SPONSOR

Vaulted Invest in Gold

Visit this blog’s sponsor. Vaulted is an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold: Kunstler.com/vaulted


 

Support JHK on Patreon

 

If you’re interested in supporting this blog, check out the Patreon page or Substack.
 
Get This blog by email:

Attention Movie Producers!
JHK’s screenplay in hard-copy edition

Click to order!

A Too-Big-To-Fail Bankster…
Three Teenagers who bring him down…
Gothic doings on a Connecticut Estate.
High velocity drama!


Now Live on Amazon

“Simply the best novel of the 1960s”


Now in Paperback !
Only Seven Bucks!
JHK’s Three-Act Play
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…


Long Emergency Cafe Press ad 2

Get your Official JHK swag on Cafe Press


The fourth and final book of the World Made By Hand series.

Harrow_cover_final

Battenkill Books (autographed by the Author) |  Northshire Books Amazon


emb of Riches Thumbnail

JHK’s lost classic now reprinted as an e-book
Kindle edition only


 

Christmas Present

Theory du jour: the new Star Wars movie is sucking in whatever meager disposable lucre remains among the economically-flayed mid-to-lower orders of America. In fact, I propose a new index showing an inverse relationship between Star Wars box office receipts and soundness of the financial commonweal. In other words, Star Wars is all that remains of the US economy outside of the obscure workings of Wall Street — and that heretofore magical realm is not looking too rosy either in this season of the Great Rate Hike after puking up 623 points of the DJIA last Thursday and Friday.

Here I confess: for thirty years I have hated those stupid space movies, as much for their badly-written scripts (all mumbo-jumbo exposition of nonsensical story-lines between explosions) as for the degenerate techno-narcissism they promote in a society literally dying from the diminishing returns and unintended consequences of technology.

It adds up to an ominous Yuletide. Turns out that the vehicle the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee was driving in its game of “chicken” with oncoming reality was a hearse. The occupants are ghosts, but don’t know it. A lot of commentators around the web think that the Fed “pulled the trigger” on interest rates to save its credibility. Uh, wrong. They had already lost their credibility. What remains is for these ghosts to helplessly watch over the awesome workout, which has obviously been underway for quite a while in the crash of commodity prices (and whole national economies — e.g. Brazil, Canada, Australia), the janky regions of the bond markets, the related death of the shale oil industry, and the imploding hedge fund scene.

As it were, all credit these days looks shopworn and threadbare, as if the capital markets had by stealth turned into a swap meet of previously-owned optimism. Who believes in anything these days besides the allure of fraud? Capital is supposedly plentiful these days — look how much has rushed into the dollar from the nervous former go-go nations with their wobbling ziggurats of bad loans and surfeit of production capacity — but what actually constitutes that capital? Answer: the dwindling faith anyone will pay you back next Tuesday for a hamburger today.

We now enter the “discovery” phase of financial collapse, where things labeled “capital” and “credit” turn out to be mere holograms. Fed Chair Janet Yellen herself had a sort of hologramatic look last Wednesday when she stepped onto her Delphic platform to reveal the long-heralded interest rate news. Perhaps Mrs. Yellen is a figment conjured by George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic shop (now owned by Disney). What could be more fitting in a smoke-and-mirrors culture? Anyway, the rude discovery that capital is not what it has appeared to be is now underway, with the power to derail political systems and societies.

Is there anyone who thinks the Presidential election campaign is not completely deranged? Well, it is the analog for America’s deranged financial polity. The graceless Mr. Trump necessarily reflects the just grievances of the great public wad, but has anyone noticed that he is incapable of stringing together two coherent thoughts? I suppose one thought at a time — or maybe a percentage of one thought — is enough to satisfy the sputtering masses, faced as they are by the arrant theft of both their patrimony and their future. But it adds up to something like flying blind through a shitstorm with your pilot in the throes of cerebral infarction. I don’t want to be on that plane.

Then there’s the giant flying reptile known simply as Hillary. She will blow up the sad and noisome remains of the Democratic party and then she will preside over the blow-up of the USA as an advanced techno-industrial society. That final outcome may be inevitable one way or another, but the journey there need not be so harsh. America needs a vision of something other than itself as a permanent demolition derby, which, by the way, will not be “solved” by pushing everyone into a Tesla instead of a Ford F-150.

It’s not just the Federal Reserve; everything around us is backed into a corner. Come January, when the dazzle of Star Wars fades away, you will hear instead through the long dark nights a howl of raging animals. Merry Christmas to all.

Herewith, the CFN Christmas present to readers:
An excerpt from World Made By Hand 4 (and final)
The Harrows of Spring

(Note: uncorrected manuscript)

Coming in 2016
World Made By Hand 4 (and final)

Harrow_cover_final

The third World Made By Hand novel

!! Is available !!

(The Fourth and final is complete
and in production for May 2016 publication)

Kunstler skewers everything from kitsch to greed, prejudice, bloodshed, and brainwashing in this wily, funny, rip-roaring, and profoundly provocative page- turner, leaving no doubt that the prescriptive yet devilishly satiric A World Made by Hand series will continue.” — Booklist

HistoryoftheFuture_Thumb

My local indie booksellers… Battenkill Books (Autographed by the Author) … or Northshire Books
or Amazon

Also: Published as an E-book for the first time!
The 20th Anniversary edition
With an entertaining new introduction by the author

GON_thumb

Bargain Price $3.99

Amazon Kindle …or … Barnes & Noble Nook …or… Kobo

 


This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted


Order now! Jim’s new book
About the tribulations of growing up

Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books

Order from Amazon

Order from Barnes and Noble

Order now! Jim’s other new book
A selection of best blogs 2017 to now!

Click here for signed author copies from Battenkill Books

Order from Amazon

Order from Troy Bookmakers


Paintings from the 2023 Season
New Gallery 15


GET THIS BLOG VIA EMAIL PROVIDED BY SUBSTACK

You can receive Clusterfuck Nation posts in your email when you subscribe to this blog via Substack. Financial support is voluntary.

Sign up for emails via https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com


About James Howard Kunstler

View all posts by James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

349 Responses to “Christmas Present”

  1. erik December 21, 2015 at 9:23 am #

    I too have always despised those “space movies” with their bizarre tech fantasies and boys and girls talking trite nonsense based on whatever currently popular American cultural tropes…

    • CancelMyCard December 21, 2015 at 10:20 am #

      ‘Anyway, the rude discovery that capital is not what it has appeared to be is now underway, with the power to derail political systems and societies.’

      Excellent.

      I have another quote for you;

      “We’re in the middle of a disastrous market mania . . . historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes, or wars. None are on my bucket list.”

      ~Paul Tudor Jones, Tudor Investment Management

      • malthuss December 21, 2015 at 11:38 pm #

        Space Movies. Check the ‘eyesore’ this month.
        Looks like an upright spaceship.

        Also, JHK. Hirst is a fraud. Like Jeff Koons.

        THEY ARE THE TWO RICHEST ARTISTS, TMK.

    • goat1001 December 22, 2015 at 1:56 pm #

      I think it is really funny how ALL space aliens featured in these flicks speak fluent English. Since when was English the language of the universe??? Then there is the flaunting of the Laws of Physics and the crew of the Star Trek Enterprise (original series) being thrown all over the bridge since apparently seat belts had been “uninvented” by the 23rd century…. Ha!

      • goat1001 December 22, 2015 at 1:58 pm #

        I should have said “Flaunting the LACK of the Laws of Physics”….

  2. Neon Vincent December 21, 2015 at 9:36 am #

    “Theory du jour: the new Star Wars movie is sucking in whatever meager disposable lucre remains among the economically-flayed mid-to-lower orders of America. In fact, I propose a new index showing an inverse relationship between Star Wars box office receipts and soundness of the financial commonweal.”

    In that case, as you conclude, the American economy is in real trouble, as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” blasted off to new U.S. box office records. It beat “The Hunger Games” for advance sales, the first “Hobbit” movie for December opening, and “Jurassic World” for opening weekend box office. The critics and fans applauded it. J.J. Abrams should hang a big banner that reads “Mission Accomplished” on Disney’s studio in Burbank, so long as he doesn’t wear a flight suit with a codpiece while doing so.

    As for the American public, they’d prefer Obi-Wan Kenobi for President and even vote for Darth Vader over Trump. Hillary Clinton would still win an election over the Dark Lord of the Sith, but lose to both Ben Kenobi and Yoda. Clinton herself may have wished that The Force be with us last Saturday, but it’s The Farce that is instead.

    • hmuller December 21, 2015 at 10:06 am #

      Does Hillary have asperger’s syndrome? From her anti-Indian “jokes” about Gandi running a convenience store to her Ceasar-like “eulogy” over the sodomized body of Ghadafi “we came, we saw, he died”, she seems out of touch with appropriate human feelings. Or maybe it’s just her psychopathic nature, bereft of human empathy, which makes her appear like a narcissistic, self-serving flying lizard.

      • lsjogren December 21, 2015 at 10:43 am #

        Wasn’t aware of Hillary making a joke about Indians and convenience stores- she may have more substance than I thought.

        She did give a nod to Star Wars, nice political touch there, interesting that came from the non show biz candidate.

        Love the specter of the “wobbling ziggurat”, although I need to look it up, thank god for google.

      • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 10:47 am #

        I thought she was the Lizard ?

        • hmuller December 21, 2015 at 11:08 am #

          Yes, as in Hillary “Rodan” Clinton. I guess that makes Bill “Godzilla”.

          • CyberPass December 22, 2015 at 3:22 pm #

            I wish you would not speak that way about America’s Fondling Father

      • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 2:31 pm #

        Gandhi means grocer. That was the traditional job or sub-caste of his family. He broke from that to become a great soldier, fighting the Blacks in South Africa. He was very proud of his service to the Empire and received a medal for his service. It is possible to rise up in caste – an inspiring message.

        The traditional idea of Gandhi is a simple hatchet job meant to disempower everyone. As the Bible says, Peace, Peace, where there is no Peace.

    • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 10:58 am #

      they’d prefer Obi-Wan Kenobi for President and even vote for Darth Vader over Trump.

      That would be funny but unfortunately we have to take you seriously. American ‘technarcissism’ has progressed to the point where not an insignificant number of the afflicted on a poll would say that such a choice were actually possible.

      In the artificial moonlight of main stream video Americans have been subject to presentation without content for so long that they no longer have any perspective to know the real from the false. They have forgotten that content exists and with every year the years of American childhood become longer.

      In a generation we will have children who will be dying of old age never having grown into adulthood before their watch springs have unwound in the natural cycle of birth and death. Their potentials unrealized in the sterilizing unity of the artificial moonlight that quashed their spark all their lives long.

    • malthuss December 21, 2015 at 2:55 pm #

      How many billions do we Citizens [not ‘consumers’] waste on Halloween, pets, sports watching?

  3. Sticks-of-TNT December 21, 2015 at 9:39 am #

    Merry Christmas Shitizens,

    “Flying blind through a shitstorm…” That brilliant phrase captures the essence of both our leadership AND our circumstances. -Sticks

  4. Rodster December 21, 2015 at 9:48 am #

    “They had already lost their credibility. What remains is for these ghosts to helplessly watch over the awesome workout, which has obviously been underway for quite a while in the crash of commodity prices (and whole national economies — e.g. Brazil, Canada, Australia), the janky regions of the bond markets, the related death of the shale oil industry, and the imploding hedge fund scene.”

    JHK, you can add China to the list of fuck ups. They are now selling their bad loans on Alibaba. The entire world has gone financially mad. It’s only a matter of time before the Global Death Star explodes.

    • CancelMyCard December 21, 2015 at 10:35 am #

      ‘Citi analysts noted that “if leverage is going up today because it’s funding tomorrow’s growth that might not be a bad thing. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s going on.” Companies reaching for returns on their cash have found another overpriced investment on which to squander their shareholders’ value—other companies’ bonds. The sellers of these corporate bonds are reputed to be using the proceeds to . . . wait for it . . . buy back shares of their companies! This is financial engineering that would make Escher proud.’

      — David Collum

      • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 10:48 am #

        Is engineering the new word for fraud ?

      • zaphod42 December 21, 2015 at 10:56 am #

        I love stock buybacks! It is the ultimate breach of fiduciary duty / corporate crime.

        The corporation borrows money [from whom?], and uses it to buy stock in the corporation. The stock being purchased is mostly that granted to the C-suite and crony capitalists/hedge funds, and the company obtains these stock shares, as new grants of stock to the C-suite are made to replace those just purchased. The hedge funds grant themselves a huge percentage for their “services” in the transaction.

        Recall that cattlemen all know exactly what ‘servicing’ means.

        These guys are simply stealing the money… they are pissing on their investors and telling them it’s rain.

        And, surfer, yes! It is fraud!

        Craig

        • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 1:41 pm #

          Speaking of fraud, : Martin Shkreli, just in the news for his fraud arrest, to me represents the new American Dream.
          A child of immigrants, Mr. Shkreli’s background is business, not science, and he made his money from making money, not from producing a product. The drugs his company was producing were under way when he bought the place. He also appears quite mad.

        • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:09 pm #

          “These guys are simply stealing the money… they are pissing on their investors and telling them it’s rain.”-zaphod.

          So, you’ve been keeping an eye on AAPL’s shenanigans too, eh?

          😉

        • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 5:14 pm #

          Thanks. Now that we have the terms cleared up……lampposts or jail cells ? Funny how ” Blind ” The Fed is when old classmates are free on Wall Street. Prof. Bill Black should be running the Justice Dept. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 21, 2015 at 11:53 am #

      As in, “Alibaba and the Forty Thieves?” Seems fitting. -Sticks

  5. Sticks-of-TNT December 21, 2015 at 9:59 am #

    and if Janet Yellen is indeed a hologram, is that the best voice George Lucas’s audio engineers could come up with? But, OTH, in the Bizarro World of htraE in which we find ourselves dwelling, perhaps it is fitting.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  6. 737paxflyer December 21, 2015 at 10:10 am #

    I’ve been flying for 33 years and the weather does seem to be getting shittier. Maybe I’m getting old and tired, anyway. Economy will crash and the Republican will get elected and we’ll be back at war.

    • Rodster December 21, 2015 at 10:22 am #

      Dane Wigington who runs the website geoengineeringwatch.org believes there’s a reason for what you are seeing regarding the weather.

      • shastatodd December 21, 2015 at 1:38 pm #

        not the chemtrail conspiracy theory nuts spouting their nonsense here too!

        please educate yourself about how science works. you are afraid of human made clouds from burning HYDROcarbons in a supersaturated, cold atmosphere.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQz3aZtbF-c

        • malthuss December 21, 2015 at 2:46 pm #

          Uh, no. I have studied the sky for 20+ years AND the only conclusion I reach is that we are being sprayed.

          Oh, someone on Maui told me Maui is being sprayed.
          TMK there are no international flights over Maui.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 3:57 pm #

            To what end? Lower our fertility? Alex Jones said that they are darkening the planet by reflecting the sunlight away from the surface – even as they rave about global warming.

            We are being “terraformed” or perhaps terror formed. Are our Elite even human? Why do they want a colder planet?

            Transformation of America? or Trance formation?

          • RockTrueblood December 29, 2015 at 8:26 am #

            We’re being sprayed? Stop. How does this work? Thousands of pilots have been sworn to secrecy, as have thousands of ground crews, and no one has leaked the Alex Jones “truth”?

        • Rodster December 21, 2015 at 4:03 pm #

          Your point would be valid if not for the US Govt paper trails admitting they are involved in such programs. Ever heard of “Operation Popeye”? How about the 1978 US Senate Report which is over 750 pages long explicitly detailing that the US Govt has been involved in weather warfare and climate modification since the late 1940’s.

          And yet there’s a certain crowd who gets angry if you challenge global warming, climate change, AGW or ACD. They are quickly labeled as deniers but are quick to deny other programs could be contributing to our climate problems.

          • shastatodd December 22, 2015 at 10:50 pm #

            um, no… these are exhaust emissions from aircraft… not that dumping tons of c02 into the upper atmosphere is benign.

            it is interesting most of the conspiracy theorists do not think agw is happening.

          • Rodster December 26, 2015 at 6:30 pm #

            “um, no… these are exhaust emissions from aircraft… not that dumping tons of c02 into the upper atmosphere is benign.

            it is interesting most of the conspiracy theorists do not think agw is happening.”

            As I suspected, a typical canned response from a Guy McPherson groupie. And as I responded to you earlier, the US Govt aka Dept of Defense has admitted to Geoengineering and weather warfare. You really need to brush up on your science, sir or madam cause it ain’t how you see it.

            And here’s another one for you. Guy McPherson in several of his YouTube videos and other so-called climate scientist have referenced Geoengineering in response to warming temperatures. It’s called solar radiation mgmt or solar dimming.

            I guess they are conspiracy theorists as well?

        • CyberPass December 22, 2015 at 3:28 pm #

          I suppose you are talking about contrails- in case you had not noticed, the tail of normal condensed water vapor contrails disappear in a few minutes- they don’t just hang there for hours.

          • shastatodd December 22, 2015 at 10:47 pm #

            wrong, persistent contrails can last a very long time, depending on atmospheric temperature and humidity.

            watch this 5 minute video to educate yourself about this:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X72uACIN_00

          • Rodster December 26, 2015 at 11:33 am #

            For those that think this is all nutter conspiracy theory ala nutjob Guy McPherson well, it’s not. The US Govt and the Dept of Defense in 1966 have documented they were experimenting and manipulating the weather and climate as far back as the late 1940’s. In 1978 the US Senate issued a 750 page report confirming that weather and climate manipulation along with weather warfare have been ongoing since the 1940’s.

            And if this is all conspiracy theory as the Guy McPherson crowd loves to proclaim, why did the United Nations ban chemtrails and Geoengineering if this is ALL fallacy?

            Ya gotta love how those that proclaim the CC doubters as deniers can’t accept it’s not only Co2 in the air causing our problems.

    • wolfbay December 21, 2015 at 10:50 am #

      Have we left war? It’s estimated that 37 civilians are killed on average for every drone strike.Muslim countries do not allow abortions and families are very large so I’d guess most have family members or friends who the U.S. has killed or maimed. As they enter our country as refugees I wonder if they might just have a little animosity towards us. How about we stop our “precision bombing” and let the blowback flow to Russia and let the Sunnis and Shia figure it out for themselves.
      In all fairness to our military ,they did do a precise job on the doctors without borders hospital .

      • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 12:02 pm #

        The refugees are more of an European problem so we can keep making more of them.

        So it goes.

