you picked up on was that parents should not have to make the decision to not initiate (or to discontinue) heroic medical measures. And I referenced Terry Shiavo (sp) - her parents should not have had to make the decisions to DC (discontinue) nutrition. Someone more objective than her parents (or her husband for that matter) should have made that decision - years earlier.
And I think that Tripp's larger point is that energy descent will eventually make these decisions against heroic measures - for society, doctors, and parents - whether we want this to happen - or not.
Your self administered haircuts sound interesting. Keep in mind also that if you need a quick replacement set of clippers you can get the Wahl Peanut outliner with a set of attachments at Sally's Beauty Products and then that set, in spite of being so small, is perfectly adequate to give yourself a butch or even a multilevel clipper cut which is tapered from longer on top to shorter on the sides & bottom. About $50.
Asoka, Vandana Shiva, who the hell is that?
-Marlin
But how do we know which ones?
==
All of them.
"Nowadays we just yell back at the TV"
How about it! No matter whether I tune in to CNN, MSNBC, FOX (Ayup, sometimes), or even BBC, I find myself throwing my loafers at the tube, while shouting out valid arguments against their white-washed horseshit. Ahh, but venting is a good thing - better to let it out - than hold it all in, for the inevitable *explosion*...
U got Ubuntu from a Ubangi?
Good thing she wasn't an Amazon -- someone would have had to put you up to it.
We had no problems with the locals in the western Mediterranean countries. We used to fight EACH OTHER when we were on the beach then sometimes we'd thrown in jail. Others were good at escaping from the police. We were continually drunk of course. We got to Rota, Malaga, Cartagena, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Toulon, Nice, Villefranche, Livorno, Gaeta, and Naples. During two years of this there might have been one Italian waiter who was rude to us, and even he wasn't really that bad, but just trying to show us that he was union and couldn't be fired.
Farmland is pretty cheap in the south of Spain to all accounts.
one of your bad attempt at humor
===========
attempts
And last but not least, we used to go to Marseilles and while there we'd hang out at this dive on the west side of the Vieux Port and get drunk with the French Foreign Legion while feeding the jukebox so we could watch the lesbians dance with each other. There's lots of old hotels on the harbor as well.
BBHMarc, sounds like you had a pretty good time. You said you regretted enlisting, but how would you have visited those places you mentioned without the Navy?
-Marlin
Favorite French jukebox song circa early '90s: "Mon Mec a Moi" by Patricia Kaas. She's the one who was in the Jeremy Irons movie about the jewel thief. Her songs are on the web.
She is someone who talks on public radio with a British accent telling of India, farmer suicides,
deaths from pesticides.
AND TO THE NATIONALISTS OUT THERE..
epartment of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rebuffed accusations from Republican senators today that the Obama administration is attempting to bypass Congress to secretly allow young illegal immigrants to stay in the country.
Republican Sen. Grassley asked Napolitano if Obama was attempting to implement "mass amnesty" administratively, by staying deportations for certain classes of illegal immigrants.
"There is no mass amnesty here," Napolitano said.
Napolitano testified before the Senate Judiciary committee to push for the passage of the Dream Act,
a 10-year-old bill that would allow young people who were brought into the country by their parents as children to become citizens if they join the military or go to college. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate last December.
THATS OUR JANET!!!!
as well as my pubes
==========
More than we wanted to know Ix.
I visited all the cooler places in the merchant marine, not the navy. The only liberty port I ever got in the navy was Chinhae, the ROK navy base in the far south. The Med is far cooler meaning culturally cooler not colder. Not to put down Korea. The people in Korea were quite friendly to us. I don't regret enlisting in the navy so much as I wish I'd done it sooner and also not volunteered for sub duty. Then again who cares that was thirty four to thirty years ago. You probably got much better liberty ports being in surface craft.
attempts
==
Har! Debatable. Attempt could also be used in the plural sense: "Their continued attempt at swindling the public, time and time again.. "
Though I admit it was a typo, and I meant to type 'attempts'.
"you can get the Wahl Peanut outliner"
Yeah, I got the Wahl Style Pro haircutting kit (They were $25, not $19). My prior clippers were Wahl Homepro, and they lasted a good 13 years.
I meant to say tapered, instead of feathered (same difference?) My hair is so fine that it all falls flat on my head, even at 1/2" length, so the tapering wouldn't help me (but for coarse hair, I can see how it's make a huge difference).
Oh, and my last week's last-minute poast to you, when I said "you" all make me sick, I meant the mil-ind-complex in general, not you in specific. But you seemed to have figured that out. 10 weeks without surfacing? That has to drive one semi-crazy (especially if they dive back down for another 10 weeks). Those days I worked for the IBM federal systems division are not proud days for me - I'm actually quite disgusted by them (blinders were definitely *on*, I was a clueless 18-20 year old)...
Ha! Marlin, I highly doubt you're unaware of her. ;o) (I DO believe you're being "instigator guy"
again.)
But, just in case, this should satisfy your curiosity (should it prove genuine, take the time to watch the video in its' entirety).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOfM7QD7-kk
...A highly practical woman of immense intellect. (Short version.)
Howdy Soak/Asoka per your comment: "What really struck me as strange is you have to leave a window open somewhere in the house... but it works nonetheless, cooling 10 to 20 degrees."
I find it incredulous that you the CFN king of googling could not ferret out an explanation of why the window must be left open. Let me elucidate.
The swamp cooler functions in a manner nearly identical to the cooling mechanism we homo sapiens utilize, evaporation of water. In your house size unit water is consistently dripped onto the material around the sides and large quantities of dry air are drawn in from outside the house through the wet (the swamp cooler I had in CA back in the 70's used a mat of shredded wood that I believe was called excelsior) wherein the water is vaporized and the heat required to do such is removed from the hot air thus cooling it. The reason you must leave the window open is because hot dry air is constantly drawn in from without and with no escape hatch the airflow would fall precipitously thus precluding the cooling of your abode. The reason air condition systems don't require open windows is because they recirculate the air within the home. Since the air flowing through the swamp cooler is now heavy with moisture attempting to recirculate such would quickly reduce efficiency significantly as the saturated air would be incapable of retaining any additional humidity and cooling would all but cease. :-)
SNAFU
Not Really, BBHMarc. I was in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the SAtlantic the whole time, on 3 different vessels. We spent most of the time at sea, not too much liberty. At Gitmo a lot.
Ozone you're on to me.
-Marlin
the well-spring of food, fiber, fuel, fodder, and fertilizer.
===========
I presume these are called The Five Fs. In my late teens my buds and I subscribed to The Four Fs: find 'em, feel 'em, fuck 'em, forget 'em.
Tripp where were your children born ? It is difficult to get experience with homebirth if 99% of women birth in the health care factory. You have a daughter where will she give birth ? Don't believe the lie that women needs drugs to give birth. I am resigning my j.o.b. at the factory tomorrow, I'm going to homeschooling my children. Dont feel sorry for me it is going to be a challenge for sure. The food forest coming along nicely, but can't stand giving so much of my time to the system that continues to f.uck us over any longer.
"We showed them who's boss, and where our real national priorities lie."
Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity {law-less-ness}. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and whither like the green herb. Trust in YHWH, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
I suspect the Bachmann "John Wayne Gacy" faux-pas was intentional, as it has given her literally 10's of $millions$ in free advertisement. Had she not failed on identifying John Wayne's hometown, this story would have never made MSM news (thus, no 10's of $millions$ in coverage).
Let's be clear - she, as Sarah Palin, are appealing to the inbred, white racist homophobes, who'd like to get her (Sarah) alone in a private hotel room...
So sad, DEVOLUTION, indeed. I hope she continues preaching her NO MORE SOCIALISM/ENTITLEMENTS, as she continues to collect her "quarter of a $MILLION$" in Govt. subsidies.
OMFG, we all have *PUBES* - oh *NOES*!!!
No, I don't recall feeling insulted. Besides, I don't indentify with the military. I was a civilian mariner twice as long as I was in the navy and merchant seaman laugh at the navy from how much they chatter on the radio at sea to how clean their "work" uniforms usually are, to how overcrewed their ships are. Then they go out to the middle of the ocean and cruise around in circles going nowhere. Merchant ships travel from port to port and on some voyages you could travel entirely around the world including airline connections to get there then fly home when relieved. Merchant seamen also make fun of cruise ships and call passengers "cargo that complains."
I forgot to answer your question: missile submarines have two crews, known as the blue crew and the gold crew. So you only go on patrol twice a year. Patrols used to be 3 months living aboard the ship including a ten week patrol after sea trials. Today the Ohio class boomers take longer patrols of about 90 days, but they're more hotel-like than the old Polaris submarines. The Polaris boats were 398' to 425' long, but the newer Ohio class boats are 560' long. Fast attacks are smaller and deploy for longer periods as well but do make port calls for liberty and resupply.
If Spider showed up here today I was going to have Electro, The Crime Master and Mysterio go after him.
By the way, that Betty that he babbled about, that wasn't Betty Brant was it?
Sincerely,
J Jonah Jameson
I find it incredulous that you the CFN king of googling ...
==============
I covered this ground at length months ago Snaf. Only you can be incredulous. An unthinking it cannot be incredulous.
It was incredible and therefore you were incredulous.
Ozone you're on to me. -M.
Ah... good then, I'll keep it quiet. ;o)
Sumpthin' in July at F.P. Collinsville. Backatcha soon-like.
"Ohio class ... Polaris"
I remember the big subs we were doing designs for were the "trident" class ones. Are those the same two you 'reefer' to?
"U got Ubuntu from a Ubangi?"
LOL, you actually replied that to Q, and he didn't correct you yet ('an' Ubangi)?
Heh - Q, I used to follow this joke thread on a billiards forum, and I think I recall your name posited there. It was great fun; I read year's worth of jokes and image/youtube poasts there...
PoC - I'm sorry about your bannage, and I almost feel *guilty* (hope we'll all be here tomorrow). It's prolly a patience thang, and you repost-flooded...
lol
C'mon man,
That was a fur piece tamer than your STD joke!
(...And yes, I did get a chuckle from it; my puritanical streak died an ugly [but well-deserved] death looooooong ago.) ;o)
Keep on.
Ps. Fun site that Wage linked there too.
Been following the Trippticket/wage thread, very interesting. Wage, I'm with you, a woman after my own heart. I've enjoyed "getting to know" you both, and Asoka.
One thing I feel that is lacking in the conversations I'm hearing: the envisioning of any kind of win/win scenario for the future. Human beings are capable of staggering leaps of creative ingenuity. It IS possible for all the humans on the planet to live meaningful lives in which their basic needs are fulfilled. But it has to start with changing the various paradigms, both right and left, that share a common belief that humans will never evolve to a state of higher consciousness. The ONLY hope for the future is that evolution. If you need proof that it is possible you have to look honestly at the history of human consciousness to see how much it has evolved already. Did you know that we are living in the least violent era of all of human history? And not by a little. By a wide wide margin. People as a whole are more compassionate than every before. We have to start with our own minds and our own hearts. It's SO important to "be peace" as Thic Nhat Han said. We should be a voice for the voiceless, and point to injustice and cruelty everywhere. But it's equally important to point to the beauty, kindness and cooperation everywhere. How can the world become a better place if we don't believe that it's possible?
Marlin, I want to apologize for my snarky reply earlier. I do think this post is ridiculous, but as all of our mother's must have said at least once, "if you can't say something nice..."
I'll step in for Q - "a Ubangi" is correct. Although the word starts with a vowel the sound of that vowel is a hard "Y" which would make the article "an" incorrect.
you actually replied that to Q, and he didn't correct you yet ('an' Ubangi)?
============
According to Dictionary.com the primary pronunciation of Ubangi is yoo-bang-gee in which case "a yoo-bang-gee" is correct. The secondary pronunciation is oo-bahng in which case "an oo-bahng" would be correct.
The decision on whether a or an is correct is NOT based on the first letter of the word following a or an being a vowel but rather whether the first letter is pronounced as a vowel. Thus the difference between yoo and oo.
I see Auntie beat me to the punch and did it in far fewer words.
Tripp where were your children born ? When birth moved into the sick care factories it became unsustainable it is a fucking joke do you really believe that so many women need caesarean sections no there is more money in it for everyone at the factory. Dont believe the lie that women have to have drugs. I know it is crap.
If you want a cheaper and more sustainable system then move birth back to the community and support women there. Birth is as safe as life gets it is all down hill from there. This is what is comming folks so why not learn about it now rather than later.
I am resigning from my J.O.B. at the factory tomorrow I can not stand spending so much of my time and energy supporting a system that fucks the women over so much.
Hey Tripp that mother in Mosembique probable knows as much about birth control and the luxury of what that means as you know about the safety of homebirth and what women need to give birth. Most of all they need privacy not access to drugs.
I am enbarking on a new phase of my life I will be homeschooling my children as of next term. It is going to be a huge challenge I am sure but it sure beats what we are doing now with shift work. I will have more time to devout to the permaculture system that we are establishing and getting more involved with my local community.
Merde, will I never learn?
SNAFU
That was a fur piece tamer than your STD joke!
============
I'm 70. My memory chips are fading. Remind me again ... what was my "STD" joke??
The female reproductive tract is a self cleansing system. Douches must be something you Americans are still doing the rest of the world gave up these ideas that womens bodies are dirty and need to be sanitised with hsopital grade disinfectant and nice smelly stuff. Feminine hygiene my ass your just asking for trouble if you do this shit to your body.
Thus, you *ARE* that Q-tab guy from the billiard forums - LOL!!!
I before E - what a FSCKING crock. Keep that shitty illogical language *ALIVE* - morons. Don't pay any mind to material, but rather to *literal*.
My point? Haha, indeed. You've boiled away all solid carbon, along with the atmosphere, and you've replaced it with carcinogenic hydrocarbons/heavy metals. You've toxified every last remaining source of fresh surface/aquifer water, and they're already depleted 50%+++
Keep breathing, while you can (I know, I'm down 3 fifths - so *SUE* me).
"I've been cutting my own hair for 15 years now - just had to get new clippers ($19 with 12 different attachments, even feathered ones)"
Reminds me of the movie Dodgeball. Ever see that? It was a lot better than it sounds.
"Perfectly quaffed, and lethal!"
I take it you don't use the feathering attachment. I like mine better when I trim it tight around the edges, but don't always get to it, like now.
I must've missed the post from Fabio that you referenced. I tend to tune people out when I've had enough. Just took waaay too long in this case. I already promised upthread not to throw him any more bones. What a 'tard...
What about shale oil ? The buzz is Israel has more oil than Saudi Arabia. Comments anyone ?
The reason you must leave the window open is because hot dry air is constantly drawn in from without and with no escape hatch the airflow would fall precipitously thus precluding the cooling of your abode.
------------
Thanks, SNAFU. I did read the explanation. But I still don't understand it. You say:
Hot air is outside, but what is coming into the house is cool moist air (wonderful, cool, moist air!), not hot air. So having the windows open lets out the cool, moist air.
I thought the reason was probably more that indoor humidity increases and windows must be open to prevent it from raining indoors!
All I really care is that it works, even if I don't understand exactly how. I know it's not rocket science, but the laws of physics are not my forte.
Hello Sweeties! I'm sure many of you think i'm drifting through a candy colored hippy land strewing flowers as I go, but everything I say about believing in the possibilities of a better, more humane and compassionate future is based on hard cold fact. When I said we're living in the least violent era in the history of humanity, which should give us all hope for the direction we CAN move toward, check this out.
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
If any of you haven't checked out TED, you should. You won't agree with everyone, but there's stuff out there to blow your mind. Let me know what you think!
"Perfectly quaffed, and lethal!"
I dunno, "Something About Mary." Ben Stiller always rubs me the wrong way. Wasn't fond either, of his Smithsonian thang.
Regardless, I'm not gunna start flaming Jews - you know, many (Vlad?) here would jump on that band-wagon.
I'm just sick and tired of those who want to keep the dead 'alive'. As in, anyone remember Beowulf? I read that crap - it was *ENGLISH*. Barely comprehensible. Are they (Q) gunna start correcting English based on that tripe?
There are real issues we face, yet they slam us in the face with irrelevance. I got trolled, I get it. I should limit my drinking from 3 fifths to 1-2. Real issues must preside, I got side-swiped, and bit the troll-bait.
Cesium is starting to rain down on the west coast of the US; the Texas panhandle just set all-time temperature records by 5 degrees (not even July/August), and the fires/floods are raging.
Do we get get baited/switched, or do we look into the eye of the storm, and hold our ground? Most will be anesthetized, and do nothing, as *USUAL*.
Yes, the Ohio class submarine fires the trident missile with the exception of the few which have been recently overhauled to fire cruise missiles such as the tomahawk in massive quantities. The ballistic missile firing boats are classed "SSBN" while the cruise missile firing boats are classified "SSGN".
The first nuclear powered SSGN was the USS Halibut which had to surface to fire the early Regulus cruise missile. The Halibut was also the submarine which discovered the location on the bottom of the north Pacific of the Soviet Golf class submarine which is suspected by some in the naval cognoscenti of having been hijacked by a KGB Spetznaz team to attempt to start a nuclear war between the US and Red China in 1968 by imitating the operational limitations of the lone Chinese Golf class boat which had to surface in order to fire one of its three nuclear armed ballistic missiles. Some writers believe that the captain of the submarine sacrificed himself and his crew when he refused to alert the hijackers to the failsafe mechanisms in the warheads, so that when the launch was attempted, the missile blew up and destroyed the submarine, sending it to the bottom, where Howard Hughe's SS Glomar Explorer reportedly successfully retreived the entire submarine from the bottom, providing conclusive proof that a launch against the US naval station at Pearl Harbor had been attempted.
According to the legend then, the Soviet fleet command, being ignorant of the hijacking plot, supposedly sanctioned by Yuri Andropov, then head of the KGB, jumped to the mistaken conclusion that the submarine was lost owing to being intentionally rammed by an American submarine, since a damaged US submarine limped into port shortly thereafter. So it is that some beieve that the Russians then torpedoed and sank the USS Scorpion in the south Atlantic near the Azores as a premeditated act of revenge. At least two books have been published to this effect. The only title I recall right now is "Red Star Rogue". These books are inconsistent because one claims that it was a submarine that torpedoed the Scorpion while the other claims that it was a Soviet naval helicopter armed with torpedoes. Supposedly both sides agreed to keep these incidents secret.
Also, it has been claimed that Henry Kissinger took top secret information to the Chinese pertaining to these matters in order to give them a reason to play ball with the Americans against the Soviets. All I know is that the instructors at submarine school in Groton, CT told us that the Russians had torpedoed the Scorpion. So people who thought that 1968 was the year from hell might not even know the half of it. The official navy version as propounded by Dr. Craven, a navy scientist, is that the Scorpion was lost due to a torpedo battery malfunction which caused the torpedo to light off inside of the torpedo room and to detonate from the inside, evidence of which is the fact that the forward hatch was blown open, although the position of that hatch could be explained by the hydraulic ram effect you'd get as the boat struck the bottom bow first. People I've discussed this with in subvets tend to endorse the official navy version.
You know what, Qshtik, I for one am far more interested in hearing what someone has to say than I am in your picky little anal comments about spelling and grammatical errors.
"Dont believe the lie that women have to have drugs. I know it is crap."
-----------
My wife is very special. Her experiences of childbirth (before I met her) were not only drug-free, she reports having had an orgasmic experience of pleasure from giving birth, with both children.
So I don't believe drugs are necessary. I don't believe hospitals are necessary. I don't believe cutting is necessary. I don't believe pain is necessary.
But, then, as I say, I have a very special wife... she was a yoga teacher and practiced in pranayama. (you may not believe in woo-woo, but it worked) She adhered to a prophylactic regime. She is an extraordinary and ineffable woman.
Damn, d00d, that is more than I wanted to know - and had it *gone off*, I'd have been 3 months old, and never been the wiser...
Let me tell you now, about radiation hardened semiconductors!!! Silicon on sapphire - Eeek! As in, gamma ray upset experiments! Planes that flew 100,000+ feet high, with the memory in *FARADAY* cages. How did those guys go 2 days to the moon, and 2 days back, and not suffer *INTOLERABLE* radiation damage (see moon phases)...
You've cut back from $160 to $80 to get blond highlights put in your hair? Wow, you're really getting back to the simple life aren't you.
There's some really weird 'shit' out there...
"If water can be found there, then so can life, he said, adding that aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head.
"They may have different colour skin, but even we have that," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jun/27/alien-encounters-twenty-years-russian-astronomer
I for one am far more interested in hearing what someone has to say than I am in your picky little anal comments about spelling and grammatical errors.
===========
Yes Helen, I completely understand ... and that seems to be the general consensus. However, I'm faced with a dilemma which I've explained numerous times. I'm OCD as regards spelling, grammar, usage, etc. (ya know, like step on a crack, break your mother's back) and if I were to say nothing I would never get another good night's sleep and would eventually wind up in the loony bin where I might find myself rooming with Spider. I know it would be lame for me to tell you to "just scroll on by" but really, what other solution is there? Certainly, leaving CFN is out of the question since I am addicted like everyone else here.
I know this isn't likely to assuage your annoyance but be advise that I've carefully read over your comment a couple of times and I'm fairly certain it's error free.
;-)
I don't think Muslims are Sufis. I know a man from Iran who had to leave and he said it was because he was a Sufi in a Muslim country.
I musta missed some good stuff, just got back on and you're talking about douching.
omg what happened ?
smoke another one !
you whirling dirvish you.
:)
I tried but couldn't listen to the whole thing, but what I was thinking was that there were so fewer people.
I wonder what it means relatively speaking ?
maybe he covered that, I just can't sit thru it now.
There are so many people now and high tech things that so much more damage can be done to so many more at once.
Great webpage, thanks. when I feel like thinking and I do sometimes I bookmarked it.
I liked the guys curly hair.
Jimbo...I don't know for sure, but I do believe you are an alcoholic. Party on my man.
but be advise
===========
advised
Note: the letter D key came off my laptop awhile ago and I sometimes mess up and in a case like this the spell checker doesn't pick up the error.
I figured Helen H. would be interested to know this.
;-)
Helen, Islam is not monolithic... there are all types of Muslims. There are Muslim societies where women are equal to men and Muslim societies where women are not considered equal to men. Sufis are Muslims, just a mystical wing of Islam.
Likewise, Christianity is not monolithic... there are all types of Christians. There are Christian sects where women are not considered equal to men and Christian sects where women are considered equal to men.
My sister-in-law is Baptist and she assures me the Bible says it is the men who are the head of the household and she must obey my brother.
Quakers would be one example of the mystical wing of Christianity. There were persecuted in England, fled to the "New England" and they were persecuted by the Puritans and hanged in New England, also. Someone might say they are not Christians because they were persecuted by Christians, but Quakers are Christians.
Sufis have been persecuted by Muslims, but they are Muslims. At least the Sufis I have been with chant, "La ilaha ilAllah" (There is no deity except God) and that made me think they are Muslim. They got me drunk on the divine, also.
Disney has on their Disney Channel an educational video to teach kids about "Internet safety". It starts off: "Now remember boys and girls: never ever put anything on the Internet because you can never get it off, and it'll be there forever!"
Well, I don't think you're drifting through candy colored hippy land. Although it sounds fun.
I think you're absolutely right, and our only hope is to look to the light side, not the dark side.
Most people are decent and kind. It's just that our society rewards sociopaths, so we think that is human nature.
I think that we can build a better society without tossing the frail and sick aside.
Um. I have given birth three times. I did not find it an orgasmic experience.
Actually, it was quite painful. As I heard it explained by a wise old woman - "Did you ever try to shit a watermelon?"
Sorry to be so crude, but, dude!
How do you push an entire new human out of your body without feeling some pain?
Wagelaborer said: "How do you push an entire new human without feeling some pain?"
San Jose Mom replies: "With the help of an epidural! One of the greatest medical procedures ever invented. I worship anesthesiologists!
Yes, Helen, I really do try. But I have to say, "Eat, drink and have lots of good hair days for tommorow the sh@t will hit the fan."
All,
I suspect JHK uses NASCAR and Cheez Doodles and tattoos as regular references to cultural death of the USA because they are examples of excess consumerism run rampant.
If the private motor vehicle epitomises a lot of what went wrong with western society following WW2, which is a central tenet of JHK lore, then NASCAR (and all motorsport) is the ultimate expression of that waste. At least private motor vehicles originally performed a useful function - that of (seemingly at the time) low emission transport. The alternative was a pair of horses hitched to a carriage producing manure and methane 24 x 7.
But motorsport substitutes the function of transport with that of meaningless entertainment to bored citizens. When 80% of the world's population is worried about where their next clean drink of water is going to come from, any culture that has so much it can waste billions of dollars and billions of person-hours on staving off boredom has too much by far.
James does select similar examples of rampant excess from other sub cultures within the US, but perhaps not often enough from the yankee stable for some of you readers?
How about these few for starters. Any culture where people try to justify cosmetic procedures such as "anal bleaching" is doomed to collapse. Any culture that looks first to a lawsuit for dispute resolution is doomed to collapse. Any culture where it is possible to go shopping for luxury items in the middle of the night is doomed. Any culture that can conceive of, let alone own or use, such a thing as a jetski or wakeboard is doomed. Any culture that builds AC dependant houses in deserts is doomed. Any culture with words like "bling" and "bling finger" is doomed. Any culture where TV gameshows are produced and aired is doomed.
Any culture that produces any kind of themepark is doomed.
Americans are certainly not alone in these orgiastic pastimes. But they are the biggest partakers of them per capita on the planet and also the fattest people in the world (only just ahead of Australians these days I am told)
America has promising groundswells of people turning their backs on these cultures or largely resistant to them for some time now. They include
the Mennonites (including Amish subsets), the Puritans, the Biblical Agrarians, the Permaculturists and the Hippies. There's even a thriving hunter gatherer sub culture which is amazing. And let's not forget the old folks we still have around. Many of them secretly know they are part of something rotten and greedy, but lack the energy to do anything about it.
It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but Australians laugh at Americans and use them to feel better about ourselves. "At least we're not as fat and krass and ignorant as *them*." we tell ourselves as we look eagerly to the US for the next cultural signal.
sorry, sub culture reference
Satisfaction- Russian edition.
Notice the motor log, world made by hand indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39UxUY2RgSs&NR=1
Once again Kuntsler you piss me off. What is it w/ you and female politians? Why do you bash every one of them? Their all just a joke to you right? Well, I think you're a joke. Women should be running this country, we couldn't possibly fuck it up any more than all you men have. I think you're very insecure and that you secretly don't like women... we're not nearly as smart as you right? Are you gay or did your mommy not treat you right when you were a kid? What your problem is I'm not sure, but the crap you write every week is very telling.. you're so far above all the hot dog eating cheese doodle popping uneducated morons it just makes you crazy doesn't it? It must be tough being you. I think you are out of touch w/ reality big time and for you to say that Michelle Bachman would put a nascar track at the white house shows what an asshole you really are. Add this to your growing list of hate mail jerk!
Funny, I was thinking the same thing myself :)
Can't you think of something better to do w/ your time than read his stupid books?
Nice thinking Nathan...
*Any culture that builds AC dependant houses in deserts is doomed*
I’d probably add in, any culture that spends $20.2bn on AC for warfare in deserts has money to burn...
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning
Moving on...
One aspect of Mr Ks style I greatly applaud, is his subtly in handling the weekly titling of this here very blog...
Suspended Agitation...??
And with a wave of a wand some of the more prolific dweeb like moronic posters at this site are this week... gone... puff!
(That’s magic)
*sniggers*
When you have privacy are relaxed and confident in your body's ability to birth. With thoughts of pushing out a watermelon going through your mind I doubt that was happening. Thats why Yoga is such a great preparation for birth as it involves the preparation of the mind as well as the ability to relax tighten and stretch muscles. Many other practices encourage women to stay fit by exercising muscles but it is mostly tightening muscles so many women who prepare in this way have very tight muscles but have not practised relaxing those muscles. An orgasmic birth might not have been your reality wage but for some women with the right environment (internal and externa)it is possible.
I have been reading "Childbirth in the age of plastics" and hadn't really though about it too much I knew it was wasteful to use so much disposable crap, but what happens when we can't use plastics anymore ? The IV line the epidural catheter, the urinary catheter, disposable plastic syringes, all the disposable plastic dressing trays just to name a few.
Anaesthiologists are not gods and do not deserve anyones worship. There was a case in the media very recently here in Australia where a first time mother had an epidural and the anaesthiologist injected chlorhexadine instead of the epidural fluid that mother nearly died. Months later she is paralysed from the waist down and the prognosis for her is unknown. She may never walk again. She doesn't have enough strenght to pick up her baby either. Fuck ups are rare but tragic if it is you. The hospital has accepted the blame and provided them with a house. The were both new citizens and neither of them speaks English. They have no relatives in the country either.
"My sister-in-law is Baptist and she assures me the Bible says it is the men who are the head of the household and she must obey my brother."
As long as your brother is obeying God this works fine. Someone has been given authority, and thus responsibility, for the decisions and actions made on behalf of the family. Faith in one another is part of faith in God. Being the "head" of a home doesn't mean you are worshipped, just appreciated. Being the "help-meet" does not mean you are un-equal. There is another scripture that says, "submit your selves one to another". I think it finds expression in "if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy". As we saw in last week's missive, "Man Down" it often gets rather screwed up, and certainly not something God would appove of. When authority is misappropriated, everyone suffers.
Well it looks like Greece is having their 'austerity vote' today, and its going to pass.
Europeans;
The days of retiring from a do-nothing Govt. job at age 35, then sitting on you asses in some outdoor cafe, drinking port wine for the rest of your lives, sneering at the United States, are over.
Here's another shocker. For the past 65 years we've been picking up the tab for your defense and military budgets. We cannot afford it any longer. Worried about a resurgent Russia? Tough shit! Time to take care of yourselves! We're tired of you sonsabitches.
Hey Ozone, thanx for the heads up! Keep me posted. I'll show up a little early, help carry in equipment. My wife wants to go, too.
Old 97's in Greenfield on July 17. Check them out on YouTube, Ozone, you'll be impressed.
-Marlin
A really great article I want to suggest for your reading pleasure is from Jim Willie from the Golden Jackass. I wish he had titled it something he said later on in the piece.
"THE BLACK SWAN HAS BECOME THE NATIONAL BIRD!!"
as opposed to
"Black Swans From New Normal"(his actual title)
What I love about this writing is the distorto-contorto of our world economy, thanks to those who have swept the $1.4 quadrillion junk under the rug. After 2008 we are moving in an ever bizarre terrain for globalism.
You know what I've saqid before if everyone says X=Y, why then you can keep doing the fraud at everyone's expense.
Like JHK's long emergency--we have entered into a period of financial Long Emergency.
It's truly a must-read.
http://rolandsanjuan.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-swans-from-new-normal.html
"the Euro will fly above mundane reality on dragon wings allowing everybody in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy to hold a senior management job at the motor vehicle bureau with retirement at 53. Then, with 80 percent of their former pay, they can open cafes where people still working at the motor vehicle bureau can spend the better part of each afternoon sipping Ouzo and arguing politics, finance, sports... or just enjoying the antics of the boorish German tourists.".
Pure 24 carat gold Kunstler. Laugh out loud funny. This is why I come here.
Even if these authors are correct, which has certainly not been established beyond all doubt, there wouldn't have been a nuclear war between the US and China because the identity of the Russian submarine in question was known all along to be Russian, and not Chinese, so the presumed plot by Andropov would have failed, owing to the sophistication of our SOSUS network of undersea hydrophone sensors. Nevertheless, the warheads on those missiles were one megaton in yield, so it would've been an exceptionally shitty day for the residents of western Honolulu. The simplest explanation is that endorsed by Dr. Craven, which is that the battery on the electric torpedo failed owing to the thinness of a membrane which was known to fail when subjected to too much vibration. Also, it is hard to believe that the KGB had no knowledge of the failsafe mechanisms on their own warheads, which ironically were provided by the Americans to the Soviets. Still, this story cannot be entirely disregarded and the cold war was definitely far more dangerous than is usually appreciated and not just during the Cuban missile crisis.
"I dunno, "Something About Mary." Ben Stiller always rubs me the wrong way. Wasn't fond either, of his Smithsonian thang."
They use that discomfort with Ben Stiller so damn well in this movie! I can't stand the guy, but I loved Dodgeball. And everyone I've loaned it to has said the same thing. Not encouraging you to watch a movie instead of doing something productive, just mentioning that it's funny.
Sufis are Muslims but not all Muslims are sufis. The sufis are Islamic mystics similar to Christian monks. The Islamicists don't approve of the sufis because the sufis are too tolerant and open minded. The most famous sufis are the whirling dervishes.
I've always found it curious that the non-participants in a culture of excess come from what would be considered the extreme right and extreme left.
I have to wonder if that perception isn't just part of a centrist conspiracy mindset, that the two extremes are really a lot more normal, in the long view anyway, than everyone else, and just marginalized by popular consumptive culture with derogatory labels like 'hippie' and 'right wing nutjob'.
Thanks to our resident tech-savvy folks, I was able to look it up; pretty amazing! :o)
Here's that "sexually transmitted disease" joke:
I think I have Ubuntu? -wage
=============
I had Ubuntu once. Makes syphilis look like the sniffles. Got it from this black chick down in the prah-jecs. No wonder she was only charging five bucks.
;-) -Q
****************
I would posit that a comment on "pube-shaving" is tamer than that joke (funny though it is). Wouldn't you say so as well?
(Don't worry, I'd never try to reference a comment from another week. I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night!)
"Once again Kuntsler you piss me off. What is it w/ you and female politians? Why do you bash every one of them?" -DR23
Mmmm, I think it's more a bashing of rank idiots and proven fools who aspire to "lead", and those who support them (being of the same level of intellectual curiosity).
Rise of the corn-pone nazis, anyone?
-End of Message-
Howdy Soak, per your comment: "I thought the reason was probably more that indoor humidity increases and windows must be open to prevent it from raining indoors!"
Without an open window the mass flow of air would drop to nearly zero when the pressure differential within your home equals the pressure head that the fan on your swamp cooler can maintain. Just as the flow of water from a faucet is zero when it is placed into the closed valve position and increases when the valve is opened.
The air flow generated by a squirrel cage/centrifugal fan also requires an open valve (in this case the window) and the cooling effect is created by the evaporation of the water. The phase change of liquid water to gaseous water requires heat which is supplied by the air flowing through your swamp cooler thereby cooling it before it flows into your home.
Try cooling your house with all windows and doors closed. You will likely have some leakage which will allow some air flow but likely significantly reduced.
SNAFU
Interesting thoughts from you and Nathan.
Here's another from Robert Jensen:
"I believe that to be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one’s own condition in the world but for the condition of a broken world. My anguish flows not from the realization that it is getting harder for people to live the American Dream, but from the recognition that the American Dream has made it harder to hold together the living world."
Personally, I'm prepared for that singular disturbance of the mind. Unfortunate, I know, but it be what it be, and Iy'am what Iy'am.
I picture you as perfectly quaffed and lethal, SJ Mom.
My mom always takes care of her hair, and always wears lipstick. She's thrifty though, and uses the same lipstick on her cheeks as rouge.
She's old now, but she always bore a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor. Even last week, Asoka linked to an Eddie Fisher video for some reason, and there was a picture of Elizabeth Taylor in it, and for a second I thought - Mom! Why are you in this video?
Anyway, no one would ever guess the radical thoughts under that perfect exterior.
Although, I think that Elizabeth Taylor was pretty liberal herself.
"The sufis are Islamic mystics similar to Christian monks." -BHM
--------
A couple of essential differences:
1) Sufis use dance as an inner technology. Christian monks do not.
2) Sufis are out and about in society. Monks tend to be cloistered or in monastic communities.
The word monk originated from the Greek word monos, which means alone. (Monks did not live in monasteries at first, rather, they began by living alone, as the word monos might suggest.) Within a monastery, they can live in community (cenobites), or in seclusion (recluses). But they are apart from society. Sufis mix it up more and permeate through society.
3) The Sufis I have met are not following a line from a centralized authority. Sufis are decentralized into orders.
Christian monks tow the line from Rome (look at Merton being controlled from afar).
4) Sufis are more open-minded than Christian monks, though some monks (Merton, for example) did open to other traditions.
5) Women have had an equal role in Sufism from the beginning. In many Christian traditions, women still cannot offer liturgy.
For Sufis ultimately there is no male or female, only Being. Within the Sufi traditions, the recognition of this truth has encouraged the spiritual maturation of women in a way that has not always been possible in the West.
One branch of Sufism that has become better-known in the West in recent years is the Mevlevi. Within this tradition, which was founded upon the example of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi, women have always been deeply respected, honored, and invited to participate in all aspects of the spiritual path. Rumi's family itself had a long tradition of recognizing the spiritual beauty and wisdom of women.
For Christian monks (who are separated from women), women are seen as "temptation" ... 'nuff said.
I don't know about all this.
I was fully immersed - a true believer if you will - in the environmental movement in the '70's. I moved "back to the land," for a time - and I was involved in politics.
Then, in random order, three significant events happened. I got married, had a couple of kids (just two - replacement reproduction only), and Ronald Reagan got elected.
OK - screw it, things to do, move on with life.
But I continued to conserve. We always drove smaller, more efficient, and more used cars/trucks than any known friends and family. We always lived in smaller and older homes than suburban convention would dictate. In financial terms, we "lived beneath our means."
In the summer those homes were usually a humid 80 degrees, or more - requiring a minor, yet ongoing, battle with mold.
In the winter those homes were always 64 degrees - unless the outside temps dropped, in which case the inside temp might be allowed to drop a good bit cooler. One house was heated 100% with renewal firewood. We always had a garden, if possible. In environmental terms, we lived "as green as we could."
None of this has mattered one iota. All I have achieved is too have my family labeled hippie, environmentalist lunatics by family and friends.
And while we conserved for 30 years - out of control immigration into the US has enabled far more CONTINUED AND INCREASING damage to the world environment, than "green living" could possibly have prevented.
That population increase, alone, negates any possible good that could be accomplished by conservation efforts in the US - even if those conservation efforts were to be made mandatory and draconian - which of course, will never happen.
Damn.
Some midwives are idiots. My friend Leslie was going to do it all natural. She was 8 months pregnant and while doing some yoga poses an artery in her brain burst, giving her the worst headache imaginable. The midwife told her to take Tylenol. Her brain bled for 24 hours. Her mother came over and could plainly see that she was in peril. She went into a coma, gave birth while in a coma and woke up several months later.
Eventually, she died.
I wasn't thinking of watermelons. And I did have one baby at home. That is the only birth that I have fond memories of. The other two were horrible, horrible hospital experiences.
Once I read interviews of survivors of Golden Gate Bridge suicide attempts.
What did they have in common? On the way down, they thought, "this was a bad idea. I've changed my mind".
I thought the same thing each time I was in labor.
And I've been to many births, and heard the same idea expressed by many laboring women.
I'm not saying it's universal, but it's pretty common.
"Woe is unto the world. It doesn't know whether to shit or go blind. The rule of law has been replaced by Murphy's Law." -JHK
And, regarding laws (and lack thereof), PCR adds:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28431.htm
Yeah, the same thing happened at my hospital.
A pregnant woman had a headache and it took a while for anyone to suspect a bleed.
It's just not very common.
Maybe you didn't save the world, prog, but you didn't contribute much to its destruction.
Also, you're probably healthier than those who embraced the cheeseburger, SUV lifestyle.
The simplest explanation is that endorsed by Dr. Craven
=================
Dr. Craven ... what a great name. There must be hundreds of movies that could have used a character with that name.
"Ronald Reagan got elected"
----------------
I know what one of Reagan's sins was in your eyes: amnesty for undocumented "aliens" (i.e., Mexicans)
If we compare the energy usage of millions of poor brown people to the energy usage of 24/7 military jets in the air and ships on the sea, and hundreds of thousands of military motor vehicles, and air-conditioning and re-supply chains in desert war theatres, and operation of thousands of military bases around the globe, and constant training using munitions that then have to be replaced (more energy use), I would say you are misdirecting your rage.
The poor brown people are going to consume energy whichever side of the border they are on. Even if you think they consume more here than in Mexico, deportation would save a miniscule portion of the energy being used by our military empire.
Pure 24 carat gold Kunstler. Laugh out loud funny. This is why I come here.
================
I know Fie, isn't it fantastic. You couldn't cut through this kind of sarcasm if you used a chain saw. I LOVE it!
Thank you for the link, Ozone.
I share PCR's rage. The hypocrisy of Americans, who rampage around the world, killing and destroying, and then whining about how much it costs, is amazing.
The destruction of our civil rights and liberties, the craven submission to authority, the acceptance of unlimited executive power, shows that the whole "liberty and justice" supposed foundation of our country is a farce.
Did you see that Dana Rohrabacher went to Iraq and told them that they should pay the US back for the money we spent destroying their country, killing a million people and driving 4 million people from their homes?
Did you see that Eikenberry told Karzai that it hurt our feelings to be criticized for the slaughter of women and children?
What kind of people invade other people's homes, destroy their property, kill their children, and then demand money and apologies from the victims?
You're right about the oil usage, soak. The military uses half of the oil in the US.
So we can ride our bikes all we want, while the military uses barrels and barrels flying and storming around the world.
I disagree about the Mexican immigrants. They use more energy here than there.
But the big problem is not Mexicans in the US.
The problem is the US in Mexico. It was bad enough for the Mexicans when the NAFTA invasion happened, but the militarization of Mexico by the US is KILLING thousands of Mexicans.
It is outrageous what is happening in Mexico right now.
US out of Mexico!!
"When you fly to Spain wear a t-shirt with a large Canadian flag on it."
Please don't. I *earned* the right to fly my country's flag abroad, by being clever enough to be born here. The more Yanks who try to disguise themselves as Canadian, the more they debase our cultural currency -- and make me more likely to get beat up. :-)
What kind of people invade other people's homes, destroy their property, kill their children, and then demand money and apologies from the victims?
At this point in time, I believe we have entered the Twilight zone! I've never seen a country operating at such diametric opposition with itself and it's own value system. Everything uttered is the opposite of reality.
With the philosophy the leadership has embraced we could never do the great things around the world that we did during the Marshall Plan--we substituted it with the Shock Doctrine.
Yeah, it is like the Twilight Zone.
Their words are totally divorced from the reality of their actions.
Obama bragged (!) about the claimed hit on Osama and then said-
"We are a nation that brings our enemies to justice while adhering to the rule of law, and respecting the rights of all our citizens. We protect our own freedom and prosperity by extending it to others. We stand not for empire, but for self-determination"
Unbelievable!!
Do you ever read Chris Floyd? I like his stuff.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/
Q, I know you have to periodically explain yourself, such is life. But in this era of linguistic flux, as you becomes U and emoticons replace words, I don't think it's a bad idea to get a tap on the shoulder when the grammatical train goes off the rails. Kind of like mom reminding us to sit up straight and get our elbows off the table. We don't want to descend into a slurring, inarticulate slouch, now do we? No ma'm, we don't!
I suspect JHK uses NASCAR ...
===============
Nate, your entire post is very perceptive and well said. As a result I never even thought about checking for errors.
Much of this mayhem has been paid for by republicans and democrats stealing from the social security trust fund. Here's a link to a great discussion of the facts: http://www.hammeringtruth.com/?p=3922
Wage,
I'd have to say that LB's comment speaks for me quite handily! (That was easy. ;o)
Interesting article.
I hadn't heard that the US was out of gold.
That would be a very important reason that they are attacking Libya.
Libya has 143 tons of gold, and they don't keep it in London!
That, plus the billions they DID keep in western banks, now "frozen" (to be stolen later, like the $6.6 billion of Iraqi money), plus the oil, plus stopping an Arab/African alliance, explains why the US/NATO has been bombing Libya for months now.
http://www.gata.org/node/9725
Thanks, Wage
I just copied his url in my bookmarks. Will check him out.
I really started noticing the double speak during W's days, but now it's become institutional, as are the QE's to infinity.
I like what Robert Jensen has to say there.
I've only just recently come to grips with the idea that it is anguish about the general state of affairs on Earth, not anxiety, not something physically wrong with me, that makes me feel this way. I assume you feel it too. Your music would suggest that you do. And I imagine it's hard to escape for observant people in general.
I hope that a mature permaculture system around me (5 years?) will ameliorate that feeling to some small degree. Once our own oxygen mask is adjusted, then, and only then I think, will we become really effective at larger scale regenerative activities.
My 2 cents regarding this general thread: My personal experience in a small hospital was GREAT. My husband, mother, sister and niece were all there, I was in a birthing room that was warmed with wooden cabinets and my own music. A regular meditator, I knew how to use my breath and calm my body. However, waves of pain eroded my control, and when I allowed some medication it was GREAT. It put ME back in control. The nurses did oil massage and stretching to help my tissues accommodate, but after hours of hard pushing it was either an incision or my baby's head tearing me like old cloth. My best friend had four home births with no problem. We ladies should stop thinking in EITHER OR terms. Women should be empowered by choices, seek out information to help in those choices, and then we should support one another in the choices we make. Wage, you're the kind of gal I'd love to have in the neighborhood to share tough decisions over a cup o' joe!
"For Christian monks (who are separated from women), women are seen as "temptation" ... 'nuff said."
Maybe we should do away with the man-made tradition of separating men and women for religious reasons.
Q, I know you have to periodically explain yourself, ... We don't want to descend into a slurring, inarticulate slouch, now do we?
=============
Precisely Auntie! Thank God someone "gets it!"
You have no idea the battles I've had with my 31 year old daughter who glances up momentarily from a text message she's sending (while supposedly in a quality time conversation with me) to flash me a condescending smile and say in that rapid clipped speech so much favored by the young, "Dad, noonegivesashit."
"I know what one of Reagan's sins was in your eyes: amnesty for undocumented "aliens" (i.e., Mexicans)"
-soak-
If you think RR did that out of some humanitarian impulse - you're stupid.
I am sick of talking about this with you asoaka, soak, whatever screename you adopt.
A US of 200,000,000 green living, planet saving, humanitarian crusaders was possible. RR and his right wing demons, apologists and enablers killed it.
It's dead.
If BustinJ is correct - you will be able to draw a straight line from RR's amnesty - to a US of 313,000,000 high consumption inhabitants - to the death of all life on Earth except for fungi, protists, and bacteria.
By defending immigration (legal or illegal) into the US:
You are an apologist for US consumption.
You are an apologist for US military actions - which chiefly serve to protect that consumption and keep our "leaders" in office.
Here are reasons to join FAIR:
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageNavigator/facts.html
Enjoy this direct response, btw, it could be the last one. I see you failed to prune off the "illogical" multitude. And that makes logical discourse with you, impossible.
"Did you ever try to shit a watermelon?"
=================
I know Wage, Soak is frequently very good at finding and posting relevant info -- like how Sufi Muslims differ from other Muslims -- but he is totally off base suggesting childbirth can be an orgiastic experience for even like one in ten million.
But as to your question above^ ... yes, I have, and successfully too. Well, perhaps not a watermelon but something more on the order of a honeydew ;-) I have been known to stop up the toilet not only in my own home but to cause a failure of the entire Middlesex County NJ sewer system.
It is when I have passed one of these monsters and rise from the American Standard and turn to look down at my handiwork, that the story of "the Phantom Shitter" comes to mind and I wish I could take the current load and squish it into my old boss's keyboard.
"Nate, your entire post is very perceptive and well said. As a result I never even thought about checking for errors."
I guess I'll know when me posts are lacking substance from now on!
Here's that "sexually transmitted disease" joke:
==================
Holy shit, I had forgotten what STD meant. Like an idiot I was picturing that beefy dude hawking his oil additive.
But yeah, "pubes" is definitely tamer.
- "He has trashed the economy,"
The economy was burning to the ground on the day Obama took office. Eight o'clock, day one, that's what he was dealing with.
----------------------------------------
His cardinal sin, as I see it, was to "waste a good crisis", for that he may well go down as one of the worst presidents ever.
We are now seeing the full flowering of Reaganomics, and since the Dems have their hands out to the same Wall St. investment banks as the Repubs, and can't afford to offend them, it will likely get worse.
Middle Class? grab your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye.
Any CFNers know who this is talking about?
"Indeed, this also proves that high-quality American journalism still exists.
At this juncture, federal prosecutors must uphold their sworn duties: at the very least, criminal negligence charges against current and former officials at the SEC must be pursued in order to restore confidence in our collapsing financial system. Criminal charges must also be filed against former US Presidents and anyone else engaging in massive fraud – which is akin to ongoing financial terrorism – around the world."
IOW - time to unsuspend the agitation!
http://www.examiner.com/headlines-in-new-york/rupert-murdoch-s-media-empire-reveals-unprecedented-8-trillion-sec-scandal#ixzz1QcbNHcCX
I can kiss "middle class" good bye - not a problem. But I'm not kissing anything else good bye. The perps haven't figured out [yet] that their chips are on the line too. The "top" needs the "bottom" but the bottom don't need the top.
www.hypertiger.blogspot.com
Wage said: Libya has 143 tons of gold, and they don't keep it in London!
-------------------
This is a good opportunity to illustrate how wasteful the military is.
143 metric tonnes equals 4,597,566 troy ounces.
At today's price of gold ($1508/ounce), 143 tonnes equals $6,933,129,528 US dollars. Sound like a lot to you?
The CBO says the wars are costing us $9 BILLION PER MONTH. So Libya's gold won't pay for a month of USA military war operations in theatre (not to mention all the other costs associated with the military).
George W. Bush made the decision to go to war and Obama has continued his policies. Neither man should be allowed to walk the streets as free men.
The wars they have conducted have cost the USA $3.7 TRILLION dollars, 224,000 confirmed dead, and 7.8 million confirmed displaced.
SOURCE
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43573008/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
ProCon or Pro,Con or whatever screen name he is using this week said: "I am sick of talking about this with you asoaka, soak, whatever screename you adopt."
----------------
Good, that makes two of us. I am sick of you bringing it up every goddamned week, dumping on poor brown people and blaming them for America's problems.
Let's make a deal. You don't bring it up and I won't respond to your immigrant-obsessive posts.
I'll know when me posts are lacking
==================
I didn't know you were Irish Tripp.
dale wrote: "His cardinal sin, as I see it, was to 'waste a good crisis', for that he may well go down as one of the worst presidents ever."
No argument here. Obama said all the right things to market himself as a candidate, but from a policy viewpoint his administration is best understood as a continuation of Bush catastrophes (doubling down on Afghanistan, maintaining Gitmo, protecting financial institutions at all costs). Even the kind of health-care reform he ended up backing started out as a Republican, free-market proposal. If any lefties who truly saw him as some kind of saviour are unhappy now, they should blame themselves first -- they clearly wanted to be snookered.
if coasta rica is a medical paradise i wonder why i am asked to go there and other central american countries and volunteer my professional services. i did go once when my daughter volunteered me to go with her college. she said my dad will go and she called and informed me. it was one of the best experiences i ever had. when i got back home and reflected on it , i thought that it was only a drop in the bucket. the only thing that would really help is a boat load birth control for a couple of generations. the same proscription would not hurt here either. as far as comparing the u.s. to other industrial countries, i agree that we are doing a poor job. but even with universal coverage we could never achieve the standards of a country like denmark or canada. our country's vast diverse population works against itself ie : language barriers, cultural differences, and people just doing their on thing make it difficult to put everyone in to a cookie cutter mold. the very thing you worship which makes the country interesting creates a rough and tumble society. i was in central america in the past month and also in the pacific north west, what a contrast . i will take my chances here any time. even when the sh-- hits the fan.
Well - I got a few questions answered about Greece- not here -this vomit bag web space really needs moderation.
For those of you that think deeply - debtocracy.gr offers some insight to the workings of the IMF and other bankster types.
Now I know why no one is allowed to anything about the CDS that could "go off".
this vomit bag web space really needs moderation.
For those of you that think deeply ...
============
Sorry Budi, most of my thinking is quite shallow. I spend a lot of my time here working on scatological humor. I know it's juvenile but it perks up my day.
Q. said: "...he is totally off base suggesting childbirth can be an orgiastic experience for even like one in ten million."
------------------
First of all, thank you for confirming just how special Mrs. Asoka is.
Second, what is your experience with yoga and pranayama? (or with women who are experts in pranayama giving natural childbirth?)
Third, there is a difference between pressure and pain. To get the watermelon out pressure is inevitable. Labor contractions involve pressure.
Imagine you are floating on the ocean and each contraction in labor is a wave. As it comes you can kick and fight and try to stop it affecting you, or you can simply relax as it comes and allow yourself to be lifted up and over the wave.
Mrs. Asoka rode it out and didn't fight it.
You can’t stop a wave in the ocean, you will exhaust yourself or be dumped by it. But if you work with it and just surrender to it, then you can relax and even enjoy it, as Mrs. Asoka did.
Like waves, contractions come and go. They build up and dissipate, and mostly, the gaps between them are longer than the length of the contraction itself.
Basically a woman's body knows what to do, and will do it regardless. Even if she went into a coma her body would birth the baby without her. In fact it would do a pretty good job of it. So a woman's role in the birth is actually just to not get in the way.
Of course, if you go into the experience scared, in panic, convinced it is going to be a horribly painful experience, then your expectations will probably be met.
Just remember that Mrs. Asoka was a yoga teacher and experienced with pranayama. She was calm, relaxed, and viewed childbirth as a completely natural experience. For her it was an orgasmic experience.
"If any lefties who truly saw him as some kind of saviour are unhappy now, they should blame themselves first -- they clearly wanted to be snookered."
Time to change our thinking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=player_embedded
I challenge you to name one leftie who thought of Obama as a "saviour" and said so in print ... words like "saviour" and "messiah" for Obama were right-wing inventions of people like Limbaugh.
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200912210032
"At today's price of gold ($1508/ounce), 143 tonnes equals $6,933,129,528 US dollars. Sound like a lot to you?
The CBO says the wars are costing us $9 BILLION PER MONTH. So Libya's gold won't pay for a month of USA military war operations in theatre (not to mention all the other costs associated with the military)."
Anybody out there still betting that their fiat currency will maintain its value for much longer? Using a trillion Monopoly dollars to acquire a billion real ones makes a whole bunch of sense to me...
Two things: one, you don't have any children. And two, humans are the only animals that undergo menopause as part of their reproductive strategy.
Best reason I've heard given for that oddity is that human labor is dangerous, human life long and complicated, and a woman is more useful as a grandmother taking care of her three children and their children than dying in labor with a fourth or fifth child. "Close up shop, Sally, you're more useful as an advisor now."
Although your story, if true, is intriguing.
"Anybody out there still betting that their fiat currency will maintain its value for much longer? Using a trillion Monopoly dollars to acquire a billion real ones makes a whole bunch of sense to me..."
This of course assumes that the gold is the real reason we're there.
"I didn't know you were Irish Tripp."
True as the north star, laddy!
Who is going to clean this mess up?
Who is going to be left when everyone else flees?
The problem with the United States is that the rich and powerful are allowed to make any mess imaginable, and there is always a José to hire to clean it up, or a hundred thousand Josés.
That is the problem with illegal immigration. An extensive network of second-class citizens inside the borders, completely fucking up the social and economic order. On the other side of the border, it creates a political power vacuum which allows totalitarian governments to suppress social reforms and flows of capital to disrupt democratic processes.
Anytime there is a problem in the borderlands, it is intricately connected with the phenomenon of illegal immigration: the real political and economic and social problems that are created by it- even if the problem is nuclear meltdown.
Illegal immigration has reduced our capability to solve problems before they happen by distorting economic sectors and labor markets. Illegal immigration has prevented agricultural evolution and transformation. It has prevented the evolution of a post-labor, post-service economy. It prevented the attainment of zero population growth. It prevented the evolution of organized labor, and abetted the rise of financial hegemony in the commercial and residential building services. It has co-opted and prevented the establishment of trade guilds. This is all predicate to a multiplicity of problems arising secondarily to these phenomena, up to and including the election of certain representatives and the highest offices in the land.
Its looking like the boomer generation is a fail- they may be relabeled the 'doomer generation'. We'll have mutagenic dust clouds blowing across the continent, and a million cranky retirees without benefits banging their canes on metal pots demanding the health care they'll never get, because of all the resources extensive nuclear fallout will absorb.
I look around these days and see an awful lot of really earnest people chattering on their cellphones and social networking on their facebooks. Meanwhile the Earth is crumbling beneath their feet, and all of America's secrets are locked inside mountain vaults, and there are still two hand-picked lieutenants with pistols and two sets of keys ready to launch missiles at the whim of the commander-in-chief, ostensibly, to 'defend' America.
Yet the bomb has already been dropped on the middle class.
The fallout has dissipated but the worst of the radiation sickness has taken hold.
Energetic particles are shifting, mutating DNA, starting the Breast and Prostate and Stomach cancers. The Beta-Amyloid plaques are hardening in the minds of millions across the country despite all the Sudoku and crossword.
In 2012 you will be asked to "vote" in our "democracy": A hundred million Americans will unload the magazine, pull open the breech, feed the leader into the cartridge, mount the M-60 in the receiver, slide the retaining pin home, level the barrel at their neighbors and open fire.
"His cardinal sin, as I see it, was to "waste a good crisis", for that he may well go down as one of the worst presidents ever."
Like food quality and societal standards, the quality of presidents we see just keeps heading south for all the same reasons. Doesn't really matter who it is. Left or right, they are instruments of a runaway kleptocracy.
You couldn't get elected president in the first place if you didn't agree to their terms. Reneging on your real promises, not to the gullible electorate but to the corporate masters, would just get you assassinated, so that's not really an option either. So assigning him the title 'worst president' is just as moot a point as declaring that WalMart tomato to be the shittiest one you've ever tasted. Of course it is. Until next time. Until this global suicide mission comes to an end, both the next tomato and the next president will always be worse than the last.
Tripp said: "Anybody out there still betting that their fiat currency will maintain its value for much longer?"
-------------
I'm thinking words like "value" and "currency" were used when actual things were circulated or exchanged ... but those words no longer apply to gold, or to dollars, because now what we have are electronic spreadsheets completely divorced from the real world.
We live in a world where a paycheck may never be seen, except as an electronic deposit on a computer screen.
Fiat money has lasted for decades (without hyperinflation; we have low interest rates) and the economy might never collapse, because real gold, real silver, etc. is no longer necessary. Q2, Q3, Q4, etc. ... just add zeroes to infinity.
The only real wealth is horticultural, not financial.
BustinJ, I hereby give you the Spider Award of the Day, for the most vague, nonsensical (though comical) post yet.
Not a single verifiable assertion, not a single data point or hard number, not a single source cited. A perfectly meaningless rant.
Well done, sir!
P.S. When you say:
are you referring to the Globalists bent on world domination (CFR, "all of them") and their evil chemtrails?I agree with you Auntie. Every woman should decide for herself. I've had some big discussions with the mother of my daughter's friend who is a doula. She seems to think that giving birth should be some kind of a female religious experience--and preferably not in a hospital. She makes me feel like a wimpy woman because I opted for epidurals.
For me, birth should be a private moment with my husband and a skillful OB/GYN. Absolutely no pictures. No crazed screaming or loud groaning...ewe yucky.
I am very pleased that you had a great experience.
I and my hippie sisters humbly accept credit.
After the brutal, dehumanizing treatment that used to be standard in US hospitals, we opted to have home births, cutting into hospital profits, and forcing changes.
SJ Mom, have you ever seen old sit-coms, where, for instance, Ricky Ricardo paces the floor while Lucy gives birth elsewhere? Well, that's how it was. No husbands allowed.
You may both thank me, actually.
Auntie River, I would love to have a cup of joe with you. I bet we'd crack each other up.
FYI - I wrote up my experience of motherhood last year, for Mother's Day at my Unitarian Fellowship.
http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2010/05/mothers-day-talk.html
That was the same response that I had, Tripp.
Using monopoly money to obtain real gold is a great deal for the bankers.
Not so much for the Libyans suffering under months of bombing.
I don't think that it has to be oil OR gold. It can be oil AND gold. AND confiscated billions in the banks. AND an AFICOM base that's actually in Africa. AND a halt to any talk about trading oil in dinars. AND stopping Arab/African cooperation.
So many reasons to bomb Libya. And only moral and legal reasons not to.
You forgot Korea and Japan!
We saved SK from being one more part of Maos China.
Now those 2 countries are surpassing the USA in some ways.
Soak says, "I know what one of Reagan's sins was in your eyes: amnesty for undocumented "aliens" (i.e., Mexicans)
If we compare the energy usage of millions of poor brown people to the energy usage of 24/7 military jets in the air and ships on the sea, and hundreds of thousands of military motor vehicles, and air-conditioning and re-supply chains in desert war theatres, and operation of thousands of military bases around the globe, and constant training using munitions that then have to be replaced (more energy use), I would say you are misdirecting your rage."
The poor brown people are going to consume energy whichever side of the border they are on. Even if you think they consume more here than in Mexico, deportation would save a miniscule portion of the energy being used by our military empire."
I think a rule of thumb would be that gross income would proportionally equate to greater energy use.
Is that a fair assumption? For the sake of calculation,
A maquiladora worker receives $50 a week from their employer. They work 52 weeks a year, for a gross annual income of $2600/yr.
A minimum wage-slave in the USA makes about 10 times as much. Their $500/wk translates to $26,000/yr.
As it stacks up, energy use statistics don't lie- the correlation is obvious- energy use tracks personal income. This is all uncontroversial. So what makes you think that the energetic devolution by 15-30 million people, by an order of magnitude, would not be significant?
You can always play a rhetorical game where you move the target: Gee, thats not as significant as, say, everyone grilling hot dogs on the 4th of July going Vegan for the day. Or the military turning off the Frostee machine in the base PX. Or all Americans using 2 squares of TP instead of 3. Each example is a valid point, but is an evasion when used to counter arguments when the topic is unrelated. In fact, it is a logical fallacy: the fallacy of the red herring.
I think you are also actively ignorant as to the extreme benefit a repatriation of so many Mexican citizens would be to the country of Mexico, in every possible way. Mexico is a third-world Narco/Corporate Authoritarian Oligarchy, largely because America has acted as a political and economic relief valve.
Mexico is a state in dire need of a committed electorate, that means: people who aren't running scared. America bears a lot of responsibility for the disaster that modern Mexico is: but backdoor immigration just makes things worse. It has created a country its people feel is not worth fighting for. A similar corrosive effect is happening to America. It is bad for both countries.
How can you blow your whistle at all the "hate and rage", and then turn your back on (obvious) solutions after decades upon decades of the same "look the other way" policies? Perhaps because you don't like the position's bedfellows?
Some people think there should be a middle ground, a formalization of the second-class citizen and the formation of formal bureaucracy or temp. worker visas, a Department of Poor Brown People Doing Jobs Americans Won't Do, (the DBPDJAWD), etc.
This only legitimizes the systems that have now become dependent on this source of labor. The predominant industrial objective wants the legislative aura of permanence, so they don't have to change in their near-term business myopia. They can continue the cheap-labor fiesta in all the exploiting markets.
As a result, the unsustainable nature of the industrial agricultural model remains "viable"- which is to say it remains a problem, masquerading as a solution, so save politician's asses, and the indeterminate problem of market actors' temporary confidence.
I don't quite follow your reasoning, Bustin, although you write with your usual flair.
Jose? Jose? We don't need no stinking Joses.
We have 2,000,000 prisoners, with no rights, who work for less than illegal immigrants. No right to unionize and they show up on time at the barrel of a gun. They could be, and probably will be, used for clean-up.
We have desperate unemployed millions, who flock to any job opening announced, whether it be McDonald's or the latest weapons manufacturer. They would most likely be willing to risk their lives for pay.
I'm getting the impression that you are blaming desperate Mexican peasants, thrown off their land by NAFTA, for all the ills bestown upon us by our very own ruling class.
That doesn't seem right.
Yes, I've seen old shows with the old ways of birth. I recall when my brother was born in 1968, I wasn't able to see my mom for a week. No kids allowed in the rooms. I could look at my brother through the nursery glass, but that was it. My mother went into labor when my dad was on a business trip on the East Coast, so I didn't see him until late into the evening. When I woke in the morning, my mom was gone and in her place was a 12-year-old neighbor who I had to wake up.
It was totally out-of-control.
My dad simply does not know how to cook. So I took over the kitchen until Mom got home.
You are! You are blaming Mexican peasants for the ills bestowed upon us by our ruling class!
I would just have to say that dissing Mexicans for their political system takes some nerve.
When their last election was stolen, they occupied Mexico City for weeks.
Unfortunately for them, the CIA wasn't interested in their stolen election, didn't assign them a color, and didn't spend millions helping them out.
Still. They did better than Americans, in the last two stolen elections.
There are forces at work which are very difficult to fight. At least some Mexicans are trying. How many Americans are as effective?
Viva la Zapatistas!
And Mexico is a third world narco oligarchy BECAUSE they let Americans into their country in the 90s.
Poor Mexico. So far from God, so close to the USA.
Yes, ask your mom what it was like.
And for the baby. Locked in a nursery with other screaming babies and no mother. Mothers are baby's birthrights!
And yet, in the American way of birth, mother and baby were separated for a week.
They had to do laboratory testing of monkeys (in very cruel ways) to figure out that primates need to bond with their offspring, and shouldn't be separated.
Well, duh.
Soak, you are onto something! The big question is, what is/has value? Is value denominated in money? I believe that money has meaning only to the poor and middle classes. The very rich do not need money. Or, rather, they can make it out of thin air when they need it! However, this is not a new circumstance. The very rich have never needed money. Another way of saying this is that money no longer equates to power, if, in fact it ever did for the elite. This explains why Oprah Winfrey may be a billionaire but be no match for, say, David Rockefeller. I believe that power derives from the control of the engines of production. This is certainly not a new concept. Read Marx and Engels on that topic. This is why gold and silver are a red herring in today's economic reality. Can gold or silver be eaten? Will gold or silver prectect you from inclement weather, keep you cool in summer and warm in winter? Yeah, I know there are those who will say that you can buy these necessities with gold and silver. But think - most of those necessities are the products of industrial processes and factories. The people who control those processes and factories - the engines of production - have the real wealth. Gold and silver are only valuable in a societal context where they can act as proxies for objects of real wealth, e.g. food and shelter. This is why JHK rants abouts the financial schemers on Wall Street (who produce nothing of value) and the hollowing out of the US industrial base.
You are right, in that the hard fought battles of "women's libbers" and other radicals brought us much that youngsters take for granted today. BTW, on the other side of 50 I'm still a youngster ;) but I take nothing for granted! My mother, from small town in KY, barely 19 when she had her first baby, had terrible, lonely birthing experiences. But bless her heart, she put her tiny foot down when the Doctors, who were such authority figures, tried to force her to bottle feed her babies. She held her ground and finally they retreated, with dire warnings of the nutritional deficiencies all of us were sure to suffer from our entire lives.
Baby formula! What a travesty.
Remember that iconic image from the Vietnam war of the buddhist monk immolating himself? That was seared into my 13 yr old mind when I saw it. It wasn't until I was in my 20's that I saw the entire series of images and I was stunned when I studied them closely. In every image his face was serene and composed and peaceful, until everything of this world was completely burned away. If that is possible in a deep meditation state, then surely a woman in a similar state could experience painless childbirth! Although I studied for years at the Mpls Zen Center, I could never go that deep. So I took the meds! But I don't doubt your wife did it. Good for her! Amazing woman no doubt!
As an experiment I have used simple vipassana meditation technique during the drilling to have fillings filled at the dentist. With no Novocaine there was no numbness afterwards. And the dentist even gave me a discount for using meditation instead of Novocaine.
But when it came to a root canal, I skipped the meditation and went for the anaesthetic, because I did not trust I could go into a deep enough meditative state. I recognize my limits.
"Yeah, I know there are those who will say that you can buy these necessities with gold and silver. "
-------
Actually, you cannot buy necessities with gold or silver. The clerk at the grocery store would freak out and call the manager if you tried to pay with gold or silver.
But... if you change the gold and silver into fiat money, then you can shop wherever you want. Green dollar fiat money is universally accepted in the USA.
Okay I'll buy that. Sorry if I offended you. I thought that it was obvious that I was kidding considering who I wrote that comment to.
What a great idea, Prog! Don't let the parents decide the care, let---hmm, just who do you have in mind?
Because I most definitely would not want to be the one to tell the parent,
"Yes, we could save your baby. But chest tubes are made out of plastic, you see. And oil is scarce. We need to save it for the military, so that they may kill other people's babies. You don't get to make the decision, because you're all emotional and stuff".
BustinJ, I am right here and I am not moving the target. I am responding directly to you.
You say: "So what makes you think that the energetic devolution by 15-30 million people, by an order of magnitude, would not be significant?"
What I said was the energy differential between energy use on one side of the border versus the other side of the border is insignificant.
100% of personal income is not spent on energy use. I am saying the difference in energy use of an undocumented immigrant in the USA versus Mexico is insignificant compared to the energy used by the USA military every hour of every day of the year. That was the central thrust of my post and you seem to have ignored it, talking about a non-existent red herring.
Let me put it in terms you can more easily understand. The USA military uses an equivalent of 140 million "undocumented immigrants."
Using your high numbers ("the energetic devolution by 15-30 million people,") the USA military uses anywhere from 5 to 9 times more energy for destruction than "undocumented immigrants" use to contribute to our economy. And immigrants are net contributors to our economy.
Direct your rage at the USA military, not at the poor brown people who are paying into our economy and social security system more than they are getting out. Actually, if they are undocumented they never get social security, but they pay in just the same in order to work.
Oh, and explain to me how you can blame poor brown people for nuclear power plant failure.
Everyone wants to blame the Mexicans for everything: swine flu, forest fires, crime, unemployment, etc. etc.
It is racist and shameful.
CORRECTION
The USA military ENERGY USE is the equivalent of 140 million "undocumented immigrants."
Come on, Wage, that's not what either of us are saying. We're saying look at this issue with a wide angle lens. Modern medicine has enabled too many humans to live and all those humans are compromising the ability for ANY of us to live here. No one wants to pull the plug on a helpless little baby. I know I don't. But babies with problems will start dying at faster and faster rates as energy descent gains steam. So will adults. In fact I believe that suicide will become a leading cause of death in the United States over the next decade or two. Sad, but probably true. I think honestly-reported infant mortality rates are already rising? There doesn't have to be any formal decision made. No monstrous verdict. It just becomes less plausible to save them all as energy becomes harder to acquire.
I would love it if we could redirect all the money/energy spent on military campaigns to provide a better life for more people. At least for the people we already have. But nobody put me in charge, nor will they.
Hey, don't pick on San Jose Mom! A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I'm happy about every step in the right direction. You keep workin it San Jose mom. P.S. Have you thought about setting up a computer TV like Uncle Ned mentioned?
Read your blog. Your first birth sounded miserable. I would go insane listening to five screaming women. Sounds like a horror movie.
I think they used some sort of amnesia drug on my mom. She'd have a horrible contraction, but she didn't remember it from moment to moment.
"But nobody put me in charge, nor will they."
-------------
?????
Didn't you accept the position of CFN Horticultural Secretary?
Marlin,
Liked the "Old 97"; good band, indeed! Ah, to be young and rockin'...
Brief note:
This Sunday (da thoid) at The Red Rooster in Winsted, 4-7; last joint in town (on the R); looks like a little log cabin out of High Plains Drifter (blood red). Full of n'er-do-wells and lawbreakers.
Following Friday (da eight't) at The Fireplace (you know where); 9-12. Also full of n'er-do-wells and lawbreakers.
His full name is Dr. John Pina Craven, former chief scientist, U.S. Navy's special projects office, and author of "THE SILENT WAR: The Cold War Battle Beneath the Sea". His middle name is pronounced "Pinya" but I can't place that Spanish accent mark to make that sound above the "n".
The principal that the simplest explanation is nearly always the correct one is called Occam's Razor.
I think San Jose Mom 51 is doing exactly what she should be doing. Frankly, from what I have read, I think she is doing everything perfectly.
As for SJMom's decision re: cable, my mother recently did the same thing. When mom realized she mostly watched three channels: the weather channel, golf, and baseball, she cancelled the hundreds of channels she never watched and went to a basic plan with those three channels, saving a lot of money.
I cancelled TV completely and don't miss it, except for the Daily Show and Colbert Report, which I now watch delayed through the computer.
You do have a point in your response to WAGE. That is that if we could only bring ourselves to become heartless bastards one and all our fiscal difficulties could be solved virtually overnight. After all, why bother trying to educated the dull and intractable? And why bother trying to keep people alive well into their eighties or even longer in some cases? And why have fire departments? Shouldn't we simply mandate that persons living within congested areas build fireproof houses? And wouldn't it be cheaper to simply deputize all adults and require them to carry guns at all times as a deterrent to crime? And shouldn't we stop interfering in family's private affairs by criticizing parents for allowing their kids to run wild? And if all the women were armed wouldn't their abusive spouses or lovers think twice before striking them any further physical blows? And shouldn't we all fill our own potholes when we're driving around and knock our front ends?
But in point of fact don't we know that the libertarians are being disingenuous when they make points like this? Do people vote Libertarian because they realize that that party won't actually win? Is nihilism perhaps justified because in the long run we're all going to be dead anyway so why bother? I can't say. But I do suspect that we suffer from a surfeit of compassion and that compassion burnout will move to the fore postcollapse if in fact some magical solutions are not forthcoming to our manifold problems.
Rocco said, "James I continued to really work on the garden,and how to enrich soil without oil inputs. I am exposed to many different folks because of my work, and past weekend I was excited to chat with Amish and Mennonite farmers and asked about all natural composting,well they respond they TOO use oil inputs to grow those big crops."
Looking in a recent National Geographic, the Amish now number something like a quarter million and they are spreading across the country although still concentrated in the NE.
The reality is, among the Amish, is that they are required to pay property taxes, etc. while trying to be farmers- that is, walking the tightrope so that muncipalities can continue to offer "services" like free brainwashing/warehousing of mainstream children, and pay $100,000 for the annual renewal of blacktop so that Walmart will have its supply of crap from China.
To keep your land you must pay taxes, to pay taxes you must make a profit, to make a profit you have to farm the hell out of a piece of land.
For the Amish, that means second and third jobs, mostly in service of the larger society and what they want- last time I looked they were manufacturing wood cabinets for some snake-oil electric space heater.
Anyway, they are maintaining 5 children per family and growing like hell... which means they are fundamentally in the no-limits Cornucopian crowd. They are, after all, just religious nuts. Appealing until they are proliferating out of control. Our very own bearded fundamentalists.
Interesting article from The Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/06/georgia-learns-a-hard-truth-illegal-immigrants-keep-us-fed/241151/
The most interesting part to me is that no one seems to see the tidal currents underlying the debate. It's not about whether we should make these workers legal so they can keep us in cheap produce. It's about our sense of entitlement to dirt cheap food. Oil made dirt cheap food possible, made that food decreasingly nutritious, created a decreasingly wholesome production system around itself.
The real tidal shift will come when we start taking pride in our food again, when we start taking the production of that food back for ourselves, or start paying our neighbors a living wage to grow it for us, when we start admiring those dedicated people who can magically make nutritious food appear, especially without a fossil fuel subsidy, since they are, after all, taking care of our number one need in life, and not just some ancillary luxury, like playing football well into adulthood.
Buying near-worthless produce at rock bottom prices at MallWart, supporting long ecology-destroying supply chains, and near-slavery conditions in our fields, for people from countries we've already helped fuck up royally, marks the very bottom of our societal trajectory.
Yeah. Actually, I had one nice nurse.
She came in and I was crying. She asked me if I was in pain, and I said, no, that woman is driving me crazy.
There was one woman who literally did not shut up once throughout the night. She didn't scream with contractions, she just moaned steadily for hours. I couldn't take it!
The nurse moved her to another room.
I was very grateful.
Ozone, Ah, The Red Rooster, the last stop headed west before the Speckled Hen in Norfolk, passed by it many, many times, saw numerous Harleys parked out front lined up in a row, never could muster the courage to actually enter said establishment. Liquid courage might do the trick in this case.
Thanx for the heads up, Ozone. We'll take a ride out to Winsted to say hello.
-Marlin
Van Jones launches movement to Rebuild American Dream
http://bit.ly/jAP9qU
Jones broke down his presentation into four lies that he believes have permeated the current American conversation, lies that are prevalent, he said, because they have been repeated so often by politicians and the media.
The first lie: we're broke. The second: Asking the super rich to pay taxes hurts America's economy. Third: Hating on America's government, wrecking America's infrastructure -- is patriotic. The fourth: We're helpless against Wall Street.
"We are not helpless," Jones said. "They just want us to shut up, sit down, and suffer."
SORRY, HERE IS CORRECTED LINK TO VAN JONES VIDEO
http://huff.to/lJV7cF
Asoka;
"Hating on Americas Government, wrecking Americas infrastructure -- is patriotic." - Van Jones
Wasn't Van Jones part of the Government, in the Obama Administration? Wasn't he kicked out after his affiliation to Maoism was revealed? Correct me if I'm wrong, Soak.
-Marlin
Thanks, Al!
Clear perspective is always the ultimate "wealth".
Procon, I think this is quite common. because of our upbringing people buy into the mainstream ideas when it comes to marriage and raising children.
Thanks, Marlin, for this opportunity to sing a brother's praises. Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. Van is a co-founder of three successful non-profit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change and Green For All. He is the best-selling author of the definitive book on green jobs: The Green-Collar Economy. He served as the green jobs advisor in the Obama White House in 2009. Van is currently a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress. Additionally, he is a senior policy advisor at Green For All.
Van also holds a joint appointment at Princeton University, as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Van is on the board of several organizations and non-profits, including Demos, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and the Campaign for America's Future.
I do not think Van Jones fits the description of a Maoist.
Asoka, in other words, a bullshitter and parasite from academia.
-Marlin
Hey Ripthunder, how about joining us Sunday nite in Winsted? Its not that far from whaere you are. Three CFNeers in the same place, the same time. That'll be some kind of crazy record.
-Marlin
RThunder, bring your wife. My wife probably knows her.
-Marlin
I have to take issue with your characterization of the Amish as "religious nuts". Old Order Amish are not impressed into their church as infants like Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or classical Protestants such as Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Anglicans which all practice infant baptism. Rather, as anabaptists, Old Order Amish are given a period of reflection as adolescents and young adults to choose for themselves whether or not they desire to be baptized into the church. If they choose not to join then they are free to adopt a more conventional lifestyle and become Mennonites or for that matter regular Baptists while supporting themselves in any manner which they may find congenial. So there is simply no way that that church can be labeled a cult or some mindless form of fundamentalism, although to be sure, their beliefs are pretty much cast in concrete, and those who rebel are shunned.
Having been exposed to them to some limited extent here in Ohio I have never gotten any "bad vibes" from that quarter. In the scouts we used to hike past their farms all the time. They are simply German farmers is all. And taxation on sparsely settled rural land zoned agricultural is substantially less than what is charged on suburban land zoned residential. True, when land is transitioning from agriculture to residential farmers at some juncture do become increasingly marginalized forcing them to move on if they wish to remain farmers, but the Amish do migrate to cheaper areas in order to remain farmers if that proves to be necessary.
Evidence that the Amish are not totally programmed is the practice of allowing their youth a period of experimentatin called "Rumspringa", also the title of a very interesting documentary about their youthful party animals who use their omnipresent cell phones to contact all of their cousins to organize frequent giant keggers which would put any college fraternity to shame. Others actually become involved in criminal activities such as cooking up batches of crystal meth. To dismiss them as quaint, harmless or two dimensional is a mistake.
"They are, after all, just religious nuts. Appealing until they are proliferating out of control."
Whose control?
Good for you, soak. You knew that marlin was being a disingenuous dirtbag, but you politely responded to him as if he were a decent human being.
I admire your tolerance.
Bud,
All one needs to know about Greece is there will be no austerity for the jack-booted thugs maintaining the societal structure necessary to enforce "austerity" measures against their fellow citizens. In fact, they'll probably get a raise.
It's true! I have saved lots of money AND still get FOX, so I can watch Judge Judy every day, twice a day. First at 2:00, and then at 4:00. There really are so many ways to save money when you put your mind to it.
Up until recently, I've been able to turn a collar. What this means is that once a collar gets frayed around the edges, I can remove it with some shears, turn it inside out, and sew it back on to the shirt. Good as new! Haven't done this for over a year and a half now though. Poor eyesight. I think it's just another one of those lost arts that people don't do any more, like darning socks.
Now when I was a young girl, getting fatter as well as taller, Mother would cut not only the hem of my dresses and skirts, and re-hem them, but she would also slice the seams of trousers I'd grown too fat for. She'd then insert a thin slice of fabric on each side and sew it back into the pants. It created a new look for the slacks, with a pin stripe down each side. Of course the added benefit was giving the garments a year or two more wear.
The year my older sister when off to college, leaving behind her old prom dress, Mom gave me permission to cut the skirt off of it and sew it around the base of a dressing table that once served as a workbench for my dad.
As my dear Soak says, it's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to saving money.
As my dear Soak says, it's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to saving money.
---------
I learned the basic values from you. God knows I heard enough Great Depression stories!
Without your teaching me frugality I would not have been able to retire on $12,000 a year retirement income.
"Hey Ripthunder, how about joining us Sunday nite in Winsted? Its not that far from whaere you are. Three CFNeers in the same place, the same time. That'll be some kind of crazy record."
So far, to my knowledge, it's you and Ozone, and me and Mean Dovey. We could probably get POC involved in that meet-up too, except that Dovey will be out of town while I'm in the mountains next week, so it would still be just two of us, even if a new pairing. Anybody else rendezvoused yet?
"Without your teaching me frugality I would not have been able to retire on $12,000 a year retirement income."
Impressive for a boomer. How about 15k for a family of four? But honestly, here's the mark in my mind: I have a friend in Washington state who lived on $150 for an entire year. And then did it again the next year!
my husband wasted that much every week.
not funny.
your friend in wa should write a book.
i'd love to read it.
i am frugal and i hate waste.
Yep i lived below my means until i got married then he basically threw money away.
i know what you mean about you saving energy and others using it anyway.
still you can afford to live financially because you saved money. that matters alot.
you did the right thing for your family.
Well, Prog is coming to my house to drink mint juleps when my favorite singer gets out of prison.
yeah it might be paradise if you need medical.
but i heard from a good friend who has been there cuz he has a good friend that lives there. both are retired.
Burglary is rampant. if it ain't nailed down it's gone when you get home. cars parked anywhere may or may not be there when you return to go home.
relatives watch cars for my friends friends.
he also said they aren't violent robberies, they don't kill you, they just take everything.
bars on windows everywhere.
yeah doesn't sound that great to me.
Tripp, yes I admire that your whole family can live on that.
I am living a life of luxury. I could be going to the public library to use the internet, but I splurged and have a computer & ISP connection at home. A small but comfortable home, now climate-controlled when the temperature goes into the upper 90s, which is not that many weeks a year.
I know how you feel, Jackie.
I am very frugal, but my husband likes to spend money.
It's caused some fights, but he does the grocery shopping, so that solves some of the problem. Just buying groceries seems to make him happy. And I don't like to shop, so it works out.
I hope that things settle down in Greece. We're scheduled to visit Athens in mid-July. This week they had a strike that shut down all ports of entry into the country. (Note to protesters...don't cut off tourists who want to bring money into your country.)
We'd originally planned to travel to Japan this summer...but obviously that wasn't going to work out--what with all the radiation and aftershocks.
Just trying to get one more overseas trip in before TSHTF.
I let VLAD get to me.
my bad.
Jackieblue, don't beat up on yourself. We all get our chains yanked at times. I have a lovely image of you in California, and wish you the best in the future.
CORRECTION
We all get our buttons pushed at times.
Oh, goodie! You can be our on-the-scene correspondent!
But by mid-July things will probably be back to normal, and you can report on the calm and normal sights you see.
Vlad is mean-spirited toward women. I've always imagined that he looks like Mr. Burns on the Simpsons. You on the other hand, are wonderful!
Blondes of California unite!
Stamp out mysogynist blight!
JK,
You know this guy - not convinced - GS has played both sides - but can't win big - just can't lose.
http://www.leimonis.com/2011/05/mainholdersofgreekdebt/
Have you ever been to Mexico?
You live in NYC?
One of Mexicos [been there a few times] biggest problems is its Population Explosion.
Mexico has many problems...and if it werent for the Trillions? of US dollars that go there itd have more problems.
I believe after [Narcotics?] and Oil the #2 or 3
revenue stream is Dollars.
'Illegal immigration has reduced our capability to solve problems'
Yes!
and I [being in California] see Legal Immigration as a huge problem as well.
"Procon, I think this is quite common. because of our upbringing people buy into the mainstream ideas when it comes to marriage and raising children."
-femme-
Yeah, no doubt, femme. Then add in the stress of having children when you've never had any before - and the fact that they don't come with an instruction book AND you can't put them back where they came from after they arrive. hehheh
I've seen some fairly unconventional free thinkers go completely mainstream because of children.
==============
Additionally, my kids were born after Pres. Regan and his minions started gutting the alternative energy economy. I had a firewood company going and a fledgling wood stove and water heating company we were trying to start. All of that went away as "Greed is Good" came to define the 80's in the US.
Lots of alternatives slowly closed off to the country over the next 30 years. And now, here we are, with few alternatives and 50% more people.
If you hear a gurgling sound in Australia, coming from the States, femme - It's the US, formerly a "lifeboat," now taking on water.
Jackie,
One fifty-five is a great weight for a woman. It ain't Twiggy;it's more like Marilyn in "Some Like It Hot": A sultry breeze parting a nice size 16 dress :)
'suicide'..Have you heard about Argentina and how
Suicide and other preventable deaths increased as
their economy collapsed?
"You on the other hand, are wonderful!
Blondes of California unite!
Stamp out mysogynist blight!"
-sjmom, to jackieblue-
All right! Big group hug! hehehe
I'll be there as quick as I can.
Packing camping gear in the little truck, now - California here we come!
I guess I'm going to have to ask for directions, though? I'm a guy, so that's a small problem.
Good post on illegal immigration fouling up Mexico and the US, BustinJ. But, remember that the numbers due to LEGAL immigration are much worse. And the effects are much the same - on the US and on the home countries of all those emigrants.
==============
According to statistics on per capita energy consumption, the US uses FIVE TIMES MORE TOTAL energy per citizen than does Mexico, however.
So a new immigrant into the US from there increases his energy use considerably - whether more or less than 5X would depend on individual circumstance.
You must have won the debate, anyway, since asoaka played the race card so early.
"It is racist and shameful." -soak-
You're way ahead of the curve, Soak. And I think your new climate control device is da bomb! I got my solar attic fan ready to mount in the morning. Such a tiny hole through the ceiling in my son's room, and I'm not a small man. Not fat, like Jackie (kidding;), but not a wee fella by any stretch. Haven't been up there yet; should be fun. Wonder what 90 year old treasures I'll find.
We raise a whole lot of our own food, and have been down-teching hard for 3 years. 15k is tight sometimes, but I know most humans live on far less, so I'm aware that it's just my perception of normal that needs to evolve. Should be an interesting half century...
155 is more like a size 12.
"You must have won the debate, anyway, since asoaka played the race card so early."
That's racist!
Sorry, just spreading silly new memes.
"Packing camping gear in the little truck, now - California here we come!"
You know Tifton's on your way to Santa Monica. But crap, that only gets us to Asia. Never mind. S'pose I better come to you so we can head straight for northern California!
"'suicide'..Have you heard about Argentina and how
Suicide and other preventable deaths increased as
their economy collapsed?"
I hadn't heard about that, but it makes a lot of sense to me! Here's precedent for my prediction. What do you think about contraction's affect on a religion that has so far reigned over unimaginable affluence?
"I've seen some fairly unconventional free thinkers go completely mainstream because of children."
Funny, I think it was my first child that finally sent me the other direction!
"Just trying to get one more overseas trip in before TSHTF."
You could always pretend that fly-over country was really a sea, washed over all the deep dark soil and narrow minds, and spend your tourism dollars at Tonic Permaculture, a regenerative homestead and eco-destination in south Georgia, good ol' US of A. (Keep that money in the domestic economy, dear. We need it bad.) We serve fresh, organic meals three times a day, local wine and beer (decent for muscadine, and, believe it or not, Fosters is oil-canned right down the road from here, for regional sales - yummy!), plus all the humidity, fire ants, and gnats your money can buy!