        Thirty-Seven you say. Obama has been a drone dropping fool so enough statistics have now been collected to make an accurate scientific assessment! I knew the number was high but did not expect it to be that high.

    • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:12 pm #

      Hi 737′

      Did you ever pilot an Electra L118? I’m looking for user feedback on that particular aircraft, particularly if they were rigged for freight?

      Thanks in advance!

      Cheers!

      • sprawlcapital December 26, 2015 at 3:08 pm #

        MD–
        I believe you mean an Electra L-188. By the way an Electra Model 10 was Amelia Earhart’s plane. Both made by Lockheed.

      • sprawlcapital December 26, 2015 at 5:40 pm #

        Thank you MD. Until this week, I had never heard of the Electra L-188. Now I’m a fan. However, my favorite plane is, and I’m sure always will be, the Douglas Commercial 3, DC-3.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlivJn4gw98

        This is an interesting video, once you get past Mikey’s drinking contest. It’s about flying the last Electra in service in England to North America for conversion to a fire-fighting aircraft. Quite recent (2913).

        • sprawlcapital December 26, 2015 at 5:41 pm #

          2013.

    • zaphod42 December 23, 2015 at 2:59 pm #

      I dunno, 737. It is looking more and more as though the Republicans don’t want the White House this year. If they did, they would run a serious candidate. I am beginning to think that they won’t even be able to defeat a loser like Hillary.

      Of course, if what I expect to happen takes place, whichever clown is POTUS during the coming quadrennial will be tarred and feathered with blame! It is very possible, in fact likely, that whichever party wins will be destroyed. Along, of course, with the other party, the economy and perhaps the ecology?

      Strange species, Homo Sapiens sapiens. I wonder if they’ll be missed.

      Craig

  7. wpa_ccc December 21, 2015 at 10:16 am #

    First CFN assured us it was going to be Bush vs Clinton. That is not happening.

    Now… Just like the MSM you will not say his name: Bernie Sanders.

    • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 10:50 am #

      I would love to have a chance to vote for Bernie……no way the DNC lets that happen. But I will put up a fight for it. Will he stop the train wreak ? No. But we MAY have more survivors.

      • bobinboiseid December 21, 2015 at 10:59 am #

        I’d vote, but I already have that day scheduled for a bicycle tune-up. Got to prioritize your life or nothing important will ever get done!

        • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 11:14 am #

          It is good to see there are a few level heads among us.

          As you tighten your spokes and trim your wheel know that even had you cast a vote any threat to the system would be quashed by the Supreme Court. They sit on their bench waiting for the chance to jump into the game to fix the election as needed.

        • hineshammer December 21, 2015 at 4:01 pm #

          I’m with you Bob. I’m getting my, er, hair done. Yes, that’s it.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 1:45 pm #

        I don’t know that Bernie supporters all understand the importance of registering to vote in a primary.

      • ffkling December 23, 2015 at 3:03 pm #

        Your assertion that the state primaries and caucuses are rigged by the DNC, thus preventing a Bernie victory, is totally baseless. The individual state parties manage the entire process, and report the results.

    • esperanto41 December 21, 2015 at 7:55 pm #

      CFN blind spot; a good guy like Bernie would spoil JHK’s misanthropy. I’ll continue my $10/mo. for Sanders.

      PS: nice screen-name, wpa_ccc; see my monograph

      “To Give Life: A Nonkilling Military
      Precedents and Possibilities”,

      http://www.genekeyes.com/To-Give-Life.html

      which inter alia references the Civilian Conservation Corps (and the Calilfornia Conservation Corps).

  8. karlosbasak December 21, 2015 at 10:30 am #

    As the force awakens, the American mind goes deeper to sleep. Here’s my forecast for a few different events/trends ahead of the winter solstice!

    https://subversesjournal.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/solstice-2-solstices-some-forecasts-for-the-earths-next-revolution/

  9. George December 21, 2015 at 10:30 am #

    “Then there’s the giant flying reptile known simply as Hillary. She will blow up the sad and noisome remains of the Democratic Party and then she will preside over the blow-up of the USA as an advanced techno-industrial society.”

    Hillary is so closely to the Neoconservative and Wall Street irks she’s assured a series of coronations no matter what happens.

    The Fed rate was set to zero which in reality means holding to target somewhere between 0 & .25%. The actual floating rate was hovering around .125% which means that all the liquidity the Fed was offering wasn’t being used! This so-called rate increase is therefore largely cosmetic and the actual floating rate will probably remain around .125%.

  10. Lawfish December 21, 2015 at 10:36 am #

    I hate the space movies too, for any number of reasons, but first and foremost, the complete lack of any faithfulness to the laws of physics. I grew up during the Apollo program and found it to be one of the greatest achievements of mankind, and certainly the greatest achievement by this country. I’ve read every technical book on the subject and virtually every biography or autobiography of the participants. Apollo came at a time when this country truly was great. Due to its success, we all assumed the progress would be continual and we would venture to the stars.

    By the time the space shuttle was blasting its clunky, inefficient ship into low-earth orbit, I knew we were never going to Mars or the stars, that the reality was that, due to the limits of physics, we are bound to stay on this planet, forever, or until we go extinct or the sun explodes and destroys it.

    I can’t watch the space movies because they are so utterly devoid of any knowledge of physics, even if one assumes things like light-speed travel and artificial gravity are possible. Plus, they are so horribly obviously good versus evil. It’s the same tired theme played over and over. Give it a rest.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • bobinboiseid December 21, 2015 at 10:56 am #

      The promise of heading out to the stars was glorious. The reality of digging through landfills for salvageable items to trade for a scrap of bread won’t be quite as appealing.

      • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 11:02 am #

        But if you are lucky you might find a plastic replica of R2D2 in the landfill. then with some cleaning and maybe along with something else more valuable you will have something to trade for a crust of bread.

        • russ December 21, 2015 at 12:06 pm #

          And be sure and whisper “You’re my only hope”. That might invoke some life into it.

          OK, OK – that was a message to Obi Wan – but close enough.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 2:40 pm #

        I think you want to dig and root rather than fly. Admit it.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 1:49 pm #

      That used to bother me, back when we had more programming aimed at children, it always seemed to be based on fighting a villain. People raised on that must think that is the norm.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 2:39 pm #

        It is. As Buddha said, Struggle there must be since all life is a struggle of some kind.

        In traditional faery tales, children are frightened (and thus warned against) monsters and boogie men. Monsters are dangerous animals. Boogie men are sexual predators who molest children. Completely rational. On a deeper level, some of the monsters may represent dark forces of the psyche. This can speak the children but they wont understand it until are much older in years and mind. Most never get to be this old though.

        Politically Correct faery tales are an abomination needless to say, just invoking the sterile world of Hillary the Reptile in pants suits.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 2:35 pm #

      The original Star Wars was full of Jungian archetypes. To disdain this kind of literature or film is the only be half human. Of course you could disdain it as poorly done.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 2:43 pm #

      Obviously the Apollo program should have never been scrapped. It was far superior to the space shuttle.

      Obama filled NASA up with Blacks and told the head to outreach to Muslims about how great they are. Just Obama spitting on a culture far beyond his pedestrian Marxist dreams.

    • abbybwood December 21, 2015 at 5:34 pm #

      I think you will get a huge kick out of reading David McGowan’s “Wagging the Moondoggie”:

      http://davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo1.html

      It is a pretty long read but I promise you will laugh out loud many times.

      Sadly, David passed away this year at a young age from cancer.

      He also wrote, “Understanding the F Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion”.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 6:28 pm #

        The illusion is believing in multicultural nations. That like believing in square triangles – a contradiction in terms, something that can’t be visualized or imagined because not only is it not true, it can’t be true.

        But you believe – and vote. That is the tragedy.

      • Ricky.H.Vernio December 22, 2015 at 3:48 am #

        Okay, I’ve read “Wagging” just now. It is amusing in parts, if a bit repetitive. The author seems to be laboring under a misapprehension that the propulsion engines need to be turned on during the entire trip: he keeps mentioning that the fuel spent on those trips was 1% of how much was really needed given the distance. The reason no one has gone to the Moon since then is there’s nothing up there of any interest to anyone.

    • Ricky.H.Vernio December 22, 2015 at 1:02 am #

      I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it was pretty obvious to some people at least (especially the scientists and engineers who made those space programs possible) that we weren’t going to the stars – even before the first artificial satellite was launched. The packing of people into tin cans and sending them to the moon was NOT this country’s greatest achievement. We’ve had quite a few good streaks, and made breakthroughs in law, physics, engineering, literature, architecture, music, and even painting.

      Space movies are boring not because of the bad physics, but rather because their authors are too smug, too ignorant, and to dismissive of the age-old fact that no matter what one’s medium is, the play’s the thing. It’s always about the story.

      • Sean Coleman December 22, 2015 at 7:13 am #

        ‘The play’s the thing.’

        Yes, and the script. I looked up Black Day At Black Rock just for Spencer Tracy’s line. While Lee Marvin watches on, Ernest Borgnine tries to pick a fight. ‘Suppose *you* tell *me* what to say.’

  11. K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 10:41 am #

    Au contraire, Trump can string together more than two coherent thoughts. Me, myself and I. That’s three. Or are those just one thought, maybe you are right.

    I can’t share your imminent expectation of doom and gloom. Not that it won’t happen. America will break down on the road like an old rusted out Chevy soon enough but the tragic end of American existence has been in the works since the end of WWII and that is getting to be a long time ago. It has been a long and twisted road but there are a few curves left before the journey is over. Like many America will still try and keep chugging along even with a flat tire.

    American problems are a result of the particular capitalist system we are locked into. Endless growth means the endless death of democracy so locked into a very bad end we are!

    There are really no new American problems on our horizon that were not know to some of our smarter dogs forty years ago but then like now their murmurs were silenced by a cacophony of repetitious yapping by our money dogs of power and pedigree.

    Star Wars is relevant to these times though for once again our Dark Side will silence voices of truth with the repetitious yapping of our money dogs of power and pedigree.

    If there has been any real change in the American drama it is that we can’t get our force with us without the help of a little blue pill.

    • russ December 21, 2015 at 12:20 pm #

      Yup. LOTR, too. Picture SamWise Gamgee making his soliloquy:

      “It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come….”

      Unfortunately, at our point in time in this country, Sam’s speech ended because he got pepper-sprayed by somebody from Homeland Security. A pity.

    • messianicdruid December 21, 2015 at 2:06 pm #

      America will survive the United States.

    • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:20 pm #

      “There are really no new American problems on our horizon that were not know to some of our smarter dogs forty years ago but then like now their murmurs were silenced by a cacophony of repetitious yapping by our money dogs of power and pedigree.”-kdog.

      You are correct, sir. So, imagine 40 years of being painfully aware of how the party would end, constantly hoping against hope that you missed something, were wrong about human nature and the long-trend, etc. . . Prometheus chained to his rock at least wasn’t tormented by uncertainty.

      Not saying that this was me, of course.

      Cheers!

      • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 3:02 pm #

        It sure wasn’t me. I’ll rather sheepishly admit that I started out my adulthood under the happy delusion that responsible adults were in charge. I should have perhaps realized that American society was based along the same pecking order lines I had experienced in high school. I attribute growing up under a heavy religious influence was much to blame for my polyanish delusions.

  12. routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 10:44 am #

    Thank you for a wonderful CFN Christmas gift ! Did the “New” Leader from MA have a show on PBS before the crash ? I am looking forward to the May 2016 release. While I myself still hope for a better style of Anarchy in the years to come–I fear Jim is right. It is a short walk to the old stereotypes we have come to love. The Feds will keep this small rate increases going and weed out from the bottom. Problem is it a bottomless pit. Money once remove from labour is pixie dust. Or maybe pixel dust. Happy Holidays to CFN ! Enjoy the slide.

  13. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 10:46 am #

    It seems to be nothing special and new: in the past, decisions to increase or to lower interest rates were made repeatedly. But not in such circumstances, not after the seven-year retention rate at the zero level and the accumulation of multi-trillion debt overhang.

    The resumption of the stalled financial pendulum in one direction or another is virtually inevitably leads to fatal to the real economy deflation (in case of increased interest rates), or an equally disastrous for the financial elite hyperinflation (if rates are lowered).

    The fact of termination on the part of the Fed of financial procrastination and begin to move, it means transferring of the entire global financial system into a fundamentally different mode of operation – is no longer the postponing of the Greatest Crisis, but start to manage the Crisis with almost complete absence of management experience in such conditions.

    The only way for the financial elite to preserve its influence on the events is to prevent the build-up of speculative waves that would accompany any of selected trends – either increasing, or lowering rates to negative values.

    So, FED needs to “go tacks” and in time slow down the inevitable build-up of negative symptoms. Yellen accompanied the announcement of the increase in rates by a quarter percent with a warning about the possibility of transition in the future to negative rates, should the situation require.

    However curbing speculative waves is only possible with the active impact of the rigid Financial Control against the banksters and large speculators, including those who are hiding assets in offshore accounts in countries such as Argentina.

    Without the anti-terrorist UN Security Council resolution 2253 that constitutes very hard global financial control, crisis management of global finance would have been unthinkable.

  14. bobinboiseid December 21, 2015 at 10:50 am #

    It’s pretty obvious that Hilary has already received her crown backstage and is just awaiting the formal coronation ceremony. I’d suggest all hands man lifeboats, as this sucker is going down. I’m just hoping the sociopaths at the helm don’t set the auto-destruct before they get the noose and destroy all life on the planet to with the nuclear arsenals.

    • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 10:52 am #

      Sorry….that was set decades ago. During the cold war. The remains of mankind will be walking past the waste for a million years. Mutate on !

      • bobinboiseid December 21, 2015 at 11:56 am #

        Someone said a while back that all nuclear reactors, and all spent rods in storage will eventually lose the power to their cooling systems and melt down. Time to move to the Southern Hemisphere??

        • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:36 pm #

          @ bob:

          This is a real problem. With over 400 nuclear reactors in operation or storing deadly nuclear waste worldwide, and each one of them a potential ‘dirty bomb’ as bad or worse than Fukushima, shutting them down and sticking their hot contents in dry-cask storage would have to be a top priority in the event of full-scale collapse… Otherwise there isn’t even a ‘World Made By Hand’ scenario to fall back on for the survivors.

          Looking back, more than one insider has admitted that using nuclear fission to boil water was a really stupid way to generate electricity, “but there was money to be made” (in the short-term) and that was that.

          Oh well! Just one more task on the ‘to-do’ list, ho-hum!

          Cheers!

          • bobinboiseid December 21, 2015 at 5:59 pm #

            Sorry folks, no government food or Social Security payments for 10 years. We need to spend it all on what the industry should have been required to do from day one. Nuclear Power: Too Cheap To Meter! Mister Atom is our friend!

          • ozone December 21, 2015 at 6:44 pm #

            Ba-Blammo, bobtheidahoan and thewife’sMr.Darling.
            As somebody said in another *fucking MOVIE*, duh publick cain’t handle no steenkeeng truth!
            Hey, as I remember, there’s an old saying

          • ozone December 21, 2015 at 6:49 pm #

            (oopsie)…. an old saying from out hyar in the actual [slightly real] world: “The truth hurts.”
            Good Luck.

            http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-19/huge-fukushima-cover-exposed-government-scientists-meltdown

          • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 7:37 pm #

            O3,

            I saw your post last week about fleas. They can indeed be very nasty and there was a time when Ms. Dog and I could not exchange a text on our phones without a flea jumping on some keys and adding to the conversation. That was a few months ago.

            The thing is my ‘Bacon’ number from some people of influence has gotten rather low now and consequently I have some exposed skin on which flea bites would be noticed. As the nasty fleas are not totally stupid they may have moved on to more vulnerable dogs. I’m sure they will avoid a flea bath if they can.

            For those wondering what I mean put a ‘G’ in front of the word ‘Flea’ and hypenate the pair. You will figure it out.

          • ozone December 21, 2015 at 8:13 pm #

            K-dog,
            Yessir, flying monkeys as vector for plague-carrying fleas! 😉
            (Surrender, CFN… I mean, *Dorothy*, and your little dog too.)

          • ZrCrypDiK December 24, 2015 at 12:11 am #

            Truth hits everybody? In large DOSES.

            Like I stated a few weeks (???) back, wouldn’t it be spectacular, if we got daily/weekly/monthly updates on US drone bombing *stats*?!?

            Do you believe, that the most serious threat to the *surveilled* (surveyed?) would be arab muslims? Not *EVEN* concidering economic/ecological/nukular (heh) disaster?!…

            Buh-Bye@

        • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 5:26 pm #

          Well bobinboiseid, they working on screwing that up also ! For the time it has been stopped. But The Land Down Under does look the best to the Glow Worm Freaks involved in making money with things that glow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangea_Resources

  15. shotho December 21, 2015 at 10:55 am #

    Sorry, Mr. K, you are on the plane; we’re all on the plane, riding somewhere we are not today. So, the plane goes down; so what? Life will move on to whatever is coming next. It always does.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  16. elysianfield December 21, 2015 at 10:57 am #

    “Come January, when the dazzle of Star Wars fades away, you will hear instead through the long dark nights a howl of raging animals. Merry Christmas to all.”

    wvwnews.net/content/index.php?/news_story/breaking_17_black_thugs_arrested_for_burning_white_girl_al…

  17. pequiste December 21, 2015 at 11:10 am #

    Cinematic nonsense rehashed ad infinitum of Star Wars, Star Trek, Shrek, Alvin and the Chipmunks, etc, this “holiday season” is the perfect counter to the reality of the actual evil empire(s) and their demonic murderous intentions.

    Who dares look into the gaping maws of the nightmares of Fukushima, Yzlamik State, the Federal Reserve, the E.U.’s “refugee crisis, Ebola among others?

    We in America really would rather watch the vacuous antics of Hillary, Bernie, The Donald, Ted and Marco than have to deal with any of the bothersome details. Hence the profusion of football, political “debates, and Khardashian Krap.

    Get out there and buy shit you don’t need and have no room for ’cause its “the holidays!” The use of the nomenclature “Christmas” will soon be official prohibited by the thought police over at Loretta Lynch’s Department of Justice from an Executive Order of Barry O.
    Can’t hurt the Mohammedan’s, and Atheists’ feelings now can we.

    I stand to be a heretic and wish a merry Christmas to all at the CFN. Peace on Earth, goodwill to all.

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 21, 2015 at 11:43 am #

      back at ‘cha, peq!

    • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 1:57 pm #

      Same to you. Football works like the Star Wars “franchise”, or any other ‘blockbuster’ movie. You get bombarded with advertising for it, to the point where you feel it is the patriotic thing to participate (the last common culture we are allowed), and then you buy stuff.
      Last night, the Sunday before Christmas, I checked the TV listings for some kind of “Holiday” special, remember those? Football, football, football. Star Wars advertising disguised as news on the networks, and a ‘seasonal’ story about sports fans wearing “Holiday” sweaters to a stadium or something. Bah. I need to work on the good will thing.

  18. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 11:16 am #

    “you will hear instead through the long dark nights a howl of raging animals”

    I’d venture to suggest that this is just poetic exaggeration. The situation is dire, but still under control – Obama with his Financial Control is not going to let banksters escape to offshore with “hard-earned” money.

    The sharp collapse of the US is not beneficial to anyone in the world.

    First of all, because there is hardly anyone is capable of reliably predicting all the consequences of such collapse. The whole geopolitical struggle is around the fact that the rate of elimination of US influence in the world is clearly consistent with the rate at which other centers of power are able to intercept this effect and prevent the onset of chaos and vacuum.

    And if you look beyond the mass-media headlines, there is a real work being done in the background.

  19. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 11:28 am #

    I would venture to suggest that Kerry has brought to Moscow some suggestions that the Russian leadership deemed quite interesting to slow down the speed of creating a collective (with China, India and UK) alternative to the dollar, and thus give the US a little more time for internal restructuring.

  20. Greg Knepp December 21, 2015 at 11:33 am #

    Actually. the Star Wars series was never intended to be taken seriously. From the onset it’s been very retro – very Saturday matinee, Buck Rogers fare – similar in function to the glitzy Depression-era films intended to lend audiences a whimsical retreat from the daily drudge.

    The fact that the Star Wars movies are so lavishly produced lends evidence to their importance as cultural escape mechanisms.

    Back in our day, Jim, sci-fi movies were silly, fun and cheap – kid stuff! Life was good. Now we need to take our silly escapism more seriously.
    This reads like an oxymoron, but there it is.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 11:50 am #

      It may have not been intended to be taken seriously but it was.

      There are members of the pre-millennial generation and certainly some millennials themselves who consider the Star Wars saga to be high literature. A story as relevant as the story of Jesus Christ to generations past. To suggest to them that the whole thing was intended to sell colored and shaped plastic memorabilia and nothing more would be met by wide unbelieving eyes.

      They would contend that the deep message betwixed explosions and zappings is as deep as thoughts on golden tablets penned by Yahweh himself.

      • Greg Knepp December 21, 2015 at 12:15 pm #

        You seem to be saying that Star Wars has taken on mythic proportions….I agree. But I think more along the lines of Davy Crockett, “King of the Wild Frontier” than Yahweh. Of course this is all speculation. The reality may fall somewhere in between.

        • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 3:07 pm #

          I suspect the deep analysis of plot and its comparison to classic religious mythology and the hero myth was sponsored by someone who just wanted to sell more plastic.

          • Greg Knepp December 21, 2015 at 3:57 pm #

            You’re point brings up the old chicken-or-egg conundrum: where myths are concerned, commercial viability depends entirely on the product’s ability to stir the inner being – the Id, if you will.

            The Star Wars series shares with The Epic of Gilgamesh, Davy Crockett, Shane and Sampson (to name a few) attributes of a hero’s tale that are sure to hit home with a populace suffocating on the trappings of conventional civilization.

            Such tales can’t help but to stimulate the reptilian cortex, and they sell like sex…and for much the same reason!

          • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 4:03 pm #

            No, not the reptile brain or the mammalian either. But the deep parts of the human psyche. The reptile is fight or flight. The mammalian is dominance and sex. Star Wars goes beyond these simple things.

            You got it wrong Greg. You must hate Lord of the Rings too. Humanists, who wreck Civilizations with their pet theories, always do.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 2:00 pm #

        How many Baby Boomers had a brother who spent his free time listening to the Grateful Dead with his head between the speakers? Odd what some will do to find meaning in life.

  21. Kevvia Knack December 21, 2015 at 11:50 am #

    Enjoy the winter solstice, everyone.

    • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:37 pm #

      Same to you!

      Cheers!

      • sprawlcapital December 22, 2015 at 12:27 am #

        Just over a half hour ago the Sun began its journey back to the North. Happy Solstice.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 22, 2015 at 2:32 pm #

          Good news for cattle and corn.

  22. dannyboy December 21, 2015 at 12:07 pm #

    The J. Wellington Wimpy quote is my fav this week. Keep literate culture alive!

  23. toktomi December 21, 2015 at 12:35 pm #

    “…hasten the collapse and mitigate its severity.”

    “Individually and collectively, anything we do to resist or postpone the collapse will only make it worse.”

    http://realitysandwich.com/8855/money_and_crisis_civilization/

    I was hoping that all of this would have been over by now.
    Wtf are “they” waiting for, a new batch of O2 concentrators?
    ~toktomi~

  24. someonetakethewheel December 21, 2015 at 12:47 pm #

    Ah, the Technoptimists. I have news for them: A planet that is running out of it’s main fuel supply, dealing with the ever-worsening effects of massive climate change and confronting a global guerrilla war by medieval barbarians is not going to Mars anytime soon.

    Also, there are no substitutes for oil or water and a stable food supply requires a stable climate. And billion dollar cancer cures will be overwhelmed by how easily new cancers can be initiated by the radiation we have now released world wide.

    So hunker down and try to enjoy the final years of modern civilization.

    • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:46 pm #

      “Ah, the Technoptimists. I have news for them: A planet that is running out of it’s main fuel supply, dealing with the ever-worsening effects of massive climate change and confronting a global guerrilla war by medieval barbarians is not going to Mars anytime soon.”-someone.

      That’s the crazy thing; we’re not running out of global civilizations foundational resource, we’ve just *completely* overshot our ability to extract and utilize it using the debt/fraud-based economic model we’re using. By the time price-discovery finishes culling hot-house blossoms and their dilettante cultivators from ‘the market’, demand will be reset at a scale that will support regional economic activity – at best.

      This sounds tame and do-able from our current position on the time-line, but when we arrive we’ll be wondering w-t-f we thought we were thinking.

      😉

      Cheers!

  25. teddyboy46 December 21, 2015 at 12:58 pm #

    JHK cuts through the BullSpit.

    AMC is running a mini series called ” Into the Bad Lands” it is set after a apocalypse of some sort . The most interesting part was how fast we would revert back to a Horse Economy.

    The world ran on a Horse Economy for centuries before the internal combustion engine, and it could again.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 2:02 pm #

      Is that what that was? I saw it just last night when I was looking for a Christmas program.

    • Pogo December 21, 2015 at 2:24 pm #

      “The world ran on a Horse Economy for centuries before the internal combustion engine, and it could again.” – teddyboy46

      No way, Ho-zay! Not in this world as we know it!

      With 7.5 billion pie holes to stuff each day, how many horses would it take to keep those burgers, fries and Cheez Doodles coming? Where would hay, grain come from? Where would you dump all the horseshit? Hint: Washington, DC has all they can handles at the moment.

      NY City circa 1890 was about to sink from all the horseshit. Too bad it didn’t. And the flies! We can’t imagine how it must have been and smelled.

      So unless there is a big Die Off and the population reverts to less than a billion, we will not exist on a “Horse Economy”.

      I watched trailer for “Into the Bad Lands” and thought it to be just another fine example of American horseshit.

      • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:56 pm #

        “So unless there is a big Die Off and the population reverts to less than a billion, we will not exist on a “Horse Economy”.”-pogo.

        And that’s the essential truth of it: the last time we ran on a combination of wind/water & muscle (the ‘horse economy’) global population was well under 1 Billion.

        We got to the 1B milestone by bring the first iteration of fossil-fuel technology online (ie., coal)… Right now – without factoring in everything else coming down the pike – we’re already slated for a 1-Billion person die-back, just from global trade (re: BDI, SCFI, CASS Index, et al.) flat-lining.

        It’s a lot later than we’d like to believe, but that’s to be expected. After a party like the one we had, who wants to call it a night & head home?

        😉

        Cheers!

        • Pogo December 22, 2015 at 12:16 pm #

          Head home? Not when more juice is being dumped into the punch bowl. Banks in Sweden are actually paying each other to take cash off their books. This from ZeroHedge:

          http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-22/somethingh-crazy-going-swedish-money-markets

          Thanks for reminding me of the shipping indices. I had not looked at them for a long time. Scary stuff. Enough to scare the pants off Santa Clause!

          Happy Holidays to you and all the other folks I love to read here at CFN and to JHK too.

      • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 5:34 pm #

        250 million to 350 million max. The die off will be huge and we will be eating whatever we can find on the slide down. One reason I like Jim’s books on Post Capitalism…….the die off has happened and the rebuilding has started. More into Mules than horses myself.

        • ozone December 21, 2015 at 7:38 pm #

          …and donkeys are an “affordable” option too, though not built for the huge pull for stumping and such. Limitations, limitations, back to the era of the real. (I want to know who’s going to be raising the Mongolian ponies… besides the Mongolians, that is.)

      • Semi-Employed White Guy December 22, 2015 at 12:02 am #

        Amen. There will be no horse economy nor any “world made by hand”. Not with the seven billion breeders and counting. Now if the left would only do something useful and advocate third world population control and stopping the third world invasion into the first world. Instead they are obsessed with identity politics and sexual deviancy.

        • Pogo December 22, 2015 at 12:36 pm #

          It is not a “left vs right” issue.

          Defunding of family planning and reproductive health agencies goes back to 2002 with GWH at the helm and has continued. I could be wrong but have the impression that all the bills introduced to defund Planned Parenthood are from the “right”. Have the lefties introduced a single bill to defund family planning?

          Nature, not politicians, will eventually solve the population problem. Malthus will be vindicated for the simple reason that population really cannot grow exponentially while food production grows at a linear rate. The laws of physics will prevail.

  26. vengeur December 21, 2015 at 12:58 pm #

    The following was quickly removed from a New York Times article on Obama : “In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments.” LOL . Let them eat cake.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 2:06 pm #

      I saw that, and what upset me more than the typical behavior at the Times, was in the comments section of the site where I read it, the snotty condescension of those who tried to defend this indefensible “correction”. Where are people’s scruples?

      • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 2:58 pm #

        “Where are people’s scruples?”-beryl.

        S c r u p l e s @ the NYT?

        LOL

        😉

        • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 3:19 pm #

          Some of the comments I read were at a link to the Washington Post, though, and the commenters were trying to push the idea that this was normal, it seemed to me.
          The NYT is inexplicable. I don’t expect anything from them.

  27. Don December 21, 2015 at 1:03 pm #

    I agree; those space movies are absolute crap. But the herd mentality of people, especially kids, packs ’em into the theaters. It’s not just USA-made movies that are stupid, mindless and poor-quality. Check out our music, our products, our schools, our political system, our architecture; it’s all shitty. The only things that we do better now than 50 years ago are beer, wine, and ethnic-organic food.

    • pequiste December 21, 2015 at 1:25 pm #

      Hey Don, don’t forget, the U.S.A. has, hands down, not only better than 50 years ago, but the best pornography in the entire godless galaxy.

    • Lawfish December 21, 2015 at 1:52 pm #

      Right on, Don! I spent the weekend cleaning out my basement and converting it into a beer-making facility. I inherited a fridge that my office was getting replaced because the door didn’t always get shut completely, so I put it in next to my meat freezer and built a 2 x 8 counter-top for brewing, fermenting and racking. Got 8 2-liter bottles of Hefeweissen lagering in the fridge already with 9 1/2 bottles of honey ale carbonating on the counter.

      I’m going to miss being able to just buy ingredients to make beer.

      • lateStarter December 21, 2015 at 2:20 pm #

        Lawfish, great hobby and useful skill to learn. Perhaps I am missing something, but haven’t people been making beer for a very long time without needing to buy ingredients to produce it. Or are you implying that soon you will be so broke even if the necessary ingredients are available locally, you will have nothing to offer in return?

        Even your knowledge of how to do it sbould be enough to convince others to provide the needed ingredients for a cut of the action.

        Keep practicing now while you can to get your techinque down and try to use only locally available resources.

        • Lawfish December 21, 2015 at 3:25 pm #

          I’m still quite an amateur, latestarter, only brewing with malt extracts, rather than whole grain. But I intend to learn 2 skills that will make post-apocalyptic beer brewing possible. First, the recapture and culture of yeast. Every batch, I throw away a huge pile of presumably reusable yeast that could be recultured. Second, I need to learn how to brew using only grains. Hops may be a bit difficult to obtain or grow here in the south, but I’m sure that will not present too much of a problem.

          I plan to go into distilling too. That will be a very useful skill. Classic moonshine will be a barterer’s dream!

          • ozone December 21, 2015 at 7:21 pm #

            Lawfish,
            I’m pretty sure that hops will grow quite readily for you down in the southlands. What you may want to get together with a couple folks (just for the acreage) would be the grain-growing. I’m not too sure what that will require for volume-to-liquid end product, but they used to get it “low-tech” done up here in the frigid northlands with buckwheat. (Although not terribly productive, it’s hardy.)

            I also do the “extract” thingy; it’s too damn easy not to! …But yes, we’ll have to get a bit more serious about start-to-finish with beverages. BTW, saving that muck from the bottom of the fermenter does to the trick for the next batch; lots of yeasty-beasties ready to propagate yet again.

            One more thing, grape wine, starting from the round things on the vine is pretty damn easy, even without all the chemical inputs. Wild yeast is everywhere, but getting your stuff inoculated with the “right” one and keeping spoiler bacteria at bay is a bit tricky. More study while it’s available! I recommend what I just did: 100% grape juice from the stupormarket works just swell for wine experiments… and at a very cheap price as well. (Wait for the howlingdaze to end; the kosher stuff goes on sale for about 3 bucks/half gallon.)

          • Lawfish December 22, 2015 at 8:12 am #

            Ozone, I researched growing hops right after posting that. Should be very easy here in the south, and with a couple plants, I could satisfy my hops requirement for the year.

            As for wine, I’m planting two muscadine vines this year. I have a trellis over the entrance to my yard and a planter box on either side. I intend to train the vines onto the trellis and use the grapes to make wine. I also have a friend who has a piece of property with 30 pear trees on it. She said when they’re in season, I can go out and pick up as many as I want. Pear wine, anyone?

            I’ll have to try the yeast thing. How do you keep it alive? Just put it in water and keep it in the fridge?

          • Lawfish December 22, 2015 at 8:17 am #

            Ozone, I researched that right after I posted. Hops will grow great here, so I’m ordering a root for the spring and will grow my own for 2016. A couple plants should be enough for a year’s supply of hops.

            As for the wine, I’m planting muscadine vines next to my entrance trellis in January. I intend to use those to make wine. I have a friend who has 30 pear trees and she said I can go pick as many as I want when they bear fruit. Pear wine, anyone?

            I’ll have to start collecting the yeast. Gotta get this process as sustainable as possible. The big challenge will be getting grain in quantity.

          • elysianfield December 22, 2015 at 11:18 am #

            Fish,
            Regarding pears…pears make good alcohol, but not great wine, the flavor is almost neutral. Also, I have been a straight-grain brewer since 1986,…and I would recommend you acquire, for that purpose, “The complete Joy of Homebrewing”, by Charles Papazian…the only book you will ever need on the subject of homebrewing. It will describe how to make your own equipment (Mash Tuns from stainless steel beer kegs, wort coolers, etc.).

          • Lawfish December 22, 2015 at 4:50 pm #

            Elysian, thanks for the tip. I used to homebrew 15 years ago, but then I had kids and got busy and dropped it. There was a bible of homebrewing back then, which I read cover to cover, but it didn’t mention grain brewing. Things appear to have come a long way since then.

            With my new big fermentation station, I plan to either make or acquire a still and do some distillation as well as brewing. I would be fine with pressing a bunch of pears to make juice, then fermenting that and distilling it.

          • mercpl December 23, 2015 at 9:22 pm #

            Hey Lawfish, how do you intend to keep the birdies from eating your grapes? They are my biggest problem. I figure that is the reason most vineyard farmers keep their vines no more than chest high. Easier to throw nets over them.

            You’ll have problems netting a high trellis. I did.

            Then there’s the various kinds of mould to deal with. I haven’t solved that one either. Big juicy bunches of berries rotting before they ripen.

            Maybe the birdies will be grateful and bring me a juicy worm or 2 when it all breaks down.

          • elysianfield December 26, 2015 at 6:46 pm #

            Merc,
            Find some net bags, the kind that Safeway and others use to sell grapes, cherries, etc. Bag the grapes right on the vine and the birds will not damage them much. Also, Early August trim all the leaves from around the grapes, exposing them to the sun…this will prevent mold, and hasten the ripening process. Used the net bags last season for the first time…no bird damage…got the whole crop, save at the very end when the Raccoons laid the remainder to waste….

            Fish,
            Also, Ixnay on the IstilleryDa, distilling still a high felony in these United States…legal in New Zealand, however.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 2:07 pm #

      Hollywood used to be the Gold Standard; now it’s been cheapened due to corporate greed, just like everything else.

  28. mow December 21, 2015 at 2:13 pm #

    all i can say is ; ” may the schwartz be with you “

  29. Q. Shtik December 21, 2015 at 2:19 pm #

    There are members of the pre-millennial generation ……… who consider the Star Wars saga to be high literature. – K-dog

    ===============

    e.g. Dr. Sheldon Cooper

  30. Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 2:24 pm #

    I have noticed that Donald has trouble with coherence. I find it quite remarkable that a man his age is holding up under the onslaught from left, right, and whatever the news media is. Remember, he speaks without a teleprompter and without notes, from what I can see.
    Hillary manages to sound robotic no matter what she says these days, she’s so afraid of going off the script, which of course she does, due to the stress of trying to act like a machine. I she noticed an allegedly Republican “journalist” trying to lead Donald into saying he agreed with killing journalists. Donald didn’t say it, but it was reported as if he did anyway.
    Remember “you didn’t build that”? Donald is a good example of what first Elizabeth Warren, and then (clumsily) Obama were trying to say. He never would have become what is is today, success-wise, his success is based on a concrete (literally, sometimes) product, and he freely acknowledges how great he thinks it is to be an American because it’s the land of opportunity. Yet the Left and Right establishment hate him. Go figure.
    Contrast that with the young crapweasel I mentioned above. How bizarre was it, seeing him do those smirking interviews about raising the cost of a drug beyond anyone’s ability to pay? What was with the “Come and get me, coppers!” attitude, and more important, how did he get where he was without anyone noticing something was seriously wrong with him? He represents the new America, Trump the old, why do people still wonder at Trump’s support? He may not be the best one, but he’s the only one.
    If Rubio and Cruz didn’t have Spanish surnames, we’d never have heard of either.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 2:50 pm #

      You can’t stump the Trump.