"I could be going to the public library to use the internet, but I splurged and have a computer & ISP connection at home. "
We're down to 3 monthly bills now: power (~$70/mo), auto insurance (liability on a 15 y.o. Camry ~$38/mo), and house phone/ISP (~$50). We're approaching one of those humps that permaculture co-originator David Holgren talks about where new investments of time/energy/effort mean a dip into the next valley of abundance. Sort of a sinusoidal wave of breaking through barriers for energy descent. But this one requires some fairly innovative power-down moves, potentially giving up the car when we live 10 miles from town, and/or doing without the internet.
We're not quite ready for the latter two just yet. We're hanging our first small PV appliance and erecting 2 small homemade wind turbines soon, with plenty to come on the power down/water cycling front, but I still like the car, and blogging with you fine folks too much to 86 the last two. Won't be too long though.
"your friend in wa should write a book.
i'd love to read it."
I wish he would. He camped in the woods on friends' property most of the time, hunted, tended a small garden for essentials, and bartered his labor for anything else he needed. Really inspiring story. I'm not nearly that good.
If you watched more TV you would have seen that Steven Speilberg has ripped off your novels - "Falling Skies" - TNT. Peak oil, climate change, and economic collapse have been thinly disguised as weird looking aliens but that's about the only difference I can see.
About 8? years ago there was a piece in the LA Times about Argentina and 30.000? people a year there dying of starvation...Counselors overwhelmed with depressed former middle class people.
I knew someone was gonna get Q-Anal on me. But I figure Jackie to be a free spirit type unencumbered by overly tight clothing.
Vlad Krantz is probably at his annual Aryan Nation Summer Fun Day Camp somewhere. He'll be back.
Nonsense...a prisoner in Cali costs 40k? a year..
in Texas 18k..they were thinking of outsourcing prisoners..and may be doing so..
Few prisoners do even 15ks worth of work..
Maybe Im wrong..and what they did may have been outsourced to China.
Are you blaming the ruination of our forests and Nations parks by illegal drug runners on us?
Last I heard Vlad was doing arts and crafts and Nazi Camp. But he'll be back soon to show you his macaroni pictures...
AT Nazi Camp, AT. Damn.
"But I figure Jackie to be a free spirit type unencumbered by overly tight clothing."
Nothing wrong with a Marilyn size 16 in my view.
Great article by permaculture writer and lecturer Toby Hemenway about why agriculture in any form is unsustainable. Might give Marlin some insight into why I changed my cabinet position too.
http://infoark.org/InfoArk/Farm%20and%20Garden/Is%20Sustainable%20Agriculture%20an%20Oxymoron%3F%20-%20Hemenway_2006.pdf
Having just finished reading it, I'm off to bed. Tally-ho.
Let's compromise: 200. Prog's not gonna like it though.
Genocide Watch advises the Boers that they are in imminent danger from the Black Racists and they should be ready to fight or flee - and they cannot expect any help from PC organizations like Red Cross. Whites aren't people anymore unless they are rich evidently.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=199350089622&topic=14350
Mexican "Americans" booed the American Soccer team in favor of the Mexican team in Los Angeles. They came not as immigrants but as colonists. And soccer like all sports is a weather vane of other more serious trends: if they will boo our team they will also go to war against us when we are weak. It's already a low level war along the border.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/06/us_soccer_team.php
You don't need a Weather Man to tell you which way the wind is blowing. Just lick you finger and put it up. Van Jones and Bill Ayers have nothing on you. The problem is that the People aren't interested - and this time alot more of them Know who you people are.
Radical Environmentalism has a deep connection with Fascism - the love of Blood and Soil. That the Left took it up was merely a matter of political expediency - another thing to beat the Capitalists over the head with. Their tacit endorsement of the Mexican Invasion shows the shallowness of the relationship.
The Anarchists have a strong case, in theory at least. But they assume that all men are Taoists Sages and Saintly Eccentrics. The reality is quite the contrary of course. There is always going to be social structure and hierarchy of some kind - hopefully one of merit and character as Jefferson wanted.
Pretty good. But remember it wont automatically be Eden: a tribe of Aboriginees killed and ate hundreds of Chinese railroad workers in the 1800's. As you may or may not know (Jared Diamond wont help you here - you must consult older and more recondite sources), cannibalism was widespread throughout Africa, Oceania, Australia, Central America, and parts of North and South America at certain times. Even Whites may have done it - only surviving as ritual sacrafice for the most part.
I've had dreams of running from cannibals but never of being one. No desire. Sometimes my mouth waters seeing a pretty girl and I just want "to eat her all up" - but that's just the neurological circuits getting mixed up. How bout you? One Black kid during Katrina talked about how they were going to be eating each other soon. Totally believeable.
Back with a vengeance, you sting like a scorpion...
I found a website and thought of you..cant remember the sites name
[first name] humphries.com
LA Times had a 'warm n fuzzy' article on Mexicos
[then] new policy of dual citizenship for
kids of Mexicans.
'I WANT MY MEXICAN CITIZENSHIP, I FEEL A CONNECTION,
NEVER BEEN THERE BUT I AM A MEXICAN'...
or somesuch was a quote..
Wonder if Wagie feels so 'warm and fuzzy' on dual citizenships.
Right now one Humberto Leal is on death row in Texas..they didnt read that Mexican his rights or some such and not sure if they can kill him.
Took alot of time to find...just for you..
MarkHumphrys.com. . ... Stop Sharia law in Ireland!
I don't know how they survived the budget scalpel, but, I managed to get a temporary position with the Federal Government as an archivist in the Department of Tiny Asian Girls Who Play The Guitar Waaaaaay Better Than You EVER Fuckin' Will.
On my first day I found this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98y0Q7nLGWk
I immediately thought of you. So this is for you, CASH. Where ever in the Sam Hell you are.
NOTE TO QSHTICK:
Yeah, I know I capitulated on the "Sam Hill" thing. Then I realised that this Sam Hill guy affected so many people in so many ways, that he was bound to be referred to with a variety of euphamisms. As I pointed out, this particular expression was taught to me orally in the tradition of the region. A regional variation in the folklore that I simply cannot account for. Can you?
And that's how it starts. Amazing how one letter can change meaning. You hep? See ya in couple of centuries.
Very Truly Yours,
Al Jolson
P.S.
All right, man. I gave you plenty of chances. As a long time user of Ubuntu, I feel compelled to defend the honor of my cheap-ass technology. FROM THE WEBSITE:
"ubuntu |oǒ'boǒntoō|
Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning 'humanity to others'. It also means 'I am what I am because of who we all are'."
...hmmm. Not sure about the second part. I thought Popeye said that.
Re: Your comment -
There is no shortage of rank idiots and proven fools who aspire to lead. They're mostly men and I'm sure you support a few of them yourself(being of the same level of intellectual curiosity).
Kuntsler syndrome?
[URL="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/standard-and-poors-threatens-selective-default-if-congress-misses-debt-limit-deadline/2011/06/29/AG5QPyqH_blog.html"]Standard & Poor’s threatens ‘selective default’ if Congress misses debt-limit deadline[/URL]
It seems that Greece was just a pilot for a new world order.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/standard-and-poors-threatens-selective-default-if-congress-misses-debt-limit-deadline/2011/06/29/AG5QPyqH_blog.html
Standard & Poor’s threatens ‘selective default’ if Congress misses debt-limit deadline
It seems that Greece was just a pilot for a new world order.
"People will clamor for bonds that come with no clear terms and probably no redemptions."
Let´s think.%
Witnesses of the changing Landscape
Hudson River Contemporary
Saw JHK at the Art Students League last night along with a host of other artist/speakers on landscape painting. The lecture/speaker event offered an academic discussion as well as personal approaches as each person on the panel made presentations and explained their process.
As an artist coming out of a modernist aesthetic I had never been to the ASL before after living in NYC since the late '70's. I had my reasons, as I didn't think my work fit in. I'm glad I went for a number of reasons, but my mind needed a bit of opening and I found the themes of these works closer to my political thinking than I would have imagined.
The idea behind the show at Boscobel where the show actually hangs is about the tradition of the Hudson River School of the 19th century as an inspiration to contemporary artists.
These artists are recording in personal ways the changing landscape, as more of the natural environment is being developed. There seems to be a growing movement of artists breaking away from modernism to explore themes that go back to this original American art movement that defined this country's place in art history.
I am impressed with JHK's energy and commitment to chronicle what he sees in a matter-of-fact way, sharing with us our own ruins from the industrial age, once the bedrock of our economy. What I respond to is his spirit as he puts it all out there whether he's painting in the cold winter landscape of the north of Albany or writes his fiction and non-fiction.
Surprisingly the theme of development on pristine land of the new world is an issue that was with us even in the early 1800's.
Much of what the artists speak to is what we communicate about on this site and a growing awareness of what we are losing as more mining and development continues to undermine the environment.
I found some people I spoke to after the lecture as optimistic that growing awareness and local fighting against development, fracking and mining would be effective.
What I said to one speaker afterward was that this country was growing ever more desperate for fossil fuels and it might be a very tough fight indeed against the needs to keep this enterprise going.
I didn't have the heart to tell them that rampant privatization and the selling of rights for a quick buck to foreign interests might preclude that.
hi guys, this could be a decent, helpful little conversation-starter. Some time ago, I purchased the 1910, 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I have had to keep it at my father's place for awhile, for various reasons, but I'm going to bring it back to my place in July. I can't possibly be the only one here who has bought that encyclopedia. Many people seem to cite it as a terrific, comprehensively illustrated reference source, for how people lived before more modern times. Does anyone have any favorite articles from that encyclopedia, about skills or trades related to 19th century life? It could be almost anything: textiles, making soap, cabinet-making, raising horses... whtever your favorite article might be. Thank you!!!
"Surprisingly the theme of development of pristine land of the new world is an issue that was with us even in the early 1800s." -- Ibendet.
Ibendet, could you possibly be talking about the Hudson River School artists, and, a century later, the Ash Can School, with their dismal, smoking heaps of coal, grim locomotives, and homeless men camped on RR rights of way?
"Marlin is being a disingenuous dirtbag" -- WageL.
Oh come now, Wage, is that any way to describe a CFN Comrade, even one that you disagree with? I don't think so. I'm surprised at you, I really am.
-Marlin
"Kuntsler syndrome?"
He doesn't aspire to lead those who cannot lead themselves. Your shotgunning of taunts paints you as juvenile.
"This is one of those times when only dreamers will turn out to be practical men." Lewis Mumford
No offense at all, that's what the smiley was for! Americans abroad posing as Canadians to avoid being treated like, well, American,s is a time-honoured trope. Lately, what with the Harper majority and the Vancouver riots, we've been doing more damage to our own brand than anyone else.
Problem Time: i know this doesn't rate with some stuff aired around here but, i've been fighting the good fight against poison ivy {and losing}. me methodology is when it gets so high go out with a rake or something sharp and whack it close to the ground and, with long gloves put it in piles, then mow it in little pieces just like the grass. last weekend my son brought his weed whacker [he is a high tech dude] and used it for about thirty minutes and ended up going to the hospital for cortizol shots. now my wife is screaming at me to spray the stuff and kill it all! i refuse to poison ourselves ti eliminate a "weed", as i may wish to use it as a chemical weapon someday, but i don't want it growing up the walls of my house. i'm getting tired of argueing with a person that is impervious to reason. does anyone have a more effective methodology, short of roundup?
"Funny, I think it was my first child that finally sent me the other direction!"
Sadly, this didn't happen to me until grandchildren. Too expletive deleted busy [distracted/unfocused].
"lbendet, could you possibly be talking about the Hudson River School artists,..."
I most assuredly am,
"....is about the tradition of the Hudson River School of the 19th century as an inspiration to contemporary artists."
I did not mention the Ash Can school as it was not the subject of the show.
But that doesn't mean it's not a good topic to discuss.
Goats. They eat poison ivy.
Some places have them for rent.
I know it would be lame for me to tell you to "just scroll on by" but really, what other solution is there? Certainly, leaving CFN is out of the question since I am addicted like everyone else here.
---------------------------------------
I for one, don't mind such corrections. Nothing wrong with good English, after all. I do think it's sort of silly to apply the same standards to internet jabber that you apply to other forms of written discourse. What next, are we also going to require footnotes? The internet by convention, has developed looser standards, go with it, or not if you prefer. I stand willingly corrected.
Thanks for that. Amazing stuff.
The "top" needs the "bottom" but the bottom don't need the top.
-------------------------------
Philosophically, I would like to agree with you. But in history the "top" seems to win about 99.99% of the time. So put your money, if you still have any, on the spread getting worse.
MSCruid,
Re; Poison Ivy
That's a good question, Sir. There probably should be more discussion of practical knowledge here, less political bullshit, which I'm guilty of myself.
I just hack away at the stuff with my machete. But here's the thing. If you should come in contact with it, wash up real quick with DISH SOAP, not hand soap. Dish soap has some type of grease cutting ingredients that removes the harmful oil right away. That's what I do, and it works.
-Marlin
Of course I do not mean TrippT, or Ripthunder, who I see as our gurus here at CFN.
-Marlin
If any lefties who truly saw him as some kind of saviour are unhappy now, they should blame themselves first -- they clearly wanted to be snookered.
------------------------------------
So, by that same logic, if you professed to be an honest citizen, and I had no reason to think otherwise, and subsequently you broke into my house and took my "stuff", that would be my fault.
Oh....and by the way, all that "saviour" stuff is a dead giveaway that you spend too much time listening to Fox News. Since when do "lefties" need "saviors"? Only in the mind of "righties"
I just thought Obama would act as he implied he would, and be a good president, I was wrong.
Hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide since Monsanto was allowed into India.
And the Indian government has killed others who have protested.
Yes, they're killing their own people, and yet, we're not bombing them to save them.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/12/13/vandana_shiva_on_farmer_suicides_the
Vandana Shiva - for any who don't know her.
BTW Qshtik, if no one has given you a copy yet, since it would seem the ideal gift for you, you would love the book "Woe is I", which BTW is as correct as "woe is me".
I don't think that Lorne listens to Fox News.
Sure, Obama lies well. But if you fall for it, especially now, it's your own fault.
Now he's out there speechifying about the tax cuts for the rich, and how we must elect Democrats to stop them.
Does he think that we're too stupid to remember that it was the Democrats and Obama who continued the tax cuts last December, when the Congress was overwhelmingly Democrat, and Obama was President?
Why, yes, he does think we're too stupid.
And, sadly, his calculations may be correct.
I get your points, and appreciate them, but even if we eliminated all social services, the military and the banking subsidies would still keep us in debt.
When third world countries have revolutions, the first thing they do is provide education and health care for their citizens, and set aside national land for conservation.
Apparently, we need to slip into absolute despotism for many people in our country to value collective action.
Sad that English doesn't have a word for We are who we are because of all of us.
One might think that Democratic legislators are too stupid to understand they must present a viable alternative to Republican economic policies to have any excuse to exist. But, sadly I think the truth is the kleptocracy now has such complete control, Dems are just in it to be first in line when the money is handed out. So like true kleptos they will wring their hands and offer excuses, while doing nothing.
Corruption is epidemic throughout the system and now that the total "pie" is contracting, 90% of us will be left fighting for the few scraps the wealthy decide to leave for us.
I don't always agree with the author of this piece below, but he's spot on in this case.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune11/US-kleptocracy6-11.html?source=patrick.net
i have read your comments about leaving california, but i think there are better choices than central america or the caribbean. i am not adventurous enough to move to a culture less stable than our own. plus i already live where its hot half the year. but i can see where some people would find it exciting and/ or relaxing to live outside of the american rat race. where ever i travel it always seems more costly than home.
Oh nooo! Vlad is back. Can we all agree to ignore him completely? He's like kudzu, just draping himself over everything, covering and smothering. Any response at all just encourages him.He's not capable of self control. I'm not trying to be mean. It's just a fact.
This Greek vote approving "austerity" measures was a laugh. Austerity my ass. Not happening.
The only way forward for Greece is to exit the Euro and refloat the old drachma and for holders of Greek govt bonds to kiss their asses goodbye.
The little sun kissed country will then be faced with some decisions. It either gets its ass in gear or it festers in its collective sloth.
Belgium doesn't get much airtime. That's another ticking bomb. Last I heard their govt debt was about 100% of GDP. As of this month it was one whole year without a federal govt.
the above post was replying to jackie.
you are right about his self control. but not everything he posts is wrong or stupid. it is a big mistake to totally dismiss him or on the other end soak
Also, MSCruid, nice quote there by Lewis Mumford, a favorite of mine. JHK reminds me of Mumford, a later version. Actually I'm somewhat surprised Mumford doesn't get more of a mention here at CFN. He was talking about the issues we discuss here way back in the 1940's.
-Marlin
Sorry for the belated response. Wage wrote a great Mother's Day blog. Interesting to hear a piece of your own journey. Although it spoke to the suffering created by patriarchal power structures I felt it also spoke to the fantastic progress we, as a people, have made in the relatively short time since post WW!! 20th century. First let me note that I know all to well the ways we've gone DOWN since, say, the 1950's. White working and middle class males had fairly easy upward mobility. It was possible to support a family on a single wage, with the knowledge that your kids could go to college and have a better life. Access to health care was much easier and less costly. The distribution of wealth was much more equitable. (unless you were not white) The concentration of wealth and assets (and therefore power) is the most significant negative change that has occurred over the past few decades. All other negatives flow from that, including environmental and energy related issues.
On the other hand, women have a power they never had before. That's the single thing that gives me the most hope. No offense to the guys out there (some of my best friends are male! lol) but there is a direct line correlation between the status of women in a society and that's society's evolution toward what most here at CFN would consider a better world. Women, as a whole, tend to be hardwired more toward empathy, cooperation and sustainability. Men tend to be hardwired toward hierarchy, domination and authoritarianism. Now everyone is jumping on the exceptions, like Palin and Bachmann who are eagerly trying to turn back the clock. But my point stands. Show me a culture or society in which women are denied power and status and you'll find more violence, more pollution, more inequality over all and much more institutionalized cruelty. Conversely, the more power shared by women the more peaceful, equitable, compassionate and ecological that society is.
Since women have gained power here - say since the 1950's, we've seen MEN become much more free to be whole, loving human beings, and THAT change has reflected itself in the power structures that men create. It's not just about women having power to change things, its about the way that more freedom for women creates better MEN.
Thanks for the link.
He talks about 2 systems of justice, one for the rich and one for the poor.
I believe that Glenn Greenwald is writing a book on that subject.
But Max Keiser points out that Florida has sharia law for the rich, although it is outlawed by the yahoos in the state legislature for the poor.
The rich pay no interest on borrowed money, as the Koran advises. The poor, of course, pay double digit interest.
And some rich guy killed 2 people with his car. He paid blood money to the families and escaped jail time.
South Carolina proposed reduced prison time for body organs from prisoners. 6 months tops!
Really? Shouldn't organs be worth more than 6 months? As I said before, prisoners come cheap.
"cannibalism was widespread throughout Africa, Oceania, Australia, Central America, and parts of North and South America at certain times. Even Whites may have done it - only surviving as ritual sacrafice for the most part."
Every example I know of cannibalism is in response to severe shortages of food. Knowing what it's like to be human, and believing that all Homo sapiens are equally intelligent, if perhaps in different ways, and capable of the same range of emotions, I can't imagine that anyone would want to eat another human unless the alternative was starvation. I suppose with enough regularity in a given culture it could become more normal, or more socially acceptable, say, to eat deceased relatives as a spiritual ritual, or the bodies of slain enemies as a rite of vigor, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to eat an American...taste like Round-up.
Thanks for the vocabulary lesson, "recondite" is a good one, and take it easy on Auntie. She seems like a sweetheart.
Yeah, that whole woman, black, native empowerment thing in the 60s REALLY scared the ruling class.
All this talk about freedom and equality and a meaning to life besides trinket collection.
The backlash is what we have now.
I'm with you. We need a kinder, gentler nation.
Yeah, kinda like the folks who have been freaking out about the end of the world if gay people are allowed to be...gulp... regular people like us!
How far away are you from Athens, Tripp?
Maybe the SJ family could stay there and make a day trip to your farm :)
I have a great cartoon on my refrigerator- it's 2 flying monsters perched on NY skyscrapers, gobbling clawfulls of Americans.
The caption is: "Of course you feel great. These things are full of antidepressants."
We didn't teach Cannibalism to them - it was a integral part of their culture. So my point: hunter gatherers exceed the carrying capacity of their environment all the time. As your man says, the retribution is just much swifter. I agree with Diamond (I think) that Hunter Gatherers can vary tremendously - but he doesn't explore the implications of that. In other words, a People aren't bound completely by their Natural Environment or level of Technology. All that's pure Marxist thinking - and it holds back Anthropology. Spiritual beliefs are an important part of any Culture and can make a big difference here.
Some Cultures in New Guinea are horrible and some lovely - same technology and environment. In some the genders despise each other and others not. Another example: the Kalahari Bushmen also live in a harsh environment, but as far as I know they do not sink into cannibalism. The Aboriginees are nasty that way and in other ways. The Bushmen do fight in competition for women - sometimes to the death since they use their poisoned arrows. The goverment has since stepped in to stop it. Meanwhile it's open season on Whites by Blacks. Go figure.
Another example: the Pawnees were cannibals. The Sioux lived in basically the same Great Plains environment - just farther North. Yet the Sioux despised them for it. If they starved, they starved. If they had to expose children, than so be it. Would you kill me if you got hungry? I don't belive it. Human beings can be better than that. You believe that all people are genetically equal. OK. But you don't have to believe all cultures are equal. I've noticed this Marxist tinge to your thinking for a long time and I challenge you to reconsider it. Not that you ever sat down and called yourself a Marxist, but that all of Academia was basically conquered by this crap and you just got some by osmosis.
I admit certainly that the mode of production has a profound effect on human consciousness - I merely deny that it's the only influence.
Iceland's partial Jubilee
http://netrightdaily.com/2011/04/iceland-declares-independence-from-international-banks/
By Bill Wilson – "Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.
On April 9, the fiercely independent people of island-nation defeated a referendum that would have bailed out the UK and the Netherlands who had covered the deposits of British and Dutch investors who had lost funds in Icesave bank in 2008.
At the time of the bank’s failure, Iceland refused to cover the losses. But the UK and Netherlands nonetheless have demanded that Iceland repay them for the “loan” as a condition for admission into the European Union.
In response, the Icelandic people have told Europe to go pound sand. The final vote was 103,207 to 69,462, or 58.9 percent to 39.7 percent. “Taxpayers should not be responsible for paying the debts of a private institution,” said Sigriur Andersen, a spokeswoman for the Advice group that opposed the bailout."
It is about time for the adults to find their voice...
People like you just want to make the internet as banal as most of the ordinary conversations at the hairdressers and supermarket. You haven't a clue, never had one and never will have one. You think you do because the people you talk with don't either.
"But you don't have to believe all cultures are equal."
Holding this belief [and it must be emphasized that it IS a belief], generally speaking, disqualifies one from managing contraction.
You believe that all people are genetically equal. OK. But you don't have to believe all cultures are equal.
==
Neither genetically or culturally are we all equal. And that's not the point. The point is the privileges and penalties that you propose to apply to different groups based on what you perceive to be their superiority or inferiority.
For example, I perceive all blue-eyed devil dogs to be inferior and subhuman. But that doesn't give me the right to go ahead and apply a system of privileges and penalties based on this. And in a sense I don't need to, because nature itself will eliminate them from agaonst us humans.
Mumford loathed the hippies - who are now in power. He also excoriated as he put it "arrogant minorities" demanding benefits that they didn't deserve. He also was amazed at capitulation of University authorities to their demands - after they took over buildings and vandalized them - even viciously burning Phd Thesises. At times the Mau Mau's even ordered White Professors to sit on the floor while they lectured to them. The Professors obeyed. Mumford recognized all this as capitulation to barbarism and a sign of utterly degenerate society. Needless to say, this recognition is enough to leave him no place in Pop Academics - and the Academy is little more than pop culture now outside the hard sciences.
The same thing happened to Albert Schweitzer, the Mother Therese of his day. He didn't bow down and worship the Blacks and thus has been dropped down the memory hole.
You believe that all people are genetically equal. OK. But you don't have to believe all cultures are equal.
==
Neither genetically or culturally are we all equal. That's not the point. The point is the privileges and penalties that you propose to apply to different groups based on what you perceive to be their superiority or inferiority. And that's a no-no.
For example, I perceive all blue-eyed devil dogs to be inferior subhuman trash. But that doesn't give me the right to go ahead and apply a system of privileges and penalties based on this. And I don't need to, because I believe that nature itself will vindicate me and ultimately eliminate them from amongst us humans.
You are a Saint, a Zaddick. The great Blue Eyed Jews bless you in the name of YHVH.
"...nice quote there by Lewis Mumford, a favorite of mine."
"The future exists first in imagination, then in will, then in reality." Lyn Burwell
Good on your neighbor with the orchard.
I don't think replacing a lawn with an orchard is an example of a poor work ethic as much as a pragmatic but unpretentious work ethic. A truly lazy person would buy his fruit at a store, not plant trees in his front yard.
Your neighbor's orchard is a small example of what has traditionally been regarded as American can-do self-reliance. Americans still talk a good game about such virtues, but they often despise them when they witness them in the flesh.
I used to run with a group of dipshit drinking buddies in Philadelphia whose Fuhrer figure liked to talk about how his hard work was paying off, as though he was turning into a self-made man. In point of fact, he lived with his parents for at least three years after college and got $400/month and occasional bonuses from them for running errands and doing light household chores. This group leader, who was one of the most sheltered fools I've ever known, constantly denigrated the genuinely productive farm work that I did several months a year for relatives in Oregon. I was basically the second-in-command at a small winery and vineyard, able to run parts of the operation unsupervised, but my drinking buddies in Philly, especially Dear Leader, sneered at me as some sort of renegade who was debasing himself with stoop labor.
Dealing with this moron and his buddies I learned the hard way that social climbers, people who brag about their own work ethics, and those who belittle the productive work of others should be given no quarter. By their sheer rudeness they exile themselves from genuine polite company and forfeit the expectation to be treated politely. There is no ethical reason not to tell such people to fuck off when they get out of line, and a number of ethical and pragmatic reasons to do so, mainly because people of that sort tend not to respond to appeals to reason or decency. The more thin-skinned among them are easily crushed by an STFU order. If they're officious and troublesome enough, lying to them is warranted, too. Likewise playing dumb immigrant as your neighbor does. No one has a moral obligation to play by the gratuitous rules enforced by HOA busybodies.
Hey Vlad, speaking of the Boers, they surrendered 20 years ago. Its too late for them. Look what has happened to the white ranchers who remained in Rhodesia. That's what is going to happen, eventually, to the Whites who stayed in SAfrica. That intrepid Boer Trekker on horseback, dressed in Khaki, Mauser rifle slung over his shoulder, bravely riding out to meet the British army in open combat ... that's over.
-Marlin
The Irish are doomed unless saved by the bell of contraction. They view themselves as the Niggers of Europe and thus identify with Blacks. They believe ALL the lies of American Media. And like the rest of Europe, actually envied us our Blacks. They wanted their own so they could show us ignorant, racist Yanks how GOOD people can get along with Blacks. Now their girls are getting AIDS from Black Pimps and pushing coffee colored babies around Dublin. A strong infusion of Arab or Pakistani Muslims would be a huge improvement. In any case, they have sold themselves into slavery in two generations. Muslim Economics might acually save them since Islam does not believe in usury. Christianity doesn't either but Christians don't care what the Bible teaches or what the Church Fathers believed.
"Can we all agree to ignore him completely?"
At your peril [snigger}. Truth ignored is truth denied. Do you have to agree 100% with someone to learn from them? Inherent contradiction inserted intentionally.
"I never met a man I didn't like." Will Rogers
Vlad lacks self-control, ".....but not everything he posts is wrong or stupid. it is a big mistake to totally dismiss him or on the other end soak..."
-bossier, to AuntRiver, concerning Vlad-
That's very good advice, bossier. I have trouble conversing with soak because of the way he twists words and ideas - and because he is quick to label anything he disapproves as RACIST - thus ending the discussion, in some minds.
Vlad, on the other hand, floats up some pretty good ideas. But he voices so many needlessly divisive thoughts that some posters refuse to consider any of his ideas.
Both Vlad and Soak make minds slam shut - but in different ways and for opposite reasons.
Soak says, "Everyone wants to blame the Mexicans for everything: swine flu, forest fires, crime, unemployment, etc. etc.
It is racist and shameful."
Soak, this is trope. Go ahead and cite any perpetrator or proponent of such an idea.
The pro-illegal immigrant position is so weak that you ad hominem en masse. It is pathetic, but understandable. Kind of like Imperial Japanese kamikaze tactics in 1945.
The reality is that the borderlands are intensely saturated with the influence of immigration. They permeate the economy and are a large part of the fabric. Not essential, by any means, just a high proportion of it. Everybody who is on the take has an understandable motive to support the continuing drainage of Mexican nationals and refugees from their country- so Narco cartels and Fascist government can continue to strangle it. On our side of the border, Mexican immigrants keep the 3,000 mile long salad bar supply line going. Again, understandable for those who line up at said salad bars.
I don't own a car, a cellphone, or a TV. I don't participate in the 3,000 mile salad bar, or buy the cheap throwaway electronics produced in maquiladoras. All of your rhetoric about the economy being buoyed is neutralized by my conviction that it only sustains and supports an unsustainable status quo, economically and environmentally.
Lastly, I have travelled in Mexico and know what a shithole a country can become when its citizens are disenfranchised and encouraged to flee, while official democracy suffers the loss of their political economy. Pro illegal immigration supports the continuing deterioration of Mexico into further depths of lawlessness and chaos. What is needed is a repatriation of Mexican exiles and the civil and political support of the United States to provide a path to a sustainable and just society.
"100% of personal income is not spent on energy use."
The correlation between income and energy use per capita is a universally-accepted statistic. The difference of an order of magnitude in income correlates to roughly an order of magnitude energy intensity. It is not bullshit.
"I am saying the difference in energy use of an undocumented immigrant in the USA versus Mexico is insignificant compared to the energy used by the USA military every hour of every day of the year."
That is an equivocal point when considering that the difference is significant in and of itself. It is apparent to everyone that the US military uses a lot of energy, certainly more than just about any particular group. It is a fallacy to attack an argument against energy use of one group by comparison to another. To avoid concession that the energy intensity of expatriate Mexicans in the US is significant by arguing that there are other entities whose energy use is more significant, is an evasion and is beside the point.
"That was the central thrust of my post and you seem to have ignored it, talking about a non-existent red herring."
Apologies. I suppose I understood that you were attempting to conceal the gross impact of illegal immigrants' energy use by using a red herring.
Sort of like me attempting to argue that my Tahoe is not a gas guzzler at 20 miles per gallon because a hummer gets 10, or that 10 Hummers are equivalent to 20 Tahoes. The red herring is that we are now talking about Hummers when we were talking about Tahoes.
When arguing about energy use as function of immigration, you introduce red herrings when you go off arguing about energy-use in other sectors.
It is fair to argue about financial or energetic dimensions of the immigration problem, and evasionary to dismiss it on a relative basis toward other problems with their own debatable points. This isn't dodge-ball, this is debate.
It is a common rationalization that people use to justify their own consumptive habits: to say, well, I don't use as much as my neighbor. You can pull the wool over your own eyes. Most people do.
At heart, I think Mexicans care about their country, and feel a sense of futility and fatalism more than anything else about its renewal and rebirth. Like anyone employing such logical fallacies, though, their minds are never content with lies for long. They are practically aware that their actions are not the bold strategy of honorable courage, but the weak strategy of cowardice in the face of force and evil.
That is why the demoralized masses of illegal immigrants are willing to eat shit on American mega-farms, and clean shitty toilets for a living for less than livable wages.
The official policy of America for too long has been complacency and a willingness to partner with the fascist regime in Mexico, and align with corporate exploiters.
Saok: "Let me put it in terms you can more easily understand. The USA military uses an equivalent of 140 million "undocumented immigrants."
Using your high numbers ("the energetic devolution by 15-30 million people,") the USA military uses anywhere from 5 to 9 times more energy for destruction than "undocumented immigrants" use to contribute to our economy. And immigrants are net contributors to our economy."
Lets not get confused. GDP rises with war business as it does with the car-wash, hotel cleaning, and strawberry-picking business. Net contributions to the economy equate to resource draw-down and exploitation of the environment, foreshortening doomsday. So your "positive metric" is nothing but.
If the USA E use = 140 equivalent units (eqU) then immigrants themselves eqU = 140/30 (high estimate), or about 20% of the military's energy intensity.
20% of the military's energy intensity is significant.
Elsewhere you said, "The CBO says the wars are costing us $9 BILLION PER MONTH. "
Great. Lets end the war and then kick the illegals out.
Housing shortage over. Rents decrease. Mexico gets a voting bloc capable of sustaining political reform. Jobs open up. Lawlessness down.
I see Zero downside.
So can you admit that they should not have surrendered to the Blacks? The Rhodesians were hopelessly out numbered perhaps, but the Whites of South Africa could have taken a corner of the south coast and created their own little nation - and told the world to go to hell. Israel would have traded with them even as they publicly condemened them - the Jewish way. And the Rhodesians could have migrated to the new country.
Alot of Blacks miss the old order. The South African Whites provided medical care so that the Black population quadrupled in a couple of generations. Blacks from all over Africa desperately sought to gain entrance into the "racist" state. And they had a plan to give independence to the Tribes and tribal people who wanted it. Did anyone appreciate all this? Nope, not the Blacks and not the Western World. So now everyone expects the benefits of White, Western society without the Whites. It cannot be.
You are a Saint, a Zaddick.
==
Tell me, Vlad, do you jerk off when you read your Mumford. When are you going to stop with the idiotic idol worshiping? Are you really that insecure in your own independent thinking that you have to parrot every "authority" that the powers that be put out for you. Can't you understand how stupid you are doing these things?
And it's tzadik.
bros before hos. no control, no control.
As Blake's Nobodaddy said, "Damn praying and singing, unless they bring in the blood of ten thousand by fighting or swinging."
We have invoked the demiurge, the dark side of God. Some call him Satan. Some call the demiurge the workman, the creator of the earth. But that kind of gnosticism hate the world. I prefer theological unity. I never met a god I didn't like.
A regional variation in the folklore that I simply cannot account for. Can you?
================
Yes, I can, but I choose not to. I must husband my strength for expenditure where there's a chance it may bear fruit.
Like when my brother-in-law (who already resembles Tony Soprano) drops over and his voice sounds like a mafia chieftain and he explains that he was working all day yesterday in a 40 degree storage facility and it affected his "larnicks" and my antennae begin to twitch violently and I am dying to say "it's y-n-x Peter, the second syllable sounds like 'inks' not like that pro basketball team from NY that can't win to save their ass" ... but no, in the interest of family harmony but more so because I know the entire conversation will sail right over his head or go in one ear and out the other because, frankly, these sorts of concerns simply are not on his personal radar, I bite my lip.
And when Peter's wife Dar (the one who till recently was on the Board of a Credit Union but incredibly [and causing me to be incredulous] does not grasp the concept of compound interest) tells of a trip she once took to "Itly" and I want to scream "THERE'S AN *A* BETWEEN THE T AND THE L" or when she mentions that a friend's daughter is a "kidneygardener" and the hair stands up on my arms and I want to be sarcastic as I can possibly be and say "no Dar, those 6 year old kids may play in a sandbox but they definitely do not raise kidneys in soil" I know from vast experience (interpretation of facial expression: "huh?") that our minds are not merely poles apart but from different planets, if not galaxies, and what a waste of breath this would be.
Soak said, "The CBO says the wars are costing us $9 BILLION PER MONTH. "
So, the wars cost 9 * 12 or $108 Billion annually... and the current cost of illegal immigration is pegged at $36 Billion. 36/108 = a full 33% of the cost of the wars, currently.
That is strikingly similar to the energy intensity we are estimating (20%) using your "illegal immigrant equivalent units" metric.
EEEEnterensting
SJ what do you want from me? I speak the truth as I see it. I admit that women have Buddha Nature. But like the Dalai Lama, I state that they will not actualize it as often as men do. It's a lower birth, dude. But it's not impossible. I wish you well in your quest. Forgive me for speaking the Truth and forgive yourself simultaneously for obstructing it.
Start here: Are you now ready to confess the Mexican Invasion and that you are behind enemy lines? It's getting harder for the Media to keep it under wraps - surely you aren't going to wait for them to "announce it"? That would be shameful.
Satan is NOT the dark side of God. Satan is simply anyone who questions the system and its authority and sees its malevolence for what it is. At least the Jewish thinking on the matter. Of-course, the Roman Imperialists with their Catholic religion, don't want you to question their system and their authority, so satan becomes evil incarnate, when in point of fact it is they who are evil incarnate.
Howdy Progressor, Per your comment: "California here we come! I guess I'm going to have to ask for directions, though? I'm a guy, so that's a small problem."
No need to stoop so low; simply keep this adage in mind "sun at your back in the morning, sun in your face in the evening" then reverse same when you head back home. :-)
We had a similar adage for airplane drivers "push forward on the stick houses get bigger, pull back on the stick houses get smaller"
SNAFU
..^that's the Jewish thinking on the matter..
100% concur, Bustin.
Also, let's consider that the US version of "war for resources" becomes more and more vital to US interests as US population is allowed to rise.
The US population at 200,000,000 would have had a lot less NEED to prop itself up through "wars of choice" than will the looming US population of 400,000,000 plus.
And one of the proposed paths to citizenship under the DREAM Act for a young undocumented US resident is SERVICE IN THE MILITARY.
From a planetary survival point - the immigration rate into the US should be dropped to "replacement level," at the highest.
==================
On a personal note:
I've also come to realize that every time you say "illegal immigrant" you fall into a classist and racist trap that obscures ignores the more important issue of "total immigration" rates.
obscures AND ignores
Triponomics: "house phone/ISP (~$50)."
I was stealing internet from the neighbors until they pulled the plug. Not to suggest you do the same, but, it illustrates the fact that WiFI networks are easy to share.
A pringles can can be modified into a highly directional wifi antenna to receive a signal from many times farther away than. A few neighbors in the loop and cheap $20 units called repeaters and you can share one connection among many users. The ISPs officially won't like it, but they can't detect it, and if everyone is copasetic and honest about bandwidth and usage habits, it is quite easy to stay well under the monthy data limits imposed by most ISPs.
You need:
1. cool neighbors to split the cost (at some point the division of cost doesn't make sense, due to complexity of the sharing network and bandwidth).
2. Pringles can.
3. Netgear repeater (plug n play). ($20)
4. Compatible router (netgear).
5. Netstumbler (free) to see wireless signal strength to optimize antenna placement.
Happy hacking.
Nice post, Auntie & I've been saying, essentially, the same thing for my whole life and for (now!) one year on CFN.
"Since women have gained power here - say since the 1950's, we've seen MEN become much more free to be whole, loving human beings, and THAT change has reflected itself in the power structures that men create." -Auntie M-
One of my voting strategies is to always vote for a woman over a man - when I lack any compelling reason to vote for either, otherwise.
===============
I do have to ask, though - what is wrong with US politics that Clinton, Palin, and Bachman - are the only three females on the national radar screen? There are 150,000,000 females in this country and that's what we get???
Riiight. Communism isn't a cult. That's why they preserved Lenin's body in a glass case in a Mausoleum. And that's why millions of worshipers came to pay homage. You never cease to amaze. Bet you voted for the One. He really screwed up yesterday. Even the devotees are begining to see what an arrogant fake he is.
POC says, "I've also come to realize that every time you say "illegal immigrant" you fall into a classist and racist trap that obscures ignores the more important issue of "total immigration" rates."
I am only hewing to the topic of debate, and that is illegal immigration along the border. Of course I am an advocate of zero population growth, a sea change to carrying capacity politics, and net zero total immigration.
People who serve the Devil are the devil. As the demon told Christ, "My name is Legion for we are many". No respect for individuality. When an angel approaches they always ask permission to impinge on consciousness. Or if they appear in visual form, their first words are alwasy do not be afraid. And they also refuse worship.
Demons do the opposite. You are a demon. But St Anthony said that even the demons may be saved in the End.
BustinJ said: "Soak, this is trope. Go ahead and cite any perpetrator or proponent of such an idea."
----------------
OK, since you asked:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/06/20/john-mccain-blames-undocumented-immigrants-for-arizona-wildfires/
John McCain Blames Undocumented Immigrants for Arizona Wildfires
SOURCE: FoxNews Latino, June 20, 2011
That was a lot of unwasted breath ...er typing.
"maybe we should talk more gardening and less politics on CFN" -marlin, paraphrased-
I think we're very lucky to have a place where we can do both, fairly freely, marlin.
I don't think I'd spend any time reading a gardening website - so, it's always a nice piece of serendipity when some good gardening advice turns up here on CFN.
I found this and waited until Thursday to post it so as not to conjure up too many memories of last week, too soon. But minds can change. If I ever get too old to change my mind - then I'm officially declaring myself too old to live!
"What's new and different in the past 20 years is the collapse of the Hispanic immigrant family. First-generation Latino immigrants maintain traditional families: conservative values, low divorce rates, high fertility and -- despite low incomes -- mothers surprisingly often at home with the children.
But the second-generation Latino family looks very different. In the new country, old norms collapse. Nearly half of all children born to Hispanic mothers are now born out of wedlock.
Whatever is driving this negative trend, it seems more than implausible to connect it to same-sex marriage."
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-27/opinion/frum.gay.marriage_1_family-stability-marriage-hispanic-mothers?_s=PM:OPINION
"I never met a god I didn't like."
I have met {or know of} many that are usurpers, therefore illegitimate. Legitimate authority does not oppose or undermine higher authority. Any authority {including so-called independent thought} that ignores or denies higher authority cannot be honored without serious repercussions. God deploys nature to do His bidding, remaining anonymous to many.
BustinJ said: "the current cost of illegal immigration..."
--------------
Is this what you mean by "red herring" Bustin?
The post was about the difference in the amount of energy consumed on either side of an imaginary line. I said it was insignificant compared to the amount of energy consumed by the military. My point being your rage against undocumented workers is misplaced, if you really are interested in consumption of energy.
Now you go bringing in the TOTAL cost of "illegal immigration", instead of the energy differential between energy consumed in the USA versus Mexico, and once again you ignore the 5 to 9 times more energy used by the military.
Is that what a red herring is? Or are you now changing the goal posts by talking about TOTAL costs instead of an insignificant energy differential?
Prog, have you heard about this?
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/06/obama_issues_dr.php
It seems Obama is doing an end run around the Congress to get his Dream Act. Note: the actual memo is linked at the end of the story.
Prog, have you heard about this?
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/06/obama_issues_dr.php
It seems Obama is doing an end run around the Congress to get his Dream Act. Note: the actual memo is linked at the end of the story.
BustinJ, you are way off base here citing FAIR's statistics for the TOTAL cost of immigration.
What we were discussing is where to direct rage: against poor brown people, or against a wasteful (the most wasteful on Earth) military organization that uses much more energy than poor brown people.
You seem not to want to look in the direction of the military waste of energy. You prefer to persecute poor people...
You can round 'em up ... deport them ... and you won't solve the problem of a military that annually wastes more energy than all the poor people you just deported; poor people who do not stop consuming energy just because you decided they should live on the other side of a border.
Yes God has many servants, known and unknown. St Augustine said that the gods were nothing but demons. So negative. Why couldn't some of them be Angels? It's almost like Christianity was trying to destroy other religions so it could become the only one!
The North was "evangelized" with extreme brutality. Chalemagne the Frankish King invited 5000 Saxon Chiefs to a feast and slew them while the Bishops looked on. Is that what Christ really wanted? A point for your "invisible church" position to be sure.
Buddhism also converted many lands: the local gods were converted and made into guardians of the Dharma. The King and the Court and therefore all the "good people" would also be converted. Some rustics retained worship of the old gods and it was tolerated. Christianity could never find such tolerance in itself - since it claimed that all gods were just demons. Or was that just a cover for wanting absolute political power? You don't know either. I'll ask Christ Himself someday.
If Christianity is the ultimate religion, why couldn't it fight the others in the marketplace of ideas? Bishop Lefebvre was a missionary in Africa and said that the Pagans used terror tactics and needed to be crushed when the authorities were willing. But the pagans of the Roman Empire were far more civilized than that... St Paul converted many without the military terror that the Church used later. Such tactics often merely strengthened the Pagans in their resolve. In fact, it may have been one reason for the Viking Terror.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan's famous report about how welfare destroyed the Black Family. No individual today, be they left or right, Republican or Democrat could write such a repor today. They'd be drummed out of public life within a week as a "Racist".
I've been hearing rumblings about this.
It was nice to actually see the memo.
I'm linking directly to it for those who think their monitors will explode in an incriminating manner should they access an AmRen webpage.
http://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/prosecutorial-discretion-memo.pdf
I think this memo could be spun in so many directions as to be almost meaningless.
And I think the Chief Executive in the US is far too powerful, and that Congress is a Medusa - and that those two things combine to set us far down a path to fascism or dictatorship.
============
These categories of illegal immigrant are targeted for quick prosecution - in the referenced memo. I'm sure Soak will be able to tell us why they ALSO should never be deported back to their home country.
"individuals who pose a clear risk to national security;
•
serious felons, repeat offenders, or individuals with a lengthy criminal record of any kind;
•
known gang members or other individuals who pose a clear danger to public safety; and
•
individuals with an egregious record of immigration violations, including those with a record of illegal re-entry and those who have engaged in immigration fraud."
-page 4, ICE memo-
I'm a Gila Monster and one of my strategies is to always vote for the Gila Monster candidate. Rightly (slurp) or wrongly. That way I know my Gila Monster point of view is (slurp) properly represented.
Sincerely,
Giles A'Monsteur
BustinJ - you have written some excellent posts on illegal immigration. Not one time have you used the term "RAGE."
"What we were discussing is where to direct rage: against poor brown people, or against a wasteful (the most wasteful on Earth) military organization..."
-soak, to bustin-
The idea of RAGE directed against poor brown people is the sort of invidious racist tripe in which asoaka specializes.
We should, perhaps feel RAGE against the US Military-Industrial Complex - but that is a different question.
I think we should feel nothing but empathy, or sympathy for what asoaka likes to label the "poor brown people."
This empathy should lead us to find ways to help them get back home to their families and their native lands - where they can participate in political life, and thus help to improve things for the many oppressed people who were unable to emmigrate.
BustinJ said: immigrant energy use the equivalent of "20% of the military's energy intensity is significant."
------------------------
BustinJ, I am going to have to bust you on your use of 15 million to 30 million illegal hispanic immigrants, (and your stated focus was on the southern border).
.28 illegal * 39.4 million total *.75 hispanic = 8 million illegal hispanic immigrants
So, by using 30 million (your high estimate) you are overestimating by several hundred percent.
Now, let's do the math again 8/140= 6%
If you want to see how much energy is saved by deporting those 6%, you have to calculate the difference between energy consumption in Mexico versus the USA.
So 8 million illegal hispanics is quite different from your bogus figure of 30 million illegal hispanics. Your calculation that immigrants use an equivalent of 20% of the military's energy intensity needs to be revised downward to 6%. (I grant that is still significant, but focusing on the 6% used by poor people, while ignoring the 94% wasted by the military is what I object to.)
And while you are struggling to arrest and deport 8 million illegal hispanics (and how much energy will that require?) the military continues to waste 94% of the energy equivalent, compared to the energy used by those you want to deport.
But let's assume you are successful and have deported 8 million Mexicans to Mexico. They are still using energy, but not nearly as much as the military. Let's assume the deported Mexicans use 25% of the energy they used in the USA. The USA military, instead of 9 times, is now using 36 times more energy than those you will be deporting to Mexico, assuming they use 75% less than they used in the USA.
You can save more of the world's energy by focusing on the military waste of resources, instead of on deporting poor brown people.
It's really all academic, Bustin. What you want: deportation of millions of people living in the United States, is not going to happen.
What I want: freedom to cross the border in either direction, is already happening, legally and illegally, and border crossings will only increase.
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/us/02immig.html
Number of Illegal Immigrants in U.S. Fell, Study Says
The idea of RAGE directed against poor brown people is the sort of invidious racist tripe in which asoaka specializes.
--------------
You are right. I injected the word rage based on reading BustinJ's description of Mexico as a shit hole and his saying let's "kick the illegals out."
I retract the word "rage", and substitute: "dispassionate arrest and orderly deportation" to the "shithole" BustinJ calls Mexico.
Is there a Gila Monster party I can read about?
CORRECTION
You are right. I injected the word rage upon reading BustinJ's description of Mexico as a shit hole and his saying let's "kick the illegals out."
The kicking of poor human beings is an act usually accompanied by rage.
Yessss.
Sssseek & ye shall find.
People who serve the Devil are the devil. As the demon told Christ, "My name is Legion for we are many".
==
Vlad, the "devil" is a Roman construct based on hades, adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and woven into their web of lies about a Jewish ultra-nationalist that they murdered. You are a Roman through and through. You worship unquestionably all their false gods and idols, as well as their lust for power, grandiose aesthetics, and thievery. That is not a good model. It is a model that reduces people to tyrants, beasts, and animals. You need to grow up and start understanding this.
"If Christianity is the ultimate religion, why couldn't it fight the others in the marketplace of ideas?"
It does. The problem is when it has become a religion {ie: innovation of men} it has no more spiritual legitimacy than any other religion, therefore cannot be "ultimate". Without revelation, "the way" is unappreciated.
Did anybody hear Coast to Coast last nite, long discussion about peak oil, which was described as a cult, and King Hubbert, who was described as a crank? They didn't mention Jim, but talked disparagingly about Matt Simmons and Colin Campbell. The guest (and the host, George Naury) ascribe to the 'abiotic' theory of crude oil, saying that the earth, deep down, is continually producing the stuff, making more and more, we can never run out. Its hard to believe that this theory is still out there.
-Marlin
If Christianity is the ultimate religion...
-----------
If by ultimate you mean most recent, then of the world's major religions the ultimate religion is Islam. Up and coming, fast growing, and with more fervent faithful than Christianity.
I'm thinking that to avoid going to war with more Muslim countries we need to increase the number of Muslims in our government. Once the Senate has more than 50 Muslims we'll be able to extract ourselves from our never ending wars.
I have faith this will happen because Islam is growing about 2.9% per year. This is faster than the total world population which increases about 2.3% annually. It is thus attracting a progressively larger percentage of the world's population and according to Pew Forums (2010) there are now 1.570 billion Muslims.
The USA should welcome both Mexicans and Muslims because the more the merrier in multicultural America.
Do you have to agree 100% with someone to learn from them? Inherent contradiction inserted intentionally.
"I never met a man I didn't like." Will Rogers
------------------------------------
Well...just for starters...Will Rogers was a liar.
No you don't have to agree with 100% blah...blah, to learn from someone. But when someone's view of reality is more distorted than a fun house mirror, the chances of you being misled are greater than the chances of you learning anything.
I'm sure Herr Goebbels, the self proclaimed master of the "big lie", told the truth once in awhile as well, but in retrospect, what intelligent human being would waste a minute listening to his bullshit?
Marlin, it is not so hard to believe the abiotic oil theory, if you take into account new findings in solar system formation.
The evidence points to the entirety of earth’s formation having taken place in intimate association with primordial gases, which includes about 1.3 earth-masses of methane.
The possibility of carbon-compound occlusion under these conditions is greatly enhanced, relative to the previous earth-formation concept, and is decidedly relevant to the enhanced prognosis for a deep-earth methane reservoir and for a carbon source for abiotic petroleum.
I forgot to cite my source for planetary formation:
Herndon, J. M., Solar system processes underlying planetary formation, geodynamics, and the georeactor. Earth, Moon Planets, 2006.
Thanx. I was about to nag for a source.
It's too bad that today is Glen Beck's last show on Fox. While I don't agree with all of his positions, he did more than just about anyone else in the media in essentially conveying JHK's message, alerting us to present and future dangers.
Thanks Beck, for ridding us of Van Jones and making us aware of the cast of characters in the Obama administration.
While not strong on solutions (help each other, buy gold?), he was insistent on being prepared for troubled times ahead.
Son of a Bitch!
Stop Obama now or face awful, big, intense, tragic consequences hereafter!
Anyway, while we're typing out shit here, having our little squabbles, trying to figure stuff out, as we speak our masters are in Aspen, Colorado deciding our fate. All the elites from business, Govt. and academia are in attendance. Why not? The accomodations are pretty nice and the food is most likely the best! And think of that great Aspen, Colorado scenery at the height of summer. Not to mention plenty of time and opportunity to hook up after hours, for both gays and straights. Its win win! So far what I've seen on CNBC reassures me that economic 'recovery' is on track.
-Marlin
As regards the shared WiFi, how far away are we talking here? Remember we left our urban jungle for a doomstead in the sticks (against the wisdom of our first conversation). We have several probable internet users within, say, 3/4 of a mile, a few a good deal closer, but not sure how close they need to be?
Not saying I would do this, just curious.
Sweet stuff, Jim! "...to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut-or make that a strawberry Bismarck!"
Delightful with my aromatic coffee and old world pastries!
"How far away are you from Athens, Tripp?
Maybe the SJ family could stay there and make a day trip to your farm :)"
Hardy har har! But I love the cartoon you described.
soak you are all for letting any and all immigrate here, yet you are leaving to where it is "better." shouldn't you want everyone to stay where it is"better." i don't get it.
soak is insidious!
yeah and they sell those pills that make your you know get bigger. fraud science at it's stupidest. the proponents can't possibly believe that crap.
last post i replied to marlin about abiotic theory.
Tusconspur says that Glenn Beck is basically saying the same thing as CFN, which brings me to a conversation Uncle Ned and I were just having out in the garden. I know this is a doom..Doooooom!!! website and chat, but do any of you CFNers (Q, I know that ain't right) think about the fact that you share the same negative doomsday dystopian future vision as your so "enemies?" What I'm trying to do is to get some of you talking and thinking about a vision of the future that DOESN'T entail and endless downward spiral of humanity.
I do believe that the only way out is through. It has to get worse before it gets better, so in that regard I do agree. There's a bad moon rising! I say let's get President Bachmann signed into office, with a right wing congress and senate. Then when the shit hits the fan they have to own it. Right now Scott Walker couldn't get elected to dogcatcher in Florida. Why? Because he made the right wing vision start to happen in reality and it's a nightmare and everyone knows it.
But what happens when the majority of people wake up from the stupor that led them to believe that what's good for billionaires is good for me? We need to have a vision of the future that is ecological, humanitarian and realistic. What is that vision you ask? Well first I'm asking you, all of you CF Nation, can you imagine a world that ISN'T doomed? What would that world look like? HOW do we deal with peak oil and the end of a rapacious way of life?
Obviously I have some ideas,and they are grounded in realism and facts. But I have to go get my daughter who just spent five days in downtown Hartford with her youth group trying to make the world a teeny bit better. She's an awesome kid. I'm trying to prepare her to deal with the tough times ahead, but also to work toward a better future for everyone.
Lamestream media never ceases to amaze me in negative ways...
Y'days NT Times and USA Today:
'gays and immigrants know oppression'..next to an article on Fran Leibowitz...[eh Marlin]
USAT:
'60% of Reading Pa is 'Latino'..as is the Valedictorian'!!!
Next to a Dream act Piece.
"We didn't teach Cannibalism to them - it was a integral part of their culture."
I never suggested that we did. My point that was cannibalism seems to only exist where food is scarce, or has been often enough to create a culture of acceptance over time.
"Spiritual beliefs are an important part of any Culture and can make a big difference here."
But spiritual beliefs are a subset of food production/acquisition technology. That's true almost without exception. Foragers are animists/pantheists, reverent of everything in their daily experience, and farmers worship single sky gods that (somehow always seem to) endorse their imperialistic nature and give them dominion over the earth around them (much to the detriment of that earth). They don't respect it because the feedback loops of their activities are so loose. And because of that it's easy to distort the causal relationship of said activity with the effects of destruction, by the elite power brokers. Dangerous. So I agree with your assertion, except that it is still subordinate to food acquisition methods.
"Some Cultures in New Guinea are horrible and some lovely - same technology and environment. In some the genders despise each other and others not. "
Is it really the same environment? New Guinea is an enormous almost sub-continent, full of as vast an array of local climates and environmental pressures as it is cultures, which is very likely not unrelated. Fascinating anthropological microcosm indeed.
"Another example: the Pawnees were cannibals. The Sioux lived in basically the same Great Plains environment - just farther North."
With potentially less liquid rain, altering the way they experience and inhabit the landscape. Ecosystem pressures can vary so significantly through time and space that I think it is unwise to judge the situation through the lens of our high-energy petro-culture, where the environmental pressures of Cleveland, Ohio, are marginally different from those of Atlanta, GA, because of the unfathomable stabilizing force of oil-based energy. Two weeks ago we got 4" of rain, rejuvenating our gardens (since they are designed well and able to capture and infiltrate large storm events) after 3 months of drought. What a storm! (What a relief!) So I just assumed everyone in the region was breathing a little easier. The following day at the farmers market I discovered that some of the other producers, in the same county, were still deep in drought. Less than 1/2" of rain at their place. Same county.
When you couple your ecosystem knowledge with an understanding of highly varied localized pressures, and modern ideas of chaos theory, where a society's trajectory turns is anyone's guess. I just wouldn't be too quick to assign inferiority based on your historical understanding of their situation.
My nihilistic rant was me playing devil's advocate. In reality I am sensitive to the point of being as soft as an over-ripe banana. Nevertheless, if we can no longer afford to be compassionate then so much for that. Historically revolutions seem to be triggered by rising expectations, and tend not to occur at the point where a society has bottomed out and people are the most wretched.
I think what people are missing is that we need to do things as economically as possible. Better to still be able to provide minimum acceptable services than no services whatever. State universities now tend to look like luxury resorts rather than retreats for sholarship. Hospitals have similar problems. This is nothing but consumerism run amok.
One also gets the impression that people are heedless and accident prone, but then expect to be rescued from their own fecklessness, hence the rant including references to fireproof housing and self defense. This is why I've become preoccupied with disappearing and starting over from scratch. Must continue to live in the present though due to family responsibilities. I like your posts and appreciate how annoying the for profit hospital system must be for you as a nurse.
Yes they have that nut on from time to time.
As well as fakes like Whitley Strieber.
Didya read the piece on Fran Leibowitz?
Insidious and an Idjit [idiot]:
'The USA should welcome both Mexicans and Muslims because the more the merrier in multicultural America.'
"Packing camping gear in the little truck, now - California here we come!" P,C
"You know Tifton's on your way to Santa Monica...... S'pose I better come to you so we can head straight for northern California!"
-tripp-
Come on up, my lad, and we'll head out. SJ's just south of San Francisco. I'm not sure where JackieBlue is located (Santa Monica?) - thought she was south of there. My spouse will be going for sure. If your spouse goes we'll have the extended cab of my 4 banger 2500 Mazda full of stuff that shouldn't get wet and two of us will be riding full time in the bed with the camping gear. We'll still be getting 29 miles/gallon - giving us 136 Passenger Miles/Gallon, much better than trains, ships, or planes. We could stop at various permaculture operations out and back. It actually could be a pretty good use of dwindling fossil fuel resources - all things considered.
So I'm game. SJMom and JackiBlue, are y'all ready. You might need to brief your respective significant others that a small truck full of permaculturists may be pulling up out front in a couple of weeks.
Good times!
'he did more than just about anyone else in the media in essentially conveying JHK's message, alerting us to present and future dangers.'
Maybe thats why they got rid of him!
Im almost 100% unfamiliar with him....I avoid TV.
It was the home birth of one of my children that opened my mind to permaculture, peakoil, and now unschooling/home schooling. It is amazing how much ones ideas/world view can change in just a few years.
ANOTHER THEORY
When it comes to investments, ya just can't beat boner pills.
More to the point, to add to my last response, it is clear at this point that the military has become more of a sacred cow than ever, and that moreover we need to renounce imperialism and pull back just as the British were forced to in 1971. It is instructive that just as soon as the British had jettisoned all their overseas colonies, with the exception of a few strategically placed islands, they laid up all their remaining aircraft carriers. Don't hold your breath waiting for us to come to our senses in this matter.
No Diamond is clear about this if memory serves: one culture is fine and the one next valley over will be weird. You can't reduce everything to environmental conditions. Your reductionism reduces man to an automaton; and morality to a mere function of food.
Again I challenge you - check yourself before you respond though. No matter how hungry you get, you wouldn't eat anybody. And you will pass that decency on to your children. The guy half a mile down the road (same conditions) would eat someone if he got hungry enough and he will pass that down to his kids. Cain and Abel. The bad and the good. The Brother's Feud.
Your Marxism is very deep - exactly as I feared. Your work is deeply moral and I fear this blind spot jeopardizes it long term. Animists can be good or evil too you see. Some of them are blissed out like Hippies in the Golden Gate Panhandle; and others focus on the subtle aspects of Nature either physical (poisons) or spirits - and use them to terrify their bretheren. Evil shamans in other words. Good shamans oppose them. See? The moral conflict is there. Ditto for Horticulture. Agriculture. Industry. Cyber Culture. Interplanetary commerce. Interstellar. Intergalactic. Etc.
bossier22, I have explained this many times, but it is easy to explain again.
I am in favor of freedom of movement on the planet earth.
I want to be free to leave my country and go somewhere I believe (right or wrong) to be better.
I want others to be free to come here where they believe (right or wrong) it will be better for them.
Live and let live. Freedom.
Not hard to understand. That's what everyone says they believe in... freedom. It is what we could have if we stopped fearing the other.
bossier22, I have explained this many times, but it is easy to explain again.
I am in favor of freedom of movement on the planet earth.
I want to be free to leave my country and go somewhere I believe (right or wrong) to be better.
I want others to be free to come here where they believe (right or wrong) it will be better for them.
Live and let live. Freedom.
Not hard to understand. That's what everyone says they believe in... freedom. It's what soldiers supposedly die for. It is what we could have if we stopped fearing the other.
Interesting that you bring this up Marlin. There are people who even believe that if you pump CO2 into spent natural gas wells it will be converted to methane by anaerobic bacteria! Such theories are contradicted by the long molecular chains in fossil fuels which clearly indicate that their origin lies in plant and animal life compressed and heated over the millenia. The temperatures found in the mantle of the earth are too great to result in what we recognize as "fossil fuels". I would love it if someone with a Ph.D in geology logged on and immediately proved that I'm entirely full of shit and that we can cook all the gas we need by simply injecting played out gas wells with microscopic critters which don't need oxygen to sustain themselves.
There is evidence that price competitive biodiesel can be derived from salt water algae. Just don't expect the oil companies to jump on that bandwagon until they've already pumped out all the remaining petroleum. After all, why should they ruin their own business just to help us poor motorists out? Of course this totally ignores the problem of how we're going to inevitably cook the planet if we're provided with the means of doing so: consuming shitloads of cheap fuel from an ocean which in the near future will have nothing else going on once it's been acidified into a hostile environment for sealife. And to think that back in the late '70s we would amuse ourselves in the control room of the submarine by turning the hydrophones on so we could listen to schools of tuna up to 120 miles in length traversing the Marianas Trench! They were noisy too.
Have you read the New Testament? Most Jews are afraid to. And they do well to fear the Master. Hate Him enough and you will turn from a Saul to a Paul.
A few years ago AIPAC freaked out because the crease in the wood of Bush's podium formed a cross. Vampires! I've heard that in Israel, the + sign isn't used for this reason but instead, the T. True?
Vlad, we most certainly did teach cannibalism. The Roman Catholic West is a purveyor of cannibalism and practices it in their liturgy.
Can you say: "transubstantiation"?
What it meals is a literal drinking of blood and eating of flesh. Not symbolic, literal. It is doctrine.
Cannibalism was forced on native peoples all over the world. Those Westerners are cannibalistic beasts.
Glad to see you weren't abducted by aliens and have reappeared. Of course the aliens nearly always return their guests so why worry? Try reading "The Golden Bough" by Fraser. That book received the highest possible endorsement when it was shown sitting on Colonel Kurtz's night table at the Cambodian temple of doom in "Apocalypse Now".
Well said, the energy that gets the baby in there is the same energy that gets the baby out. It is sexual energy. Some people are comfortable with that others want to deny it fight it hence the percieved need for epidurals and caesareans. Birth is beautiful, mind blowing, transformative.
You demented boot licking nazi goon, this is your retort? The Master? Go back to kindergarten and be with your own kind. You got the IQ of a five year old.
"What a great idea, Prog! Don't let the parents decide the care, let---hmm, just who do you have in mind?" -wage-
Wage, my mom was healthy as a horse until she had a minor heart attack at age 84. That was her first, rather intense, introduction to the modern hospital health care system. Out of a strong desire to continue to live and work - and perhaps, more strength and focus than I might show under similar circumstances - she allowed herself to be subjected to carotid artery surgery and a quadruple coronary by-pass, among other frightening and painful procedures.
About one month post-op, she and I had a long, intense, and prayerful conversation. We both decided - for ourselves and as representatives of each other - that there are "things worse than death." (our exact words to each other)
She stayed with the living for seven more vibrant years after her surgery. When she had the stroke that finally ended her life - I confronted those words again, "There are things worse than death."
Fortunately, for my mom - her two grandsons, my wife, and the new daughter-in-law, who were all with her until the end - my mom had a "good death," almost too close to the Greek, "eu thanatos," for comfort, in some ways. (Referencing an earlier conversation between RippedThunder and me.)
Now, apply these lessons to any other stage of life, but especially to the beginnings. New parents, as I learned, will do ANYTHING to keep their new baby alive. Modern medicine is oriented to preserve life AT ALL COSTS, if someone - new parents, in this case - will approve the procedures.
Just because that is the orientation of modern medicine - And just because that is the orientation of new parents - and just because these two forces combine to keep infants alive - even though life can sometimes be "worse than death."
Does not make it moral and does not make it right.
There are things worse than death.
We, as a society, need to confront this fact.
If you want to carry this conversation forward - what do you think of the Terri Schiavo case?
Ah, yes, the Mexicans. More and more Mexicans. A proud people with a grand and glorious tradition behind them.
Far behind, I might add....
BR
I think that you're going to find that we are all in agreement that there are things that are worse than death. The real question seems to be "What things?".
...depending, of course, through what cultural filter you're viewing "these things".
Far behind, I might add....
-------------
Do you read JHK's comments? Are we "ahead"?
Mexico has great potential and Mexicans are beautiful people. There are things we can learn from them.
I've been buggin' my Smother for months now to send me the box that contains "The Golden Bough".
Please correct me if I am wrong, but, isn't that the condensation of a twelve volume set?
I must check my "Devotion Level"
'Til Then,
Chuck Berry
"Do you read JHK's comments? Are we "ahead"?"
-soak-
Asoka, there needs to be a middle way. Did you see the link I posted to Marlin - about how something in American society destroys the "family values?" of our Mexican immigrants in one single generation.
Unlimited immigration into the US is having toxic effects - on the US, and on the societies being "left behind."
Enough cultural "toxicity" will eventually destroy US culture and the emigrant's home country's culture, as well.
Enough American population and Armed Forces might, may destroy the whole planet, anyway.
Help find a middle way.
I can assure you, madame, that the Earth has survived much more the than the current Homo Sapien infestation.
Response to New York Times reporter to the question, "Is it good to be in New York?"
Keith Richards (response): "Yes, it's good to be here, it's good to be anywhere."
Sailor-folk of the seas [both high and low] may find this quite intriguing... perhaps in a bloated-hubris, piratical context.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28436.htm
Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any weirder. Hey, don't forget, vets will be honored, praised, and showered with a nation's gratitude. ...Until they fail to reflect the "proper" narrative; then they're fair game.
"They use that discomfort with Ben Stiller so damn well in this movie! I can't stand the guy, but I loved Dodgeball."
Well, you will be quite happy that apparently "Dodgeball 2" is coming out soon (I swear, I just saw an update about it a couple months ago - not 2 years ago/Lance Armstrong)...
Oh, real-world question - when Bocking-14 Comfrey starts producing the purple flowers, is it time to cut it back? And, do hummingbirds feed from those flowers (they sure have that look)? I have hummers constantly cruising my yard - they have fed on my tomatoes and raspberries, but they haven't yet fed on any of my hummingbird feeders, for 3 years. I even tried this year, coloring the sugar-water red, with a drop of food coloring...
There you are. 'Bout fuckin' time.
"I do wire all the towers together"
I meant to reply to this 2 days ago
I put tomato cages around every tomato plant, and drive a "green metal" 4' stake every 3rd cage (with one at each corner), and tie them all together using nylon twine, to the stakes. Very good idea, indeed! Jerry Baker even suggests that the metal cages somehow induce increased growth, due to channeling electrical energy... Sounds a bit too hocus-pocus for me, but I use metal over plastic/wood, when possible!
What a bing, what a bang Yankee
Soak,
This article written 8 years ago relates to your nonsense about fiat money and gold and silver posted a few days ago. I know I am wasting my time with YOU but perhaps not with others.
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0306q.asp
Sexual energy giving birth..getting the baby out?
What hogwash. Maybe if sadism and extreme pain is part of your sexual practices.
Lambs eat oats and goats eat oats. And little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat Ivy too - how bout you?
....follow the bouncing ball
I was not saying that Beck is basically saying what CFN is. While there is some overlap, he is certainly not proposing stiffer regulations on big business, more environmental controls, etc.
He has however, raised the issue of peak oil and diminishing resources, disclosed the precariousness of our financial situation, taken a firm stand against illegal immigration, and spoken at length on our corrupt political system and its illusory choices. He has done this many times.
I don't agree with his position on a woman's right to choose. Don't regulate business, but regulate the womb.
You're right, it'll get worse before it gets better. You ask, "..can you imagine a world that isn't doomed? .. HOW do we deal with peak oil and the end of a rapacious way of life...Obviously I have some ideas.."
Well, I'm sure that Jim has some also. Do yours come from his books? If not, and they're really innovative and constructive, he may want to incorporate them in future publications, with your permission of course.
I don't have too - I watched "Harvest Home". The family moves to a remote valley where the Witch Cult is strong. The Mom and Daughter get "sucked in" to the Feminine Supremacy and the Cult prepares to sacrafice the "Corn King" while he doing the Corn Maid. All for the soil, the soil Marc. We must be humble, humus? Oh proud soil that walks and sings.
But the song John Barleycorn says it best. He is a type of Christ. But he himself knows nothing about that at all. That's why he is a type and not the Godhead proper.
The Wicker Man is good too. The old one is better than the new.
Question to anyone who might respond. I used to follow Art Bell back in the late 90's (more liek, fall asleep to his wacko guests), and I've read about 4 books by Whitley Strieber (all of which I found very "entertaining"). However, I've never read "The Coming Global Superstorm." However, during it's release, I thought the idea was about 2 years too late (my friend and I had surmised in '82, that violent turbulence would become visible in '97). Recall that the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" was based upon this book.
Anyone read this book? Is it any good? It definitely has not gotten any airplay for the past 12 years. I've been tempted to buy this beast for some time, but keep putting it off...
Once I went to a place called Zaneseville, Indiana.
When I asked one of the locals where the Chamber of Commerce was, they looked at me with a confounded expression and asked "You ain't a Zane, is ya?"
I always liked the original version of The Wickerman too. The entire crew saw it on the submarine. Another excellent reason for not being a virgin. When we got to port we took up a collection to get any remaining virgins in the crew laid by the local hookers who were registered with the club at the ROK navy base in Chinhae.
"Lambs eat oats and goats eat oats. And little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat Ivy too - how bout you?"
Mares eat oats, and does eat oats,
and little lambs eat ivy.
A kid'll eat ivy too,
wouldn't you?
At least that's how I learned it.
Don't be afraid. I am here to guide you. Now answer my question. I want to know.
Mine is for poison ivy. You see I am adapting, evolving by devolving towards the humus. Freud's Thanatos or the death urge. That's why serious drunks always want to roll around in shit. That's what they say and feel. It's Thanatos, the opposite of Eros, the Life Urge. The Greeks has another word for plain old physical sex. Eros had to do with Love in its highest romantic forms and beyond that, the love of life itself.
My copy was a single volume. I don't think it was ever twelve volumes but the single volume is quite weighty. It's an anthropological study of aboriginal beliefs throughout the world including superstitions and taboos and so forth. I read the taboos concerning the cutting of hair in the primitive world since I'm a barber and was totally appalled at the savagery. A buddy of mine who's a catholic priest believes that people who don't believe in the monotheistic god are doomed to live in superstition and fear as a consequence of their unbelief. It would be easier to buy his version of reality if the Albigensian Crusade had never happened maybe. I was reminded of that by the people who were joking about the Monty Python "Spanish Inquisition" routine earlier, or was that last week?
Good point, and you deserve a medal. Remember Carlos Slim and his museum in Mexico City? Well, I did the following way back then but never posted it like I said I would. Now, the museum does have some positive features but I went negative. Here it is, heavy on the h's:
" A huge heap of hysterical hyperbolas trying to high-jump into the future but catching the crossbar of history and culture, then falling backwards into the ugly present and into a gleaming pile of hexagonal hubris."
I think a neatly stylized Aztec temple would have been better, but everyone wants to be "cutting edge."
Could there be a worse fate than "King of The Wood"?
Talk about paranoid...
Browsing the 600's in our little local library, today, I came upon "The Contrary Farmer's Invitation to Gardening."
It's the sort of book that our agriculture/horticulture/permaculture contingent on CFN should enjoy. And it reads well - more of a philosophy book than a set of how-to's, so far at least.
What are the characteristics of a Contrary Gardener?
"1. Contrary gardeners order their lives so as to (eventually) pursue their career or job close to their gardens.
2. Contrary Gardening is wholistic - it embraces the whole food chain.
3. Inevitably, Contrary Gardeners want to SHARE, their enjoyment of nurturing plants, animals, and themselves.
And my favorite - and apropos to lots of this week's CFN discussions of religion:
4. Contrary Gardening is rather "pagan" in the original meaning of that word: "paganus" means "country dweller" in Latin. Those pagani of ancient Roman times were not interested in giving up their good life for anyone's idea of institutional religion, politics, or economics. So the word paganus gradually took on a negative meaning among the institutional powermongers of the world. They couldn't control pagans, so pagans must be bad."
Book is by Gene Logsdon. I'm probably about to finish up with CFN pretty quick tonight, and try to finish my book.
...hey I can do it if you can't.
Noooo One "EXPECTS" The Spanish Inquisition.
Yes, but what could be more Canadian than having a hockey riot? The English have soccer riots. Americans have race riots. I'll take a hockey riot over a race riot any day. Some Germans I once went camping with up in Temagami Prov. Forest and I were talking about flags and they said that if someone flew the German flag or wore it as a patch on clothing in Germany everybody else would think that they had fascist tendencies! I thought that was hysterically funny because I'm of German ancestry and once had a German flag sticker on my car. No, not the evil one, the modern black, gold, and red one. I get creeped out by all these nazi hats they sell in these militaria catalogs which sell mainly die cast reproductions of warplanes. They also sell those silly looking pickelhaub helmets from the first world war with the massive spikes on top like Kaiser Willie affected while riding around wearing his cape on horseback. But there's also a demand for British pith helmets of WWI vintage. If the human race survives it will have to outgrow nationalism most likely.
"Packing camping gear in the little truck, now - California here we come!"
"Smoked my stuff, and drank - all my wine!!!
Made ... a new start, goin' to California, with an *aching*/./"
LOL, the new dustbowl - I'm quite surprised Cali's not burning down, on fire, yet - but that coastal boundary must buy *some* time...
Get down on your knees and beseech the God: "Where do I fit in?"
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/careers/index.html
Got one of those really irritating post held by administrator thingys, so I'm going to bust my response to you up a bit.
Re: comfrey
I don't see our local hummers cruising the comfrey very much. Could just be that there are too many plants they prefer here and nearby, because they look like something hummers might like, I agree.
I grow true comfrey (S. officinalis) but from what I've read on Russian comfrey it's a hardier, more robust, faster growing species that is recommended for permaculture applications.
"Although both types of comfrey (Russian and True) are useful for making medicine and making compost, in an ideal world one would use the bocking cultivar for producing large amounts of biomass for permaculture gardens, composting, and animal feed, and one would use the true comfrey (Symphytum officinalis) for medicinal purposes. Again, both types (and other species as well) are used interchangeably in agriculture and in medicine."
Get down on your knees and beseech the God: "Where do I fit in?"
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/careers/index.html
"Arbeit Macht Frei"
To harvest, typically I go by size. Once the herb reaches at least 30" in every dimension I consider cutting it back to the ground. Or pinching off a big handful of larger leaves down low and laying them around young plants or ailing neighbors. I've found recovery time here in the bermuda grass-infested garden to be slower than I'm used to so I'm experimenting with partial harvests to keep its solar capacity higher. Especially since my ducks seem to like the young leaves.
More in a list of tangential reading (let's read - why bother *talking* [down two fifths]):
"Health & Human Nature" by Paul Snyder 1980. I read this book on Holistic healing back in '86, and I was sold. It definitely convinced me to make sure I never went into another scalpel butcher's office (LOL @ deductible - FSCK that).
Anyone read that one? Any good?
Anyway, glad to hear that you are growing this most amazing plant. It's easy as hell to propogate - just split a clump into several in the early spring by digging up and teasing the "pups" apart, or dig up one of the thick roots and cut it into finger digit sized pieces and plant a chunk in decent soil. I think I'm going to start root cuttings in those deep narrow shrub transplant pots to sell at the farmers market for $5 a pop.
Ecosystem-boosting herbs I have my eye on for next season are roselle, chicory, and valerian. Roselle probably takes too long to mature to be useful in the north. The test plantings of these three are all doing well in my garden. And they are all robust soil builders, mineral miners, medicinals, and "nurse" plants. In fact I think it's safe to say that ALL good mineral miners are good for the other purposes I listed.
There was a bit more about flowering, and making medicines from comfrey but I couldn't get it to post.
FSCK it.
I just looked up King of the Wood and have never heard of anything so bizarre in my entire life. I don't see how they could sleep if they always felt hunted like that. For everyone else's benefit we are discussing the Wood of the Goddess Diana in ancient Rome where a barbaric custom survived in that civilization in which a male priest armed with a sword guarded the grove and was succeeded in that priesthood by any challenger who was capable of murdering him.
Q, I read the article. It as much admits that today is an exception. Throughout history money has been based on coinage (so-called "pure silver" or "pure gold"). Not today. The old rules no longer apply.
Remember the 50s, Q? Fiat money.
Remember the 90s? Fiat money?
Things are cyclical. If we have another crash, like in the 30s, or like Argentina did, like Brazil did, like Germany did, like China did, we will bounce back, like Argentina did, like Brazil did, like Germany did, like China did, like we did. We've been up now for a while. It's time to go down again. People obsessed with or identified with money might be jumping out of windows again.
If we have a two-decade slow down, like Japan, we will bounce back, like Japan.
I have nothing against money. It is simply a means of exchange and when you have it, money makes luxuries possible. But having luxuries does not necessarily bring happiness. Money is nothing to obsess over. Excess money, or love of money, is not necessary to live well.
I just cannot get excited about money at all. I will go to my grave without ever having negotiated a salary or owned a stock or a bond, or fretted over "black Fridays" and "black Mondays." Why get so excited over a means of exchange?
When you have money, spend it. When you don't have it, learn more about the non-monetary pleasures offered by life.
Gene Logston's 'The Contrary Farmer' is indeed a great book- philosophical and thought provoking , just like many of the comments here on CFN. But Mr. Logston's Magnus Opus is still the profound and hilarious ' Holy Shit; Managing Manure to Save Mankind'. A great read while sittin' on the loo (-;
"You see I am adapting, evolving by devolving towards the humus."
You mean Evolving, you just don't know it yet.
And being called a Marxist by a neo-Nazi probably isn't quite as big an insult as you had hoped it would be. I haven't studied Marx, but I can feel and verify the validity of my observations, and if they ring similar to his then I'd probably be a fan!
I don't think that it is the premise of this blog that the human race is doomed to extinction. From Jim's writings one gets the impression that he believes that industrial civilization will collapse when it's one time free allotment of cheap petroluem, coal, and natural gas runs out, as indeed is both inevitable and incontestable, that is, that these fuels will run out, and that in consequence there will be massive dislocations and disruptions which then must be endured and overcome by those who do not starve to death. He is extremely deflating of those who uncritically assume that we will all simply buy electric battery powered cars and live happily ever after. After all, where does the electricity come from?
Just as a matter of historical accuracy, we were still on the silver standard in the 50s.
Got my solar attic fan mounted today. Started spinning the second I made contact with the second pair of wires. Proud man I was admiring my little 12.6W PV panel mounted up high on the gabled roof. Already eyeballin' a 150W model to build my off-grid chest fridge with...
Thanks for the correction, Tripp. It was the gold standard that was replaced by the silver standard in 1933 and in 1964 the redemption of silver dollars stopped.
Then the silver was replaced by paper... and the world did not end.
Now the paper has been replaced by electrons... and live goes on.
Now the paper has been replaced by electrons... and LIFE goes on.
Although some people on CFN seem to be in a state of suspended agitation over fiat money.
Sitting under the mulberry tree in Tennessee with my grandmother playing the ukelele and singing: Mares eat oats and doe's eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you? Only we ran the words together to be almost nonsensical, which made it fun. We also recited the entire Little Orphan Annie poem which is quite the indictment of household servitude!
We always ran it together nonsensically too, with Ds subbing for Ts.
More like,
Marezeedoats, and doezeedoats,
and liddlelamzeedivey,
akiddleeadiveytoo,
wouldn'choo?
"Anyway, glad to hear that you are growing this most amazing plant. It's easy as hell to propogate - just split a clump into several in the early spring by digging up and teasing the "pups" apart, or dig up one of the thick roots and cut it into finger digit sized pieces and plant a chunk in decent soil."
I had to get a new water line installed to my house, after the utility company swapped meters, and totally mangled my PVC water line (over-pressured it/leaked 1/4 gallon per minute for 70 days - don't ask, they decided *NOT* to tell me, until the bi-monthly bill). The plumber dug up a very thin line to my house, but it tossed the comfrey roots/leaves to the side, and they appeared to be dead. I just replanted them, and after about 20 days they are bushy-green, and shooting out flowers.
I think you can just cut the roots into 1 inch sections, and they'll grow where-ever you plant them - based upon my limited experience. I received 7 starts (I ordered 5), and all of them grew, even in total clay, and totally acidic soil. I hear you don't want to *rototill* their roots - LOL!!! (good thing I ain't rototilled for a couple years heheh)
I suppose you don't get too many hummers down there? I'm thinking those flowers will pull in the hummers, so I'm hesitant to cutting them down (until ???)...
Oh you fucking, fucking, fucking, fucker. Wasn't the "Arbeit Macht Frei" metalwork stolen & returned?
"Asoka, there needs to be a middle way."
--------------
Pro,Con, I know the middle way was big with Aristotle and Buddha, and it has served me well at times in certain aspects of my personal life. And the Middle Passage was big with white folks.
But right now, when the question is about national civic life, about freedom of movement, I am having trouble seeing a Goldilocks solution being morally acceptable.
Countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, etc. which have had low birth rates and limited immigration are going to be in big economic trouble.
The United States, on the other hand, is known for its openness and tolerance and assimilation of large influxes of immigrants. We, unlike other countries, have an increasing population and a vibrant economic future thanks to immigration.
Asking me to go along with closing the borders is tantamount, in my mind, to asking me to stop being American. I will not give up on my dream of freedom of movement.
By the way, I once went to Ellis Island and there was a 3-D graph of number of immigrants. I was surprised to learn that the highest number of immigrants were not hispanic, but asian.
No matter, I welcome them all to my America. Like Motel 6, I'll leave the light on for them. I shower them with smiles and lovingkindness.
My ancestors were immigrated here illegally, also for economic reasons. We are staying... and the non-white population will soon be the majority population. It's our country, too.
The USA belongs to all of us who live and work here, black, brown, yellow, red, with or without papers. We choose to make it ours.
"Now the paper has been replaced by electrons... and LIFE goes on."
You know, Soak, we just hit peak oil 5 years ago. In a machine the size of the global economy one might expect just a teensy weensy little bit of lag time before things start heading downhill at a rate that would raise the lumpenprole's eyebrows. These folks are here because they are not the lumpenprole, and they already see the tidal shift in its less obvious forms. I know you get your jollies by being Mr Sunshine to everyone else's Dr. Doom, but I just don't think I'd get too comfy with that position if I were you. You hold that opinion because you've been hanging out at end-times blogs for way too long and have desensitized yourself to real undercurrents.
Full-on energy descent is inevitable; only the timing and severity are in question. The US dollar will be lined up beside all the rest of history's fiat currencies one day. Along with gold and silver too, if you ask me.
I usually let them flower for a while, but flowering is as good a sign as any that they are ready to be harvested. There's no set calendar with comfrey from what I can tell. Keep some in flower and cut some down?
Obama to the youth of America: "Answer a few questions about yourself and find out how you can make a difference at Goldman Sachs. I did! Arbeit Macht Frie."
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/careers/index.html
Soak,
The nearby city of New Brunswick, NJ has a rather large population of Mexicans. I have no idea the legal/illegal ratio. What is astounding is that they seemed to inundate the town over a rather short period of maybe 15-20 years and completely took over an area formerly inhabited by another group of immigrants - Hungarians who had arrived (according to the link below) between 1870 and 1920. There was also another burst of Hungarian immigration following the 1956 Revolution. It seems that Gresham's Law, "Bad Money Drives Out Good" (see link posted at 9:30) may apply to people as well. To be fair and more accurate "Poor People Drive out the Middle Class."
The history of these two immigrant groups here in New Brunswick are very different. Agents were hired by companies to recruit and draw Hungarians from rather bleak economic lives in Europe to the US. In some cases whole towns of Hungarians emigrated here. The J&J Company (Johnson and Johnson) sent ships to bring in this source of cheap labor. And as cheap as it was for J&J the wages were a god-send to the Hungarians.
The situation with the Mexicans today is entirely different. J&J has not rolled out the Welcome Mat for them. If you drive at 7AM to a particular block in NB you will see a horde of Mexican men waiting for contractors (like roofers, builders and landscapers) to arrive in their vans and pickups and (hopefully) hire them for a day at $8 to $10/hr. Needless to say there is no inconvenient withholding of SS taxes, no 1099s, no W-2s or any of that nonsense ... contrary to your remark about them "paying into the system."
Yes, there must surely be some (a majority? a minority? who knows?) that have actual regular employment such as orderlies in hospitals, office cleaning crews, restaurant help, etc but the avoidance of taxes by many of the employers is assumed by all to be wide-spread.
There is a very large and very nice park across the Raritan River from NB. (The pathway through it begins directly across the street from my home. The Mexicans walk to it from NB. It is not the least bit unusual to see girls not far beyond high school age with broods of 3 to 5 black haired tots. In the old days (15 years ago) the main visitors were first, whites, second blacks, and third all other. Today the visitors are first Indians, second Mexicans, and third all other.
Soak, I really wish you would stop making meaningless remarks like "there are no borders on the earth visible from outer space" or "Mexicans are beautiful people." Please tell me what people on the face of this earth you would NOT say the same thing of?
Their internal or external beauty is an irrelevancy. The point is the US with 313M people (if that is the right number) is crowded and has all sorts of economic and resource problems of its own without adding to the burden. Let's stop illegal immigration and let's limit legal immigration to a select few for, let's say, the next 50 years.
http://www.clevelandmemory.org/hungarians/pg102.htm
When women give birth unmedicated and with a high degree of privacy, they often rock there pelvis and make noises, take all their clothes off, very uninhibited. Off course in a similiar way I clould not imagine having sex with strangers looking on with bright lights, and said helpers offering to rescue me from myself. Just because I believe in woman's ability to birth her baby doesn't make me a sadistic person. I might empathize with them but I am not the source of their pain, nor do I get any pleasure from seeing them in pain. In most circumstances I would not feel that I was their to rescue them from their pain either. If your objective in life is avoidance of pain which it seems to be preoccupation with many these days, then perhaps you could get a lifetime epidural. May be there is S a market for it in the future as I am sure there will be much pain and suffering.