  31. Q. Shtik December 21, 2015 at 2:28 pm #

    The world ran on a Horse Economy for centuries before the internal combustion engine, and it could again. – teddyboy46

    ==============

    It still is, in places.

    Spent Saturday in and around Lancaster, PA with grandsons and their parents. Horse and buggies were clip-clopping all over the countryside. Farms, neat as a pin …. laundry on clothes lines flapped in the cold breeze.

    • MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 3:17 pm #

      Good to know that the followers of Menno Simons (all of them) are still ‘keepin’ it real’ out there…

      Cheers!

    • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 3:22 pm #

      A pleasant but impossible image. Too many people and not enough horses. If Chicago was almost buried under horseshit a hundred years ago imagine what it would look like now if everyone drove a hayburner.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 3:22 pm #

      Sorry to be a downer, but in places where the Amish are moving in, they are experiencing horrible car/buggy collisions, and people seem to always blame the Amish for being in the way or something.

    • BackRowHeckler December 22, 2015 at 12:21 am #

      In some neighborhoods ’round here its against the law to hang out laundry on the clothesline.

      You can be fined.

      brh

    • sprawlcapital December 22, 2015 at 1:04 am #

      There are several Amish and Mennonite communities in Iowa, with lots of horses. They are a remnant of what rural Iowa was a hundred years ago, before large-scale industrial crop growing took the culture out of agriculture. [Thanks, Wendell Berry, for your writing about this.]

  32. malthuss December 21, 2015 at 3:05 pm #

    Found this online —————-

    BC News executive producer Ian Cameron is married to Susan Rice, National Security Adviser.

    CBS President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.

    ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman is married to former Whitehouse Press Secretary Jay Carney.

    ABC News and Univision reporter Matthew Jaffe is married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary.

    ABC President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Obama’s Special Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood.

    CNN President Virginia Moseley is married to former Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Secretary Tom Nides

    • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 3:16 pm #

      And the odds of that happening by chance are nill. Obama serves the one percent of the one percent. They put him in charge and made America think we had elected this man from nowhere ourselves. Obama has done little for the black man since he was elected. Janos should be pleased! His sympathies lie with unregulated capitalism power and privilege and he continues to hoodwink most.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 21, 2015 at 3:24 pm #

        Ted Cruz’ wife is a VP at Goldman Sachs. I’m the only person I know who is bothered by this.

        • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 5:38 pm #

          V.P. at Goldman Sucks ? Hang them both. No you are not the only person Beryl…………

          • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 6:49 pm #

            I am tempted to agree but if the hoi polloi can be hornswoggled into electing Cruz perhaps the natural order of things should be four years of the anal despoliation electing him would bring.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 3:50 pm #

        Yes, and Trump will be best for Blacks if he turns off the spigot of illegal immigration. But will you people vote for him? No. Next question: Do you care about Blacks? Did you ever? Or was it really always about being better than other Whites – healthy Whites who put their own people first as healthy people naturally do.

        • abbybwood December 21, 2015 at 6:20 pm #

          If Trump succeeds in sending the millions of illegal immigrants (especially Latinos) out of the United States, who will work in all the farms picking tomatoes and other vegetables/fruits?

          Nobody. I doubt farm owners in the U.S. will pay the workers needed for these back-breaking jobs $20/hr. plus benefits and legal lunches/breaks with satisfactory bathrooms/living areas.

          Not to mention the cost of food going up $3-4/pound.

          But no one seems to want to address any of this.

          Who will mow the lawns (or what is left of them in California), babysit the kids of the nouveau riche, clean restaurant floors/bathrooms after the nouveau riche have dined?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 6:23 pm #

            White and Black Americans will do it – or legal Hispanics. The Walmart model for want of anything better. The minimum wage supplemented by various welfare payments.

          • malthuss December 22, 2015 at 11:10 am #

            A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN–HOORAY.

      • zaphod42 December 23, 2015 at 3:31 pm #

        ” His sympathies lie with unregulated capitalism power and privilege and he continues to hoodwink most.”

        This quote applies broadly to every denizen of the White House since 1980!

        At least since then.

        After 26 years of doing the same thing, in expectation of some new results, I would have to say we are most certainly insane!

        Craig

    • BackRowHeckler December 21, 2015 at 8:15 pm #

      good sleuthing, Malt.

      That makes my point in my final post last week. Last nite in fact.

      brh

      • malthuss December 21, 2015 at 11:35 pm #

        Andrea the anti White [Iowa is toooo white] and Alan Greenspan.

  33. MisterDarling December 21, 2015 at 3:23 pm #

    This is a memorable line:

    “But it adds up to something like flying blind through a shitstorm with your pilot in the throes of cerebral infarction. I don’t want to be on that plane.”-JHK.

    Thanks for the present! Happy Holidays Mr. Kunstler!

    🙂

  34. alphie December 21, 2015 at 3:24 pm #

    “Come January, when the dazzle of Star Wars fades away, you will hear instead through the long dark nights a howl of raging animals.”

    To quote Billy from the original Predator movie, “I’m scared Poncho”

    • Janos Skorenzy December 21, 2015 at 3:59 pm #

      Watch AvP. The Predators turn out to be our friends against the Aliens.

  35. BackRowHeckler December 21, 2015 at 3:34 pm #

    Jim, I agree on those space movies, but you can’t beat the old 50s Scifi flicks like ‘Earth vs Flying Saucers’, The Day the Earth Stood Still’, ‘The Thing’ (James Arness played the thing) and ‘War of the Worlds’. Melodramatic, cheesy, full of camp and cold war angst, after 60 odd years they’re still fun to watch.

    brh

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  36. BackRowHeckler December 21, 2015 at 3:46 pm #

    Oh, and who could forget ‘Planet Nine from Outer Space’?

    Anything by Ed Wood.

    brh

  37. Sean Coleman December 21, 2015 at 4:39 pm #

    Peter Hitchens agrees with JHK’s assessment of Trump (from a link I supplied in the last thread:

    ‘Mr Trump, olympically stupid and ignorant in many ways and virtually thoughtless has the low feral cunning to spot this need and to pretend to meet it.’

    • Florida Power December 21, 2015 at 8:59 pm #

      Was it Schlesinger Jr or one of the brain trust who wrote of Roosevelt: A second rate intelligence but a first rate temperament?

      Not sure that describes Trump but the A students typically fail as presidents. Frankly, I am not sure if even the B students can succeed anymore. Whatever “succeed” means. There ain’t no “we” out there.

      • Sean Coleman December 22, 2015 at 6:54 am #

        Good point. I know little about Roosevelt, and much of that I picked up when studying America’s involvement in China before and during the war. I can’t remember if it was Gen. Stimson, who had been given the thankless task of liaising with Chiang-Kai Shek (and who was, I recall, arrested on arriving back in the US after his mission was ended) or Ambassador Gauss (a marginalized Invisible Man) who wrote that Roosevelt wouldn’t read any report if it was more than a page in length. But Roosevelt had Hopkins and the rest of them to advise him (and Eleanor). Who has Trump got?

        From the very little I’ve seen of him his temperament is good. So is Marine Le Pen’s, again from what little I’ve seen. She ridicules her journalist interrogators for behaving as if they were party politicians themselves.

  38. fodase December 21, 2015 at 5:13 pm #

    No, try The Amazing Colossal Man.

    Especially the scene where he throws the giant syringe through the
    man.

    Also, the blonde’s attempt to reason with him – it partially works.

    The original Planet of the Apes is also phenomenal, as is Goldsmith’s soundtrack to it.

    Nothing like Chas Heston’s great lines…..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMnM_cQu6Fo

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMvR_RnKu4

    Heston is great as Marc Antony as well

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bi1PvXCbr8

    Great American, Great Man, Great Father

  39. saharasergei December 21, 2015 at 5:14 pm #

    I disagree with you on the ‘Star Wars’ movies, JHK, but I totally agree about Hillary – if she’s the Democratic nominee, the Democrats will disintegrate. They’ll Whig out . . . and party like it’s 1852. MARTIN O’MALLEY IN 2016!

    http://www.martinomalley.com

    • routersurfer December 21, 2015 at 5:43 pm #

      How about an Bernie / O’Malley ticket ? ABHRC…….now did I misplace my meds again ??? Nader for Chief Justice…..back in the 70’s Hollyweird told me we can time travel on the way to The Forceps me thinks yes I do !

    • Semi-Employed White Guy December 21, 2015 at 11:42 pm #

      Yeah, so all of America can have race riots.

  40. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 6:21 pm #

    “Obama serves the one percent of the one percent. They put him in charge and made America think we had elected this man from nowhere ourselves.” == K-Dog

    We have already established here on CFN that Obama is of Kennedy’s clan – he is a grandson of JFK:

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/welcome-to-world-war-three/

    Whose grandson became the President of the United States on January 20, 2009?

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 6:41 pm #

      You didn’t think that KGB missed on that one, did you?

  41. Frankiti December 21, 2015 at 6:24 pm #

    “Here I confess: for thirty years I have hated those stupid space movies, as much for their badly-written scripts (all mumbo-jumbo exposition of nonsensical story-lines between explosions) as for the degenerate techno-narcissism they promote in a society literally dying from the diminishing returns and unintended consequences of technology.”

    Umm, gee… you do know these to be children’s movies, right? The scripts dealt with broad themes written to keep little people following along. They used the Campbellian odyssey structure to tell a simple hero’s tale. The movies were great for selling toys, not metaphysics a la Bergman.

    Ironically, the author runs the risk of falling into the same trap that the overgrown (adult) perpetual adolescents whose behavior he laments do; namely, being unable to distinguish childhood appropriate behavior and accoutrements from those of the adult realm.

    In other words, it’s a kid’s Disney film, don’t you too mistake it for anything more.

  42. Phutatorius December 21, 2015 at 7:01 pm #

    Demigod and demagogue! That’s worthy of Mr. Dubya himself. Thanks for the preview.

  43. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 7:18 pm #

    Kerry after “A very productive day” in Moscow:

    http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/aillarionov/14234704/295584/295584_600.jpg

    • ozone December 21, 2015 at 7:43 pm #

      Herman Munster; drunk on vodka and happy as a clam! 😉

    • FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 7:54 pm #

      Rumors Of “Kremlin isolation” Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

  44. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 8:03 pm #

    The continuity by President Obama of President Kennedy is a source of hope that, despite the risks posed by the current confrontation, the solution of current problems still could be found, moreover, that this continuity allows us to understand the struggle of political philosophies and clans in the United States, which to a large extent can contribute to finding a common language with this really great country.

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/welcome-to-world-war-three/

  45. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 8:29 pm #

    The story of Obama being the grandson and spiritual heir to Jack Kennedy is more in line with artistic (dramaturgy) truth, rather than “bare” facts, which nobody knows anyway, and is quite contradictory to the rude stories of so-called “birthers” (probably inspired and paid for by the Wicked Witch of the West)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYIYnf853yw

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • K-Dog December 21, 2015 at 10:09 pm #

      Obama a Quadroon! That could explain his less than half-assed commitment to black America and the economically disadvantaged. Volumes would be explained if true.

      Now, how to get some DNA for testing without getting shot dead in the process? Not an easy job.

  46. psteckler December 21, 2015 at 8:41 pm #

    J G Ballard’s review of the first Star Wars movie remains relevant:

    https://goo.gl/KWN6cT

  47. FincaInTheMountains December 21, 2015 at 8:59 pm #

    In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis there was a total media blackout in Russia regarding the events in the Caribbean. Only very few (mostly military) knew that “something” was going on, but by large Russia was in complete blissful ignorance that we were just one step from nuclear annihilation.

    And in July of 2014, 52 years later, the world went through a much more dangerous crisis and Kennedy’s grandson was at the helm of United States!

    I know most of you think that I am full of it, but what if I am not? That’s a Shakespearean material.

  48. S M Tenneshaw December 21, 2015 at 9:41 pm #

    To paraphrase Edwin Starr: Space, what is it good for? Absolutely nuthin’! Good God y’awll….

  49. Phil_C December 21, 2015 at 9:55 pm #

    Thank you for the gift, JHK! I’ll be in line for the release of the 4th installment.

  50. DrGonzo December 21, 2015 at 11:14 pm #

    Stay tuned for my post next week on all the economic predictions that JHK got badly wrong — yet again — in 2015.

    The guy’s predictable, if nothing else.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • malthuss December 21, 2015 at 11:36 pm #

      Okay. At least he has the balls to act like he has a crystal ball.

    • sprawlcapital December 21, 2015 at 11:39 pm #

      Happy Winter Solstice to all! Winter begins at 10:58 pm, Central Time.

      And to all a Good Night.

      • sprawlcapital December 21, 2015 at 11:41 pm #

        That should be 10:48 pm for the Solstice.–Sprawl

  51. Semi-Employed White Guy December 21, 2015 at 11:38 pm #

    Mr. Yellen does look a bit like Yoda.

    SJWs and political correctness must be crushed. Germans and Swedes are starting to arm themselves. The de-pussification of Western Europe has begun. I only hope its not too late.

    TRUMP 2016. Because he is coherent about one thing. The ONLY thing that matters: turning back the third world invaders.

  52. Walter B December 22, 2015 at 12:20 am #

    Yes James, Hollywood, drunken slut that She is, was lost when She traded Special Effects for Substance. Star Wars and its triviality shrivels like a vampire in the morning sun when compared to the Monsters From the ID in the old time classic, Forbidden Planet! Hollywood, greedy retailers, countless media toadies and the organized “religions” of Christendom whip up the Mindless Masses into a frantic and debt laden outpouring of value from those that create it to those that steal it every year at this time. Parasites! Charlatans! As the day closes upon us, we that are still free to believe or not have a hard choice to make. While we may hold different meaning and significance to this yearly occurrence, this nation that once celebrated Salvation may now still choose to raise our voices to the Brotherhood of Mankind or play along with the sellout scum that rule us and play into the division that they lead us into. The choice is ours and I doubt that we as a nation will choose wisely. Despite these misgivings I wish you long life, good health, and sufficient patience to see you through the BS. Merry Christmas.

  53. wpa_ccc December 22, 2015 at 2:59 am #

    Bernie Sanders successfully differentiated himself between Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy and failures. Sanders is indeed the true front runner, and wins in Iowa and New Hampshire will undermine the groupthink that has so many pundits and observers worshiping at the altar of ever-changing polls.

    Bernie Sanders Won the Debate, Defeated the DNC, and Became the Real Democratic Front Runner.

    In my recent appearance on the Thom Hartmann Program, I explain why Bernie Sanders will become president, and why the recent data controversy illuminates numerous Clinton scandals overtly ignored by the DNC. Debbie Wasserman Shultz struck at the campaign, Sanders supporters struck back, and genuine progressives won. The Sanders campaign showed the nation which candidate controls the fate of the Democratic establishment, despite the group think associated with landline-based poll numbers that had Clinton up by a similar margin in 2008. — H. A. Goodman

    • Florida Power December 22, 2015 at 7:46 am #

      Perhaps we are witnessing the first attempt to “turn on” Hilary, actually to confront on issues of empire. If so I applaud the man and wish him luck because he will need more than a food taster and kevlar underwear if the DNC machine fails.

      Two notable interviews of late: The inimitable Greg Hunter – Scott Uehlinger, forcing us to recalculate the CIA-as-rogue story, and Abby Martin-Lawrence Wilkerson, reminding us how far we have strayed since that simpler time prior to the national security act.

  54. jloughrey December 22, 2015 at 3:19 am #

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand the allure of Star Wars. I watched the first one, only under duress, so I can at least say firsthand that I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

    Hillary a giant flying reptile? I spit out my coffee. It’s obvious the pantsuit queen will be anointed by the ever-more corrupt DNC, which is doing everything they can to marginalized Bernie Sanders. They are no better than the GOP. Bernie doesn’t stand a chance, despite being the far more popular candidate, as he’ll never get the delegates. No matter–he’d be ineffectual as President anyway, since DC is completely dysfunctional. Democracy is dead, if it ever existed at all.

    Instead of plopping down fifteen bucks for a Star Wars movie that would bore me to tears, I bought a copy of “A History of the Future.” Maybe a late birthday present, or early Christmas, I’m not sure. But better late than never. Since I will be alone at Christmas, I will celebrate by reading this latest installment of Jim’s fabulous “World Made by Hand” series, as I know it will make the day memorable.

    Happy holidays, Jim. I look forward to your New Year’s forecast, and many more years of reading your works.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Janos Skorenzy December 22, 2015 at 3:28 am #

      The leading man is an unbelievably primitive looking Nigerian Black. What the hell were they thinking?

  55. FincaInTheMountains December 22, 2015 at 3:24 am #

    “The de-pussification of Western Europe has begun.” — White Guy

    March “Farewell of Slavianka” in Hebrew:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUDr6K_Bjco

    March “Farewell of Slavianka” on the Red Square:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7lDfE5rSdI

  56. Janos Skorenzy December 22, 2015 at 3:30 am #

    https://gma.yahoo.com/cdc-investigating-multi-state-e-coli-outbreak-linked-215541462–abc-news-wellness.html#

    Chipotle again. They must be using Mexicans right off the “boat”. Can you say boycott?

  57. FincaInTheMountains December 22, 2015 at 4:53 am #

    Christian Genocide. 1915

    http://regnum.ru/uploads/pictures/news/2015/12/22/regnum_picture_145077342447284_big.jpg

    Since the beginning of the “Arab Spring”, and in particular with entering of DAESH to world scene, position of Middle Eastern Christians varied from “bad” to “awful.”

    The first hit took Egyptian Copts, but thanks to the support of the coup in 2013, which was carried by the army led by General al-Sisi, were the first to come to a more or less stable situation.

    There is still a depressing situation in Iraq, where militants of DAESH kicked local Christians from the plains of Nineveh, the latter were able to find refuge with the Kurds. And if you count the Iraqi Kurdistan as de facto established state, it is the latter, in addition to Israel, which helps to survive religious minorities and even offers them some perspective for the future.

    So far not seen any hope for the Christians of Libya, moreover, it appears that their situation will only get worse as the jihadists are expelled from Syria and Iraq.

    In Syria itself something began to change for the better after the country was joined by Russia at the invitation of President Bashar al-Assad, and the alliance led by the United States stepped up its efforts after it pulled in France and Germany.