Auntie River == Myrtle == Asoka's Mom? == ?!? Raised from the dead - I swear, someone's watching too much *TRUE BLOOD*...
Raise the dead - 'sif they helped, when they crafted the consumption/destruction model we all must now must suffer through.
Indeed - raise the dead - they kept themselves (us?) alive this long; they surely have *SOLUTIONS* to the very problems they created.
BAH! All they have is MORE OF THEIR SAME DESTRUCTIVE/CONSUMPTIVE MANNERS. And, they want *US* to embrace *THEM*, in their path of total wanton *CONSUMPTION/DESTRUCTION*.
I'll pass - but, let me know how it works out for *YOU*.
Just because I got an epidural doesn't mean my life is devoted to pain avoidance. I took a Lamaze class prior to birth and learned breathing techniques to help with labor. I had hoped to do without meds. But the pain was the absolute worst I'd ever experienced in my entire life, times 100.
If you want to give birth like they did in the Stone Age, more power to you. As for me, I recovered from birth very quickly and was riding my bicycle around the neighborhood within a week, feeling great.
And by the way, you are a pain.
A wise man once said, " Fuck the Fuckin' Fuckers"
Thanks, Q, for your suggestions.
Here is a story I thought was funny. Some Colombians I know in Atlanta had been hiring Mexicans to do yard work, like you say, at $8 to $10 an hour... at least at first. Then the Mexicans started charging $12 an hour, then $15 an hour. The Colombians said, "who do these Mexicans think they are?"
Now the Mexicans are not poor, they are part of middle class America. It takes longer for some families than others. When someone like Ronald Reagan comes along and gives them papers through an amnesty, then they can get better jobs and begin paying into the system.
You say W-2s, 1099s, etc. are not involved with day laborers. Employers are able to exploit them, and pay lower wages, because people like you oppose giving them amnesty. Once they have papers they can compete for higher paying jobs and education and pay into the system. It's capitalism. I thought you were pro-free market, pro-capitalism.
I will agree with Asoka - freedom of movement on the EARTH planet is tantamount to basic freedom. Anyone trying to limit this movement, is antipodal to the idea of freedom. PERIOD. And I won't even talk about the morons who have no idea what the 'statue of liberty' means...
He tries! Don't you, *SOAK*.
Yes, I try.
And for my efforts Q says I talk nonsense and worries about "good" money and "bad" money. What a hoot!
Pro,Con is afraid of unlimited population growth when he should know from his knowledge of population biology that equilibrium is achieved in nature, and we are part of nature. It's never "unlimited."
Already rates of birth and rates of immigration are decreasing. Losing immigrants will be detrimental to our economy but the hostile environment being created means immigrants here are choosing to return to their home countries. I don't know if they are influenced by JHK's comments, or just see how this country is on their own, and decide to leave.
There is only lip-service given to freedom, a traditional American value. Meanness is on the rise (middle way indeed)
So many people with so much fear.
What purposes in the garden do ducks serve?
I noticed no one wanted to talk about "The Day After Tomorrow" or "Health & Human Nature."
I thought you all were *READERS*. I must have been *WRONG*.
All I wanted was some constructive criticism on either...
You know, Soak, we just hit peak oil 5 years ago.
----------------
What is your source citation on that statement?
OMG, tripp, you are a tripper!!! LOL!!! I got it all, or *mostly*, I think!
FSCK the filter! THE MAN WILL LOOSE! "."
Catherine Austin Fitts on C2C tonite!
Great talk.
OK, tangential as usual (down 3 fifths) -
The CO2 in the atmosphere is at levels 33% higher than anything in the last million years (since the industrial age)?
The 'rate' of CO2 increase is 10 times the last max, about 56 million years ago (DO YOU REALLY NEED LINKS FOR BOTH OF THOSE FACTS).
The solar irradiance/sunspot max will occur *about* 12/21/2012 (FSCK THOSE BS MAYAN BS CALENDARS). So, this year *WILL* be the hottest on record, and if we live to 2013, we are going to go through *HARDCORE HELL* until 2017 (when the solar max ends)...
Any *OBJECTIONS*?!? I thought *NOT*.
I will agree with Asoka
==========
Ix, you would agree with anything and anybody so long as it disagrees with me.
In 1886 when the Statue of Liberty was erected the population of the US was approximately 59M people (I interpolated between 1880 and 1890 census figures). I believe there were few if any who could visualize the country with over 300M. And more important than just cold hard numbers is what that would mean to resources. Did anyone seriously give thought to "peak everything?" It is a very different world than the one in which "Give me your tired your poor ..." was written.
"Ix, you would agree with anything and anybody so long as it disagrees with me."
You know that's not true. We had a good thing going there, didn't we? I'ma half to troll last week's poasts...
You and yours (white skinned inbreds) are free - the newcomers (dark skinned *workers*) are *NOT* - c'est *FINIT*. N'est-pas?
Tripp said: "You know, Soak, we just hit peak oil 5 years ago."
-----------------
Tripp, you may not be aware of a major study by Cambridge Energy Associates (Cera) which analyzed the output of 811 oilfields which produce 19 BILLION barrels a year. Total annual world output is 32 BILLION. Current world output is about 85 million barrels a day.
CONTINUATION OF PREVIOUS POST (DUE TO SOFTWARE GLITCH)
In other words, Tripp, the study covered a statistically significant sample (over 50%). They targeted oilfields producing more than 10,000 barrels a day and included many of the world's giants, like Saudi Arabia's Ghawar. The Cera concluded that rates of decline are only 4.5 per cent a year, almost half the rate previously believed, leading to the conclusion that oil output will continue to rise over the next decade. They also said field decline rates are not increasing. The report stated: "We will be able to grow supply to well over 100 billion barrels per day by 2017.
The study indicates we may not have yet hit peak oil.
What is your source citation? Here is mine:
SOURCE
"CERA says peak oil theory is faulty", Energy Bulletin (Cambridge Energy Research Associates), July 27, 2008.
My apologies. I'm thinking of Gil Scott-Herron telling me in 1974 that it's lookin' like Europe in 1938. When I was in grade school we sang "Ring Around The Rosie". Some things, properly promoted, leave an indelible mark.
I am old enough to know some survivors of the concentration camps. Stories I'll never get out of my head. I shouldn't have dumped on you, though. That was wrong. Again, please accept my apologies.
Xhalor: Don't worry about it....
The story of Auschwitz is so bizarre that even the most fantastic of fiction writers couldn't have even imagined it, so it has to be true.
The selection process at Auschwitz was particularly bizarre. The idea that only that which as economic value has any value at all---Pure Materialism. Hence, the slogan "Work Makes One Free" (i.e., working as a slave to make wealth for the master). One's economic usefulness to the Master is the only thing that entitles one to live: "Arbeit Macht Frei".
A long time ago I tried to hook up with an attractive young Jewish lady in Hollywood. She wasn't having any of that. I had several hours alone with her parrot, so in a fit of spite I taught that damn bird a new phrase. Yes, you guessed it, “Arbeit Macht Frei”. ON THE DAY BEFORE HER ORTHODOX JEWISH PARENTS ARRIVED FROM NEW YORK.
Man, what the fuck is the matter with me?
"I will agree with Asoka - freedom of movement on the EARTH planet is tantamount to basic freedom."
I have a barb-wire fence around my place. Your freedom of movement on the earth ends at my fence, just as my freedom of movement is limited beyond my fence. It is a trade-off.
"Pro,Con is afraid of unlimited population growth when he should know from his knowledge of population biology that equilibrium is achieved in nature, and we are part of nature."
-soak, to ixnei-
No, what I'm afraid of is the mechanism by which nature brings populations in overshoot - back into equilibrium.
Starvation, disease, death are things I would like to see the US avoid. I suspect that a US population over 250,000,000 made these things unavoidable. Which means that every single year of high incoming immigration makes things much worse for all of us here - legal and illegal.
====================
As far as freedom of movement - you will never have an argument from me about that. Freedom of movement across borders is a magnificent concept - something I am 100% in favor of.
So go into any country. Visit, live, learn, work and love. Then go home - and help your country of origin.
I don't know but I do know that anyone who's that sick can't be all bad. Apparently in the war of the sexes you take no prisoners. Just don't start collecting nazi memorabilia as it might creep out your new girlfriends and reduce the amount of action you're getting.
Although some people on CFN seem to be in a state of suspended agitation over fiat money.
if you're saying that fiat money has been doing just fine, it points out what a good job chronic inflation of the money supply does in ROBBING you of your wealth while you perceive nothing of the sort to be occurring.
de facto, fiat money has been crashing to the ground for decades in terms of its ability to purchase today what it could purchase yesterday.
if there are twenty trillion Ted Williams baseball cards,each one if almost worthless.
if there are only twenty of the same card, each card retains its value, as it is limited supply & as such is valued by the holders of it.
...which is why gold, art etc retain their value
i reserve the right to be wrong
peace peaceniks
Soak tells us, ad nauseum, how unimportant money is. He tells us the joy of living in a mud hut, never investing, never caring for the future, never having children, etc, etc.
Then he demonstrates his illogical multitude with the following gem of "wisdom:"
"Countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, etc. which have had low birth rates and limited immigration are going to be in big economic trouble."
-soak-
I'm afraid there is little hope for our Soak.
Welles,
I hate to put it this way, but you are so on the money! (8/28 post)
This is how countries are robbed of their value. Just living with the illusion of wealth. You have millions of people that don't see the cliff ahead.
The talking heads say that we have a GDP of $14trillion--so all is fine...
Do you believe them or your lying eyes?
In the meantime the Republicans want to codify that the winners of the global Ponzi scheme never have to pay taxes. (wealth and power and national destruction is never having to pay taxes)
Who, how, wherefor? Whad'die miss?
Look; a squirrel!
;o)
"I put tomato cages around every tomato plant, and drive a "green metal" 4' stake every 3rd cage (with one at each corner), and tie them all together using nylon twine, to the stakes. Very good idea, indeed! Jerry Baker even suggests that the metal cages somehow induce increased growth, due to channeling electrical energy... Sounds a bit too hocus-pocus for me, but I use metal over plastic/wood, when possible!" -Ix
Purdy cool.
My concrete-wire towers are arranged in an "Olympic logo" pattern (diagonally juxtaposed) and are simply wiggled into the ground about 3 inches. I didn't cut off the bottom rib to make "spikes", but since they're wired together with pieces of household wiring, they're very sturdy [as a grouping]. I do use a stake on free-standing individual towers. Good tips on the green metal fence-posts. I'm looking to acquire a goodly amount of re-bar to use for staking (and any other damn-fool idea that may pop into my head).
Ps. Don't worry so much about being "responded to" on here. It's not uncommon to have most comments lay lonesome. There's not time for everything, eh? (Wellllllll, for silliness, there's always time. ;o)
IOW, people either agree with the comment and feel no need to add anything, or have their own bones and nits to pick (thus seeing yours' as inconsequential or "besides the point").
See? No worries... and ignore what I just wrote. ;o)
"What purposes in the garden do ducks serve?"
Turning slugs and snails into eggs and meat. The trick is to keep them from turning leaf crops into eggs and meat! They even had a taste for my turmeric (which is in the ginger family and looks like a canna lily) when it was young. I have a breeding pair of Welsh Harlequins and breeding trio of Indian Blue Runners. The runners are pretty funny, the way they walk like penguins. I like having them around.
LOL
You are a very, very sick person... with a sense of humor to match!
I admire that, and do believe it will be a prized asset in the "difficulties" to come.
(F'r-instance, Soaky's dry, immutable optimism will have to be amended with some grim humor if he should crave the company of other you-mans.)
Oh, and like any good permaculturalist I use them in other ways too, like I set out 3 15 gallon rubber feed tubs, one beside each fruit tree in a group - 3 peaches this morning, 3 pears yesterday, 3 plums tomorrow. The ducks bathe and play in those tubs, but more importantly, poop in those tubs, and then I dump them out on the mulch under the young fruit trees and move them to the next row. So each fruit tree gets a big bowl of duck tea every four days (apples being the other trio that just happens to be two rows away from today's example;). I have the ducks for that purpose as much as any other.
"They [dem ducks] even had a taste for my turmeric (which is in the ginger family and looks like a canna lily) when it was young." -Tripp
Aha! "Pre-curried" eggs; niiiiice!
(The wife uses curry powder in the "deb'bil'd" eggs; with half a green olive on top, to boot. Yummy good.)
This week's ArchDruid Report was written just for you, my man.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-not-to-play-game_500.html
We're departing the "abundance industrialism" phase of our history and entering the "scarcity industrialism" phase that will usher in various facets of social conflict because the disaffected can no longer be placated with just enough to keep them happy. The next phase he calls the "salvage society", much like the setting of World Made By Hand.
I hadn't thought about it that way, O3! See? More unexpected synergies in the permaculture business!
Once they have papers they can compete for higher paying jobs and education and pay into the system.
=============
In numerous previous posts you've said that Mexicans have paid and are paying into the system. Now you say "once they have papers they [will] pay into the system." Please accept this Ralph Waldo Emerson "Foolish Consistency Hobgoblin" award.
Catherine Austin Fitts on C2C tonite!
Great talk.
==
Indeed!
Catherine really understands what's going on, especially regards the financial machinations and the fraudulent accounting to re-engineer private global governance and control.
"We will be able to grow supply to well over 100 billion barrels per day by 2017.
=============
billion?
WOW, 14.3 barrels of oil per DAY for every man, woman and child on the face of the earth.
Freedom of movement about the planet is an anomalous aspect of our growth culture. It is no more a part of our historical existence than plasma screen televisions. I understand the allure, believe me, I'm a rolling stone myself, but local, low-energy cultures don't tolerate strangers just coming and going through their territories all the time. It'll be interesting to see how rapidly that aspect of our weird normalcy changes. When we lived in the ghetto in Macon, Georgia, we drove through a few neighborhoods, right there in 2010 AD, that made it clear that you were allowed this one chance to get out, but don't dare come back.
One obstacle to chronicling “ ruins” via the paint brush is they are subject to the same aesthetic alchemy that occurs with any other subject matter depicted on canvass. As Marlin inferred (I think), a dilapidated building in the ghetto can be a far greater painting than the most pastoral scene in the most remote wilderness area. Or at least if a painter is searching for the eureka of ‘significant form’. Clive Bell and Greenberg were right: the autonomy and merit of the painting itself is what asserts itself first and foremost when hanging on a wall. Painting is a visual dialogue and the grammar that composes it is line, shape, value, color, texture, edge, etc. Of course, the post-modernists argue that significant form cannot be quantified and therefore anything and everything is valid under the banner of Art. But if significant form cannot be quantified, the quest for it, and the ineffable result can certainly be felt in a Kantian sense, or at least most sensitive aesthetes would testify this be the case. What is unfortunate is when painters begin to blur the distinction between journalism and painting without first becoming very adept at creating the underlying scaffold that supports an exciting and compelling visual dialogue first and foremost. And it matters not the “ism”: realism, abstraction, conceptual art - so many practitioners eschew formal considerations in favor of the sugar high of art-gallery journalism. It’s the difference between a Rachmaninoff piano concerto evoking the wild feel of autumn in the wind-blown steppes of Mother Russia or the bummed dude at the café complaining about the chemical plant down on Oak Street. One elicits real love; the other, a shrug of the shoulders. And I have no doubt which one Nature would pick to watch her back. Because you got to have that love-feeling way down deep and beyond to spur the protective response.
A slice:
"One of the major problems faced by any society in decline is the almost universal unwillingness of such societies to deal with the fact that they are indeed in decline. It’s a problem rather than a predicament; that is to say, it has a solution; but the solution – accepting that the glory days of the past are over, and that the new and unwelcome reality of contraction and limitation will be around for the foreseeable future – is normally accepted only after every other imaginable response or nonresponse is tried out, and found wanting. A rising spiral of absurd beliefs, grandiose projects, and violent political passions is a standard part of the evasive maneuvering that goes into avoiding that one necessary step, and we’ve got plenty of examples currently, of course." -A.D.
Can some people's happy-talk (backed by appropriate stats, of course) be considered "an example"? Oh, dearie me...
(Your thoughts on anxiety vs. anguish implied an acceptance of a condition that "aware" people live with, which I believe makes them more open to reports of dire realities. Grief is a "given", so let's get on with what needs gettin' on with...)
Holy Shit, the Dow is en fuego!
Looks like the whole Strauss-Kahn case was a set-up. Good for the NYPD for getting to the truth. If the whole thing really was constructed, I feel sorry for the guy. What a nightmare.!
Ibendet, new book out about the financial meltdown, "Reckless Endangerment", reviewed yesterday in WSJ. Authors are NYT business reporters.
-Marlin
Rthunder did you see my post about earlier concerning Ozones appearance in Winsted Sunday afternoon?
-Marlin
"What is unfortunate is when painters begin to blur the distinction between journalism and painting without first becoming very adept at creating the underlying scaffold that supports an exciting and compelling visual dialogue first and foremost. And it matters not the “ism”: realism, abstraction, conceptual art - so many practitioners eschew formal considerations in favor of the sugar high of art-gallery journalism." -Buck
If you haven't yet seen it, check out "Exit Through the Gift Shop"; an amazing treatise on just this subject (and commercial exploitation too).
"Hi, I'm hyping myself as "meaningful artist"; now pay me a lot of money so you can brag later, dammit."
How do you keep them from yr food crops?
And are they laying fertile eggs every day?
You're being kind of harsh, SJ.
If you prefer a hospital birth with anesthesia, that's your prerogative, but dissing other people's choices is rude.
M.,
I'm appearing in Winsted on Sunday afternoon???
Oh, yeah, that's right, thanks for the reminder. ;o)
BTW, did you see the door prize for the BIA Brit Jam this year? 1970 BSA Lightning; Tike always does an excellent job restoring "stock" paint, so it should be a really nice example of the breed. (Seeing as how this came from one of the members' garage, a nice road-runner, as well.)
Ozone, don't know why, but the lettuce really came up good this year, healthy , big, broad green leafs. One thing I did is put up a good fence to keep the critters out (rabbits). Been making up good amount of BLTs. The best.
-Marlin
Ozone, Sunday I'm gonna try to bring my cousin with me, lives in Winsted, a real gun nut, worse than me. You might know him from back in the day.
-Marlin
and worries about "good" money and "bad" money. What a hoot!
============
I'll tell you what's a hoot: YOU ... going against 10,000 years of human history. Aren't we ready about now for a re-run of that lame line "you can't eat gold?"
You, Wage and others who inhabit these pages are believers in big government. In the face of so much evidence to the contrary, you are certain that government will spend the people's wealth more wisely than the people themselves. There is simply no end to the projects government will conceive to buy the support (votes) of one constituency after another. But there is a limited supply of wealth at the government's disposal through direct and visible taxation so when the coffers run dry they must extract additional supply surreptitiously from where it exists ... in the pockets of the people. This is done cleverly and slowly at first via debasement of the currency so as you'd hardly notice until it becomes a run-away freight train ... when the government finally runs out of schemes for making it appear that they are still solvent. Then, all the labor of the people that was stored up as capital in the currency during the good years for a down payment on a home, to educate their children or for retirement, must be spent right away, gotten rid of, unloaded while it still retains some fraction of the value it had when originally stored away. The people's wealth has been stolen as surely as if armed agents had broken down their doors and looted their homes. You and other socialists/communists who never had the fortitude or wisdom to save for the future and therefore have nothing to lose, favor this fiat money process because the last people you want deciding how the wealth should be spent is the people themselves.
hello, I came here yesterday, I think, probably somewhere between 10:30 AM and 1:00 PM, EST. I asked if anyone had a favorite article from the famous 10th edition of the Encyclopeida Britannica, concerning trades or skills from the days before our oil dependency dominated our economy. I am still interested in anything that anyone might have to say! But anyway, I did find a decent webpage of old trades, as of the 1890s. Hey, it's a start.
http://www.census1891.com/occupations-c.htm
Do you remember when I quoted Marx talking about the loss to soil fertility involved in dumping the human waste of a million Londoners into the Thames River, instead of returning it to the soil?
I thought right there you would become a fan!
I disagree on the human movement theory of yours, however.
We started out in Africa. If humans didn't have freedom of movement, how the hell did we end up all over the world?
And the humans of the Americas were pretty welcoming to the European visitors when they first landed, by most accounts.
Many tribes have customs of hospitality to visitors passing through. Just not looters and thieves, which is why there is resistance to US occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That is most excellent! Our lettuce seeds either washed away or drowned, so, after a couple re-seedings, we're just getting sproutlings now. Knowing our luck, it will probably get too-fuggin-hot for them to become healthy munchings within a couple weeks (ha!).
Shoulda started those peepers indoors, methinks.
Live and learn (hopefully). More spinach and lettuce for August planting, it seems.
Good catch, Q. I also left off the closing quote, so I appreciate your bringing this to my attention.
CORRECTION
The report stated: "We will be able to grow supply to well over 100 Million barrels per day by 2017."
I notice no one has cited a source, including methodology used, to support the assertion that we have already reached peak oil production.
D,
That's most instructive.
You'd probably like this link (if I can get it to work):
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/
The energy of childbirth is sexual energy?? The energy at play when my baby was born pulled my pelvic bones open like the jaws of a shark, evacuated my bowels, and would have shredded by nether tissues (oil massage not withstanding!) like gift wrap at a five year old's birthday party. If that's what sex is like for you I wouldn't want to clean your bedroom! That's not to say the birth experience isn't a mind blowing connection to the divine, an intense connection to the point at which a cycle turns from ENDING (pain, them timelessness, then...) to BEGINNING (wow, pain is gone, beautiful new life blinks and your heart melts and you are - as soak would say - drunk on the divine).
"In numerous previous posts you've said that Mexicans have paid and are paying into the system. "
-----------
And most are paying into the system. Anybody with a false social security card (and there are a few), are working, paying in, but will never received anything back.
You were referring specifically to day laborers in a specific place in New Jersey. There is no hobgoblin. Nice try.
I don't get your point, Prog.
According to you, your son needed intensive care at birth and has been fine ever since. Your mother needed a bypass and then had 7 good years after that.
And from that, you conclude that medical care should be shut off because we can't afford it? And that someone, but not the families, should make that decision?
I don't follow your logic.
My objection is to decisions being made for financial reasons.
As you should know, I think that there are too many people in this country and on this planet.
I think that people should be paid to voluntarily sterilize themselves.
I think that people who want to commit suicide should be allowed to do it. I think it's horrible that the oceans are being stripped to provide fish oil for people living on junk food to take.
I think that Terry Schiavo should have been allowed to die, if that was her expressed wish.
But, I am a nurse. You blithely prescribe death for newborns and cardiac patients. I ask you, who has to tell the parents? Who has to stand there and watch an unnecessary death? Who would have to push the drugs to kill people when the ruling class decides to get rid of us faster?
That would be me.
So, no. I do not agree with your casual decrees of execution of, as Hitler called them, useless eaters.
Bicycle commuters: Scroll down to the "velomobile" at the bottom of that page and check the article; it'll probably have you drooling with consumerist desire! ;o) (It did me, and I'm not even a bicycle commuter.)
But it really doesn't matter what I think.
Your dreams are coming true. That is what the Obamacare bill is about.
Money that now goes to save people who you don't think should be saved is being transferred to the insurance companies. Medical care is being cut off to the poor and elderly.
Many more people will die. Actually, it's starting already, in poorer communities.
Mission accomplished.
Thanks Ozone, I'll take a look at it.
"you are certain that government will spend the people's wealth more wisely than the people themselves."
--------
No, I am certain that, as an individual, I cannot achieve what the commonwealth can achieve.
I would happily give up 50% of my wages for a society with universal health care, free education through PhD (like Costa Rica and Denmark have), subsidized housing, etc., in other words, help meeting basic needs.
As it is, taxation is no where near 50% and we have the society we have. As many have said here before: you want zero taxation? Try Somalia. That is where libertarians and conservatives (small government folks, from Reagan to the Tea Party) are taking us.
I sure do appreciate what taxation and big government can accomplish that I alone cannot. So I pay my taxes gladly and use my public library heavily.
Wow Q, that's quite a rant. I take it all the sidewalks have been polished? :)
dale: "I just thought Obama would act as he implied he would, and be a good president, I was wrong."
You were paying attention to his words, not his actions. I'm afraid you, like most Americans, still suffer from the illusion that your country has elections. What it actually has is quadrennial marketing campaigns funded by political donors. After 6-8 years of Republican rule, Brand Obama knew that there was, on the left, a widespread "will to believe" that there was someone out there who would actually fight for their causes, so he spoke to that and it worked. The will to believe didn't apply only to Americans, either. Why did he get the Nobel Peace Prize? For what accomplishment? Basically, for not being George W. Bush. I'm sorry you were suckered in, but the fact is, the system at this point only provides the illusion of a viable choice. The options that would make a real difference are never on the table. The trick is to understand that in advance.
And don't mistake me for a Fox News viewer because I speak unpleasant truths. Dude, I'm a contributing member of the Green Party of Canada. Honest people have to tell the truth even if they know the devil will twist it for his own purposes.
You think it would be OK if I drop in and bring my friend Van Jones along? Just what kind of a dive is it? Would we be welcome?
Who would be the one that tells SJ Mom that society no longer can afford to give her an epidural for childbirth?
You want to volunteer for that one, Prog?
I do agree with the insurance companies who refuse to pay for circumcisions, however.
If you choose to mutilate your newborn's genitals, you should have to pay for it out of pocket.
Yesterday I replied here and post got "pulled for review." Grrr! I'll try again.
It absolutely is possible to evolve a modern civilization with only a passing nod to fossil fuels. The more we buy into the notion that it isn't, the more power we give to the dark forces that want to evolve us into dystopian world of haves and have nots.
There isn't ONE answer, though. It will be many times many creative and beautiful changes, which will be rooted in the tunnel of pain we'll have to pass through first. The black death led to the enlightenment. Horrific factories and Triangle Shirtwaist fire led to worker empowerment. The depression brought us social security and medicare and a host of safety nets (being unravelled but still...).
So HOW is it possible to have a beautiful civilization without fossil fuels? It's already begun. The Japanese PM just announced an all out commitment to transition away from nuclear toward solar, with solar panels on nearly every rooftop. China is also making a huge commitment to solar and wind. The demand from Japan will accelerate the Chinese commitment, leading to a tipping point after which solar will become affordable and widespread.
Just because we can't imagine ALL the solutions that could replace our oil based industrialized world doesn't mean they don't exist.
Check out this link about how fungi can save the world. Trippticket gets the nod for posting this link first. But everyone should watch it!
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html
Designers are also reconceptualizing how we create buildings.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/thomas_heatherwick.html
The TED talks are up to 19 minutes long, so link on them if you're wiling to give up a little time and attention. They are SO worth 19 minutes of your time!
What I'm saying is that it will be easier to get through that dark tunnel if we have some idea of the light that's on the other side. We have to have a coherent vision of a post oil future that is everything humanity CAN be. If all of us who believe in a just, fair world, give in to dark visions of the future it makes it way harder for any other visions to manifest.
Remember when we were kids and we watched those black and white films in school extolling the wonders of THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE? Conveniences at the touch of a button! Food that cooks in minutes! Talking to friends on the TV phone! Ribbons of perfect highways unspooling across the landscape, filled with smiling families in shiny cars discovering a happy America!
We didn't know that vision was unsustainable. But think about it. That vision, for the most part, came true. Positive visions of a better future, when they feel possible, have amazing power.
I'm afraid you, like most Americans, still suffer from the illusion that your country has elections.
------------
I, for one, do not suffer. It is a very pleasant illusion. One that people in the civil rights movement died for, one that soldiers die for.
There is a campaign underway right now to suppress the vote because elections are of concern to the rich. Elections sometimes do not come out in their favor, and they lose power.
You are helping the rich by saying there really are no elections, thereby demoralizing people who might vote.
Voting sometimes results in things not going the way the rich want, no matter how much money they spend. Ask Jerry Brown.
Voting might be completely ineffectual, but it takes so little of my time and might irritate TPTB, so I vote for a socialist, communist, Green Party, Nader, Dick Gregory, or whoever strikes my fancy... because for me voting is a pleasurable illusion.
If you choose to mutilate your newborn's genitals, you should have to pay for it out of pocket.
------------
I agree Wage. Or, to take it one step further: if you want your newborn's genitalia mutilated you should do it yourself, not pay someone else to do it.
I am 100% opposed to genital mutilation, male or female.
If there was no way of getting an epidural, I'd simply deal with it. But today, I have options. By the same token, I'm not going to get my gun out and shoot "critter du jour" for dinner. Off to the grocery store I go. If women want to birth at home, let them. I'm sure there are less germs at home.
When things go wrong during a birth, the situation can become critical and hopeless very quickly. Thank goodness for modern medicine. If some mothers don't want to take advantage of that if the situation arises, that is their choice.
The point of the story about my mom was to illustrate that those who have confronted a life confined forevermore to tubes, pain, and life support will realize - if they are honest with themselves - that "there are things worse than death."
The point of the story about my newborn son was ONLY to illustrate that parents of newborns are incapable of rational thought - or of any thought at all - other than keep my baby alive regardless of how miserable his/her life will eventually become.
And regarding the Terri Schiavo question, that you answered:
"I think that Terry Schiavo should have been allowed to die, if that was her expressed wish..."
-wage-
The point here is that Ms. Shiavo made one error - which was not to EXPRESS her wish in advance. Any rational person would have wanted to be allowed to die in those circumstances. But since Ms. Schiavo left no instructions in writing - then the doctors, hospitals, courts, and republicans in the US congress - were all forced to assume that Ms. Schiavo was IRRATIONAL, and therefore had to be kept alive at all costs.
And her parents, being parents, might have wanted to keep her "alive" forever.
===================
At bottom, Wage, I'm just making an argument for euthanasia or for being "allowed" to die - which is just another, slower, type of euthanasia.
And informing parents and loved ones that there is "no hope of meaningful recovery" should not fall on nurses and doctors who are in regular practice. It should fall on grief and loss counselors who have some extensive experience on what to do, say, and expect. I know such people already exist in hospital settings. I have worked with some of them.
And hospice workers are angels, in my humble opinion.
===================
We're really arguing two different questions, Wage - I'm glad I reread your post:
"My objection is to decisions being made for financial reasons." -wage-
No argument from me there. Decisions should be made from a "quality of life" perspective, only.
And if you want to take this argument still farther forward - can you really disagree with the idea that, "there are things worse than death."
Yesterday I replied here and post got "pulled for review." Grrr! I'll try again.
-------------
That happened to me last night in a reply to Tripp. So I divided the post in half and it went through. Not elegant, but it worked.
I would happily give up 50% of my wages
==
I would be happier if you concentrated your "altruism" on the thieving corporations, who not only do not pay any taxes but are constantly on the receiving end of huge subsidies and contrived welfare schemes.
Can some people's happy-talk (backed by appropriate stats, of course) be considered "an example"? Oh, dearie me...
---------
To be fair, I posted the methodology used, in addition to the statistics, and I cited my source.
I am still waiting for someone to post a study, complete with methodology and findings, that proves we have hit peak oil.
Crickets.
Crickets.
==
See: Gregor.US
Yes, I have posted at length about that.
There is a single family home in Wyoming with one inhabitant that is the address used for 2,000 corporations avoiding taxes. It's not just offshore tax havens that help them evade taxes.
I can't cover every issue in every post and still honor the kdog one-screen rule, but I do agree with you about corporate malfeasance.
Still I would be happy to keep one half my earnings and give away the other half. As mother used to say about money: easy come, easy go.
Very little money is needed to live well.
"I agree Wage. Or, to take it one step further: if you want your newborn's genitalia mutilated you should do it yourself, not pay someone else to do it.
I am 100% opposed to genital mutilation, male or female."
-soak, to wage-
Conflating male circumcision and female clitoridectomy only provides cover for the evil forces that would like to cut off clitorises.
Read between the lines on soak's statement and it becomes a defense of the tribal/sharia/whatever
law concept that it is OK to cut off a daughter's clitoris as long as you do it yourself - or within the bounds of your culture.
Remember, the male equivalent would be removal of the penis - with respect to numbers of nerve endings, comparative anatomy, and sexual function.
That's probably not an option - in a male dominated culture, anyway.
It's not something that I'm going to be interested in, anyway.
Talking about "things that are worse than death."
That might make the list!
The problem with Gregor.US is that it is offering opinion about the release of 60 million barrels from OECD inventories, not a scientific study with clearly delineated methodology.
Yes, I have posted at length about that.
==
Then you should know and understand that there is absolutely ZERO reason to tax wages.
You're such a lazy bum. Is it so hard to google 'peak oil' and 'gregor.us'?
http://gregor.us/oil/crude-oil-production-forecast-to-2015/
Read between the lines on soak's statement
I am 110% opposed to any genital mutilation in any culture
and it becomes a defense of the tribal/sharia/whatever
I am 110% opposed to any genital mutilation in any culture
law concept that it is OK to cut off a daughter's clitoris as long as
I am 110% opposed to any genital mutilation in any culture
you do it yourself - or within the bounds of your culture.
Did you read between the lines, Pro,Con?
I regretted having pressed the submit button. I do not favor paying anyone else to do it. I do not favor parents doing it themselves.
I object to the cruelty involved in piercing a newborn girl's ears to put decorative trinkets in their ears. Why do adults do this kind of shit to people over whom they have complete power, people who have not given their consent?
Are you trying to provoke me, Pro,Con... Shariah, sheesh.
Shariah is a legitimate way to resolve community conflicts in some cultures. Shariah is no excuse for child abuse or violence of any kind.
You'd REALLY have to read between the lines to interpret Asoka's across-the-board condemnation of genital mutilation into an endorsement of home mutilation.
The equivalent of cutting off the entire penis would be cutting off the entire labia.
I think that Terry Schiavo did tell her husband that she would rather die than be in a coma.
And, yes, I think that there are things worse than death.
Quadriplegia, for one. Being a contracted comatose bedsore-ridden vegetable, for another.
Some people that I deal with, however, seem to be fine with the kind of life that I would consider unacceptable. Or at least, they prefer it to the alternative.
As I said, if people choose to kill themselves, I have no problem with that.
Hey Asoka, speaking of elections, you still on board with the Palin-Bachman Ticket"? 2012, "The year of the Woman".
They don't have much support here in Connecticut. But I think they have strong support in the South & mid West.
"Launch nukes & kick ass", my proposed campaign slogan.
With a slogan like that, how could they possibly lose?
-Marlin
The future in architecture-
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/24134/absolute-trash/?utm_source=facebook_trashlink_7111/
Just trying to inject a little levity, amidst talk of genital mutilation.
-Marlin
Shariah is a legitimate way to resolve community conflicts in some cultures.
==
No, it is not legitimate. Any system of law that is built around "divine revelation" and authority should be automatically nulled.
Remember, the male equivalent would be removal of the penis - with respect to numbers of nerve endings, comparative anatomy, and sexual function.
---------------
Wouldn't the equivalent of removal of the penis be removal of the vagina?
You want to talk nerve endings? The foreskin is full of them. The "prepuce" (foreskin) constitutes 50% or more of the skin system of the penis. If unfolded and spread flat, the average adult foreskin measures 60-90 square centimeters (10-14 square inches), or about the size of an index card.
The foreskin contains branches of the dorsal nerve and between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings of several types, which are capable of sensing slight motion and stretch, subtle changes in temperature, and fine gradations in texture, in addition to "ridged bands," thousands of coiled fine-touch receptors (Meissner’s corpuscles) that constitute the most important sensory component of the penis.
Now, you can tell me about the clitoris, if you want.
My point is that adults shouldn't be messin' with cutting either of them.
"We started out in Africa. If humans didn't have freedom of movement, how the hell did we end up all over the world?"
Well, for starters there weren't any other humans to get in the way of our expansion in the earliest of migrations. And we still only moved a small fraction of a mile per year. Nothing like even our daily experience in the modern world, much less annual trips to grandmas or abroad. We didn't even leave Africa until 70,000 years ago, and even the farthest point on the globe from the Arabian Peninsula where we landed next is only 12.5k miles away, given that the circumference of Earth is ~25,000 miles. That's barely more than 3 football fields a year of expansion since the African exodus. Whoa! Slow down, OJ!
"And the humans of the Americas were pretty welcoming to the European visitors when they first landed, by most accounts."
Talked to any Norse vikings lately? They were the first to discover the new world, a couple centuries before Columbus. By their account they were harassed and run out of Dodge every time they landed to collect timber to take back to Greenland. That's certainly the welcome I would have given them when they started cutting down my trees and hauling them off. Every time Europeans showed up half the Indian village died. By some accounts 95% of the native genocide in north America was accomplished by germs, not guns or steel. I imagine they were scared shitless of us, to be honest.
Those of us with a 10,000 year history of expansion can't imagine life any other way, but in a lower energy future I highly doubt people will move around much at all. At horse pace I worry about getting to my grandfather's house, 10 miles away, without being stopped to pay tolls and taxes, or worse.
It is legitimate for those who voluntarily subject themselves to its adjudication.
Hey Asoka, speaking of elections, you still on board with the Palin-Bachman Ticket"? 2012, "The year of the Woman".
---------------
Definitely! My dream team!
I'm trying to convince my friend Van Jones, also. Is it OK if I bring Van Jones along to the Ozone gig? What kind of establishment is it? Would we be welcome?
It is legitimate for those who voluntarily subject themselves to its adjudication.
==
They don't. And you should know better than to imply that they do.
"I never met a man I didn't like." Will Rogers
------------------------------------
Well...just for starters...Will Rogers was a liar.
====================================
Dale, you seem not to know the difference between a man and a male.
So I pay my taxes gladly
===============
I know you are large and contain multitudes but which statement is correct, the one above or the one a year ago where you proudly stated that you paid no income taxes? You provided a link showing how one can downsize their life to avoid these taxes. Your rationale for wanting to do so was to avoid supporting the US war machine. And then I pointed out that you also avoided supporting the social entitlements half of government expenditures. You know, all those social good works that you pay lip service to loving so long as OTHER people pay for them. Those people you not-so-secretly detest for actually having the wherewithal to pay for them. And by the way, you never addressed that inconvenient truth.
I was joking, SJ Mom.
I have never before seen you lose your buddhist equanimity, or be rude, until someone suggested that you shouldn't have had an epidural. Then-whoo!
So when Prog suggested that "we" can't afford medical niceties, I referenced your reaction to femme, as a joke.
As for birthing in hospitals, depends on the hospital.
I'm guessing that you either gave birth at Kaiser, Santa Clara, or Good Samaritan in San Jose.
If it was Kaiser, I agree, they are prepared to deal with emergencies.
Good Sam, not so much.
Luckily, the vast majority of births are uneventful, so you'll never have to find out.
Soak, without the constant influence of the media, we can infer resource decline simply by looking around and paying attention. All the indicators are there. Smaller portions costing more, durable goods getting less durable, petroleum products getting more expensive, people who still have jobs being worked to death to keep them, more people getting frantic about the lack of work, "voluntary simplicity (poverty)" movements, it's all there to read like a book if you aren't being mislead or misleading yourself.
Peak Oil's place is all that could be moot and it wouldn't change the landscape. I don't think you can be both pro-permaculture and pro-industrial economy. That's why it irks me when you present yourself as the prior.
ASOKA: So I pay my taxes gladly
Q: I know you are large and contain multitudes but which statement is correct, the one above or the one a year ago where you proudly stated that you paid no income taxes?
--------------
Another good catch, Q!
The verb should have been in the past tense and I should have said "I paid half my taxes gladly" because half was going to war and preparation for war.
I will admit that the IRS won that battle when the IRS threatened to seize property, and when I realized with penalties they were going to get more money than if I just paid. So, I paid and I was glad about where half the money was going! And I did make an anti-war statement.
But, you are right to call me on this. I was NOT gladly paying any taxes that went for war. I want my big government tax dollars to go for life-affirming purposes.
Tripp said: "it's all there to read like a book if you aren't being mislead or misleading yourself."
-------------
[sarcasm on]
Got it, Tripp. It's like astrology. The Sun is moving into a potentially challenging alignment with Uranus and Pluto that will last until the solar eclipse today. Transiting Mars is in Gemini right now and everything moves a little more quickly which can be an aid in taking the kinds of action (Mars) that will create real change in our lives. The Uranus/Pluto square is dealing with major transformational forces rather than personal ones, so it is more likely to play out with great force in the global arena than in our private lives unless it directly aspects our individual chart.
As you say, Tripp, it's all there to read like a book if you aren't being mislead or misleading yourself. [sarcasm off]
I'm not interested in reading tea leaves, Tripp. I prefer science. I want to see the study, with a transparent methodology, and data which show we have entered peak oil.
So far, crickets.
"Would Van Jones be Welcome'?
No. There are Confederate Flags tacked up on the wall.
-Marlin
"So I pay my taxes gladly and use my public library heavily."
Your time at the library is decreasing the amount of time you can devote to earning a taxable income, as well as the 50% the goobermint you worship gets from holding a gun to your head. Please limit your library time and work harder so they can continue to send you a check.
Wage is correct. clitoris = head. It's the money spot. Foreskin is not equivalent. C'mon, yer married, you KNOW that! There are millions of men out there with no foreskin who have a whoopdee do good time. Maybe you can argue that it would be BETTER with foreskin. But a woman without a clitoris cannot have the equivalent experience as a man without a foreskin. Female genital mutilation is NOT the same as western or jewish circumcision.
This post got held again! I re-wrote it without the s@x word. Let's see.
good catch, Q!
=============
** ATTENTION CFN **
Asoka has made a concession to Q!
Maybe if I stay at it he'll confess all the stuff he said in support of fiat currency was just bullshit to stir the pot and see if he could get people to violate Safire's rule #4.
Soak said, "Not a single verifiable assertion, not a single data point or hard number, not a single source cited. A perfectly meaningless rant. "
My eyes are open, pal. In 1995 I was in Nogales. There are no journal articles that corroborate what I saw. I was too nervous to take pictures of the Mexican army thugs shaking us down for money on the highway. Ditto the Mexico City motorcycle cop, ditto the random groups of thugs armed with AK-47s 100 miles from the Texas border.
I have no proof of encountering 4 year old children in the High desert with no one around for miles, begging for food.
I failed to anticipate debates I would have to have 15 years hence, let alone predict the rise of sites like Flickr. Hmm. Flickr. Lets do a search for "Mexican shakedown".
Sweet, sweet vindication. But highway robbery does not a Mad Max set make.
Perhaps you'd like to peruse the book I'm reading, "Amexica" by Amexica: War Along the Borderline [Hardcover]
Ed Vulliamy (Author)
Its "Non-fiction". Do you read any "Non-fiction"?
Hmm. No purchase for that search. Lets try "Mexican checkpoint". Bingo.
By the way, you can't get about in Mexico without "la mordida", the "little bite" or bribe that you must negotiate anytime someone with or without a uniform demands you pay a fine. How did I know that?
By the way, Mexico is a great place to get free medical care. Do not be startled by the large silver disc attached to the physician's head. That is a reflector.
Let me tell you something about PEMEX. They are exactly like an AM/PM in America, except all the food is several degrees more unhealthy.
My sister lives in Dallas, she is shacked up with a Mexican-American (4th generation). Anyway, the term "jose" for an itinerant laborer came from him.
Big Agriculture is my state's number one industry and employs tens of thousands of migrant and seasonal workers. I spent time working alongside them.
Etc., and so on. I don't feel any additional need to qualify my perspective. To me, the facts are clear and the problems exceedingly well-defined.
Here are some Internet searches you can do to get a clue:
Keywords: Immigration, the Drug war, corporate vampirism, NAFTA, Border policy, Native American treaty rights, the Colorado river, The Big Ag commercial model, the 5,000 mile potato salad, Salmonella in the Spinach, The Democrat/Republican Kleptocracy, a couple of starving kids in the desert, chaotic border towns, Narcotics cartels, the Mexican Army, the PAN/PRI political stranglehold, US Dept. Homeland security, PEMEX, Peak Oil, Cantarell, Thugs, Bribes, la mordida, Chiapas, Sonora, Veracruz, Mexico City, Villa Hermosa, Mazatlan, Nogales, Tijuana, Ciudad Obregon, Cancun, Mestizos, La Raza
Asia said, "One of Mexicos [been there a few times] biggest problems is its Population Explosion.