  58. bobwise32952 December 22, 2015 at 7:45 am #

    Enjoyed the Harrows excerpt, but it’s not quite as believable as the previous three volumes. Obviously, you’ve had the cream of America’s politically correct ivory tower types form their own little nation. But how could such airheads have survived this long after the collapse of everything that supported them? I suppose the mystery will be solved in the coming book. Looking forward to it.

  59. malthuss December 22, 2015 at 11:12 am #

    AUTOMATIC EARTH,
    What’s happening today, and what Charles neglects to mention, is that huge amounts of Americans simply no longer have money to spend.
    And no matter how much extra is pumped in through QE, it fails to reach them. Moreover, they’re all maxed out on debt. So even if they would get some extra, it would go towards debt repayment. And it does.

    —How much are citizens [not ‘consumers’] in debt?

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  60. dweebus December 22, 2015 at 1:19 pm #

    JHK,

    Geez, now you call us Star Wars geeks out for technonarcissism. All work and no play make Johnny a dull boy. Careful now, or some might call you a crank, or God forbid, a codger.

    Look, I think Star Wars (lets just forget Phantom Menace, shall we) is appealing because it is a classic hero quest. People want a hero to save them, Avalon, the world, the universe. Just as Beowulf or Le Morte d’Arthur appealed to medieval uncertainty and discord, so did the original SW appeal to the malaise of the 70s. I think the new film hits a chord because things are so unsettled.

    IMO the space bit is just window dressing. It is the story that underlies it that is appealing.

    Star Trek is much more pernicious, IMO.

    • Frankiti December 22, 2015 at 3:17 pm #

      There is a real problem when it comes to the geek adults and Star Wars. So much misplaced nostalgia for youth leads weirdos to dress up and takes these children’s films way too seriously. Poor George Lucas knits an admittedly whimsical children’s tale to provide a vehicle for his mastery and innovation of special effect technology and the perpetual adolescents nail him to a cross for daring to tell HIS stories HIS way. What ungratefulness. I don’t believe Star Wars special effects advancements equals techno-narcisism. It’s important to draw a distinction between advancement, evolution and BLIND FAITH that technology WILL, ultimately, provide a solution to all of life’s problems. In fact, it can be argued, that the story of Star Wars contains a theme that calls for the push of a simpler existence, or a oneness with the universe and not the robotic hegemonic homogeneity of the Empire.
      Star Trek demonstrated the perpetual struggle, and the limitations when trying, to remain “human” in an impossible environment.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 23, 2015 at 12:56 am #

        Yes, both Obi-Wan and Yoda lived in primeval simplicity, a life given to contemplation.

        The original Star Trek at least occasionally showed higher beings who no longer need high tech to live superior lives. They had internalized the technology and sometimes lived simple outer lives that fooled the Enterprise into thinking they were merely undeveloped.

      • dweebus December 24, 2015 at 1:45 pm #

        Oh, lighten up. First of all, most adults don’t “cosplay” at the films. Secondly, even if they do, it is harmless fun, and passing down a tradition/passion for something. Much like Halloween or Santa, it it is just a way to transmit a sense of wonder in a very fucked up world. My Halloween display is huge, with animatrontic witches, ghosts, and a full churchyard. Maybe it is childish, but the kids love it, so I don’t give a damn! You have to have some fun after all.

        Lucas’ problem was that he forgot a story must center around humans, our relationships, our struggles. The scifi (or hospital setting, or noir city life, or wild west, or medieval fanstasy, etc) is window dressing. You must care about, and relate to the characters, or whatever message you wanna convey will be lost. He came to the conclusion that the ” pod race” drives the story. Abrams understood it is the PEOPLE that drive the story and brought Lucas’ vision back to that basic truth, as he did with Star Trek Heart of Darkness.

        I don’t care what the medium, or the setting is, I like good storytelling. I want to be transported from Mudania to Xanth, from a day at work to Nero Wolf’s studio as he confronts the killer, from cutting the grass to M*A*S*H. Humans need good stories, like we need air to breathe.

  61. dweebus December 22, 2015 at 1:41 pm #

    BTW John Michael Greer’s Star’s Reach very much follows the same hero quest pattern. Trey, the young farm boy is orphaned. He becomes a ruinman and is sucked into the quest. Plummer is the mentor. Berry, Eleen, Thu are the compatriots, the merry men.

    But Greer brilliantly used the window dressing of deindustrial Meriga to underline his point. Progress won’t continue forever, but it is not The End.

  62. wpa_ccc December 22, 2015 at 2:22 pm #

    It is interesting that Lucas is using elements of Islam to reach people, and the public is hungry for it. The relations between the Jedi master, apprentice and the Force correlate to that of the Sufi Sheikhs, students and worshipping of Allah. The terms “Jeddi” and “Palawan” correlate with the terms for Muslim knights. The story of “al-Khidr” – the green spiritual guru has a resemblance to the Jedi Spiritual master “Yoda.”

    Other similarities: The emphasis of the omnipresence of Allah. Yoda explains to Luke that is via The Force that our true selves can be realized. Our existence on this mortal plane is not the totality of our existence, we are more than merely our “crude matter” of flesh. In Islam, as well, acceptance of the Oneness of Allah (Tawhid) is the key to unlocking the truth about reality and our purpose on this crude world. In Islam, Allah is what makes us luminous, what surrounds and binds all muslims and humanity alike.

    Of course, it’s just a movie, with a simplified philosophy suited to fiction. But the higher philosophy of the Jedi is one that muslims should recognize. And of course, the Qur’an is their lightsaber… May The Force be with you… Always. And Fi Amaan Allah (Allah’s peace be with you).

    • nsa December 22, 2015 at 4:47 pm #

      You a sick fuck, even for a fag……western women NOT into having their clits cut out with a broken coke bottle by vile moronic inbred cultists..

      • wpa_ccc December 22, 2015 at 5:32 pm #

        Dow up

        Nasdaq up

        S&P 500 up

        UUP down

        Maybe it takes four weeks for the dollar express engine to warm up?

        You have lost all credibility, nsa.

  63. budizwiser December 22, 2015 at 2:44 pm #

    James, you know very well that exchanging dollars for “disposable energy consumption” runs the world.

    The point of of all your cynicism is the fact that “America” provides the best example of how to lay-waste to our God-given paradise. (through wrongful-allocation)

    The sooner you write essays that succinctly, yet colorfully explain the crux of our end times – the sooner you get to be knighted a visionary.

    As I posted many times – when pro-sports and air conditioning are too expensive for the masses – the “mad-max” era shall have arrived……

    Have a holiday. Hope you are well.

  64. Frankiti December 22, 2015 at 3:24 pm #

    Bloomberg News was lamenting the “Itlalianization” of Spanish politics, in other words an abrupt turn from the janus faced corrupt 2 party political system of Spain. This is good news. This is where the US is eventually headed. A Trump win will ensure the breakdown of the 2 party system. A Sanders nomination will be the nail in the coffin. Paul Ryan proving that we in fact have one party despite protestations of the establishment stalwarts (Pelosi, Reid, McInsane, Graham) will hasten our date with destiny.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  65. FincaInTheMountains December 22, 2015 at 4:37 pm #

    Barack Obama is JFK heir, says Kennedy aide

    12 Oct 2007

    John F Kennedy’s closest living aide has anointed Barack Obama as the heir to the assassinated president’s legacy and predicted that Hillary Clinton would lose an election to a Republican.

    Ted Sorensen, 79, Mr Kennedy’s chief speechwriter, slipped into the present tense as he was transported back to 1960, when another youthful senator espousing hope and change was being written off by the Establishment.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1565992/Barack-Obama-is-JFK-heir-says-Kennedy-aide.html

  66. FincaInTheMountains December 22, 2015 at 4:54 pm #

    The other Obama-Kennedy connection

    How a Kenyan airlift that brought a young scholar named Obama to America in 1960 – where he met a wife and fathered a son – was saved by a young senator from Massachusetts.

    The bond began with Kenyan labour leader Tom Mboya, an advocate for African nationalism who helped his country gain independence in 1963. In the late 1950s, Mboya was seeking support for a scholarship program that would send Kenyan students to US colleges – similar to other exchanges the US backed in developing nations during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Mboya appealed to the state department. When that trail went cold, he turned to then-senator Kennedy.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/10/usa.uselections2008

  67. FincaInTheMountains December 22, 2015 at 5:05 pm #

    Why Obama hesitates to release the CIA’s JFK records

    In this extended interview with Russia Today, Russ Baker of WhoWhatWhy explains why so many JFK records remain secret (as much as 50,000 pages worth). He says President Obama may have “some “trepidation” about releasing long-secret CIA records related to the assassination of President Kennedy in 2013.

    Baker argues that JFK’s assassination in 1963 narrowed the range of choices in the political culture, at least when it comes to U.S. foreign policy and militarism.

    “Ever since JFK the range of options are all very narrow,” he says. “There is no broad disagreement about pursuing foreign wars, about what U.S. interests really are.”

    Baker, author of “Family of Secrets,” calls on supporters of President Obama to write to the president calling for release of 50,000 pages of CIA documents related to JFK’s assassination. [For more details, see “Top 5 JFK files Brennan should make public”.] He wonders, though, if Obama might have some “trepidation” about doing so.

    I’m not sure that Obama worries or needs to worry about being assassinated, but I do think he will have some trepidation about crossing an entrenched CIA bureaucracy that is intent on keeping JFK assassination secrets in the name of “national security.”

    http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/why-obama-hesitates-to-release-jfk-records/

  68. wpa_ccc December 22, 2015 at 5:46 pm #

    Trump appears to be genitally obsessed. First he said Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly was bleeding from her vagina during the debate, apparently referring to her menstrual cycle. Then he insulted Carly Fiorina called her a bad name. Today he says Hillary got “schlonged.” And on several occasions Trump has said he wants to bang his daughter.

    This misogynist bully is the best the Republican Party can do? Trump is the leading Republican candidate and is on track to become the Republican nominee for president. The White House intelligence level will decrease and gutter level language will come from the White House, if genitally-obsessed Trump is elected.

    “You know, it doesn’t really matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” — Donald Trump from an interview with Esquire, 1991

  69. FincaInTheMountains December 22, 2015 at 6:10 pm #

    “Trump appears to be genitally obsessed” — wpa

    Trump’s just playing Captain America, America appears to be genitally obsessed.

    Anybody knows who’s who in his election campaign? That would tell much more about Trump than his show-biz remarks on public.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  70. wpa_ccc December 22, 2015 at 7:29 pm #

    Obama was right in 2008 about scared white rural Americans clinging to their religion and guns. Now they are clinging to Trump. But they no longer determine who wins elections. They are largely irrelevant, replaced by a vibrant, intelligent, multiracial, multicultural coalition of non-white and feminist voters who are not fooled by Trump’s racist xenophobia.

  71. wpa_ccc December 22, 2015 at 11:10 pm #

    “Hewitt: “Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? I want to go to Sen. Rubio after that and ask him.”

    Trump: “I think – I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”

    The devastation is very important to him. That flailing nonsense is the best Trump can manage. A reasonably well-informed fifth grader could come up with something better.

    The problem isn’t simply that Trump doesn’t have detailed plans to make sure our nuclear weapons are safely maintained. The problem is that he doesn’t understand even the most basic premise of a relatively simple question. He couldn’t muster a “I’ll make sure we have the most modern, best nuclear arsenal the world has ever seen,” because he didn’t know what he was being asked.

    Imagine handing over the nuclear codes to a man with the comprehension skills of Donald J. Trump. Do you honestly believe he would understand the consequences of using them? Trump is obsessed with tough-guy machismo. How much provocation does he need to press that button?

    Trump hasn’t walked back any of the racist, ignorant, stupid things he’s said over the course of the campaign, and he certainly won’t admit to making a mistake last night. But his inability to muster ten remotely sensible words about what he would do as president with the most destructive collection of weapons in the history of mankind should be an automatic disqualifier for the presidency.

    This moment should be the beginning of the end for his campaign. Just like all the other moments should have been.” –Jesse Berney

    Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trumps-terrifying-nuke-answer-at-the-debate-should-end-his-campaign-but-it-wont-20151216#ixzz3v765ZE2x

  72. K-Dog December 23, 2015 at 12:05 am #

    No disposable lucre needed. I was a guest.

    http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/forum/index.php/topic,6174.msg93851/topicseen.html#msg93851

    • Janos Skorenzy December 23, 2015 at 12:58 am #

      http://www.amren.com/news/2015/12/students-sign-petition-to-ban-racist-song-white-christmas-from-radio/

      Snow cannot not be White. It is an essential attribute.

      • K-Dog December 23, 2015 at 10:04 am #

        Maybe they just signed the petition to get him out of their face. Or maybe they just took pity on his tortured mind and just wanted to make him feel better. I bet you are the recipient of such pity all the time.

        Women are expert at agreeing their way out of situations.


        May your days be merry and bright
        And may all your Christmases be white

        And that yellow snow. Don’t eat it!

        • K-Dog December 23, 2015 at 10:07 am #

          ” Oh, the weather outside was whitening
          ‘Til the dog did something frightening
          He’s got no other place to go
          Yellow snow, yellow snow, yellow snow

          And he doesn’t show signs of stopping
          As he sniffs around his dropping
          You see him everywhere you go
          In the snow, yellow snow, yellow snow

          When he finally goes outside
          He’ll be frolicking ’round in the storm
          He’ll be marking our yard with pride
          You can tell by the steam that it’s warm

          When the snow begins it’s thawing
          It reveals those puppy drawings
          He’s a frisky little pooch van Gogh
          Yellow snow, yellow snow, yellow snow

          Come here, Yeller. Come on boy. Good doggie.

          Oh, not on Frosty.

          He’ll be marking our yard with pride
          You can tell by the steam that it’s warm

          Well, he’s happy and his tail starts waggin’
          But the snowman’s left side is saggin’
          There’s a little puddle right below
          Yellow snow, yellow snow, yellow snow
          Yellow snow, yellow snow

          Yellow snow
          Little patches of yellow snow
          Yellow snow
          Little patches of where Fido goes

          • alphie December 23, 2015 at 12:28 pm #

            Lol

        • Janos Skorenzy December 23, 2015 at 2:10 pm #

          Don’t trivialize something that is very telling. They are PC Zombies as you well know. Live not by Lies. They are you 15 years ago and sometimes still.

  73. FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 5:12 am #

    13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is an upcoming 2016 American political action thriller film produced and directed by Michael Bay and written by Chuck Hogan, based on the 2013 book “13 Hours” by Mitchell Zuckoff.

    It is clear that almost documentary book of Boston journalist and Harvard professor had to be lightly polished from the point of view of the State Department’s guilt and, therefore, the Democrats in power.
    Certainly the book reflects the truth, but not the whole truth. But even in that form it reflects the real disgrace of the State Department, the security service of which not only failed to find a safer place for the needs of the embassy, not only failed to protect the ambassador, but not even tried to do so.

    One guard that was near Ambassador Stevens, managed to save himself from the smoke-filled shelter, and the rest of the guards were too saving themselves, did not come to the rescue. And most importantly, after the evacuation of that “protection” of the embassy, when the fire was extinguished in a couple of hours, Libyans found suffocating in the smoke ambassador still alive, and he died only in a local hospital.

    That is, whether State Department guard would have been a little more courageous, the ambassador would be still alive, and US would not be covered with such disgrace.

    However, the film is not so much about the shame of the country, but about its pride – in the form of six Special Forces guarding another nearby house – the CIA undercover unit.

    Contrary to the instructions of the authorities not to interfere, not to leave important secrets unguarded, CIA guys still at the last moment decided to save their colleagues from the State Department. And they did, but have put terrorists from the local Al-Qaeda on the trail of the residency, which was also bombed, and two of the commandos were killed.

    In short, as in the history of the infamous massacre of army Special Forces to Mogadishu, Hollywood professionals did a “candy” of American heroes, and will now promote it around the world.

    From the political significance of the story, detailed in the Zuckoff book, the heroic action is hiding rather vile mutual infighting of the different political centers in the United States.

    Clearly, Obama’s special envoy to Libya, Stevens, was working on the issues of control over resources and political forces in addition to the official ambassador to Tripoli.

    That fact is a clear indication of a defeat in the State Department of some political group. In response, the State Department ignored all communications about the dangers threatening the diplomats and the need to increase security.

    Apparently that group in the State Department was hoping to kill two birds with one stone, because the secret CIA station, disguised as local militants, was also working on the control of local politicians, businessmen and oil industry, but in favor of a third center of power in the American establishment.

  74. FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 6:45 am #

    Three centers of power in Anglo-Saxon establishment

    Key player – this, of course, is the owner of the dollar pyramid, or rather – the owner of the key technologies of its maintenance, not only financial, which is not too difficult, but above all military and geopolitical.

    That player could be called by the name of one of the clan leader – “Rockefeller”, or as I like to call them “The Pirates”.

    The second player (that used to be the first once) – “Money Changers” with the center in the City of London and mostly associated with “Rothschild” (however by far not only), whose financial power is based on currency transactions and other liquidity operations and geopolitical technology hidden in an extensive agent network, as well as different kinds of mediation and other services to the elites of the other countries.

    For a long time after 1940s the second player worked in the shadow of the first, holding a grudge, and concealing a thirst for revenge.

    The third player, and the “youngest brother”, is Financial Control based on US Special Services community and financial bureaucracy, led by the NSA and it became an autonomous wing of establishment.

    Snowden was a crisis when two “older brothers” tried to put down the emerging strength of Financial Control, which now is the primary Obama power base as the leader of American national bureaucracy.

    The objective of the first player – to approach to the X-hour of reset of current financial pyramid and start of a new one, is to provide a complete power control over the world trade. To ensure that buyers and sellers would not even think on going to bilateral national currency exchange and clearing, or a complex barter supported by their National Central banks.

    The objective of the second player is to inhibit and prevent the formation of a unipolar control over world trade, which automatically delays the approach of the X-hour and makes the coming transitional period more stringent and risky for the western countries.

    The interests of the US extended bureaucracy (the closest you could get to the interest of “American People”) are represented by the third player – Obama’s Financial Control.

    To understand these complex classifications, it must be understood that the “centers of power” are not the states, but the elite groups, feeding off different financial and related geopolitical technologies.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  75. Reagan December 23, 2015 at 6:57 am #

    Nice to see someone say “Merry Christmas” and not be fearful of the miserable clowns who are attacking everything good that remains of our country.

    The Republican RINOs are nothing more than the right wing of the Democrats now, as shown by the omnibus bill that no one has read.

    The Democrats have no tolerance for anything or anyone any longer and are now the Democrat-Fascist party.