Mexico has many problems...and if it werent for the Trillions? of US dollars that go there itd have more problems.
I believe after [Narcotics?] and Oil the #2 or 3
revenue stream is Dollars."
The development of the oil industry followed a similar pattern of disruption as the development of oil resources in other countries, that is, the impoverishment of the citizenry, the concentration of wealth in a powerful oligarchy, and social and environmental deterioration.
Now, there is plenty of evidence that the intensity of this cash economy produces evil effects on its own. I think that the problem was simply that the benefit went to the ruling classes, the upper classes, and nothing trickled down. Mexico is a country of extreme racism, economic stratification, and poverty. Those dollars largely came from the free-market privateers in Republican and Reaganite business sects. There were no social or political conditions placed on that money. It built palaces and a network of gas stations, and tons of money went directly to drug production. Dollars were reinvested in American Big Ag products like refined chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
It was not, for instance, spent on schools or water purification plants.
Examining the data, its easy to see that Mexico has extreme problems, and why we have refugees flooding the border. Mexico has half the arable land per capita than the US. Below a certain longitudinal threshold, it is just too fucking hot to work.
Canines, for instance, suffer greatly, becoming immobile in a hotter climate. Their ability to regulate their body temperature via evaporate cooling is temperature dependent. After a certain threshold is reached, a dog's ability to be a dog ceases. Mexican dogs aren't lazy during midday, they are incapacitated.
Please, save the Mexican Dogs.
It is impossible to be more than 100% opposed to something, if one understands the "laws of mathematics."
It is possible to be 100 percent opposed to a behavior while still defending the right of persons to engage in that behavior.
I withdraw the statement concerning sharia law being linked to clitoridectomy - I spoke in haste.
There is a linkage between certain Muslim subcultures and clitoridectomy.
The blog nanny's on to me again.
I'm going to quit while I'm ahead, for now.
In the 60s, my family went to Mexico for six weeks, traveling by VW bus all the way to Tasco. We went down through California and back up through Texas, which is where I developed my deep hatred for Texas.
We never were shaken down and we never saw any armed gangs. I believe that those developments came in when Mexico allowed the US in.
However, we did see incredible poverty.
I thought that we were poor. Ha! But once the milkman quit delivering, we switched to powdered milk, which I disliked.
In Mexico, we had water in our camper, to which we added chlorine to make it safe to drink. Then, we mixed the powdered milk in. I cannot tell you how bad it tasted!
We stopped by the side of the road to eat lunch. We were out in the middle of the desert, as you said.
Out of nowhere, hungry children appeared. We gave them food and that god-awful milk.
The way they yummed up that milk impressed me deeply. I couldn't imagine being so poor that that milk would taste good.
It never occurred to me on that trip that someday very soon we would have beggars on the streets of America.
Will we have to add chlorine to our water when the infrastructure is allowed to deteriorate? It could happen.
"You, Wage and others who inhabit these pages are believers in big government. In the face of so much evidence to the contrary, you are certain that government will spend the people's wealth more wisely than the people themselves."
There is a huge fallacy at the heart of this tired argument, which basically assumes that if you take money (and therefore power, right?) and give it back to the "people," the "people" will somehow create a better world. The truth of this argument is that the money (and power that goes with it) simply flows into corporate hands when it is removed from the government. The fallacy is in the assumption that a power vacuum will not be filled by another power broker. The choice is not between the government and the people, but between the government and the corporations.
So the corporate power structure wins both ways. Shrink government, giving them more power over the daily lives of ordinary people. Of course, the supreme court handed corporations a giant funnel to pour billions into the elections to make sure that the only their own toadies get elected to political office.
But I haven't given up on the democratic process altogether. Because once we have a Repulican president, senate and congress the country will fall into a nightmare of wealth concentration at the top and the removal of the last few safety nets at the bottom. Lots of people who thought they were on the winning side will realize they were suckered. The tide will turn because it will be in the interest of the ordinary masses to turn that tide. All those "big government" programs that actually made life a little better will be sorely missed, and we'll have a new social contract.
"I like taxes. They buy me civilization."
Democratic (not the party, the philosophy) government IS civilization. Shrink government into a powerless nothing and the world becomes Might is Right, survival of the fittest. We end up in the Wild West at high noon, with gunslingers everywhere and the sheriff nowhere to be found.
BustinJ said: "My eyes are open, pal."
----------------
Well, I guess that explains it. What you see is reality.
My eyes are open, too, pal. I am looking at clouds, at the mountains, at the birds playing outside my window. Is what I see reality also?
Should either one of us generalize our personal experience?
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/
Imagine: a device that offers humanity unlimited amounts of energy.
Unlimited amounts of energy for resource extraction.
Unlimited amounts of energy to run your family's ATVs up and down the mountain all day, all week, all year.
Unlimited energy to keep the 7,000 mile potato salad an option.
Unlimited energy for every person on the planet to drive absolutely everywhere.
Unlimited energy to log all the remaining forests and unlimited energy to build-out the suburban sprawl.
Unlimited energy to spend on medical advancements to establish a perpetual lifetime endowment of health.
Unlimited energy to build the fifth-generation warfare machine with intelligent flying robots and Laser weapons.
Its all good.
"I withdraw the statement concerning sharia law"
-------------
I'll see your sharia law and raise you, I mean lower my 110% to 100%
110% is a poetic expression. I thought of using 1000% but any number I picked could be criticized.
This is for SJ mom and Jackie. A lecture in the wilderness of San Jose.
Saturday 9-12, Join me on a walk through Ulistac, the topic: "10,000 years of Natural History of Santa Clara Valley", learn about, Anthropogenic Succesion!
Its all good.
------------
Unlimited logging of the forests is not good.
And why would we even need to do that?
Having unlimited energy doesn't mean we have to use it to expand. We can use it wisely, because we are rational beings.
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/energy_for_the_future/life/
Imagine: a device that offers humanity unlimited amounts of energy.
Unlimited amounts of energy for resource extraction.
Unlimited amounts of energy to run your family's ATVs up and down the mountain all day, all week, all year.
Unlimited energy to keep the 7,000 mile potato salad an option.
Unlimited energy for every person on the planet to drive absolutely everywhere.
Unlimited energy to log all the remaining forests and unlimited energy to build-out the suburban sprawl.
Unlimited energy to spend on medical advancements to establish a perpetual lifetime endowment of health.
Unlimited energy to build the fifth-generation warfare machine with intelligent flying robots and Laser weapons.
We are under a sword of Damocles, having to face both horns of the bull. Clusterfuck.
Wage said, "In the 60s, my family went to Mexico for six weeks, traveling by VW bus all the way to Tasco. We went down through California and back up through Texas, which is where I developed my deep hatred for Texas.
We never were shaken down and we never saw any armed gangs. I believe that those developments came in when Mexico allowed the US in."
I think that the deterioration happened linearily from 1960s to today. Mexico is an object lesson of what happens to a place when its citizenry are dis-empowered and disenfranchised and becomes a place that no one cares about. It is what happens when a society is overloaded with nationalism, pride, holidays, and macho military posturing, a two-party stranglehold on power, and sudden fossil fuel wealth, and mass consumer culture takes hold and turns values upside down. NAFTA accelerated the process of Clusterfuckation, but it was well on its way by then.
I think it really begins with the two-party monopolization of the political system. If Mexico took 100 years to devolve to its current state, the USA is on a similar trajectory, the only drag on that process is a surplus of wealth and demographics. Americans may well flood into Canada, but I think many will dig in and fight.
Texas is also a shit-hole, run by shit-bags. Dallas in particular was just hollowed with evil spirits. I stood on the grassy knoll and felt the patent leather insoles of the Greasy CIA stooge who pulled the trigger on Kennedy.
"We stopped by the side of the road to eat lunch. We were out in the middle of the desert, as you said.
Out of nowhere, hungry children appeared. We gave them food and that god-awful milk."
Imagine, unlimited posts on an internet message board...
"Having unlimited energy doesn't mean we have to use it to expand. We can use it wisely, because we are rational beings."
-soak, to bustin-
Ah, soak - but we will use it to expand. And you know we will - that's why TPTB, big business, and the libs are pushing US population growth so much.
As a selfish pine forest landowner, I welcome this expansion. I'll be able to sell out for lots and lots of money. And increased CO2, solar radiation, and temperature - it's all good. The trees will just grow that much faster!!
As an unselfish human being - I suspect that the US is already overpopulated to the point of disaster - and that postponing "peak energy" will only make the final outcome worse for people in the US and for the planet. And as an unselfish human being, I'd be quite willing to watch my trees die of old age and fall over - if we could stop the expansion of the US.
So, you see how it is possible to be 100% opposed to something - while still supporting your right to benefit from a particular outcome.
So, you see how it is possible to be 100% opposed to something - while still supporting your right to benefit from a particular outcome.
------------
Yes, I do see. Fascinating! As a poor non-owner, I had not considered it from that point of view.
Thank you for that insight.
BusinJ said: "Imagine, unlimited posts on an internet message board..."
Not quite unlimited. Quite a few of us seem to have posts that are kidnapped and held for ransom in cyberspace. Must be when our posts are crossing the Mexican parts of cyberspace.
Must be when our posts are crossing the Mexican parts of cyberspace.
-----------------
Yeah, blame it on the Mexicans... they get blamed for everything else: swine flu, wildfires in the desert, crime, unemployment...
It is always useful to TPTB to have a handy scapegoat.
Since my post was a comment on visual approach transcending subject matter I should have provided an example. Scroll down and take a look at JHK's "Dynamo In The Woods":
http://www.kunstler.com/paintings.html
Some might lament, what an environmental tragedy. From a visual dialogue point of view, however, I might say what a beautifully composed value structure this painting presents: the dark value group comprises the largest majority of the painting with the light group coming up second and with a very small sprinkle of middle value. Thus he has established a very nice dark/light pattern structure along with proportional variety within the value groups. And that evil "Dynamo" - what beautiful shapes it presents. And the edge work on the leaves in the left corner of the painting is very nice!
So despite the possible narrative intent, a certain aesthetic alchemy asserts itself on the level of visual dialogue. Or at least to these eyes.
"Imagine, unlimited posts on an internet message board..."
I've seen it, and I'm glad that turd's not around this week...
Soak, on the other hand, seems to have a hard time with sarcasm that isn't labelled.
I'll take my skills of observation over your statistics and "science" any day of the week and twice on Sunday. It's a long forgotten art, thinking for yourself, but I'm getting there slowly.
Peak Oil or nay, I can tell by looking around that we are on borrowed time. But I'm not wringing my hands and fretting about it, nor am I waving my magic want and hoping it will go away. Energy descent is good for humans.
Energy descent is good for humans.
--------------
On that we can agree, especially when voluntarily embraced now.
I hate when you're like this, Soak. When you get on a kick of just being contrary. Take your meds, or eat something healthier. Just stop being a jagoff.
Hey Marlin, I haven't been reading the comments lately. I am just catching up while killing time waiting for a call at the Firehouse. No can do Sunday. I will be working a 24 hour shift. Hey, somebody's got to stay sober over the holiday weekend! I feel for Ozone , my lettuce is out of control. I do beds of mesclun, arugala, and dandelions. Tripp calls it chicory to appeal to the masses ;o). I find it hard to read the comments when it devolves into a me good-you bad discussion.Seems like a lot of that shit for a while now.
Soak, on the other hand, seems to have a hard time with sarcasm that isn't labelled.
---------------
I label it to make it clear because text communication doesn't have the non-verbal cues to make it clear with text alone.
As far as my having a hard time, you don't know the half of it. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows but Jesus. Glory Hallelujah!
Wowwww BHM! I had no idea that tuna grew to be 120 miles long! That is one sumbitch big ass fish!
;o)
No. There are Confederate Flags tacked up on the wall. -Marlin
-----------------
Message received, Marlin. Enjoy the music without me.
I hate when you're like this, Soak. When you get on a kick of just being contrary.
-----------------
I hate it when, on a Peak Oil blog, I post a study of 811 oilfields representing over half of the world's oil production that shows the presumed rate of decline of 8% was in error and is actually 4.5%, which means peak oil may be a few years out yet (especially given demand destruction) and not a single person can provide any kind of evidence for peak oil, other than personal empirical evidence which must be "read" in one's daily experience, and yet people continue to accept as axiomatic that peak oil happened five years ago and we are headed toward a World Made By Hand.
But maybe I shouldn't get upset about that. Blogs are not peer-reviewed academic sources where information is vetted for quality.
Here is what I think: To date, the world has used less than half of its endowment of conventional oil and the resource base of non-conventional fuels (including renewable zero emission sources) is much larger.
To put a fine point on it, the absolute size of the hydrocarbon resource is neither the only constraint on future oil supply, nor the most important. There are at least four other relevant factors, but I'm not going to waste my time discussing them because it seems I am talking to true believers in peak oil who cannot admit any other data.
ozone, that is a pretty neat website. Now I have to read more about how pedal-powered mechanisms are inefficient. Argh.
That velomobile looks like a blast. I could use one of those. Yesterday I bicycled about 30-35 miles total, in a fairly large triangle, from my home, to a library out to the west of Boston where I volunteer, to my little garden patch to the southwest of Boston, and then back home again, to where I live, closer to the city. It was a nice day, and I enjoy most of the scenery, but... that little machine would have made it MUCH easier. I would still have been exercising somewhat, so I could feel good about the commute. I'll have to think about getting one of those.
Hi Wage, I concur with your thoughts. In the area which I cover there is a long term care hospital. Basically just a wearhouse for the hopeless. A lot of head trauma cases. Some of the patients have been in there for YEARS. Feeding tubes, respirators, the works. Most are comatose but some are aware of there surroundings. Some are frequent flyers to the real hospital, bedsores, pneumonia, all sorts of coplications. The sad thing is many of them do not have DNR's and are full codes. I wish their families would just let them go in peace. What the fuck? Not just the suffering but the cost is astronomical. All the fellas at work have an informal pact that if any of us end up like that we want the pillow treatment. Just like the Chief gave to McMurphy at the end of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
And just in case some of you Clusterfuckers didn't know it, we have about 47 years more oil to use. And 47 more years till TSHTF. For you mathematically challenged bitches, that's 2058. Party on, Garth!
Yo, Marlin! If you go back to the 5/16 comments section you'll see we covered this Strauss dude. I called it a set-up write off the get go. Said he was Spitzered and caught some flack. Somebody wanted to knock the wind out of his sails even if the charges wouldn't stick. It gets tiresome to be right all the time!!! HEHEHE
No Digby, it's 47 years on the energy descent downslide, once we reach peak oil. Party on!
So technically, Soak, we don't have to worry about this horse manure for at least another 50 plus years. Sounds good to me! And with natural gas available abundantly thanks to the scientific marvel that is fracking, we really have no energy issues at hand to deal with at all. Sure takes a load off my mind, let me tell you.
This immigration issue is also a non-starter. If we have enought petroleum to keep the mega farms going, we're going to need all the human labor we can get, Mexican or otherwise.
So technically, Soak, we don't have to worry about this horse manure for at least another 50 plus years.
------------------
No, Digby, I am painting a very depressing and pessimistic picture here. Energy descent is not going to be fun. 47 years is the blink of the eye, and we need to act NOW to find or develop renewable zero emission energy for the sake of the seven generations to come. It's not all about us.
"Energy descent is not going to be fun."
On this I'm in total agreement. I'm not suggesting that we don't do our best to conserve as much fossil fuels as we can. I'm all about hybrids, ethanol, solar power, the works. It's just that all these nervous nancys make it seem like we have to press the panick button, like yesterday.
Any drive through the outer suburbs should certainly convince even the most pessimistic among us that there is more than enough room for many, many more immigrants. Some of the newer housing developments are nearly empty. Wouldn't it be better for those homes to be sold or rented at a much lower price to homeless people needing shelter than to sit idle? Even though the houses are on small 1/4 acre lots, that's still plenty of room to grow a small garden, to supplement the occasional trip to the grocery store.
In the not-too-distant future, I'd imagine those big, silly "Club Houses" in these big developments would be put to better use as a grocery store that is within walking distance of the houses. Presto! You have a 21st century version of Kuntsler's World Made By Hand.
"They view themselves as the Niggers of Europe.."
I can only hope it is not true. I knew many Irish in the 1970's, both here and in Ireland. To a person they were proud, hard working, and nationalistic, even if poor and hard-drinking. This was well before the "Celtic Tiger" years.
Ireland impressed me back then as being wonderfully idyllic, with its farms and surrounding ocean, light industry, and with what at least appeared to be a mostly locally sustainable island nation. I had lain in fields of barley, fields of gold. And to this day Sting's beautiful song brings back those precious memories.
The "troubles" in the North were unseen to us. Later in the '70's, 1979 I believe, Lord Mountbatten met his end off County Sligho.
The Irish were, and I hope still are, fighters.
If what you say is correct, then they must fight against the new threat, the new "Black and Tans".
Wage, Soak, 'borders' aren't lines on a map. They are political domains that determine the extent of the power of different sets of laws.
America is not a sardine can and its motto is not "Pack 'em in".
BHM: "There are people who even believe that if you pump CO2 into spent natural gas wells it will be converted to methane by anaerobic bacteria!"
Yup. Good luck with that. That sure is going to be some expensive energy.
soaks said, "I hate it when, on a Peak Oil blog, I post a study of 811 oilfields representing over half of the world's oil production that shows the presumed rate of decline of 8% was in error and is actually 4.5%, which means peak oil may be a few years out yet (especially given demand destruction) and not a single person can provide any kind of evidence for peak oil, other than personal empirical evidence which must be "read" in one's daily experience, and yet people continue to accept as axiomatic that peak oil happened five years ago and we are headed toward a World Made By Hand."
Blah. This is a Clusterfuck blog, Peak oil is only one head on this hydra. CERA's study covered 45% of producing fields, excluding North America, and does not take into account the phenomena of economic growth in producer states using more of the juice in-country, keeping it from export market (called Export land model).
I'm not happy about the world's plan for total environmental destruction by oil addiction, and no one should celebrate that oil depletion may only be half the rate previously thought.
Maybe the reason nobody respects you or your oil industry cheer-leading is that CERA is headed by an industry stooge, Daniel Yergin, a climate-change denier, and all-around douche-bag profiteer, a bottom-feeding number-fudger that tells politicians what they want to hear straight from big industry's mouthpiece.
From one Pulitzer prize winner to another, the Yergin/Obama axis of evil against the world's environmental health- the war is still on. Better shut up about it on Clusterfuck Nation, where Asoka sets the agenda.
Chief to McMurphy:
"Ahhh, Juicy Fruit".
Some random musings on the DSK rape case available @ digbysblog.blogspot.com/
Should be http://digbysblog.blogspot.com
It seems hard to believe that Ozone would play in a bar with confederate flags on the wall.
He seems more evolved than that.
Pillow treatment? Not for me. Too low tech.
I insist on morphine and lots of it. I don't care if my respirations are 4, keep it coming.
Luckily, the CIA makes big bucks off Afghan poppies, and morphine should be available when there are no baby-sized chest tubes.
And I agreed with you about the Strauss set up, as I recall. Mission accomplished - they appointed a new chief yesterday. Today they announce that there is not enough evidence to keep him.
Yeah, right.
It's not that fantasies of anaerobic bacteria converting carbon dioxide into methane would be an expensive form of energy, but that such ideas are fastasies in the first place, and hence, unworkable. In other words, people like to imagine that oil wells fill themselves back up, and that other magical processes will save us, when the only thing that will save us is to restructure society so that we are far less dependent on energy in general.
You've got it totally backwards there, asoka.
Voting doesn't irritate TPTB, they depend on it to divert our attention from real issues, and to legitimize the system.
That is why we are already getting Election 2012 propaganda, just a few months after our last election.
That is why we have Rock the Vote, and free TV time devoted to getting us to vote, although there is no free TV time for actual candidates to tell us their platforms.
That is why I heard Kissinger say, (in one of those spots ) "Ve don't care who you vote for, ve only care that you vote".
Irritate them? You're falling right into their trap.
I don't know where you got the idea that I support unlimited immigration, Bustin. I most certainly don't.
I just look at the systemic reasons that people are forced from their homes, and driven to go to another country, away from their families and friends. I don't like blaming the victims.
And I think that Mexicans are not as politically backwards as you seem to think they are. They did fight harder after their stolen election than we fought over ours.
A U.S. citizenship naturalization ceremony aboard a US aircraft carrier replete with ballerinas, F-16s and "The Righteous Brothers"?
Weird....
Watch a live Naturalization ceremony taking place today aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego - Friday, July 1 at 9:45AM PDT (12:45PM EST)
http://t.co/FqA6afl
Bill Medley, of "The Righteous Brothers" will perform at the event. Six ballerinas with the San Diego Ballet will perform to "Victory at Sea." Two F-16s from the 114th Fighter Wing of the California Air National Guard will conduct a fly-over to honor the new U.S. citizens, kicking off the hour-long celebration.
"CERA is headed by an industry stooge, Daniel Yergin..."
-----------------
Ad hominem attack which does not address or invalidate evidence from the study. Cera "experts are known for independence, fundamental research, foresight and original thinking."
If Cera is full of shit and the industry is making decisions based on bad numbers, who goes broke? Who loses billions of dollars? Who gets no more business from the industry?
Ignore Cera research if you like. You still have not presented any reliable evidence that we are five years into peak oil.
Not so weird. Immigrants are who we are. Immigrants make us strong. Immigrants end up in our armed forces. It only makes sense to welcome them in a militaristic fashion.
"Irritate them? You're falling right into their trap."
----------
You do make a good case, Wage. I may be wrong about voting.
"Any drive through the outer suburbs should certainly convince even the most pessimistic among us that there is more than enough room for many, many more immigrants." -digby-
Digby, it's not the physical room required for living that's the problem. There's a youtube video that shows all 7 billion people on Earth could fit into one small, 7 billion square foot, corner of Texas - if everybody just stood still and didn't move, eat, drink, pee, or poop.
And regarding:
"Some of the newer housing developments are nearly empty. Wouldn't it be better for those homes to be sold or rented at a much lower price to homeless people needing shelter than to sit idle?" -digby-
The reason those homes are empty is because no one can afford the gas to live there and drive to work and shopping - even at $3.50/gallon. And each home like this comes with gas/electric/utility bills that represent a lot of fossil fuels being burned - More in the American suburbs than almost anywhere else on Earth.
And sadly, homeless people don't make very good homeowners. Lacking money for power and water - the homeless tend to burn the floors to keep warm and crap on the floors until the places become completely unfit for habitation. I've actually seen both of those things happen in foreclosure houses that went unoccupied for too long.
45 million Americans on foodstamps, state governments (especially California) broke, and they can find money to spend on Mexicans getting nationalized aboard a US aircraft carrier replete with ballerinas, F-16s and "The Righteous Brothers"?
You've got to be shitting me?! What mindless, jingoistic masturbation!
Watch a live Naturalization ceremony taking place today aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego - Friday, July 1 at 9:45AM PDT (12:45PM EST)
http://t.co/FqA6afl
Bill Medley, of "The Righteous Brothers" will perform at the event. Six ballerinas with the San Diego Ballet will perform to "Victory at Sea." Two F-16s from the 114th Fighter Wing of the California Air National Guard will conduct a fly-over to honor the new U.S. citizens, kicking off the hour-long celebration.
Don't tell anyone. The giant tuna fish are top secret.
Wagelaborer,
Sorry to inform you, but it is you who has bassakward...
"Most are comatose but some are aware of there surroundings. Some are frequent flyers to the real hospital, bedsores, pneumonia, all sorts of complications. The sad thing is many of them do not have DNR's and are full codes. I wish their families would just let them go in peace. What the fuck? Not just the suffering but the cost is astronomical."
-RT-
That sounds like hell on earth to me, RT. I don't know anyone, with intelligence and insight, who has thought it through, who ever wants to end up like that. And yet "their families" won't "just let them go in peace."
I'm not sure whether Wage is understanding my position regarding this - for adults, neonates, people of all ages. It shouldn't be up to families to make a decision that should be obvious to an objective observer - no one should have to live like this.
So yeah, push the morphine on me too, if I ever end up like that. If that doesn't work, since the 70's gave me a high tolerance for narcotics - the pillow treatment might be a nice option to consider.
...And Goldman Sachs wants youth to ask themselves: "Where do I fit in?"
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/careers/index.html
And what's with the Asian females in the fascist Goldman Sachs promo?! Are they supposed to be models of conformity? Good Lord!
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, because it will probably just get blocked.
http://www.baby2see.com/gender/external_genitals.html
The exact same structure that forms a p*n*s in a male baby forms the cl*t*r*s in a female baby.
Similarly, the female l*bia and male scr*tum are formed from the exact same structures.
Similar structures imply similar amounts of nerve endings, arousal function, org*sm*c function, etc.
How can this discussion of anatomy and sh*t be blocked by the blog software on a blog called Cluster Fuck Nation, of all things?
Listen, Ptolemy, you know what I hate? When the myriad folks who care about statistics, and proving you wrong, and fretting about what we can do to make things run for a little while longer, or who build doomsteads and watch longingly for the chaos, don't produce some relevant data when confronted.
I, by my own admission on multiple occasions, don't give a rat's ass about peak oil. I have some academic grasp of a growth culture's response to a phenomenon like peak oil, and I see that response all around me, but I'm doing what I do because I really enjoy it. I am what you might call an "early adopter" of behavioral innovation for a contractionary world. Energy descent is a very real part of our lives, whether it is for another soul on Earth or not, because we want it to be. And I've reaped nothing but rewards - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual rewards - from taking this approach to life. It would be monstrous of me not to share that with others.
Upon occasion I think you get it. Then you prove to me that you don't. If you want things to keep going the way they're going then by all means, let 'er rip. Have a field day, just like the rest of the idiots that are walking blindly toward their own extinction. But don't confuse me with someone who is adapting out of fear, or confusion, or gullibility.
And please call off your harangue. I'm tired of it. It's not why I'm here.
Asians are being recruited actively. America doesn't produce competitive "information economy" workers anymore.
Also, love the classic postmodern marketing motif: nothing but multicultural contemporary modelling faces straight from the catalog, doing white-collar stuff like leaning over desks, with their sleeves rolled up, smiling as if they just breast-fed their own infant children...
"Maybe the reason nobody respects you or your oil industry cheer-leading is that CERA is headed by an industry stooge, Daniel Yergin, a climate-change denier, and all-around douche-bag profiteer, a bottom-feeding number-fudger that tells politicians what they want to hear straight from big industry's mouthpiece."
That explains pretty succinctly one of the major reasons why I don't bother. Keep throwing out the industry's statistics, Soak, and I'll keep ignoring them. Vicious cycle.
asoka said, ""CERA is headed by an industry stooge, Daniel Yergin..."
-----------------
Ad hominem attack which does not address or invalidate evidence from the study. Cera "experts are known for independence, fundamental research, foresight and original thinking."'
Crap. Propaganda. A think-tank to produce white papers CEOS and investors can stoke off to.
"If Cera is full of shit and the industry is making decisions based on bad numbers, who goes broke? Who loses billions of dollars? Who gets no more business from the industry?"
CERA's purpose is to fool institutional investors, politicans, and their constituencies. It is to head off at the pass as a Public Relations ploy, emergent awareness of Peak Oil. It is to provide a veneer of respectability to the Peak Oil deniers. It is a cheap way to extend the favorable public opinion, investment, subsidies, loopholes, and political support in the face of Peak Oil reality, which would include the closing of loopholes, the taxation of fossil fuels, the levy of carbon taxation and other penalties, and, in general, a wholesale shift in the energy sector toward 'green energy', putting the Kibosh on their profits and a huge dent in their ongoing contracts and negotiations around the world.
"Ignore Cera research if you like. You still have not presented any reliable evidence that we are five years into peak oil."
You have been living in a dream world, Neo:
From -http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8044
(With a chart)
I think the penultimate moment was the global peak in output. That was around 2005. That was "The Peak". It is the most oil ever produced and will ever be produced, so help me god. CERA doesn't include 55% of wells because CERA doesn't have those figures and CERA doesn't know those figures. If we assume they are composed of major wells in decline, I'd say it would undermine their PR objective. They are just kicking the can down the road as long as they can and providing tools for the fossil fuel industry and their government stooges to do likewise.
To call my characterization of Yergin as a lying whore sack of shit an ad hominem is invalid, as I was simply omitting basic information everyone should know. It is beside the point. I was merely pointing it out in case you were unaware of his floppy-armed, goat-fucking ways. CERAs report is just simple bullshit.
"When the myriad folks who care about statistics, and proving you wrong,......., don't produce some relevant data when confronted."
-tripp, describing things he hates, to Ptolemy-
Ok, tripp - guilty as charged, maybe? hehe
But Ptolemy? Where the heck did that come from?
Seriously, you gave me a nice chuckle. Statistics on oil field decline aren't really my big interest area, either. Plus, they are cloudy and obfuscated (deliberately?) to the point that internet research by a layperson does not yield useful results, IMHO.
I'm more concerned about the IMPOSSIBILITY of a plan to replace fossil fuels. Because - 47 minutes or 47 years - it's not that long of a time period.
And I'm really seeing evidence that global warming is going begin to rock and roll within the next couple of decades or sooner, anyway.
Maybe I hate to confront the ExxonMobil idea - let's just all hydrofracture our way to a 100 year supply of natural gas - because of what it means for global warming and a US with 1 billion inhabitants.
Clearly Wage is 'writing a story'..
Another tale is in 'THE FATAL SHORE'..
Aboriginals yelling 'GO AWAY WHITE MAN'!!!
'the humans of the Americas were pretty welcoming to the European visitors when they first landed, by most accounts.'
YES We natives might have been friendly..
cost us 90 million? lives and various Cultures....
I see whats happening now as history repeating itself..Colonists wiping out Euro Culture...not slowly and surely.
{Talking about "things that are worse than death."
That might make the list!}
You got that shit right! :) Utterly barbaric custom, female circumcision. As for male circumcision, as a woman I'd have to say that it makes for a more pleasant "aesthetic", but it's wrong to do it to male infants who don't have a choice in the matter. I'd say let 'em grow up and decide for themselves . . . I'd imagine that there would be a lot more "uncut" fellers running around if they had to make that choice for themselves, for sure :)
Theres a blogger...TIM MAMIN
He worked or works for a company mosthere will
know the name of....[i wont say]:
'ITS 1000S OF YOUNG CHINESE AND INDIANS BORN THERE
BUT WORKING IN L.A....'
Wage warbled, "I don't know where you got the idea that I support unlimited immigration, Bustin. I most certainly don't.
I just look at the systemic reasons that people are forced from their homes, and driven to go to another country, away from their families and friends. I don't like blaming the victims.
And I think that Mexicans are not as politically backwards as you seem to think they are. They did fight harder after their stolen election than we fought over ours."
I see it this way: a huge proportion of their society left the country over decades and decades of two-party oligarchy. Mexicans in the US aren't voting in Mexican elections. Its not just apathy but attrition. Their last stolen election was lost by a fraction of the vote- a fraction of the population that was high-tailing it north, probably. And as the flow continues so does the ongoing defeat and political exhaustion, the extinction of hopes and dreams.
No matter if you thinking repatriating them is 'blaming the victim' or not, it is a good thing for Mexico to have people there who can push the political system toward progress. The systemic problems that spurred mass migration are domestic Mexican problems. Political, social, and economic. At the end of the day, Mexicans have to solve their own problems.
Besides which, illegal immigration is a crime, they are not victims. They got free education, health care, and tax-free wages. They will return to a state where their dollars are worth 10 times the prevailing currency. They will have worldly experience, wealth, a sense of social justice, and be overjoyed being reunited with their families and friends and excited to get on with the project of turning their back-assward country around. Nobody is going to give a shit about Mexico until Mexicans take it back. And when they do it will be a good thing, and bad for the American corporate status quo- but they have it coming, too.
In the short term, it is understandable that illegals and immigrants will feel like they are having their cake taken from them. When they are repatriated those feelings will simply evaporate. They lose cake but inherit their homeland.
Connect the dots...I posted about USA Todays
pieces...Latino Valedictorian next to Dream Act piece.
Immigrants wonderful, financial responsibility
unimportant.
I thought nitrogen / manure was bad for trees.
Bustin J. wrote: "...smiling as if they just breast-fed their own infant children..."
A couple of weeks ago, I met a Chinese woman who said that her daughter works for an "investment bank in New York." She said that her child "...hates it, and is miserable."
So much for the multicultural marketing motif.
My understanding is only 2 nations are foolish enuff to have 'anchor baby' laws...........
USA AND IRIE
And please call off your harangue.
----------------
You made the statement that we are five years into peak oil.
I asked for a citation. Crickets.
That is a "harangue"?
"I'd say let 'em grow up and decide for themselves..." -TT, regarding male circumcision-
That's actually not a bad idea, TT. And I guess it's the most that Wage and the foreskin advocates could ask for, anyway. Circumcision is a cultural thing in the US, accepted without question.
I went so far as to tell Wage that if I ever have another kid that I'll think long and hard (no pun intended) before having him circumcised.
The only reason that I bristled up and got involved in the discussion today is that I believe, very strongly, that linking routine "male circumcision" to "female clitoridectomy" gives the cover of Cultural Relativism to an EVIL PRACTICE.
Thanks for the shoutback, TT.
Always a pleasure!
=============
You aren't interested in riding to California in the back of my truck, BTW, are you? We're trying to get up a permaculture tour to the west coast and back.
and all-around douche-bag profiteer, a bottom-feeding number-fudger
===========
Great line Bust. I love it when hyphenated words are strung together as intensifiers like adjectives on steroids. I especially like bottom-feeding number-fudger. It has a form of what I call "internal alliteration." You've got the mm sound in bottom and number and the ff sound of feeding and fudger. You can even scramble the words any which way and it still sounds like a great insult:
. bottom-number feeding-fudger
. fudger-bottom feeding-number
. feeding-fottom number-nudger
Uhh ... reminds me ... did you know former NJ Governor (McGreevy) was a "fudge packer?"
;-)
Exactly Asia - Whites are the new Native Americans and unless we fight back the same fate awaits us - genocide.
90 million seems many tens of millions too high - are you talking about Central and South America too?
"You made the statement that we are five years into peak oil.
I asked for a citation. Crickets.
That is a "harangue"?"
Harangue is yet another email asking me to prove something I never had any interest in proving. Dick.
OK, since you can't seem to sod off like I'd prefer, I usually go by the folks who cut their teeth listening to and studying the data presented by the retiring petro-geologists of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, quietly but resolutely sounding the alarm that oil is (whaddyaknow) limited, not far from those supply limits, and that reaching those supply limits would devastate industrial culture post-peak.
Those folks would be our host, for one, Richard Heinberg, Dr. Colin Campbell, John Michael Greer, Dmitry Orlov, Arthur Berman over at the Oil Drum, etc, etc. These folks mostly strike me as very intelligent, very composed, and very persuasive, and while yes, they all have something to gain from their proclamations, it's a mere tiny crumb compared to what the deniers in the industry gain by obfuscating the facts. While they keep everyone in the dark, and most importantly borrowing and spending, they take their obscene profits and buy up entire watersheds, sock away trainloads of gold, helicopters, fuel, staple stores, off-grid power supplies, and hire armies of roughnecks to defend it all. That's what they are doing right now. I've heard more than one example, from more than one reliable source.
And you, with your very meager pension, seem to be shilling for the bastards. For what? So you can talk a few people into going along with more rampant destruction of the biosphere? Go sell your shit to someone else. I'm not now, nor will I ever be buying it. And please, dear god, please, stop referring to yourself as a permaculturalist. You do far more harm than good to the movement.
"I thought nitrogen / manure was bad for trees."
You shouldn't mix manure into the planting holes of trees, especially nut trees, but if you do it like it's done in the wild, manure and carbon mass on the surface, it's always good. Aim for a 25:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio, and always leave it on the surface. I've never missed with this strategy.
Hi Pc, As per your link. Very interesting info. I learned a lot. You really should stop lookin' at kiddee porn though. Welcome aboard, now you are on the watch list with me. ;o)
"YES We natives might have been friendly..
cost us 90 million? lives and various Cultures....
I see whats happening now as history repeating itself..Colonists wiping out Euro Culture...not slowly and surely."
It's still just a product of our environment. Access to large amounts of energy spawns a very different culture than one found within the background energy of the planet. Like I said to Wage, and have said before, people didn't tolerate outsiders before there was enough free energy (manifested as military backup in our case) to create a complex, arbitrated culture, with level upon level of production-draining (but happy happy multi-cultural!) bureaucracy.
I for one have enjoyed meeting the other people of the world - I like their varied cuisines in particular, but I also understand that in a lower energy future we will lean on cultural solidarity a lot more. Perhaps political and ideological views will reign supreme in some more evolved areas, but the average Joe will probably just move back home and learn to get along with family and neighbors. Count me in that latter group.
And please, dear god, please, stop referring to yourself as a permaculturalist. You do far more harm than good to the movement.
------------------
LOL!
Excommunicated from the Church of Permaculture?
Sorry, Tripp, you don't have that authority.
Hey RT,
If you learned something from it, then it was worth it to me!
And I've been on watch lists all my life, I've decided. In hindsight, that's what kept me out of Naval Aviation. It took me 35 years and a little CFN psychoanalysis to help me figure it all out.
{Thanks for the shoutback, TT.
Always a pleasure!
=============
You aren't interested in riding to California in the back of my truck, BTW, are you? We're trying to get up a permaculture tour to the west coast and back.}
I'd love to, honey, but unfortunately I'm bustin' rocks for The Man right now on a consulting project and won't be able to get away for a while :) Even my dreams of seeing Yellowstone in the summer before the shit and the oil prices REALLY hit the fan, are in limbo.
{The only reason that I bristled up and got involved in the discussion today is that I believe, very strongly, that linking routine "male circumcision" to "female clitoridectomy" gives the cover of Cultural Relativism to an EVIL PRACTICE.}
I strongly believe that female circumcision is an EVIL PRACTICE. It's some of the sickest shit dreamed up by any society or religion EVER. Have you ever done any reading about the DEGREES of FC that goes on, depending on which country it takes place in? Some of them only believe in excising the clitoris, whereas others pretty much cut away any external vaginal tissue (clitoris, labia minor and major, etc.) and sew it ALL up again, leaving only a tiny, tiny opening for urination, and then when the woman has her "wedding night" it's all ripped up to hell and back by the act of sexual congress. And some of them I've heard of, once the woman is inpregnated, sews her shit back UP again, and then when she gives birth, it's hell all over again.
You know what? America may be a fucked up country, Prog, but the most down-home hillbilly, misogynistic Southern man out there would NEVER do such shit to a woman. Case CLOSED, Happy 4th of July to all cluster-fuckers, and ya'll other bitches out there should be thanking Gawd/Yahweh/Allah/the Universe that we live HERE, and not in Nigeria, dammit! Gawd Bless America, man, in spite of our MANY faults! :) We, as a general rule, let our ladies keep their "Lady-bizness" and that in itself is a blessing!
And to add on about the male circumcision . . . I dated a guy for a long time back in my misspent youth, who was the victim of an infantile circumcision gone wrong. He was a good looking guy, and his stuff "worked" but damn . . . that doc kind of jacked his shit up 10 ways to Sunday, if you know what I mean. His urinary tract didn't come out in the place where it "should" have if nature had been left to take its course. He was a good lover though, and took his time pleasing a lady, I have no complaints :)
But whatever doc had hold of him, butchered his shit, then apparently tried to put it all back after the fubar, and left it a little "wonky".
Nice metaphor - I wish I had thought of it. Check out this inspiring piece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h3-vbneMpE
Blood is the Life. People who want the culture without the People who created are like children who don't understand the story of the Golden Goose. Or to quote Kahil Gibran, like people who want the scent without the flower.
Just to be clear: culture or nurture is important too. Obviously genes aren't enough. We have always recognized both sides. They are the fanatics who say only Culture and that Genetics counts for nothing.
WTF
Peak Oil
No grow - no more
Pay more fucker
I have loans
Go get me that
No - you people leave me alone.
Hey Tripp, chill your jets! Don't let Soak/Asoka get under your skin man. Don't waste time with them. I did back in the day, and it irritated my mind. Ignore the irritants. Kinda like poison ivy. They come and go under different names. Layaway,Tootsie,spider etc.etc
They stir the pot,
Of witch's brew,
they speak the speak,
but what is true?
Quotin' scripture,
Get the picture?,
It's u or me
Who's right or wrong?
This me or you shit',
gets fuckin' old,
Were all together,
within the weather!
"Thats all I have to say about that!" "Forrest Gump"
So lets all please get along in here people. Thank you.
Maybe one of the problems isn't so much peak oil, but that the oil available to us now may very well not be available in the future. Just because we are able to sustain ourselves in a gross energy consumptive way today doesn't mean that avenue will be available to us in the future. Maybe that's what peak oil really means. It might mean that we have to begin re-scaling our lives in a downward trend in terms of energy consumption. Or maybe I'm expecting too much in terms of what our collective populace is willing/able to withstand. Just because something is here today doesn't mean it will be available to us tomorrow.
Post number 970!
And some quality posts, too.
I'm out 'till Sunday.
Y'all try not to hurt each other.
I'll be back.
Yes he does. You're Out.
Peak oil isn't the real issue. If oil isn't abiotically produced in the Earth, we'll find an alternate energy source when fossil fuels run out, I have no doubt about it.
The issue is not being able to handle our success on this planet. Biologically, success of a species is measured by its population numbers. Homo Sapiens has been wildly successful then. In fact, our success is what could bring us down because waste energy is being introduced into the environment in ever-increasing amounts.
Energy descent isn't a problem. We could adapt by living in harmony with nature, like Tripp does.
It's rapid energy increase that might kill us off. We've abused the Earth to the point where it can't adapt to US.
Fifty five million years ago the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was 10 to 20 times today's levels. The average world temperature went up almost 10 degrees F, and sea levels rose 13-19 feet. The oceans became acidified and many species perished. Yet life continued on.
The same thing is happening now. The big difference is that 55M years ago, the changes took place over 20,000 years. Today, great changes are occurring over decades - a rate 500-1000 times faster. The biosphere may well not be able to adapt fast enough.
It's not arrogance that got us to this point, everything that's now happening is happening as a natural consequence of our species' success. The arrogance is that we realize our situation and do nothing because we think we're smart enough to live outside nature.
It's all about overpopulation, but that's for another posting later.
"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"
subtitled
"Life at home with Rippedthunder"
1. "Get out of my way son, you're usin' my oxygen."
2. "Rules? PISS ON YOUR FUCKING RULES!"
3.Who's the head bull-goose loony around here?
4.Jesus Christ! D'you nuts wanna play cards or do ya wanna fuckin' jerk off?
5.Oh shit, the supervisor!
hahahaha that was one of my favorite movies of all time.
One more thing, related to the "giving birth, with or without anesthesia?" conumdrum. I've never given birth, and have NO plans to do so at the ripe old age of 42 now :) My sister had a very bad reaction to the drugs she was given with her first child, and it was so bad, that she opted to have her last two 100% natural. Her choice. She didn't have an epidural with the first, only whatever drugs they were pushing on her at the time, and they were not good for her, apparently. So I think it's an individual choice.
As for other uses of pain-killing drugs . . . I was at a renaissance festival last year, and had this hard-core Ren-freak in his muskateer outfit expounding to me about ALAS, I was NOT born in 1562, and I WISH I HAD BEEN :)~ I turned to the dude, with my beer in hand, and said . . . "I got two words for you, D'Artagnan . . . DENTAL ANESTHESIA!"
I don't think you can rightly call Soak "out". Nobody declared you the grand Poobah of "Peak Oil". You do not wear the crown. Perhaps neither does Soak. I don't think he made a grab for the crown. If anyone wears the Permaculture crown, it's Tripp. If he didn't call "outsies" on Soak, then I don't think you can either.
Soak may be wrong on certain things, but he states his case. Tripp disagrees. It's his right. But you can't sit in judgement and tag him as "out". Nobody gave you the crown, the robe, or the ruby slippers.
Soak,
I hereby re-indoctrate you into the church of Permaculture, E-Plurubus, Unum. Tripp will just have to get over it. It's like the Church. There are several different sects. You are the Martin Luther to Pope Pius x (?) . Go ahead and post your 95 Thesis. As the good Lord said, "There are many places at my table." So go ahead and have a seat. Just don't sit too near Vlad. I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn't like you. But then, I think there are a lot of people he doesn't like. So big whoop!
"Ok, tripp - guilty as charged, maybe? hehe
But Ptolemy? Where the heck did that come from?"
Ptolemy is what I call people who prefer the more complicated answer. Peak oil explains the landscape of everything going on right now so eloquently that deniers seem lost in their own prejudices to me.
"I'm more concerned about the IMPOSSIBILITY of a plan to replace fossil fuels. Because - 47 minutes or 47 years - it's not that long of a time period."
No, it's not that long of a time. I should still be alive 47 years from now, so it's definitely within my scope of concern. Is it a coincidence that 47 years puts the collapse just comfortably beyond Asoka's expected life span? Of course not. The foolish consistency I hear most from people when confronted with potential resource shortages is "sure, but not within my lifetime." As if that gives them some legitimate license to rape and pillage. Greedy, arrogant bastards.
But I really don't think it will take 47 years, considering the pattern is already underway. Asoka's just being contrary for contrary's sake. Which is pretty irritating.
Yo Digby, Soak does not even know why he has to leave a window open to run his evaporative AC system. I am not supporting Vlad the Impaler, far from it! . If someone installs a system and does not even under stand how it works, the system will fail. EVAC systems only work in the desert. There is no water in the desert. Most peeps can only live their under life support from outside inputs. That ain't goin' to be happin' in the next decades. Try to cool your house in the eastern US with an evaporative system. HAHA yea lets add more humidity to the air.
The primary forces of nature, Mr B.
http://youtu.be/zI5hrcwU7Dk
I hereby re-indoctrate you into the church of Permaculture
===============
indoctrate TeeHee, that's a good one.
MY SUMMARY OF TODAY'S EFFORT
The scarcity propaganda ("peak everything") only works to the advantage of TPTB.
Oil companies have an interest in making oil look more rare than it is, to justify higher prices. (investigative journalist Greg Palast has written about this). Oil producing countries also understate the extent of their reserves to drive up the price.
Frightened people are also more easily controlled, so crises are manufactured (see Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine) to keep people focused on their own survival, to keep people divided.
Same with the "debt crisis" and the "fiat money" crisis and the "fear of hyperinflation" crisis and the "government default" crisis. By perpetuating the belief that "we are broke" and in crisis, measures can be justified that would ordinarily not be accepted, like abolishing collective bargaining, social security, etc.
It all works better when the citizenry has a healthy dose of fear instilled in them and CFN helps instill this fear with its refrain: "we are soooo fucked"
Tripp said: "Is it a coincidence that 47 years puts the collapse just comfortably beyond Asoka's expected life span? "
----------------
Maybe you missed my answer to Digby today in which I expressed my concern for the seven generations to come and said it is not all about us (those currently alive)
Your charge and your apparent irritation is baseless.
I think we were discussing this kind of issue a week or two back . . .
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/110627/india-surgeries-turn-girls-boys-young-children
"Everybody knows, that the world is full of stupid people, so meet me at the mission at midnight, we'll divvy up there" - Banditos
They DO realize that these "boy-children" can't procreate and carry on their family name, right? RIGHT? :)
See, just calling it the church of permaculture was meant to irritate me. Irritating is what he does best. Damn that Soak...what a claim to fame.
I have a long list of fellow travelers and gadflies* who throughout history have been ostracized because they spoke their truth.
I make no apologies. I am polite. I provide facts. I cite my sources. As Vlad says, I make my case.
-------------------
*A gadfly is a person who upsets the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant.
Hey Q, Can o' worms here. Way back in the middle of the last century, 1960's, i was constantly being sent to the "special class" across the hall. I never could agree with my teachers in elemetary school. I was an uppity child so they sent me to sit with the "retards" as we called them at the time. Uh-Oh not PC. I was somewhat of an autodidact, when I learned how to read in (Kindneygarden) that was it. no more school for me.
Yes, yes, you have it all figured out. What a waste of time this discussion must be! So why are you still here? The rest of us have important things to talk about. Surely your time would be better spent living large with the rest of the cornucopians.
CORRECTION
As Digby says, I make my case.
Note to RT: I understood enough of the science and the local climate to understand that the greener way to go was an evaporative cooler, not air conditioning.
I openly admitted not being a scientist. Big deal. That does not disqualify me from doing research on my own and making decisions.
Surely your time would be better spent living large with the rest of the cornucopians.
------------
Your tone is irritating, Tripp.
I do live large, but I am not a cornucopian.
The things that I think are most important are:
1) Nuclear proliferation (rarely discussed here)
2) Global overpopulation (the focus here is USA immigration)
3) Environmental degradation (good discussion on CFN)
You need to chill, Tripp, and stop taking things personally.
hey Soak, no biggy, sorry if you feel i knocked ya. I was just sayin'. Your lucky you can use an evapoartive system. They won't work here in the humid NE. Do you have a deep well to supply the water for cooling?
Well, I'm glad I got some real work done today, because this dialogue with Soak has left me seriously wanting. Hey man, if there was anything actually novel in your thread I would've probably gotten a kick out of it.
By the way, the OED defines gadfly as
1) a large fly that bites livestock,
2) an annoying person.
I'm cool with your self-definition as gadfly. Later.
Do you have a deep well to supply the water for cooling?
--------------
Yes I'm all set for water.
You didn't knock me. It's just a fact that the laws of physics have won. They are there. They work. But damned if I can explain them!
I'm cool with your self-definition as gadfly. Later.
------------------
Thanks for that, Tripp. It is good to end the day amicably.
Prog we hardly knew ye.
Go back a post. I said "yes HE can not I can. Tripp is the Pope not me.
I never said you could think! I said you could spell and write clearly. Jefferson noted this strange disconnect in the Black mind too. Often verbal brilliance in sermons, yet when questioned, they were unable to explain what they meant. The verbal center is developed but not the centers of higher thought.
Vlad, I apologize for the misattribution. It was Digby who said I make my case, not you. I do hope your reputation is not sullied by my error.
""What purposes in the garden do ducks serve?""
You know, that has to be one of the dumbest questions I've ever seen on this site. No, not ridiculous - *dumb*.
What benefit could birds be to a garden? They eat bugs/slugs and rotten fruit/compost, and produce fertilizer (and eggs/meat - *DUH*!). You just have to keep them from eating your *crops* (which can be tricky at times)...
I still cannot have chickens on my property, but my sister, 12 miles away, in a different county (and 12 miles *CLOSER* to "downtown") can. (And my sister *in* downtown, can also have chickens - go figure that one out)
Or, I guess I can have chickens, until the neighbor's complain... Not much of a choice there (I prolly could convince 2 of my neighbors on the idea, but I don't really know the other 1 of the 3 neighbors, and they're 8 feet from my corner fence-line [shout to communicate])...
God damn it, again with the idol worshiping. I feel like smashing two stone tablets on your fscking imbecile goyishe skulls.
"In numerous previous posts you've said that Mexicans have paid and are paying into the system."
The last study I saw, about 1 year ago, stated that illegal Mexican immigrants payed almost 87% of the taxes that legitimate white folk did, that earned the same salaries.
This is something they know about, and they pay these taxes, as they know it will work in their favor, should they ever obtain legal citizenship.
But then, we don't really want 'darkies' here, picking our crops, doing our yardwork, and all the other mundane jobs you'll find maybe 1 in 20 white folk want to do (more like, less than 1 in 1000 white folk who will do those jobs)...
"we drove through a few neighborhoods, right there in 2010 AD, that made it clear that you were allowed this one chance to get out, but don't dare come back."
I'd argue that's all the result of our 30-year "war on drugs" (race war). I understand their suspicions; and unfortunately, we allowed/supported those laws that continue to strip them of life, liberty, and security.
In Alabama, apparently 70%+ of black males are felons, who cannot vote, as they were convicted of non-violent (drug-related) crimes (85% marijuana *ONLY*). All those southern states are like that - Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, etc. The KKK is still hard at work, and Vlad *solutes* them vigorously!
A MEXICAN WENT OFF ON ME TODAY...
Thats merely anecdotal...
..Are you sure of what Vlad thinks of our drug laws.
What a vicious and cruel assertion - you really are a monster. Anyway, don't let a M-80 tilt you sideways lest the ol'brain roll out of yer ear.
"Looks like the whole Strauss-Kahn case was a set-up."
I heard the first thing 'she' did, after the supposed *rape*, was to call her prison *contact*. WTF - ahaha, That sounds almost like an episode out of *OZ*.
Multiple *felon*, caught mega-lying numerous times about historical events she claimed to be true.
We do all remember why this is so - correct? His views were not in agreement with the indoctrination of elite-banksters!!!
So, will he get his position back? LOL!!!
'Any drive through the outer suburbs should certainly convince even the most pessimistic among us that there is more than enough room for many, many more immigrant'
Fool..they live in the hood...drive thru there
and see if you survive..Compton slowly is being ethnically cleansed.
Any drive through the inner city
should certainly convince even the most optimistic
among you that there is no more room for many, many more immigrants...........
1 billion new peeps every 12 years
yes the Number was a guess at both americas
die off....
Folks like ixnei and Wage dont get the
'TALE OF THE TROJAN HORSE'.
"The people's wealth has been stolen as surely as if armed agents had broken down their doors and looted their homes."
OMG, I *agree* with you. They've totally debased the US currency (save copper pennies and nickels) with their printing press schemes.
There - you *happy* now? We *agree*. I told you as much, last poast...
However, I'm still pretty sure you're not going to be eating gold anytime soon - unless it's that atomic white gold dust - I've heard it cures everything from *SNAKEBITE* to *STD's*...
Wage, you have given a lot of pertinent info on this board, through your own poasts and through links. I've found many of your links avant-guard (to say the *least*).
However, you are one who believes in the witchcraft/voodoo scalpel-butchery which we all call 'modern medicine'. Most people with "health problems" have them, either because they have been poisoned by carcinogenic hydrocarbons/heavy metals, or because they eat nothing but corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil. Cancer is clearly caused by the carcinogens we introduce into the air/water/land/*FOOD*. Breast cancer seems to effect almost 66% of women now - wonder why? Ever wonder why autism, which used to effect barely 1 in 10,000, now seems to effect 4 in 100 (mercury/heavy metals inoculations)?!?
You believe in your *witchcraft* - as you must, but I detest your $1,500/hour procedures that amount to *mostly* NIL, other than exponential *TREATMENTS*.
"I notice no one has cited a source, including methodology used, to support the assertion that we have already reached peak oil production."
Heh, Wait until next year. This year *WILL* be the hottest on record. *PERIOD*.
Next year (2012) will be even hotter.
Solar irradiance/sunspot cycle max happens very near 12/21/2012 (go figure, those FSCKing Mayans). 2013-2017 will be 'unimaginable'. As in, 130'+F in a *LOT* of places.
Asoka tries - but does he really want to be here then? I see him in a Hummer, getting 4MPG, and bitching about how his craft got kicked on its side, from the *wind*. Go figure, *wind*...
I've never been one for the peak oil thang - I've rather, been one for the "KEEP EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE HERE FOR AT LEAST A COUPLE HUNDRED MORE YEARS" - LOL.
Mars/Venus, here our atmosphere *COMES*.
"Yesterday I replied here"
Myrtle, if you really want to play, don't pretend you were slighted.
Tell your daughter to just give you those meds, and *SELL* them to *US*!!! Then you will make your stinky-budz-dealer happy (and yourself, even *HAPPIER*).
Enough, sock puppet. You were unconvincing with your first *POAST*.
"Talked to any Norse vikings lately? They were the first to discover the new world, a couple centuries before Columbus."
I've heard of *MANY* 4-8k BC settlements in the Eastern US.
'Sif any of that matters - My country, *right* or wrong. The vikings were a mere nuisance (but why did those *ASIANS* die off so far 'south' - they held their own, in the Arctic regions)...
Breast cancer seems to effect almost 66% of women now - wonder why? Ever wonder why autism, which used to effect barely 1 in 10,000, now seems to effect 4 in 100
==============
it's affect
(as Q groans and obsessively plods onward)
The essence of it all:
if you let Capitalism work then Contraction works. A much needed process. If you can't make it we don't need you.
in America today it is the new Socialism. Where liabilities of business are placed on the Tax payers and profits go to the company. In this mode Contraction will come in the flash of a blinding light.
and Vlad *solutes* them vigorously!
============
solute sol·ute (sŏl'y&oomacr;t, sō'l&oomacr;t)
n.
A substance dissolved in another substance, usually the component of a solution present in the lesser amount.
sa·lute /səˈlut/ Show Spelled
[suh-loot] Show IPA
verb -lut·ed, -lut·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. Military . to pay respect to or honor by some formal act, as by raising the right hand to the side of the headgear, presenting arms, firing cannon, dipping colors, etc.
2. to address with expressions of goodwill, respect, etc.; greet.
3. to make a bow or other gesture to, as in greeting, farewell, or respect.
I read the article and I read your rebuttal to "Soak". Soak is apparently too young to remember the last bout of inflation that ran from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
I don't know what your experience or observations were. I remember it well. It was a time of high stress and anxiety. Inflation ate everyone's savings and earnings. I didn't know anyone whose wages were keeping up with constant price increases. Mortgage rates were a serious drain on household incomes. If you were a saver you could take advantage of high deposit rates. The problem was that interest income was/is taxed so that after tax you still lost.
Up here in Canada we had constant strikes and disruptions. By the early 1980s the old industries that had formerly employed millions in N. America were reduced to boarded up and abandoned hulks. Even stock investors suffered. The Dow ended in 1982 where it was in 1966 and inflation would have eaten those investments.
The saying that central banks "fight" inflation is wrong. I agree with the idea that inflation is always and everywhere the creation of govts through their central banks. It may reduce a govt's indebtedness. It also reduces the value of the cash in your bank account. It's akin to govt stealing money right out of your account. Fine if you're rich. Not so fine if you're not. Low wage earners have least power to keep up with inflation and they are well and truly screwed.
There may be people that are blithely unconcerned about inflation but there are hundreds of millions of poor people in the world that are in dire condition because of it and would beg to differ.
Bond markets may be smiling now. But that's what the "geniuses" running these markets do. They're fine, they're bullish and then they panic. And then watch interest rates rocket into space. Bernanke and his ilk are reckless beyond belief.
The last study I saw, about 1 year ago, stated that illegal Mexican immigrants payed almost 87% of the taxes that legitimate white folk did, that earned the same salaries.
============
To be honest, I don't know how this works. If an illegal immigrant gets a job, say, as a hospital employee and the hospital has the new employee fill out all the forms so personnel/payroll knows whose SS# should be credited with the amounts withheld for income tax, SS, unemployment, etc. what happens? Are illegals permitted to get legitimate SS cards/numbers? If not, does the illegal simply dream up an SS number to fill in on the employer's forms. What happens when the IRS informs the hospital they have no record of a Jose Rodriguez with that SS#?
I would love to know how that 87% figure was arrived at. Here is my guess:
Virtually all of the illegals are employed in menial day-labor type jobs .. nannies, house cleaners, farm hands, assistants to contractors (as described in a previous post) and no tax is withheld. At the end of a long hard day they are handed $80 or $100 in cash. The analyst determines that the annual gross income of virtually all these illegals is low enough that no tax would have been due even if proper tax returns were filed. The missing 13% (i.e. 100% - 87%) is probably the combined employee and employer portions of SS that were never paid in.
BTW, I hope that 87% figure ONLY dealt with taxes on earned income and had nothing to do with state sales taxes which would completely muddy the waters.
Ixnei sweetie, WTF? How is this related to my post, or Bubblehead's?
It is truly bizarre for you to imply that I would have to accept an adult's decision on their own body as some kind of defeat.
I am all for letting adults decide to circumcise themselves if they choose. The same with women. If they choose a clidoridectomy, when they are adults, let them.
It is disingenuous of you to imply that Asoka and I are for female clidoridectomy, because we are against circumcision.
We are against both. And I'm against both female and male rape. I don't think it's funny to joke about prison rape of males.
And I think that ear piercing should be the decision of the individual also.
People who put earrings in their babies ears and then send them to day care, where other babies rip them out, are disgusting, in my book.
I used to have a swamp cooler, and I didn't know you were supposed to leave a window open. It still doesn't make sense to me. There's plenty of air in a house that can move around.
Really, a fan and a squirt bottle does the same thing.
But you're right, not where it's humid. No point there. Now I use a fan and sweat.
Old encyclopedias! I wish I could post an image I scanned from my old (circa mid '70's) World Book. It was economics 101, depicting the cycle of supply and demand. The farmer grows the crop, sells it to the baker, the baker makes bread, the customer buys the bread, the money goes to the bank, the banker lends money for the farmer to grow the grain. Of course, that was back when there was still some small thread connecting stocks and investments to the real world. Oh, the good old days.
That happened to my neighbor's child.
She signed the circumcision form, and then listened as the hospital operator frantically overhead paged the urologist.
The pediatrician majorly botched the job and mangled the penis of her baby. He had to have reconstructive surgery.
Here's one problem I have with the peak oil discussion. Oil becomes scarce, price goes up, eventually there are no partial measures that can be taken to ameliorate this, so prices go WAY UP. Here's where I think we forget history and human nature and economics and all that. Once the price goes kaflooey, OTHER ALTERNATIVES will become more desirable, production and design accelerates. Demand falls. Isn't that kind of basic? I can't imagine a scenario where our dependence remains completely unaffected by skyrocketing prices.
'Barons' has a cover story this weekend stating oil will go to $150 per barrel this fall, for all the obvious reasons. No worries, though, as they conclude "We can handle it". The 'recover' will remain on track.
I'm thinking, what recovery?
-Marlin
... OTHER ALTERNATIVES will become more desirable, production and design accelerates. - Auntie
In theory that should happen. In the 1990s the price of oil was around 10 bucks a barrel. It's now around 10 times as much. At one point it was around 150 bucks. So in theory there should be alternatives galore out there being developed.
The question is where are they? Electric motors in place of internal combustion engines? Electricity generated by what? Nukes? Solar? Wind? What else? Anti matter? Dilithium crystals?
How practical are they? People say nukes are too dangerous and expensive. Wind and solar are great if and when the sun shines and the wind blows. But that supply can be intermittent. And nimbys hate wind turbines because they clutter the landscape, kill birds and make noise. And there's studies, no doubt, that say they cause cancer.
Well, thanks, but you have me partially wrong.
I do believe in modern medicine for trauma, diabetes care, bacterial infections, and other treatable, curable problems.
I don't think that medical care can cure that which wrong policies create.
I wrote to Barack Obama back in 2008, when he was soliciting ideas on health care. Yes, I was stupid enough to think that he would take my ideas, along with everyone else's, into consideration, because as an Illinois State Senator, he was for single payer health care.
But I pointed out then, that unless the US quit subsidizing corn and cars, that medical care would never be affordable in the US.
Since the agricultural policy changed in the 70s and 80s, to paying farmers to produce more and more corn, thousands of US farmers have lost their farms, millions of animals suffer in horrendous conditions, and US obesity has skyrocketed. Land which could be left fallow is farmed with pesticides and herbicides, producing 6,000 calories of corn per American, poisoning wells, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico. For what? To produce unhealthy Americans. To dump corn onto Mexico, driving their small farmers out of business. To burn it in cars!!!
This is crazy. And it's crazy to subsidize cars, not even considering peak oil.
Burning oil produces air pollution and global warming. Drilling oil is environmentally damaging. Car crashes cost billions in trauma, brain damage, paraplegia and other treatment. Attacking other countries to get their oil is immoral and contributes to health care costs for damaged veterans.
We need to quit subsidizing corn, break up the giant farms, take some land out of production, plant more trees, produce enough food for Americans, and let other countries produce their own food.
We need to quit subsidizing cars, and build walkable communities.
Watch the cost of medical care fall then!
I don't like many things we do in medicine. That's why I prefer ER to NICU. I couldn't stand torturing babies. In ER, I'll try to explain to some dumbass person with a cold that antibiotics don't work on viruses, but if they insist, I just tell myself that it's their body and their decision.
I'm pretty consistent that way.
But things like continuing chemo on a clearly near dead person, just to keep the money flowing, C-sections on 1/3 of all pregnant women, resuscitation efforts on a already dead person, cardiac caths on people who don't need them, and gastric bypass on obese people, when stopping corn subsidies would work better---all these things bug me, even if the patients go along with them.
This is crazy. And it's crazy to subsidize cars, not even considering peak oil.
=============
Wage, in my book it's crazy to subsidize ANYTHING. Let the "invisible hand" work its magic. It's a friggin genius.
Hello RT! Uncle Ned just told me you're a Southwickian! Uncle Ned and I used to live off Rt 57 in Tolland - a 3 yr foray into real simple living. Uncle built wood furnishings, I painted them, and made art for the the galleries in G.B, Lee and Lenox. Of course we was dirt poor! A visit to Mrs. Murphy was a real splurge! We spent many an hour in Granville State Forest. One spring we crossed paths with a black bear that was WAY bigger than the usual. Awesome yet scary! Just out of hibernation! Yikes. Saw a mountain lion too, a real catamount I'm sure. I remember our first trip to the "new" Finast in Winsted (it was 1990) We were like the Beverly Hillbillies, staring slack jawed at the endless gleaming rows of artfully placed foodstuffs.
Good on you for your July 4th duty call! I'm glad to know there's a local CFNer who seems a genuine nice guy!
Solar will make a huge dent after it reaches the tipping point of large scale demand, which is coming sooner that you might think from Japan, and believe it or not, the middle east, as well as china. Solar technology that is simple, kind of like roof tiles, on less than 50% of buildings in major cities could provide a huge amount of power for cities.
Just because we don't know all the solutions now doesn't mean they're not out there. When computers were giant mainframes spitting out piles of perforated punch cards, we couldn't imagine all that computing power in a tiny phone the size of an envelope, nor could we envision the internet. (well Gene Rodenberry did imagine the ipad!)
Thanks for responding! I do love your wonderful common sense attitude about things. Go Canada! (I have family in Toronto)
But women have been conditioned to prefer the circumcised penis. Uncircumcised men will be unable to pass on their genes and therefore "die out".
The above is a parallel to Trip's belief that morality is a function of rainfall. If someone sees an unguarded object that he/she wants, instead of taking it right away, they first consult an almanac.
Pure Cant. Study Ken Wilbur's four quadrants. Morality is not reduceable to science - nor science to morality. Sociological concerns are their own "thing" too. Ditto Philosophical. Any given issue or problem will have its begining or home in one of the quadrants, but it will ramifications in the other three. As Aquinas puts it, "We distinguish. We do not separate."
But we do get the Public or Civic morality that we can afford. Soon people will have to take care of their own old folks - or they will die alone. That's the way it has been througout all of human history. The last 65 years in the West have been a pure anamoly historically speaking. The incredible wealth really played havoc with our morality and social bearings. It's all over with now. The wealth has been squandered or is safely locked up in a few hands. They sit on it like dragons waiting for the end of this civilization. They plan to be the Lords of the Next. Yes, it will be an Aristocracy. All that Democracy and Communism crap was just a ruse to do exactly what they have done.
The invisible hand would chop down every tree in the world if given a free hand. White Man Think Again. (the title of a great book about the Fall of South Africa).
The invisible hand (ie the competitive economic system where people pursue their own self interest) usually works. No doubt it creates but sometimes this invisible hand turns into a clenched fist and it destroys.
When we had our little financial crisis a few years ago what this invisible fist would have done, if govt hadn't intervened, was to send the financial system over the cliff. The big players, the men with tall foreheads, all told us the financial system was staring into the abyss. Maybe it should've gone into the abyss. Maybe that's where the whole dysfunctional, corrupt mess belonged.
The Great Depression was no fun with 30% unemployment, hunger and deprivation. They say it was the result of bad govt fiscal and monetary policy, that govts of the day turned a crisis into a calamity and there's some truth to that. But my sense is that people don't give enough weight to the laws of financial gravity (based on the principle that there's no such thing as a free lunch) in combination with that clammy, merciless invisible hand/fist. Both these factors IMO were instrumental in wrecking the economy and financial system and then in reconstructing them on a more sustainable basis.
And the Great Depression also did something else besides destroying what wasn't working and that was to inculcate a generation with the values of thrift, hard work, self disciplne and self denial, values that we sneer at nowadays. I think it was our collective denigration of these ideas about personal conduct that gave us the mess we have today. What govts did in trying to save the system was to keep this invisible hand/fist from re-teaching the lessons our grandparents and parents learned.
One other thing about the role of govt. A few years ago one of our meat packers up here cranked out tainted meat which sickened and killed dozens of people. How could this happen with a meat inspection regime run by govt? It turns out that govt inspectors were attending meat packing plants but were spending most of their time doing paperwork and not inspecting. No doubt that the invisible hand could be left to choke to death companies that produce contaminated food but only after a lot of people die. So that's why you can't leave everything to this invisible hand and why sometimes you need govts wide awake and doing their job. Trust but verify as Gorby said a long time ago.
You do realize that every baby boy is born uncircumcised, don't you, Vlad?
Circumcision is not passed through the genes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd41_yPLRHU
None dare call it race. Except the Commentators (the people). The cell phone camera and youtube have opened countless White Eyes to the Truth. Increasingly, the Internet is a White Nationalist Lake - which is why they will have to shut it down or control it.
Apart from that, Curtis Sliwa has it right: youth need uniforms and berets - just not black ones. Structure in other words, and kind but strict paternal guidance. Let us make you constructive citizens of society - not like those space motorcycle creeps in that Lost in Space episode.
Read the next paragraph dummy.
Pucker pointed out, "Bustin J. wrote: "...smiling as if they just breast-fed their own infant children..."
A couple of weeks ago, I met a Chinese woman who said that her daughter works for an "investment bank in New York." She said that her child "...hates it, and is miserable."
So much for the multicultural marketing motif."
Yes, Public Relations. A good book I would recommend on their manifold and nefarious ways would be "Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies, and Public Relations" - http://tinyurl.com/3ms29a7
Whenever I see ad copy which features the well-coiffed, smiling, beatific family unit, I figure the reality is probably the exact opposite.
Having worked in the marketing/Ad sector, briefly, I know what a gigantic pile of shit it is. The power of a slick ad campaign on the unassuming brain is mind-boggling. Also see: Adbusters
The Truth covers a multitude of Sins. That's hard for a liar like you to understand.
OK, annoying. I tried to post something for the women of CFN, and the blog police blocked it.
Sexist pig!
Wage, we've had this conversation before but I'm circumsized and I don't have any memory of it and I'm not bitter about it. They say that being circumsized is more sanitary. I wouldn't know because I have no point of comparison. But it sounds like common sense to me. Given that guys past the age of about 12 will hump anything softer and pinker than themselves or otherwise stick their dicks places they shouldn't be, don't you think that maybe it might help keep them from catching and passing on nasty diseases? Isn't that a good thing? Maybe that was the whole point of circumcision in the first place. Smart people those ancient Jews.
Paranoia, Paranoia
LSD, LSD
Black Kids make it,
White Kids take it,
Why can't we,
Why can't we
The women of CFN? Is there a calendar in the works? And you will be the month of May.
OK, I'll try this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuk-h2ZYNJU&feature=relmfu
I feel the same: a wood chip factory near my house has "Saftey is our first concern" in giant letters on the building. I just assume it is therefore a very dangerous place to work. Why would decent people advertise their decency? They don't.
I'm too dumb to understand what the hell your point was.
My dear child, you really are insane, aren't you? There, there, it's going to be alright, truly it is. Now rest your weary head on mamma's bossom and sleep (I'll play mamma if you wish, honey child).
You keep mentioning sock puppets. I thought you were referring to a ventriloguist, Sheri Lewis, who had a sock puppet named "Lamb Chop". You're probably not old enough to know what I'm talking about, but truly, there really was such a person and a sock puppet. It was really kind of cute.
But now you are calling all kinds of folks sock puppets. Auntie, Asoka, me. Do yo really imagine we're all out to get you? Can you possibly be that misguided and deranged, dearest angel?
Please take the time to google "Sheri Lewis and Lamb Chop" when you awaken from your dreams. Lamb Chop is the only sock puppet my generation has ever played with (used to make them with the children). Now get some rest. Love, Auntie Myrtle xxooo
Plus they spelled it wrong.
"But women have been conditioned to prefer the circumcised penis. Uncircumcised men will be unable to pass on their genes and therefore "die out"."
In my experience, women find things about a man to like, and when the penis comes out, the lights are usually out. Women don't care, I'm forced to conclude.
Now, I might recommend that women inspect the penis carefully for things like lesions and rashes... I suppose the fact they generally don't is reflected in the STD statistics.
But generally, they don't look.
And fundamentally, you are mistaken. All men are born uncircumcised. :)
Sometimes you're admirably skeptical, but sometimes you parrot the bullshit they feed you unchanged.
And now, A Bill Mollison quote bombing...
Bill Mollison, on taxing lawns
I wonder what happened to our California beach girl who stirred up so many “ From Here To Eternity “ fantasies among the many Burt Lancaster wannabes here on CFN? At any rate, I was watching one of those before and after weight loss commercials and the female pronouncing her weight loss seems very proud and elated in her testimonial. Upon closer inspection of both photos, however, I had to conclude she looked better in the before photo. She seemed more vital, healthy, and most glaringly, far more feminine. I thought to myself this might be a mirror of our nation - narcissistic, deluded, and lacking in sensibility. But then a Shirley Temple DVD commercial immediately followed the weight-loss spot and I had to conclude the obvious: Same as it always has been.
TT sayd, "that doc kind of jacked his shit up 10 ways to Sunday, if you know what I mean. His urinary tract didn't come out in the place where it "should" have if nature had been left to take its course. "
Yeup, and herein lies the truth: Circumcision is unnecessary surgery on individuals who are fundamentally unable to consent.
...sometimes you parrot the bullshit they feed you unchanged. - Wage
Could you be more specific?
$ saids, "Wage, we've had this conversation before but I'm circumsized and I don't have any memory of it and I'm not bitter about it. They say that being circumsized is more sanitary. I wouldn't know because I have no point of comparison. But it sounds like common sense to me."
Who is they? And who ever told you that common sense equates to unnecessary surgery on infant genitals?
What you really need is your septum pierced with a sharpened bone, a loincloth, and a one-way ticket to New Guinea because you are not fit for the Internet age. Go bring the gospel of circumcision to a new tribe of humans and see if you can make it stick.
"Given that guys past the age of about 12 will hump anything softer and pinker than themselves or otherwise stick their dicks places they shouldn't be, don't you think that maybe it might help keep them from catching and passing on nasty diseases? Isn't that a good thing? Maybe that was the whole point of circumcision in the first place. Smart people those ancient Jews. "
The salient question here is, does it help prevent (diseases)? Well, does it, punk? Can you use the interwebs to get informations?
- http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/
Methinks unnecessary surgery was likely far more dangerous then. Premature death and/or disfigurement inflicted on infants should be the point at which any sane, moral, ethical, modern person concludes the barbarity of this practice. But not you. No, you are one foreskin short of a truth-boner.
I have noticed something about you Cash... you never do your own research, and you always waffle your opinion toward the status quo...
MMMM, Duck Soup. I'll have some please. My new cat visits my toilet and always trys to drink even though she has her own clean water. Is she trying to get nutrients? Is it some misguided kind of worship?
As Ann Coulter says, Liberals would love to drink Obama's bath water.
No, few care. I know. Mostly only men check each other out down there. My point was a very heavy handed and spoof on Trip's Marxist view of morality. Believe it or not Ripley, I know that men aren't born circumcised.
Check out the new Graphic Novel "Foreskin Man" - an Aryan Hero fight evil Jewish Moyles (sp?) to save his Son from cutting. He passes his son onto the Intactivist Underground (WAGE!!!). The Author is part of the San Francisco Movement. The Jews are screaming bloody murder. As usual.
http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/06/jews-menaced-by-comic-book/#more-14311
I forgive you drearie.
Hey Auntie River, is that the Farmington River, the Connecticut River, or the Salmon River?
Maybe I'll see you and Uncle Ned in Winsted tomorrow afternoon, a CFN rendevous at the Iron Rooster, I'll buy you a beer, toast Uncle Sam's 235th birthday.
-Marlin, Chief of Staff
CFNation Post 1
YD New England Chapter
Great website, Bustin. A short perusal led me to an interesting 1890 defense of male and female circumcision, which I tried to cut and paste, but the blog police snatched it.
I will try to post separately.
I didn't realize that they were talking about preventing disease way back then. I thought it was about preventing masturbation by removing the most sensitive part of the penis, the part that also protects the head from drying and friction.
One person I read pointed out that cutting off the foreskin turns an internal part of the body into an external part, with the deadening effect that that causes considered a plus for masturbation opponents.
Here's the perfect soundtrack for looking out over all those little white crosses in the Westwood, CA. Military Cemetery. An infusion of art?
...I don't seem to able to help myself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oav6I0DcfY
All right. That went through, but the next one didn't. Let me try cutting it up.
It's for Prog and the cultural relativists, with a little extra for Vlad.
As a parallel we can now learn that the girl who becomes irritable, disagreeable and hysterical may become charming, interesting and possessed of all feminine graces when her prepuce is forcibly peeled away from the glans of the clitoris, and we have made a distinct step forward in civilization when this fact is generally appreciated by the profession.
The importance of preputial adhesions in the female will be doubted by some observers and overestimated by others, just as is the case with heterophoria; but those of us who try to take an intermediate position will know that while some patients are strong enough to withstand one or both of these conditions for a lifetime, there are countless numbers who sink beneath the load that seats itself so insidiously that the patient herself does not realize what she is carrying until neurasthenia untunes her resisting power.
OK! Now the Vlad part-
"1. The prepuce and the glans clitoridis are bound together by adhesions, partly or completely, in about eighty per cent of all Aryan American women.
2. Preputial adhesions are rare among Negresses, and seem to occur in only a few of the individuals possessing a large admixture of white blood."
"The salient question here is, does it help prevent (diseases)?"
One of the most glaring issues I see in this discussion is a gross misconception of what exactly a foreskin is. There seems to be this prevailing idea that the foreskin is a sheath that slides up to cover the head of the penis as we recognize it. Not true. The head of the penis we all see below us was created by the circumcision. The foreskin isn't a sheath. It doesn't envelope anything. It's just loose skin around the distal end of the penis. It stretches out perfectly when erect, and nothing pops out of it, the skin behind the very tip just smooths out. My circumcised penis, on the other hand, when erect, is stretched like a Chinese girl's eyes when she's wearing pigtails.
It's not any more unsanitary than a circumcised version when washed in the same way with soap upon occasion. My wife makes awesome soap. My son's foreskined penis is totally healthy. As is my cut version.
Circumcision is a purely religious ritual, and should be discarded by rational people. Here again hubris seems to be the underlying factor. We can list a hundred ways in which we think we've improved on Nature's design, and the more I travel down this road, the more I realize that every single one of them is wrong.
For example, I stopped wearing sunglasses a couple of years ago - I wasn't created, nor did I evolve with sunglasses, so why would I wear them? - and my eyesight has improved 5 points, even as I approach 40 years old. But what about those UVB rays?? Oh yeah. Did I tell you my vision is 5 points stronger than it was 2 years ago? Maybe UVB rays aren't the devil they are made out to be. Maybe, you know, since they are part of the spectrum of sunlight under which we evolved, they are actually GOOD for us.
Just waiting for the optometrist who makes a living from the sale of glasses to pipe up and object...
You seem to internalize a lot of what they tell you on TV and accept it as truth.
Not so much with the economy, because of your previous profession, I guess, but definitely with 9-11, and now, with circumcision.
Check out the website that Bustin linked to, for information that will counter that which you heard from corporate media.
"As Ann Coulter says, Liberals would love to drink Obama's bath water."
I sure hope you never make the mistake of counting me a liberal. Or a Coulter fan.
OK, just one more quote.
"5. The failure of the embryonic genital eminence to properly develop the prepuce and the glans clitoridis for perfect cleavage undoubtedly means that nature is trying to abolish the clitoris as civilization advances."
Yes, true civilization means no clitoris!!
The white doctor has spoken.
May God Bless Barbie (...not Klaus)
"Please take the time to google "Sheri Lewis and Lamb Chop" when you awaken from your dreams."
You insult me! Of course I know who Lamb Chops is. Maybe if you had 'reefer'd to Howdy Doody, but even then, I knew about that puppet (though a good 10+ years before my time).
When I 'reefer' to sock puppets, I'm talking about the circa-mid-90's newsgroup definition of that terminology. As in, a person creates multiple anonymous personalities, and communicates with one's self, usually in a supportive manner.
Heh, OK Auntie Myrtle. I got my eye on you's.
""and Vlad *solutes* them vigorously!""
d00d, cut me some slack - I was down 2 fifths by that time.
A before O, when Q is in Xe...
No, but your hunter gatherer descendants will keep the sacred book Das Kapital in their ritual room along with the shrunken heads.
I see you as Ish in the great ecological scifi novel, "The Earth Abides". Your every idol gesture is going to be copied by your superstitious descendants and followers. You will try to impart science to them, but it will inevitably just be seen as magic.
Now that I've answered your question, what about my cat damn it. Why does she want to drink from the toilet? Anybody?
I gotta pretty good idea what kitty is thinkin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDtCa8ZgAk4
But, really man, call your vet.
Nuclear plants fueld by thorium and cooled by liquid sodium instead of pressurized water are safer than the currently standard uranium plants and have additional advantages such as substantially cheaper fuel cost and lower levels of radiation which also are not radioactive for as long a period of time as the waste produced by today's plants.
You see a toilet bowl, she sees a big reservoir of water with your lingering smell. My cat used to drink out of the bowl, then switched to a regular bowl. My wife has allergies and usually has a scratchy throat, so she'd put a glass of water on her dresser next to the bed. My cat climbed onto the bed and drank out of the glass. Now he doesn't use the toilet bowl OR his regular water bowl, but only drinks out of the glass.
"Then, we mixed the powdered milk in. I cannot tell you how bad it tasted!"
I absolutely *LOVE* powdered milk. However, I would never drink it with just water. It's great in coffee/tea/hot chocolate, bread, and pancakes/waffles/etc. Mom knows some folks who claim you mix it with water, and let it sit a few hours in the fridge, then it tastes just like milk. I don't drink milk anymore, so I have no desire to reconstitute powdered milk. But, I always use it in bread and waffle recipes, and my daily coffee (might quit coffee soon, 2x price increase isn't really worth it; tea provides me enough caffeine, and it's not too hard to go the chai spicy/chocolate milk route).
Whoa, just heard a story about how some woman video'd a cop giving parking tickets in front of her house, for being further than 1 foot from the curb. She had evidence this guy was fraudulently ticketing on her 'ipod' (iphone? whatever). Apparently, later that night her house was robbed, but all they (i.e. the corrupt cop) took was the 'ipod'...
Heard yet another one about some guy who raped an unconscious woman, that had passed out on the sidewalk in the heat. He just mounted here right then and *there*... His defense? "I thought she was dead." Is this really the reality we live in?
Another note: Apparently Michigan's govt shut down a couple days ago, they're broke - they've closed down their state parks. However, they are still continuing to advertise on CNN and MSNBC, "Come visit Michigan this summer holiday." Unreal.
OK. So I consulted our resident Plump Fat Pussa. She said, and I quote, "Is there anything more persistent or toxic than cat saliva? Just try and stop me....if you think that you can. HAHAHAHAHA!
For you and Eleuthero- I think you're quoted in it-
http://www.theonion.com/articles/department-of-education-study-finds-teaching-these,18461/
Maybe it's improved since then.
Yeah, the cops are out of control, and the reaction to youtube's documentation of it is to outlaw cellphone tapings of police brutality.
Just like after Abu Grahib, they outlawed pictures of torture.
Problem solved!
Welfare Mothers
Make Better Lovers
-Neil Young
If memory serves, there was once a 5-piece band who cleverly named themselves The Fore Skins.
"Mexico is an object lesson"
A before O, when Q is in Xe...
Obviously, Q has his X-hairs extremely tunnel-visioned...
He just mounted here right then and *there*... His defense? "I thought she was dead." Is this really the reality we live in?
=============
This is sort of a variation of the John Edwards defense: When asked how, as a married man with a family and a wife who was suffering from cancer, he could be so low as to have sex and father a child with another woman, and he matter-of-factly explains that his wife's cancer was in remission.
Late-night talk show comedian writers could not think shit up that's this good.
Do me a favor. Trace the root of the word "necrophilia".
Wage,
If you want to understand the medical system you need to watch this 10min video clip:
The Rockefeller Drug Empire
http://t.co/YI6MEMN via @youtube
Sorry you'll have to hoot and holler without me and Uncle Ned. What is the name of the river in Granville State Forest? Of course, we love to bike along the Connecticut river, where we now live. Make a toast to Auntie and Uncle, who will be sitting around a friend's bonfire with the kids, making S'mores while Ozone rocks the house.
Ozone Rocks The House? ...ehhh got any audio samples on ya? And you Ozone, YOU! Don't be so fuckin' shy.
Hello Sweeties!
THE ONLY WATER IN THE FOREST IS THE RIVER.
Marlin was asking "what river?" and Ixnei seems to think that I'm Myrtle May.
Auntie River (who isn't the sweet and lovely Myrtle May) sees the world a little differently than you might think. But that happens when you hang around the doctor.
""He just mounted here right then and *there*""
I can't believe you didn't correct that obvious 'brain-fart' error (her, nor here). But, thx anywaze. I never really understood why there are so many words 'en Englais' that mean almost exactly the same thang, but are spelled differently by a single letter (a/effect) - seems inefficient and ineffectual. I'm guessing the Chinese language doesn't suffer from these sorts of quirks (tho I may be wrong, as I don't speak 'Chinois'). 80k different symbols could be a hurtle, tho...
Oh, gotta ask you about this one, "a guy on bicycle stopped." Is that really proper English? I mean, I understand the Brits like to say stuff like, "I was in hospital", but it doesn't really sound right without 'a'/'the'...
Perhaps 'bicyclist' would have been most efficient. I'm always looking for efficiency, without the dual-meaning issues (I often write thangz, which sound completely antipodal to my original intent, I re-read them). As in, did I just 'read' that, or was that something I 'read' a long time ago...
I have to admit, I got 30 on my ACT back in the early 80's. I only got 26 on the English portion - so I'm not an English scholar by any means.
(when) I re-read... - D'oh!!!
"THE ONLY WATER IN THE FOREST IS THE RIVER."
Aren't there also lakes and aquifers in forests as well? I'm not sure what you mean...
"Nuclear plants fueld by thorium and cooled by liquid sodium"
I've recently heard claims that most (all?) current coal factories are readily/easily convertible to Thorium reactors. Thorium reactors avoid producing the toxic radioactive Cesium 'variants' - but they don't produce Plutonium (no more COLD WAR WEAPONRY - *OH NOES*)...
And, I hear there's a *HUGE* stockpile of fuel-able Thorium from Hanford (talk about a toxic dump - have they finally cleaned up all the 55 gallon drums of radioactive sludge, buried in the riverside *swamp*?). However, I also heard another story about how the US Govt was trying to *destroy* all of the remaining Thorium (LOL - WTF?)...
And my epiphany in January 2009? Was that the snakebite that spared me a worse fate?
By my reckoning there is far more magic in this world than the scientific West allows. I'm OK with your indictment for the moment. I have faith that the generations that follow us, especially the ones who live outside of Cartesian dualism, will know better than we do, because of our unfortunate position on the energy timeline. The searing question in my mind is, will I listen to them when they challenge me? If I can answer that in the affirmative then I think I will have a decent grasp of energy descent.
eeeyoooo! Trying to destroy it how?
"Another note: Apparently Michigan's govt shut down a couple days ago, they're broke - they've closed down their state parks. However, they are still continuing to advertise on CNN and MSNBC, "Come visit Michigan this summer holiday." Unreal."
I don't know, Ix, seems like the smartest place to put your "money" if you're Michigan. Not like industry's raking them in these days.
Mexico and the u.s. Are very different places than they were in the 60's. Mexico was a safer place in the 90's than now. Corruption has always affected people's everyday lives there more than here. Interesting that you admit being a hater. Of Texas?