    Those super-smart folks of Wall Street will eventually find out how they have outsmarted themselves with their multi-trillion dollars worth of digital money flying around the globe. A solar flare, and EMP, or a ruinous computer virus will take down the false system of pseudo-capitalism, if only for a short time. True capitalism, guided by a conscience, is what a Republic such as was intended by the Founding Fathers needs to survive.

    Trump is doing so well because he speaks from the heart, and doesn’t have to weigh his words like all politicians. People with any spirit left in them see that he is not pandering to people and enjoy the breath of fresh air.

    If anyone votes for Hillary they are voting for the person who allowed the four men in Benghazi to die at the hands of the murderers. Think about that before you vote. Where was she when she “got the call at 2 AM” – she was MIA, as was the juvenile you elected for 8 years.

    Merry Christmas.

  76. BackRowHeckler December 23, 2015 at 7:10 am #

    Forget about ‘Star Wars’, don’t waste your money.

    For a few bucks you can buy ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’, eminently more entertaining, made in 1988 for a mere $2 million. This movie has everything you want, a cult classic. Does it predate ‘The Insane Clown Posse’? I’ll have to check on that.

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    Donald Trump … Stands at Armageddon, battling for the Lord.

    brh

    • alphie December 23, 2015 at 12:40 pm #

      And which Lord would that be brh? The one that said love your enemies and turn the other cheek and he who lives by the sword dies by the sword and violence begets violence and love your neighbor as yourself? I think the don should make sure he got his marching orders right

      • BackRowHeckler December 23, 2015 at 12:55 pm #

        Yeah, it looks like ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’ did influence ‘The Insane Clown Posse’, came around a few years before those Crazy White Detroit Rappers. No, I’m not a Juggalo, but I did know a Juggalo once.

        80s wrestling loomed large in the ICP too. Its all Showbiz.

        brh

        • alphie December 23, 2015 at 3:05 pm #

          I should’ve known better

          • BackRowHeckler December 23, 2015 at 4:23 pm #

            Hey Alph, don’t take yourself, or CFNation, too seriously.

          • alphie December 23, 2015 at 4:47 pm #

            brh, sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don’t. merry christmas

  77. bobwise32952 December 23, 2015 at 8:33 am #

    P.S. on the Harrows excerpt: In brother Elam’s remark that they “like a little meat with their vegetables,” he’s misrepresenting the sport of (rac)coon hunting. It’s a lower class version of the English fox hunt, culminating when the dogs tear the animal to pieces. No one eats the Ringtailed Handwasher. (Caution: this is second-hand information, mostly from a story “Knock him out, John” in a 1980’s comedy tape titled Mississippi Talking.)

  78. Cold N. Holefield December 23, 2015 at 9:18 am #

    There is so much love in this comment section, I can only handle a little bit at a time. It’s overwhelming. The best Humanity has to offer can be found here. It’s a sight (and a site) to behold, but a bit blinding — like staring at the sun or watching a nuclear detonation without the special glasses.

    Blinded by the Light

    • elysianfield December 23, 2015 at 10:35 am #

      Doo Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Ditty Do….

    • ZrCrypDiK December 26, 2015 at 1:11 am #

      That’s the E-Street Band version, ain’t it? (heh) I believe I poasted on your Manfred link a few years back – try scrolling down to it, hehe!

      Reflections of X-species clonings (Korn, NE-1?!?)…

      What’s there to say, really, at this point? Aren’t we all simply watching and waiting for something(,) akin to black swan?!…

      My religion? I wish for a fruitful biodiversity/ecosystem, not this sickly, toxic, extinction-riddled desert we’re producing.

      PS – Don’t sweat so hard CNH – I loved your voice on those podcasty thangz…

  79. wpa_ccc December 23, 2015 at 9:20 am #

    Here are some of the issues I agree with Trump:

    Trump is fine with affirmative action. Trump is fine with gay marriage. Trump supports assault rifle ban. Trump supports relations with communist Cuba. Trump says Black lives matter (Aug. 2015). Trump supports teaching citizenship and voting. Trump won’t go to circuses due to animal rights. Trump says TPP is a horrible deal; no one has read its 5,600 pages. (Nov 2015). Trump says government should do public works. Trump says don’t cut Medicare.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • BackRowHeckler December 23, 2015 at 1:58 pm #

      How about a Trump-Sanders ticket, WPA?

      There are some issues we can go with Sanders on; Keep abortion safe and legal, try to make the Affordable Care Act work better, limit AR15 .223 rifles in the civic realm. I think we can find some common ground here.

      I saw Sanders speak at a public event a few years back. It was the ant-July 4th parade in Warren, VT. The parade itself was wild, featuring red flags and Palestinian flags and upsidedown American flags, plus a zonked out fife and drum corps playing off key and marching out of step . Sanders gave a rambling, well received speech about Vermont seceding from the union (the Iraq war was still on) I happened to be sitting on a stone wall next to a guy who turned out to be a district attorney from Queens who said his wife left him and moved up here with the kids, ‘to find herself’. He said to me “90% of the people here are high, including the Grand Marshall of the parade”.

      brh

  80. FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 11:58 am #

    Americans continue to believe that America is the “leader” of the world and that those who sit in the chair of the President in the White House rule the whole world, and that the US election campaign is a “monumental struggle for power over the entire world.”

    And lately in this fight emerged a grand breakthrough in relations between the US and Russia, which is embodied by the mutual compliments between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, visit to Moscow by Secretary of State Kerry, which resulted in an agreement on Syria, where Assad’s resignation is not mentioned.

    Moreover, upon these agreements between Putin and Kerry and the Federal Reserve System, health of the global financial system resides, that strongly required increase in the interest rates.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 12:04 pm #

      Remember that the “net exporters” – the countries with positive trade balance and relatively large holdings in US Treasuries, are the primary looser (along with US pension funds – the anchors of social stability) of the historically low interest rates.

    • FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 12:39 pm #

      The Putin’s strategy

      US pursue a policy of double presence in any area. US Elites supports two opposing forces in any country. Then, depending on the scenario relies on the one who is more profitable at the moment. Who is not profitable could be deprived of the power and even of his very life.

      It is not important how powerful any ruler is or how much money he accumulated, if tomorrow he may be hanged.

      Putin took advantage of this in his strategy. He made it clear to all players that he only works with one and this “one” saves power and life (and money). That’s why he obtains great results even when he has much less money and resources than US.

      Does not it seem strange that Kerry repeats like a mantra, that Assad must go? And why Putin insists that Assad should stay? In the end, was it not possible to find an easy compromise and to replace Assad, maintaining political influence?

      No he can’t.

  81. ozone December 23, 2015 at 12:10 pm #

    Just to add a bit more trepidation to the mix (on top of the moral turpitude that helped to make this “ominous Yuletide” so very ominous) here’s a fine nuke-u-lar cocktail, just in time for neo-con celebrations. Vicious Vicky and her co-conspirators must be sooo proud of their work, as we contemplate west to east winds that may bring special gifts to their “competitors”. Should we take the devolution of Ukraine as an object lesson? Nah, Humbug!:

    http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2015/12/on-19th-day-of-christmas.html

    “Clean; safe; too cheap to meter”, true believing techno-shitopians! (Don’t worry, this will only affect those other guys. It’s all good.)

    …And, “wobbling ziggurats” as well. The IMF changed its inviolable rules and by-laws to allow the Ukies to welsh on their loan from Russia. (Not that they have anything to pay it *with*.) Hmmm, how did that happen?

    • FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 1:10 pm #

      The recent political games changed all that already: IMF agreed to consider Russian loan to Ukraine as sovereign debt – which means no new IMF tranches to Kiev’s regime.

      Kiev’s junta is doomed. Now’s just the time to decide who’s gonna pay for broken dishes in Ukraine. Putin’s no hurry to assume that honorable duty.

    • BackRowHeckler December 23, 2015 at 2:29 pm #

      Oz,

      Ukraine has pretty much been forgot about here, yesterday’s news. Nobody seems to care about events there last year, or even last week.

      I heard this ‘oil analyst’ on Bloomberg radio this morning say that there’s a petroleum glut right now that may last 25 years, and price per barrel might fall to $15. What do you think? Misinformation? Or is there something to it?

      brh

      • FincaInTheMountains December 23, 2015 at 3:15 pm #

        Brh, one morning you’ll wake up, and the oil will be free!

  82. Buck Stud December 23, 2015 at 3:35 pm #

    “Snow cannot not be White. It is an essential attribute.”

    Of course it’s an asinine pc stunt to try and censor/ban a song such as “White Christmas”. But your statement above’ is it really a precise declaration/observation?

    Of course it’s not; it’s just another preconceived assumption that is taken for granted as an empirically observed fact.

    Take a look at the “white snow” in the painting and compare it to the white text. And then ask yourself why you ever believed that snow is simply white. And then ponder the notion that if you can be so wrong on something as simple as failing to perceive the color of snow in a given relational state/light key, then how wrong might you be on other things vastly more complex?

    Maybe it will give you a moment of pause but I doubt it:

    http://www.onlineart.ru/images/pictures/svib8.jpg.

    • malthuss December 23, 2015 at 4:06 pm #

      try and censor, ‘try TO censor.’

      • malthuss December 23, 2015 at 4:07 pm #

        Buck, try telling all of that to Ms. Snow White.

        • BackRowHeckler December 23, 2015 at 4:26 pm #

          Buck, that’s pretty deep.

          Malt, funny retort. Got me laughing here, on this dark day, shortest day of the year.

          brh

    • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2015 at 2:56 pm #

      So snow isn’t White? You are using your artistic sensibilities where they don’t belong – and not for the first time. Yes, snow can take on a tint of what is around it, but that is a temporary condition. Snow qua snow is White. Obviously your point would apply to bodies of water, which only have the color which their surroundings provide.
      Hope that helps.

      • sprawlcapital December 25, 2015 at 4:10 am #

        Janos–
        Obviously your point would apply to bodies of water, which only have the color which their surroundings provide.
        ===========================
        In small volumes, such as in a glass, water appears colorless. In larger volumes of water, such as in a swimming pool, the light blue-green color called aqua is visible. This aqua color, intrinsic to water, is also visible in shallow ocean water, where the sand is white. Examples I have seen are the waters around the Bahamas and the Florida Gulf Coast.

  83. alphie December 23, 2015 at 5:12 pm #

    To whom it may concern, did it ever occur to you that Muslims are coming here because the U.S. is over there? If I were Muslim I’d say if you want me to stay out of your country then stay out of mine. .
    Take your armored vehicles, your military bases, your corporate war racketeers and get the hell off my land.

    Of course when you’re a weaker nation that’s not an option. Many see terrorism as their only recourse.

    Addicted to War, Why the U.S. can’t kick Militarism is an illustrated expose by Joel Andreas. It’s an eye opener. The copyright is 2004. There may be an updated version out

    • Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2015 at 2:49 pm #

      They’ve been attacking the West for ages. They’d be coming anyway, but yes our involvement over there hastened the resumption of Jihad.

  84. Q. Shtik December 23, 2015 at 9:33 pm #

    Here in Central NJ where I live the high temperature tomorrow, Christmas Eve, is forecast to be 73 degrees. Is that F’d up or what?

    It is 60 degrees as we type.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • wpa_ccc December 23, 2015 at 11:59 pm #

      “Christmas Eve, is forecast to be 73 degrees. Is that F’d up or what?” –Q

      When it was cold in the winter, FOXNews would scoff and say “it always gets cold in the winter. It’s freezing out. There is no global warming. Global warming is a hoax”

      Now that it is warm in the winter, I would like to hear FOXNews say “Global warming is real; global warming is not a hoax.”

      Of course, local weather cannot be the judge of the phenomena. Only the global mean temperature shows that the planet is indeed warming. Al Gore is right.

      You can see the temperature rise visually in this graph from 1880 to 2015.

      http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/indicators/global-temp-and-co2-1880-2009.gif

  85. wpa_ccc December 23, 2015 at 10:20 pm #

    “How about a Trump-Sanders ticket, WPA? There are some issues we can go with Sanders on; … I think we can find some common ground here.” –brh

    I agree, brh. We could get along and work together on common issues.

  86. Buck Stud December 24, 2015 at 12:00 am #

    “When the snow begins it’s thawing
    It reveals those puppy drawings
    He’s a frisky little pooch van Gogh
    Yellow snow, yellow snow, yellow snow”–Dawg

    Rover yes; Fido yes: Van Gogh–NO!

    Sorry Old Yeller, some things/ people are sacred and should be revered.

  87. wpa_ccc December 24, 2015 at 1:40 am #

    “I may disagree with anything that he’s saying and think that his proposals are a little, well more than a little shocking, but there is something really hopeful about the fact that, well 36 percent of the likely voters want him,” Colbert said, referencing a recent CNN poll. “So people in the machine don’t get to say otherwise. That’s the one saving grace of his candidacy.”

    Steven Colbert is misleading the public. Republican voter numbers and Democratic voter numbers are about equally divided: 50/50. So, Trump’s support is not 36%. It is 50% of 36%, or 18%, about what some other third-party candidates, like Ross Perot, have mustered before they lost the election.

    Trump cannot win the presidency with 18% of voters nationally supporting him. Trump may not even win the nomination if the establishment Republicans manage a brokered convention and install someone else, like Paul Ryan.

  88. FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2015 at 1:58 am #

    So why Kerry and his State Department Harvard wing of American political elite, closer to the “Money Changers” clan of financial oligarchy, wanted so badly to have a resolution on the fundamental principles of the Syrian settlement on Wednesday, before a meeting of the Federal Reserve?

    Because people who are sitting on the FED board are humans too, not cold-blooded Terminators. And they are very afraid of the outcome of the elections in the fall of 2016 in favor of the candidates actively sponsored by the “Pirates” globalist wing of the banksters – Hillary Clinton and most of GOP candidates.

    And the FED directors feared that prevailing in the Middle East uncertainty, when the action of the Russian military group on Putin’s order could lead to a serious escalation of the war and sucking in the Pentagon and NATO with ground forces, which automatically would lead to the mobilization of the voters in favor of the globalists hawks from both parties even at the stage of the primaries – with virtually no choice in the general elections.

    Most likely, the ultra-patriotic, but pro-Putin rhetoric of dark horse Trump is just one of the ways to forestall domestically such developments.

    However, a much more reliable way for Washington elite to insure continuing suppression of militarist hawks is to have a foreign policy decision by the UN Security Council, binding not only for Russia, but for Turkey’s generals, the Saudis and other allies of Washington “hawks”.

    • ozone December 24, 2015 at 1:53 pm #

      FITM,
      He’s my Solstice gift to you. What might all this pretended diplomacy be about? Peace and stability? A transition to shared power with gimlet-eyed religious asshats? Well, I’m not too sure about the eventual outcome, but I’ll go with Mikey’s assessment rather than put any bets on the tender mercies of the Empire and its moldering corpses of hope and peace through engineered despair and unabashed murder.

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43799.htm

      (Two things: 1.- The desired outcome is permanent instability; a kewl oxymoron if’n I ever see’d one! 2.- A ceasefire is all about saving the proxy gimlet-eyed, religious asshat fighters for another day, and regrouping and rearming same. Third thing, just for the hell of it.: Hope is overrated and can lead to dangerous inaction and a lack of mental readiness.)

  89. FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2015 at 2:56 am #

    Epochal changes in the US energy sector

    Over the past 7 years in the energy sector in the US there have been fundamental, literally epochal changes. Net imports of energy (coal, oil, gas) decreased three times from the peak in 2006. In 2015, net imports of energy to the United States is comparable to 1986 (900 trillion Btu per month), but given the size of the economy change in 30 years, US energy dependence on external markets the lowest, in at least half a century.

    All of this is remarkable that the current radical decline in imports in such a short period of time had no historical precedents. It is truly historical event, which is important to note and understand.

    In mid-2011 the United States first came to the negative net imports of oil products. That is they exported more than imported.

    Total exports of energy has increased almost three-fold from 2004-2006, reaching 1,100 trillion BTU per month.

    In terms of energy independence the United States made a great leap forward, and what else is interesting – there are no fatal destructive processes in the energy sector, even with such low prices for oil and gas (in terms of production, not profit). Yes, oil production declined, but just 3-4% from the peak levels of early 2015 and is still higher than a year ago, and gas in general there is no serious movement towards reducing production.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2015 at 3:12 am #

      Caution: People are working

      I am glad that President Obama managed to pull US out of the hopelessness of Imperial dependency on energy imports and proved the idiocy of City of London inspired small thinking Dmitry Orlov’s “Grand Theory of Collapse”.

  90. sprawlcapital December 24, 2015 at 10:22 am #

    Thanks for the excerpt from your new novel, Jim. I had to laugh at Flame’s political correctness, which, in the post collapse world, lives on as a cult ideology in a rump republic. (Where a raccoon cannot be called a coon.)

    At first I was going to suggest a correction to her “Nature hates a vacuum”. Usually the aphorism is Nature abhors a vacuum. But, to Flame apparently, abhor sounds too much like whore, which is patriarchal, degrading to women, etc. So she has changed it to “hates”. Funny.

    I hope to buy the book when I can, from that local bookseller in upstate New York. (Battenkill)

  91. volodya December 24, 2015 at 11:03 am #

    That giant garbage-slide that just covered that Chinese industrial park serves as a metaphor for Wall Street and its repositories of financial crap which burst their banks and bury everything in their path.

    Fed credibility? What a joke. Yellen should go to New Guinea and take lessons from mountain shamans. No, seriously, one of those guys in a loincloth has more cred in front of a microphone than Janet.

    Just ask the shaman a question. If you ask the shaman what he’s doing, you get a clear answer: he’s trying to placate the volcano god. Or exorcise the evil spirit from the sick baby. You know, estimable goals, something everyone can relate to. The shaman’s bag of tricks has something for everybody.

    What about Janet? What’s she got?

    • nsa December 24, 2015 at 11:23 am #

      Untouchable threefer……minority (jew), gender (probably female), handicapped (obese). “Federal” reserve owned by member banks i.e. a jew shoveling free computerized money to fellow jews with no useful effort at all involved…..while you swill ice house, and watch porn and jungleball.

  92. nsa December 24, 2015 at 11:26 am #

    Spotted wpasoka fly on by in a prius…with a trump-warren bumper sticker.

  93. wpa_ccc December 24, 2015 at 1:08 pm #

    UUP still down. Maybe it takes five weeks for the “dollar express” engine to warm up?

  94. FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2015 at 3:06 pm #

    “What might all this pretended diplomacy be about? Peace and stability? A transition to shared power with gimlet-eyed religious asshats?” – Ozone

    Military solutions are quick and effective, besides create a good TV picture, but they never last long, if they’re not backed up by political process. And political process must accommodate interests of all acting parties, unless they’re totally nutcases – those are simply being eliminated.

    Look what is happening in Ukraine – Russia could’ve taken all of Ukraine in a couple of weeks, but instead Putin had chosen to go through a long and tedious negotiation process (MINSK-2). What if it takes a few years longer if millions lives could be saved in the process? Eventually, he’ll get to the desired result in Ukraine through a purely political process without alienating majority of Ukrainian population – who are actually Russians, just forgot that fact.

    I am pretty sure that Russian operation in Syria started because of insistence of Obama and Kerry and with some guarantees from them.

    Russians get to showcase their new and much improved Army, market new weapons systems and conduct live-fire exercises. Also, Russia gets a good military presence in one of the world’s primary trade rout intersection. But the whole Syrian affair must end up with politically-negotiated process, just like the Chechen war earlier in this century.

    Putin is a good negotiator: after all he was the one who prevented nuclear India-Pakistani war in the early 2000s.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001%E2%80%9302_India%E2%80%93Pakistan_standoff

    By the way, that Wiki article is amazing:
    the Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to mediate a solution, but in vain.

    What do they mean in vain? Did we have a nuclear war between India and Pakistan? Wiki-idiots!

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  95. FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2015 at 4:04 pm #

    Obama tries to distance himself from the political struggle in USA, and to remain above the fray until the end of his presidential term. Because his own administration, as well as all other political and military authorities of the United States represent a hellish mix of supporters of the two rival clans and three political power centers, the whole policy of the United States in 2015 was like a step-dance from the category of “one step forward – two steps back” .

    The intensity and tension of the struggle between the groups, which are carriers of the American and British models of the future world order is such that not only the final list of participants in the struggle for the Presidency, but the very fact of holding such elections is still under a question. The main contender from Democrats Hillary Clinton is constantly under the Damocles sword of criminal prosecution. Her leading Republican opponent Donald Trump is on the verge of withdrawing from the race for the unthinkable for politician tough and frank statements.

    But it may well be that Trump is going to be suddenly replaced by Jeb Bush at some point in the primaries.

  96. Janos Skorenzy December 24, 2015 at 4:48 pm #

    Ever does Israel kill its own prophets.

    https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/21/the-murder-of-yitzhak-rabin/

  97. Q. Shtik December 24, 2015 at 5:00 pm #

    Last week our host described Trump as “odious” and “incapable of stringing together two coherent thoughts?”

    Similarly, this week, Jim said: “The graceless Mr. Trump necessarily reflects the just grievances of the great public wad, but has anyone noticed that he is incapable of stringing together two coherent thoughts?”

    Yes Jim, I HAVE NOTICED and it is my biggest beef …….. not the thousand mile wall, not the absurd orange hair, not the tiny square pie hole through which he ‘speaks’ in a revolting New York-ese dialect…….. just the simple inability to communicate in standard American English worthy of an adult born and bred in the US.

    Google informs me that the United Nations is composed of 193 nations. Have you ever imagined Trump addressing the UN General Assembly as our President. Think of the chaos and confusion as a hundred interpreters try to convey to their country’s representatives what the hell Trump is saying. What an utter embarrassment Trump would be. ‘W’ was Demosthenes by comparison.

    • Buck Stud December 24, 2015 at 6:58 pm #

      Do you really think a Trump supporter from Kentucky cares what a U.N. rep from France thinks about Trump? Moreover, for all over the hand wringing over Trump’s lack of erudite articulation, he is connecting with large swaths of the American populace on a deep,visceral level. And no amount of verbal pretension will sway GOP voters after the down home truths (according to their world view) expressed by Trump.

      I keep writing that Trump is a gathering force but people such as yourself and WPA seemingly remained unconvinced. He is connecting on a deep, no bullshit level with people and don’t be surprised if he steam rolls his GOP primary opponents.

      After that, his anti-illegal immigration stance will be juxtaposed against the the inane, political correct pro-illegal immigrant pandering of the Democratic Party in the general election process. As I wrote, he is a very dangerous formidable opponent let’s not kid ourselves, especially if he frames the issues from certain angles that connect with Main Street American resentment.

      People don’t want the articulate window dressing of a William Buckley; they want the bitter truth expressed as they see and feel it.

      • Buck Stud December 24, 2015 at 7:01 pm #

        apologies for all the grammar errors/ommisions…i’m typing fast on a small pad and with eyesight strained by too much sun.

      • Q. Shtik December 25, 2015 at 1:06 am #

        It is neither necessary nor even desirable that Trump speak like William Buckley. Simple declarative sentences would do just fine.

        Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

        • elysianfield December 25, 2015 at 3:13 pm #

          Q,
          Merry Christmas, indeed! On an earlier week’s post, you indorsed the use of the “hand held portable bidet”….So I purchased two of the better ones I could find on Amazon. Having tried it for the first time, I feel…fresh and urbane!

          One question, however…the wife cannot find the switch that turns on the vibrator…defective?

          • Q. Shtik December 25, 2015 at 5:19 pm #

            No, no vibrator but your hiney will be fresh as a daisy.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 25, 2015 at 11:18 pm #

        Exactly, Buck. Trump is the War King, the Lion in Winter. And in his wake, we are trampling down the Vintage where the Grapes of Wrath are stored. If the Q’s of the world want to get in our way, they will become part of the of the Wine of Victory – but without the joy of partaking in it themselves.

        • Q. Shtik December 25, 2015 at 11:32 pm #

          where the Grapes of Wrath are stored. – Janos

          ================

          Jewish retail version:

          where the Drapes of Roth are stored.

          • elysianfield December 26, 2015 at 11:23 am #

            “where the Drapes of Roth are stored.”

            Allan Sherman, “My Son, the Folk Singer” 1960.

  98. FincaInTheMountains December 24, 2015 at 5:02 pm #

    Russian robotic Terminators at work in Syria

    For the first time in history of warfare a robotic attack was carried out against fortified ISIS militants. In the province of Latakia army units of the Syrian army, with the support of Russian experts and Russian military robots have taken the strategic height of 754.5 and the Tower “Siriatel.”

    The attack on the height involved six robotic systems “Platform-M” and the four sets of “Argo”, attacking robots have been recently transferred to Syria, they were working along self-propelled artillery “Acacia” that can destroy enemy positions with an angle fire.

    Fighting robots, self-propelled guns, drones have been tied to the automated control system “Andromeda-D.” The commander of the attack, in real time, led the battle, operators of combat robots, while in Moscow, led the individual units, each saw his battle segment, a well as the whole battle picture.

    The jihadists did not have a chance; all their movements were monitored by the drones. Just 20 minutes after the attack of the fighting robots began jihadists fled in terror, leaving the dead and wounded. On the slopes of the height of 754.5, nearly 70 militants were killed.

    http://maxpark.com/community/8/content/4903869

    • bobwise32952 December 25, 2015 at 8:33 am #

      “destroy enemy positions with an angle fire” – Do you mean “high angle fire”?

  99. Pucker December 24, 2015 at 8:01 pm #

    Show up to the Christmas party wearing a hazmat suit and tell the host that you just came from an emergency and that you didn’t have time to change. Apologize for being late.

    “A hazmat suit (hazardous materials suit) is a piece of personal protective equipment that consists of an impermeable whole-body garment worn as protection against hazardous materials. Such suits are often combined with self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) to ensure a supply of breathable air. Hazmat suits are mostly used by firefighters, Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics, researchers, personnel responding to toxic spills, specialists cleaning up contaminated facilities and workers in toxic environments.”

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  100. Pucker December 24, 2015 at 8:03 pm #

    “Hey Mom! Why is Superman wearing a Hazmat Suit?!”

  101. Pucker December 24, 2015 at 8:04 pm #

    “Hey Mom! Why is Santa wearing a Hazmat Suit?!”

  102. wpa_ccc December 25, 2015 at 1:11 am #

    “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

    Back atcha, Q. And remember the real reason for the season: light. The days start getting longer now.

    These are some of the festivals of light:

    Diwali
    Hanukkah
    Kwanzaa
    Lunar New Year
    Santa Lucia Day
    Zoroastrian Solstice Celebration
    Christmas

  103. FincaInTheMountains December 25, 2015 at 7:54 am #

    Hillary Clinton decided this time that there is no need to invent new tricks when everyone forgot about the old ones and could pass for a new. And she arranged a little Watergate by planting on Bernie Sanders computer staffer her “secret” file with automatic notification of opening.

    However, it did not work, since the staffer was experienced enough not to open the file, but instead called the security service of the Democratic National Committee and showed them the file. Not giving up, they found an inexperienced novice in Sanders’ election campaign and planted the file on his computer. And he opened it!

    Bernie Sanders election campaign has been cut off by the security of the DNC from its own data and virtually paralyzed.

    In general, Hillary Clinton, in fact, not just told, but shown how unknown agent with pornographic nickname “Deep Throat” had provoked the Watergate, in which President Nixon was forced to resign by a young lawyer, Hillary Clinton, and with Nixon into trash went detente and nuclear disarmament, won at the cost of lives of hundreds of thousands Vietnamese and fifty thousand Americans.

    Meanwhile, it was Bernie Sanders who more than a month ago, saved Hillary Clinton, supporting her during the first democratic debate, held on the eve of the interrogation of former Secretary of State Clinton to the US Congress commission to investigate the assassination of US Ambassador Stevens. He was killed in Benghazi – the capital of the Islamist revolt against Qaddafi, and in the course of questioning under oath of constantly lying Hillary Clinton, she was forced to admit that she was the initiator of the overthrow of Qaddafi despite the opinion of President Obama and Vice President Biden.

    She has achieved this by providing false information to the White House, the source of which were her friends who had commercial interests in Libya, and whom President Obama categorically prohibited to be employed in the State Department in particular and in any state institution in general.

    During this interrogation by Congress Committee chairman Gowdy became known huge amount of foul language against Barack Obama, used by Hillary Clinton’s friends, sending her those emails to her private server, that later became the star of the Servergait.

    They were mostly cursing the president for not allowing supply of American weapons to the same Islamists in Libya, who later became the backbone of ISIS. And these emails Secretary Clinton sent to the White House, after clearing them of foul language in his address and any signs that could allow establishing the source of the information.

    http://regnum.ru/news/polit/2043110.html

  104. FincaInTheMountains December 25, 2015 at 8:45 am #

    Reason why Putin likes Trump, – the sharing of the traditional views of the world.

    Their common planet is rotten through and through, it is populated by corrupt and cowardly creatures, most of which hide their true nature because of cowardice.

    But both Putin and Trump knows that everything and everyone is for sale …

    The whole system of Putin’s rule is based on kickbacks when things are going well and the expropriation when they are going bad.

    Indeed, “Winner takes all” still exists in this world. This is what Trump told Bill O’Reilly why America must stay in Iraq “and to control the oil.”

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  105. BackRowHeckler December 25, 2015 at 11:08 am #

    We’re celebrating this Christmas Holiday in our own special way here in the Constitution State, two homeys gunned down in Bridgeport Christmas Eve outside the ‘Stylze” barber shop, including a 14 year old dead, a home invasion in Ellington 39 year old woman murdered, her husband critical. dead baby found in a fleabag motel on the Berlin Turnpike … and we still have 12 hours to go!

    Merry Christman, CRNers

    BRH

    • malthuss December 25, 2015 at 6:40 pm #

      Keep the reports acomin. USA today.

      • wpa_ccc December 26, 2015 at 1:26 am #

        “Keep the reports acomin. USA today.” –malthuss

        Sorry, I cannot provide all the reports of love that happened today. There are too many reports of acts of kindness, love, and charity offered to others… with no expectation of return. Millions of them. They really overshadow the reports of violence this Christmas season.

  106. wpa_ccc December 25, 2015 at 3:38 pm #

    Poor poor climate change denier, Senator Inhofe. It is Christmas and he cannot find a snowball.

  107. FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2015 at 2:59 am #

    Hillary Clinton decided this time that there is no need to invent new tricks when everyone forgot about the old ones and could pass for a new. And she arranged a little Watergate by planting on Bernie Sanders computer staffer her “secret” file with automatic notification of opening. == Finca

    The Sanders campaign is taking its fight with the DNC to the next level

    The dustup over a data breach that briefly erupted in the Democratic presidential primary last week isn’t over as far as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his team are concerned.

    In a conversation with Yahoo News, a top Sanders campaign adviser made a series of explosive allegations about how the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and a political technology company that works with the party handled the incident. According to the Sanders adviser, the DNC and NGP VAN, a firm that has a contract with the party organization to operate a voter file, have responded to the data breach by “leaking information” and “stonewalling an investigation” into the matter.

    https://www.yahoo.com/politics/the-sanders-campaign-is-taking-their-fight-with-200738611.html

    See how the US Media works? They are telling something that resembles the truth, but from that Yahoo article you really can’t figure out that NGP VAN simply setup Bernie’s staffers with a software trick to have a pretext for shutting down his campaign operations.

    We’re probably talking about damages between $500,000 to $700,000 a day in lost donations.

  108. FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2015 at 3:06 am #

    Personally, I don’t pity Sanders. Instead of attacking Hillary for her role in the murder of Ambassador Stevens and organizing the ISIS, he decided to suck up to her.

    Well, he’s got what he deserved.

  109. FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2015 at 3:28 am #

    Lyndon LaRouche calls the “End of the World” come January 1
    https://larouchepac.com/

    I hate to say it, but the guy is so old and has predicted the end-of-the-world so many times, that he probably hates to die without seeing the world dies before him.

    So using all the right phrases about FDR and the Glass Steagal and Too-Big-To-Fail Wall Street banks he tries to scare the Americans into a “Color Revolution” and “Regime Change” in America.

    I put him into the Clinton’s clan.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Sticks-of-TNT December 26, 2015 at 7:09 am #

      Finca,

      I didn’t realize the old coot was still among us, the living. Of course he’s boldly predicting the end of the world “financially speaking”, at least to kickoff things. Massive population die-offs or even thermo-nuclear war are potential longer term consequences of the financial implosion. Yes, he really is forecasting an historic, mega-size, complete collapse immediately following New Year’s Day. There is absolutely nothing vague about his timeline.

      Watching the two videos at your link, the first an official announcement by a spokesperson from LaRouche’s organization followed by additional insight regarding his forecast from two “experts” in an advisory capacity to him, and the second video a FDR-like “fireside chat” by LaRouche himself, the thought I am left with is not that LaRouche would make such an audacious forecast–as you said, he’s made them before and besides, he’s about 10 years older than baseball and probably keeps himself pretty isolated from the public at his advanced age–but that three other well-spoken, seemingly intelligent people would expose themselves to incredible public ridicule beginning one week from now if the entire financial system doesn’t begin imploding in a very visible cascading systemic collapse. (Yes, that’s one meandering, mile long sentence that, about one third of the way in, I realized there was no way to extricate myself short of erasing and starting over. The hour is too early and the font on this tablet too incredibly tiny for that to be a viable option. An English teacher from my youth is certainly rolling in her grave.)

      Now CFN shitizens, back to the show. Since it’s a holiday weekend, you probably can afford a few extra minutes to detour over to LaRouche’s website from Finca’s post and watch both videos.

      I’ve always been a little susceptible to crack-pot conspiracy theories, which is probably why I spend time here at CFN with ya’ll. So, somewhat like my intellectual, very well-read mother, who always just happened to spot the year-end issue of the National Enquirer at the supermarket, and bring it home to read Jean Dixon’s predictions for the upcoming year, which in my clouded memory always seemed to be a Presidential election year, I encourage you to check out LaRouche, even if you tell yourself you’re just doing it for a laugh. And if, like New Year’s Eve 2000, you just happened to be online as the clock hit midnight in Auckland, New Zealand, to get a sneak peak at Y2K, who really does know what’s in store for us in the coming year? After all, it’s not like our financial house is situated on solid bedrock, right?

      I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, or like the email I received yesterday from Steve Harvey (MC of the Miss Universe pageant) read, “Happy Easter!” Now, I’m looking forward to a Happy New Year with all my CFN friends. Peace and goodwill (& prosperity?) one and all! Be well.

      Sticks-of-TNT

      • Buck Stud December 26, 2015 at 10:57 am #

        “…but that three other well-spoken, seemingly intelligent people would expose themselves to incredible public ridicule beginning one week from now if the entire financial system doesn’t begin imploding in a very visible cascading systemic collapse…”

        Sticks, are you implying that people should shy away from outlandish predictions due to the possibility of public ridicule?

        LOL–that is one of the most ironic and humorous statements I have ever read here on CFN!

        Speaking of which’ I once asked a true Taoist sage a question and his only response was ‘don’t ask me about the future’. That statement resonates with me personally when I read forecasts and predictions. That a lifelong student of the I-Ching, and one who actually embodied/understood its principles via the visceral methodolgies of Pa Qua Chang, would downplay his own ability to predict the future, well, it game me and still gives me pause regarding preddictions. ( I also received a gift of his calligraphy via a third party and when I took it to a Chinese scholar to have it translated he literally started crying. It was in ‘old Chinese’ and referenced the Cultural Revolution and the eternal nature of destructive and violent barbarians. Strangely, I noticed one day that his calligraphy was missing. I often wonder if a “friend” stole it or it just mysteriously left. I had more or less left the structured organizational aspects of that lineage and wonder if the disappearance of the calligraphy was simply a reciprocal energetic manifestation. After all, the author had the ability to cause strange events to happen’ when writing talismans, or so the rumor went.)

        The big moves the small; the small changes the big. From the promnatory perch of distanced perspective a “pronosticator” might be able to catch a glimpse of the “big moving the small”. But he will be too far removed to witness the ‘small changing the big’. Alas, if able to perceive the ‘small changing the big’ he will be too deep in the forest to see the ‘big moving the small’.

        IOW, “predicting the future” is always compromised by the limited pereceptual capacities of human beings.

        • malthuss December 26, 2015 at 11:04 am #

          IOW, “predicting the future” is always compromised by the limited perceptual capacities of human beings.

          Some people do know the future. Yes?
          ‘Numbered to buy n sell.’
          Nostradamus?

        • malthuss December 26, 2015 at 11:06 am #

          a true Taoist sage a question and his only response was ‘don’t ask me about the future.’

          And this persons name is?

          • BackRowHeckler December 26, 2015 at 11:32 am #

            True, nobody has a crystal ball, but if you pay attention to what’s happening around you, you can make some pretty good guesses as to what’s coming down the pike in, say, 6 months time. Out beyond that it gets pretty cloudy.