I am unable to divulge details. I've had business associates of mine say that the had an easier time establishing small manufacturing enterprises in Russia than they did in Mexico. Cost of graft and all. You understand.
"increased CO2, solar radiation, and temperature - it's all good. The trees will just grow that much faster!!"
Kinda quoted semi-outta context (so sue me, 1 fifth down). Regardless, Once you cut those trees down, you allow all remaining topsoil to runoff, and silt up the rivers (what are *those* consequences). Trees will NOT grow easily in the leached/concreted acidic clay clearcut, without a lot of babysitting. And let's not forget what happens, when you go all-out single-species regrowth (all it takes is for 1 pathogen to get established, and say goodbye to your single-species *forest*).
I know, you were being *IRONIC/SARCASTIC* - Mr. Forest *OWNER*. I own a forest too - in my imagination/dreams... Or in the words of my Native American Indians (bwah! they're all dead now)...
Dammit. 2nd sentence. Replace "the" with "they".
Sincerely,
Peter Ustinov
"I don't know, Ix, seems like the smartest place to put your "money" if you're Michigan. Not like industry's raking them in these days."
My point was that the commercials were all about visiting their *parks*, the very same *parks* they've closed a couple days ago. And they're still spending advertizing $$$ to bait people into that scam.
Just more of the same *bait and switch* fraud we see everywhere, now. Oh well! Who cares, others do it slightly *worse* (whatever that means)...
"Trying to destroy it how?"
*EXACTLY* That's what I found so absurd - you can't destroy it. But you can dump it out in 6-mile deep ocean trenches (alongside many other 55 gallon drums of toxic waste, dumped since the early 50's)...
As the work & tax model dies just a little bit more...a little bite more...a little bit more...
"I hate when you're like this, Soak"
I loved it when he was spouting utter BULLSH!T about how he was the penultimate permaculture d00d, years before you even poasted here.
No one called him on it, as it was so utter BULLSH!T, that everyone knew the sock-puppet was running out of valid material to argue, so he went for a simple *FLAME*.
As I said about 6 months ago, this guy (and his 3-6 other sock-puppets) are a single late teen-age *master* debater, and 'they' can argue one side just as simply as the other - and they flip-flop just as *SIMPLY*, for the *troll*.
"I find it hard to read the comments when it devolves into a me good-you bad discussion."
When the atmosphere is literally boiling off the planet, and we continue to exponentially burn/poison/frak all remaining land/air/water/*FOOD*, I'm not quite sure I can agree with there being a *ME GOOD* hypothesis. Unless, of course, that banker-James-wannabe is back, bragging about his company doing $24 million in business with the Military/Industrial complex, and him guzzling 100 gallons a week in his hummer/sportster...
But hey, anyone can read anything into any of these *POASTS*, I suppose...
"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen."
Nobody knows it, nobody knows it!!! LOL, Marley *indeed*.
Time for a global prayer - why *ACT*, when we can continue to over-consume and over-pollute - all-the-while, begging our *SAVIOR* for *penance*...
Soak - take your pedantic religious fluff, and *STUFF IT*. GHAD will not save you from your own actions - you are the one who can change those actions (sock-puppet) - not some mythical non-existent *BEING*. Or, do you enjoy religious wars (LOL - contradiction anyone)?
When I was a teenager in Indiana we had "The Dancing Cigarettes". Pretty good name. Great band. Horn section and everything. I had my own hip-hop ensemble in the late nineties in Los Angeles called "Civilized Motherfuckers". Unless you're a 18th Street Gang-Banger from Highland Park, don't bother to look it up. Most places were a little reluctant to put that up on the marquee. But, my all time (personal) favorite band-name, again, from Indiana a long time ago, "Jiff & The Choosey Mothers".
It's almost always evolutionary. Hardly ever revolutionary.
Texas. I once had a friend who was a professional boxer before he shot himself in the head and killed himself. He was a very good featherweight fighter and he liked the way I held the gloves so he invited me down to San Antonio for one of his fights in Sunken Gardens. His trainer and manager was an old Jewish chap named Sam Boardman who also trained his own son Larry in the 50s’. They were quite a father/son team but they had a very difficult time getting fights because Larry was very, very good and a bad match for top boxers because of his unique and awkward style. Plus he had dynamite in both fists. Eventually they did get a match with Sandy Sadler and they carried him the whole fight, deliberately punishing him because Sadler, according to Boardman, maliciously ended many a promising career by cutting his opponents with the laces of his gloves. It was Sadler’s last fight - they retired him. Anyway, back to Texas. So the night before his fight we were trying to rest but a couple of drunks kept arguing right outside our hotel room door, making it hard to sleep. We called room service and reported the disturbance but all to no avail. “ Watch it man, or I’ll knock you out” was just one part of the incessant banter that continued on throughout the night until they finally called it quits sometime around three in the morning. After I had some time to process this incident, I concluded that it was all a setup by the promoter who also so happened to be the manager of the fighter my friend was fighting. He was a bombastic man who wore a huge cowboy hat and with a affable smile and handshake to match. The only thing missing was the steer horns on the Cadillac, but then again I never saw what he was driving. He would smile in your face and make you feel oh so welcome. I think the O’Jays wrote a song about him.
Another incident happened as well. The day of the fight they also happened to have no ice available for the out-of-town corner - us. So Boardman asks me to walk down to the local convenience store and grab a bag of ice and a local Latino dude volunteers to show me the way and away we went. About a half- block into the trek I noticed a good eight or ten more of what I presumed to be his friends tagging behind us, and very menacingly at that. My heart started to race a bit I will admit and I thought I had better think of something quick. So right on the spot I enlisted one of my real assets, my ability to bullshit. And being a born liar never served me so well. I started casually telling the guy I was walking with about my martial art death matches in Taiwan, and how one particular Ba Qua technique I had mastered would leave an opponent pretty much permanently disabled and incapacitated. That when you break someone’s back, they do not get up. And that I could do it in the blink of an eye. And I looked him straight in the eye when I told him this, unflinching. He must have bought into my bluff because his mates started dispersing and I was able to bring back the ice to the location of the fight. A fortunate thing as my friend got knocked out. Yeah, Texas…
"available @ digbysblog.blogspot.com"
Damn d00d!!! You spam on that blog-site. I've been scrolling down, down, down, and still haven't gotten to *YESTERDAY*.
I know you have some DVD issues, but WTF? I wanted to see what you had to say about the rapist... I did love how that hooker called her pimp *in prison*, and was caught lying about rape in the past - but really? *REALLY*?!?
Texas. It's not just another state, it's another PLANET. Once I was stopped at a traffic light in San Antonio when the city was all torn up due to highway rebuilding. I heard a loud ruckus outside my passenger window. I watched as a buncha' Mexicans were goading street fighters. The one guy picked up something in the alley and started whalin' on his opponent with it. Horrified, the recipient started loudly yelling, "Stop,stop,stop! Man, you hit me with a freeze cat!" Apparently, the weapon of opportunity was a dead cat lying in the alley.
I love the end-of-the-world proclamations. The latest is from the 89 year old guy who predicted the rapture occurring several weeks back. Gee, it didn't happen and the old man said he "miscalculated", and that the date is really October 21st, 2011.
Then there's the sunspot cycle doomers. Sure, the variations in solar energy output from this cycle PROBABLY affects the climate, but energy variations are only around .22 percent; the effect of increased sunspot activity will only add a very small amount to global warming, and won't be catastrophic.
Anyone that believes in the 12/21/12 Mayan prediction gotta be loopy - or horribly gullible with a minimum of critical thinking ability. When this date passes and everything remains the same, I can only wonder what someone will think of next.
BTW, parts of our atmosphere have always been leaking out in space; it's nothing new. It has to do with light elements, gravity and random velocity vectors. Man-made chemicals have increased the rate of atmosphere loss, but not a lot. Yes, our atmosphere WILL boil off, but only in about 400 million years as the sun increases in luminosity as part of its natural aging process. You might as well enjoy the next 2/5ths of a billion years.
Rather than worrying about the end of life on Earth, how about preparing for a lot of political unrest, the fall of empire, and decreased availability of natural resources?
What is C2C? I recently heard a Catherne Fitts talk which I found through Orlov's blog which was amazing. Main stream news about the economy has been nothing less than surreal since I heard her take on things. If you know where to find this recent talk of hers please let me know.
Thanks.
BR
That SP may be a female!
More likely you tried to 'cut n paste'?
Rather than worrying about the end of life on Earth, how about preparing for a lot of political unrest, the fall of empire, and decreased availability of natural resources?
==
How about we learn a little about the 1st Reich, 2nd Reich, 3rd Reich, 4th Reich, etc., and why it is important to understand history, historical continuity and the forces behind it:
http://ff.im/-H9CPF
DREARIE...............intended or Freudian slip?
Rather than worrying about the end of life on Earth, how about preparing for a lot of political unrest, the fall of empire, and decreased availability of natural resources?
==
How about we learn a little about the 1st Reich, 2nd Reich, 3rd Reich, 4th Reich, etc., and why it is important to understand history, historical continuity and the forces behind it:
http://ff.im/-H9CPF
On this day fifty years ago, July 2nd, 1961, Ernest Hemingway abandoned his typewriter, picked up his shotgun, and blew himself into history and literary legend.
He seemed to duel with death his entire life, and today I threw a few back in his memory. To hell with you liberals.
I still got my Microsoft Y2K Preparedness Disc all shrink wrapped and ready to go. Standing by...
What is C2C?
==
Coast to coast radio program.
Guess it's a good thing that Ernest wasn't married to Courtney. We might not have ever heard from him.
It ain't the only alien planet. Someday I'll tell you about my adventures in Buffalo. If Texas and Buffalo are Jupiter, then Cleveland is definitely Uranus. Other than walking past a dead body laying on the sidewalk on Euclid Avenue as dozens of pedestrians casually strolled by; or having bullets whizz past my ear as a fat cop huffed and puffed by me shooting at a young kid running away; or the Cuyahoga River catching fire; or my landlady shooting someone in the head when he rang her doorbell; or being caught in the riots of 1966 in the Hough section of the city, with national guard troops standing on every street corner with submachine guns, well, Cleveland was kinda boring.
Same at our local Junior College...Its probably been
paid for months ago.
COAST TO COAST has a website, Its on at different times in various cities.
Yeah, reading history really is important, especially if we want to survive the future.
its a joke...like
'The women of Miami' calendar.
But you are too thick to see Mexico has changed
in the last 50 years.A world of Changes.
duhhh
I'm from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Cleveland? I've had some of the best & worst times of my life in that city. The point being, look at what is happening to our great cities.
Yeah, reading history really is important, especially if we want to survive the future.
==
And what conclusions did you draw from your history readings, in reference to my previous post?
The last "My favorite Year" story from Cleveland, 1966:
My upstairs neighbor, who was black, took me and my roommate to a bar on East 105th Street, which at that time was a real bad area. From outside the bar I could hear music blaring and a lot of raucious people. When I walked in I stopped short. The bar was filled with black people and I was the only white face there. This was a little while after the riots.
My entrance was just like in the movies when the good guy walks into the saloon and everyone stops what they're doing and stares at the newcomer. In my case, everyone stopped talking, turned off the juke box, and threw me very evil looks. It was dead silent, dead being the operative word, as in "I think I'm about to be killed dead". Then my upstairs neighbor stepped in front of me and said, "this guy's ok", and just like in the movies, the music started up and it was noisy again. I ended up actually having a good time.
That history is written by the victors, and to really know what happened, one must read many, many sources, while reading between the lines.
I spend a certain amount of time criss-crossing the Great Plains. I get the same reaction in North St. Louis that I get in the Hawaiian Gardens in Los Angeles. It goes something like this:
"Do you have a reason to be here?"
"Then what in the Sam Hell are you doing here, boy?"
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Except for the fashion. Just ask the artist formerly known as "Prince".
I know what you wished me to say, Mika: that the various reichs were aided and abetted by American and Anglo capitalists and the Roman Catholic Church. This is true, and I knew it already.
On a personal level, I learned that to be a Jew in a Christian world is very precarious. It was a lesson I learned well.
Try being an Atheist in a Divine World.
Thanks for the great link. I'll be watching it a few more times, at least.
I tried to watch the video. My great grandmother came from a Dublin orphange. It's as far back as we can trace that part of family. The other part of the family is a buncha' German mercenaries. You see, we don't just get drunk. We get drunk & start World Wars.
Jeez, right now I can't think of anyone worse than you!
Had to google, came up with Cox and Stodden. So, I'll guess the younger one.
I loved Dublin, and god bless your great grandmother.
Off to book tv and Hemingway.
Well, you never really described how I am worse than ANYONE. Have you considered that there are people that I never want to encounter ever again? I fervently hope that you never meet them.
THIS IS AN ANNIVERSERY!!
WE HAVE A COUNTRY!!
Please, you must help. I’m being held by crazed, drunken, vets.
When you get right down to it, it wasn’t all that long ago
That We Said
FUCK …KING…GEORGE
WE HAVE A COUNTRY!!
You guys be there tomorrow. Please. You can’t imagine
mamby poiiiipamby
Oh? And watchyou gonna do with that country, boy?
BAD ASS
CANNUCK
americ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikHI7_PMFNc
YOU COULD BE:
1. Sudanese
2. From Missouri
3. A Cannuck
BUT,
YOU'RE NONE OF THESE THINGS. YOU'RE AN AMERICAN!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Ssssssssssssmiles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00tzcnyDL68
I know what you wished me to say, Mika: that the various reichs were aided and abetted by American and Anglo capitalists and the Roman Catholic Church. This is true, and I knew it already.
==
It's much deeper than that, Bill. Watch the video. All these players are just masks for the same face. The Muslim Brotherhood is a mask for MI6/CIA, who in turn is a mask for the gov mafia, who in turn is a mask for the Rockefellers, who in turn is a mask for the Morgans, who in turn is a mask for the Rothschilds, who in turn is a mask for the Vatican, who in turn is a mask for ancient Roman families, who in turn is a mask for even more ancient pagan families.
All of this is possible only by way of ignorance and darkness. And this is where we are. Where we're headed into, deeper and deeper. Because of a lack of a moral backbone and cowardice.
Who are you a mask for?
P.S.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Shut the fsck up, myrtle. You're a boring idiot.
Hey, you simple Son Of A Bitch, how far back do you want to go?
Oh, and by the way,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I like this quote from "Earth Abides" author George Stewart:
"...Biologically, man has for too long a time been rolling an uninterrupted run of sevens."
This was in the late 40s...which to Asoka means that we have whipped natural law into submission, that none of the fiat currencies, none of our ambitions to live 50 years ahead on credit based on future growth that will never happen even matters. To the ecological mind, it means that our situation is 60 years more dire and many times more precarious, given the population explosion, and technological advances meant expressly to check Nature's balancing mechanisms, in that time.
Great Cleveland stories. Job Corps was also in that same neighborhood and when first opened unwittingly became the largest bordello in Cleveland because the operating contractor, AKA Sorority, at first permitted the girls to sign visitors into their rooms. After a girl was thrown from an upper storey window this policy was reversed and further visitors to dorm rooms from the outside were barred and bars were also installed on the upper storey windows.
Try renting "Kill the Irishman" if you have a DVD player and a wall socket into which to plug it.
You get the time that you get.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Hysterically funny Onion article about negativistic take on schools. In other words, it's the only thing on the subject I've ever seen anywhere that actually accords with the facts of the situation and makes sense. At South High the more sacharine and namby pamby teachers starting saying "I don't teach science, I teach kids." A more cynical element starting cackling with malevolent glee and intoning "I don't teach kids, I teacher idiots." And "South is the Developmentally Handicapped Magnet School". A barbershop customer of mine was beaten senseless there by brass knucle wielding "students" then subsequently became the subject of a BBC documentary "Violence in American Schools". So in other words, here we are 236 years after the outbreak of the American Revolution and we are being studied by British journalists much as if they were anthropologists and we were the primitives being scrutinized in an attempt to explain our barbaric eccentricities and dysfunction.
Another George Stewart gem:
In the struggle to survive, natural selection culls humans whose culture isn't survival oriented; if skills and customs don't work in the new situation, these die out, or those holding them do.
Sounds like something I would say! (Which is probably why I like it;)
Spend a week in White Chapel & then tell me how enlightened the English are.
I do know one thing. Me & my El Salvadoran friend are gonna be makin' a whole buncha' "I Teacher Idiots" tee shirts.
CORRECTION TO ABOVE: "I don't teach kids, I teach idiots."
Hello Auntie, I don't know when you lived in Tolland but I spent a lot of time up in the "High Country". My wife lived there for ten years before we hooked-up. Her parents owned the general store/ gas station. It was the only game in town. Was Wildwood open at the time? I used to take my kids to the beach at Cranberry pond all the time. Fishing, swimming, and chasing water snakes! Now that was a good time!
http://www.wildwoodpropertyowners.com/Live/index.htm
I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh yeah,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! My understanding is that Benjamin Franklin once remarked something like "Nice democracy, let's see how long it lasts". A source please?
I'll tell you how enlightened the English are: more. After all, it's not as if it's actually very hard to be more enlightened than we are. I doubt very much that thousands of square miles of their territory have been taken over by armed gangs. Maybe at most a couple of hundred square miles, based upon the latest Michael Caine film, "Harry Brown" or something like that.
Benjamin Frankin's son was the Tory royal governor of Pennsylvania during the revolution.
But, have you ever spent a week in White Chapel?
Sounds like a quote from George Orwell. No. I've been to both England and the crown colony of Gibraltar perhaps ten times. Spent a night in the gaol at Gibraltar for drunken brawling in the streets with a shipmate. Sailed into Southhampton once on a car carrier and hired a taxi cab to go see Winchester Cathedral. Another time when I flew in I took a tour of Windsor Castle. Guess I'm just a tourist. Not very degrading compared to White Chapel. Isn't White Chapel where Jack the Ripper murdered his victims? During the Victorian era Lymehouse was considered the most sinister district in England since that was the London docks. I like English gangster films and would have to agree that England has a large underbelly. If we're savages then perhaps it's partially because we're fairly English overall, as after all, wasn't a British officer working as a liason to the Iroquois Nation of Indians called "the hair buyer"?
EQUAL SPACE TO BUBBLEHEADMARC's students at South High: "Teacher smell like Windsor Canadian, maybe that why he be illin so much."
CORRECTION TO ABOVE: "Teacher smell like Windsor Canadian, Camel straights, and Maui Wowie, maybe that why he be illin so much."
SAMUEL JOHNSON WATCHING THE TOT-MOM SUMMATIONS FROM ANGLICAN HEAVEN: "The prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully." Dr. Johnson
LIMEHOUSE not Lymehouse.
Did your wife's parents own Ollie and Jenny's? It was closed when we were there but we have a great picture of me in front of the store. Hank was running the High Country General store when we were there - he put in a little cafe and we'd chat with folks over coffee. This was the late 80's early 90's. We were living in Wildwood in a falling apart place we agreed to fix up in exchange for staying there. We practically had the place to ourselves in the winter. Small world innit?
Interesting comments made here this week on 'peak oil' (Bustin J, Asoka, BTownBill, TrippT) ... for anyone interested this week in Barons there is a seemingly honest (and chilling) cover article about the oil situation in the near future "Ready for $150 per barrel oil" .
3 facts stand out.
World demand is currently 90 million BPD.
OPEC spare capacity is gone, finished.
$170 per barrel not out of the question by next year.
Peak oil is the most important subject discussed here and the basis of this site. It underlies everything we discuss here. I carry no brief for 'Barons', but this short article seem to affirm many of the claims Jim made in TLE 6 years ago.
-Marlin
Oh ya, Happy birthday Uncle Sam!
It rained like hell Memorial Day ... might as well rain like hell on the 4th of July.
-Marlin
OPEC spare capacity is gone, finished.
==
The US still has huge untapped oil reserves. But that's not the point. The point, is the economic and political monopoly based on artificial and contrived demand for oil to underwrite US dollar imperialism and US/Roman imperialism in general.
The world doesn't need 90 million BPD. It doesn't need even a 1/100th of that amount. This demand is completely artificially created through grand structural manipulation and design, the purpose of which is centralized global control.
with a affable smile
===============
Great yarn Buck but it's an affable smile.
Auntie, my wifes folks sold the place to Hank and moved to retirement heavan, Floorda, in maybe '88?
Ollie and Jenny's? where waz dat? Last time I was up that way the store was closed. In the 70/80's it was a general store/gas station/deer check site/homestead/liquor store/diner/ car repair shop. etc.etc. Like I said it was the only game in town. Tolland still only has about 400 peeps. I would buy land and move up into the hills in a second. Unfortunatly my wife hates living in "the sticks" as she says. By Mass. standards it is out there. 45 minutes to Wally-world.
Check it out Auntie,
http://www.tolland-ma.gov/public_documents/index
this week in Barons there is
=============
There are two Rs and an apostrophe in Barron's.
Hey Auntie, i just read the Tolland Tattler, Some son-of-a-bitch stole the FD's rescue boats fuel tank. What the hey. Even in the hills the assholes are hard at work. I hope they fall overboard and drown.
Yepper, Beanie Boy!
...And for the tiresome "Panglossians" amongst us, I'm liking this snippet:
"Lately it appears I am watching a massive reenactment of the classic tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. All the Pharaohs/Emperors tell us that everything is just fine; all plans are working properly as designed. We are urged to ignore obvious, growing realities, and to go along on our merry way. We are receiving a wide spectrum of optimistic, official sounding reports, assuring us that the Pharaoh’s/Emperor’s New Clothes are as magnificent and genuine as we would wish them to be. The problem is that a portion of the worldwide population is coming to a new realization, that their own perception of reality is not flawed, but indeed, appallingly clear. Underneath their cloaks and credentials, the Pharaohs/Emperors are clearly without a stitch of real clothing, regardless of the presumed credibility official reports portray." -peakoilblues
Thanks Q. Those little intentional boo-boos are my way of knowing if you're reading or scrolling past. Maybe you did a little of both as I think there is at least one more :)
No worries; it may rain some more for the 4th, but expected to be crystal clear tmrw. night. Perfect for fireworks (and safe, due to dampness). Pretty good, eh?
See yez later on t'day...
"This demand is completely artificially created through grand structural manipulation and design, the purpose of which is centralized global control."
Even if this is true the end result will be the same: a lot of people living in far more modest ways, and decentralized power structures. Without outlandish (and increasing) quantities of portable concentrated wealth, centralization of power enters a reversal phase. And it all started with surplus grain from early agriculture.
If the only thing I have to offer is lunch and knowledge then I'm not in much danger of being a target. Fear of being robbed is a growth paradigm phenomenon.
On the Populist, Socialist, and Progressive Independent blog "The Bell" there is displayed right under the masthead a quote from Ashley Seager in The Guadian on October 22, 2007 concerning peak oil with these predictions:
* petroleum output peaked in 2006 and will fall by 7% per year thereafter
*gas, coal & uranium will also decline
* 50 % decline in oil production by 2030
The first prediction probably hasn't come true on schedule. Nevertheless, this doesn't sound good unless it is spun that demand for oil will rapidly decline owing to alternative energy technologies coming on line this rapidly. Something tells me that that is too sanguine an explanation for the declining oil production. North Sea oil production peaked earlier than that so I don't think that that is what she's talking about. Could be good news for the planet Earth though.
If the only thing I have to offer is lunch and knowledge then I'm not in much danger of being a target.
==
No. You are a target by the mere fact that you exist. You can be an inanimate rock. A rock too has its purposes and therefore will be targeted.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the only way forward is enlightenment and a true knowledge of the predators and their predations.
"Increasingly, the Internet is a White Nationalist Lake - which is why they will have to shut it down or control it."
Vlad I looked at the number of hits on both of the links you posted - about a thousand on one, over two-thousand on the other - and the numbers just don't add up to a lake. This clip on the other hand has well over a million hits, a vast ocean if you will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EADUQWKoVek
Looks like that White Nationalist Lake is just a small puddle of spilled Guinness - Waaah!
Buck,
Must you besmirch the name of Guinness in such a fashion?!
Oh, the horror, the horror.
;o)
Beg pardon, "the HOLY name of Guinness".
White nationalists would be out of their depth in a Walmart parking lot puddle.
I watched that clip but I had to turn the sound down after about thirty seconds - the music was so obnoxious. And the entire message was utterly incoherent, like a bar drunk swinging wildly for anything to hit. And of course, there was absolutely no mention or vision of what their great society or plan might consist of, just a foggy harkening back to the "ancestors". You're an enigma to me Vlad, to be perfectly frank. You write beautifully and your erudition is very interesting and expressive at times. But then you belie all that by posting that Irish clip nonsense or endorsing the likes of Coulter and Alex Jones. What a strange cat you are.
I think there is at least one more :)
==========
I see most of the errors at CFN but only report on a few due to writer's cramp.
;-)
Check out who is running the agenda of this country. It's on CNN.
Remember I pointed out that Fred Koch made millions working on oil infrastructure for Stalin? Well, my friends that's just the tip of the iceberg and I couldn't be happier that CNN has pieced together the link to Nazi war criminals Ilse Koch, her husband Karl Otto Koch and Erich Koch....
[ghosts of Koch Industries, who seized the U.S. conservative political agenda years ago and seem capable of seizing the government in total through the Tea Party.]
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-500857?ref=feeds%2Flatest
Somewhat of a correction. It's on CNN iReport, so it's not an official report made by CNN, but by someone who posted it. Still makes its case-but hard to source.
A clip from the latest post at Small Batch Garden:
These days the line between food and medicine at our house has grown so blurry that we're not sure which is which anymore. When we get sick or tired, or have indigestion, the very first thought to enter our minds is, "I wonder what I'm not getting in my diet that I need." So we brainstorm, hit the herbals, the internet, and then the garden. And if we don't have it we order some seeds. And if we can't grow it, because our soil is wrong, or we live in the wrong climate, we look for an alternative that we can grow. There is no need to order fancy medicinals and super foods from the other side of the world. That commerce didn't exist when we all naturalized in different areas and climates spanning the globe for tens of thousands of years. What we need is generally right around us...
http://smallbatchgarden.blogspot.com/2011/07/medicinals-and-super-foods.html
Some of this information could come in handy for people determined to squeeze through they keyhole. Best to be sharp when confronted with a new suite of issues that need dealin' with, and this latest run-down of medicinals and superfoods to grow might just help you out. That's why I write this stuff anyway.
Cheers!
Trippticket
Minister of Horticulture
CFN
is it Seem?
'but this short article seem to affirm many of the'
Stalin, Best friend of WC and FDR!
I can appreciate it since I'm an atheistic Jew in a divine world. Talk about 2 strikes against you!
Stalin, Best friend of WC and FDR!
Best friends?--Don't know about that, Asia
They were allies against the Germans(Axis).
The point of this article was the relationship between the German Koch family of Buchenwald and the Koch family of great influence in our politics since the 1950's.
[Koch Industries is the child of the violence of Buchenwald, widely regarded as one of wartime Germany's most notorious "death camps".]
yo Tripp, I see you reclaimed your post as Minister of Horticulture, Well deserved I may add.Yesterday I pulled out last years leeks. They made it through the winter. I figured they were still good. They went to flower the biennial bastards and are now tough as a box of rocks. This spring they were still juicy. Fuck them ,to the heap they go!
wow, almost 1200 comments. it seems a little slow today. Have a happy Holiday. Your friendly FF's are always available! Someone has to watch the kids ;o)
wow, almost 1200 comments. it seems a little slow today. Have a happy Holiday. Your friendly FF's are always available! Someone has to watch the kids ;o)
sorry for the dubble post. The first one was withheld by the almighty web god. when I reposted it seems they both went through. Go Figure.
Did they give 'Uncle Joe' half of Europe and speak of him with great admiration?
Sound like an unsavory lot those Koch es!
Wow! Very interesting.
And General Luicius Clay lets Ilse Koch go after 2 years. I guess he thought she'd suffered enough.
I've never heard that name, but I'm guessing he was a part of the ratline that helped former Nazis get to other countries. And also back into power in Germany and other US occupied countries.
Wage,
Most likely Clay was part of the ratline as you say.
A friend of mine posted it on Facebook so I checked it out..thought it might be of interest.
Gotta go, now..
Asia,
You're right about that, they did regret Yalta. But don't forget that Russia took a big hit for the west and that was the way they split the spoils (if you will).
Yes, of Texas. Except for Jack Brooks, shown in this clip from the Iran Contra hearings in the 80s.
I remember watching at the time, and being blown away when Daniel Inoyue slammed him down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgMx2F41XD0&feature=youtu.be
Seriously? You're a Jew and you link to Eustace Mullins?
And you're an atheist and you link to some guy quoting the bible about the roman empire?
I'm doubting your claims.
And I read about the Rockefeller Foundation and their support for alleopathic medicine way back in nursing school, when someone gave me the pamphlet "Witches, Midwives and Nurses". I gave a talk about it in class, which blew everyone's mind. Most people weren't as political as I was.
Hey thanks, RT! Nah, I accept the cabinet position most graciously, and honor the duties therein. I don't use the title all the time, just like I never listed any letters of academic achievement behind my name, but I do usually invoke the position when I'm posting my latest blog piece. If only it carried some weight...
By this time of week we've usually shaken out all but the die-hards who mostly have everything figured out already;) so it's but a shot in the dark on Sunday really; tomorrow I'll hit it again and get some traffic. Lots of good pictures this time for those who are more visually oriented. But watch out! Next post will be heavy cultural philosophy. Mostly for Vlad/Metuselah...
"No. You are a target by the mere fact that you exist. You can be an inanimate rock. A rock too has its purposes and therefore will be targeted.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the only way forward is enlightenment and a true knowledge of the predators and their predations."
Dude, I'd have to say that this comment is pretty much the embodiment of fear. Own that fear, baby!
Wow. No, the way forward is to finally, after 10,000 years, stop getting in Nature's way, dump the hubris, and watch and learn for a change. Humans aren't that smart.
I'm doubting your claims.
==
Don't!
Now, show me where I linked to a Eustace Mullins. The YouTube video I've linked to mentions a Eustice Mullins in reference to the Rothschilds being treasurers of the Vatican and recipients of the Vatican's Iron Cross, the Maltese Cross. There are pictures and other references to support this. And I already knew this Rothschilds' history prior.
As to your Eustace Mullins, from a cursory glance of his history, he seems to me a nazi through and through. But he's only now come to my attention, so I don't know much about him. How do you know of him?
His middle name is pronounced "Pinya" but I can't place that Spanish accent mark to make that sound above the "n".
==========
Piña
Dude, I'd have to say that this comment is pretty much the embodiment of fear. Own that fear, baby!
==
I know what they're capable of. I know it almost first hand. I know their past history. I know their planned future. But I hope you're right.
You've struck again. You don't miss anything! Unfortunately I don't know how to access that accent mark when not in word processing mode.
What do you mean, "my" Eustace Mullins?!
You told me to watch a video explaining the medical profession and you linked to it, so I watched it.
I know about Eustace Mullins because I try to pay attention to the Nazis in America!!
OK, I can't believe I had to look through a thousand comments to find your link.
It was in this comment.
You've struck again. You don't miss anything!
=========
Re: The n with a tilde over it: If you have a keyboard with a number pad on the right side put it in Num Lock mode, hold down the Alt key and enter the numbers 0241 and it will produce ñ. It WILL NOT work using the numbers above the QWERTY line.
There is a slew of other unusual characters you can make like ¶ and ¿. Look them up at
www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm
Predators enjoy killing. It's natural to enjoy what one is designed to do. They don't get a chance to do it too often - but if they can, many will kill more than they need. Dolphins slaughter porpoises when they can. Housecats kill mice for fun. Since you think man is just an animal (and some are) why do you make an exception now?
Remember your metta mein frau. Women can do at least that.
Nazi? Was he a member of the Party? No? Then what are you talking about? Just more slander and innuendo - the stock and trade of Liberals and Commies. Why is telling the Truth about Jewish Power a crime?
Hey TT, the title carries some weight for me. Your not heavy, but your my brother! Right on!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1KtScrqtbc
Why do you put ancestors in quotes? You don't think people have ancestors? Or is just that you don't care about yours? Some of us do - that's the difference. The video is like a rock video - not a philosophical expose or a paper on policy. I found it inspiring. Maybe you don't like the overlap between rock and Irish Music. They connect well, both being very passionate. But each to his own. You love Opera, me not so much but now and then depending on the piece and singer.
We on the far right believe in both nature and nurture; genetics and culture. You people only blieve in the latter. And you call us fanatics! Meanwhile you continue to try and make Black kids perform as well as White Kids - as if one can make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
Thank you for your honesty in admitting that you are a liar btw.
Q, you are one clever sum bitch! can ya come by and teach me to say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Did I spell it right? ;o)
So that's Eustace Mullins? LOL! I had no idea!
The link I was referring to was the one I gave Bill regards various Vatican Reichs. In it, the video mentions a Eustice Mullins.
Nazi? Was he a member of the Party?
==
He's a self admitted protege of a nazi writer named Ezra Pound.
the stock and trade of Liberals
============
It's stock in trade
We covered this ground once before and I'll expect you to remember it henceforth.
;-)
Why is telling the Truth about Jewish Power a crime?
==
What truth is that, Vlad? That the Rothschilds are Jewish? They were knighted by the Vatican. We all watched the video, so we all know what that means. They belong to the Vatican. They are Vatican demons. Same as Hitler, who was born and raised a Roman Catholic. Same as you, Vlad, a Roman Catholic demon.
Dr. John Piña Craven.
Mr. Burns,
White racial superiority is a mere pigment of your imagination.
Ahhh, grasshopper, You learn quickly!
In a book on the history of Halloween by Oxford Press, called "Halloween" I think, it was explained that in the middle ages the church tried to forbid every medicine with the sole exception of alcohol. Consequently, persons apprehended gathering herbs in the forest for use in healing were considered witches. The book also had a photo spread in the middle with a group photo of typical English countrywomen of the late nineteenth century. The women arrayed in their country garb of the period looked exactly like the current American conception of witches. This was startling to me at the time revealing so much with just one photo as it did. The most suspect medicines were opium and cannabis. The vatican went out of its way to condemn cannabis. Does this ring a bell with contemporary Americans?
A late shout out to O3, Rock the house!
Yes perfect master.
"White racial superiority is a mere pigment of your imagination."
Is that original? It's wonderful.
RT,
Thanks muchly...
Marlin & Co. came by, so consider the house nicely rocked (and I don't mean sleepy-timely). ;o)
Kinda sparse attendance due to our area becoming the new Washington Schtate (not too good for biker-age), but we managed to have a giggle or two anywhich. Yesterday's gig with the Tirebiter Boys tuned me in pretty good, so performing wasn't too much of a "damn job" today. Funny how things proceed, ain't it?
I heard it years ago, but I don't recall who said it.
Most excellent.
I always enjoy your contributions to our woefully bare knowledge base. I hope you understand that it's well-appreciated.
(I'm a bit too far into "relaxed" mode to properly absorb a good treatise that's been labored over, so I'll check it tomorrow. Please do mention it again as I usually have a brain that bears a frightening resemblance to the favored cheese of the Swiss...
;o)
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLater then.
What a crapfest. Craptacular!
Meawhile - the rich have convinced at least half the people they would be better off without government. Mainly because half the government has been bought.
This ain't no fucking train wreck. This is criminal.
The rich didn't get rich because they are better.
The rich got rich because they are fucking criminals.
Why don't you people at least discuss it.
Get a clue....
We have a country? Not for very much longer. No borders is like having no skin - wide open to infection.
Hey Ozone- I recall that back in the '70's' there was a band gigging about here in CT called The Ozone Brothers - does your user name harken back to that outfit? Were you one of The Brothers Ozone ?
Yes one of the greatest writers of the 20th century - kept in a cage in Italy and then a mental asylum in the US because of his political beliefs. Have you no decency?
Take it easy.
The more things "they" fuck up, the faster their finely-honed, ultra-complex, syndicated system will go down the shitter. ("A consummation devoutly to be wished." Except for the myriad innocents, ground beneath the millstones of Fate and Circumstance.)
Unless you've got some REAL [heavy-duty] law-enforcement contacts or credentials, it might be best to keep your head down and powder dry until such time as you can begin the hunt (and I would certainly advise for personal reasons, only).
Revenge is a dish best served cold; hotheads need not apply.
Ps. I would contend that your stated proportion would be far north of "half". Be cool; the clues are in abundance, everywhere, and time is all we've got. ("They've" never understood that at all. Look to how the military's "best and brightest" act and RE-act. They happen to be a precise reflection, in that they're the first deployed "strategy" to deal with the lumpenprole.)
Hmmmm, great name! ;o)
That's a long time a'went, but I don't think I [personally] used that for any conformation of musical nonsense, THAT I CAN RECALL.
My ego is not now, nor ever has been, in that much need of massaging. For convenience's sake; for a gig or two? Mmmmmmmebbe (anything is possible in the fog of a person's youthful fooleries and pursuit of interesting ensembles).
Could you maybe provide a "regionality" to that? ('Twere I, it would have been in the Greater Hartford area...)
Gotta fall down.
Don't stop the world without waking me for the services!
FutureLater...
The tragedy is that you actually mistake this witticism for wisdom. Increasingly the younger generation gets their news and even outlook from comedy central. You were merely ahead of the downward curve.
What of the Priest in Romeo and Juliet? Catholics believe Shakespeare was a secret Catholic. Also Hildegard of Bingen prescribed many herbs for her sick sisters. Her remedies are a matter of record.
Of course the "Middle Ages" comprised alot of time and space. It's possible both of us are right.
The rich got rich because they are fucking criminals.
=============
I wish I knew what post you are replying to here Budi, or whether it is just a stand-alone expression of a strongly held belief.
In either case it nicely sums up something I noted a week or two ago ... that nobody around here ever has a kind word for the rich.
In my view your broad-brush generalization is as ridiculous as if I said the poor are poor because they are honorable.
Sorry Ozone- I must be rememberin' incorrectly. Like Commander Cody, I spent much of the fabulous 70's lost in the ozone myself. My favorite watering hole/musical venue at the time was the Silver Bullet in Moodus CT
But I also lived for about 15 years in Minneapolis, and I think that is where the Ozone Brothers were based.
My wife (the lovely Auntie River) and I will be sure to see you at a future gig... just could'nt make it today. And to all a good night!
-
My apologies, I didn't make myself clear. My first line was just a glib joke after your "We get drunk and start world wars".
I should learn to use the appropriate symbols.
"The entire message was utterly incoherent.."
Right up front the message was " Come all you lads hear the Patriots call.."
"As enemies prepare to take over our nation there will be no surrender to the Reds or moneylenders.."
Other clear messages in the video:
No immigrant invasion.
No Islam.
No rape.
Default the debt.
An Irish nationalist logo appeared throughout, along with other Celtic symbols and depictions of Irish lore and legend.
This video wasn't intended to contain a plan. It was meant to express Irish pride and values, and in that way it was very successful. It contained a lot of quick visuals which can be difficult to assimilate, granted.
A better production would have made it stunning.
Racial equality is a mere pigment of YOUR
imagination.
How did USSR take a hit for someone else?
Since USSR was 'the big bad wolf' why didnt the free world destroy Stalin?
Just asking.
he warned us of the FEDERAL RESERVE?
We have leaders..
Ayers,
SOROS, [he really was a nazi]
BUFFETT,
BILL GATES,
Kissinger,
Brezinski,
the Bushes (specifically Sr),
the Clintons,
and puppet Obama.
See 'RAISED AS A GIRL'..and the 1970s 'myth of gender reassignment'.
LAST!
headed home after 24. No lost digits to report! see ya next week!
Prior to the outbreak of WWII the British ruling class had a tendency towards being fascist sympathisizers because they saw people such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco as bulwarks against the Soviet Union. Churchill was then in a sense unique because he was extremely suspicious of Hitler and the nazis from an early date.
Once the war started while Neville Chamberlain was still PM it became evident almost immediately that the French and the British were not prepared for war. In the early days a non-agression pact existed between Hitler and Stalin. But then just as the Japanese rashly attacked the allies in the Pacific, Germany also inadvisedly invaded the Soviet Union, in spite of the fact that much of the German's transport system still relied on horses. As the war progressed the British Commonwealth and the Americans did whatever they could to take care of the Soviets because the Soviets were absorbing the brunt of the German's fury and taking much of the heat off of the western alliance. Cynics still maintain that the western allies should have allowed the nazis to destroy the Soviet Union. Churchill thought that FDR was too pro-Soviet and therefore politically naive.
Last is not a declaration you can make.... like your not the only one sitting on the computer waiting for Jim to post....like you aren't the only one who is desperate for a kernal of information that isn't total bullshit... like most of what you find on the fluffington post...
Me? I am sitting here watching "Hoarders" all day marathon... nothing quite as peak oil as an American sitting in a hoard... giving reasons for not throwing anything away.
Sort of reminds me of America in general.
Yes, it's an hour too early to be announcing "last" anyway. Which network is the Hoarders marathon on?
1,252
Great week, CFN!
Happy Birthday, US of A.
A&E.... I am about to move to Western Colorado and am enjoying my last weeks of cable!
Gotta love the garbage that passes for television these days!
Other favorites... My super sweet 16, teen cribs, Paris Hilton's various "reality" shows.... and now hoarders... all showcase the land of the clown so... deliciously!
1253
9:04 am eastern.... slow news day... and it's "tourist season" but you can't do the same thing you do to deer during "deer season" for some reason...
Hot, and muggy already in the Lake Champlain Valley.... somewhere in Sarasota Springs the finishing touches are going on todays blog... and the CFN awaits with baited breath...who will be featured? The EU? The nitwits in the USA? Or the bobbleheads on CNBC?
1254
1255 Back home, happy birthday Uncle Sam! the Sham and the Pharoahs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHF558u6Q_8
Don't despair, there is always satellite tv!
The more subnormal the show the better. The ultimate reality show right now is "Swamp People". Totally addictive watching the alligator hunters. Every guy from that neck of the woods in the navy & merchant marine is known as "gator".
Bunch a coonasses!
Mullins did write extensively about this. He was to his generation what Griffin is to our's. His guru, Ezra Pound was a great opponent of our commercial way of life and our unfair usury sytem of fiat currency. His answer was a system known as social credit. It's not our way which would be a return to the gold standard. But it is a possilbe answer for nations without gold reserves.
Needless to say, both men were guilty of the ultimate sin - telling the Truth about Jewish Power and their control of the Anglo-American Banking System. Why do Wage and her cohort deny this? Because the Russian Revolution and World Communism were an outgrowth of this cabal. You'd think she would find this strange and contradictory, but no it's all good.
as a term of endearment of course ;o)
Buck hates Western Civilization and its creator, the White Race. So deep is this that he himself doesn't fully realize its extent. We have no rights to people like this. Save Tibet but let the West die.
Chavez in the news with his cancer job in Cuba.
Sometime back, we saw story on railway upgrades for Venezuela, and that may have been Chavez' thoughts turning to legacy engineering? Maybe, we can expand on the subject of legacy, beyond accumulation of military toys.
Cuba & Haiti & Dominican Republic invite creation of "Greater Carribean Co-prosperity Sphere" with railway engineering links and rail ferry connections for cargo. Present-day rail ferry is a fact in the Gulf, and rail ferry from Key West to Cuba an historic fact. Peak Oil squeeze on transport certainly puts railway center stage in the "Plan B" solution set.
Presidential legacy was in the minds of some when President Clinton visited Lake Tahoe in July 1997, bringing his Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater. Something big was in the air; Slater hinted the Feds were interested in backing a "clean transportation system for Tahoe, capable of hauling passengers and freight"...
Maybe the Prez knew in his heart the local resort operators were too small minded to talk about a regional rail and Lake Tahoe ferry system, but it was still a ballsy proposition. Never know, some wild card like the South Lake Tahoe City Manager or the League To Save Lake Tahoe might have taken them up on a serious railway engineering program!
We can only imagine America coming into the new millenium with a comprehensive regional railway engineering project in progress at a premiere World Class destination as high-profile as Tahoe. Instead, Tahoe got some motor coaches, since worn out, and Monica got people's minds off railway engineering as a Presidential legacy. Maybe Mr. Clinton can look at Haiti's travail as a second chance to use parallel bar therapy to best advantage?