            If you go back to JHKs predictions for 2015 its a mixed bag. He pegs the price of oil at below $40, which is right, but couldn’t foresee the massive 3rd world migration into western Europe, or the impact Donald Trump would have on the US presidential race. Nobody else saw that coming either, tho.

            I for one am looking forward to reading Jim’s predictions for 2016 coming up in a week or so.

            brh

          • Buck Stud December 26, 2015 at 3:15 pm #

            Do you think you can locate these types with a Google search? In fact, you could locate this person if I divulged the name but not now Grasshopper.

        • Sticks-of-TNT December 27, 2015 at 1:03 am #

          Buck,

          “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” -Yogi Berra (America lost a gem this year.)

          It’s an honor to be recognized by you for “one of the most ironic and humorous statements I have ever read here on CFN.” Really.

          Loved your Taoist sage story. Your writing is so frequently magical–example, the paragraph near the end of your post beginning, “The big moves the small…” Amazing. You’re one of the highlights of time spent at CFN.

          Peace noble brother.

          -Sticks

      • sprawlcapital December 26, 2015 at 2:53 pm #

        Sticks–
        . . . predicting the end of the world “financially speaking”, at least to kickoff things.
        ========================
        Your comments are always interesting, and I hate to nitpick, but proper use of word combinations is my specialty,

        Kickoff is a noun. I can’t wait for the kickoff.

        Kick off is a verb-adverb phrase. Stanford is about to kick off in the 2015 Rose Bowl.

        So your sentence should read:

        . . . predicting the end of the world “financially speaking”, at least to kick off things.

        Now you’re probably ready to tell me to fuck off (verb-adverb phrase).

        Happy Holidays!

        • sprawlcapital December 26, 2015 at 11:56 pm #

          2016 Rose Bowl.

        • Sticks-of-TNT December 27, 2015 at 1:57 am #

          Sprawl,

          I would never tell you to fuck off. I would write fuck-off!

          Actually, I accept your criticism in the spirit it was intended. Hyphenation is just one of many aspects of English language I find challenging. We write “weekend” but not “yearend.” There are scores of such paradoxes.

          Just today, I was talking about language to an adult daughter visiting for the holidays. She has three small children spaced almost exactly two years apart. (She’s a CPA!) A baby still in arms, a two year old and four year old. Together we marveled at a baby communicating by grunting and crying, a two year old speaking in phrases and short sentences, and the incessant, non-stop talking of her four year old, just beginning to master the alphabet and learning to write those letters. The progression is truly amazing when you stop to contemplate it, as we were.

          The enormous progress made in those first few years of life is astounding yet, the process is ongoing and ideally, lifelong. Habits of heavy reading, intelligent conversation and even time spent reading, writing and debating on blogs such as CFN continue to expand our vocabulary and sharpen our skills.

          I always enjoy reading your posts and your occasional comments on mine are always appreciated. Enjoy the holidays!

          -Sticks

    • Q. Shtik December 26, 2015 at 1:41 pm #

      Anyone who ties current events (or any events) to evil spirits is a nutjob in my book.

      That said, and I repeat:

      January 8, 2016 at 2:58 pm

  110. FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2015 at 4:20 am #

    Moscow celebrates

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SwumVFUMBg

    • Q. Shtik December 26, 2015 at 1:07 pm #

      That guy has quite a set of pipes on him.

      The video was dated July 2013 (not a current celebration).

    • sprawlcapital December 27, 2015 at 12:12 am #

      This tune was popular in the US around 1962, as I recall. Until this evening I did not know that there were words to this. I don’t understand the words, but at least I now know they exist.

      A wonderful performance.

      Thank you, Finca.

      • sprawlcapital December 27, 2015 at 12:24 am #

        The instrumental recording that was popular on the radio around 1962 was titled Midnight in Moscow.

    • Sticks-of-TNT December 27, 2015 at 3:04 am #

      Finca,

      Excellent!

      The performance was exceptional, but credit must also go to the skillful camerawork/production. It not only captured the vocal and orchestral performance well, but also the magnificent Moscow evening and surroundings and the faces and emotions of the audience. I was struck by how well-attired and fashionably dressed they were.

      This is in stark contrast to a visit I made in the 1980s during the Soviet era. My wife and I attended a ballet performance in St. Petersburg as part of an America group touring the Baltic region. The contrast between the colorful and sparkly evening gowns and jewelry worn by the American women and the dignified, yet quite drab and “tweedy” colors of the mainly Russian audience was quite noticeable. When the house lights were turned on at the end of the performance, we almost felt embarrassed by it. I am thrilled to see from this video that is no longer the case. In fact, the Russians were considerably better dressed and more fashionable than we could expect to see today at a comparable, large outdoor performance in the USA.

      Thanks for sharing.

      -Sticks

  111. FincaInTheMountains December 26, 2015 at 12:42 pm #

    Hillary Clinton has expressed a desire to cooperate with Russia in the fight against Islamic State

    http://www.rg.ru/2015/12/02/zayavlenie-anons.html?ref=rt.com

    Yes, and she will hang us later…

  112. Buck Stud December 26, 2015 at 3:25 pm #

    Q is appalled at the lack of communicative ability displayed by Donald Trump. Q doesn’t want the ostentatious articulation of a William Buckley, just ‘simple, declarative sentences. So I snagged this excerpt from a Trump speech with the idea that Q could elaborate on Trump’s ‘lack of ability to string two coherent sentences together’:

    “So now ISIS has the oil, and what they don’t have, Iran has. And in 19 — and I will tell you this, and I said it very strongly, years ago, I said — and I love the military, and I want to have the strongest military that we’ve ever had, and we need it more now than ever. But I said, “Don’t hit Iraq,” because you’re going to totally destabilize the Middle East. Iran is going to take over the Middle East, Iran and somebody else will get the oil, and it turned out that Iran is now taking over Iraq. Think of it. Iran is taking over Iraq, and they’re taking it over big league.

    We spent $2 trillion in Iraq, $2 trillion. We lost thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq. We have wounded soldiers, who I love, I love — they’re great — all over the place, thousands and thousands of wounded soldiers.

    And we have nothing. We can’t even go there. We have nothing. And every time we give Iraq equipment, the first time a bullet goes off in the air, they leave it.

    Last week, I read 2,300 Humvees — these are big vehicles — were left behind for the enemy. 2,000? You would say maybe two, maybe four? 2,300 sophisticated vehicles, they ran, and the enemy took them.”

    • Buck Stud December 26, 2015 at 3:32 pm #

      I don’t know about Q, or what Q expects, but Trump expressed himself very powerfully. Moreover, it was a powerful,uncomfortable truth for most mainstream GOP types to swallow. And yet, on some issues at least, Trump persists in expressing the uncomfortable truth.

      But Q and the Jeb!, Lindsay Graham wing of the GOP party clamor for the verbal window dressing that disguises the uncomfortable truth.

      Sorry Sport, that ship has sailed.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 26, 2015 at 7:42 pm #

        Yes Buckley was always using big words and worshiping himself with every one of them. Would the average man understand him or like him? Emotional intuition is often far more developed than the intellect, and the average person could sense Buckley’s conceit and narcissism. The simple barbaric pride of Trump is far more natural and palatable to the average man.

        It’s our time now. Always bet the boxer or street fighter against the martial artist on the street. It’s not that they aren’t real just that most martial artists are Buckleyesque and have never been punched in the face. It’s time the Buckley’s of the world get a taste of the righteous fists of harmony.

        • Q. Shtik December 26, 2015 at 9:16 pm #

          Buckley was always using big words and worshiping himself with every one of them. – janos

          =================

          Do you also think our host worshiped himself when he wrote “wobbling ziggurats of bad loans?”

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2015 at 2:43 am #

            No, I’ve seen Mr Kunstler on video a few times and he’s not that kind of person at all. He’s passionate about the issues and he’s a sophisticated idealist. He has an ego of course, but that’s to be expected.

        • BackRowHeckler December 26, 2015 at 9:21 pm #

          Yeah, Buckley liked to come across as some sort of Patrician, but he was no Patrician. I believe he descended from a long line of railroad brakemen and conductors. (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

          Concerning your street fighter comment, one summer in college I had a job building RR tie walls; these were the real creosote soaked ties ripped up from abandoned lines, hard to handle because of slivers and heavy as hell. One day the boss said to us “I hired a body builder, gonna show you guys how its done”. Next thing we know this muscly guy shows up. He was so concerned about the correct way to lift the ties up we didn’t get sh-t done, plus he was soft, only lasted a couple days. My buddy said. “Hey boss, I think you bodybuilder is a faggot”.

          brh

          • Sticks-of-TNT December 27, 2015 at 3:30 am #

            brh,

            You’re right about those creosote soaked railroad ties. They were commonly used in the Atlanta area for retaining walls
            when I lived there. I used them for exactly that purpose to landscape around my house. They’re insect resistant and don’t deteriorate from ground contact, so they last forever. Boy were they heavy. I’m no longer cut out for that.

            Loved your story!

            -Sticks

        • Buck Stud December 26, 2015 at 9:50 pm #

          I get your point and it’s a good one but you have enlisted a false dichotomy of sorts. Many “street fighters/boxers’ take up martial arts in order to expand their repertoire. The former boxer now not only knows how to slip a jab and punch, but how to snap a neck. Indeed, the MMA thing is exactly the stuff of expanded repertoire and limited rules.

          And that is what Trump is at the end of the day. Not a boxer or specific martial art stylist but a Mixed Martial Artist. He has choked out Scott Walker and Jeb Bush and Rubio will soon be gasping for breath as well. He may let Cruz survive but only to serve him in the VP role and corral the evangelical vote.

        • elysianfield December 27, 2015 at 3:48 pm #

          Janos,
          Enough of your blaspheming…. Wm. Buckley was an artist with words, a veritable Rembrandt. Who amongst us would visit this site without the eloquence of our host? Who amongst us would not aspire to be as “literate”? I cannot begin to write as I would like…you, however, have your…moments…some of them memorable.

          Buckley worshiping himself with every word? Why would he not?

      • Q. Shtik December 26, 2015 at 8:31 pm #

        But Q and the Jeb!, Lindsay Graham wing of the GOP party

        =============

        Please don’t link me with ANY politician.

        • Buck Stud December 26, 2015 at 9:26 pm #

          As I recall form some of your past posts (apologies If I’m mistaken or misrepresenting your political alignment) you were strongly in support of Chris Christie during his recent controversy. You also claimed to vote for Bush in both 2000 and 2004 along with McCain in 08 and Romney in 2012. In short, anybody but a Democrat. So I find it strange that you know consider yourself above the fray, as if you were always politically neutral or disinterested.

          Still, I am puzzled by your lack of enthusiasm for Trump. Finally a candidate who speaks for Main Street Conservative America and you’re getting cold, reticent feet? I have to wonder if this is what old age looks like, the departure of passion and fire, the lost love of bodaciously aiming at the bulls eye?

          Perhaps an evening with “The Outlaw Josey Wales’ would cure what ails you? Or even more antiquated, a good talking to from “Shane”? If Jack Palance could see you now he would surely be donning his black gloves and relishing the demise of his next victim face down in the Jackson Hole mud. And what about “Little Joey”, what would he think of your tender waffling and floating above the fray pretense?

          Sheesh, I’m seriously perplexed: “Queen of the Slipstream” –I never would have believed it!

          “Q”–come back!

          • BackRowHeckler December 26, 2015 at 10:36 pm #

            Shane: So you’re Jack Wilson.

            Jack Wilson: What’s that mean to you, Shane?

            Shane: I’ve heard about you.

            Jack Wilson: What have you heard, Shane?

            Shane: I’ve heard you’re a low down Yankee liar.

            Jack Wilson: Prove it.

            brh

          • Q. Shtik December 26, 2015 at 11:33 pm #

            you were strongly in support of Chris Christie during his recent controversy. – Buck

            Wrong. I simply told wpa that people like a brash politician (as it turns out Trump far outdid Christie for brashness and has reaped the benefits accordingly) and that ‘bridge gate’ would “blow over like a fart in a windstorm” (as you can see C.C. is not in jail and in fact is still hanging in there as a presidential candidate and has actually been advancing lately in the polls, not that I think he has a snowball’s chance). Beneath it all he is just a bloviating politician with unseemly ambition.

            You also claimed to vote for Bush in both 2000 and 2004 along with McCain in 08 and Romney in 2012. – Buck

            Wrong again. Although I lean strongly conservative, I haven’t voted in years. The last person I specifically recall voting for was Reagan. I have never voted for a Democrat, even at the local level.

            I find it strange that you [know] consider yourself above the fray, as if you were always politically neutral or disinterested. – Buck

            I am not politically neutral or disinterested. A better description would be disgusted. If there were a choice on the ballot that read “none of the above” I would vote. Both the Dems and Repubs would be scared shitless to give the public such a choice for fear it would take a large majority.

            Still, I am puzzled by your lack of enthusiasm for Trump. – Buck

            You have not been reading carefully. I am thrilled that someone has appeared out of nowhere to destroy political correctness (as far as that is possible) and I agree, in general, with his stance on immigration. I doubt that building a wall on our southern border would be anything more than a ‘yoooge’ boondoggle and ditto for deporting 11 million illegal immigrants currently on our soil. I would favor stopping all immigration (not just Syrians) for a period of, say, 3 years after which we would take a second look to see how much negative collateral damage has been caused. I would do away with the “anchor baby” racket. I have stated these positions previously.

            I have to wonder if this is what old age looks like, the departure of passion and fire – Buck

            No, what old age looks like is lots of pain from arthritic joints and the inability to pull the answers to Jeopardy clues out of your head quicker than the contestants on TV.

            It’s not a matter of passion and fire. It’s the wisdom that comes with age that tells one how ridiculous it is to get all excited about helping to put ‘your man’ in office…. as though the world is actually going to turn for the better in all the ways you hoped it would. Most people will vote for a candidate based on one or two issues like (1) he is not against gay marriage, (2) he will tax the shit out of the wealthy. BTW, my wife will vote for Hillary because she is a woman. (She agrees with our host that Trump is “odious” and “graceless.”)

            I have developed a rationale for NOT voting that runs something like this: Rather than go out of my way to support some politician who I view as the least dirty shirt in the laundry and who is not likely to win anyway, I will instead accept the choice of the people who DO vote and then devote my energies toward dealing with whatever crazy schemes are perpetrated by a new “administration.” Say, for example, the new admin doubled the tax rate on dividends. Obviously I would react to this in my investment choices.

            Unlike Janos, I am NOT, above all else, a patriot. I would make a lousy national socialist. My concerns are first and foremost for myself and my family. The smaller the unit of organization with which I feel an affiliation the greater my concern.

  113. wpa_ccc December 26, 2015 at 10:40 pm #

    I would support the idea of having a box to check for “None of the Above” with the stipulation that if “None of the Above” wins a majority, the new ballot cannot include any of the previously rejected candidates. Get new ones until “None of the Above” loses.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  114. Buck Stud December 27, 2015 at 12:09 am #

    Q,

    Evidently the thread up above has been terminated because I could not log in and respond directly to your post. Anyway, what a dignified and explanatory post in contrast to my silly bombast. But I only kid those whom I like, for whatever that is worth: not much I presume and as it should be.

    I don’t know, you just seem more restrained/subdued of late. Perhaps you don’t want to get banned again, but I’m just speculating.

    Have you ever played around with the “free transform” feature of Photoshop?. You can Google it and see what’s it all about on You Tube if not. Anyway, consider placing your spirit in the free transform feature and stretch yourself out in every which way. As the Taoists say, the stiff branch is easily broken…become a flexible willow by the river bank. Which in a way you are I guess, witness your personal investment strategy responses to any given administration.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2015 at 4:05 pm #

      Glad you are out of your atheist phase. You must learn your own cycle and modify its extreme swings. Fragile are the wings of the dragon fly, smooth the cocoon of the silkworm. When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.

  115. Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2015 at 4:07 pm #

    Unreconstructed little girls throw Black dolls back in the bag.

    http://www.dailystormer.com/christmas-sadness-redhead-girls-hate-their-black-dolls/

    • malthuss December 28, 2015 at 12:20 am #

      Hope you read this [as JHK may post a new one soon] BUT I read [online] that the Museum of Tolerance has as its main purpose,
      children and teaching ‘tolerance’….

      3 things that are not there,

      Images of Native Tribes [feather, not beanie]
      Images of those imprisoned for ‘holocaust denial’
      All and anything about Holomodor
      All and anything about THEIR PEOPLES involvement in Communisms creation.

      Oh, thats more than 3.

      TAKING PRETEENS TO HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS IS DISGUSTING.

      • wpa_ccc December 28, 2015 at 1:02 am #

        You are so sensitive and politically correct. Want some cheese with your disgust?

  116. Greyson325 October 17, 2020 at 3:27 pm #

    Focus in on this union, concerning me it is the best in web dating https://adultchatdatingsites.com/ it helped me discover my guaranteed mate, there are epic reasonable youths on this page who are searching for ensured evaluation, much brutal from us. Best of luck, I’m certain you will succeed.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. The "I'm Just Going To Leave This Here" Thread - Please Add Your "Finds" - Page 37 - December 21, 2015

    […] Christmas Present | KUNSTLER Winter is coming. Reply With Quote […]

  2. Christmas Present – Olduvai.ca - December 21, 2015

    […] Christmas Present […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  3. We Are Now Entering The "Discovery" Phase Of Financial Collapse | CAPITOL ZERO - December 21, 2015

    […] Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  4. We Are Now Entering The "Discovery" Phase Of Financial Collapse – ValuBit - December 21, 2015

    […] Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  5. We Are Now Entering The “Discovery” Phase Of Financial Collapse | DailyDeceit - December 21, 2015

    […] Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  6. We Are Now Entering The “Discovery” Phase Of Financial Collapse | StrikeEngine - December 21, 2015

    […] Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

  7. We Are Now Entering The "Discovery" Phase Of Financial Collapse | QuestorSystems.com - December 21, 2015

    […] Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  8. Kunstler: Christmas Present | Enjeux énergies et environnement - December 21, 2015

    […] Kunstler […]

  9. The Daily Debt Rattle | StealthFlation - December 22, 2015

    […] • Christmas Present (Jim Kunstler) […]

  10. Red, Green, and Blue | Patriotism that loves our country, our land, and our planet - December 29, 2015

    […] By James Howard Kunstler […]

  11. De Star Wars à l’effondrement financier | Arrêt sur Info - July 8, 2016

    […] Article original de James Howard Kunstler, publié le 21 Décembre 2015 sur le site kunstler.com Traduit par le blog http://versouvaton.blogspot.fr […]